God save the King.

R.
(Page 199.)
NON-JURING BISHOPS.

What makes the resistance of these Prelates to the unconstitutional proceedings of James the more remarkable is, that they afterwards submitted to deprivation, rather than renounce their allegiance to him. When he was deposed, or as others would represent it, when he abdicated the throne, they could not be persuaded by any inducements to abjure his sovereignty, and to take the oath of allegiance to William. They regarded James as still their lawful King, and judged that it would be a violation of the law of God for them to renounce his authority: and, therefore, neither the remembrance of the wrongs which he had done them, nor the prospect of what they might be called to suffer for maintaining their allegiance to him, could shake their fidelity. They refused, notwithstanding the many overtures which were made to them, to take the customary oaths to the new King, hence the name of “Non-Jurors.” They were perhaps extreme in their views, and carried their principles of non-resistance and passive obedience so far, as to involve them in great practical difficulties, which has afforded to their opponents matter for much contemptuous ridicule. But those who express this scorn for the principles of the Non-Jurors, should remember that they were the principles maintained by every protestant community before the revolution—maintained as strenuously by Burnet[86] and Tillotson, during the reign of the Stuarts, as by the seven Bishops. Here lay the difference, that on the accession of William, the former renounced these doctrines, and, in consequence, were advanced to high places of honour and emolument: the latter still adhered to them, though their adherence cost them the loss of all things. This too happened at a time when, according to the testimony of Mr. Macaulay, principle was a very rare quality indeed in public men of any party; so that the sacrifice which the non-juring Bishops and Clergy made for conscience sake stands out in striking contrast to the selfishness and corruption which every where surrounded them. This contrast is so ably drawn by a writer in the Christian Remembrancer, of April last, that I think it well to submit it to the Reader.

“To this scene of falsehood and perfidy and unbridled selfishness,—to the duplicity of the great men, and the corruption of the little men in the state,—there was at this time one striking contrast. There was one body of men in England, who, in spite of the low tone of public honesty, did through evil report, through scorn and ridicule, through the loss of their daily bread, stick to their principles. There was one body of men possessed of reputation and competence, and some of them of high station and wealth, who might have kept all—have been caressed and flattered, at least feared or treated with respect—might at least have kept their freeholds and their influence, their peerages and palaces, or their quiet country parsonages, merely by saying a few words against their convictions, and who would not. It was nothing very fearful or profligate that they were called to do. It was then, and is still, even among those who sympathise with them, a great question whether they ought not to have done it. It was something for which, had they wanted a pretext, they could have found not pretexts but good reasons, in the example, and opinion, and authority of numbers of their brethren—good, and conscientious, and pure-minded men. It was something which Beveridge and Bishop Wilson could do with a clear conscience. But their consciences would not allow them to do it; and they did it not. Call them over-scrupulous, call them narrow-minded, say that they were entangled and misled by a false theory of government, still the fact remains; their duty seemed to them clear and plain, and their duty they followed at all costs. They lost everything by it; they were cast out of the Church, they were cast out of the State; too few to have any influence, too unpopular to hope for converts, they found themselves cut off from the body of their countrymen, cut off from all the chief walks of life, homeless and living on alms, pitied by friends, suspected by all in power, ridiculed by the world, plunged into the miseries and perplexities of a new and difficult course of action, and of a small isolated clique, with small comfort for the present, and small hope for the future. Granting all that their critics or their enemies said of them—and they have had keen critics and rancorous enemies,—that they were fretful and cross-grained, that they were peevish and could not reason—that they were censorious and ill-natured to their opponents—that their theories were absurd, their heads hot, their intestine quarrels about small points very petty—granting that Sancroft was sour and self-opiniated, Turner a busy plotter, Collier indiscreet and a proud priest, that Dodwell had odd notions on the immortality of the soul, and that Hickes was as tiresome as Mr. Macaulay himself about the Theban legion—still there is no denying the fact, that while the great men of the day, who were having their will, and riding on the high places of the earth, were, most of them, men whom we should shun as we do sharpers and swindlers—the mocked and ruined Non-jurors were honest men.” (Christian Remembrancer, vol. xxxi, pp. 412-413).

One of these has left a name in the Church which will be honoured, as long as simplicity and godly sincerity are held in estimation among men. The life of Bishop Ken, both before and after his deprivation, was one so blameless and harmless—one of such uniform gentleness and charity, as to win almost universal reverence and regard; and the record of it has extorted the admiration of those who are most opposed to his principles. He refused to take the new oath of allegiance. After giving the subject every possible consideration, and calmly and dispassionately deliberating on it, he felt that he could not with a clear conscience swear fidelity to William and Mary as his liege sovereigns, and he submitted patiently to the penalties which his refusal brought upon him. He felt it his duty to enter a public protest against the act of the government, which deprived him of his Bishopric; but he retired from it without a murmur, attended, however, by the tears and lamentations of his flock, who had known him long enough to form an estimate of his character, and to calculate their loss in being deprived of his overseership and counsel. Like others of his Brethren, he would have been reduced to great poverty, had not his attached friend and College companion, Lord Weymouth, received him into his house, at Longleat. There he lived for upwards of thirty years after his deprivation, and there he died. He suffered during his latter years an amount of bodily anguish, which few men are called on to endure, and this he sought to alleviate, and not in vain, by the exercise of prayer and contemplation, and by indulging in strains of sacred poetry, for which he had a natural aptitude. These he called anodynes, and “alleviations of Paine,” and such they proved to him. His Biographer states that “writing, saying, and singing hymns, were his chief solace: they turned his mournings into penitential sighs.” His death was like his life, one of perfect peace. His burial was in harmony with his character, free from ostentation and parade. His special request was that he might be buried in the Church Yard of the nearest parish without any manner of pomp or ceremony, and that he might be carried to the grave by six of the poorest men in the parish. He left in his last Will this declaration of his stedfast attachment to the Church, which coming from one of his stamp is of no small importance in these days of disloyalty and division:—

“As for my Religion, I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith, professed by the whole Church, before the disunion of the East and West: more particularly I die in the Communion of ye Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all Papall and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Crosse.”

W. J. ROWLEY, PRINTER, BRIDGNORTH.