The Anglican clergy of the seventeenth century bore a high character for learning. “The ordinary sort of our English clergy,” wrote Eachard, “do far excel in learning the common priests of the Church of Rome.” Atterbury is still more emphatic. He declares that “for depth of learning, as well as other things, the English clergy is not to be paralleled in the whole Christian world.” Yet Edward Chamberlayne[54] affirms that “they are less respected generally than any in Europe;” and both Bishop Burnet and Bishop Stillingfleet bewail the contempt with which the clergy were regarded as “too notorious not to be observed.”
The Anglican Church did not leaven the nation as the Roman Church had done by works of charity and benevolence. It was remarkably indifferent to social work and religious propagandism, outside the doors of the church. The traditions of the Roman Church were not carried on by the Protestants, who probably felt a repugnance to any methods adopted by their enemies, the Papists.
“Not only were Anglicans destitute of any associations of lay helpers in Christian work at home, and of any means for carrying on missions abroad, but Puritans were in the same predicament.”[55]
That there were many abuses connected with the old system of almsgiving at the convent gate cannot be doubted, and it was impossible, in a fast-growing nation, that such a state of things should continue; but the Anglican Church lost one of its great holds on the people by indifference to the offices of charity. The State had begun, in a partial and imperfect way, in the sixteenth century, to assume the care of the poor. The beginnings of the old poor-law system may be traced to the reign of Elizabeth. But the State was a poor foster-mother. The Protestant Church made no organized effort to become to the masses what the Roman Church had been. It assumed none of that absolute authority combined with paternal care. It is true that the ideal set up by George Herbert of the country parson is that of a true father of his flock.
“He first considers his own parish; and takes care that there be not a beggar or idle person in his parish, but that all be in a competent way of getting their living. This he effects either by bounty or persuasion, or by authority; making use of that excellent Statute which binds all parishes to maintain their own. If his parish be rich, he exacts this of them; if poor, and he be able, he easeth them therein. But he gives no set pension to any.”
There was little of what is now called Church work. And the clergy do not seem to have thought of enlisting the aid of women in the few tentative efforts put forth during the seventeenth century. It may be urged that the fault lay with the women, who did not come forward or show their willingness to co-operate. There was no encouragement for them to do so.
“The tendencies of the period were not favourable to the development of women’s work in the Church. Nor was it the fashion for women to occupy a prominent position. Women played small part in the life of the nation at large. In none of the societies formed for missionary, devotional, or philanthropic objects did women take a leading part. The only attempt to form an organization of women was nipped in the bud.”
This attempt refers, probably, to the effort made by Mrs. Mary Astell to set up a “Protestant Nunnery,” of which further mention will be made.
There was, indeed, an establishment founded by a certain Nicholas Ferrar, some time in the first half of the century, at Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire, which was called a Protestant nunnery. But it was little more than the setting up of the conventual rule in an ordinary household.