In 1642 Parliament seemed to think it necessary that something should be done to improve the religious life of the country, and accordingly, on April 7—
“the Lords and Commons doe declare that they intend a due and necessary reformation of the government and liturgie of the Church, and to take nothing away in the one or in the other, but what shall be evill or justly offensive, or at least unnecessary and burdensome. And for the better effecting thereof, speedily to have consultation with godly and learned divines; and because this will never of itselfe attein the end sought therein, they will therefore use their utmost endevors to establish learned and preaching ministers with a good and sufficient maintenance throughout the whole kingdome, wherein many darke corners are miserablie destitute of the meanes of salvation, and many poore ministers want necessary provision.”[56]
The saintly George Herbert, who lived through the first quarter of the seventeenth century, makes a mild protest against the cringing attitude adopted by that section of the clergy who took upon themselves the duties of domestic chaplain to wealthy families. In many, if not most, houses the chaplain was put on a par with the upper servants, and expected to show the same deference towards the employers.
“Those that live in noble houses,” writes Herbert, “are called chaplains; whose duty and obligation being the same to the houses they live in as a parson’s to his parish, in describing the one (which is indeed the bent of my discourse) the other will be manifest. Let not chaplains think themselves so free as many of them do; and because they have different names think their office different. Doubtless they are parsons of the families they live in, and are entertained to that end, either by an open or implicit covenant. Before they are in Orders they may be received for companions or discoursers; but after a man is once minister he cannot agree to come into any house where he shall not exercise what he is, unless he forsake his plough and look back. Therefore they are not to be over-submissive and base, but to keep up with the lord and lady of the house, and to preserve a boldness with them and all, even so far as reproof to their very face when occasion calls, but seasonably and discreetly.”
The subservience of the clergy as a class, and the slights put upon them, arose partly from their poverty, which was treated like a fault. In 1670, writes Eachard, £20 or £30 a-year was as much as hundreds of the clergy could obtain. In the beginning of the eighteenth century there were some benefices, says Henry Wharton, not above £5 a-year in value, some hundreds not over £20, and some thousands not more than £30. Dean Swift puts the average income of a vicar at £40.
Whether rightly or wrongly, the bulk of the clergy in the seventeenth century seem to have enjoyed little of the prestige attaching to the priestly office, and their social position showed some curious anomalies. It was not because they were out of harmony with the national life. The higher clergy who were in possession of fat livings were, naturally, on good terms with the world, and were quite in sympathy with the tastes and habits of their neighbours, not merely countenancing but sharing in the amusements of the laity. But they did nothing to win esteem for and raise the status of the lower, ill-paid clergy, who appear on the whole to have been hard-working and well-intentioned, with a fellow-feeling for the cares and burdens of their parishioners. Between the fox-hunting bishops and canons and the out-at-elbows country parsons there was a large body of learned, scholarly divines, who reflected lustre on their class. But as a power in social life, the Anglican Church could not bear comparison with the Roman Church. In the first place, an authority which laid no claim to infallibility could not exercise the same influence as one that asserted its supremacy over all matters temporal and spiritual. And, in addition, Protestantism favoured independence of thought. This was more observable in the sects outside the Anglican Church. Narrow as was the creed of the Presbyterians and that of the other dissenting bodies which sprang up later, it was a creed held by conviction; it was acquired, not merely accepted.
As far as women were concerned, the result of the theological change was that, while there were numerous examples of individual piety, there was no attempt at organized religious work. Both inside the Anglican Church and in the ranks of the Puritans there were women noted for their zeal and active benevolence. But neither Anglicans nor Puritans sought, like the Romanists, to turn the great engine of woman’s power to systematic use. To the Puritans religion was a personal affair, in which faith counted for more than works. As for the Anglican Church, it was, in the seventeenth century, hampered by too many difficulties (among which may be counted the formalism of many of its own ministers) to attempt any social work. Indeed, the teaching of Church doctrine was neglected in many places, and, according to John Evelyn—
“people had no principles, and grew very ignorant of even the common points of Christianity, all devotion now being placed in hearing sermons and discourses of speculative and notional things.”
The curious attempt, already referred to, made by Mary Astell to establish a Protestant nunnery frightened the orthodox Church party. It savoured to them of Popery. What she aimed at was to lead women to embrace a higher and more purposeful life. Her so-called nunnery was a kind of retreat for ladies where they could carry on religious exercises and intellectual studies. It was intended as a haven for those who disliked the frivolities of society, and desired to pursue serious aims. But the proposal was not only laughed down, but abused as a scheme to propagate Roman Catholicism. A lady, supposed to be Lady Elizabeth Hastings, offered to give £10,000 for the building, but was deterred by the false reports spread by terrified Protestants.
Mary Astell’s book, “A Serious Proposal to Ladies,” deserves to be remembered as a unique work in that period. She was a reformer who, in the present day, would have been in the front rank of the workers for the advancement of women. She pleaded as much for mental as moral improvement, and perceived very clearly the disadvantages under which the women of the day laboured with their flimsy education and the discouragement of all attempts to follow a more rational system.