Perhaps Jeremy Taylor also might be found at Oxford, after having lost the rectory of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire. Wood says that he preached before the King, and followed the Royal army in the capacity of a chaplain; and probably it was during this part of his life that he reaped some of those military allusions which we find in his sermons. As, for example, when he compares the man who prays in a discomposed spirit, to him that sets up his closet in the outquarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in: and when he speaks of the poor soldier, standing in the breach, "almost starved with cold and hunger," "pale and faint, weary and watchful," and of the same person in his tent by dim lantern light, having a "bullet pulled out of his flesh, and shivers from his bones, and enduring his mouth to be sewed up, from a violent rent, to its own dimensions."[474]
1643.
Dr. Thomas Fuller, we may add, after being deprived of his preferment at the Savoy, and leaving behind him his library, found refuge in Lincoln College, and preached before the King; the losses which this cheerful Divine suffered at the time leading him to observe, with his accustomed humour, "that his going to Oxford cost him all that he had, a dear seventeen weeks compared with the seventeen years he spent in Cambridge." Whilst Fuller tarried in the former University, there arrived Lord Hopton, an eminent Royalist officer of moderate opinions and of a pacific disposition. The ejected minister of the Savoy became a chaplain to the regiment of this brave soldier and sincerely religious man, and he hoped by filling this office to wipe off the stain of disaffection with which his enemies had endeavoured to spot his fame. He accompanied Hopton to the west, where he accepted a nominal chaplaincy to the infant Princess Henrietta, who was born at Bedford House, in the city of Exeter, on the 16th June, 1644.[475]
Clergy at Oxford.
Another eminent churchman was now at Oxford. William Chillingworth, after the raising of the siege of Gloucester, left the construction of his Roman testudines, and more befittingly employed himself in preaching before the University, and in writing polemical tracts, especially one, entitled "The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy." This publication, which was not answered for years afterwards, is very characteristic of its author, and takes a ground of defence for the Church of England not at all agreeable to high Prelatists; for he reduces Episcopal government to the smallest dimensions, specifying its essence to be no more than the appointment of one person of eminent sanctity, to take care of all the churches in a diocese—his authority being bounded by law and moderated by assistants. Even this scantling of rule he seems to defend rather than enforce—stating as the ground of adopting it, that there is no record of our Saviour against it, that it is not repugnant to the apostolic government, and that it is as compliable with the reformation of the Church, as any other kind of polity.[476] Chillingworth did not long survive his employment at Oxford; and the short remaining history of his life is so curious, so illustrative of the religious aspects of the war, and of the oddities of people engaged in it, that we venture to transfer it to these pages.
1643.
He was taken prisoner in Arundel Castle; whither, in the month of January, 1644, he had repaired, to recover from an indisposition brought on by the inclemency of the winter. As he was not fit to travel to London with the captured garrison, the victorious Parliamentarians removed the distinguished Episcopalian to Chichester, a favour for which he was indebted to Mr. Cheynell, whose story is curiously entwined with his own. Cheynell, a rigid, zealous Presbyterian, "exactly orthodox, and very unwilling that any should be supposed to go to heaven but in the right way," had been ejected from his living in Sussex by the Royalists, and happened to be at Chichester when Chillingworth reached it as a prisoner. With sympathy for his old antagonist, Cheynell procured for him lodgings in the bishop's palace. Chillingworth, who had never been violent enough to please the Royalists, was infamously denounced by one of them; but Cheynell defended his reputation, guarded his health, and, as he informs us, took care of "something more precious than either, to wit, his beloved soul." Yet he wearied him with interrogations and arguments about King and Parliament, Prelate and Puritan. "I desired," he says, "to know his opinion concerning that liturgy, which had been formerly so much extolled, and even idolized amongst the people; but all the answer that I could get was to this purpose, that there were some truths which the ministers of the gospel are not bound, upon pain of damnation, to publish to the people; and, indeed, he conceived it very unfit to publish anything concerning the Common Prayer Book or the Book of Ordination for fear of scandal." "When I found him pretty hearty one day, I desired him to tell me whether he conceived that a man living and dying a Turk, Papist, or Socinian; could be saved." No doubt the question was so pointed, on account of the dying man's reputation for latitudinarianism, or as he believed it to be, charity, and in this respect Chillingworth was consistent to the last. "All the answer that I could gain from him," says Cheynell, "was that he did not absolve them, and would not condemn them." It is pleasant amidst all this gossip, and much more of the same description, to find Cheynell telling his old friend and controversialist that he prayed for him in private, and asking him whether he desired public intercession as well. He replied, "Yes, with all his heart, and he said withal, that he hoped he should fare better for their prayers."[477]
Clergy at Oxford.
After Chillingworth's death, Cheynell had the corpse laid out in a coffin covered with a hearse-cloth. The friends of the deceased were entertained, according to their own desire, with wine and cakes. Those who bore his remains to the grave were Episcopalians; and—as a further touch of description to illustrate those times—it may be added that, according to the custom of the country, they had each a bunch of rosemary, a mourning ribband, and a pair of gloves. Different opinions were expressed as to where the churchman ought to be interred. It was at last decided in favour of Chichester, liberty being granted to "all the malignants" to attend the hearse. When they came to the grave, Cheynell, as he held in his hand what he called the "mortal book" of the great Protestant advocate—the very book which has received the praises of all generations since as immortal—proceeded with strange infatuation to denounce it in terms of the most violent abuse, after which he flung the volume into the open grave.[478]
1643.