Before the business of the Petition and Advice had brought to a close, there were certain other matters been settled by Parliament. Upon a resolution coming before the House to approve of the ordinance of March the 30th, 1653, which appointed Commissioners for approbation of public preachers, with the proviso that those nominated in the intervals of Parliament should be sanctioned by Parliament, Mr. Bodurda, member for Beaumaris, claimed that a minister finding himself aggrieved should "have the benefit of the law;" and went on to say that it was mischievous to entrust commissioners with the power of determining in such cases, without affording any legal remedy for injustice. Sir John Reynolds, an Irish member, replied, that to adopt this suggestion would be to pluck up by the roots a design which had proved itself already a good tree by the fruits which it had borne. Delinquents, he urged, might claim as their inheritance what they had forfeited, and obtain a writ of quare impedit; whereupon the new ecclesiastical polity would fall to the ground. The Ordinance for ejecting ministers came also under consideration the very same day, when some members, as might be expected, complained of irregularity, injustice, and extravagance, chargeable upon the Commissioners. On the other hand, it was contended that though many irreligious Clergymen had been expelled, there were more who desired to be so. Some Counties had not passed through any expurgation. Hence it was "resolved that the Ordinances for the ejection of scandalous, ignorant, and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters" should remain in force for three years, unless the Parliament should take further notice of the subject in the mean time.[144]
Tithes.
Upon a debate in the month of May, respecting the administration of oaths to recusants, with a view to their detection, sentiments found expression far above the current opinion of those days. It was against the laws of Englishmen to impose such oaths on Roman Catholics—said Captain Baines, member for Appleby. Colonel Briscoe—who had been returned for Cumberland—maintained the same opinion, adding that such an imposition was a revival of the ex officio oath; that it was inconsistent with the liberty of conscience which then existed, and which, according to the Lord Protector, had never existed before since Christ's time; and that it would fall most heavily upon conscientious persons, whereas to others it would only be like "drinking another glass of sack." In the course of this same discussion, complaints were uttered, to the effect that Papists increased, and that it was difficult to get a jury to convict them: after which Mr. Butler, member for Poole, declared that in one or two parishes they had multiplied "one hundred in a year;" and he thought he might say that he himself had convicted some hundreds.[145]
The old difficulty, how to make people pay their tithes—not yet overcome by all the legislation on the subject in the years 1647 and 1648—presented itself to this Parliament. Cromwell's Council books afford numerous instances of ministerial complaints respecting arrears of income. Orders promptly made are recorded; but subsequent complaints indicate how the execution of these orders must have been resisted. For example, it was directed, in 1654, that an augmentation of the chapelry of Brentford, Middlesex, by a charge on the tithes of the Rectory of Ashwell, in Hertfordshire, up to that time paid in corn, should be paid in money; and the Lord Protector recommended that the income should be increased to £100 per annum. The same augmentation became afterwards charged on other Rectories; and, in the year 1657, his Highness and the Rector of Hanwell (Brentford being in Hanwell parish), appointed Abriel Borfett to the Brentford chapelry. Yet, after all these repeated arrangements, petitions for payment of arrears abundantly prove the difficulty which existed in the way of enforcing the claim.[146]
1657, June.
On the 1st of June, 1657, Sir William Strickland, member for Yorkshire, moved the first reading of a new tithe Bill; and, upon Whitelocke's objecting to a clause in it authorizing ministers or their agents to enter men's houses to enforce payment, as a thing never granted even in times of Popery—no man having ever heard of a distress for tithes—the mover replied that he was afraid some persons had a design, by bringing disgrace on the system, to dishonour the Gospel; that there were men who would leap over hedge and ditch, and over the whole decalogue, and then scruple about tithes, and never willingly pay them; that some severity was needful to preserve Church revenues; and that the same principle which endangered one kind of property imperilled all the rest.[147]
Catechising.
The Presbyterians were zealous in catechising their children. The Provincial Assembly of London had passed a series of resolutions on the subject in 1655,[148] and now an attempt was made to legislate upon the subject; but when a Bill for this purpose was introduced on the 9th June, 1657, Major-General Desborough moved that it be "left behind," since it would "discontent many godly persons and make them mourn." Others spoke in the same strain, but Mr. Vincent, member for Truro, and Colonel Briscoe, begged on their knees, that the House "would not forbear the Bill," in which earnest and impassioned plea they were supported by so large a majority of Presbyterian members that, on a division, the yeas were 82, and the noes but 7. "So," as the Journals record, "it was resolved that the Bill for catechising be now carried up." It was carried up with several other bills: whereupon the Speaker made a short speech to his Highness "relating to the slowness of great bodies moving, and how our fruits were like that of the harvest, not all ripe at a time, but everything in its season; and how he hoped that this was but the vintage to the autumn the Parliament was preparing, and that it was not with their productions as with Rebecca's births, where one had another by the heel, but that their generation of laws was like that of natural generation, and that his Highness was the sun in the firmament of this Commonwealth, and he must give the ultimate life and breath to our laws."
1657, June.
Thirty-eight of the Bills received the Protectoral assent, but the thirty-ninth, the Bill for catechising, met with a strange fate. After a little pause, his Highness, looking at the parchment before him, said, "I am desirous to advise of this Bill." Hence the Bill dropped. This being done, the House returned about two o'clock to report proceedings, when Mr. Bampfield, member for Exeter, standing by the table, declared "that his Highness never did himself such an injury as he had done that day." Mr. Scobell, the clerk, told Mr. Bampfield he ought not to talk so, but the stiff Presbyterian declared "he would say it anywhere."[149]