From the passing of the Act of Uniformity down to the repeal of the clause in 1865, touching the declaration of assent and consent, the meaning of those words was a constant subject of controversy, some even of the Bishops construing them in a very lax and indefinite manner. The words seem to many persons precise enough; and one might have thought that no room remained for controversy respecting them, after what took place in the House of Commons at the time now under review. A Bill passed in the month of July, to relieve those who by sickness or other impediment had been disabled from subscribing the required declaration. The Lords wished to sanction the latitudinarian interpretation, and adopted as an amendment this position, that "assent and consent" should "be understood only as to the practice and obedience to the said Act, and not otherwise." Against this construction the Duke of York and thirteen other Lords entered their protest. The Commons indignantly rejected the amendment, as having "neither justice nor prudence in it." Such conduct aroused the anger of the Lords, who resolved to take up the subject in the following session; but they allowed it to drop, and so virtually gave way to the Lower House, and left the strict grammatical meaning as the true construction of the law.[424]
PAPISTS AND NONCONFORMISTS.
Upon the 27th of the same month, July, the Speaker of the House of Commons alluded to a measure for the better observance of the Sabbath; the legislation of the Commonwealth on that as on all other subjects having been rendered void. He dwelt in an affected strain upon the decline of religion, and then returned to the subject of the growth of Popery, and of Sectarianism. He was commanded, he said, to desire that His Majesty would issue another proclamation for preventing profaneness, debauchery, and licentiousness, and for better securing the peace of the nation against the united counsels of Dissenters. Charles replied, that he had expected to have had Bills presented to him against distempers in religion, seditious Conventicles, and the increase of Popery; but, that not being done, if he lived, he himself meant to introduce such Bills. Meanwhile, he had charged the Judges to use all endeavours to disperse the Sectaries, and to convict the Papists.[425]
Soon after the Restoration death removed several prelates. Brian Walton died in November, 1661, in a little more than two months after his installation at Chester, when Dr. George Hall succeeded him. Nicholas Monk—whose funeral has been noticed—within one year of his promotion to Hereford, died on the 17th of December, 1661, and was succeeded by Herbert Croft. Duppa, Bishop of Winchester, died March 25th, 1662, leaving behind him a reputation for munificent charity, and, just before his departure, bestowing his Episcopal benediction upon the King, who had been his pupil, and who knelt by the side of his death-bed. Gauden, who in the beginning of 1662 had been translated from Exeter to Worcester, expired before the end of twelve months.
1663.
Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, died in January, 1663. When in his illness petitions were offered for his recovery, he remarked that "his friends said their prayers backward for him; and that it was not his desire to live a useless life, and, by filling up a place, keep another out of it, that might do God and His Church service." With his dying breath he exclaimed, "Thou, O God, tookest me out of my mother's womb, and hast been the powerful protector of me to this present moment of my life. Thou hast neither forsaken me now I am become grey-headed, nor suffered me to forsake Thee in the late days of temptation, and sacrifice my conscience for the preservation of my liberty or estate. It was by grace that I have stood, when others have fallen under my trials; and these mercies I now remember with joy and thankfulness, and my hope and desire is that I may die praising Thee." He had no taste for funeral parade, and expressly directed in his will, that he should be buried with as little noise, pomp, and charge as might be—no escutcheons, gloves, ribbons—no black hangings in the church, only a pulpit cloth, a hearse cloth, and a mourning gown for the preacher of the funeral sermon—who was to have five pounds for the service, upon condition, that he spoke nothing of the deceased, either good or ill, "other," Sanderson adds, "than I myself shall direct." Nor was any costly monument to be raised to his memory, "only a fair flat marble stone."[426]
PRELATES.
Juxon, Archbishop of Canterbury, expired at Lambeth Palace, on the 4th of June; and left behind him an honourable renown for meekness, constancy, fortitude, and liberality. The sums which he contributed to public objects of charity and religion amounted to no less than £48,000.
Archbishop Bramhall departed this life, in Dublin, on the 25th of the same month, after three fits of paralysis. To use the words of Jeremy Taylor in his funeral sermon for the Primate, "As the Apostles in the vespers of Christ's passion, so he, in the eve of his own dissolution, was heavy, not to sleep, but heavy unto death; and looked for the last warning, which seized on him in the midst of business; and though it was sudden, yet it could not be unexpected or unprovided by surprise, and therefore could be no other than that εὐθανασία, which Augustus used to wish unto himself, a civil and well-natured death, without the amazement of troublesome circumstances, or the great cracks of a falling house, or the convulsions of impatience."[427]
Through vacancies at the time of the Restoration, and deaths and translations afterwards, within two years and a half, mitres fell to the disposal of the Crown more than twenty times.