KING’S DECLARATION.
After the dissolution of Parliament at Oxford, the King, by the advice of Halifax, published a Declaration, explaining the reasons which induced him to take that critical step. He charged the Commons with arbitrary orders; with bringing forward accusations on mere suspicion; with unconstitutional votes, especially in support of resolutions condemning the persecution of Dissenters, according to law; with obstinacy in the matter of the Exclusion Bill; with a design of changing the government of the realm; and with a determination to set and keep at variance the two Houses of Legislature.[52] In short, he managed, as his father had done, only with more dexterity, to cover and defend his own unconstitutional purposes, by throwing all blame on the Houses of Parliament.
Immediately afterwards, Archbishop Sancroft received a Royal command to require the public reading of the Declaration in all and every the churches and chapels within the province of Canterbury, at the time of Divine service, upon some Lord’s Day, with all convenient speed. If we may here believe Burnet, Sancroft, at a meeting of Council, moved that this order should be given; remembering the habits of the Historian of his Own Times, I can scarcely trust his statement, without confirmation from some other quarter. Yet, if Sancroft did not suggest, he certainly did not resist the publication of this document—as he did the publication of another at a later period; and, because he received the order for its publication, and the publication followed accordingly, he must bear the responsibility of having sanctioned a procedure, which really made the Church an approving herald to the nation, of the King’s despotic policy.[53]
1681.
High Churchmen took the opportunity of presenting to the Throne the most obsequious and abject addresses. Our princes, said they, derive not their title from the people, but from God; to Him alone they are accountable: and it belongs not to subjects either to create or to censure, but only to honour and obey their Sovereign. They besought His Majesty to accept the tender of their hearts and hands, their lives and fortunes. These dearest sacrifices they abjectly laid down at Royal feet.[54] It was about the same time that Morley, Bishop of Winchester, declared:—“If ever it might be said of any—it may now most emphatically be said of us: Happy are the people that are in such a case.” We have “a Government pretending to no power at all above the King, nor to no power under the King neither, but from him, and by him, and for him—a Government enjoining active obedience to all lawful commands of lawful authority; and passive obedience when we cannot obey actively, forbidding and condemning all taking up of arms, offensive or defensive, by subjects of any quality.”[55]
The King’s Declaration was compared by a writer of later date, reflecting upon it, to the olive branch brought by the dove into the ark,—an indication of peace, of the abatement of popular excitement, and of the stability of laws and religion, like the dove which had found ubi pedem figeret. Warming with his subject, he calls the Declaration “that great vision of the Lex terræ” long wrapped in mists, but now revealed; and likens the addresses called forth to the seamen’s shout on approaching land, after a stormy voyage.[56] Some of the Tory party went mad with joy at the triumph of despotism.
LOYAL ADDRESSES.
There were not wanting utterances of a very different order. A well-known publication, entitled, The Conformist’s Plea for the Nonconformists, in four parts, by a Beneficed Minister, and a regular Son of the Church of England, bears the date of 1681, and at the time made much stir. The author dwells upon the sufferings of his Dissenting brethren—their hard case, their equitable proposals, their ministerial qualifications, their peaceable behaviour, their orthodoxy as tested by the doctrinal articles of the Church—and the injury inflicted on that Church by their exclusion. “Some reverend sons of the Church,” he remarked, with a good deal of common sense, “in love to peace, and fear of enemies, have earnestly called and exhorted the Dissenting ejected brethren, to come and unite, to come into the present Constitution, as safest, as strongest, as best, &c. But if they could not come in at the narrow door eighteen years ago, and the door as narrow still as it was then, and there be the same cross-bars laid across, as were then to keep them out, to what purpose is the exhortation? Is there a great storm a coming? they think that Christ is the same ship, and they are as safe as any other. They may clearly plead, they could have conformed at first upon better worldly terms than now; they might have saved what they have lost, and got their share with others; to come now to conform, when all places are full, and not enow for numerous expectants, and when there is nothing for them without tedious waiting; and if their judgments and consciences could not enter then, how can they now?”[57]
1681.
Wit is not wanting, when he asks:—“But how did these Master-Builders proceed in the Government of their New Reformed Church? It seemed to be built no larger than to contain one family, the genuine sons of such fathers; there was but one narrow door of admission to it, a strong lock upon it, and the sole power of the keys was in trusty hands, and the sword in the hand of a friend, there was no outward apartment in it to entertain strangers, or belonging to it; but some got a false key to the door, as many call it, a key of a larger sense; and when some got in, more crowded in; and so the Latitudinarian in charity, came in with the Latitudinarian in discipline, to the no little grief of some who do not like their company. The fathers keep above stairs, and now and then come down among us, and send their officers to visit us, and have their watch renewed every year to tell tales of us; and they that are without doors, cry, If there be any love in our Governors to Christ, and His divided flock, that we would but widen the door, and reform but ill customs; but we say, we cannot help ourselves or them, for the law will have it so.”[58]