Dr. Johnson has vindicated the character of this remarkable person by referring to passages in which he says, that he was of the belief taught by our Saviour, disseminated by the Apostles, authorized by the fathers, and confirmed by the martyrs; that though paradoxical in philosophy, he loved in Divinity to keep the beaten road, and pleased himself with the idea; that he had no taint of heresy, schism, or error.[590] But a more satisfactory vindication is supplied in his memorable resolutions, never to let a day pass “without calling upon God in a solemn formed prayer seven times within the compass thereof,” after the example of David and Daniel; always to magnify God, in the night, on his “dark bed when he could not sleep,” and to pray in all places where privacy invited—in any house, highway, or street; to know no street or passage in the City of Norwich, where he lived, which might not witness that he remembered God and his Saviour in it; never to miss the sacrament upon the accustomed days; to intercede for his patients, for the minister after preaching, and for all people in tempestuous weather, lightning and thunder, that God would have mercy upon their souls, bodies, and goods; and “upon sight of beautiful persons, to bless God in His creatures, to pray for the beauty of their souls, and to enrich them with inward graces to be answerable unto the outward; upon sight of deformed persons, to send them inward graces, and enrich their souls, and give them the beauty of the resurrection.”[591] A dash of eccentricity is obvious in these his pious regulations for the government of life, such as might be expected in the author of the Hydriotaphia and the Garden of Cyrus; but there is no reason whatever to question their perfect sincerity, or to suspect his affection towards the Church of England—with respect to which he said that he was a sworn subject to her faith, subscribing unto her Articles, and endeavouring to observe her constitutions.[592]
SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
We notice with deep regret an absence in his writings of all reference to certain important evangelical doctrines, and only a slight allusion to others. Besides this grave omission, we find a positive statement of opinions generally pronounced to be heterodox, namely, that the soul sleeps with the body until the last day, that the damned will at last be released from torture, and that prayers may be offered for the dead; and these opinions he implies he had entertained himself, but he insists in his own characteristic style, that he never maintained them with pertinacity; that without the addition of new fuel, “they went out insensibly of themselves;” and that they were not heresies in him, but bare errors, and single lapses of the understanding, without a joint depravity of the will. “Those,” he remarks, “have not only depraved understandings, but diseased affections, which cannot enjoy a singularity without a heresy, or be the author of an opinion, without they be of a sect also.”[593] Browne entertained comprehensive and liberal views of the extent of salvation, saying, that though “the bridge is narrow, the passage strait unto life—yet those who do confine the Church of God either to particular nations, Churches, or families, have made it far narrower than our Saviour ever meant it.” “There must be therefore more than one St. Peter. Particular Churches and sects usurp the gates of heaven, and turn the key against each other, and thus we go to heaven against each other’s wills, conceits, and opinions, and, with as much uncharity as ignorance, do err, I fear, in points not only of our own, but one another’s salvation.” He professes a consciousness of there being, not only in philosophy, but in Divinity, “sturdy doubts and boisterous objections, wherewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly acquainted us;” and declares that, after having in his earlier years, “read all the books against religion, he was in the latter part of his life, averse from controversies.”[594]
We dismiss the character of Sir Thomas Browne by quoting the following passage, with which he concludes his Religio Medici, and which taken alone is sufficient to show the devoutness of the man’s spirit:—“Bless me in this life with but the peace of my conscience, command of my affections, the love of Thyself, and my dearest friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity Cæsar! These are, O Lord, the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition, and all I dare call happiness on earth, wherein I set no rule or limit to Thy hand or providence. Dispose of me according to the wisdom of Thy pleasure. Thy will be done, though in my own undoing.”[595]
COUNTESS OF WARWICK.
The Countess Dowager of Warwick—seventh daughter of Richard, first Earl of Cork—died in 1678, and remained in the Church of England to the close of her life. Her education, her conversion, her abstinence, her inward beauty, her love to souls, her family government, together with her justice and prudence, have been duly celebrated by Samuel Clarke, in his Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons; and her Diary, extensively circulated of late years, has made this lady very widely known. “She was neither of Paul, or of Apollos, or of Cephas, but only of Christ. Her name was Christian, and her surname Catholic. She had a large and unconfined soul, not hemmed in or pounded up within the circle of any man’s name.” She bountifully relieved both Conformist and Nonconformist ministers; but she “very inoffensively regularly and devoutly observed the orders of the Church of England, in its liturgy and public service, which she failed not to attend twice a day, with exemplary reverence. Yet was she far from placing religion in ritual observances.”[596]
“She needed neither borrowed shades, nor reflexious lights, to set her off, being personally great in all natural endowments and accomplishments of soul and body, wisdom, beauty, favour, and virtue. Great by her tongue, for never woman used one better, speaking so gracefully, promptly, discreetly, pertinently, holily, that I have often admired the edifying words that proceeded from her mouth. Great by her pen, as you may (ex pede Herculem) discover by that little taste of it, the world hath been happy in, the hasty fruit of one or two interrupted hours after supper, which she professed to me, with a little regret, when she was surprised with its sliding into the world without her knowledge, or allowance, and wholly beside her expectation. Great, by being the greatest mistress and promotress, not to say the foundress and inventress of a new science—the art of obliging; in which she attained that sovereign perfection, that she reigned over all their hearts with whom she did converse. Great in her nobleness of living and hospitality. Great in the unparalleled sincerity of constant, faithful, condescending friendship, and for that law of kindness which dwelt in her lips and heart. Great in her dexterity of management. Great in her quick apprehension of the difficulties of her affairs, and where the stress and pinch lay, to untie the knot, and loose and ease them. Great in the conquest of herself. Great in a thousand things beside, which the world admires as such: but she despised them all, and counted them but loss and dung in comparison of the fear of God, and the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.”[597]
Before concluding this review of different forms assumed by personal religion in the national Church, at least one word is due to a remarkable instance of conversion, in the case of the Earl of Rochester, whose deep repentance and Christian faith, after a career of reckless vice, have been made familiar to the world through the memoir of him written by Bishop Burnet. Nor should Ley, Earl of Marlborough, less known to posterity, be entirely overlooked; for, after having contemned religion, he was “brought to a different sense of things, upon real conviction, even in full health, some time before he was killed in the sea-fight at Southold Bay, 1665.”[598] Neither can I omit all notice of that quiet, unobtrusive piety which in those days adorned some in the higher walks of life; for example, “the Lord Crew,” of whom, in a contemporary diary, it is said,—“Friday, December 12th, 1679. The Lord Crew died, who had been very eminent in his age for holiness and charity; and at, and in his death, for useful and suitable instructions to those about him, and for well-grounded peace, and solid comfort for himself.”[599] Much of the religion in the Church of England, however, bore a very different impress. Many were of the same type as William Cavendish, the loyal Marquis of Newcastle, of whom Clarendon says: “He loved monarchy, as it was the foundation and support of his own greatness; and the Church, as it was well constituted for the splendour and security of the Crown; and religion, as it cherished and maintained that order and obedience that was necessary to both; without any other passion for the particular opinions which were grown up in it, and distinguished it into parties, than as he detested whatsoever was like to disturb the public peace.”[600]
THEOLOGICAL DIVERGENCES.
These notices of persons, all of them members of the Church of England, present great differences of character. As amongst the Divines described in a former chapter, we observed, in connection with their maintenance of the established Episcopal order and government, their use of the same formularies, and their subscription to the same standards of faith, a wide divergence of theological belief, and the indications of a considerable diversity of religious sentiment; so amongst the laity, as might be expected from the circumstance of no subscription being exacted in their case, we discover a still greater divergence of belief, and a still greater variety of sentiment. Not to speak here of that deep inner life, existent in the Church of Christ under various outward forms, to which I shall refer hereafter, I may observe now that the only manifest resemblance amongst those who have just been indicated, consisted in the uniformity of their worship, and in their submission to the same kind of Church government. The High Church, the Low Church, and the Broad Church of the nineteenth century find their historical parallels in the seventeenth, although by no means in the same measure of development; and if legal questions touching Church matters were not raised at that time as they are at present, the same radical differences between one section and another existed then as now.