The fact being proved that James intended to re-establish Popery, and received encouragement to do so, little need be said respecting his purpose in reference to the Protestant Episcopal Church. It follows that he must have designed, through placing a rival and ambitious power by its side, to overthrow its supremacy, if not to destroy its existence. Such policy was alike ungrateful and treacherous. It was ungrateful—for if the Presbyterians placed Charles II. upon the throne, the Episcopalians secured the succession to James II.; and amongst the most effective supporters of his arbitrary authority were those Anglicans who had preached passive obedience and non-resistance. And it was treacherous—for repeatedly he had declared, that he would make it his endeavour to defend and support the Church of England.
JAMES’ POLICY.
Perhaps the actual discouragement which the prelates and clergy received at the hands of him who had sworn to support them, and the imminent perils which stared them in the face, roused the rather inanimate Archbishop of Canterbury to attempt some little reform in the Establishment. He, with the concurrence of the Bishops of his province, issued Articles for some better regulations in the mode of admitting candidates to the cure of souls, since many abuses and uncanonical practices had lately crept in.[172] The Articles, however, did not amount to anything remarkable, and what might be their practical effect does not appear. If preventing the introduction of Roman Catholic priests into the Church, or discouraging in it all Romanizing tendencies, came within the designs of the Primate and his brethren, no signs of it can be traced in the Articles themselves; but there were other ways in which Anglican zeal against Popery at that time made itself visible. Forbidden to preach against Popery, the clergy employed their pens. Amongst four hundred and fifty-seven controversial pamphlets which issued from the press—including those written on both sides—may be mentioned Wake’s and Dodwell’s answers to Bossuet; Clagett and Williams’ replies to Gother, author of The Papist Represented and Misrepresented; Stillingfleet’s attack upon Godden’s Dialogues; and Sherlock’s answer to Sabran, the Jesuit. Atterbury, Smalridge, Tenison, and Tillotson, also took part in the controversy. A noble set of writings, Calamy remarks, was now published by Church Divines against the errors of Rome; and he endeavours to explain the causes of that comparative silence which the Dissenters maintained upon a subject in which they were so deeply interested. It is pleaded by him, that they had written largely on the subject before, their own people were not much in danger, if they did not write, they preached upon Popery, they were satisfied to see the work well done by others, and some who wished to publish had little chance of being read, public attention being engrossed by distinguished Churchmen.[173] Some of these excuses carry a measure of force; Nonconformists had not been deficient in exposing the fallacies of Romanism, and the pulpit was now employed when the press was inactive, but other parts of the defence are more ingenious than valid; and it must be confessed, that clear and distinct argumentative attacks upon the common foe of Protestantism from the Dissenting point of view, coupled with the assertion of civil liberty on behalf of all religionists, so far as the doctrine was then understood, would have been more worthy of the Nonconformist cause at that critical juncture.
1687.
The policy of James respecting the Protestant Establishment, thus nobly resisted by some of its members, together with his policy towards Romanism, will help the reader to understand his designs upon Protestant Nonconformity. He could not but be aware of its deadly opposition to his own religion; its evangelical creed, its popular discipline, and its simple worship, must have inspired his deepest dislike; and, whatever professions of charity and forbearance he might offer at times, the same feelings which created his enmity to a Protestant Establishment, must necessarily have created in him also enmity to Protestant Dissent.
His threefold policy thus throws light upon the Declaration of Indulgence published in 1687. That Declaration could not proceed from sound views of religious freedom, or from a generous desire to relieve Protestant sufferers, it must have been designed immediately to help, and ultimately to establish, Roman Catholicism in England. According to the terms of the Declaration, the King wished that all his subjects had been members of the Catholic Church, but such not being the case, he respected the rights of conscience, promising to protect those of his subjects who belonged to the Church of England; he also resolved to suspend the laws for the punishment of Nonconformity, and therefore granted liberty of worship to all who did not encourage political disaffection. The Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and the Tests and Declarations, mentioned in the 25th and 30th of his brother’s reign, were to be no longer enforced; and ample pardon was extended to all Nonconformist recusants, for all acts contrary to the penal laws respecting religion.
DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE.
That James simply wished to promote his own religion, and did not care for what is meant by religious freedom, is clear from the French ambassador’s account of the liberty which the King conceded to the people of Scotland; for the diplomatist, writing to his master, states that the measure, debated for several days, created much difficulty, and that he would by no means allow to Scotch Protestants the extensive right of worship which he granted to Scotch Roman Catholics.[174] The same writer, a little earlier, told the French Sovereign that His Britannic Majesty heard with pleasure a recital of the wonderful progress with which God had blessed the efforts of the former for the conversion of the Huguenots, there being no example of a similar thing happening at any time, or in any country, with so much promptitude.[175] It is absurd to represent a man who thus approved of conversion by violence as a friend to religious liberty. It should also be remembered that there was no little duplicity involved in the conduct of the English Monarch at this time, for just after the above communication had been privately made to the Court at Versailles, he issued letters patent to the Bishops, authorizing a collection on behalf of the exiles.
How was the Declaration received?
1687.