The popularity of the seven Bishops in 1688, appears in striking contrast with the unpopularity of the thirteen Bishops in 1642. There had been a number of circumstances, operating from the period of the Restoration, which contributed to the favourable impression now produced. The reaction against the rigours of Puritan rule, and the reverence, as well as the resentments kindled by clerical sufferings, the effect of the abolition of the Star Chamber and of the High Commission Court, the cessation of that troublesome zeal for ritualism, which had so harassed the country in the days of Laud, and the firm hold which the Episcopal Church had taken on the majority of the nation—these circumstances, and others, probably prepared for that gush of enthusiasm which greeted the Bishops on the day of their trial.
THE SEVEN BISHOPS.
Also, a change had come over the clergy. In 1677, they supported absolutism; then their opposition was chiefly directed against Protestant Nonconformity, and their resistance of the encroachments of Popery seemed lukewarm: but, before 1688, they opened their eyes to the intolerance of Romanism, and to the dark omens of its establishment in England. Alarmed at the impending evil, they warmly engaged in controversy, and many of them, seeing that the united strength of all Protestants had become needful to meet the emergency, proceeded to alter their conduct towards their long-despised Dissenting brethren. Convinced at last of the mischiefs connected with arbitrary rule, whatever subtle theories some might have respecting passive obedience and non-resistance, they now opposed, under the pressure of circumstances, the despotic policy of the Crown. Some saw the folly of their former course in exalting the Royal prerogative, with the idea of thereby defending the Church; now they discovered the unconstitutional power which they had conceded to the Sovereign to be an instrument capable of inflicting mischief on themselves. The ghost which they had raised, they now sought to lay; the monster which they had created or nourished, they now strove to crush. Ten years had produced a change in the clergy; and the change in the clergy had made them popular with the nation.
1689.
One great cause of the popularity of the Bishops may be found in the men themselves, in their unmistakeable honesty of purpose, in their zeal for Constitutional Government, in their professions of liberality towards other Protestant denominations, and certainly not a little, in their social virtues and their Christian piety. Their advocacy of the Reformed faith carried all its disciples along with them, their readiness to suffer for the Established religion inspired with affection the bosom of Churchmen, and their overtures of reconciliation touched the hearts of Nonconformists. The release of the Bishops proved a proud day for the Church of England, and the man must be of a cynical temper and of narrow sympathies, who cannot enter warmly into the triumphs of that occasion. Notwithstanding, historical justice requires, and the utmost generosity does not forbid us to remember the treatment which Nonconformists for twenty-seven years had endured at the hands of the English priesthood, through their steady refusal the whole of that time, to grant or to encourage either comprehension or liberty. Nor can we forget the prevalence of thorough irreligion, of frivolous scepticism, of downright immorality, and of disgusting vice, which blackened the last two Stuart reigns, and which the Church did so little to overcome or to diminish. Her laxity and time-serving, her want of missionary earnestness and love, her neglect of faithful and pointed preaching, and of pastoral diligence, her indifference to the education and well-being of the lower classes, at the time of which we treat, are in conspicuous contrast to her activity in these respects at the present day. There are few of her most devoted sons who would think of vindicating her from the reproaches now expressed, however they may value her formularies, rejoice in her Constitution, and join in celebrating the ovation of her seven Bishops.
CHAPTER X.
Up to this point, we have been engaged in watching the course of affairs within the bounds of the Establishment, and in pointing out its relations to Nonconformity; it remains for us to examine the growth of Nonconformity itself, in the principal varieties of its manifestation.
Presbyterianism underwent a change. The ejected ministers, who had adopted that system, continued to cleave to the idea of an Established Church, and it was long before they gave up all hopes of some comprehensive scheme, which, whilst retaining a modified Episcopacy, should provide for the removal of their own well-known scruples. They manifested an indisposition to enter upon any proceedings which could be termed denominational; yet, preaching the Gospel appeared to them an employment which they ought on no account to relinquish, for they felt that they had received a Divine commission, and that it would be at their peril to draw back from its fulfilment. The personal satisfaction also which they experienced in the discharge of their vocation, and the eagerness of people to listen to their voices, deepened the consciousness of a necessity laid upon them. But, at first, they only preached in their own houses, in the hall of a friend’s mansion, in some sequestered forest nook, or in the retirement of a mountain dell. Like the seventy disciples, like the brethren scattered abroad upon the persecution of Stephen, like the witnesses of the Middle Ages, like Wycliffe’s friars, like the early Methodists, they simply attempted to kindle and keep alight the flame of spiritual piety. Two years after the Act of Uniformity had been passed, although some ministers then “were vehement for an entire separation” from the Establishment, others, including Baxter, Bates, and Heywood, advocated attendance at the parish church—in this respect acting in the same manner as John Wesley did, at least for some time after the institution of Methodism. Yet coming events cast their shadows before them. At the end of 1666, Oliver Heywood baptized a child at Halifax, a significant incident; and, in 1672, the same patriarch of the “old Dissent” “kept a solemn day at Bramhope,” when old Mr. Holdsworth “administered the Supper.”[230] By degrees, and almost unconsciously, the worthy Heywood—and he may be taken as the specimen of a class—made advances towards a determined position outside the enclosure fenced in by law. Celebrating the Lord’s Supper, besides administering Baptism, could not be consistently repeated many times, without involving other acts, inevitably preparing for the institution of distinctive and separate Churches. Admission to the Lord’s table rendered some religious oversight of the communicants necessary, and practically, what amounted to a distinct Christian society, would begin to exist before such an existence became clearly recognized even by those engaged in its creation. When, in the year 1672, the Declaration of Indulgence afforded liberty of action, cautious and hesitating men, who had felt their way, availed themselves of the Royal concession to pursue, practically, the legitimate consequences of their prior proceedings. A minister gathered together such godly neighbours as sympathized in his views; and such persons, owning him as their rightful pastor, entered into covenant—as it was called—“to believe and practise what truths and duties,” he should make manifest to them, “to be the mind of God.”[231] According to the Presbyterian theory, the minister in the order of nature, and generally in the order of time, takes precedence of the Church; he does not spring from the Church, but the Church has its root and beginning in him; nor does the origin of his ministerial power rest in the people, his vocation is bestowed upon him directly from above; and this idea of the origin and relation of the Christian ministry we may see worked out in the history of English Presbyterianism.
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
To build upon the platforms of the Westminster Assembly and the Long Parliament, had become impossible. It was a hopeless thing to think of forming classes, of meeting in synods, and of exercising parish discipline, such as had been the ideal of twenty or thirty years before—of instituting schools of virtue and religion in towns and villages, where the pastor should have the rod of the magistrate to enforce the belief of truth, and the practice of goodness. Perhaps, choice without necessity, through what had been taught by experience after the Restoration, would have led some Presbyterian pastors to abandon certain portions of their earlier cherished schemes of parochial order and discipline.