The Bishop of Lincoln considered ordination by Presbyters to be good and sufficient, and in order to the taking of them in, it was not necessary there should be the imposition of Episcopal hands.
The Marquis of Winchester, fervent for Comprehension, as conducive to the interest of the Church, was unconcerned for the Bill of Indulgence, since “that would but nourish Church snakes and vipers in the bosom of the Church.”[129]
1689.
Early in the month of April we find the Lords busy with the Comprehension Bill. Upon the 4th, they were engaged upon the question, “Whether to agree with the Committee in leaving out the clause about the indifferency of the posture at the receiving the Sacrament?” The votes being equal, the Journal records, “Then, according to the ancient rule in the like case, semper præsumitur pro negante,” that is to say, the question as to leaving out the clause was decided in the negative, and therefore the clause remained. “There was a proviso likewise in the Bill for dispensing with kneeling at the Sacrament and being baptized with the sign of the cross, to such as, after conference on those heads, should solemnly protest they were not satisfied as to the lawfulness of them. That concerning kneeling occasioned a vehement debate; for the posture being the chief exception that the Dissenters had, the giving up this was thought to be the opening a way for them to come into employments. Yet it was carried in the House of Lords, and I declared myself zealous for it. For since it was acknowledged that the posture was not essential in itself, and that scruples, how ill grounded soever, were raised upon it, it seemed reasonable to leave the matter as indifferent in its practice, as it was in its nature.”[130]
COMPREHENSION.
On the next day another debate rose on an important point. It was proposed that a Commission should be appointed, including laymen as well as clergymen, to prepare some plan for healing divisions, correcting errors, and supplying defects in the constitution of the Church. Burnet, adopting the questionable policy of striving to please opponents, and bring them to adopt a comprehensive scheme by humouring their prejudice—a policy of which he afterwards repented—argued against the proposed Commission, and upon the question being put, strangely enough, there was again an equality of votes. The same rule as before was followed, and a negative being put on the proposition, the Marquis of Winchester and the Lords Mordaunt and Lovelace entered their protest against it as contrary to the constitution, inconsistent with Protestantism, inexpedient as to the end proposed, likely to create jealousies, to raise objections, and to countenance the dangerous position that the laity were not a part of the Church. The Earl of Stamford added a distinct protest, on the further ground, that to refuse laymen a place in such a Commission was opposed to statutes of Parliament in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., which empowered a mixed Commission to revise the Canon law.
The Comprehension Bill, with these modifications, passed the House of Lords on the 8th of April, and was sent down to the House of Commons.[131]
Strange again—the fact has been overlooked by our principal modern historians—before the Lords’ Bill reached the Commons, the Commons were engaged upon a Comprehension Bill of their own, and upon a Toleration Bill likewise. The day which saw the Lords reading the former of these for the third time, saw the Commons also reading a similar one of their own for the first time, and granting leave to bring in another Bill, as the phrase went, for “easing of Protestant Dissenters.”
1689.
But the party in the Commons earnest for Comprehension, had to row against wind and tide. One member desired the new Bill might be adjourned for a fortnight; another wished to put it off till Domesday. Old Colonel Birch impugned the motives of those who opposed the measure by mentioning the names of two members in the last Long Parliament, who had objected to a similar proposal, and who proved afterwards to be Papists in disguise.[132]