When Toland’s book was sent up from the Lower House to the Bishops for judgment, they felt that it was a serious matter to enter upon the business, as by condemning certain published opinions, and approving others, they might be altering the recognized doctrines of the Church. Legal objections had on a similar occasion been alleged against such proceedings, because of the consequences they might involve; now they were urged afresh. The Bishops, therefore, came to the conclusion, in accordance with the advice of eminent lawyers, that they could not censure the books without license from the King, lest they should incur certain penalties.
Upon the eve of a prorogation for Easter, after the dispute about the rights of sitting and adjournment had been carried on with an obstinacy which it would be tiresome to describe, the Archbishop delivered to the members of Convocation a speech, in which he alluded to the existing dispute: “We have many enemies, and they wait for nothing more than to see the union and order of this Church, which is both its beauty and its strength, broken by those who ought to preserve it.” “For the maintaining the episcopal authority is so necessary to the preservation of the Church, that the rest of the Clergy are no less concerned in it than the Bishops themselves.” “I have thought fit, with the rest of my brethren, to prorogue the Convocation for some time. It is a season of devotion, and I pray God it may have a good effect on all our minds.” “We, on our part, are willing to forget all that is past, and to go on with you at our next meeting, as well as at all times, with all tenderness and parental affection, in all such things as shall conduce to the good of this Church.”[342]
CONVOCATION.
In spite of the prorogation until the 8th of May, the Prolocutor and some of the Clergy persevered in their assertion of independence, and sat for some hours the same day on which his Grace prorogued both Houses; then they adjourned to meet the next day. But this policy, being esteemed by some High Churchmen as a stretch of power quite unconstitutional, led to a secession, which considerably weakened the influence of the party.
When all had come back from celebrating the Easter festival, and the Prolocutor appeared before the Upper House with a paper in his hand, the Primate returned to the old charge of irregularity, and told him he could not recognize any of the proceedings carried on since his adjournment. The Prolocutor replied, that he had been commanded by the Lower House to bring up the paper, and did therefore present it, as an Act of the House. After being laid upon their Lordships’ table, the paper was found to contain arguments against the course pursued by them in reference to Toland’s work. The Bishops now proposed that committees from the two Houses should meet, with a view to an amicable arrangement, but the majority of the Lower House refused to nominate any committee for the purpose; a refusal which exceedingly annoyed several members. The majority determined to ride the high horse, and to dig the spur into its flanks; so when the schedule of adjournment next time came down, the Prolocutor refused to notice it at all, and adjourned on his own authority; an act against which Beveridge, Sherlock, and others protested, in a paper which they signed and presented to the Archbishop. What still more annoyed the Upper House, was that the Clergy, under the Prolocutor’s presidency, agreed upon a censure of a book by one of the Prelates. This was The Exposition of the XXXIX Articles, by Bishop Burnet, in which, with learning, moderation, and good temper, he expounded the doctrines of the Church of England according to his idea, treating the Articles as terms of peace and union, intended to receive a considerable latitude of interpretation. Anything but unanimity and decorum of behaviour marked the proceedings of the Lower Assembly at this moment; and a report went abroad that one of the members, in consequence of a speech he delivered, ran the risk of having his gown torn off his back. The report is an exaggeration; it arose out of the conduct of some one who, by rudely twitching the dress of a speaker, put an end to his unpleasant oration. Words uttered within the Abbey walls were reported outside in garbled forms, which led to explanations and counter-explanations, to assertions and denials, which provoked fresh controversy, and it became a difficult thing to determine what exactly the two parties up in arms did and said. Enough, however, was manifest to prove, that many of the ministers of religion, assembled to promote the prosperity of Christ’s Church, were sadly forgetful of the simplest lessons of the Gospel.
1701.
CONVOCATION.
Connected with the presentation of the censure upon Burnet’s book to the Upper House, there occurred two or three curious episodes. Adjoining the Jerusalem Chamber is a small apartment called the Organ Chamber; and there, a month before, on the 5th of April, had happened an incident which ruffled the feelings of the very reverend Prolocutor, and the clergymen who accompanied him. They were kept waiting at their Lordships’ door, as they said, an hour and a half, as their opponents said, only so long as was needful to read their paper and debate upon it; the circumstance being attributed by some to the insolence of the Prelates, by others, to a mistake of the doorkeeper. On the 30th of May, when the Prolocutor, with the Deans of Windsor and Christ Church, went up with the paper about Burnet’s book, and were again waiting a while in the same antechamber, the Bishop of Bangor came out, commissioned by their Lordships, to ask the Prolocutor whether the message he had now to bring in, was to set right the irregularity complained of? The Prolocutor, according to the Bishop’s report, said, first “it was something in order to set that irregularity right;” then, correcting himself, he added, “it was concerning that irregularity.” After which the door to the chamber being opened, in walked the Prolocutor and his companions, the Archbishop observing to them, “If you have anything to offer, in order to the setting right the irregularity we have complained of, we are ready to receive it.” Immediately the Prolocutor stated, that he had brought a humble representation touching an Exposition of the XXXIX Articles, that it had no relation to the alleged irregularity; but with regard to that, they were ready to satisfy their Lordships whenever called upon to do so. The paper containing the censure was rejected, and some of the Prelates considered the Prolocutor had employed a subterfuge for its introduction. The Bishop of Bangor, in so many words, complained of prevarication, a charge which fanned the Lower House into a blaze of resentment.
At this time, as on a former occasion, some of the minority in the Lower House protested against the proceedings of the majority, by signing a paper to that effect, to be presented to the Bishops; George Bull, Archdeacon of Llandaff, being amongst those who appended their names. This protest, in its turn, became another element of discord.
1701.