Nathaniel Crew, Bishop of Durham, fifth son of the first Lord who bore that name, succeeded upon the death of his last surviving brother to the family estate and the title, and therefore was entitled to a seat in Parliament both as Prelate and Baron. Committed to the worst policy of James, and for a time excepted from pardon by William, he narrowly secured his See by taking the oath of allegiance at the last moment, and was scarcely admitted to Court during the reign of the last-named Monarch. Handsome features, imposing presence, winning manners, and princely munificence—although commending him to the affection of friends and the gratitude of dependants—could not redeem his character from the consequences incurred by his political conduct, or render him either a strong or an ornamental pillar of the English Church.
BISHOPS.
I pass over Bishops altogether obscure,[393] to notice one who attained an unenviable notoriety. This was Thomas Watson, Bishop of St. David’s, who experienced the singular fate of being proceeded against in the Court of Arches, when he received a sentence of deprivation. He was convicted of applying to his own use offerings given at ordinations; receiving what had been bestowed on servants as gratuities; not administering oaths required by law; ordaining at other times than the Sundays next Ember weeks; conferring orders on a candidate below the canonical age; exacting illegal fees; and demanding excessive procurations. There must have been at the bottom of these proceedings much more than appears on the surface. He is reported to have been coarse and violent in his language and conduct, and to have thereby exposed himself to popular odium; but these were not the things for which he was tried, nor was he formally accused of Popish opinions, though, in public estimation, he stood suspected of Romanist sympathies. He had been made a Bishop by James II., whose policy he approved, and this circumstance seems to have had much to do with the issue of his trial. He appealed to the House of Lords against the sentence of the spiritual court, but the sentence was confirmed. The case made much noise at the time, and excited a good deal of controversy. In a Review[394] of it published by a friendly hand, the charges brought against him are pronounced to be false, the veracity of the witnesses is impugned, and the whole process is described as a conspiracy carried on by “subordination,” and inspired by “political motives and inducements of pique and revenge.” The writer intends to suggest the animus of Watson’s prosecutors, by stating that he was asked what Papists and Nonjurors came to his house, and whether he had not drunk the health of King James; and I also find one deponent declaring that, in the oath of allegiance administered by the Bishop at an ordination, neither William nor Mary were mentioned by name. I cannot but think that political feeling prompted the prosecution; yet, if we look at the characters of such men as Tenison, Patrick, and others, who united in his condemnation, we must suppose that he had been guilty of great irregularities in his episcopal office.[395]
1688–1702.
There were to be found distinguished clergymen occupying parochial cures—clergymen eminent for learning, godliness, and zeal, amidst the bustle of a London life. Some were Anglican. William Beveridge, Rector of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, united with a profound reverence for antiquity, an attachment to doctrinal truths dear to Puritans. He insisted upon Episcopacy, Sacraments, the observance of Lent, and fellowship with the Church of England, and he did this often in a narrow, hard, exclusive spirit; yet he sometimes preached sermons such as would be admired by modern Evangelicals.[396] Those published in six octavo volumes, were regarded at the time as forming a valuable theological library. They exhibit no closeness of reasoning or sagacity of remark, no command of illustration, or felicity of style, yet they are sensible, unaffected, and somewhat forcible, from the manifest sincerity and earnestness of the author. Beveridge’s Thoughts on Religion are perhaps the most edifying, certainly the best known of his works, though they were written when he was a young man; but as to terseness of expression—not as to breadth of thought—he appears, in my judgment, to more advantage in his Ecclesia Anglicana, Ecclesia Catholica, a posthumous work on the Articles. In the exposition of the XI. Article, on Justification, he decidedly follows the Puritan lead, saying, “It is not by the inhesion of grace in us, but by the imputation of righteousness to us, that we are justified; as it is not by the imputation of righteousness to us, but by the inhesion of grace in us, that we are sanctified.” As to the XVII. Article, on Predestination, he is cautious, and his quotations would not satisfy, but they do not condemn, Calvinistic Divines.
DISTINGUISHED CLERGYMEN.
Down in the pleasant county of Gloucester, at the Rectory of Avening, George Bull—besides his literary labours, which before the end of the century won for him such high renown, that he was complimented by Bossuet—showed himself to be indefatigable in discharging pastoral duties, putting down country revels, and otherwise aiming at the improvement of his parishioners.
In Wiltshire, John Norris, an English disciple of Malbranche, held the living of Bemerton; and, while he practised the quiet virtues of the parish priest, he selected for the pulpit, subjects of a moral and spiritual nature, rather than the more distinctive truths connected with our redemption by Christ; not but that there is a tone in Norris’s teaching in unison with habits of thought cultivated by modern Evangelicals.[397] His published discourses, for the most part, are plain and practical; yet sometimes his handling of topics is such as to make his readers think that he shot over the heads of the Wiltshire farmers and peasantry. In Suffolk, William Burkett, Rector of Milden, added to his ministerial excellence, large-hearted efforts for the French refugees, and for preaching the Gospel in America. He secured a long reputation by his Expository Notes on the New Testament, which strongly reflect the opinions of others, and whilst decidedly Arminian, are more practical than critical. Of a well-known Kentish clergyman, Stanhope, Vicar of Lewisham, in no sense a party man, Evelyn remarks: “He is one of the most accomplished preachers I ever heard, for matter, eloquence, action, and voice.”[398]
1688–1702.
In closing this list of distinguished clergymen, I would refer to two men known as ecclesiastical archæologists, rather than as preachers and pastors. John Strype, Incumbent of Low Leyton, in Essex, then between fifty and sixty years of age, was just beginning that career as a biographer and historian, which he prolonged for so many years afterwards, and for which he had so laboriously amassed materials during the previous portion of his life. His memoirs of Cranmer, Smith, and Aylmer, which issued from the press under William III., and the large correspondence of the author at the time, preserved in the University Library at Cambridge, indicate, in connection with his diligence of research, his busy care respecting ecclesiastical affairs. Working hard upon black-letter books and hardly decipherable MSS., he was ready as a rural Dean, at the call of his Diocesan, to arrange for clerical meetings, or to preach visitation sermons.[399] Henry Wharton at the same time, though a young man, was closing his course as a laborious editor and critic, in fact, a martyr to excessive study; and, in turning over the Strype Correspondence, I was much touched by the following passage, in a letter written to Strype by one of Wharton’s friends, in reference to a visit paid him at Canterbury:—“One day he opened his trunk and drawers, and showed me his great collections concerning the state of our Church, and with a deep sigh told me that all his labours were at an end, and that his strength would not permit him to finish any more of the subject.”[400]