As to rites and ceremonies, and forms of prayer; he allows there might be some useful alterations, and more, which in the prospect of uniting Christians might be very supportable, as things declared in their own nature indifferent; to which he therefore would readily comply, if the clergy, or, (though this be not so fair a method) if the legislature should direct: Yet at the same time he cannot altogether blame the former for their unwillingness to consent to any alteration; which beside the trouble, and perhaps disgrace, would certainly never produce the good effects intended by it. The only condition that could make it prudent and just for the clergy to comply in altering the ceremonial or any other indifferent part, would be, a firm resolution in the legislature to interpose by some strict and effectual laws to prevent the rising and spreading of new sects how plausible soever, for the future; else there must never be an end: And it would be to act like a man who should pull down and change the ornaments of his house, in compliance to every one who was disposed to find fault as he passed by, which besides the perpetual trouble and expense, would very much damage, and perhaps in time destroy the building. Sects in a state seem only tolerated with any reason because they are already spread; and because it would not be agreeable with so mild a government, or so pure a religion as ours, to use violent methods against great numbers of mistaken people, while they do not manifestly endanger the constitution of either. But the greatest advocates for general liberty of conscience, will allow that they ought to be checked in their beginnings, if they will allow them to be an evil at all, or which is the same thing, if they will only grant, it were better for the peace of the state, that there should be none. But while the clergy consider the natural temper of mankind in general, or of our own country in particular, what assurances can they have, that any compliances they shall make, will remove the evil of dissension, while the liberty still continues of professing whatever new opinion we please? Or how can it be imagined that the body of dissenting teachers, who must be all undone by such a revolution, will not cast about for some new objections to withhold their flocks, and draw in fresh proselytes by some further innovations or refinements?
Upon these reasons he is for tolerating such different forms in religious worship as are already admitted, but by no means for leaving it in the power of those who are tolerated, to advance their own models upon the ruin of what is already established, which it is natural for all sects to desire, and which they cannot justify by any consistent principles if they do not endeavour; and yet, which they cannot succeed in without the utmost danger to the public peace.
To prevent these inconveniences, he thinks it highly just, that all rewards of trust, profit, or dignity, which the state leaves in the disposal of the administration, should be given only to those whose principles direct them to preserve the constitution in all its parts. In the late affair of Occasional Conformity, the general argument of those who were against it, was not, to deny it an evil in itself, but that the remedy proposed was violent, untimely, and improper, which is the Bishop of Salisbury's opinion in the speech he made and published against the bill: But, however just their fears or complaints might have been upon that score, he thinks it a little too gross and precipitate to employ their writers already in arguments for repealing the sacramental test, upon no wiser a maxim, than that no man should on the account of conscience be deprived the liberty of serving his country; a topic which may be equally applied to admit Papists, Atheists, Mahometans, Heathens, and Jews. If the Church wants members of its own to employ in the service of the public; or be so unhappily contrived as to exclude from its communion such persons who are likeliest to have great abilities, it is time it should be altered and reduced into some more perfect, or at least more popular form: But in the meanwhile, it is not altogether improbable, that when those who dislike the constitution, are so very zealous in their offers for the service of their country, they are not wholly unmindful of their party or of themselves.
The Dutch whose practice is so often quoted to prove and celebrate the great advantages of a general liberty of conscience, have yet a national religion professed by all who bear office among them: But why should they be a precedent for us either in religion or government? Our country differs from theirs, as well in situation, soil, and productions of nature, as in the genius and complexion of inhabitants. They are a commonwealth founded on a sudden by a desperate attempt in a desperate condition, not formed or digested into a regular system by mature thought and reason, but huddled up under the pressure of sudden exigencies; calculated for no long duration, and hitherto subsisting by accident in the midst of contending powers, who cannot yet agree about sharing it among them. These difficulties do indeed preserve them from any great corruptions, which their crazy constitution would extremely subject them to in a long peace. That confluence of people in a persecuting age, to a place of refuge nearest at hand, put them upon the necessity of trade, to which they wisely gave all ease and encouragement: And if we could think fit to imitate them in this last particular, there would need no more to invite foreigners among us; who seem to think no further than how to secure their property and conscience, without projecting any share in that government which gives them protection, or calling it persecution if it be denied them. But I speak it for the honour of our administration, that although our sects are not so numerous as those in Holland, which I presume is not our fault, and I hope is not our misfortune, we much excel them and all Christendom besides in our indulgence to tender consciences.[2] One single compliance with the national form of receiving the sacrament, is all we require to qualify any sectary among us for the greatest employments in the state, after which he is at liberty to rejoin his own assemblies for the rest of his life. Besides, I will suppose any of the numerous sects in Holland, to have so far prevailed as to have raised a civil war, destroyed their government and religion, and put their administrators to death; after which I will suppose the people to have recovered all again, and to have settled on their old foundation. Then I would put a query, whether that sect which was the unhappy instrument of all this confusion, could reasonably expect to be entrusted for the future with the greatest employments, or indeed to be hardly tolerated among them?
[Footnote 2: When this was written there was no law against Occasional
Conformity. [Faulkner, 1735.]
To go on with the sentiments of a Church of England man: He does not see how that mighty passion for the Church which some men pretend, can well consist with those indignities and that contempt they bestow on the persons of the clergy.[3] Tis a strange mark whereby to distinguish High Churchmen, that they are such who imagine the clergy can never be too low. He thinks the maxim these gentlemen are so fond of, that they are for an humble clergy, is a very good one; and so is he, and for an humble laity too, since humility is a virtue that perhaps equally benefits and adorns every station of life.
[Footnote 3: "I observed very well with what insolence and haughtiness some lords of the High-Church party treated, not only their own chaplains, but all other clergy whatsoever, and thought this was sufficiently recompensed by their professions of zeal to the church.">[
But then, if the scribblers on the other side freely speak the sentiments of their party, a divine of the Church of England cannot look for much better quarter thence. You shall observe nothing more frequent in their weekly papers than a way of affecting to confound the terms of Clergy and High Church, of applying both indifferently, and then loading the latter with all the calumny they can invent. They will tell you they honour a clergyman; but talk, at the same time, as if there were not three in the kingdom, who could fall in with their definition.[4] After the like manner they insult the universities, as poisoned fountains, and corrupters of youth.
[Footnote 4: "I had likewise observed how the Whig lords took a direct contrary measure, treated the persons of particular clergymen with great courtesy, but shewed much ill-will and contempt for the order in general.">[
Now, it seems clear to me, that the Whigs might easily have procured and maintained a majority among the clergy, and perhaps in the universities, if they had not too much encouraged or connived at this intemperance of speech and virulence of pen, in the worst and most prostitute of their party; among whom there has been for some years past such a perpetual clamour against the ambition, the implacable temper, and the covetousness of the priesthood: Such a cant of High Church, and persecution, and being priest-ridden; so many reproaches about narrow principles, or terms of communion: Then such scandalous reflections on the universities, for infecting the youth of the nation with arbitrary and Jacobite principles, that it was natural for those, who had the care of religion and education, to apprehend some general design of altering the constitution of both. And all this was the more extraordinary, because it could not easily be forgot, that whatever opposition was made to the usurpations of King James, proceeded altogether from the Church of England, and chiefly from the clergy, and one of the universities. For, if it were of any use to recall matters of fact, what is more notorious than that prince's applying himself first to the Church of England? And upon their refusal to fall in with his measures, making the like advances to the dissenters of all kinds, who readily and almost universally complied with him, affecting in their numerous addresses and pamphlets, the style of Our Brethren the Roman Catholics, whose interests they put on the same foot with their own: And some of Cromwell's officers took posts in the army raised against the Prince of Orange.[5] These proceedings of theirs they can only extenuate by urging the provocations they had met from the Church in King Charles's reign, which though perhaps excusable upon the score of human infirmity, are not by any means a plea of merit equal to the constancy and sufferings of the bishops and clergy, or of the head and fellows of Magdalen College, that furnished the Prince of Orange's declaration with such powerful arguments to justify and promote the Revolution.