The king also sent a message, by the Earl of Nottingham, in which he expressed his hope that convocation would not “disappoint his good intentions, or deprive the Church of any benefit from their consultations.”
Of course, it was necessary to acknowledge the royal message, by an address to his Majesty. This gave rise to vexatious and most disreputable squabbles; and the result was, that, without any discussion whatever on the important matters that had been recommended by the royal commissioners, convocation was dissolved on February 6, 1690; nor was it suffered to meet again for the transaction of business for the next ten years. Thus ended the project for comprehending Dissenters within the pale of the Church of England, the last attempt of the kind that has been made.[[84]]
From this time dates the long struggle between the two great parties of Conformists. These parties, indeed, had, under various forms, existed within the Anglican communion ever since the Reformation; but, till after the Revolution, they were not marshalled in regular and permanent order of battle against each other, and therefore were not known by established names. Now they began to be called the High-Church party and the Low-Church party. The High-Church party sympathised with James, and were cool friends to William, and thought that no man who was an enemy to the ecclesiastical constitution of the realm ought to be permitted to bear any part in the civil government. The Low-Church party stood between the Nonconformists and the rigid Conformists, and contained, as it still contains, two different elements—a Puritan and a Latitudinarian element. They saw nothing in the existing polity and ceremonial of the Church of England which could make it their duty to become Dissenters; but, at the same time, they held that both the polity and ceremonial were means, not ends, and that the essential spirit of Christianity might exist without Episcopal orders, and without a Book of Common Prayer. They had, while James was on the throne, been mainly instrumental in forming the great Protestant coalition against Popery and tyranny, and they continued, in 1689, to hold the same conciliatory language which they had held in 1688. They greatly blamed the scruples of the Nonconformists, but thought the reflections thrown on them by the High-Church party to be grossly unjust.[[85]]
More than one Methodist historian has said that Samuel Wesley was “a rigid Tory in politics, and a High Churchman in religious principle;” that he “regarded Charles I. as properly a martyr; and was very much attached to the interests of James.” I respectfully doubt, to some extent, the correctness of these assertions.
Samuel Wesley was not a Jacobite, and, in the first instance, he was not a Tory. There is no evidence to show that he was attached to the interests of James; but, on the contrary, he was disgusted with James’s tyranny at Oxford, and was the author of the first pamphlet published in defence of the Revolution. John Wesley says, his father was a Tory, in the sense of being “one that believes God, not the people, to be the origin of all civil power;”[[86]] but he likewise asserts, that his “father always praised God for the happy revolution of 1688.”[[87]]
Then as it regards his being a High Churchman;—it is true that he considered Charles I. as an injured sovereign and properly a martyr. He held the same opinions as his son John, who writes, “All agree that King Charles was a pattern of piety, sobriety, temperance, and chastity. He could not endure an obscene or profane word. He was punctual in his devotions, both public and private. He was rigorously just; but is supposed to have been sometimes wanting in sincerity. He was a good father, a good master, and a good husband; yea, a fond one, which was the chief source of his troubles, together with the wrong bias towards arbitrary power which had been instilled into him from his infancy. But for this, he would have been one of the most accomplished princes that ever sat upon the English throne.”[[88]] But allowing that Samuel Wesley held such opinions,—what then? Is that a proof that Samuel Wesley was, “in religious principle, a High Churchman?” We greatly doubt it.
The High-Church party were most bitter opponents of Tillotson, the leader of the Low-Church party; whereas, Samuel Wesley was his ardent admirer, and even excessive eulogist. The High-Church party were most vehemently opposed to the scheme of Tillotson and King William, for “Comprehension,” or the uniting of Conformists and Nonconformists; while on the other hand, the Low-Church party desired its adoption; and, in this respect, Samuel Wesley agreed with them. He was in favour of admitting the Dissenters within the pale of the Established Church, and, therefore, we infer that he was in favour of the modification of church rites and ceremonies, as recommended by Tillotson and his friends in 1689. The following is an article taken from the Athenian Oracle, (vol. i. p. 301,) and was probably written by Samuel Wesley himself, or at all events, it was sanctioned by him, as one of the chief members of the Athenian Society:—
“A Comprehension, or the uniting of Conformists and Nonconformists, is undoubtedly necessary for the reforming of England. 1. Because the schism itself, on which side soever the fault lies, is a great sin and scandal, and highly needs reformation. That there is a schism is as plain as that one and one are not one, but two; since there are different churches, different communions, and hearers more different and opposite than either. 2. This union is further necessary, even to personal reformation, because the want thereof has so much obstructed it; persons being more concerned for their own particular tenets than for common Christianity; nay, entertaining the most bitter, scurrilous, and profane scoffs against the contrary party, even in their most solemn and religious performances, with approbation and pleasure. Thus while one laughs at the other’s preaching, and the other at his praying, the Atheist laughs at both, and there are very many that believe neither. 3. Another reason is, because we see not how the ancient church discipline, so much desired, and the loss thereof so much lamented, can ever without this be renewed. As things now are, let a person be excommunicated in our Church, he has the Dissenters to fly to; in theirs, he flies to us, or indeed keeps between both, rails at all, and is of neither. 4. Again, while this fatal and scandalous division lasts, it cannot be avoided, but there will still be different interests, and that powerful ones, whose struggle will be not only dangerous to the State, but breed animosities, strife, and bitterness in the different parties.”[[89]]
Such were Samuel Wesley’s arguments in favour of the attempt to bring Dissenters within the pale of the Church of England. This was not the language of the High-Church party; for that party were most stoutly opposed to the propounded scheme altogether. Samuel Wesley was no partisan of theirs; and it is a most unaccountable mistake for respectable writers to suppose he was. If he was a party man at all, he unquestionably belonged to the Tillotson or Low-Church party. It is true, that ten or twelve years afterwards, he was brought into most painful collision with his Dissenting brethren; but the fault was not his so much as Mr Clavel’s. The controversy that then took place was mournfully bitter, but it was prompted more by politics than by religion; and though it led to a full and final separation between him and his old Dissenting friends, yet we are not aware that there is a particle of evidence to show, that after this he imbibed any of the supercilious and superstitious notions generally entertained by the High-Church party of the present day. He held his ecclesiastical and political principles clearly, conscientiously, and firmly; but he was not a bigot; and, if such a confederacy as the Evangelical Alliance had then existed, he could, without a scruple, have become a sincere and active member of it.
Before leaving the High and the Low Church parties in the days of King William, it may be added, that though the Low-Church clergymen were a minority, and not a large minority, of their profession, their weight was much more than proportioned to their numbers. We should probably overrate their numerical strength if we were to estimate them at a tenth part of the priesthood. Yet it will scarcely be denied that there were among them as many men of distinguished eloquence and learning as could be found in the other nine-tenths put together.