The ‘Form of Penance and Reconciliation of a Renegado or Apostate from the Christian Religion to Turcism,’[16] which Wren and Laud prepared together, is a very striking one. First came the solemn excommunication, then for two Sundays the penitent came to the door of his parish church in a white sheet carrying a white wand, craving the prayers of all ‘good Christians for a poor wretched renegado;’ on the second Sunday he was allowed to enter and kneel by the font and pray to be ‘restored to the rights and benefits of the blessed sacrament which I have so wickedly abjured,’ and then return to the church porch as before. On the third Sunday, when the Apostles’ creed had been said, after being publicly put in mind of his sin, and advised ‘that a slight and ordinary sorrow is not enough for so grievous an offence,’ the penitent, kneeling eastward, and bowing to the very pavement, was to confess his sin and declare his sorrow and repentance, and to ask the prayers of the congregation. Also to ‘thank God for His mercies, especially for the divine ordinance of His Holy Sacraments, and of His heavenly power committed to His Holy Priests, in His Church for the reconciliation of sinners unto Himself and the absolving them from all their iniquity.’
‘Then,’ says the rubric, ‘let the Priest come forth to him, and stand over him, and laying his hand on his head, say, as is prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, thus:—
Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to his Church to absolve all sinners which truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences; and, by His authority committed unto me, I absolve thee from this thy heinous crime of renunciation, and from all thy other sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.’
After this follows, with slight alteration, a collect, also from the Visitation of the Sick, and then the priest was to take the penitent by the hand, take away from him the white sheet and the wand, and address to him, once again as dear brother, an affectionate exhortation to walk worthy ‘of so great a mercy,’ and promise him re-admission to the Holy Communion on the next opportunity. How often this service was employed does not appear. The whole form is so beautiful that it is matter for regret it should be so much forgotten.
Wren had been Bishop of Hereford but one year, when the Bishop of Norwich, Dr. R. Corbet, was translated to Oxford, and Bishop Wren translated in turn to the vacant see. It is easy to see Laud’s hand in this. Norwich was a large wide diocese, much shaken by schism and faction and abounding with lecturers who were the torment of the Church at that time and were not unaptly compared ‘to bats or reremice, being neither birds nor beasts, and yet both together,’[17] i.e. neither clerk nor layman.
They were not unfrequently men who had been ordained without cure of souls and served as chaplains in gentlemen’s houses, or men whose orders were doubtful, or mere laymen who had failed in other callings. They were all strong Calvinists, seldom read the services, but called a fast, quite irrespective of those of the Church, and gave a lecture. This speedily became a ‘running lecture,;’ i.e. was not confined to one place but ran from parish to parish. Every possible check was put by the Archbishop upon these lectures, which were fatal to the proper order of the parishes and all church discipline. Private gentlemen were forbidden to have chaplains, all who preached were compelled to wear a surplice and first to read the Church Service, and in the afternoon to teach the Church Catechism. Wren, Mainwaring, Corbet, Montague, and other like-minded bishops set themselves vigorously to enforce the Archbishop’s plans, esteeming the discipline and doctrine of the Church more valuable than the popularity which their firmness forfeited. Norwich presented an especial difficulty to the Bishop in the great number of weavers and other workmen who had taken refuge there from the Low Countries in times of persecution, and who still kept up their schismatic services.
As his treatment of the Norwich weavers has always been the principal ground of attack against Wren, from Lord Clarendon down to writers of the present time, it is needful to enter somewhat into the question, and to see where the truth lies.
FOREIGN CONGREGATIONS.
These foreign workmen had settled in England at various times, escaping from persecutions in the Low Countries and in France, and, though they had never had any distinct permission to use their own services, their doing so had been winked at by Queen Elizabeth and King James. Now they had reached a third generation and continued to profit by an exemption which was enjoyed by no other body of the kingdom. It will be borne in mind that as the laws then ran and were understood, every English subject was required to be also a member of the Church of England. The first generation of refugees were an exception, but when they reached a second and third generation, had their own ministers and pretended to the power of Ordination, they became an anomaly, and as Laud, when Bishop of London, said, ‘The example is of ill-consequence in Church affairs to the subjects of England, many being confirmed by it in their stubborn ways and inconformities.’ The matter was not likely to be mended by Archbishop Abbot; but when Laud succeeded him he addressed himself, in 1634, vigorously to the business, and set out this dilemma:
‘If they were not of the same religion’ (as the Church of England), ‘why should they, being strangers, born in other countries, or descending from them, expect more liberty of conscience than the Papists had, being all natives, and descending from English parents? If of the same, why should they not submit to the government and forms of worship, being the outward acts and exercises of the religion here by law established?’