In his first speech to his parliament, he promised to support the church of England as by law established; yet, two days after his accession, he went publicly to mass. The very same year he appointed several popish officers to posts in the army, in direct violation of the statute passed in the late reign on this subject. In 1686, he endeavoured to induce the twelve judges to declare the legality of the dispensing power. While under the direction of a jesuit, his confessor, a majority of papists were introduced into his council; and at the same period several popish bishops were publicly consecrated in St. James’s Chapel, contrary to the laws of the land. Many of his nobles were removed from their offices of trust and honour, simply for refusing to embrace popery, while the clergy were commanded not to introduce controversial topics into their sermons; and because Sharp, subsequently archbishop of York, refused to comply with the royal order, he was prosecuted in the courts of justice, and his diocesan, the bishop of London, was actually suspended for refusing to censure him contrary to law. In 1687, under the pretence of relieving the dissenters, he dispensed with the penal laws, in order that popery might be propagated under cover of a toleration. In 1688, seven bishops were committed to the Tower, for no other crime than that of petitioning his majesty in favour of the civil and religious liberties of the country. At length, when the king’s designs were obvious to all men, the prince of Orange was applied to by the general consent of the English nation. That great prince responded to the call, and, after some little delay at sea, landed on our shores on the Fifth of November, 1688, and completed the deliverance of the country from the yoke of bondage. Well, therefore, may this event be coupled with the deliverance of this nation from the Gunpowder Treason of 1605.

It must strike the reader as very strange, that in matters of religion, we should not be left at liberty to act for ourselves, without the interference of the pope and the Roman church. This very fact shows, that her claim of supremacy is an essential part of her system. The church of England, the papists allege, has made a departure from the church of Christ. This would be a grievous charge, if it could be proved. The church of Christ commands nothing but what is comformable to the Saviour’s will; nor does she require her children to believe anything, which is not expressly contained in the Scriptures, or by evident consequence deduced from those sacred oracles. It is, therefore, false to assert, that the church of England has made a separation from the church of Christ. She merely opposes those dogmas, which cannot be proved from sacred scripture. So far from separating from the church of Christ, she did not even separate from the church of Rome. The church of England, in a lawful synod, assembled early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, declared certain opinions, which were held by some in her communion, to be contrary to the word of God. This power the church of England ever possessed; and ages before the Reformation she had often exercised it. This power had been wrested from the church of England by force; and at the Reformation she recovered it. William the Conqueror, and many of his successors, though sons of the Roman church, yet acted as independently as Queen Elizabeth. For ages our kings did not permit letters to be received from Rome without being submitted to their inspection: they did not permit any councils to be held without their permission; so that ecclesiastical councils were at length termed convocations, and were always assembled by the authority of the crown. They did not permit any synodical decree to take effect, but with their concurrence, and confirmation. Bishops could not excommunicate any baron or great officer without the royal precept; or if they did, they were called to account for their conduct in the courts of law. They never permitted a legate from the pope to enter England, but by express consent; nor did they suffer appeals to Rome, as was the case when the encroachments of the papacy were further advanced. Frequently they would not permit bishops to be confirmed in their sees by the pope, but commanded the archbishop of Canterbury to give possession to the individuals appointed to fill them. These are a few instances in which our kings in ancient times exercised a power in ecclesiastical affairs independent of the pope; and, therefore, Queen Elizabeth had a full right to act as her predecessors had done for so many ages. The same power had been possessed and exercised by every national church from the earliest times. She proceeded, therefore, to correct abuses; and the pope and his followers, without even examining the matter, and setting at nought the ancient privileges of the kingdom, designated this procedure a departure from the church. The pope wished to impose, as articles of belief, certain doctrines, which had no foundation in Scripture: the English church refused to receive them; and the pope condemned us as schismatics and heretics. Yet, in all reason those who depart from the Bible, not those who adhere to it, must be the heretics. To impose these same articles of belief the Gunpowder Treason was planned! To impose the same, James II. resorted to those means, which are so well known as having caused him the loss of his crown. To commemorate our deliverance from such an authority—from such a yoke of bondage—and from such cruel tyranny, the Fifth of November was ordered by act of parliament to be for ever kept holy. That act is still in force; and I am convinced that it will remain in force; for no minister of the crown, however inclined to favour and conciliate the Papists, will ever be so rash as to call for a repeal of that act. Such an attempt would rouse the Protestant feeling of the empire: it would be viewed as a precursor of the complete ascendency of popery. I am convinced that the repeal of the act, if such a thing were carried, would cause the Protestants of England to observe the day with more solemnity than has ever been practised since the passing of the act. Our churches would be opened for worship; our pulpits would resound with the full declaration of the truths of our holy religion against the devices and the corruptions of popery; and the loud song of praise and thanksgiving would be offered up from England’s twelve thousand parishes, with such ardour and devotional zeal, that no attempt to crush the expression of public feeling would succeed. If, therefore, a popishly affected ministry should ever venture to repeal the act, they will be under the necessity, if they would repress the demonstration of popular feeling, of passing another act to prevent the doors of our churches from being opened, and the people from assembling together to praise God on the “Fifth of November.”

In alluding to the observance of the day, Burnet remarks, “Now our Fifth of November is to be enriched by a second service, since God has ennobled it so far, as to be the beginning of that which we may justly hope shall be our complete deliverance from all plots and conspiracies; and that this second day shall darken, if not quite wear out the former[39].” To us in the present day both deliverances may be recalled with equal advantage. Both were wonderful! Both demand a tribute of gratitude from all who love the religion of the Bible. Burnet observes in the same sermon, “You who saw the state of things three months ago, could never have thought that so total a revolution could have been brought about so easily as if it had been only the shifting of scenes. These are speaking instances to let you see of what consequence it is to a nation to have the Lord for its God. We have seen it hitherto in so eminent a manner, that we are forced to conclude that we are under a special influence of heaven: and since in God there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning, we must confess that, if there comes any change in God’s methods towards us, it arises only out of our ingratitude and unworthiness.” He then states that, if the advantages so conferred are not duly appreciated and improved, more dreadful calamities than those lately expected will overtake the country. When addressing the Commons on their duties relative to religious matters, he tells them that one important duty is, “to secure us for ever, as far as human wisdom and the force of law can do it, from ever falling under the just apprehensions of the return of idolatry any more amongst us, and the making the best provision possible against those dangers that lay on us so lately[40].”

I am disposed to think, that the act of parliament by which the observance of the day is enjoined, is not read, in the present day, in our churches: some of the clergy have never even seen it. The present work is intended to call the attention of churchmen, and especially of the clergy, to this important subject. Should I be assured, that any of my brethren have been led, by the perusal of this volume, to regard the day with more solemnity than usual, I shall feel myself amply recompensed for my labours. At the period of the Revolution, and for many years after, the act, as we learn from incidental notices of contemporary writers, was always read by the clergy from the pulpits. The people were then fully sensible of the deliverance, which had been completed on that day; while the clergy invariably directed the attention of their parishioners to the subject; and both clergy and people presented their tribute of gratitude to that gracious Being from whom all good things proceed. And why should the present generation be less mindful of the great deliverance than their ancestors? We have just as much reason to be thankful as the men of that generation; for if the papists had succeeded in their designs, not only would the liberties of that age have been sacrificed, but those also of succeeding periods. May the Protestants of this kingdom never be forgetful of the glorious Arm by which our salvation from papal thraldom and error was alone effected! It is generally allowed that a retrospection into the transactions of past ages is as a glass, in which the clearest view of future events may be obtained: for, by comparing things together, we shall arrive at this conclusion, that men of the same principles will always, either directly or indirectly, aim at the same ends. The end, which all Romanists have in view, is the destruction of the church of England as the greatest bulwark of Protestantism. In past ages this end was sought to be accomplished directly by treason and murder; in the present day the end is attempted by secret means, by an affectation of moderation, and by an avowal of sentiments which are not in reality maintained. Let Protestants ever bear in mind, that the same causes will generally produce the same effects, though the means employed may be varied according to times and circumstances. Ever since the revolution in 1688, popery, in this country, has worn a mask; but the papal party are now venturing to cast it aside, and to appear in their real character. Within the last few years scenes have been exhibited in this Protestant land, which our ancestors would never for one moment have tolerated. Many Protestants are lukewarm amid these ominous proceedings. May they be aroused from their present apathy into a spirit worthy of the men, by whom our deliverance from papal tyranny was effected in One Thousand Six Hundred and Eighty-Eight.

Footnotes:

[35] I give the Act entire, because I am not aware that it is to be found in any popular form; and it is desirable that the present generation should know how this treason was viewed by their ancestors.

[36] Fuller, book x. 38. From several of the incidental notices in the works of writers of the times of James I. and Charles I., we learn that the observance of the day was gradually neglected. In a curious work of the date of 1618, there is a notice to the effect that the people were cold in praising God for their deliverance. See Garey’s Amphitheatrum Scelerum. 4to. 1618. In the reigns of Charles II. and James II., when the dread of popery was general, the people universally observed the Fifth of November as a day of thanksgiving to God.

[37] I notice these alterations, because the original service is very rare, and consequently accessible only to a few.

[38] See The Interest of the Princes and States of Christendom, by the Duke De Rohan, translated into English by H. H. Page 53, 12mo. 1641.

[39] Burnet’s Thanksgiving Sermon before the Commons, Jan. 31, 1688-1689.