Although these two threads, like the warp and the woof, are very
distinct things; yet, like them, they are usually woven together. Each
possesses a strength of its own, but when united, have often become
extremely powerful, as in the case of Henry the Third and the clergy.
This union, at times, subsisted from a very early date.
Power is the idol of man; we not only wish to acquire it, but also to
increase and preserve it. If the magistrate has been too weak to execute
his designs, he has backed his schemes with the aid of the church; this
occurred with King Stephen and the Bishops.
Likewise, if a churchman finds his power ascendant in the human mind, he
still wishes an addition to that power, by uniting another. Thus the
Bishop of Rome, being master of the spiritual chair, stept also into
the temporal.
Sometimes the ecclesiastical and civil governors appear in malign
aspect, or in modern phrase, like a quarrel between the squire and the
rector, which is seldom detrimental to the people. This was the case
with Henry the Eighth and the church.
The curses of a priest hath sometimes brought a people into obedience to
the King, when he was not able to bring them himself. One could not
refrain from smiling, to hear a Bishop curse the people for obeying
their Sovereign, and in a few months after, curse them again if they did
not; which happened in the reign of King John. But, happy for the world,
that these retail dealers in the wrath of heaven are become extinct, and
the market is over.
Birmingham, in those remote periods of time, does not seem to have
attended so much to religious and political dispute, as to the course
music of her hammer. Peace seems to have been her characteristic--She
paid obedience to that Prince had the good fortune to possess the
throne, and regularly paid divine honours in St. Martin's, because
there was no other church. Thus, through the long ages of Saxon, Danish,
and Norman government, we hear of no noise but that of the anvil, till
the reign of Henry the Third, when her Lord joined the Barons against
the Crown, and drew after him some of his mechanics, to exercise the
very arms they had been taught to make; and where, at the battle of
Evesham, he staked his life and his fortune, and lost both.
Things quickly returning into their former channel, she stood a silent
spectator during that dreadful contest between the two roses, pursuing
the tenor of still life till the civil wars of Charles I. when she took
part with the Parliament, some of whose troops were stationed here,
particularly at the Garrison and Camp-hill; the names of both
originating in that circumstance.
Prince Rupert, as hinted before, approaching Birmingham in 1643 with a
superior power, forced the lines, and as a punishment set fire to the
town. His vengeance burned fiercely in Bull-street, and the affrighted
inhabitants quenched the flames with a heavy fine.
In 1660, she joined the wish of the kingdom, in the restoration of the
Stuart family. About this time, many of the curious manufactures began
to blossom in this prosperous garden of the arts.
In 1688, when the nation chose to expel a race of Kings, though replete
with good nature, because they had forgot the limits of justice; our
peaceable sons of art, wisely considering, that oppression and commerce,
like oil and water, could never unite, smiled with the rest of the
kingdom at the landing of the Prince of Orange, and exerted their little
assistance towards effecting the Revolution, notwithstanding the lessons
of _divine right_ had been taught near ninety years.
In the reign of Queen Anne, when that flaming luminary, Dr. Sacheverel,
set half the kingdom in blaze, the inhabitants of this region of
industry caught the spark of the day, and grew warm for the church--They
had always been inured to _fire_, but now we behold them between _two_.
As the doctor rode in triumph through the streets of Birmingham, this
flimsy idol of party snuffed up the incense of the populace, but the
more sensible with held their homage; and when he preached at Sutton
Coldfield, where he had family connections, the people of Birmingham
crowded in multitudes round his pulpit. But it does not appear that he
taught his hearers to _build up Zion_, but perhaps to pull her down;
for they immediately went and gutted a meeting-house.
It is easy to point out a time when it was dangerous to have been of the
established church, and I have here pointed out one, when it was
dangerous to profess any other.
We are apt to think the zeal of our fathers died with them, for I have
frequently beheld with pleasure, the churchman, the presbyterian, and
the quaker uniting their efforts, like brethren, to carry on a work of
utility. The bigot of the last age casts a malicious sneer upon the
religion of another, but the man of this passes a joke upon his own.
A sameness in religious sentiment is no more to be expected, than a
sameness of face. If the human judgment varies in almost every subject
of plain knowledge, how can it be fixed in this, composed of mystery?
As the true religion is ever that which a man professes himself, it is
necessary to enquire, What means, he that is right may use, to convert
him that is wrong?
As the whole generations of faggot and torture, are extinct in this age
of light, there seems only to remain fair arguments founded in reason,
and these can only be brought as evidences upon the trial: The culprit
himself, _by indefeasible right divine_, will preside as the judge. Upon
a close enquiry it will be found, that his sentiments are as much his
private property, as the coat that covers him, or the life which that
coat incloses.
Is there not as much reason to punish my neighbour for differing in
opinion from me, as to punish me, because I differ from him? Or, is
there any to punish either?
If a man's sentiments and practice in religious matters, appear even
absurd, provided society is not injured, what right hath the magistrate
to interfere?
The task is as easy to make the stream run upwards, as to form a nation
of one mind. We may pronounce with confidence, an age of bigotry is no
age of philosophy.
The gentle hand of Brunswick, had swayed the British sceptre near half a
century, ere all the sons of science in this meridian, were compleatly
reconciled to this favourite line.
But unanimity, with benign aspect, seems now the predominant star of the
zenith: A friendly intercourse succeeds suspicion. The difference of
sentiment, that once created jealousy, now excites a smile; and the
narrow views of our forefathers are prudently expanded.
[Illustration: _St. John's Chapel, Deritend_.]