It is a curious coincidence that Tillotson, Barrow, and Howe were
all born in the year 1630. Tillotson’s father lived at Sowerby,
near Halifax; a respectable clothier, a decided Puritan, a zealous
Calvinist, yet at that time an Episcopalian in practice, for he had his
child baptized in the Church of his native village, and a gentleman,
afterwards Rector of Thornhill, stood godfather. When this little
boy came to be Archbishop, his Puritan parentage, and the fact of
his father being a Baptist, occasioned reproach; it was said that he
had never been baptized in any way, and a preacher before the House
of Commons, after Tillotson’s elevation to the Primacy, is supposed
to have alluded to the rumour, when he declared, with more absurdity
than wit, that there were fathers of the Church who never were her
sons. The register of Sowerby, however, sets that question at rest,
showing that he was baptized in the parish church; and another moot
point touching Tillotson’s ecclesiastical life, namely, whether he was
ever episcopally ordained, is now also settled; it appears he received
ordination from a Scotch Bishop--the Bishop of Galloway.[216]
[Sidenote: TILLOTSON.]
Educated at Cambridge under the Commonwealth by Puritan tutors, he
afterwards became identified with the Latitudinarian school of
Divines, but in 1661 we find him amongst the Presbyterians, preaching
a morning exercise at Cripplegate. He certainly conformed in 1662,
and that fact itself implies his submission to Episcopal ordination.
At an early period he attained celebrity as a preacher, although he
read his sermons, and never was able to preach without a manuscript.
It is related of him that on one occasion he made an attempt to speak
extempore upon a plain text, and one upon which he has five discourses
in his printed works; yet he found himself so much at a loss, “that
after about ten minutes spent with great pain to himself, and no great
satisfaction to his audience, he came down with a resolution never
to make the like attempt for the future.”[217] He was successively
Curate at Cheshunt; Rector of Ketton, or Kedington in the County of
Suffolk; preacher at Lincoln’s Inn; Tuesday Lecturer at St. Lawrence,
Jewry; and Canon and Dean of Canterbury. After the Revolution he
accepted the Deanery of St. Paul’s, and his position in reference to
public affairs at that juncture has been noticed already; here it
will be sufficient to trace the steps by which he reached the highest
position in the Church of England. In some way Tillotson had become a
personal favourite with the Prince of Orange, and had been desired to
preach before him at St. James’s, soon after his arrival in London.
Burnet interested himself zealously on the Dean’s behalf; but, beyond
personal grounds, the popularity of this Divine as a preacher, his
eminent abilities, his opposition to the policy of the late King,
his liberal politics, his desire for Comprehension, his conciliatory
temper, and his moderation in ecclesiastical affairs, recommended him
to the new Sovereign as fitted to occupy the post vacated by Sancroft.
The very day Tillotson kissed hands on his appointment to the Deanery
in September, 1689, the King told him, in reply to his thanks for
an office which had set him at ease for the rest of his life, that
this was no great matter, for his services would soon be needed in
the highest office of the Church.[218] In February, 1690, William
pressed upon Tillotson the acceptance of the Primacy; of his extreme
reluctance to accept it there can be no doubt; his conversation with
his Royal Master, his correspondence with Lady Rachel Russell, and his
own private memoranda, prove that if ever a man honestly said, _Nolo
Episcopari_, Tillotson did. What he wrote within a year afterwards
shows that to him the archiepiscopal throne was a bed, not of roses,
but of thorns. The _congé d’élire_ was issued May the 1st, and
his consecration followed on Whit-Sunday at St. Mary-le-Bow, when the
congregation included some of the principal Whig nobility, and his
progress along Cheapside was an ovation amidst crowds who admired both
his eloquence and his liberality.
[Sidenote: 1691.]
He took possession of Lambeth Palace in November, 1691, having first
repaired the building, altered the windows, wainscoted the rooms, and
erected a large apartment for his wife, he being one of the earliest
Archbishops living there in lawful wedlock.
[Sidenote: SANCROFT.]
With congratulations from friends there came insults from foes. Arian,
Socinian, Deist, Atheist, were titles bestowed on his Grace; and in
allusion to the doubts respecting his baptism, he received the nickname
of _Undipped John_. His manner of bearing such treatment showed
his proficiency in the Christian virtues of patience and meekness. One
day, when he was conversing with a gentleman, a servant brought in a
sealed packet containing a mask. The Archbishop smiled, and said, “This
is a gentle rebuke, if compared with some others in black and white,”
pointing to papers lying on the table. A bundle of letters, found after
his death, exhibited a memorandum in his own handwriting, “These are
libels. I pray God forgive them; I do.”[219]
[Sidenote: 1692.]
It is interesting to follow Sancroft into his retirement. He left the
Metropolis--never to see it again--in August, 1691, for Fresingfield, a
village in Suffolk, where his family had been settled for generations,
where his ancestors lay buried in the parish church, and where he
himself had been born and baptized. He went down at harvest-time, the
sweet air and quiet of the place being, as he said, so preferable to
the smoke and noise of London. Presently we find him busy in building
a new house, reckoning up the time it would take to daub and tile it,
to clothe and cover it in, amidst the dews and mists which might be
expected to begin by St. Bartholomew’s-day--then at hand. He complains
of being weakly, and describes himself as eating bread-and-butter in a
morning, and “superbibing a second dish of coffee after it;” waiting
to see what that, and time, and native air would do for his health.
He gave up pills, and swallowed juniper-berries, and lived upon plain
food, and ate with a keener appetite than he had been accustomed to at
Lambeth. In the late autumn the new house remained incomplete; there
was winter work to do within doors, paving and flooring, daubing and
ceiling, plastering, glazing, and wainscoting, making doors and laying
hearths; the old tenement, in the meantime, being packed close from end
to end with the Bishop, his little household and workmen.[220] The
superintendence of building, which appears to have occupied him for a
time, presents a strange contrast to previous employments in the Church
and the Palace, the Court and the Council-Board; and the simplicity
of Sancroft’s rural life appears simpler still when we think of the
palatial splendour in which he had previously moved. He wished to shut
out the world; he sometimes felt like a dead man out of mind; old
friends dropped off, and tales of sorrow aroused his sympathies; yet
he seems, on the whole, to have spent a pleasant time down in Suffolk,
although those who disliked his nonjuring principles did what they
could to plague his peace. He was reported to be engaged with some of
his brethren in plots for the restoration of the exiled Monarch; and
Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, came under suspicion of the same offence,
in consequence of which he was arrested in his orchard at Bromley one
day, whilst quietly working out the heads of a sermon.[221] In the end,
these charges of conspiracy proved to be abominable fabrications, which
Sprat took care fully to expose.[222] Other Nonjurors were suspected of
treasonable intrigues, and Dean Hickes fell into great trouble. “If the
persons,” it is said in a letter written at the time, “now malignantly
fermented, should find him walking abroad, they would certainly take
him up and bring him forthwith to the King’s Bench, and be ready with
an information against him.” The Dean was advised to abscond for the
present, and so he became, “like the tortoise in winter-time, earthed
for some days.” Dr. Bryan about the same time heard that a warrant had
been issued for his apprehension, on account of his having written
“flat treason.” “It was advisable for him to step out of the way.” Ten
days later, Bishop Lloyd, to whom we are indebted for these snatches
of information, wrote again to the archiepiscopalian recluse, that
he found the Dean had removed his quarters, and desired to be very
private, and that messengers were searching for Dr. Bryan.[223]
[Sidenote: SANCROFT.]
Sancroft, who escaped arrest because Sprat, when confronted with his
accusers, exposed their falsehoods, seems to have been more annoyed
a few months before by a very different accusation. “The spirit
of calumny, the persecution of the tongue, dogs me even into this
wilderness. Dr. Lake, of Garlick Hill, and others, have (as I am
informed) filled your city with a report that I go constantly to this
parish church, and pray for I know not whom, nor how, and receive the
Holy Sacrament; so that my cousin had something to do to satisfy even
my friends that it was quite otherwise.”[224] The fallen Primate’s
intense dislike to the Establishment--as bitter as could be manifested
by any virulent Dissenter--here bursts out in unmistakable fashion.
The feeling remained as a sort of monomania to the day of his death.
It kept him from setting foot over the threshold of a parish church,
and led him to frame an instrument by which he appointed Lloyd,
the deprived Bishop of Norwich, his Vicar in all ecclesiastical
matters,[225] and inaugurated a voluntary and schismatical Episcopalian
Church.
[Sidenote: 1693.]
At the end of the year 1691 he removed into his new house, and on New
Year’s-day at family worship he officiated himself, “in a very cold
room where there never was a fire.” He would not employ a Chaplain.
The preparation and arrangement of Laud’s MSS. for the press, occupied
a good deal of his time, after which, in the month of November, 1693,
his end approached. “It touched my spirits extremely,” says Mr. North,
who visited him, “to see the low estate of this poor old saint; and
with what wonderful regard and humility he treated those who visited
him, and particularly myself.” His pious ejaculations were carefully
recorded by his friends, and we are glad to find him saying to a
visitor, “You and I have gone different ways in these late affairs,
but I trust heaven’s gates are wide enough to receive us both. What
I have done, I have done in the integrity of my heart.” The approach
of mortality expands human charity, yet the ruling passion may be
strong in death. Hence, though the dying man felt kindly towards all,
he insisted that only Nonjurors should read prayers by his bedside,
or officiate at his funeral. He entreated that God would bless and
preserve His poor suffering Church, which by the Revolution had been
almost destroyed; that he would bless and preserve the King, Queen, and
Prince, and in His due time restore to them their undoubted rights.[226]
Sancroft had an active but narrow intellect, a playful but feeble
imagination, a careful but perverted judgment. His powers had been
cultivated by study, and his productions indicate compass and command
of learning. Living in a narrow circle, his prejudices were strong;
and bitter memories of Presbyterian oppression at Cambridge followed
him to the grave. His nature was not destitute of affection and
generosity, and he seems not to have been morose; he was simple in his
living, rather than ascetic in his temper. By no means a Ritualist, he
decidedly opposed Romanism, though his sentiments were what would be
called decidedly High Church. Of his conscientiousness, honesty, and
self-denial, the sacrifice of the Primacy is a sufficient proof; and of
his obstinacy, the conduct he manifested on leaving Lambeth, and the
persistency he showed in nonjuring habits, afford abundant evidence.
[Sidenote: TILLOTSON.]
Tillotson survived his predecessor little more than twelve months.
He did not occupy his See long enough to accomplish much either as
Bishop or Primate. In neither capacity has he left any memorials. No
injunctions from him appear in the Archiepiscopal Register, and his
biographer makes no mention of his visitations. We are told that he
convened an assembly of Bishops at Lambeth, when they agreed with him
upon certain regulations, which remained at his death unpublished,
as he preferred they should appear with Royal as well as Episcopal
authority, and he had not time to complete arrangements for that
purpose. His biographer furnishes a list of his deeds, which form but a
meagre total for a primacy of even two years and a half, when so much
needed to be done. Le Neve, who is particular in noting archiepiscopal
acts, has next to nothing to say of Tillotson’s archiepiscopal
career. The most he can do is to supply extracts from a MS. diary,
eulogizing the Primate’s eloquence and charities, and stating that
William, after his Grace’s death, never mentioned him without some
testimony of esteem. He used to say to Mr. Chadwick--son-in-law of the
Archbishop--“I loved your father: I never knew an honester man, and I
never had a better friend.”[227]
[Sidenote: 1694.]
From what we know of him, we should judge that the deficiency of
results during his episcopate is to be attributed more to the
difficulties of the times and the inconvenience of circumstances, than
to want of ability or the absence of devotedness.
He was seized, in the Chapel at Whitehall, with paralysis on the 18th
of November, 1694; and though the fit crept over him slowly, he would
not call for assistance, lest he should disturb Divine worship. His
death occurred on the 22nd, at the age of 65.
His character, as compared with Sancroft’s, has been differently viewed
by enemies and friends. Nonjurors said that his predecessor devised no
project for revolutionizing the Church, implying that Tillotson did;
that his predecessor was no Latitudinarian, more than insinuating that
Tillotson was; and when they spoke of Sancroft as a true Father, they
meant to affirm that his successor was by no means such. “Intruder,”
“thief,” “robber,” “ecclesiastical usurper,” were epithets fastened on
the Archbishop of the Revolution. Burnet, on the other hand, extols him
as a faithful friend, a gentle enemy, with a clear head and a tender
heart, without superstition in his religion, and, as a preacher, the
best of his age.[228]
In saying so much, Burnet probably went no further than facts warrant.
And I would add, that if Sancroft made a sacrifice in renouncing the
Archbishopric, Tillotson, according to his private confessions, made
scarcely less sacrifice in accepting it.
[Sidenote: TILLOTSON.]
Intellectually he was a man of eminence;[229] what Burnet advances
cannot be gainsayed; for Tillotson’s writings indicate a rare amount
of common sense and of calm judgment, the more remarkable in an age
of manifold passions;[230] and he shows eminent precision and force
in stating propositions and arguments, at a time when a great deal of
loose reasoning passed muster. His sermons are chiefly remarkable in
this point of view. Free from Puritan stiffness, and what many would
call Puritan enthusiasm, free also from that academical affectation
which had so long offended pure taste,--they were couched in the
language of common life, and people felt a strange pleasure, which
they could not describe, at hearing from the pulpit language such as
they heard at their own fireside. He seems to have aimed at that which
ought to be the object of every Christian preacher, to translate the
truths of the Gospel into such forms of thought and utterance as were
suited to the age in which he lived. He spoke upon religion just as men
talk upon every-day topics; and thus he brought down Divinity to the
level of his congregation. He could be earnest and even vehement in the
inculcation of truth and duty; and never would he be more acceptable
to a large class of his hearers than when, with tact and warmth, he
exposed the errors of Popery--an opportunity for doing which he rarely,
if ever, missed. His habit, too, of insisting upon the reasonableness
of almost everything he taught would coincide with the current which,
in educated circles, had strongly set in against the enforcement of
morality and religion on grounds of authority. Preachers not only help
to promote, but they reflect the spirit of their own times. Their modes
of teaching are fashioned by it. A reaction had arisen against the
authority of the Church, of the Fathers, of the Schoolmen, and of the
Reformers; consequently, sermons filled with quotations and appeals to
great names were no longer in request. Even Scripture came to be less
favourably used in the way of exclusive authority, than in the way of
addition to the force of reasoning. Texts were with many not so much
corner-stones, as pillars and buttresses. Tillotson made a large use of
Scripture, but the common key-note with him was the reasonableness of
the doctrines he laid down. I should suppose that his appearance, his
voice, and his manner in the pulpit--the fact of what he was, as well
as the circumstance of what he said, and that indefinable something
which contributes so much to a speaker’s popularity--added immensely
to the impressiveness of his elocution. There is for modern readers
nothing attractive in his style, quite the reverse. I know scarcely
any other popular sermons so hard to read. Some are exceedingly dry
and uninteresting.[231] From natural temperament he lacked what is
signified by the word _unction_. He has no strokes of pathos,
and the spirit of his theology adds to the defect, by depriving his
sermons, to some extent, of that light and beauty, that tenderness and
power, which proceed from a clear insight into the deepest spiritual
wants of humanity, and the supply made for them in the unsearchable
riches of Christ.
[Sidenote: 1694.]
Wit was not wanting amongst Tillotson’s gifts. “I hate a fanatic in
lawn sleeves,” cried one of his detractors--“I hate a knave in any
sleeves,” replied the Prelate. He said South “wrote like a man, but
bit like a dog;” and when South replied, “he would rather bite like
a dog, than fawn like one,” Tillotson rejoined, “that for his part he
would choose to be a spaniel rather than a cur.”[232] Sancroft was a
Tory. Tillotson, through the discipline of the Revolution, had cast
off the last remnant of the doctrine which he unfortunately inculcated
at the time of Russel’s execution. Tillotson had by his Puritan birth,
childhood, and education, imbibed feelings which he never completely
lost; and his personal sympathies with those who retained a Puritan
creed continued to live in his later days, fostered by friendly
intercourse with members of nonconforming communions. Yet perhaps he
had not a whit more of love for Nonconformity than High Churchmen,
whose reputation for charity his own completely eclipsed.
[Sidenote: TENISON.]
As in our day, so it was in the days of William the III., when a
vacancy occurred in the See of Canterbury, different names were
suggested for its supply. Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, and Hall,
Bishop of Bristol, were both mentioned, and their merits canvassed,
but after the lot had been shaken a little in the Royal urn, guided
by the Queen, it fell upon Thomas Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln. He had
been a distinguished London clergyman, prominent in opposing Popery and
King James. A nobleman, wishing to secure the Bishopric of Lincoln for
some one else, and to prejudice the Queen against Tenison, told Her
Majesty that he had delivered a funeral sermon for Nell Gwyn, and had
praised that concubine of Charles II. “I have heard as much,” replied
Mary; “this is a sign that that poor unfortunate woman died penitent;
for if I can read a man’s heart through his looks, had not she made
a truly pious and Christian end, the Doctor could never have been
induced to speak well of her.”[233] Tenison’s conduct in the diocese
of Lincoln increased the high estimation in which he was held by Mary,
and consequently he was nominated to Canterbury on the 8th of December,
1694, and confirmed in his election in the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow on
the 16th of January, 1695.
[Sidenote: 1695.]
Between those two dates, his Royal patroness sickened with the
small-pox, three days before Christmas, and died three days after.
I shall employ a passage in the funeral sermon which he preached on
the occasion, not only because it well describes the event, but also
because it exhibits the preacher’s style, and occasioned at the time
considerable controversy.
“Some few days before the feast of our Lord’s nativity, she found
herself indisposed. I will not say that of this affliction she had
any formal presage, but yet there was something that looked like an
immediate preparation for it. I mean her choosing to hear read more
than once a little before it, the last sermon of a good and learned man
(now with God) upon this subject: ‘What, shall we receive good from
the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?’ This indisposition
speedily grew up into a dangerous distemper; as soon as this was
understood, the earliest care of this charitable mistress was for the
removing of such immediate servants, as might by distance, be preserved
in health. Soon after this she fixed the times of prayers in that
chamber to which her sickness had confined her.
[Sidenote: TENISON.]
“On that very day she showed how sensible she was of death, and how
little she feared it. She required him who officiated there to add that
collect in the Communion of the Sick, in which are these words, ‘That
whensoever the soul shall depart from the body, it may be, without
spot, presented unto Thee.’ ‘I will,’ said she, ‘have this collect read
twice every day. All have need to be put in mind of death, and Princes
as much as anybody else.’
“On Monday the flattering disease occasioned some hopes, though they
were but faint ones. On the next day, the festival of Christ’s birth,
those hopes were raised into a kind of assurance, and there was joy, a
great joy seen in the countenances of all good people. That joy endured
but for a day, and that day was closed with a very dismal night. The
disease showed itself in various forms, and small hopes of life were
now left. Then it was that he who performed the holy offices, believed
himself obliged to acquaint the good Queen of the small hopes all
had of any likelihood of her recovery. She received the tidings with
a courage agreeable to the strength of her faith. Loath she was to
terrify those about her; but for herself, she seemed neither to fear
death, nor to covet life. It was, you may imagine, high satisfaction
to hear her say a great many most Christian things, and this among
them: ‘I believe I shall now soon die, and I thank God I have, from my
youth, learned a true doctrine, that repentance is not to be put off
to a death-bed.’ That day she called for prayers a third time, fearing
she had slept a little, when they were the second time read; for she
thought a duty was not performed if it was not minded.
[Sidenote: 1695.]
“On Thursday she prepared herself for the blessed communion, to which
she had been no stranger from the 15th year of her age. She was much
concerned that she found herself in so dozing a condition, so she
expressed it. To that, she added, ‘Others had need pray for me, seeing
I am so little able to pray for myself.’ However, she stirred up her
attention, and prayed to God for His assistance, and God heard her, for
from thenceforth to the end of the office, she had the perfect command
of her understanding, and was intent upon the great work she was going
about; and so intent, that when a second draught was offered her, she
refused it, saying, ‘I have but a little time to live, and I would
spend it a better way.’
“The holy elements being ready, and several Bishops coming to be
communicants, she repeated piously and distinctly, but with a low voice
(for such her weakness had then made it) all the parts of the holy
office which were proper for her, and received, with all the signs of a
strong faith and fervent devotion, the blessed pledges of God’s favour,
and thanked Him with a joyful heart that she was not deprived of the
opportunity. She owned also, that God had been good to her, beyond
her expectation, though in a circumstance of smaller importance, she
having, without any indecency or difficulty, taken down that bread,
when it had not been so easy for her, for some time, to swallow any
other.
“That afternoon she called for prayers somewhat earlier than the
appointed time, because she feared (that was her reason) that she
should not long be so well composed. And so it came to pass; for
every minute after this ’twas plain that death made nearer and nearer
approaches. However, this true Christian kept her mind as fixed, as
possible she could, upon the best things; and there were read, by her
directions, several psalms of David, and also a chapter of a pious book
concerning trust in God. Toward the latter end of it, her apprehension
began to fail, yet not so much but that she could say a devout Amen to
that prayer in which her pious soul was recommended to that God who
gave it.
[Sidenote: TENISON.]
“During all this time there appeared nothing of impatience, nothing of
frowardness, nothing of anger; there was heard nothing of murmuring,
nothing of impertinence, nothing of ill-sound, and scarce a number of
disjointed words.
“In all these afflictions the King was greatly afflicted; how sensibly,
and yet how becomingly, many saw, but few have skill enough to
describe; I am sure I have not. At last, the helps of art and prayers
and tears not prevailing, a quarter before one on Friday morning, after
two or three small strugglings of nature, and without such agonies as
in such cases are common, she fell asleep.”[234]
I have thought it best to give this extract without any abridgment, as
certain omissions in the account of the Queen’s last hours became the
subject of much controversy.
Mary was buried in Westminster Abbey, with all the pomp of a purple and
gold coffin, banners, and escutcheons, Lords in scarlet and ermine, and
Commons in black mantles; far more interesting than all that is the
following incident, carefully recorded: “A robin redbreast, which had
taken refuge in the Abbey, was seen constantly on her hearse, and was
looked upon with tender affection for its seeming love to the lamented
Queen.”[235]
Loyalty to William, and sympathy with him in his great loss, were
expressed in numerous addresses. A large collection of elegiac poems
were published at Cambridge, entitled, _Lacrymæ Cantabrigienses_,
&c., by a list of Dons, some of whom became Bishops; and the London
Clergy vied with each other in their eulogiums--to use the words of a
contemporary letter-writer, playing “the fool in their hyperbolical
commendation of the Queen, that looks like fulsome flattery, and some
expressions bordering upon blasphemy.”[236] The Presbyterians, headed
by Dr. Bates, presented an address of condolence to His Majesty.
[Sidenote: 1695.]
The nonjuring Clergy were much excited by the publication of Tenison’s
sermon, since it represented the Queen as eminently religious and
devout, but said not a word of any repentance for having assumed her
father’s crown, and for the filial impiety considered to be involved in
such conduct. A letter to this effect, published in the month of March,
1695, created an intense sensation, being attributed to Bishop Ken.
It is printed as his composition in the Memoirs of Tenison; but the
Layman who wrote Ken’s life pronounces it “a tissue of bitter obloquy
against the Queen and the Archbishop, wholly inconsistent with the meek
spirit of the author of the _Practice of Divine Love_.”[237] Upon
internal grounds he rejects its genuineness. I feel disposed to do
the same. Tenison also, it appears, doubted it, but I find no notice
of Ken’s having disavowed the authorship; and we must not forget how
possible it is for an amiable and pious man, under the influence
of what he regards as duty, to say things which run counter to the
generally calm and quiet current of his life.
[Sidenote: LICENSING OF THE PRESS.]
Tenison’s sermon was zealously defended by an anonymous pamphleteer,
who included within his defence funeral discourses delivered by other
dignitaries; and whilst the press was occupied by this controversy,
the friends and agents of James were rejoicing in the death of Mary
as endangering the position of William. The Church of England, it was
now thought, would be weaned from his cause, by the outburst of his
Presbyterian predilections, even to the overthrow of Episcopacy. The
ruin of its interests seemed at hand, unless the Revolution could be
revolutionized. Ten thousand men, the Jacobite plotters surmised, would
suffice for the reconquest of the kingdom, since the Church of England
party, who had been for William only on Mary’s account, were, it was
thought, now entirely alienated from him. The confusion occasioned by
her removal was relied upon as a proof of the inclination of the people
to see their Stuart King back at St. James.[238]
[Sidenote: 1695.]
In noticing the deaths of Sancroft, Tillotson, and Mary, we have passed
over a period marked by one of those silent changes which often elude
the notice of historians. The change referred to is connected very
closely with religious freedom. We have had frequent occasion to notice
restrictions on the liberty of the press. It is not necessary to go
back further than 1662, when Lord Clarendon’s Act for licensing books
was passed. The Act proscribed the printing and selling of heretical,
schismatical, blasphemous, seditious, and treasonable publications.
Nothing was to appear contrary to the Christian faith, or the
doctrines or discipline of the Church of England. Books on law required
a license from the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Chief Justices; books of
history, a license from the Secretaries of State; books of divinity and
philosophy, a license from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The folly of
such restrictions--proved by their futility when evaded, and by their
mischievousness when carried into effect--needs no comment. The Act now
noticed was made to be in force for two years. It was then continued.
In 1685 it was re-enacted for seven years. It continued through the
Revolution; and in 1692 was renewed under the Tories for two years
more. At four different times, from 1694 to 1698, attempts were made
in Parliament to prepare new Bills for licensing printing presses, and
the Whigs on one occasion seemed on the point of following the example
of their political rivals. Movement in the old direction went so far
once, that a restrictive Bill passed the Lords and was read in the
Commons--to be thrown out on a second reading. Church and State thus
narrowly missed being shackled again in the exercise of rights ever
precious to enlightened humanity; and the year 1694, though unmarked in
history, is illustrious in fact through the melting away for ever of a
long-continued and mischievous licensing law. Not, however, as we shall
presently see, that all legislative interference with the publishers of
opinions then terminated; but a great obstacle vanished out of the path
to that wide intellectual liberty which as a nation we now enjoy.