LATITUDINARIAN CHURCHMANSHIP.
(2) CHURCH COMPREHENSION AND CHURCH REFORMERS.
The Latitudinarianism which occupies so conspicuous and important a
place in English ecclesiastical history during the half century which
followed upon the Revolution of 1688 has been discussed in some of its
aspects in the preceding chapter. It denoted not so much a particular
Church policy as a tone or mode of thought, which affected the whole
attitude of the mind in relation to all that wide compass of subjects in
which religious considerations are influenced by difference of view as
to the province and authority of the individual reason.
But that which gave Latitudinarianism its chief notoriety, as well as
its name, was a direct practical question. The term took its origin in
the efforts made in William and Mary's reign to give such increased
latitude to the formularies of the English Church as might bring into
its communion a large proportion of the Nonconformists. From the first
there was a disposition to define a Latitudinarian, much as Dr. Johnson
did afterwards, in the sense of 'one who departs from orthodoxy.' But
this was not the leading idea, and sometimes not even a part of the
idea, of those who spoke with praise or blame of the eminent
'Latitudinarian' bishops of King William's time. Not many were competent
to form a tolerably intelligent opinion as to the orthodoxy of this or
that learned prelate, but all could know whether he spoke or voted in
favour of the Comprehension Bill. Although therefore in the earlier
stages of that projected measure some of the strictest and most
representative High Churchmen were in favour of it, it was from first to
last the cherished scheme of the Latitudinarian Churchmen, and in
popular estimation was the visible badge, the tangible embodiment of
their opinions.
The inclusiveness of the Reformed Church of England has never been
altogether one-sided. It has always contained within its limits many who
were bent on separating themselves by as wide an interval as possible
from the Church of Rome, and many on the other hand who were no less
anxious that the breach of unity should not be greater than was in any
way consistent with spiritual independence and necessary reforms. The
Reformation undoubtedly derived the greater part of its force and energy
from the former of these two parties; to the temperate counsels of the
latter it was indebted for being a movement of reform rather than of
revolution. Without the one, religious thought would scarcely have
released itself from the strong bonds of a traditional authority.
Without the other, it would have been in danger of losing hold on
Catholic belief, and of breaking its continuity with the past. Without
either one or the other, the English Church would not only have lost the
services of many excellent men, but would have been narrowed in range,
lowered in tone, lessened in numbers, character, and influence. To use
the terms of modern politics, it could neither have spared its
Conservatives, though some of them may have been unprogressive or
obstructionist, nor its Liberals, although the more advanced among them
were apt to be rash and revolutionary.
At the opening of the eighteenth century, all notions of a wider
comprehension in favour of persons who dissented in the direction of
Rome, rather than of Geneva or Glasgow, were utterly out of question.
One of the most strongly-marked features in the Churchmanship of the
time, was the uncompromising hostility which everywhere displayed itself
against Rome. This animosity was relieved by a mitigating influence in
one direction only. Churchmen in this country could not fail to feel
interest in the struggle for national independence in religious matters
which was being carried on among their neighbours and ancestral enemies
across the Channel. The Gallican Church was in the height of its fame,
adorned by names which added lustre to it wherever the Christian faith
was known. No Protestant, however uncompromising, could altogether
withhold his admiration from a Fénelon,[301] a Pascal,[302] or a
Bossuet. And all these three great men seemed more or less separated,
though in different ways, from the regular Romish system. The spiritual
and semi-mystical piety of Fénelon detached him from the trenchant
dogmatism which, since the Council of Trent, had been stamped so much
more decisively than heretofore upon Roman tenets. Pascal,
notwithstanding his mediævalism, and the humble submissiveness which he
acknowledged to be due to the Papal see, not only fascinated cultivated
readers by the brilliancy of his style, not only won their hearts by the
simple truthfulness and integrity of his character, but delighted
Englishmen generally by the vigour of the attack with which, as leader
of the Jansenists, he led the assault upon the Jesuits. Bossuet's noble
defence of the Gallican liberties appealed still more directly to the
sympathies of this nation. It reminded men of the conflict that had
been fought and won on English soil, and encouraged too sanguine hopes
that it might issue in a reformation within the sister country, not
perhaps so complete as that which had taken place among ourselves, but
not less full of promise. In the midst of the war that was raging
between the rival forms of belief, English theologians of all opinions
were pleased with his graceful recognition, in the name of the French
clergy, of the services rendered to religion by Bishop Bull's learned
'Judgment of the Catholic Church.'[303]
Some time after the death of Bossuet, the renewed resistance which was
being made in France against Papal usurpations gave rise to action on
the part of the primate of our Church, which in the sixteenth century
might have been cordially followed up in England, but in the eighteenth
was very generally misunderstood and misrepresented. Archbishop Wake had
taken a very distinguished part in the Roman controversy, directing his
special attention to the polemical works of Bossuet, but had always
handled these topics in a broader and more generous tone than many of
his contemporaries. In 1717, at a time when many of the French bishops
and clergy, headed by the Sorbonne, and by the Cardinal de Noailles,
were indignantly protesting against the bondage imposed upon them by the
Bull Unigenitus, and were proposing to appeal from the Pope to a general
council, a communication was received by Archbishop Wake,[304] that Du
Pin, head of the theological faculty of the Sorbonne, had expressed
himself in favour of a possible union with the English Church.[305] The
idea was warmly favoured by De Gerardin, another eminent doctor of that
university. A correspondence of some length ensued, carried on with much
friendly and earnest feeling on either side. Separation from Rome was
what the English archbishop chiefly pressed;[306] 'a reformation in
other matters would follow of course.' Writing as he did without any
official authority, he was wise enough not to commit himself to any
details. First of all they ought 'to agree,' he said, 'to own each other
as true brethren and members of the Catholic Christian Church;' and then
the great point would be to acknowledge 'the independence (as to all
matters of authority) of every national Church on all others,' agree
with one another, as far as possible, on all matters of moment, and
leave free liberty of disagreement on other questions. He did not see
anything in our offices so essentially contrary to their principles,
that they need scruple to join in them; and if some alterations were
made, we also might join in theirs, on a clear understanding that on all
such points of disagreement as the doctrine of transubstantiation,
either body of Christians should hold the opinions which it approved.
Upon such terms,[307] two great national Churches might be on close
terms of friendly intercommunion notwithstanding great differences on
matters not of the first importance, which might well afford to wait
'till God should bring us to a union in those also.' Du Pin and De
Gerardin replied in much the same spirit. The former of the two soon
after died; and the incipient negotiation, which was never very likely
to be followed by any practical results, fell through. In fact, the
resuscitated spirit of independence which had begun to stir in France
was itself shortlived.
The correspondence between the English primate and the doctors of the
Sorbonne is an episode which stands by itself, quite apart from any
other incidents in the Church history of the time. It bears a
superficial resemblance to the overtures made by some of the English and
Scotch Nonjurors to the Eastern Church. There was, however, an essential
difference between them. Without any dishonour to Nonjuring principles,
and without passing any judgment upon the grounds of their separation,
it must be acknowledged that those of them who renounced the communion
of the English Church accepted a sectarian position. They had gained a
comparative uniformity of opinion, at the entire expense of that breadth
and expansiveness which only national Churches are found capable of.
Connection with the Eastern Church, if it could have been carried out
(though the difficulties in the way of this were far greater than they
were at all aware of), would simply have indicated a movement of their
whole body in one direction only, and, in proportion as it was
successful, would have alienated them more than ever from those whose
religious and ecclesiastical sympathies were of a very different kind.
Such communion, on the other hand, of independent national Churches as
was contemplated by Du Pin and Wake might have been quite free from
one-sidedness of this description. It need not have interfered with or
discouraged, it should rather have tended to promote, the near
intercourse, which many English Churchmen were greatly desirous of, with
the National Church of Scotland and with the reformed Churches of the
Continent. A relation of this kind with her sister Churches on either
hand would have been in perfect harmony both with the original
standpoint of the Church of England, and with an important office it may
perhaps be called to in the future. It was in reference to the
sympathetic reception given in this country to many of the proscribed
bishops and clergy of France at the time of the great revolution, that
the Count de Maistre made a remark which has often struck readers as
well worthy of notice. 'If ever,'--he said, 'and everything invites to
it--there should be a movement towards reunion among the Christian
bodies, it seems likely that the Church of England should be the one to
give it impulse. Presbyterianism, as its French nature rendered
probable, went to extremes. Between us and those who practise a worship
which we think wanting in form and substance, there is too wide an
interval; we cannot understand one another. But the English Church,
which touches us with the one hand, touches with the other those with
whom we have no point of contact.'[308]
Archbishop Wake, had he lived in more favourable times, would have been
well fitted, both by position and character, for this work of mutual
conciliation. His disposition toward the foreign Protestant Churches was
of the most friendly kind. In a letter to Le Clerc on the subject,[309]
he deprecated dissension on matters of no essential moment. He desired
to be on terms of cordial friendship with the Reformed Churches,
notwithstanding their points of difference from that of England. He
could wish they had a moderate Episcopal government, according to the
primitive model; nor did he yet despair of it, if not in his own time,
perhaps in days to come. He would welcome a closer union among all the
Reformed bodies, at almost any price. The advantages he anticipated from
such a result would be immense. Any approximations in Church government
or Church offices which might conduce to it he should indeed rejoice in.
Much to the same effect he wrote[310] to his 'very dear brothers,' the
pastors and professors of Geneva. The letter related, in the first
instance, to the efforts he had been making in behalf of the Piedmontese
and Hungarian Churches. But he took occasion to express the longing
desire he felt for union among the Reformed Churches--a work, he
allowed, of difficulty, but which undoubtedly could be achieved, if all
were bent on concord. He hoped he might not be thought trenching upon a
province in which he had no concern, if he implored most earnestly both
Lutherans and Reformed to be very tolerant and forbearing in the mutual
controversies they were engaged in upon abstruse questions of grace and
predestination; above all, to be moderate in imposing terms of
subscription, and to imitate in this respect the greater liberty of
judgment and latitude of interpretation which the Church of England had
wisely conceded to all who sign her articles. Archbishop Wake addressed
other letters on these subjects to Professor Schurer of Berne, and to
Professor Turretin of Geneva. He also carried on a correspondence with
the Protestants of Nismes, Lithuania, and other countries. 'It may be
affirmed,' remarks one of the editors of Mosheim's History, 'that no
prelate since the Reformation had so extensive a correspondence with the
Protestants abroad, and none could have a more friendly one.'[311] His
behaviour towards Nonconformists at home was in his later years less
conciliatory, and the inconsistency is a blemish in his character. The
case would probably have been different if any schemes for union or
comprehension had still been under consideration. In the absence of some
such incentive, his mind, liberal as it was by nature and general habit,
was overborne by the persistent clamour that the Dissenters were bent
upon overthrowing the National Church, and that concession had become
for the time impossible.
After the suppression of the Gallican liberties, the hostility between
the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches was for a long time wholly
unbroken. The theological controversy had abated. Pamphlet no longer
followed upon pamphlet, and folio upon folio, as when, a few years
before, every writer in divinity had felt bound to contribute his quota
of argument to the voluminous stock, and when Tillotson hardly preached
a sermon without some homethrust at Popery. But the general fear and
hatred of it long continued unmitigated. So long, particularly, as there
was any apprehension of Jacobite disturbances, it always seemed possible
that Romanism might yet return with a power of which none could guess
the force. Additions were still made to the long list of penalties and
disabilities attached to Popish recusancy; and when, in 1778, a
proposition was brought forward to abate them, it is well known what a
storm of riot arose in Scotland and burst through England.
It might be thought that in the dull ebb-tide of spiritual energies
which set in soon after the beginning of the eighteenth century, and
prevailed wherever the Methodist movement did not reach, Rome, with her
strong organisation and her experienced Propaganda, had as great a field
before her as Wesley had,--that she would have made rapid advance in
spite of all disabilities,--and that, in consequence, the Protestant
fears, which had been subsiding into indifference, would have arisen
again in full force. But Rome shared in the strange religious apathy
which was dominant not in England only, but the Continent. Her writers
generally acknowledge the greater part of the eighteenth century to have
been a period of comparative inactivity,[312] broken at last only by the
violent stimulus of the Revolution. Many thought that Romanism continued
to gain ground in England, and some cried out that still stricter laws
were needed to suppress the Papists. It is doubtful, however, whether
advances in some quarters were not more than balanced by losses
elsewhere. As the century advanced, Rome gradually ceased to be dreaded
as a subtle pervading power, full of mysterious activity, whose force
might be felt most severely at the very moment when least preparation
had been made to meet it. Later still, fear was sometimes replaced by a
confidence no less excessive. 'It is impossible,' said Mr. Windham in
the House of Commons, 1791, 'to deem them (the Roman Catholics)
formidable at the present period, when the power of the Pope is
considered as a mere spectre, capable of frightening only in the dark,
and vanishing before the light of reason and knowledge.'[313]
Until the last decade of the century, Roman Catholics were rarely spoken
of in any other spirit than as the dreaded enemies of Protestantism.
There was very little recognition of their being far more nearly united
to us by the tie of a common Christianity, than separated by the
differences in it. A man who was not a professed sceptic needed to be
both more unprejudiced and more courageous than his neighbours, to speak
of Roman Catholics with tolerable charity. In this, as in many other
points, Bishop Berkeley was superior to his age. He ventured to propose
that Roman Catholics should be admitted to the Dublin College without
being obliged to attend chapel or divinity lectures.[314] He could speak
of such an institution as Monasticism in a discriminative tone which was
then exceedingly uncommon. In Ireland he wisely accepted the fact that
the Roman Catholic priests had the heart of the people, and shaped his
conduct accordingly. His 'Word to the Wise' was an appeal addressed in
1749 to the priests, exhorting them to use their influence to promote
industry and self-reliance among their congregations. This sort of
Episcopal charge to the clergy of another Communion was received, it is
said, with a no less cordial feeling than that in which it was
written.[315]
Dr. Johnson, a man of a very different order of mind, may be mentioned
as another who joined a devoted attachment to the Church of England with
a candid and kindly spirit towards Roman Catholics. Perhaps his respect
for authority, and the tinge of superstition in his temperament,
predisposed him to sympathy. In any case, his masculine intellect
brushed away with scorn the prejudices, exaggerations, and
misconstructions which beset popular ideas upon the subject. He took
pleasure in dilating upon the substantial unity that subsisted between
them and denominations which, in externals, were separated from them by
a very wide interval. 'There is a prodigious difference,' he would say,
'between the external form of one of your Presbyterian Churches in
Scotland, and a Church in Italy; yet the doctrine taught is essentially
the same.'[316]
Many of the speeches made in favour of relief, at the time of the Irish
and English Emancipation Acts, were couched in terms which betoken a
marked departure from the bitterness of tone which had long been
customary. When the French Revolution broke out, the reaction became,
for an interval, in many quarters far stronger still. In the presence of
anti-Christian principles exultingly avowed, and triumphantly defiant,
it seemed to many Christians that minor differences, which had seemed
great before, dwindled almost into insignificance before the light of
their common faith. Moreover, there was a widespread feeling of deep
sympathy with the wrongs and sufferings of the proscribed clergy.
'Scruples about external forms,' said Bishop Horsley before the House of
Lords, 'and differences of opinion upon controvertible points, cannot
but take place among the best Christians, and dissolve not the fraternal
tie; none, indeed, at this season are more entitled to our offices of
love than those with whom the difference is wide in points of doctrine,
discipline, and external rites,--those venerable exiles, the prelates
and clergy of the fallen Church of France, endeared to us by the
edifying example they exhibit of patient suffering for conscience
sake.'[317] Horsley's words were far from meeting with universal
approval. There were some fanatics, Hannah More tells us, who said it
was a sin to oppose God's vengeance against Popery, and succour the
priests who it was His will should starve. And real sympathy, even while
the occasion of it lasted, was very often, as may well be imagined,
mixed with feelings of apprehension. These refugees might be only too
grateful. Thinking that salvation was obtainable only in their own
Church, was it not likely they would use their utmost art to extend this
first of blessings to those who had so hospitably protected them? Thus
interest was blended with anxiety in the nation which gave welcome to
the emigrants. But interest there certainly was, and considerable
abatement in the bitterness of earlier feeling.
The relations of the Church of England with other Reformed bodies abroad
and at home had been, since James II.'s time, a question of high
importance. Burnet justly remarks of the year 1685, that it was one of
the most critical periods in the whole history of Protestantism. 'In
February, a king of England declared himself a Papist. In June, Charles
the Elector Palatine dying without issue, the Electoral dignity went to
the house of Newburgh, a most bigoted Popish family. In October, the
King of France recalled and vacated the Edict of Nantes. And in
December, the Duke of Savoy, being brought to it not only by the
persuasion, but even by the threatenings of the court of France,
recalled the edict that his father had granted to the Vaudois.'[318] It
cannot be said that the crisis was an unexpected one. The excited
controversy which was being waged among theologians was but one sign of
the general uneasiness that had been prevailing. 'The world,' writes one
anonymous author in 1682, 'is filled with discourses about the
Protestant religion and the professors of it; and not without
cause.'[319] 'Who,' says another, 'can hold his peace when the Church,
our mother, hath the Popish knife just at her throat!'[320] But the
reverses of the Reformed faith abroad greatly increased the ferment, and
began to kindle Protestant feeling into a state of enthusiastic fervour.
When at last, in the next reign, war was proclaimed with Louis XIV., it
was everywhere recognised as a great religious struggle, in which
England had assumed her place as the champion of the Protestant
interest.
From the very beginning of the Reformation it had been a vexed question
how far the cause of the Reformed Church of England could be identified
with that of other communions which had cast off the yoke of Rome. In
dealing with this problem, a broad distinction had generally been made
between Nonconformists at home and Protestant communities abroad. The
relation of the English Church to Nonconformity may accordingly be
considered separately. So long as it was a question of communion, more
or less intimate, with foreign Churches, the intercourse was at all
events not embarrassed with any difficulties about schism. The preface
to the Book of Common Prayer had expressly declared that 'In these our
doings we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe anything but to our
own people only. For we think it convenient that every country should
use such ceremonies as they shall think best to the setting forth of
God's honour and glory.' It was therefore acknowledged with very
tolerable unanimity that friendly relationship with Protestant Churches
on the Continent was by no means inconsistent with very considerable
differences of custom and opinion. Men of all parties in the Church of
England were ever inclined to allow great weight to the voice of
constituted authority in matters which did not seem to them to touch the
very life and substance of religion. Without taking this into
consideration, it is impossible to form a right view of the comparative
tenderness with which Churchmen passed over what they considered to be
defects in reformed systems abroad which they condemned with much
severity among Nonconformists at home.
The relations, however, of England with foreign Protestant bodies,
though not exactly unfriendly, have been characterised by a good deal of
reserve. The kinship has been acknowledged, and the right of difference
allowed; but belief in the great superiority of English uses,
Nonconformist difficulties, and a certain amount of jealousy and
intolerance, had always checked the advances which were sometimes made
to a more cordial intimacy. In Henry VIII.'s time, in 1533, and again in
1535, overtures were made for a Foedus Evangelicum, a league of the
great reforming nations.[321] The differences between the German and the
English Protestants were at that time very great, not only in details of
discipline and government, but in the general spirit in which the
Reformation in the two countries was being conducted. But an alliance of
the kind contemplated would perhaps have been carried out had it not
been for the bigotry which insisted upon signature of the Augsburg
Confession. Queen Elizabeth was at one time inclined to join on behalf
of England the Smalcaldic League of German Protestants, but the same
obstacle intervened.[322] Cromwell is said to have cherished a great
project of establishing a permanent Protestant Council, in which all the
principal Reformed communities in Europe, and in the East and West
Indies, would be represented under the name of provinces, and designs
for the promotion of religion advanced and furthered in all parts of the
world.[323] Such projects never had any important results. Statesmen, as
well as theologians, often felt the need of strengthening the whole
Protestant body by an organised harmony among its several members,
something akin to that which gives the Roman Catholic Church so imposing
an aspect of general unity. The idea was perhaps essentially
impracticable, as requiring for its accomplishment a closer uniformity
of thought and feeling than was either possible or desirable among
Churches whose greatest conquest had been a liberty of thinking. As
between England and Germany, one great impediment to a cordial
understanding arose out of the differences between Lutheran and
Reformed. So long as the English Church was under the guidance of
Cranmer and Ridley, it was not clear to which of these two parties it
most nearly approximated. In the reign of Edward VI. the Calvinistic
element gained ground--a tendency as much resented by the one party
abroad as it was welcomed by the other. The English clergymen who found
a refuge in the Swiss and German cities were treated with marked neglect
by the Lutherans, but received with great hospitality by the
Calvinists.[324] At a later period, when Presbyterianism had for the
time gained strong ground in England, the attitude had become somewhat
reversed. The Reformed or Calvinistic section of German Protestants
sided chiefly with the Presbyterians; the Lutherans with the English
Churchmen.[325] In a word, notwithstanding all professions of more
liberal sentiment, the hankering after an impossible uniformity was, on
either side of the Channel, too strong to permit of cordial union or
substantial unity. It was often admitted in theory, but not often in
practice, that the principles of the Reformation must be left to operate
with differences and modifications according to the varying
circumstances of the countries in which they were adopted. Bucer and
Peter Martyr, Calvin and Bullinger, made it almost a personal grievance
that the English retained much which they themselves had cast
aside.[326] Laud exhibited the same spirit in a more oppressive form
when he insisted that, in spite of the guarantees given by Elizabeth and
James I., no foreign Protestants should remain in England who would not
conform to the established liturgy.[327]
No doubt the differences between the Reformed Churches of England and
the Continent were very considerable. Yet, with the one discreditable
exception just referred to, there had been much comity and friendliness
in all personal relations between their respective members; and the
absence of sympathy on many points of doctrine and discipline was not
so great as to preclude the possibility of closer union and common
action in any crisis of danger. Before the end of the seventeenth
century such a crisis seemed, in the opinion of many, to have arrived.
The Protestant interest throughout Europe was in real peril. In England
there was as much anxiety on the subject as was compatible with a period
which was certainly not characterised by much moral purpose or deep
feeling. The people as a mass were not just then very much in earnest
about anything, but still they cared very really about their
Protestantism. They were not assured of its security even within their
own coasts; they knew that it was in jeopardy on the Continent. National
prejudices against France added warmth to the indignation excited by the
oppressions to which the Protestant subjects of the great monarch had
been subjected. National pride readily combined with nobler impulses to
create an enthusiasm for the idea that England was the champion of the
whole Protestant cause.
There is nothing which tends to promote so kindly a feeling towards its
objects as self-denying benevolence. This had been elicited in a very
remarkable degree towards the refugees who found a shelter here after
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Londoners beheld with a sort of
humorous dismay the crowd of immigrants who came to settle among them.
Hither for God's sake and their own they fled;
Some for religion came, and some for bread.
Four hundred thousand wooden pair of shoes,
Who, God be thanked, had nothing left to lose,
To heaven's great praise, did for religion fly,
To make us starve our poor in charity.[328]
But these poverty-stricken exiles were received with warm-hearted
sympathy. No previous brief had ever brought in such large sums as those
which throughout the kingdom were subscribed for their relief; nor, if
the increase of wealth be taken into account, has there been any greater
display of munificence in our own times.[329] Churchmen of all views
came generously forward. If here and there a doubt was raised whether
these demonstrations of friendliness might not imply a greater approval
of their opinions than really existed, compassion for sufferers who were
not fellow-Christians only, but fellow-Protestants, quickly overpowered
all such hesitation. Bishop Ken behaved in 1686 with all his accustomed
generosity and boldness. In contravention of the King's orders, who had
desired that the brief should be simply read in churches without any
sermon on the subject, he ventured in the Royal Chapel to set forth in
affecting language the sufferings they had gone through, and to exhort
his hearers to hold, with a like unswerving constancy, to the Protestant
faith. He issued a pastoral entreating his clergy to do the utmost in
their power for 'Christian strangers, whose distress is in all respects
worthy of our tenderest commiseration.' For his own part, he set a noble
example of liberality in the gift of a great part of 4000_l._ which had
lately come into his possession.[330] We are told of Rainbow, Bishop of
Carlisle, that in a similar spirit he gave to French Protestants large
sums, and bore 'his share with other bishops in yearly pensions' to some
of them.[331]
The burst of general sympathy evoked in favour of the French refugees
happened just at a time when Churchmen of all views were showing a more
or less hearty desire that the Church of England might be strengthened
by the adhesion of many who had hitherto dissented from it. Sancroft was
as yet at one with Tillotson in desiring to carry out a Comprehension
Bill, and was asking Dissenters to join with him 'in prayer for an
universal blessed union of all Reformed Churches at home and
abroad.'[332] Undoubtedly there was a short interval, just before the
Nonjuring secession, in which the minds not only of the so-called
Latitudinarians, but of many eminent High Churchmen, were strongly
disposed to make large concessions for the sake of unity, and from a
desire of seeing England definitely at the head of the Protestant cause
alike in England and on the Continent. They could not but agree with the
words of Samuel Johnson--as good and brave a man as the great successor
to his name--that 'there could not be a more blessed work than to
reconcile Protestants with Protestants.'[333] But the opportunity of
successfully carrying into practice these aspirations soon passed away,
and when it became evident that there could be no change in the
relations of the English Church towards Nonconformity, interest in
foreign Protestantism began to be much less universal than it had been.
The clergy especially were afraid--and there was justification for their
alarm--that some of the oldest and most characteristic features of their
Church were in danger of being swept away. They had no wish to see in
England a form of Protestantism nearly akin to that which existed in
Holland. But there was a strong party in favour of changes which might
have some such effect. The King, even under the new constitution, was
still a power in the Church, and it was well known that the forms of the
Church of England had no particular favour in his eyes. And therefore
the Lower House of Convocation, representing, no doubt, the views of a
majority of the clergy, while they professed, in 1689, that 'the
interest of all the Protestant Churches was dear to them,' were anxious
to make it very clear that they owned no close union with them.[334]
There was a perplexity in the mode of expression which thoroughly
reflected a genuine difficulty. As even the Highest Churchmen, at the
opening of the eighteenth century, were vehemently Protestant, afraid of
Rome, and exceedingly anxious to resist her with all their power, they
could not help sharing to some extent in the general wish to make common
cause with the Protestants abroad. On the other hand, there was much to
repel anything like close intercourse. The points of difference were
very marked. The English Church had retained Episcopacy. There was no
party in the Church which did not highly value it; a section of High
Churchmen reckoned it one of the essential notes of a true Church, and
unchurched all communions that rejected it. The foreign Reformers, on
the other hand, not, in some cases, without reluctance, and from force
of circumstances, had discarded bishops. English Churchmen, again,
almost universally paid great deference to the authority of the
primitive fathers and early councils. The Reformed Churches abroad,
under the leading of Daillé and others, no less generally depreciated
them.[335] Nor could it be forgotten that the sympathies of those
Churches had been with the Puritans during the Civil Wars, and that in
tone of thought and mode of worship they bore, for the most part, a
closer resemblance to English Nonconformity than to the English Church.
Lastly, the Protestants of France and Switzerland were chiefly
Calvinists, while in the Church of England Calvinism had for some length
of time been rapidly declining. The bond of union had need to be strong,
and the necessity of it keenly felt, if it was to prevail over the
influences which tended to keep the English and foreign Reformed
Churches apart.
Thus, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, while there was a very
general wish that the English Church should take its place at the head
of a movement which would aim at strengthening and consolidating the
Protestant cause throughout Europe, there was much doubt how far such a
project could be carried out consistently with the spirit and principles
of the Church. The hopes of High Churchmen in this direction were based
chiefly on the anticipation that the reformed churches abroad might
perhaps be induced to restore Episcopacy. It was with this view that
Dodwell wrote his 'Parænesis to Foreigners' in 1704. A year or two
afterwards, events occurred in Prussia which made it seem likely that in
that country the desired change would very speedily be made. Frederick
I., at his coronation in 1700, had given the title of bishop to two of
his clergy--one a Lutheran, the other Reformed. The former died soon
after; but the latter, Dr. Ursinus, willingly co-operated with the King
in a scheme for uniting the two communions on a basis of mutual
assimilation to the Church of England. Ernestus Jablonski, his chaplain,
a superintendent of the Protestant Church, in Poland, zealously promoted
the project. He had once been strongly prejudiced against the English
Church; but his views on this point had altered during a visit to
England, and he was now an admirer of it. By the advice of Ursinus and
Jablonski, the King caused the English Liturgy to be translated into
German. This was done at Frankfort on the Oder, where the English Church
had many friends among the professors. Frederick then directed Ursinus
to consult further with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and suggested
that, if the plan was encouraged in England, the Liturgy should be
introduced into the King's Chapel and the Cathedral Church on the 1st
Sunday in Advent, 1706. It was to be left optional to other Churches to
follow the example. After debate in the King's consistory, letters and
copies of the version were sent to the Queen of England and to
Archbishop Tenison. The former returned her thanks, but the primate
appeared not to have received the communication; and the King, offended
at the apparent slackness, allowed the matter to drop. Early, however,
in 1709, communications were reopened. On January 14 of that year, the
following entry occurs in Thoresby's 'Diary:' 'At the excellent Bishop
of Ely's [Moore]. Met the obliging R. Hales, Esq., to whose pious
endeavour the good providence of God has given admirable success in
reconciling the Reformed Churches abroad [Calvinists and Lutherans] one
to another (so that they not only frequently meet together, but some of
them join in the Sacrament), and both of them to the Church of England;
so that in many places they are willing to admit of Episcopacy, as I am
creditably informed.'[336] The negotiations continued. Jablonski's
recommendations were translated into English, and attracted considerable
attention both in England and Prussia. They were promoted by many
persons of eminence, especially by Archbishop Sharp, Bishop Smalridge
(who thought 'the honour of our own Church and the edification of
others much interested in the scheme'), Bishop Robinson and Lord Raby,
ambassador at Berlin. Secretary St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke,
wrote to Raby in behalf of this 'laudable design,' informing him that
the Queen was 'ready to give all possible encouragement to that
excellent work,' and that if previous overtures had received a cold
reception, yet that the clergy generally were zealous in the cause.
Bonel, the Prussian king's minister in London, wrote in 1711 to
Frederick that he thought the service of the Church of England was 'the
most perfect, perhaps, that is among Protestants,' that conformity
between the Prussian and English Churches would be received with great
joy in England, but that the conformity desired related more to Church
government than to any ritual or liturgy, and that Episcopacy was
generally looked upon as the only apostolical and true ecclesiastical
form of government. Later in the year, Jablonski placed in the hands of
Baron Prinz his more matured 'Project for introducing Episcopacy into
the King of Prussia's dominions.' Leibnitz engaged to interest the
Electress of Hanover in the proposal. He was afraid, however, that the
thirty-nine articles would be considered 'a little too much Geneva
stamp' at Berlin. The negotiations continued, but the interest of the
King had slackened; the proceedings of the Collegium Charitativum at
Berlin, which sat under the presidency of Bishop Ursinus, were somewhat
discredited by the wilder schemes started by Winkler, one of its chief
members; the grave political questions debated at Utrecht diverted
attention from ecclesiastical matters; Archbishop Sharp, who had taken
an active part in the correspondence, became infirm; and the conferences
were finally brought to a termination by the death, early in 1713, of
Frederick I.[337] Frederick William's rough and contracted mind was far
too much absorbed in the care of his giant regiment, and in the amassing
of treasure, to feel the slightest concern in matters so entirely
uncongenial to his temper as plans for the advancement of Church unity.
With the earlier years of the century all ideas of a closer relationship
between English and foreign Protestantism than had existed heretofore
passed away. The name of Protestant was still as cherished in popular
feeling as ever it had been; but soon after the beginning of the
Georgian period little was heard, as compared with what lately had been
the case, of the Protestant cause or the Protestant interest. In truth,
when minds were no longer intent upon immediate dangers, the bond was
severed which had begun to keep together, notwithstanding all
differences, the Reformed Churches in England and on the Continent. A
few leading spirits on either side had been animated by larger
aspirations after Christian unity. But self-defence against aggressive
Romanism had been the main support of all projects of combination. In
the eighteenth century there was plenty of the monotonous indifferentism
which bears a dreary superficial resemblance to unity, but there was
very little in the prevalent tone of thought which was adapted to
encourage its genuine growth. And even if it had been otherwise--if the
National Church had ever so much widened and deepened its hold in
England, and a sound, substantial unity had gained ground, such as gains
strength out of the very differences which it contains--insular feeling
would still, in all probability, have been too exclusive or uninformed
to care much, when outward pressure was removed, for ties of sympathy
which should extend beyond the Channel and include Frenchmen or Germans
within their hold. Quite early in the century we find Fleetwood[338] and
Calamy[339] complaining of a growing indifference towards Protestants
abroad. A generation later this indifference had become more general.
Parliamentary grants to 'poor French Protestant refugee clergy' and
'poor French Protestant laity' were made in the annual votes of supply
almost up to the present reign,[340] but these were only items in the
public charity; they no longer bore any significance.
In 1751 an Act was brought forward for the general naturalisation of
foreign Protestants resident in England. Much interest had been felt in
a similar Bill which had come before the House in 1709. But the
promoters of the earlier measure had been chiefly animated by the sense
of close religious affinity in those to whom the privilege was offered;
and those who resisted it did so from a fear that it might tend to
changes in the English Church of which they disapproved. At the later
period these sympathies and these fears, so far as they existed at all,
were wholly subordinate to other influences. The Bill was supported on
the ground of the drain upon the population which had resulted from the
late war; it was vehemently resisted from a fear that it would unduly
encourage emigration, and have an unfavourable effect upon English
labour.[341] Considerations less secular than these had little weight.
Religious life was circulating but feebly in the Church and country
generally; it had no surplus energy to spare for sisterly interest in
other communions outside the national borders.
The remarks that have been made in this chapter upon the relations of
the English Church in the eighteenth century, especially in its earlier
years, towards Rome on the one hand and the foreign Reformed Churches on
the other, began with a reference to those principles of Church
comprehensiveness which, however imperfectly understood, lay very near
the heart of many distinguished Churchmen. But all who longed to see the
Church of England acting in the free and generous spirit of a great
national Church were well aware that there was a wider and more
important field at home for the exercise of those principles. It was
one, however, in which their course seemed far less plain. Many who were
very willing to acknowledge that wide differences of opinion or practice
constituted no insuperable bar to a close friendly intercourse between
Churches of different countries, regarded those same variations in quite
another light when considered as occasions of schism among separatists
at home. Archbishop Sharp, for example, willingly communicated with
congregations of foreign Protestants, wherever he might be travelling on
the Continent, but could discuss no terms of conciliation with English
Dissenters which were not based upon a relinquishment of Nonconformity.
Liberty of opinion was not to be confused with needless infractions of
Church unity.
The Latitudinarian party in the English Church had, almost without
exception, a slight bias toward Puritan opinions. To them, the
differences by which they were separated from moderate Nonconformists
appeared utterly immaterial, and not worthy to be balanced for an
instant against the blessings of unity. Hence while, on the one hand,
they did their utmost to persuade the Dissenters to give up what seemed
to them needless, and almost frivolous scruples, they were also very
anxious that all ground for these scruples should be as far as possible
removed. 'Sure,' they argued, ''tis not ill-becoming an elder (and so a
wiser) brother in such a case as this to stoop a little to the weakness
of the younger, in keeping company still; and when hereby he shall not
go one step the further out of the ready road unto their Father's
house.'[342] On points of Church order and discipline, mitigate the
terms of uniformity, do not rigidly preclude all alternatives, admit
some considered system which will allow room for option. Frankly
acknowledge, that in regard of the doctrine of the sacraments, divers
opinions may still, as has ever been the case, be legitimately held
within the Church and modify here and there an expression in the
Liturgy, which may be thought inconsistent with their liberty, and gives
needless offence. Let it not be in anywise our fault if our brethren in
the same faith will not join us in our common worship. They appealed to
the apostolic rule of Charity, that they who use this right despise not
them who use it not; and those who use it not, condemn not them that use
it. They appealed to the example of the primitive Church, and bade both
Churchmen and Dissenters remember how both Polycarp and Irenæus had
urged, that they who agree in doctrine must not fall out for rites. The
early Church, said Stillingfleet,[343] showed great toleration towards
different parties within its communion, and allowed among its members
and ministers diverse rites and various opinions. They appealed again to
the practice and constitution of the English Church since the
Reformation. They did not so much ask to widen its limits, as that the
limits which had previously been recognised should not now be
restricted. There had always been parties in it which differed widely
from one another, Anglican and Puritan, Calvinist and Arminian. There
never had been a time when it had not included among its clergy men who
differed in no perceptible degree from those who were now excluded. They
appealed to the friendly feeling that prevailed between moderate men on
either side; and most frequently and most urgently they appealed to the
need of combination among Protestants. It was a time for mutual
conciliation among Protestants in England and abroad, not for increasing
divisions, and for imposing new tests and passwords which their fathers
had not known. The National Church ought to make a great effort to win
over a class of men who, as citizens, were prominent, for the most part,
for sobriety, frugality, and industry, and, as Christians, for a piety
which might perhaps be restricted in its ideas, and cramped by needless
scruples, but which at all events was genuine and zealous. A very large
number of them were as yet not disaffected towards the English Church,
and would meet with cordiality all advances made in a brotherly spirit.
It would be a sin to let the opportunity slip by unimproved.
The force of such arguments was vividly felt by the whole of that
Latitudinarian party in the Church, which numbered at the end of the
seventeenth century so many distinguished names. There was a time when
some of the High Church leaders were so far alarmed by Roman
aggressiveness, as to think that union among Protestants should be
purchased even at what they deemed a sacrifice, and when Sancroft, Ken,
and Lake moved for a bill of comprehension,[344] and Beveridge spoke
warmly in favour of it.[345] The moderate Dissenters were quite as
anxious on the subject as any of their conformist friends. 'Baxter
protested in his latest works, that the body to which he belonged was in
favour of a National State Church. He disavowed the term Presbyterian,
and stated that most whom he knew did the same. They would be glad, he
said, to live under godly bishops, and to unite on healing terms. He
deplored that the Church doors had not been opened to him and his
brethren, and pleaded urgently for a "healing Act of Uniformity." Calamy
explicitly states that he was disposed to enter the establishment, if
Tillotson's scheme had succeeded. Howe also lamented the failure of the
scheme.'[346] The trusts of their meeting-houses were in many instances
so framed, and their licences so taken out, that the buildings could
easily be transferred to Church uses.[347] The Independents, who came
next to the Presbyterians, both in influence and numerical strength,
were more divided in opinion. Many remained staunch to the principles of
their early founders, and were wholly irreconcilable.[348] Others,
perhaps a majority, of the 'Congregational Brethren,' as they preferred
to call themselves, were very willing to 'own the king for head over
their churches,' to give a general approval to the Prayer Book, and to
be comprehended, on terms which would allow them what they considered a
reasonable liberty, within the National Church.[349] They formed part of
the deputation of ministers to King William, by whom an ardent hope was
expressed that differences might be composed, and such a firm union
established on broad Christian principles 'as would make the Church a
type of heaven.'[350] How far they would have accepted any practical
scheme of comprehension is more doubtful. But, as Mr. Skeats remarks of
the measure proposed in 1689, 'Calamy's assertion, that if it had been
adopted, it would in all probability have brought into the Church
two-thirds of the Dissenters, indicates the almost entire agreement of
the Independents with the Presbyterians, concerning the expedience of
adopting it.'[351]
The Baptists showed little or no disposition to come to an agreement
with the Church. They were at this time a declining sect, who held
little intercourse with other Dissenters, and were much engaged in petty
but very acrimonious controversies among themselves. They had been
divided ever since 1633 into two sections, the Particular and General
Baptists. The former of the two were Calvinists of the most rigorous and
exclusive type, often conspicuous by a fervent but excessively narrow
form of piety, and illiterate almost on principle on account of their
disparagement of what was called 'human learning.'[352] The General
Baptists, many of whom merged, early in the eighteenth century, into
Unitarians, were less exclusive in their views. But the Baptists
generally viewed the English Church with suspicion and dislike. In many
cases their members were forbidden to enter, an any pretext whatever,
the national churches, or to form intermarriages or hold social
intercourse with Churchmen.[353] Yet some may not have forgotten the
example and teaching of the ablest defender, in the seventeenth century,
of Baptist opinions. 'Mr. Tombs,' says Wall, quoting from Baxter,
'continued an Antipædobaptist to his dying day, yet wrote against
separation for it, and for communion with the parish churches.'[354]
When Marshall, in the course of controversy, reproached the Baptists
with separation, Tombs answered that he must blame the persons, not the
general body. For his own part he thought such separation a 'practice
justly to be abhorred. The making of sects upon difference of opinions,
reviling, separating from their teachers and brethren otherwise
faithful, because there is not the same opinion in disputable points, or
in clear truths not fundamental, is a thing too frequent in all sorts of
dogmatists, &c., and I look upon it as one of the greatest plagues of
Christianity. You shall have me join with you in detestation of
it.'[355] He himself continued in communion with the National Church
until his death.
Unitarians have always differed from one another so very widely, that
they can hardly be classed or spoken of under one name. Their opinions
have always varied in every possible degree, from such minute departure
from generally received modes of expression in speaking of the mystery
of the Godhead, as needs a very microscopic orthodoxy to detect, down to
the barest and most explicit Socinianism. There were some who charged
with Unitarianism Bishop Bull,[356] whose learned defence of the Nicene
faith was famous throughout all Europe. There were many who made it an
accusation against Tillotson,[357] and the whole[358] of the Low or
Latitudinarian party in the Church of England. The Roman
Controversialists of the seventeenth century used to go further still,
and boldly assert[359] that to leave Rome was to go to Socinianism; and
the Calvinists, on their side, would sometimes argue that 'Arminianism
was a shoeing horn to draw on Socinianism.'[360] A great number of the
Unitarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were themselves
scarcely distinguishable from the orthodox. 'For peace sake they submit
to the phrase of the Church, and expressly own Three Persons, though
they think the word person not so proper as another might be. If the
Three Persons should be defined by three distinct minds and spirits, or
substances, the Unitarian will be lost; but if person be defined by
mode, manifestation, or outward relation, he will be acquitted.... They
believe all the articles of the Apostles' Creed.... They believe the law
of Christ contained in the four gospels to be the only and everlasting
rule, by which they shall be judged hereafter.... They thankfully lay
hold of the message of Redemption through Christ.'[361] Some of the
Unitarians, we are told, even excommunicated and deposed from the
ministry such of their party as denied that divine worship was due to
Christ.[362] Of Unitarians such as these, if they can be called by that
name, and not rather Arians or Semi-Arians, the words of Dr. Arnold may
properly be quoted: 'The addressing Christ in the language of prayer and
praise is an essential part of Christian worship. Every Christian would
feel his devotions incomplete, if this formed no part of them. This
therefore cannot be sacrificed; but we are by no means bound to inquire
whether all who pray to Christ entertain exactly the same ideas of His
nature. I believe that Arianism involves in it some very erroneous
notions as to the object of religious worship; but if an Arian will join
in our worship of Christ, and will call Him Lord and God, there is
neither wisdom nor charity in insisting that he shall explain what he
means by these terms; nor in questioning the strength and sincerity of
his faith in his Saviour, because he makes too great a distinction
between the Divinity of the Father and that which he allows to be the
attribute of the Son.'[363] This was certainly the feeling of
Tillotson[364] and many other eminent men of the same school. If an
Unitarian chose to conform, as very many are accustomed to do, they
gladly received him as a fellow worshipper. Thomas Firmin the
philanthropist, leader of the Unitarians of his day was a constant
attendant at Tillotson's church of St. Lawrence Jewry, and at Dr.
Outram's in Lombard Street. Yet both these divines were Catholic in
regard of the doctrine of the Trinity, and wrote in defence of it. In
fact, the moderate Unitarians conformed without asking or expecting any
concessions. Latitudinarian Churchmen, as a party, entertained no idea
of including Unitarians in the proposed act of comprehension. For his
own part, said Burnet, he could never understand pacificatory doctrines
on matters which seemed to him the fundamentals of Christianity.[365] So
far from comprehension, Socinians were excluded even from the benefits
of the act of toleration; and more than thirty years later, in 1697, a
severe Act of outlawry was passed against all who wrote or spoke against
the divinity of Christ.[366] Until about 1720, Unitarians scarcely took
the form of a separate sect. Either they were scarcely distinguishable
from those who professed one or another form of Deism, and who assumed
the title of a Christian philosophy rather than of a denomination; or
they were proscribed heretics; or they conformed to the Church of
England and did not consider their opinions inconsistent with loyalty to
it.
Little need be said, in this connexion, of the Quakers. Towards the end
of the seventeenth century they increased in wealth and numbers, and had
begun to hold far more mitigated tenets than those of a previous age.
For this they were much indebted to Robert Barclay, who wrote his
'Apology' in Latin in 1676, and translated it with a dedication to
Charles II. in 1678. A few Churchmen of pronounced mystical opinions
were to some extent in sympathy with them; but, as a rule, both among
Conformists and Nonconformists they were everywhere misunderstood,
ridiculed, and denounced. If it had not been so, their vehement
repudiation of all intervention of the State in religious matters would
have compelled them to hold aloof from all overtures of comprehension,
even if any had been proffered to them.
The Nonconformists, therefore, who in the latter part of the seventeenth
century might have been attached by a successful measure of
comprehension to the National Church, were the Presbyterians--at that
time a large and influential body--a considerable proportion, probably,
of the Independents, and individual members of other denominations. The
most promising, though not the best known scheme, appears to have been
that put forward by the Presbyterians, and earnestly promoted by Sir
Matthew Hale, Bishop Wilkins, and others, in 1667. Assent only was to
be required to the Prayer Book; certain ceremonies were to be left
optional; clergymen who had received only Presbyterian ordination were
to receive, with imposition of the bishop's hands, legal authority to
exercise the offices of their ministry, the word 'legal' being
considered a sufficient salvo for the intrinsic validity of their
previous orders; 'sacramentally' might be added after 'regenerated' in
the Baptismal service, and a few other things were to be made
discretional. Here was a very tolerable basis for an agreement which
might not improbably have been carried out, if the House of Commons had
not resolved to pass no bill of comprehension in that year.
Even this scheme, however, had one essential fault common to it with the
projects which were brought forward at a somewhat later period. No
measure for Church comprehension on anything like a large scale is ever
like to fulfil its objects, unless the whole of the question with all
its difficulties is boldly grasped and dealt with in a statesmanlike
manner. Nonconformist bodies, which have grown up by long and perhaps
hereditary usage into fixed habits and settled frames of thought, or
whose strength is chiefly based upon principles and motives of action
which are not quite in accordance with the spirit of the larger society,
can never be satisfactorily incorporated into a National Church, unless
the scheme provides to a great extent for the affiliation and
maintenance in their integrity of the existing organisations. The Roman
Church has never hesitated to utilise in this sort of manner new
spiritual forces, and, without many alterations of the old, to make new
additions to her ecclesiastical machinery at the risk of increasing its
complexity. The Church of England might in this respect have followed
the example of her old opponent to very great advantage. But neither in
the plan of 1689, nor in any of those which preceded or followed it
during the period which elapsed between the Act of Uniformity and the
close of the century, was anything of the kind attempted.
Much, no doubt, could be done and was proposed to be done, in the way of
removing from public services, where other words, not less to the
purpose and equally devotional, could be substituted for them, some
expressions which gave offence and raised scruples. Where this can be
done without loss, it must needs be a gain. A concession to scruples
which in no way impairs our perception of Christian truth, is a worthy
sacrifice to Christian charity. Such a work, however, of revision
demands much caution and an exceptional amount of sound discretion.
Least of all it can be done in any spirit of party. In proposing a
change of expression which would be in itself wholly unobjectionable,
the revisers have not only to consider the scruples of those whom they
wish to conciliate; they must respect even more heedfully, feelings and
sentiments which they may not themselves share in, but which are valued
by one or another party already existing in the Church. A revision
conducted by the moderates of a Church would plainly have no right to
meet scruples and objections on the part of Puritans, outside their
Communion, only by creating new scruples and objections among High
Churchmen within it; just as, reversely, it would be equally
unjustifiable to conciliate High Sacramentalists, or the lovers of a
grander or more touching ceremonial, who hovered on the borders of a
Church, by changes which would be painful to its Puritan members already
domiciled within it. When men of all the leading parties in a Church are
sincerely desirous (as they ought, and, under such contingencies, are
specially bound to be,) of removing unnecessary obstacles to Church
Communion, the work of revision will be comparatively easy; and changes,
which to unwilling minds would be magnified into alarming sacrifices,
will become peace offerings uncostly in themselves, and willingly and
freely yielded. Much then can be done in this way, but only where the
changes, however excellent and opportune in themselves, are promoted not
merely by a party, but by the Church in general.
Alterations, however, of this kind, although they may constitute a very
important part of a measure of Church comprehension, will rarely, if
ever, prove sufficient to fulfil in any satisfactory manner the desired
purpose. It would be simply ruinous to the vitality of any Church to be
neutral and colourless in its formularies. Irritating and polemical
terms may most properly be excluded from devotional use; but no Church
or party in a Church which has life and promise in it will consent, in
order to please others, to give up old words and accustomed usages which
give distinctiveness to worship and add a charm to the expression of
familiar doctrines.
One, therefore, of two things must be done as a duty both to the old and
to the incoming members. Either much must be left optional to the
clergy, or to the clergy acting in concert with their congregations, or
else, as was before said, the National Church must find scope and room
for its new members, not as a mere throng of individuals, but as
corporate bodies, whose organisations may have to be modified to suit
the new circumstances, but not broken up. When it is considered how
highly strict uniformity was valued by the ruling powers at the end of
the seventeenth century, the ample discretionary powers that were
proposed to be left are a strong proof how genuine in many quarters must
have been the wish to effect a comprehension. The difficulties,
however, which beset such liberty of option were obvious, and the
opponents of the bill did not fail to make the most of them. It was a
subject which specially suited the satirical pen and declamatory powers
of Dr. South. He was a great stickler for uniformity; unity, he urged,
was strength; and therefore he insisted upon 'a resolution to keep all
the constitutions of the Church, the parts of the service, and the
conditions of its communion entire, without lopping off any part of
them.' 'If any be indulged in the omission of the least thing there
enjoined, they cannot be said to "speak all the same thing."' And then,
in more forcible language, he descanted upon what he called 'the
deformity and undecency' of difference of practice. He drew a vivid
picture how some in the same diocese would use the surplice, and some
not, and how there would be parties accordingly. 'Some will kneel at the
Sacrament, some stand, some perhaps sit; some will read this part of the
Common Prayer, some that--some, perhaps, none at all.' Some in the
pulpits of our churches and cathedrals 'shall conceive a long crude
extemporary prayer, in reproach of all the prayers which the Church with
such admirable prudence and devotion hath been making before. Nay, in
the same cathedral you shall see one prebendary in a surplice, another
in a long coat, another in a short coat or jacket; and in the
performance of the public services some standing up at the Creed, the
Gloria Patri, and the reading of the Gospel; and others sitting, and
perhaps laughing and winking upon their fellow schismatics, in scoff of
those who practise the decent order of the Church.' Irreconcilable
parties, he adds, and factions will be created. 'I will not hear this
formalist, says one; and I will not hear that schismatic (with better
reason), says another.... So that I dare avouch, that to bring in a
comprehension is nothing else but, in plain terms, to establish a schism
in the Church by law, and so bring a plague into the very bowels of it,
which is more than sufficiently endangered already by having one in its
neighbourhood; a plague which shall eat out the very heart and soul, and
consume the vitals and spirit of it, and this to such a degree, that in
the compass of a few years it shall scarce have any being or
subsistence, or so much as the face of a National Church to be known
by.'[367] South's sermon was on the appropriate text, 'not give place,
no, not for an hour.' His picture was doubtless a highly exaggerated
one. The discretionary powers which some of the schemes of comprehension
proposed to give would not have left the Church of England a mere scene
of confusion, an unseemly Babel of anarchy and licence. A sketch might
be artfully drawn, in which nothing should be introduced but what was
truthfully selected from the practices of different London Churches of
the present day, which might easily make a foreigner imagine that in the
National Church uniformity and order were things unknown. Yet
practically, its unity remains unbroken; and the inconveniences arising
from such divergences are very slight as compared with the advantages
which result from them, and with the general life and elasticity of
which they are at once both causes and symptoms. Good feeling, sound
sense, and the natural instinct of order would have done much to abate
the disorders of even a large relaxation of the Act of Uniformity. In
1689, before yet the course taken by the Revolution had kindled the
strong spirit of party, there was nothing like the heat of feeling in
regard of such usages as the wearing of the surplice, kneeling at the
Communion, and the sign of the cross at Baptism, as there had been in
the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign. When prejudices began to pass
away, prevailing practice would probably have been guided, after an
interval, by the rule of the 'survival of the fittest,'--of those
customs, that is, which best suited the temper of the people and the
spirit of the Church. The surplice, for instance, would very likely have
become gradually universal, much in the same manner as in our own day it
has gradually superseded the gown in the pulpit. A concession to
Nonconformist scruples of some discretionary power in regard of a few
ceremonies and observances would certainly not have brought upon the
National Church the ruin foreboded by Dr. South. Possibly a licensed
variety of usage might have had indirectly a somewhat wholesome
influence. The mild excitement of controversies about matters in
themselves almost indifferent might have tended, like a gentle blister,
to ward off the lethargy which, in the eighteenth century, paralysed to
so great an extent the spiritual energies of the Church. No one can
doubt that Dr. South's remarks expressed in vigorous language genuine
difficulties. But it was equally obvious that if the National Church
were to be laced on a wider basis, as the opportunities of the time
seemed to demand, a relaxation of uniformity of some kind or another was
indispensable. It did not seem to occur to the reformers and
revisionists of the time that a concession of optional powers was a
somewhat crude, nor by any means the only solution of the difficulty;
and that it might be quite possible to meet all reasonable scruples of
Nonconformists without in any way infringing upon customs which all old
members of the Church of England were well satisfied to retain.
But even if the schemes for comprehension had been thoroughly sound in
principle, and less open to objection, the favourable opportunity soon
passed by. While there yet lingered in men's minds a feeling of
uneasiness and regret that the Restoration of 1660 should have been
followed by the ejection of so many deserving clergy; while the more
eminent and cultured of the sufferers by it were leavening the whole
Nonconformist body with principles and sentiments which belong rather to
a National Church than to a detached sect; while Nonconformity among
large bodies of Dissenters was not yet an established fact; while men of
all parties were still rejoicing in the termination of civil war, in the
conspicuous abatement of religious and political animosities, and in the
sense of national unity; while Protestants of all shades of opinion were
knit together by the strong band of a common danger, by the urgent need
of combination against a foe whose advances threatened the liberties of
all; while High Churchmen like Ken and Sancroft were advocating not
toleration only, but comprehension; while the voices of Nonconformists
joined heartily in the acclamations which greeted the liberation of the
seven bishops; while the Upper House of Convocation was not yet
separated from the Lower, nor the great majority of the bishops from the
bulk of the clergy, by a seemingly hopeless antagonism of Church
principles; while High Churchmen were still headed by bishops
distinguished by their services to religion and liberty; and while Broad
Churchmen were represented not only by eminent men of the type of
Stillingfleet and Tillotson, Burnet, Tenison and Compton, but by the
thoughtful and philosophic band of scholars who went by the name of the
Cambridge Platonists--under circumstances such as these, there was very
much that was highly favourable to the efforts which were being made in
favour of Church comprehension. These efforts met at all times with
strong opposition, especially in the House of Commons and among the
country clergy. But a well-considered scheme, once carried, would have
been welcomed with very general approval, and might have been attended
with most beneficial results.
The turn taken by the Revolution of 1688 destroyed the prospect of
bringing these labours to a really successful issue. They were pushed
on, as is well known, with greater energy than ever. They could not,
however, fail of being infected henceforth with a partisan and political
spirit which made it very doubtful whether the ill consequences of an
Act of Comprehension would not have more than counterbalanced its
advantages. The High Church party, deprived of many of their best men by
the secession of the Nonjurors, and suspected by a triumphant majority
of Jacobitism and general disaffection, were weakened, narrowed, and
embittered. Broad Churchmen, on the other hand, were looked upon by
those who differed from them as altogether Latitudinarians in religion,
and Whigs in politics--terms constantly used as practically convertible.
Danger from Rome, although by no means insignificant, was no longer so
visible, or so pressing, as it had been in James II.'s reign. Meanwhile,
it had become apparent that the Church of England was menaced by a peril
of an opposite kind. Not High Churchmen only, but all who desired to see
the existing character of the Church of England maintained, had cause to
fear lest under a monarch to whom all forms of Protestantism were alike,
and who regarded all from a political and somewhat sceptical point of
view, ideas very alien to those which had given the National Church its
shape and colour might now become predominant. If the Royal Supremacy
was no longer the engine of power it had been under some previous
rulers, and up to the very era of the Revolution, the personal opinions
of the sovereign still had considerable weight, especially when backed,
as they now were, by a strong mass of opinion, both within the English
Church, and among Nonconformists. There were many persons who drew back
with apprehension from measures which a year or two before they had
looked forward to with hope. They knew not what they might lead to.
Salutary changes might be the prelude to others which they would witness
with dismay. Moreover, changes which might have been salutary under
other circumstances, would entirely lose their character when they were
regarded as the triumph of a party and caused distrust and alienation.
They might create a wider schism than any they could heal. The Nonjuring
separation was at present a comparatively inconsiderable body in numbers
and general influence; and there was a hope, proved in the issue to be
well founded, that many of the most respected members of it would
eventually return to the communion which they had unwillingly quitted.
The case would be quite reversed, if multitudes of steady, old-fashioned
Churchmen, disgusted by concessions and innovations which they abhorred
and regarded as mere badges of a party triumph, came to look upon the
communion of Ken and Kettlewell and Nelson as alone representing that
Church of their forefathers to which they had given their attachment. It
would be a disastrous consequence of efforts pressed inopportunely in
the interests of peace if the ancient Church of England were rent in
twain.