CHURCH ABUSES.
Never since her Reformation had the Church of England given so fair a
promise of a useful and prosperous career as she did at the beginning of
the eighteenth century. Everything seemed to be in her favour. In 1702 a
sovereign ascended the throne who was enthusiastically devoted to her
interests, and endeavoured to live according to the spirit of her
teaching. The two great political parties were both bidding for her
support. Each accused the other of being her enemy, as the worst
accusation that could be brought against them. The most effective cry
which the Whigs could raise against the Tories was, that they were
imperilling the Church by dallying with France and Rome; the most
effective cry which the Tories could raise against the Whigs was, that
the Church was in danger under an administration which favoured
sectaries and heretics. Both parties vehemently denied the charge, and
represented themselves as the truest friends of the Church. Had they
done otherwise they would have forfeited at once the national
confidence. For the nation at large, and the lower classes even more
than the higher, were vehement partisans of the National Church. The now
unusual spectacle of a High Church mob was then not at all unusual.[648]
The enemies of the Church seemed to be effectually silenced. Rome had
tried her strength against her and had failed--failed in argument and
failed in policy. Protestant Dissent was declining in numbers, in
influence, and in ability. Both Romanists and Nonconformists would have
been only too thankful to have been allowed to enjoy their own opinions
in peace, without attempting any aggressive work against the dominant
Church.
Sad indeed is the contrast between the promise and the performance. Look
at the Church of the eighteenth century in prospect, and a bright scene
of uninterrupted triumph might be anticipated. Look at it in retrospect,
as it is pictured by many writers of every school of thought, and a dark
scene of melancholy failure presents itself. Not that this latter view
is altogether a correct one. Many as were the shortcomings of the
English Church of this period, her condition was not so bad as it has
been represented.
In the early part of the century the Nonjurors not unnaturally regarded
with a somewhat jealous eye those who stepped into the places from which
they for conscience' sake had been excluded, and the accounts which they
have left us of the abuses existing in the Church which had turned them
adrift must not be accepted without some allowance for the circumstances
under which they were written. The Deists, again, taking their stand on
the absolute perfection and sufficiency of natural religion, and the
consequent needlessness of any further revelation, would obviously
strengthen their position if they could show that the ministers of
Christianity were, as a matter of fact, faithless and useless. Hence the
Church and her ministers were favourite topics for their invectives. The
reputation of the Church suffered, perhaps, still more from the attacks
of the free-livers than from those of the free-thinkers. The strictures
of the latter formed part of the great Deistical controversy, and were
therefore replied to by the champions of orthodoxy; but the reckless
aspersions of the former, not being bound up with any controversy, were
for the most part suffered to pass unchallenged. Then, again, the
leaders of the Evangelical revival, who were misunderstood, and in many
cases cruelly treated, by the clergy of their day, could scarcely help
taking the gloomiest possible view of the state of the Church at large,
and were hardly in a position to appreciate the really good points of
men who were violently prejudiced against themselves; while their
biographers in later times have been too apt to bring out in stronger
relief the brightness of their heroes' portraits by making the
background as dark as possible.
Thus various causes have contributed to bring into prominence the abuses
of the Church of the eighteenth century, and to throw its merits into
the shade.
Still, after making full allowance for the distorting influence of
prejudice on many sides, there remains a wide margin which no amount of
prejudice can account for. 'Church abuses' must still form a painfully
conspicuous feature in any sketch of the ecclesiastical history of the
period.
Before entering into the details of these abuses it will be well to
specify some of the general causes which tended to paralyse the energies
and lower the tone of the Church.
Foremost among these must be placed that very outward prosperity which
would seem at the first glance to augur for the Church a useful and
prosperous career. But that 'which should have been for her wealth'
proved to her 'an occasion of falling.' The peace which she enjoyed made
her careless and inactive. The absence of the wholesome stimulus of
competition was far from being an unmixed advantage to her. Very soon
after the accession of George I., when the voice of Convocation was
hushed, a dead calm set in, so far as the internal affairs of the
Church were concerned--a calm which was really more perilous to her than
the stormy weather in which she had long been sailing. The discussion of
great questions has always a tendency to call forth latent greatness of
mind where any exists. But after the second decade of the eighteenth
century there was hardly any question _within_ the Church to agitate
men's minds. There was abundance of controversy with those without, but
within all was still. There was nothing to encourage self-sacrifice, and
self-sacrifice is essential to promote a healthy spiritual life. The
Church partook of the general sordidness of the age; it was an age of
great material prosperity, but of moral and spiritual poverty, such as
hardly finds a parallel in our history. Mercenary motives were too
predominant everywhere, in the Church as well as in the State.
The characteristic fault of the period was greatly intensified by the
influence of one man. The reigns of the first two Georges might not
inaptly be termed the Walpolian period. For though Walpole's fall took
place before the period closed, yet the principles he had inculcated and
acted upon had taken too deep a root in the heart of the nation to fall
with his fall. Walpole had learned the wisdom of applying his favourite
maxim, '_Quieta non movere_,' to the affairs of the Church before he
began to apply it to those of the State. 'In 1710,' writes his
biographer, 'Walpole was appointed one of the managers for the
impeachment of Sacheverell, and principally conducted that business in
the House of Commons. The mischievous consequences of that trial had a
permanent effect on the future conduct of Walpole when head of the
Administration. It infused into him an aversion and horror at any
interposition in the affairs of the Church, and led him to assume
occasionally a line of conduct which appeared to militate against those
principles of toleration to which he was naturally inclined.'[649] And
so his one idea of managing ecclesiastical affairs was to keep things
quiet; he calmed down all opposition to the Church from without, but he
conferred a very questionable benefit upon her by this policy.[650]
We have seen in the chapter on the Deists how the Church suffered in
her practical work from the controversies of her own generation; and no
less did she suffer from the effects left by the controversies of a
preceding age. The events which had occurred during the seventeenth
century had tended to excite an almost morbid dread of extravagance both
in the direction of High Church and Low Church principles--according to
the nineteenth, not the eighteenth, century's acceptation of those
terms. The majority of the clergy shrank, not unnaturally, from anything
which might seem in any degree to assimilate them either to Romanism or
to Puritanism. Recent experience had shown the danger of both. The
violent reaction against the reign of the Saints continued with more or
less force almost to the end of the eighteenth century. The fear of
Romanism, which had been brought so near home to the nation in the days
of James II., was even yet a present danger, at least during the first
half of the century. In casting away everything that seemed to savour of
either of these two extremes there was a danger of casting away also
much that might have been edifying and elevating. On the one hand,
ornate and frequent services and symbolism of all kinds were regarded
with suspicion, and consequently infrequent services, and especially
infrequent communions, carelessness about the Church fabrics, and bad
taste in the work that was done, are conspicuous among the Church abuses
of the period. On the other side, fervency and vigour in preaching were
regarded with suspicion as bordering too nearly upon the habits of the
hated Puritans of the Commonwealth, and a dry, dull, moralising style of
sermon was the result. And, generally, this fear on both sides
engendered a certain timidity and obstructiveness and want of elasticity
which prevented the Church from incorporating into her system anything
which seemed to diverge one hair's breadth from the groove in which she
ran.
Again, the Church was an immense engine of political power. The most
able and popular statesmen could not afford to dispense with her aid.
The bench of bishops formed so compact a phalanx in the Upper House of
the Legislature, and the clergy could and did influence so many
elections into the Lower House, that the Church had necessarily to be
courted and favoured, often to the great detriment of her spiritual
character.
Nor, in touching upon the general causes which impaired the efficiency
of the Church during the eighteenth century, must we omit to notice the
want of all synodal action. There may be different opinions as to the
wisdom or otherwise of the indefinite prorogation of Convocation, as it
existed in the early years of the eighteenth century. That it was the
scene of unseemly disputes, and altogether a turbulent element in the
Constitution, when the Ministry of George I. thought good to prorogue it
_sine die_ in 1717, is not denied; but that the Church should be
deprived of the privilege, which every other religious body enjoyed, of
discussing in her own assembly her own affairs, was surely in itself an
evil. And we must not too hastily assume that she was not then in a
condition to discuss them profitably. The proceedings of the later
meetings of Convocation in the eighteenth century which are best known
are those which concerned subjects of violent altercation. But these
were by no means the only subjects suggested for discussion.[651] The
re-establishing and rendering useful the office of rural deans, the
regulating of marriage licences, the encouragement of charity schools,
the establishment of parochial libraries, the licentiousness of the
stage, protests against duelling, the want of sufficient church
accommodation, the work of Christian missions both to the heathen and
our own plantations--these and other thoroughly practical questions are
found among the agenda of Convocation during the eighteenth century; and
the mention of them suggests some of the very shortcomings with which
the Church of the Hanoverian period is charged.
The causes which led to the unhappy disputes between the Upper and Lower
Houses were obviously only temporary; it is surely not chimerical to
assume that time and a change of circumstances would have brought about
a better understanding between the bishops and the inferior clergy, and
that Convocation would have seen better days, and have been instrumental
in rolling away some at least of the reproaches with which the Church of
the day is now loaded.[652] To the action of Convocation in the early
part of the eighteenth century the Church was indebted for at least one
good work. The building and endowment of the fifty new churches in
London would probably never have been projected had not Convocation
stirred itself in the matter, and would probably have never been
abandoned if Convocation had continued to meet.[653] There was ample
room for similar work, of which every good Christian of every school of
thought might have approved. And there were many occasions on which it
would appear, _primâ facie_, that synodal deliberation might have
proved of immense benefit to the Church. For instance, on that very
important, but at the time most perplexing, question, 'How should the
Church deal with the irregular but most valuable efforts of the Wesleys
and Whitefield and their fellow-labourers?' it would have been most
desirable for the clergy to have taken counsel together in their own
proper assembly. As it was, the bishops had to deal with this new phase
of spiritual life entirely on their own responsibility. They had no
opportunity of consulting with their brethren on the bench, or even with
the clergy in their dioceses; for not only was the voice of Convocation
hushed, but diocesan synods and ruridecanal chapters had also fallen
into abeyance. The want of such consultation is conspicuous in the doubt
and perplexity which evidently distracted the minds both of the bishops
and many of the clergy when they had to face the earlier phenomena of
the Methodist movement.
It will thus be seen that there were many general causes at work which
tended to debase the Church during the period which comes under our
consideration. No doubt some that have been mentioned were symptoms as
well as causes of the disease; but, in so far as they were causes, they
must be fully taken into account before we condemn indiscriminately the
clergy whose lot it was to live in an age when circumstances were so
little conducive to the development of the higher spiritual life, or to
the carrying out of the Church's proper mission to the nation. It is
extremely difficult for any man to rise above the spirit of his age. He
who can do so is a spiritual hero. But it is not given to everyone to
reach the heroic standard; and it surely does not follow that because a
man cannot be a hero he must therefore be a bad man.
Bearing these cautions in mind, we may now proceed to consider some of
the more flagrant abuses, the existence of which has affixed a stigma,
not altogether undeserved, upon the English Church of the eighteenth
century.
One of the worst of these abuses--worst both in itself and also as the
fruitful source of many others--was the glaring evil of pluralities and
non-residence, an evil which was inherited from an earlier generation.
It is perfectly astonishing to observe the lax views which even really
good men seem to have held on this subject in the middle part of the
century. Bishop Newton, the amiable and learned author of the
'Dissertation on the Prophecies,' mentions it as an act of almost
Quixotic disinterestedness that 'when he obtained the deanery of St.
Paul's (that is, in addition to his bishopric) he resigned his living in
the City, having held it for twenty-five years.' In another passage he
plaintively enumerates the various preferments he had to resign on
taking the bishopric of Bristol. 'He was obliged to give up the prebend
of Westminster, the precentorship of York, the lectureship of St.
George's, Hanover Square, and the genteel office of sub-almoner.' On
another occasion we find him conjuring his friend Bishop Pearce, of
Rochester, not to resign the deanery of Westminster. 'He offered and
urged all the arguments he could to dissuade the Bishop from his purpose
of separating the two preferments, which had been united for near a
century, and lay so convenient to each other that neither of them would
be of the same value without the other; and if once separated they might
perhaps never be united again, and his successors would have reason to
reproach and condemn his memory.' In another passage he complains of the
diocese of Lincoln being 'so very large and laborious, so very extensive
and expensive;' but the moral he draws is not that it should be
subdivided, so that its bishop might be able to perform his duties, but
'that it really requires and deserves a good commendam to support it
with any dignity.'
Herring held the deanery of Rochester in commendam with the bishopric of
Bangor. Wilcocks was Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, and
was succeeded both in the deanery and the bishopric by Zachary Pearce.
Hoadly held the see of Bangor for six years, apparently without ever
seeing the diocese in his life. Even the excellent Dr. Porteus (one of
the most pious, liberal, and unselfish of men) thought it no sin to hold
a country living in conjunction with the bishopric of Chester. He
actually had permission to retain the important living of Lambeth as
well; but 'he thought,' says his biographer with conscious pride, 'with
so many additional cares he should not be able to attend to so large a
benefice, at least to the satisfaction of his own mind, and therefore
hesitated not a moment in giving it up into other hands.'[654] Bishop
Watson, of Llandaff, gives a most artless account of his non-residence.
'Having,' he tells us, 'no place of residence in my diocese, I turned my
attention to the improvement of land. I thought the improvement of a
man's fortune by cultivating the earth was the most useful and
honourable way of providing for a family. I have now been several years
occupied as an improver of land and planter of trees.'[655] The same
bishop gives us a most extraordinary description of the sources from
whence his clerical income was derived. 'The provision of 2,000_l._, a
year,' he says, 'which I possess from the Church arises from the tithes
of two churches in Shropshire, two in Leicestershire, two in my diocese,
three in Huntingdonshire, on all of which I have resident curates; of
five more appropriations to the bishopric, and two more in the Isle of
Ely as appropriations to the archdeaconry of Ely.[656]
Pluralities and non-residence being thus so common among the very men
whose special duty it was to prevent them, one can hardly wonder that
the evil prevailed to a sad extent among the lower clergy.
Archbishop Secker, in his charge to the diocese of Canterbury in 1758,
complains of 'the non-resident clergyman, who reckons it enough that,
for aught he knows to the contrary, his parishioners go on like their
neighbours,' and attributes to this, among other causes, 'the rise of a
new sect, pretending to the strictest piety.' It seems, however, to have
been taken for granted that the evil practice must be recognised to a
certain extent. Thus Paley, in his charge in 1785, recommends 'the
clergy who cannot talk to their parishioners, and non-resident
incumbents, to distribute the tracts of the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge;'[657] and even so late as 1796 Bishop Horsley
admits that 'many non-residents are promoting the general cause of
Christianity, and perhaps doing better service than if they confined
themselves to the ordinary labours of the ministry.' He thinks it would
be 'no less impolitic than harsh to call such to residence,' and adds
that 'other considerations make non-residence a thing to be connived
at.'[658]
The collateral evils which would necessarily result from the scandals we
are noticing are obvious. When the incumbent of a parish was
non-resident, and more especially when, as was not unfrequently the
case, there was not even a resident curate, it was impossible that the
duties of the parish could be properly attended to. Evidences of this
are only too plentiful. But, instead of quoting dreary details to prove
a point which has been generally admitted, it will be sufficient in this
place to refer to some passages in the charges of a worthy prelate which
throw a curious light upon what such a one could reasonably look for in
his clergy in the middle of the eighteenth century. In his charge to the
diocese of Oxford, in 1741, Bishop Secker recommends the duty of
catechising; but he feels that his recommendation cannot in many cases
be carried out. 'I am sensible,' he adds, 'that some clergymen are
unhappily obliged to serve two churches the same afternoon.' We gather
from the same charge a sad idea of the infrequency of the celebration of
the Holy Communion. 'One thing,' the Bishop modestly suggests, 'might be
done in all your parishes: a Sacrament might easily be interposed in
that long interval between Whitsuntide and Christmas. If afterwards you
can advance from a quarterly Communion to a monthly, I have no doubt you
will.' In the same charge he reminds the clergy that 'our liturgy
consists of evening as well as morning prayer, and no inconvenience can
arise from attending it, provided persons are within tolerable distance
of church. Few have business at that time of day, and amusement ought
never to be preferred on the Lord's day before religion; not to say that
there is room for both.'[659] When it is remembered that the state of
things described in the above remarks existed in the great University
diocese, which was presumably in advance rather than behind the age, and
that, moreover, the clergy were presided over by a man who was
thoroughly earnest and conscientious, and yet that he can only hint in
the most delicate way at improvements which, as the tone of his
exhortation evidently shows, he hardly hoped would be carried out, it
may be imagined what was the condition of parishes in less favoured and
more remote dioceses.
Another evil, which was greatly aggravated by the multiplication of
benefices in a single hand, was clerical poverty. There was in the last
century a far wider gap between the different classes of the clergy than
there is at the present day. While the most eminent or most fortunate
among them could take their places on a stand of perfect equality with
the highest nobles in the land, the bulk of the country curates and
poorer incumbents hardly rose above the rank of the small farmer. A much
larger proportion than now lived and died without the slightest prospect
of rising above the position of a stipendiary curate; and the regular
stipend of a curate was 30_l._ a year. When Collins complained of the
expense of maintaining so large a body of clergy, Bentley replied that
'the Parliamentary accounts showed that six thousand of the clergy had,
at a middle rate, not 50_l._ a year;' and he then added that argument
which was subsequently used with so much effect by Sydney Smith--viz.
that 'talent is attracted into the Church by a few great prizes.'[660]
Some years later, when Lord Shelburne asked Bishop Watson 'if nothing
could be gotten from the Church towards alleviating the burdens of the
State,' the Bishop replied that the whole revenue of the Church would
not yield 150_l._ a year to each clergyman, and therefore a diminution
would be inexpedient unless Government would be contented to have a
beggarly and illiterate clergy, which no wise minister would wish.'[661]
He might have added that, even as it was, a great number of the clergy,
if not 'beggarly and illiterate,' were either weighed down with the
pressure of poverty, or, to escape it, were obliged to have recourse to
occupations which were more fit for illiterate men. Dr. Primrose, in his
adversity, and Parson Adams are specimens of the better type of this
class of clergy, and it is to be feared that Parson Trulliber is not a
very unfair specimen of the worst. There is an odd illustration of the
immeasurable distance which was supposed to separate the bishop from the
curate in Cradock's 'Reminiscences.' Bishop Warburton was to preach in
St. Lawrence's Church in behalf of the London Hospital. 'I was,' writes
Cradock, 'introduced into the vestry by a friend, where the Lord Mayor
and others were waiting for the Duke of York, who was their president;
and in the meantime the bishop did everything in his power to entertain
and alleviate their patience. He was beyond measure condescending and
courteous, and even graciously handed some biscuits and wine in a salver
to the curate who was to read prayers!'[662]
So far as one can judge, this wide gulf which divided the higher from
the lower clergy was by no means always a fair measure of their
respective merits. The readers of 'Joseph Andrews' will remember that
Parson Adams is represented not only as a pious and estimable clergyman,
but also as a scholar and a divine. And there were not wanting in real
life unbeneficed clergymen who, in point of abilities and erudition,
might have held their own with the learned prelates of the period.
Thomas Stackhouse, the curate of Finchley, is a remarkable case in
point. His 'Compleat Body of Divinity,' and, still more, his 'History of
the Bible,' published in 1733, are worthy to stand on the same shelf
with the best writings of the bishops in an age when the Bench was
extraordinarily fertile in learning and intellectual activity. John
Newton wrote most of his works in a country curacy. Romaine, whose
learning and abilities none can doubt, was fifty years old before he was
beneficed. Seed, a preacher and writer of note, was a curate for the
greater part of his life. It must be added, however, that as the
eighteenth century advanced, a very decided improvement took place in
the circumstances of the bulk of the clergy--an improvement which would
have been still more extensive but for the prevalence of pluralities.
Unhappily, among the evils resulting from the multiplication of a needy
clergy, which may be in part attributed to the undue accumulation of
Church property in a few hands, mere penury was not the worst. Some
clergy struggled manfully and honestly against its pressure, but others
fell into disreputable courses. These latter are not, of course, to be
regarded as representative men of any class in the Church. They were
simply the Pariahs of ecclesiastical society; the black sheep which will
be found, in one form or another, in every age of the Church. But owing
to the causes noted above, they formed an exceptionally large class at
the close of the seventeenth and during the first half at least of the
eighteenth century.
Some belonging to this class of clergy supported themselves as
hangers-on to the families of the great. Domestic chaplains in great
houses became less common as the century advanced. The admirable hits of
Addison and Steele against the indignities to which domestic chaplains
were subjected are more applicable to the early than to the latter part
of the century. Boswell adduced it as an instance that 'there was less
religion in the nation than formerly,' that 'there used to be a chaplain
in every great family, which we do not find now;' and was well answered
by Dr. Johnson, 'Neither do you find any of the state servants in great
families. There is a change in customs.' The change, however, was not
wholly to the advantage of the Church. Bad as was the relation between
the chaplain and his patron, where the former was degraded to an
inferior position in the household, there was still some sort of
spiritual tie between them.[663] The parson who was simply the boon
companion of the ignorant and sensual squire of the Hanoverian period
was in a still worse position. This class of clergyman is a constant
subject of satire in the lighter literature and caricatures of the day.
Not that they were so numerous or so bad as they are often represented
to have been. There was a strong and growing tendency in the Georgian
era to make the very worst of clerical delinquencies. For it is a
curious fact that while the Church as an establishment was most popular,
her ministers were most unpopular. Secker complained, not without
reason, in 1738, that 'Christianity is now railed at and ridiculed with
very little reserve, and the teachers of it without any at all. Against
us our adversaries appear to have set themselves to be as bitter as they
can--not only beyond all truth, but beyond probability--exaggerating
without mercy,' &c.[664] And nearly thirty years later he still makes
the same complaint. 'You cannot but see,' he warns candidates for Holy
Orders, 'in what a profane and corrupt age this stewardship is committed
to you; how grievously religion and its ministers are hated and
despised.'[665] 'Since the Lollards,' writes Mr. Pattison, 'there had
never been a time when the ministers of religion were held in so much
contempt as in the Hanoverian period, or when satire upon Churchmen was
so congenial to the general feeling. There was no feeling against the
Establishment, nor was Nonconformity ever less in favour. The contempt
was for the persons, manners, and characters of ecclesiastics.'[666]
This unpopularity arose from a complication of causes which need not be
investigated in this place; it is sufficient to notice the fact, which
should be thoroughly borne in mind in estimating the value to be
attached to contemporary complaints of clerical misdoings. The evils
resulting from pluralities and non-residence would have been mischievous
under any circumstances; but their mischief was still further enhanced
by the false principles upon which ecclesiastical patronage was too
often distributed. Statesmen who valued religion chiefly as a State
engine had an eye merely to political ends in the distribution of Church
preferment. This is of course a danger to which an Established Church is
peculiarly liable at all times; but the critical circumstances of the
eighteenth century rendered the temptation of using the Church simply
for State purposes especially strong. The memorable results of the
Sacheverell impeachment, which contributed so largely to bring about the
downfall of the Whig Ministry in 1710, showed how dangerous it was for
statesmen to set themselves against the strong feeling of the majority
of the clergy. The lifelong effects which this famous trial produced
upon Sir R. Walpole have already been noticed. Both he and his timid
successor prided themselves upon being friends of the Church, and
expected the Church to be friends to them in return. Neither of them
made any secret of the fact that they regarded Church preferment as a
useful means of strengthening their own power. Nor were these isolated
cases. 'Lord Hardwicke' (his biographer tells us) 'thought it his duty
to dispose of the ecclesiastical preferments in his gift [as Chancellor]
with a view to increase his own political influence, without any
scrupulous regard for the interests of religion, and without the
slightest respect for scientific or literary merit.'[667] Lord Shelburne
gave the bishopric of Llandaff to Dr. Watson, 'hoping,' the Bishop tells
us, 'I was a warm, and might become a useful partisan; and he told the
Duke of Grafton he hoped I might occasionally write a pamphlet for their
administration.'[668] Warburton complains with characteristic roughness
of 'the Church being bestrid by some lumpish minister.'[669] Even Dr.
Johnson, that stout defender of the Established Church, and of
everything connected with the administration of its affairs, was obliged
to own that 'no man can now be made a bishop for his learning and piety;
his only chance of promotion is his being connected with some one who
has parliamentary interest.'[670] He seems, however, to think the system
inevitable and justifiable, owing to the weakness of the Government, for
he prefaces his admission by remarking that 'all that Government, which
has now too little power, has to bestow, must be given to support
itself; it cannot reward merit.' Mr. Grenville's well-known remark to
Bishop Newton,[671] that he considered bishoprics of two sorts, either
as bishoprics of business or bishoprics of ease, is another instance of
the low views which statesmen took, and were not ashamed to avow, of
their responsibilities as dispensers of Church preferment.
Such a system naturally tended to foster a false estimate of their
duties on the part of those who were promoted. If the dispenser of
Church preferment was too apt to regard merely political ends, the
recipient or expectant was on his part too often ready to play the
courtier or to become the mere political partisan. Whiston complains
that 'the bishops of his day were too well known to be tools of the
Court to merit better bishoprics by voting as directed.'[672] Warburton
owns that 'the general body of the clergy have been and (he is afraid)
always will be very intent upon pushing their temporal fortunes.'[673]
Watson considered 'the acquisition of a bishopric as no proof of
personal merit, inasmuch as they are often given to the flattering
dependants and unlearned younger branches of noble families.' Nay,
further, he considered 'the possession of a bishopric as a frequent
occasion of personal demerit.' 'For,' he writes, 'I saw the generality
of bishops bartering their independence and dignity of their order for
the chance of a translation, and polluting Gospel humility by the pride
of prelacy.'[674] Lord Campbell informs us that 'in spite of Lord
Thurlow's living openly with a mistress, his house was not only
frequented by his brother the bishop, but by ecclesiastics of all
degrees, who celebrated the orthodoxy of the head of the law and his
love of the Established Church.'[675] If one might trust two memoir
writers who had better opportunities of acquiring correct information
than almost any of their contemporaries, inasmuch as one was the son of
the all-powerful minister, and the other was the intimate friend and
confidential adviser of the chief dispenser of ecclesiastical patronage,
the sycophancy and worldliness of the clergy about the Court in the
middle of the eighteenth century must have been flagrant indeed. The
writers referred to are, of course, Horace Walpole and John, Lord
Hervey. Both of them, however, are so evidently actuated by a bitter
animus against the Church that their statements can by no means be
relied upon as authentic history.
Let us take another kind of evidence. Several of the Church dignitaries
of the eighteenth century have been obliging enough to leave
autobiographies to posterity, so that we can judge of their characters
as drawn, not by the prejudiced or imperfect information of others, but
by those who ought to know them best--themselves. One of the most
popular of these autobiographies is that of Bishop Newton. A great part
of his amusing memoirs is taken up with descriptions of the methods
which he and his friends adopted to secure preferment. There is very
little, if anything, in them of the duties and responsibilities of the
episcopal office. Where will they be most comfortable? What are their
chances of further preferment? How shall they best please the Court and
the ministers in office? These are the questions which Bishop Newton and
his brother prelates, to whom he makes frequent but never ill-natured
allusions, are represented as constantly asking in effect. Curious
indeed are the glimpses which the Bishop gives us into the system of
Church patronage and the race for preferment which were prevalent in his
day. But more curious still is the impression which the memoirs convey
that the writer himself had not the faintest conception that there was
anything in the least degree unseemly in what he relates. There appears
to be a sort of moral obtuseness in him in reference to these subjects,
but to these subjects only.[676] The memoir closes with a beautiful
expression of resignation to the Divine will, and of hopeful confidence
about the future, in which he was no doubt perfectly sincere. And yet he
openly avows a laxity of principle in the matter of preferment-seeking
and Court-subservience which taken by itself would argue a very worldly
mind. How are we to reconcile the apparent discrepancy? The most
charitable as well as the most reasonable explanation is that the good
Bishop's faults were simply the faults of his age and of his class. And
for this very reason the autobiography is all the more valuable as an
illustration of the subject before us. Bishop Newton is eminently a
representative man. His memoir contains evidently not the exceptional
sentiments of one who was either in advance of or behind his age, but
reflects a faithful picture of a general attitude of mind very prevalent
among Church dignitaries of that date.
Bishop Watson's 'Anecdotes of his own Life' furnish another curious
illustration of the sentiments of the age on the matter of Church
preferment. But the Bishop of Llandaff treats the matter from an
entirely different point of view from that of the Bishop of Bristol. The
latter was perfectly content with his own position, and with the
preferment before him of his brother clergy. 'He was rather pleased with
his little bishopric.' 'His income was amply sufficient, and scarce any
bishop had two more comfortable or convenient houses. Greater he might
have been, but he could not have been happier; and by the good blessing
of God was enabled to make a competent provision for those who were to
come after him, as well as to bestow something on charity.'[677] Bishop
Watson writes in a very different strain. His 'Anecdotes' are full of
the bitterest complaints of the neglect he had met with. He is
'abandoned by his friends, and proscribed the emoluments of his
profession.' He is 'exhibited to the world as a marked man fallen under
royal displeasure.' He appeals to posterity in the most pathetic terms.
'Reader!' he exclaims, 'when this meets your eye, the author of it will
be rotting in his grave, insensible alike to censure and to praise; but
he begs to be forgiven this apparently self-commendation. It has not
sprung from vanity, but from anxiety for his reputation, lest the
disfavour of a Court should by some be considered as an indication of
general disesteem or a proof of professional demerit.' And yet, by his
own confession, Bishop Watson had a clerical income from his bishopric
and professorship of divinity at Cambridge of 2,000_l._ a year; in
return for which, the work he did in either of these capacities was,
from his own showing, really next to nothing. In fact, in many respects
he seems to have been an exceptionally lucky man. He was appointed to
two professorships at Cambridge when by his own admission he was totally
unqualified for performing the duties of either. In 1764, when he was
only twenty-seven years of age, he 'was unanimously elected, by the
Senate assembled in full congregation, Professor of Chemistry.' 'At the
time this honour was conferred upon me,' he tells us with charming
frankness, 'I knew nothing at all of chemistry, had never read a
syllable on the subject, nor seen a single experiment in it; but I was
tired with mathematics and natural philosophy, and the _vehementissima
gloriæ cupido_ stimulated me to try my strength in a new pursuit, and
the kindness of the University (it was always kind to me) animated me to
very extraordinary exertions.' A few years later the University was
kinder still. At the early age of thirty-four he was appointed 'to the
first office for honour in the University, the Regius Professorship of
Divinity.' Then with the same delightful naïveté he tells us, 'On being
raised to this distinguished office I immediately applied myself with
great eagerness to the study of divinity.' One would have thought that
his theological studies should have commenced before he undertook the
duties of a divinity professorship. But, happily for him, his ideas of
what would qualify him to be a theologian were on the most limited
scale. 'I determined to study nothing but my Bible, being much
unconcerned about the opinions of councils, fathers, churches, bishops,
and other men as little inspired as myself.' If troublesome people
wanted to argue on theological questions with the Regius Professor of
Divinity, 'I never,' he tells us, 'troubled myself with answering their
arguments, but used on such occasions to say to them, holding the New
Testament in my hand, "_En sacrum codicem_."' This was a simple plan,
and it must be confessed, under the circumstances, a very convenient and
prudent one, but it scarcely justified the strong claims for preferment
which the Bishop constantly founded upon it, as if he had rendered an
almost priceless service to religion. The compendious method of
silencing a gainsayer or satisfying an anxious inquirer by flourishing a
New Testament in his face, and crying '_En sacrum codicem_,' seems
hardly likely to have been very effective. For the first few years of
his professorship he attended to its duties personally, after the
fashion that has been described; but for the greater part of the long
time during which he held that office he employed a deputy. When he was
appointed to the bishopric of Llandaff he found there was no residence
for him in his diocese, and he does not seem to have particularly cared
about having one. He was content with paying it an occasional visit at
very rare intervals, and settled himself in comfortable quarters 'in the
beautiful district on the banks of Winandermere.' Here he employed his
time 'not,' he proudly tells us, 'in field diversions and visiting. No!
it has been spent partly in supporting the religion and constitutions of
my country, by seasonable publications, and principally in building
farmhouses, blasting rocks, enclosing wastes, making bad land good,
planting larches, &c. By such occupations I have recovered my health,
preserved my independence, set an example of a spirited husbandry, and
honourably provided for my family.'
If we formed our estimate of Bishop Watson's character simply from such
samples as these, we might conclude that he was a covetous, unreasonably
discontented, and worldly-minded man. But this would be a very unfair
conclusion to arrive at. The Bishop gives us only one, and that the
weakest side of his character. He was most highly esteemed by some of
his contemporaries, whose good opinion was well worth having. Gibbon
pays him a very high compliment, calling him 'his most candid as well as
able antagonist.' Wilberforce wrote to him in 1800 saying that 'he hoped
ere now to be able to congratulate him on a change of situation which in
public justice ought to have taken place.' In 1797, Hayley wrote to him
(saying it was Lord Thurlow's expression), 'Your writings have done more
for Christianity than all the bench of bishops put together.'[678] Lord
Campden told Pitt that 'it was a shame for him and the Church that he
had not the most exalted station upon the Bench.' As in the case of
Bishop Newton, one can only reconcile these anomalies by bearing fully
in mind the low views which were commonly taken of clerical
responsibilities, and the general scramble for the emoluments of the
Church which was not thought unseemly in the eighteenth century.
One of the most characteristic specimens of the courtier prelate of the
eighteenth century on whom so much abuse has been somewhat unfairly
lavished both by contemporaries and by writers of our own time, who have
dwelt exclusively upon the weak side of their character, was Bishop
Hurd. Hurd is now chiefly known as the devoted friend--or rather the
'_fidus Achates_'--of Warburton. He was a man, however, who had a very
distinct individuality of his own, and may be regarded as a fair
representative of a type of bishop now extinct. He was distinguished as
a scholar, a divine, and a courtier. When, however, it is said that Hurd
was a courtier, it is not meant to imply that he was servile or in any
way unduly complaisant to the King or the Court. There is no evidence of
anything of the sort. Neither does he appear to have been, like some of
his contemporaries, unduly intent upon advancing his own selfish
interests. His preferments came apparently unsought, and he refused the
Primacy, although it was pressed upon him by the King on the death of
Archbishop Cornwallis in 1783. Although he rose from a comparatively
humble origin, 'his parents,' he tells us, 'were plain, honest, and good
people' (his father was, in fact, a farmer); he seems to have been
gifted by nature with great courtliness of manner, and with aristocratic
tastes. On his first introduction at Court he won by these graces the
heart of the King, who remarked that he thought him more naturally
polite than any man he had ever met with. Hurd subsequently became the
most trusted friend and constant adviser of George III. There is a very
touching letter extant, which the King wrote to Hurd in one of his great
sorrows, expressing most feelingly the value in which George held the
religious ministrations of his favourite bishop, and the high opinion he
had of his piety and worth. The mere fact that Hurd won the affectionate
respect--one might almost say veneration--of so good a Christian as King
George, furnishes a presumption that he must have been a man of some
merit; and there is nothing whatever in any of his writings, or in
anything we hear of his life, that should lead us to think otherwise.
Nevertheless, it was just such men as Hurd who tended to keep the Church
of the eighteenth century in its apathetic state. Hurd was a
religious-minded man; but his religion was characterised by a cold,
prim propriety which was not calculated to commend it to men at large.
Like his friend Warburton, he could see nothing but folly and fanatical
madness in the great evangelical revival which was going on around him,
and which he seems to have thought would soon be stamped out. He only
emerged from his stately seclusion on great occasions; but when he did
go forth, he was surrounded with all 'the pomp and circumstance' which
might impress beholders with a sense of his dignity. 'Hartlebury Church
is not above a quarter of a mile from Hartlebury Castle, and yet that
quarter of a mile Hurd always travelled in his episcopal coach, with his
servants in full-dress liveries; and when he used to go from Worcester
to Bristol Hot Wells, he never moved without a train of twelve
servants.' Hurd has left us a very short memoir of his own life; but
short as the memoir is, it gives us a curious insight into one side of
his character. The whole account is compressed into twenty-six pages,
and consists for the most part merely of a bare recital of the chief
events of his life. But one day--one memorable day to be marked with the
whitest of white chalk--is described at full length. Out of the
twenty-six pages, no less than six are devoted to the description of a
visit with which the King honoured him at Hartlebury, when 'no
accident,' we are glad to learn, 'of any kind interrupted the mutual
satisfaction which was given and received on the occasion.'
It has been already observed that the Church interest formed a most
important element in the reckoning of statesmen of this century; and the
extent to which the clergy were mixed up with the politics of the day
must, under the circumstances, be reckoned among the Church abuses of
the period. Not, of course, that this is in itself an evil. On the
contrary, it would be distinctly a misfortune, both to the State and to
the Church, if the clergy of a Church constituted like our own were to
abstain altogether from taking any part in politics. It could hardly
fail to be a loss to the State if a large and presumably intelligent
class stood entirely aloof from its affairs. And the clergy themselves
by so doing would be both forfeiting a right and neglecting a duty. As
citizens who have an equal stake with the laity in the interests of the
country, they clearly enjoy the right to have a voice in the conduct of
its affairs. And as Christians they have a positive duty incumbent upon
them to use the influence they possess in this, as in every other
relation of life, for the cause of Christianity. But with this right and
this duty there is also a danger lest those, whose chief concern ought
to be with higher objects, should become overmuch entangled with the
affairs of this life; and a danger also lest men whose training is, as a
rule, not adapted to make them good men of business, should throw their
influence into the wrong scale. In so far, but only in so far as the
clergy fell into one or the other of these snares, can the political
Churchmanship of the eighteenth century be classed among the Church
abuses of the period. The circumstances of the times increased these
dangers. During the reigns of the first two Georges political morality
was at so low an ebb that it was difficult for the clergy to take a
leading part in politics without injury to their spiritual character.
They could hardly touch the pitch without being defiled. It is to be
feared that politics at this period did more to debase the clergy than
the clergy did to elevate politics. Not but that they often incurred an
unpopularity for the part they took in political questions which was
wholly undeserved. Nothing, for example, brought more odium upon the
bishops than the share they had in throwing out the Quakers' Tithes Bill
in 1736. Yet apparently without just cause; for a high legal authority
of our own day, who certainly shows no prejudice in favour of the Church
and her ministers, characterises this measure as a well-meant but
impracticable Bill. Again, in 1753, many of the bishops were exposed to
unmerited abuse for supporting, as they were clearly right in doing, the
Jews' Naturalisation Bill. Again, in 1780, the bishops had the good
sense not to be led astray by the senseless 'No Popery' cry which led to
the Gordon riots; and by their moral courage on this occasion they drew
down upon themselves much undeserved censure. The good sense, however,
which characterised the political conduct of the clergy on these and
other occasions was, unfortunately, exceptional. As a rule, the
political influence of the clergy was not very wisely exercised.
In his summary of the period which closed with the death of George II.,
Horace Walpole writes:--'The Church was moderate and, when the Ministry
required it, yielding.' From the point of view of this writer, whose
sentiments on religious matters exactly corresponded with those of his
father, nothing could have been more satisfactory than this state of
things. To those who look upon the Church merely as a State
Establishment, 'moderate, and, when the Ministry require it, yielding,'
would represent its ideal condition. But to those who believe in it as a
Divine institution, the picture will convey a different impression. They
will see in it a worldly man's description of the spiritual lethargy
which had overtaken English Christendom. The expression will not be
deemed too strong when it is remembered what was, as a matter of fact,
the real state of affairs so far as the practical work of the Church was
concerned. Under the very different conditions amidst which we live, it
is difficult to realise what existed, or rather what did not exist, in
the last century. What would now be considered the most ordinary part of
parochial machinery was then wanting. The Sunday school, which was first
set on foot about the middle of this century,[679] was regarded with
suspicion by many of the clergy, and vehemently opposed by some. The
interest in foreign missions which had been awakened at the beginning of
the century was not sustained. The population of the country had far
outgrown the resources of the National Church, even if her ministers had
been as energetic as they were generally the reverse; and there were no
voluntary societies for home missions to supply the defects of the
parochial machinery. The good old plan of catechising not only children
but domestic servants and apprentices on Sunday afternoons had fallen
into disuse.[680] In the early part of the century plans had been set on
foot for the establishment of parochial libraries, but these had fallen
through. In short, beyond the personal influence which a clergyman might
exercise over his friends and dependants in his parish (which was often
very wholesome and also very extensive), his clerical work consisted
solely in reading the services and preaching on Sundays. When Boswell
talked of the assiduity of the Scottish clergy in visiting and privately
instructing their parishioners, and observed how much in this they
excelled the English clergy, Johnson, who would never hear one word
against that Church of which he was a worthy member and a distinguished
ornament, could only reply, 'There are different ways of instructing.
Our clergy pray and preach. The clergy of England have produced the
most valuable books in support of religion, both in theory and
practice.' The praise contained in this last sentence was thoroughly
deserved. The clergy, if inactive in other respects, were not inactive
with their pens; only of course the work done in this direction was done
by a very small minority.
But they all preached. What was the character of their sermons?
On this point, as on many others, the censure that has been passed upon
the Church of the eighteenth century has been far too sweeping and far
too severe. When one hears the sermons of the period stigmatised without
any qualification as 'miserable moral essays,' and 'as unspeakably and
indescribably bad,' one calls to mind almost indignantly the great
preachers of the time, whose sermons have been handed down to us and may
be referred to by anyone who chooses to do so. Surely this is not a
proper description of the sermons of such men as Sherlock, Smalridge,
Waterland, Seed, Ogden, Atterbury, Mudge, Hare, Bentley, and last but
not least, Butler himself, whose practical sermons might be preached
with advantage before a village congregation at this day. Too much
stress has been laid upon a somewhat random observation of Sir William
Blackstone, who 'had the curiosity, early in the reign of George III.,
to go from church to church and hear every clergyman of note in London.
He says that he did not hear a single discourse which had more
Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero, and that it would have
been impossible for him to discover, from what he heard, whether the
preacher were a follower of Confucius, of Mahomet, or of Christ.' The
famous lawyer does not specify the churches which he visited. He may
have been unfortunate in his choice, or he may have been in a frame of
mind which was not conducive to an unbiassed judgment;[681] but we have
the best of all means of testing how far his sweeping censure may be
fairly taken as applicable to the general character of the sermons of
the day. The most celebrated of them are still in existence, and will
give their own contradiction to the charge. It is not true that the
preachers of this period entirely ignored the distinctive doctrines of
Christianity; it would be more correct to say that they took the
knowledge of them too much for granted--that they were as a rule too
controversial, and that they too often appealed to merely prudential
motives. Even Dr. Johnson, who set a very high value upon the sermons of
his Church, and declared on one occasion that 'sermons make a
considerable branch of English literature, so that a library must be
very imperfect if it has not a numerous collection of sermons,' yet
confessed that they did not effect the good they ought to do. A
sensitive dread of anything like enthusiasm was a marked characteristic
of the eighteenth century: this dread did not originate with the clergy,
but it was taken up by them and reflected in their sermons. This, of
course, was at first greatly intensified by the excitement raised by the
Methodist movement, although it was afterwards dispelled by the same
cause. The orthodox preacher of the Hanoverian period felt bound to
protest against the superstitions of Rome on the one hand and the
fanaticism of sectaries on the other; in contrast with both of whom the
moderation of 'our happy Establishment' was extolled to the skies. To
such a morbid extent was his dread of extremes carried, so carefully had
he to guard himself against being supposed to diverge one hair's breadth
from the middle course taken up by the Church of England, that in his
fear of being over-zealous he became over-tame and colourless. Tillotson
was his model, and, like most imitators, he exaggerated the defects of
his master. So far as it is possible to group under one head so vast and
varied an amount of composition, produced by men of the most diverse
casts of mind, and extending over so long a period as a hundred years,
one may perhaps fairly characterise the typical eighteenth century
sermon as too stiff and formal, too cold and artificial, appealing more
to the reason than to the feelings, and so more calculated to convince
the understanding than to affect the heart. 'We have no sermons,' said
Dr. Johnson, 'addressed to the passions that are good for anything.'
These defects were brought out into stronger relief by their contrast to
the very different style of preaching adopted by the revived Evangelical
school. And the success of this latter school called the attention of
some of the most thoughtful divines to the deficiencies of the ordinary
style of preaching, which they fully admitted and unsparingly but
judiciously exposed. Thus Archbishop Secker, in his Charge to the
Diocese of Canterbury in 1758, in speaking of the 'new sect pretending
to the strictest piety,' wisely urges his clergy 'to emulate what is
good in them, avoiding what is bad, to edify their parishioners with
awakening but rational and Scriptural discourses, to teach the
principles not only of virtue and natural religion, but of the Gospel,
not as almost refined away by the modern refiner, but the truth as it is
in Jesus and as it is taught by the Church.' Still stronger are the
censures passed in later years upon the lack in the sermons of the day
of evangelical doctrines, by men who were very far from identifying
themselves with the Evangelical school. Thus Paley, in his seventh
charge,[682] comments upon this point. And Bishop Horsley, in his first
Charge to the Diocese of St. David's in 1709, stigmatises the
unchristian method of preaching in that dignified but incisive language
of which he was a consummate master.
If, on the one hand, a somewhat heartless and vague method of dealing
with the great distinctive doctrines of Christianity, and especially the
practical application of them, may fairly be reckoned among Church
abuses, there was, on the other hand, an abuse of sermons which arose
from an excess of zeal. There were occasions on which the preacher could
make strong enough appeals to the passions; but, unfortunately, the
subjects were not those which fall primarily within the province of the
pulpit. But here again, as on so many other points, the abuse arose
rather from the circumstances of the time than from the faults of the
men. The proper province of the preacher was not clearly defined. The
eighteenth century was a transition period in regard to the relation
between politics and the pulpit. The lately emancipated press was
beginning to make itself felt as a great power in the country;
periodical literature was by degrees taking the place which in earlier
times had been less fitly occupied by the pulpit for the ventilation of
political questions. The bad old custom of 'tuning the pulpits' had died
out; but political preaching could not be quickly or easily put a stop
to.
In ranking political sermons among the Church abuses of the eighteenth
century, it is by no means intended to imply that the preacher ought
under all circumstances to abstain from touching upon politics. There
are occasions when it is his bounden duty as a Christian champion to
advocate Christian measures and to protest against unchristian ones; the
danger is lest he should forget the Christian advocate in the political
partisan; and it is only in so far as the political preachers of the
eighteenth century fell into this snare (as at times they unquestionably
did) that their sermons can be classed among the Church abuses of the
period.
In treating of Church abuses, a question naturally arises which deserves
and requires serious consideration. How far were these abuses
responsible for the low state of morals and religion into which the
nation sank during the reigns of the first two Georges? That lax
morality and religious indifference prevailed more or less among all
classes of society during this period, we learn from the concurrent
testimony of writers of every kind and creed. Turn where one will, the
same melancholy picture is presented to us. If we ask what was the state
of the Universities, which ought to be the centres of light diffusing
itself throughout the whole nation, the training-grounds of those who
are to be the trainers of their fellow men, we have the evidence of such
different kinds of men as Swift, Defoe, Gray, Gibbon, Johnson, John
Wesley, Lord Eldon, and Lord Chesterfield all agreeing on this point,
that both the great Universities were neglectful and inefficient in the
performance of their proper work. If we ask what was the state of the
highest classes, we find that there were sovereigns on the throne whose
immorality rivalled that of the worst of the Stuarts without any of
their redeeming qualities, without any of the grace and elegance and
taste for literature and the fine arts which to a certain extent
palliated the vices of that unfortunate race; we find political morality
at its lowest ebb; we find courtiers and statesmen living in open
defiance of the laws of morality; we find luxury without taste, and
profligacy without refinement predominant among the highest circles. If
we ask what was the state of the lower classes, we find such notices as
these in a contemporary historian: '1729-30. Luxury created necessities,
and these drove the lower ranks into the most abandoned wickedness. It
was unsafe to travel or walk in the streets.' '1731. Profligacy among
the people continued to an amazing degree.'[683] These extracts, taken
almost at haphazard from the pages of a contemporary, are confirmed by
abundance of testimony from all quarters. The middle classes were
confessedly better than those either above or below them.[684]
Nevertheless, there are not wanting indications that the standard of
morality was not high among them. For example, it is the middle class
rather than those above or below them who set the fashion of popular
amusements. What, then, was the character of the amusements of the
period? The stage, if it was a little improved since the wild days of
the Restoration, was yet so bad that even a lax moralist like Lord
Hervey was obliged to own in 1737, 'The present great licentiousness of
the stage did call for some restraint and regulation.'[685] Such brutal
pastimes as cock-fighting and bull-baiting were everywhere popular.
Drunkenness was then, as now, a national vice, but it was less
disreputable among the middle classes than it happily is at
present.[686] What was the state of literature? Notwithstanding the
improvement which such writers as Addison and Steele had effected, it
was still very impure. Let us take the evidence of the kindly and
well-informed Sir Walter Scott. 'We should do great injustice to the
present day by comparing our manners with those of the reign of George
I. The writings even of the most esteemed poets of that period contain
passages which now would be accounted to deserve the pillory. Nor was
the tone of conversation more pure than that of composition; for the
taint of Charles II.'s reign continued to infect society until the
present reign [George III.], when, if not more moral, we are at least
more decent.'[687] What was the state of the law? The criminal law was
simply barbarous. Any theft of more than 40_s._ was punishable by death.
Objects of horror, such as the heads of the rebel chiefs fixed on Temple
Bar in 1746, were exposed in the vain hope that they might act as a
'terriculum.'[688] Prisons teemed with cruel abuses. The Roman Catholics
were still suffering most unjustly, and if the laws had been rigorously
enforced they would have suffered more cruelly still. A more tolerant
spirit was happily gaining ground in the hearts of the nation, but so
far as the laws were concerned there were few if any traces of it. The
Act of 1779, for the relief of Dissenters, is affirmed to be 'the first
statute in the direction of enlarged toleration which had been passed
for ninety years.'[689] It was about the middle of the century when
irreligion and immorality reached their climax. In 1753, Sir J. Barnard
said publicly, 'At present it really seems to be the fashion for a man
to declare himself of no religion.'[690] In the same year Secker
declared that immorality and irreligion were grown almost beyond
ecclesiastical power.
The question, then, arises, 'How far were the clergy responsible for
this sad state of affairs?' As a body they were distinctly superior to
their contemporaries. It is a remarkable fact that when the clergy were,
as a rule, very unpopular, during the reign of the Georges I. and
II.,[691] and when, therefore, any evil reports against them would be
eagerly caught up and circulated, we find singularly few charges of
gross immorality brought against them. Excessive love of preferment, and
culpable inactivity in performing the duties of their office, are the
worst accusations that are brought against them as a body. Even men like
Lord Hervey, and Horace Walpole and Lord Chesterfield rarely bring, and
still more rarely substantiate, any charges against them on this head.
Speaking of the shortcomings of the clergy in the early part of the
century, Bishop Burnet, who does not spare his order, carefully guards
against the supposition that he accuses them of leading immoral lives.
'When,' he writes, 'I say live better, I mean not only to live without
scandal, which I have found the greatest part of them to do, but to lead
exemplary lives.'[692] Some years later, Bentley could boldly assert of
'the whole clergy of England' that they were 'the light and glory of
Christianity,'[693] an assertion which he would scarcely have dared to
make had they been sunk into such a slough of iniquity as they are
sometimes represented to have been. Writing to Courayer in 1726,
Archbishop Wake laments the infidelity and iniquity which abounded, but
is of opinion that 'no care is wanting in our clergy to defend the
Christian faith.'[694] John Wesley, while decrying the notion that the
unworthiness of the minister vitiates the worth of his ministry, admits
that 'in the present century the behaviour of the clergy in general is
greatly altered for the better,' although he thinks them deficient both
in piety and knowledge. Or if clerical testimony be suspected of
partiality, we have abundance of lay evidence all tending to the same
conclusion. Smollett, a contemporary, declares that in the reign of
George II. 'the clergy were generally pious and exemplary.'[695] When a
Presbyterian clergyman talked before Dr. Johnson of fat bishops and
drowsy deans, he replied, 'Sir, you know no more of our Church than a
Hottentot.'[696] One of the most impartial historians of our own day and
country, in dwelling upon the immoralities of the age and upon the
clerical shortcomings, adds that 'the lives of the clergy were, as a
rule, pure.'[697]
It is necessary to bring into prominence such testimony as this because
there has been a tendency to insinuate what has never been proved--that
the clergy were, as a body, living immoral lives. At the same time it is
not desired to palliate their real defects. It is admitted that a more
active and earnest performance of their proper duties might have done
much more than was done by the clergy to stem the torrent of iniquity.
Yet after all it is doubtful whether the clergy, even if they had been
far more energetic and spiritually-minded than they were, could have
effected such a reformation as was needed.[698] For there was a long
train of causes at work dating back for more than a century, which
tended not only to demoralise the nation, but also to cut it off from
many influences for good which under happier circumstances the Church
might have exercised. The turbulent and unsettled condition of both
Church and State in the seventeenth century was bearing its fruit in the
eighteenth. As in the life of an individual, so also in the life of a
nation, there are certain crises which are terribly perilous to the
character. In the eighteenth century England as a nation was going
through such a crisis. She was passing from the old order to the new.
The early part of the century was a period of many controversies--the
Deistic controversy, the Nonjuring controversy, the Bangorian
controversy, the Trinitarian controversy, the various ethical
controversies, and all these following close upon the Puritan
controversy and the Papal controversy, both of which had shaken the
Constitution to its very foundation. How was it possible that a country
could pass through such stormy scenes without having its faith
unsettled, and the basis of its morals weakened? How could some help
asking, What is truth? where is it to be found among all these
conflicting elements? The Revolution itself was in its immediate effects
attended with evil. England submitted to be governed by foreigners, but
she had to sacrifice much and stoop low before she could submit to the
necessity. All the romantic halo which had hung about royalty was rudely
swept away. Queen Anne was the last sovereign of these realms round whom
still lingered something of the 'divinity that doth hedge a king.'
Under the Georges loyalty assumed a different form from that which it
had taken before. The sentiment which had attached their subjects to the
Tudors and the Stuarts was exchanged for a colder and less enthusiastic
feeling; mere policy took the place of chivalry.
Nor was it only in her outward affairs that the nation was passing
through a great and fundamental change. In her inner and spiritual life
she was also in a period of transition. The problem which was started in
the early part of the sixteenth century had never yet been fairly worked
out. The nation had been for more than a century and a half so busy in
dealing with the pressing questions of the hour that it had never yet
had time to face the far deeper questions which lay behind
these--questions which concerned not the different modes of
Christianity, but the very essence of Christianity itself. The matters
which had so violently agitated the country in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries were now virtually settled. The Church was now at
last 'established.' But other questions arose. It was not now asked, 'Is
this or that mode of Church government most Scriptural?' 'Is this or
that form of worship most in accordance with the mind of Christ?' but,
'What _is_ this Scripture to which all appeal?' 'Who _is_ this Christ
whom all own as Master?' This is really what is meant, so far as
religion is concerned, when it is said that the eighteenth century was
the age of reason--alike in the good and in the bad sense of that term.
The defenders of Christianity, no less than its assailants, had to
prove, above all things, the reasonableness of their position. The
discussion was inevitable, and in the end productive of good, but while
it was going on it could not fail to be to many minds harmful. Reason
and faith, though not really antagonistic, are often in seeming
antagonism. Many might well ask, Can we no longer rest upon a simple,
childlike faith, founded on authority? What is there, human or Divine,
that is left to reverence? The heart of England was still sound at the
core, and she passed through the crisis triumphantly; but the transition
period was a dangerous and a demoralising one, and there is no wonder
that she sank for a time under the wave that was passing over her.
It has been already said that the morbid dread of anything which
savoured either of Romanism or Puritanism tended to reduce the Church to
a dead level of uniform dulness. The same dread affected the nation at
large as well as the Church. It practically cut off the laity from
influences which might have elevated them. Anything like the worship of
God in the beauty of holiness, all that is conveyed in the term
symbolism, the due observance of fast and festival--in fact, all those
things which to a certain class of minds are almost essential to raise
devotion--were too much associated in men's minds with that dreaded
enemy from whom the nation had but narrowly escaped in the preceding age
to be able to be turned to any good effect in the eighteenth century.
On the other hand, stirring appeals to the feelings, analyses of
spiritual frames--everything, in short, which was termed in the jargon
of the seventeenth century 'savoury preaching' and 'a painful ministry,'
was too much associated in men's minds with the hated reign of the
Saints to be employed with any good effect.
And thus, both on the objective and on the subjective side, the people
were practically debarred from influences which might have made their
religion a more lovely or a more hearty thing.
Again, if the clergy showed, as they confessedly did, an inertness, an
obstructiveness, a want of expansiveness, and a dogged resistance to any
adaptation of old forms to new ideas, they were in these respects
thoroughly in accord with the feelings of the mass of the nation. The
clergy were not popular, but it was not their want of zeal and
enterprise which made them unpopular; if in exceptional cases they did
show any tendency in these directions, this only made them more
unpopular than ever. Had it been otherwise we might naturally have
expected to find the zeal which was lacking in the National Church
showing itself in other Christian bodies. But we find nothing of the
sort. The torpor which had overtaken our Church extended itself to all
forms of Christianity. Edmund Calamy, a Nonconformist, lamented in 1730
that 'a real decay of serious religion, both in the Church _and out of
it_, was very visible.' Dr. Watts declares that in his day 'there was a
_general_ decay of vital religion in the hearts and lives of men.'[699]
A modern writer who makes no secret of his partiality for Nonconformists
owns that 'religion, whether in the Established Church or out of it,
never made less progress than after the cessation of the Bangorian and
Salter's Hall disputes. Breadth of thought and charity of sentiment
increased, but religious activity did not.'[700] In 1712 Defoe
considered 'Dissenters' interests to be in a declining state, not so
much as regarded their wealth and numbers as the qualifications of their
ministers, the decay of piety, and the abandonment of their political
friends.' Such is the testimony of Nonconformists themselves, who will
not be suspected of taking too dark a view of the condition of
Nonconformity. There is no need to add to this the evidence of
Churchmen. It is a fact patent to all students of the period that the
moral and religious stagnation of the times extended to all religious
bodies outside as well as inside the National Church. The most
intellectually active part of Dissent was drifting gradually into
Socinianism and Unitarianism.
There is yet one more circumstance to be taken into account in
estimating the extent to which the clergy were responsible for the
irreligion and immorality which prevailed. A change of manners was fast
rendering ineffectual a weapon which they had formerly used for waging
war against sin. Ecclesiastical censures were becoming little better
than a mere _brutum fulmen_. Complaints of the difficulty, not to say
impossibility, of enforcing Church discipline are of constant
occurrence. In 1704 Archbishop Sharp, while urging his clergy to present
'any that are resolved to continue heathens and absolutely refuse to
come to church,' and, while admitting that the abuses of the commutation
for penance were 'a cause of complaints against the spiritual courts and
of the invidious reflections cast upon them,' adds that 'he was very
sensible both of the decay of discipline in general and of the curbs put
upon any effectual prosecution of it by the temporal courts, and of the
difficulty of keeping up what little was left entire to the
ecclesiastics without creating offence and administering matter for
aspersion and evil surmises.'[701] The same excellent prelate, when, a
writ _de excommunicato capiendo_ was evaded by writs of _supersedeas_
from Chancery, wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury asking him 'to
represent the case to the Lord Chancellor, that he might give such
directions that his courts might go on to enforce ecclesiastical
censures with civil penalties, without fear of being baffled in their
proceedings.'[702] In the later meetings of Convocation this subject of
the enforcement of Church discipline was constantly suggested for
discussion; but, as questions which were, or were supposed to be, of
more immediate interest claimed precedence, no practical result
ensued.[703] The matter, however, was not suffered to fall altogether
into abeyance. In 1741 Bishop Secker gives the same advice to the clergy
of the diocese of Oxford as Archbishop Sharp had given nearly forty
years before to those of the diocese of York, but he seems still more
doubtful as to whether it could be effectually carried out. 'Persons,'
he writes, 'who profess not to be of our Church, if persuasions will
not avail, must be let alone. But other absentees must, after due
patience, be told that, unwilling as you are, it will be your duty to
present them, unless they reform; and if, when this warning hath been
repeated and full time allowed for it to work, they still persist in
their obstinacy, I beg you to do it. For this will tend much to prevent
the contagion from spreading, of which there is else great danger.' In
1753 he repeats his injunctions, but in a still more desponding tone.
'Offences,' he says, 'against religion and morals churchwardens are
bound by oath to present; and incumbents or curates are empowered and
charged by the 113th and following canons to join with them in
presenting, if need be, or to present alone if they refuse. This implies
what the 26th canon expresses, that the minister is to urge
churchwardens to perform that part of their office. Try first by public
and private rebukes to amend them; but if these are ineffectual, get
them corrected by authority. I am perfectly sensible that immorality and
irreligion are grown almost beyond the reach of ecclesiastical power,
which, having in former times been very unwarrantably extended, hath
since been very unjustly and imprudently cramped and weakened many
ways.' After having given directions about excommunications and penance,
he urges them, as a last resort, 'to remind the people that, however the
censures of the Church may be relaxed or evaded, yet God's judgment
cannot.' Yet even so late as 1766 he explains to candidates for orders
the text addressed to them at their ordination, 'Whose sins thou dost
retain, they are retained,' as conferring 'a right of inflicting
ecclesiastical censures for a shorter or longer time, and of taking them
off, which is, in regard to external communion, retaining or forgiving
offences.' 'Our acts,' he adds, 'as those of temporal judges, are to be
respected as done by competent authority. Nor will other proofs of
repentance be sufficient if submission to the discipline of the Church
of Christ, when it hath been offended and requires due satisfaction, be
obstinately refused.'[704] This is not the place to discuss the
possibility or the advisability under altered circumstances of enforcing
ecclesiastical discipline, but in common fairness to the clergy, who
were accused of doing little or nothing to oppose the general depravity,
it should be borne in mind that they were practically debarred from
using a formidable weapon which in earlier times had been wielded with
great effect.[705]
Nor should we forget that if the clergy were inactive and unsuccessful
in one direction, many of them at least were singularly active and
successful in another. There was within the pale of the Church at the
period of which we are speaking a degree of intellect and learning which
has rarely been surpassed in its palmiest days. When among the higher
clergy were found such men as Butler, and Hare, and Sherlock, and
Warburton, and South, and Conybeare, and Waterland, and Bentley, men who
were more than a match for the assailants of Christianity, formidable as
these antagonists undoubtedly were--when within her fold were found men
of such distinguished piety as Law and Wilson, Berkeley and Benson, the
state of the Church could not be wholly corrupt.
And, finally, it should be remembered that if England was morally and
spiritually in low estate at this period, she was, at any rate, in a
better plight than her neighbours. If there were Church abuses in
England, there were still worse in France. If there was too wide an
interval here between the higher and the lower clergy, the inequality
was not so great as there, where, 'while the prelates of the Church
lived with a pomp and state falling little short of the magnificence of
royalty, not a few of the poorer clergy had scarcely the wherewithal to
live at all,' where 'the superior clergy regarded the cures as hired
servitors, whom in order to dominate it was prudent to keep in poverty
and ignorance.' If the distribution of patronage on false principles and
the inordinate love of preferment were abuses in England, matters were
worse in France, where 'there was an open traffic in benefices; the
Episcopate was nothing but a secular dignity; it was necessary to be
count or marquis in order to become a successor of the apostles, unless
some extraordinary event snatched some little bishopric for a parvenu
from the hands of the minister;' and where 'the bishops squandered the
revenues of their provinces at the court.'[706] If the lower classes
were neglected here, they were not, as in France, dying from misery and
hunger at the rate of a million a year. Neither, sordid as the age was
in England, was it so sordid as in Germany, where a coarse eudæmonism
and a miscalled illuminism were sapping the foundations of Christianity.
Moreover, England, unlike her next-door neighbour, improved as the years
rolled on. A gradual but distinct alteration for the better may be
traced in the later part of the century. Many causes contributed to
effect this. After the accession of George III. a growing sense of
security began to pervade the country. An unsettled state is always
prejudicial to national morals, and there were henceforward no serious
thoughts of deranging the established order of things. Influences, too,
were at work which tended to raise the tone of morality and religion in
all orders of society. The upper classes had a good example set them by
the blameless lives of the King and the Queen. In the present day, when
it is the fashion to ridicule the foibles and to condemn the troublesome
interference in State affairs of the well-meaning but often ill judging
King, it is the more necessary to bear in mind the debt of gratitude
which the nation owed him for the good effects which his personal
character unquestionably produced--effects which, though they told more
directly and immediately upon the upper classes, yet permeated more or
less through all the strata of society. Among the middle classes, too,
there arose a set of men whose influence for good it would be difficult
to exaggerate. Foremost among them stands the great and good Dr.
Johnson. 'Dr. Johnson,' writes Lord Mahon, 'stemmed the tide of
infidelity.' And the greatest of modern satirists does not state the
case too strongly when he declares that 'Johnson had the ear of the
nation. His immense authority reconciled it to loyalty and shamed it out
of irreligion. He was revered as a sort of oracle, and the oracle
declared for Church and King. He was a fierce foe to all sin, but a
gentle enemy to all sinners.'[707] Sir J. Reynolds, and E. Burke, and
Hogarth, and Pitt, each in his way, helped on the good work. The rising
Evangelical school--the Newtons, the Venns, the Cecils, the Romaines,
among the clergy, and the Wilberforces, the Thorntons, the Mores, the
Cowpers, among the laity--all affected beneficially to an immense extent
the upper and middle classes, while among the lower classes the
Methodist movement was effecting incalculable good. These latter
influences, however, were far too important an element in the national
amelioration to be dealt with at the end of a chapter. Suffice it here
to add that, glaring as were the abuses of the Church of the eighteenth
century, they could not and did not destroy her undying vitality. Even
when she reached her nadir there was sufficient salt left to preserve
the mass from becoming utterly corrupt. The fire had burnt low, but
there was yet enough light and heat left to be fanned into a flame which
was in due time to illumine the nation and the nation's Church.
J.H.O.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 648: In 1705, 1706, 1710, 1711, 1714, 1715, &c. &c., there
were High Church mobs.]
[Footnote 649: Coxe's _Memoirs of Sir S. Walpole_, vol. i. pp. 24, 25.]
[Footnote 650: A glaring instance of the blighting effects of the
Walpole Ministry upon the Church is to be found in the treatment of
Berkeley's attempt to found a university at Bermuda. See a full account
of the whole transaction in Wilberforce's _History of the American
Church_, ch. iv. pp. 151-160. Mr. Anderson calls it a 'national crime.'
See _History of the Colonial Church_, vol. iii. ch. xxix. p. 437, &c.
The Duke of Newcastle pursued the same policy. In spite of the efforts
of the most influential Churchmen, such as Gibson, Sherlock, and Secker,
who all concurred in recognising the need of clergymen, of churches, of
schools, in our plantations, 'the mass of inert resistance presented in
the office of the Secretary of State, responsible for the colonies, was
too great to be overcome.'--Ibid. p. 443.]
[Footnote 651: Bishop Fitzgerald (_Aids to Faith_, Essay ii. § 7)
stigmatises the impotency and turbulence of Convocation, but entirely
ignores the practical agenda referred to above. See Cardwell's
_Synodalia_, on the period.]
[Footnote 652: See the introduction to Palin's _History of the Church of
England from the Revolution to the Last Acts of Convocation_.]
[Footnote 653: See Cardwell's _Synodalia_, xlii.]
[Footnote 654: Hodgson's 'Life of Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London,' in
vol. i. of Porteus's _Works_, p. 45. Another thoroughly good man, Bishop
Gibson, was, before he was mitred, Precentor and Residentiary of
Chichester, Rector of Lambeth, and Archdeacon of Surrey. See Coxe's
_Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole_, i. 478.]
[Footnote 655: _Anecdotes of the Life of R. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff_,
published by his Son, vol. i. p. 307.]
[Footnote 656: Id. ii. 349.]
[Footnote 657: Paley's 'Charges,' vol. vii of his _Works_, in 7 vols.]
[Footnote 658: 'Charge of the Bishop of Rochester,' 1796, Bishop
Horsley's _Charges_.]
[Footnote 659: Bishop of Oxford's Second Charge, 1741, Secker's
_Charges_.]
[Footnote 660: Remarks on a _Discourse of Freethinking, by
Phileleutherus Lipsiensis_, xl. (edition of 1743).]
[Footnote 661: _Anecdotes of the Life of R. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff_,
i. 159.]
[Footnote 662: Quoted in Kilvert's _Life of Bishop Hurd_, p. 97. Dean
Swift, in his _Project for the Advancement of Religion_, speaks of
curates in the most contemptuous terms. 'In London, a clergyman, _with
one or two sorry curates_, has sometimes the care of above 20,000 souls
incumbent on him.']
[Footnote 663: How nobly and successfully a domestic chaplain in a great
family might do his duty in the eighteenth century; the conduct of
Thomas Wilson, when he was domestic chaplain to the Earl of Derby, and
tutor to his son, is an instance.]
[Footnote 664: Bishop of Oxford's _Charge_, 1738.]
[Footnote 665: Secker's _Instructions given to Candidates for Orders_.]
[Footnote 666: Mr. Pattison's Essay in _Essays and Reviews_.]
[Footnote 667: _Lives of the Chancellors_, by Lord Campbell, vol. v.
chap. xxxviii. p. 186.]
[Footnote 668: _Anecdotes of the Life of R. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff_,
published by his Son, vol. i. p. 157.]
[Footnote 669: _Letters from Warburton to Hurd_, second ed. 1809, Letter
xlvi. July 1752.]
[Footnote 670: Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, in ten vols., 1835, Murray,
vol. v. p. 298. See also vol. iv. p. 92. 'Few bishops are now made for
their learning. To be a bishop a man must be learned in a learned age,
factious in a factious age, but always of eminence,' &c.]
[Footnote 671: See Bishop Newton's _Autobiography_, and Lord Mahon's
_History_.]
[Footnote 672: _Memoirs of William Whiston_, by himself, p. 275. See
also pp. 119 and 155, 156.]
[Footnote 673: 'A fact,' he adds, 'so apparent to Government, both civil
and ecclesiastical, that, they have found it necessary to provide
rewards and honours for such advances in learning and piety as may best
enable the clergy to serve the interests of the Church of Christ,' a
remark which we might have thought ironical did we not know the temper
of the times.--See Watson's _Life of Warburton_, 488.]
[Footnote 674: _Anecdotes of the Life of Bishop Watson_, i. 116. He
quotes also a remark of D'Alembert: 'The highest offices in Church and
State resemble a pyramid, whose top is accessible to only two sorts of
animals, eagles and reptiles.']
[Footnote 675: _Lives of the Chancellors_, vol. v. chap. clxi. p. 656.
Lord Chesterfield makes some bitter remarks on the higher clergy 'with
the most indefatigable industry and insatiable greediness, darkening in
clouds the levees of kings and ministers,' &c., quoted in Phillimore's
_History of England_, during the reign of George III. Phillimore himself
makes some very severe strictures on the sycophancy and greed of the
higher clergy.--See his _History, passim_.]
[Footnote 676: The Life gives us the impression that he was a firm
believer, that he strove to live a Christian life, that he was very
amiable, and that he was quite free from the paltry vice of jealousy at
another's good fortune.]
[Footnote 677: _Memoirs of Bishop Newton_, by himself.]
[Footnote 678: Bishop Watson was a decidedly able writer, and he never
allowed himself to be the tool of any party. He says of himself with
perfect, truth, 'I have hitherto followed and shall continue to follow
my own judgment in all public transactions.']
[Footnote 679: Raikes established the first of his Sunday schools in
1781, but it is certain that one was established before this by Hannah
Ball at High Wycombe in 1769, and it is probable that there were also
others. Mr. Buckle says they were established by Lindsay in or
immediately after 1765. (_History of Civilisation_, i. 302, note.)
However, to Raikes belongs the credit of bringing the institution
prominently before the public. It may be noticed that Raikes was a
decided Churchman. His son contradicts almost indignantly the notion
which became prevalent that he was a Dissenter. One of the rules of
Raikes's Gloucester Sunday school was that the scholars should attend
the cathedral service. There was a strong prejudice against Sunday
schools among some of the clergy, but it was combated by others. Paley,
in one of his charges, tried to disabuse his clergy of this prejudice,
and so did several other dignitaries. But Bishop Horsley, in his charge
at Rochester, made some severe remarks against Sunday schools. See _Life
of R. Hill_, p. 428. The evangelical clergy, of course, warmly took up
the Sunday school scheme. In this, as in many other cases, the Church
was responsible for the remedy as well as the abuse.]
[Footnote 680: Bishop Wilson made vigorous and successful efforts in the
Isle of Man to revive the system of catechising in church; and strongly
urged every 'rector, vicar, and curate to spend, if but one hour in
every week, in visiting his petty school, and see how the children are
taught to read, to say their catechism and their prayers,' &c.]
[Footnote 681: Blackstone, though endowed with many excellent qualities,
is said to have had a somewhat irritable temper, which, as he advanced
in years, was rendered worse by a nervous affection. Bentham says 'that
he seems to have had something about him which rendered breaches with
him not difficult.' Lawyers are so accustomed to criticise arguments
that they are apt to be somewhat severe judges of sermons. How many
clergymen of the present day would like to have their sermons judged by
the standard of a great lawyer of a somewhat irritable temperament?]
[Footnote 682: See vol. vii. 'Charge VII.' in Paley's _Works_ in seven
vols.]
[Footnote 683: Similar complaints are uttered regarding 1737-8-9. H.
Walpole writes of 1751: 'The vices of the lower people were increased to
a degree of robbery and murder beyond example.'--_Memoirs of the Reign
of King George II._, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 44.]
[Footnote 684: _E.g._ Archbishop Wake, in his letter to Courayer in
1726, writes: 'Iniquity in practice, God knows, abounds, chiefly in the
two extremes, the highest and the lowest. The middle sort are serious
and religious.' See also _Robinson Crusoe_, chap. i.]
[Footnote 685: Lord Hervey's _Memoirs_, ii. 341, in reference to the
Bill to put all players under the direction of the Lord Chamberlain.]
[Footnote 686: See, _inter alia_, the description of a small squire of
the reign of George II. in Grose's _Olio_, 1792.]
[Footnote 687: Quoted in Andrews, 18th century.]
[Footnote 688: See chap. lxx. of Lord Mahon's _History_.]
[Footnote 689: Skeats's _History of the Free Churches of England_ p.
465.]
[Footnote 690: _Parliamentary History_, vol. xiv. p. 1389.]
[Footnote 691: In Bishop Fleetwood's _Charge at Ely_, August 7, 1710, no
less than three folio pages are filled with accounts of the abuse of the
clergy, and the way in which the clergy should meet it. Secker's,
Butler's, and Horsley's Charges all touch on the same subject.]
[Footnote 692: See the conclusion of Burnet's _History of his Own
Times_.]
[Footnote 693: Remarks on Collins's _Discourse on Freethinking_, by
Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, xxiii.]
[Footnote 694: Quoted in Mrs. Thomson's _Memoirs of Lady Sundon and the
Court and Times of George II._]
[Footnote 695: Smollett's _Continuation of Hume_, v. 375.]
[Footnote 696: Boswell's _Life_.]
[Footnote 697: Lord Mahon, chap. lxx.]
[Footnote 698: Bishop Butler, in his _Charge to the Clergy of Durham_ in
1751, complains very justly, 'It is cruel usage we often meet with, in
being censured for not doing what we cannot do, without, what we cannot
have, the concurrence of our censurers. Doubtless very much reproach
which now lights upon the clergy would be bound to fall elsewhere if due
allowance were made for things of this kind.']
[Footnote 699: Calamy's _Life and Times_, vol. ii. p. 531.]
[Footnote 700: Skeats's _History of the Free Churches_, pp. 248, 313.
'The strictness of Puritanism, without its strength or piety, was
beginning to reign among Dissenters.']
[Footnote 701: _Life of Archbishop Sharp_, by his Son, edited by T.
Newcome, p. 214.]
[Footnote 702: Id. p. 217.]
[Footnote 703: See _The History of the Present Parliament and
Convocation_, 1711; and Cardwell's _Synodalia_, vol. ii. for the years
1710, 1712, 1713, 1715.]
[Footnote 704: See Secker's _Charges, passim_.]
[Footnote 705: The circumstances in the Isle of Man were of course
exceptional. For specimens of the rigour with which good Bishop Wilson
maintained ecclesiastical discipline there see Stowell's _Life of
Wilson_, pp. 198, 199, &c.]
[Footnote 706: _Le Clergé de Quatre-vingt-neuf_, par J. Wallon, quoted
in the _Church Quarterly Review_ for October 1877, art. v., 'France in
the Eighteenth Century.']
[Footnote 707: W.M. Thackeray, _English Humorists of the Eighteenth
Century_.]
* * * * *