[Sidenote: _Lords' Committee on Innovations._]
Whilst the Commons were receiving Puritan petitions, the Lords were
presented with others of a different kind. The presence in the Upper
House of Anglican bishops and noblemen, encouraged the Church party
to make complaints to them of Puritan irreverence and interruption;
and these complaints indicated very plainly, how the revolution of
affairs had emboldened certain individuals to commit some very unseemly
acts.[150] At the same time, the gracious reception given by the peers
to anti-Puritan memorials manifested a temper quite different from
that which prevailed in the Lower House. Yet there was not altogether
wanting on the part of their lordships a disposition to make some
small concession to Puritan demands, with the view of saving the
Church of England from changes of a more serious nature. Hence, in the
early spring, they appointed a committee to consider the subject of
innovations. This committee was empowered to consult with any divines
whom they might wish to select; and when the selection had been made, a
theological sub-committee was formed.[151]
[Sidenote: 1641, March.]
Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, and Dean of Westminster, became convener
of this committee of divines, and he presided over all the meetings.
Though possessed of considerable knowledge and ability, and of an
active turn of mind, this remarkable person had not the qualities
necessary for ecclesiastical statesmanship in troubled times such as
those in which his lot was thrown. His whole history supports the
opinion that selfish policy formed the guiding star of his life; and
there is little doubt that a key to such of his proceedings as favoured
Puritanism may be found in his remark that "the Puritans were many,
and strong sticklers; and if his Majesty would but give private orders
to his ministers to connive a little at their party, and shew them
some indulgence, it might, perhaps, mollify them a little, and make
them more pliant, though he did not promise that they would be trusty
long to any government."[152] Williams cannot be honoured for any high
moral or religious principle; he was very much of a time-server, and
fondly loved popularity; indeed his whole history is in keeping with
the keen and cunning expression of his handsome countenance seen in
that portrait of him, with black hat and close ruff, which hangs in the
dining-room of the Westminster Deanery.
[Sidenote: _Lords' Committee on Innovations._]
We can believe what his biographer says respecting his management of
the Committee:--
"The Bishop had undertaken a draught for regulating the government
ecclesiastical, but had not finished it. The sudden and quiet dispatch
of all that was done already was attributed to the Chairman's
dexterity, who could play his prize at all weapons, dally with crooked
humours, and pluck them straight; bring all stragglers into his own
pound, and never drive them in; foresee a tempest of contradiction the
best that ever I knew, and scatter it before it could rise; and won all
his adversaries insensibly into a compliance before they were aware.
To this day they of the Nonconformists that survive, and were present,
will tell you that they admired two things in him, in their phrase--his
courtesy and his cunning."[153]
The members met for a week in the Jerusalem Chamber, and were daily
entertained by the hospitable Dean. This circumstance Fuller could
not record without the witticism, that it was "the last course of all
public episcopal treatments--whose guests may now even put up their
knives, seeing soon after the voider was called for, which took away
all bishops' lands, and most of English hospitality."[154]
Just as Williams was summoning the divines to meet together to enquire
into innovations since the Reformation, and to "examine the degrees and
perfections of the Reformation itself," Laud wrote down in his diary,
"This Committee will meddle with doctrine as well as ceremonies, and
will prove the national synod of England to the great dishonour of the
Church, and what else may follow upon it, God knows."[155]
[Sidenote: 1641, March.]
Though Laud was wrong in the importance which he attached to this mixed
conclave, he was right enough in concluding that it would meddle with
doctrines as well as ceremonies. This appeared very early; for it is
alleged in the memoranda prepared for the Committee that there were
some ministers who preached justification by works, the efficacy of
penance, confession, and absolution, and the sacrificial character of
the Lord's supper; that prayers for the dead were used, and monastic
vows defended; also, "that the whole gross substance of Arminianism was
avowed, and original sin absolutely denied:" and together with these
notices of Romanist tendencies on the one hand, there appear references
to Socinianism on the other. The introduction of these charges could
not but lead to doctrinal controversy, and rumours soon got abroad
that changes in the theological standards of the Church were under
consideration.[156]
[Sidenote: _Lords' Committee on Innovations._]
The ceremonial innovations complained of were more numerous than the
doctrinal. They included turning the holy table altar-wise; bowing
to the east; the use of candlesticks upon the altar, so called; the
construction of a canopy over it, with curtains on each side; the
display of crucifixes and images upon the parafront or altar-cloth;
reading some parts of the morning service at the table, when the
communion is not celebrated; the employment of credence tables; the
introduction of an offertory distinct from giving alms to the poor;
and "singing the 'Te Deum' in prose, after a cathedral church way,
in divers parochial churches where the people have no skill in such
music." The last of the practices here enumerated might seem to
occasion censure only on the ground of unfitness and want of taste,
such as High Churchmen would disapprove; but all the other particulars
in the paper, of which we have given only specimens, demonstrate
that Puritan, if not Presbyterian pens were employed in drawing it
up. Another proof of this circumstance is found in the reference to
"standing up at the hymns in the church, and always at 'Gloria Patri.'"
The finding fault with that shews the extreme length to which the
Puritans went in their objections; and it is curious to observe, that
standing up to sing, which was in the seventeenth century complained
of as an innovation upon the reformed discipline of the Church,
is now an almost universal practice in all communities of English
Christians.[157] A memorandum follows--which might have proceeded
from the Episcopal portion of the Committee--to the effect that two
sermons should be preached in all cathedral and collegiate churches on
Sundays and holydays, and that there should be at least one lecture
a week; but, again, Puritan influence appears in the expression of a
desire that music should be arranged with less curiosity, and that no
"ditties" should be "framed by private men."
[Sidenote: 1641, March.]
In reference to the Prayer Book, suggestions to the number of
thirty-five occur, of which the following may be mentioned: expunging
the names of some departed saints from the calendar; the disuse of
apocryphal lessons; omitting the Benedicite; the making some discreet
rubric to take away the scandal of signing the cross in baptism, or the
abolition of that sign altogether; the enlargement of the Catechism;
and certain changes in the Marriage[158] and Burial Services, and also
in that for the Visitation of the Sick,--changes of a kind such as have
been commonly proposed by those who advocate a revision of the Prayer
Book.[159]
A proposal for reforming the Episcopate which was volunteered by
Williams, and was submitted by him on his own responsibility, without
success, to the House of Lords,[160] does not belong to the schemes of
the Committee. It went no further than to propose that bishops should
preach every Sunday under penalty for default; that none should be
justices of the peace except the Dean of Westminster; and that prelates
should have twelve assistants besides Deans and Chapters. Four of these
assistants were to be appointed by the King, four by the Lords, and
four by the Commons; and in the case of a see being vacant, they were
to present three able divines to His Majesty, who was to nominate one
of them to the Episcopal chair; no Dean or Prebendary was to absent
himself from his cathedral above sixty days.
[Sidenote: _Lords' Committee on Innovations._]
Other plans were drawn up by different persons with a view to the
reconciliation of opposite parties, and there were moderate men who
believed that, "but for some hot spirits who would abate nothing of
episcopal power and profit," a compromise might have been effected.
Perhaps it might; yet supposing some likelihood of peace through mutual
concession at an earlier period, it admits of a question whether any
possibility of it remained, now that the pent-up animosities of many
years had burst out like the fires of a volcano. Theologians of a
spirit like that of Ussher and others might have discovered grounds
of union in spite of different views on some subjects; but a large
majority of the divines who formed the two parties which then divided
the Church, had reached conclusions irreconcilably opposed to each
other. At all events, the semi-Puritan scheme of accommodation came to
nothing. By the middle of May, the Committee had broken up, and when
the reader reflects upon the crisis which affairs had reached, he will
not wonder that the members abandoned the project in despair.
[Sidenote: 1641, April.]
The Committee of the Commons appointed for considering the Ministers'
Remonstrance of the 27th of January, had not been idle. They had made
reports and submitted questions for discussion. The House consequently
passed resolutions for reforming pluralities, removing bishops from
the Peerage and Privy Council, and for excluding all clergymen
from the commission of the peace. Orders were given to frame Bills
accordingly.[161]
One of these Bills, which was introduced on the 9th of March, provided
that no minister should have more than one living; that if he absented
himself from his cure for forty days, he should forfeit his preferment;
and that no member of the University should hold a benefice ten miles
distant from his College, without living in the parish.[162]
[Sidenote: _Debates respecting Bishops._]
Another Bill, founded on the resolutions excluding clergymen from
secular offices, came before the House on the first of April, when
it was read a second time, and committed.[163] The supporters of it
argued:--"That there was so great a concurrence towards the passing
this Bill, and so great a combination throughout the nation against the
whole government of the Church, in which the Scots were so resolutely
engaged, that it was impossible for a firm peace to be preserved
between the nations, if bishops were not taken away, and that the army
would never march out of the kingdom till that were brought to pass."
Mr. Hyde, who afterwards, as Lord Clarendon, became his own reporter,
replied that--"It was changing the whole frame and constitution of
the kingdom, and of the Parliament itself; that, from the time that
Parliaments began, there had never been one Parliament when the bishops
were not part of it; that if they were taken out of the House there
would be but two estates left, for that they, as the clergy, were the
third estate, and being taken away, there was nobody left to represent
the clergy, which would introduce another piece of injustice, which no
other part of the kingdom could complain of, who were all represented
in Parliament, and were, therefore, bound to submit to all that was
enacted, because it was upon the matter with their own consent:
whereas, if the bishops were taken from sitting in the House of Peers,
there was nobody who could pretend to represent the clergy, and yet
they must be bound by their determinations." Lord Falkland, who sat
next to Hyde, then started up, and declared himself "to be of another
opinion, and that, as he thought the thing itself to be absolutely
necessary for the benefit of the Church, which was in so great danger,
so he had never heard that the constitution of the kingdom would
be violated by the passing that act, and that he had heard many of
the clergy protest that they could not acknowledge that they were
represented by the bishops. However, we might presume, that if they
could make that appear, that they were a third estate, that the House
of Peers (amongst whom they sat, and had yet their votes) would reject
it."[164]
What became of this measure we shall see before long. In March and
April, Bills were brought before the Commons for removing the Star
Chamber and High Commission Courts, but they were not presented to the
Lords till the fate of Strafford had been sealed. After a fruitless
attempt by the Peers to modify the Bill respecting the Star Chamber,
that and the measure for extinguishing the other despotic tribunal were
allowed to pass.[165]
[Sidenote: 1641, April.]
Before entering on the principal events of the month of May, it is
proper to glance at a controversy, pending about that time, between
bishops Hall and Ussher on the one side, and certain Presbyterians,
together with John Milton, on the other. Hall had, at an earlier
period, written his "Episcopacy by divine right." Now he appeared as
the author of "An Humble Remonstrance," in defence of liturgical forms
and diocesan Episcopacy. He was answered by five Presbyterian divines,
the initials of whose names formed the word _Smectymnus_, under which
ugly title their polemical production figures in literary history.[166]
The prelate insisted on the antiquity of liturgical forms, and on
the apostolical origin of diocesan bishops. The Presbyters contended
that free prayer was the practice of the early Church, and that no
genuine liturgy can be traced up beyond the third century. They
further maintained that the primitive bishop was a parochial pastor,
or preaching presbyter, without superiority of order or any exclusive
jurisdiction; that Presbyters of old ordained, and ruled, and that
what they did at the beginning they had a right to do still. Hall
published a rejoinder in defence of the Remonstrance. The Presbyters
soon produced a Vindication. The Bishop now sought assistance from his
friend Ussher, entreating him to bestow "one sheet of paper in such
distracted times on the subject of Episcopacy." Ussher complied, and
entitled his tract, "The original of Bishops and Metropolitans briefly
laid down." This, as well as another tract from the same pen, on the
position of the bishops of Asia Minor, issued from the Oxford press
in the course of the year, in a collection which further included
extracts from the writings of Hooker and Andrewes. Ussher argued, that
from the writings of the Fathers a succession of bishops may be shown
to have existed ever since the age of the Apostles; and that the Seven
Angels of the Seven Churches were "seven singular bishops who were the
constant presidents" over them.[167]
[Sidenote: _Debates respecting Bishops._]
[Sidenote: 1641, April.]
Milton, with characteristic ardour and eloquence, plunged into this
warfare, and published no less than five treatises on the subject,
advocating ecclesiastical reform, condemning prelatical Episcopacy,
reasoning against its government, animadverting on the "Defence," and
apologizing for Smectymnus. The poet's genius, and his mastery of
English prose, are conspicuous in these pamphlets; but the ferocity
of temper with which he here uses his scalping-knife is hardly less
than what it was in his onslaught upon Salmasius. Andrewes and
Ussher are treated as dunces by the imperious scholar, and Lucifer
is called the "first prelate angel," by this violent Nonconformist.
Yet, behind his bitterest invectives,--with which mercenary feeling or
personal grudge had nothing to do--may be seen a virtuous indignation
against superstition, formality, and despotism; and it is in the very
midst of this stormy assault, that he pauses to speak of that more
congenial work--the great poem which even then floated before his
imagination--which was "not to be obtained by the invocation of Dame
Memory and her syren daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal
Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out
His seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch and purify
the lips of whom He pleases."
[Illustration.]