Scripture was not writ to beget pride and disputation, and
opposition to government, but moderation, humility, and
obedience, and peace, and piety, in mankind, of which no good
man ever did or will repent himself on his death-bed.
Hooker.
The subject of my story embraces a long period of eventful years; I must
therefore imitate the chroniclers of old, and, leaving the Evellins
among their mountain-fastnesses, return to Ribblesdale, and describe the
situation of Dr. Beaumont.
This worthy divine continued to exercise his pastoral functions in
respectable tranquillity, adorning his station by a happy union of
literary accomplishments with Christian graces. In these duties he was
assisted by his amiable and beloved wife, who, though endowed with an
unusual share of personal beauty, and descended from a noble stock,
thought it no degradation to practise the duties which the inspired
Apostle requires from the wives of Christian pastors, whom he rightly
considers as called to be associates and partners in the ministry. She
was indeed "grave, no slanderer, sober, faithful in all things, adorned
with a meek and quiet spirit, abounding in good works, and a teacher of
good things." Preserving the decorous and just superiority of polished
manners and an enlightened mind, blended with the courtesy, humility,
and meekness which result from true religious feeling, this amiable
woman lived beloved and died lamented. A victim to the pestilence which
ravaged England about the year 1630, she fell in the prime of life; a
proof that length of days and exemption from sorrow are no sure marks of
Divine favour. Her assiduity in ministering to the afflicted, exposed
her to the infection which deprived Dr. Beaumont of all his numerous
family except one daughter; while the household of Sir William Waverly,
closely barricadoed by every contrivance which caution could suggest,
enjoyed uninterrupted health. The only share he had in the general
distress arose from his fears that some of the convalescent might pass
the barrier he had placed round his park, or that infection might be
communicated through the medium of the bailiff, who was allowed to sell
corn from his granaries to the starving populace, at an exorbitant rate.
The Baronet gave himself great credit for this act of generosity and
patriotism, often observing that it would be very hard if it should
expose him to the danger of falling a victim to his philanthropy, which
sentiment was re-echoed by those who had the honour of sitting at his
table, now more splendidly furnished by these extra profits, to the
great satisfaction of all his humble retainers.
Dr. Beaumont resigned his wife and children to Him who had bestowed
them, as intrusted blessings, which he had dearly valued, and now as
tenderly regretted. Resolved to pass the rest of his days in widowhood,
he made Mrs. Mellicent superintendant of his household and director of
his daughter's feminine accomplishments. She also undertook to supply
the place of Mrs. Beaumont in the parish, but in the task of managing
the humours and improving the inclinations of the lower orders,
something beside zeal and activity is necessary, even granting (as was
the case in this instance) that they are guided by right principles.
There was an unfortunate degree of rigidity and austerity about Mrs.
Mellicent that was less connected with her heart than her manner, unless
we ascribe it to a latent conviction of her own wisdom and an
inclination to govern by its acknowledged superiority rather than by
acquired influence. The villagers allowed that the ladies were equally
good; but Madam Beaumont smiled them into a persuasion that she was an
angel, and they adored her because they thought she loved them; while
Madam Mellicent chided them for their faults, traced their misfortunes
to their imprudence, and instead of trying to persuade them out of their
prejudices, informed them that their capacities and education best
fitted them for the duty of obedience. She was a woman of natural
shrewdness, but not sufficiently conversant with the world to know the
advantage of prudently temporizing, or the usefulness of forbearance.
She had not allowed herself to study the temper of the times; she saw
not that the bands of subordination were relaxing, and that the
populace, leaving the practice of duties, were now busy in ascertaining
rights. A change so important and so similar to that to which of late
years public opinion has again leaned, will justify a few remarks on its
causes, before I describe its effects.
The coercive system of government, which, during the arbitrary reigns of
the Tudor family, wore the dignified aspect of prescriptive authority,
was submitted to by a people grateful to that popular house, whose
accession healed the wounds of a long protracted civil war; but when
continued by what England esteemed a race of foreign Kings, it was
stigmatized by the name of tyranny. The favours and privileges which
Henry the Seventh bestowed on the commons, and the stratagems he
employed to reduce the power of those barons who had been the makers and
unmakers of Kings, had, during the course of five reigns, created a new
order of men, whose power and influence in the commonwealth were yet
unknown to the advisers of the crown. The long internal peace of a
century and a half, added to the stimulus which commerce had received
during the reign of Elizabeth, introduced a vast influx of wealth. The
religious disputes, which were the only contests that disturbed this
repose, engrafted a sour spirit of theological controversy on the warm
devotional feelings that distinguished the age immediately succeeding
the reformation. This temper was fomented by the clerical disputants
among their respective flocks; the pulpit became a stage for spiritual
attack and defence, and the most illiterate congregations were crazed
with discussions of metaphysical divinity, or inflamed with rancorous
hatred against the opponents of their peculiar preacher, who might be
truly said to preach his own doctrine and defend his own cause, and not
the doctrine or cause of his master. Thus the great mass of the
community had their attention diverted from that important part of the
Christian covenant which consists in practice, and were taught to rest
their hopes of salvation on speculative points, to the disbelief of
which were annexed those dreadful anathemas that entirely destroyed the
spirit of Christian charity, and made the professors of the same
religion enemies from principle, instead of brothers in love, united "by
one faith, one hope, one baptism."
This religious intoxication was increased by those confused, undefined
discussions about civil privileges, which, considering the altered
circumstances of the community, it would have been wise for the Crown
not to have provoked. There would, on the contrary, have been more
policy in permitting some claims, not authorized by precedent, to have
stolen in by connivance, and a few obnoxious institutions to have
silently died away. The parsimonious frugality of Elizabeth was a
powerful support to her prerogative, while the prodigal grants of King
James to his favourites paved the way to his son's ruin. The disputes
between King Charles and his three first parliaments induced him to have
recourse to measures for raising supplies which were unconstitutional,
and though the sums thus procured did not amount to a moiety of what
would have been granted in the shape of taxes, the people murmured at
forced loans, ship-money, and other unhappy expedients, when they would
cheerfully have paid much larger sums if granted as subsidies. The house
of Commons during the reign of Henry the Eighth were frowned and menaced
into the most abject subjection; and Elizabeth, with no less authority,
but superior address, awed them into non-resistance; but ever since the
accession of the house of Stewart they felt their importance, as bearers
of the public purse. Their decrees as well as their debates breathed a
spirit at once alarming and displeasing to Princes educated in the
opinion of their own Divine right, and succeeding a Queen who, though
wisely intent on the public good, was as despotic a Sovereign as ever
filled the English throne. A want of attention to the change which had
rendered his situation different from that of his predecessors, and a
too sanguine confidence in the affections of his people, which his
virtues and abilities richly deserved, hurled the unhappy Charles from
his throne. He wanted those pre-monitory lessons which his own
subsequent misfortunes afforded. The eventful scenes which Europe has
exhibited these last twenty years have awefully multiplied such
warnings: May they act on the minds of Englishmen, and on those of their
rulers, till the last great day of general audit which shall terminate
the existence of this island with that of the earth!
The same good intentions and mistaken methods that distinguished the
administration of the Sovereign, marked Mrs. Mellicent's superintendance
of Ribblesdale. She was a politician of the school of Elizabeth, very
willing to do good to her inferiors, but positively requiring that they
should obey her. Prescription and authority, docility and respect, old
principles and old manners, were her favourite topics; and in preaching
submission to all superiors from the King to the village constable,
precedence and decorum were her constant texts. Her notions were perhaps
urged too far, but this was an age of extremes; the minds of the people
were kept in a continual ferment, every object was distorted, and the
calamities which ensued, in many instances, proceeded more from
ill-directed zeal than positive malice; from fanaticism rather than
hypocrisy. At least a bewildered imagination seems at first to have
actuated the majority of the most eminent commonwealth's men to support
what they deemed a righteous cause, though in their subsequent actions
party-spirit urged them to do what they knew to be sinful, and to
attempt to gloss it with those false colourings which make us now justly
combine the names of hypocrite and fanatic, and hold them up as a
reproach to the age in which they passed for saint and patriot.
The new lights, as they were termed, had begun to set England in a
blaze, and two of their burning torches were greeted in Ribblesdale in
the persons of Morgan and Davies, the latter the village-schoolmaster,
the former a low-minded money-scrivener, who had amassed a large fortune
in "the godly city of Gloucester"; and retired to spend it in his native
town, where he purchased an estate, acted as justice of the peace, and
styled himself gentleman. Both were illuminated apostles of the new
doctrines, but each had a peculiar department in the work of
reformation; one wishing to batter down the spiritual abominations of
the church, while the other confined his zeal to destroying the bands of
tyrannical rulers, and "calling Israel to their tents." Davies laboured
under the pressure of poverty. He had displeased Dr. Beaumont by his
seditious and impertinent behaviour, and the inhabitants withdrew their
children from his school; but as his means of living decreased, his
opinion of his own deserts enlarged; he mistook the cravings of want for
spiritual illumination, and so perplexed his mind by reading the
scurrilous libels of the day, as to be firmly persuaded that the King
was the Devil's bairn, and Archbishop Laud the personal antichrist. A
description of church ceremonies thrilled him with horror, and in every
prosecution of a contumacious minister his ardent fancy saw a revival of
the flames of Smithfield, while his confused notions of right and
justice convinced him, that if the arm of the spirit failed, that of the
flesh must be exerted, to throw down these strong holds. He had long
believed himself equal to Dr. Beaumont in learning, and fancied that the
unction of gifts and graces, with which he was favoured, gave him a
decided preference over man's ordination. He continued to attend the
church, but not in the capacity of an humble learner. By coming late, he
avoided the zeal-quenching liturgy, which, as it avowedly retained
ancient prayers, he considered as Babylonish and idolatrous, and he
exercised his Christian liberty of choosing his religion by listening to
the sermon, with a design of cavilling at the preacher, whom he soon
found to be a mere legal teacher, descanting on the doctrine of works
exploded by the new covenant.
Morgan had less zeal than Davies, and more foresight. Though equally
anxious to pull down and destroy, he was not so certain that the
fragments would re-edify themselves into a habitable fabric; and as he
liked the comforts he enjoyed in the present state of things, he was not
inclined to lay the foundation of a republic, till he was certain of
getting a good apartment in it himself. He saw that the aspect of the
times forboded extraordinary changes; but as he could not divine which
of the numerous sects that opposed the church would acquire the
ascendancy, he left his religion to future contingences. He found Davies
an able assistant, and therefore determined to keep him hungry and
discontented, in order to make him the more active in recommending the
sovereign panacea, that was to cure all the national disorders. This
recipe was no other than the covenant promulgated in Scotland, and which
was called "a golden girdle to tie themselves to Heaven, a joining and
glueing themselves to the Lord, a binding themselves apprentice to
God[1]." These terms were applied to an agreement which made those that
entered into it, if in a public station, break their oath of allegiance,
(for the covenanters were bound to overturn the ecclesiastical branch of
the constitution,) and which though it affected loyalty by professing
deference for the person of the King, yet maintained the independence
and paramount power of the parliament, and denounced the King's friends
as malignant incendiaries and evil instruments, who prevented his
reconciliation with his people. The pretext of separating the royal
person from the free exercise of his functions, was too gross to deceive
the most short-sighted. Equally palpable was the falsehood of pretending
to promote peace and unity by an instrument, which, in the form of a
religious sacrament, forbade concession, and solemnly denounced eternal
enmity to all who held different opinions. Such mockery could be
equalled only by that of the popish inquisitors, who intreat the secular
power to be merciful, even in the warrant by which they virtually
consign their victims to the flames.
These were the pestiferous principles of the intermeddlers, who
disturbed the tranquillity of Ribblesdale, and alienated the minds of
the people from their good pastor. The doctrine of Davies was most
popular, for Morgan cut only the fifth commandment and its dependant
duties out of the decalogue, while Davies, by always insisting on the
freedom of grace, led his hearers, who were unskilled in theological
subtilties, to think he meant to limit duty to the simple act of belief.
From the period of their opposition to Dr. Beaumont, a marked change was
visible in the manners of the villagers; their time was devoted to
contentious disputation, which is in truth the most dangerous sort of
idleness, and as they became in their own ideas more enlightened, they
became more miserable; a sullen morose gloom usurped the frank hilarity
of satisfied rusticity, which formerly animated their countenances.
Athletic exercises and cheerful sports were renounced as sinful, and the
green became the resort of conceited politicians, who, with
misapplications of Scripture in their mouths and newspapers and libels
in their hands, boasted their renunciation of the sensual vices, yet
cherished as graces the baneful passions of pride, malice, and
stubbornness, which the Scriptures assure us are most odious in the
sight of God.
Dr. Beaumont was not an inactive spectator, while he beheld his
parishioners thus exchanging the infirmities of the flesh for spiritual
contumacy; but the evil had spread beyond the reach of lenient remedies.
It is possible to instruct the ignorant, and reform a conscious culprit,
but who shall teach those who are wise in their own eyes, or convince an
offender, who, while he condemns righteousness as filthy rags, boasts of
his freedom from the power of sin. The church was deserted, or
frequented only by the Doctor's most inveterate opponents, who came not
to reform their lives, but to impugn the doctrine of one, whom they had
previously denounced, as not preaching the gospel, and what with
omissions, transpositions, inuendoes, and insertions, they took care so
to disguise his discourses in their reports, as to make him appear to
maintain what he had uniformly controverted.
As his ministerial credentials were thus discredited, even while he
stood by the mercy-seat, as priest of the Most High, so when he
performed the social part of his pastoral functions, his visits to his
flock exposed him to derision and insult. The smile of respectful
affection, and the salute of humility and gratitude, no longer greeted
His Reverence; his charity was received as a right, and the legal
maintenance which the law allowed him was grudgingly paid, or
vexatiously withheld from him, being deemed a pledge of servitude to a
preacher whom the people had not chosen, and who fed them with garbage
instead of wholesome food. Even his own tithe-holder, farmer Humphreys,
was led away by the delusion. He was a man of rough manners and gloomy
unsocial disposition, but he had hitherto never ventured to rebel,
farther than occasionally to absent himself from church, on the Sunday
after every admonition which Dr. Beaumont from time to time privately
gave him to abstain from too free indulgence at market. He would have
thought it sacrilegious as well as impudent to question the lawful
endowment of the church, and he reproved his wife for being piqued at
Mrs. Mellicent's blaming her passion for high-crowned hats, ruffs, and
farthingales, which the sage spinster thought indecorous for yeomen's
wives, though very suitable to Lady Waverly. He silenced the good dame's
remarks on Mrs. Mellicent's interfering disposition, by reminding her of
the value of that lady's green ointment, adding that though she was apt
to be domineering and outrageous, she was ever a true friend, and more
useful in sickness than the great Doctor at Lancaster. But Humphreys's
opinions were totally changed, since he had the honour of joining the
club at Squire Morgan's, and heard the evening lectures which Davies
gave in the schoolroom. He now found that man was born equal and free,
that he had a right to choose by whom and how he would be governed or
taught, that tithes were a Jewish ordinance, and therefore carnal; and
that as he was nearly as rich as his pastor, it was lording it over the
Lord's heritage for Dr. Beaumont to be called Your Reverence, while
himself was only Goodman Humphreys. As to the Doctor's superior share of
virtue and wisdom, he had reason to doubt whether he really possessed
them, because he never heard him say he did, but he knew Squire Morgan
was wiser, and Master Davies more godly than other people, for they told
him so every day. And they made such fine speeches, and uttered such
long prayers, that he knew they wished him well. Some things indeed,
that they said about free grace, and agrarian laws he did not quite
understand, but he believed these dark sayings meant, that when he came
to be one of the elect, he should get to Heaven without any trouble; and
that if church and King were overthrown, he should occupy the glebe
without paying any rent. Be this as it would, the right of choosing his
own pastor, which Davies peremptorily insisted on as the
foundation-stone of the reformation, secured him from the mortification
of continually hearing Dr. Beaumont insist on duties he had no
inclination to practice, and condemn faults he did not like to renounce.
It is no wonder, therefore, that Humphreys wrought himself into a most
patriotic resolution, no longer to submit to tyranny and priestcraft,
and to vow that the next time the Doctor admonished him, he would retort
with "Ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi."
People who resolve to speak their minds, seldom wait long for an
opportunity. Farmer Humphreys's zeal for the holy covenant, which he was
assured confirmed these privileges, not only induced him to take it
himself, but to insist on his carter, Jobson's, subscribing to it also.
Not that he intended the blessed panacea should work a similar change in
the situation of Jobson, who, he discovered, was predestined to hard
work and hard fare; but, as the good cause might want an arm of flesh in
its defence, the muscular strength of the ploughman, like that of the
ox, would help to drag the new ark into the sanctuary. For this purpose,
he carefully concealed from Jobson the latent privileges and immunities
that were vested in these cabalistical words, nor did he think it any
infringement of his principles to inforce by his own behaviour the
abominable doctrine of passive obedience, and to insist that Jobson
should either become a covenanter, or quit his service, and forfeit his
wages. Jobson had once heard the _rigmarole_, as he called it, read
over, and by a strange perverseness of understanding, fancied these
indentures of faith and unity, to be no other than binding himself to
the Devil, to pull down the church and curse the King, and he preferred
persecution and poverty to such servitude. As he resisted all Davies's
attempts to enlighten him, and met his master's threats with a
stedfastness which these friends to liberty called contumacy, the
alternative was dismissal from his present service, without any
remuneration for his past.
He applied to Justice Morgan for redress, who, anxious to disprove the
suspicions that were circulated of his disposition to favour
disorganizing principles, enjoined Jobson to obey his master, and
reproved him for thinking that his soul could be endangered by following
the example of so many great men, who had taken the covenant. It
inopportunely happened, that at this moment Jobson recollected a sermon
of Dr. Beaumont's, against the sin of following a multitude to do evil,
in which every man's responsibility for his own offences, and the
attention of Omniscience to individual transgressions, were illustrated
by proofs drawn from the minute watchfulness of Providence, which
superintends the heedless flight of the sparrow, and adorns the lilies
of the field with more than regal magnificence. In reply to Morgan's
enumeration of the Dukes, Marquisses, Lords and Squires, Godly Ministers
and staunch Common-wealth men, who had taken the covenant, Jobson shook
his head, and said, none of them would answer for his soul. "I heard,"
said he, "last Sunday in church, that all the Princes of a great nation
worshipped a golden image, and three men would not, so every body went
against these men, and threw them into a burning furnace. But the men
were right after all in the end of the story; and so, please Your
Worship, I'll not sign the Devil's bond for any body."
Davies, who was present at the examination, now remarked that Jobson had
not only forfeited his wages as an hireling, by his disobedience to a
believing master, but deserved to be committed for slandering the holy
covenant; and Morgan, though he knew this had not yet been made an
offence by statute, yet relying on the temper of the parish, the
ignorance of the culprit, and the protection he would be sure to meet
from a faction, whose violence had driven the King from his capital, and
usurped the government, made out a Mittimus. Some remaining sense of
justice, and a dislike of oppression when exercised against one of their
own rank, induced the peasants to shew their disapprobation. A crowd
collected around Morgan's door, determined to exercise their rights and
to rescue the prisoner. The tears and cries of his wife and children had
just roused them to the assumption of that summary mode of vengeance, so
gratifying to an English mob, when the appearance of Dr. Beaumont
suspended their fury. The long-formed associations of habitual reverence
were not so intirely abrogated as to allow them to continue their
riotous conduct under the influence of that mild eye, which had often
silently reproved their faults, or that benevolent countenance, which
had pitied their wants, and confirmed their virtues; they stood in
suspence, involuntarily waiting for his opinion.
Dr. Beaumont severely condemned their misconduct in taking justice into
their own hands, and assured them he would use all proper means for the
liberation of Jobson. A confused murmur arose, as he entered the house.
Some wondered if he knew that Morgan was his enemy, supposing that, if
he did, he never would have objected to their breaking his windows;
others said that the Doctor and Davies would now have it out. Davies had
often said the Doctor was a Babylonish trafficker in works, an Alexander
the copper-smith; and they wondered what names the other would invent.
All were amazed how he dared venture among them, as they wanted
something on which to accuse him to the new government.
Personal safety, and a regard to his own peculiar contests, were the
last things that suggested themselves to the mind of Doctor Beaumont.
Forgetful of the injuries and insults he had received, he addressed his
opponents with graceful manners, and in conciliatory language. He
requested to know what was Jobson's offence, expressing a hope that it
was of such a nature as to admit of his urging the extenuating plea of
his former good conduct.
Many voices spoke at once. Humphreys exclaimed, that he had disobeyed
his orders, and was an eye-servant. Davies said, that he had dared to
speak slanderously of the holy covenant. Dr. Beaumont declared himself
an enemy to slander and disobedience, but in order to afford a pretext
for the commitment of Jobson, Humphreys must shew his commands were
strictly lawful, and Davies that the covenant was holy.
Both answered at the same time. The powerful lungs of Humphreys enabled
him to thunder out, that the time was now past when he cared for the
Doctor, that he knew he was as good as he, would do as he liked, and ere
long meant to shew him he had the best right to the glebe, where he
would no longer moil and toil for a caterpillar, that fattened on his
labours. The shrill pipe of Davies issuing from his meagre form in a
still higher key, insisted that the covenant was our only defence
against malignant men, and evil counsellors, Arminians and Jesuits, and
that if this godly bond was trampled on, the nation would be overrun
with popery and formality.
When his antagonists, in striving to drown each other's voices, had
mutually exhausted their powers of utterance, Dr. Beaumont answered,
that since temporal endowment was no essential mark of a true church,
but rather an adjunct springing out of a right feeling in the public for
their spiritual advisers, the depriving him of his emoluments by the
strong arm of power, would not degrade him from the office to which he
had been divinely appointed. "It will, therefore," said he, "friend
Humphreys, be always my duty to advise and assist you, and if you
violently deprive me of what the most ancient of our laws has made mine,
the necessity of my interference to convince you of your fault will
become more evident. As for the wonderful efficacy which our neighbour
Davies attributes to what I consider as a mere party-engagement, I must
observe that popery received a blow from the labours of our first
reformers, which would ere now have proved mortal, had not the divisions
and subdivisions, the schisms and sects, that have originated in the
importunate spirit of puritanical objectors, afforded leisure and
security for the Hydra to heal her deadly wounds. In the early part of
the reign of our late Queen of glorious memory, the Papists generally
attended their several parish-churches, listened to our Liturgy and
services with devotion, and seemed in a fair way to be won over by the
moderation and decency of our worship. But the intemperance of those
who, for the merest trifles, quarrelled with the establishment, who
rejected even apostolical usages, because they had been practised by the
catholics, who, instead of allowing Rome to be a church in error, denied
that its followers could be saved, and thus raised the dark cloud of
schism against the sun of the reformation; their rashness,
uncharitableness, and fastidious scruples, in purifying what they owned
to be non-essentials, have, I say, imped the dragon's wings, and placed
the scarlet abomination, as ye call it, in a tower of strength, which
the artillery of your covenant, lighted as it is by the flame of treason
and civil commotion, can never overthrow.--The champions of these sects
in the reign of Elizabeth, countenanced by that most flagitious courtier
and tyrannical governor, the Earl of Leicester, accused Hooker, the
great bulwark of the Protestant cause, of leaning towards popery,
because he refused to consign the souls of our ancestors to perdition;
and a most uncharitable outcry was raised against a Bishop for the same
bias, because he trusted that the grandmother of our good King would
experience the mercies of our Saviour, on whose merits, in her last
moments, she declared she relied.--Thus did these ill-advised persons,
by a breach of that charity and unity, which Scripture every where
enjoins, prevent the Protestant church from exhibiting the surest marks
of Christian verity. Instead of alluring people to come out of the
mystical Babylon, these most lamentable divisions and controversies
about trifles have driven thousands into the perilous labyrinths of a
persuasion, which admits no difference of opinion, or into the yet more
dreary dungeons of Atheism, whose most formidable objection to our
faith, is the ill blood which it foments. Never have these enemies to
God and man made such progress, as since the time when spiritual pride,
turbulence and ambition, united under the name of perfect reformation,
to pluck down an edifice constructed in moderation, defended by the
doctrines, beautified by the labours, and cemented by the blood of its
founders."
The fiery zeal of Davies would not permit Dr. Beaumont to finish his
harangue. "And ye planted in your edifice," said he, "a poisonous scion,
an abominable branch of the tree of evil; but our friend Humphreys
speaks not unadvisedly, or at peradventure. Your Anti-christian bishops
are all sent to prison; they are caged vultures, jackdaws stripped of
their Babylonish trappings, their robes and square caps, their lawn
formalities, their hoods and scarfs, and mitres, and crosiers, and
thrones, by which these Diotrepheses lorded it over the faithful, and
made the land stink with idolatries which Scripture forbids. But the
blood of that Popish inquistior, Laud, will soon flow on the scaffold,
and be a cleansing stream over a foul garment; and with him episcopacy
shall be coffined up and buried without expectation of a resurrection."
"It is strange," observed Dr. Beaumont, "that the Papacy should rejoice
at his degradation, and consider his present sufferings as a judgment
upon him for composing a treatise which exposed their fopperies with a
strength of reasoning to which their most able divines know not how to
reply."
Morgan here interposed, and, with a smile of condescension, advised Dr.
Beaumont to reflect on his own situation, and consider his temporal
advantages and personal security. He spoke in praise of his learning,
benevolence, and inoffensive conduct, and desired him, by a timely
conformity to the prevailing doctrines, to avoid being implicated in the
ruin of a falling church.
"A true branch of the Catholic church," replied the Doctor, "may be
shaken, but cannot fall, because it has the promise of resisting the
attacks of the powers of darkness to the end of the world. But you
mistake me, Sir, if you suppose that policy was the schoolmaster who
taught me my creed, or that I will desert that Church in adversity who
fed me with her bread, and graced me with her ministerial appointments.
The pastoral office she intrusted to me may be wrested from my grasp by
force; my body may be imprisoned, my goods confiscated; you may drag me
to the flames, like Ridley, or to the scaffold, like Laud, but you
cannot change truth into falsehood, or make that right, which, though
successful, is intrinsically wrong. Whether the doctrines of the Church
of England be branded as those of a declining sect, or set by the throne
as a light to guide our hereditary Princes, they must be tried by other
criterions than popularity, I mean, by reason, Scripture, and
apostolical usage. I trust she will ever have sons equal to the task of
defending her, men uncorrupted by sensuality when she basks in sunshine,
undaunted by danger when tempests threaten her destruction. And with all
your boasts of making this land a Zoar and a Zion, I will tell you that
you will never make it the Jerusalem which is at unity with itself and
therefore meet for the residence of the Holy One, until it shall please
'God to bless the common people with sense to see that there is such a
sin as schism, and that they are not judges what schism is.' Peace is
not promoted by yielding to captious objections, but by subduing the
spirit, which is more prone to dispute than to obey. Those who dissent
from us say they only crave liberty, but when the church is overthrown
they will find that it is the spirit of domination which they mistook
for zeal in the cause of freedom. This will make every sect strive for
pre-eminence, and the hatred they now shew us will, if we are subdued,
be diverted from a superior whom they cease to fear, to equals whom they
wish to depress; the anarchy and discord they will then experience will
lead the moderate and well-informed to remember with regret the mild
government of the deposed church."
"How, Sir?" said Morgan; "do you defend a church that has ever been a
determined enemy to liberty, an ally to tyrants; a church that has
vindicated forced loans and ship-money, and asserted those popish
doctrines, passive obedience in the subject, and infallibility in the
sovereign, dividing mankind into despots and slaves? All men are born
free and equal; and he, who taxes my fortune, restrains my conscience,
or confines my person without my leave, or, which is the same thing,
against those laws to which I or my representative have consented; is my
enemy and a tyrant, whom I may treat as Jael did Sisera. But you
Episcopalians say, 'Oh no, the persons of Kings are sacred, and they can
do no wrong;' so it follows that subjects are slaves whom they may
crush, and trample, and grind as they please."
"Part of these doctrines," replied the Doctor, "are not held merely by
the Church, but form a branch of that ancient constitution of the
kingdom which no subsequent acts of the whole legislature can change,
without, at the same time, endangering the safety and property of every
individual. Much less can they be legally infringed by a packed junto of
men, calling themselves the House of Commons, but in which, according to
your own system, not a tenth of the nation is nominally represented. As
to the inference you draw from what I call the fundamental principles of
our government, prove that the Anglican church holds them, and I will
allow her to be an ally of despotism; but you shall bring your proofs
from her canons, articles, and liturgy, not from the servants of
court-chaplains, or the flatteries of those who forget the priest in the
sycophant. Wolves and worldlings creep into every church. The apostolic
age had its Demas, and ours has its Williams. Remember it has its
Andrews too. But since your principles of freedom will be best
exemplified by your practice, I trust you will recollect the case of
Jobson. He has neither by himself, nor by his representatives, consented
to the Covenant; and his equal and free rights allow him to reject it.
No ordinance has yet made it law; and the liberty of conscience you
require for yourself will not allow you to force it upon him as gospel,
seeing he cannot think it so."
Davies, whose extravagance had been checked by the admonitory frown of
Morgan, took advantage of the dilemma to which Dr. Beaumont's
application of his own principles had reduced him, and renewed his
deafening declamations, to which (as neither argument nor fact were
regarded, and the length of the harangue depended on his bodily
strength,) the attention of his hearers might be dispensed with.
Humphreys endeavoured to impress his neighbours with an idea of the
advantages that would result from supporting the Covenant. "It was
better than the law," he said, "because if any one came upon them for
taxes they had only to go to a brother-covenanter, and be he a peer or
parliament-man, he was bound to support them." Davies, in the mean time,
turning up the whites of his eyes, raved against so carnalizing a
spiritual bond as to apply it to the protection of temporal goods.
"This," he said, "was making the gospel a post-horse to ride their own
errands; stopping the entrance of an oven with a King's robe royal; and
making a covenant with Heaven a chariot and stirrup to mount up to the
height of carnal and clay projects. By the Covenant," added he, "I am
enabled to preach the true gospel in spite of my persecutor in a
surplice, who would starve the lambs with formality, and forbid me to
feed them. He that opposeth me hath in his dwelling idols of wood and
stone, and painted symbols of men and women whom Antichrist made saints,
and Pagan books treating of false gods, and moral treatises without one
word of saving faith in them, and musical instruments, and Jewish
contrivances; and he goes into his study, not to wrestle with the
Spirit, but to consult the evil one; and then he goes into the
steeple-house, and, instead of the milk of the word, pours ladles-full
of leaden legality among ye, till ye all look like his own dumb idols,
instead of faithful souls overflowing with illumination."
This specimen of Davies's oratory is sufficient. The tumult he excited
allowed Morgan to put in practice a safer plan than that of committing
Jobson to prison, namely, to remove him privately to Hull, where Sir
John Hotham was raising men for the service of Parliament, and he
thought the threat of sending him to the plantations would prevail on
him to enlist. Affecting, therefore, to be convinced that the liberty of
a brother-man should be respected, he tore the warrant for Jobson's
commitment, and ordered that he should be set at liberty. Jobson,
however, could not be found. It was suggested that he had probably run
away during the confusion; and Dr. Beaumont returned home, hoping his
interference had been of some use.
[1] Several passages in this and the next chapters are extracted
from fanatical sermons on public occasions.