NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE TOLERATION ACT. (1 Will. and Mary, c. 18.) people to frequent those prayers. The absolution in morning and evening prayer to be allowed to be read by a deacon. This Act, designated "An Act for Ex-Priest, wherever it occurs, to be changed empting their Majesties' Protestant sub-into minister. The Gloria Patri only to be jects Dissenting from the Church of Eng- used at the conclusion of the Psalms for land from the Penalties of certain Laws," the day. Honourable, in the Te Deum, to was framed on the ground that "some be omitted. The Benedicite, Benedictus, ease to scrupulous consciences in the and Nunc Dimittis to be changed for exercise of religion" may unite all Protest- Psalms. The versicles after the Lord's ants in interest and affection. It accord- Prayer to be said kneeling; all titles of ingly exempts persons who take the new the sovereign to be omitted. Prayers for oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the king and the clergy to be altered in also make the declaration against popery their wording. The prayer, "O God, whose required by the Act of 1678, from the nature and property," to be omitted. The penalties incurred by absenting them- Collects for the most part to be changed for selves from church and holding unlawful those the Bishop of Chichester (Patrick) conventicles; it also allows the Quakers has prepared. If a minister refuse the to substitute an affirmation for an oath in surplice, the bishop, if the people desire certain cases, but it does not relax the it and the living will bear it, may substiprovisions of the Corporation and Test tute one who will officiate in it. The Acts, and those who deny the doctrine of whole thing to be left to the bishop. Godthe Trinity are excluded from its benefits. fathers and godmothers to be omitted if It requires a declaration of approbation of any desire it. A Rubrick to be affixed to the thirty-six doctrinal articles from all the Athanasian Creed, declaring its threatpreachers, and provides that all assem- enings not to be restricted to those who blies for religious worship shall be held deny any particular article, but to those with open doors. who obstinately deny the Christian religion. An amended version of the reading Psalms to be inserted.1 In place of the Commandments in the communion service, the eight Beatitudes to be read with appropriate response. In the Catechism the duties to be broken into questions. An address to be inserted, to be used by the minister the Sunday before Confirmation, and an address for the bishop at The absolution in the Confirmation. visitation of the sick to be struck out. Commination service to be considerably altered. A conditional form of ordination to be inserted. (B) SUMMARY OF THE ALTERA- That the chanting of the divine service in cathedrals be discontinued. That some special Psalms be selected for Sunday use. That the Apocryphal lessons, and those from the Old Testament which are too natural, be abandoned. A new Calendar to be prepared, leaving out all legendary saints' days. A new Rubrick to be inserted signifying that the cross is not essential, but only a decent ceremony, with allowance to omit it if desired. Kneeling at the Lord's Supper to be made optional. A Rubrick to be inserted declaring Lent to be best kept by devotion, not by distinctions of meats. Another Rubrick to explain the meaning of Ember days and Rogation days. The Rubrick bidding the priest to say daily the morning and evening prayers to be changed into an exhortation to the Fuller information as to the proposed changes will be found in Procter's History of the Prayer-Book, where the summary occupies thirteen pages in small type. 1 It was left to the Convocation what this should be, whether the translation "made by the Bishop of St. Asaph (Lloyd) and Dr. Kidder, or that in the Bible.' CHAPTER XXXVII. THE NONJURING SCHISM-THE CONVOCATION CONTROVERSY. 1689-1702. § 1. Difficulties of the question of the Oaths to the new rulers. § 2. The Nonjurors. § 3. Bishop Ken. § 4. Archbishop Sancroft. § 5. Uneasy feelings of those who had taken the Oaths. § 6. Archbishop Sharp. § 7. Tillotson's Erastian policy. § 8. The Convocation Controversy: The Letter to a Convocation Man. § 9. Wake's Authority of Christian Princes. § 10. Atterbury's Rights, Powers, and Privileges, etc. § 11. Wake's State of the Church and Clergy. § 12. Effects of the Controversy. § 13. Tenison as Primate. § 14. The Committee of Patronage. § 15. The Lower House of Convocation contend for its alleged rights. § 16. It refuses to attend to the Archbishop's prorogation. § 17. Quarrel between the two Houses. § 18. Disputes in the following Convocation. § 19. The Societies for Reformation of Manners. § 20. The Societies for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Propagation of the Gospel. § 21. Dr. Thomas Bray. § 22. Difference of opinion touching the Reformation Societies. § 23. Revival of Religion. § 24. The Abjuration Oath. § 1. THE questions which the clergy had to decide, in connection with taking the oaths to the new rulers, were by no means simple and easy. If they were disciples of the doctrine then beginning to be in vogue, as to there being a mutual pact or covenant between the sovereign and the people to be broken or dissolved by the offensive action of either party, then probably the case would present few difficulties. But this doctrine was held by very few of the clergy. The majority of them regarded the sovereign as something above the law, and under no special obligations save his responsibility to God. They held that this sacred office was intimately connected with primogeniture and hereditary right, and that so indelible was its character, that even the act of the possessor himself could not evacuate it.1 In opposition to this there was a numerous body, which, assigning almost as high qualities to the kingly office as the others, nevertheless held that its occupant could cede it; that James had in fact ceded the Crown by his flight, and that therefore the de facto government which the country had accepted had a claim to their allegiance. The great difficulty with which those who held this view had to contend, was that it seemed to justify the claims of Oliver Cromwell to the allegiance of the clergy of his day. But it was pointed out that the two 1 D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 418. Charles I. had never ceded his cases were not really similar. rights, but had fought for them. accepted Cromwell by its legal representatives. But even supposing the rulers now installed by the nation to be rightfully installed, could the obligation of the oaths taken to the dispossessed ruler cease? How and by what could a solemn oath and pledge before heaven be dissolved? And if the oath to James remained in full force, how could the oath to William be taken? Some of the difficulties were got over by the form in which the oath to the new rulers was cast. Nothing was said or implied in it as to their title; it was simply, "I, A B, do sincerely promise and swear to bear true allegiance to their Majesties King William and Queen Mary." It might seem that all men who rightly weighed the emergency of the occasion and the importance of the issues; who considered that practically the obligation to allegiance must cease when no allegiance could be legally demanded; that no undertaking, however solemn, could disable a man from acting contrary to it in every conceivable circumstance; that there must be exceptions to every rule; that no oaths could justify a man in committing a crime; and that the upholding a ruler who was hostile to the liberties of his people both civil and religious was no less than a crime--it might seem that on some such grounds as these the clergy might very well make so simple a promise. Many, however, were unable to do so. § 2. When the new oath was taken by the Houses of Parliament (March 1689), ten bishops took it, but no less than nine steadily refused it.1 The Act of Parliament, which made it imperative on all ecclesiastical persons to take the oath before August 1 on pain of suspension for six months, and then of deprivation, did not avail to bend the resolve of any of these bishops. Three of them-Thomas, Lake, and Cartwright-died before the time of deprivation came; but of Bishop Thomas and Bishop Lake, it is recorded that they justified on their deathbeds the decision at which they had arrived. Of Bishop Cartwright's final views nothing is known, as he died abroad. Very few clergy, indeed, who incurred suspension on August 1 for refusing the oaths, altered their views between that period and February 1, 1690, which was the end of the term of grace, and after which time their benefices were vacant in law, and might be filled up by the patrons. Dr. Sherlock, the Master of the Temple, and afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, was a notable exception. He had advocated the very 1 Archbishop Sancroft, Bishops Ken (Bath and Wells), Turner (Ely), Frampton (Gloucester), Lloyd (Norwich), White (Peterborough), Thomas (Worcester), Lake (Chichester), Cartwright (Chester). highest notions of loyalty in his Case of Resistance, but having incurred suspension, he changed his mind, and published to the world his reasons for doing so in a work called The Case of Allegiance due to a Sovereign Power. In this he declared that his acceptance of the de facto government was greatly influenced by the publication of the Canons passed by the first Convocation of King James, which had been lately made known for the first time by Archbishop Sancroft.1 Six bishops, including the Primate, and about 400 beneficed clergy, were deprived by the operation of the Act of Parliament on February 1, 1690. Among these divines there were some of the greatest learning and power, but these were not the qualities in those who were deprived which constituted their chief loss to the Church. Learning and power might be found, also, among those who took the oaths. But the Nonjurors were, for the most part, men distinguished for their devotion to Church principles, and of this element there was soon proved to be a grievous lack in the Church of England. Among the more remarkable of those divines who refused the oaths, in addition to the six bishops, were John Kettlewell and George Hickes, both formerly fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford, and both known as scholars and writers of considerable power. Jeremy Collier, the famous Church historian, was also one of them, and Charles Leslie, one of the most acute and exact of the controversial writers of the Church of England. Among the laymen who refused the oaths were to be found Henry Dodwell, Camden professor at Oxford, remarkable for his learning and his eccentricity, and Robert Nelson, for many years one of the most active and energetic advocates of all good and holy things in England. § 3. But the greatest loss to the Church of England was undoubtedly Bishop Ken, whose holy and blameless life, striking powers of preaching, and boldness in contending for the truth, made him the most influential and valuable bishop of his day. It was not without great hesitation that Bishop Ken joined the Nonjurors, and brought himself to sacrifice his unrivalled capacity of usefulness in the Church to a romantic sentiment of loyalty.2 Nor was he allowed to secede without the greatest efforts being used to retain him. The noble stand which he had made against arbitrary power in the king, and against the introduction of Popery into the 1 It appears that the work known as Overall's Convocation Book, which contains these Canons on government, had not been published till this date. Sancroft is said to have published it by way of advocating divine right, but Sherlock discovered in it certain Canons which are strong for de facto government. These were the Canons which so much displeased King James with the work of this Convocation. See Notes and Illustrations, chap. xxiii. 2 Bishop of Ely's Letter to Sancroft, Tanner MSS. 27, 16. |