The History of England from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 3 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (reading an ebook .txt) 📕

ecclesiastical dignity. "The Bishop of Salisbury," said Tillotson, "is one of the best and worst friends that I know."

Nothing that was not a secret to Burnet was likely to be long a secret to any body. It soon began to be whispered about that the King had fixed on Tillotson to fill the place of Sancroft. The news caused cruel mortification to Compton, who, not unnaturally, conceived that his own claims were unrivalled. He had educated the Queen and her sister; and to the instruction which they had received from him might fairly be ascribed, at least in part, the firmness with which, in spite of the influence of their father, they had adhered to the established religion. Compton was, moreover, the only prelate who, during the late reign, had raised his voice in Parliament against the dispensing power, the only prelate who had been suspended by the High Commission, the only prelate who had signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, the only prelate who had actually taken arms against Popery and arbitrary power, the only prelate, save one, who had voted against a Regency. Among the ecclesiastics of the Province of Canterbury who had taken the oaths, he was highest in rank. He had therefore held, during some months, a vicarious primacy: he had crowned the new Sovereigns: he had consecrated the new Bishops: he was about to preside in the Convocation. It may be added, that he was the son of an Earl; and that no person of equally high birth then sate, or had ever sate, since the Reformation, on the episcopal bench. That the government should put over his head a priest of his own diocese, who was the son of a Yorkshire clothier, and who was distinguished only by abilities and virtues, was provoking; and Compton, though by no means a badhearted man, was much provoked. Perhaps his vexation was increased by the reflection that he had, for the sake of those by whom he was thus slighted, done some things which had strained his conscience and sullied his reputation, that he had at one time practised the disingenuous arts of a diplomatist, and at another time given scandal to his brethren by wearing the buff coat and jackboots of a trooper. He could not accuse Tillotson of inordinate ambition. But, though Tillotson was most unwilling to accept the Archbishopric himself, he did not use his influence in favour of Compton, but earnestly recommended Stillingfleet as the man fittest to preside over the Church of England. The consequence was that, on the eve of the meeting of Convocation, the Bishop who was to be at the head of the Upper House became the personal enemy of the presbyter whom the government wished to see at the head of the Lower House. This quarrel added new difficulties to difficulties which little needed any addition.505

It was not till the twentieth of November that the Convocation met for the despatch of business. The place of meeting had generally been Saint Paul's Cathedral. But Saint Paul's Cathedral was slowly rising from its ruins; and, though the dome already towered high above the hundred steeples of the City, the choir had not yet been opened for public worship. The assembly therefore sate at Westminster.506 A table was placed in the beautiful chapel of Henry the Seventh. Compton was in the chair. On his right and left those suffragans of Canterbury who had taken the oaths were ranged in gorgeous vestments of scarlet and miniver. Below the table was assembled the crowd of presbyters. Beveridge preached a Latin sermon, in which he warmly eulogized the existing system, and yet declared himself favourable to a moderate reform. Ecclesiastical laws were, he said, of two kinds. Some laws were fundamental and eternal: they derived their authority from God; nor could any religious community repeal them without ceasing to form a part of the universal Church. Other laws were local and temporary. They had been framed by human wisdom, and might be altered by human wisdom. They ought not indeed to be altered without grave reasons. But surely, at that moment, such reasons were not wanting. To unite a scattered flock in one fold under one shepherd, to remove stumbling blocks from the path of the weak, to reconcile hearts long estranged, to restore spiritual discipline to its primitive vigour, to place the best and purest of Christian societies on a base broad enough to stand against all the attacks of earth and hell, these were objects which might well justify some modification, not of Catholic institutions, but of national or provincial usages.507

The Lower House, having heard this discourse, proceeded to appoint a Prolocutor. Sharp, who was probably put forward by the members favourable to a comprehension as one of the highest churchmen among them, proposed Tillotson. Jane, who had refused to act under the Royal Commission, was proposed on the other side. After some animated discussion, Jane was elected by fifty- five votes to twenty-eight.508

The Prolocutor was formally presented to the Bishop of London, and made, according to ancient usage, a Latin oration. In this oration the Anglican Church was extolled as the most perfect of all institutions. There was a very intelligible intimation that no change whatever in her doctrine, her discipline, or her ritual was required; and the discourse concluded with a most significant sentence. Compton, when a few months before he exhibited himself in the somewhat unclerical character of a colonel of horse, had ordered the colours of his regiment to be embroidered with the well known words "Nolumus leges Angliae mutari"; and with these words Jane closed his peroration.509

Still the Low Churchmen did not relinquish all hope. They very wisely determined to begin by proposing to substitute lessons taken from the canonical books for the lessons taken from the Apocrypha. It should seem that this was a suggestion which, even if there had not been a single dissenter in the kingdom, might well have been received with favour. For the Church had, in her sixth Article, declared that the canonical books were, and that the Apocryphal books were not, entitled to be called Holy Scriptures, and to be regarded as the rule of faith. Even this reform, however, the High Churchmen were determined to oppose. They asked, in pamphlets which covered the counters of Paternoster Row and Little Britain, why country congregations should be deprived of the pleasure of hearing about the ball of pitch with which Daniel choked the dragon, and about the fish whose liver gave forth such a fume as sent the devil flying from Ecbatana to Egypt. And were there not chapters of the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach far more interesting and edifying than the genealogies and muster rolls which made up a large part of the Chronicles of the Jewish Kings and of the narrative of Nehemiah? No grave divine however would have liked to maintain, in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, that it was impossible to find, in many hundreds of pages dictated by the Holy Spirit, fifty or sixty chapters more edifying than any thing which could be extracted from the works of the most respectable uninspired moralist or historian. The leaders of the majority therefore determined to shun a debate in which they must have been reduced to a disagreeable dilemma. Their plan was, not to reject the recommendations of the Commissioners, but to prevent those recommendations from being discussed; and with this view a system of tactics was adopted which proved successful.

The law, as it had been interpreted during a long course of years, prohibited the Convocation from even deliberating on any ecclesiastical ordinance without a previous warrant from the Crown. Such a warrant, sealed with the great seal, was brought in form to Henry the Seventh's Chapel by Nottingham. He at the same time delivered a message from the King. His Majesty exhorted the assembly to consider calmly and without prejudice the recommendations of the Commission, and declared that he had nothing in view but the honour and advantage of the Protestant religion in general, and of the Church of England in particular.510

The Bishops speedily agreed on an address of thanks for the royal message, and requested the concurrence of the Lower House. Jane and his adherents raised objection after objection. First they claimed the privilege of presenting a separate address. When they were forced to waive this claim, they refused to agree to any expression which imported that the Church of England had any fellowship with any other Protestant community. Amendments and reasons were sent backward and forward. Conferences were held at which Burnet on one side and Jane on the other were the chief speakers. At last, with great difficulty, a compromise was made; and an address, cold and ungracious compared with that which the Bishops had framed, was presented to the King in the Banqueting House. He dissembled his vexation, returned a kind answer, and intimated a hope that the assembly would now at length proceed to consider the great question of Comprehension.511

Such however was not the intention of the leaders of the Lower House. As soon as they were again in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, one of them raised a debate about the nonjuring bishops. In spite of the unfortunate scruple which those prelates entertained, they were learned and holy men. Their advice might, at this conjuncture, be of the greatest service to the Church. The Upper House was hardly an Upper House in the absence of the Primate and of many of his most respectable suffragans. Could nothing be done to remedy this evil?512 Another member complained of some pamphlets which had lately appeared, and in which the Convocation was not treated with proper deference. The assembly took fire. Was it not monstrous that this heretical and schismatical trash should be cried by the hawkers about the streets, and should be exposed to sale in the booths of Westminster Hall, within a hundred yards of the Prolocutor's chair? The work of mutilating the Liturgy and of turning cathedrals into conventicles might surely be postponed till the Synod had taken measures to protect its own freedom and dignity. It was then debated how the printing of such scandalous books should be prevented. Some were for indictments, some for ecclesiastical censures.513 In such deliberations as these week after week passed away. Not a single proposition tending to a Comprehension had been even discussed. Christmas was approaching. At Christmas there was to be a recess. The Bishops were desirous that, during the recess, a committee should sit to prepare business. The Lower House refused to consent.514 That House, it was now evident, was fully determined not even to enter on the consideration of any part of the plan which had been framed by the Royal Commissioners. The proctors of the dioceses were in a worse humour than when they first came up to Westminster. Many of them had probably never before passed a week in the capital, and had not been aware how great the difference was between a town divine and a country divine. The sight of the luxuries and comforts enjoyed by the popular preachers of the city raised, not unnaturally, some sore feeling in a Lincolnshire or Caernarvonshire vicar who was accustomed to live as hardly as small farmer. The very circumstance that the London clergy were generally for a comprehension made the representatives of the rural clergy obstinate on the other side.515 The prelates were, as a body, sincerely desirous that some concession might be made to the nonconformists. But the prelates were utterly unable to curb the mutinous democracy. They were few in number. Some of them were objects of extreme dislike to the parochial clergy. The President had not the full authority of a primate; nor was he sorry to see those who had, as he concerned, used him ill, thwarted and