ing mention. After the book had been carefully printed under the supervision of Dr. Sancroft, with Mr. Scattergood and Mr. Dillingham as correctors of the press, a certain number of printed copies were collated with the Annexed book, and then sealed, according to the directions of the 28th clause of the Act of Uniformity. These were sent to Cathedrals, the courts of law, and the Tower, to be preserved as memorials. The great majority of these books are still preserved, with their seals appended. (B) CHANGE MADE IN THE ORNAMENTS RUBRICK AT THE REVIEW OF 1662. There was one change made in the Prayer-Book at 1662 which needs especial notice on account of its bearing on modern controversies. That which is usually known as the Ornaments Rubrick stood in the Prayer-Book when it came under review in these words-"And here is to be noted that the minister at the time of the communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such ornaments in the church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixt, according to the Act of Parliament set forth in the beginning of this Book." The words of the Act of Parliament to which reference is thus made were "Provided always, and be it enacted, that such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof, shall be retained and be in use as was in this Church of England by the authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. Until other order shall be therein taken by authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and authorized under the Great Seal of England for causes ecclesiastical, or of the metropolitan of this realm." The change made at the review of 1662 was in effect to substitute the wording of the Act of Parliament The for the wording of the rubrick. rubrick, as amended in 1662, was made to run thus:-"And here is to be noted that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof [at all times of their ministration] shall be retained and be in use as were in this Church of England by the authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixt." The reason for this change probably was that the rubrick of Elizabeth was defective in authority. It was not put in by the Commissioners who reviewed Edward's second Book. It was not in the Prayer-Book (or at least not recognised) when the Prayer-Book was sanctioned by Parliament in the Act of Uniformity. It was probably added by the Queen in Council as a note from the Act. The rubrick therefore depended for its authority immediately on the Act of Uniformity, and not mediately through the sanction given to the Prayer-Book. Hence it was thought desirable at the last review to substitute the exact words of the Act as those words were the words which had authority, and not the others. That this was the object of the change we may be quite certain from the notes of Bishop Cosin. The wording of the rubrick as it now stands was adopted verbatim from Cosin's copy, and at the end of the rubrick, as it stands in Cosin's Annotated Prayer-Book, there occurs this note, "These are the words of the Act itself" (see Parker's Introduction, p. 129). We see then at once the ground of the change, but there remains the further question, Why was the rubrick thus changed reinserted in the Prayer-Book in 1662, if, as is contended, it had become inoperative by reason of the further order mentioned in the concluding sentence quoted from Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity having been taken? There seems no rational way of accounting for this. But if it be the case that the further order had not been taken, then both the change to make it strictly law and the insertion of it in its changed form become intelligible. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 1660-1685. § 1. General character of the political history of the Church at this period. § 2. Passing of the Act for Uniformity. § 3. Provisions of the Act. § 4. Discontent of the Nonconformist ministers. § 5. They resign their benefices and refuse to conform. § 6. Difference in their views as to amount of conformity permissible. § 7. The king issues a declaration promising indulgence. § 8. The House of Commons protests against it. § 9. The clergy petition for the enforcement of uniformity-The First Conventicle Act. § 10. The king's project for selling toleration. § 11. The Five-mile Act. § 12. The Second Conventicle Act. § 13. The king's Declaration of Indulgence by virtue of his ecclesiastical power. § 14. Resolute opposition to it in the House of Commons. § 15. The king withdraws it and agrees to a Test Act. § 16. Toleration Bill passes the Commons, but is rejected by the Lords. § 17. The Church drawn to support the king against the Parliament. § 18. Political doctrines of the Church divines. § 19. The struggle of the king aided by the Church against the Parliament. § 1. THE politico-religious history of the first eighteen years of the reign of Charles II. consists in a series of severe measures directed by Parliament against the Nonconformists, and a series of attempts on the part of the king to obtain allowance for the exercise of a dispensing power. In order to find a place for this, he alternately courts the Nonconformists to induce them to seek his aid, and encourages persecution against them to drive them to it. During the latter part of the reign the position of all the chief agents is reversed. Parliament, terrified by Romanist intrigues, makes common cause with the Protestant Nonconformists, and directs its vigour against the pretensions of the Crown. The Church, influenced by a sentiment of romantic loyalty, upholds the Crown against Parliament and the Dissenters. Thus in the first period it is Parliament which is the ally of the Church, while the Crown heaps slights upon it. In the second the Crown and Church are found in union, while liberty is outraged and Dissent is persecuted It is hard to tell whether the Church suffers more from the patronage of a persecuting Parliament or of an encroaching and unprincipled king. It is hard also to estimate whether the Nonconformists have the greater cause of complaint when the Parliament and Church persecute them in spite of the king, or the king and Church persecute them in spite of the Parliament. It is in many ways an unwelcome period of Church history. But the bitter feelings shown against the Nonconformists were the natural products of their own excesses, and none of the oppressions which they had now to endure equalled, either in injustice or in severity, those which in their day of power they had inflicted on the Church. § 2. An "Act for the Uniformity of Public Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments" was (as has been said) hurried through the House of Commons, with the Prayer-Book of 1604 annexed to it. It was brought in on June 29, and sent to the Lords on July 10 (1661). This eager haste shows the temper of the House, but it is probably impossible now to ascertain the exact form in which the bill left the Commons. The Lords did not take it into consideration until their winter session, and not until after they had been reminded by the Commons (December 16) of the importance of hastening it on. It was read the first time in the Lords, January 14, and the second time January 17. Delay arose when the bill was in committee, and on January 28 the Commons again sent a message to hurry on the Upper House. But no real progress could be made with it until the amended Prayer-Book was sent to the House. This was done February 25. On March 3 the king found it necessary to assure the House of Commons that he was not lacking in zeal for the Church, and that he had authorised an amended edition of the Prayer-Book. On March 17 the bill having passed through committee, was discussed in the House of Lords. The Lords made some important alterations in the bill. They inserted a clause giving a dispensing power to the king to exempt ministers who were in possession of their benefices on May 29 (1660) and had retained them since, from the penalties of the Act, "provided they were of peaceable disposition."1 It altered the terms of subscription in the original bill to a declaration of assent and consent to everything in the Prayer-Book, at the same time allowing the king to dispense with this also. It changed the term fixed for subscription from Michaelmas day to St. Bartholomew's day, which would have the effect of depriving the minister quitting possession of his half-year's tithes. On the other hand, it inserted a provision for giving the fifths of a benefice to the family of an ejected minister. The chief points on which discussion arose in the Lords were the requirement in the bill that all incumbents snould have received Episcopal ordination, and the form in which they were to declare that they abjured the Solemn League and Covenant. Both these requirements were added to the bill in the 1 These provisoes, which have not till of late been printed, will be found in Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. Lords. When the bill came back again to the Commons, on April 10, that House refused to agree to the clauses allowing the dispensing power to the king, and to the allowance of fifths. It also added to the declaration required as to the Covenant, inserting words to make the declarator affirm it to be unlawful "to endeavour any change or alteration of government in Church and State." In both Houses, therefore, the bill acquired additional sharpness. The Commons indeed limited the obligation to make the declaration as to the unlawfulness of the Covenant and its obligations, to twenty years; but, with that exception, they do not appear to have softened the bill. A conference was held between the two Houses as to the amendments of the Commons, which the Lords finally accepted, and the bill received the royal assent May 19, 1662. § 3. By it all ministers were bound, before August 24, to read publicly the morning and evening prayer from the amended Prayer-Book, and to declare their unfeigned assent and consent to everything contained in the book. They were also bound to make the declaration against the Solemn League and Covenant, and, if not already Episcopally ordained, to obtain ordination from a bishop previously to August 24. The worst feature of this Act seems to be the clause which obliges men to make a declaration that "it is not lawful, on any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms against the king." This doctrine is subversive of all liberty, and, had it been acted upon, would of course have rendered impossible the Revolution of 1688. The Act is also fairly open to censure for obliging men who had taken the Covenant to declare that it was an unlawful oath. Every object aimed at would have been secured by making them declare that they did not consider themselves bound by it. But as to the requirements of assent and consent to the Prayer-Book, and of Episcopal ordination, nothing less than these could have sufficed for the preservation of the Church in its integrity. The proviso put into the bill by the Lords to allow the king to dispense, but rejected by the Commons, would have been, if fairly used and not taken advantage of simply to uphold Romanism-a valuable corrective to some of the bitternesses which this Act produced. A grant to the Crown by the Parliament of a dispensing power, is altogether a different thing from the assumption of a dispensing power by the Crown as inherent in itself. But the Commons were in too ill a temper with the Nonconformists to tolerate any loophole by which it was possible for them to escape. They struck out of the bill the expression originally inserted in it as to "the tenderness of consciences," and they showed a determination to make the Act as drastic and severe as possible. 1 See Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. " 1 § 4. Naturally, as soon the Act was known, "the Presbyterian ministers expressed their disapprobation of it with all the passion imaginable.' This, then, was the issue of the Declarations from Breda and Worcester House, of the Savoy Conference, and all the hopes held out to the ministers! They were in three months' time to submit to a yoke far heavier than any which had been imposed even in the days of Laud, or to lose their benefices. Some declared that it was impossible for them to obtain a sight of the revised Book of Common Prayer before the time appointed. The book, indeed, was not issued till the 6th of August, less than three weeks before the fatal day. But those who tried to defend themselves on this ground had overlooked a clause in the Act which permits more time where there is a lawful impediment, to be allowed by the Ordinary. We have evidence that some Ordinaries allowed delay on this ground. The king made at least two deliberate attempts to induce his Council to sanction his use of the dispensing power. But there were some men wise enough, and bold enough, to tell him that he could not dispense with an Act of Parliament; that it would cost him his crown. Thus there was absolutely no alternative left to the ministers but conformity or ejection. § 5. A very large number of them made up their minds to accept the latter alternative. Their consciences would not allow them to conform, and to their great and lasting honour they refused to put a strain on their consciences to save their benefices. About 1800 ministers, either incumbents, lecturers, or curates, according to Baxter, about 2000, according to Calamy and Bates,3 elected thus to leave their ministry rather than conform. Farewell sermons were generally preached by them on August 17, and on the Sunday following they were no more seen in their accustomed places. Many of these ministers were very popular, and deservedly so. There were among them men of great power and true devotion. But though their special congregations deeply grieved over their loss, the country generally did not regret it. It was seen that this was the unavoidable nemesis of the triumph of those principles which these men had fostered and encouraged; and an absolutely necessary condition for the replacement of the Church in its due position in the country. The treatment, however, which the ministers and their flocks afterwards received at the hands of the authorities, was so harsh and unjustifiable that the work of St. Bartholomew's day, looked back to through the 1 Clarendon's Life, p. 1079 (ed. 1843). 2 Stoughton, Church and State, p. 290. Other calculations make them 1400.-See Annals of England. |