have no doubt but to succeed; and it may be to the utter ruin of the protestant party, if you join with us in good earnest, and cordially second our enterprizes a." a In a letter, dated Sept. 4th, following, he writes his correspondent, "The dukes principal design is, to terminate this difference [between France and Spain] by the interposition of the pope; and by that means to establish himself in the possession of his estate through their assistance; and to turn all their cases (which at present are employed to destroy each other) for the ease of the pope's friends, and particularly for the catholicks of the church, against their great enemies. If you please to consider the affair as it is, you will find, that the pope never had an occasion so favourable, as at this hour, to inrich those of his family, and to augment the number of his friends; and if he lets it slip, he will never find the like: so that if ever they propose to make use of the treasure of the church, it is now they ought to do it; for they can demand nothing that the duke will not be capable to do for the pope's friends "."--The same gentleman, in a letter to father le Chese, confessor to Lewis XIV. declares, "We have here a mighty work upon our hands, no less than the conversion of three kingdoms; and by that, perhaps, the subduing of a pestilent heresy, which has domineered over a great part of this northern world a long time. There was never such hopes of success since the death of queen Mary, as now in our days."Such were the hopes of the catholics! Such their confidence in the power of those who favoured and supported them! We are not to wonder, after this, if the most cool and sedate men were a Coleman's Collection of Letters, p. S. fol. Lond. 1681. • Id. p. 118. b Id. p. 10. times, being abolished; and episcopacy, in alarmed and terrified with the dangers that were like to befal them, from a sect whose characteristic has always been persecution; persecution most bloody.— By way of supplement to what is here said, I would observe, that it now was become fashionable with the divines, who chose to be in favour at court, to speak well of the tricks and juggles of the Romish priests. “I spoke severally," says the lady Anne, wife of the duke of York, "to two of the best bishops we have in England [Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury; and Blandford, bishop of Worcester]; who both told me, there were many things in the Roman church, which (it were very much to be wished) we had kept; as confession, which was, no doubt, commanded by God: that praying for the dead, was one of the antient things in Christianity: that, for their parts, they did it daily, though they would not own it: and afterwards, pressing one of them very much upon the other points, he told me, that if he had been bred a catholic, he would not change his religion; but that, being of another church, wherein, he was sure, were all things > necessary to salvation, he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that church wherein he had received his baptism. All these discourses did but add more to the desire I had to be a catholic, and gave me the most terrible agonies in the world."——No doubt of it. The poison of such doctrines is deadly; and is to be cured only by the exercise of reason and the practice of virtue: which will set men above the delusions, sorceries, and witchcrafts of those, who endeavour to impose on the understanding, in order a Paper written by the late duchess of York. fol. Lond. 1686. all its pomp and splendor", and the liturgy to enslave the body and the soul.--The same hopeful doctrine was got among some of the ambitious underclergy. One Thompson, of Bristol, said, "If he were as well satisfied of other things, as he was of justification, auricular confession, penance, extream unction, and crisme in baptism, he would not have been so long separated from the catholic church. And further affirmed, That the church of Rome was the true catholic church; and endeavoured to prove extream unction, and auricular confession, as well as he could, out of the Epistles."Where things of this, and the like nature, are in vogue; popery will find a most ready admission! For popery is nothing more than a larger heap of these absurdities; mixed up by art, and supported by fraud and cruelty. and none "The Church of England was restoredpermitted to officiate in it, who could not comply with every punctilio of the ritual.] Charles I. had consented to acts for taking away the high commission court; and for disenabling all persons, in holy orders, to exercise any temporal jurisdiction or authority. This was a great blow to the priesthood; and was a forerunner to the abolishment of the hierarchy by the parliament. But as the clergy love power; as for the most part they are greedy, or, at least, somewhat too desirous of those riches which they teach other people to part with and despise; they, with a very ill grace, submitted to these laws, and plainly showed that they only did it because they could not help it. The restoration of episcopacy was, however, never out of the hopes of the ecclesiastical royalists; who were intent and ceremonies restored with a high hand; on keeping up the order by those means which prudence, and the situation of public affairs, dictated. Charles could not refuse to give some encouragement to men who had adhered, though unhappily, to the royal cause: and Hyde, who was a firm believer in the apostolical right of this form of church government, and hated heartily every other, was very much intent on it. Nor was much opposition made hereto, even by those who had been deemed its adversaries. The presbyterians, as I have observed, loved power; were enemies to freedom of enquiry, and fond of ecclesiastical revenues: though they thought a more equal distribution of them might and ought to be made, than had been in times past. Yea the bulk of them had no aversion to episcopal power and authority, provided such regulations had been made in fact, as were proposed in his majesty's declaration concerning ecclesiastical affairs. And the liturgy, though long disused, would, on the same terms, have been submitted to by the far greater number of that perswasion.- -But union was not what was desired: revenge was aimed at. Notwithstanding the merits of the party, the king's declarations, and the desires of the majority of the people in the kingdom; it was determined to make them feel the weight of power, and deprive them of the means of making further opposition to authority. For this end, the power of the clergy was again restored in consequence of which, the bishops took their seats in the house of lords; and promoted the cause of those to whom they owed, or from whom hoped, preferment.-Ecclesiastical jurisdiction was re * See note 45; and Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, part II, p. 278–283. and none permitted to officiate in pub a vived; the oath ex officio only excepted-and an act passed for the "uniformity of public prayers, and administration of the sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies and for establishing the form of making, ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons, in the church of England ."- -By this last act, it is enacted, "that the Book of Common Prayer shall be used by all ministers in public: that all who enjoy any ecclesiastical benefice, shall not only openly read, but publickly, before the congregation, declare their unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book of Common Prayer." A declaration was also required from them, and even from public and private schoolmasters, that it was not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king: that they abhorred the traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him: that they will conform to the liturgy, as then established: that they do hold, there lies no obligation upon them, or any other person, from the oath, commonly called the Solemn League and Covenant, to endeavour any change or alteration of government in church or state; and that the same was in itself an unlawful oath, and imposed upon the subjects of this realm against the known laws and liberties of the kingdom. It was moreover re quired, that all who held livings should be episcopally ordained; and no other form of common prayer in public be used, than what was contained in the said Book of Common Prayer.-All this was very strict. a Stat. 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 4. sect. 3. and 6. |