LECTURE VII. IN attempting to analyze the parties of our history, I have purposely omitted, for the most part, the names of the individuals who headed them. By so doing we keep the subject. clear at any rate of mere personalities, and avoid shocking that large portion of our political feelings which consists of personal likings or dislikings. But still how to describe even the abstract principles of two parties without indicating which on the whole we prefer, I confess I know not. For these principles are so closely connected with points of moral character, that I do not see how we can even wish to be indifferent to them. I have endeavoured to show how in both parties they were mixed up together, partly good and partly evil, and if I have not done this faithfully in point of fact, then my statement is so far partial and unjust. But that certain principles in politics are in themselves good as the rule, and that others are bad as the rule, although not perhaps absolutely without exception, I can no more wish to doubt, than I would doubt in reading the contest between Christianity and heathenism, on which side lay the truth. Therefore in speaking of the Revolution of 1688, I can imply no doubt whatever as to its merits. I grant that, descending to personal history, we should find principles sadly obscured; much evil must be acknowledged to exist in one party, much good or much that claims great allowance on the other. But to doubt as to the character of the Revolution itself, is to doubt as to the decision of two questions, which speaking to Englishmen, and to members of the church of England, I have no right, as I certainly have no inclination, to look upon as doubtful. I have no right to regard it as doubtful, whether our present constitution be not better than a feudal monarchy; and whether the doctrine and discipline of our protestant church of England be not truer and better than those of the church of Rome. (1) We will suppose then the Revolution accomplished. King William and Queen Mary seated on the throne; the Bill of Rights and the Toleration Act passed; England and Scotland mostly at peace under the government of King William; the party of King James still predominant in Ireland. What were now the principal parties in the kingdom, and what were their objects? With one king on the throne in England and Scotland, and with another ruling in Ireland, and trying to recover the throne of Great Britian also, the main question at issue, and one to which all others were necessarily subordinate, was the maintenance or the overthrow of the Revolution. Judging from the extraordinary fact that the Revolution had been effected almost, literally speaking, without bloodshed, we should have expected that the nation would have been almost unanimous in supporting it. But the debates in the convention which had preceded the recognition of William had made it plain that this was not the case; and as every month which James passed in exile weakened the impression of his faults and increased the pity for his misfortunes, so his cause after the Revolution gained strength rather than lost it. The party which had been foremost in placing William on the throne, united in itself all the remains of the ancient puritans, and of all those who had formed the popular party in Charles the Second's time, together with many of those persons who are the great disgrace of this period of our history, persons who joined either party from motives of interest or ambition, when their opinions led them naturally the other way. The motto of all this party may be said to have been civil and religious liberty; their object was the maintenance of the power of parliament, and through it of the liberty of the subject; the putting down popery, and the allowing liberty of worship to those dissenters who differed from the church on points of government or discipline. Beyond this, as is well known, the notion of religious liberty was not then carried: and it is remarkable, that at this very time an act of parlia ment was passed making the profession of unitarianism in all its forms penal; so that it was not popery only which remained exposed to the severities of the law. The party opposed to the one just described, contained within itself two remarkable divisions, which practically made such a difference as to constitute rather two distinct parties. For although both divisions looked upon the Revolution with dislike, yet one of them having a sincere love for the real protestant doctrine of the church of England, regarded the return of a Roman Catholic king as a greater evil than the maintenance of the Revolution; and besides, a large proportion of these, like the better part of the Royalists in the civil war, were no friends to absolute monarchy, and wished the parliament to exist, and to be powerful. The other party, or division of the party, whichever we choose to call it, was anxious at any risk to restore James; the nominal protestants among them being in fact at the best such men as Lord Falkland had described in his days as labouring to bring in an English though not a Roman popery, men whose whole sympathies were with the Romish system in doctrine and ritual, though they had not yet resolved to place the head of their church at Rome. Their political principles were as highly Ghibelin as their religious were Guelf: the divine right and indefeasible authority of kings stood in their belief side by side with the divine right and indefeasible authority of priests; and had these two powers again come into conflict, half of the Jacobites probably would have stood by the one, and half by the other. Under these circumstances the maintenance of the Revolution was no doubt effected by this, that so far one division of the antipopular party went along with their opponents. But this was not only owing to the sincere and zealous protestantism of this division; it was owing also to another point, which, whether we call it the wisdom or the happiness of the Revolution, is at any rate one of its greatest excellencies and best lessons for all after ages. I mean that the Revolution preserved the monarchy, with all its style and dignity untouched: it made William king, and not protector. The great seal was the same, the national colours remained the same, all writs ran in the same terms, all commissions were in the same form; as far as all the common business of life was concerned, it was simply like the accession of a new king in natural succession, whose name was William instead of James. Now this is not a little matter. In France some years since the outward signs of Revolution were visible everywhere: old names of streets were hastily painted over, and might still be traced through the new names which had been written upon them: on all government offices, and on many shops and other buildings the fresh colour of the word royale showed that it had been but recently substituted for imperiale, as that had a little before succeeded to nationale. By all this the continuity of a nation's life is broken, and the deep truth conveyed in those beautiful lines of Mr. Wordsworth, "The child is father of the man, |