their places, with a third part of the profits, without taking the
oaths;” and in the end, “If you will do nothing on your part to qualify
you for union with us, our fathers will have performed their part, and
you alone must be answerable for the consequences of it.”[466]

Hickes, Suffragan Bishop of Thetford, resided in Ormond Street,
exerting an influence very different from that of Ken, Kettlewell, and
Nelson; for whilst they kept aloof from political intrigues, he plunged
deeply into the eddying whirlpool, and whilst they allowed the laity to
attend parish churches, he denounced those who did so. He most absurdly
maintained that even when no State prayers occurred in the service,
simply to hold fellowship with schismatics--and such he denominated all
except Nonjurors--was a flagrant betrayal of Christian principle.[467]

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

On another point he was at variance with Kettlewell. Hickes thought it
lawful to wear a military disguise that he might escape detection, and
once was introduced, in Kettlewell’s presence, as Captain or Colonel
Somebody, for which a patriotic precedent was characteristically
alleged, by quoting the case of a certain Bishop of old, who, amidst an
Arian persecution, assumed a military title. Nor did Turner object to
the practice of absconding under borrowed names. But against everything
of this kind the severely truthful Kettlewell set his face like a
flint, and would not have swerved a hair’s-breadth from the straightest
line of honesty to save his life.[468]

Eccentric individuals might be found amongst those who, by Nonjuring
sympathies, were drawn together in a city then, as now, containing
social worlds, scarcely by any chance touching each other. Such
precisians cut themselves off from general intercourse and form
narrow-minded habits, which satisfy their own consciences, but provoke
the ridicule of other people.

[Sidenote: 1694–1702.]

Amongst those who in William’s reign often met together and talked over
the affairs of the deprived Clergy, occurs the name of Dr. Francis
Lee--Rabbi Lee, as he came to be called, because of his Jewish
learning. He had been deprived of a fellowship at St. John’s College,
Oxford, and after travelling abroad and practising as a physician in
Venice for a couple of years, had returned to London in 1694, when he
joined a company of Mystics, and married the prophetess of the sect--a
wild sort of lady, who imagined that she received revelations from
God and from angels, and had been taught by them the finite duration
of future punishment. Besides this species of modern Montanism, Lee
adopted peculiar opinions on other subjects, and published proposals
to Peter the Great, Czar of Muscovy, for the better framing of his
extensive government.[469]

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

No layman attained such a position amongst the Nonjurors as Robert
Nelson, pupil of the Anglican Dr. George Bull, and friend of Dr.
Mapletoft, who had been educated in the family of his great-uncle,
Nicholas Farrer, of Gidding. He early imbibed influences favourable
to the adoption of High Church views. His friendship with the
Latitudinarian Archbishop Tillotson, and with the half-Puritan Bishop
Kidder, might hold in check for awhile prior tendencies, but could not
prevent their ultimately producing effect. His personal regard for
Tillotson lasted till death; he held the Primate in his arms at the
moment he expired; yet then all Nelson’s deference to his opinions had
ceased, for from the crisis of the Revolution he had been a Nonjuring
Jacobite. The conversion to Popery of his wife--an aristocratic widow,
the Lady Theophila Lucy, who had become violently enamoured of his
handsome person--did not incline him at all towards Rome, though it
could not prove inimical to the development of his Catholic tendencies.
Of his intense devoutness and religious zeal there can be no doubt,
nor of his respectable abilities; and the importance of such an
accession to the new sect was heightened by other circumstances. No
one can look at his portrait without admiring the taste of Lady Lucy.
His fine features, set off to advantage by a good complexion and the
adventitious decoration of a magnificent wig, must have given him an
imposing presence. That presence was further aided by the taste and
expensiveness of his apparel, to which should be added the recollection
of his wealth and his aristocratic connections. Thus fitted to make his
way in society, he naturally became amongst poor and persecuted people
a commanding personage--an oracle with some, a counsellor with all. He
associated with Lloyd; corresponded with Frampton; was acquainted with
Ken; for Kettlewell he felt a warm attachment; Collier and Spinckes
were numbered amongst his friends; and Hickes lived close neighbour to
him in Ormond Street, Red Lion Fields.

[Sidenote: 1694–1702.]

In his previous residence at Blackheath Nelson wrote books by which
he has become well known to posterity. Few may have heard of _The
Practice of True Devotion_, which he anonymously published in 1698,
or of his _Exhortation to Housekeepers_, which appeared in 1702;
but a lasting fame has followed his _Companion for the Festivals and
Fasts_, which issued from the press in 1704. Bodies of divinity,
founded upon the Apostles’ Creed and upon the Thirty-Nine Articles,
bearing distinguished names, were popular at the time, and books
explanatory of Church offices had attained some reputation;[470] but no
book aiming to explain theological doctrine, through ecclesiastical
associations, could vie with this in the extent of its immediate
circulation. The design struck in with tendencies then beginning to
unfold--not ritualistic in the modern acceptation of the term; but
sacramental--in the way of frequent celebration of the Eucharist and a
strict observance of sacred seasons. The production is pervaded with
a cast of thought which, though pre-eminently cherished by Nonjurors,
was not peculiar to them. Nelson believed that the Episcopal Church of
England is the great conservator of orthodoxy; that her Prayer-Book is
an unparalleled help to devotion; that Sacraments lie at the centre
of Christianity; and that holy days are seasons of blessed revival.
He wrote accordingly; and what he wrote was acceptable to members
outside his own circle, not only on account of their sympathy with
his Church views, but because there lay at the bottom of it this true
idea, that theology should be the handmaid of devotion; that faith
finds expression in worship; that religion is not a metaphysical idea,
but a life which pours itself out in prayer and praise before God,
and in justice and charity towards man. I must add, however, that the
popularity of Nelson’s publication seems in some degree due to the
patronage it received, the eulogiums pronounced upon it, and the means
adopted by religious societies for its circulation. In a literary
point of view it can pretend to little, if any merit. The form of
question and answer, as bare as any catechism, gives it no attraction.
The remarks are commonplace, without any attempt at illustration. For
whatever learning may be found in its pages the reader is indebted not
to Robert Nelson, but to Dr. Cave.

The book, prepared I presume at Blackheath, was published whilst Nelson
lived in Ormond Street, where he received the congratulations of
his friends, especially of the Nonjurors, who naturally regarded the
popularity of the work as a signal service to their cause.

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

Nonjuring circles in the Metropolis must often have been agitated
by rumours of plots, real or imagined. In the saloons of Jacobite
nobles, in the back rooms of city shops, in the garrets of Little
Britain, stories would be whispered of preparations made for restoring
the legitimate Sovereign. In the autumn of 1698 such tales reached
the ears of the Duke of Shrewsbury’s Secretary. A Jacobite party had
provided sixty horses: these were dispersed in Kent and about town,
some in the hands of jockeys. They had engaged a Canterbury innkeeper
to help onward their project, had raised a fund of above £1,000, were
on the tiptoe of expectation, and only waited for a signal to mount
their steeds and be off like the wind. So the Secretary heard, and,
in connection with the retailing of all this talk, he stated, that
he was on the point of apprehending a person who dealt in policies
of insurance upon James’s restoration. He paid a guinea--so runs the
letter--to receive fifty if the King or his son should reascend the
throne by the following Michaelmas--certainly a strange scheme for
promoting his return, since it became the interest of everyone who
received the guinea to keep the Royal refugee away.[471]

[Sidenote: 1694–1702.]

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

Centres of Nonjuring influence and activity existed in the country.
Shottesbrook Park, near Maidenhead, with its beautiful church of
decorated Gothic, and its manor-house full of convenience and
comfort--the home of Francis Cherry, a country gentleman, both handsome
and accomplished, “the idol of Berkshire”--offered a pleasant retreat
for the deprived.[472] Many could be accommodated within the spacious
Hall, for it contained not less than seventy beds; and the owner
was as free in his hospitality as he was rich in his resources. His
heart went with the exiled King, and a story is told to the effect
that once, in a hunting-field, when closely pressed by William’s
steed, he plunged into the Thames where the river was deep and broad,
hoping that the piqued monarch might be induced to follow through the
uncomfortable if not perilous passage. To Shottesbrook House, Robert
Nelson often repaired. There the Nonjuror Charles Leslie found a
welcome, and at a later period than this volume embraces, disguised
in regimentals, when, in danger of apprehension, he obtained shelter
in a neighbouring house until by Cherry’s help he made his escape,
and set out to Bar-le-duc to attempt the conversion of the Pretender.
Many a scene of excitement, many a flush of hope, many a flutter of
fear, many a pang of disappointment must have occurred under the roof
of the Shottesbrook squire, as persons deep in political intrigues
met for conference. Bowdler, Nelson’s neighbour in Ormond Street,
accompanied by his family, was a visitor to this spot; Brokesby, a
deprived clergyman of Rowley, near Hull, found in it a resting-place;
and the learned Prussian Lutheran, Dr. Grabe, who had come over to
receive orders in the Episcopal Church, cultivated friendships at
the agreeable mansion--convenient for him because not very far from
Oxford, where treasures of learning excited his curiosity and increased
his erudition. Hickes delighted in his company, and after his death
compared him to a great and mighty prince, who, dying, leaves behind
many plans of noble and curious buildings, some half, some almost,
and others entirely finished.[473] In the same place, there also
resided the famous Henry Dodwell, whose views distinguished him from
Kettlewell, and still more from Hickes. Entering into ecclesiastical
subtleties, Dodwell would say “that if there had been a synodical
deprivation of the orthodox and faithful fathers of the Church, however
in itself unjust, yet the Clergy and laity ought to have complied
with the greater obligation of owning the Episcopal College than with
the less obligation of owning any particular Bishop.” In this respect
he differed from Kettlewell, who would no more allow of a synodical
than of a secular deprivation, making, as we have seen in reference
to this question, individual conscientiousness the paramount rule of
action. And further in the same line he differed from Kettlewell, for
Kettlewell made the Church throughout subserve religion, but Dodwell
made religion subserve the Church.[474] Dodwell was really in principle
a higher Churchman, though in practice lower, than Kettlewell--much
lower than Hickes; for Hickes would not attend parish worship at all,
and Kettlewell discountenanced it in the Clergy; but Dodwell would
join in morning and evening prayer, childishly satisfying his scruples
when the name of the reigning Sovereign occurred by sliding off his
knees and sitting down on the hassock. It is amusing to notice the
methods of protest against prayers for the reigning family adopted
by Nonjurors. Some rose from their knees and stood up in the face of
the congregation; some shut their books; some turned over the leaves
so as to make a noise; some satisfied themselves by declining to say
_Amen_, or by mentally substituting the names of the exiled
Stuarts. Dodwell, whilst living with Mr. Cherry, had a remarkable pupil
in Thomas Hearne, who was patronized by the generous host, supported
at his cost, and prepared at his expense for the University, as if he
had been his own son. Hearne, as we are informed on his own authority,
was instructed “in the true principles of the Church of England”--an
expression we can easily understand; and we learn from the same
source how busily the incipient archæologist engaged at Shottesbrook
in studies and work subsidiary to literary schemes carried on by the
eminent Nonjurors there congregated together.[475]

[Sidenote: 1694–1702.]

Within a few miles of Frome, in Somersetshire, stands Longleat House, a
palatial abode, surrounded by gardens, in the midst of a wooded park,
worthy of the beauty and magnificence of the mansion. Just outside
the park paling rises the old church of Horningsham, and hard by is a
little Dissenting meeting-house, the most ancient in our island. The
place is not above twenty miles from Wells, and part of the domain
comes within the diocese. There the most eminent and the most admirable
of Nonjurors, Thomas Ken, took up his abode, at the request of Lord
Weymouth, the possessor of Longleat; and if social gatherings like
those of Shottesbrook did not occur there, the residence of the Prelate
rendered it a source of the purest Nonjuring influence. He occupied a
room at the top of the house, removed from the noise and bustle of an
English hall, “open to all comers of fashion and quality.” Surrounded
by his large library, “he wrote hymns, and sang them to his viol, and
prayed, and died.”[476] The most popular of all his sacred lays--the
Morning and Evening Hymns--were composed on the top of a hill, which,
from the prospect it commands through a break in the woods, is well
known throughout the neighbourhood by the beautiful name of “the Gate
of Heaven.”

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

Whether he attended the services at the parish church is matter of
controversy. One of his biographers thinks that up to the accession
of Queen Anne he enjoyed, in Lord Weymouth’s private chapel, “the
privilege of pure services, without alloy of the State prayers;” but
it is added, “During his visits to his nephew at Poulshot, or when he
was in other places where he could not find any Nonjuring assembly, we
may conclude, from what he himself says, that, rather than be debarred
the solace of Christian communion, he went to church.”[477] At all
events, Ken was distressed at the idea of perpetuating schism; he
had no sympathy with the spirit of Hickes; though he allowed excuses
for clandestine consecration, he declared his own judgment to be
against them; and though his scruples compelled him to retire from his
bishopric, he longed earnestly for the reunion of the Church.

Ken survived King William some years, but two of the Nonjuring
Prelates, in addition to those already deceased, expired before the
Sovereign whose rights they would not acknowledge.

[Sidenote: 1694–1702.]

White, Bishop of Peterborough, died in 1698. Bishop Turner sent to
the Dean of St. Paul’s to bury the deceased Bishop in St. Gregory’s
churchyard; the Dean had it intimated to him “that any clergyman
conformable to the Church and Government might bury him.” “Bishop
Turner, who was one that carried up the pall, with thirty or forty
more of the Clergy, and some few laymen, attended him from the house
where he died, and being come into the churchyard almost as far as
the grave, they espied Mr. Standish, one of the Minor Canons, in
his surplice, ready to read the office. At the sight of him they
immediately made a halt, and, after they had conferred amongst
themselves a little while, all the Clergy opened on each side to let
the corpse pass along to the grave, and went, every one of them,
back again, so that only two or three of the laity stayed to see him
interred. It seems the party renounced all manner of communion with any
person conformable to the Church and Government.”[478] I have already
pointed out that there were two classes of Nonjurors: the practically
moderate, represented by Ken and others, even indeed by Dodwell--and
the extreme, represented by Hickes; and it is apparent that the persons
who attended White’s funeral were of the latter description, and would
not in any way hold fellowship with any but their own party.

In the month of November, 1700, the Bishop who attended that funeral
followed his episcopal brother into the invisible world. Turner was
very poor--“in very needy circumstances,” says Bishop Nicholson,
“having a large family, and no support out of the common bank of
charity.” He lived in extreme retirement, and was buried in the chancel
of Therfield Church, Hertford, where he had once been rector, a single
word only being inscribed on the stone which covered his mortal
remains, but that word most expressive--_Expergiscar_.

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

Samuel Pepys, who lost his official appointment upon the accession of
William and Mary, and consequently at that time retired into private
life, wearied in his last days with cares and jaded with pleasures,
sought relief in the duties of religion, and inquired through Nelson
for a spiritual adviser. Nelson’s reply to his request throws a
curious light upon the circumstances of the Nonjurors’ condition:
“After the strictest inquiry, I find none of our Clergy placed in your
neighbourhood nearer than Mitcham, where lives one Mr. Higden, a very
ingenious person, who married the late Lord Stowell’s sister; but I
believe you may have one with greater ease from London, by reason of
the conveniency of public conveyances. Our friend, Dean Hickes, is at
present at Oxford; but if you will be pleased whenever your occasions
require it to send to Mr. Spinckes, who has the honour of being known
to you, he will be sure to wait upon you, and take such measures
that you may always be supplied whenever you stand in need of such
assistance. He lodges at a glazier’s in Winchester Street, near London
Wall.”[479]

Pepys died in the summer of 1703, and, in a letter to Dr. Charlett,
Hickes described the services he rendered the dying man, and the effect
which they produced upon him.

[Sidenote: 1694–1702.]

Some Jacobites who took the oaths with certain qualifications repented
afterwards, and openly threw in their lot with such as refused to
swear. One of them drew up a penitential confession, in which, with
morbid conscientiousness, he dwelt upon what he called his sinful
compliance. Acknowledgment after acknowledgment of minute particulars,
expanded in terms which magnified each, occurs in the document, closing
with the reiterated prayer: “I accuse, and judge, and condemn myself:
God be merciful to me a penitent!” Retraction was accompanied by a
petition to the ejected Bishop, in which the writer exclaims: “Blessed
Jesu! though I cannot now glory in my not having fallen, yet I will
take all the shame of my fall to myself, that I may give Thee glory;
and though I cannot now rejoice in my innocence, I desire to cause
joy in heaven (and if Thou pleasest, many penitents on earth) by my
repentance.”[480] No one who is at the trouble of perusing this tedious
composition can doubt the sincerity of the writer, but nobody of common
sense can fail to perceive his weakness, not to speak of the mischief
he did to morality and religion by exaggerations of minor casuistical
points. For though this man mentions his “first dismal step of taking
the sacred name of God in vain,” he does not dwell upon the sin of
perjury, but expatiates upon the wickedness of having connived at,
though he never used, the prayers introduced at the Revolution.

Another clergyman did what was still more astonishing: he publicly
retracted his oath, and preached upon the words: “I have sinned greatly
in that I have done; and now, I beseech Thee, O Lord, take away the
iniquity of Thy servant; for I have done very foolishly,” at the same
time he exhorted his congregation to renew their allegiance to James,
for whom, as the King of England, and for his family, he publicly
prayed. Such an act was downright rebellion, and no wonder the man got
into trouble. Being tried for his offence, he was sentenced to stand
in the pillory and to pay a fine of £200; but the Government wisely
treated him as a lunatic, and offered a pardon if he would confess his
fault. This he declined to do; consequently he remained in confinement.

Not only did other clergymen retract compliance, but a layman who
had qualified himself for office by taking the oaths, solemnly, on
his death-bed, in the presence of witnesses, signed a declaration of
penitence. The political feeling mixed up with the confession is
plain, and all these people, while professing the utmost piety, proved
themselves to be unfaithful subjects.

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

The political views of the Nonjurors were narrow in the extreme, and
though to be irreligious was a thing they dreaded most of all, their
views of the State were of a very irreligious kind. They took away from
it all moral and religious life, and if they consistently followed
out their own theory, they took away all conscience from the subjects
of a legitimate and anointed King. Their system exalted such a person
to the highest point of favour, and degraded the people to the lowest
step of slavery. Denuding them of political rights, they denied them
political duties, and annihilated all their political responsibilities.
In the death-blow aimed at popular power, morality and religion, in
reference to political life, were blindly smitten. Yet whilst their
creed only left scope for patience in suffering, numbers of them
did not practice this patience, but were everlastingly plotting a
counter-revolution. To them the State appeared as an instrument in the
hands of the Church--to be controlled for its use, to afford revenues
for its support, to supply means for the enforcement of its laws. The
civil power, according to their theory, has been described as “a body
constituted, it would seem, of three principal elements--an absolute
king, money-bags, and a hangman.”[481] It must be said, to the credit
of the Nonjurors, that however slavishly loyal to an absolute king,
they showed an indifference to the “money-bags” and a contempt for the
“hangman”--a fact worthy of imitation by some who entertain a different
theory from them.

[Sidenote: 1694–1702.]

To Sancroft, the Nonjurors, the ecclesiastical Tories of the period,
and all men of that stamp who clung to the notion of the divine right
of kings, may be applied the remark: “The great crises in the history
of nations have often been met by a sort of feminine positiveness and
a more obstinate reassertion of principles which have lost their hold
upon a nation. The fixed ideas of a reactionary politician may be
compared to madness. He grows more and more convinced of the truth of
his notions as he becomes more isolated, and would rather await the
inevitable than in any degree yield to circumstances.”[482]

The Nonjuring movement took a narrow and troublesome political
form, yet, notwithstanding all we have said, it was animated by
an intensely religious spirit. This movement did not proceed from
any principle founded upon reason, observation, or experience,
but from a theological dogma about the divine right of kings,
and the consequent duty, religious as it appeared to them, that
subjects should unresistingly obey the Lord’s annointed. The scheme
tended to the political enslavement of the country; it sapped the
liberties of our constitution; yet it appears to have been an honest
endeavour--prejudiced and ignorant, still an honest endeavour--to serve
God: one of a multitude of instances in which false opinions have
perverted true sentiments, and good motives have given sincerity and
disinterestedness to bad actions. No philosophy of history, but one so
wretchedly narrow as to forfeit all title to the name, will deny the
co-existence of right and wrong in the same men, however hard it may be
to untie the knot between them.

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

High Church theology of the Thorndike type had no adequate
representative amongst the Nonjurors. They included no one of
intellectual mark. Bull, the most distinguished scholar and the ablest
divine of the old Anglican school, remained in the Establishment;
so did all the chief theologians who leaned in the same direction
with him. But High Church sentiment of the Laudean order, and such
as belonged to Cosin and Seth Ward, drained off almost entirely into
Nonjuring channels. The Nonjurors also went beyond their predecessors
in this respect. They cast off all the Erastian trammels which were
willingly worn by the Bishops of the Restoration.

Gladly would the Nonjurors have wrought out a method of parochial
discipline which would have kept in order not merely such religionists
as agreed in their views, but the population at large, reducing
everybody to a Procrustean bed of belief and practice. No Presbyterians
under the Commonwealth could have been more rigorous apostles of
uniformity than the Nonjurors would have proved, had they but obtained
permission to do as they pleased. They would have gone beyond their
predecessors; for though Milton says presbyter is priest writ large,
a mere presbyter has not the same element of despotic force at his
command as is possessed by the genuine priest. The priest, as a steward
of mystical sacraments, becomes more potent than preacher or pastor. He
is constituted lord of a domain beyond the borders of reason and moral
authority; he carries keys which open and shut what the superstitious
imagine to be gates of heaven. The Nonjurors were priests, not with
limitations, like some of their episcopalian brethren, but out and out.
Their ministers offered sacrifice upon an altar, they did not merely
commemorate one at the Lord’s-table. Laymen imbibed their views--they
were maintained by Robert Nelson.[483]

[Sidenote: 1694–1702.]

As to modes of worship, the Nonjurors were in circumstances which
precluded ritualistic magnificence. They were proscribed, as
Nonconformist confessors had been, and therefore were forced to
serve God in obscurity. Cathedrals and churches were closed against
them--they were driven into barns and garrets. Pomp, such as is now
so fashionable, was to them an impossibility; not that I find them
manifesting any cravings in that direction. They did not follow
Archbishop Laud. High sacramental views are by no means necessarily
connected with Ritualism. Ritualism may be purely æsthetical, and quite
separate from peculiar doctrinal opinions; at the same time a belief in
the Real presence and in the Sacrifice of the Lord’s Supper may wear an
outward form not more artistic than that which obtains in a Dissenting
meeting-house.[484]

[Sidenote: NONJURORS.]

With all the political and ecclesiastical passions of that age, there
existed comparatively little of what may be properly called religious
excitement. The principal amount of religious excitement in the reign
of William III. must not be sought in the Established Church, or
amongst Presbyterians, Independents, or Baptists. It must be divided
between Nonjurors and Quakers. Dismissing the latter for the present,
it may be said that the former exhibited abundant enthusiasm. Hickes
was as much a spiritual fanatic as any of the Presbyterian army
chaplains, or any of Cromwell’s troopers. Some who reviled the madness
of the sects during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, were as mad
themselves after the Revolution. Of that kind of devout fervour, which
though not healthy is free from worldliness, and which draws its main
inspirations from the world to come, Kettlewell is a fair example. In
intensity of religious feelings, he resembled a staunch Methodist of
the eighteenth century.

                            CHAPTER XVIII.

The last ten years of the seventeenth century witnessed the
consolidation of Dissent. Growing in confidence, Dissenters made
bolder ventures. If some old congregations melted away in villages,
where an ejected clergyman had worn out his days, or where the
original supporters had died without bequeathing their opinions,
together with their property, new congregations were formed in towns,
where population gave scope for activity, and social freedom aided
religious effort. Preachers with a roving commission settled down
into local pastors, and a spirit of enterprise appeared in building
places of worship. Nonconformists had for some time amidst hindrance
and irritation been digging again the wells of their fathers, stopped
by the Philistines; but the days of strife were so far over that
they could say: “Now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be
fruitful in the land;” yet such names as Rehoboth and Beersheba, so
often ridiculed, were not used by them as by some of their descendants
of later date.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

As to the erection of religious edifices in London, it may be
mentioned that about the era of the Revolution one was erected in Zoar
Street, another in Gravel Lane, and a third in Hare Court.[485] The
neglected Halls of City Companies had become available for Dissenting
worship, and by economical alterations were transformed into houses
of prayer. Turners’ Hall fell into the hands of the General Baptists
about the year 1688; soon afterwards the Presbyterians erected “a
large substantial brick building of a square form, with four deep
galleries, and capable of seating a considerable congregation.”[486]
Chapels, as we should call them--but the name was not used by the early
Nonconformists--arose in Fair Street, Southwark; in Meeting-house
Court, Blackfriars; in the Old Barbican, beyond Aldersgate; and over
the King’s Weigh-House, Little Eastcheap. At the end of the century,
the Presbyterians provided a moderate-sized wooden building with one
gallery in King John’s Court, in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen,
Bermondsey. About the same period, the Independents provided a place of
worship in Rosemary Lane; and soon afterwards a large and substantial
edifice was built by Presbyterians in the Old Jewry, Aldgate. It is
remarkable that, after the Act of Toleration had been passed some
years, liberty seemed of so precarious a nature, that to enjoy it
concealment was necessary. Private houses, therefore, were in this case
erected between the meeting-house and the street, that the former might
be screened from public view.[487]

Nonconformists in the provinces imitated Nonconformists in London.
Bath, then at the head of English watering-places, though still a city
much occupied by clothiers, had a congregation which before had been
wont to meet in “a shear-shop,” but now dared to come into open day,
and to build in Frog Lane, afterwards New Bond Street. In the pleasant
neighbourhood of Shepton Mallet, people who had assembled in the
green woods now erected chapels in the town and adjacent villages. The
Warminster people raised a meeting-house at the cost of £487 2s. 7d.,
the sum being obtained partly by subscription and partly by the sale of
pews and seats, which became the property of the purchasers, and were
accordingly sold and bequeathed.[488]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Turning to midland counties, we find that at Nottingham--where
Nonconformists had met in rock cellars such as honeycombed the sand
formation, and are now formed into a cemetery--Presbyterians registered
rooms in Bridlesmith Gate, and the Independents sought shelter in
Postern Place. A few months after William’s accession, the former set
to work upon a meeting-house in the High Pavement, and the latter
cautiously attempted a smaller edifice at Castlegate. Little leaded
windows admitted light through diamond panes; two pillars sprang from
the floor to support the ceiling; stairs rising within led up to a
small front gallery; a sounding-board covered the pulpit; and square
pews, with other accommodation, provided for about 450 people.[489]

At Chester a new edifice, still in existence, carefully preserved,
and not long ago tastefully restored, cost £532 16s. 1d. It was opened
in August, 1700, when Matthew Henry preached from a text indicating an
apologetic spirit for what was thought a daring enterprise: “The Lord
God of Gods, the Lord God of Gods, He knoweth, and Israel He shall
know, if it be in rebellion, or if it be in transgression against the
Lord, that we have built us an altar.”

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

At Daventry, in Northamptonshire, Dissent made a humble advance, but
under circumstances so interesting as to deserve notice. The origin
of the church there forms one of the legends which in the following
century became dear to many. When Charles II. was on the throne, it
happened that a minister put up on his way to London at the sign of the
Old Swan. He was taken ill and detained for more than a week, during
which period the host and his family paid him kind attentions and
completely won his heart. The traveller, restored to health, summoned
into his room the kind-hearted people, thanked them for their great
civility, and expressed his satisfaction at the order maintained in
the house--an exceptional instance in days when hostelries were given
over to unrestrained indulgence and boisterous merriment. He added:
“Something leads me to suspect there is not the fear of God among you,
and it grieves me to see such honest civility, economy, and decency,
and yet religion wanting--the one thing needful.” He entered into
conversation, and closed by telling them he had in his saddlebag a
little book, which he begged them to accept, requesting that they would
carefully read it. Having presented them with Baxter’s _Poor Man’s
Family Book_, he went on his way without telling them who he was,
nor did they ever ascertain his name, but they felt a suspicion the
stranger was no other than Baxter himself. The result of reading this
and other works by the same author was that the innkeeper and some of
his family became Nonconformists. Weary of his mode of life and having
acquired a competence, he retired to a house having a close behind
it, at the extremity of which stood some humble outbuildings. These
after the Revolution he converted into a legalized meeting-house. His
neighbours came, a congregation was established, and a pastor chosen.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Places of worship were put in trust. Presbyterians drew up their deeds
in general terms, not enumerating articles of faith or referring to
any ecclesiastical standard. In many cases, Congregational edifices
were secured in a similar way, some schedule being annexed to the deed,
declaring that the structure should be used by such Protestants in
the neighbourhood as could not conform to the established religion.
Whatever might be the policy ruling the arrangement, the selection of
ministers, and the character of their preaching, in numerous cases
still easily ascertained, betrayed no indifference as to what is
esteemed orthodoxy of sentiment.[490]

Energies which resisted persecution did not expire in the midst of
freedom, although Bishop Burnet predicted “that Nonconformity could not
last long, and that after Baxter, Bates, and Howe were laid in their
graves, it would die of itself.” The last of these, on hearing the
prophecy, remarked to the Bishop, “that its existence depended much
more on principles than persons”--an opinion verified by subsequent
facts.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

The Presbyterians formed the largest, and, in point of social position,
the most respectable branch of English Nonconformists in the reign of
William. What most indicated their persistency and hope is discovered
in their numerous ordinations. Down to the time of the Revolution
they had been privately conducted. Just as the Prince of Orange was
being driven back to his native shores by untoward storms, a young man
named Joseph Hussey, who had been preaching for eight years, sought
the rite from the hands of Dr. Annesley and other Presbyterians. Not
in the meeting-house of Little St. Helen’s did the parties dare to
assemble, but at the Doctor’s “private dwelling in Spitalfields, in an
upper chamber.” There, on the 24th of October, 1688, the candidate,
as he himself reports, was examined “in the parts of learning by
the Elder, who took the chair and spoke in Latin.” The next day he
defended a thesis against the Papacy. Upon the 26th he was ordained.
The proceedings were begun and finished within the same chamber, in
a neighbourhood then losing the last vestiges of rural life under
the encroachments of weavers, driven from France by the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes.[491] As another instance of the privacy of
Nonconformist services, I would mention that the Lord’s Supper was
not publicly celebrated in the new chapel in Leeds until the month of
October, 1692.[492]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Ordinations emerged from private habitations when, in September,
1689, five ministers were ordained by Oliver Heywood and four of
his brethren, after a notice had been given that the service would
be held in the meeting-house at Alverthorpe, “to which whoever had a
desire might repair.” One of the candidates stood behind a chair, and
poured out a Latin discourse, which seemed to be _extempore_, but
which Heywood believed to be _memoriter_, upon the validity of
Presbyterian orders. This person behaved in an extraordinary manner the
next day, for he was seen “walking in a lane, reading a book,” whilst
the ordaining ministers were waiting for his appearance. After he had
arrived, and had given in his confession, “running through the whole
body of Divinity, according to Mr. Baxter’s _Methodus Theologiæ_,
we proceeded,” says Heywood, “to setting the candidates apart. I came
down, and there being a void space made, we made them kneel down, one
by one, while we all prayed over them.” This was succeeded by the
imposition of hands, the delivery of a Bible, the grasp of fellowship,
a charge to the ordained, and a sermon to the congregation. The
ministers assembled at eight o’clock, waited till ten for the eccentric
youth, and did not terminate the service before five in the afternoon,
when a dinner followed, at the charge of the ordained.

Another service occurred in 1690, with accompaniments still more
unseemly, the misbehaviour now being on the part of ordainers. The
service took place at Rathmel in Yorkshire. Oliver Heywood and other
Presbyterians came to share in the solemnity with two Independent
ministers. Strange as it appears, those who thus met had not agreed
what should be done; and one of the Independents, as Heywood reports,
urged objections which the Presbyterians undertook to answer. He
objected, amongst other things, that messengers from neighbouring
churches were not present, and that the minister in this case would
not be, as he ought, ordained in the midst of the congregation he
intended to serve. Both the Independents were desired to pray,
but they refused, “and sat by the whole day taking no part in the
proceedings.” The service, however, was decorously enough conducted
by the Presbyterians, who, touching the heads of the candidates,
offered prayer, and after presenting a Bible, gave the right hand of
fellowship. Heywood preached to the candidates and to the people,
and the whole ended with singing and prayer. If anybody had wished
to prejudice orderly people against Nonconformity, he could not have
followed a more effectual method than we find pursued by Independents
on this occasion.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

A few Presbyterians attempted to revive synodical action, and a
meeting with that view at Newbury created much stir--displeasing
Nonconformists, who regarded it as injudicious, and provoking
Churchmen, who urged it was unjust. Convocation remained in shackles;
why, then, should Presbyterian Synods be free?[493] This question was
asked, in forgetfulness of the obvious difference relative to the state
of voluntary churches on the one hand, and endowed churches on the
other.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

As ministers could not continue by reason of death, it became
necessary to reinforce the ranks. One young student of honourable
descent made his appearance in public life at this juncture. Edmund
Calamy--grandson of the Divine of the same name, who had been
Incumbent of Aldermanbury--after studying in Holland, where he had
accumulated stores of Dutch theology, returned to his native land,
and went down to Oxford, where he devoted himself to the study of
the question, whether he should enter the Church, or continue his
lot with Dissenters? Certainly if anybody ever gave himself to the
investigation of the subject, young Edmund did--for, first, he studied
the Bible; then he read several of the Fathers, with all sorts of
critical helps; then he perused Pearson, on the Ignatian Epistles,
as well as Monsieur Daillé and Larroque on the other side; then he
betook himself to the examination of Chillingworth’s _Religion of
Protestants_, which he carefully epitomized; then he attacked
Hooker’s _Ecclesiastical Polity_, and went through it book by
book, setting down the arguments with such remarks as they suggested;
then he turned to Jeremy Taylor’s _Ductor Dubitantium_, dealing
with this as he had done with the rest; and, lastly, with care he
read over the Articles, Liturgy, Homilies, and Canons of the Church
of England.[494] Such an amount of reading for the settlement of
opinion was very well for a youth of twenty-one, and, making allowance
for a bias derived from family traditions and from the ugly memories
of 1662, we must credit him with candour in looking at the subject
on all sides. According to his own account, his reading was chiefly
in favour of Episcopacy; yet his conclusion was decidedly in favour
of Nonconformity. The Nonconformity which he adopted, however, was
moderate; it shrunk neither from Episcopal orders, Liturgical worship,
nor the Establishment principle, but from certain things enforced by
the Church of England. He tells us himself that he would have received
ordination at the hands of a Bishop, “could he have found anyone that
would not have demanded a subscription and engagement to conformity,
and a subjection to the present ecclesiastical government.”[495]

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

It is remarkable to find how much this young man engaged in preaching
when he had made up his mind upon ecclesiastical points. He occupied
pulpits wherever they were open. He seems to have been welcomed
everywhere--now officiating at the opening of a meeting-house, and
once at least preaching in a parish church.[496] He had conflicting
invitations. He describes a visit to Andover, where the meeting-house
was in a back yard, through which he had to pass, the people making a
lane for him and presenting their acknowledgments for his good sermon;
and how he found the parlour full of men, women, and children--amongst
them was a grave old woman with a high-crowned hat, who thanked him
civilly for his pains, telling him she thought a special Providence
had sent such a shepherd to such neglected sheep. The conversation,
however, as it went on proved less and less satisfactory, since
it turned out that these Andover folks were divided into parties,
the old lady’s Calvinistic sentiments being loftier even than her
steeple headgear.[497] Calamy travelled down to Bristol, the great
Nonconformist stronghold in the west, to preach to a congregation
of 1,500 people, and was met at Bath by a couple of gentlemen,
“with a man and horse,” to conduct him to his destination. Upon the
road others came to welcome the stranger, like the brethren who met
Paul at Appii-Forum, and brought him on his way “in a manner very
respectful.” Many of the congregation were wealthy, and they offered
him £100 a year and a house to live in, as assistant to their infirm
pastor. But, upon returning to London, Calamy decided on accepting
an invitation to assist Mr. Sylvester upon an allowance of £40 per
annum.[498] He had there the counterbalancing advantage of mixing in
the best Nonconformist society. He spent many an evening at the house
of Dr. Upton, in Warwick-court, where he met his colleague and Mr.
Lorimer, Mr. John Shower, Mr. Nathaniel Taylor, Mr. Thomas Kentish, Mr.
Nathaniel Oldfield--names now little known, but celebrities in their
own day. Other ministerial meetings were kept up in Dr. Annesley’s
vestry, Little St. Helen’s, where once a month Latin disputations took
place. Whilst thus engaged, Calamy remained unordained. Desirous of
this rite, he successively requested Howe and Bates to take part in it.
But no public ordination had yet been held within the city precints.
Howe at first seemed pleased with the proposal, but afterwards
demurred, saying he must wait upon Lord Somers, and inquire whether
such a proceeding would not be taken ill at Court. Bates decidedly
declined, and continued to do so for reasons he would not communicate.
Matthew Mead was indirectly asked, but begged to be excused, because,
as an Independent, he feared he might offend some of his brethren by
joining in a Presbyterian ordination. The whole of the transaction is
enveloped in mystery; perhaps Bates had not given up all hopes of a
comprehension, and thought a public ordination might bar the way to it;
perhaps he had given some pledge not to engage in any such service;
perhaps Howe was not quite free from similar determents, and both might
for personal reasons be unwilling to do what they had no objection
should be done by others. My own impression is that both, especially
Howe, clung with tenacity to the idea of one united church in England,
and though they had little hope of seeing the idea turned into fact,
they shrunk from a service like public ordination as perpetuating a
separation they would fain have seen come to an end.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

At length Calamy and six others were publicly set apart to the
ministry, at Dr. Annesley’s meeting-house, by the Doctor himself,
Vincent Alsop, of Princes Street, Westminster, Daniel Williams, pastor
at Hand Alley, Bishopsgate Street, Richard Stretton, of Haberdashers’
Hall, Matthew Sylvester, of Carter Lane, and Thomas Kentish of the
Weigh-House. Annesley began with prayer; Alsop preached; Williams,
after another prayer, delivered a second sermon; then he read the
testimonials in favour of the candidates; next each of them delivered a
profession of faith; and then, one after another, different ministers
prayed; Sylvester followed with a charge, and concluded with a psalm
and a prayer.[499] The service lasted from before ten o’clock until
past six.

As vacancies in Nonconformist pastorates occurred, successors had to be
appointed; and it is amusing to meet in the Diaries of the day, cross
lights thrown upon the choice of ministers. The famous antiquarian
Thoresby was in 1693 a leading member of the old Dissenting Church at
Leeds. When deprived of its excellent instructor, Mr. Sharp, “we had
several meetings to consult in order to the choice of a successor. I
had the usual hap of moderators, to displease both the extremes. In
the interim I wrote to several ministers to supply his place. We rode
to Ovenden, and made our first application to Mr. Priestly, a person
of moderate principles, learned, ingenious, and pious; but the people
about Halifax and Horton could not be prevailed upon to resign their
interest in him, without which he was not willing to desert them. I
afterwards rode with some of the people to Pontefract, to solicit Mr.
Manlove, who was at first very compliant, yet after relapsed, but in
the conclusion accepted the call and removed to Leeds.”[500]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Glimpses are caught of meeting-house politics. Thoresby received
from his cousin a discouraging account of Mr. Manlove; but when this
candidate visited the people, Thoresby found an unanimous desire for
the man’s coming, testified by proffered subscriptions.[501] After this
person’s settlement at Leeds, the love of Thoresby towards him and the
old Dissent began to cool. His archæological pursuits brought him into
the society of ecclesiastical dignitaries, and he frequently attended
the parish church. By degrees his sympathy with Episcopalians deepened;
he received the sacrament with them--a proceeding which offended
old friends, and produced alienation. Attracted on the one side and
repelled on the other, after hanging for awhile in suspense between
the opposite communities, he found himself drawn into the bosom of the
Establishment. The Corporation elected him one of their fraternity, and
not long afterwards we find him saying: “I received a most comfortable
letter from my Lord Archbishop of York, answering many objections
against my Conformity, and gave me great satisfaction.”[502]

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Fallings-off from Dissent happened in one place, accessions occurred in
another. A clergyman, named Michael Harrison, who had usually preached
at the church in Caversfield, gathered a congregation of Dissenters at
Potterspury, near Stony Stratford, and died a Nonconformist minister at
St. Ives.[503] Amidst the reproaches of High Churchmen at the growth
of Dissent, from Low Churchmen there were received expressions of
goodwill. Hough, Vicar of Halifax, stepped into Heywood’s new place of
worship at Northowram, and putting off his hat, exclaimed: “The good
Lord bless the Word preached in this place!”[504]

The education of boys, and the theological training of those designed
for the ministry, were matters of great anxiety during the reigns of
Charles II. and James II., and afterwards received increasing attention.

Seminaries for Dissenters did not in the seventeenth century attain
the dignified title of colleges. They were schools where youths were
educated for secular vocations, and only by degrees did they become
the resort of candidates for the ministry. There was no trust-deed,
no constituency, no council, but the entire management rested with
the person responsible for opening the institution. In the romantic
district of Craven, Richard Frankland, a learned ejected minister,
received pupils, but the Five-Mile Act drove him to Attercliffe. First
and last he educated three hundred youths for the professions of law
and of medicine, and for the work of the Christian ministry.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Archbishop Sharpe was requested by some of the Clergy to prevent
Frankland from proceeding in his labours. He consulted Tillotson as to
the best method of procedure, and received from him this reply: “His
instructing young men in so public a manner in University learning is
contrary to his oath to do, if he hath taken a degree in either of our
Universities, and I doubt, contrary to the Bishop’s oath to grant him
a licence for doing it; so that your Grace does not, in this matter,
consider him at all as a Dissenter. This I only offer to your Grace
as what seems to me the fairest and softest way of ridding your hands
of this business.” To explain this advice, it is proper to remark,
that in the Middle Ages, factions arose at Oxford and Cambridge, and
hosts of students, under some favourite professors, would march off
to Northampton or Stamford to set up rival schools and grant degrees.
Hence an oath came to be required of the University graduates, that in
no other places than in the favoured retreats on the Isis and the Cam
would they ever establish a scholastic lecture. It was in harmony with
Tillotson’s characteristic wariness to give such counsel, but it is
hardly worthy of his reputation for gentleness and Catholicity to put
the disconcerted Prelate up to the trick of masking the batteries of
intolerance under the specious cover of obsolete precedents.

It should be added, that Archbishop Sharpe behaved very courteously to
Frankland throughout this unpleasant business;[505] and also that other
Dissenting tutors in different ways were hindered by the opposition of
Churchmen.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Two other academies sprung out of Richard Frankland’s--one at
Attercliffe under the superintendence of Timothy Jollie, another
at Manchester under the care of John Chorlton. In the old town of
Shrewsbury, Francis Tallents established a seminary about the time
of the Revolution. At Taunton, Matthew Warren educated several young
gentlemen for the pastorate and for secular occupations. So did Samuel
Birch at an earlier period in Shilton. Joshua Oldfield also kept a
school at Coventry. John Woodhouse, of Sheriff Hales, Shropshire;
George Burden, of Somersetshire; Edmund Thorpe, of Sussex; Joseph
Bennet, of the same county; and Josiah Bassett, of Warwickshire, may be
added to the list of Nonconformist schoolmasters at different dates,
between the ejectment and the end of the century.

The Metropolis drew towards it several learned men in this capacity,
and Newington Green became “the favourite seat of the Dissenting
Muses.” There the learned Theophilus Gale, and the less known but
erudite and able Charles Morton, educated a number of young men. Edward
Veal had a school at Stepney, and Samuel Wesley, after having been a
pupil of Veal’s, became a student under Morton. Violent opposition to
the Established Church is said to have been fostered under Veal’s roof,
and this young man, who possessed a lively poetical talent, answered
invectives against Dissent by invectives against the Church, until,
from some cause which has been differently explained, he abandoned
Nonconformity, and one August morning in 1683, with forty-five
shillings in his pocket, walked all the way to Oxford, and entered
himself as a servitor of Exeter College. Samuel Wesley, in a letter
published in the year 1703, reflected upon the Dissenting academies,
and afterwards defended what he said in a reply to Mr. Palmer. Much
bitterness appeared in Wesley’s pamphlet, and he was accused of
ingratitude for assailing institutions, to one of which he had been
indebted for a gratuitous education. Palmer vindicated the academies
from the charge brought against them; but, by a curious coincidence,
he like Wesley gave up all connection with Dissent, and obtained the
living of Maldon, in Essex.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Thomas Doolittle, of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and Thomas Vincent,
of Christ Church, Oxford, united in conducting, until within a short
time before his death in 1708, an academy at Islington. Thither Philip
Henry sent his son Matthew, and immediately after his arrival the
young man wrote to his sisters, informing them that in his tutor’s
meeting-house “there are several galleries. It is all pewed, and a
brave pulpit a great height above the people,” adding, in the same
letter: “I perceive that Mr. Doolittle is very studious and diligent,
and that Mrs. Doolittle and her daughter are very fine and gallant.”
During Matthew Henry’s stay at Islington he pursued a course of reading
which bore upon the Christian ministry, but when he left that place he
studied law for a time at Gray’s Inn, although it does not appear that
he ever thought of entering the legal profession. The fact is, that the
elder educated Nonconformists of that day valued all kinds of learning,
and were anxious that their children, especially if designed for the
ministry, should traverse the widest curriculum of study. Further, it
may be mentioned that Ralph Button, fellow and tutor of Merton, Oxford,
who died in 1680, conducted another academy at Islington.

Dissenting academies could not resemble national Universities. A
variety of professors, extensive libraries, aristocratic society were
beyond their reach, and polite literature and the graces of composition
were but little cultivated. Too much time was given to the study of
dead languages--a mistake, indeed, shared by the Universities. A keen
observer, Daniel De Foe, noticed this defect, and pointed out how
absurd it was, that all the time should be spent on the languages which
learning was to be _fetched from_, and none on the language it was
to be _delivered in_. To this error he attributed the fact that
many learned, and otherwise excellent, ministers preached away their
congregations, “while a jingling, noisy boy, that had a good stock
in his face, and a dysentery of the tongue, though he had little or
nothing in his head, should run away with the whole town.”[506]

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Youths of all sorts were admitted into these academies, as into modern
boarding-schools; hence some pupils might be of doubtful character.
Also prejudices against the Church of England would naturally arise.
Amongst the elder pupils the controversies of other days would be
revived, and enthusiastic spirits would tilt a lance on the side
of “the good old cause.” Charles I. and Charles II. would be no
favourites; James II.’s Popery would be denounced; Cromwell would be
excused and praised; and William III. lauded to the skies. In the
common room where students unbent, there might be fun and laughter;
in the private study there might be other volumes than classical and
theological text-books; levity and idleness probably existed in these
gatherings of great boys and young men; and damaging charges, no
doubt, could be substantiated against some of them; but the character
of these maligned institutions must, after all, be judged by their
courses of study, by the character of their professors, and by their
educational results. These tests being applied, lead to a favourable
conclusion. The studies combined logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with
readings in Colbert, Le Clerc, Suarez, More, Cicero, and Epictetus;
natural and political philosophy, with the use of Aristotle, Descartes,
and Vossius; and the perusal of Latin and Greek historians and poets.
Candidates for the pastoral office read Divinity, and studied the Greek
Testament with such critical helps as were afforded in those times. We
are assured that in lectures the Church of England was treated with
respect, the Predestinarian controversy was discussed with moderation,
and Monarchical maxims of government were upheld.[507]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

What the most distinguished teachers were, and what many of the pupils
became, may be seen in preceding pages.

I must not conclude this chapter without stating that as these
academies were interrupted by intolerant laws, common schools also
were subject to the same inconvenience. Cunning methods were sometimes
adopted by schoolmasters, or were alleged to be so, with the view of
overcoming clerical opposition,[508] and occasion was given for the
display of an unseemly spirit even by Bishops otherwise exemplary;
bad mutual relations consequently in many quarters existed between
Churchmen and Nonconformists.

                             CHAPTER XIX.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

During the Civil Wars, heartburnings existed between Presbyterians and
Independents. They continued under the Protectorate, they diminished
after the Restoration, and it might have been hoped would then have
died out for ever; but unhappily they revived when the Revolution had
set both parties at liberty. When old persecutions ended in England, it
could not be said, as it was when Saul of Tarsus ceased to breathe out
threatenings and slaughter, “then had the Church rest.” Whatever might
be the dispositions of some--and certainly Howe and others were lovers
of peace--ancient animosities exploded afresh. What happened at the
Rathmel ordination indicated this; other proofs will appear.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

An effort at union was, however, made in 1690, under the form of
articles agreed to by the Dissenting ministers. They were published,
under the title of “_Heads of Agreement_, assented to by the
united ministers in and about London, formerly called Presbyterian
and Congregational.” This document is worth attention, not only
as an experiment to bring together different parties, but also as
indicating modifications of opinion on both sides. The Presbyterians
and Independents, who after the Revolution adopted these Articles,
could not have held exactly the same views as did Presbyterians
and Independents before the Restoration. The former must now have
abandoned all notions of parish presbyteries and provincial synods,
and must have approximated to the Congregational idea of what used to
be called “gathered churches,” or limited communities, resting on a
principle of mutual choice. Reference is made to parochial bounds as
not being of divine right; yet for common edification, the members
of a particular church, it is said, ought, as far as convenient, to
live near each other. A great deal was conceded by Presbyterians, when
they allowed that each church has a right to choose its own officers,
and that no officers of any one church shall exercise any power
over any other church.[509] The Independents also must have passed
through a change, inasmuch as they now ceased to insist upon the duty
of church members entering into formal covenants, and allowed that,
in the administration of church power, it belongs to the pastor and
elders to _rule_ and _govern_, and to the brotherhood to
_consent_, according to the rule of the Gospel. They also tacitly
admitted that a man might be ordained to the work of the ministry
without having a specific pastoral charge, and that the pastors or
bishops of neighbouring churches should concur in the ordination of a
new pastor or bishop over a particular congregation.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

In the chapter relative to the communion of churches, the Independents
of the Revolution showed more disposition towards unity than their
predecessors had done, and the chapter indicates an approach to
Presbyterian government.[510] Seeds of concord between the two
denominations bore some fruit in the provinces. An association
combining them grew up in Devon and Cornwall, and Flavel preached and
presided at its first meeting. In Hampshire and Norfolk the plan met
with favour. So it did in Nottinghamshire, and in the neighbourhood of
Manchester, where, however, Independents were few. It was warmly taken
up in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and at Wakefield a united meeting
was held, when Heywood preached from Zech. xiv. 9: “In that day shall
there be one Lord, and His name one.” It seems that the townspeople at
Wakefield were alarmed at the influx of ministers walking through their
streets--the fashionably-dressed people of the reign of William III.,
in their jaunty costume, looking with curiosity and suspicion upon
the Puritan garb and the staid demeanour of their visitors. Yet these
reverend gentlemen did not amount in number to more than twenty-four,
and “when the service at Mrs. Kirby’s” was over, “they thought it
prudent to go apart, and by several ways, to the house at which they
dined.”[511]

A violent controversy--which, before its close, ran through both
Calvinistic and Socinian questions, and gathered up personal
entanglements--started into life soon after the Act of Toleration
had been passed. The doctrines of Justification, the Atonement, and
Christ’s Divinity came successively within its range. Combatant after
combatant entered the field, and although the antagonists, for the
most part, were Nonconformists, they managed, before they had done, to
involve one or two distinguished Churchmen within the coils of their
dispute.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

The scene of the first stage was the little town of Rowell, in
Northamptonshire, where a devoted Puritan, named John Beverley, had
created a considerable sensation in the days of the Commonwealth, and
out of this a church had sprung. After the Revolution, Richard Davis,
from the Principality, became minister; and as an indication of his
narrow and jealous independence, it is mentioned that he was “installed
in the office of pastor or bishop” by the church itself, and by that
church alone, some pastors of other congregations, who had come “to
behold their faith and order,” withdrawing from the assembly, because
there was nothing for them to do. Brooking no restraint, he made the
whole county of Northampton his diocese, and went from place to place
preaching and gathering converts into his fold. He enflamed others with
ardour like his own, and became the centre of a wide circle of lay
agency. People living at a great distance were brought into fellowship
with the band at Rowell, and they would, lantern in hand, trudge twenty
miles along dirty roads on winter mornings to hear him preach, and in
the same way go back at night. Offshoots from this vigorous community
became in time distinct societies. These proceedings soon excited
jealousy, and the jealous were not slow to accuse the lay agents of
ignorance, and their superintendent of great imprudence.[512] A noisy
revival broke out in February, 1692, and the press was soon employed
in giving what is called _A Plain and Just Account of a most Horrid
and Dismal Plague at Rowell_, in which tract the “visions and
revelations” of Richard Davis and his “emissaries, the shoemakers,
joiners, dyers, tailors, weavers, farmers, &c.,” are odiously
exhibited. Tidings of this reached London, and attracted the attention
of respectable Presbyterian ministers, who were as much shocked as
it was possible for any Episcopalians to be. What was worse, heresy,
as reported, mingled with wildfire, and Davis stood charged with
maintaining that believers always appear before God without sin; that
if they do wrong they are still without spot; that prayers are offered
more for the sake of discovering guilt to their own consciences, than
for securing forgiveness from God; and that Christ fulfilled the
covenant of grace, “and believed for us as our representative.” Oddly
enough, this Antinomian preacher is said to have entertained an idea
that baptism in the parish church is invalid, for this, amongst other
reasons, that the administrators are not of Christ’s sending. Davis
defended himself as best he could, and the church of which he was
pastor vindicated his character, denying some ridiculous stories, yet
speaking of his ministry in terms corroborative of its high Calvinistic
type.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

The second stage of this controversy appears in London. The Calvinism
of the Commonwealth had by no means perished. Old books bearing its
impress, old preachers repeating its echoes, remained, and wherever
sympathies with it continued to thrive, of course the Northamptonshire
pastor found advocates. Just at this moment an insignificant incident
fanned the flame. A son of the noted Dr. Tobias Crisp reprinted his
father’s works, with additions from unpublished papers; and very
artfully, the editor procured the names of some well-known Divines,
simply, as he said, to attest the genuineness of the MSS.--a thing
perfectly superfluous--really, as he must have meant, to promote the
sale of the new edition. Crisp was a Predestinarian of the first water,
and maintained the doctrine of Election and the limitation of the
Atonement in the narrowest and most repulsive form.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

The excitement produced by this book, in connection with the
disturbance created by Davis, was wonderful. The advocates of High
Calvinism hailed it as the commencement of a millennium; they talked
and preached and wrote with renewed vigour, and those who opposed them
were denounced as legalists. On both sides bitterness increased. The
more Crisp’s book was condemned, the more it was read. Its circulation
was greatest amongst the uneducated, who praised the author up to the
skies. The editor informs us that, in so unlikely a place as Guildhall,
at one of the livery meetings, he was accosted by a citizen, who
wrung him by the hand, and, with tears in his eyes, thanked him for
reprinting his father’s sermons.

Daniel Williams, a Presbyterian minister, formerly of Dublin, and at
the time of the Revolution presiding over a numerous congregation at
Hand Alley, in Bishopsgate Street, was then rising into eminence; and
being a moderate Calvinist, he determined to oppose the circulation
of Crisp’s work. Consequently, in 1692, he published his _Gospel
Truth Vindicated_, in which Crisp’s dogmas are arranged, errors
are separated from truths, and confutations supplied, not only from
Scripture, but also from other writings of that very Divine. Prefixed
to Williams’ book is a list of approving theologians, including Bates,
Howe, Alsop, and Lorimer.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

This publication led to unpleasant complications, and to understand
them we must refer to the celebrated lectures delivered in Pinners’
Hall. Lectures in the heart of the Metropolis had been popular when
Puritanism was at its zenith. Merchants turned from their walk in
the Exchange and their seats in the counting-house, to listen to a
favourite preacher as he meted out his message by the hour-glass.
When Indulgence came, Pinners’ Hall happened to be vacant, and being
conveniently situated in Broad Street, it was hired for a Wednesday
morning exercise. Four Presbyterians and two Independents undertook
to officiate in succession. Dr. Bates, Dr. Manton, Mr. Baxter, and
Mr. Jenkyn, had as their associates Dr. Owen and Mr. Collins. From
the beginning, however, unfortunate bickerings appeared, and at the
Revolution dogmatic differences became increasingly manifest--the
Independents were more Calvinistic than their Presbyterian brethren.
The circumstances of this Lecture perhaps had something to do with the
way in which the Northamptonshire quarrel was taken up, certainly it
added fuel to the fire kindled by the republication of Crisp’s works.
In 1692, of the old Pinners’ Hall lecturers only Bates remained, his
new colleagues being Williams and Alsop. The other new lecturers were
Mead and Cole, decidedly Independent, and John Howe, who, although
previously reckoned amongst Independents, seems by this time to have
associated chiefly with Presbyterians, and to have had more sympathy in
their temper than in that manifested by some of his active Independent
brethren. Attempts at union entirely failed. Storms of feeling could
not be allayed by verbal incantation, and a contemporary, who narrowly
watched the proceedings, deplored the absence of a healing spirit.[513]
Williams, by his book against Crisp, offended some of the supporters
of the Lecture--a circumstance which led to discussion amongst the
lecturers; and in 1694, Williams was voted out, and three of the
number--Bates, Howe, and Alsop--withdrew from Pinners’ to Salters’
Hall, and commenced a distinct lecture there. Cole and Mead, the two
Independents, remained in the old place, and associated with themselves
four other Independents--Mather, Cruso, Lobb, and Gouge.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

But I must hasten to the third stage of this intricate dispute, when,
in 1695, Stephen Lobb, “the Jacobite Independent,” charged Williams
with implicitly denying the commutation of persons between Christ and
believers, because he had denied such a relation as Crisp maintained,
who went so far as to declare Christ to be by imputation as sinful as
man, and the believer to become through faith as righteous as Christ.
This led to explanations too wearisome for notice. If anyone will take
the trouble to look into what Williams wrote, he will be astonished to
find a man, who went so far in his notions of the union between the
Mediator and His people, suspected of not believing in the Atonement;
and he will discover a signal instance of the intolerable demands which
some will make upon others, in order to enlist from them a full amount
of prescribed orthodoxy.

The battle raged hotter and hotter. Williams was even accused of
Socinianism, and not content with robbing him of all claim to
orthodoxy, his exasperated opponents tried to filch from him his
virtuous reputation. But he kept them at bay, and at last completely
overcame them.[514]

Towards the end, two distinguished Churchmen came upon the stage--Dr.
Jonathan Edwards, Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and Bishop
Stillingfleet--both of whom were appealed to by the disputants as to
the doctrine of Commutation, and the charge of Socinianism brought
against Williams. The Bishop, of course, contradicted Crisp’s absurd
notion, and pronounced Williams innocent of heterodoxy.

It is said that the number of Antinomians amongst Nonconformists
diminished after the close of the controversy.

                              CHAPTER XX.

Dissenters cannot be charged with an absorbing attachment to their
distinctive system; they valued more the common truths of Christianity,
but they were prepared to vindicate their own ecclesiastical views
and to repel aspersions. David Clarkson, who had before published
books on Episcopacy, in answer to Stillingfleet, sent forth in 1689
his discourse on Liturgies. The charge of being schismatical, laid
at the doors of Nonconformists, led Matthew Henry to publish in the
same year a _Discourse concerning the Nature of Schism_, in which
he endeavoured to prove, that there may be schism where there is no
separation, and that there may be separation where there is no schism.
The discourse being attacked, William Tong, in the year 1693, came
forward in its defence, maintaining that the want of charity, not the
want of particular ministerial orders, creates sinful schism; and
that to charge the crime upon such Dissenters as cultivate candour,
liberality, and love, is “a piece of diabolism which the Gospel abhors,
and of which humanity itself will be ashamed;” and complained at the
end, “that non-resistance and passive obedience was the universal cry
in the Church, and squeezed till the blood came: but the mischief was,
when they had nursed the prerogative, till it had stung some of them
and hissed at all the rest, they presently let the world see they
never brewed this doctrine for their own drinking.”

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

James Owen, a learned Presbyterian minister, published in 1694 a plea
for Presbyterian ordination, and afterwards composed another essay
in support of his views, showing that neither Timothy nor Titus were
diocesan rulers; that the presbyters of Ephesus, not Timothy and Titus,
were successors to the Apostles in the government of the Church;
that the First Epistle to Timothy was written before the meeting at
Miletus; and that the ancient Waldenses did not acknowledge diocesan
prelates. This course of reasoning is a specimen of the manner in which
Presbyterians were wont to state and defend their own system.

But Nonconformist polemics were not confined to the maintenance of a
common cause; they took an internecine turn, not only in connection
with the Crisp affair, but in connection with occasional conformity.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

By the Corporation Act, everyone holding a municipal office was
required to receive the Lord’s Supper in the Church of England. Sir
John Shorter, a Presbyterian, had by such conformity qualified himself
to act as Lord Mayor of the city of London in the reign of James II.,
and two distinguished Dissenters in the following reign occupied the
same civic post and adopted the same policy. Sir Humphrey Edwin was
Lord Mayor in 1697, and, dressed in a gown of crimson velvet, carried
the city sword before William, as, on his return from the Continent, he
passed through London with the customary pomp of a public procession.
He not only conformed at certain times during his mayoralty, but he
also, on one occasion when he attended Divine Service at Pinners’ Hall
Meeting-house, caused the civic paraphernalia to be carried before him.
I am not aware whether any other Lord Mayor did this. Sir Humphrey
Edwin might be said to bring the State over to Nonconformity, as at
other times, when he knelt at the altars of the Establishment, he
brought Nonconformity over to the State. At all events, his conduct
subjected him to annoying criticism. He was attacked by a clergyman who
preached before the Corporation in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Ballads and
lampoons, caricaturing what he had done, were hawked about the streets,
and Swift, in his _Tale of the Tub_, satirized Sir Humphrey in his
well-known reference to Jack’s tatters coming into fashion, and his
getting upon a great horse and eating custard. Tragical exclamations
were uttered in High Church circles, and in a publication of later
date it is declared, that “to the great reproach of the laws, and of
the city magistracy,” the Mayor “carried the sword with him to a nasty
conventicle, that was kept in one of the City Halls, which horrid
crime one of his own party defended by giving this arrogant reason for
it, that by the Act of Parliament by which they have their liberty,
their religion was as much established as ours.”[515] The Lord Mayor’s
proceeding did not meet with the approbation of his co-religionists.
They felt the injustice of the attacks which it had occasioned; it
seemed to them inconsistent and arrogant for Churchmen to speak in the
way they did of a religion which had the same object of worship, the
same rule of faith and life, and the same end and aim as their own; yet
they saw that Sir Humphrey’s conduct had been such as naturally to lead
to misapprehension and to produce annoyance. Calamy lamented that “this
measure drew unhappy consequences after it, both in this reign and in
that which succeeded.”[516]

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Sir Thomas Abney, a Presbyterian, became Lord Mayor of London in the
year 1701. Prior to that date he had favoured occasional Conformity.
When in office he attended church. This occasioned a controversy
between two Nonconformists, who regarded the conduct of Abney and Edwin
from different points of view.

Daniel De Foe, who had been educated in Mr. Morton’s academy with a
view to becoming a Presbyterian minister, and then found the study of
politics and the pursuits of literature more congenial to his taste,
distinguished himself by a firm attachment to Nonconformist principles,
and carried them out to an extreme extent. He had written about half
a dozen clever pamphlets in about fifteen years, and was on the point
of commencing that career as an author which made him so notorious
among contemporaries, so popular with posterity, when, in 1697, he
published anonymously an _Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity of
Dissenters_. In his own trenchant style, with vigorous Anglo-Saxon
idioms, employed after a rasping fashion, he declared that none but
Protestants halt between God and Baal; none but Christians of an
amphibious nature could believe one way, and worship another.

In the year of Sir Thomas Abney’s mayoralty, De Foe republished
his _Enquiry_, and prefixed to it a preface addressed to John
Howe. John Howe was Sir Thomas’s pastor, and addressing him, De Foe
demanded that Howe should declare to the world, whether the practice
of alternate communion was allowed either by his congregation, or by
Dissenters in general. The practice, he said, should be defended if
defensible, otherwise “the world must believe that Dissenters do allow
themselves to practice what they cannot defend.”

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Howe being dragged before the public, referred to his own moderate
views in points of difference between Conformists and Nonconformists,
but denied having advised Sir Thomas as to his conduct; he declined to
enter upon the question, and only contended that occasional conformity
to one communion, if a fault, should not exclude a person from habitual
fellowship with another. De Foe had taken up occasional Conformity as
a qualification for holding office, and had shown that so regarded it
is incapable of vindication; but Howe regarded the question generally,
and proved that a person who, apart from worldly motives, communes
with one church on particular occasions, and with another church on
common occasions, does nothing which impeaches his conscientiousness or
destroys his consistency.

The author’s calm temper becomes ruffled towards the close, when he
alludes to the “stingy and narrow spirit” of his opponent, and to his
seeking to impose upon the world a false impression of the English
Puritans. He declared that in 1662 “most of the considerable ejected
London ministers met and agreed to hold occasional communion with the
now re-established Church, not quitting their own ministry or declining
the exercise of it as they could have opportunity.”[517]

De Foe replied, vindicating his own character, and animadverting upon
Howe’s want of zeal. The latter having reluctantly taken part in this
business, could not be induced to say another word. The spirit of
Howe had greatly the advantage over the temper of De Foe; nothing but
one-sided partizanship could induce any man to charge the advocate of
occasional communion with disloyalty to Nonconformist principles.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Nonconformist preaching was orthodox. The existing generation,
however, deviated from their father’s footsteps. Sermons differed
from those of an earlier period in form: divisions were less numerous
and perplexing, bones were not so visible, there was more symmetry
of proportion, and more roundness of style. In spirit some preachers
diverged from their predecessors--betraying a lack of fire, unction,
and healing power. Nevertheless, there were pastors who caught the
mantle and spirit of the departed. Anyone visiting “the ancient and
fair city of Chester” found a specimen of this in the ministry of
Matthew Henry. At a meeting-house in Crook Street--still in existence,
as I have already said, with the original pulpit and sounding-board,
from which the good man delivered his homilies--he had a congregation
so large, that ultimately it contained as many as 350 communicants,
including a few city magnates. They assembled in their large oaken
pews at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning, the richer men in curly wigs,
lace ruffles, and ample broad cloth suits; their wives and daughters
with long stomachers, hoops, and lofty head-dresses; but beneath
costumes fashioned by the fancies of the age, they carried in their
hearts wants, cares, and desires belonging to all ages, and such as the
worship and ministry upon which they attended were adapted to meet and
satisfy.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

The service began with the hundredth psalm, according to the version of
Sternhold and Hopkins; and then we can easily image the pastor beneath
the huge sounding-board, standing erect--portly in form, dignified in
mien, comely in face, his person set off to advantage by a curled wig
and a flowing gown--offering prayer and next expounding a lesson in
the Old Testament. The matter and manner may be learnt from perusing
his _Commentary_, where, in the picturesque quaintness of his
thoughts, he aims not at singularity, but at fixing Divine truth in
people’s memories and hearts. Another psalm and a longer supplication
succeeded, and judging from his book on prayer, he must have excelled
in that form of spiritual exercise. Then followed a sermon full of
useful practical thought, arranged in singular devices, after Puritan
precedents; for Matthew had great reverence for the ways of his father
Philip, and of his father’s friends. What is said of the sire may be
said of the son: “Many a good thought has perished because it was not
portable, and many a sermon is forgotten, because it is not memorable;
but like seeds with wings, the sayings of Henry have floated far and
near, and like seeds with hooked prickles, his sermons stuck in his
most careless hearers. His tenacious words took root; and it was his
happiness to see, not only scriptural intelligence but fervent and
consistent piety spreading among his parishioners.”[518] Singing and
praying wound up the service, after it had lasted some three hours.
This protracted worship would be deemed sufficient for one day; but in
the afternoon the same thing was repeated, the exposition of the New
Testament being substituted for that of the Old. We are apt to pity men
who performed or endured such lengthened duties, but really the duty
cannot be regarded as having involved much hardship for them. Such long
services were their own choice. Some might fancy that under the weight
of these prayers, these expositions, and these sermons, every Sabbath
regularly for twenty-four years, the pastor’s strength would break
down; yet the good man seems to have borne the wear and tear of it all
remarkably well.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

The Lord’s Supper he celebrated monthly, remarking that “among the
Jews, the beginning of the month was esteemed sacred; and although
he did not consider the Jewish law as to the new moons still in
force, yet from general reasoning he thought the conclusion a safe
one, that whatsoever may be our divisions of time, it is always good
to begin such divisions with God--seeking first His kingdom and its
righteousness.”[519]

He was impressive in his mode of administering baptism, which he
likened to the taking of a beneficial lease for a child while in
the cradle, and putting his life into it. He used the Assembly’s
Catechism, and when “he perceived in any of his catechumens symptoms of
thoughtfulness upon religious subjects, he specially noticed them, and
as soon as there was a competent number, conversed with them severally
and apart upon their everlasting interests; afterwards in the solemn
Assembly, he catechised them concerning the Lord’s Supper, by a form
which he printed.” He next appointed a day in the week preceding the
monthly sacrament, in which, before the congregation, he was their
intercessor at the Heavenly Throne: a sermon was addressed to them,
and the following Sabbath they were welcomed to the Lord’s-table.
“Such in his judgment, as in that of his father also, was the true
_confirmation_, or transition into a state of adult and complete
church membership.” He considered the ordinances of Christ as
mysteries, of which His ministers are the stewards, and in admitting
any to membership, “they were entrusted with the keys.”[520] Holding
this view, he kept in his own hands the exercise of discipline; and
on one occasion he pronounced sentence of excommunication on three
persons, the act being accompanied by a congregational fast.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Neighbouring villages were visited, and periodical lectures
established. Twice a year county unions met, when ecclesiastical
matters came under discussion. “Affairs of the State or the Established
Church were never meddled with.”[521]

The account I have given applies particularly to Presbyterians, but
association meetings were also held by Independents. They did not,
however, at these gatherings ordain ministers; ordinations amongst them
generally took place in the presence of the church members by whom
the pastor was chosen. Orders--technically speaking--maintained by
Presbyterians as well as Episcopalians, could scarcely be said to be
recognized by Congregationalists, who considered ordination simply as
an acknowledgment of the church’s act in electing ministers. The key to
the difference between the two denominations is found, on the one hand,
in the Presbyterian idea of power being lodged in the ministry, and,
on the other hand, in the Congregational idea of power being lodged in
the people; and as this distinction and difference affected the subject
of ordination, so it did that of admission and discipline. Admission
of members amongst Congregationalists depended upon a vote of the
church, after an account had been given of the candidate’s religious
character. Congregational churches were not all alike as to terms of
admission. Some were narrow and severe. They exacted circumstantial
proofs of conversion, and an ample confession of faith. In not a few
cases this was required to be given in writing. Others accepted the
children of members, to use their quaint language, when they took hold
of their father and mother’s covenant, and expressed their confidence
in Christ’s passion, and repentance from dead works. The Church having
nothing to object to “their walking,” they were permitted to partake of
the Ordinance of the Supper, and were confirmed.[522]

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Yet churches less exacting in terms of admission were curiously
vigilant in the oversight of members, and would call people to
account even for lying in bed, instead of coming to the communion;
for consulting a lawyer on a Sunday afternoon; and for going to a
cock-fight when the brethren were met to seek God.[523] Acts of
discipline depended upon church votes, and sometimes differences of
opinion arose between pastor and people.

An instance of the manner in which the Independents of the village
of Guestwick, in Norfolk, invited a minister, and prepared for his
reception, is preserved in their church book. They set forward for
London about the beginning of the month of October, 1694, and from
thence to Chalfont in Buckinghamshire, with letters from the church
to the gentleman whom they wished to become their pastor. If he would
come, the church would comply with what he desired. At last they
obtained his consent, the tidings of which were forwarded to the
church. One of the deacons tarried to accompany him and his family.
They went by coach, and were met by several of the brethren at
Swaffham the 1st of November, and arrived at Guestwick the 2nd, at
night. The charges which the church and other friends incurred for
this expenditure amounted to nearly £20. A similar entry of later date
may be found in the Yarmouth Congregational Church-Book, relative to a
coach and four being sent for the conveyance of their new Bishop.[524]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

When ministers grew old and needed assistance, churches were ready to
contribute an additional income. At Cockermouth the aged pastor wished
his son to be associated with him; consequently, the people agreed to
give a call for that purpose, and a letter accordingly was drawn up
and numerously signed. Previously “they subscribed to make him £30 per
annum, with a great deal of readiness and freedom.”[525]

Congregations testified their interest in public events. At the place
just mentioned, in January, 1689, the people assembled to seek the Lord
for the Convention, held that day in London for settling the nation.
The pastor spoke from Psalm lxxxii. 1. In February, 1698, “the church
passed a day of prayer for the Protestants in France;” and in the
following November they kept a solemnity for God’s deliverance of the
nation and the Church from “the Popish hellish powder-plot;” also “for
saving the nation from Popery and slavery by the landing of the Prince
of Orange.” When the pastor died, December, 1700, the church recorded
his last words: “Lord, remember my poor brethren in France.”[526]

The Independent mode of conducting worship resembled the Presbyterian.
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were observed by both much in the same
way. The latter was celebrated in most places once a month; in some,
once in six weeks.[527]

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Ecclesiastical revenues of course were voluntary. The expense of
educating men for the ministry was met by parents or friends;
assistance in some cases being provided out of charitable funds.
The Fund Board was established soon after the Revolution, and from
its proceeds young candidates received grants. To this fund the
Presbyterians contributed £2,000, and the Independents nearly £1,700,
a year. Assistance also proceeded from an endowment under the will of
a Mr. Trotman, who, after the Act of Uniformity, bequeathed property
for Nonconformist purposes. The trustees were ejected ministers,
almost all of them belonging to the Independent denomination; and
they afforded small exhibitions to persons studying for the ministry.
Amongst distinguished beneficiaries were Stephen Lobb, who entered
Trinity College, Oxford, in 1679; Benjamin Chandler, who studied
at the same University; Samuel Wesley, who, for awhile, as we have
seen, contemplated being a Dissenting pastor; William Payne, of
Saffron Walden, a friend of John Owen; and the celebrated divine and
poet, Isaac Watts, the last of whom received aid from the Fund Board
also.[528]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

The support of Dissenting pastors depended mainly upon their flocks.
Sometimes, as we have seen, money was raised for the erection of
meeting-houses by the sale of pews, which became the property of the
purchasers; but in such cases, as well as others, the salary of the
minister principally arose from the subscriptions of the people.
Endowments in certain cases increased the revenues, but sometimes,
where churches had no such resources and needed sustentation, grants
were made from the Fund Board. Trotman’s Trust availed in a small
degree for ministerial support, as well as education, so long as any
of the ejected survived, and the money bequeathed to them lasted; for
by his will he left £500 to poor ministers, who had been removed from
“their employment” in the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity.

We have noticed the public worship of Nonconformists. It is worth while
to advert to Sundays at home. In many a farmhouse and city dwelling,
the master called his household round him in the evening, to read a
chapter and to ask religious questions; all being catechised, from the
old servant by the door to the child who sat beside the cosy hearth,
within the folds of mamma’s ornamented apron. Perhaps a discourse was
read, a psalm sung, and a prayer offered. The young folks might have
looked sleepy before all was over, and some of the older ones might
with difficulty have kept their eyes open; but there were men and women
who could say at the end of these Puritan Sabbaths, with the Henry
family at Broad Oak: “If this be not heaven, it is the way to it.”

The relation of the pastor to his flock was intimate. He was their
guide and counsellor. Families grew up calling him their own friend and
their father’s friend; for the pastoral bond was rarely broken in those
days, except by death or some very remarkable circumstance.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Of the character of the early Nonconformists, testimony is borne by
Dr. Watts, who loved to cherish memories of the old Dissent, as he had
seen it in his young days. No doubt we sometimes deceive ourselves
in looking down the vista of the past. A transparent haze mellows the
whole; perhaps fancy takes liberties with the details, and lays on
tints of her own. How more than halcyon were the times of the Confessor
from the distance of the reign of Rufus; yet there was truth in the
Saxon’s estimate, under a Norman dynasty, of a former generation.
Unquestionably, there is truth in Watts’ review. He refers mainly to
a period rather earlier than that embraced within this chapter, yet
the light of Puritanism’s autumn day did not expire so long as Baxter
and Howe survived; Watts mentions the reverence of Dissenters for the
name of God, of their strict observance of the Sabbath, of their habits
of religious conversation, of their regular discharge of religious
duties, of their nonconformity to the world, and of their economical
expenditure.

But all was not sunshine in the old Dissent. Indeed, Watts lamented
the changes he witnessed. So did Howe; his lamentations being deepened
by the loss of early friends--“so many great lights withdrawn, both
such as were within the National Church Constitution, and such as were
without it.” And, no doubt, in connection with altered circumstances
and the advance of free ecclesiastical opinion, there came a
considerable decline of spiritual fervour. The strain and tension of
earlier religious life almost ceased. As in the Church of England there
was more calmness and moderation in Tillotson, Tenison, and Burnet, for
example, than in Cosin and Ward--so it was with Dissenters, as appears
when we compare such a man as Matthew Henry with such a man as Richard
Baxter, or when we place Edmund Calamy by the side of his grandfather.

                             CHAPTER XXI.

One by one in the reign of our third William the fathers of the old
Dissent passed away. They just saw the morning of religious liberty,
they just touched the border of the land of promise, they dwelt under
its vines and fig-trees for a very little while, and then died in peace.

Philip Henry expired in the summer of 1696. A few candidates for the
ministry, who had in private academies gone through what they termed
a University course, were permitted to reside at Broad Oak, and to
listen to the instructions of its master. “You come to me,” he would
say, “as Naaman did to Elisha, expecting that I should do this and the
other thing for you, and, alas! I can but say as he did: ‘Go wash in
Jordan.’ Go study the Scriptures. I profess to teach no other learning
but Scripture learning.”

Philip Henry reminds us of John Bunyan’s pilgrims in the land of
Beulah, as we read the following passage, written not long before his
death: “Methinks it is strange that it should be your lot and mine to
abide so long on earth by the stuff, when so many of our friends are
dividing the spoil above, but God will have it so; and to be willing to
live in obedience to His holy will is as true an act of grace, as to
be willing to die when He calls, especially when life is labour and
sorrow. But when it is labour and joy, service to His name, and some
measure of success and comfort in serving Him, when it is to stop a gap
and stem a tide, it is to be rejoiced in--it is heaven upon earth.”

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

The shadow of death in mid-winter enveloped another scarcely less
famous Puritan home. Samuel Annesley, an older man than Philip Henry by
twelve years, with a ministerial history which ran far back into the
troubles of the Commonwealth and Civil Wars, continued to preach in
Little St. Helen’s to a congregation of wealthy citizens, amongst whom
might be seen Daniel De Foe,[529] sometimes the eccentric John Dunton,
and at an earlier time the almost equally eccentric Samuel Wesley, the
two latter being married to two of Annesley’s daughters. Of a hardy
constitution, still more indurated by severe personal habits, Annesley
could bear the greatest cold without hat, gloves, or fire. He drank
little besides water, and to the day of his death could read small
print without spectacles.[530] The pastor’s family was large, for Dr.
Manton, baptizing one of them, asked how many children he had. Annesley
returned for answer, that he believed it was two dozen or a quarter
of a hundred; “this reckoning children by dozens,” says Dunton, “was
a thing so very uncommon, that I have heard Dr. Annesley mention it
with a special remark.” He to the last retained great influence amongst
the Presbyterians, having, “the care of all the churches on his mind,
and being a great support of Dissenting ministers and of the Morning
Lecture.” He entered his pulpit for the last time, saying, “I must work
while it is day,” and died with ecstatic exclamations on his lips: “I
have no doubt nor shadow of doubt--all is clear between God and my
soul. He chains up Satan; he cannot trouble me. Come, dear Jesus! the
nearer the more precious, and the more welcome. What manner of love is
this to a poor worm! I cannot express a thousandth part of what praise
is due to Thee! We know what we do when we aim at praising God for His
mercies! It is but little I can give, but, Lord, help me to give Thee
my all. I will die praising Thee, and rejoice that there are others
that can praise Thee better. I shall be satisfied with Thy likeness!
satisfied! satisfied! Oh, my dearest Jesus, I come!” The old register
of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, for December, 1696, has this entry:
“Samuel Annesley was buried the seventh day, from Spittle Yard.”[531]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Nathaniel Vincent, when the Revolution brought him rest from spies,
informers, and constables, quietly went on with his work in St.
Thomas’s, Southwark, amidst the Presbyterian congregation which he
had gathered; but an unhappy division before his death gave him
trouble--sixty members breaking off to join another church, but no
blame attached to him for this. If the eulogium pronounced by his
friends be true, “he scarcely entered into any company, but he was
like a box of precious ointment, and left some sweet perfume from
his heavenly discourse.” Vincent’s end was sudden and premature; he
had only leisure to exclaim: “I find I am dying. Lord! Lord! Lord!
have mercy on my family and my congregation.” His age was but
fifty-three.[532]

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Dr. William Bates, a close friend of Archbishop Tillotson, retained his
popularity and his renown for “silver-tongued” eloquence beyond the
Revolution of 1688. As one of the preachers at Salters’ Hall after the
establishment of the New Lecture there in 1694, although an old man of
seventy-four, he preached to a thronged assembly; but he lived in the
village of Hackney, where he ministered to a Presbyterian congregation
in Mare Street.[533] Howe’s estimate of Bates’ character has been
quoted in a former volume; it is sufficient here to add the following
words by the same writer: “God took him, even kissed away his soul,
as hath been said of those great favourites of heaven, did let him
die without being sick, vouchsafed him that great privilege--which a
good man would choose before many--not to outlive serviceableness. To
live till one be weary of the world, not till the world be weary of
him--thus he prayed wisely, thus God answered graciously.”[534] He died
in July, 1699.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

John Howe survived his friend about five years. It appears from
his allusion to “the great lights of the National Church,” how his
affections lingered around those who were its ornaments, and passages
occurring in his answer to De Foe, indicate Howe’s increasing
tenderness towards the Church of England in his last days. He had
always been a moderate Dissenter, but his moderation assumes broader
dimensions than ever in that publication--the effect, I apprehend,
partly of natural tenderness and partly of unpleasant circumstances. He
had, from the very constitution of his mind, what many great and good
men have not--a burning thirst for union, for a large fellowship of
souls on earth preparatory to the final gathering of the purified and
perfected. This passion increased in Howe the nearer he approached the
world of light and love. He longed, as his days ebbed away, to embrace
within his fellowship the good and wise of all parties; consequently
lines of distinction between church and church, between sect and sect,
became in his eyes paler and paler. And I cannot help seeing that
the disputes amongst Nonconformist ministers in London--the unhappy
divisions arising out of the Crisp controversy--vexed him exceedingly,
and loosened a little the bonds which had bound him to the Independent
body. A moderate Congregationalist in earlier life, he appears
latterly to have sympathized most with Presbyterians. The church in
Silver Street, of which he took the pastoral charge, was Presbyterian.
The Salters’ Hall Lecture, with which he identified himself, was
Presbyterian. Presbyterians were less opposed to the Established Church
than were Independents; the latter felt no wish for comprehension,
the former did; and in that wish, which the impossibility of its
gratification could not quench, John Howe to the last deeply shared.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

In his latter days he largely experienced the joys of religion. He
seemed at that period to attain a more ethereal purity of soul, a
more sublime elevation of mind, and a more seraphic glow of devotion.
The ancients believed that the nearer men approach the hour of death
the more divine they become, and the more piercing is their insight
into the mysteries of futurity. Howe, under the influence of a divine
enthusiasm, certainly appeared during the last year of his life as
if the veil of flesh had been parted, and his free spirit had found
a pathway which “the vulture’s eye hath never seen.” It is related
that on one occasion, at the Lord’s-table, his soul was suffused with
such rapture that the communicants thought his physical strength would
have sunk under the weight of his preternatural emotions. And another
instance of overpowering delight about the same time, is recorded by
himself in a Latin note found on the blank leaf of his study Bible.
After notice of a peculiarly beautiful and refreshing dream which he
had some years before, he adds: “But what of the same kind I sensibly
felt through the admirable bounty of my God, and the most pleasant
comforting influence of the Holy Spirit, on October 22nd, 1704,
far surpassed the most expressive words my thoughts can suggest. I
then experienced an inexpressibly pleasant melting of heart, tears
gushing out of mine eyes for joy that God should shed abroad His love
abundantly through the hearts of men, and that for this very purpose
mine own should be so signally possessed of and by His blessed Spirit.”
One trembles at criticizing such a phenomenon, and at attempting to
resolve it all into a delirium of excitement. Who that has ever mused
on the nature of the human mind, on the mystery of that unseen world
which presses close around it, on the piety of such a man as Howe, and
on the special love which God bears to those whom he makes so like
Himself, would dare to speak lightly of such an incident?

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Howe spent some of his closing days in the composition of a work _On
Patience in Expectation of Future Blessedness_, expressive of his
own religious experience; and it shows that such were his thoughts of
heaven, such his desire to depart, that he had to practice an unwonted
form of self-denial to reconcile himself to continuance in a world
which so many are loth to leave. Friends conversed with him to the
last, and the visit of one of them deserves special notice. Richard
Cromwell called upon him in his last illness, but the words they
interchanged have died away, save an indistinct echo lingering in a
brief sentence by Calamy: “There was a great deal of serious discourse
between them; tears were freely shed on both sides, and the parting was
very solemn, as I have been informed by one that was present on the
occasion.”[535]

As a proof that Howe needed patience of an unusual kind, I may mention
that he said to his wife: “Though he thought he loved her as well as
it was fit for one creature to love another; yet if it were put to his
choice, whether to die that moment, or to live that night, and the
living that night would secure the continuance of his life for seven
years to come, he would choose to die that moment.” In the same spirit
he remarked to an attendant one morning, after being relieved from the
intense sufferings of the previous night: “He was for _feeling_
that he was alive, though most willing to die, and lay the ‘clog of
mortality aside.’” When his son, a physician, was lancing his leg to
diminish his sufferings, Howe inquired what he was doing, and observed:
“I am not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of pain.” Indeed, he had
a peculiar sensitiveness with regard to physical agony, which seems to
have been constitutional. All but joy soon afterwards terminated, for,
on the 2nd of April, 1705, his spirit entered those regions of repose
which he had long so fervently desired to reach.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

The passing away of the old Puritans could not but produce a great
effect. When the last of the Apostles left the world, those who
remained in the line of succession--so far as Apostles could have
any proper successors--would fail to reach the level of experience,
character, and influence which their predecessors occupied. And when
the last of the Protestant Reformers died, there would be a falling
off in the ardour and force which marked the religious leaders of the
next generation. And so, without equalizing Apostles, Reformers, and
Puritans, we may say of the last, that when they were all gone--though
their cause remained in the hands of men who had learned their
lessons--the fire no longer burned with the glowing heat it had done
before. There might be more breadth of view, there might be advancement
in some respects, but there remained not the same force which had
operated so mightily at an earlier period. Puritanism, as a creed, as a
discipline, as a form of worship, as a religious sentiment, remained;
but much of its original inspiration passed away.

Another circumstance may be noticed. The Puritans of the Commonwealth
had in early life mingled socially with Anglicans. They had sat on
the same forms at school, had lived under the same college roof, had
preached in the same places of worship. Owen, Baxter, and Howe had all
shared more or less with Churchmen in the same modes of life before
the severance of 1662. Those who followed them were for the most part
wholly separated from the Establishment, from its universities, its
pulpits, its society, its courtesies, its atmosphere. Hence arose a
personal estrangement between two great parties, in some respects more
mischievous in its results than any of the controversies previously
waged.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

There have been influences at work in Society which rarely arrest the
attention of historians, because hidden in the obscure depths of common
life; and yet they have had a potency of effect, beyond even some
prominent events which come out as landmarks in the past. I am inclined
to ascribe to the social separation of Churchmen from Nonconformists,
which opened in the middle of the seventeenth century, and gaped so
wide at the close--much of that mutual suspicion, and that tendency
to attribute bad motives to those of a different opinion, which still
prevent, more or less, a candid and charitable consideration of each
others’ arguments. Friendly intercourse is a moral discipline which
affects our intellectual nature, and, by softening the asperities
of temper, prepares a man to meet his fellow man with less of that
prejudice so common to all, which blinds one person to phases of truth
discerned by another.

                             CHAPTER XXII.

The Baptists multiplied after the Revolution, and continued--what
they had been before--often obscure, but always staunch supporters
of independence and voluntaryism. In this respect they differed from
Presbyterians, and often went beyond Independents. The representatives
of more than one hundred churches met in London in the year 1689, and
continued in conference a few days. They republished a Calvinistic
confession of faith, adopted in the year 1677, but their business in
the main was with practical matters and the religious improvement
of their denomination. One doctrinal question which they discussed
was whether believers were _actually_ reconciled, justified,
and adopted when Christ died; this they resolved by affirming that
reconciliation and justification have been infallibly secured by the
grace of God and the merit of Christ; but that their _actual_
possession comes as the result of individual faith. They took a gloomy
view of spiritual affairs, and, although looking at them from a very
different point of view, reached conclusions resembling those of the
Nonjurors. And this is noteworthy: they referred to the Jews, and
entreated their brethren to “put up earnest cries and supplications
to the Lord for the lineal seed of Abraham.” In furtherance of their
objects they appointed a general fast, and directed that the causes
and reasons of it should be explained. With respect to government
and discipline, they disclaimed authority, nor did they attempt to
settle differences even in respect to communion. They projected a
sustentation fund, in aid of churches, ministers, and students; at
the same time they pronounced it expedient for small churches, in
the same neighbourhood, to unite together for the support of the
ministry. They ventured to commence an attack on the long periwigs of
men, especially ministers, and the bravery, haughtiness, and pride of
women, who walked “with stretched-out necks and wanton eyes, mincing
as they went.” They deplored worldly conformity, and though they did
not deny that ornaments were allowable, they said every ornament which
opens the mouths of the ungodly ought to be cast off. Baptists had
been reproached as Trimmers under James II. for the sake of their own
liberty; but the representatives on this occasion declared that, to
their knowledge, not one congregation had ever countenanced a power
in the King to dispense with penal tests, and that William III. was a
Divine instrument for the deliverance of England.[536]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

A second assembly of the same nature met in London upon the 2nd of
June, 1691, and another on the 3rd of May, 1692. They proposed to
divide their annual assembly into two--one for the east in London, and
the other for the west in Bristol, and they enjoined the making of
quarterly collections for objects specified, at the same time expressly
repudiating all idea of exercising synodical control.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Musical harmony had been a cause of discord; some of the Baptist
celebrities, including Kiffin and Keach, had plunged into disputes on
the subject, and it was alleged that facts had been misrepresented
and unwarrantable reflections published to the world. The matter
came under the notice of a committee, which appears to have given an
impartial decision. They declared that both parties were in the wrong;
that, granting some statements might be true, they had laid open one
another’s errors in an unbecoming spirit; that they ought to remember
how Ham, for discovering the nakedness of Noah, was accursed of God,
and how failings were forbidden to be told in Gath and Gilgal. They
recommended that all the publications produced by the dispute should
be called in and disposed of by the Assembly; and they finished their
award by entreating, as upon their knees, that the brethren would keep
the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.[537]

Kiffin and Keach were amongst the Baptist magnates at the end of the
Revolution, and were far more influential than Bunyan. Of Kiffin I
have had occasion to speak. It only remains to add, that he continued
his ministry to old age, and that his latter days were adorned by an
act of beneficence. After the French Protestants had been driven from
their own land, he took under his protection and entirely supported a
family of rank, nor would he when these refugees recovered a portion of
their fortune, accept any return for past services. He died in 1701,
leaving a reputation for piety, consistency, and theological knowledge,
and also for moderation, together with firmness in the maintenance of
Calvinistic and strict communion views.

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Of Benjamin Keach I have also spoken. Although a good man, and of an
ingenious turn, he must have been rather pugnacious, for his works are
of a controversial stamp, relating to the seventh-day Sabbath and the
question of psalmody. He was one of those who have not the smallest
doubt of being themselves right, and of everybody else being wrong.
Adult Baptism he described as _Gold Refined_; the Athenian Society
he attacked for what it had said respecting Pædobaptism; he rectified
a Rector by proving Infant Baptism unlawful in his _Axe Laid to the
Root_, or one blow more aimed at that practice, which one blow would
beat down for ever the arguments of Mr. Flavel, Mr. Rothwell, and Mr.
Exell; finally, by _A Counter Antidote_, he strove to resist the
assaults upon what his antagonists would call _Anabaptism_. His
congregation is spoken of as the first to sing in public worship. So
cautious were they, because of the prejudices of their brethren, that
they went on step by step, for a long time restricting the practice
to the close of the Lord’s Supper, then venturing upon a hymn amidst
the exultation of a thanksgiving-day, and at last, after a struggle of
fourteen years, becoming so bold and yet so temperate, as to sing every
Sunday, after objectors to the practice had been allowed to retire.[538]

The distinction between Particular and General Baptists assumed sharper
form and greater prominence after the Revolution. The General Baptists
of the county of Somerset, in the year 1691, published an original
manifesto of doctrine. These articles, upon the Will of Man, the
Work of the Spirit, God’s Decrees, and the Saints’ Perseverance, are
decidedly anti-Calvinistic, and the final chapter bears a millenarian
impress; but, to avoid being charged with the excesses of the old fifth
monarchists, the brethren declared that the “kingdom ought not to be
set up by the material sword,” that being “contrary to the very nature
of Christianity.”[539]

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Matthew Caffin was a celebrated man amongst the General Baptists. Five
times he suffered imprisonment for his Nonconformity, besides which he
was repeatedly fined under the Conventicle Act. Opposed to the doctrine
of Calvinism, like the rest of his brethren, he also distinguished
himself by opposition to the Athanasian Creed. He objected to its
definition and to its damnatory clauses, although he did not adopt
either Socinian or Arian tenets.

Caffin appears to have been one of those one-sided people who, with
a repugnance to all assumption on the part of the Church, and with a
dislike of what are called dogmas, do not sufficiently consider the
importance of principles as resting-places for faith and as sources
of religious inspirations. In his horror of ultra-Calvinism, he
forgot that dangers may arise from other points of the horizon. Not
foreseeing the consequences of his course, not intending to open the
door of heresy, he, through lack of sufficient positiveness, became
the forerunner of those lax opinions which afterwards injured the
churches of the General Baptist order. Orthodoxy is not identical with
scholastic definitions; neither is it a foe or a stranger to charity.
Caffin’s forgetfulness of this involved him in disputes with his own
and with other denominations, and brought upon him suspicions which he
did not deserve. Of his pugnacity, evidence exists in the account of
his debates; and as a specimen of his wit, the following incident is
related: A Quaker called on Caffin, saying he had a message from the
Lord. “Come in then and do thy message,” replied Caffin. The Quaker
rejoined: “I am come to reprove thee for paying tithes to the priests,
and to forbid thy doing so any more.” “I think I can fully convince
thee,” said the Baptist, “that thou art deceived, and that the Lord
hath not sent thee; for I assure thee I never did pay any tithes,
nor am ever like to be charged with any.” The land he rented was
tithe-free.[540]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Turning to the Quakers, we find them placidly thankful for toleration,
yet vexed by demands for tithes and church-rates--sufferings, of which
records were drawn up and sometimes printed and circulated. When they
approached the Throne, both the King and the Lord-Keeper treated them
with respect, and gave them assurances of friendship. Parliament
listened to their expostulations, but of course the laws of the country
rendered it impossible that they should be exempted from the payments
in question any more than other people. Justified by the substitution
of affirmations for oaths, the members of their community did not
shrink from an anti-Socinian test; but the continued requirement of
oaths in various relations exposed them to much hardship, for as they
would not swear in legal exigencies, they were often defrauded of their
rights. The policy of the Revolution opposed this condition of things,
and in 1695 the complaints of Quakers and the efforts of their friends
secured a beneficial change: affirmations were substituted for oaths in
civil as well as ecclesiastical concerns.

Fox and Barclay remained leaders, visiting societies and promoting the
spread of their principles. Identifying their own cause with the cause
of humanity, regarding themselves as charged with a pacific mission to
the world, they continued to serve their generation in the spirit of
the angels’ song: “On earth peace, goodwill toward men.”

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

Barclay died in 1690, signifying, as it is quaintly said, with a good
understanding, that it was well with him as to his soul. “God,” he
remarked to a friend, “is good still, and though I am under a great
weight of weakness and sickness, yet my peace flows: and this I know,
whatever exercises maybe permitted to come upon me, they shall tend to
God’s glory and my salvation; and in that I rest.”

Fox died in 1691, saying to those around him: “All is well; the Seed
of God reigns over all, and over death itself. And though I am weak in
body, yet the power of God is over all, and the Seed reigns over all
disorderly spirits.” By “the Seed,” we are informed that he meant the
Divine Saviour. A few hours before his departure he exclaimed: “Do not
heed: the power of the Lord is above all sickness and death; the Seed
reigns, blessed be the Lord.”

William Penn, although adhering to Quaker principles, was too much
occupied with other things to allow of his being in later life very
prominent as an apostle of the Quaker faith.

Friends continued to maintain their self-government. The poor were
taken care of; widows and orphans were provided for; local meetings
were held by each congregation for the supervision of affairs every
week, fortnight, or month, according to numbers; quarterly meetings
were held in every county; and a general yearly meeting was held
in London in Whitsun-week, “not,” it is cautiously said, “for any
superstitious observation the Quakers have for that more than any
other time, but because that season of the year best suits the general
accommodation.”[541] In the genial spring, therefore, the Friends met
in the days of King William; and with the men attired in their drab
garments, might be seen matrons and maidens clothed in the finest
raiment, like troops “of the shining ones.” Nonconformity to the
world in point of dress was an important article of practice, and
sorely were the spirits of the Elders vexed by the tendency of younger
members. The question was discussed: Friends were warned against the
fashions of the world, and were forbidden not only to wear but to sell
any garments of vanity. Earnest exhortations were delivered touching
religious education and simplicity of speech.[542]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Mysticism, at the close of the seventeenth century, found a home
almost exclusively amongst Quakers. It had won wide sympathies at one
time; Davenant had predicted that in a hundred years religions would
come to a settlement in a kind of “_ingeniose_ Quakerism;” and
Hales, as he studied writings of the mystical Familists’ school, used
to say that some time or other these fine notions would take in the
world. But, instead of a widening flow, these “fine notions” came to
be contracted within a single channel. Instead of an “_ingeniose_
Quakerism” leavening the world, the world left this leaven to ferment
all but entirely amongst the people called Friends. Norris was the
principal person outside that circle who, in the reign of William III.,
cultivated a mystical spirit; and he did so in a limited degree. But
few of the many pieces written by him indicate any marked quietest
sentiments. In a paper entitled _An Idea of Happiness_, he speaks
mystically of the fruition of God and of seraphic love, but in the
same paper he speaks of the mystical doctrine of infused virtue as
being a paradox in Divinity, like the doctrine of occult qualities
in philosophy.[543] Norris’s mysticism did not go beyond that of a
Platonistic divine. The Quakers had almost all the English mysticism of
the age to themselves.

[Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.]

[Sidenote: 1688–1702.]

Amongst them, too, there was more of religious enthusiasm than amongst
any other body of Nonconformists as a whole. Then occurred what is
a curious but not uncommon fact, that as a rationalistic spirit was
creeping over theology, sobering the spirit of most denominations, the
fires of excitement were kept burning in two extreme divisions of the
Christian camp. The Quakers and the Nonjurors were the two most fervent
religious bodies at the end of the seventeenth century.

Here for the present I lay down my pen. I have endeavoured in preceding
volumes to tell the story of ecclesiastical change, theological
development, and religious life, amidst political scenes and incidents,
of which that story was partly the cause and partly the effect.
It is impossible to understand such an inner circle of thought,
experience, and conduct, without an examination of national events
occurring outside, nor can the state of one religious section be fully
understood apart from its bearing on other communities: therefore
I have interwoven the threads of their respective destinies, and
of their mutual relations and antagonisms. The series of struggles
portrayed present something of an Epic interest; for during the Civil
Wars there was strife for _Ascendency_, which ended in the
triumph of Puritanism, and in the treatment of Anglicans, somewhat
after a wretched fashion which had been set in former days. After the
Restoration, the resentment of Anglicans came once more into play,
and severe persecutions followed; yet efforts at _Comprehension_
were made by healing spirits on both sides without effect. At the
Revolution, as I have largely shown, experiments with a view to reunion
were attempted with no better result, but a great and most beneficial
change was accomplished by the legalising of freedom in religious
thought and ecclesiastical action. The shield of the constitution
was extended over previously persecuted Englishmen, and the age of
_Toleration_, as it is termed, then began. Local interferences
with the liberty of worship continued to occur, but they were contrary
to law. The steps by which this consummation was accomplished I have
somewhat minutely traced, and the earlier causes of the Revolution
I have endeavoured to explore. The reign of William III. was the
beginning of a new era in English History, and its ecclesiastical
consequences can be ascertained only through a careful study of the
great religious movements of the eighteenth century.

Whether I shall ever be able to pursue my investigations into that
interesting subject depends on circumstances, which I must leave in the
hands of Him whom in all the labours of my life I desire to serve.

                               APPENDIX.

                              I.--P. 107.

The following is a copy of the Bill after certain omissions and
additions had been made, and the subjoined paper will give an idea of
the extent of the latter:--

    _A Bill for uniting their Majesties’ Protestant Subjects. First
       reading, March 11, 1688; second reading, March 14, 1688._

Whereas the peace of the State is highly concerned in the peace of
the Church, which therefore at all times, but especially in this
conjuncture, is most necessary to be preserved: In order therefore
to remove occasions of differences and dissatisfaccons which may
arise amongst Protestants, Be it Enacted by the King and Queen’s most
excellent Ma^{ties,} By and with the advice and consent of the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, and of the Commons in this present Parliam^t
assembled, and by the authority of the same, That in order to y^e being
a Minister of this Church, or the taking, holding, and enjoying any