Part 18 (1/2)
Their houses were searched. They were fined, imprisoned, and banished.
Among the ministers who were deprived of their livings, were Gilpin, Bates, Howe, Owen, Baxter, Calamy, Poole, Charnock, and Flavel, who still, after a lapse of one hundred and fifty years, enjoy a wide-spread reputation as standard writers on theological subjects.
These great lights of the seventeenth century were doomed to privation and poverty, with thousands of their brethren, most of whom had been educated at the Universities, and were among the best men in the kingdom. All the Stuart kings hated the Dissenters, but none hated them more than Charles II. and James II. Under their sanction, complying parliaments pa.s.sed repeated acts of injustice and cruelty.
The laws which were enacted during Queen Elizabeth's reign were reenacted and enforced. The Act of Uniformity, in one day, ejected two thousand ministers from their parishes, because they refused to conform to the standard of the Established Church. The Conventicle Act ordained that if any person, above sixteen years of age, should be present at any religious meeting, in any other manner than allowed by the Church of England, he should suffer three months' imprisonment, or pay a fine of five pounds, that six months imprisonment and ten pounds fine should be inflicted as a penalty for the second offence, and banishment for the third. Married women taken at ”conventicles,” were sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. It is calculated that twenty-five thousand Dissenters were immured in gloomy prisons, and that four thousand of the sect of the Quakers died during their imprisonment in consequence of the filth and malaria of the jails, added to cruel treatment.
Among the ill.u.s.trious men who suffered most unjustly, was Richard Baxter, the glory of the Presbyterian party. He was minister at Kidderminster, where he was content to labor in an humble sphere, having refused a bishopric. He had written one hundred and forty-five distinct treatises, in two hundred volumes, which were characterized for learning and talent. But neither his age, nor piety, nor commanding virtues could screen him from the cruelties of Jeffreys; and, in fifteen years, he was five times imprisoned. His sufferings drew tears from Sir Matthew Hale, with whose friends.h.i.+p he had been honored. ”But he who had enjoyed the confidence of the best of judges, was cruelly insulted by the worst.” When he wished to plead his cause, the drunken chief justice replied, ”O Richard, Richard, thou art an old fellow and an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a cart, every one of which is as full of sedition as an egg is full of meat. I know that thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of the brotherhood in corners, and a doctor of divinity at your elbow; but, by the grace of G.o.d, I will crush you all.”
Entirely a different man was John Bunyan, not so influential or learned, but equally worthy. He belonged to the sect of the Baptists, and stands at the head of all unlettered men of genius--the most successful writer of allegory that any age has seen. The Pilgrim's Progress is the most popular religious work ever published, full of genius and beauty, and a complete exhibition of the Calvinistic theology, and the experiences of the Christian life. This book shows the triumph of genius over learning, and the people's appreciation of exalted merit. Its author, an illiterate tinker, a travelling preacher, who spent the best part of his life between the houses of the poor and the county jails, the object of reproach and ignominy, now, however, takes a proud place, in the world's estimation, with the master minds of all nations--with Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. He has arisen above the prejudices of the great and fas.h.i.+onable; and the learned and aristocratic Southey has sought to be the biographer of his sorrows and the expounder of his visions. The proud bishops who disdained him, the haughty judges who condemned him, are now chiefly known as his persecutors, while he continues to be more honored and extolled with every succeeding generation.
[Sidenote: George Fox.]
[Sidenote: Persecution of the Quakers.]
Another ill.u.s.trious victim of religious persecution in that age, ill.u.s.trious in our eyes, but ign.o.ble in the eyes of his contemporaries, was George Fox, the founder of the sect of the Quakers. He, like Bunyan, was of humble birth and imperfect education.
Like him, he derived his knowledge from communion with his own soul--from inward experiences--from religious contemplations. He was a man of vigorous intellect, and capable of intense intellectual action.
His first studies were the mysteries of theology--the great questions respecting duty and destiny; and these agitated his earnest mind almost to despair. In his anxiety, he sought consolation from the clergy, but they did not remove the burdens of his soul. Like an old Syriac monk, he sought the fields and unfrequented solitudes, where he gave loose to his imagination, and where celestial beings came to comfort him. He despised alike the reasonings of philosophers, the dogmas of divines, and the disputes of wrangling sectarians. He rose above all their prejudices, and sought light and truth from original sources. His peace was based on the conviction that G.o.d's Holy Spirit spoke directly to his soul; and this was above reason, above authority, a surer guide than any outward or written revelation. While this divine voice was above the Scriptures, it never conflicted with them, for they were revealed also to inspired men. Hence the Scriptures were not to be disdained, but were to be a guide, and literally to be obeyed. He would not swear, or fight, to save his life, nor to save a world, because he was directly commanded to abstain from swearing and fighting. He abhorred all principles of expediency, and would do right, or what the inspired voice within him a.s.sured him to be right, regardless of all consequences and all tribulations. He believed in the power of justice to protect itself, and reposed on the moral dignity of virtue. Love, to his mind, was an omnipotent weapon. He disdained force to accomplish important ends, and sought no control over government, except by intelligence. He believed that ideas and truth alone were at the basis of all great and permanent revolutions; these he was ever ready to declare; these were sure to produce, in the end, all needed reforms; these would be revealed to the earnest inquirer. He disliked all forms and pompous ceremonials in the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, for they seemed useless and idolatrous. G.o.d was a Spirit, and to be wors.h.i.+pped in spirit and in truth. And set singing was to be dispensed with, like set forms of prayer, and only edifying as prompted by the Spirit. He even objected to splendid places for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, and dispensed with steeples, and bells, and organs. The sacraments, too, were needless, being mere symbols, or shadows of better things, not obligatory, but to be put on the same footing as those Jewish ceremonies which the Savior abrogated. The mind of Fox discarded all aids to devotion, all t.i.tles of honor, all distinctions which arose in pride and egotism.
Hypocrisy he abhorred with his whole soul. It was the vice of the Pharisees, on whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too, would denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he fancied he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the church, or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity and sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar star, and this would be revealed by the ”inner light,” the peculiar genius of his whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty and holiness, yet was the cause of many delusions, and the parent of conceit and spiritual pride--the grand peculiarity of fanaticism in all ages and countries. What so fruitful a source of error as the notion of special divine illumination?
No wonder that Fox and his followers were persecuted, for they set at nought the wisdom of the world and the customs and laws of ages. They shocked all conservative minds; all rulers and dignitaries; all men attached to systems; all syllogistic reasoners and dialectical theologians; all fas.h.i.+onable and worldly people; all sects and parties attached to creeds and forms. Neither their inoffensive lives, nor their doctrine of non-resistance, nor their elevated spiritualism could screen them from the wrath of judges, bishops, and legislators.
They were imprisoned, fined, whipped, and lacerated without mercy. But they endured their afflictions with patience, and never lost their faith in truth, or their trust in G.o.d. Generally, they belonged to the humbler cla.s.ses, although some men ill.u.s.trious for birth and wealth joined their persecuted ranks, the most influential of whom was William Penn, who lived to be their intercessor and protector, and the glorious founder and legislator of one of the most flouris.h.i.+ng and virtuous colonies that, in those days of tribulation, settled in the wilderness of North America; a colony of men who were true to their enlightened principles, and who were saved from the murderous tomahawk of the Indian, when all other settlements were scenes of cruelty and vengeance.
James had now suppressed rebellion; he had filled the Dissenters with fear; and he met with no resistance from his parliaments. The judges and the bishops were ready to cooperate with his ministers in imposing a despotic yoke. All officers of the crown were dismissed the moment they dissented from his policy, or protested against his acts. Even judges were removed to make way for the most unscrupulous of tools.
[Sidenote: Despotic Power of James.]
His power, to all appearance, was consolidated; and he now began, without disguise, to advance the two great objects which were dearest to his heart--the restoration of the Catholic religion, and the imposition of a despotic yoke. He wished to be, like Louis XIV., a despotic and absolute prince; and, to secure this end, he was ready to violate the const.i.tution of his country. The three inglorious years of his reign were a succession of encroachments and usurpations.
Indeed, among his first acts was the collection of the revenue without an act of parliament. To cover this stretch of arbitrary power, the court procured addresses from public bodies, in which the king was thanked for the royal care he extended to the customs and excise.
In order to protect the Catholics, who had been persecuted under the last reign, he was obliged to show regard to other persecuted bodies.
So he issued a warrant, releasing from confinement all who were imprisoned for conscience' sake. Had he simply desired universal toleration, this act would merit our highest praises; but it was soon evident that he wished to elevate the Catholics at the expense of all the rest. James was a sincere but bigoted devotee to the Church of Rome, and all things were deemed lawful, if he could but advance the interests of a party, to which nearly the whole nation was bitterly opposed. Roman Catholics were proscribed by the laws. The Test Act excluded from civil and military office all who dissented from the Established Church. The laws were unjust, but still they were the laws which James had sworn to obey. Had he scrupulously observed them, and kept his faith, there can be no doubt that they would, in good time have been modified.
[Sidenote: Favor Extended to Catholics.]
But James would not wait for const.i.tutional measures. He resolved to elevate Catholics to the highest offices of both the state and the church, and this in defiance of the laws and of the wishes of a great majority of the nation. He accordingly gave commissions to Catholics to serve as officers in the army; he made Catholics his confidential advisers; he introduced Jesuits into London; he received a Papal nuncio, and he offered the livings of the Church of England to needy Catholic adventurers. He sought, by threats and artifices, to secure the repeal of the Test Act, by which Catholics were excluded from office. Halifax, the ablest of his ministers, remonstrated, and he was turned out of his employments. But he formed the soul and the centre of an opposition, which finally drove the king from his throne. He united with Devons.h.i.+re and other Whig n.o.bles, and their influence was sufficient to defeat many cherished objects of the king. When opposition appeared, however, in parliament, it was prorogued or dissolved, and the old courses of the Stuart kings were resorted to.
[Sidenote: High Commission Court.]
Among his various acts of infringement, which gave great scandal, even in those degenerate times, was the abuse of the dispensing power--a prerogative he had inherited, but which had never been strictly defined. By means of this, he intended to admit Catholics to all offices in the realm. He began by granting to the whole Roman Catholic body a dispensation from all the statutes which imposed penalties and tests. A general indulgence was proclaimed, and the courts of law were compelled to acknowledge that the right of dispensing had not been infringed. Four of the judges refused to accede to what was plainly illegal. They were dismissed; for, at that time, even judges held office during the pleasure of the king, and not, as in these times, for life. They had not the independence which has ever been so requisite for the bench. Nor would all his counsellors and ministers accede to his design, and those who were refractory were turned out.
As soon as a servile bench of judges recognized this outrage on the const.i.tution, four Catholic n.o.blemen were admitted as privy counsellors, and some clergymen, converted to Romanism, were permitted to hold their livings. James even bestowed the deanery of Christ Church, one of the highest dignities in the University of Oxford, on a notorious Catholic, and threatened to do at Cambridge what had been done at Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was bestowed upon Parker, who was more Catholic than Protestant, and that of Chester was given to a sycophant of no character. James made no secret of his intentions to restore the Catholic religion, and systematically labored to destroy the Established Church. In order to effect this, he created a tribunal, which not materially differed from the celebrated High Commission Court of Elizabeth, and to break up which was one great object of the revolutionists who brought Charles I. to the block--the most odious court ever established by royal despotism in England. The members of this High Commission Court, which James inst.i.tuted to try all ecclesiastical cases, were, with one or two exceptions, notoriously the most venal and tyrannical of all his agents--Jeffreys, the Chancellor; Crewe, Bishop of Durham; Sprat, Bishop of Rochester; the Earl of Rochester, Lord Treasurer; Sunderland, the Lord President; and Herbert, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This court summoned Compton, the Bishop of London, to its tribunal, because he had not suspended Dr. Sharp, one of the clergy of London, when requested to do so by the king--a man who had committed no crime, but simply discharged his duty with fidelity. The bishop was suspended from his spiritual functions, and the charge of his diocese was committed to two of his judges. But this court, not content with depriving numerous clergymen of their spiritual functions, because they would not betray their own church, went so far as to sit in judgment on the two greatest corporations in the land,--the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge,--inst.i.tutions which had ever befriended the Stuart kings in their crimes and misfortunes. James was infatuated enough to quarrel with these great bodies, because they would not approve of his measures to overturn the church with which they were connected, and which it was their duty and interest to uphold. The king had commanded Cambridge to bestow the degree of master of arts on a Benedictine monk, which was against the laws of the University and of parliament.
The University refused to act against the law, and, in consequence, the vice-chancellor and the senate, which consisted of doctors and masters, were summoned to the Court of High Commission. The vice-chancellor, Pech.e.l.l, was deprived of his office and emoluments, which were of the nature of freehold property. But this was not the worst act of the infatuated monarch. He insisted on imposing a Roman Catholic in the presidential chair of Magdalen College, one of the richest and most venerable of the University of Oxford, against even the friendly remonstrances of his best friends, even of his Catholic counsellors, and not only against the advice of his friends, but against all the laws of the land and of the rights of the University; for the proposed president, Farmer, was a Catholic, and was not a fellow of the college, and therefore especially disqualified. He was also a man of depraved morals. The fellows refused to elect Farmer, and chose John Hough instead. They were accordingly cited to the infamous court of which Jeffreys was the presiding and controlling genius. Their election was set aside, but Farmer was not confirmed, being too vile even for Jeffreys to sustain.
[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Universities.]
The king was exceedingly enraged at the opposition he received from the University. He resolved to visit it. On his arrival, he summoned the fellows of Magdalen College, and commanded them to obey him in the matter of a president. They still held out in opposition, and the king, mortified and enraged, quitted Oxford to resort to bolder measures. A special commission was inst.i.tuted. Hough was forcibly ejected, and the Bishop of Oxford installed, against the voice of all the fellows but two. But the blinded king was not yet content. The fellows were expelled from the University by a royal edict, and the high commissioner p.r.o.nounced the ejected fellows incapable of ever holding any church preferment.
But these severities were blunders, and produced a different effect from what was antic.i.p.ated. The nation was indignant; the Universities lost all reverence; the clergy, in a body, were alienated; and the whole aristocracy were filled with defiance.
[Sidenote: Magdalen College.]
But the king, nevertheless, for a time, prevailed against all opposition; and, now that the fellows of Magdalen College were expelled, he turned it into a Popish seminary, admitted in one day twelve Roman Catholics as fellows, and appointed a Roman Catholic bishop to preside over them. This last insult was felt to the extremities of the kingdom; and bitter resentment took the place of former loyalty. James was now regarded, by his old friends even, as a tyrant, and as a man destined to destruction. And, indeed, he seemed like one completely infatuated, bent on the ruin of that church which even James I. and the other Stuart kings regarded as the surest and firmest pillar of the throne.