Part 14 (1/2)
Biographers of controversialists seldom do justice to the other side
Possibly they do not read it, and Parker has been severely handled by , perhaps, as good or as bad a representative of the seamy side of State Churchism as there is to be found He was the son of a Puritan father, and whilst at Wadharee in the early part of 1659, andto Trinity came under the influence of Dr Bathurst, then Senior Fellow, to whom, so he says in one of his dedications, ”I owe my first rescue from the chains and fetters of an unhappy education”[152:2] Anything Parker did he did completely, and we next hear of hi the table in a roar byupon the puritans” ”He followed the town-life, haunted the best cohness, he read and saw the plays withthan most of the auditory” In 1667 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Sheldon, a very mundane person indeed, made Parker his chaplain, and three years later Archdeacon of Canterbury He reached many preferments, so that, says Marvell, ”his head swell'd like any bladder ind and vapour” He had an active pen and a considerable range of subject In 1670 he produced ”A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie wherein the Authority of the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of Subjects in Matters of External Religion is asserted; The Mischiefs and Inconveniences of Toleration are represented and all Pretenses pleaded in behalf of _Liberty of Conscience_ are fully answered” Soels in a pamphlet entitled _Insolence and Impudence Triumphant_, and the famous Dr Owen also protested in _Truth and Innocence Vindicated_ Parker replied to Owen in _A Defence and Continuation of Ecclesiastical Politie_, and in the following year, 1672, reprinted a treatise of Bishop Brarounds there are of Fears and Jealousies of Popery”
This was the state of the controversy when Marvell entered upon it with his _Rehearsal Transprosed_, a fantastic title he borrowed for no very good reasons froood farce too, the Duke of Buckingham's _Rehearsal_, which was performed for the first time at the Theatre Royal on the 7th of November 1671, and printed early in 1672 Most of us have read Sheridan's _Critic_ before we read Buckingham's _Rehearsal_, which is not the way to do justice to the earlier piece It is a matter of literary tradition that the duke had much help in the composition of a farce it took ten years to make
Butler, Sprat, and Clifford, the Master of Charterhouse, are said to be co-authors However this reat success, and both Marvell and Parker, I have no doubt, greatly enjoyed it, but I cannot think the former ise to stuff his plea for Liberty of Conscience so full as he did with the details of a farce His doing so should, at all events, acquit hi a sour Puritan In the _Rehearsal_ Bayes (Dryden), who is turned by Sheridan in his adaptation of the piece into Mr Puff, is made to produce out of his pocket his book of _Drama Com _Sheridan's_ Dangle and Sneer):
”_Johnson_ _Drama Commonplaces_! pray what's that?
_Bayes_ Why, Sir, some certain helps, that we men of Art have found it convenient to make use of
_Johnson_ How, Sir, help for Wit?
_Bayes_ I, Sir, that's my position And I do here averr, that no man yet the Sun e'er shone upon, has parts sufficient to furnish out a Stage, except it be with the help of these my rules
_Johnson_ What are those Rules, I pray?
_Bayes_ Why, Sir, ula Duplex_, changing Verse into Prose, or Prose into Verse, _alternative_ as you please
_Smith_ How's that, Sir, by a Rule, I pray?
_Bayes_ Why, thus, Sir; nothing more easy when understood: I take a Book in my hand, either at home, or elsewhere, for that's all one, if there be any Wit in 't, as there is no Book but has some, I Transverse it; that is, if it be Prose, put it into Verse (but that takes up some time), if it be Verse, put it into Prose
_Johnson_ Methinks, Mr _Bayes_, that putting Verse into Prose should be called Transprosing
_Bayes_ By ood Notion, and hereafter it shall be so”
Marvell must be taken to have meant by his title that he saw some resemblance between Parker and Bayes, and, indeed, he says he does, and gives that as one of his excuses for calling Parker Bayes all through:--
”But before I coerous depths of his Discourse which I am now upon the brink of, I would with his leave, make a motion; that instead of Author I may henceforth indifferently well call him Mr Bayes as oft as I shall see occasion And that first because he has no nah he hiives us the first letters of other men's names before he be asked theancy of style and can endure no ies but his own; and therefore I would not distaste him with too frequent repetition of one word But chiefly because Mr Bayes and he do very s, in their expressions, in their huh of their own profession”
But justicehim over to the Tormentor What were his positions? He was a coarse-fibred, essentially irreligious fellow, the accredited author of the reply to the question ”What is the best body of Divinity?” ”That which would help a orous writer, knowing very well that he had to steer his shi+p through a narrow and dangerous channel, avoiding Hobbiseneration of State Churchmen has the same task The channel remains to-day just as it ever did, with Scylla and Charybdis presiding over their rocks as of old Hobbes's _Leviathan_ appeared in 1651, and in 1670 both his philosophy and his statecraft were fashi+onable doctrine All really pious people called Hobbes an Atheist Technically he was nothing of the sort, but it matters little what he was technically, since no plain man who can read can doubt that Hobbes's enthronement of the State was the dethrone then that in every Christian con is the supree the whole flock of his subjects is commuted, and consequently that it is by his authority that all other pastors are made and have power to teach and perform all other pastoral offices, it followeth also that it is froht of teaching, preaching and other functions pertaining to that office, and that they are but his es in Court of Justice and commanders of assizes are all but istrate of the whole coe of all causes and commander of the whole n And the reason hereof is not because they that teach, but because they that are to learn, are his subjects”--(_The Leviathan_, Hobbes's _English Works_ (Molesworth's Edition), vol iii p 539)
Hobbes shi+rks nothing, and asks hi, or a senate or other sovereign person forbid us to believe in Christ? The answer given is, ”such forbidding is of no effect; because belief and unbelief never follow men's commands” But suppose ”we be coue we believe not, must we obey such coht ”Yes, you must”; but he does say ”whatsoever a subject is con, and doth it not in order to his own mind, but in order to the laws of his country, that action is not his, but his Sovereign's--nor is it that he in this case denieth Christ before men, but his Governor and the law of his country” Hobbes then puts the case of a Mahomedan subject of a Christian Commonwealth who is required under pain of death to be present at the Divine Service of the Christian Church--what is he to do? If, says Hobbes, you say he ought to die, then you authorise all private ion, true or false, and if you say the Mahoht to consent to be yourself bound by it (See Hobbes's _English Works_, iii
493)
The Church of England, though anxious both to support the king and suppress the Dissenters, could not stomach Hobbes; but if it could not, hoas it to deal with Hobbes's question, ”if it is _ever_ right to disobey your lawful prince, who is to deterrapple with this difficulty He disowns Hobbes
”When men have once sed this principle, that Mankind is free froations antecedent to the laws of the Con Power is the only measure of Good and Evil, they proceed suitably to its consequences to believe that no Religion can obtain the force of law till it is established as such by supreme authority, that the Holy Scriptures were not laws to any istrate, and that if the Sovereign Poould declare the Alcoran to be Canonical Scripture, it would be as much the Word of God as the Four Gospels
(See _Hobbes_, vol iii p 366) So that all Religions are in reality nothing but Cheats and impostures to awe the coh Princes ion to serve their own turns upon the silly multitude, yet 'tis below their wisdom to be seriously concerned themselves for such fooleries” (Parker's _Ecc Politie_, p 137)
As against this fashi+onable Hobbis that is apparently and intrinsically evil is the Matter of a Human Lahether it be of a Civil or Ecclesiastical concern, here God is to be obeyed rather than Man”
He forcibly adds:--
”Those ould take off froations antecedent to those of Hu the power of Princes Supreme, Absolute and Uncontrollable, they utterly enervate all their authority, and set their subjects at perfect liberty from all their coations of Conscience and Religion, Men will no further be bound to submit to their laws than only as themselves shall see convenient, and if they are under no other restraint it will be their wisdom to rebel as oft as it is their interest” (_Ecc Politie_, pp 112-113)
But though when dealing with Hobbes, Parker thinks fit to assert the clairapple with those who, like the iress_, ”devilishly and perniciously abstained fros and Conventicles,” his tone alters, and it is hard to distinguish his position frouorous language, comes to this: