BOOK II. Some young men newly ordained, occasioned great scandal. Baxter assures us that the most disreputable tales concerning their intemperance and other vices were common in all directions.* Nor was there anything in the character of the new house of commons to discountenance such manners. A contemporary, writing in August, 1661, says: Roger Pepys told me how baselv things had been carried in parliament by the young men, 'who did labour to oppose all things that were proposed by serious men, that they are the most profane, swearing fellows he ever heard, which makes him think they 'will spoil all, and bring things into a war again.'†

Relation of this retro

great event

of 1662.

My readers will not be in a condition to determine spect to the the value that should be attached to the settlement of 1662, without an effort to realize the social degradation of their country at that juncture. The design of this chapter is to present the state of society as it then was. The business of that hour was to give the freest scope to the levity and malevolence of party passions. It was a time of license, at once savage and frivolous, alien alike from wise thought and virtuous feeling. Men hoped to succeed with the party then in power, not so much by professing any regard to principle, as by sneering at those who did; and not by attending to the graver proprieties of life, so much as by affecting to despise them. It is by organizations in church and state, charged to the full with elements of this order, that the nicer shades of theological truth, and the exact and the spiritual in religious worship, are to be considered and settled for this English nation, and for this English nation during at least two centuries to come! If the maxim be just, that the tree must be *Life, 288, 289. + Pepys' Diary, i. 212.

made good if the fruit is to be good, what was the fruit CHAP. X. to have been expected from such a tree?

Good men there were, no doubt, in the party then triumphant. Southampton, Manchester, and Broghill were men of high character, and contributed to give some reputation to the government. Dr. Pearson, Dr. Gauden, and even Dr. Cosin could show that a comparative moderation was not wholly wanting to their order. But the passionate and intolerant men were the majority, and carried everything their own way. In the government, Clarendon was the evil genius. Among the prelates, Sheldon and Morley were the shameless and bad men, and the men who ruled the rest. It is manifest from Clarendon's own language, that nothing was further from his intention than the adoption of a generous policy towards the Presbyterians, or towards any party beside his own. It is an unhappy policy,' says his lordship, and unhappily applied, to imagine that 'that class of men can be recovered, and reconciled by 'partial concessions, or granting less than they demand.

And if all were granted they would have more to ask, 'somewhat as a security for the enjoyment of what is 'granted, and shall preserve their power, and shake the whole frame of the government. Their faction is their religion. Nor are those combinations ever entered into upon real or substantial motives of conscience, how erroneous soever, but consist of many glutinous mate'rials of will and humour, folly and knavery, and ambition and malice, which make men cling inseparably together, till they have satisfaction in all their pre'tences, or till they are absolutely broken and subdued, which may always be more easily done than the other.' Such was the charity, the tolerance, and the statesman

BOOK II. ship of lord Clarendon. Bishop Morley's conduct towards the Presbyterians, and especially towards Baxter, was treacherous, coarse, and unfeeling from beginning to end. No man had promised unmindful of his promises. shall allow another to speak.

more—no man was more Concerning Sheldon we This was the incendiary!

'this Sheldon, the most virulent enemy and poisoner of 'the English church. Alas! she still feels the taint in 'her very bones. I look on Gardiner as canonizable compared with Sheldon. Much as I love the church of England, I have no hesitation in asserting, as my 'belief, that nothing in the history of the Inquisition was equally wicked, as the conduct of Sheldon and the 'court after the Restoration.'* Truly, the retributions of a righteous Providence were on the track of the oppressor. It was not given to the bad men of that day to repent of their evil deeds; but the church they were so intent on perpetuating by such means, was to enter upon a large heritage of disaster as the fruit of their policy.

*Coleridge's Notes on English Divines, ii. 22-45.

CHAPTER XI.

August, 1662.

IN the 19th of May the royal assent was CHAP. XI. given to the Act of Uniformity. On the Publication 24th of the following August the clergy sed Liturgy. who could not become conformists were to

resign their cures to other men. The revised Prayer Book was not published before the 6th of that month. It was by the 17th, only eleven days later, that the men who hesitated to conform were required to attain to their decision, if they wished to take a public farewell of their people. During those eleven days some became possessed of copies of the revised liturgy; great numbers in the remote parishes of England had not seen it even on the 24th; and we scarcely need say, that few men in that interval could have adequately considered its various parts. Some of the ejected pastors complained of being called upon to give their assent ex animo to the contents of a volume which they had not read, and could not procure. Many gave their assent without seeing it—assenting in fact to they knew not what.

of the revi

terms of

were

known be

fore.

BOOK II. But it should be remembered, that the main facts or The main which the question of conformity and nonconformity Conformity rested, were broad, notorious, and well understood. The Act of Uniformity was published between two and three months before it was enforced. It was clear from that document, that episcopal ordination, a renunciation of the League and Covenant, the declaration of passive obedience, and subscription in the form of unfeigned assent and consent, were indispensable conditions to the man who would retain his living; and that the Prayer Book to be thus approved included nearly all the old objectionable matter, with much beside of the same description. These were the matters on which the ministers were to exercise their conscientious thoughtfulness during the three months which preceded the 17th of August.

Provision against hasty ejectment.

It should also be borne in mind, that it was provided in the act, that its penalty should not be enforced where conformity by the prescribed day had been prevented by lawful impediment, the decision on any plea of that nature being left to the ordinary of the place.' It is probable that any clergyman pleading for delay on the ground that he had not seen the book at all, or had not been a reasonable time in possession of it, would have been heard; but from the known temper of the government, it is no less probable that many a man assumed that no such lenity would be shown if solicited, and took his place with the ejected accordingly, feeling as he so did that hard measure had been dealt out to him. We now know, that instances of the latter kind were not only probable, but that there were many of them.*

*Mercurius Publicus, July, August, 1662. Kennet's Register, 837Documents relating to the Settlement of the Church of England, 459, 460.