Chapter 4

As for those Nonjurors and Jacobites who joined as laymen in the public services, undeterred by prayers which they objected to, it is just that question of dissent within, instead of without the Church, which has gained increased attention in our own days. When Robert Nelson was in doubt upon the subject, and asked Tillotson for his advice, the Archbishop made reply, 'As to the case you put, I wonder men should be divided in opinion about it. I think it plain, that no man can join in prayers in which there is any petition which he is verily persuaded is sinful. I cannot endure a trick anywhere, much less in religion.[109]This honest and outspoken answer was however extremely superficial, and, coming from a man of so much eminence, must have had an unfortunate effect in extending the nonjuring schism. Although his opinion was perfectly sound under the preciseterms in which it is stated, the whole force of it rests on the word 'sinful.' If any word is used which falls the least short of this, Tillotson's remark becomes altogether questionable. Of course no one can be justified in countenancing what 'he is verily persuaded is sinful.' From this point of view, there were some Nonjurors to whom separation from the National Church was a moral necessity. Those among them, for instance, who drew up, or cordially approved, the 'Form for admitting penitents,' in which the sorrow-stricken wanderer in ways of conformity returns humblest thanks for his return from wrong to right, from error to truth, from schism to unity, from rebellion to loyalty—in a word, 'from the broad into the narrow way which leadeth to eternal life,'[110]—how could they be justified in anything short of separation? They could no more continue to attend their parish church, than one who had been a Roman Catholic could attend the mass if he had become persuaded it was rank idolatry, or a former Protestant his old place of worship when convinced that it was a den of mortal heresy. But between Nonjurors of the stern uncompromising type, and those semi-Jacobites who gave the allegiance of reason to one master, and that of sentiment to another, there were all grades of opinion; and to all except the most extreme among them the propriety of attending the public prayers was completely an open question. Tillotson ought to have known his old friend Nelson better, than to conceive it possible that a man of such deep religious feeling, and such sensitive honour, could be doubtful what to do, unless it might fairly be considered doubtful. His foolish commonplace appears indeed to have been sufficient to turn the scale. Nelson, almost immediately after receiving this opinion, decided on abandoning the national communion, though he took a different and a wiser view at a later period.

The circumstances of the time threw into exaggerated prominence the particular views entertained by Nelson's Juror and Nonjuror friends on the disputed questions connected with transferred allegiance. But, great as were the sacrifices which many of them incurred on account of these opinions,—great as was the tenacity with which they clung to them, and the vehemence with which they asserted them against all impugners—great, above all, as was the religious and spiritual importance with which their zeal for the cause invested these semi-political doctrines, yet it is not on such grounds that their interest as a Church party chiefly rests. No weight of circumstances could confer a more than secondary value on tenets which have no permanent bearing onthe Christian life, and engage attention only under external and temporary conditions. The early Nonjurors, and their doctrinal sympathisers within the National Church, were a body of men from whom many in modern times have taken pleasure in deriving their ecclesiastical pedigree, not as upholders of nearly obsolete opinions about divine right and passive obedience, but as the main link between the High Churchmen of a previous age and their successors at a much later period. To the revivers in this century of the Anglo-Catholic theology, it seemed as though the direct succession of sound English divines ended with Bull and Beveridge, was partially continued, as by a side line, in some of the Nonjurors, and then dwindled and almost died out, until after the lapse of a hundred years its vitality was again renewed.

On points of doctrine and discipline the early Nonjurors differed in nothing from the High Churchmen whose communion they had deserted. Some of them called themselves, it is true, 'the old Church of England,' 'the Catholic and faithful remnant' which alone adhered to 'the orthodox and rightful bishops,' and bitter charges, mounting up to that of apostacy, were directed against the 'compliant' majority. But, wide as was the gulf, and heinous as was the sin by which, according to such Nonjurors, the Established Church had separated itself from primitive faith, the asserted defection consisted solely in this, that it had committed the sin of rebellion in forsaking its divinely appointed King, and the sin of schism in rejecting the authority of its canonical bishops. No one contended that there were further points of difference between the two communions. Dr. Bowes asked Blackburn, one of their bishops, whether 'he was so happy as to belong to his diocese?' 'Dear friend,' was the answer, 'we leave the sees open that the gentlemen who now unjustly possess them, upon the restoration, may, if they please, return to their duty and be continued. We content ourselves with full episcopal power as suffragans.' The introduction, however, in 1716, of the distinctive 'usages' in the communion service contributed greatly to the farther estrangement of a large section of the Nonjurors; and those who adopted the new Prayer-book drawn up in 1734 by Bishop Deacon, were alienated still more. The only communion with which they claimed near relationship was one which in their opinion had long ceased to exist. 'I am not of your communion,' said Bishop Welton on his death-bed, in 1726, to the English Chaplain at Lisbon, whose services he declined. 'I belong to the Church of England as it was reformed by Archbishop Cranmer.'[111]Thus too, when Bishop Deacon's son, a youthof little more than twenty, suffered execution for his share in the Jacobite rising of 1745, his last words upon the scaffold were that he died 'a member not of the Church of Rome, nor yet of that of England, but of a pure Episcopal Church, which has reformed all the errors, corruptions, and defects that have been introduced into the modern Churches of Christendom.'[112]Yet the divergence of these Nonjurors from the National Church was, after all, far more apparent than real. It was only a very small minority, beginning with Deacon and Campbell, who outstepped in any of their ideas the tone of feeling which had long been familiar to many of the High Church party. Ever since the reign of Edward VI. the Church of England had included among its clerical and lay members some who had not ceased to regret the changes which had been made in the second Liturgy issued in his reign, and who hoped for a restoration of the rubrics and passages which had been then expunged. Some of the practices and expressions which, after the first ten or twenty years of the eighteenth century, were looked upon as all but confined to a party of Nonjurors, had been held almost as fully before yet the schism was thought of.

This was certainly the case in regard of those 'usages' which related to the sacrificial character of the Eucharist and to prayers for the dead. Dr. Hickes complained in one of his letters that the doctrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice had disappeared from the writings even of divines who had treated on the subject.[113]How far this was correct became, four years later, a disputed question. Bishop Trimnell declared it was a doctrine that had never been taught in the English Church since the Reformation.[114]John Johnson, on the other hand, vicar of Cranbrook, who had originated the controversy by a book in which he ardently supported the opinion in question, affirmed that no Christian bishop before Trimnell ever denied it.[115]Evidently it was a point which had not come very prominently forward for distinct assertion or contradiction, and one in which there was great room for ambiguity. To some it seemed a palpably new doctrine, closely trenching on a most dangerous portion of the Romish system, and likely to lead to gross superstition. To others it seemed a harmless and very edifying part of belief, wholly void of any Romish tendencies, and plainly implied, if not definitely expressed, in the English Liturgy. Most of the excellent and pious High Churchmen who have been spoken of in this paper treasured it as avalued article of their faith. Kettlewell used to dilate on the great sacrificial feast of charity.[116]Bull used constantly to speak of the Eucharist as no less a sacrifice commemorative of Christ's oblation of Himself than the Jewish sacrifices had been typical of it.[117]Dodwell, ever fruitful in learned instances, not only brought forward arguments from Scripture and the Fathers, but adduced illustrations from the bloodless sacrifices of Essenes and Pythagoreans.[118]Robert Nelson, after the example of Jeremy Taylor in his 'Holy Living and Dying,' introduced the subject in a more popular and devotional form in his book upon the Christian Sacrifice.[119]Archbishop Sharp regretted that a doctrine which he considered so instructive had not been more definitely contained in the English Liturgy, and preferred the Communion office of King Edward VI.'s Service Book.[120]Beveridge argued that if the Jews were to be punctual and constant in attending their sacrifices, how much more should Christians honour by frequent observance the great commemorative offering which had been instituted in their place, and contained within itself the benefits of them all.[121]

Some observations of a somewhat similar kind may be made in regard of prayers for the departed, another subject which the English Church has wisely left to private opinion. The nonjuring 'usages,' on the other hand, restored to the Liturgy the clauses which the better judgment of their ancestors had omitted. Some went farther, and insisted that 'prayer for their deceased brethren was not only lawful and useful, but their bounden duty.'[122]All of them, however, without exception, contested with perfect sincerity that their doctrine on these points was not that of Rome, and that they entirely repudiated, as baseless and unscriptural, the superstructure which that Church has raised upon it. The nonjuring separation drew away from the National Church many who as a matter of private opinion had held the tenet without rebuke; and although, in the middle of the eighteenth century, John Wesley stoutly defended it,[123]and Dr. Johnson always argued for its propriety and personally maintained thepractice,[124]an idea gained ground that it was wholly unauthorised by the English Church and contrary to its spirit. But at the opening of the century it appears to have been a tenet not unfrequently maintained, especially among High Churchmen, whether Jurors or Nonjurors. Dr. I. Barrow, says Hearne, 'was mighty for it.'[125]In the form of prayer for Jan. 30th, 1661, there was a perfectly undisguised prayer of this kind, drawn up apparently by Archbishop Juxon.[126]It had however only the authority of the Crown, and was expunged in the authorised form of prayer for 1662. Archbishop Wake said he did not condemn the practice,[127]and Bishop Smalridge, already spoken of in the list of Robert Nelson's friends, is said to have been in favour of it.[128]So was Robert Nelson himself. After describing the death of his old and honoured friend Bishop Bull, he adds in reference to him and to his wife who had died previously: 'The Lord grant unto them that they may find mercy of the Lord in that day.'[129]Bishop Ken may be quoted to the same effect. Writing to Dr. Nicholas in October 1677, of the death of their friend Mr. Coles, 'cujus anima,' he continues, 'requiescat in pace.'[130]Dr. Ernest Grabe and Dean Hickes, two more of R. Nelson's intimate associates, were also accustomed to pray for those in either state.[131]

The Nonjurors and High Churchmen in general, no less than the rest of their countrymen, were stout Protestants, and gloried in the name. High Churchmen had stood in the van of that great contest with Rome which had so occupied the thoughts of theological writers and the whole English people during the later years of the preceding century, and the remembrance of which was still fresh. The acrimony of argument had been somewhat abated by the very general respect entertained in England for the great Gallican divines, Pascal, Fenelon, and Bossuet. Among the Nonjurors it was further softened by political and social considerations. English Roman Catholics were almost all Jacobites, and were therefore in close sympathy with them on a matter of very absorbing interest. But although these influences tended to remove prejudices, the gap that separates Anglican and Roman divinity remained wide as ever. When the Nonjurors, or a large section of them, cut themselves away from the National Church,they did not in their isolation look towards Rome. Even the most advanced among their leaders proved, by the energy with which they continued the Protestant controversy, how groundless was the charge sometimes brought against them, that they had adopted Popish doctrines.

It cannot be wondered at, that members of the nonjuring communion felt very keenly the isolated, and, so to say, the sectarian condition in which they were placed. There were few words dearer to them than that word 'Catholic,' which breathes of loving brotherhood in one great Christian body. And yet outside their own scanty fold they were repelled on every side. They had been ardently attached to the English Church, and had thought that whatever its imperfections might be in practice, its theory, at all events, approached to perfection. But now, to the minds of many of them, the ideal had passed away, or had become a shadow. Since, then, the Church in which they had been brought up had failed them, where should they find intercommunion and sympathy? Not among English Nonconformists. Although they might have been willing at one time to concede much to Nonconformist scruples, yet even as fellow-members in one national Church they would have represented opposite poles of ecclesiastical sentiment; and without such a mutual bond of union, the interval which separated Dissenters and Nonjurors was wider than ever it had been. To come to any terms with Rome was quite out of the question. Such an alliance would indeed be, as Kettlewell expressed it, 'concordia discors.'[132]Could they then combine with Lutherans or other foreign Protestants? This at one time seemed possible. English High Churchmen, Juror and Nonjuror, were inclined to be lenient to deficiencies abroad, in order and ritual, of which they would have been wholly intolerant at home. Even Dodwell, a man of singularly straitened and rigid views, thought the prospect not unhopeful. One condition, however, they laid down as absolutely indispensable—the restoration of a legitimate episcopate. But the chief promoters of the scheme died nearly coincidently; political questions of immediate concern interfered with its farther consideration, and thus the project was dropped. The Scotch Episcopal Church remained as a communion with which English Nonjurors could fraternise. Ken and Beveridge and Kettlewell, and English High Churchmen in general, had long regarded that Church with compassion, sympathy, and interest. Dr. Hickes, the acknowledged leader of the thorough Nonjurors, had become, as chaplain to the Earl of Lauderdale, well acquainted with its bishops; a large proportionof its clergy were Jacobites and Nonjurors; and, like themselves, they were a depressed and often persecuted remnant. The intimacy, therefore, between the Scotch Episcopalians and many of the English Nonjurors became, as is well known, very close.

There was, however, one other great body of Christians towards whom, after a time, the nonjuring separatists turned with proposals of amity and intercommunion. This was the Eastern Church. Various causes had contributed to remove something of the obscurity which had once shrouded this vast communion from the knowledge of Englishmen. As far back as the earlier part of Charles I.'s reign, the attention of either party in the English Church had been fixed for a time on the overtures made by Cyrillus Lukaris,[133]patriarch, first of Alexandria, and then of Constantinople, to whom we owe the precious gift of the 'Alexandrian manuscript' of the Scriptures. Archbishop Abbot, a Calvinist, and one of the first representatives of the so-called Latitudinarian party, had been attracted by the inclinations evinced by this remarkable man towards the theology of Holland and Geneva. His successor and complete opposite, Archbishop Laud, had been no less fascinated by the idea of closer intercourse with a Church of such ancient splendour and such pretensions to primitive orthodoxy. At the close of the seventeenth century this interest had been renewed by the visit of Peter the Great to this island. With a mind greedy after all manner of information, he had not omitted to inquire closely into ecclesiastical matters. People heard of his conversations on these subjects with Tenison and Burnet,[134]and wondered how far a monarch who was a kind of Pope in his own empire would be leavened with Western and Protestant ideas. In learned and literary circles too the Eastern Church had been discussed. The Oxford and Cambridge Platonists, than whom England has never produced more thoughtful and scholarlike divines, had profoundly studied the Alexandrian fathers. Patristic reading, which no one could yet neglect who advanced the smallest pretensions to theological acquirements, might naturally lead men to think with longing of an ideal of united faith 'professed' (to use Bishop Ken's familiar words) 'by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West.'[135]Missionary feeling, which at the beginning of the eighteenth century was showing so many signs of nascent activity, had not failed to take notice of thegross ignorance into which many parts of Greek Christendom had fallen.[136]Henry Ludolph, a German by birth, and late secretary to Prince George of Denmark, on his return to London in 1694 from some lengthened travels in Russia, and after further wanderings a few years later in Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Holy Land, persuaded some English Churchmen to publish an impression of the New Testament in modern Greek, which was dispersed in those countries through the Greeks with whom Ludolph kept up a correspondence.[137]In 1701 University men at Cambridge, when Bentley was Vice-Chancellor, were much interested by the visit of Neophytos, Archbishop of Philippopolis, and Exarch of Thrace. He was presented with a Doctor of Divinity's degree, and afterwards made a speech in Hellenistic Greek.[138]About the same time the minutes of the Christian Knowledge Society make report of a Catechism drawn up for Greek Churchmen by Bishop Williams of Chichester, and translated from the English by some Greeks then studying at Oxford.[139]This little colony of Greek students had been established in 1689, through the cordial relations then subsisting between Archbishop Sancroft and Georgirenes, Metropolitan of Samos, who had recently been a refugee in London. It was hoped that by their residence at Oxford they would be able to promote in their own country a better understanding of 'the true doctrine of the Church of England.' They were to be twenty in number, were to dwell together at Gloucester Hall (afterwards Worcester College), be habited all alike in the gravest sort of habit worn in their own country, and stay at the University for five years.[140]Robert Nelson, ever zealous and energetic in all the business of the society, would naturally feel particularly interested in the condition of Eastern Christians on account of the business connection with Smyrna in which his family had been prosperously engaged. We are told of his showing warm sympathy in the wish of the Archbishop of Gotchau in Armenia to get works of piety printed in that language.[141]Similar interest would be felt by another leader of the early Nonjurors, Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, who in his earlier years had served as chaplain atAleppo, and had formed a familiar acquaintance with some of the most learned patriarchs and bishops of the Eastern Church.[142]The man, however, who at the beginning of the eighteenth century must have done most to turn attention towards the Eastern Church, was Dr. Grabe, who has been already more than once spoken of as held in great esteem by the Nonjuring and High Church party. He had found the Anglican Church more congenial to him on the whole than any other, but it shared his sympathies with the Lutheran and the Greek. He was a constant daily attendant at the English, and more especially the nonjuring services, but for many years he communicated exclusively at the Greek Church. He also published a 'Defensio Græcæ Ecclesiæ.'[143]Thus, in many different ways, the Oriental Church had come to be regarded, especially by the more studious of the High Church clergy, in quite another light from that of Rome.

In 1716 Arsenius, Metropolitan of Thebais, came to London on a charitable mission in behalf of the suffering Christians of Egypt. It will be readily understood with what alacrity a number of the Scotch and English Nonjurors seized the opportunity of making 'a proposal for a concordat betwixt the orthodox and Catholic remnant of the British Churches and the Catholic and Apostolic Oriental Church.' The correspondence, of which a full account is given in Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors,[144]although in many respects an interesting one, was wholly abortive. There appears indeed to have been a real wish on the part of Peter the Great and of some of the patriarchs to forward the project; but the ecclesiastical synod of Russia was evidently not quite clear from whom the overtures proceeded. Their answers were directed 'To the Most Reverend the Bishops of the Catholic Church in Great Britain, our dearest brothers,' and, somewhat to the dismay of the Nonjurors, copies of the letters were even sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to Archbishop Wake. Above all, the proposals were essentially one-sided. The nonjuring bishops, while remaining perfectly faithful to their principles, were willing to make large concessions in points which involved no departure from what they considered to be essential truths. The Patriarchs would have been glad of intercommunion on their own terms, but in the true spirit of the Eastern Church, would concede nothing. It was 'not lawful either to add any thing or take away any thing' from 'what has been defined and determined by ancient Fathers and the Holy Oecumenical Synodsfrom the time of the apostles and their holy successors, the Fathers of our Church, to this time. We say that those who are disposed to agree with us must submit to them, with sincerity and obedience, and without any scruple or dispute. And this is a sufficient answer to what you have written.' Perhaps the result might not have been very different, even if the overtures in question had been backed by the authority of the whole Anglican Church—a communion which at this period was universally acknowledged as the leader of Protestant Christendom. And even if there were less immutability in Eastern counsels, Bishop Campbell and his coadjutors could scarcely have been sanguine in hoping for any other issue. Truth and right, as they remarked in a letter to the Czar, do not depend on numbers; but if the Oriental synod were thoroughly aware how exceedingly scanty was 'the remnant' with which they were treating, and how thoroughly apart from the main current of English national life, it was highly improbable that they would purchase so minute an advance towards a wider unity by authorising what would certainly seem to them innovations dangerously opposed to all ancient precedent. It must be some far greater and deeper movement that will first tempt the unchanging Eastern Church to approve of any deviation from the trodden path of immemorial tradition.

There was great variety of individual character in the group of Churchmen who have formed the subject of this chapter. They did not all come into contact with one another, and some were widely separated by the circumstances of their lives. The one fact of some being Jurors and some Nonjurors was quite enough in itself to make a vast difference of thoughts and sympathies among those who had taken different sides. But they were closely united in what they held to be the divinely appointed constitution of the Church. All looked back to primitive times as the unalterable model of doctrine, order, and government; all were firmly persuaded that the English Reformation was wholly based on a restoration of the ancient pattern, and had fallen short of its object only so far forth as that ideal had as yet been unattained; all looked with suspicion and alarm at such tendencies of their age as seemed to them to contradict and thwart the development of these principles. They were good men in a very high sense of the word, earnestly religious, bent upon a conscientious fulfilment of their duties, and centres, in their several spheres, of active Christian labours. Ken, Nelson, and Kettlewell, among Nonjurors—Bull, Beveridge, and Sharp, among those who accepted the change of dynasty—are names deservedly held in special honour by English Churchmen. Theirpiety was of a type more frequent perhaps in the Church of England than in some other communions, very serious and devout, but wholly free from all gloom and moroseness; tinged in some instances, as in Dodwell, Ken, and Hooper, with asceticism, but serene and bright, and guarded against extravagance and fanaticism by culture, social converse, and sound reading. Such men could not fail to adorn the faith they professed, and do honour to the Church in which they had been nurtured. At the same time, some of the tenets which they ardently maintained were calculated to foster a stiffness and narrowness, and an exaggerated insistence upon certain forms of Church government, which contained many elements of real danger. Within the National Church there was a great deal to counterbalance these injurious tendencies and check their growth. The Latitudinarian party, whose faults and temptations lay in a very opposite direction, was very strong. Ecclesiastical as well as political parties were no doubt strongly defined, and for a time strongly antagonistic. But wherever in a large body of men different views are equally tolerated, opinions will inevitably shade one into another to a great extent, and extreme or unpractical theories will be tempered and toned down, or be regarded at most as merely the views of a minority. Among the Nonjurors Henry Dodwell, for example, was a real power, as a man of holy life and profound learning, whose views, although carried to an extreme in which few could altogether concur, were still in general principle, and when stated in more moderate terms, those of the great majority of the whole body. As a member, on the other hand, of the National Church, his goodness and erudition were widely respected, but his theoretical extravagances were only the crotchets of a retired student, who advanced in their most extreme form the opinions of a party.

But, Jurors or Nonjurors, the very best men of the old High Church party certainly exhibited a strong bearing towards the faults of exclusiveness and ecclesiasticism. It was a serious loss to the English Church to be deprived of the services of such men as Ken and Kettlewell, but it would have been a great misfortune to it to have been represented only by men of their sentiments. Their Christianity was as true and earnest as ever breathed in the soul; nevertheless, there was much in it that could not fail to degenerate in spirits less pure and elevated than their own. They were apt to fall into the common error of making orthodoxy a far more strait and narrow path than was ever warranted by any terms of the Church apostolic or of the Church of their own country. Its strict limits, on all points which Scripture has left uncertain, had been, as it appeared to them, providentially maintainedthroughout the first three centuries. Then began a long period of still increasing error; until the time of reformation came, and the Church of England fulfilled its appointed task of retracing the old landmarks, and restoring primitive truth to its ancient purity. Allowing for such trifling modifications as the difference of time and change of circumstances absolutely necessitated, the Anglican was in their estimation the Ante-Nicene Church revived. If, in the doctrine, order, and government of the English Church there was anything which would not have approved itself to the early fathers and to the first Councils, it was so far forth a falling short of its fundamental principles. They were persuaded that at all events there was nowhere outside its borders such near approach to this perfection. As for other religious bodies, the degree of their separation from the spirit and constitution of the English Church might be fairly taken as the approximate measure of their departure from the practice of primitive antiquity. Romanism, Latitudinarianism, Mysticism, Calvinism, Puritanism—whatever form dissent might take from what they believed to be the true principles of the English Church, it was, as such, a departure from Catholic and orthodox tradition, it was but one or another phase of the odious sin of schism.

The High Anglican custom of appealing to early ecclesiastical records as an acknowledged standard of authority on all matters which Scripture has left uncertain, necessarily led this section of the English Church to repeat many of the failings as well as many of the virtues which had characterised the Church of the third and fourth centuries. It copied, for instance, far too faithfully, the disposition which primitive ages had early manifested, to magnify unduly the spiritual power and prerogatives of the priesthood. No doubt the outcry against sacerdotalism was often perverted to disingenuous uses. Many a hard blow was dealt against vital Christian doctrine under the guise of righteous war against the exorbitant pretensions of the clergy. But Sacerdotalism certainly attained a formidable height among some of the High Churchmen of the period, both Jurors and Nonjurors. Dodwell, who declined orders that he might defend all priestly rights from a better vantage ground, did more harm to the cause he had espoused than any one of its opponents, by fearlessly pressing the theory into consequences from which a less thorough or a more cautious advocate would have recoiled with dismay. Robert Nelson's sobriety of judgment and sound practical sense made him a far more effective champion. He too, like Dodwell, rejoiced that from his position as a layman he could without prejudice resist what he termed a sacrilegious invasion of therights of the priests of the Lord.[145]The beginning of the eighteenth century was felt to be a time of crisis in the contest which, for the last three or four hundred years, has been incessantly waged between those whose tendency is ever to reduce religion into its very simplest elements, and those, on the other hand, in whose eyes the whole order of Church government and discipline is a divinely constituted system of mysterious powers and superhuman influences. It is a contest in which opinions may vary in all degrees, from pure Deism to utter Ultramontanism. The High Churchmen in question insisted that their position, and theirs only, was precisely that of the Church in early post-Apostolic times, when doctrine had become fully defined, but was as yet uncorrupted by later superstitions. It was not very tenable ground, but it was held by them with a pertinacity and sincerity of conviction which deepened the fervour of their faith, even while it narrowed its sympathies and cramped it with restrictions. A Church in which they found what they demanded; which was primitive and reformed; which was free from the errors of Rome and Geneva; which was not only Catholic and orthodox on all doctrines of faith, but possessed an apostolical succession, with the sacred privileges attached to it; which was governed by a lawful and canonical episcopate; which was blessed with a sound and ancient liturgy; which was faithful (many Nonjurors would add) to its divinely appointed king; such a Church was indeed one for which they could live and die. So far it was well. Their love for their own Church, and their perfect confidence in it, added both beauty and character to their piety. The misfortune was, that it left them unable to understand the merits of any form of faith which rejected, or treated as a thing indifferent, what they regarded as all but essential.

Fervid as their Christianity was, it was altogether unprogressive in its form. It was inelastic, incompetent to adapt itself to changing circumstances. Some of their leaders were inclined at one time to favour a scheme of comprehension. It is, however, impossible to believe they would have agreed to any concession which was not evidently superficial. They longed indeed for unity; and there is no reason to believe that they would have hesitated to sacrifice, though it would not be without a pang, many points of ritual and ceremony if it would further so good an end. But in their scheme of theology the essentials of an orthodox Church were numerous, and they would have been inflexible against any compromise of these. To abandon any part of the inheritance of primitive times would be gross heresy, afatal dereliction of Christian duty. No one can read the letters of Bishop Ken without noticing how the calm and gentle spirit of that good prelate kindles into indignation at the thought of any departure from the ancient 'Depositum' of the Church. He did not fail to appreciate and love true Christian piety when brought into near contact with it, even in those whose principles, in what he considered essential matters, differed greatly from his own. He was on cordial, and even intimate terms of friendship, for example, with Mr. Singer, a Nonconformist gentleman of high standing, who lived in the neighbourhood of Longleat. But this only serves to illustrate that there is an unity of faith far deeper than very deeply marked outward distinctions, a bond of Christian communion which, when once its strength is felt, is stronger than the strongest theories. Where the stiffness of his 'Catholic and orthodox' opinions was not counteracted or mitigated by feelings of warm personal respect, Ken could only view with unmixed aversion the working of principles which paid little regard to Church authority and attached small importance to any part of a Church system that did not clearly rest on plain words of Scripture. No one, reading without farther information the frequent laments made in Ken's letters and poems, that his flock had been left without a shepherd, that it was no longer folded in Catholic and hallowed grounds, and that it was fed with empoisoned instead of wholesome food, would think how good a man his successor in the see of Bath and Wells really was. Bishop Kidder was 'an exemplary and learned man of the simplest and most charitable character.'[146]Robert Nelson had strongly recommended him to Archbishop Tillotson. But he held a Low Church view of the Sacraments; he was inclined to admit, on what some considered too lenient terms, Dissenters of high character into the ministry of the English Church; his reverence for primitive tradition was slight; he had no respect for doctrines of passive obedience and divine right. In Ken's eyes he was therefore a 'Latitudinarian Traditour.' The deprived bishop had no wish to resume his see. It was more than once offered to him in Queen Anne's reign, when the oath of allegiance would no longer have been an insuperable obstacle. But throughout the life of his first successor his anxiety about his former diocese was very great, and his satisfaction was extreme when Kidder was succeeded by Hooper, a bishop of kindred principles to his own. And Ken was in these respects a fair representative of many who thought with him. To them the Christian faith, not in its fundamentals only, but in all the principal accessories of itsconstitution and government, was stereotyped in forms which could not be departed from without heresy or schism. There was scarcely any margin left for self-adaptation to changed requirements and varied modes of thought, no ready scope for elasticity and development. As Christianity had been left in the age of the first three councils, so it was to remain until the end of time. The first reformers had reformed it from its corruptions once and for all. The guardians of its purity had only to walk loyally in their steps, carry out their principles, and not be misled by any so-called reformer of a later day, whose meddling hands would only have marred the finished beauty of an accomplished work of restoration.

Such opinions, when rich in vitality and warmth of conviction, have a very important function to fulfil. Admirably adapted to supply the spiritual wants of a certain class of minds, they represent one very important side of Christian truth. Good men such as those who have been the subject of this chapter are, in the Church, much what disinterested and patriotic Conservatives are in the State. It is their special function to resist needless changes and a too compliant subservience to new or popular ideas, to maintain unbroken the continuity of Christian thought, to guard from disparagement and neglect whatever was most valuable in the religious characteristics of an earlier age. Theirs is a school of thought which has neither a greater nor a less claim to genuine spirituality than that which is usually contrasted with it. Only its spirituality is wont to take, in many respects, a different tone. Instead of shrinking from forms which by their abuse may tend to formalism, and simplifying to the utmost all the accessories of worship, in jealous fear lest at any time the senses should be impressed at the expense of the spirit, it prefers rather to recognise as far as possible a lofty sacramental character in the institutions of religion, to see a meaning, and an inward as well as an outward beauty, in ceremonies and ritual, and to uphold a scrupulous and reverential observance of all sacred services, as conducing in a very high degree to spiritual edification. Churchmen of this type may often be blind to other sides of truth; they may rush into extremes; they may fall into grave errors of exclusiveness and prejudice. But if they certainly cannot become absolutely predominant in a Church without serious danger, they cannot become a weak minority without much detriment to its best interests. And since it is hopeless to find on any wide scale minds so happily tempered as to combine within themselves the best characteristics of different religious parties, a Church may well be congratulated which can count among its loyal and attached members many men on either side conspicuous for their high qualities.

The beginning of Queen Anne's reign was in this respect a period of great promise. Not only was the Church of England popular and its opponents weak, but both High and Low Churchmen had leaders of distinguished eminence. Tillotson and Stillingfleet had passed away, but the Low Church bishops, such as Patrick and Fleetwood, Burnet, Tenison, and Compton, held a very honourable place in general esteem. The High Churchmen no longer had Lake and Kettlewell, but Bull and Beveridge, Sharp, and Ken, and Nelson were still living, and held in high honour. This latter party had been rent asunder by the nonjuring schism. The breach, however, was not yet irreparable; and if it could be healed, and the cordial feeling could be restored which, under the influence of common Protestant sympathies, had begun to draw the two sections of the Church together, the National Church might seem likely to root itself more deeply in the attachment of the people than at any previous time since the Reformation. These fair promises were frustrated, and the opportunity lost. Before many years had passed there was a perceptible loss of tone and power in the Low Church party, when King William's bishops had gradually died off. Among High Churchmen, weakened by the secession, the growth of degeneracy was still more evident. The contrast is immense between the lofty-minded and single-hearted men who worked with Ken and Nelson and the factious partisans who won the applause of 'High Church' mobs in the time of Sacheverell. Perhaps the Church activity which, at all events in many notable instances, distinguished the first few years of the eighteenth century, is thrown into stronger relief by the comparative inertness which set in soon afterwards. For a few years there was certainly every appearance of a growing religious movement. Church brotherhoods were formed both in London and in many country towns and villages, missions were started, religious education was promoted, plans for the reformation of manners were ardently engaged in, churches were built, the weekly and daily services were in many places frequented by increasing congregations, and communicants rapidly increased. It might seem as if the Wesleyan movement was about to be forestalled, in general character though not in detail, under the full sanction and direction of some of the principal heads of the English Church: or as if the movement were begun, and only wanted such another leader as Wesley was. There was not enough fire in Robert Nelson's character for such a part. Yet, had he lived a little longer, the example of his deep devotion and untiring zeal might have kindled the flame in some younger men of congenial but more impetuous temperament, whose zeal would havestirred the masses, and left a deep mark upon the history of the age.

As it was, things took a different course. The chief promoters of these noble efforts died, and much of their work died with them. Or it may be that the times were not yet ripe for such a revival. It may even have been better in the end for English Christianity, that no special period of religious excitement should interfere with the serious intellectual conflict, in which all who could give any attention to theology were becoming deeply interested. Great problems involved in the principles of the Reformation, but obscured up to that time by other and more superficial controversies, were being everywhere discussed. An interval of religious tranquillity amounting almost to stagnation may have been not altogether unfavourable to a crisis when the fundamental axioms of Christianity were being reviewed and tested. And, after all, dulness is not death. The responsibilities of each individual soul are happily not dependent upon unusual helps and extraordinary opportunities. Yet great efforts of what may be called missionary zeal are most precious, and fall like rain upon the thirsty earth. It is impossible not to feel disappointment that the practical energies which at the beginning of the eighteenth century seemed ready to expand into full life should have proved comparatively barren of permanent results. But though the effort was not seconded as it should have been, none the less honour is due to the exemplary men who made it. It was an effort by no means confined to any one section of the Church. There were few more earnest in it than many of the London clergy who had worked heart and soul with Tillotson. But wherever any great religious undertaking, any scheme of Christian benevolence, was under consideration, wherever any plan was in hand for carrying out more thoroughly and successfully the work of the Church, there at all events was Robert Nelson, and the pious, earnest-hearted Churchmen who enjoyed his friendship.

C.J.A.

FOOTNOTES:[1]Birch'sLife of Tillotson, lxi.[2]Ken and a few others are conspicuous as exceptions.[3]W.H. Teale,Life of Nelson, 221.[4]Dr. S. Clarke called him a model controversialist. Teale, 330.[5]See hisAddress to Persons of Quality, andRepresentation of the several Ways of doing Good. Secretan, 149. Teale, 338.[6]Life, by Boswell, ii. 457.[7]G.G. Perry,History of the Church of England, iii. 110.[8]Secretan, 50, 71.[9]Practice of True Devotion, 28.[10]S. Wesley's poem on R. Nelson, prefixed to some editions of thePractice, &c.. He adds in a note that this was a personal reminiscence of his friend.[11]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 303.[12]Secretan, 2.[13]'A man,' says his biographer, 'of singular earnestness, honesty, and practical ability, who was never wanting in times of danger, and never hesitated to discharge his duty at the cost of worldly advantage.'—Life of Frampton, by T.S. Evans. Preface, x.[14]Quoted inLife of Ken, by a Layman, 753.[15]And even, by the permission of the Bishop of London, assisted in the service.—Evans, 208.[16]Frampton to Kettlewell.Life of Kettlewell, App. No. 18.[17]Life of Kettlewell, p. 169.[18]Id. 162, Secretan, 61.[19]Life of Kettlewell, App. No. 25.[20]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 676.[21]Life of Kettlewell, 176.[22]Id. pp. 95, 182.[23]Id. 14.[24]Id. 172.[25]Id. 134.[26]Id. 172.[27]Hearne said of him, 'I take him to be the greatest scholar in Europe, when he died; but what exceeds that, his piety and sanctity were beyond compare.'—June 15, 1711, p. 228.[28]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 540.[29]Reliq. Hearnianæ, 1710, March 4, p. 188.[30]Brokesby'sLife of Dodwell, 534.[31]No. 187.[32]Brokesby'sLife of Dodwell, chap. x. 73.[33]Hunt, J.,Religious Thought in England, ii. 85.[34]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 705.[35]Dodwell'sAppend. to Case in View, now in Fact, and hisOn Occasional Communion, Life, pp. 474 and 419.[36]Life of Kettlewell, 128.[37]Quoted in Brokesby'sLife of Dodwell, 546.[38]Id. 541.[39]Macaulay'sHistory of England, chap. 12.[40]Id.[41]Secretan, 63.[42]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 439.[43]Life of Kettlewell, App. No. 3.[44]Life of Ken, &c., 718.[45]Hunt, ii. 375.[46]Letter to Nelson.Life of Bull, 441.[47]Life of Ken, &c., 719.[48]Hunt, ii. 76.[49]Hickes, 9,Enthusiasm Exorcised, 64.[50]Lathbury'sHistory of the Nonjurors, 216. Seward speaks of him as 'this learned prelate.'—Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, 250.[51]Secretan, 70. He was much fascinated by the writings of Madame Bourignon.—Hearne to Rawlinson, quoted in Wilson'sHistory of Merchant Taylors, 957.[52]History of Montanism, &c., 344.[53]Secretan, 273.[54]Id. 70.[55]Secretan, 171. Wilson quotes from the Rawlinson MSS. a very beautiful prayer composed by Lee soon before his death, for 'all Christians, however divided or distinguished ... throughout the whole militant Church upon earth.'—History of Merchant Taylors, 956.[56]Hearne dwells enthusiastically on his high qualities, his religious conscientiousness, his learning, modesty, sweet temper, his charity in prosperity, his resignation in adverse fortune.—Reliquiæ, i. 287.[57]Secretan, 50, 69, 284. He was a learned man, a student of many languages.—Nichols, i. 124.[58]Boswell'sLife of Johnson, iv. 256.[59]A regular form of admission 'into the true and Catholic remnant of the Britannick Churches,' was drawn up for this purpose.—Life of Kettlewell, App. xvii.[60]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 4.[61]Speech before the House of Lords, 1705.—Nelson'sLife of Bull, 355.[62]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 11. Archdeacon Conant stood very high in Tillotson's estimation, as a man 'whose learning, piety, and thorough knowledge of the true principles of Christianity would have adorned the highest station.'—Birch'sLife of Tillotson,Works, i. ccxii.[63]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 243-9. Dorner, ii. 83.[64]Secretan, 255.[65]Birch'sLife of Tillotson, lxxxviii.[66]'Concio ad Synodum,' quoted by Macaulay,History of England, chap. xiv.[67]Secretan, 135.[68]Life of Bull, 64.[69]Sharp'sLife, by his Son, ii. 32. Secretan, 78-9.[70]Life of Bull, 238.[71]Life, by his Son, ii. 28.[72]Secretan, 178.[73]'None,' said Willis in hisSurvey of Cathedrals, 'were so well served as that of York, under Sharp.'—Life of Sharp, i. 120.[74]Thoresby's Correspondence, i. 274.[75]Life, i. 264.[76]Dodwell's 'Case in View,' quoted in Lathbury'sHistory of the Nonjurors, 197.[77]Life, i. 264.[78]Secretan, 285.[79]Nichols'Lit. An.i. 190.[80]Nos. 72 and 114.[81]'Animadversions on the two last January 30 sermons,' 1702. The same might be said of his 'Sermon before the Court of Aldermen,' January 30, 1704.[82]Lord Mahon'sHistory of England, chap. 12.[83]Secretan, 223.[84]The parallel with an interesting portion of I. Casaubon's life is singularly close. See Pattison'sIsaac Casaubon, chap. 5.[85]In conjunction with Archbishop Sharp, Smalridge, and Jablouski, &c. See Chapter on 'Comprehension, &c.'[86]Secretan, 221, note. Nelson gives a full account of Dr. Grabe in hisLife of Bull, 343-6.[87]Memoirs, 154.[88]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 619-20.[89]Secretan, 142.[90]Oglethorpe and Nelson sometimes met here. Secretan, 211.[91]He was one of the many writers against the Deists. It was to his credit, that although he had been strongly opposed to Atterbury in controversy, he earnestly supported him in what he thought an oppressive prosecution.—Williams'Memoirs of Atterbury, i. 417.[92]S. xxWorks, ii. 252.[93]Bishop Magee, Charge at Northampton, October 1872.[94]J.J. Blunt,Early Fathers, 19; also Archbishop Manning'sEssays, Series 2, 4.[95]Lord Somers' 'Judgment of whole Kingdoms.... As to Rights of Kings,' 1710, § 117.[96]Life of Kettlewell, App. No. 13. Kettlewell uses the same words, Id. p. 87.[97]Letter to his Nephew, Nichols'Lit. An.iv. 219.[98]Lathbury, 94.[99]A letter from Burnet to Compton, quoted from the Rawl. MSS. inLife of Ken, 527.[100]Birch'sTillotson, lxxv.[101]Life of Kettlewell, 87.[102]Whaley N., Sermon before the University of Oxford, January 30, 1710, 16.[103]Lee'sLife of Kettlewell, 167.[104]Warburton's 'Alliance,' iv. 173.[105]'The supremacy of the Queen is, in the sense used by the noble lord, no better than a fiction. There might have been such a supremacy down to the times of James II., but now there is no supremacy but that of the three estates of the realm and the supremacy of the law.'—J. Bright'sSpeeches, ii. 475.[106]Lathbury, 129.Life of Kettlewell, 139.[107]Lathbury, 91.[108]Dodwell'sFurther Prospect of the Case in View, 1707, 19, 111, quoted in Lathbury, 201, 203.[109]Birch'sLife of Tillotson, clxxxiii.[110]Life of Kettlewell, App. 17.[111]Hearne'sReliquiæ, ii. 257.[112]Lathbury, 388.[113]Secretan, 37, 65.[114]Hunt, 3, 257, and Cassan'sLives of the Bishops of Winchester, 379. Cassan, quoting from Noble, says Trimnell was a very good man,'whom even the Tories valued, though he preached terrible Whig sermons.'[115]Id.[116]Life of Kettlewell, 56.[117]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 178.[118]Brokesby'sLife of Dodwell, 363.[119]Secretan, 178-9. Teale, 297.[120]Sharp's Life, by his Son, i. 355, and Secretan, 178.[121]Beveridge'sNecessity and Advantage of Frequent Communion, 1708.[122]Lathbury, 302.[123]In answer to Lavington, who charged him with prayers to that effect in hisDevotions for every day in the Week(Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists, 157), Wesley answered, 'In this kind of general prayer for the faithful departed, I conceive myself to be clearly justified both by the earliest antiquity and by the Church of England.'—'Answer to Lavington,'Works, ix. 55, also 'Letter to Dr. Middleton,'Works, x. 9.[124]Boswell's Life, i. 187, 101, ii. 166.[125]Hearne'sReliquiæ, ii. 188.[126]Lathbury, 302.[127]Wake'sThree Tracts against Popery, § 3. Quoted with much censure by Blackburne,Historical View, &c., 115.[128]Lathbury, 300.[129]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 405.[130]Bowles'Life of Ken, 38.[131]Lathbury, 297, 302. The custom is spoken of as frequent among the High Churchmen of 1710-20.—Life of Kennet, 125.[132]Life of Kettlewell, 130.[133]A.P. Stanley'sEastern Church, 410.[134]A.P. Stanley'sEastern Church, 453, 462.[135]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 808.[136]Burnet, writing in 1694, remarking on 'the present depressed and ignorant state of the Greek Churches,' speaks also with warm sympathy of their poverty and persecution—'a peculiar character of bearing the Cross.'—Four Sermons, &c., 198.[137]Biographical Dictionary, 'Ludolph.[138]Christopher Wordsworth,University Life in the Eighteenth Century, 331.[139]Secretan, 103.[140]Wordsworth,University Life, &c. 324-5.[141]Teale, 302.—This was in 1707. Archbishop Sharp gave his help in furthering this work.—Life, i. 402.[142]Evans'Life of Frampton, 44.[143]Secretan, ii. 220-2. Hearne'sReliquiæ, ii. 230.[144]Pp. 309-59.[145]Secretan, 195.[146]Bowles'Life of Ken, 247.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]Birch'sLife of Tillotson, lxi.

[2]Ken and a few others are conspicuous as exceptions.

[3]W.H. Teale,Life of Nelson, 221.

[4]Dr. S. Clarke called him a model controversialist. Teale, 330.

[5]See hisAddress to Persons of Quality, andRepresentation of the several Ways of doing Good. Secretan, 149. Teale, 338.

[6]Life, by Boswell, ii. 457.

[7]G.G. Perry,History of the Church of England, iii. 110.

[8]Secretan, 50, 71.

[9]Practice of True Devotion, 28.

[10]S. Wesley's poem on R. Nelson, prefixed to some editions of thePractice, &c.. He adds in a note that this was a personal reminiscence of his friend.

[11]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 303.

[12]Secretan, 2.

[13]'A man,' says his biographer, 'of singular earnestness, honesty, and practical ability, who was never wanting in times of danger, and never hesitated to discharge his duty at the cost of worldly advantage.'—Life of Frampton, by T.S. Evans. Preface, x.

[14]Quoted inLife of Ken, by a Layman, 753.

[15]And even, by the permission of the Bishop of London, assisted in the service.—Evans, 208.

[16]Frampton to Kettlewell.Life of Kettlewell, App. No. 18.

[17]Life of Kettlewell, p. 169.

[18]Id. 162, Secretan, 61.

[19]Life of Kettlewell, App. No. 25.

[20]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 676.

[21]Life of Kettlewell, 176.

[22]Id. pp. 95, 182.

[23]Id. 14.

[24]Id. 172.

[25]Id. 134.

[26]Id. 172.

[27]Hearne said of him, 'I take him to be the greatest scholar in Europe, when he died; but what exceeds that, his piety and sanctity were beyond compare.'—June 15, 1711, p. 228.

[28]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 540.

[29]Reliq. Hearnianæ, 1710, March 4, p. 188.

[30]Brokesby'sLife of Dodwell, 534.

[31]No. 187.

[32]Brokesby'sLife of Dodwell, chap. x. 73.

[33]Hunt, J.,Religious Thought in England, ii. 85.

[34]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 705.

[35]Dodwell'sAppend. to Case in View, now in Fact, and hisOn Occasional Communion, Life, pp. 474 and 419.

[36]Life of Kettlewell, 128.

[37]Quoted in Brokesby'sLife of Dodwell, 546.

[38]Id. 541.

[39]Macaulay'sHistory of England, chap. 12.

[40]Id.

[41]Secretan, 63.

[42]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 439.

[43]Life of Kettlewell, App. No. 3.

[44]Life of Ken, &c., 718.

[45]Hunt, ii. 375.

[46]Letter to Nelson.Life of Bull, 441.

[47]Life of Ken, &c., 719.

[48]Hunt, ii. 76.

[49]Hickes, 9,Enthusiasm Exorcised, 64.

[50]Lathbury'sHistory of the Nonjurors, 216. Seward speaks of him as 'this learned prelate.'—Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, 250.

[51]Secretan, 70. He was much fascinated by the writings of Madame Bourignon.—Hearne to Rawlinson, quoted in Wilson'sHistory of Merchant Taylors, 957.

[52]History of Montanism, &c., 344.

[53]Secretan, 273.

[54]Id. 70.

[55]Secretan, 171. Wilson quotes from the Rawlinson MSS. a very beautiful prayer composed by Lee soon before his death, for 'all Christians, however divided or distinguished ... throughout the whole militant Church upon earth.'—History of Merchant Taylors, 956.

[56]Hearne dwells enthusiastically on his high qualities, his religious conscientiousness, his learning, modesty, sweet temper, his charity in prosperity, his resignation in adverse fortune.—Reliquiæ, i. 287.

[57]Secretan, 50, 69, 284. He was a learned man, a student of many languages.—Nichols, i. 124.

[58]Boswell'sLife of Johnson, iv. 256.

[59]A regular form of admission 'into the true and Catholic remnant of the Britannick Churches,' was drawn up for this purpose.—Life of Kettlewell, App. xvii.

[60]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 4.

[61]Speech before the House of Lords, 1705.—Nelson'sLife of Bull, 355.

[62]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 11. Archdeacon Conant stood very high in Tillotson's estimation, as a man 'whose learning, piety, and thorough knowledge of the true principles of Christianity would have adorned the highest station.'—Birch'sLife of Tillotson,Works, i. ccxii.

[63]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 243-9. Dorner, ii. 83.

[64]Secretan, 255.

[65]Birch'sLife of Tillotson, lxxxviii.

[66]'Concio ad Synodum,' quoted by Macaulay,History of England, chap. xiv.

[67]Secretan, 135.

[68]Life of Bull, 64.

[69]Sharp'sLife, by his Son, ii. 32. Secretan, 78-9.

[70]Life of Bull, 238.

[71]Life, by his Son, ii. 28.

[72]Secretan, 178.

[73]'None,' said Willis in hisSurvey of Cathedrals, 'were so well served as that of York, under Sharp.'—Life of Sharp, i. 120.

[74]Thoresby's Correspondence, i. 274.

[75]Life, i. 264.

[76]Dodwell's 'Case in View,' quoted in Lathbury'sHistory of the Nonjurors, 197.

[77]Life, i. 264.

[78]Secretan, 285.

[79]Nichols'Lit. An.i. 190.

[80]Nos. 72 and 114.

[81]'Animadversions on the two last January 30 sermons,' 1702. The same might be said of his 'Sermon before the Court of Aldermen,' January 30, 1704.

[82]Lord Mahon'sHistory of England, chap. 12.

[83]Secretan, 223.

[84]The parallel with an interesting portion of I. Casaubon's life is singularly close. See Pattison'sIsaac Casaubon, chap. 5.

[85]In conjunction with Archbishop Sharp, Smalridge, and Jablouski, &c. See Chapter on 'Comprehension, &c.'

[86]Secretan, 221, note. Nelson gives a full account of Dr. Grabe in hisLife of Bull, 343-6.

[87]Memoirs, 154.

[88]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 619-20.

[89]Secretan, 142.

[90]Oglethorpe and Nelson sometimes met here. Secretan, 211.

[91]He was one of the many writers against the Deists. It was to his credit, that although he had been strongly opposed to Atterbury in controversy, he earnestly supported him in what he thought an oppressive prosecution.—Williams'Memoirs of Atterbury, i. 417.

[92]S. xxWorks, ii. 252.

[93]Bishop Magee, Charge at Northampton, October 1872.

[94]J.J. Blunt,Early Fathers, 19; also Archbishop Manning'sEssays, Series 2, 4.

[95]Lord Somers' 'Judgment of whole Kingdoms.... As to Rights of Kings,' 1710, § 117.

[96]Life of Kettlewell, App. No. 13. Kettlewell uses the same words, Id. p. 87.

[97]Letter to his Nephew, Nichols'Lit. An.iv. 219.

[98]Lathbury, 94.

[99]A letter from Burnet to Compton, quoted from the Rawl. MSS. inLife of Ken, 527.

[100]Birch'sTillotson, lxxv.

[101]Life of Kettlewell, 87.

[102]Whaley N., Sermon before the University of Oxford, January 30, 1710, 16.

[103]Lee'sLife of Kettlewell, 167.

[104]Warburton's 'Alliance,' iv. 173.

[105]'The supremacy of the Queen is, in the sense used by the noble lord, no better than a fiction. There might have been such a supremacy down to the times of James II., but now there is no supremacy but that of the three estates of the realm and the supremacy of the law.'—J. Bright'sSpeeches, ii. 475.

[106]Lathbury, 129.Life of Kettlewell, 139.

[107]Lathbury, 91.

[108]Dodwell'sFurther Prospect of the Case in View, 1707, 19, 111, quoted in Lathbury, 201, 203.

[109]Birch'sLife of Tillotson, clxxxiii.

[110]Life of Kettlewell, App. 17.

[111]Hearne'sReliquiæ, ii. 257.

[112]Lathbury, 388.

[113]Secretan, 37, 65.

[114]Hunt, 3, 257, and Cassan'sLives of the Bishops of Winchester, 379. Cassan, quoting from Noble, says Trimnell was a very good man,'whom even the Tories valued, though he preached terrible Whig sermons.'

[115]Id.

[116]Life of Kettlewell, 56.

[117]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 178.

[118]Brokesby'sLife of Dodwell, 363.

[119]Secretan, 178-9. Teale, 297.

[120]Sharp's Life, by his Son, i. 355, and Secretan, 178.

[121]Beveridge'sNecessity and Advantage of Frequent Communion, 1708.

[122]Lathbury, 302.

[123]In answer to Lavington, who charged him with prayers to that effect in hisDevotions for every day in the Week(Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists, 157), Wesley answered, 'In this kind of general prayer for the faithful departed, I conceive myself to be clearly justified both by the earliest antiquity and by the Church of England.'—'Answer to Lavington,'Works, ix. 55, also 'Letter to Dr. Middleton,'Works, x. 9.

[124]Boswell's Life, i. 187, 101, ii. 166.

[125]Hearne'sReliquiæ, ii. 188.

[126]Lathbury, 302.

[127]Wake'sThree Tracts against Popery, § 3. Quoted with much censure by Blackburne,Historical View, &c., 115.

[128]Lathbury, 300.

[129]Nelson'sLife of Bull, 405.

[130]Bowles'Life of Ken, 38.

[131]Lathbury, 297, 302. The custom is spoken of as frequent among the High Churchmen of 1710-20.—Life of Kennet, 125.

[132]Life of Kettlewell, 130.

[133]A.P. Stanley'sEastern Church, 410.

[134]A.P. Stanley'sEastern Church, 453, 462.

[135]Life of Ken, by a Layman, 808.

[136]Burnet, writing in 1694, remarking on 'the present depressed and ignorant state of the Greek Churches,' speaks also with warm sympathy of their poverty and persecution—'a peculiar character of bearing the Cross.'—Four Sermons, &c., 198.

[137]Biographical Dictionary, 'Ludolph.

[138]Christopher Wordsworth,University Life in the Eighteenth Century, 331.

[139]Secretan, 103.

[140]Wordsworth,University Life, &c. 324-5.

[141]Teale, 302.—This was in 1707. Archbishop Sharp gave his help in furthering this work.—Life, i. 402.

[142]Evans'Life of Frampton, 44.

[143]Secretan, ii. 220-2. Hearne'sReliquiæ, ii. 230.

[144]Pp. 309-59.

[145]Secretan, 195.

[146]Bowles'Life of Ken, 247.

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