The History of England from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 3 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (best ereader for pdf .txt) 📖

to me, I ought to say, only from Brokesby's copious abstract. That Discourse is very rare. It was originally printed as a preface to a sermon preached by Leslie. When Leslie collected his works he omitted the discourse, probably because he was ashamed of it. The Treatise on the Lawfulness of Instrumental Music I have read; and incredibly absurd it is.

FN 475 Dodwell tells us that the title of the work in which he first promulgated this theory was framed with great care and precision. I will therefore transcribe the title-page. "An Epistolary Discourse proving from Scripture and the First Fathers that the Soul is naturally Mortal, but Immortalized actually by the Pleasure of God to Punishment or to Reward, by its Union with the Divine Baptismal Spirit, wherein is proved that none have the Power of giving this Divine Immortalizing Spirit since the Apostles but only the Bishops. By H. Dodwell." Dr. Clarke, in a Letter to Dodwell (1706), says that this Epistolary Discourse is "a book at which all good men are sorry, and all profane men rejoice."

FN 476 See Leslie's Rehearsals, No. 286, 287.

FN 477 See his works, and the highly curious life of him which was compiled from the papers of his friends Hickes and Nelson.

FN 478 See Fitzwilliam's correspondence with Lady Russell, and his evidence on the trial of Ashton, in the State Trials. The only work which Fitzwilliam, as far as I have been able to discover, ever published was a sermon on the Rye House Plot, preached a few weeks after Russell's execution. There are some sentences in this sermon which I a little wonder that the widow and the family forgave.

FN 479 Cyprian, in one of his Epistles, addresses the confessors thus: "Quosdam audio inficere numerum vestrum, et laudem praecipui nominis prava sua conversatione destruere. . . Cum quanto nominis vestri pudore delinquitur quando alius aliquis temulentus et lasciviens demoratur; alius in eam patriam unde extorris est regreditur, ut deprehensus non eam quasi Christianus, sed quasi nocens pereat." He uses still stronger language in the book de Unitate Ecclesiae: "Neque enim confessio immunem facet ab insidiis diaboli, aut contra tentationes et pericula et incursus atque impetus saeculares adhuc in saeculo positum perpetua securitate defendit; caeterum nunquam in confessoribus fraudes et stupra et adulteria postmodum videremus, quae nunc in quibusdam videntes ingemiscimus et dolemus."

FN 480 Much curious information about the nonjurors will be found in the Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, printer, which forms the first volume of Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century. A specimen of Wagstaffe's prescriptions is in the Bodleian Library.

FN 481 Cibber's play, as Cibber wrote it, ceased to he popular when the Jacobites ceased to be formidable, and is now known only to the curious. In 1768 Bickerstaffe altered it into the Hypocrite, and substituted Dr. Cantwell, the Methodist, for Dr. Wolfe, the Nonjuror. "I do not think," said Johnson, "the character of the Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists; but it was very applicable to the nonjurors." Boswell asked him if it were true that the nonjuring clergymen intrigued with the wives of their patrons. "I am afraid," said Johnson, "many of them did." This conversation took place on the 27th of March I775. It was not merely in careless tally that Johnson expressed an unfavourable opinion of the nonjurors. In his Life of Fenton, who was a nonjuror, are these remarkable words: "It must be remembered that he kept his name unsullied, and never suffered himself to be reduced, like too many of the same sect to mean arts and dishonourable shifts." See the Character of a Jacobite, 1690. Even in Kettlewell's Life compiled from the papers of his friends Hickes and Nelson, will be found admissions which show that, very soon after the schism, some of the nonjuring clergy fell into habits of idleness, dependence, and mendicancy, which lowered the character of the whole party. "Several undeserving persons, who are always the most confident, by their going up and down, did much prejudice to the truly deserving, whose modesty would not suffer them to solicit for themselves . . . . . . Mr. Kettlewell was also very sensible that some of his brethren spent too much of their time in places of concourse and news, by depending for their subsistence upon those whom they there got acquainted with."

FN 482 Reresby's Memoirs, 344

FN 483 Birch's Life of Tillotson.

FN 484 See the Discourse concerning the Ecclesiastical Commission, 1689.

FN 485 Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Prideaux; Gentleman's Magazine for June and July, 1745.

FN 486 Diary of the Proceedings of the Commissioners, taken by Dr. Williams afterwards Bishop of Chichester, one of the Commissioners, every night after he went home from the several meetings. This most curious Diary was printed by order of the House of Commons in 1854.

FN 487 Williams's Diary.

FN 488 Williams's Diary.

FN 489 Ibid.

FN 490 See the alterations in the Book of Common Prayer prepared by the Royal Commissioners for the revision of the Liturgy in 1689, and printed by order of the House of Commons in 1854.

FN 491 It is difficult to conceive stronger or clearer language than that used by the Council. Touton toinun anagnosthenton orisan e agia sunodos, eteran pistin medeni ekseinai prospherein, egoun suggraphein, e suntithenia, para ten oristheisan para ton agion pateron ton en te Nikaeon sunegthonton sun agio pneumati tous de tolmontas e suntithenai pistin eteran, egoun prokomizein, e prospherein tois ethegousin epistrephein eis epignosin tes agetheias e eks Ellinismou e eks Ioudaismon, i eks aireseos oiasdepotoun, toutous, ei men eien episkopoi i klerikoi, allotrious einai tous episkopon, tes episkopes, kai tous klerikous ton kliron ei de laikoi eien, agathematizesthai- Concil. Ephes. Actio VI.

FN 492 Williams's Diary; Alterations in the Book of Common Prayer.

FN 493 It is curious to consider how those great masters of the Latin tongue who used to sup with Maecenas and Pollio would have been perplexed by "Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth;" or by "Ideo cum angelis et archangelis, cum thronis et dominationibus."

FN 494 I will give two specimens of Patrick's workmanship. "He maketh me," says David, "to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters." Patrick's version is as follows: "For as a good shepherd leads his sheep in the violent heat to shady places, where they may lie down and feed (not in parched but) in fresh and green pastures, and in the evening leads them (not to muddy and troubled waters, but) to pure and quiet streams; so hath he already made a fair and plentiful provision for me, which I enjoy in peace without any disturbance."

In the Song of Solomon is an exquisitely beautiful verse. "I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love." Patrick's version runs thus: "So I turned myself to those of my neighbours and familiar acquaintance who were awakened by my cries to come and see what the matter was; and conjured them, as they would answer it to God, that, if they met with my beloved, they would let him know- What shall I say?-What shall I desire you to tell him but that I do not enjoy myself now that I want his company, nor can be well till I recover his love again."

FN 495 William's dislike of the Cathedral service is sarcastically noticed by Leslie in the Rehearsal, No. 7. See also a Letter from a Member of the House of Commons to his Friend in the Country, 1689, and Bisset's Modern Fanatic, 1710.

FN 496 See the Order in Council of Jan. 9. 1683.

FN 497 See Collier's Desertion discussed, 1689. Thomas Carte, who was a disciple, and, at one time, an assistant of Collier, inserted, so late as the year 1747, in a bulky History of England, an exquisitely absurd note in which he assured the world that, to his certain knowledge, the Pretender had cured the scrofula, and very gravely inferred that the healing virtue was transmitted by inheritance, and was quite independent of any unction. See Carte's History of England, vol, i. page 297.

FN 498 See the Preface to a Treatise on Wounds, by Richard Wiseman, Sergeant Chirurgeon to His Majesty, 1676. But the fullest information on this curious subject will he found in the Charisma Basilicon, by John Browne, Chirurgeon in ordinary to His Majesty, 1684. See also The Ceremonies used in the Time of King Henry VII. for the Healing of them that be Diseased with the King's Evil, published by His Majesty's Command, 1686; Evelyn's Diary, March 18. 1684; and Bishop Cartwright's Diary, August 28, 29, and 30. 1687. It is incredible that so large a proportion of the population should have been really scrofulous. No doubt many persons who had slight and transient maladies were brought to the king, and the recovery of these persons kept up the vulgar belief in the efficacy of his touch.

FN 499 Paris Gazette, April 23. 1689.

FN 500 See Whiston's Life of himself. Poor Whiston, who believed in every thing but the Trinity, tells us gravely that the single person whom William touched was cured, notwithstanding His Majesty's want of faith. See also the Athenian Mercury of January 16. 1691.

FN 501 In several recent publications the apprehension that differences might arise between the Convocation of York and the Convocation of Canterbury has been contemptuously pronounced chimerical. But it is not easy to understand why two independent Convocations should be less likely to differ than two Houses of the same Convocation; and it is matter of notoriety that, in the reigns of William the Third and Anne, the two Houses of the Convocation of Canterbury scarcely ever agreed.

FN 502 Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Prideaux. From Clarendon's Diary, it appears that he and Rochester were at Oxford on the 23rd of September.

FN 503 See the Roll in the Historical Account of the present Convocation, appended to the second edition of Vox Cleri, 1690. The most considerable name that I perceive in the list of proctors chosen by the parochial clergy is that of Dr. John Mill, the editor of the Greek Testament.

FN 504 Tillotson to Lady Russell, April 19. 1690.

FN 505 Birch's Life of Tillotson. The account there given of the coldness between Compton and Tillotson was taken by Birch from the MSS. of Henry Wharton, and is confirmed by many circumstances which are known from other sources of intelligence.

FN 506 Chamberlayne's State of England, 18th edition.

FN 507 Condo ad Synodum per Gulielmum Beveregium, 1689.

FN 508 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Historical Account of the Present Convocation.

FN 509 Kennet's History, iii. 552.

FN 510 Historical Account of the Present Convocation, 1689.

FN 511 Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Burnet, ii. 58.; Kennet's History of the Reign of William and Mary.

FN 512 Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Kennet's History.

FN 513 Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Kennet.

FN 514 Historical Account of the Present Convocation.

FN 515 That there was such a jealousy as I have described is admitted in the pamphlet entitled Vox Cleri. "Some country ministers now of the Convocation, do now see in what great ease and plenty the City ministers live, who have their readers and lecturers, and frequent supplies, and sometimes tarry in the vestry till prayers be ended, and have great dignities in the Church, besides their rich parishes in the City." The author of this tract, once widely celebrated, was Thomas Long, proctor for the clergy of the diocese of