work which they came about there. Indeed, the zeal which they showed in coming, and the earnestness and affection they showed in their attention to what they heard, made it manifest what a value people would all put upon the worship of God, if they thought every day they attended at the church, that that day would be their last!

Nor was it without other strange effects, for it took away all manner of prejudice at, or scruple about, the person whom they found in the pulpit when they came to the churches. It cannot be doubted but that many of the ministers of the parish churches were cut off among others, in so common and dreadful a calamity; and others had not courage enough to stand it, but removed into the country, as they found means for escape: as then some parish churches were quite vacant and forsaken, the people made no scruple of desiring such Dissenters as had been a few years before deprived of their livings, by virtue of the Act of Parliament called the Act of Uniformity, to preach in the churches: nor did the church ministers in that case make any difficulty of accepting their assistance; so that many of those whom they called silenced ministers, had their mouths opened on this occasion, and preached publicly to the people.

Here we may observe, and I hope it will not be amiss to take notice of it, that a near view of death would soon reconcile men of good principles one to another; and that it is chiefly owing to our easy situation in life, and our putting these things far from us, that our breaches are fomented, ill blood continued, prejudices and breach of charity and of Christian union so kept, so far carried on among us as it is. Another Plague year would reconcile all these differences; a close conversing with death, or with

diseases that threaten death, would scum off the gall from our tempers, remove the animosities among us, and bring us to see with differing eyes than those which we look on things with before. As the people who had been used to join with the Church were reconciled at this time with the admitting the Dissenters to preach to them, so the Dissenters, who, with an uncommon prejudice, had broken off from the communion of the Church of England, were now content to come to the parish churches, and to conform to the worship which they did not approve of before; but, as the terror of the infection abated, those things all returned again to their less desirable channel, and to the course they were in before.*

*The Act of Uniformity was only one of the several measures contrived or promoted by the Episcopalians to effect the complete restoration of the Church establishment as settled in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They were opposed by sectaries of various classes, among whom the Presbyterians were the most formidable, and probably the most numerous; and against them especially was this hostile statute directed. "Both the Presbyterians and the Cavaliers had given proofs of their attachment to the king; but their loyalty was of a different order: the first sought to limit, the latter to extend, the powers of the crown; the one looked on the constitution of the church as hostile, the other as favourable to their respective views." Hence a conflict between these two parties became almost unavoidable; and the devoted royalists, (at the head of whom may be reckoned the Chancellor Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon,) perceived it to be their interest to crush, if possible, the Presbyterian faction; and they therefore employed their whole weight and influence in aiding those who were determined to make conformity to the episcopal church a part of the law of the land.

Those bishops who were living at the time of the king's restoration were reinstated in their sees as a matter of course, and new bishops were appointed to the vacant dioceses. On the 30th of July, 1661, an act of Parliament received the royal assent to repeal the law made in the 17th of Charles I. for the exclusion of the bishops from the House of Peers. This must have greatly diminished the parliamentary strength of the Presbyterians;-whose power and interest throughout the country were still further weakened by the Corporation Act, passed on the 20th of December following. By that act, "Commissioners were appointed with the power of removing at discretion every individual holding office in or under any corporation, in the kingdom; and it required that all persons permitted to retain their situations should qualify themselves by

† Dr. Lingard's "History of England," vol. vii. p. 374, 4to.

I mention this but historically; I have no mind to enter into arguments to move either, or both sides, to a more charitable compliance one with another; I do not see that it is probable such a discourse would be either suitable or

renouncing the Solemn League and Covenant, by taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and by declaring, upon oath, their belief of the unlawfulness of taking up arms against the king on any pretence whatsoever." With respect to the admission of future officers, the Act moreover provided, that no man should be eligible who had not, within the year preceding his election, "taken the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England."

The next step taken by the Cavaliers and High-Churchmen was to procure a law which should reduce the whole body of the clergy under the authority of the bishops. This was effected by the Act of Uniformity, by which every minister was required, under the penalty of forfeiting all his ecclesiastical preferments, to conform to the ritual prescribed in the book of Common Prayer, before August 24, 1662, which being the feast of St. Bartholomew, this statute was styled the Bartholomew Act. All ministers were likewise required to sign the following declaration: "I do hereby declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the Book intituled the Book of Common Prayer," &c. Besides this, every person was obliged to sign a declaration contained in the Militia Act, promising to conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England, and to renounce the Solemn League and Covenant, which had been imposed on all who held ecclesiastical or other offices, during the ascendancy of the Presbyterians. Among the provisions of this Act, it was stated, that "no person shall be capable of any benefice, or presume to consecrate or administer the holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, before he be ordained Priest by Episcopal Ordination, upon pain to forfeit for every offence the sum of one hundred pounds."

The patrons of this measure, anxious chiefly to deprive the Presbyterian clergy of their influence over the people, made no scruple however of sacrificing, in the general proscription, all who presumed to dissent from the Church of England, whether Catholics or Protestants. The King would willingly have favoured the Catholics; and as he could not directly procure for them an exemption from the penalties of such provisions of the act as affected them he endeavoured to secure to himself the means of relieving them, by retaining a discretionary power of dispensing with the execution of the law in particular cases. In this attempt for the present he was unsuccessful. It was on the 18th of February that the Act received the royal signature; and in the period that intervened before St. Bartholomew's day, the leaders of the Presbyterian party made every effort to prevent the rigid enforcement of the law. Having free access to his Majesty, they complained that he had violated his promise made to them in the declaration from Breda, in which he had said "that no man should be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion, which did not disturb the peace of the kingdom;" and that he would "consent to such an act of Parliament, as upon mature deliberation should be

successful: the breaches seem rather to widen, and tend to a widening farther, than to closing; and who am I that I should think myself able to influence either one side or other? But this I may repeat again, that it is evident offered to him for the granting full indulgence to tender consciences." The remonstrances of the Presbyterians and their friends, according to Clarendon, had so much influence on the King that he was induced to promise that he would issue a proclamation, or give orders to the Bishops to suspend the full operation of the act for three months beyond the time appointed; so that those ministers who conformed so far as merely to read the Liturgy might not be subjected to the forfeiture of their benefices. But, on consultation with the heads of the church and the great law officers, he found himself compelled to submit to their representations, and the law was suffered to take its course.

"The fatal St. Bartholomew," says Hume, "approached; the day when the clergy were obliged by the late law either to relinquish their livings, or to sign the articles required of them. A combination had been entered into by the most zealous of the Presbyterian ecclesiastics to refuse the subscription, in hopes that the Bishops would not venture at once to expel so great a number of the most popular preachers. The Catholic party at Court, who desired a great rent among the Protestants, encouraged them in this obstinacy, and gave them hopes that the king would protect them in their refusal. The king himself, by his irresolute conduct, contributed, either from design or accident, to increase this opinion. Above all, the terms of subscription had been made strict and rigid, on purpose to disgust all the zealous and scrupulous among the Presbyterians, and deprive them of their livings; and in consequence about two thousand of the clergy, in one day, relinquished their cures; and to the astonishment of the court, sacrificed their interest to their religious tenets."-"During the dominion of the Parliamentary party, a fifth of each living had been left to the ejected clergymen; but this indulgence, though at first insisted on by the House of Peers, was now refused to the Presbyterians. However difficult to conciliate peace among theologians, it was hoped by many that some relaxation in the terms of communion might have kept the Presbyterians united to the church, and have cured those ecclesiastical factions which had been so fatal, and were still so dangerous. Bishoprics were offered to Calamy, Baxter, and Reynolds, leaders among the Presbyterians: the last only could be prevailed on to accept. Deaneries and other preferments were refused by many."*

The conduct of the churchmen in this affair may be partly excused on the score of retaliation, for the sufferings which they had themselves endured during the Protectorate; but the behaviour of the courtiers admits of no such apology. A recent historian severely remarks, that "the Act of Uniformity may have been necessary for the restoration of the church to its former discipline and doctrine; but if such was the intention of those who formed the declaration from Breda, they were guilty of infidelity to the king, and of fraud to the people, by putting into his mouth language, which, with the aid of equivoca

*"Hist. of England,” vol. vii., pp. 384, 385. 8vo.

death will reconcile us all; on the other side the grave we shall be all brethren again. In heaven, whither I hope we may come from all parties and persuasions, we shall find neither prejudice nor scruple: there we shall be of one principle and of one opinion. Why we cannot be content to go hand in hand to the place where we shall join heart and hand without the least hesitation, and with the most complete harmony and affection-I say, why we cannot do so here-I can say nothing to; neither shall I say anything more of it, but that it remains to be lamented.

I could dwell a great while upon the calamities of this dreadful time, and go on to describe the objects that appeared among us every day, the dreadful extravagances which the distraction of sick people drove them into; how the streets began now to be fuller of frightful objects, and families to be made even a terror to themselves. But after I have told you, as I have above, that one man being tied in his bed, and finding no other way to deliver himself, set the bed on fire with his candle, which unhappily stood within his reach, and burnt himself in his bed; and how another, by the insufferable torment he bore, danced and sung naked in the streets, not knowing one ecstasy from another; I say, after I have mentioned these things, what can be added more? What

tion, they might explain away; and by raising in them expectations which it was never meant to fulfil."*

It might have been expected that the Episcopalians, having recovered their benefices and completely restored the ecclesiastical establishment, would have been satisfied with the success of their projects; but, animated by the spirit of proselytism, if not by yet more worthy motives, they continued throughout the reign of Charles II. to harass their fallen enemies with a series of penal enactments, which, though somewhat modified by the policy of the courtiers, in order to gratify the King's predilection for the Catholics, had the inevitable effect of such measures, in confirming and perpetuating those sectarian principles which they were ostensibly intended to eradicate.

*

Lingard's "Hist. of England," vol. vii. p. 378.