Volume 10 / Part 3 — NOTES ON THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. PART III. (continued 2)

Note XXXV.

The declaration for liberty of conscience was a strange and incongruous, as well as most impolitic performance. It set out with declaring, that although the king heartily wished that all his subjects were members of the Catholic church, (which they returned, by heartily wishing that he were a Protestant,) yet he abhorred all idea of constraining conscience; and therefore, making no doubt of the concurrence of Parliament, declared, 1. That he would protect and maintain the bishops, &c. of the church of England, as by law established, in the free exercise of their religion, and quiet enjoyment of their possessions. 2. That all execution of penal laws against non-conformists be suspended. 3. That all his majesty's subjects should be at liberty to serve God after their own way, in public and private, so nothing was preached against the royal authority. 4. That the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and the tests made in the 25th and 30th years of Charles II., be discontinued. 5. That all non-conformists be pardoned for former offences against the penal laws and test. 6. That abbey and church lands be assured to the possessors.

Such were the contents of this memorable Declaration, in which a bigotted purpose was cloaked under professions of the highest liberality; and prevarication and falsehood were rendered more disgusting, by being mingled with very unseasonable truth.

Note XXXVI.

When the king had irreconcileably quarrelled with the church, he began to affect a great favour for the dissenters; and, as has been often hinted, endeavoured to represent the measure of universal toleration to be intended as much for the benefit of the Protestant dissenters as of the Catholics. He dwelt upon the rigour of the church courts, and directed an inquiry to be made into all the vexatious suits which had been instituted against the dissenters, and the compositions which had been exacted from them, under pretence of enforcing the laws. In short, Burnet assures us, that the royal bed-chamber and drawing-room were as full of stories to the prejudice of the clergy, as they used formerly to abound with declamations against the fanatics.

Note XXXVII.

In the preceding lines, the poet had intimated the increase of trade and wealth; an effect of toleration, much dwelt upon in James's proclamation for liberty of conscience, and, indeed, the ostensible cause of its being issued. But Dryden, as every one else, further augured from the Declaration of Indulgence, under the circumstances of the time, the speedy downfall of the church of England, though he is willing to spare the king the odium of hastening what he represents as the natural consequence of her own ambition and intolerance. A writer of his party is less scrupulous in expressing the king's intentions: "So, on the whole matter, the loyal church of England must either change her old principles of loyalty, and take example by her Catholic neighbours, how to behave herself towards a prince who is not of her persuasion, or she must give his majesty leave not to nourish a snake in his own bosom, but rather to withdraw his royal protection, which was promised on account of her constant fidelity: For it is an approved axiom in philosophy, Cessante causa, tollitur effectus; and we have a common saying of our own, No longer pipe, no longer dance. And now let us leave the holy mother church at liberty to consult what new measures of loyalty she ought to take for her own dear interest, and, for aught I know, it may be worth her serious consideration."—New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty.

Note XXXVIII.

Dryden insinuates the improbability, that the high and low church party would long continue in union, since the authority assumed by Burnet, their present advocate, was inconsistent with that of Sancroft the primate, Compton bishop of London, and other leaders of the high church party among the clergy. He resumes the theme of Burnet's alleged disinclination for episcopacy. In fact, although his lot cast him into the church of England, the bishop of Sarum, in many parts of his writings, expresses an unfavourable opinion of her clergy, whom in one place he calls the most remiss of any in Europe. Even this harsh expression is nothing to the following account of the controversy between the clergy and dissenters, as it stands in the MS. of his history; for it is greatly softened in the printed copy:

"Many books came out likewise against the church of England. This alarmed the bishops and clergy much; so that they set up to preach against rebellion, and the late times, in such a strain, that it was visible they meant a parallel between these and the present time. And this produced at last that heat and rage into which the clergy has run so far, that it is like to end very fatally. They, on their part, should have shewed more temper, and more of the spirit of the gospel; whereas, for the greatest part, they are the worst natured, the fiercest, indiscreetest, and most persecuting sort of people that are in the nation. There is a sort of them do so aspire to preferment, that there is nothing so mean and indecent that they will not do to compass it; and when they have got into preferments, they take no care, either of themselves, or of the flocks committed to their charge, but do generally neglect their parishes. If they are rich enough, they hire some pitiful curate, at as low a price as they can, and turn all over on him; or, if their income will not bear out that, they perform the public offices in the slightest manner they can, but take no care of their people in the way of private instruction or admonition; and so do nothing to justify the character of pastors or watchmen, that feed the souls of their people, or watch over them. And they allow themselves in many indecent liberties, of going to taverns and ale-houses, and of railing scurrilously against all that differ from them: and they cherish the profaneness of their people, if they but come to church, and rail with them against the dissenters; and are implacably set on the ruin of all that separate from them, if the course of their lives were otherwise ever so good and unblameable. In a word, many of them are a reproach to Christianity and to their profession; and are now, perhaps, one of the most corrupt bodies of men in the nation."—Somers' Tracts, p. 116.