TWO CENTURIES OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH.* WE have read this
book with great care, and some interest. The subject forms a significant portion of the history of England, but the treatment it has received from Mr. Molesworth is far from satisfactory. He has ample materials at his disposal, he can accumulate facts, and in a dry sort of way understands how to relate them. On the other hand, he fails,;we think, in pass- ing from the sphere of the chronicler to that of the historian. We look here in vain for an intelligent and comprehensive view of a great subject. Nor is this all. A writer with an unattrac- tive style often compensates his readers for this deficiency by .scrupulous exactness, and by a clear perception of the difference between what is of mighty significance and what of trivial im- portance. Such a man may be solid, if not brilliant, but Mr. Molesworth's History is neither one nor the other. The narrative is monotonous, and occasionally it is inaccurate, and appears to have been written with carelessness and haste. Sometimes the -author states the exact opposite of the meaning which he wishes to convey, as when he observes, upon page 135, that while under James II. the preachers of Protestantism had fall license to - attack, the preachers of Catholicism were strictly forbidden to -defend ; sometimes he fails to conclude a sentence, as may be seen on page 92 ; sometimes, too, we meet with passages which appear nearly, if not wholly, contradictory. In writing of Bishop Burnet, Mr. Molesworth says, upon one page, that in his writings he shows great unfairness to his opponents, " in whom he can seldom discern any merit whatever ; " and on the next that, "in showing courtesy and hospitality to men of all classes and opinions, no English prelate has ever surpassed him." Courtesy to opponents in society may exist with unfairness in the study, but if this is what the writer meant, he should have stated it more plainly. Repetitions also are frequent, and of chronology the writer has a vague impression.
As an historian, Mr. Molesworth strives to be just, and this is Barely a great merit. He looks at his subject with 'honest eyes, and if at times he lacks judgment, he is never wanting in justice. We differ from him at the outset. After -agreeing with the late Henry Melvill that the post-Reforma- lion Church was simply a continuation of the Church which had existed before the changes which were made, changes -affecting, indeed, its character, but in nowise compromising its existence, the writer adds :—
" But the same cannot be said with regard to another period in the history of the Anglican communion. Then there was a distinct solution of continuity, which admits of no denial. At the period of the Great Rebellion, the State not only separated itself from the Episcopal Church, but violently suppressed it,—substituting for it a Presbyterian Church, forbidding, ender severe penalties, the use of its Liturgy, and holding it up to the scorn and hatred of the people. It is not, then, either from Christ and his Apostles, nor yet from the period of the Reformation, that we must date the foundation of the present Established Church of England. If we would seek out its origin, we must come down to a much later period in the history of our country, reckoning from the time when the Stuart dynasty was restored in the person of Charles IL, and the Legislature adopted that last great Act of Uniformity, by which she recalled into renewed existence the Church she had previously abolished."
It is quite beside our purpose to argue in favour of Apostolical succession, but we may observe that those who hold that dogma will not find it difficult to reply to this assertion. Let us grant, they may say, that the National Church was violently sup- pressed from 1642 to 1660, a period of eighteen years ; that the hierarchy was dissolved, that 2,000 of the clergy were deprived of their livings, that it became illegal to use a form of prayer or to administer the Sacraments according to Anglican rites. The Church did not cease to exist because the clergy were treated with contempt, or because the rites they held so sacred had to be administered -in secret. Bishops and priests did not lose the powers they had received, when restrained by force from exercising them. Is a meadow less a meadow because it is flooded by a violent tempest; and can it be said that a Church ceases to exist because it is thrust down for a time from its high and natural position? We think that Mr. Moles- worth's statements will not only be objected to by High Church- men, but that, in his view of the Church as an Establishment, he makes too much of the temporary success of the Presbyterians, a History of the Church of Bnylami, from 1680. By W. Neuman Molesworth, ILL London: Began Paul and Co. 1892.
and too much also of that most objectionable measure, the Act of Uniformity. The bigotry and narrowness of the men who forced the Westminster Confession upon Englishmen, and pro- hibited even the private use of the Book of Common Prayer, was as conspicuous as the bigotry of Land. They were not more enlightened, they were not more humane, as a rule they were not more devout; and, to use Mr. Molesworth's words, " after having bitterly denounced the tyranny which they had suffered during the reign of Charles:I., they had themselves imitated, and even surpassed, the intolerance of which they had so loudly complained." But toleration, unless by a few select souls, was not understood in those days, and even a wise and good man like Baxter confessed that he abhorred it. Presbyterianism was vir- tually dead in England before the Restoration. It did not suit the genius of Englishmen, and the severity of its discipline was felt to be intolerable. Charles II. and his advisers could never have acted as they did, had not the bulk of the nation been with them ; not, indeed, in the licentiousness and political degradation which made the reign of the so-called " Merry Monarch " the worst in our annals, but in their determination to throw off by any means and every means the burden under which they groaned. So sternly had the people been driven in one direction, that they took the other with a bound at the first opportunity. The people, it was said at the time, were " doting on the old ser- vice." It may be questioned, indeed, whether the love of it had been ever lost in the country ; and if, as Mr.Molesworth observes, the Prayer-book only a few years before had been • cast aside with every expression of disgust and disdain, it was from the hands of the dominant party that it suffered this treatment. The case was widely different in Scotland, where Episcopacy and a form of public prayer were at all times obnoxious to the people. In England, devout persons rejoiced in being able once more to worship God after the manner of their fathers ; but devotion, despite the influence of such saintly men as Bishop Ken and Jeremy Taylor, was not a strong feature of Restoration Churchmanship. Its power was chiefly felt in the political arena, and the persecution under the Protectorate, when Crom- well's Triers formed, as it has been well said, a spiritual court- martial, without a military code to guide them, was re-enacted in another form.
Mr. Molesworth takes what may be called the popular view of the characters of the Second Charles and his brother, and, indeed, there is no other view to take. Charles II. was cruel and un- principled, because he was a sensualist and loved his ease ; James II. was cruel, partly because he had a hard, unforgiving nature, and partly from the sincerity of his convictions. Both of them were bad kings and bad men, but James possessed at least the virtues of sincerity and courage. Truly does the writer say that he was honest, brave, and sincere, and that "the tenacity with which he clung to his religious opinions, not only through- out his short reign, but also after its unfortunate termination, shows that he possessed these qualities in a degree that was very unusual in his day." Both the brothers were as absolute as they could be, and neither of them had the faintest respect for con- scientious scruples. William III., on the other band, did not trouble his head about them. He had not the faintest interest in the ecclesiastical questions that agitated his reign, but handed them over to his wife ; yet this indifference, which amounted to contempt, did not give emancipation, or even a limited tolera- tion, to the Roman Catholics, for in the early part of the reign of William and Mary, as the historian reminds us, a Bill was passed "that contained clauses condemning a Roman Catholic priest to fine and imprisonment for life if he said Mass, and that disqualified a Papist from becoming the proprietor of laud, either by inheritance or purchase." And similar disqualifications oppressed the Roman Catholics in the reign of Anne. Some of them, although contemptible, were none the less annoying, as, for example, the law that no Papist might purchase a horse above the value of five pounds. " Even the most ardent advocates of civil and religious liberty," says Mr. Molesworth, " the moment that the Catholic Church was in question seemed to cast away their principles, and to become the advocates of the most abominable tyranny and the most flagrant injustice." This is historically true, but the surprise it naturally excites will be lessened when we remember how deeply and comparatively how recently this country had suffered from the tyranny of Rome. No one can excuse the mad doings of a bigot like Lord George Gordon, but it is not difficult to account for them.
Mr. Molesworth exposes the defects of the Church pf England, in the days when formalism and respectability, rather than zeal and piety, marked its rulers ; but at its lowest stage, there were always men distinguished by learning and devotion. Bishops of lasting reputation, like Beveridge, Taylor, Sancroft, and Ken, lived in the reigns of Charles II. and his brother ; Barnet, Tillotson, and Tenison did their duty honestly in the reign of William and Mary ; and in the reigns of the Georges there are names which, like that of Butler and Wesley, must ever stand in the front rank for learning and piety. Mr. Molesworth's History, by the way, begins with the Restoration. Such a history demands a notice, how- ever brief, of the great men, whether belonging to the clergy or laity, whose earnestness and wisdom have done more than any mere ecclesiastical arrangements to elevate the character of the Church of England. The true history of a Church is the history of its members, a fact of which, judging from a passage in the preface, the author seems to be aware. Yet this important branch of his subject is, for the most part, neglected. Sancroft, Tillotson, and Ken obtain, perhaps, sufficient recognition ; Sheldon and Baxter, also, are not neglected ; but Jeremy Taylor is not mentioned, or is barely mentioned ; and in a curious sentence, which implies that the influence of the following laymen was "at work about the same time," he is content to link together, without any discriminative comment, the names of Nelson, Addison, Dr. Johnson, Burke, Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, and Wilberforce.
The last chapter of the volume relates the history of the Oxford Tracts, of the Gorham case, of the Papal aggression, of the Church Union and the Church Association. Men, as well as measures, appear in this chapter, in which Maurice and Kingsley are granted a page and a half between them, while more than two pages are devoted to Mr. Voysey. We may note, in conclusion, that Mr. Molesworth states he was unacquainted with Messrs. Abbey and Overton's well-known work, published, we believe, in 1878, The English Church in the Eighteenth Century, until a great part of his book was already in type. " I will, therefore," he adds, " content myself with remarking that their work is of a different character from mine, and intended for a different class of readers."
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