the penal statutes, upon condition of subscribing a declaration of allegiance, &c. and of assembling with open doors. Bishop Burnet says, the bill for a comprehension was offered by the episcopal party in the house of commons, but that the friends of the dissenters did not seem forward to promote it, because (as Mr. Baxter observes) they found the bill would not go; or if it had passed the commons, it would have been thrown out by the bishops in the house of lords; the Clergy (says Kennet) being no further in earnest than as they apprehended the knife of the papists at their throats.

When the above-mentioned bill was brought into the house December 21, entitled An act for uniting his majesty's protestant subjects, the first gentleman of the court par ty who spoke against it observed, "that there were a sort of men who would neither be advised nor over-ruled, but under the pretence of conscience break violently through all laws whatsoever, to the great disturbance both of church and state; therefore he thought it more convenient to have a law for forcing the dissenters to yield to the church, and not to force the church to yield to them-" Another said, he was afraid, that if once the government should begin to yield to the dissenters, it would be as in forty-one, nothing would serye but an utter subversion; the receiving of one thing would give occasion for demanding more; and it would be impossible to give them any satisfaction without laying all open, and running into coufusion."* This was the common language of the tories. And there has been a loud cry against the dissenters, for their obstinacy and perverseness, though not a single concession had been offered since the Restoration, to let the world see how far they would yield; or by receiving a denial, to get an opportunity to reproach them with greater advantage. But in favor of the bill it was urged by others, " that it was intended for the preservation of the church, and the best bill that could be made in order thereto, all circumstances considered-If we are to deal with a stubborn sort of people, who in many things prefer their humor before reason, or their own safety, or the public good, this is a very good time to see whether they will be drawn by the cords of love

or no. The bill will be very agreeable to the christian charity which our church professes; and it may be hoped, that in the time of this imminent danger, they will consider their own safety, and the safety of the protestant religion, and no longer keep a-foot the unhappy divisions among us, on which the papists ground their hopes; but when -they see the church so far condescend, as to dispense with the surplice, and those other things they scruple, that they will submit to the rest which are enjoined by law, that so we may unite against the common enemy. But if this bill should not have the desired effect, but on the contrary, the dissenters should continue their animosities and disobedience to the church, I think still the church will gain very much hereby, and leave the party without excuse-" This seems agreeable to reason.

Although the bill for a comprehension was committed, it did not pass the house, being changed for another, entitled, An act to exempt his majesty's protestant subjects, dissenting from the church of England, from the penalties imposed upon the papists by the act of 35th Eliz.* By which act non-conformists were adjudged to perpetual imprisonment, or obliged to abjure (that is, depart) the realm never to return. This terrible law had lain dormant almost eighty years, but was now revived, and threatened to be put in execution by the tories. The repeal passed the house of commons with a high hand, but went heavily through the house of lords; the bishops apprehending that the terror of the law might be of some use; but when it should have been offered the king for the royol assent at the close of the session, it was missing, and never heard of any more, the clerk of the crown having withdrawn it from the table by the king's particular order. The king (says Burnett) had no mind openly to deny the bill, but less mind to pass it, and therefore this illegal method was taken, which was an high offence in the officer of the house, and would have been severely punished in the next session, if the parliament had not been abruptly dissolved. Thus the non-conformists were sawn to pieces between the king, the bishops, and the parliament; when one party was willing to give them relief, the other always stood in the * Burnet, vol. ii. p, 300.

† Ibid.

way. The parliament was their enemy for about twelve years, and now they are softened, the king and the court bishops are inflexible; and his majesty will rather sacrifice the constitution to his despotic will, than exempt them from an old law which subjected them to banishment and death. However, the morning before the house was prorogued, January 10, two votes were passed of a very extraordinary nature. "1. Resolved, nemine contradicente, That it is the opinion of this house, that the acts of parliament made in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James against popish recusants ought not to be extended against protesttant dissenters. 2. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this house, that the prosecution of protestant dissenters upon the penal laws is at this time grievous to the subject, a weakening the protestant interest, an encouragement to popery, and dangerous to the peace of the kingdom. Bishop Burnet* says, these resolutions were thought an invasion of the legislature, when one house pretended to suspend the execution of the laws, which was to act like dictators in the state. But with all due submission I should think that this cannot be construed a suspension of those laws, and that a bouse of commons, which is not suffered to sit and repeal laws, or when they have repealed them have their bills withdrawn illegally by the crown, may have liberty to declare their judgment that the continuance of those laws is burthensome to the state. They must do so, (says Mr. Coke†) in order to a repeal. If the bill for the repeal of the old popish act de hæretico comburendo, for burning heretics, which the parliament were afraid might be revived in a popish reign, had been lost in this manner, might not the parliament have declared the execution of that law a weakening to the protestant interest, or dangerous to the peace of the kingdom?

While the parliament was endeavoring to relieve the dissenters, and charging the miseries of the kingdom upon the papists, many of the bishops and clergy of the church of England were pleased to see the court inclined to prosecute the non-conformists. The clergy in general, (says Rapin) were attached to the court; men of doubtful religion were promoted, and there was reason to charge them † Page 561. + Page 711.

• Burnet 301.

with leaning to popery. Even some able champions against popery went so far into the court measures as to impute the calamities of the times to the non-conformists, and to raise the cry of the populace against them. Dr. Edward Stillingfleet, who had written an Irenicum in favor of liberty, and against impositions, in his sermon before the lord-mayor, May 2 this year entitled, the Mischief of Separation, condemned all the dissenters as schismatics; and very gravely advised them not to complain of persecution.— When the sermon was published, it brought upon the doctor several learned adversaries, as Mr. Baxter, Mr. Alsop, Mr. Howe, Mr. Barret, and Dr. Owen; from which last divine, who wrote with great temper and seriousness, I will venture to transcribe the following passage, without entering into the argument:*"After so many of the non-conformists have died in common gaols, (says the doctor) so many have endured long imprisonments, not a few being at this day in the same durance; so many driven from their habitations into a wandering condition, to preserve for a while the liberty of their persons; so many have been reduced to want and penury, by the taking away their goods, and from some the very instruments of their livelihood.After the prosecution that has been against them in all courts of justice in this nation, on informations, indictments, and suits, to the great charge of all who have been so persecuted, and the ruin of some. After so many ministers and their families have been brought into the utmost outward straits which nature can subsist under; after all their perpetual fears and dangers wherewith they have been exercised and disquieted, they think it hard to be censured for complaining, by them who are at ease." The doctor

endeavored to support his charge by the suffrage of the French presbyterians; and Compton bishop of London applied to monsieur Le Moyne, and several others,† for their opinions; as if truth were to be determined by numbers; or as if the English presbyterians could pay a vast deference to their judgments, who had so deceived them at the Restoration. The ministers, bred up in French complaisance and under French slavery, after high strains of compliment to the English bishops, declared, that they were of * Page 53, 54. † Collyer, p. 900.

opinion, their brethren might comply; and that they were not for pushing things to extremity only for a different form of government. Which the doctor and his friends interpreted as a decision in their favor. But did not the bishops exasperate the spirits of their dissenting brethren, by enforcing the sanguinary laws? Were these protestant methods of conversion, or likely to bring them to temper? The French ministers complained sufficiently of this about five years after, at the revocation of the edict of Nantz.Bishop Burnet remarks of Dr. Stillingfleet on this occasion, that he not only retracted his Irenicum, but went into the humors of the high sort of people beyond what became him, perhaps beyond his own sense of things.

This year [1680] died Mr. Stephen Charnock, B. D. first of Emanuel-college, Cambridge; and afterwards fellow of New-college, Oxford. He was chaplain to Henry Cromwell, lieutenant of Ireland, and was much respected by persons of the best quality in the city of Dublin for bis polite behavior. After the Restoration he returned into England, and became pastor of a separate congregation in London, where he was admired by the more judicious part of his hearers, though not popular, because of his disadvantageous way of reading with a glass: he was an emi

Mr. Neal, it seems, has fallen into a mistake, by supposing that the French presbyterians favored English episcopacy. Their answers were complaisant, but wary. Yet Stillingfleet published their letters as suffrages for episcopacy, and annexed them to his Treatise on Schism. Mr. Claude, one of those written to, complained of this treatment; but the letters which contained these complaints were concealed till his death, when his son printed them. In one of them to bishop Compton, April 1681, he freely told him, that the bishops were blamed for their eagerness to persecute others by penal laws, for their arbitrary and despotic government; for their rigid attachment to of fensive ceremonies; for requiring foreigu protestant ministers to be reordained; and for not admitting any to the ministry without making an oath that episcopacy is of divine right, which Mr. Claude called a cruel rack for conscience. He solemnly called on the bishops, in the name of God, to remove these grounds of complaints, to give no cause, no pretext for separation, to do all in their power to prevent it, and instead of chafing and irritating people's minds, by all gentle methods to conciliate them. This was excellent advice: but the public were not informed, that it had been given by those to whom it was addressed. Robinson's Life of Claude, prefixed to his translation of an Essay on the Composition of Sermons, p. 65-67. Ed.

VOL. V.

† Vol. i. P. 276.

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