a subscription different from that imposed in England. Accordingly, in 1635, the Irish convocation adopted the English thirty-nine Articles. No debate was allowed as to the abrogation of the Irish Articles of 1615 It was rather meant, that such as considered them mere amplifications of the English formulary, might enjoy that opinion unmolested, and some of the Irish prelacy, accordingly, exacted subscriptions to both sets of articles, down to the time of the troubles of 1641. But it was found impossible to obtain the lord deputy's permission to bring the ratification of the Irish articles before parliament. It was evidently intended by the government, that this variation between the two churches should gradually and silently sink into desuetude. Such was its fate. The Irish articles dragged on a lingering and precarious existence during some six years after the convocation of 1635 but when the restoration of Charles II. again established the church of Ireland, subscription to them wholly ceased'. § 5. Under Charles I. Puritanism rapidly increased, and undoubtedly, the church herself, by several gross mistakes, powerfully aided its growth. An extreme antipathy, indeed, to popery, and to every external observance which seemed anywise connected with it, might have yielded to time, a conscientious exercise of patronage, and judicious management. Moderate men might thus have learned to discriminate between the encouragement of unscriptural opinions, and a prudent connivance at them; between mere externals and fundamental principles. Nor, in some respects, were the courses taken adverse to this desirable consummation. The church was active, and promotion commonly followed upon the heels of proved ability. But unhappily, with professional ability, in the high-church party, was usually combined a discreditable, unconstitutional, and pernicious political subserviency. This too early took exactly that form which arouses the fiercest opposition it was arrayed against men's pockets. Charles was involved, at the outset of his reign, in foreign war, and found himself under a pressure of pecuniary difficulty, which his "With the single dissentient voice of a non-conformist minister from the diocese of Down." Mant, 491. 284 father's p To relieve tioned yo encounter Buckingh which irr maining e loan, as it according but unfort representa welcome, 1 viewed as if not bour tent, all cl some of t from the : dience bei followed, a justified in the bare st We were Sibthorp, t doctrines, was visited by not only waring fe Wong, and parochial Į moderate: mes, by se Hailam's Bach, and 7 weuthy and distinguished churchmen, among those who -1 1 mmbie and necessitous conditions. All such feelzowever, I left to themselves, would have gradually town to their average intensity: which is not suffiniveising a nation. They were driven from this ansemently shielded from unimportance, by Chacies not only desired an uniform relie tanished in all parts of his dominions; s at the northern prelacy and clergy ise ner southern neighbours, with adeEr derefure amounced intentions of mestical estates, and of placing the imany more advantageous to the filed many of the best houses their masters anxious to fan the radice against prelacy. The king's conadourage to the Presbyterian party, con of costitutional forms. It was destic possess a body of canon law. is Juris us so ill-advised, as to fancy auchucky than his own. It came Intion. Dat as the fruits of recognised my suctioned afterwards by the Det macice of some private consultasts revised by their English mag was a render valid by the I make his unhappy assumption me fie aus which it promulged, The inuery: when, in fact, no liturgy TV CHS when one actually appeared, 4 puar fry was found ready to burst upon paky costei punem surprise in superior life'. die tog's imprudence in thus acting im il-ivined prerogative, may be menCammession Caurt, which his father had se ilegal way, nearly thirty years be was hostile to the liturgy." fore. But this precedent only served to mislead him and increase his difficulties. When the popular explosion burst forth with irresistible force, that arbitrary court was one of the first things which the government found itself under the necessity of offering to modify. This offer was accompanied with another to suspend the canons and liturgy until they should have duly passed the ordeal of constitutional forms. But it was now too late for qualified concessions on the royal side. For a long time Scottish discontent seemed only an ebullition of vulgar fanaticism, its abettors in superior life having abstained from compromising themselves by any open participation in it. But soon after the liturgical tumult in Edinburgh, in the summer of 1637, the strength of the Presbyterian party became so conspicuous, that great men thought themselves quite safe in heading it, and in the following year the famous Covenant was enthusiastically adopted by people of all conditions. It was not, indeed, accepted with equal eagerness in every part of the kingdom. On the contrary, the northern Scots received, at first, invitations to join it with considerable coolness. But gradually their objections were overcome by the fervid representations which resounded from Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. Thus, in the course of a short time, the whole kingdom imbibed a persuasion, that adherence to the Covenant was imperative upon every Scotchman who valued either his country or his salvation. It was vain for Charles to hope that his tardy concessions could stem such a raging torrent. Nothing was any longer thought of among his countrymen, but an unconditional surrender of all that haunted inferior life with fears of religious pollution, and superior, with hateful visions of tithes and church-lands again required for church purposes. The country, however, being thoroughly united and marshalled under its hereditary heads, did not supinely rest upon an enthusiastic resolution. It took the field, and remained in a formidable military attitude, in spite of royal endeavours on the other side, until its objects were completely James's instructions for the regulation of this court may be seen in Collier, ii. 792. 9 "Especially at Aberdeen, where it was opposed with much ability by the clergymen and professors of that city." Russell, ii. 144. father's pacific policy and Elizabeth's parsimony had avoided'. To relieve his necessities, in all the confidence of well-intentioned youth, he frankly reckoned upon parliament. But he encountered within its walls, a rancorous hatred of his favourite Buckingham, and a determination to grapple with prerogative, which irritated him into hasty dissolutions, the exchequer remaining empty. To replenish it, he had recourse to a general loan, as it was called; really, to a regular levy upon the people, according to their several assessments under the last subsidy: but unfortified by any previous consent obtained from their representatives. Fiscal exactions are always very far from welcome, but in this case they were certain to be commonly viewed as an extortion which every Englishman was entitled, if not bound, to resist. In order to lessen the public discontent, all clergymen were required to recommend the loan, and some of them, disreputably eager for preferment, broached from the pulpit the most obnoxious doctrines. Passive obedience being nakedly advocated upon scriptural grounds, it followed, as a necessary consequence, that the crown was fully justified in relieving its just necessities by levying money on the bare strength of prerogative, and that Christians, by resistance, were infringing a religious obligation. Mainwaring and Sibthorp, the two chief inculcators of these absurd and illegal doctrines, were both censured by parliament, and the former was visited with all that vindictive violence, which power, in those times, wherever lodged, invariably displayed3. But the court contemptuously nullified the vengeance of the commons, by not only pardoning, but also rewarding the victims. Mainwaring found the storm a speedy passport to a good country living, and eventually to a mitre; Sibthorp obtained better parochial preferment, and a prebend of Peterborough*. Thus moderate men were prejudiced against distinguished ecclesiastics, by seeing the exceptionable access which had led indivi 1 Hallam's Const. Hist. i. 512. 2 The instructions to the clergy were framed by Laud, then bishop of Bath and Wells, at the king's desire. The purport of them may be seen in Collier, ii. 739. 3 He was to be imprisoned during the pleasure of the House, fined 1000l. make a prescribed submission, be suspended for three years, rendered incapable of further preferment, and of preaching at court. * Kennet's Hist. Engl. ii. 28. Mainwaring was made bishop of St. David's. duals among them to preferment, and by the offensive political leaven which was likely from self-interest to blend itself with their principles. Mere theology was another ground of distinction and unpopularity to the higher clergy. They were generally of the party branded as Arminian: while the more strenuous opponents of unparliamentary taxation and of an over-strained prerogative, were usually Calvinists. In the same quarter too, a greater point was made of maintaining that strict and mortified exterior which readily gains upon serious minds, especially in lower life. Popularity among the gayer majority of that condition was indeed sought on the other side in 1633, by a royal proclamation, generally known as the Book of Sports, allowing lawful recreations, out of the hours of service, on Sundays, to such as had duly attended church3. Many were, no doubt, pleased by this authoritative relaxation of the rigorous principles by which Puritanism was every where curtailing the immemorial enjoyments of a rustic Sunday. But more, or, at all events, more of any influence, were seriously offended. The Book of Sports gave a colourable opening for painting the court and hierarchy as leagued against all godliness. Puritanism, therefore, gained upon public opinion, not only as the honourable opponent of royal extortion, but also as the uncompromising teacher of sound religion. § 6. Still, in spite of these advantages, and of many things injudiciously, some reprehensibly done, by the ruling party, there is no reason to believe that Presbyterianism would have superseded episcopacy, if English discontent had not urgently needed Scottish assistance. Nor is it by any means improbable that even Scotland would have risen superior to an unenquiring horror of prelacy, had a calm view of its merits and operation been permitted. It is true, that violent antipathies against bishops and liturgies, had been rooted in the populace by the times when these were papal; and a povertystricken, covetous aristocracy was keenly alive to the advantage of securing for itself the endowments by which they were supported. Nor, when James again planted prelacy in his paternal kingdom, was it difficult to arouse a sour, envious hostility to 5 Collier, ii. 758. |