VI. CHAS. I. A.D. 1647-8. CHAPTER of Wight, and died of grief. In short, with scarcely an exception, as their opponents themselves admitted, the expelled masters were good, wise, and learned men; but they refused the covenant, and would no doubt have employed all their influence against the parliament. The covenant, however, was not rigidly imposed: it was offered as a test to those who were suspected, that is, to determined royalists; but great numbers of respectable men who held no extreme opinions, were suffered to remain without disturbance. From Trinity hall and Catherine hall neither fellow nor student was removed. In Queen's college, on the other hand, not one was left. The new masters, elected in the place of the ten ejected, were men of the highest character both for piety and learning. Dr. Ralph Cudworth, the new master of Clare hall, was the greatest teacher of metaphysical philosophy of his age; if not in England the founder of the science. His "Intellectual System" is a work of vast learning and deeper thought: philosophical readers acknowledge its depth and its difficulty. He was long supposed to have founded his system upon the philosophy of Plato. A learned German professor has lately shewn, not only that his principles were new, but that they contain the germ of the doctrines of Kant, the father of modern metaphysics. Another of his works, a treatise on free will, has lately been published for the first time, from the manuscript in the British Museum : so little has time impaired his reputation. We owe it to the puritans that this great man enjoyed the learned repose thus nobly VI. CHAS. I. A.D. 1647-8. consecrated.* At the restoration he resigned his CHAPTER mastership, but conformed to the church of England. Witchcott, the new provost of King's college, was more successful, says Tillotson, in forming the students to a sober sense of religion, than any man of that age he was an excellent tutor and instructor of youth. Dr. Arrowsmith was appointed to St. John's. Spurstowe, and on his resignation Lightfoot, to Catherine hall; Seaman to Peter-house. All these were eminent in their day. Not one of the new masters was an inefficient man.‡ The renovation of Oxford was effected with more severity. During the war the discipline of the university had been relaxed, and sloth and vice were rampant. A provincial city, at once the residence of a court, the head-quarters of an army, and the seat of a university, must have been an unpromising field for the cultivation either of learning or of morals. We can believe that Oxford was dissolute and learning in decay, simply because any other representation would have been incredible. When it fell at length into the hands of the parliament, Fairfax and his soldiers took possession of the city by surrender, and marched into it, according to their custom, without reproach or insult. The next day the shops were opened, every alarm vanished; and Oxford enjoyed a tranquillity and good order unknown for years. Victorious everywhere in arms, the puritans now provoked a conflict of another kind. The city of * Blakey, Hist. of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 281. + Tillotson, Works, vol. i. p. 277. Neal, vol. iii. p. 93. CHAPTER VI. A.D. 1647-8. Oxford was reduced, but the university appeared to be impregnable. Here the old loyalty prevailed, CHAS. I. the theology of Laud was taught and the divine right of kings. Even had the parliament no regard for learning, still it could not leave the university to its opponents. If it were not wanted for the instruction of puritans it was not safe to abandon it to the royalists. The conduct of the parliament was marked at first with great forbearance. It was evidently its wish to conciliate the university, and to introduce a new system under the direction of its present rulers and occupants. First, a deputation of seven of its best divines was sent with authority to preach, both in the town and colleges, in order to soften the spirits of the people, and give them a better opinion of its cause. The towns-people crowded to their sermons-the collegians heard them with contempt and scorn. Reynolds, afterwards bishop of Norwich, was one of the seven, which suggests a doubt as to the justice of the clamour with which they were assailed. One of their proceedings was perhaps unwise. They opened a conference or weekly debate, to solve objections against the new confession of faith and discipline, and to discuss points in casuistry. The students in derision called it the scruple shop. Overwhelmed with ridicule, they returned to London and reported the failure of their mission. The parliament now determined upon a searching visitation, and passed an ordinance of both houses to that effect. visitors appointed were lawyers and divines: they were empowered to hear and determine all crimes, abuses, and disorders within the university; to The VI. CHAS. I. A.D. 1647-8. inquire particularly upon oath concerning those CHAPTER who had not subscribed to the solemn league and covenant, or taken the negative oath. Their powers extended still further: they were instructed to examine and depose all those who might have opposed the new presbyterian discipline, or taken arms against the parliament, or assisted those who did so. The management of the university, its customs, oaths, and statutes, they were to investigate; but if the university or any of its members were aggrieved by their sentence, an appeal was permitted to a committee of the lords and commons.* The university in convocation immediately drew up a solemn protest, chiefly the work of Sanderson, in which they submit their reasons against the covenant, the directory, the negative oath, and the assumed authority and proceedings of this new commission. It was drawn up with elaborate skill and argument, and was in every respect worthy of its authors and of the church of England, whose cause they represented. They objected both to the manner and the matter of the covenant. A covenant, they said, implies a voluntary mutual consent of the contractors; whereas this was imposed by force; and in contradiction to the petition of right, in which the parliament had itself declared such oaths unwarrantable by the laws and statutes of the realm. even if the covenant had not been imposed at all upon them, but submitted only to their choice and to their own free will, they could not have embraced it; for the king by proclamation had denounced it; and they by their oaths and allegiance were bound * Neal, vol. iii. p. 339. Walker, Sufferings, part i. p. 134. But CHAS. I. A.D. 1647-8. CHAPTER to obey all such his majesty's commands as were VI. not in their apprehensions repugnant to the will of God, or the positive laws of this kingdom. Then, addressing themselves to the various points of the covenant, they denied, if they did not indeed disprove, in succession the truth of every one of them. Some they maintained were exaggerated, some were false, some mischievous, and all alike unnecessary. The second article of the covenant required them "to endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness." Upon this they remark as follows: "First," they say, "it cannot but affect us with some grief and amazement to see that ancient form of churchgovernment which we heartily (and, as we hope, worthily) honour, as under which our religion was at first so orderly, without violence or tumult, and so happily, reformed, and hath since so long flourished with truth and peace (to the honour and happiness of our own and the envy and admiration of other nations), not only endeavoured to be extirpated without any reason offered to our understandings for which it should be thought necessary, or but so much as expedient, so to do; but also ranked with popery, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness; which we unfeignedly profess ourselves to detest as much as any others whatsoever. And that with some intimation also, as if that government were some way or other so contrary to sound doctrine or the power of godliness, that whosoever should not endeavour the extirpation thereof must of necessity partake in other men's sins, which we cannot yet be persuaded to believe." |