CHAPTER IX.

Supplications of the Church in her Extremity.—Overtures to the Dissenters.— Sancroft proposes a Reformation in the Church.-His Healing Instructions to the Clergy. The good of Affliction.-Its Effects upon Sancroft.-And upon the rest of the Clergy.-The Tories become alienated from James.— Bolingbroke's Remarks upon their Conduct.- Invitation to the Prince of Orange. His Declaration.-Disingenuity of the Bishops.--Arrival of the Prince.-De Foe's Account of the Sensation produced by it.-Its Effect upon the King.-Religious Mockery.—James deserted by his Army.--And his Family.-De Foe's Account of the Alarm occasioned by the Flight of the Princess.--Some Skirmishing at Reading.-De Foe's Narrative of the Behaviour of the Irish there.-The King leaves London in Disguise.—And Embarks for France.-Detected and brought to Feversham.- De Foe's Account of his Ill-usage there.-James returns to London.-Leaves the Kingdom.-De Foe's Reflections upon that Event.-James's Modern Admirers.-Causes of his Mis-government.-His merciless Character.-Anecdote of his Perfidy.

1688.

THE gulph which had long swallowed up the liberties of the nation, and was now opening still wider to receive the parliamentary church, had the effect of awakening the attention of considerate men, and of promoting that union of parties in which alone consisted any hope of salvation. The bishops, grown more bold by their acquittal, applied themselves with increased energy to the defence of their immunities; and, now perceiving the danger into which they had brought themselves, supplicated the men whom they had been persecuting as "fanatics," to come over to their as

HEALING INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CLERGY.

145 sistance.* Sancroft, whose temper seems to have been softened by affliction, evinced a disposition to promote a further reformation in the church. In order to this, he lent his sanction to a revisal of the liturgy, and an abatement of those ceremonies that were allowed to be indifferent, committing the prosecution of the work to some moderate divines whom he had called in to his assistance. Still further to ingratiate himself with the Dissenters, whose leaders had shown a readiness to make common cause against the court, he sent certain articles to the clergy of his province, exhorting them "To have a very tender regard to their brethren the Protestant Dissenters, to visit them at their houses, and to receive them kindly at their own; to treat them fairly whenever they met them; to take all opportunities of convincing them that the bishops of the church are sincere and irreconcileable enemies to Popery; and that the very unkind jealousies which some have had of the bishops to the contrary, were altogether groundless; and in the last place, warmly and most affectionately to exhort them to unite in daily fervent prayer to the God of Peace for an union of all reformed churches, both at home and abroad, against our common enemies."+

How strangely are men affected by their outward circumstances! When the world looks pleasantly upon them, they are proud, insolent, overbearing, and intolerant; but its smiles are no sooner turned to frowns, than they become humble and submissive, drop their ferocity, and present us with human nature in its most amiable form. In like manner, the differences amongst Christians, which are magnified into importance by the jaundiced eye of bigotry, and are made the occasion of deadly hatred, lose all their noxious qualities as they approximate in their sufferings. A sense of common danger unites apparently discordant materials; and by re

* Cunningham's Great Britain, i. 80.

VOL. I.

L

+ Echard's Hist. of Eng. ii. 1107.

146

CONDUCT OF SANCROFT.

fining the spirits of men, extracts the wholesome fruits of religion from the poison that surrounds them. National churches are always intolerant to other sects; but when they are reduced to one common level, the sting is withdrawn, and their contentions become perfectly harmless.

The advances now made to the Dissenters bore upon their face a suspicious character; for, as they came from men who had acted towards them more like barbarians than brethren, there was just reason to suspect them of more craft than honesty. Sancroft's instructions to his clergy are, however, very excellent and Christian-like; and, as the venerable prelate did not live to swerve from them, it would be unjust to impeach his integrity. His character, indeed, shone brightest in adversity; for, although he refused the oaths at the Revolution, yet there can be no doubt that he acted from a sense of duty: and the conscientious scruples of a respectable old man, even when founded in mistake, are entitled to our respect. It would have been well if others of the clergy, who held similar language at this time, had manifested their sincerity by their subsequent conduct. With too many it was the result of policy, built upon fear rather than good feeling, and entitling them to no better character than that of hypocrites. The professions of men in adversity, if at variance with their previous conduct, are always to be received with caution; nor does the assumption of religion entitle them to any greater credit than others, as the times now under consideration sufficiently attest. It is painful to record the failings of men, who, from their education and office, should have known better; but ecclesiastical history is unfortunately too full of such examples, and it is fit that they should be held up as beacons to others.

But the approximation of men from a sense of their mutual danger, was not confined to the ecclesiastical orders. Many of the most distinguished Tories, who had carried

TORIES ALIENATED FROM JAMES.

147

their notions of the royal authority to the highest pitch, now concurred with the Whigs in the opinion that it was become necessary to call in foreign aid, in order to re-establish the constitution upon the footing of law and equity. The greater part of them, however, seem to have been actuated chiefly by a regard for the preservation of their religion; for, notwithstanding the indifference to practical piety that often accompanies exalted station, there is a sort of honour indulged by most men, that makes them jealous of the forms and opinions implanted in them by education. Of this, two eminent examples were furnished by Admiral Herbert and Colonel Kirk, the latter of whom had been governor of Tangiers. "Herbert, though a professed libertine, and a man of unbounded expense, resigned the lucrative offices of vice-admiral and master of the robes, rather than comply with his master's intreaties for the repeal of the tests; and when Kirk was urged by the king to turn Catholic, he excused himself by saying, "He had given a promise to the Emperor of Morocco, that if he ever changed his religion, he should become a Mussulman."* With slender claims to patriotism, one of his courtiers declared, "In all things but this the king may command me;" a sentiment but little congenial with that love of liberty which is of more consequence to nations than the ecclesiastical modes they so zealously contend for. But, whatever motives now governed the Tories, it is certain that both parties had benefitted by their experience, and saw the necessity, upon this occasion, of sacrificing their party to their country. "The slavish principles of passive-obedience and non-resistance," observes a distinguished political writer, "which had skulked, perhaps, in some old homily before King James I,, but was talked, written, and preached into vogue in that inglorious reign, and in those of his three successors, were renounced

Dalrymple's Memoirs, i. 154. + Coxe's Life of Marlborough, i. 34.

148

INVITATION TO THE PRINCE OF ORANGE.

at the Revolution by the last of the several parties who declared for them. Not only the laity, but the clergy embraced and co-operated in the deliverance which the Prince of Orange brought them. Some of our prelates joined to invite him over; and their brethren refused to sign an abhorrence of this invitation. The University of Oxford offered him their plate, and associated for him against the king. In one word, the conduct of the Tories at this crisis, was such as might have inclined a man to think they had never held resistance unlawful, but had only differed with the Whigs about the degree of oppression, or of danger, which it was necessary to wait, in order to sanctify resistance."*(K)

The eyes of all parties were now directed to the Prince of Orange as their natural protector; not only from his affinity to the crown, but as being at the head of the Protestant interest in Europe. Application was therefore made to him by the disaffected in England, and the negotiation. being brought to a conclusion, the prince prepared for his expedition.

Previously to the invasion, he published a declaration of his motives for undertaking it, intimating that he had been invited by the lords spiritual and temporal; and the paper was widely circulated in England. King James having procured a copy, was startled at its contents, and immediately

* Bolingbroke on Parties, p. 105.

(K) De Foe, alluding to the resistance now practised by churchmen, observes, "The Church of England in this did no more than give testimony to the general practice of ages, both in this and all nations of the world; who, by innumerable examples, have declared it a law of nature as well as nations, and have on all occasions pursued it, that when princes break the compacts of government, tyrannize and oppress their subjects, God, by the hands of those subjects, has thought fit to disengage the distressed country from the cruelty and encroachment of their princes, and deposing and disarming them as monsters and wild beasts, has placed other princes, whether of the line or no, to govern in their stead.'"-Review, ii. 307.