tellectual torpor which we are accustomed to associate with ecclesiastical domination, yet in very few periods of English history did the English Church manifest so great a power as in the reign of Anne.

Another consideration which adds largely to the impressiveness of this fact is the nature of the doctrine that was mainly at issue. Whatever may be thought of its truth, the opinion that it is unlawful for subjects to resist their sovereign under any circumstances of tyranny and misgovernment does not appear to be well fitted to excite popular enthusiasm. This, however, was the doctrine which, during the whole of the Sacheverell agitation, was placed in the forefront of the battle both by the Whigs who assailed and by the Tories who maintained it. It is obvious that in its plain meaning it amounted to a condemnation of the Revolution, and it is equally manifest that those who conscientiously held it would eventually gravitate rather to the House of Stuart than to the House of Brunswick. The position of the clergy during the whole of the preceding reign had been a very false one. A small minority had consistently refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign. A minority, which was probably still smaller, consistently maintained the Whig theory of government. The immense majority, however, held the doctrines of the indefeasible title of hereditary royalty, and of the sinfulness of all resistance to oppression, and they only took the oaths to the Revolutionary Government with much equivocation, and after long and painful misgiving. Much was said about the supposed vacancy of the throne by the abdication of James. Much was said about the suspicions attaching to the birth of the Prince of Wales, though in a few years these appear to have gradually disappeared. Burnet in 1689 had written a pastoral letter, in which he spoke of William as having a legitimate title to the throne of James 'in

right of conquest over him,' and although the House of Commons, resenting the expression, had ordered the letter to be burnt, the theory it advocated was probably adopted by many. Among the clergy, however, who subscribed the oath of allegiance, the usual refuge lay in the distinction between the king de jure and the king de facto. Sherlock and many other divines, who asserted the doctrine of passive obedience, contended that it should be paid to the king who was actually in power. They were not called upon to defend the Revolution. They were quite ready to admit that it was a crime, and that all concerned in it had endangered their salvation, but, as a matter of fact, William was upon the throne, and rebellion being in all cases a sin, they were bound to obey him. As long, therefore, as they were not ex pected to pronounce any judgment upon his title, they could conscientiously take the oath of allegiance. They believed it to be a sin to resist the actual sovereign, and they could therefore freely swear to obey him. The statesmen of the Revolution at first very judiciously met the scruples of the clergy by omitting from the new oath of allegiance the words 'rightful and lawful king,’2 which had formed párt of the former oath, but in the last year of William this refuge was cut off. On the death of James, and on the recognition of the Pretender by Lewis, the Parliament, aiming expressly at this clerical distinction, imposed upon all ecclesiastical persons, as well as upon all other officials, the oath of abjuration, which required them to assert that the pretended Prince of Wales had no right whatever to the

See Somers' Tracts, xii. 242. 2 Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors, pp. 52-54. A writer in 1696 said with much truth, 'The Shibboleth of the Church now is King William's de facto title, and no conformity to homilies

and rubricks will make you owned by the present Church if you should acknowledge the King to be otherwise so than de facto.' -An Account of the Growth of Deism in England, p. 10.

• Burnet's Own Times, ii. 297.

crown, and to swear allegiance to the existing sovereign as 'rightful' and 'lawful.'

This harsh and impolitic measure was only carried after a violent struggle, and it was very naturally expected that it would produce a great schism in the Church. The new oath involved a distinct judgment on the Revolution, and it is not easy to see how anyone who held the doctrine of the divine right of kings as it was commonly taught in the English Church from the time of the Restoration, could possibly take it.' The resources of casuistry, however, have never been a monopoly of the disciples of Loyola; and State Churches, though they have many merits, are not the schools of heroism. At the time of the Reformation the great body of the English clergy, rather than give up their preferments, oscillated to and fro between Protestantism and Catholicism at the command of successive sovereigns, and their conduct in 1702 was very similar. With scarcely an exception they bowed silently before the law, and consented to take an oath which to every unsophisticated mind was an abnegation of the most cherished article of their teaching. At the time when the Act came into force Anne had just mounted the throne, and the hopes which the clergy conceived from her known affection for the Church made them peculiarly anxious to remain attached to the Government. The

1 Burnet gives us a summary of the methods that were resorted to. Though in the oath they declared that the pretended Prince of Wales had not any right whatsoever to the crown, yet in a paper (which I saw) that went about among them, it was said that right was a term of law which had only relation to legal rights, but not to a divine right or to birthrights; so, since that right

was condemned by law, they by abjuring it did not renounce the divine right that he had by his birth. They also supposed that this abjuration would only bind during the present state of things, but not in case of another revolution or conquest.' Burnet's Own Times, ii. 314. See, too, a curious letter in Byrom's Remains, vol. i. part i. pp. 30, 31.

abjuration oath contributed to perpetuate the Nonjuror schism by repelling those who would otherwise have returned to the Church at the death of James. It lowered the morality of the country by impairing very materially the sanctity of oaths, but it neither paralysed the energies nor changed the teaching of the Tory clergy. At no period since the Restoration did they preach the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the duty of passive obedience more strenuously than in the reign of Anne, and at very few periods did they exercise a greater influence on the English people.

One of the most characteristic features of this teaching was the language that was adopted about Charles I. The memory of that sovereign had long since been transfigured in the Tory legend, and immediately after his execution it became the custom of the Episcopal clergy to draw elaborate parallels between his sufferings and those of Christ. The service in the Prayer Book commemorating the event, by appointing the narrative of the sufferings of Christ to be read from the Gospel, suggested the parallel, which was also faintly intimated by Clarendon, and developed in some of the Royalist poems and sermons with an astonishing audacity.1 Foremost in this branch of literature was a very curious sermon preached before Charles II. at Breda in 1649.2 The preacher declared that amongst all the martyrs that followed Christ into heaven bearing his cross never was there any one who expressed so great conformity

1 See two curious collections called Monumentum Regale; or, Select Epitaphs and Poems on Charles I. (1649), and Vaticinium Votivum, with Elegies on Charles I., Lord Capel, and Lord Villiers (1st year of Charles I.'s Martyrdom). I subjoin one specimen :

Kings are gods once removed. It hence appears

No court but Heaven's can trie them by their peers,

So that for Charles the Good to have been tryed

And cast by mortal votes was Deicide.

2 It was reprinted in the defence of the sermon of Dr. Binckes in 1702.

with our Saviour in his sufferings' as King Charles. He observed that the parallel was so exact that it extended to the minutest particulars, even to the hour of execution, for both sufferers died at three in the afternoon. When Christ was apprehended,' he continued, 'he wrought a miraculous cure for an enemy, healing Malchus' ear after it was cut off; so it is well known that God enabled our sovereign to work many wonderful cures even for his enemies. . . . When our Saviour suffered, there were terrible signs and wonders, for there was darkness over all the land; so during the time of our sovereign's trial there were strange signs seen in the sky in divers places of the kingdom. When our Saviour suffered, the centurion, beholding his passion, was convinced that he was the Son of God, and feared greatly. So one of the centurions who guarded our sovereign. . . was convinced and is to this day stricken with great fear, horror, and astonishment. When they had crucified our Saviour, they parted his garments amongst them, and for his coat (because being without seam it could not easily be divided) they did cast lots; even so, having crucified our sovereign, they have parted his garments amongst them, his houses and furniture, his parks and revenues, his three kingdoms, and for Ireland, because it will not be easily gained, they have cast lots who should go thither to conquer it, and, so, take it to themselves; in all these things our sovereign was the living image of our Saviour.'

In the reign of Anne language of this kind again became common, and in 1702 a noted clergyman named Binckes, in a sermon before the Lower House of Convocation, not only intimated that the plague and the fire of London were due to the death of Charles, but even proceeded to argue that his execution transcended in enormity the murder of Christ. If, with respect to the dignity of the person, to have been born King of the

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