A considerable re-action in the state of public feeling began to appear in many quarters. There were persons who, having hailed with gratitude and delight the earlier measures of the Long Parliament, now felt disappointed at the results, and at the further turn which affairs were taking. Always, in great revolutions, a multitude of persons may be found in whose minds sanguine hope has been inspired by the inauguration of change; but, being moderate in their opinions and quiet in their habits, they are so terribly alarmed at popular excitement, and by the apprehension of impending extravagances of procedure, that they call on the drivers of the chariot of reform to pull up, as soon as ever the horses have galloped a few yards and a little dust begins to rise around the vehicle. Want of skill, reckless haste, even mischievous intentions, are sure to be imputed to those who hold the reins, and the conviction gains ground that speedily the coach will be overturned. So it happened in this instance. People who had cheered on Pym and his compatriots a few months before, were now becoming thoroughly frightened. Semi-Puritans, and other good folks, who wished to see matters mended very quietly, thought changes were going a great deal too far; also self-interest aided the re-action. Theobalds, and the letters to the King and other Lords in Scotland, from the Queen and the Lords of the Council, were taken away by fellows with vizors on their faces; such an insolence hath not been, however, before, and who they were, or who set them to work is suspected, but not yet discovered. We have the most pestilent libels spread abroad against the precise Lords and Commons of the Parliament, that they are fearful to be named. And the Brown ists and other sectaries make such havoc in our churches by pulling down of ancient monuments, glass windows, and rails, that their madness is intolerable; and I think it will be thought blasphemy shortly to name Jesus Christ, for it is already forbidden to bow to his name, though Scripture and the practice of the Church of England doth both warrant and command it." Bishops had been assailed, but bishops as yet had neither been dethroned in the cathedral nor dismissed from the Upper House. They were provoked without being deprived of power, irritated without being divested of influence. They still lived in palaces, and had the establishments of noblemen, and at the same time they retained the means of attaching to them such of the clergy as waited for preferment. Persons of the latter description naturally dreaded the impoverishment of the prelates, and deprecated taking away the rewards of learning and piety. They did what they could to make Parliament odious. Many, too, were "daily poisoned by the discourses of the friends, kindred, and retainers to so many great delinquents, as must needs fear such a Parliament." This is stated by a candid contemporary, Thomas May, secretary to the Parliament, who dwells at large upon the reaction at this period, and points out its causes. Besides those now mentioned, he adds: "daily reports of ridiculous conventicles, and preachings made by tradesmen and illiterate people of the lowest rank, to the scandal and offence of many, which some in a merry way would put off, considering the precedent times, that these tradesmen did but take up that which prelates and the great doctors had let fall,-preaching the Gospel; that it was but a reciprocal invasion of each other's calling, that chandlers, salters, weavers, and such like, preached, when the archbishop himself, instead of preaching, was daily busied in projects about leather, salt, soap, and such commodities as belonged to those tradesmen." He then proceeds: "but I remember within the compass of a year after, (when this civil war began to break out over all the kingdom, and men in all companies began to vent their opinions in an argumentative way, either opposing or defending the Parliament cause, and treatises were printed on both sides,) many gentlemen who forsook the Parliament were very bitter against it for the proceedings in religion, in countenancing, or not suppressing, the rudeness of people in churches-acting those things which seemed to be against the discipline of the English Church, and might introduce all kinds of sects and schisms. Neither did those of the Parliament side agree in opinions concerning that point; some said it was wisely done of the Parliament not to proceed against any such persons for fear of losing a considerable party; others thought and said, that by so doing, they would lose a far more considerable party of gentlemen than could be gained of the other sort. They also affirmed, that laws and liberties having been so much violated by the King, if the Parliament had not so far drawn religion also into their cause, it might have sped better; for the Parliament frequently at that time, in all their expressions, whensoever they charged the corrupt statesmen of injustice and tyranny, would put Popery, or a suspicion of it, into the first place against them."1 This re-action should be kept in mind, as it will serve to explain some things which followed. 'May's History of the Long Parliament, 113-115. A CHAPTER VII. FTER the Commons had resumed their sittings on the 20th of October, the difference which had arisen amongst the Puritan members became very apparent. The very next day, Sir Edward Dering questioned the legality of the recent order of the House respecting Divine worship; and the day after that, he indicated a still wider divergence from the policy of his former political friends. Upon a new bill being then introduced for excluding Bishops from Parliament-a bill which was, in fact, a reproduction of the old measure which the Lords had rejected-the Commons resolved to have a conference with the Upper House, respecting the thirteen accused prelates, and to request that the other occupants of the episcopal bench should be prevented from voting on this particular question, which so vitally affected their own personal interests. All this so alarmed the member for Kent that he hastily rose, and delivered a speech indicative of a still more decided veering toward the conservative point of the compass; for he went so far as to say that he did not conceive the House to be competent and fit to pronounce upon questions of Divinity. It seemed to him, he remarked, a thing unheard of, that soldiers, lawyers, and merchants should decide points which properly belonged to theologians. oppo Laymen, he considered, should maintain only those doctrines which were authorized and established, and should leave the exposition and advocacy of what was new to a regularly constituted ecclesiastical assembly, in short, "a synod of Divines chosen by Divines." Whether or not he was animated in his retrograde course by cheers which came from the conservative benches, Sir Edward the following day bewailed the miseries of the Church between 66 Papism on the one hand, and "Brownism" on the other; and instead of dwelling, as he had been wont to do, on "Puritan sufferings," his sympathies were now entirely bestowed on the site party. He related a story of two clergymen who had preached thousands of excellent sermons, but who now, like other deserving men, saw their infected sheep, after long pastoral vigilance, straggling from the fold, and mingling with the sects. Government, he complained, had begun to permit a loose liberty of religion; and, amidst varieties of opinion, and the perils of unity, what, he asked, could be thought of but a council—“a free, learned, grave, religious synod?"1 Such a style of address seems strangely at variance with the speaker's earlier speeches in this very Parliament, and also with proceedings which the House had adopted in accordance with his own impetuous appeals. The course which he now pursued was in decided opposition to his conduct when he spoke from the gallery of the House on behalf of the bill for the abolition of Episcopacy; and subsequent proceedings by this gentleman, in the same new direction, are yet to come under our notice. But, after all, the lapse of four months had not essentially altered his character. He was in October only the same versa See his speeches in Rushworth, iv. 392-394. |