that a large proportion of true Christians were then, as ever, of the common mediocre type, described as neither white, nor red, but "good brown ochre;" that the furnace of affliction purified the Episcopal part of the Church from some of the dross which had largely alloyed it at a previous period, and brought out the piety and patience of its confessors in beautiful colours whilst the temporal prosperity of Puritanism proved rather unfavourable to its spiritual character; and that, on the whole, there was a broader surface, and a richer depth of genuine piety during the period we have reviewed, than was the case just before or just afterwards. Nor can it be doubted that England then could bear comparison with other countries at the same time. For on the Continent, in Roman Catholic lands, though some of the worst ecclesiastical abuses had been reformed, and the morals of the clergy had improved, and the Inquisition had been checked, yet the chief activities of religious thought, and the main business of education, had fallen almost entirely into the hands of Jesuits. From the orthodoxy of Protestant kingdoms and states there had been brushed off very much of the dew of its youth. The Lutheran and Reformed Churches of Germany had lost their "first love," and had become much more the conservators of a cold, dogmatic Christianity than the warm hearted disciples of the Living Word. They kept their eyes open for the detection of heterodoxy, and they assailed one another sharply for slight deviations from certain standards which had been handed down by their fathers, but they had declined in spirituality and devotion. They guarded the stones of the altar, but they let the fire die down to a few red ashes. I See Hase, 485. Theological learning abounded, pastoral diligence of a certain description extensively obtained, but Evangelical fervour had declined, and the revival of piety under Spener did not commence until after the Restoration in England had taken place. The religion of the Commonwealth found scarcely a parallel at that time in Europe.1 'Bishop Burnet, in the History of his own Times, says of the year 1680, (and his words are true of the times just before), "I was indeed amazed at the labours and learning of the ministers among the Reformed. They understood the Scriptures well in the original tongues, they had all the points of controversy very ready, and did thoroughly understand the whole body of divinity. In many places they preached every day, and were almost constantly employed in visiting their flock. But they performed their devotions but slightly, and read their prayers, which were too long, with great precipitation and little zeal. Their sermons were too long and too dry. And they were so strict, even to jealousy, in the smallest points in which they put orthodoxy, that one who could not go into all their notions, but was resolved not to quarrel with them, could not converse much with them with any freedom." In reference to the French refugees, he observes: "Even among them there did not appear a spirit of piety and devotion suitable to their condition, though persons who have willingly suffered the loss of all things rather than sin against their consciences, must be believed to have a deeper principle in them than can well be observed by others." Archbishop Trench has drawn an instructive and admonitory parallel between this condition of things on the Continent, in the 17th century, and the picture of the Church at Ephesus in the Book of Revelation. -Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches, 73. THE CHAPTER XVI. HE Religious State of our Colonial Empire forms an essential part of our Ecclesiastical History. Early English colonization was, doubtless, stained with avarice and cruelty, but it is a thorough mistake to suppos that all who engaged in that great enterprise were reckless adventurers. Men of just and generous dispositions took part in the wonderful work; and the corner stones of our dependent empire were laid with the forms, and to some extent, in the very spirit of religion. Ecclesiastical ties were from the beginning entwined with those which were political around these daughters of England; and the double relation plainly appears in our national records during the period of the Long Parliament, and under the Protectorate of, Oliver Cromwell. Some reference to the preceding state of the Colonies, with regard to religion, is requisite as an introduction to what we have to relate of the Colonial policy of the Commonwealth in this respect. When Sir Hugh Willoughby, in the last year of King Edward the Sixth's reign, started on his unfortunate expedition for the discovery of unknown regions, he received. from John Cabot-the great pioneer of Colonial enter prise a code of instructions which were strongly stamped with the marks of a practical piety. The fleet as we learn from an old narrative-sailed down the Thames, the greater ships towed with boats and oars, the mariners being "apparelled in watchet or skycoloured cloth ;" and, as it passed Greenwich-where the Court resided, and where the young monarch was lying at the point of death-the people stood thick upon the shore, the privy councillors of his Majesty looking out at the windows; pieces of ordnance were fired, “insomuch that the tops of the hills sounded therewith," and the sky rang with the sailors' shouts; one man stood on the poop of the ship, and another walked on the hatches, whilst others were climbing up the shores and the mainyardthe good King, "only by reason of his sickness, was absent from this show." As Willoughby and his men started on their voyage-thus picturesquely described by an eye-witness-the directions which they carried with them, after strictly prohibiting all profane and immoral conduct, contained this very important rule:-“ That the morning and evening prayer, with other common services appointed by the King's majesty and laws of this realm, to be read and said in every ship daily by the minister in the admiral, and the merchant, or some other person learned in other ships, and the Bible or paraphrases to be read devoutly, and Christianly, to God's honour, and for His grace to be obtained, and had by humble and hearty prayer of the navigants accordingly." "This," observes Thomas Fuller, "may be termed the first reformed fleet which had English prayers and preaching therein.” 1 1 Quoted in Anderson's History of the Colonial Church, i. 25—27. Worthies of England, Derbyshire, i. 373. In Queen Elizabeth's letters patent to Sir Humfrey Gilbert, "for the inhabiting and planting of our people in America," there is together with a characteristic assertion of the royal prerogative-a provision that the laws of the Colonies "be not against the true Christian faith or religion now professed in the Church of England.” A rough, ungovernable set composed the expedition, including "morris-dancers, hobby-horses, and May-like conceits to delight the savage people;" yet the captain of one of the vessels, named Haies, must have been a man of religious purpose, for after the melancholy misadventures which had befallen him and his companions in Newfoundland, he observes generally with respect to such enterprises: "we cannot precisely judge (which only belongeth to God) what have been the humours of men stirred up to great attempts of discovering and planting in those remote countries, yet the events do shew that either God's cause hath not been chiefly preferred by them, or else God hath not permitted so abundant grace as the light of His Word and knowledge of Him to be yet revealed unto those infidels before the appointed time."1 The errors and sins of the first English adventurers and colonists have been exposed with an unsparing justice, if not with something more; but the religiousness of certain noble-minded men, amongst them, such as is illustrated by the facts just indicated, and by others of a similar kind, has been often most unfairly overlooked. I. Charters which were granted by the English Crown before the Civil Wars for settlements in foreign lands, prove how extensive were our Colonial dominions even at that period. We have space to touch only upon those which were most important. Anderson, i., 46—56. |