ページの画像
PDF
ePub

and when he attended, he was again dismissed with promise of a fair hearing the next time. Having been put to so much trouble and expense, and believing the court possessed no legal authority, he refused to attend any more.

The

The pious frame of mind with which he entered on that course of trials, which he experienced for nonconformity, and the principles by which he was influenced, are thus described by him: "I have this day the unaccustomed news of a citation to appear before an ecclesiastical court at York, this day fortnight. cause I imagine is for not reading the book of Common Prayer, which was tendered me about a fortnight since. This is a strange trial to me, and I am unfit to manage it, not having had to deal with things of this nature before. Reflect on thyself, O my soul, and see what use thou canst make of this startling providence. Should this appear a strange thing to thee? Is it not the same as many of my brethren in England have already met with? Hast thou not been expecting it? Is it any new thing, that men should rage and unite together to prejudice Christ's flock? Dost thou plead exemption from the cross? Dost thou not need it, and may not the hand of God in this do thee good? Are not they blessed who are persecuted for righteousness' sake? If thou didst suffer as an evil-doer, thou wouldst have little comfort. Examine on what grounds thou dost refuse this English liturgy. Is it from principles of conscience or contradiction? hast thou no bye-ends in what thou dost? Consider, an erroneous conscience hath carried many very far astray, even to die for a mere whim. Self-made crosses will be uncomfortable; and hast thou not cause to suspect thy own judgment? Consider seriously before thou dost enter on sufferings. Thy poor congregation is dear to

tion. God sees we have no might against our potent enemies, therefore his own arm brings salvation. We are just in the condition of the poor saints in Ezra's time, who were ashamed to ask of the king a band of soldiers, but sought the Lord and he was found of them. Though some of the congregations are in a sad state, whose teachers are removed into corners, yet we may speak a word to our dear people that they may be saved, and numbers flock to the solemn assemblies. Whence is it, that there is this difference? We are not more deserving than others; our adversaries are as many, active, and implacable as elsewhere it is free grace! But why does God delight to keep us at uncertainties in our spiritual allowances? Surely it is to convince us of his sovereignty, to train us up in the life of faith, to prevent our building tabernacles here, and to make us think highly of our mercies from the danger of losing them: finally, it may be, to stir up in our hearts a longing desire for celestial glory, where we shall never lose the enjoyment of God." Mr. Heywood's active opponents could not be content with his enjoyment of this temporary indulgence, nor wait for his removal by the Act of Uniformity. Having procured his suspension from the archbishop's chancellor, it was published in Halifax church, June 29, 1662. Though suspended from his office as minister at Coley chapel, he ventured to take leave of his beloved flock, by preaching two or three Lord's days to them. The fatal St. Bartholomew's day being so near at hand, he made no efforts to procure the removal of his suspension.

The advocates of episcopacy proceeded with a high hand soon after the restoration, and at length obtained the renowned Act of Uniformity. This Act enjoined, that all those ministers who would not comply with its

requisitions, should resign their situations in the establishment on the 24th of August, 1662; and that their places should be filled by others in the same manner as if they were deceased. The terms of conformity were, "That those ministers should be re-ordained who had not been episcopally ordained ;-that they should give their assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the book, entitled the Book of Common Prayer;-that they should subscribe ex animo, "that the book of Common Prayer, and of ordaining bishops, priests, and deacons, containeth in it nothing contrary to the word of God;—that it may be lawfully used, and that they themselves would use the form in the said books prescribed, in public prayer and administration of the sacraments, and no other;—that they should take the oath of canonical obedience to their ordinary ;-that they should abjure the solemn league and covenant;—and that, besides the oath of allegiance and supremacy, they declare it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take arms against the king, and that they abhor that traitorous position, of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him." The real motives by which those were influenced who were most forward and zealous in obtaining the Act of Uniformity, appear to have been "wrath and revenge in the old clergy, and a servile compliance with the court, and distaste of serious religion among the young gentry. That this is no rash imputation upon the ruling clergy is evident," says Dr. Bates,* "not only from their concurrence in passing that law, for actions have a language as convincing as that of words; but from Dr. Sheldon then bishop of London, their great

* Dr. Bates's Funeral Sermon for Mr. Baxter.-Bates' Works, vol. iv. p. 329, 330.

1

leader, who, when the lord chamberlain Manchester told the king, when the act was under debate, that he was afraid the terms of it were so rigid, that many of the ministers would not comply with it;' he replied, "I am afraid they will.' This act was passed after the king had engaged his faith and honour in his declaration from Breda, to preserve the liberty of conscience inviolate,' which promise opened the way for his restoration; and after the royalists here had given public assurance, that all former animosities should be buried as rubbish, under the foundation of a universal concord." Though the Nonconformist ministers were, in general, as loyal and as anxious for the peace of the land as any of his majesty's subjects, as earnest in their endeavours to maintain the purity of the christian faith as the most clamorous for uniformity, and as willing to make any sacrifice to promote the good of souls as any set of men, they could not comply with the terms of this severe act.

The charge of schism has sometimes been brought against the first Nonconformists, but with what propriety let the Bartholomew act, and the history of their sufferings declare; "They grieved, they mourned, they expostulated," says an eloquent American writer," "about things which afflicted their consciences, but they thought not of separation. Had they been allowed to exonerate themselves from the charge of countenancing what, in all sincerity, they disallowed; or had they not been commanded to belie their conviction by an explicit approbation of what they abhorred, the name of Dissenters from the church of England had never been known. Unepiscopal in their judgment they certainly were, as were all the continental protestants, and all the fathers of the British reformation. They * Dr. Mason on Sacramental Communion.

disliked, they loathed certain exterior observances; but still had they been permitted to dislike and to loathe, without exhibiting public disturbance had they not been required to deny what they believed to be truth, and to profess what they believed to be falsehood-had not the price of their peace in the Establishment been rated so high as the perjury of their souls before God, they had never been separated from the Church of England. As it was, they did not retire, they were driven from her bosom; and they have thus left upon record their testimony of confessors to the sacredness of that communion which belongs to the church of God, and to the criminality of dividing it upon slight pretences." These holy members who were thus driven from the places in which they had laboured with success," had wives and children for whom they wished to provide; they had friends among whom they would have fondly remained; they had houses to the attractions of which they were feelingly alive: but all these they were compelled for conscience' sake to abandon !" Nothing but a sense of duty induced them to leave the people they loved and the means of their subsistence, to endure the various troubles to which their nonconformity exposed them. Their determination was not the hasty result of a momentary gust of passion; they prayed and fasted, they reflected and consulted, and at length resolved to cast themselves on the kind providence of God, rather than violate their consciences. The deliberations of Mr. Heywood, and the cautious but resolute manner in which he acted on this critical occasion, may be regarded as a specimen of what many others did, who shared with him in the common trial. "O my soul," says he, "was ever the hand of God so laid on the ministers of these nations, to change them in a day from being (in some sense)

« 前へ次へ »