VI. CHAP. rity over the Church was not only not revived, but was declared, with the utmost strength of language, to be com pletely abrogated. It is therefore as clear as any point of constitutional law can be that James the Second was not competent to appoint a Commission with power to visit and govern the Church of England.* But, if this were so, it was to little purpose that the Act of Supremacy, in high sounding words, empowered him to amend what was amiss in that Church. Nothing but a machinery as stringent as that which the Long Parliament had destroyed could force the Anglican clergy to become his agents for the destruction of the Anglican doctrine and discipline. He therefore, as early as the month of April 1686, determined to revive the Court of High Commission. This design was not immediately executed. It encountered the opposition of every minister who was not devoted to France and to the Jesuits. It was regarded by lawyers as an outrageous violation of the I law, and by Churchmen as a direct attack upon the Church. Perhaps the contest might have lasted longer, but for an event which wounded the pride and inflamed the rage of the f King. He had, as supreme ordinary, put forth directions, charging the clergy of the establishment to abstain from: touching in their discourses on controverted points of doctrine. Thus, while sermons in defence of the Roman Catholic religion were preached on every Sunday and holiday within the precincts of the royal palaces, the Church of the state, the Church of the great majority of the nation, was forbidden to explain and vindicate her own principles. The spirit of the whole clerical order rose against this injustice. William Sherlock, a divine of distinguished abilities, who had written with sharpness against Whigs and Dissenters. and had been rewarded by the government with the Mastership of the Temple and with a pension, was one of the first who incurred the royal displeasure. His pension was stopped; and he was severely reprimanded.† John Sharp, Dean of Norwich and Rector of Saint Giles's in the Fields, soon gave still greater offence. He was a man of learning and fervent piety, a preacher of great fame, and an exemplary parish priest. In politics he was, like most of his brethren, a Tory, The whole question is lucidly and unanswerably argued in a little contemporary tract, entitled "The King's Power in Matters Ecclesiastical fairly stated." See also a concise but forcible argument by Archbishop Sancroft, Doyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 92. + Letter from James to Clarendon, Feb. 18. 1689. CHAP. VI. ad just been appointed one of the royal chaplains. He ed an anonymous letter which purported to come from of his parishioners, who had been staggered by the nents of Roman Catholic theologians, and who was us to be satisfied that the Church of England was a th of the true Church of Christ. No divine, not utterly o all sense of religious duty and of professional honour, I refuse to answer such a call. On the following Sunday p delivered an animated discourse against the high preons of the see of Rome. Some of his expressions were gerated, distorted, and carried by talebearers to WhiteIt was falsely said that he had spoken with contumely he theological disquisitions which had been found in the ig box of the late King, and which the present King published. Compton, the Bishop of London, received rs from Sunderland to suspend Sharp till the royal sure should be further known. The Bishop was in great lexity. His recent conduct in the House of Lords had n deep offence to the Court. Already his name had been ck out of the list of Privy Councillors. Already he had dismissed from his office in the royal chapel. He was illing to give fresh provocation: but the act which he directed to perform was a judicial act. He felt that it unjust, and he was assured by the best advisers that it also illegal, to inflict punishment without giving any ortunity for defence. He accordingly, in the humblest ns, represented his difficulties to the King, and privately ested Sharp not to appear in the pulpit for the present. sonable as were Compton's scruples, obsequious as were apologies, James was greatly incensed. What insolence lead either natural justice or positive law in opposition to express command of the Sovereign! Sharp was forgotten. ⇒ Bishop became a mark for the whole vengeance of the ernment.* The King felt more painfully than ever the He creates at of that tremendous engine which had once coerced a new ractory ecclesiastics. He probably knew that, for a few gry words uttered against his father's government, Bishop mission. lliams had been suspended by the High Commission from ecclesiastical dignities and functions. The design of reing that formidable tribunal was pushed on more eagerly n ever. In July, London was alarmed by the news that The best account of these transactions is in the Life of Sharp, by his son. 1686. Citters, VOL. I. June 29. July 9. 22 Court of High Com CHAP. VI. the King had, in direct defiance of two Acts of Parliament drawn in the strongest terms, entrusted the whole government of the Church to seven Commissioners.* The words in which the jurisdiction of these officers was described were loose, and might be stretched to almost any extent. Al colleges and grammar schools, even those which had bee founded by the liberality of private benefactors, were place under the authority of the new board. All who depende! for bread on situations in the Church or in academical institutions, from the Primate down to the youngest curate, from the Vicechancellors of Oxford and Cambridge down to the humblest pedagogue who taught Corderius, were subjectei to this despotic tribunal. If any one of those many thousands was suspected of doing or saying anything distasteful to th government, the Commissioners might cite him before them. In their mode of dealing with him they were fettered by no rule. They were themselves at once prosecutors and judges.; The accused party was to be furnished with no copy of the charge. He was to be examined and crossexamined. If his answers did not give satisfaction, he was liable to be suspended! from his office, to be ejected from it, to be pronounced incapable of holding any preferment in future. If he were contumacious, he might be excommunicated, or, in other words, be deprived of all civil rights and imprisoned for life.. He might also, at the discretion of the court, be loaded with all the costs of the proceeding by which he had been reduced to beggary. No appeal was given. The Commissioners were directed to execute their office notwithstanding any law which might be, or might seem to be, inconsistent with these regulations. Lastly, lest any person should doubt that it was intended to revive that terrible court from which the Long Parliament had freed the nation, the new Visitors were directed to use a seal bearing exactly the same device and the same superscription with the seal of the old High Commission.† The chief Commissioner was the Chancellor. His presence and assent were declared necessary to every proceeding. All men knew how unjustly, insolently, and barbarously he had acted in courts where he had been, to a certain extent, re 16 56 July 21. * Barillon, The device was a rose and crown. Before the device was the initial letter of the Sovereign's name; after it th letter R. Round the seal was this inscription, "Sigillum commissariorum giæ majestatis ad causas ecclesiasticas." ained by the known laws of England. It was, therefore, t difficult to foresee how he would conduct himself in a uation in which he was at entire liberty to make forms of ocedure and rules of evidence for himself. Of the other six Commissioners three were prelates and ree laymen. The name of Archbishop Sancroft stood first. at he was fully convinced that the court was illegal, that its judgments would be null, and that by sitting in it he ould incur a serious responsibility. He therefore deterined not to comply with the royal mandate. He did not, wever, act on this occasion with that courage and sincerity nich he showed when driven to extremity two years later. e begged to be excused on the plea of business and ill alth. The other members of the board, he added, were en of too much ability to need his assistance. These disgenuous apologies ill became the Primate of all England such a crisis; nor did they avert the royal displeasure. ncroft's name was not indeed struck out of the list of ivy Councillors: but, to the bitter mortification of the ends of the Church, he was no longer summoned on Council ys. "If," said the King, "he is too sick or too busy to to the Commission, it is a kindness to relieve him from endance at Council."* The government found no similar difficulty with Nathaniel ewe, Bishop of the great and opulent see of Durham, a in nobly born, and raised so high in his profession that could scarcely wish to rise higher, but mean, vain, and wardly. He had been made Dean of the Chapel Royal en the Bishop of London was banished from the palace. e honour of being an Ecclesiastical Commissioner turned ewe's head. It was to no purpose that some of his friends presented to him the risk which he ran by sitting in an gal tribunal. He was not ashamed to answer that he ild not live out of the royal smile, and exultingly expressed hope that his name would appear in history, a hope which not been altogether disappointed.† Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was the third clerical Append to Clarendon's Diary; Van Citters, Oct. 1686; Barillon, Oct. 11.; CHAP. VI. CHAP. Proceedings against the as a servile imitator, who, without one spark of Cowler's admirable genius, mimicked whatever was least commenda in Cowley's manner: but those who are acquainted with Sprat's prose writings will form a very different estimate his powers. He was indeed a great master of our languag and possessed at once the eloquence of the preacher, of the controversialist, and of the historian. His moral characte might have passed with little censure had he belonged to less sacred profession; for the worst that can be said of hi is that he was indolent, luxurious, and worldly but su failings, though not commonly regarded as very heinous i men of secular callings, are scandalous in a prelate. T Archbishopric of York was vacant: Sprat hoped to obtain it, and therefore accepted a seat at the ecclesiastical board: br he was too good-natured a man to behave harshly; and h was too sensible a man not to know that he might at sou future time be called to a serious account by a Parliament He therefore, though he consented to act, tried to do as littl mischief, and to make as few enemies, as possible.* The three remaining Commissioners were the Lord Tre surer, the Lord President, and the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Rochester, disapproving and murmuring consented to serve. Much as he had to endure at the Cour he could not bear to quit it. Much as he loved the Churc he could not bring himself to sacrifice for her sake his whit staff, his patronage, his salary of eight thousand pounds year, and the far larger indirect emoluments of his offices He excused his conduct to others, and perhaps to himself, b pleading that, as a Commissioner, he might be able to prevent much evil, and that, if he refused to act, some person less attached to the Protestant religion would be found to fill the vacant place. Sunderland was the representative of the Jesuitical cabal. Herbert's recent decision on the questio of the dispensing power seemed to prove that he would n flinch from any service which the King might require. As soon as the Commission had been opened, the Bishop of London was cited before the new tribunal. He appeared Bishop of "I demand of you," said Jeffreys, "a direct and positiv answer. Why did not you suspend Dr. Sharp ?" London. The Bishop requested a copy of the Commission in orde that he might know by what authority he was thus intern gated. "If you mean," said Jeffreys, "to dispute o * Burnet. i. 675. ii. 629.; Sprat's Letters to Dorset. |