Chap. XL. 1714-1723.

Accession of
George I.

CHAPTER XL.

Accession of George I.-Dissatisfaction among the High Churchmen-Election of a new Parliament-King's declaration against clergy interfering in matters of State-License to Convocation to transact business-Form for consecrating churches-The Seventy-fifth Canon-Address to the King-Changes in the Upper House-Death of Burnet-Of Tenison-His legacy for establishing bishops in America-Archbishop Wake-Benjamin Hoadly-Hoadly's Preservative-His sermon on the Kingdom of Christ-The Bangorian controversy-Character of the controversy-Growth of Latitudinarianism-Dr. Snape's answerHoadly's reply-Snape's second letter-M. de la PillonièreThe representation of the Lower House of Convocation-Dr. Sherlock charged with inconsistency-Hoadly's Reply to the Representation-The defence of the representation-Dean Sherlock-William Law-His reply to Hoadly-Dispute between Bishop Nicolson and Hoadly-Daniel Whitby-Francis HareThe Primate opposes concessions to Dissenters-Government coërces the High Church clergy-Archbishop Wake's negotiation with the Gallican Church-Policy of humbling the Church -The Bill against blasphemy-Quakers' Affirmation BillBishop Atterbury the great opponent of Government-Atterbury's trial and banishment-His popularity-Church views recede from observation.

HE sudden death of the Queen had disconcerted the plans of Lord Bolingbroke and the Jacobites,* and by the bold and able measures of the Whigs, George, Elector of Hanover, was proclaimed King without opposition. It is a somewhat strange page It is said that Bishop Atterbury, who had daring enough for

in history which records the quiet surrender of this Chap. XL. great and proud monarchy of England into the 1714-1723. hands of a petty German prince of fifty-four years

of age; a man distinguished by no great qualities, and a stranger to our traditions, our language, and our manners. The first clause of the Act of Settlement provided that the possessor of the throne should "join in Communion with the Church of England as by law established." Yet it must have seemed to Churchmen a portentous risk to accept, simply on the strength of this proviso, as the temporal head of the Church "in all causes ecclesiastical supreme," a prince who had passed the meridian of life under quite a different religious system; a member of a Church without Episcopal orders, without a Liturgy, without any claim of inheriting and representing Catholic traditions. It required a lively remembrance of the tyranny of James II., a keen dread of the danger of Jesuit machinations, to reconcile the Church of England to such a sacrifice as this.

of

tion

among the High

Nor, indeed, was it reconciled without exhibiting Dissatisfacstrong symptoms The University repugnance. of Oxford openly professed Jacobitism, and was Churchmen, openly coërced by a troop of horse. The day of Coronation was selected by the University to confer, in full Convocation, an honorary degree on Sir Constantine Phipps, the late Jacobite Chancellor of Ireland.* At Cambridge, though some

anything, offered to proclaim James III. at Charing Cross in his lawn sleeves, but the measure seemed too desperate to the other ministers.-Lord Mahon's History of England, i., 90.

* Lord Mahon, i., 114.

Chap. XL. of the leading men were Whigs, the bulk of the 1714-1723. University was scarcely less Jacobite than Oxford.*

At Norwich, Bristol, and Birmingham, riots took place in which the cry was High Church and Sacheverell, and down with all foreign governments. "It is a very sensible concern to every one," writes the Whig Addison, "to hear these vile miscreants calling themselves sons of the Church of England amidst such impious tumults and disorders. Their concern for the Church always rises highest when they are acting in direct opposition to its doctrines. Our streets are filled at the same time with zeal and drunkenness, riots

and religion."† "At present," says the same writer, "if we may credit common report, there are several remote parts in the nation in which it is firmly believed that all the churches in London are shut up, and that if any clergyman walks the streets in his habit it is ten to one but he is knocked down by some sturdy schismatic." But even those who were not quite so unreasonable in their terrors beheld the present crisis with somewhat of dismay. "We say," wrote the Tory pamphleteers, "the Whigs resolve, if they can procure a House of Commons to their mind, to destroy the Church of England. Whereby I do not mean that they have set up gibbets in their minds and design to hang, draw, and quarter every member of the Church, nor that all the Whigs will come into the scheme; but we are persuaded *Monk's Life of Bentley. †The Freeholder, No. 52. Ibid., No. 7.

that the generality of the Whigs are averse to Chap. XL. the present hierarchy and government; that they 1714-1723. neither like our doctrines nor our clergy, but would abolish bishops, priests, and deacons, assume the Church lands to themselves, appoint a small allowance to the parsons, and prescribe them what doctrines to teach from the pulpit; that they would introduce a general comprehension and build up an ecclesiastical Babel of all the sects and heresies upon the face of the earth; and, lastly, deprive the bishops of their vote in the House of Lords, which particular they have contrived to render the less odious by furnishing the reverend bench, as far as it was in their power, with such members as few Churchmen will pity or regret when they shall be unloaded. How religious

soever the King is, it cannot be imagined that he hath any extraordinary veneration for a religion which he came into but the other day, and to which he was an absolute stranger before. The Lutheran, wherein he was educated, and which he professed to the very hour of his landing, is entirely different both in doctrine and discipline from ours; in that there are no bishops which we think essential to a Church, and there are some ceremonies and tenets which border too near upon Popery. And since his Majesty, to qualify himself for the Crown, was pleased to depart from his own and to embrace a religion so different from it in many and those essential respects, it is no remote thought to apprehend he may consent to the alteration of ours for a valuable consideration to himself. Can

Chap. XL. any mortal assign a reason why he should refuse to 1714-1723. give his royal assent to a Bill to Abolish the present

Election of a

ment.

Constitution in Church? His Coronation oath obliges him to maintain the laws of the State as well as the Church, and since an Act of Parliament may repeal the one, why may he not conclude it may do so with the other, since he can have no scruples of conscience upon him as to the divine right of our constitution?"* Such were the arguments by which one of the most able writers of the High Church party endeavoured to rouse the Church and nation to an opposition to the Hanoverian settlement, and it certainly is not to be wondered at if his opinions were very generally acceptable.

On the other side, it was, of course, confidently new Parlia- asserted that the new King had the deepest veneration for our constitution in Church and State, and a new Parliament was called by a Proclamation, which was, in fact, a party manifesto, and an exhortation to the freeholders to return Whigs.† At the same time the supporters of Government had an abundance of topics to influence the electors. was easy to declaim against the late peace as having sacrificed all that the great victories of Marlborough had gained; against the late Ministry as secret

It

* English Advice to the Freeholders of England (Bishop Atterbury). Somer's Tracts, xiii., 533. This tract was treated as an infamous libel, and a reward of £1,000 offered for the discovery of the writer.-Parliamentary History, vii., 25..

"Such suggestions," writes Earl Stanhope, "however cautiously worded, are clearly unconstitutional, and appear least of all becoming in the mouth of a prince so lately called over to protect our liberties and laws."-History of England, i., 118.