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 THE INFLUENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH 
 
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 THE PEOGEESS OF LIBEETY AND 
 lilBEEAL LEGISLATION. 
 
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 HENRY RICHARD, M.P. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE FREE TRADE HALL, MANCHESTER, 
 
 February Ath, 1873, 
 
 Wirititx tl)e ausipfces of tje Pianc^ester i^oncottf0rmist ^ssociatfon. 
 
 MANCHESTER : 
 NONCONFORMIST ASSOCIATION, 6, BROWN STREET. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1873.
 
 THE 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH 
 
 ON THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY AND 
 
 LIBERAL LEGISLATION. 
 
 IT is a curious indication of the state of public opinion in this 
 country, that only eighty years ago Robert Hall should have 
 thought it necessary to publish a work to prove that " Christianity 
 is consistent with a love of freedom." To me, with the New 
 Testament in my hand, no demonstration can seem more super- 
 fluous than that. But then, unhappily, Christianity has for many 
 centuries been principally seen by the great majority of mankind, 
 not as it appears in the New Testament, but as it appears in 
 alliance with human governments, and those generally of the 
 most despotic and oppressive character ; and it is a deplorable 
 fact, that the history of the past hardly supplies the records of 
 more degrading and abject thraldom, of more pitiless and sangui- 
 nary cruelties than those which princes have inflicted on the 
 world, when the banner of the cross was ostentatiously flaunting 
 over hosts, and the priests of Christianity were sitting in the 
 high places of honour around their thrones. Yes ; so it was. The 
 followers of the meek and lowly consented to be the chosen coun- 
 cillors of tyrants ; they who announced themselves as the ministers 
 of God's mercy to the world, and who ought, by virtue of the 
 office they sustained, to have smitten with indignant rebuke the 
 cruelties of the oppressor, themselves became panders to the 
 ambition of kings, and, with their own hands, bound the free 
 spirit of man to the car of royal or imperial despotism. It is not 
 Christianity, but established Christianity, that has done this evil ; 
 and though there has probably been less of this in our own 
 country than in most others, yet I am afraid that in discussino-
 
 the question before us, in examining the influence which the 
 Established Church of England has exercised on the progress 
 of liberty and liberal legislation for the last three centuries, 
 it will appear that Mr. Hall was not doing a work of superero- 
 gation, in proving to his countrymen that Christianity is con- 
 sistent with a love of freedom. I wish to premise one remark. 
 I. am going to exhibit to you only one aspect of the Church 
 of England, and not its best aspect. The fact is that it has 
 two histories — one as a Christian Church, and the other as an 
 Established Church. The former is in many respects a great and 
 honourable history. In that capacity it has its noble army of 
 martyrs ; its long and illustrious line of able, learned, and eloquent 
 writers, who have contributed Isivgelj to vindicate the truth, to 
 illustrate the excellence and to enforce the duties of Christianity ; 
 its hundreds and thousands of pious, zealous, and devoted clergy 
 who have made full proof of their ministry among all classes of 
 the community from the highest to the lowest ; its tens of thousands 
 of men and women, trained under its influence, who by their 
 saintly lives and pure devotion to the highest service of humanity 
 have embodied the gospel in their own character and example; its 
 large apparatus of voluntary institutions, religious, charitable, and 
 educational, spread over the face of the country. These are things of 
 which any church may be proud. But its history as an Established 
 Church is neither noble nor honourable. In that capacity I fear 
 it must be maintained, that in nearly all the efforts made by 
 the people of this country, since the Protestant Reformation, to 
 give a fuller and freer development to the national life, the Church 
 of England in its oflicial character has been uniformly and vio- 
 lently against them. 
 
 Let us first look at the question of religious liberty, which is 
 the foundation of all liberty. It is sometimes said by our Church 
 friends that theirs is the most tolerant Church in the world. It 
 may be so. I will not enter into any comparison of its character 
 in this respect with other Churches. But granting the assumption 
 to' be correct, the inevitable inference to be drawn from it is this — 
 that no Church whatever can be trusted to use the secular power 
 for its own purposes. For if this is the best of ecclesiastical 
 Establishments, the best is so bad that no nation careful of its 
 liberties ought to tolerate an Establishment at all. For what
 
 does history tell us as to the conduct of this most tolerant of 
 Churches, in times that are past ? I cannot go into all the evi- 
 dence on this poiot. Suffice it, in a few sentences, to summarise 
 what can be substantiated at large by any amount of proof. 
 
 What did it do in the reign of Queen Elizabeth ? I will 
 answer in the words of a clergyman : " Archbishop Whitgift 
 " endeavoured with indomitable courage and by innumerable acts 
 " of oppression to carry out the vain design of binding the free 
 " spirit of the English nation to a rigid uniformity of public 
 " worship. Armed with the tremendous power of the High Com- 
 " mission Court, he harassed the Puritanical clergy ; they were 
 " fined and imprisoned, hundreds of them were suspended, and 
 '' many deprived of their livings ; at one time, it was said a third 
 " of the whole beneficed clergy were under suspension for refusing 
 '' to comply with the habits and ceremonies of the Church."* 
 With the Dissenters, of course, it fared still worse ; " they were im- 
 " prisoned for months and years in the foulest gaols — fouler even 
 " than those which John Howard, two centuries later, exposed to 
 " the shame and indignation of the world — beaten with cudgels, 
 " some left to die of fevers and sores, while others were committed 
 '^ to the gallows. Barrowe, Greenwood, and Penry, the three great 
 " witnesses for Independency, met the latter fate."*!- 
 
 What did it do in the reign of Charles I. ? I will answer again 
 in the language of a clergyman : " Meanwhile Laud was display- 
 " ing his fierce, cruel character by a furious persecution of the 
 '' Puritans. Great numbers of them forsook their dear homes, their 
 " friends, and comforts, and fled for refuge to the vast howling 
 " wilderness of America, until Laud, in an evil hour for himself 
 " and his royal master, procured an order to prohibit their migra- 
 " tion. They were persecuted in the bishops' courts, fined, whipped, 
 " pilloried, imprisoned ; they suffered barbarous mutilations, ear 
 " croppiugs, nose slittings, and brandings ; they could enjoy no 
 " rest, so that death was better than life itself";]: " Nothing," says 
 Milton, " but the wide ocean and the savage wilderness could 
 " hide and shelter them from the fury of the bishops." 
 
 What did it do in the reign of Charles II. ? It passed the Act 
 of Uniformity, the Corporation Act, the Conventicle Act, the Five 
 
 * Mountfield's " Two Hundred Years Ago," p. 14. 
 fSkeats' "Free Churches," p. 27. ; Mount field, p. 22.
 
 6 
 
 Mile Act, and the Test Act, and by the operation of these Acts 
 exposed the Nonconformists to hardships and sufferings the extent 
 of which is very imperfectly apprehended even by their descendants. 
 Fines, imprisonments, transportations were put in force against them 
 relentlessly. It is believed that the pecuniary penalties inflicted 
 upon them from the Restoration to the Revolution amounted to 
 fourteen millions sterling. The prisons — and that at a time when 
 the prisons of England were dens of torment and pestilence 
 — were crowded with men and women guilty of no crime but that 
 of worshipping God according to their consciences. Sixty thou- 
 sand were imprisoned. There were four thousand Quakers alone 
 in the different gaols of the kingdom at one time. From 5,000 to 
 8,000, as they are variously estimated by different writers, are 
 believed to have died in prison. Some were transported or sold 
 as slaves into the colonies ; others escaped from the sufferings 
 that awaited them by becoming voluntary exiles in Holland or 
 America. 
 
 What did it do in Scotland during the reign of the Stuart 
 kings'? ''In Scotland," says Mr. Lecky, "a persecution as revolting 
 " in atrocity as almost any on record, was directed by the English 
 '' Government, at the instigation of the Scotch Bishops and with 
 " the approbation of the English Church, against all who repudiated 
 " Episcopacy. If a conventicle was held in a house, the preacher 
 " was liable to be put to death. If it was held in open air, 
 " both minister and people incurred the same fate. The Pres- 
 ""byterians were hunted like criminals over the mountains. 
 "Their ears were torn from the roots. They were branded 
 " with hot irons. Their fingers were wrenched asunder by the 
 " thumbkins. The bones of their legs were shattered in their 
 " boots. Women were scourged publicly through the streets. 
 " Multitudes were transported to Barbadoes ; infuriated soldiers 
 ^' were let loose upon them, and encouraged to exercise all their 
 " ingenuity in torturing them."* 
 
 What did it do in England in the reign of Queen Anne ? It 
 passed the Occasional Conformity Bill, which undid the few 
 concessions in favour of Dissenters made by the Toleration Act, 
 and branded them with the stigma of utter disability to serve the 
 State in any office whatever. "The whole body of the clergy," 
 
 * Lecky's " Nationalism in Europe," Vol. II., p. 41. #^JL 5 
 
 f'»^
 
 says Dean Swift, "were violent for this Bill." It passed the 
 Schism Act, which, if it had come into operation — a calamity 
 happily averted by the death of the Queen — would have abso- 
 lutely crushed all the colleges and other educational institutions 
 of the Nonconformists throughout the country, for this measure 
 enacted that no person should keep any public or private school, 
 or teach or instruct as tutor or schoolmaster, who had not sub- 
 scribed a declaration to conform to the Established Church, and 
 obtained from the bishop of the diocese in which he resided a 
 license to teach. Even in the reign of George II. the saintly Dr. 
 Doddridge, whose learning and moderation were acknowledged by 
 men of all parties, was prosecuted, in the Ecclesiastical Court, by 
 some dignitaries of the Church of England for teaching an academy. 
 Nor was the prosecution stopped until the King personally inter- 
 posed, and said, — " During my reign there shall be no persecution 
 for conscience' sake."* 
 
 What has it done since ? It has steadfastly and strenuously 
 resisted all efforts made in the direction of religious liberty, 
 whether for the Roman Catholics or the Jews or the Protestant 
 Nonconformists. 
 
 What did it do in Ireland ? I am not now speaking of what 
 •was done to the Roman Catholics, but to the Protestant Noncon- 
 formists. Mr. Fronde's recent volumes cast a singular light on 
 this subject. It shows that while the Protestants were altogether 
 in a small minority, and would have had work enough even if 
 united and compact to hold their own, the bishops and authorities 
 of the Episcopal Establishment lost no opportunity to harass and 
 oppress all Protestants not of their own communion. In 1665 
 they passed a second Act of Uniformity, more despotic and merci- 
 less than the English Act, which drove multitudes from the 
 country. " Then commenced," says Mr. Froude, " that fatal 
 " emigration of Nonconformist Protestants from Ireland to New 
 " England, which drained Ireland of its soundest Protestant blood." 
 In 1692, "though the bishops and clergy of the Establishment 
 " prayed for James till William entered Dublin, and though the 
 " Ulster Calvinists had won immortal honour, and saved England 
 " half the labour of re-conquest by their share in the defence of 
 
 * Orton^s Life of Doddridge, pp. 283-4.
 
 8 
 
 "Derry," yet the bishops and clergy resolutely and successfully 
 opposed the passing of a Toleration Bill identical with the 
 English Act, though it was earnestly pressed forward by the King, 
 one of the bishops saying, with grim irony, that, "Episcopalians 
 " were opposed to toleration that they might preserve power to 
 " show tenderness to their Dissenting brethren." In 1704 they 
 passed a Bill which deprived Nonconformist marriages in Ireland 
 of all legal validity. " The bishops," says Mr. Froude, " fell upon 
 " the grievance which had so long afflicted them of the Presbyterian 
 " marriages. Catholic marriages did not trouble them, for Catholic 
 " priests were carefully ordained, and could perform valid sacra- 
 '' ments. Dissenting ministers were unsanctified upstarts, whose 
 " pretended ceremonial was a license for sin.""^ It was announced 
 that the children of all Protestants not married in a church 
 should be treated as bastards ; and as the record of this childish 
 insanity declares : — " Many persons of undoubted reputation 
 " were prosecuted in the bishops' courts as fornicators, for cohabit- 
 " ing with their own wives."-|- 
 
 It may be said that the measures and acts I have described were 
 measures and acts of the State. Undoubtedly of the State, but 
 of the State controlled and stimulated by the Church. For it is 
 a melancholy but unquestionable fact that whenever there has 
 been any specially bitter outbreak of religious persecution in this 
 country, it is connected with the name of some great ecclesiastic 
 as its principal originator and fomenter. And surely it is an 
 utterly sad spectacle to see the ministers of the religion of charity 
 and brotherly love standing behind the thrones of despots to 
 whisper poisonous words into their ears, in order to instigate them 
 to acts of terror and torture against their fellow-Christians. Is it 
 not so ? Need I remind you of the names of Elizabeth and Whit- 
 gift, of James I. and Bancroft, of Charles I. and Laud, of Charles 
 II. and Sheldon ? In most of these cases the secular statesmen of 
 the day were shocked and scandalised at the indecent violence of 
 the Churchmen, and tried to restrain and moderate their fury. It 
 is well known that Burleigh, Walsingham, and Bacon were disgusted 
 with the intolerant and arbitrary proceedings of Whitgift. Lord 
 
 * Froude's " The English in Ireland." Vol. L, pp. 155, 238. 
 t Ibid, Vol. L,p. 319.
 
 9 
 
 Burleigh wrote in strong remonstrance against certain articles of 
 examination which the prelate had prepared as " so curiously 
 " penned, so full of branches and circumstances as he thought the 
 '' inquisitors of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend 
 " and to trap their preys." " But the extensive jurisdiction," says 
 Mr. Hallam, " improvidently granted to the ecclesiastical com- 
 " missioners, and which the Queen was not at all likely to recall, 
 " placed Whitgift beyond the control of the temporal admin is- 
 ^' tration." Even Charles I. was obliged, in obedience to a strong- 
 expostulation from the nobility, to interfere personally to forbid 
 some of Laud's measures of excessive severity. And it is said that 
 Sheldon and the bishops made even Clarendon and Charles II. 
 sometimes ashamed of their violence. Yes, the fact stands un- 
 happily too well attested on all pages of history, that the priests of 
 any religion, when they have been armed with the secular power, 
 are ever the most merciless of persecutors. 
 
 Very remarkable is the testimony of Bishop Watson on this 
 point. " Who was it," he says, " who crucified the Saviour of the 
 " world for attempting to reform the religion of his country 1 The 
 *' Jewish priesthood. Who was it that drowned the altars of 
 '• their idols with the blood of Christians for attempting to abolish 
 " paganism ? The pagan priesthood. Who was it that persecuted 
 " to flames and death those who, in the time of Wickliffe and his 
 " followers, laboured to reform the errors of Popery ? The Popish 
 " priesthood. Who was it, and who is it, that both in England 
 " and Ireland since the reformation" — but here the Bishop felt 
 that he was treading on delicate ground, and he says, "but I 
 " check my hand, being unwilling to reflect upon the dead and to 
 "exasperate the living." "But," as Mr. Jonathan Dymond says, 
 after quoting this passage, "we also are unwilling to reflect upon 
 ^' or exasperate, but our business is with plain truth. Who, then, 
 " was it that, since the Reformation, has persecuted dissentients 
 " from its creed, and who is it that at this hour thinks and speaks 
 "of them with unchristian antipathy? The English priesthood. 
 " It was, and it is, the State religion in some European countries 
 " that now persecutes Dissenters from its creed. It was the State 
 ''religion in this country that persecuted the Protestants; and 
 ^* since Protestantism has been established it is the State religion
 
 (10 
 
 "that has persecuted Protestant Dissenters. Is this the fault 
 " principally of the faith of these churches, or of their alliance with 
 " the State ? No man can be in doubt for an answer."'"' 
 
 I am quite aware that there are thousands, tens of thousands, 
 of the members of the English Church in our own day who bewail 
 the folly and execrate the cruelty of the acts I have described as 
 honestly and earnestly as we do ourselves. And it may be said, 
 " Why revive those ancient grievances ? The Church does notper- 
 " secute now ?" No, the Church does not persecute "now — at least 
 in such forms of persecution as those which have passed in review; 
 first, because it has not the power, and also, I willingly add, 
 because many of its sons have not the disposition. But surely it 
 is a little unreasonable to expect that we should utterly ignore the 
 past. How is it possible to understand the character of an insti- 
 tution without studying its history ? and especially studying its 
 history in those times and circumstances when its natural 
 tendencies were at liberty to develop themselves without let or 
 hindrance ? And besides, my subject imperatively requires this 
 retrospect, if I am to show the influence of the Established Church 
 on the progress of liberty and of Liberal legislation. 
 
 But there was an episode in that part of the ecclesiastical 
 history of England to which I have been referring, which is full of 
 significance and instruction. The nation, driven to desperation by 
 the wrongs and sufferings it had endured from an established 
 Episcopacy, arose in its wrath and hurled it from its pride of place. 
 The Anglican Church was discrowned and deposed, and Presby- 
 terianism reigned in its stead. And what then happened? That 
 which always happens with established churches. The Presby- 
 terians began to persecute as vigorously as their predecessors. 
 The country soon found, as Milton said in the indignant sonnet he 
 wrote on the occasion, that 
 
 New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large, 
 
 and that the fresh comers into ecclesiastical supremacy were eager, 
 like those who went before them, to 
 
 Adjure the civil sword, 
 To force our consciences that Christ set free. 
 
 Our Church friends are wont, when we refer to persecutions which 
 
 "•' Dymond's Essays, p. 480.
 
 11 
 
 our Puritan and Nonconformist ancestors endured from their 
 Church, to retort the persecutions which their ancestors endured 
 from the Presbyterians when they gained the ascendency. They 
 have a perfect right to do so. I am not careful to answer them in 
 this matter. I abandon freely to their condemnation " the men of 
 the solemn league and covenant." The more they denounce them 
 the more they fortify my argument. Presbyterianism persecuted, 
 they say. Yes, undoubtedly, I answer. But it was an established, 
 not a free, Presbyterianism that persecuted then, as it was an 
 established, not a free, Episcopalianism that persecuted before. 
 
 My principal object, however, in this lecture is to show the 
 influence of the Established Church on civil liberty, and the 
 progress of Liberal legislation in regard to our social and political 
 rights. And lest I should be thought to be jaundiced by Dissen- 
 ting prejudice in the view I am about to take on this ques- 
 tion, let me first cite the deliberate judgment of two great 
 writers of our age, both of them, I believe, members of the Epis- 
 copal Church — Lord Macaulay and Mr. Lecky. Lord Macaulav 
 says : " The Church of England continued to be for more than a 
 " hundred and fifty years the servile handmaid of monarchy, the 
 " steady enemy of public liberty. The divine right of kings, and 
 " the duty of passively obeying all their commands, were her 
 " favourite tenets. She held those tenets firmly through times 
 "' of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness ; while law was 
 " trampled down ; while judgment was perverted ; while the people 
 " were eaten as though they were bread. Once, and but once, for 
 " a moment, and but for a moment, when her own dignity and 
 " property were touched, she forgot to practice the submission she 
 " had taught.""'^ Mr. Lecky is no less emphatic : " Created in the 
 " first instance by a Court intrigue, pervaded in all its parts by a 
 " spirit of the most intense Erastianism, and aspiring at the same 
 " time to a spiritual authority scarcely less absolute than that of 
 " the Church which it had superseded, Anglicanism was from the 
 " beginning at once the most servile and the most efficient 
 " agent of tyranny. Endeavouring by the assistance of temporal 
 " authority and by the display of worldly pomp, to realise 
 " in England the same position as Catholicism had occupied in 
 * Macaulay 's Essays, Vol. I. p. 132.
 
 " Europe, she naturally flung herself on every occasion into the 
 " arms of the civil power. No other Church so uniformly betrayed 
 " and trampled on the liberties of her country. In all those fiery 
 " trials through which English liberty has passed since the 
 " Reformation, she invariably cast her influence into the scale of 
 " tyranny, supported and eulogised every attempt to violate the 
 " constitution, and wrote the fearful sentence of eternal condem- 
 '' nation upon the tombs of the martyrs of freedom."* 
 
 This is a terrible indictment. But before proceeding to adduce 
 some of the evidence by which it may be sustained, let me pre- 
 mise two remarks : First, that this description applies to the 
 Church of England only as represented by the clergy, and those 
 whom the clergy inspired and instigated. Among the lay mem- 
 bers of that Church there have always been found some of the 
 truest, noblest friends of freedom that the world has seen, and it 
 is, indeed, to the steady and strenuous resistance of her own sons 
 to the servile doctrines and persecuting practices of the Church 
 that we owe to a large extent our present liberties."]" My second 
 remark is, that even the bishops and clergy of the Church of 
 Enerland ouo^ht not to be involved in indiscriminate condemnation. 
 There have been generally a few among them of a different temper, 
 men who have battled bravely, so far as their position would allow 
 them, for religious toleration and civil liberty. The names of 
 Burnet, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Tennison, Hoadly, and others, 
 deserve in this connection to be held in honourable remembrance. 
 But by the great majority of their brethren these men have always 
 been denounced as enemies of the Church. The following is the 
 description given by a clergyman of the treatment this class of 
 
 * Lecky's "History of Kationalism in Europe," Vol. ii. p. 178. 
 t But I have no doubt liberal Churchmen, of every age, would have been the first 
 to acknowledge that their success in resisting measures of oppression, and promoting 
 measures of liberty, was mainly owing to the support they received from the Puritans 
 and Nonconformists. " So absolute was the authority of the Crown," says Hume, in 
 reference to the time of the Stuarts, " that the precious spark of liberty had been 
 " kindled and was preBerved by the Puritans alone ; and it was to this sect that the 
 ' "English owe the lohole freedom of their constitution." Mr. Lecky says: — "It is 
 '' difficult, indeed, to overrate the debt of gratitude that England owes both to her 
 " Non-Episcopal Churches, and to those of Scotland, In good report and in evil, amid 
 " persecution and ingratitude, and horrible wrongs, in ages when all virtue seemed 
 " corroded, and when apostacy had ceased to be a stain, they clung fearlessly and 
 " faithful to the banner of her freedom."
 
 13. 
 
 clergymen met with in the reign of Charles II. : " They were 
 " reviled as trimmers — no lovers of the Church — wolves in sheep's 
 " clothing — designing hypocrites, betrayers and underminers of 
 " the Church, men who smile in your face when about to cut your 
 " throat, men who handled the Church with the hands of Esau, 
 " but now speak with the voice of Jacob ; men who trim and. 
 " trick, play fast and loose ; who, under their beloved moderation, 
 " in a creeping, whining, sanctified dialect aim at encouraging and 
 " supporting Dissenters, and, on behalf of their old Puritan friends 
 " pimp for bills of union, comprehension, or toleration ; good had 
 " it been for the Church of England that they had never been 
 " born."* And I fear there is no doubt that this must be con- 
 sidered as the prevailing spirit which has animated her policy 
 and guided her councils in all past times. 
 
 It was the signal misfortune of the Church of England as an 
 Established Church that it v/as so constituted as to become from 
 the first, as it was intended to become, the ally and instrument of 
 despotisHL Lord Macaulay says that Elizabeth supported the 
 Church by severe penal laws, not because she thought conformity 
 to its discipline necessary to salvation, but because it teas the 
 fastness which arbitrary poivsr was making strong for itself 
 And, first of all, let us look at the imnciples as regards civil 
 liberty which the Church of England has authoritatively and 
 habitually taught. Her doctrines on this subject are thus sum- 
 marised by Mr. Lecky : "That no tyranny, however gross, that no 
 "violation of the constitution, however flagrant, can justify 
 "resistance; that all those principles concerning the rights of 
 '' nations on which constitutional government is based are false, 
 " and all those efforts of resistance by which constitutional govern- 
 " ment is achieved are deadly sins, was her emphatic and continued 
 "teaching."t The proof of tins charge is:, unhappily, only too 
 abundant. The Homilies were first published in the year 1562. 
 They were intended to be substitutes for sermons at a time when 
 many of the clergy were not qualified to preach. They must be re- 
 gpcrded, therefore, as the spiritual food which the Church provided 
 for her children, as containing the views which she was anxious 
 should become incorporated as it were with the blood and bones and 
 
 * Mountfield, p. 116. f " Rationalism in Europe." Vol. II., p. 179.
 
 14 
 
 sinews of Englishmen. Well, what is the teaching, on the subject 
 before us, embodied in the Homilies? I can only cite two or three 
 short sentences to indicate the spirit which permeates the whole- 
 " A rebel is worse than the worst prince, and rebellion worse than 
 "the worst government of the worst prince hath hitherto been." 
 " God placeth as well evil princes as good," and, therefore, " for 
 " sttbjects to deserve through their sins to have an evil prince and 
 " then to rebel against him were double and treble evil by pro- 
 *• voking God more to plague them." In the beginning of the 
 third part of the Homily against Disobedience the preacher says : 
 "It remaineth that I do declare unto you what an abominable sin 
 "against God and man rebellion is, and how dreadfully the 
 "wrath of God is kindled and inflamed against rebels, and what 
 "horrible plagues, punishments, and deaths, and finally, eternal 
 " damnation, hangeth over their heads, and how, on the contrary 
 "part, good and obedient subjects are in God's favour, and be 
 " partakers of peace, quietness, and security, with other God's 
 "■ manifold blessings in this world, and by His mercies through Our 
 "Saviour Jesus Christ, of life everlasting also in the world to 
 " come."* Here it will be observed that absolute submission to 
 the will of every ruler, however tyrannical, is inculcated, that 
 every species of resistance is disallowed, even that passive resist- 
 ance — in my opinion the best and most effectual — of which there 
 are so many conspicuous examples in the lives of the apostles and 
 primitive Christians. The same doctrines were solemnly embodied 
 in the canons of Convocation in 1606. And in the writings and 
 sermons of the clergy they appear in forms, if possible, still more 
 marked and offensive. Archbishop Parker, in the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, said : " The magistrate is empowered to govern the 
 "consciences of his subjects. Private persons have no right to 
 "judge; they are not masters of their own actions, nor ought 
 " they to be governed by their own judgments ; but they ought to 
 «' be directed by the public conscience of their governors. "•[" Dr. 
 Sibthorp, in the reign of James I., says : " The King hath his duty 
 " to direct and make laws. He doth whatever pleases him. Where 
 " the word of the King is there is power, and who may say unto 
 "him, What doest thou ?" Dr. Wren, in the reign of Charles II., 
 
 * Homilies, p. 485. + Church Polity, sect. I., p. 17.
 
 JO 
 
 says : " If any man say I fear God and feareth not the King, he is 
 "a liar; and, Lord, what a holy army of liars might we then 
 " quickly muster up ! . . . There is not the least contempt 
 " of majesty but is a spice of profanation, and every step of dis- 
 " loyalty is a high degree of atheism. . . . Unless you will 
 ■'' be slaves and rebels you will fear God and the King alike." Dr. 
 Mainwaring, in the same reign, says : "Among all the powers that 
 " be ordained of God, the regal is most high, strong, and large. 
 " Kings are above all, inferior to none, to no man, to no multitude 
 " of men, to no angels, to no order of angels. . . . Their power 
 " is not only human but superhuman. . . . It is participation 
 " of God's own omnipotency, which He never did communicate to 
 " any multitude of men, but only and immediately to His own vice- 
 " gerent."* And so I might go on giving you a catena patrum 
 down to Bishop Horsley, who, in the reign of George III., declared 
 that "the people had nothing to do with the laws but to obey 
 them." 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the evil of such teaching. It 
 operates in two ways. First, it encourages princes in their most 
 <ixorbitant and dangerous pretensions to absolute* power. Is it 
 any wonder that the Jameses and the Charleses, to whose lips 
 copious draughts of such fulsome adulation as this were held by 
 consecrated hands in the very vessels of the sanctuary, should 
 have become drunk with despotism ? And still worse was its 
 second tendency, to beget in the popular mind a base and ser- 
 vile spirit, inconsistent with the very existence of liberty. If the 
 people of England had given heed to the political doctrines of their 
 Established Church, they must have remained the most abject of 
 shaves to the end of time. And as the teaching of the clergy so was 
 their conduct. In the long conflict of centuries between arbitrary 
 power and the rising spirit of freedom in this country, the Church 
 of England has invariably sided with the former. There is a very 
 significant passage in Hallam's History of the reign of Elizabeth. 
 He is accounting for the fact that while the Queen and the bishops 
 were furious in their persecution of the Puritans, Walsingham 
 and the other statesmen of Elizabeth's court did what they could 
 
 • These and other extracts are given in Perry's " History of the Church," pp. 358, 
 
 362, 366.
 
 16 
 
 to protect them. And why ? Because, in prospect of the acces- 
 sion of Mary Queen of Scots, and the consequent attempt that 
 would inevitably have been made to effect the destruction of Pro- 
 testantism, and the extinction of the national liberties, they felt 
 these were the men that could be relied on for the defence of both. 
 " In so awful a crisis," he says, " to what could they better look 
 " than to the stern, intrepid, uncompromising spirit of Puritanism ? 
 
 " Of conforming Churchmen in general they might 
 
 " well be doubtful, after the oscillations of three preceding reigns ; 
 " but every abhorrer of ceremonies, every rejecter of prelatical 
 " authority, might be trusted as Protestant to the heart's core. 
 
 " Nor had the Puritans admitted even in theory,. 
 
 " those extravagant notions of passive obedience which the Church 
 " of England had thought fit to mingle with her homilies." It 
 was this that led Sir Francis Walsingham to thwart the harsh 
 intolerance of the bishops.^ "When James I. took possession of 
 the throne of England, the heads of the Church did all they could 
 to place the national liberties prostrate at his feet. Never did any 
 body of men debase themselves naore utterly. After the contemp- 
 tible Scotch pedant had bullied, and browbeaten, and driven out 
 of his presence, with a threat to harry them out of the land, 
 the Puritan divines, headed by Dr. Reynolds, whom Mr. Hallam 
 calls the most learned man in England, Bishop Bancroft fell on 
 his knees and said, "I protest that my heart melteth for joy that 
 " Almighty God, of His singular mercy, has given us such a King 
 " as since Christ's time has not been," Chancellor Egerton said, 
 " He had never seen the King and Priest so fully united in one 
 '' person." And on another occasion the Archbishop said : " Un- 
 " doubtedly your Majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's 
 " spirit.""!- Thus they fooled him to the top of his bent. Indeed 
 the extravagance to which they pushed their servility looks almost 
 like madness. Thus Dr. Cowell, Yicar-general of the Archbishop, 
 published a book in which he affirms that the King is not bound 
 by laws or by his coronation oath — that he is not obliged to call 
 Parliaments to make laws, but may do it without them — that it is a 
 great favour to admit the consent of the subject in giving subsi- 
 
 * Hallam's " Constitutional History," Vol. I., p. 195. 
 tNeal's History, Vol. I., p. 21.
 
 17 
 
 dies. Anotlier clergyman, Dr. Blackwood, maintained that the 
 English were all slaves from the Norman Conquest.* And when 
 the King, disgusted with the remonstrances of Parliament about 
 grievances, determined to govern without Parliaments, we are told 
 that this was done by the advice of Bancroft ; and all this to a 
 man whom Bishop Burnet describes as '' the scorn of the age, a 
 " mere pedant, without true judgment, courage, or steadiness, his 
 " reign being a continued course of mean practices." 
 
 Lord Macaulay says that "the meeting of the Long Parlia- 
 '• ment was one of the greatest eras in the history of the civilised 
 " world." It must be borne in mind that the members of that 
 body were Churchmen. And yet, when they came to consider 
 the imminent peril in which the national liberties were placed, 
 the first point on wdiich they fixed, and on which they laid 
 the strongest emphasis, was the tyranny of the Church as 
 the most formidable prop to the tyranny of the State. That 
 great Parliament, as is Avell known, embodied the case of the 
 people of England in an elaborate document known as the "Grand 
 Remonstrance." The "Grand Kemonsti'ance," says Mr. John 
 Forster, in the admirable volume in vrhich he has brought to 
 light and revivified that memorable State paper, "is the most 
 " authentic statement ever put forth of the wrongs endured by all 
 " the classes of the English people during the first fifteen years of 
 " the reign of Charles the First, and for that reason the most com- 
 " plete justification on record of the great rebellion." In this 
 solemn indictment, which the Commons of England brought 
 against the high ecclesiastical authorities, they are charged with 
 " cherishing to the utmost such views of Church doctrine and 
 '' discipline as would establish ecclesiastical tyranny, and with in- 
 " eluding under the opprobrious name of Puritans, ' all who desire 
 " ' to preserve unimpaired the public laws and liberties, and the 
 " 'purity and power of the true religion. ' " In the petition to the 
 King which accompanied the Remonstrance, its authors are still 
 more explicit in indicating those against whom their accusations 
 are directed, for " they beseech his Majesty that he will, in 
 " regard to the bishops, concur with and second his people's humble 
 " desires in a parliamentary way, to abridge their immoderate 
 
 *Nears History, Vol. I., p. 79.
 
 18 
 
 " power usurped over the clergy, to deprive them of their temporal 
 "jurisdiction in Parliament, to take away such oppression in 
 '' religion, church government, and discipline as had been brought 
 '' in and fomented by them ; and to abate their pressure upon 
 " weak consciences by removing those oppressions and unnecessary 
 " ceremonies."* ' 
 
 It is not necessary for me to dwell on the part taken by the clergy 
 of the Established Church in the memora.ble struggle which then 
 began. It was their pride and boast that they faithfully followed 
 the King's fortunes. Nay, it is undeniable that it was their 
 influence largely that propelled the King into that infatuated 
 course of arbitrary conduct which brought into imminent jeopardy 
 the liberties of all Englishmen. " Archbishop] Laud," says Neal, 
 " had the direction of all public affairs in England for twelve years 
 '' together. Was not the Archbishop at the head of the Council 
 " Table, the Star Chamber, and the Court of High Commission ? 
 " Was not his Grace the contriver and promoter of all the monopolies 
 " and oppressions that brought on the civil war ? " In the civil 
 war the whole body of the clergy sided with the King. They 
 endured great hardships and submitted to many sacrifices in 
 vindication of their loyalty. For this let every honour be done to 
 them. All men are worthy of respect who conscientiously suffer 
 for a principle. But we cannot, we ought not, to forget that that 
 was the critical epoch in the history of our country's liberties ; 
 that the principle for which they contended was the principle of 
 arbitrary authority ; and the man in whom that principle was 
 embodied was the man who had used his utmost efforts to strangle 
 British freedom in its cradle. 
 
 I am afraid to trust myself to speak of the conduct of the 
 clergy in the shameful reign of Charles II. I avail myself, there- 
 fore, of the words of another, not a Nonconformist, — " When, in 
 " the gloomy period of vice and of reaction that followed the 
 " Restoration, the current set in against all liberal opinions, and 
 " the maxims of despotism were embodied even in the oath of 
 " allegiance, the Church of England directed the stream, allied 
 " herself in the closest union with a court whose vices were the 
 " scandal of Christendom, and exhausted her anathemas not upon 
 
 * " The Grand Remonstrance," p. 361.
 
 19 
 
 *' the hideous corruption that surrounded her, but upon the 
 " principles of Hampden and of Milton. All through the long en- 
 " croachments of the Stuarts she exhibited the same spirit. The 
 '' very year when Russell died was selected by the University of 
 " Oxford to condemn the writings of Buchanan, Baxter, and 
 " Milton, and to proclaim the duty of passive obedience in a 
 " decree which the House of Lords soon afterwards committed to 
 " the flames."* In the reign of James II. the Church of England 
 was placed in a peculiar position. After James, when he was 
 Duke of York, had turned Catholic, the friends of Protestantism 
 and of freedom, distrusting the use he might make of his power 
 when he ascended the throne, introduced into Parliament a bill to 
 exclude him from the succession. But the clergy made a great 
 and successful effort to iDrocure its defeat, and when it was rejected 
 presented an address to Charles congratulating him on the result. 
 When James actually succeeded, he began to govern with a high 
 hand, and showed unmistakeable indications that he was pre- 
 paring to turn a free government into an absolute monarchy. 
 While he was pressing forward all these measures, while he was 
 collecting revenue without Parliamentary sanction, while he was 
 attacking the free charters of corporate bodies, while he was 
 stealthily forming a large standing army in time of peace, whil6, 
 through his creatures, Jeffreys and Kirke, he was practising 
 cruelties which filled the nation with horror and loathing, while 
 he was persecuting the Nonconformists in England, and still more 
 atrociously persecuting the Covenanters in Scotland, the bishops 
 made no sign of disapproval. As Mr. Fox says, "So long as 
 " James contented himself with absolute power in civil matters, 
 '" and did not make use of his authority against the Church, 
 " everything went smooth and easy.""!- But the moment he 
 showed a disposition, by his declaration of indulgence, to touch 
 its ecclesiastical monopoly, then it threw to the winds the doctrines 
 it had been steadfastly teaching for more than two hundred years. 
 As Defoe says, "Then, passive pulpits beat the ecclesiastical drum 
 " of war ; absolute subjection took up arms ; and obedience for 
 " conscience sake resisted divine right." The act of the king was 
 no doubt unlawful and insidious, and ought to have been resisted. 
 
 *" Rationalism in Europe," Vol. I. , pp. 182-183. f Fox's History of James IL, p. 165.
 
 20 
 
 So felt the Nonconformists of that day, for though the declaration 
 was eminently to their advantage, and calculated to remove dis- 
 abilities and oppressions under which they laboured, they re- 
 fused to accept it, and joined in the resistance. But unhappily, 
 the conduct of the clergy afterwards proved too clearly that their 
 opposition sprang from no love of constitutional liberty, but 
 because the act was levelled against their exclusive privileges, for 
 no sooner was the immediate danger over than they seemed 
 to repent of their conduct, deplored the deposition of James, 
 began to intrigue for his return, and far from redeeming the fair 
 promises of redressing the grievances of Nonconformists which 
 they had made in the hour of trial, used their utmost endeavours, 
 as soon as they had the power, still more to abridge their rights 
 and to tiofhten their bonds. 
 
 Mr. Hallam says that the great ultimate security of English 
 freedom was the expulsion of the House of Stuart. But the 
 Established Church used its influence to prevent their expulsion 
 and to promote their return. Tlie conduct of the clergy towards 
 William III., whom few people now will doubt was the great 
 deliverer of England from temporal and spiritual oppression, 
 and the founder of our constitutional liberties, was a signal 
 illustration of the little care they had for "the ultimate security of 
 English freedom." Only a few weeks before his arrival they had 
 braved the anger of James by refusing to read his edict of tolera- 
 tion, not, as they said, because they disliked toleration, but because 
 they hated tyranny. And yet when James had stolen away like 
 a thief in the night, and William had come to save the country 
 from a slavery which even they acknowledged was imminent, 
 what did they do ? They turned their back upon him, and utterly 
 rejected him as their Sovereign. The oath of allegiance was 
 refused by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Bath and 
 Wells, the Bishop of Chester, the Bishop of Chichester, the Bishop 
 of Ely, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Bishop of Norwich, the 
 Bishop of Peterborough, and the Bishop of Worcester. The only 
 friends of William among the clergy were the Low Churchmen, 
 as they were afterwards called : and Macaulay says, " we should 
 " probably overrate their numerical strength if we estimate them as 
 " a tenth part of the priesthood." The great majority of the clergy
 
 21 
 
 however, ultimately took the oaths rather than lose their beuefices, 
 but with such obvious insincerity that Bishop Burnet expressly de- 
 clares that the infidelity which then rapidly spread through the kino^- 
 dom was owing in part to this conduct of the clergy. " It must be 
 " confessed/' he says, " that the behaviour of many clergymen o-ave 
 " atheists no small advantage. They had taken the oaths and read 
 " the prayers for the present Government, and yet they showed in 
 " many places their aversion to it too visibly. . . . This made 
 " many conclude that the clergy were a sort of men that would 
 " swear and pray even against their consciences rather than lose 
 " their benefices, and by consequence that they were governed 
 ''by interest not by principle."* I should detain you too 
 long if I were to enter into a minute inquiry into the senti- 
 ments and conduct of the clergy in their relation to the civil 
 power in the reign of Queen Anne and the first two Georo-es. 
 I believe it is clearly demonstrable that they had no o-reat 
 favour to the House of Hanover until George III. threw himself 
 completely into their hands. In the rebellions of 1715, and 1745, it 
 was the general conviction that the sympathies of many of them 
 were with the Pretender. C. J. Fox, in advocatin*g the cause of 
 the Dissenters in the House of Commons many years afterwards, 
 refers to those critical times, and says, " Gentlemen should recollect 
 " that, at the times alluded to, the High Churchmen did not 
 " display much gallantry, for many appeared perplexed and pusill- 
 " animous. Hence the superior glory of the Dissenters, who, 
 " regardless of every danger, had boldly stood forth in defence of 
 " the rights and liberties of the kingdom." Some Churchmen, indeed, 
 were known to intrigue boldly for the restoration of the Stuarts. 
 Bishop Atterbury was conspicuous in this work, and that he was 
 sustained by the secret sympathies and instigations of many of his 
 brethren is proved by the remarkable fact, mentioned by Lord 
 Mahon in his History, that when in 1722, Atterbury was arrested 
 because he was known to be engaged in a treasonable conspiracy 
 with the Pretender, " he was publicly prayed for in most of the 
 " churches of London and We st minster. "f 
 
 A most curious confirmation of the fact as to the Jacobite pro- 
 
 » " History of My Own Time," Vol. II., p. 101. 
 fMahon's History of England, Vol. IL, p. 38.
 
 ^>«7 
 
 clivities of the clergy is contained in a letter which Dr. Watts, no 
 violent political Dissenter, publicly addressed to the Noncon- 
 formists, recommending them to withdraw their subscriptions from 
 the charity schools conducted by the clergy to which they had 
 been accustomed largely to contribute, because " the children were 
 " brouo"ht up, in too many of these schools, in disaffection to the 
 " present Government, in bigoted zeal for the word ' church,' and 
 " with a violent enmity, and a malicious spirit of persecution against 
 " all whom they were taught to call Presbyterians, though from 
 " many of their hands they received their bread and clothing." 
 
 In the early part of the reign of George III. there arose another 
 struo-o-le for liberty, which, though it had immediate reference to 
 one of Britain's remote dependencies, involved really the same 
 principles as were concerned in the conflict with the Stuarts. I 
 suppose no two opinions now exist as to the folly and injustice of 
 the attempt made by the Tory Government of the day to tax the 
 American Colonies without their consent, or as to the wickedness 
 of the war, prompted and sustained principally by the personal 
 obstinacy of the King, that was waged to enforce that arbitrary 
 claim. The Dissenters almost to a man opposed the war, and the 
 policy that led to it, as a gross infraction of constitutional right. 
 But the Church threw itself with the utmost violence into the 
 opposite scale. " The clergy," said Burke, in a letter to Fox, " are 
 " astonishingly warm in this American business ; and what the 
 " Tories are when embodied and united with their natural head, 
 " the crown, and animated by their clergy, no man knows better 
 " than yourself." The pulpits of the Establishment resounded 
 with the fiercest diatribes against the colonists. The old rusty 
 weapons of passive obedience and non-resistance were furbished 
 up and flashed in the face of the Americans. The rebellion was 
 compared to the sin of witchcraft, Franklin was likened to 
 Ahithopel, and Washington to Jeroboam. Every measure for 
 carrying on the war, and for adding renewed oppression to the 
 colonies was supported by the Bench of Bishops. " Twenty-four 
 Bishops," wrote Franklin, "with all the lords in possession or 
 " expectation of places, make a dead majority that renders all 
 " debating ridiculous."* 
 
 * Skeats' " History of the Free Churches," p. 457.
 
 23 
 
 That time and the time that immediately followed was one of 
 the darkest in our history — a time pregnant with peril to English 
 freedom. The King and the riding classes, rendered frantic by 
 fear in consequence of the French Revolution, passed a series of 
 laws of the most despotic character, tending to gag the press, to 
 stop public meetings, to suppress political discussion, and to destroy 
 every vestige of popular liberty. When some of these bills were 
 before Parliament, Charles Fox declared that "they positively 
 "repealed the Bill of Rights, and cut up the whole Constitution by 
 "the roots by changing our limited monarchy into an absolute 
 "despotism." These oppressive laws were applied with the most 
 vindictive severity, and men were fined, imprisoned, and trans- 
 ported for the use of language not one whit stronger than that 
 now freely used at political meetings by men of all parties. And 
 not content with these legal prosecutions, drunken mobs, shouting 
 as their watch-cry the motto, " Church and King," were hounded 
 on by friends of the Government to attack and burn down the 
 houses of the most innocent and virtuous citizens. And, unhappily, 
 in this deadly crusade against liberty, the clergy were again con- 
 spicuous, as well as in promoting that war with* France, which 
 was confessedly undertaken to divert attention from the demands 
 for reform which was beginning to rise in the country. 
 
 When the nation began to recover breath after the exhaustion 
 of that tremendous conflict, its attention was turned afresh to the 
 necessity of reform in its own domestic institutions. I suppose 
 none will now question that such reform was imperatively required. 
 Parliamentary representation was a mere sham. The voice of the 
 people at large had no power whatever in the House which made 
 the laws and imposed the taxes. The nation may be said to have 
 had no political life. The necessity of parliamentary reform may 
 be in some degree measured by the immense progress in Liberal 
 legislation which has been made since that reform was effected. 
 And yet, when in 1830-1 the demand arose from the heart of the 
 nation, with a unanimity and earnestness which brooked neither 
 denial nor delay, the entire body of the clergy set themselves 
 strenuously to resist what was nearly the universal will of the 
 people. This is mournfully acknowledged by the Rev. W. N. 
 Molesworth, himself a clergyman, in his ''History of the Reform
 
 24 
 
 Bill," published a few years ago. "The clergy," says he, " were 
 " almost imanimous in their hatred of the proposed innovatioD. 
 '' Already highly unpopular, partly on account of the determined 
 '' opposition which, as a body, they had offered to every proposal 
 " for the extension of civil and religious liberty, and partly on 
 " account of the vexations and disputes attendant on the collection 
 " of tithes, they rendered themselves still more odious by their 
 " undisguised detestation of the new measure;"* and the reason 
 assigned by Mr. Molesworth for their conduct is precisely one 
 which proves that this resistance to what the nation desired arose 
 purely from their being ministers of an Established Church, 
 because they feared spoliation of church property. When the 
 critical division took place which was to decide the fate of the 
 measure, and when England was trembling on the verge of revo- 
 lution, 21 bishops, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 voted against the bill and threw it out, which provoked Lord 
 Nuffield to say " That the votes of the right rev. prelates were in 
 " favour of Government so long as it adopted severe measures 
 " against the people, and that they began to be opposed to 
 " Government only when a liberal policy was formed," 
 
 Among the grievances with which the Reformed Parliament 
 was called to deal, there was one which from its peculiar nature 
 it might have been expected would have enlisted the instinctive 
 sympathies of all ministers of religion in the effort to get it re- 
 dressed, I allude of course to the Corn Laws — laws as unjust 
 as were ever, I believe, inscribed on the statute book of any 
 nation, the tendency, if not the avowed design, of which 
 was to increase the value of the rich man's estate by raising the 
 price of the poor man's bread, I need not tell you in how 
 many ways those odious laws operated to stifle the life and stunt 
 the growth of the national prosperity ; how they fettered indus- 
 try, suppressed enterprise, diverted the legitimate employment 
 of capital. But there are probably not many, even in Manches- 
 ter, who can remember the terrible and widespread distress they 
 inflicted on the people. Speaking of the year 1840, Mr. Prentice, 
 in his " History of the League," says : " At the time when Par- 
 " liament was prorogued there were 20,93G persons in Leeds 
 
 * Molesworth, p. loQ.
 
 25 
 
 " whose average earnings were only llf d. a week. In Paisley, 
 " nearly one-fourth of the population was in a state bordering 
 " upon actual starvation. In one district of Manchester, the 
 " Rev. Mr. Beardsall visited 258 families, consisting of 1,029 
 " individuals, whose average earnings were only Vjd. per week. 
 " Colonel Thompson, who had just visited Bolton, said ' anything 
 " ' like the squalid misery, the slow, mouldering, putrifying death 
 " ' by which the weak and feeble of the working classes are perishing 
 " ' here, it never befel my eyes to behold, nor my imagination to 
 " ' conceive.' While millions Avere in this deplorable condition, the 
 " duty on the importation of wheat was 24s. 8d.; on oats, 13s. 9d.; 
 " on barley, 10s. lOd.; and on rye, 14s. per qr." But when that great 
 Association was formed in this city, headed by Richard Cobden 
 and John Bright, to procure the abolition of these laws, what help 
 did they receive from the clergy in their enterprise ? None, or next 
 to none. When the country was in the condition just described, 
 it occurred to the leaders of the League to invoke the aid of 
 ministers of religion to protest in the name of the Gospel against 
 laws which were as opposed to the obvious designs of Providence 
 as to the true interests of nations. They issued stn invitation to 
 clergymen of all denominations to meet in a conference at Man- 
 chester. 630 ministers of various denominations accepted the 
 invitation, and came from all parts of the country to tell the tale 
 of bitter privation and distress with which they were so familiar 
 among the poor of their flocks. But among these, how many were 
 there of the clergy of the Established Church ? There was one — 
 one solitary man, the Rev. Thomas Spencer, of Bath — 
 
 Among the faithless, faithful only he. 
 
 And when the bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws came to the 
 House of Lords in 1846, nine of the bishops recorded their votes 
 against it. 
 
 And, what is still more surprising, when movements not of a 
 political character at all, but simply in promotion of knowledge, 
 justice, and humanity, have been set on foot, too frequently the 
 clergy have been either indifferent or hostile. In regard, for 
 instance, to the long struggle for the abolition of slavery in our 
 colonies, very few of them took any active part in the agitation. 
 One of the veteran survivors of the noble band of philanthropists
 
 26 
 
 who carried on that crusade of humanity has told me — "I believe 
 " I could almost count on my ten fingers the clergymen who helped 
 *' us in that conflict. There were a few, like good Mr. Marsh, of 
 " Birmingham, and others, who threw themselves earnestly into 
 " the work ; but, in general, they were against us, or utterly 
 " indifferent." And in those great anti-slavery conferences held in 
 London during the progress of the struggle, attended by many 
 hundreds of gentlemen from all parts of the country, including a 
 large proportion of ministers of religion of all denominations, there 
 were seldom more than four or five clergymen present. And Lord 
 Eussell has emphatically declared that it was "the Dissenters who 
 carried the abolition of slavery." 
 
 There was another portentous evil which began to attract the 
 attention of some of our moral and political reformers about the 
 beginning of the present century — I mean the character of our 
 criminal code. I suppose there never was in any country in the 
 world a body of laws more ferocious and sanguinary than that 
 which dishonoured the statute book of England at that time. 
 There were upwards of 300 offences punishable with death. The 
 law made it capital to steal goods to the value of 5s. out of any 
 shop, warehouse, coach-house, or stable ; to cut down trees, to 
 break down mounds of fish-ponds, to steal deer out of a park, or 
 rabbits out of a warren, or linen out of a bleaching ground ; and 
 what, perhaps, is not so generally known, these enactments had 
 not come down from ancient and more barbarous times, but a vast 
 proportion of them had actually been passed within the memory 
 of man. " There are persons now living," said Sir F. T. Buxton, 
 in 1819, " at whose birth the criminal code contained less than 
 " sixty capital offences, and who have seen that number quad- 
 " rupled — who have seen an Act pass making offences capital 
 " by the dozen and by the score." Human life was sacrificed 
 with a levity that is incredible. Strings of men, women, and 
 almost children were continually seen daugling in front of 
 our gaols, and some of them for offences which are now deemed 
 sufficiently expiated by a few weeks' imprisonment. At length 
 the horrors of this system of judicial murder moved men like 
 Bentham, and Romilly, and Mackintosh to make some efforts to 
 mitigate its severity. Would it not have been natural to expect
 
 27 
 
 that those whose business it was to expound the merciful genius 
 
 of the Gospel would have felt that this savage code was a reproach 
 
 to any State calling itself Christian, and would have eagerly 
 
 rallied around those who were trying to effect some mitigation of 
 
 its Draconic rigour ? But what was the case ? The first attempt of 
 
 Eomilly was to abolish capital punishment for the crime of stealing 
 
 privately to the amount of five shillings in a shop. No one could 
 
 charge this with being a rash or extravagant innovation. Yet session 
 
 after session this small measure of mercy, after being carried through 
 
 the Commons, was rejected by the Lords, the Bishops being always 
 
 conspicuous by their numbers in the adverse vote. Romilly records 
 
 this again and again in his diary. Thus under the date of May 
 
 30th, 1810, he says, " The second reading of the bill to abolish 
 
 " capital punishment for the crime of stealing privately to the 
 
 " amount of five shillings in a shop, came on to-day in the House 
 
 ''of Lords. It was rejected by a majority of 31 to 11, the 
 
 '•'Ministers having procured a pretty full attendance of Peers, 
 
 '' considering the advanced season of the year, to throw it out. 
 
 '•' Amongst these were no less than seven prelates, the Archbishop 
 
 " of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, of Salisbury, of Ely, of 
 
 '• Hereford, of Chester, and Porter, an Irish Bishop. I rank these 
 
 '' prelates amongst the members who were solicited to vote against 
 
 '' the bill, because I would rather be convinced of their servility 
 
 " towards Government than that, recollecting the mild doctrines of 
 
 " their religion, they could have come down to the House spon- 
 
 " taneously to vote that transportation for life is not a sufficiently 
 
 " severe punishment for pilfering what is of five shillings value, 
 
 "and that nothing but the blood of the offender can afford 
 
 "an adequate atonement for such a transgression."^'^ The 
 
 apology seems to be almost worse than the act, and furnishes 
 
 at least another flagrant illustration of the evil effects of making 
 
 the ministers of religion the creatures of Government. 
 
 Nor must we forget that, meritorious and most exemplary as 
 have been the exertions of the clergy in late years in promoting 
 popular education, there was a time when they were its sturdy 
 opponents, or, at most, when they tardily admitted its propriety 
 strictly on condition of its being absolutely under their own cqn- 
 *Life of RomiUy, 12mo., Vol. II., p. 150.
 
 .28 
 
 trol, and made subservient to the interests of the Established 
 Charch. When in 1807, Mr. Whitbread introduced into Parliament 
 the Parochial Schools Bill, the Archbishop of Canterbury was one 
 of its principal opponents. His main reason for opposing it was 
 that the advantages of education were extended more than appeared 
 to be thought, and that the provisions of the bill left little or no 
 control to the minister of the parish. " This " says he, " would 
 " subvert the first principles of education in this country, which 
 *' had hitherto been, and he trusted, would continue to be, under the 
 " conduct and auspices of the Establishment ; and their Lordships 
 " would feel how dangerous it would be to innovate in these matters. 
 " Their Lordships' prudence would and must guard against innova- 
 " tions that might shake the foundations of religion."* And 
 when Joseph Lancaster started his system of teaching the 
 poor, though it was as perfectly liberal and unsectarian a system 
 as it was possible to be, the bishops and clergy raised a tremendous 
 hubbub. The benevolent Quaker and his plans were denounced 
 in the most unmeasured terms. One Church writer said it was "a 
 " wild, absurd, and anti-Christian scheme, and calculated to answer 
 " no one purpose so much as amalgamating the great body of the 
 "people into one great deistical concordat." The plan, said 
 another, was a plan of a Quaker, and " Quakerism meant nothing 
 "but deism and a disg^ustinff amalsjam of all those anti-Christian 
 "heresies and blasphemies which were permitted to disgrace and 
 " disturb the Church in her early days." Still, in spite of these 
 declamations, the system was extending ; and rather, therefore, 
 than let the education of the people fall into the hands of the 
 Dissenters, why the Church must start an educational system of 
 its own. And such is really the whole account of the origin of 
 the National School Society and its operations."]" 
 
 * Hansard, 1807. 
 
 1 1 give Dr. Bell's own words in reply to a letter from Mrs. Trimmer, a great light 
 of the Church in those days, in which she predicted that if Lancaster's plan were 
 allowed to go on much longer, "the common people would not know that there was 
 such a thing as the Established Church in the nation." " What you say," he wrote* 
 " of 'preventing this scheme against the Church, is what some years ago occurred to 
 ' * me ; and I then said, what I shall never cease to repeat, that I know of but one 
 '* way effectually to check these efforts, and it is by able and well-directed efforts of 
 *' our own hands."— Southey's Life of Bell, II., 150. 
 
 Earl Russell, in a letter written from Cannes, Feb. 1, 1872, says :- "The clergy
 
 29 
 
 It is hardly credible, but it is nevertheless true, that when the 
 British and Foreign Bible Society was formed, although its sole 
 and simple object was to furnish the Sacred Scriptures ia their 
 purest form to the people of this country who were perishing for 
 lack of knowledge, it was assailed with the utmost virulence by 
 the dicmitaries and clero-y of the Established Church : and the 
 reason openly avowed was that it was dangerous to the Church. 
 " Supply these people with Bibles," said an established clergy- 
 man, " I speak as a true Churchman, and you will supply them 
 with weapons against yourselves." Dr. Law, then Bishop of 
 Chester, in his charge to the clergy, said, "The tendency of the 
 Bible Society is unfavourable to our Church Establishment." 
 
 Now, I ask you to consider, in the light of the facts I have 
 brought before you, what would have been the present condition of 
 this country if the influence of the Established Church had been pre- 
 dominant on our national destinies. So far as I can see, Ave should 
 have been still under the dominion of the Stuarts — still subject 
 to the Star Chamber and the High Court of Commission ; still 
 victims to the slavish doctrines of non-resistance and passive 
 obedience; still without a vestige of religious liberty, the 
 Nonconformists crushed by the Uniformity Act, the Con- 
 venticle Act, the Five-mile Act, and other atrocious acts passed 
 against them by the influence of the Church; still with our 
 sanguinary criminal code unamended; still without Parliamen- 
 tary Reform; still with Protection and the Corn Laws lying like 
 an incubus on our industry. In short, we should have been a 
 people without rights, without freedom, without hope, trampled 
 under foot alike by tyranny and priestcraft. And I ask you, 
 further, is it natural that men like clergymen of the Church 
 of England, men of education, possessed of the highest learning 
 and culture of their times — the declared servants of the Just and 
 Merciful, and men who in other directions have, I have no doubt, 
 proved themselves kind, charitable, humane — is it natural, I ask, 
 unless some pernicious disturbing element were at work, that they 
 should be always found, as we have found them, on the side of 
 
 *' were in those days — even the Liberal clergy — generally opposed to* the education of 
 *' the poor ; but, finding the course of education made progress, they agreed in 3811 to 
 *' set up a society for founding and maintaining schools."
 
 30 
 
 despotic rulers and bad laws ? Surely, the ministers of Christ's 
 Gospel should be in the van of human civilisation — the first 
 to champion the rights of < the humble and oppressed. And 
 I believe the disturbing element has been, in this case, the con- 
 nection of their Church with the State. I believe, moreover, in 
 my innermost heart, that the day when the severance of that 
 connection shall take place will be for the Church of England 
 herself a day of jubilee, a day of deliverance from memories of the 
 past and associations of the present which paralyse her spirit, 
 tarnish her reputation, and incalculably impede her usefulness as 
 
 a Christian Church. 
 
 1. ' 
 
 A. Ireland & Co., Printers, Mancheste
 
 
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