Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

bishop would not admit it, saying in open court, that whosoever should make such a defence, it should be burnt before his face and he laid by the heels. Upon this he was personally and judicially admonished to read the declaration within three weeks, which he refusing, was suspended ab officio & beneficio. About four months after he was judicially admonished again, and refusing to comply, was excommunicated, and toid, that unless he conformed before the second day of next term, he should be deprived; which was accordingly done, and be continued under the sentence many years, to his unspeakable damage.

It were endless to go into more particulars; how ma'ny hundred godly ministers in this and other dioceses (says Mr. Pryane) have been suspended from their ministry, sequestered, driven from their livings, excommunicated, 'prosecuted in the high commission, and forced to leave 'the kingdom for not publishing this declaration, is experimentally known to all men." Dr. Wren, bishop of Norwich, says, that great numbers in his diocese had declined it, and were suspended; that some had since complied, but that still there were thirty who peremptorily refused and were excommunicated. This the bishop thinks a small number, although if there were as many in other dioceses, the whole would amount to near eight hundred.

To render the Common-prayer book more unexceptionable to the papists, and more distant from puritanism, the archbishop made sundry alterations in the later editions, without the sanction of convocation or parliament. In the collect for the royal family, the princess Elizabeth and her children were left out and these words were expunged, O God, who art the father of thine elect, and of their seed; as tending towards particular election or predestination.‡ In the prayer for the fifth of November were these words, root out that antichristian and Babylonish sect which say of Jerusalem, Down with it even to the ground. Cut off those workers of iniquity, whose religion is rebellion, whose faith *Cant. Doom. p. 153.

Dr.Grey says, that the archbishop fully cleared himself in this particular, by informing us, [Troubles and Trial, p. 357,]" that the alter'ations were made either by the king himself, or some other about him, when he was not at court." Ed.

Cant. Doom. p. 111-12

is faction, whose practice is murdering both soul and body ; which in the last edition are thus changed, Root out the antichristian and Babylonish sect OF THEM, which say of Jerusalem, Down with it.—Cut off those workers of iniquity, who turn religion into rebellion, &c. The design of which alteration was to relieve the papists, and to turn the prayer against the puritans upon whom the popish plot was to have been fathered. In the epistle for Palm Sunday, instead, of IN the name of Jesus, as it was heretofore, it is now according to the last translation, AT the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. But it was certainly very high presumption, for a single clergyman or any number of them, to alter a service-book established by act of parliament, and impose those alterations upon the whole body of the clergy.

The puritans always excepted against bowing at the name of Jesus; it appeared to them very superstitious, as if worship was to be paid to a name, or to the name of JESUS, more than to that of CHRIST or IMMANUEL. Nevertheless it was enjoined by the eighteenth canon, and in compliance with that injunction, our last translators inserted it into their text, by rendering 'en to 'onomati, IN THE NAME OF JESUS, as it was before both in the bible and common prayer-book, at the name of Jesus, as it now stands; however no penalty was annexed to the neglect of this ceremony, nor did any suffer for it, till bishop Laud was at the head of the church, who pressed it equally with the rest, and caused above twenty ministers to be fined, censured, and put by their livings for not bowing at the name of Jesus, or for preaching against it.*

On the third of November was debated before his majesty in council, the question about removing the communion-table in St. Gregory's church near St. Paul's, from the middle of the chancel to the upper end of it, and placing it there in form of an altar. This being enjoined upon the church wardens by the dean and chapter of St. Paul's without the consent of the parishioners, they opposed it, and appealed to the court of arches, alledging that the book of common-prayer, and eighty-second canon, gave liberty to place the communion-table where it might stand with most

Usurpation of Prelates, p. 163.

convenience. His majesty being informed of the appeal, and acquainted by the archbishop, that it would be a leading case all over England, was pleased to order it to be debated before himself in council, and after hearing the arguments on both sides, declared that the liberty given by the eighty-second canon was not to be understood so, as if it were to be left to the discretion of the parish, much less to the fancies of a few humorous persons, but to the judg ment of the ordinary [or bishop] to whose place it properly belonged to determine these points; he therefore confirmed the act of the ordinary, and gave commandment, that if the parishioners went on with their appeal, the dean of the arches, who then attending at the hearing of the cause, should confirm the order of the dean and chapter.† This was a sovereign manner of putting an end to a controversy, very agreeable to the archbishop.

When the sacrament was administered in parish churches, the communion-table was usually placed in the middle of the chancel, and the people received round it, or in their several places thereabouts; but now all communion-tables were ordered to be fixed under the east wall of the chancel with the ends north and south in form of an altar; they were to be raised two or three steps above the floor, and encompassed with rails. Archbishop Laud ordered his vicargeneral to see this alteration made in all the churches and chapels of his province; to accomplish which, it was necessary to take down the galleries in some churches and remove ancient monuments. This was resented by some considerable families, and complained of as an injury to the dead, and such an expense to the living, as some country parishes could not bear; yet those who refused to pay the rates imposed by the archbishop for this purpose, were fined in the spiritual courts contrary to law. It is almost incredible, what a ferment the making this alteration at once, raised among the common people all over England. Many ministers and churchwardens were excommunicated, fined, and obliged to do penance, for neglecting the bishop's injunctions. Great numbers refused to come up to the rails

↑ Rushworth, vol. ii. part 2d, p. 207.

Prynne's Cant. Doom. p. 100, 101.

and receive the sacrament, for which some were fined, and others excommunicated, to the number of some hundreds, say the committee of the house of commons at the archbishop's trial.

Books were written for and against this new practice, with the same earnestness and contention for victory, as if the life of religion had been at stake. Dr. Williams, bishop of Lincoln, published two treatises against it, one entitled, a letter to the vicar of Grantham; the other, the holy table, name, and thing; filled with so much learning, and that learning so closely and solidly applied, (says lord Clarendon) as shewed he had spent his time in his retirement with his books very profitably. Dr. Heylin, who answered the bishop, argued from the words of Queen Elizabeth's injunctions, 1559; from the orders and advertisements of 1562 and 1565; from the practice of the king's chapels and cathedrals; and finally from the present king's declaration, recommending a conformity of the parish churches to their cathedrals. The bishop, and with him all the puritans, insisted upon the practice of primitive antiquity, and upon the eighty-second canon of 1603, which says, "We appoint, 'that the table for the celebration of the holy communion 'shall be covered with a fair linen cloth at the time of ad'ministration, and shall then be placed in so good sort within the church or chancel, as thereby the minister may more 'conveniently be heard of the communicants in his prayer, and the communicants may more conveniently, and in more 'numbers communicate." They urged the rubrick in the common prayer-book; that altars in churches were a popish invention. of no greater antiquity in the christian church than the sacrifice of the mass; and insisted strenuously on the discontinuance of them since the reformation. But the archbishop, being determined to carry his point, prosecuted the affair with unjustifiable rigor over all the kingdom, punishing those who opposed him, without regard to the laws of the land. This occasioned a sort of a schism among the bishops, and a great deal of uncharitableness among the inferior clergy; for those bishops who had not been beholden to Laud for their preferments, nor had any farther expectations, were very cool in the affair, while the archbishop's

creatures, in many places, took upon them to make these alterations by their own authority, without the injunctions or directions of their diocesians, which laid the foundation of many law-suits. Those who opposed the alterations were called doctrinal puritans, and the promoters of them doc trinal papists.

The court clergy were of the latter sort, and were velemently suspected of an inclination to popery, because of their superstitious bowing to the altar, not only in time of divine service, but at their going in and out of church.This was a practice unknown to the laity of the church of England before this time, but archbishop Laud introduced it into the royal chapel at Whitehall, and recommended it to all the clergy by his example; for when he went in and out of chapel, a lane was always made for him to see the altar, and do reverence towards it. All his majesty's chaplains, and even the common people, were enjoined the same practice. In the new body of statutes for the cathedral of Canterbury, drawn up by his grace, and confirmed under the great-seal, the dean and prebendaries are obliged by oath, to bow to the altar at coming in and going out of church; which could arise from no principle but a belief of the real presence of Christ in the sacrament or altar; or from a superstitious imitation of the pagans worshipping towards the east.*

To make the adoration more significant, the altars in cathedrals were adorned with the most pompous furniture, and all the vessels underwent a solemn consecration. The cathedral of Canterbury was furnished, according to bishop Andrews's model, who took it from the Roman missal, with two candlesticks and tapers, a basin for oblations, a cushion for the service-book, a silver gilt canister for the wafers, like a wicker basket lined with cambric lace, the tonne on a cradle; a chalice with the image of Christ and the lost sheep, and of the wise men and star, engraven on the sides and on the cover. The chalice was covered with a linen napkin, called the aire, embroidered with colored silk; two patins, the tricanale being a round ball with a screw cover, out of which issued three pipes, for the water of mixture; a credentia or side table, with a basin and ewer on nap*Collyer's Eccles. Hist. p. 762.

VOL. II.

35

« AnteriorContinuar »