Sheldon had taken vigorous measures in London. "None (of the Nonconformists) preached on the 24th" (says a contemporary diarist) "but Mr. Blackmore, Mr. Crofton, and Dr. Manton, between the Tower and Westminster, the bishops having provided readers or preachers for every place." A newspaper of the day, Mercurius Publicus, has its columns filled with tidings of the " care and pru dence of the most worthy Diocesan of London" in filling up the numerous vacancies. At Northampton all except two or three conformed. At Gloucester there was scarce a man who did not subscribe. The city and county of Norwich generally conformed. At Chester there were four Nonconformists; in the county of Northumberland only two or three, who were Scotchmen; in the Isle of Wight of twenty-six parishes only two Nonconformists. From Taunton we have the account of a great gathering of the townsfolk and the neighbouring gentry in the grand church of St. Mary, when (Mr. Newton, the minister, having departed) Mr. James read the Church service on August 25 in his surplice, and baptized some children according to the Book of Common Prayer. "The whole town was present, behaving themselves as if their minister, Mr. Newton, had carried away with him all faction and nonconformity. The mayor and aldermen were all in their formalities, and not a man in all the church had his hat on, either at service or sermon, which gave the gentry of that county great satisfaction." 1 The bishops were everywhere met by huge processions of the gentry of the county, and escorted to their cathedral towns amidst shouts of rejoicing, the discharge of guns, and general acclamations. In the general joy at the Restoration, many ministers brought themselves to sacrifice somewhat of their opinions rather than mar the auspi-. cious peace. We read of twenty ministers, all of whom had been strong Presbyterians, making up their minds to go in a body and subscribe; of many after lingering awhile overcoming their scruples. Lightfoot, Wallis, and Horton, who had been Presbyterian commissioners at the Savoy, became Conformists. So did Conant and Gurnall, both known as scholars. The complaint, in fact, from the orthodox side soon was, that so many, whose principles were not really in accordance with the Church, had conformed. The bishops, in many instances, are noted as having endeavoured to keep men in the Church whose principles were really those of nonconformity. This is told of Juxon, of Earle, of Morley, of Sanderson, of Laney, of Wilkins, of Cosin, of Reynolds. Sheldon indeed, who soon succeeded Juxon in the primacy, was of a different view. He desired, above all things, to keep men of a Puritanical temper out 1 Letter in Mercurius Publicus, Kennett, p. 749.

2 Browne's Tour in Derbyshire, quoted by Stoughton, p. 350.

of the Church; and Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, is said by Burnet to have been altogether of the same mind. Generally speaking, however, the bishops of the Restoration period were tolerant, and some of them must have winked at things which were distinctly opposed to the law. Thus Heyrick, who refused to conform, was allowed to continue warden of Manchester. Tilsey, another Nonconformist, continued to preach in his church in the diocese of Chester. The same is noted of Mr. Ashurst of Arlesley, Mr. Chandler of Petto, Mr. Swift of Peniston, Mr. Angier of Denton, Mr. Jones of Chadkirk, Mr. Billingsley of Blakeney. Kennett makes out a list of about twenty cases in which ministers ejected from benefices became chaplains in hospitals or prisons. Many also became curates to other ministers, and cases are recorded where in the same church a nonconforming and an orthodox congregation worshipped alternately. It seems, therefore, hardly true to assert (as is done by Calamy) that "the ministers were not only excluded preferments, but cut off from all hope of a livelihood, as far as the industry and craft of their adversaries could reach. Not so much as a poor vicarage, not a blind chapel or a school was left them; nay, though they offered (as some of them did) to preach for nothing, it must not be allowed them."2

§ 3. The contention between Conformists and Nonconformists, and all the bitter trials which had been endured for the sake of opinions, gave birth to what was known as the Latitudinarian School. A class of divines arose who were neither Puritans nor High Churchmen, but who regarded the whole of the matters in dispute from an entirely different point of view. They dated the .origin of their opinions back to John Hales and Chillingworth, before the troubles, and soon after the Restoration they acquired considerable prestige and force. Henry More, Whichcot, and Worthington, at Cambridge; Stillingfleet, Wilkins, Tillotson, Patrick, and Lloyd, in London-all of them men of learning and distinction-belonged to this new school. "They were Platonists and Cartesians," says Baxter, "and many of them Arminians, with some additions, having more charitable thoughts than others of the salvation of heathens and infidels." They were opposed to the imposition of tests, and an attempt to exact rigid conformity. Hence, says Burnet," men of narrower thoughts and fiercer tempers fastened upon them the name of Latitudinarians. " 3 The school thus commenced was destined long to reign triumphant in the English Church, and to it the deadness, carelessness, and indiffer

1 Stoughton, p. 369.

2 Calamy's Baxter i. 189

Baxter's Life and Times, p. 386; Burnet's Own Time, pp. 127, 128.

ence, prevalent in the eighteenth century, are in great measure to be attributed.

§ 4. One immediate effect of the rise of the Latitudinarian School was a serious attempt at comprehension of the Dissenters. The chief actors in this were Dr. Wilkins1 and Mr. Burton on one side, and Baxter and Manton on the other. These divines seem to have been agreed to comprehend all except Papists and Socinians. Baxter's proposals on behalf of the Nonconformists were essentially the same as those urged at the Savoy Conference. In the view of Wilkins all these demands might be readily admitted if they could be got to pass through Parliament. Finally he drew up a paper containing, at the same time, a scheme for comprehension and toleration. Some of the Dissenters were to be included in the Church; to others a toleration was to be extended. It was one of those wellmeant but shallow and feeble designs, which were a real danger to the Church, and could not possibly have been productive of good. Concessions made to an opponent are apt afterwards to be resented and grudged by those who have made them, or, if not, a system which a man is ready to treat thus, he cannot regard with zeal and devotion. Comprehension is either fatal to earnestness, or else generates a wound which rankles in secret, and will sooner or later break out with increased venom. The concessions suggested by Wilkins, and accepted by Baxter, were thrown into a bill by Sir Matthew Hale, with the intention of having them brought before Parliament. Bishop Ward obtained intelligence of what was proposed, and took effectual measures to stop it. The House of Commons came to the strange but very wise decision, that no bill having comprehension for its object should be received3 (1668).

§ 5. The Latitudinarians were not all so advanced in their views as Dr. Wilkins. Simon Patrick, who ranked as one of them, published about this time (1668) his Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Nonconformist, in which he is very severe upon the Nonconformists and their teaching. The following year came out Samuel Parker's Discourse on Ecclesiastical Policy, "who wrote," says Baxter, "the most scornfully and rashly, the most profanely and cruelly, against the Nonconformists of any man who ever assaulted them." This treatise is pure Erastianism or religious Hobbism. It claims for the prince an absolute and uncontrollable power over his. subjects' consciences in matters of religion. Parker

1 He was brother-in-law of Cromwell. Had been warden of Wadham at Oxford, and master of Trinity at Cambridge. He conformed readily at the Restoration, and soon reached a bishopric (Chester). He is best known as one of the founders of the Royal Society.

For the details of this scheme, see Notes and Illustrations to this Chapter. 3 Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 42; Parl. Hist. iv. 415

cannot, of course, be classed among the Latitudinarians, but some years after the appearance of his treatise there came forth, from one who had been counted the greatest friend to the Dissenters, a treatise the most able and convincing of any that had been directed against them. This was the work of Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul's, who, in his Irenicum, published in 1662, had proposed considerable concessions. Now (1682) he published his work on Separation, in answer to Baxter, Owen, and others, who had attacked a sermon preached by the Dean reflecting severely on the Nonconformists. His Unreasonableness of Separation is a very able work, but at the end of it the Dean expresses himself as still in favour of some concessions, as allowing to lay objectors the disuse of the cross at baptism, and kneeling at holy communion. He is also disposed to favour another review of the Liturgy, and the substitution of a promise to use the Prayer-Book in place of the declaration of assent and consent. Much more wholesale in his concessions was Croft, Bishop of Hereford, in his work called Naked Truth; as also was the able writer of the Conformist's Plea for the Nonconformists, and Daniel Whitby in his Protestant Reconciler.

§ 6. There were the High and Low Church schools as regards the terms of conformity, and there were still more marked distinctions between these two parties on the doctrines of civil obedience. Mr. Johnson, chaplain to Lord William Russell, published a book called Julian the Apostate, in which, having laid it down that Julian succeeded to the throne by hereditary right, he then points out that nevertheless the Christians resisted him because he acted illegally towards them. Julian was answered by Jovian, from the pen of Dr. George Hickes, who maintains the exact opposite to these two propositions. It would appear to be the doctrine of this school that, provided a king had hereditary right, he had a commission from heaven to do as much wrong as he pleased. But to teach that an hereditary ruler might fairly call upon his subjects to do wrong for him was somewhat too monstrous. The doctrine in vogue with the High Church divines did not amount to this, but taught that his subjects were bound to suffer wrong rather than resist him. This distinction was brought out by Dr. William Sherlock in his Case of Resistance, and under the name of Passive Obedience was the generally received doctrine among Churchmen; though some went much farther, with Sir Robert Filmer, Parker, and Hobbes, and held that a subject was "bound to obey the king's command against law, nay, in some cases against divine law." 1

§ 7. The Restoration period was one of much activity, both intellectual and religious. It was also a period of much open vice 1 See Hallam, Const. Hist. ii. 155.

and profanity, but the counteracting influences were strong and vigorous. It was at this period that the Church began to recognise her duty towards heathen and alien races. A beginning had been made under the Commonwealth, when the famous John Eliot had gone out to preach the Gospel to the American natives. His success had been remarkable, and, under Cromwell's government, con'siderable sums had been subscribed for the work, with which estates were purchased of the annual value of £700 or £800. At the Restoration a scandalous attempt was made by those who had sold their lands to repossess themselves of them, on the ground of the illegality of the title of those who had acquired them. This was defeated mainly by the zeal of Robert Boyle, a son of Lord Cork, who had become distinguished for his earnestness in promoting physical science and religious knowledge. By his agency the first Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was constituted, over which Mr. Boyle presided for a period of twenty-eight years. This society supported John Eliot in his philanthropic work,1 and supplied other agents to assist him. Mr. Boyle was also one of the directors of the East India Company, then recently incorporated, and he felt it his duty to endeavour to propagate the Gospel in the East as well as the West. He pressed this work on his brother directors, who, however, were but little inclined to second his views. He also procured the translation of a great part of the New Testament into the Malayan language, and distributed many copies among the Malays. Another translation into the Turkish tongue was made by his means, and attempts were made to spread Christianity throughout the Levant. Among his fellow-countrymen in Ireland Mr. Boyle laboured with the same ardent zeal to propagate the knowledge of Scripture truth.

§ 8. Second only to his zeal in spreading religious truth was Mr. Boyle's earnestness to advance physical science. The first association for this purpose owed its origin, as that for the propagation of Christianity had done, to the times of the Commonwealth. A few friends, devoted to physical investigations, began to meet together, first in London, and then in Oxford, to assist one another. Dr. Wilkins, then warden of Wadham, was their host in Oxford, and, when he was moved to Cambridge, the society met at Mr. Boyle's house. They were known as the Invisible College, and among them John Evelyn, distinguished also like Boyle for his religious earnestness, was a leading member. At the Restoration the society was incorporated as the Royal Society, and became the parent of scientific physical investigation not only in England, but in Europe also. The king, who was fond of chemistry, patronised 1 See letters of Elict to Boyle, appendix to Buch's Life of Tillotson.