impressive. It represented not only the views of the Church. but those of the parliamentary representatives of the people. Lessons from his life. The sermon preached before the House of Commons in St. Margaret's, Westminster, on January 30, 1662, by Dr. Hardy, and printed by the House's desire, shows how warmly the Parliament had already taken up the cause of the Church-the preacher congratulated the country that they had now "an House of Commons made up of gentlemen, and those both faithful subjects to their king and zealous friends to the Church," and how studiously the character of the royal martyr was commended as an example to his son. "Unspotted either with incontinence or intemperance, so that even his most malicious enemies could not lay either to his charge; indeed, he was an exemplary pattern of the contrary virtues." Charles's failure to obtain toleration. Charles II. showed no signs of a desire to follow such an example. While he was on the whole scrupulous in attending divine service and long-suffering in the matter of sermons, he resented any personal address or personal application. He would talk theology with preachers, but there was never any doubt as to his real character. The devotion to his father's memory cast but a dim reflection indeed on the "Merry Monarch." And while the veneration of Charles I. intensified the popular feeling against the dissenters, it did not, as was soon seen, involve the recognition of any extra-legal power in the crown. Charles II. was genuinely anxious to satisfy the nonconformists. It was impossible that the law should be carried out entirely without friction. Some of the dissenting ministers thought it still to be their duty to preach and Edmund Calamy was imprisoned for thus disobeying the law. The ministers presented a petition for toleration; and the king promised to urge Parliament to make an Act enabling him to exercise his "dispensing power" in the matter. But the House of Commons in the next session, February 1663, vigorously protested against any project of "establishing schism by a law," and the king was unable to proceed. AUTHORITIES. For list of authorities, see end of Chap. XI, CHAPTER XI SHELDON AND SANCROFT WITHIN a few months of the settlement of the Church Juxon and Sanderson passed to their rest. Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London, was elected archbishop on June 6, 1663. Sheldon, Abp. He had already been in practical possession of the of Canterbury, 1663-78. powers of archbishop, owing to Juxon's age and infirmities. No bishop of his time has been so variously judged. Burnet spoke of him as having "little virtue and less religion," a judgment little less than grotesque on one who was the intimate friend of Falkland, Hammond, Clarendon, Sanderson, and Juxon, and to whom Charles I. had intrusted his solemn vow to restore all Church lands and lay impropriations held by the Crown if he should be restored to his "just rights." At the restoration Brian Duppa had written to him, "You are the only person about his Majesty that I have confidence in, and I persuade myself that as none hath his ear more, so none is likely to prevail on his heart more, and there was never more need of it." He fully deserved the confidence reposed in him. He strongly reproved Charles II. for his evil life, and refused to admit him to the Holy Communion; and eventually, in 1667, he entirely lost the king's favour on account of his consistent attitude. The character. memoirs which he left behind him, and which appear to have perished, would doubtless afford a vindication from his own standing-point of his policy in many matters where it has been severely criticised. Without them, we must look for the most intimate portrait of him in the History of his own Time, written by Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford, who was at one His time his chaplain. "As he came in due time to the management of public affairs," he writes of Sheldon, “being a man of great abilities, and was present at the most remarkable occurrences; so transacting everything with a peculiar strength and penetration of judgment, without doubt the commentaries he wrote upon all affairs were excellent. . . . He was a man of eminent piety: for though he was frequent and assiduous in prayers, yet he was not such an admirer of them as some are, nor did he so much regard the bare worship as the use that was made of it; and therefore he judiciously placed the sum of religion in a good life." A sober, just, and chaste life constituted, he was constant in repeating, the essentials of piety—a lesson much needed by the age of Charles II. It was no matter of what church wicked men were, so the archbishop would say; and, on the other hand," he greatly delighted himself with this saying, and always spoke it with exultation, Do well, and be merry." A kindly, gracious, hospitable man, simple in his life, and very clear and determined in his judgments, is the impression which he makes on those who read his letters and those of his friends. He lived entirely for the Church, continuing the example of celibacy set by his most recent predecessors in the archiepiscopal office. The direction which Church affairs took up to his death in 1677 was largely due to his initiation, and, indeed, the characteristics of Church life up in the age of Anne may to a great extent be traced to the influence exercised by the opinions and policy of Sheldon, a disciple of Andrewes and Laud, and a close friend of Lord Chancellor Clarendon. Bishop In the same year as Juxon there died also another prelate greatly beloved, Robert Sanderson. He was one of those who were ejected from Oxford, where he was Regius Sanderson of Professor of Divinity, by the Parliamentary CommisLincoln. sioners. During the Commonwealth he had lived in retirement, corresponding frequently with Piers, and with the saintly Hammond, visiting London sometimes (as when, "in sad coloured clothes, and God knows, far from being costly," he met Walton, who describes their long talk in his inimitable way), studying continually and recreating himself with "the study of old records, genealogies, and heraldry." XI END OF SEPARATE CLERICAL TAXATION 199 Sheldon knew his virtues, as those of one who would fulfil the primitive conception of a bishop's office, "not made up of ease and state, but of labour and care"; and it was at Sheldon's request that Charles II. at the Restoration nominated him to the see of Lincoln. He played, as we have seen, an important part in the Savoy Conference. As bishop he had time only to show himself careful in restoring the Episcopal palace and augmenting poor benefices, and in being so noted for his "condescension and obligingness to the meanest of his clergy," says Walton, "as to be known to most of them." End of separate clerical taxation. One of the first acts of Sheldon as archbishop was the recognition of an important constitutional change. The Convocation of 1663 was the last to exercise the ancient right of taxing the clergy. The "four subsidies" they granted were both a heavy burden on them, says Burnet, and yet an inconsiderable addition to the king's revenue. By a verbal agreement between Sheldon and Clarendon, which was recognised though not explicitly mentioned in an Act of Parliament 1665, the clergy henceforth ceased to tax themselves, and as a consequence claimed, and have since exercised without dispute, the right to vote for members of the House of Commons. It was (as, in later days, the constitutional historian Gibson, Bishop of London, justly said to Speaker Onslow), "the greatest alteration ever made in the constitution without an express law." It prevented the practical divergence between clergy and Commons being emphasised, as it was at the close of the Short Parliament, by a grant to the crown from the clergy when the laity refused all supplies. But the primacy of Sheldon was marked by events and changes which were of consequence more immediate and obvious-by the unhappy legislation of a bigoted Parliament against dissenters, by the terrible disasters of the plague and the fire, and by the completion of the work of restoration and order in the cathedral and other churches of the land. The plague, To consider first the period of disaster and recovery, we must observe how heavily the weight of distress had fallen on the Church and the nation. In 1665 London, and the country in a less degree, was devastated by the great plague, a visitation more terrible than any 1665. since the Middle Ages. During the whole of the horrors of that terrible time, Sheldon remained at Lambeth, and by charitable distribution preserved many lives, while, says Le Neve, "by his affecting letters to all the bishops [he] procured great sums to be returned out of all parts of his province." The Bishop of London worked hard to keep up the spiritual provision so urgently needed. Letters of the time speak of him as threatening with expulsion pastors who left their flocks; and it is clear that in the absence of some of the clergy the nonconforming ministers often did a noble work. Baxter's pamphlet of spiritual instruction was widely circulated. All over the country there were the same tales of horror and distress; and, no less, of the simple heroism of the ministers of God. The great fire which followed destroyed a London, large number of churches, and St. Paul's was burnt 1666. almost to the ground. Sancroft, then dean, preached a striking sermon, which he called Lex ignea, or the School of Righteousness, before the king, full of solemn appeal; and Dr. Hardy, of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, made the fire the occasion for a vigorous denunciation of the national sins. The fire of It was long before the churches were rebuilt. Hardly, indeed, had the work of re-edification imposed by the Civil War been half carried out before this new demand Church restoration. came upon the liberality of church folks. It was nobly responded to. The reign of Charles II. was a great age of church restoration. Almost every cathedral church had been dismantled, many had been practically destroyed, during the war. Salisbury was a bright exception. There the loyal gentry had, during the whole time when there was no bishop or dean, kept their fabric in good order at their own cost. But in most places all that savoured of bishops had perished. The fact that the chapel which Laud had built at Abergwili was an essential part of the house preserved it from destruction, but the ancient Episcopal chapel at Auckland Castle was utterly destroyed. St. Paul's, as a sermon of the period tion of says, was debased, defiled, and almost ruined during the Commonwealth, being made "at once a den of thieves and a stable for beasts." The necessary work was at once put in hand. Sheldon himself gave The restora St. Paul's. |