not so much as wear any surplice), he, by way of supererogation, preached in his. The sight did stir up in me more of pity than anger to see the folly of the man; but if he preach in a fool's coat we will go and hear him."1

Low Leighton (or Leyton), it will be remembered, was the parish in which John Strype fulfilled his ministry, and therefore it was in the pulpit of that distinguished ecclesiologist, that the writer of the extract beheld the phenomenon which startled him out of his propriety; if the surplice was worn by the Incumbent, or with his sanction, the circumstance would indicate that he regarded the usage as canonical, however it might have fallen into abeyance.

Amongst the Lambeth archives is a very long letter by Edmund Bowerman, Vicar of Codrington, who gives a curious account of his parish, of the extreme ignorance and irreligion of the people, and of their desecration of the church. They played cards on the communiontable, and when they met to choose churchwardens, sat with their hats on, smoking and drinking—the clerk gravely saying, with a pipe in his mouth, that such had been the practice for the last sixty years. Not ten persons in the place had ever received the Sacrament; one used to take it by himself in brown bread and small beer.2

An important change took place in the psalmody of the Church of England. The archaic version of the Psalms, by Sternhold and Hopkins, kept possession in cathedral and parish congregations until the middle of the reign of William III. Attempts had been made at improving the versification. A Century of Select Psalms, in verse, for the use of the Charter-house, by Dr. Patrick, appeared in 1679. Richard Goodridge followed him by a

1 1696, April 7. Baumgartner Papers, Strype Correspondence, iii. 45. 2 Gibson Papers, v. 9. 1692, Dec. 17.

similar effort in 1682. Dr. Simon Ford, not to mention others, attempted something of the same kind in 1688. But a more successful enterprise was accomplished by Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate, who, in 1695, published a tentative Essay, and in 1696 a Complete New Version, differing from such as they themselves had previously prepared. This version, afterwards so popular, did not escape criticism; but was most determinately opposed by Dr. Beveridge, who preferred the old rhymes of the Reformation to any modern rendering of the Songs of David. His course of argument, if it had any force, would be fatal to any attempt at improving scripture translations of all kinds.1

The character of the Clergy at that time has been drawn by different hands. Samuel Wesley, in the Athenian Oracle, said, that out of fifty or threescore parishes with which he was acquainted, he could not think of above three or four clergymen who disgraced their office.

The Nonjurors represented their brethren in the Establishment as newsmongers and busy-bodies, guilty of nonresidence, faulty in their morals, and negligent of their duties. Some were often seen frequenting ale-houses and taverns, where they behaved disorderly. The communion in the London parish churches, before largely attended, was, according to the same authority, unfrequented; and in cathedral churches things were worse, so that the alms collected did little more than pay for the bread and wine.2

Nonjurors looked through a prejudiced medium at those who took the oaths. They regarded most of them as indifferent to a matter of immense importance, and

'The very injudicious Defence of the Old Singing Psalms may be found in the first volume of Beveridge's Works, collected by Horne.

2 Life of Kettlewell, 213, 214.

not a few as deliberately dishonest, swearing to that which they did not believe. The amount of false swearing at that period must have been prodigious; and the fact could not fail to produce mischievous results—it demoralized such as indulged in it, and impressed people with an idea of the falseness of their instructors. Men looking at the subject from another point of the compass, also came to an unfavourable conclusion. Whiston declared how well he remembered that by far the greater part of University members and clergymen took the oaths with a doubtful, if not an accusing, conscience. Considering the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance in which they had been educated, he thought it could not be otherwise; and he scarcely knew who were the worst, some who imposed or some who submitted to the new law of allegiance.1

As the Nonjurors judged of ministers through the medium of the oath question, so Whiston, who rejected the Athanasian Creed, judged of ministers through the medium of that formulary. No doubt he was prejudiced, and his conclusions were exaggerated; but it is hard to understand how men of latitudinarian views could, with thorough honesty, repeat an intensely orthodox formulary imbued with an intensely exclusive spirit. What Whiston says of a rather later period, may be applied here. Conversing with Lord Chief Justice King, about signing articles not believed, in order to secure preferment, he heard his Lordship observe, "We must not lose our usefulness for scruples.' "In your Courts do they allow of such prevarication?" asked the Presbyter. Certainly not," rejoined the lawyer. "Suppose then," returned Whiston, "God Almighty should be as just in the next

1 Memoirs, 30.

world as my Lord Chief Justice is in this, where are we then ?"1 Whiston's estimate of some of the Clergy is corroborated by Burnet, who mourns over the inconsistency of men described as practically contradicting the oaths they had taken and the prayers they preferred.2

De Foe acknowledged that there were in England a great many religious persons, both among the gentry and Clergy; but he remarked upon the inconsistency of many in both classes. "The parson preaches a thundering sermon against drunkenness, and the justice of peace sets my poor neighbour in the stocks; and I am like to be much the better for either, when I know, perhaps, that this same parson and this same justice were both drunk together but the night before. A vicious parson that preaches well, but lives ill, may be likened to an unskilful horseman, who opens a gate on the wrong side, and lets other folks through, but shuts himself out." 3 In judging of the Clergy of those days, we must take into account indirect evidence. The Convocation controversy, degenerating into a contemptible feud between class and class, or into a despicable squabble between clergyman and clergyman, proved the extensive existence of prejudice, obstinacy, and resentment, and must have drawn off the minds of many from the discharge of their proper duties. Neither was the method of conducting controversy on more important points-the doctrine of the Trinity, for example-at all calculated to preserve ministers of religion from injurious habits; for the temper shown in books and tracts on this subject is most irreverent, most conceited, most uncharitable, most unchristian.

It should also be noticed, that after religious freedom Whiston's Life, 162. 2 Own Time, ii. 215. • Wilson's Life of De Foe, i. 292.

to some extent had been legalized by the Toleration Act, a clerical reaction violently set in. Low Churchmen had been the principal advocates for granting liberty of worship to their Nonconforming brethren; but beyond their circle were some who, during appearances of Popery under James II., had looked with sympathy upon fellow Protestants outside their own pale, and had afterwards hailed them with a kindly welcome to the enjoyment of their rights. When the no-Popery tempest subsided, and when political fears, raised by Royal despotism, passed away, some of these persons relapsed into their previous state, and together with those who had been bigoted throughout, looked at Nonconformists with bitterness and hatred. A wide current of intolerant feeling returned, of which the result became visible enough after the accession of Queen Anne.

Turning from the character of the Clergy to notice their circumstances, we meet with an interesting picture of domestic life in the case of the father of the Wesleys. He was a rector upon £50 a year at South Ormsby, a little village in Lincolnshire, skirting the parks and woodlands of a goodly mansion. We find the same clergyman shortly afterwards established in the same county at the Rectory of Epworth, described, in a survey of the period, as consisting of" five bays built all of timber and plaister, and covered with straw thatch, the whole building being contrived into three stories, and disposed into seven chief rooms, namely a kitchen, a hall, a parlour, a buttery, and three large upper rooms, besides some others of

The following extract indicates the feeling cherished towards Richard Baxter and his admirers :-" His writings furnish great part of the libraries of the young fanatic divines, who have sucked in all the venom

and poison of his unhappy writings, in order to propagate them in this city and country."-From Chas. Goodall to Mr. Strype, June 12, 1701. Brit. Mus. Addl. MSS., 5853, p. 35.