CHAPTER XVII. BOLD step taken by the Nonjurors in the year A 1694 deepened and perpetuated their schism, and some circumstances tainted their proceedings with more disloyalty than could be involved in the mere refusal of an oath. Sancroft, as if copying Romish pretensions, had appointed Lloyd, ex-Bishop of Norwich, his "Vicar," "Factor," "Proxy-General," or "Nuncio." Lloyd accordingly proceeded, in concert with the deprived Prelates of Peterborough and Ely, to appoint two Bishops. To soften appearances and to avoid collisions, they gave the persons appointed the titles of Suffragans of Thetford and of Ipswich, and, in keeping with their own Jacobitism, they consulted the Royal Exile respecting those who should fill the offices. Dr. Hickes was despatched on a visit to St. Germains, with a list of the Nonjurors, to ask James to exercise the prerogative by nominating two clergymen for these posts. He graciously received the delegate, who spent six weeks in travelling that short distance, and in overcoming the difficulties of access to his Court. Having consulted the Pope, the Archbishop of Paris, and Bossuet of Meaux, whether it would be consistent with loyalty to the Church to do what was asked, James, with their sanction, nominated Hickes as Suffragan of Thetford, and Wagstaffe as Suffragan of Ipswich. It is plain that James made capital out of this to further his own designs, for he was at that time deep in plans of invasion, and his correspondence with Hickes and the Bishop of Norwich points to them as accredited agents.2 On the 24th of February, 1694, Hickes and Wagstaffe were admitted into the Episcopal order by the three deprived Bishops, and the ceremony took place in a private house in London, where the Bishop of Peterborough lodged, the Earl of Clarendon being present on the occasion. Great care was taken by some of the Nonjurors to ascertain the number and circumstances of clergymen included within their party. It is the effect of such ecclesiastical divisions to bring into bonds of closest acquaintance those who agree upon some distinctive principle. Amongst the Baker MSS. is a document containing a long list of those who forfeited their preferment rather than take the new oath, and among them the following names occur, with some indications of character and position appended : “Mr. Milner, Vicar of Leeds and Prebendary of Ripon, a very learned, worthy person, is thought well able to live; hath a son preferred to a good living in Sussex by the late Bishop of Chichester, his uncle, and a daughter yet unmarried. Mr. Yorke, one of the Vicars Choral of the Cathedral Church of York, and Curate of St. Belfrey's, a sober, loyal person, and zealous for our Church. He hath a wife and child, but low in worldly circumstances; his losses might amount unto about £80 per annum. Mason's Defence, by Lindsay. Preface. MSS., 40,91, Cambridge University 2 Macpherson's Original Papers, Nonjurors in the Diocese of Ely i. 452. 3 It is written by Hen. Wilkinson, and dated October 25, 1690. (Baker and University of Cambridge, 16891690. (Brit. Mus., Additional MSS 5813 f. 119 b.) Mr. Cressey, Vicar of Sheriff Hutton (of the yearly value of about £50), a gentleman well born, of good principles, and sober conversation; he married old Mr. Thinscrosse's niece; hath with her two children; little to live on, save the charity of relations, and that Sir Henry Slingsbie at present retains him for his domestic chaplain. Mr. Winshup, Curate of Malton and Prebendary of York (his loss may be computed about £80); a very learned, good and brisk man; hath a wife but no child, and some pretty temporal estate, and, as I am told, is now at London, bending his studies towards the law; a great acquaintance of late Baron Ingleby. Mr. Symms, Rector of Langton (value about £80 per annum), a truly loyal and firmlyprincipled Church of England man; was lately imprisoned through malice, when the Papists were secured, the grief whereof (as thought) broke his wife's heart, who was a devout gentlewoman; he hath a daughter, and may be an object worthy of compassion and charity. Mr. Holmes, Rector of Burstwicke and Vicar of Paul (value about 100 per annum), a gentleman of good family, (fellow-sufferer with Mr. Symms), sober and well deserving; hath a wife (who was Dr. Stone's daughter of York) and many children, and now makes very hard shift to live. Mr. Rosse, Vicar of Scawby (valued at £40 per annum), a man of very good parts and learning, but given to excess of drinking, even to scandal, yet hath a wife and charge of children, and is an object of pity and charity (if he could be reformed), and very right in his principles. Mr. Mawburn, Minister of Crake, though within ours, yet of the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Durham; one who is master of too much learning, except he made better use of it, a great complier with all the designs of the late reign, and too scandalous in his conversation upon all accounts. I do not know of any charge he hath, nor what is become of him, but his living was commonly reported about 100 per annum." Many other names are given, some reported as "poor," others "not poor," or "well to pass." The Nonjurors fixed their head-quarters in the Metropolis. There Kettlewell settled after leaving his incumbency. With all his ardour and decision he did not practically go so far as some of his brethren. He objected to the clergy attending parish churches, because, as he said, if only two or three joined them in private, they might canonically minister, and have Christ in the midst of them; but he did not object to the laity uniting in worship with clergymen who took the oaths. Upon examining the ground of this concession, however, we find it rests on the idea that the ministration of the ordained is essential to the Divine acceptance of social service, and the public devotion in which he allowed the laity to participate only consisted of common prayer on ordinary occasions, not of special prayer connected with national festivals.1 He would in no way sanction the use of intercession for William and Mary, and was himself very particular in praying not only for King James, but in obeying the order issued before the Revolution, for supplications on behalf of the Prince of Wales. He reached, by a confused. logical process, the high ecclesiastical ground, "that the determination of the Church of England, so solemnly given in her prayers, was on his side, and was so binding as it could not be reversed by a superior authority, or even reversed at all, without making the public voice of this Church to contradict itself."2 He pushed his views of the individual responsibility of clergymen—and, if I understand him aright, of laymen as well-to such an 1 Kettlewell's Works, ii. 635-638. 2 Life of Kettlewell, 291. extent that he reached a position of thorough independency, for he says, true and faithful pastors are not so strictly bound to keep up external unity and peace, as to maintain truth and righteousness and the unpolluted worship of the Church; and that however private persons are bound to use modesty and caution in following the "venerable ecclesiastical judicatories on earth, yet it is not any implicit dependence on men, or a blind obedience to any human sentence or decision whatsoever, but observance of the truth itself, and of what God hath in His Word decided, that must justify them in determining themselves whom they are to follow." This is the very protestantism of the Protestant Religion, the very dissidence of dissent, and it affords an example of the inconsistency which comes in the wake of circumstances, and of the odd way in which extremes meet. Kettlewell, in fact, had become a Nonconformist, and he justified himself only by arguments of the same description as those which other Nonconformists employ. From the same cause he was led to declare, there might be ground for breaking off from any Church without incurring schism, "there being some things not to be borne with, nor others to be parted with, for the sake of an external union ;"2 so far he made common cause with John Robinson and John Owen. Kettlewell entered with sympathy into the poverty and sufferings of his brethren. They had many of them lost all, and this benevolent man, anxious to assuage their distress, drew up a plan for collecting and distributing a fund for their relief, directing inquiries as to the income and expenditure of the deprived, with a view to prevent impositions upon charity. He proposed that the Clergy in London, who had no business there, but remained only 1 Life of Kettlewell, 317. 2 Ibid., 322. |