time of James I., the "licensed" schoolmasters had grown into a class of sufficient number and wealth, to be included in the exaction of benevolences. (1) But all education was was confined in the one inflexible church groove. The Roman Catholics were disappointed in their hopes of toleration. One of the first acts of James was to renew the proclamation, ordering all Jesuits and seminary priests to depart the realm, and a Canon of the Church ordered ministers to present recusants and schismatics. (2) A stricter conformity to the rubric was required, and three hundred Puritan clergy were driven from their parsonages. (3) The doctrine of the divine right of Bishops was added to that of the divine right of Kings. The Canons of 1604 renewed the requirements that the schoolmaster should be licensed by the ordinary, and should embrace the articles of religion. They added also a special proviso that curates should be licensed before others.(*) The catechising of children on Sundays and holy days, and their instruction in the commandments, the Lord's prayer and the articles of religion, was made compulsory on the clergy, and attendance at church was required on pain of excommunication. Students of the universities were ordered to attend, to be thoroughly instructed in points of religion. The duties of schoolmasters were declared. It is noteworthy that the earlier injunctions of Edward and Elizabeth to teach the poor to read and write were now forgotten, and schoolmasters were enjoined only to teach the catechism, to train their scholars with sentences of Holy Scripture, and to bring them to church. (5) In later contests between the Education department and the National society, the question has been raised as to how far these Canons, not having the sanction of Parliament, were 1 Cardwell's Annals of Church, 2, 144. 2 Dodd's Church History, 4, 57, and Canon 110. 3 Green's History, 470. 4 Cardwell's Synodalia, 291. binding on the laity. The effect of the decisions of the courts is, that they are binding only so far as they declare the ancient law, and custom of the Church and realm. (1) But the point is of small significance since the subjection of the schoolmaster to the clergy was expressly declared by statutes 23 Elizabeth, cap. 1, and 1 James I., cap. 4, (2) which regulated the granting of licenses by the ordinary. The practice of catechising never seems to have been general, not so much on account of any resistance by the people, as from disinclination of the clergy. Within thirty years after the passing of the law, the Bishop of Norwich reported to Laud that he had "brought" his diocese into perfect order by requiring the practice of catechising. (3) At the same period Dean Hook says that the Puritan preachers regarded the order of catechising as beneath the dignity of their preachers, (*) and this was at a time when the mass of the clergy were steady Puritans. There can be no doubt that the practice of catechising was found difficult to enforce, since after the Restoration the Attorney-General was desired to prepare a bill requiring the clergy to carry out the injunctions. (5) Charles I. had found in Laud a willing instrument to give effect to his hostility against the Puritans. The doctrine of passive obedience was added to the principles they were required to instil. They were compelled to take an oath of their approval of the doctrine, discipline, and government of the Church. Hundreds of clergymen were suspended or deprived. The lectureships which had been established in towns were suppressed. Churchwardens were ordered to present on oath the names of all schoolmasters, and to prosecute at the assizes 1 Hook's Lives, N.S., 5, 219, and Lathbury's History of Convocation. 2 Cardwell's Annals, 2, 274. 3 Ibid, 206. 4 Hook's Lives, N.S., 6, 190. 5 Cardwell's Annals, 2, 287. those who had not submitted. (1) Thousands of the best classes of the nation were driven to America. (2) Neither did the Common-wealth bring any recognition of the principles of intellectual or of religious freedom. The Government asserted and enforced the right to provide forms of worship and of faith, and to compel all to come within its creed. The recognised religion was changed. The assembly at Westminster provided a new confession of faith, and directory of public worship. Conformity to Presbyterianism was required on all sides. Episcopalian clergy were driven out in their turn, and forbidden to act as ministers or as schoolmasters. The Barebones Parliament was charged with indifference to progress, and with enmity to knowledge. To deny the doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, or that the Bible was the word of God was made punishable by death. A Court of Triers and a rigorous censorship of the press, provided an efficient means, by which an outward conformity to the opinions and regulations of the Government was secured. (3) Great hopes of some relaxation in the harshness and tyranny of the laws were entertained on the Restoration. Charles II. in the famous declaration of Breda had declared "on the word of a King," a "liberty to tender consciences." These hopes were soon extinguished by the Corporation Act, the Act of Uniformity, and other measures which followed each other in rapid succession, the object of which was to root out the last semblance of religious freedom. If Charles was not the chief promoter of this policy, he was one of the most active conspirators. In 1681 both Houses of Parliament had passed a bill repealing the cruel Act of Elizabeth against Non-conformists and the King refused to give it his assent. (*) The 2 Green's History, 495, 510. + Burnet's Own Times, 2, 495. 1 Cardwell's Synodalia, 1, 403. object of this persecution and of the Corporation Act and other Acts by which it was enforced, was to drive the Puritants out of the towns, which were their strongholds, and to disperse them and annihilate their influence. The Act of Uniformity, framed in 1662, on the strength of which the clergy of this century have based their right to the control of education, had a similar aim. It recites the Act of Uniformity of Elizabeth's reign, and that numbers 66 following their own sensuality, and living without knowledge and due fear of God, did wilfully and schismatically abstain and refuse to come to their parish churches," and required the use of the Book of Common Prayer, the observance of the rights and ceremonies of the established church, and unfeigned assent and consent to its doctrines and ordinances. For the first time school masters were required in express terms to subscribe a declaration of conformity to the Liturgy of the Church; and teaching without the license of the ordinary subjected them to imprisonment. (1) The House of Lords remonstrated against the clause, and vainly endeavoured to secure more lenient provisions on behalf of school masters. The Bishops were required particularly to certify the names of all school masters, and whether they were licensed and attended church. (2) The Act of Uniformity was followed by the Conventicle Act in 1664-the Five Mile Act in 1665, and another Conventicle Act in 1670. The object of all these measures was the suppressing of unconforming ministers and school masters. The Test Act passed in 1673, requiring from all in the civil and military employment of the State, the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, a declaration against transubstantiation and the reception of the sacrament according to the rites of the Church, was a blow at the Roman Catholics, 1 13 and 14 Charles II., c. 4. 2 Cardwell's Annals, 2, 273-4. when the King was secretly negociating with them; and it was acquiesced in and supported by the Dissenters. The first effect of the Act of Uniformity, and other persecuting Acts was cruel in the extreme upon a large section of the clergy. Two thousand Church ministers-the best and most learned of their order-the leaders of the London clergy and the heads of the Universities were driven from their homes. (1) Their sufferings were extreme. They were hunted from the towns, prosecuted and imprisoned, and driven to seek shelter under humiliating disguises. The Acts were enforced with such unrelenting severity that upon the declaration of indulgence, twelve years later, 12,000 Quakers were released from gaol. (2) The political and social bearings of these Acts in modern times have been unlimited for good. In the expulsion of one-fifth of the English clergy, and that the section most distinguished for high character and learning, a foundation for freedom of opinion was laid, which made religious toleration a question only of time. In the Church itself the immediate effect was to deaden all desire for change, and to stifle all effort for reform, or for social improvement. (3) As the severities against the Roman Catholics under Elizabeth led to the establishment of Roman Catholic seminaries, so the persecution of the Puritans under Charles gave rise to another class of Nonconformist schools, some of which attained to considerable celebrity. These were the academies for the education of Dissenting ministers. In their original design they were purely theological seminaries, but in practice they became something more than this; and many sons of the gentry, and some of the nobility, were educated in them for civil employments. (4) They afforded the early generations of Dissenters of the middle class, better 1 Green, 610. 2 Ibid, 613. 3 Green, 610. + Bogue and Bennett's Dissenters, 2, 75. |