Theological Essays and Other Papers, vol 2 | Page 7

or musical
voice--for peculiar views in religion--these things are special: they
interest but an exceedingly small minority in any parish; and, what is
worse, that which pleases one is often offensive to another. There are
cases in which a parish would reject a man for being a married man:
some of the parish have unmarried daughters. But this case clearly
belongs to the small minority; and we have little doubt that, where the
objections lay 'for cause not shown,' it was often for this cause.
Fourthly, can the church complain? Her interest is represented, 1, not
by the presentee; 2, not by the patron; 3, not by the congregation; but 4,
by the presbytery. And, whatever the presbytery say, that is supported.
Speaking either for the patron, for the presentee, for the congregation,
or for themselves as conservators of the church, that court is heard;
what more would they have? And thus in turn every interest is
protected. Now the point to be remarked is-that each party in turn has a
separate influence. But on any other plan, giving to one party out of the
four an absolute or unconditional power, no matter which of the four it
be--all the rest have none at all. Lord Aberdeen has reconciled the
rights of patrons for the first time with those of all other parties
interested. Nobody has more than a conditional power. Everybody has
that. And the patron, as necessity requires, if property is to be protected,
has, in all circumstances, the revisionary power.
II. Secondly, How _were these things don?_? By what means were the
hands of any party strengthened, so as to find this revolution possible?

We seek not to refine; but all moral power issues out of moral forces.
And it may be well, therefore, rapidly to sketch the history of religion,
which is the greatest of moral forces, as it sank and rose in this island
through the last two hundred years.
It is well known that the two great revolutions of the seventeenth
century--that in 1649, accomplished by the Parliament armies
(including its reaction in 1660), and secondly, that in 1688-9--did much
to unsettle the religious tone of public morals. Historians and satirists
ascribe a large effect in this change to the personal influence of Charles
II., and the foreign character of his court. We do not share in their
views; and one eminent proof that they are wrong, lies in the following
fact--viz., that the sublimest act of self-sacrifice which the world has
ever seen, arose precisely in the most triumphant season of Charles's
career, a time when the reaction of hatred had not yet neutralized the
sunny joyousness of his Restoration. Surely the reader cannot be at a
loss to know what we mean--the renunciation in one hour, on St.
Bartholomew's Day in 1662, of two thousand benefices by the
nonconforming clergymen of England. In the same year, occurred a
similar renunciation of three hundred and sixty benefices in Scotland.
These great sacrifices, whether called for or not, argue a great strength
in the religious principle at that era. Yet the decay of external religion
towards the close of that century is proved incontestably. We ourselves
are inclined to charge this upon two causes; first, that the times were
controversial; and usually it happens--that, where too much energy is
carried into the controversies or intellectual part of religion, a very
diminished fervor attends the culture of its moral and practical part.
This was perhaps one reason; for the dispute with the Papal church,
partly, perhaps, with a secret reference to the rumored apostasy of the
royal family, was pursued more eagerly in the latter half of the
seventeenth than even in any section of the sixteenth century. But,
doubtless, the main reason was the revolutionary character of the times.
Morality is at all periods fearfully shaken by intestine wars, and by
instability in a government. The actual duration of war in England was
not indeed longer than three and a half years, viz., from Edgehill Fight
in the autumn of 1642, to the defeat of the king's last force under Sir
Jacob Astley at Stow-in-the-walds in the spring of 1846. Any other
fighting in that century belonged to mere insulated and discontinuous

war. But the insecurity of every government between 1638 and 1702,
kept the popular mind in a state of fermentation. Accordingly, Queen
Anne's reign might be said to open upon an irreligious people. The
condition of things was further strengthened by the unavoidable
interweaving at that time of politics with religion. They could not be
kept separate; and the favor shown even by religious people to such
partisan zealots as Dr. Sacheverell, evidenced, and at the same time
promoted, the public irreligion. This was the period in which the clergy
thought too little of