Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/398

378 ENGLAND [CHURCH. the church. They issued a directory for public worship, the use of which was enforced by law, while that of the Common Prayer was forbidden under severe penalties. The taking of the Scotch Solemn League and Covenant was en forced on all persons, and those clergy who refused it were at once deprived; others were ejected from their benefices by the committees established in various parts of the country, whose jurisdiction was summary and irresponsible. By these means a large proportion of the Episcopal clergy of England were ejected during the times of Presbyterian ascendency. Their archbishop had been beheaded as a traitor (1645), and many of their leading divines were in prison. Under Cromwell and the Independents the condi tion of the clergy did not improve. A body called the triers was appointed to test the qualifications of all ministers, and to exclude those judged unfit. In 1655 a very severe law forbade the clergy to use the Common Prayer in private houses, or to act as tutors or schoolmasters. They were thus reduced to the greatest distress and misery. The long-continued oppression to which the clergy had to submit during the Rebellion and Commonwealth naturally disposed them to harshness against the nonconformists at the restoration of the monarchy (1660). They resisted the demands upon them for concessions on the Puritanical side made at the Savoy Conference, and in the review of the prayer-book by convocation which followed, the changes made were by no means such as were likely to render it more acceptable to the objectors. Yet to this prayer-book a severe Act of Parliament required an immediate and uncon ditional assent and consent, as the condition of ministering in the church, requiring at the same time that all those who had not received episcopal orders should seek them, and that a declaration against the Covenant and a promise of non-re sistance should be made. The effect of these requirements was to eject from ministering in the church about 2000 ministers (1662). The ejected were followed up and per secuted by various harsh measures, making it illegal for them to hold conventicles, the parliament acting, as it seemed, from vindictive feeling, the king desiring to drive the non conformists to despair, that they might seek from him the exercise of a dispensing power which he assumed to possess. His real object was to legalize Romanism, and in fact to carry out precisely the same policy which his brother after wards adopted. The Protestant nonconformists for the most part refused to assist this policy, even to relieve themselves from persecution; and when James at length published the declaration for liberty of conscience (1687;, they were found rather on the side of the church which had dealt harshly with them than on that of the king who offered them gifts. The trial of the seven bishops for withstanding the royal will, and upholding the supremacy of law, made the church immensely popular in the country. At the Revolution, by far the greater number of clergy elected to transfer their allegiance to William, but nine bishops and over 400 clergy refused the oaths. Among the bishops was the primate (Sancroft) and Bishop Ken, the most saintly prelate of his day. These seceders formed a separate church ; they were, however, weakened by intestine quarrels, and, never obtain ing any general support, they disappeared towards the end of the century. Among them were some of the most learned divines of the English Church, and their secession was a great blow to the church, which soon showed signs of running into an extreme latitudinarianism. The bitter feuds which prevailed between the two houses of the southern convocation all the time of William and Anne were due chiefly to political causes, the lower house being for the most part Jacobites, while the bishops were Whigs. It was mainly on this ground that in 1717 the Government suspended the action of convocation, which did not meet again for business until recent times. During the 18th century a general remissuess and negli gence prevailed throughout the Church of England. Many of the clergy were Arians in their views; the sacredness of their office was but little recognized; the services in many churches were negligent and infrequent. The first reaction came from a band of earnest young clergymen and students at Oxford, of whom the two Wesley* and Whit- field are the best known. These men became travelling preachers, endeavouring to carry to every part of the land a stirring religious appeal. Their success was marvellous. Gradually their converts were organized, and arrangements made for their continued instruction. The church did not readily lend itself to the movement, and the new societies stepped aside from it into ground of their own. Whitfield became the leader of the Calvinistic Methodists, and the two Wesleys of the larger body, which favoured Arminian views. The Methodist movement had operated very strongly on the English clergy, and towards the end of the century a considerable section of them, distinguished for their zeal and earnestness, were known as the Evan gelical School. By their exertions the Church Missionary Society, designed to spread Christianity in Africa and the East, was founded ; Bible and tract societies, Sunday schools, and other agencies were established. In the 19th century the growth of the Church of England has been remarkable. The school of Oxford Tract writers, which began to attract notice about 1838, gave prominence to the sacramental system and corporate powers of the church, and enlisted a new class of energies in its service. Tho zeal for building and restoring church fabrics has been so strong that within a period of thirty years a sum of ,30,000,000 is known to have been contributed for this purpose. At the same time the church has aided materially in furnishing schoolhouses for all the villages in England, and in numberless other works of utility and charity. Its colonial and missionary episcopate now amounts to 60 ; while the daughter church in America has nearly the same number of prelates. The extension of the home episcopate is also proceeding, but at a slower rate. The two new sees of St Albans and Truro were established in 1877. The church of England can now number, as affiliated to her and accepting her use, a body of nearly two hundred prelates. In England her clergy amount to about 20,000 ; while, notwithstanding the complete toleration accorded to all dissenters since the Revolution, it is probable that con siderably more than half the population of the country still acknowledges allegiance to the ancient church. 1 II, Formularies and Doctrines. The formularies of the English Church are translations In part from Latin and Greek rituals, which have been used fourteen or fifteen hundred years in the Christian church, and in part from the service book called the Consultation of Hermann, archbishop of Cologne, published in 1543. This was the work of Bucer and Melanchtlion, but was grounded on a book previously published by Luther. Some portion of the formularies is the original composition of English divines. Morning and Evening Services. These were chiefly com piled from the ancient services used at the Seven Hours of Prayer (nooturn-lauds or matins, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline). The services pi-escribed for these hours, after being shortened, had been "brought together in a book called the Breviary (1073-1086). From the Breviary the English form was translated, the morning service being an abridgment of those prescribed for noctum-lauds and matins, the evening of those prescribed for vespers and compline. The sentences, exhortation, confession, an-d absolution, which did not appear in the first reformed prayer-book, but were added in the second,

1 Trustworthy recent statistics are not forthcoming.