The History of England Volume V. David Hume

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СКАЧАТЬ partiality towards them. Never had the authority of any king, who resided among them, been so firmly established as was that of James, even when absent; and as the administration had been hitherto conducted with great order and tranquillity, there had happened no occurrence to draw thither our attention. But this summer, the king was resolved to pay a visit to his native country, in order to renew his ancient friendships and connexions, and to introduce that change of ecclesiastical discipline and government, on which he was extremely intent. The three chief points of this kind, which James proposed to accomplish by his journey to Scotland, were the enlarging of episcopal authority, the establishing of a few ceremonies in public worship, and the fixing of a superiority in the civil above the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

      But it is an observation, suggested by all history, and by none more than by that of James and his successor, that the religious spirit, when it mingles with faction, contains in it something supernatural and unaccountable; and that, in its operations upon society, effects correspond less to their known causes than is found in any other circumstance of government. A reflection, which may, at once, afford a source of blame against such sovereigns as lightly innovate in so dangerous an article, and of apology for such, as being engaged in an enterprize of that nature, are disappointed of the expected event, and fail in their undertakings.

      When the Scottish nation was first seized with that zeal for reformation, which, though it caused such disturbance during the time, has proved so salutary in the consequences; the preachers, assuming a character little inferior to the prophetic or apostolical, disdained all subjection to the spiritual rulers of the church, by whom their innovations were punished and opposed. The revenues of the dignified clergy, no longer considered as sacred, were either appropriated by the present possessors, or seized by the more powerful barons; and what remained, after mighty dilapidations, was, by act of parliament, annexed to the crown. The prelates, however, and abbots, maintained their temporal jurisdictions and their seats in parliament; and though laymen were sometimes endowed with ecclesiastical titles, the church, notwithstanding its frequent protestations to the contrary, was still supposed to be represented by those spiritual lords, in the states of the kingdom. After many struggles, the king, even before his accession to the throne of England, had acquired sufficient influence over the Scottish clergy, to extort from them an acknowledgment of the parliamentary jurisdiction of bishops; though attended with many precautions, in order to secure themselves against the spiritual encroachments of that order.^q When king of England, he engaged them, though still with great reluctance on their part, to advance a step farther, and to receive the bishops as perpetual presidents or moderators in their ecclesiastical synods; re-iterating their protestations against all spiritual jurisdiction of the prelates, and all controuling power over the presbyters.^r And by such gradual innovations, the king flattered himself, that he should quietly introduce episcopal authority: But as his final scope was fully seen from the beginning, every new advance gave fresh occasion of discontent, and aggravated, instead of softening, the abhorrence entertained against the prelacy.

      What rendered the king’s aim more apparent, were the endeavours, which, at the same time, he used to introduce into Scotland some of the ceremonies of the church of England: The rest, it was easily foreseen, would soon follow. The fire of devotion, excited by novelty, and inflamed by opposition, had so possessed the minds of the Scottish reformers, that all rites and ornaments, and even order of worship, were disdainfully rejected as useless burthens; retarding the imagination in its rapturous ecstasies, and cramping the operations of that divine spirit, by which they supposed themselves to be animated. A mode of worship was established, the most naked and most simple imaginable; one that borrowed nothing from the senses; but reposed itself entirely on the contemplation of that divine Essence, which discovers itself to the understanding only. This species of devotion, so worthy of the supreme Being, but so little suitable to human frailty, was observed to occasion great disturbances in the breast, and in many respects to confound all rational principles of conduct and behaviour. The mind, straining for these extraordinary raptures, reaching them by short glances, sinking again under its own weakness, rejecting all exterior aid of pomp and ceremony, was so occupied in this inward life, that it fled from every intercourse of society, and from every chearful amusement, which could soften or humanize the character. It was obvious to all discerning eyes, and had not escaped the king’s, that, by the prevalence of fanaticism, a gloomy and sullen disposition established itself among the people; a spirit, obstinate and dangerous; independent and disorderly; animated equally with a contempt of authority, and a hatred to every other mode of religion, particularly to the catholic. In order to mellow these humours, James endeavoured to infuse a small tincture of ceremony into the national worship, and to introduce such rites as might, in some degree, occupy the mind, and please the senses, without departing too far from that simplicity, by which the reformation was distinguished. The finer arts too, though still rude in these northern kingdoms, were employed to adorn the churches; and the king’s chapel, in which an organ was erected, and some pictures and statues displayed, was proposed as a model to the rest of the nation. But music was grating to the prejudiced ears of the Scottish clergy; sculpture and painting appeared instruments of idolatry; the surplice was a rag of popery; and every motion or gesture, prescribed by the liturgy, was a step towards that spiritual Babylon, so much the object of their horror and aversion. Every thing was deemed impious, but their own mystical comments on the Scriptures, which they idolized, and whose eastern prophetic style they employed in every common occurrence.

      It will not be necessary to give a particular account of the ceremonies which the king was so intent to establish. Such institutions, for a time, are esteemed either too divine to have proceeded from any other being than the supreme Creator of the universe, or too diabolical to have been derived from any but an infernal demon. But no sooner is the mode of the controversy past, than they are universally discovered to be of so little importance as scarcely to be mentioned with decency amidst the ordinary course of human transactions. It suffices here to remark, that the rites introduced by James regarded the kneeling at the sacrament, private communion, private baptism, confirmation of children, and the observance of Christmas and other festivals.^s The acts, establishing these ceremonies, were afterwards known by the name of the articles of Perth, from the place where they were ratified by the assembly.

      A conformity of discipline and worship between the churches of England and Scotland, which was James’s aim, he never could hope to establish, but by first procuring an acknowledgment to his own authority in all spiritual causes; and nothing could be more contrary to the practice as well as principles of the presbyterian clergy. The ecclesiastical courts possessed the power of pronouncing excommunication; and that sentence, besides the spiritual consequences supposed to follow from it, was attended with immediate effects of the most important nature. The person excommunicated was shunned by every one as profane and impious; and his whole estate, during his life-time, and all his moveables, for ever, were forfeited to the crown. Nor were the previous steps, requisite before pronouncing this sentence, formal or regular, in proportion to the weight of it. Without accuser, without summons, without trial, any ecclesiastical court, however inferior, sometimes pretended, in a summary manner, to denounce excommunication, for any cause, and against any person, even though he lived not within the bounds of their jurisdiction.^t And, by this means, the whole tyranny of the inquisition, though without its order, was introduced into the kingdom.

      But the clergy were not content with the unlimited jurisdiction, which they exercised in ecclesiastical matters: They assumed a censorial power over every part of administration; and, in all their sermons, and even prayers, mingling politics with religion, they inculcated the most seditious and most turbulent principles. Black, minister of St. Andrews, went so far,^u in a sermon, as to pronounce all kings the devil’s children; he gave the queen of England the appellation of atheist; he said, that the treachery of the king’s heart was now fully discovered; and in his prayers for the queen he used these words; We must pray for her for the fashion’s sake, but we have no cause: She will never do us any good. When summoned before the privy council, he refused to answer to a civil court for any thing delivered from the pulpit, even though the crime, of which he was accused, was of a civil nature. The church adopted his cause. They raised a sedition in Edinburgh.^w The king, during some time, was in СКАЧАТЬ