92

HISTORY OP ENGIASD.

CHAP.

XI.

1689 .

who, since Sancroft had shut himself up at Lambeth, was•virtually Primate, supported Nottingham with ardour.* Inthe committee, however, it appeared that there was a strongbody of churchmen, who were determined not to give up asingle word or form; to whom it seemed that the prayers wereno prayers without the surplice, the babe no Christian if notmarked with the cross, the bread and wine no memorials ofredemption or vehicles of grace if not received on bended knee.Why, these persons asked, was the docile and affectionate sonof the Church to be disgusted by seeing the irreverent practicesof a conventicle introduced into her majestic choirs? Whyshould his feelings, his prejudices, if prejudices they were,be less considered than the whims of schismatics? If, as Burnetand men like Burnet were never weary of repeating, indulgencewas due to a weak brother, was it less due to the brother whoseweakness consisted in the excess of his love for an ancient, adecent, a beautiful ritual, associated in his imagination fromchildhood with all that is most sublime and endearing, than tohim wdiose morose and litigious mind was always devisingfrivolous objections to innocent and salutary usages? But, intruth, the scrupulosity of the Puritan was not that sort ofscrupulosity which the Apostle had commanded believers torespect. It sprang, not from morbid tenderness of conscience,but from censoriousness and spiritual pride; and none who hadstudied the New Testament could have failed to observe that,while w'e are charged carefully to avoid whatever may givescandal to feeble, we are taught by divine precept and example

* Among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library is a very curiousletter from Compton to Sancroft, about the Toleration Bill and the Com-prehension Bill. “These,” says Compton, “are two great works in whichthe being of our Church is concerned: and I hope you will send to theHouse for copies. For, though we are under a conquest, God has given usfavour in the eyes of our rulers; and we may keep our Church if we will.”Sancroft seems to have returned no answer.