Theological Essays and Other Papers v2
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Thomas de Quincey >> Theological Essays and Other Papers v2
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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 their duties, but too much of
their professional rights; and if we may credit the indirect report
of the contemporary literature, all apostolic or missionary zeal for
the extension of religion, was in those days a thing unknown. It may
seem unaccountable to many, that the same state of things should have
spread in those days to Scotland; but this is no more than the analogies
of all experience entitled us to expect. Thus we know that the instincts
of religious reformation ripened everywhere at the same period of the
sixteenth century from one end of Europe to the other; although between
most of the European kingdoms there was nothing like so much intercourse
as between England and Scotland in the eighteenth century. In both
countries, a cold and lifeless state of public religion prevailed up
to the American and French Revolutions. These great events gave a shock
everywhere to the meditative, and, consequently to the religious
impulses of men. And, in the mean time, an irregular channel had been
already opened to these impulses by the two founders of Methodism. A
century has now passed since Wesley and Whitefield organized a more
spiritual machinery of preaching than could then be found in England,
for the benefit of the poor and laboring classes. These Methodist
institutions prospered, as they were sure of doing, amongst the poor
and the neglected at any time, much more when contrasted with the deep
slumbers of the Established Church. And another ground of prosperity
soon arose out of the now expanding manufacturing system. Vast
multitudes of men grew up under that system--humble enough by the
quality of their education to accept with thankfulness the ministrations
of Methodism, and rich enough to react, upon that beneficent
institution, by continued endowments in money. Gradually, even the
church herself, that mighty establishment, under the cold shade of
which Methodism had grown up as a neglected weed, began to acknowledge
the power of an extending Methodistic influence, which originally she
had haughtily despised. First, she murmured; then she grew anxious or
fearful; and finally, she began to find herself invaded or modified
from within, by influences springing up from Methodism. This last
effect became more conspicuously evident after the French Revolution.
The church of Scotland, which, as a whole, had exhibited, with much
unobtrusive piety, the same outward torpor as the church of England
during the eighteenth century, betrayed a corresponding resuscitation
about the same time. At the opening of this present century, both of
these national churches began to show a marked rekindling of religious
fervor. In what extent this change in the Scottish church had been
due, mediately or immediately, to Methodism, we do not pretend to
calculate; that is, we do not pretend to settle the proportions. But
_mediately_ the Scottish church must have been affected, because she
was greatly affected by her intercourse with the English church (as,
_e.g._, in Bible Societies, Missionary Societies, &c.); and the English
church had been previously affected by Methodism. _Immediately_ she
must also have been affected by Methodism, because Whitefield had been
invited to preach in Scotland, and _did_ preach in Scotland. But,
whatever may have been the cause of this awakening from slumber in the
two established churches of this island, the fact is so little to be
denied, that, in both its aspects, it is acknowledged by those most
interested in denying it. The two churches slept the sleep of torpor
through the eighteenth century; so much of the fact is acknowledged
by their own members. The two churches awoke, as from a trance, in or
just before the dawning of the nineteenth century; this second half
of the fact is acknowledged by their opponents. The Wesleyan Methodists,
that formidable power in England and Wales, who once reviled the
Establishment as the dormitory of spiritual drones, have for many years
hailed a very large section in that establishment--viz., the section
technically known by the name of the Evangelical clergy--as brothers
after their own hearts, and corresponding to their own strictest model
of a spiritual clergy. That section again, the Evangelical section,
in the English church, as men more highly educated, took a direct
interest in the Scottish clergy, upon general principles of liberal
interest in all that could affect religion, beyond what could be
expected from the Methodists. And in this way grew up a considerable
action and reaction between the two classical churches of the British
soil. Such was the varying condition, when sketched in outline, of the
Scottish and English churches. Two centuries ago, and for half a century
beyond that, we find both churches in a state of trial, of turbulent
agitation, and of sacrifices for conscience, which involved every fifth
or sixth beneficiary. Then came a century of languor and the
carelessness which belongs to settled prosperity. And finally, for
both has arisen a half century of new light--new zeal--and, spiritually
speaking, of new prosperity. This deduction it was necessary to bring
down, in order to explain the new power which arose to the Scottish
church, during the last generation of suppose thirty years.
When two powerful establishments, each separately fitted to the genius
and needs of its several people, are pulling together powerfully towards
one great spiritual object, vast must be the results. Our ancestors
would have stood aghast as at some fabulous legend or some mighty
miracle, could they have heard of the scale on which our modern
contributions proceed for the purposes of missions to barbarous nations,
of circulating the Scriptures, (whether through the Bible Society,
that is the National Society, or Provincial Societies,) of translating
the Scriptures into languages scarcely known by name to scholars, of
converting Jews, of organizing and propagating education. Towards these
great objects the Scottish clergy had worked with energy and with
little disturbance to their unanimity. Confidence was universally felt
in their piety and in their discretion. This confidence even reached
the supreme rulers of the state. Very much through ecclesiastical
influence, new plans for extending the religious power of the Scottish
church, and indirectly of extending their secular power, were
countenanced by the Government. Jealousy had been disarmed by the
upright conduct of the Scottish clergy, and their remarkable freedom
hitherto from all taint of ambition. It was felt, besides, that the
temper of the Scottish nation was radically indisposed to all intriguing
or modes of temporal ascendency in ecclesiastical bodies. The nation,
therefore, was in some degree held as a guarantee for the discretion
of their clergy. And hence it arose, that much less caution was applied
to the first encroachment of the non-intrusionists, than would have
been applied under circumstances of more apparent doubt. Hence, it
arose, that a confidence from the Scottish nation was extended to this
clergy, which too certainly has been abused.
In the years 1824-5, Parliament had passed acts 'for building additional
places of worship in the highlands and islands of Scotland.' These
acts may be looked upon as one section in that general extension of
religious machinery which the British people, by their government and
their legislature, have for many years been promoting. Not, as is
ordinarily said, that the weight of this duty had grown upon them
simply through their own treacherous neglect of it during the latter
half of the eighteenth century; but that no reasonable attention to
that duty _could_ have kept pace with the scale upon which the claims
of a new manufacturing population had increased. In mere equity we
must admit--not that the British nation had fallen behind its duties,
(though naturally it might have done so under the religious torpor
prevalent at the original era of manufacturing extension,) but that
the duties had outstripped all human power of overtaking them. The
efforts, however, have been prodigious in this direction for many
years. Amongst those applied to Scotland, it had been settled by
Parliament that forty-two new churches should be raised in the
highlands, with an endowment from the government of [pound symbol]120
annually for each incumbent. There were besides more than two hundred
chapels of ease to be founded; and towards this scheme the Scottish
public subscribed largely. The money was intrusted to the clergy.
_That_ was right, but mark what followed. It had been expressly provided
by Parliament--that any district or circumjacent territory, allotted
to such parliamentary churches as the range within which the incumbent
was to exercise his spiritual ministration, should _not_ be separate
parishes for any civil or legal effects. Here surely the intentions
and directions of the legislature were plain enough, and decisive
enough.
How did the Scottish clergy obey them? They erected all these
jurisdictions into _bona fide_ 'parishes,' enjoying the plenary rights
(as to church government) of the other parishes, and distinguished
from them in a merely nominal way as parishes _quoad sacra_. There
were added at once to the presbyteries, which are the organs of the
church power, two hundred and three clerical persons for the chapels
of ease, and forty-two for the highland churches--making a total of
two hundred and forty-five new members. By the constitution of the
Scottish church, an equal number of lay elders (called ruling elders)
accompany the clerical elders. Consequently four hundred and ninety
new members were introduced at once into that particular class of
courts (presbyteries) which form the electoral bodies in relation to
the highest court of General Assembly. The effect of this change, made
in the very teeth of the law, was twofold. First, it threw into many
separate presbyteries a considerable accession of voters--_all owing
their appointments to the General Assembly_. This would at once give
a large bias favorable to their party views in every election for
members to serve in the Assembly. Even upon an Assembly numerically
limited, this innovation would have told most abusively. But the
Assembly was _not_ limited; and therefore the whole effect was, at the
same moment, greatly to extend the electors and the elected.
Here, then, was the machinery by which the faction worked. They drew
that power from Scotland rekindled into a temper of religious anxiety,
which they never could have drawn from Scotland lying torpid, as she
had lain through the eighteenth century. The new machinery (created
by Parliament in order to meet the wishes of the Scottish nation), the
money of that nation, the awakened zeal of that nation; all these were
employed, honorably in one sense, that is, not turned aside into private
channels for purposes of individuals, but factiously in the result,
as being for the benefit of a faction; honorably as regarded the open
mode of applying such influence--a mode which did not shrink from
exposure; but most dishonorably, in so far as privileges, which had
been conceded altogether for a spiritual object, were abusively
transferred to the furtherance of a temporal intrigue. Such were the
methods by which the new-born ambition of the clergy moved; and that
ambition had become active, simply because it had suddenly seemed to
become practicable. The presbyteries, as being the effectual electoral
bodies, are really the main springs of the ecclesiastical
administration. To govern _them_, was in effect to govern the church.
A new scheme for extending religion, had opened a new avenue to this
control over the presbyteries. That opening was notoriously unlawful.
But not the less the church faction precipitated themselves ardently
upon it; and but for the faithfulness of the civil courts, they would
never have been dislodged from what they had so suddenly acquired.
Such was the extraordinary leap taken by the Scottish clergy, into a
power, of which, hitherto, they had never enjoyed a fraction. It was
a movement _per saltum_, beyond all that history has recorded. At
cock-crow they had no power at all; when the sun went down, they had
gained (if they could have held) a papal supremacy. And a thing not
less memorably strange is, that even yet the ambitious leaders were
not disturbed; what they had gained was viewed by the public as a
collateral gain, indirectly adhering to a higher object, but forming
no part at all of what the clergy had sought. It required the scrutiny
of law courts to unmask and decompose their true object The obstinacy
of the defence betrayed the real _animus_ of the attempt. It was an
attempt which, in connection with the _Veto_ Act (supposing that to
have prospered), would have laid the whole power of the church at their
feet. What the law had distributed amongst three powers, patron, parish,
and presbyter, would have been concentrated in themselves. The _quoad
sacra_ parishes would have riveted their majorities in the presbyteries;
and the presbyteries, under the real action of the _Veto_, would have
appointed nearly every incumbent in Scotland. And this is the answer
to the question, when treated merely in outline--_How were these things
done_? The religion of the times had created new machineries for
propagating a new religious influence. These fell into the hands of
the clergy; and the temptation to abuse these advantages led them into
revolution.
III. Having now stated WHAT was done, as well as HOW it was done, let
us estimate the CONSEQUENCES of these acts; under this present, or
_third_ section, reviewing the immediate consequences which have taken
effect already, and under the next section anticipating the more remote
consequences yet to be expected.
In the spring of 1834, as we have sufficiently explained, the General
Assembly ventured on the fatal attempt to revolutionize the church,
and (as a preliminary towards _that_) on the attempt to revolutionize
the property of patronage. There lay the extravagance of the attempt;
its short-sightedness, if they did not see its civil tendencies; its
audacity, if they _did_. It was one revolution marching to its object
through another; it was a vote, which, if at all sustained, must entail
a long inheritance of contests with the whole civil polity of Scotland.
'Heu quantum, fati parva tabella vehit!'
It might seem to strangers a trivial thing, that an obscure court,
like the presbytery, should proceed in the business of induction by
one routine rather than by another; but was it a trivial thing that
the power of appointing clergymen should lapse into this perilous
dilemma--either that it should be intercepted by the Scottish clerical
order, and thus, that a lordly hierarchy should be suddenly created,
disposing of incomes which, in the aggregate, approach to half a million
annually; or, on the other hand, that this dangerous power, if defeated
as a clerical power, should settle into a tenure exquisitely democratic?
Was _that_ trivial? Doubtless, the Scottish ecclesiastical revenues
are not equal, nor nearly equal, to the English; still, it is true,
that Scotland, supposing all her benefices equalized, gives a larger
_average_ to each incumbent than England, of the year 1830. England,
in that year, gave an average of [pound symbol]299 to each beneficiary;
Scotland gave an average of [pound symbol]303. That body, therefore,
which wields patronage in Scotland, wields a greater relative power
than the corresponding body in England. Now this body, in Scotland,
must finally have been the _clerus_; but supposing the patronage to
have settled nominally where the Veto Act had placed it, then it would
have settled into the keeping of a fierce democracy. Mr. Forsyth has
justly remarked, that in such a case the hired ploughmen of a parish,
mercenary hands that quit their engagements at Martinmas, and _can_
have no filial interest in the parish, would generally succeed in
electing the clergyman. That man would be elected generally, who had
canvassed the parish with the arts and means of an electioneering
candidate; or else, the struggle would lie between the property and
the Jacobinism of the district.
In respect to Jacobinism, the condition of Scotland is much altered
from what it was; pauperism and great towns have worked 'strange
defeatures' in Scottish society. A vast capital has arisen in the west,
on a level with the first-rate capitalists of the Continent--with
Vienna or with Naples; far superior in size to Madrid, to Lisbon, to
Berlin; more than equal to Rome and Milan; or again to Munich and
Dresden, taken by couples: and, in this point, beyond comparison with
any one of these capitals, that whilst _they_ are connected by slight
ties with the circumjacent country, Glasgow keeps open a communication
with the whole land. Vast laboratories of encouragement to manual
skill, too often dissociated from consideration of character; armies
of mechanics, gloomy and restless, having no interfusion amongst their
endless files of any gradations corresponding to a system of controlling
officers; these spectacles, which are permanently offered by the _castra
stativa_ of combined mechanics in Glasgow and its dependencies (Paisley,
Greenock, &c.), supported by similar districts, and by turbulent
collieries in other parts of that kingdom, make Scotland, when now
developing her strength, no longer the safe and docile arena for popular
movements which once she was, with a people that were scattered and
habits that were pastoral. And at this moment, so fearfully increased
is the overbearance of democratic impulses in Scotland, that perhaps
in no European nation--hardly excepting France--has it become more
important to hang weights and retarding forces upon popular movements
amongst the laboring classes.
This being so, we have never been able to understand the apparent
apathy with which the landed body met the first promulgation of the
_Veto_ Act in May, 1834. Of this apathy, two insufficient explanations
suggest themselves:--1st, It seemed a matter of delicacy to confront
the General Assembly, upon a field which they had clamorously challenged
for their own. The question at issue was tempestuously published to
Scotland as a question exclusively spiritual. And by whom was it thus
published? The Southern reader must here not be careless of dates. _At
present_, viz. in 1844, those who fulminate such views of spiritual
jurisdiction, are simply dissenters; and those who vehemently withstand
them are the church, armed with the powers of the church. Such are the
relations between the parties in 1844. But in 1834, the revolutionary
party were not only _in_ the church, but (being the majority) they
came forward _as_ the church. The new doctrines presented themselves
at first, not as those of a faction, but of the Scottish kirk assembled
in her highest court. The _prestige_ of that advantage has vanished
since then; for this faction, after first of all falling into a
minority, afterwards ceased to be any part or section of the church;
but in that year 1834, such a _prestige_ did really operate; and this
must be received as one of the reasons which partially explain the
torpor of the landed body. No one liked to move _first_, even amongst
those who meant to move. But another reason we find in the conscientious
scruples of many landholders, who hesitated to move at all upon a
question then insufficiently discussed, and in which their own interest
was by so many degrees the largest.
These reasons, however, though sufficient for suspense, seem hardly
sufficient for not having solemnly protested against the _Veto_ Act
immediately upon its passing the Assembly. Whatever doubts a few persons
might harbor upon the expediency of such an act, evidently it was
contrary to the law of the land. The General Assembly could have no
power to abrogate a law passed by the three estates of the realm. But
probably it was the deep sense of that truth which reined up the
national resistance. Sure of a speedy collision between some patron
and the infringers of his right, other parties stood back for the
present, to watch the form which such a collision might assume.
In that same year of 1834, not many months after the passing of the
Assembly's Act, came on the first case of collision; and some time
subsequently a second. These two cases, Auchterarder and Marnoch,
commenced in the very same steps, but immediately afterwards diverged
as widely as was possible. In both cases, the rights of the patron and
of the presentee were challenged peremptorily; that is to say, in both
cases, parishioners objected to the presentee without reason shown.
The conduct of the people was the same in one case as in the other;
that of the two presbyteries travelled upon lines diametrically
opposite. The first case was that of _Auchterarder_. The parish and
the presbytery concerned, both belonged to Auchterarder; and there the
presbytery obeyed the new law of the Assembly; they rejected the
presentee, refusing to take him on trial of his qualifications: And
why? we cannot too often repeat--simply because a majority of a rustic
congregation had rejected him, without attempting to show reason for
his rejection. The Auchterarder presbytery, for _their_ part in this
affair, were prosecuted in the Court of Session by the injured
parties--Lord Kinnoul, the patron, and Mr. Young, the presentee. Twice,
upon a different form of action, the Court of Session gave judgment
against the presbytery; twice the case went up by appeal to the Lords;
twice the Lords affirmed the judgment of the court below. In the other
case of _Marnoch_, the presbytery of Strathbogie took precisely the
opposite course. So far from abetting the unjust congregation of
rustics, they rebelled against the new law of the Assembly, and
declared, by seven of their number against three, that they were ready
to proceed with the trial of the presentee, and to induct him (if found
qualified) into the benefice. Upon this, the General Assembly suspended
the seven members of presbytery. By that mode of proceeding, the
Assembly fancied that they should be able to elude the intentions of
the presbytery; it being supposed that, whilst suspended, the presbytery
had no power to ordain; and that, without ordination, there was no
possibility of giving induction. But here the Assembly had
miscalculated. Suspension would indeed have had the effects ascribed
to it; but in the mean time, the suspension, as being originally
illegal, was found to be void; and the presentee, on that ground,
obtained a decree from the Court of Session, ordaining the presbytery
of Strathbogie to proceed with the settlement. Three of the ten members
composing this presbytery, resisted; and they were found liable in
expenses. The other seven completed the settlement in the usual form.
Here was plain rebellion; and rebellion triumphant. If this were
allowed, all was gone. What should the Assembly do for the vindication
of their authority? Upon deliberation, they deposed the contumacious
presbytery from their functions as clergymen, and declared their
churches vacant. But this sentence was found to be a _brutum fulmen_;
the crime was no crime, the punishment turned out no punishment: and
a minority, even in this very Assembly, declared publicly that they
would not consent to regard this sentence as any sentence at all, but
would act in all respects as if no such sentence had been carried by
vote. _Within_ their own high Court of Assembly, it is, however,
difficult to see how this refusal to recognise a sentence voted by a
majority could be valid. Outside, the civil courts came into play; but
within the Assembly, surely its own laws and votes prevailed. However,
this distinction could bring little comfort to the Assembly at present;
for the illegality of the deposal was now past all dispute; and the
attempt to punish, or even ruin a number of professional brethren for
not enforcing a by-law, when the by-law itself had been found
irreconcilable to the law of the land, greatly displeased the public,
as vindictive, oppressive, and useless to the purposes of the Assembly.
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