Cornish Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Cornish Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography; Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
But Jane was not one of them. He had the good sense to acknowledge
that the theory he had taken up with some ardour was as impracticable
as it was absurd. It was cast in his teeth that he changed his opinion
because he desired to retain his benefices. One need not take this
view of his conduct. He sought William of Orange at Hungerford, and
assured him of the adhesion of the University of Oxford. His enemies
said that he hinted at the same time his readiness to accept the
vacant bishopric in return for his services in securing this sign of
devotion. But nothing is more easy than to make such an accusation,
and there is no proof that he did this. However, the fact that the
framer of the Oxford declaration should have thrown over the
principles advocated therein, laid him open to attack, and a shower of
epigrams fell on him. His name Jane gave good opportunity to the wits
to liken him to Janus, who looked two ways at once. But he showed no
further desire to court the favour of William, and he opposed the
projects for Comprehension favoured by the latitudinarians, Tillotson
and Burnet. In 1689 two Bills had been introduced into Parliament, a
Toleration and a Comprehension Bill. The former was to grant
facilities of worship to the Puritans and other Dissenters; the other
was a Bill for altering the creed and the formulas and ceremonies of
the Church, removing from them whatever might be distasteful to the
Dissenters, so that all excuse might be taken from them for separating
themselves from the Church. Both the King and Tillotson, who all knew
was destined by the King to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and Burnet,
Bishop of Salisbury, were eager to get both passed. Tillotson was so
latitudinarian that his churchmanship was nebulous. Burnet was the son
of a Covenanter who had been hanged, had been brought up in
Presbyterianism, had found satisfaction in the ministry of Calvanist
pastors in Holland, and had not the faintest conception of the
principles of the Church or of its true organization.
The Earl of Nottingham advocated the Comprehension Bill and drafted
both. The Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate. But it
was otherwise with the Comprehension Bill. The first clause in this
dispensed all the ministers in the Church from the necessity of
subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles. Then it was provided that any
minister who had been ordained after the Presbyterian fashion might be
eligible to any benefice in the Church without ordination by the bishop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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