Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 1—The Church of the Civil WarsStoughton, John
History
Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 1—The Church of the Civil Wars
Stoughton, John
Great Britain -- Church history
Dr. Thomas Fuller, we may add, after being deprived of his preferment
at the Savoy, and leaving behind him his library, found refuge in
Lincoln College, and preached before the King; the losses which this
cheerful Divine suffered at the time leading him to observe, with
his accustomed humour, "that his going to Oxford cost him all that
he had, a dear seventeen weeks compared with the seventeen years he
spent in Cambridge." Whilst Fuller tarried in the former University,
there arrived Lord Hopton, an eminent Royalist officer of moderate
opinions and of a pacific disposition. The ejected minister of the
Savoy became a chaplain to the regiment of this brave soldier and
sincerely religious man, and he hoped by filling this office to wipe
off the stain of disaffection with which his enemies had endeavoured
to spot his fame. He accompanied Hopton to the west, where he accepted
a nominal chaplaincy to the infant Princess Henrietta, who was born at
Bedford House, in the city of Exeter, on the 16th June, 1644.[475]
[Sidenote: _Clergy at Oxford._]
Another eminent churchman was now at Oxford. William Chillingworth,
after the raising of the siege of Gloucester, left the construction
of his Roman _testudines_, and more befittingly employed himself in
preaching before the University, and in writing polemical tracts,
especially one, entitled "The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy."
This publication, which was not answered for years afterwards, is
very characteristic of its author, and takes a ground of defence for
the Church of England not at all agreeable to high Prelatists; for he
reduces Episcopal government to the smallest dimensions, specifying its
essence to be no more than the appointment of one person of eminent
sanctity, to take care of all the churches in a diocese--his authority
being bounded by law and moderated by assistants. Even this scantling
of rule he seems to defend rather than enforce--stating as the ground
of adopting it, that there is _no record of our Saviour against it_,
that it is _not repugnant_ to the apostolic government, and that it is
_as compliable_ with the reformation of the Church, as any other kind
of polity.[476] Chillingworth did not long survive his employment at
Oxford; and the short remaining history of his life is so curious, so
illustrative of the religious aspects of the war, and of the oddities
of people engaged in it, that we venture to transfer it to these pages.
[Sidenote: 1643.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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