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Some of the sarcasms which were popularly thrown on episcopacy might, without much difficulty, be turned against royalty; and many of the arguments which were used to prove that spiritual power was best lodged in a synod seemed to lead to the conclusion that temporal power was best lodged in a parliament.
But if men thought even a shadow of Episcopacy an offence to Omnipotence, and the king's authority in ecclesiastical cases a usurping of "the Crown Honours of Christ"; if they consequently broke the law by attending armed conventicles and assailing conformist preachers, and then were fined or imprisoned, from their point of view they were being persecuted for their religion.
But then, more sensible than the bigots of his sect, he did not confound the moderation and tolerance of these two reigns with the active tyranny and oppression exercised in those of Charles II. and James II. The Presbyterian form of religion, though deprived of the weight formerly attached to its sentences of excommunication, and compelled to tolerate the coexistence of Episcopacy, and of sects of various descriptions, was still the National Church; and though the glory of the second temple was far inferior to that which had flourished from 1639 till the battle of Dunbar, still it was a structure that, wanting the strength and the terrors, retained at least the form and symmetry, of the original model.
A Draught of a Speech concerning Episcopacy, London, 1660, 410. A Discourse of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome. Oxford 1645, 410. George Holland, a Cambridge scholar, and afterwards a Romish priest, having written an answer to this discourse of the Infallibility, the Lord Falkland made a reply to it, entitled,
The power exercised by the Bishops might be pernicious, unscriptural, antichristian but illegal it certainly was not; and to pronounce it illegal was to outrage common sense. The Whig leaders however were much more desirous to get rid of episcopacy than to prove themselves consummate publicists and logicians.
His Works were edited by Archbishop Tillotson, and include Sermons that must have been very much to the mind of Sir Roger de Coverley, 'Against Evil Speaking. Edmund Calamy, who died in 1666, was a Nonconformist, and one of the writers of the Treatise against Episcopacy called, from the Initials of its authors, Smeetymnuus, which Bishop Hall attacked and John Milton defended.
In 1662, by an Act drafted by the suspicious hand of Sharp, Episcopacy was restored, but restored under auspices that reflected little credit on the statecraft that guided its restoration. The details of Scottish political intrigue culminating in a deadly struggle of irresponsible tyranny with all the forces of enthusiastic religious frenzy do not belong to Clarendon's life.
Gorges could not raise the necessary funds to compel obedience, and the attention of the king and his archbishop was occupied with forcing episcopacy upon Scotland. In 1642 war began in England between Parliament and king, and Massachusetts was left free to shape her own destinies. It was now her turn to become aggressive.
For myself I am of the English church. 'It is but the wolf and the wolf's cub, said. Richard. 'Prelatical episcopacy is but the old harlot veiled, or rather, forsooth, her bloody scarlet blackened in the sulphur fumes of her coming desolation. 'Curse on, roundhead, sighed the youth; 'I must crawl home. Once more he rose and made an effort to walk. But it was of no use: walk he could not.
He afterwards obtained permission to establish a High Commission Court in Scotland in other words, an Inquisition for summarily executing all laws, acts, and orders in favour of Episcopacy and against recusants, clergy and laity. It was under this authority that all the evil deeds hitherto described were done, and of this Commission Sharp was constant president.
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