A more beautiful charity, or more modest assertion of conscience, than in our next extract, can scarcely be imagined.
' Be not troubled, much less discouraged, good madam, at any rumours you meet with concerning my present way. The persecution of the tongue is more fierce and
terrible than that of the hand. At this time I have some of both The
truth is, I have not forsaken my ministry, nor resigned up my place, much less sepor rated from the church, but am only absent a while to wait upon God, upon the settling and quieting of things, for light to discover my way, being willing to lie and die in prison, if the cause may be advantaged by it, but choosing rather to preserve the liberty of rny person and ministry for the service of the church elsewhere, if all doors
are shut against me here Tlio only cause of all my present sufferings is the
alteration of my judgment in matters of conformity to the ceremonies established, whereby I cannot practise them as formerly I have done ; wherein I do not censure those that do conform {7iay, I account many of them faithful and worthy instruments of God's glory ; and I know that I did conform with as much inward peace as now I do forbear ; in both my uprightness was the same, but my light different). In this
action I walk by tliat light wliich shineth into me With much advice of
many ministers of eminent note and worth, I have done all that I have done hither- to, and with desire of pitching upon that way wherein God might be most glorified. In his duo time he will manifest it.'
MEMOIR OF KICKARD SIBBES, D.D. IxXV
tongue not been cut out — no Parliament sat for years ! — there had been stormy debates on that !
So far as Sibbes was concerned, it does not appear that any part of the sentence was ever put into execution. He continued preacher at Gray's Inn, and Master of Catharine Hall. This assures us that powerful friends, the Brooks and Veres, Manchesters and Warwicks, must have stood by him. But there was no compromise on his part. I find that almost like a menace, and most surely a defiance, Sibbes introduced into a sermon, preached immediately after the decision, an expUcit eulogy of Sherland, the recorder of Northampton, for what he had done toward the impropriation scheme ; and published the sermon.*
Still it was crushed, the 'monies' confiscated,' the 'purchases' reversed, the whole holy enterprise branded, and its agents dis- graced. One thing is to be recalled. Among the * things pro- jected,' Laud enumerates, with imbecile forgetfulness, precisely such a scheme of purchase of ' impropriations ' — by HlMSELF.t So that it stands confessed that not the thing itself was dan- gerous and illegal, but the doers of it. Let only him and his appoint to the places, and all was well and right. But let men such as Sibbes, Gouge, Taylor, Davenport in the Church, and the foremost men for worth in the State, their enemies themselves being witnesses, be the appointers, and instantly it smells of 'treason, stratagem, wiles.' These or those dangerous to Church and State ? What is the award of posterity ? And yet defenders have been found for the transparently mendacious and infamous act. Such jeer at the paltry minority of Puritanism, oblivious of what a living poet has finely expressed —
' You trust in numbers, I
Trust in One only.' J
Let US see how Laud himself met it when it came in awful re- surrection back upon him. Every one is aware that the suppres- sion of the 'feoffment-impropriation' scheme formed one of the counts in the great roll of accusation, whose issue was the block on Tower Hill. A careful record was kept of charges and answers, and the whole have been republished in the Works of Laud. It is but fitting that what he had to say should appear. Here, then, are ' charge ' and ' defence.' The whole case, so vital as between Laud and the Puritan worthies, among whom Richard Sibbes was prominent, can then be judged of : —
* See ' Christ is Best,' in the present Yolume, p. 349. t See the whole list in his works, as after-referenced. J Cecil and Mary, as ante, p. 10.
Ixxvi MEMOIR OF KICHAED SIBBES, D.D.
That whereas divers gifts and dispositions of divers sums of money werehere- tofore viade hy divers cliaritahle and tvell-disjjosed j)ersons, for the buying in of divers impropriations, for the maintenance of preaching the ivord of God in several churches; the said archhp., about eight years last past, ivilfully and maliciously caused the said gifts, feoffments, and conveyances, made to the uses aforesaid, to be overthrown in his majesty's Court of Exchequer, contrary to law, as things dangerous to the Church and State, under the specious j^retence of buying in appropriations ; lohereby that pious ivork was suppressed and trodden down, to the great dishonour of God and scandal of religion.
This article is only about the feoffments. That which I did was this : I was (as then advised upon such information as was given me) clearly of opinion, that this was a cunning way, under a glorious pretence, to over- throw the church government, by getting into their power more dependency of the clergy than the king, and all the peers, and all the bishops in all the kingdom had. And I did conceive the plot the more dangerous for the fairness of the pretence ; and that to the State as well as the Church. Hereupon, not "maliciously" (as 'tis charged in the article), but con- scientiously, I resolved to sujjpress it, if by law it might be done. Upon this, I acquainted his majesty with the thing, and the danger which I con- ceived would in few years spring out of it. The king referred me to his attorney, and the law. Mr Attorney Noye, after some pause upon it, pro- ceeded in the exchequer, and there it was, by judicial proceeding and sen- tence, overthrown. If this sentence were according to law and justice, then there's no fault at all committed. If it were against law, the fault, whate'er it be, was the judges', not mine ; for I solicited none of them. And here I humbly desired, that the Lords would at their leism'e read over the sentence given in the exchequer,* which I then delivered in; but by reason of the length, it was not then read. Whether after it were, I cannot tell. I desired likewise that my counsel might be heard in this and all other points of law.