Ixxviii MEMOIR OF EICHAED SIBBES, D.D.
turned again upon it, that it must be a crime in me, because I projected to overthrow it. But, under favour, this follows not. For to project (though the word ' projector' sounds ill in England), is no more than to forecast and forelay any business. Now as 'tis lawful for me, by all good and fit means, to project the settlement of anything that is good ; so is it as lawful, by good and legal means, to project the overthrow of anything that is cun- ningly or apparently evil. And such did this feoffment appear to my under- standing, and doth still.' As for reducing of impropriations to their proper use, they may see (if they please) in my Diary (whence they had this) an- other project to buy them into the church's use. For given they will not be. But Mr Pryn would shew nothing, nor Mr Nicolas see anything, but what they thought would make against me.
Of this Defence, it must be said in the apophthegm of Helps, * It would often be as well to condemn a man unheard, as to con- demn him upon the reasons which he openly avows for any course of action/* Still, in common with the whole of the 'Answers,' as tragically told in the ' History of the Troubles,'-}- it exhibits no little astuteness and dexterity, and more than all his resoluteness in assertion of conscience. There is also characteristic strategy shewn in his retreats behind others who acted with him, now Attorney- General Noye, and now the king himself, with an almost humorous contrast in the surrender of Hey] in to his fate. While then we cannot altogether deny that an answer (not reply merely, but answer) is returned, nor that his infamy was shared ; yet there lies behind all the indisputable fact, that here was an associa- tion of the very salt of Church and State, seeking from their own resources to purchase in a legal way, — in the very way their accuser himself had done, and still proposed to do, — ' impropriations' in the hands of laymen who were not only willing, but wishful, to part with them, and to place therein, through the recognised autho- rities, men of kindred character with themselves, in order that the gospel might be fully preached, and the people cared for — and Laud prevents. It is not more strange than sad, that in this nine- teenth century, men should be found maintaining that Laud did right — that in entering among ' the things to be done,' the overthrow of the ' Feoffees,' or the frustration of an earnest effort whereby men of God, in the truest sense, would have 'fed the flock of God, which he hath redeemed with his own blood,' he came to a resolution, and in the execution of it performed a service, to be remembered and praised, not deplored. But, indeed, such de- fences only mask a deeper hatred. For often, as Lovell Beddoes puts it —
* Thoughts in the Cloister and tlie Crowd. 1835, 12mo, page 9. t The History of the Troubles and Trial of Archbishop Laud. Works (edited by Scott and Bliss in ' Anglo-Calhclic Library'), vol. iv. pp. 302-306.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. Iirn'x
' These are the words that grow, like grass and nettles Out of dead men ; and speckled hatreds hide, Like toads, among them.'*
There is always a certain nimbus of glory around a decollated head, and I am disposed to concede that a truer man, great among the small, fell on Tower Hill than he whose face paled on the awful block of Whitehall window, though it was a king's and has been canonized as a martyr's. There was a stout-heartedness in the face of fearful odds in the stricken and forsaken primate through- out his trial that commands a measure of respect ; and, perhaps, such is the inscrutable mystery of poor human nature, he deceived himself into a conscientious suppression of all consciences that dif- fered from his own. Neither would I fors^et that one or two, or even three or four — Hall and Prideaux, Ussher, Davenant, and WilHam Chillingworth — may be named, who, self-contradictorily, were advanced in the church more or less by him.t I will not conceal this, though historic candour compels me to affirm that, in so far as they fell in with his wishes (taking Bishop Hall as an example), they stained the white of their souls, and that Ussher and the apostolic Bedell and ChilHngworth protested against the ulti- mate development of his views and actings.
I gladly give him all praise for his honest and courageous word to the king, when his irreverent Majesty camein too late and interrupted
* prayers.' It was a brave and worthy request that he made that the king should be present ' at prayers as well as sermon every Sunday.' J
I found no common joy also in coming, in the arid pages of the
* Diary,' upon these pitying words about a very venerable Puritan, gleaming like a drop of dew, or even a human tear : — ' In Leicester the dean of the Arches suspended one Mr Angel 1, who had con- tinued a lecturer in that great town for these divers years, without any license at all to preach, yet took liberty enough. I doubt his violence hath cracked his brain, and do therefore use him more tenderly, because I see the hand of God hath overtaken him.' §