We have seen that the great fire of London led to a temporary connivance at the public preaching of the Nonconformist ministers; " it being at the first," as Baxter remarked, " too gross to forbid an undone people all public worship with too great rigour."* A scheme was soon after devised for giving to this liberty a legal sanction, and which might even perhaps incorporate many of the Nonconformists with the Established Church, — such men as Wilkins, bishop of Ches-
1 Prelections on Hill's Lectures. Chalmers's Posthumous Works, ix. 282. ' SI'Cne's Miscellaneous Works, p. 509. Magnalia Americana, b. vii. p. 28. Crme, p. 258.
* Own Life, part iii. p. 20.
LXXXVIII LIFE OF DR OWEN.
ter, Tillotson, and Stillingfleet, warmly espousing the proposal. But no sooner did the scheme become generally known, as well as the influential names by which it was approved, than the implacable adversaries of the Nonconformists anew bestirred themselves, and succeeded in extinguishing its generous provisions. It became neces- sary, however, in the temper of the nation, to do something in vindi- cation of these severities; and no readier expedient suggested itself than to decry toleration as unfriendly to social order, and still more to blacken the character of the Nonconformist sufferers. A fit in- strument for this work presented himself in Samuel Parker, a man of menial origin, who had for a time been connected with the Puri- tans, but who, deserting them when they became sufferers, was now aspiring after preferment in the Episcopal Church, and whom Burnet describes as " full of satirical vivacity, considerably learned, but of no judgment; and as to religion, rather impious."^ In his " Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity," the " authority of the civil magistrate over the consciences of subjects in matters of external religion is asserted, the mischiefs and inconveniences of toleration are represented, and all pretences pleaded in favour of liberty of conscience are fully answered." Such is the atrocious title-page of his book, and to a modern reader, the undertaking to which it pledges him must seem rather bold ; but the confident author is reported to have fimily believed in his own success. Holding out his book to the Earl of Anglesea, he said, " Let us see, my lord, whether any of your chaplains can answer it ; " and the bigoted Sheldon, sympathizing with its spirit, naturally be- lieved also in the exceeding force of its arguments. Dr Owen was chosen to reply to Parker; which he did, in one of the noblest con- troversial treatises that were ever penned by him, — " Truth and Innocence Vindicated, in a Survey of a Discourse on Ecclesiastical Polity," etc. The mind of Owen seems to have been whetted by his deep sense of wrong, and he writes with a remarkable clearness and force of argimient; while he indulges at times in a style of irony which is justified not more by the folly than by the baseness and ivickedness of Parker's sentiments. There is no passage, even in the writings of Locke, in which the province of the civil magistrate is more distinctly defined than in some portions of his reply ;^ and it is curious to notice how, in his allusions to trade, he anticipates some of the most established principles of our modern political economy.^ Owen's work greatly increased his celebrity among his brethren ; — even some of Parker's friends could with difficulty conceal the impression that he had found more than a match in the strong-minded and sturdy Puritan; and Parker, worsted in argument, next sought to overwhelm his opponent with a scurrility that lireathed the most ' Buriiel's Own Times, i. 382. 2 Duod. ed., p. 92. ^ Duod. cd., jip. 78-81.
HIS RETIREMENT AND LAST DAYS. LXXXIX
undisguised vindictiveness. He was " the great bell-wether of dis- turbance and sedition/' — " a person who would have vied with Ma- homet himself both for boldness and imposture," — " a viper, so swol- len with venom that it must either burst or spit its poison ; " so that whoever wished to do well to his country, " could never do it better service than by beating down the interest and reputation of such sons of Belial."^ On this principle, at least, Parker himself might have ranked high as a patriot.
But the controversy was not over. Parker had not time to recover from the ponderous club of Owen, when he was assailed by the keen- edged wit of Andrew Marvell. This accomplished man, the under- secretary and bosom friend of Milton, reviewed Parker's work in his " Rehearsal Transprosed," — a work of which critics have spoken as rivalhng in some places the causticity and neatness of Swift, and in others equalling the eloquent invective of Junius and the playful exuberance of Burke.^ The conceited ecclesiastic was overwhelmed, and a number of masked combatants perceiving his plight, now rushed to his defence ; in all whom, hoAvever, Marvell refused to dis- tinguish any but Parker. In a second part of his " Rehearsal," he returned to the pen-combat, as Wood has called it; and transfixed his victim with new arrows from his exhaustless quiver. It is im- possible to read many parts of it yet, without sharing with the laughers of the age in the influence of Marvell's genius. Ridiculing his self-importance, he says, " If he chance but to sneeze, he prays that the foundations of the earth he not shaken. Ever since he crept up to be but the weather-cock of a steeple, he trembles and cracks at every puff of wind that blows about him, as if the Church of England %u ere falling." Marvell's wit was triumphant; and even Charles and his court joined in laughing at Parker's discomfiture.^ " Though the delinquent did not lay violent hands on himself," says D'Israeli, " he did what, for an author, may be considered as desperate a course, — withdraw from the town, and cease writing for many years," secretly nursing a revenge which he did not dare to gratify until he knew that Marvell was in his grave.*