Oct. 7. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



279 



necks ; and, by a curious moral retribution, they 

 eventually found themselves, in one half of G reat 

 Britain, hunted, persecuted " Dissenters," utterly 

 crippled in the other, and barely tolerated as a 

 party in a Church they once called their own. 



The principle of private judgment, and the pre- 

 cedent of separation, being introduced by the lie- 

 formers, intolerance and a forced conformity came 

 awkwardly from their followers, though this in- 

 consistency had the authority of Luther and 

 Calvin, &c. ; and the experiment was especially 

 hazardous with a nation allowed to be about as 

 " stiff-necked " as the Israelites of old, and thus 

 described by one of their own countrymen : 



" In tlieir religion they are so uneven, 

 That each man goes his own by-way to heaven : 

 Tenacious of mistakes to that degree 

 That every man pursues it separately : 

 And fancies noiae can find the way but he. 

 So sliy of one another are they grown, 

 As if thej' strove to get to heav'n alone. 

 Kigid and zealous, positive and grave, 

 And every grace but charity they have. 

 This makes them so ill-natured and uncivil, 

 That all men think an Englishman the devil." * 



All the Dissenters wanted at first was toler- 

 ation, and a free exercise of their religion accord- 

 ing to their conscience ; and most of them would 

 have been content to leave the wealth and power 

 of the Establishment to the Churchmen ; but no, 

 the latter would not let them alone, they must 

 conform. As external conformity was all they 

 could control, they thus filled the Church with 

 secret enemies, the mildest of whom mocked at 

 Church principles as at best a conventional farce, 

 a mere system of unreality. These turned the 

 tables on their masters when they got the oppor- 

 tunity ; and determined not to give up the tem- 

 poralities of the Church they were forced into, nor 

 their own principles neither. 



When it was too late, the Churchmen began to 

 wish they had let the Dissenters alone, and al- 

 lowed them to stay where they were. But now 

 the latter not only would not go out themselves, 

 but threatened to oust the Churchmen, who soon 

 had cause to rue the violent hurry they had been 

 in to make the Dissenters conform, and bitterly 

 regretted that they had compelled them to enter 

 the Anglican Church. They who introduced the 

 principle that might makes ?'ight, — who mutilated 

 the consciences, and forced the minds and bodies 

 of others to fit in the procrustean bed of the Esta- 

 blishment, — have no cause to complain if they be 

 served according to the same measure. 



The question of conformity, especially occasional 



* " The True-Born Englishman. A Satyr. Printed in 

 the year mdcci." — P. 16. My copy of this celebrated 

 satire of De Foe's is a small 4to. of thirty-one pages, with 

 wretched type and paper. 



conformity, was the great bone of contention be- 

 tween the parties of Queen Anne's reign. 



" Dissenters they were to be pressed 

 To go to common-prayer, 

 And turn their faces to the East, 

 As God were only there : 



" Or else no place of price or trust 

 They ever could obtain ; 

 Which shows that saying very just, 

 That ' Godliness is gain.' " * 



James Owen, a dissenting minister, published 

 a pamphlet with a very lengthy title, commen- 

 cing — 



" Moderation, a Virtue ; or, the Occasional Conformist 

 justified from the Imputation of Hj'pocrisj'. Wherein is 

 shown the Antiquity, Catholic Principles, and Advantage 

 of Occasional Conformity to the Church of England, &c. 

 London, 1703, 4to." 



De Foe replied in — 



" The Sincerity of the Dissenters vindicated from the 

 Scandal of Occasional Conformity. London, 1703, 4to." 



Leslie attacked both in another long-named 

 pamphlet — 



" The Wolf stript of his Shepherd's Clothing 



Bj'one called a High Churchman London, 1704, 



4to., pp. 108." 



To which De Foe replied in — 



"The Dissenters' Answer to the High-Church Chal- 

 lenge. London, 1704, 4to., pp. 55." 



The numerous works published by De Foe and 

 other writers on this subject, for obvious reasons, 

 must be passed over in these pages. It is impos- 

 sible to give here even a summary of what De Foe 

 has written on party ; the most we can do with a 

 man who has published not less than two hundred 

 and ten works is to make a selection. Accordingly, 

 with one extract more from De Foe, I shall con- 

 clude this portion of my Note, 



In the following passage De Foe shows how the 

 spirit of party had diffused itself everywhere, and 

 leavened all ranks in his time : 



" The strife is gotten into your kitchens, your parlours, 

 your counting-houses, nay, into your verj' beds. The 



* From " The History and Fall of the Conformity 

 Bill," London, 1705. " Being an excellent new Song, 

 chanted to the tune of Chevy Chace." On the celebrated 

 bill for preventing occasional conformity (which passed 

 the House of Conmions, December 7, 1703, but was re- 

 jected by the Lords) Swift remarks, in a letter to Stella, 

 dated December IG, 1703, " I wish you had been here for 

 ten days, during the highest and warmest reign of party 

 and faction that 1 ever knew or read of, upon the bill 

 against occasional conformity, which two daj-s ago was 

 rejected by the Lords. It was so universal that I ob- 

 served the dogs in the streets much more contumelious 

 and quarrelsome than usual ; and the very night before 

 the bill went up, a committee of Whig and Tory cats had 

 a very warm and loud debate upon the roof of our house. 

 But why should we wonder at that, when the very ladies 

 are split asunder into High Church and Low, and out of 

 zeal for religion have hardly time to say tlieir prayers ? " 



