CHAPTER XI. ON THE SAVOY CONFERENCE, AND THE SUBSEQUENT REVIEW AND RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER BY CONVOCATION AND PARLIAMENT IN 1662. THE weighty testimony which may be produced from our early divines, against the views of the Laudian party on the subject of baptism and their representation of the doctrine of our Church, has caused some of our opponents to take refuge in an argument of this kind. Be it so, that your interpretation of the Prayer Book may have been that originally sanctioned and intended, and long held in the Church. But we owe our present Prayer Book to the leading divines of the period of the Restoration. The Book was accepted from them by Parliament, and sanctioned as their Book. And therefore we are bound to receive it now in the sense which they affixed to it. I shall not waste much time in replying to such an argument, nor will I complain of drowning men catching at straws. But a few words to show the reader the true state of the case may be useful. In the first place, then, the only document of a public kind we have, to show the sense which was affixed by any of these divines to the Prayer Book, is an anonymous account of the proceedings of the Savoy Conference published under the title, 'An Account of all the Proceedings of the Commissioners of both persuasions appointed by his sacred Majesty, according to Letters Patents, for the review of the Book of Common Prayer, &c. London, printed for R. H. 1661." 4to. Of this Book Richard Baxter says, "All these being surreptitiously printed, save the first piece, [that is, the Exceptions of the Nonconformists] by some poor men for gain, without our knowledge and correction, are so falsely printed, that our wrong by it is very great. Whole lines are left out; the most significant words are perverted by alterations, and this so frequently, that some parts of the papers, especially our large reply, and our last account to the King, are made nonsense and not intelligible."* We have not, then, a very trustworthy authority to go to for what did pass at the Savoy Conference. For such a production as that here spoken of may be as incorrect on one side as on the other. But supposing the account to be correct, and that the leading divines of the party opposed to the Nonconformists took the ground they are represented as taking, (which in all probability they did, as the remaining leaders of the previously dominant Laudian party+,) what does it amount to? Simply this, that when at the Restoration the King appointed a Commission of certain divines to discuss the objections brought against the *Life by Sylvester, B. i. P. 2. p. 379. I give the passage from Cardwell's Conferences connected with the Book of Common Prayer. 2d ed. Oxf. 1841. 8vo. p. 263. The views of the leading Episcopal divines in this Conference are so well known, that it is hardly necessary to say, that on the question now before us as to the effects of baptism in infants, their views were those of the school of Mountagu and Laud, to which they owed their elevation. Thus, to the objection, "We cannot in faith say that every child that is baptized is regenerate," they reply,-" Seeing that God's Sacraments have their effects, where the receiver doth not 'ponere obicem,' put any bar against them (which children cannot do), we may say in faith of every child that is baptized, that it is regenerated by God's Holy Spirit." (Cardwell's Conferences, p. 356.) This of course was the view which they took of the matter; and I could have also pointed those who adduce it to an earlier and (to my mind) better testimony (though only that of an individual) to the same effect. But what is that, to the host of opponents which the doctrine has among our earlier divines? I believe that not one single testimony to this effect could be produced in the writings of our divines previous to the early part of the 17th century. And I have already shown what the amount of testimony is against it. And I say, with our learned Bishop Abbot, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and Bishop of Salisbury," Papisticum illud Scholasticorum pronunciatum, quod operis operati fundamentum est,....nescio qua fronte tanquam catholicæ fidei dogma proponitur, 'Sacramenta semper conferre suum effectum non ponenti obicem." (See p. 280 above.) And with our learned Bishop Carleton, that it is "peregrina et incondita sententia," and before the time of the later scholastic divines unheard of even in the Church of Rome. (See p. 338 above.) Book of Common Prayer, the surviving bishops, being of course inclined to Laudian views, maintained in the Conference that interpretation of the Prayer Book which was consistent with their theological system. For, the review of the Prayer Book which preceded its reestablishment by the Act of Uniformity, was not made at the Savoy Conference (as is often erroneously stated), but afterwards in Convocation. The Commission that sat at the Savoy was appointed for only four months; and the whole of that time having been spent in useless altercation between the opposing parties, it came to an end without producing any result of any kind;* terminating on the 24th of July, 1661.† In the mean time, namely, early in May, the Convocation had met, and proceeded at once with a review of the Liturgy, which review was not finished until the following December; but, "on the 20th of December, 1661, the Book of Common Prayer [so revised] was adopted and subscribed by the Clergy of both Houses of Convocation and of both Provinces." In the following March, after a further slight revision, this book was printed, and was accepted as it stood by both Houses of Parliament. But neither were any alterations or additions made that can affect the question we are now considering, nor have we any record of the sense affixed to the Prayer Book by Convocation, much less any declaration that the Prayer Book was to be understood according to a certain mode of interpretation. There is not the slightest pretext for saying that Convocation ever contemplated anything of the kind. And though the probability is, that, in the circumstances under which that Convocation met, the Laudian party formed the majority, there is also every reason to think, that there was a considerable and respectable body of its members, who would have been entirely opposed to any such proceeding. Further, that Parliament sanctioned the Book of Common Prayer as the Book of the Convocation of that period, and in See Cardwell's Conferences, pp. 264-266. † Ib. p. 369. § Ib. p. 373. their view of its meaning, is not merely a groundless assertion, but directly opposed to the testimony of facts and of the Act itself by which the Book was confirmed, that is, the Act of Uniformity. For we find that the House of Commons (however indisposed to favour the violent Nonconformists) were very jealous of any alterations being made in the Book by Convocation, lest they should introduce into it Laudian views. So little were they inclined to defer to the views of Convocation about the Prayer Book, that on the 9th of July, 1661, before Convocation had had time to make any progress in their revision of the Book, “a 'Bill for the uniformity of public Prayer and administration of the Sacraments,' was read for the third time, and, together with a copy of the Prayer Book, printed in 1604, was passed and sent to the Upper House ;"* the book of 1604 being selected, Dr. Cardwell supposes, in order to avoid any alterations by Archbishop Laud. The consideration of this Bill was deferred by the Lords, and its first reading did not take place till the 14th of "Three days afterwards it passed through the February, 1662. second reading, and was placed in the hands of a select committee. The Book of Common Prayer, however, [that is, the Book as revised by Convocation] was not yet delivered to them; and the Committee having inquired on the 13th of February, with strong symptoms of impatience, whether they should still wait for it, or should proceed upon the book brought from the Commons,' they received a Royal message on the 25th of the same month, together with an authentic copy of the corrected Prayer Book confirmed under the Great Seal."+ This revised Book having been substituted for the other, and some other amendments introduced into the Bill, the Bill passed the House of Lords on the 9th of April, 1662, and was returned to the House of Commons. The House of Lords was satisfied with the alterations made, and passed them sub silentio; but as to the sense in which the Book was understood, each member of course acted upon his own view of it. And it is very clear, that they did not consider themselves bound to abide by what took place in Convocation, for they proceeded as far as the Committee with * Ib. p. 376. † Ib. p. 377. the Book of 1604, when they must have known that Convocation had completed a revision of the Book, and were evidently inclined to have brought the matter to a conclusion upon that Book, if the revised Book had not been at once submitted to them. But the feeling with which the House of Commons acted in the matter is still more strongly marked; for when the Bill was returned to them from the Lords with the revised Book of Common Prayer, "it appears," says Dr. Cardwell, "that the Commons were jealous of the preference given to the corrected Book of Common Prayer over the edition of 1604, and suspecting that some differences might have been introduced between the two periods when the books were respectively printed,* directed a close comparison to be made between them. On the 16th of April, they proceeded so far in their fear of change, as to make it a question whether they should not reconsider the corrections made in Convocation; and though they decided to adopt them without further examination, the division was only of ninety-six to ninety in their favour. In order to save the dignity of the House, they afterwards divided on the question whether they had the power of reconsidering such corrections, and then obtained a vote in the affirmative."+ And Dr. Cardwell adds, that "the fear, which the Commons seem to have contracted, that occasion would be taken for introducing into the Liturgy the religious sentiments of Archbishop Laud and his school of theologians, was not altogether without foundation." Glad enough, no doubt, would the Laudian party have been, if they could have introduced various alterations into our Formularies at this time. But, providentially, the power of doing so was not in their hands. So much, then, for the feelings with which the Houses of Parliament were actuated on this occasion. But, finally, what are the words of the Act itself of Uniformity? The first clause of it runs thus,— * Dr. Cardwell observes in a note, that "the corrected book was probably a copy of the printed edition of 1634, (at which time Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury,) with the corrections [made in Convocation] inserted." † Ib. p. 378. Ib. p. 389. |