CHAPTER V.

The Case of the Nonconformists in the Conference at

the Savoy in 1661.

IT will be remembered that the concessions made in the king's Declaration had respect mainly to church government. Certain ceremonies were left optional; and while it was the wish-not the command-of his majesty, that the Book of Common Prayer should not in any case be wholly laid aside, the minister was left to make his selections from it according to his discretion. All this, however, was for the present, and only preliminary to the promised meeting of learned men to revise that volume, omitting some parts, or supplying others, so as to adapt the whole, as far as possible, to the existing state of feeling. Many Nonconformists were earnest in pressing that this meeting should be promptly convened. One thing only, they said, is now needed to ensure peace and amity. Let there be a satisfactory revision of the liturgy, and let that revision become law, and our troubles will be at an end.

The commission issued for this purpose appointed

The commission.

March 25.

BOOK II. twelve prelates on the one side, and twelve divines, to represent the Presbyterians, on the other. The Nonconformist representatives were nominated by Dr. Reynolds, now bishop Reynolds, and by Mr. Calamy. To ensure a full attendance at each meeting, nine assistants, on either side, were also named to supply the place of any number of the twelve who should be absent. The service required from this commission was, 'To ' review the Book of Common Prayer, comparing the 'same with the most ancient liturgies which have been ' used in the church in the primitive and purest times; and to that end to assemble and meet together, from ' time to time, within the space of four calendar months 'next ensuing, in the master's lodgings in the Savoy, in 'the Strand, in the county of Middlesex, or in such other place or places as shall be thought fit or con'venient, to take into your serious and grave considera'tion the several directions, rules, and forms of prayer, ' and things contained in the said Book of Common 'Prayer, and to advise and consult about the same, and 'the several objections and exceptions that shall now be 'raised against the same. And, if occasion be, to make 'such reasonable and necessary alterations, corrections, ' and amendments therein, as by and between you and 'the said archbishop, bishops, doctors, and persons 'hereby required and authorized to meet and advise as 'aforesaid, shall be agreed upon to be needful or expe'dient for the giving satisfaction to tender consciences, and the restoring and continuance of peace and unity in the churches under our protection and government.' When the commissioners assembled, the archbishop

*Wilkins's Concilia, iv. 570-572. Baxter's Life, 303-305. Cardwell's Conferences, 298-302.

lates take

again.

of York, being the highest dignitary present, was the CHAP. V. first to speak. But it was simply to say that he knew The prelittle of the matter; that the bishop of London, Dr. the course Sheldon, was much better acquainted with the mind of of last year his majesty than himself, and could best explain the exact object before them. Sheldon at once said, the prelates had not sought this conference. It had been convened in deference to those who desired alterations in the liturgy; and as neither himself nor his brethren had. any changes to propose, they could have nothing to say until the nature and extent of the changes required by others should be submitted to them. In brief, as at the meeting of the last year, the demand of their lordships was, that the ministers should present the whole of their exceptions to the liturgy, and their proposed amendments, at once, and in writing. The divines had a painful remembrance of what had resulted from that course of proceeding on a former occasion. They reminded his lordship that the royal commission required them to meet together for the purpose of advice and consultation, and that by a free interchange of thought, after that manner, they might come to understand each other, and reach some conclusion, but that nothing could be less promising than the substitution of a correspondence in the place of a conference. It would be, in fact, a violation of the spirit and letter of the instructions. But these remonstrances availed nothing. Sheldon insisted that the exceptions, alterations, and additions' should all be given in at once, and in the form required.

fers in

Baxter, to the surprise of his brethren, concurred Baxter difwith Sheldon on this point; but for very different judgment reasons. Our opponents, he said, hope to find that b we are of widely different judgments on the points at

from his

brethren.

BOOK. II. issue. By communicating with them in the way proposed, we can best show how largely we are agreed. The amendments on the existing forms, moreover, and the additions we wish to make to them, cannot be presented otherwise than by writing. In oral discussion, too, there would probably be some unadvised and rash speaking; and, above all, every dispute conducted in that form is sure to be more or less misreported, and it became them to be able to show to their congregations, and to the coming time, how they had acquitted themselves in a service of so much difficulty. In the end, the ministers assented, but not without fear that the old policy would be acted upon, and that the reply of the bishops, on thus becoming acquainted with the exact nature and extent of their wishes, would consist as before, of a series of reasons against complying in any of the instances mentioned. To ensure the intended ejectment, two things were needed-to know the concessions deemed indispensable, and to take care that no such concessions should be made.*

Baxter's

exceptions

Prayer.

On retiring from this meeting, certain divines underto the Book took to prepare a paper setting forth the exceptions commonly taken to the Book of Common Prayer by Nonconformists. Baxter engaged to supply such additional or new services as should seem to him desirable. His complaints in relation to the disposition of the material, and to portions of the material itself, in the Prayer Book, were many, few of them being without an appearance of reason, though some might well have been passed over. In its method, or rather no method, its repetitions, and in other particulars, the book was shown to have come from the accidents, more than from any *Baxter's Life, 305, 306.

natural growth, of the past. Baxter's composition, in CHAP. V. consequence, grew into a new liturgy, though he never spoke of it as such, and was far from expecting to see it adopted in place of the old. But it would suffice to show the kind of service with which Presbyterians might be expected to be satisfied; and he was not without hope that portions of it might be so far accepted as to be left optional to those who should prefer them to the older forms. Special exception was taken to the regeneration doctrine in the baptismal service.*

'Exceptions'

In the document under the title of Exceptions,' The joint which was finally agreed upon, and given in on the 4th from the of May, the ministers commence by expressing their ministers. gratitude to his majesty, who had shown himself so much disposed to respect their convictions; and their earnest hope that the prelates would be found to be no less tender of the church's peace,' and no less willing 'to bear with the infirmities of the weak.'t The compilers of the English liturgy were men of eminent worth and sanctity, but it was hardly to be supposed that the first step in reformation had been taken so perfectly as to be properly the last. By many that work was deemed imperfect from the beginning, and the sense of that imperfection had become much wider and deeper through the nation in more recent times. We hold, they say, that the limiting of church communion to things of doubtful disputation has been in all ages a ground of schism and separation;' and that the desire

* Baxter's Life, 306, 307-316.

+ Ibid. 316-336. Baxter says, that in these meetings of his brethren, whatever seemed to make the Prayer Book odious,' or to savour of spleen or passion,' was rejected from whatever quarter it