CHAPTER IV
As to Sir
Edward Atkyns he lived much nearer Saham (his house at Pickenham being within 3
miles of it). Dr. Prideaux had much frequenter converse with him and he always
found him a person of great probity piety and goodness. He had in the Reign of
King James the 2nd been Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in which post he
acted with great justice and integrity especially towards the clergy whose just
rights he would never suffer to be oppressed while he presided in that Court.
But he having given his opinion for the dispensing power, and having refused to
take the oaths to King William and Queen Mary on their succession to the
throne, this excluded him from all places in the government under that reign.
Whereon he retired to his house at Pickenham and there lived quietly with great
respect and esteem from his neighbours, to whome he was very useful In
reconciling their differences. For when any controversy arose among them they
usually referred it to his arbitration, which he always decided with justice
and equity and most an end to the satisfaction of both parties. Scarce a week
passed in which he had not several of these causes brought before him, and it
was the main employment and also the main delight of his retirement to do all
the good he could by fairly deciding them and several at length resorted to him
with their causes from a great distance for this purpose, especially he was
very kind to the clergy, in directing them on all ocasions for the recovery of
their dues, stating to them as often as they consulted him what they had a just
claim to and what they had not, and directing them how they might best recover
what was justly due to them. As to the oaths, though he always refused to take
them, he condemned no one else that did. His usual saying was when discoursed
with about this matter that the Devil was busy with men on their death beds,
and therefore he would keep his mind free, that when he should come to die, he
might have no doubts or fears as to this case upon his conscience then to
disturb him.
As to his
giving his opinion for the dispensing power in the King, he often acknowledged
to Dr. Prideaux his error herein, but as often as he did so he constantly
declared that he was fully persuaded of the legality of the power in the Crown
at the same time when he gave his opinion for it, but that he had been since
convinced of his mistake herein. Almost a year after Dr. Prideaux left Saham
Sir Edward also left Pickenham and removed with his family to London, where he
not long after died of the stone, after his death his son sold Pickenham to one
Mr. Chute whose son now inherits it and lives upon the place.
In the
beginning of the year 1691 it being thought time to fill the vacant dioceses,
Dr. Tillotson Dean of Pauls was declared Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr.
Beveridge Bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr. Fowler Bishop of Gloucester, Dr.
Cumberland Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Moor Bishop of Norwich and Dr. Patrick
was translated from Chichester to Ely and Dr. Grove was made Bishop of
Chichester in his place, and Dr. Ironside Bishop of Bristol was translated to
Hereford and Dr. Hall was nominated to the Bishoprick of Bristol in his stead.
But Dr. Beveridge having refused to take the Bishoprick of Bath and Wells by
reason of his friendship with Bishop Ken. who had been outed of the same for
not taking the oaths. Dr. Kidder Dean of Peterborough and one of the
prebendarys of Norwich an especial friend of Dr. Prideaux's was appointed
Bishop of the Diocese in his stead. About the same time Dr. Lamplough
Archbishop of York dying, Dr. Sharpe Dean of Canterbury was appointed to
succeed him. And all these being settled in the several Bishopricks before the
next session of parliament they then all took their places therein, and hereby
the Bishops bench in the upper house became again filled, which till then had
been very thin ever since the revolution.
While the
filling of these Sees was in deliberation, the Bishops of London and St. Asaph
both earnestly recommended Dr. Prideaux for the Bishopric of Norwich, without
his knowledge and also without his desire. For had their recommendation taken
place and the Dr. been thereon named to that Bishopric, he must have followed
Dr. Beveridges example and refused the acceptance of it, and that for the same
reason as Dr. Beveridge did, that is because of his great friendship with
Bishop Lloyd. For one of the last things which that good Bishop did in his
diocese being to make Dr. Prideaux Archdeacon of Suffolk. If one of the next things
that the Dr. should do after this should be to turn him out of his Bishopric it
would bear ill among the generality of Mankind and be looked upon as a base and
ungrateful act towards his benefactor. Dr. Prideaux well knew that there was no
justice in such a censure, for if Bishop Lloyd could not with a safe conscience
bring himself to take these oaths, which was by the law of the land to qualify
him to hold his Bishopric he did well to quit it, rather than act against his
conscience herein, but this is no reason that the Church of God in that diocese
should therefore want a Pastor. In this case where one will not another must,
rather than the people be deprived of having the means of salvation all duly
administered to them. But Dr. Prideaux knowing how much it is necessary for a
Bishop to have the good esteem of his people in order to make his ministry
efficacious among them, and that this esteem is as much diminished by actions
mistakenly reputed evil as by those which truly are so, he thought a Bishop ought
to be such as Caesar would have his wife to be, that is not only clear of
fault, but also clear of all imputation of it. But however this be, Dr. Moor
being in some danger of miscarrying in his pretensions to this Bishopric by Dr.
Prideaux's being recommended to it (as he most likely would had the Dr. known
of this recommendation and had thought fit to pursue it on the place as the
other did) he hated Dr. Prideaux ever after and scarce suffered any opportunity
to escape of offering a injury or an indignity unto him, but he did it. But the
Dr. resolving to keep from having any quarrel with him, while he was his
diocesan he overlooked all this ill usuage, and seemed not to see it. But when
he was made Bishop of Ely and came to Norwich only to take his leave and remove
from thence, Dr. Prideaux then took an opportunity to let him know, he was not
insensible of the wrong he had done him, though he had overlooked them to avoid
having any quarrel with him as long as he was his diocesan. After this he
rather courted Dr. Prideaux's friendship than pursued any further resentments
against him.
In the
first sessions of parliament, after the new Bishops had taken their seats
therein, two bills were brought into the House of Lords relating to the Church
in both which Dr. Prideaux happened to be concerned. The first was to take away
pluralitys of benefices with care of souls. The other to prevent clandestine
marriages, that which was for taking away pluralitys of benefices with care of
souls, was chiefly pushed on By Dr. Burnet Bishop of Salisbury, but before any
thing was offered to the Parliament that learned and worthy Bishop communicated
the design with a draught of it to Dr. Prideaux and asked his advice upon it.
The Dr. in his letter which he wrote to the Bishop in answer hereto made 3
objections against it, first that it was too long for the privilege which the
Lords have of qualifying the chaplains for pluralitys being what they will be
very unwilling to have taken away or lessened, it is to be expected that the bill
will meet with great opposition in the upper house and every word of it will be
there scanned in order to baffle it, and therefore the more words there are in
it, the larger scope will be given for objections. Secondly it takes away all
pluralitys without exception, whereas there are a great number of Parishes in
England so meanly provided with maintenance for their ministers, that unless
they be allowed to be served by some of the neighbouring clergy, they will be
wholly deserted and not served at all and therefore it is necessary that in
this case at least pluralitys be allowed. Thirdly it seemed to out those of
pluralitys who had by legal dispensations been settled in them before the date
of the bill, which would be thought a great hardship upon the present
possessors who have purchased those dispensations and make the bill the more
hardly pass the parliament. His advice therefore was that the bill without any
retrospect to what was past should only provide that all pluralitys for the
future should be restrained within the limits of five miles distance, measuring
it by the common road from one Church to the other and that all this be
expressed in as short a bill as possible, such a bill at his Lordship's request
the Dr. drew up and sent it to him with a short treatise concerning his reasons
for the same. This bill was by his Lordship offered to the Archbishop, who at a
meeting of the Bishops at Lambeth, haying laid it before them with several
other draughts prepared for this purpose, Dr. Prideaux's bill was unanimously
approved and chosen by them before all the other draughts, and it was then
agreed that this said be the bill that should be offered to parliament. But the
Lords were so fond of their privilege of qualifying the chaplains for
pluralitys, that they would admit of nothing that should in the least diminish
or restrain it and therefore would not allow the bill as much as a reception to
be once read in the House. But Dr. Prideaux hoping that there might be a time
hereafter when the good of the Church should prevail to have this again
considered with better success, and that this bill and treatise might then be
of use, for the reforming of this matter, for the better preserving of them
against that time, caused the both of them in the year 1710 to be published at
the end of his book concerning the original and Right of Tythes.
As to the
other bill against clandestine marriages, it was brought into the upper house
byone of the Lay Lords and the purport of it was to make it felony in the minister
that should solemnise the marriage, this bearing a large debate. Dr. Kidder
then Bishop of Bath and Wells wrote to Dr. Prideaux to desire his opinion about
it. Dr. Prideaux having received his Lordship's letter on Monday morning by the
next post after that is on Wednesday night following returned an answer
containing about 3 sheets of papers, in which he showed that the original the
Law for the preventing of clandestine marriages ordains that the Banns of
matrimony be three tiroes published in the Church or Chapel to which each party
belonged before any marriage shall be solemnised between them. Secondly that
this law is not to be dispended with or any licence granted thereon to marry
without the publication of Banns but to persons of good state and quality.
Thirdly, that all such dispensations and licences be granted only by the
ecclesiastical Judge who hath power to examine upon oath, whither the said
marriage may be legally celebrated or not. Fourthly, that the Judge on his
examining into the case must have it vouched to him by the oath of one of the
partys at least that there is no let or impediment or precontract
con-sanguinity affirmity or of any other cause whatsoever nor any such
commenced in any ecclesiastical Court to bar or hinder the proceeding of the
said matrimony, and he must further have it attested by the oaths of two other
witnesses whereof one is to be known to the Judge that the party to be married
if underage have the consent of parents or guardians in case of the death of
parents, and when he is satisfied of all this and hath also taken security for
the same, he may then and not before decree for the dispensation and grant
licence accordingly for the celebrations of marriage without publication of
Banns provided he direct it to be done in the Church or Chapel to which both or
one of the partys do belong and not elsewhere. And fifthly, the Dr. further
showed in the said letter that in case all these Rules and Precautions were
duly executed and observed it is scarce possible any clandestine marriage could
ever happen. But should they be all observed not one third part of those
licences which are now made sale of would be granted out which would very
considerably diminish the income which Chancellors commissarys and their
Registers make of their places, and therefore they have by a general conspiracy
all England over, set them all aside for the sake of promoting their own unjust
lucre, for now instead of observing the rules and taking the precautions and
securitys above mentioned in granting matrimonial licences, Chancellors and
commissarys seal them in heaps with blanks to be filled up for any that will
pay for them and thus send them to market all over the jurisdictions to be put
off at random to any that need them, without any other examination than of the
purse of the purchaser whither he hath enough in it to pay their fees. And
hereby it comes to pass that abundance of ruinous matches under the authority
of these illegal licences are constantly made and the Church bears the scandal of
them. And of one particular, Dr. Prideaux in the said letter doth take especial
notice, that is that whereas the Canons of 1603 do more than once enjoin that
all marriages be celebrated in the Church or Chapel to which both or one of the
partys belong that so the minister might not be surprised into the celebrating
of an illegal or unfitting marriage by his not knowing the partys, they take
upon them the liberty of acting contrary to this rule according to their
pleasure, and without any regard to the Canons which perscribe it, direct the
licences to be executed in any Church or Chapel within their respective
jurisdictions which the partys or either of them shall desire and hereby most
of the stolen marriages that are complained of have been made which in all
likelyhood would have been prevented had this rule been duly observed, for all
persons being usually well known within the parishes where they live,
especially to the minister, the fraud of such a marriage cannot but be seen and
discovered, when it comes to him to be executed, and also if he be not a very
ill man be hindered and prevented by him. Places where the partys are least
known are the properest for such an act of fraud and illegality and they cannot
want such as long as Chancellors and commissarys take the liberty to assign to
them any they shall desire and hereby encourage and help forward the iniquity
which they are bound to prevent.
And
therefore it was Dr. Prideaux's advice to the Bishop of Bath and Wells that he
should endeavour to prevail with his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
rest of the Lords the Bishops to put the laws in enaction which are already
made against clandestine marriages, for better laws cannot be contrived for the
reforming of this abuse than those which are already to be found in our
ecclesiastical constitutions for this purpose, and were these laws duly
observed and duly persecuted against all that violate them, there would be no
need of making acts of parliament establishing of sanguiniary laws against us
for the preventing of this iniquity.
As to the
bill itself Dr. Prideaux in his said letter declared that should it pass into
an act it would be in his opinion the greatest hardship that was ever put upon
the clergy in any Christian state. For it would be a continual share of ruin
and destruction upon them, in that it would make them liable to be tried for
their lives for every marriage they should celebrate. That it would be a poor
salvo to say the licence would be their security, for who would care to carry his
life in a scrip of paper, the rats might eat it up, and a hundred accidents may
happen to destroy it and then the minister must be hanged for want of it. Dr.
Prideaux for his part further declared to the Bishops that after the passing of
this bill he would never any more marry any and did believe that all other
ministers who had any regard for their own safety would take the same
resolution, and then the bill instead of preventing clandestine marriages would
operate so far as to put a stop for the future to all other marriages
whatsoever. These considerations when offered to the house in debate, were
thought to carry that weight with them, that they who brought in the bill were
content to drop it and pressed it no further.
The
Bishop of Bath and Wells on his perusal of this letter forthwith sent it to the
press without Dr. Prideaux's knowledge or consent, and the next week after it
came down to the Dr. in print, to his great surprise and he would have been
very much offended at it, but that the Bishop spared him so much as not to put
his name to it.
In the
same year 1691 towards the end of the long vacation died Dr. Edward Polock the
eminent Hebrew Professor at Oxford in the 88th year of his age, on his death
Dr. Prideaux was offered his professor's place, but there were then several
reasons which made it inconvenient for him to accept of it, but it afterwards
proved much to his damage that he did not.
About
Whitsunday AD 1692 Bishop Moor first came into his diocese and Dr. Prideaux
then attended him as one of his Archdeacons for the examining of the candidates
who offered themselves to be ordained on the Trinity Sunday following of 19 who
presented themselves to the Bishop for this purpose, the Dr. found this wholly
insufficient and would have rejected them as such. But the Bishop ordained them
all except one only, who could not construe any one line in the Latin
Testament. And Dr. Prideaux finding that in his future ordinations he followed
the same course seldom putting by any that offered themselves how insufficient
soever provided they had some portent friend to speak for them, he would no
more concern himself in this matter, but for many years after while he
continued Bishop of Norwich he absented himself from all his ordinations as not
being able with a safe conscience to join with him in them.
He used
very much to complain of the monstrous ignorance he had met with in the
examination of those who were candidates for orders, several offering
themselves for admission into the sacred office of conducting other men to the
salvation of their souls who knew not enough of the Common Doctrine of
Christianity how to save their own. While religion remained in familys and God
was daily worshipped in them children were bred up early to know him and
parents took care duly to instruct them herein, and thus the principles of
Christianity being at first instilled into them they grew up with them to
further knowledge according as they grew up to be further capable of it. And
while young men were thus educated, when any of them were sent to the
university there to be fitted by their studys for the ministry of religion they
brought some knowledge of religion thither with them, and thereby became the
sooner and the more effectually qualified to be teachers of it. But when family
devotion and family instruction through the means already mentioned became
neglected, and this neglect through the corruption of the times hath grown so
fast in them as now in a great measure to have overspread the land, young men
frequently come to the Universitys without any knowledge or tincture of
religion at all, and seldom there improving themselves herein while under
graduates because the method of instruction in those schools of literature lead
them to place their studys in philosophy and other parts of prophane learning,
they are usually admitted to their first degree that of Bachelor of Arts, with
the same ignorance as to all sacred knowledge as they were when they first
admitted into the university, yet many of them as soon as they have taken the
said Degree offering themselves for orders, are too often admitted to be
teachers in the Church when they are fit only to be Cathechumens therein. This
consideration made Dr. Prideaux often lament the case of Dr. Busbys
benefaction, who offered to found two Catechestical Lectures, one in each
university and each of 100 per annum for the instructing of the under graduates
in the rudiments of the Christian religion, provided that all the said under
graduates should be obliged to attend the said Lecture and none of them to be
admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts, but such only as should be examined
by the Catechist as to that knowledge in Doctrines and precepts of the
Christian religion and be approved of by him, but this condition being rejected
by both the universitys, the benefaction was rejected therewith and the Church
has since suffered by the loss of it.