two hundred years the bishops had found it very difficult to make sinners submit to the canonical penances; which indeed had been rendered impracticable by multiplying them so much—whence came the invention of commutations, and of buying off the penances of many years in a few days. And amongst these commutations, it had been for a long time a practice to enjoin pilgrimages to Rome, to Compostella, or to Jerusalem: to which pilgrimages the Croisade now added the perils of war. It was thought, therefore, that such a penance as this was equivalent to the fastings, prayers, and almsgivings, which each penitent could perform in particular; and that it would be more useful to the church, and not less agreeable to God.

"This indulgence [a licence in fact to rob and plunder] served the Croisez in lieu of pay; and I find not in the first voyages any raising of tenths, to defray the [charge of the] troops. The nobles, who knew themselves for the most part guilty of many crimes, and amongst others of pillaging the churches, and robbing the poor, thought it a favour to have no other penance imposed upon them than their own common occupation and practice, which was fighting; together with the prospect, if they fell in battle, to be ranked among the martyrs. Before this time, one part of penance had been, neither to bear arms nor to go on horseback. Now, both the one and the other, was not only permitted, but required: so that the Croisez changed only the object of their enterprizes, without changing in the least their way of life. The nobles drew after them the populace, most of whom were vassals confined to the lands, and entirely dependent on their lords; and doubtless chose rather to follow them in this voyage, than to sit at home confined to agriculture, or to laborious trades. Thus were formed those immense armies which we find in history. To march toward the Holy Land was thought sufficient to secure the salvation of the traveller."

Ecclesiastics took up the cross, as their ensign, and became soldiers as well as others. Even the monks and their Abbots armed themselves, and thought to expiate their crimes by the Croisade. Fleury remarks, "The prelates of the fifth century did not act thus. St. Leo, the Pope, and St. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, stopped Attila by no other weapons than prayers and arguments; and they who could not pacify these barbarians by meekness, and mildness, suffered themselves to be massacred.'

There was little discipline among them-composed as they were of volunteers of divers nations, led by chiefs iudependent of each other, with none in supreme command but the Pope's legate; they did not. forbear acts of hostility till they should enter into the lands of the infidels. In their passage they ravaged and pillaged the Hungarians, Bohemians, and Greeks, though Christians, and cut to pieces all who opposed their violence. On these occasions so many of them perished, that their numbers were considerably diminished when they arrived.

"At last they arrived at Jerusalem, besieged and took it:-but corrupted this victory by the ill use they made of it, putting all the

Mahometans to the sword, and filling Jerusalem with blood. Could they hope to exterminate and abolish this [the Mahometan] religion and its great empire, which extended itself from Spain to the Indies? And what idea of the Christian religion did it give to the infidels? Would it not have been more conformable to the spirit of the Gospel to treat them with kindness and humanity, and to be contented with securing, by this conquest, the liberty of pilgrimages to the Holy Land? [A great acquisition this, to be made by a war!] Saladin [the Turkish prince] when he retook Jerusalem behaved himself in a much more decent manner; and knew how to reproach the Christians with the barbarity of their parents.

"True religion should be preserved and extended by the same methods by which it was established: by preaching, accompanied with discretion, by the practice of every virtue, and above all by an unwearied patience and perseverance When it shall please God to add to these the gift of miracles, the progress will be swifter.— Machiavel, who observes that unarmed prophets never were successful, shews both his impiety and his ignorance; since Jesus Christ, the most unarmed of all men, was he whose conquests were the most rapid and the most solid-such conquests, I say, as he aimed at, by gaining the hearts and changing the dispositions from evil to good; which no other Conqueror, besides him, ever effected.

"War produceth only outward compliance, compelling the conquered to submit to the will of the conqueror, to pay him tribute, and to execute his orders. As to religion, all that is in the power of the sovereign is to hinder the public exercise of that which he disapproves, and to cause the external ceremonies of his own to be practised: that is, to punish those who in these points are not conformable to his will. For if they despise temporal punishments, he can go no further: he hath no direct power over their wills.

"We should also quit an opinion which hath been too prevalent for many ages, that a religion is lost in a country where it hath ceased to be predominant, and supported by the temporal powers; as Christianity in Greece and Natolia, and the Catholic faith in the Northern regions. It was, doubtless, to guard us against this error God thought fit to form Christianity under Pagan domination, and to strengthen it, during three centuries, in the midst of the most cruel oppression and persecution. An invincible proof that his religion stands not in need of human support, that he alone upholds it, and that the opposition of earthly powers only serves to confirm and purify his Church. Jortin, Eccl. hist. iii. 409.

I have been advised professionally not to publish this work, although deemed by myself one "of piety and charity "(See the Act) out of the times prescribed by the Law. This number therefore, though bearing date sixteen days earlier, will not appear till the time of the publication of No. VIII, the Ist. of Eleventh Month. Ed.

Communications may be addressed, POST PAID, "For the Editor of the Yorkshireman at the Printer's, Pontefract; at Longman & Co's London; Baines & Newsome's, Leeds; and W. Simpson's, York.

CHARLES ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT

THE

YORKSHIREMAN,

A

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY JOURNAL

No. VIII.

BY A FRIEND.

PRO PATRIA.

FIFTH DAY, 1st ELEVENTH Mo. 1832. PRICE 4d. ART. I. On the Affirmation: Protest of certain Lords against it ; with Remarks.

In the Commons' House of Parliament, (Sir Thomas Lyttleton, Bart. Speaker, in December, 1698, John Archdale, a Quaker, who had been elected Member for the borough of Chipping Wycomb, Bucks, refusing to take the oath, a new writ was issued to choose another burgess.

In January, 1721, (the Hon. Spencer Compton, Speaker,) an Act was passed (8 Geo. I. c. 6-the second on this account) for granting the people called Quakers such forms of affirmation or declaration, may remove the difficulties which many of them lie under.

as

"Reciting, that for giving some ease to scrupulous consciences, an Act was made, 1 Wm. and Mary, c. 18, whereby, among other things, a declaration of fidelity, in the form therein expressed, is appointed to be made by certain persons, dissenters from the Church of England, who scruple the taking of any oath And reciting, that an Act was made, 7 and 8 Wm. III. intituled, 'An Act that the solemn affirmation and declaration of the people called Quakers shall be accepted instead of an oath in the usual form,' under the provisions therein mentioned; which Act being at first temporary, was afterwards further continued by 13 and 14 Wm. III. and the same Act is made perpetual by an Act made in the first year of his then Majesty's reign; by which last mentioned Act, a form, importing the effect of the abjuration oath, is prescribed to be taken by the said people called Quakers: And reciting, that the inconveniences to the said people called Quakers, and their families, and to others requiring their testimony, in many cases, were not sufficiently avoided, by reason of difficulties among the said Quakers, relating to the forms of the declaration, affirmation, and abjuration, before mentioned, as the same were then prescribed: And reciting, that it was evident that the said people called Quakers had not abused the liberty and indulgence allowed to them by law, and that they had given testimony of their fidelity and affection to his Majesty, and the settlement of the Crown in the Protestant line; and that it was reasonable to give them further ease and relief: It is then enacted, that in all cases where, by law, any Quaker is, or shall be,

P

required or permitted, to make and subscribe the declaration of fidelity, in the form prescribed by the said first mentioned Act, or to make the solemn affirmation or declaration, in the form prescribed by 7 and 8 Wm. III. or to take the effect of the abjuration oath, in the form prescribed by the Act of the first year of his then Majesty's reign, every such Quaker shall, instead of such first mentioned declaration of fidelity, make and subscribe a declaration of fidelity in the following words, viz.:

"I, A. B. do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will be true and faithful to King George, and do solemnly, sincerely, and truly profess, testify, and declare, that I do from my heart abhor, detest, and renounce, as impious and heretical, that wicked doctrine and position, that Princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any authority of the see of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever. And I do declare, that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any power, jurisdiction, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm.

"And instead of the solemn affirmation or declaration in the form prescribed by 7 and 8 Wm. III. [which contains an appeal to Almighty God as witnesssee No. V. p. 73] every such Quaker shall make the solemn declaration or affirmation following, viz. 'I, A. B. do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm.'

"And instead of the form prescribed by the said Act of the first year of his then Majesty's reign, for the effect of the abjuration oath, every such Quaker shall take the effect thereof in the words set out in the Act.

"And all persons authorised or required to administer and tender, either the said former declaration of fidelity, or the said former solemn affirmation or declaration, or the former effect of the abjuration oath aforesaid, shall be, and are hereby authorised and required to administer and tender the same respectively, to the said people called Quakers, in the words by this Act respectively appointed.

"Sect. 2. The declaration of fidelity, and solemn affirmation or declaration, and the effect of the abjuration oath, appointed by this Act for the said people called Quakers, instead of the respective forms prescribed for the same by the said recited acts, shall respectively be adjudged and taken to be of such and the same force and effect and no other, to all intents and purposes, IN ALL COURTS OF JUSTICE, AND ELSEWHERE, as if such Quaker had made and subscribed the declaration of fidelity, or had made the solemn affirmation or declaration, or had taken the effect of the abjuration oath, in the respective forms appointed by the said recited acts:

"And if any person making such affirmation or declaration, as is appointed by this Act to be made, instead of the affirmation or declaration in the form prescribed by 7 and 8 Wm. III. shall be lawfully convicted of wilful, false, and corrupt affirming and declaring any matter or thing, which if sworn in the common or usual form would have amounted to wilful and corrupt perjury, every such person so offending shall incur and suffer such and the same pains, penalties, and forfeitures, as are inflicted or enacted by the laws and statutes of this realm against persons convicted of wilful and corrupt perjury,

"Sect. 3. All clauses, provisions, and exceptions, contained in the said recited acts, or any of them, not hereby expressly altered or repealed, shall be of such and the same force and effect as they were before the making of this Act. Davis' Digest, p.32.

The only clause I find, that appears of any importance to the subject, in the Abstract of these Acts, is the following. It is of the 7 and 8 Wm. III. c. 34, sect. 6.

“Provided and it is enacted that no Quaker or reputed Quaker shall, by virtue of this Act, be qualified or permitted to give evidence in any criminal cause, or

to serve on juries, or bear any office or place of profit in the government, any thing herein contained to the contrary, in any wise notwithstanding. Davis.

The representing of any town or county in Parliament falls under none of these heads of exception. It is therefore supposed that, by a favourable construction of the Act, a Quaker might have been qualified, upon the passing of it, to sit in the House, without violating his principle respecting swearing. Whether from having perceived this consequence, or because of the old leaven remaining in the breasts of some peers, I find there was entered in the Lords' journal a Protest against this Act, signed by the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Rochester, [the Jacobite Atterbury, banished within two years after for intriguing to restore the Stuarts!] and the Bishop of Chester; with Compton, Montjoy, Strafford, Trevor, Gower, Salisbury, Aberdeen, and Saint John de Bletsoe.

I shall not occupy the scanty room of my Periodical with this document, it being somewhat long; but shall take the freedom of a respondent, to give an account of it in my own way. The protest begins with stating that the privileges allowed by this Bill to the Quakers, are without example [and so, doubtless, are many things which are allowed by Parliament] and no ways proportionate to the steps formerly taken towards a gradual indulgence of them: and proceeds to complain that these great privileges are not doled out, as the less were, from time to time,' but are at once made PERPETUAL. Good! one hundred and ten years have since passed, let us be thankful for this advance towards perpetuity.] Next it refuses to Quakers 'the name of Christians,' on the ground of their disuse of the two sacraments of Christ,' and insinuates that they had not given even the evidence by law required of their belief of his Divinity; not one in a hundred of them having subscribed the profession of Christian belief of 7 Wm. and Mary, in that behalf provided. Nor could Dissentients, upon a motion in the House, prevail that they should even now be obliged by such previous subscription to entitle themselves to the new and extraordinary favours designed them. [Better! this would have been to have the Inquisition and all, with his other favours!] But they looked upon it as highly unreasonable, that in a kingdom where Nobles, Clergy, and Commons are obliged [here was the rub, I suppose, to Rochester] to swear fealty to the Crown, a particular set of men, who refuse to serve the state either as civil officers [query, in what office? I know not] or as soldiers, should be entirely released from an oath, and left to be disloyal at their pleasure! Further, there was no mark or test [better still!] whereby to know certainly who were Quakers, and who were not-[for the mantle of charity is, to this day, spread over some not in strict membership with us, on these occasions] a thing which might prove a great inlet to hypocrisy and falsehood, [we shall see, soon, how in this case doctori culpa redarguit' and would naturally tend towards increasing their numbers, which we [Dissentients] rather wish may be every day diminished. Neither did they apprehend that the Quakers, as a sect, were really under such scruples in point of an oath, that it was necessary to ease