Four Years in France - Beste Henry Digby

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the marriages of catholics and dissenters shall be celebrated according to the rite of the English church. I did not bring forward the remark, that divorce is permitted in England; nor did I observe, that by the French law on the subject, no yoke was imposed on the conscience, since no married persons were required to divorce themselves, but only allowed to do so. I am entirely of opinion that such a law is highly to be reprobated in a civil point of view; but in what concerns religion, let each man's conscience take care of itself.

      But my main grief against the French legislators was the plunder and degradation of their church. In treating this matter, I as much forgot, as if I had never heard or read, that, not much more than two centuries before this period, all the bishops of England, (excepting only him of Llandaff,) and about ten thousand clergy, were deprived of their benefices, and sent to beg their bread all over Europe; and this, not because they would not accept a civil constitution, but because they would not accede to a new religion; and this, not in a time of civil tumult, and under the pressure of foreign invasion; but at the bidding of a young woman of five and twenty. But "tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet," was a sentiment pretty generally felt at this time in England: to this sentiment, more than to any love of their religion, the French clergy may attribute the hospitable reception they met with in England. The deed was benevolent whatever its motive, and in the deed I had more than my share.

      In writing this essay, I struggled, and, as Longinus says, lashed my sides through two or three pages of introduction, and immediately afterwards found my composition to flow from me with tolerable ease: I wrote with less difficulty than I now experience, and am surprised that I so soon acquired a style by no means faulty. I do not say this for my petite gloriole, but because it seems a part of my story to give the reader a measure of my juvenile ability. I consulted two friends on the question of publication: they advised against it, told me I could do better, and pointed to the first part. Richard Paget also desired me to write the introduction over again, but did not, as my other better-judging friends had done, counsel the suppression. I went to London to find a printer: it was impossible here to sit down to correct; and I made a book of it as it was. Valenciennes was, at that time, besieged by the Duke of York, and it was generally supposed that the allied armies were a better bulwark of Christianity than a shilling pamphlet. The printer told me that Christianity was a very good thing, and that nobody doubted it.

      In November following I preached before the university, at St. Mary's church, a sermon on the text, "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." I asserted, that the power of absolving sin neither had been, nor could have been, abandoned by our reformers; defended the power against all impugners and repugners; and indicated the evil consequences resulting from allowing it to lie in abeyance. After some declamation respecting the horrors then perpetrated in a neighbouring nation, and some fears respecting the removal of our candlestick, – I concluded by trusting, that all whom it might concern would acquit themselves as faithful stewards of the mysteries of God. The leading members of the university were prodigal in praise of this discourse. One of them, afterwards a bishop, preached the Sunday following at St. Mary's, to assure the university that I was in the right; a confirmation which, considering my youth and inexperience, he justly deemed by no means superfluous. Another, whom I should be proud to name were there no indiscretion in doing so, bought the sermon when published; a compliment which, my printer told me, he had not paid to any of those published for many years past. He might do this, it may be said, as finding the sermon supremely ridiculous; but this supposition is negatived by the gracious manner in which, from this time, though I had not yet the honour of his acquaintance, he always saluted me in passing; his high station and character permitted to him this mode of signifying his approbation to one unknown, and rendered it peculiarly gratifying to me.

      Some, however, cried out "flat popery;" but the words in which the priest is directed to give absolution in the "Order for the Visitation of the Sick," are so precise; the assertion of the right in all cases is here so formal; (for it is not supposed that a physician is to be sent for to determine whether the penitent patient is sick enough to be absolved) the practice, in respect to penance, of those early ages to which the church of England appeals, is so well known; – that the cry of "flat popery" could not be sustained. Indeed, the sermon bears on the face of it some very outrageous abuse of the Romish church; but this abuse is so much a matter of course, that it would hardly have served as a justification, had one been wanted. I professed myself contented to be as popish as the church of England.

      One of the heads of the university said to me: "The doctrine of your excellent discourse is clearly the doctrine of the church of England: she asserts the right of absolution to be inherent in her clergy, but the people will not submit to the exercise of the power." This is true; it is true also, that the clergy very prudently abstain, in general, from sounding the inclinations of the people on the subject. My attempt must rather be considered, from the place in which the discourse was delivered, as a sort of concio ad clerum.

      I have heard of one clergyman who made the attempt; he preached to his people of the power belonging to him, as a priest, of absolving them from their sins, and of the benefit which they would derive, if truly penitent, from confession and absolution; concluding by fixing a time, at which he would be at home, to hear all those who should have any communications to make to him with such intention. This discourse caused a mighty hubbub in the parish; people did not know what to make of it; some doubted if their clergyman could seriously mean what he had said: one old woman did not hesitate to declare "she would be d – d if she would tell him all she knew." The confusion ceased in due time; but the people neglected to avail themselves of the offer of their pastor.

      Some time before, a book had been recommended to me, which I found great difficulty in procuring; at last I found it in the very centre of the fashionable world. I went into Faulder's shop, in Bond Street. "Have you Pluralities Indefensible, by Dr. Newton, founder of Hertford College?" – "It is a book which I always take care to have by me, for the best of all possible reasons, – I am always sure of selling it." – "I should not have supposed that. Who buy it? Any clergymen?" – "Yes." – "What use do they make of it?" Mr. Faulder understood my question. I have forgotten his answer, but it was discreet.

      Non-residence on benefices with cure of souls, was one of those abuses in catholic discipline, which, more than any other, tended to bring on the Reformation; it is an abuse which that Reformation has not yet reformed.

      I read my book on Pluralities, and was convinced that they were indefensible. Having not yet learned, – perhaps having yet to learn, that "the better part of valour is discretion," – soon after my sermon on absolution, I preached in the same church as before, to a congregation composed as before, a discourse, in which I detailed the evils of pluralities, as necessitating non-residence, and the appointment of "hired substitutes, improperly called curates," to perform those duties, which the principal has engaged to perform, and which, unless disabled, he is in conscience bound to perform personally. This discourse was not heard with the same approbation as the former.

      "Religious persuasion" is a phrase bandied about by men who have no very accurate notion of the sense in which they employ the words. One cannot be persuaded of a truth: he may believe that to be true which is not so; but then he judges it to be true, – he is not persuaded; one cannot even be persuaded of a fact; the judgment and the senses are not to be persuaded. In religion, a man either believes, or doubts, or rejects: if he believe, his belief, on account of the supernatural authority to which he submits himself, is called faith. But, if in religion there be sects and parties, he may be persuaded by circumstances to choose one party rather than another; but this is a persuasion that respects the accessaries to religion, not the religion itself. If he adopt or profess the religion, without believing it, he is a hypocrite. I have laid down these principles by which to try my own conduct during my stay in Magdalen College.

      If I were conscious of any insincerity in my adherence to the church of England, during this period, I would now declare it; I hold myself bound to tell the truth, and not intentionally to lead the reader into any misapprehension. I had certainly committed a great fault in not prosecuting the inquiry begun by the reading of the Rheims Translation of the New Testament: it was the fault of my boyhood, – a fault of which, on human grounds even, I have but too much cause to repent. By not bringing this inquiry, at that time, to the point to which

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