A History of the English Church Volume 6 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 Excerpt: ...of Rome; the first was to be imputed to a complaisance 1 The publication in 1650 of The King of Scotland's Negotiations at Rami rendered it necessary to publish a full refutation of the charges in 1660. x CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 181 for the company he was then obliged to keep, and the last to a lazy diffidence in all other religions, upon a review of his past life, and the near approach of an uncertain state." Such is the judgment of Dr. James Welwood, writing in 1700. And it is indubitably correct. If it is true that the Presbyterian ministers who went over to see him at the Hague were befooled by listening to him at his prayers for a heart "constant in the exercise and protection of thy true Protestant religion," and tender to nonconformists, the sorry jest was one which he must thoroughly have enjoyed. He offered liberty, no doubt gladly and honestly, but he would certainly oppose no personal convictions to the wishes of the majority of Englishmen, for fear he should "go on his travels again." And the opinion of England, or of the strongest party in England, was soon manifest. Charles II. was proclaimed in London on May 8, 1660, by order of the newly-elected Convention. On the 12th he was proclaimed at Durham. A typical parish register adds, "on which day I, Stephen Hogg, began to use again the Book of Common Prayer." The king's first Sunday in England was spent at Canterbury, where the Common Prayer was again read in the cathedral church. On the 2 9th of May he entered London in triumph. On the king's return an Act was passed restoring to their benefices all clergy who had been deprived since the rebellion began, if they were not concerned in the king's The Restora. death, or Anabaptists; and this was carried out, tio...