Andrew Marvell Part 14

Biographers of controversialists seldom do justice to the other side.

Possibly they do not read it, and Parker has been severely handled by my predecessors. He was not an honour to his profession, being, perhaps, as good or as bad a representative of the seamy side of State Churchism as there is to be found. He was the son of a Puritan father, and whilst at Wadham lived by rule, fasting and praying. He took his degree in the early part of 1659, and migrating to Trinity came under the influence of Dr. Bathurst, then Senior Fellow, to whom, so he says in one of his dedications, "I owe my first rescue from the chains and fetters of an unhappy education."[152:2] Anything Parker did he did completely, and we next hear of him in London in 1665, a n.o.bleman's chaplain, setting the table in a roar by making fun of his former friends, "a mimical way of drolling upon the puritans." "He followed the town-life, haunted the best companies and, to polish himself from any pedantic roughness, he read and saw the plays with much care and more preparing than most of the auditory." In 1667 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Sheldon, a very mundane person indeed, made Parker his chaplain, and three years later Archdeacon of Canterbury. He reached many preferments, so that, says Marvell, "his head swell'd like any bladder with wind and vapour." He had an active pen and a considerable range of subject. In 1670 he produced "A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie wherein the Authority of the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of Subjects in Matters of External Religion is a.s.serted; The Mischiefs and Inconveniences of Toleration are represented and all Pretenses pleaded in behalf of _Liberty of Conscience_ are fully answered." Some one instantly took up the cudgels in a pamphlet ent.i.tled _Insolence and Impudence Triumphant_, and the famous Dr. Owen also protested in _Truth and Innocence Vindicated_. Parker replied to Owen in _A Defence and Continuation of Ecclesiastical Politie_, and in the following year, 1672, reprinted a treatise of Bishop Bramholl's with a preface "shewing what grounds there are of Fears and Jealousies of Popery."

This was the state of the controversy when Marvell entered upon it with his _Rehearsal Transprosed_, a fantastic t.i.tle he borrowed for no very good reasons from the farce of the hour, and a very good farce too, the Duke of Buckingham's _Rehearsal_, which was performed for the first time at the Theatre Royal on the 7th of November 1671, and printed early in 1672. Most of us have read Sheridan's _Critic_ before we read Buckingham's _Rehearsal_, which is not the way to do justice to the earlier piece. It is a matter of literary tradition that the duke had much help in the composition of a farce it took ten years to make.

Butler, Sprat, and Clifford, the Master of Charterhouse, are said to be co-authors. However this may be, the piece was a great success, and both Marvell and Parker, I have no doubt, greatly enjoyed it, but I cannot think the former was wise to stuff his plea for Liberty of Conscience so full as he did with the details of a farce. His doing so should, at all events, acquit him of the charge of being a sour Puritan. In the _Rehearsal_ Bayes (Dryden), who is turned by Sheridan in his adaptation of the piece into Mr. Puff, is made to produce out of his pocket his book of _Drama Commonplaces_, and the play proceeds (_Johnson_ and _Smith_ being _Sheridan's_ Dangle and Sneer):

"_Johnson._ _Drama Commonplaces_! pray what's that?

_Bayes._ Why, Sir, some certain helps, that we men of Art have found it convenient to make use of.

_Johnson._ How, Sir, help for Wit?

_Bayes._ I, Sir, that's my position. And I do here averr, that no man yet the Sun e'er shone upon, has parts sufficient to furnish out a Stage, except it be with the help of these my rules.

_Johnson._ What are those Rules, I pray?

_Bayes._ Why, Sir, my first Rule is the Rule of Transversion, or _Regula Duplex_, changing Verse into Prose, or Prose into Verse, _alternative_ as you please.

_Smith._ How's that, Sir, by a Rule, I pray?

_Bayes._ Why, thus, Sir; nothing more easy when understood: I take a Book in my hand, either at home, or elsewhere, for that's all one, if there be any Wit in 't, as there is no Book but has some, I Transverse it; that is, if it be Prose, put it into Verse (but that takes up some time), if it be Verse, put it into Prose.

_Johnson._ Methinks, Mr. _Bayes_, that putting Verse into Prose should be called Transprosing.

_Bayes_. By my troth, a very good Notion, and hereafter it shall be so."

Marvell must be taken to have meant by his t.i.tle that he saw some resemblance between Parker and Bayes, and, indeed, he says he does, and gives that as one of his excuses for calling Parker Bayes all through:--

"But before I commit myself to the dangerous depths of his Discourse which I am now upon the brink of, I would with his leave, make a motion; that instead of Author I may henceforth indifferently well call him Mr. Bayes as oft as I shall see occasion. And that first because he has no name, or at least will not own it, though he himself writes under the greatest security, and gives us the first letters of other men's names before he be asked them. Secondly, because he is, I perceive, a lover of elegancy of style and can endure no man's tautologies but his own; and therefore I would not distaste him with too frequent repet.i.tion of one word. But chiefly because Mr. Bayes and he do very much symbolise, in their understandings, in their expressions, in their humour, in their contempt and quarrelling of all others, though of their own profession."

But justice must be done even to Parker before handing him over to the Tormentor. What were his positions? He was a coa.r.s.e-fibred, essentially irreligious fellow, the accredited author of the reply to the question "What is the best body of Divinity?" "That which would help a man to keep a Coach and six horses," but he is a lucid and vigorous writer, knowing very well that he had to steer his s.h.i.+p through a narrow and dangerous channel, avoiding Hobbism on the one side and tender consciences on the other. Each generation of State Churchmen has the same task. The channel remains to-day just as it ever did, with Scylla and Charybdis presiding over their rocks as of old. Hobbes's _Leviathan_ appeared in 1651, and in 1670 both his philosophy and his statecraft were fas.h.i.+onable doctrine. All really pious people called Hobbes an Atheist. Technically he was nothing of the sort, but it matters little what he was technically, since no plain man who can read can doubt that Hobbes's enthronement of the State was the dethronement of G.o.d:--

"Seeing then that in every Christian commonwealth the civil sovereign is the supreme factor to whose charge the whole flock of his subjects is commuted, and consequently that it is by his authority that all other pastors are made and have power to teach and perform all other pastoral offices, it followeth also that it is from the civil sovereign that all other pastors derive their right of teaching, preaching and other functions pertaining to that office, and that they are but his ministers in the same way as the magistrates of towns, judges in Court of Justice and commanders of a.s.sizes are all but ministers of him that is the magistrate of the whole commonwealth, judge of all causes and commander of the whole militia, which is always the Civil Sovereign. And the reason hereof is not because they that teach, but because they that are to learn, are his subjects."--(_The Leviathan_, Hobbes's _English Works_ (Molesworth's Edition), vol. iii. p. 539.)

Hobbes s.h.i.+rks nothing, and asks himself the question, What if a king, or a senate or other sovereign person forbid us to believe in Christ? The answer given is, "such forbidding is of no effect; because belief and unbelief never follow men's commands." But suppose "we be commanded by our lawful prince to say with our tongue we believe not, must we obey such command?" Here Hobbes a little hesitates to say outright "Yes, you must"; but he does say "whatsoever a subject is compelled to do in obedience to his own Sovereign, and doth it not in order to his own mind, but in order to the laws of his country, that action is not his, but his Sovereign's--nor is it that he in this case denieth Christ before men, but his Governor and the law of his country." Hobbes then puts the case of a Mahomedan subject of a Christian Commonwealth who is required under pain of death to be present at the Divine Service of the Christian Church--what is he to do? If, says Hobbes, you say he ought to die, then you authorise all private men to disobey their princes in maintenance of their religion, true or false, and if you say the Mahomedan ought to obey, you admit Hobbes's proposition and ought to consent to be yourself bound by it. (See Hobbes's _English Works_, iii.

493.)

The Church of England, though anxious both to support the king and suppress the Dissenters, could not stomach Hobbes; but if it could not, how was it to deal with Hobbes's question, "if it is _ever_ right to disobey your lawful prince, who is to determine _when_ it is right?"

Parker seeks to grapple with this difficulty. He disowns Hobbes.

"When men have once swallowed this principle, that Mankind is free from all obligations antecedent to the laws of the Commonwealth, and that the Will of the Sovereign Power is the only measure of Good and Evil, they proceed suitably to its consequences to believe that no Religion can obtain the force of law till it is established as such by supreme authority, that the Holy Scriptures were not laws to any man till they were enjoyn'd by the Christian Magistrate, and that if the Sovereign Power would declare the Alcoran to be Canonical Scripture, it would be as much the Word of G.o.d as the Four Gospels.

(See _Hobbes_, vol. iii. p. 366.) So that all Religions are in reality nothing but Cheats and impostures to awe the common people to obedience. And therefore although Princes may wisely make use of the foibles of Religion to serve their own turns upon the silly mult.i.tude, yet 'tis below their wisdom to be seriously concerned themselves for such fooleries." (Parker's _Ecc. Politie_, p. 137.)

As against this fas.h.i.+onable Hobbism, Parker pleads Conscience.

"When anything that is apparently and intrinsically evil is the Matter of a Human Law, whether it be of a Civil or Ecclesiastical concern, here G.o.d is to be obeyed rather than Man."

He forcibly adds:--

"Those who would take off from the Consciences of Men all obligations antecedent to those of Human Laws, instead of making the power of Princes Supreme, Absolute and Uncontrollable, they utterly enervate all their authority, and set their subjects at perfect liberty from all their commands. For if we once remove all the antecedent obligations of Conscience and Religion, Men will no further be bound to submit to their laws than only as themselves shall see convenient, and if they are under no other restraint it will be their wisdom to rebel as oft as it is their interest." (_Ecc. Politie_, pp. 112-113.)

But though when dealing with Hobbes, Parker thinks fit to a.s.sert the claims of conscience so strongly, when he has to grapple with those who, like the immortal author of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, "devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to Church," and upheld "unlawful Meetings and Conventicles," his tone alters, and it is hard to distinguish his position from that of the philosopher of Malmesbury.

Parker's argument briefly stated, and as much as possible in his own vigorous language, comes to this:

There is and always must be a compet.i.tion between the prerogative of the Prince or State and that of Conscience, which on this occasion is defined as "every private man's own judgment and persuasion of things."

"Do subjects rebel against their Sovereign? 'Tis Conscience that takes up arms. Do they murder Kings? 'Tis under the conduct of Conscience. Do they separate from the communion of the Church? 'Tis Conscience that is the Schismatick. Everything that a man has a mind to is his Conscience."

(_Ecc. Politie_, p. 6.)

How is this compet.i.tion to be resolved? Parker answers in exact language which would have met with John Austin's warm approval.

"The Supreme Government of every Commonwealth, wherever it is lodged, must of necessity be universal, absolute and uncontrollable. For if it be limited, it may be controlled, but 'tis a thick and palpable contradiction to call such a power supreme in that whatever controls it must as to that case be its Superior. And therefore affairs of Religion being so strongly influential upon affairs of State, they must be as uncontrollably subject to the Supreme Power as all other Civil concerns." (_Ecc. Politie_, p. 27.)

If the magistrate may make penal laws against swearing and blasphemy, why not as to rites and ceremonies of public wors.h.i.+p? (39.) Devotion towards G.o.d is a virtue akin to grat.i.tude to man; religion is a branch of morality. The Puritans' talk about grace is a mere imposture, (76) which extracts from Parker vehement language. What is there to make such a fuss about? he cries. Why cannot you come to Church? You are left free to _think_ what you like. Your secret thoughts are your own, but living as you do in society, and knowing as you must how, unless the law interferes, "every opinion must make a sect, and every sect a faction, and every faction when it is able, a war, and every war is the cause of G.o.d, and the cause of G.o.d can never be prosecuted with too much violence" (16), why cannot you conform to a form of wors.h.i.+p which, though it does not profess to be prescribed in all particulars, contains nothing actually forbidden in the Scriptures? What authority have Dissenters for singing psalms in metre? "Where has our Saviour or his Apostles enjoined a directory for public wors.h.i.+p? What Scripture command is there for the _three_ significant ceremonies of the Solemn League and Covenant, viz. that the whole congregation should take it (1) uncovered, (2) standing, (3) with their right hand lift up bare" (184), and so on.

In answer to the objection that the civil magistrate might establish a wors.h.i.+p in its own nature sinful and sensual, Parker replies it is not in the least likely, and the risk must be run. "Our enquiry is to find out the best way of settling the world that the state of things admit of--if indeed mankind were infallible, this controversy were at an end, but seeing that all men are liable to errors and mistakes, and seeing that there is an absolute necessity of a supreme power in all public affairs, our question (I say) is, What is the most prudent and expedient way of settling them, not that possibly might be, but that really is.

And this (as I have already sufficiently proved) is to devolve their management on the supreme civil power which, though it may be imperfect and liable to errors and mistakes, yet 'tis the least so, and is a much better way to attain public peace and tranquillity than if they were left to the ignorance and folly of every private man" (212).

I now feel that at least I have done Parker full justice, but as so far I have hardly given an example of his familiar style, I must find room for two or three final quotations. The thing Parker hated most in the world was a _Tender Conscience_. He protests against the weakness which is content with pa.s.sing penal laws, but does not see them carried out for fear of wounding these trumpery tender consciences. "Most men's minds or consciences are weak, silly and ignorant things, acted by fond and absurd principles and imposed upon by their vices and their pa.s.sions." (7.) "However, if the obligation of laws must yield to that of a tender conscience, how impregnably is every man that has a mind to disobey armed against all the commands of his superiors. No authority shall be able to govern him farther than he himself pleases, and if he dislike the law he is sufficiently excused (268). A weak conscience is the product of a weak understanding, and he is a very subtil man that can find the difference between a tender head and a tender conscience (269). It is a glorious thing to suffer for a tender conscience, and therefore it is easy and natural for some people to affect some little scruples against the commands of authority, thereby to make themselves obnoxious to some little penalties, and then what G.o.dly men are they that are so ready to be punished for a good conscience" (278). "The voice of the publick law cannot but drown the uncertain whispers of a tender conscience; all its scruples are hushed and silenced by the commands of authority. It dares not whimper when that forbids, and the nod of a prince awes it into silence and submission. But if they dare to murmur, and their proud stomachs will swell against the rebukes of their superiors, then there is no remedy but the rod and correction. They must be chastised out of their peevishness and lashed into obedience (305).

The doctor concludes his treatise with the words always dear to men of fluctuating opinions, 'What I have written, I have written'" (326).

Whilst Parker was writing this book in his snug quarters in the Archbishop's palace at Lambeth, Bunyan was in prison in Bedford for refusing to take the communion on his knees in his parish church; and Dr. Manton, who had been offered the Deanery of Rochester, was in the Gate House Prison under the Five Mile Act.

The first part of _The Rehearsal Transprosed_, though its sub-t.i.tle is "Animadversions upon a late book int.i.tuled a Preface shewing what grounds there are of Fears and Jealousies of Popery," deals after Marvell's own fas.h.i.+on with all three of Parker's books, the _Ecclesiastical Politie_, the _Bramhall Preface_, and the _Defence of the Ecclesiastical Politie_. It is by no means so easy to give a fair notion of the _Rehearsal Transprosed_ in a short compa.s.s, as it was of Parker's line of argument. The parson wrote more closely than the Member of Parliament. I cannot give a better description of Marvell's method than in Parker's own words in his preface to his _Reproof to the Rehearsal Transprosed_, which appeared in 1673 and gave rise to Marvell's second part:--

"When," writes Parker, "I first condemned myself to the drudgery of this Reply, I intended nothing but a serious prosecution of my Argument, and to let the World see that it is not reading Histories or Plays or Gazettes, nor going on pilgrimage to Geneva, nor learning French and Italian, nor pa.s.sing the Alps, nor being a cunning Gamester that can qualify a man to discourse of Conscience and Ecclesiastical Policy; in that it is not capping our Argument with a story that will answer it, nor clapping an apothegm upon an a.s.sertion that will prove it, nor stringing up Proverbs and Similitudes upon one another that will make up a Coherent Discourse."

Allowing for bias this is no unfair account of Marvell's method, and it was just because this was Marvell's method that he succeeded so well in amusing the king and in pleasing the town, and that he may still be read by those who love reading with a fair measure of interest and enjoyment.

Witty and humorous men are always at a disadvantage except on the stage.

The hum-drum is the style for Englishmen. Bishop Burnet calls Marvell "a droll," Parker, who was to be a bishop, calls him "a buffoon." Marvell is occasionally humorous and not infrequently carries a jest beyond the limits of becoming mirth; but he is more often grave. Yet when he is, his gravity was treated either as one of his feebler jokes or as an impertinence. But as it is his wit alone that has kept him alive he need not be pitied overmuch.

The substance of Marvell's reply to Parker, apart altogether from its by-play, is to be found in pa.s.sages like the following:--

"Here it is that after so great an excess of wit, he thinks fit to take a julep and re-settle his brain and the government. He grows as serious as 'tis possible for a madman, and pretends to sum-up the whole state of the controversy with the Nonconformists. And to be sure he will make the story as plausible for himself as he may; but therefore it was that I have before so particularly quoted and bound him up with his own words as fast as such a Proteus could be pinion'd. For he is as waxen as the first matter, and no form comes amiss to him. Every change of posture does either alter his opinion or vary the expression by which we should judge of it; and sitting he is of one mind, and standing of another. Therefore I take myself the less concern'd to fight with a windmill like Quixote; or to whip a gig as boyes do; or with the lacqueys at Charing-Cross or Lincoln's-Inn-Fields to play at the Wheel of Fortune; lest I should fall into the hands of my Lord Chief-Justice, or Sir Edmond G.o.dfrey.

The truth is, in short, and let Bayes make more or less of it if he can, Bayes had at first built-up such a stupendous magistrate as never was of G.o.d's making. He had put all princes upon the rack to stretch them to his dimension. And as a straight line continued grows a circle, he had given them so infinite a power, that it was extended unto impotency. For though he found it not till it was too late in the cause, yet he felt it all along (which is the understanding of brutes) in the effect. For hence it is that he so often complains that princes know not aright that supremacy over consciences, to which they were so lately, since their deserting the Church of Rome, restored; that in most Nations government was not rightly understood, and many expressions of that nature: whereas indeed the matter is, that princes have always found that uncontroulable government over _conscience_ to be both unsafe and impracticable. He had run himself here to a stand, and perceived that there was a G.o.d, there was Scripture; the magistrate himself had a conscience, and must 'take care that he did not enjoyn things apparently evil.' But after all, he finds himself again at the same stand here, and is run up to the wall by an angel. G.o.d, and Scripture, and conscience will not let him go further; but he owns, that if the magistrate enjoyns things apparently evil, the subject may have liberty to remonstrate. What shall he do, then? for it is too glorious an enterprize to be abandoned at the first rebuffe. Why, he gives us a new translation of the Bible, and a new commentary! He saith, that tenderness of conscience might be allowed in a Church to be const.i.tuted, not in a Church const.i.tuted already. That tenderness of conscience and scandal are ignorance, pride, and obstinacy. He saith, the Nonconformists should communicate with him till they have clear evidence that it is evil. This is a civil way indeed of gaining the question, to perswade men that are unsatisfied, to be satisfied till they be dissatisfied.

He threatens, he rails, he jeers them, if it were possible, out of all their consciences and honesty; and finding that will not do, he calls out the magistrate, tells him these men are not fit to live; there can be no security of government while they are in being. Bring out the pillories, whipping-posts, gallies (=galleys), rods, and axes (which are _ratio ultima cleri_, a clergyman's last argument, ay and his first too), and pull in pieces all the Trading Corporations, those nests of Faction and Sedition. This is a faithful account of the sum and intention of all his undertaking, for which, I confess, he was as pick'd a man as could have been employed or found out in a whole kingdome; but it is so much too hard a task for any man to atchieve, that no goose but would grow giddy with it."[165:1]

In reply to what Parker had written about the unreasonable fuss made by the Dissenters over the "two or three symbolical ceremonies" called sacraments, Marvell says:--

"They (the Nonconformists) complain that these things should be imposed on them with so high a penalty as want nothing of a sacramental nature but divine inst.i.tution. And because a human inst.i.tution is herein made of equal force to a divine inst.i.tution therefore it is that they are aggrieved.... For without the sign of the Cross our Church will not receive any one in Baptism; as also without kneeling no man is suffered to come to the Communion.... But here, I say, then is their (the Nonconformists') main exception that things indifferent and that have no proper signature or significancy to that purpose should by command be made conditions of Church-communion. I have many times wished for peaceableness' sake that they had a greater lat.i.tude, but if, unless they should stretch their consciences till they tear again, they cannot conform, what remedy? For I must confess that Christians have a better right and t.i.tle to the Church and to the ordinances of G.o.d there, than the Author hath to his surplice.... Bishop Bramhall saith, 'I do profess to all the world that the transforming of indifferent opinions into necessary articles of faith hath been that _insana laurus_ or cursed bay tree, the cause of all our brawling and contention.' That which he saw in matter of doctrine, he would not discern in discipline....

It is true and very piously done that our Church doth declare that the kneeling at the Lord's Supper is not enjoined for adoration of those elements and concerning the other ceremonies as before. But the Romanists (from whom we have them and who said of old we would come to feed on their meat as well as eat of their porridge) do offer us here many a fair declaration and distinction in very weighty matters to which nevertheless the conscience of our Church hath not complyed. But in this particular matter of kneeling which came in first with the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Romish Church do reproach us with flat idolatry, in that we, not believing the real presence in the bread and wine, yet do pay to something or other the same adoration. Suppose the ancient pagans had declared to the primitive Christians that the offerings of some grains of incense was only to perfume the room--do you think the Christians would have palliated so far and colluded with their consciences? Therefore although the Church do consider herself so much as not to alter her mode unto the fas.h.i.+on of others, yet I cannot see why she ought to exclude those from communion whose weaker consciences cannot, for fear of scandal, step further."[166:1]

With Parker's thunders and threats of the authority of princes and states, Marvell deals more in the mood of a statesman than of a philosopher, more as a man of affairs than as a jurist. He deplores the ferocity of Parker's tone and that of a certain number of the clergy.

"Why is it," he asks, "that this kind of clergy should always be and have been for the most precipitate, brutish, and sanguinary counsels?

The former Civil War cannot make them wise, nor his Majesty's happy return good-natured, but they are still for running things up unto the same extremes. The softness of the Universities where they have been bred, the gentleness of Christianity, in which they have been nurtured, hath but exasperated their nature, and they seem to have contracted no idea of wisdom but what they learnt at school--the pedantry of Whipping. For whether it be or no that the clergy are not so well fitted by education as others for political affairs I know not, though I should rather think they have advantage above others, and even if they would but keep to their Bibles, might make the best Ministers of State in the world; yet it is generally observed that things miscarry under their government. If there be any council more precipitate, more violent, more extreme than other, it is theirs.

Truly, I think the reason that G.o.d does not bless them in affairs of State is because he never intended them for that employment."[167:1]