the
seventeenth century so many distinguished names. There was a time when
some of the High Church leaders were so far alarmed by Roman
aggressiveness, as to think that union among Protestants should be
purchased even at what they deemed a sacrifice, and when Sancroft, Ken,
and Lake moved for a bill of comprehension,[344] and Beveridge spoke
warmly in favour of it.[345] The moderate Dissenters were quite as
anxious on the subject as any of their conformist friends. 'Baxter
protested in his latest works, that the body to which he belonged was in
favour of a National State Church. He disavowed the term Presbyterian,
and stated that most whom he knew did the same. They would be glad, he
said, to live under godly bishops, and to unite on healing terms. He
deplored that the Church doors had not been opened to him and his
brethren, and pleaded urgently for a "healing Act of Uniformity." Calamy
explicitly states that he was disposed to enter the establishment, if
Tillotson's scheme had succeeded. Howe also lamented the failure of the
scheme.'[346] The trusts of their meeting-houses were in many instances
so framed, and their licences so taken out, that the buildings could
easily be transferred to Church uses.[347] The Independents, who came
next to the Presbyterians, both in influence and numerical strength,
were more divided in opinion. Many remained staunch to the principles of
their early founders, and were wholly irreconcilable.[348] Others,
perhaps a majority, of the 'Congregational Brethren,' as they preferred
to call themselves, were very willing to 'own the king for head over
their churches,' to give a general approval to the Prayer Book, and to
be comprehended, on terms which would allow them what they considered a
reasonable liberty, within the National Church.[349] They formed part of
the deputation of ministers to King William, by whom an ardent hope was
expressed that differences might be composed, and such a firm union
established on broad Christian principles 'as would make the Church a
type of heaven.'[350] How far they would have accepted any practical
scheme of comprehension is more doubtful. But, as Mr. Skeats remarks of
the measure proposed in 1689, 'Calamy's assertion, that if it had been
adopted, it would in all probability have brought into the Church
two-thirds of the Dissenters, indicates the almost entire agreement of
the Independents with the Presbyterians, concerning the expedience of
adopting it.'[