Conventicle

“ So, to evite the scandal of compliance on the one hand, and disobedience to the magistrate in matters of custom on the other, I came to the determination to give in my cess to the collector of the shire of Ayr where I lived, with a protestation against the magistrate’s sinful qualification of his commands, and a full adherence unto these meetings of God’s people, called conventicles, which in the act he declared his design to bear down. ”

“ The Conventicles having been forbidden by Law, & frequently disturbed, induced some considerable Men of his Acquaintance to remove to that Country, and he was prevail’d with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their Mode of Religion with Freedom. ”

“ And of such sect and wicked doctrines they make unlawful conventicles, they hold and exercise schools, they make and write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and division among the people, and other enormities horrible to be heard, daily do perpetrate and commit. ”

“ So long as human nature remains the same, this splendor and pomp of processions, these lighted torches and ornamented churches, this triumphant music and glad holiday of religion will attract more than your plain conventicles, your ugly meeting-houses, and your compromise with the bass-viol. ”

“ Instead of the mind-paralyzing worship of the past and the bondage of the present to that which is written, the conviction took hold on men that there was no limit to what they might know concerning their nature and destiny and no limit to that destiny. ”

“ Has reason got anything to show in justification of this preliminary sacrifice of a conviction on which men have to act, whatever their theories may be? Must I surrender the conviction, that when I am seeing or touching I am actually having revealed to me something that is extended and solid, and that, as such, must be more and other than the private sensations and ideas of the person that is seeing and touching? Must this conviction, and others like it, on which human experience practically depends, be all sacrificed on the altar of authority and conjecture? ”

“ In truth, it was certain that whatever concessions might be made, so long as the love of novelty, the pride of argumentation, the passion for holding forth, and the zeal for proselytizing, continued to be principles in the human heart, no concession would ever abolish sects in religion; while the Church of England, by departing from her ancient practice, would only compromise her dignity, and forfeit her title to due reverence. ”

“ But when concession is made, when tears of penitence are wept, and when, in moments of returning confidence, that luckless tendency of temper is candidly confessed, and sincerely bewailed; when all the different acts committed under its influence, are acknowledged to have been wrong, how complete ought to be the reconciliation thus begun, and how zealous our endeavours for the future to avert the consequences of this sad calamity! ”

“ If this be law, with conscience, show me your opinion, I pray you." “Forsooth, my lord,” quoth he, “there is some conscience in this case; but having regard to the king’s high power, and to be employed to a better use and purpose, it may the better be suffered with conscience; who is sufficient to make recompense to the church of York with double the value.” “That I know well,” quoth my lord, “but here is no such condition neither promised nor agreed, but only a bare and simple departure with another’s right for ever. ”

“ It were therefore reason, that we should make our chief head [of] counsel in the same, before we proceed to judgment definitive. I come not so far to please any man, for fear, meed, or favour, be he king or any other potentate. I have no such respect to the persons that I will offend my conscience. I will not for favour or displeasure of any high estate or mighty prince do that thing that should be against the law of God. I am an old man, both sick and impotent, looking daily for death. ”

“ How is it possible that conviction can find its way to our hearts, when we hear the absurd language, and witness the acts of iniquity, of the greatest number of those whose business it is to preach to us? ”

“ You shall tell me all or nothing, as you please—you shall presently dismiss me at your convent-gate, and never see me again if you so will it—but till then, I swear, you are in my charge, and no human power shall come between us! ”

“ Spencer or any one else deny that, whatever sanction the human and relative conception of "power" draws from the inner certainties of our own sensations, that same, or a still higher, sanction can also be claimed for the conception of an infinite and eternal "Wisdom"? ”

“ It will be so easy for them to show the muddled misconceptions in the "mass-conviction," but for what we have here in hand, it is enough that the conviction is real and that it has won alliances and quite strength enough to make its reactions felt in our political life. ”

“ Confederation implies choice, confidence in numbers, thought, and a covenant to stand by each other. Those who join hand to hand show that they choose each other’s society—choice is a revelation of character—those who join hands with the wicked reveal that they are wicked also. It implies confidence in numbers. Numbers have a wonderful influence in begetting confidence. They inspire men with hope of success. It seems impossible that so many can be defeated. The fact that the wicked are in the majority in this world is often a strong point with them. ”

“ For they understood, by the report of some of the king’s learned counsel, that your case well considered, ye had great wrong: to the which I could make, as me thought, no sufficient answer, but said, “That I doubt not your so doing was upon some greater consideration than my wit could understand.” “Is this,” quoth he, “the opinion of wise men?” “Yea, forsooth, my lord,” quoth I, “and almost of all other men.” “Well, then,” quoth he, "I see that their wisdoms perceive not the ground of the matter that moved me so to do. ”

“ Examine the Writers on the Laws of Nature; and you will always find, that, whatever Principles they set out with, they are sure to terminate here at last, and to assign, as the ultimate Reason for every Rule they establish, the Convenience and Necessities of Mankind. A Concession thus extorted, in Opposition to Systems, has more Authority, than if it had been made, in Prosecution of them. ”

“ No doubt it is reasonable, and even honest, to act according to our present feelings and conviction: but if these feelings and their causes do vary by the very nature of things, how dare we impose upon ourselves or others an invariable conviction? ”

“ I have been much perplexed for some days, in consequence of a growing conviction—which has indeed been deepening for some weeks—that we are each of us conscious that we have made a mistake in becoming engaged. I believe you have this conviction, as I am obliged to confess I have. Now it is infinitely better that we face it at once. ”

“ I see distinctly, now, that they rest on foundations in man himself, which nothing can overthrow or shake. A conviction is brought home to me that I am standing on an everlasting rock. Formerly there might have been some lurking germ of suspicion or misgiving that I was standing on ground that was not quite defensible. Universal history, rightly understood, dissipates these enfeebling misgivings, and generates that invaluable conviction. ”

“ The people have some just grievances, though, to be sure, they are greatly and criminally exaggerated; but let them talk of them, and, mark me, they will not bite near so deep. Let me tell you, and the Primate of England, ay! and the King himself, that the people are now in a mood to accept small concessions; let this go farther, and persecute them more, and thrones may tremble ere they cry 'Enough!'"
"What concessions?" asked the Legate, angrily. [73] "Make concessions to the wild, turbulent mob that, given its way, will yet plant a burning torch on every palace and castle in the land!" ”

“ Conversions, whether they be political, scientific, philosophic, or religious, form another way in which bound energies are let loose. They unify, and put a stop to ancient mental interferences. The result is freedom, and often a great enlargement of power. ”

“ You will there be brought to understand that deference is due to your superiors, consideration for the feelings of others, respect for opinions that differ from your own, and especially that regard is to be had for les convenances, without which social life would go to pieces, as a chain of pearls that has lost its connecting links. Les convenances may be, and indeed are, in themselves nothing, but they hold society together. ”

“ But in stating prudential rules for our government in society, I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another. Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, either in solitude, or weighing within ourselves, dispassionately, what we hear from others, standing uncommitted in argument ourselves. ”

“ One aspect of conventions which people who declaim against them lose sight of is that conventions make both joy and suffering easier to bear in a becoming manner. But those two were outside all conventions. They would be as untrammelled in a sense as the first man and the first woman. The trouble was that I could not imagine anything about Flora de Barral and the brother of Mrs. Fyne. Or, if you like, I could imagine anything which comes practically to the same thing. Darkness and chaos are first cousins. I should have liked to ask the girl for a word which would give my imagination its line. ”

“ I answer, it is his either by creation right, or by right of conquest. If by creation right he call the earth his and not mine, then it is mine as well as his; for the spirit of the whole creation, who made us both, is no respecter of persons.
And if by conquest he call the earth his and not mine, it must be either by the conquest of the kings over the commoners, or by the conquest of the commoners over the kings.
If he claim the earth to be his from the kings' conquest, the kings are beaten and cast out, and that title is undone. ”

“ Those words which combine the noblest pleading ever proffered for the rights of human reason with the loftiest vindication ever uttered of those rights, no mortal ear within our knowledge has ever heard spoken on the stage. A convocation even of all priests could not have been more unhesitatingly unanimous in its rejection than seems to have been the hereditary verdict of all actors. ”

“ Were we ever known to enforce the agreement of others or to avenge ourselves for their disagreement by inflicting upon them what we have ourselves endured—arrest, imprisonment, confiscation, banishment? ”

“ In the second place, we must recognise in all repeated and common expressions of conviction, and in all the motives of a time of action, some really existing ideal. There was a conviction common to many thousands of Parliamentarians in the earlier stages of the English Civil War. ”

“ During the organic periods (they said) mankind accept with firm conviction some positive creed, claiming jurisdiction over all their actions, and containing more or less of truth and adaptation to the needs of humanity. Under its influence they make all the progress compatible with the creed, and finally outgrow it; when a period follows of criticism and negation, in which mankind lose their old convictions without acquiring any new ones, of a general or authoritative character, except the conviction that the old are false. ”

“ I may say, however, that I never allowed myself to be unconcerned with regard to any of the people amongst whom I journeyed as to their opinions about a presiding Deity, but, by collecting all the proofs I could from their habitual speech, I endeavoured to learn what were their conceptions about the sovereignty of an invisible power, and its influence upon the destinies of men. ”

“ And thence onward, examples furnished by all races put beyond doubt the truth that the coercive power of the chief, developing into king, and king of kings (a frequent title in the ancient East) , becomes great in proportion as conquest becomes habitual and the union of subdued societies extensive. [2] Comparisons disclose a further truth which should be ever present to us—the truth that the aggressiveness of the ruling power inside a society increases with its aggressiveness outside the society. ”

“ A concession so extraordinary in itself, so contradictory to the principles of their own institution, cannot but alarm the most unsuspecting mind. We may well conclude, that the lords would hardly have yielded so much to the other house, without the certainty of a compensation, which can only be made to them at the expense of the people. ”

“ Concessions, which should have been made boldly and generously, have been made grudgingly and parsimoniously, and where prompt and spontaneous action would have been effective, this tardy and reluctant yielding to pressure has produced no good at all. ”

“ They are signalised as the scene of Protestant developments. Starting from a time of extreme indifference, ignorance, and decline, they were at once occupied with that conflict which was to rage so long, and of which no man could imagine the infinite consequences. Dogmatic conviction—for I shun to speak of faith in connection with many characters of those days—dogmatic conviction rose to be the centre of universal interest, and remained down to Cromwell the supreme influence and motive of public policy. ”