the country, I preached every Sunday. And elsewhere have had a dutiful care of my charge. And if God give grace will do my endeavours to perform my duty. But will any man accuse me, if being old I be not so strong as when I was young; or that now, hearing and composing as a public person matters incident to my calling, I cannot do all things and be in all places. The residue of the article being untrue and reproachful I omit, knowing that God will destroy lying and deceitful tongues.'

It appears among the prominent features of this age, that as the utmost care was taken to select the most eminent among the clergy for bishops, who were sound in faith, and well reported for learning and godliness; so the bishops were as anxious to select from their clergymen of the same qualities with themselves to fill the stalls in their cathedrals; and the rectories and vicarages in their respective dioceses. We have a very interesting document, in confirmation of this, on record, presented to the lord treasurer in 1576, which among other things, expressed the sense the nation at that time entertained concerning the appointment over churches. 'England,' saith the writer, was praised by Erasmus, because their choice was made of their bishops for gravity and learning. Whereas other countries did it more for birth and politic respect of worldly affairs. And let me add,' said he, the bishops make as good a choice of discreet ministers. For by these we daily see our country people, are drawn to amendment of manners and religion. Learning and persuasion will little avail with our people, if love and good life be absent. And when bishops have set up good lights, they must be as vigilant to snuff their candles, or else some will wax dim with worldly desires.'

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It would be extending our subject, to a very great and unnecessary length, to particularize in special instances, the anxiety and sedulous attention, observed by

the bishops, as the patrons of the several incumbencies, in presenting with cautiousness, to the pastoral charge. Whatever cases might occur, (and no doubt some might occur, for corrupt nature is the same in all ages), where interest at times prevailed over right; yet such in general was the conscientious regard, paid by the prelates of the sixteenth century, to this department, that we may with safety conclude, the predominant principle which swayed in the minds of those who were themselves partakers of grace, operated to present to livings such as were alike possessors of grace.

I venture to assume this for a principle, inasmuch, as the standard of character, which the scripture had formed for the model of all church government, and from whence those God-fearing men had framed their plan for ordination; could not but be equally made their guide, in all the regulations they observed, in the appointment of ministers, to the respective parishes. It were a violence to the common understanding of mankind to suppose, that while they had in view the apostle's charge for ordination, they lost sight of the precept he had connected with it, of their watchfulness in the appointment of ministers to their stations. charge thee (said Paul to Timothy) before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another: doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man; neither be partaker of other men's sins," 1 Tim. v. 21-22. Such a charge, and connected in its train, with such solemn and eventful consequences, no doubt, the men of that age and generation, conversant as they necessarily were with the scriptures in view, and which tended not only in inducing caution who they ordained, but who they inducted into benefices. Partiality to any, unsuited to the charge of Christ's flock, became not only treason in the sight of God, but implicated them as the apostle

expressed it, in other men's sins. They did thereby become partakers with them, and were with them awfully responsible.

In Walton's life of Hooker, we have some very striking anecdotes of the conduct of Whitgift, at the time he was archbishop of Canterbury, on this subject; which are highly honourable to himself, and truly satisfactory to the credit of the church, in proof how tenacious at that time were all orders of the people in their attention to see faithful ministers placed over the respective churches. It cannot be brought within the compass of a work of this limited nature, to state all that the historian hath recorded of this great man. He hath indeed given at large the archbishop's appeal to the queen's majesty upon the subject, beseeching her grace to co-operate with him, in her large patronage, to countenance none but such as had in view, above all things, the glory of God, in their appointment to places in the church. I cannot forbear making a short quotation from the archbishop's public letter to her majesty on this subject, which, while it went to shew his ardent zeal for the divine glory, in the good of souls, was no less accompanied with the greatest modesty, and in a language decorous and becoming.

He began with humbly beseeching her majesty to hear him with patience, and to believe that her safety and the church's welfare were dearer to him than life, but his conscience dearer than both. And under these impressions, he had presumed to approach her majesty, with reverence, on the subject of the church's patriThe situation in which her majesty's royal bounty had placed him, as metropolitan, called upon him, from every principle of gratitude to her majesty, as well as his conscientious discharge of the high trust committed to him, rendered it a duty he owed to himself, to bring before his royal mistress his boon. And as the scriptures of God had declared princes to be the

mony.

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"nursing fathers to the church;" God forbid (said the archbishop) that your majesty should be passive in any thing which had a tendency to the weal of the church.'

The prelate went on to point out how the revenues of the church would decay by inattention. And that with a view to make the order of the clergy respectable, and their labours esteemed by the people, nothing should be allowed, which might tend to the degradation of the one, or to incur the danger of disaffection in the other: but both, so blended in attention by her majesty's bounty and favour to good men, as laboured in the word and doctrine, as might manifest her majesty's zeal for God, and the welfare of the sacred order. And so imploring pardon for his affectionate plainness, he begged still to be continued in favour, and humbly took leave of the subject with her majesty.

I have the rather gathered this fragment from the historian of those times, concerning Whitgift's petition to her majesty the queen, on the subject of the church; not so much in relation to queen Elizabeth, as to the archbishop himself. For a man that could and did feel so much interest, as to address royalty upon this occasion, could not but be alive to the rectitude of his own administration on the same ground. And indeed, Whitgift, at the head of the church, with the large patronage he thereby possessed, thus acting, must have had a preponderancy which could not fail to have its due weight through the whole realm.

We find similar proofs in the succeeding reign of James. Nay, the king himself was so truly earnest, to have the several rectories and vicarages of the kingdom filled in with godly men, that in the history of 1603, when the convocation of the clergy was sitting, he sent a special message to them on the subject: and observing, that his own presentations not being sufficient to provide for the whole, of faithful ministers, he earnestly recommended the archbishops,

VOL. VII.

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and bishops of the dioceses to co-operate with him in this service.

I have before stated in this little work, that amidst all the eccentricities of James, and many personal improprieties of conduct, which his history too sadly furnisheth, he was allowedly the most learned prince of his day in Europe. And it might be added, that though the political horizon, unhappily favoured a too lax conduct of manners, yet in the midst of all, James, as far as profession went, maintained an orthodoxy of character. It may not be safe to assert, that his views of the doctrines of grace, were any more than mere speculative apprehensions; the conviction of the head, not the regeneration of the heart; yet publicly, and as far as his royal authority was exercised, on subjects of theology, the leading feature of his character was in perfect conformity to the doctrinal articles of the church of England. A reference to his own writings most decidedly prove the truth of this

statement.

I am not to be told, that an elegant historian of our own country, Mr. Hume, hath gone so far as to assert the contrary. But with all this writer's elegance, we must not be led away from plain matters of fact, to give credit to this relation. James both lived and died in the profession of the true faith. True (as Mr. Hume hath said) he did not at all times equally contend for the pure faith once delivered unto the saints. His court towards the close of his reign was frequently made up of men, too much tinctured with the doctrine of free will. Laud, who in the succeeding reign, had so much sway over the mind of Charles began towards the termination of James's government, and the rising sun of Charles, to manifest the complexion of his mind, in the propagation of free will. All this is true. Yet in confirmation of the orthodoxy of James, though as before observed, it is to be feared, that it was more of the head