ties could come to no agreement, the conference, like the former, terminated in mutual dissatisfaction*.

* Some trifling alterations in the Prayer Book were, however, resolved on, which only served to evince how little fault was to be found with it. Thus," because they promise them both by their sureties," was substituted in the Catechism for 86 yes, they promise them," &c. It were to be wished, that the emendators had rather directed their attention to the obscure meaning of this answer, arising from the different nouns to which they' and them' refer; and to other grammatical inaccuracies in the sentence, which destroy perspicuity and perplex the young mind. The whole answer ought to run thus: 'Because they promose both repentance and faith by their godfathers and godmothers: a promise which the infants themselves, when they come to age, are bound to perform.'

Collier's Records, p. 119. Calamy's Life of Baxter, p. 164. To Baxter's minute quibbling, and retiring to metaphysical distinctions, the breaking off of this conference was chiefly owing. Even Neale allows him to have been too eager, and tenacious of his own opinions to a fault. Vol. ii. p. 666. K. Chron. p. 505. Among the church commissioners were Sheldon, Morley, Pearson, and Heylin: names of ecclesiastical celebrity. Tillotson, then a young man, was present as an auditor, introduced by the Presbyterian party. Neale highly extols him, as might be expected from such a partizan; yet this is the very Tillotson of whom Whitfield afterwards asserted, that he knew no more of Christianity than Mahomet.

The several forms of prayer for the 30th of January and 29th of May, with those to be used at sea, were at this period introduced while apocryphal lessons were increased in number, though not allowed on Sundays.

Neale, vol. ii. Hist. of Nonconf. 1708.

Sheldon, in this conference, insisted that the malcontents should bring forward all their objections at once: "well know

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VI. The Parliament succeeding the Convention, contained not more than fifty members

ing," says Bishop Burnet, "that their number would excite a general outcry against the objectors, as persons never to be satisfied." But would they not appear more captious in starting objection after objection? The truth is, the church commissioners rested on the defensive; they were satisfied with the Liturgy as it stood: the Nonconformists had demanded the conference; and it was their part to state their scruples in the first instance. They represented as sinful eight several regulations relative to the devotional service; but their objections were frivolous, saving perhaps only one, which scrupled at the giving of thanks to God for having taken the soul of every buried person to himself; and at all men's being committed to the ground in sure and steadfast trust. Yet it is not for mole-eyed man to determine who sleeps, and who sleeps not, in trust and the awful moment of dissolution ought surely to be, with survivors, a moment of charitable construction, however it may please the Almighty to deal with transgressors. The vain words of man bind not up the right hand of God. Baxter composed a new service, which he termed the reformed Liturgy, not to supersede the old one, but to leave the clergy an option between both. It was rejected, as going beyond the royal commission: but who does not see, that with the optional kneeling and surplice, this service would have been, in every parish, a badge and livery of dissension; arming father against son, and husband against wife; and as one party happened to be in greater strength, making the other and weaker an astonishment, and a hissing, a by-word, and a curse? Exquisite Christianity! A complaint had been inade as to the unsettled use of the words, curate', 'priest,' and minister,' in the rubrics; accompanied by a proposal for using the latter term only on all occasions : but curate was stated to be the person having the cure of souls; and minister to be common to the two orders; while priest was necessarily prefixed to those parts of the service, which a

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attached to the Presbyterian interests; so successfully had Lord Clarendon laboured to secure a great majority of royalists. The King de- : clared in his speech that he valued himself upon keeping his word; but the Chancellor stimulated him to the suppression of those seditious preachers, who were in the habit of teaching the people," that St. Paul, in bidding them stand in their liberty, commanded them to stand to their arms." The bishops were now restored to their seats in the House of Lords;

deacon could not perform. Rejection was also the deserved fate of the request for changing Sunday into the term Lord's day. It is the mere cant of scrupulosity to call in question an unscriptural name, which carries with it no heathenish associations. A single unbroken prayer, it had been urged, was highly preferable to an endless number of desultory collects, repeatedly informing God of his own attributes. Again the form of the "Confession" was too general: too little stress was laid upon original sin; and some prayers were too presumptuous for frail creatures to offer. But the church commissioners replied, that a beautiful connexion may be traced throughout all the prayers in the Liturgy: that short collects serve to aid languid devotion, and finely imitate `the ejaculatory forms of Scripture: that to recount the attributes of God was profitable for the supplicants; not to mention the example of David, who in the 136th Psalm magnified the divine mercy not less than twenty-six times; that the general scope of the Confession constituted its excellence, by including all cases of offence; while details were proper only for the closet; that original sin is acknowledged in many parts of the service; and that the Lord's prayer set the example of praying indefinitely for grace to perform the will of God, and to be delivered from all evil.

and their right of patronage, which had been seized by the Presbyterians, was restored. The covenant was directed to be burnt by the common hangman. Other acts of this parliament will be introduced in their proper place.

VII. The Corporation Act was now passed: which rendered it necessary that all candidates for any department of the civil magistracy, should abjure the covenant, take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and, within one year after coming into office, receive the sacrament according to the rites of the English church. Although the insurrection of the fifth monarchy men had been publicly disavowed by the Independents, Anabaptists, and Quakers, it afforded occasion to the Commons to bring in a bill, declaring the unlawfulness of taking arms against the king on any account. Thus were confirmed the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance; and thus did the legislature err in stretching a sound political maxim to those extreme and extraordinary cases, which an indefinite outline should leave to provide for themselves.

VIII. It has been insinuated that the bishops, at the Savoy conference, only proposed to learn what the Presbyterians would demand, with a view to exclude them more effectually from the pale of the establishment*. With what

truth this charge is urged will be rendered: apparent by referring to the proceedings of the subsequent CONVOCATION, in which six. hundred alterations were introduced into the service-book; many of them expressly intended to satisfy the scruples of the Nonconformists. Such were, the orders that the lessons should be no longer sung; that the reading of the Apocrypha on Sundays should be abolished; that the explanation of kneeling at the sacrament, introduced in King Edward's Liturgy, and expunged from that of Elizabeth, should be restored; that many collects should be altered; that in the office for Christmas, the words, "this day," should be changed into, "at this time;" and that to the rubric, "none shall come to the communion until they have been confirmed," should be subjoined, "or be ready and desirous to be confirmed." With the same view, the rubric on confession and absolution in the Order for visiting the Sick, was altered; and in the Communion for the Sick, the minister was directed to deliver the sacrament, not to such as desired it, but to as many as he judged expedient in the Burial service, the obnoxious words, "in sure and certain hope of resurrec tion to eternal life," were softened by introducing the article "the" before "resurrection;" and the phrase of "God's taking unto himself the