formed to, and satisfied with the judgment of his learned and revered friends, Bishop Usher, Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward, who were great disciples of St. Austin and Prosper in their contests against the Pelagians. Not that he could endure no difference among learned and godly men in opinions, especially sublime and obscure, without dissensions and distance in affection; but he wished all men to look well to the humility and sincerity of their hearts, whose heads were most prone and able to manage points of controversy; the heat of which is ready to make the fullest souls to boil over to some immoderation and study of sides. He thought that Scripture itself was in some points left us less clear and positive as to mysterious not necessary verities, that Christians might have wherewith to exercise both humility in themselves, and charity towards others.

He very much venerated the first worthy reformers of religion at home and abroad, yet was he not so addicted to any one master, as not freely to use that great and mature judgment which he had, so as to sift and separate between their easy opinions and native passions (as men) and their solider probations, and sober practices, as great and good Divines. He suffered not prejudices against any man's person or opinion, to heighten animosities in him against either. He hoped every good man had his retractations either actual or intentional, that died in true faith and repentance, however all had not time to write their retractations as St. Austin did. If against any thing (next sin and gross errors) he had an antipathy and impatience, it was against those unquiet and pragmatic spirits which affect endless controversies, varieties and novelties in religion, that hereby they may carry on that study of sides and parties in which they glory; and under which screen

they hope to advance their private interests and politic designs.

When the clouds of non-conformity (which was formerly reduced to an hand breadth in the Church of England) began now, partly by a spirit or breath of super-conformity, and chiefly by those vehement winds which blew from the north, to cover the whole English heaven with blackness, and to threaten a great storm of blood, which after followed; yet did this excellent person then hold to his former principles and practice, not because he was a Bishop, but because he was a judicious and conscientious man, where he saw scripture and law bound him to duty, and to that constancy of his judgment in matters of religion, both essential and circumstantial, substantial and ornamental, which became a wise and honest man.

The wisdom, gravity and majesty of the Church of England he thought was not now either to be disciplined or reformed, or chastened by the pedantic authority, pretended necessity, or obtruded insolency of any church or nation under heaven, much less by any party in itself, which was less than the authority of a full and free Parliament, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons; counselled as to matters of religion by a full and free convocation or synod, which he thought the most laudable way of managing religion, and most probable by doing good impartially to be blest of God, and approved by good men: he saw the Church and State of England had been sufficient every way for itself heretofore, while united; and was then happiest, when it

enjoyed its own peaceable and parliamentary counsels and results, without any other's partial dictates, which were as improsperous as importune and impertinent.

For the Liturgy, or public form of Prayer, and solemn administration in the Church of England,

though he needed a set form as little as any, yet he had a particular great esteem of it: 1. For the honour and piety of its martyrly composers, who enduring such a fiery trial were not likely to have made a Liturgy of straw and stubble. 2. For its excellent matter, which is divine, sound, and holy, besides its method which is prudent and good. 3. For the very great good he saw it did, as to all sober Christians, so to the common sort of plain people, who, whatever other provision they had of their ministers private abilities: yet they were sure every Lord's day at least, to have a wholesome and complete form, not only of prayers, but of all other necessaries to salvation set before them for faith, holy life and devotion, in the Creeds, Commandments, Lord's Prayer, with confessions and supplications, admirably linked together, and fitted to the meanest capacities; the want of which he saw was not supplied by any minister's private way of praying or preaching, which in very deed are but small pittances of piety, or fragments, compared to the latitude of religious fundamentals and varieties contained in the Liturgy; the want of which he judged would induce a great ignorance, as he saw, and said to me a little before his death, it had done already among the ordinary sort of people in country and city, whose souls are as precious to God as others of greater parts and capacities, whose appe. tites were not to be flattered and deceived with novelties, but fitted and fed with wonted solidities, by which they would thrive and look better (as by the use of plain and repeated food, which is as their daily bread) than those that delight in greater varieties and dainties.

Not that he was such a formalist, verbalist, and sententialist, as could not endure any alteration of words, or phrases, or method, or manner of expressions in the Liturgy, to which either change of times, or of language, or things may invite; he

well knew there had been variety of liturgies in churches, and variations in the same Church; he made very much, but not too much of the English Liturgy; not as the Scriptures, unalterable; but yet he judged that all alterations in such public and settled concerns of religion, ought to be done by the public spirit, counsel, and consent of the prophets, prince and people. However this was a concluded maxim with him, that the solemnity and sacredness of consecrating those Christian mysteries of the blessed sacraments, were not to be adventured upon ministers private abilities, tenuities, or distempers, but by a public and uniform spirit among preachers and people, all should say Amen to the same prayers, and receive the same mysteries under one form of consecration, in which nothing should be defective or superfluous.

His personal and occasional abilities for prayer were answerable to his other gifts and graces, both for matter, method, utterance, discretion and devotion, full, fervent and pathetic upon his own and others spirits; not coldly formal and stark, nor yet wildly rambling, loose and broken; but judicious, apt, grave and of so moderate an extent, as suited the weight of the occasion, the capacity of the auditors, and the intensiveness of his own heart; his prayers were not the labour and product only of lips, lungs and tongue, but of his spirit and understanding; he minded not the glory but grace of prayer.

As to the government of the Church by episcopal presidency, to which Prince and Presbyters agree, he was too learned a man to doubt, and too honest to deny, the universal custom and practice of the Church of Christ in all ages and places for fifteen hundred years, according to the pattern (at least) received from the Apostles; who, without doubt, followed, as they best knew, the mind of Christ. This catholic prescrip

tion he thought so sacred, that as it did sufficiently prejudge all novel presumptions, so nothing but importune and grand necessities put upon any Church, could excuse, much less justify, the cutting off those pipes, or the turning of that primitive and perpetual course of ecclesiastical ordination, subordination and government into another channel. Nor did he understand the method of those new Vitruviuses, who would seem master-builders, though they are yet but destroyers; when they affect to have all timber and stones in the church's building of the same shape, size and bigness; when the Church of Christ is compared to a body which hath members of different forms, use, and honour.

Yet he did not judge the principal dignity or authority of Episcopacy to depend upon its secular advantages, but on its ecclesiastical custom and apostolic institution; and however no man was more ready to condescend to any external diminutions, and comely moderations, that might stand with a good conscience and prudence, as tending to the peace and unity of the Church; yet no man was more firm, resolute and immoveable from gratifying any sacrilegious projectors or proud factionists, or peevish novellers, to the reproach of the Church of England, yea and of the Catholic Church in all the world, which had its Bishops every where before it had its Bible or its Scriptures completed. In the matter of Episcopacy, he differed little from Bishop Usher's model of the ancient synodical government; only he thought the petulancy of men's spirit in these times, beyond the primitive simplicity, did require all prudent advantages of order and authority, which might consist with piety and true policy; as antidotes ought to be heightened to the measure of the poison they are to en

counter.

Only he could never be induced so far to forsake the principle of all

reason, order, and government in human societies, or to disown the remarkable differences which God and nature, age and education, experience and studies, industry and grace did make between ministers no less than other men; as to think that neither work nor rewards of honour and estate may be proportioned to their different worths.

He saw no cause to affect among ministers, above all fraternities, this ὕστερον προτερὸν, the inverting of all order, that the first should be last, and the last first; though he subscribed to the rule of Christ, that the greatest among his ministers, even the (ip iar άóσTodos) very chiefest of the Apostles, should in humility and charity condescend and demean themselves so, as if they were servants to all, and the least of all, yet he saw this precept was vain and impertinent, as not practicable, if none were greater or more eminent than others, as in age, gifts, and graces, so in spiritual power and ecclesiastical authority; not tyrannously usurped, but by the consent of all conferred.

Those novel interpretations he saw were but wresting scripture from primitive sense, to bring in the postern chaos of popular parity among ministers, which never was in Christ's, or the Apostle's, or after days, nor can be ever without great disadvantages to both ministers and people.

Nor was it his ambition but his conscience and judgment that thus commanded him to assert Episcopacy even long before he was, or (possibly) thought to be a Bishop: upon which account, when I once told his Lordship (after he was made Bishop by the King, and unmade by the people) that a person (equestris ordinis, but parum æquæ mentis) had in discourse told me, that he wondered Dr. Brounrig would be made a Bishop; whom he had heard sometime declare his judgment against Episcopacy: which report'

* An anecdote is recorded of his send

was this great breach and ruin of ancient and venerable Episcopacy to tumble by the (ausτpia) impetuosity and exorbitancy of the times: which at length grew to so popular a prevalency, that some men would not endure the best bishops, nor any moderation short of total extirpation, that way might be made for confiscation: for Episcopacy was with modest approaches first undermined by some plausible pioneers, and engineers, who pretended, that it did not stand upright, but leaned towards the Court and Prerogative too much; that they would only set it right and so support it; but afterward it was quite blown up; much over-doing their first pretensions, which were only to reform some exorbitancies in the use and practices of times or men; to which all wise and good bishops easily and cheerfully, together with this worthy prelate would have condescended and submitted; provided it were done not by tumultuous impressions of faction and violence, but by that parliamentary fulness and freedom which became the honour, piety, wisdom and majesty of this Church

In the life of Dr. Barwick, Bishop Brounrig is thus alluded to, in conjunction with Dr. Skinner, Bishop of Oxford," After the death of this great man (Bishop Morton), there were only ten bishops surviving who were all desirous to be thought equally concerned for the ruined state of the Church, but certainly did not all seem to labour with equal fortitude and constancy to raise her up and support her: for there were two of them, the Bishop of Oxford, and the Bishop of Exeter, who with I know not what little objections something retarded the most hearty endeavours of the rest. To these two, and to these only of all the Bishops, the liberty of preaching in public, was indulged by those who were then in power, that they might seem, forsooth, to do some credit to their ill-gotten government by acts that were not ill. And this perhaps was the reason that these ve

to his bishopric, or any other preferment, after the troubles of the

nerable persons prosecuted the business of the Church with less application than was fit, lest they should seem to render themselves unworthy of this favour of the usurpers, and perhaps on that account suffer more severely, for having any share in so good a work"-Life of Barwick,

p. 218. And so again at p. 238. He was esteemed indeed, a man of gravity and prudence, a good orator, and a constant preacher, and one that led a holy life as a private man.

And with these virtues he was willing to be thought sufficiently to have discharged the duty of a good Bishop. But certainly, he may be justly censured, as not having prosecuted the public business of the Church with sufficient application: since, in a letter, dated January 22, 1660, we find his backwardness therein will not enlarge upon the death of the thus reflected upon by the Chancellor. "I Bishop of Exeter, because I will charge Mr. Allestrey with that discourse, in which I can use no patience. If that Bishop were long sick, I would be glad to hear how he expressed himself to those friends who were about him, in those particulars, in which he suffered in his reputation, of not being zealous for the Church." Again p. 249. "And those very men,'whom I have now observed to have been something de

ficient therein, did more than once in times of distress obtain immortal praise for their Christian fortitude and patience. But it was certainly very indecent, when

their dearest and most afflicted mother the Church was now in her extremity and implored their assistance, that every one according to his several ability, did not apply himself with greater solicitude to relieve her."

These censures of Bishop Brounrig will be received with considerable reserve when we consider from whom they proceed, and the times to which they refer. Dr. Barwick took a very active part on the side of the King, not merely as a churchman, but rather as a devoted cavalier, and contrasting the conduct of others with his own zeal and enterprize, he may very naturally have regarded any exertions which did not reach his standard of active usefulness, as supineness and indifference in the good cause. If again, amongst a number implicated in a common cause, one or two happen to be not equally ob noxious with the rest to the adverse faction, as appears to have been the case with Bishop Brounrig, the better fortune of