a moderate judgment, but of an immoderate unsettledness." These men are confessedly moving, and what kind of motion, let them say for themselves, "As we go on, we must recede more and more from the principles, if any such there be, of the English Reformation."* Whatever may seem ambiguous in such a declaration, one thing is certain, that its authors do not mean by the principles of the English Reformation, their professorships, canonries, rectories, and the like.

In Fuller's character of the good Bishop, he makes honourable mention of Bishops Lake and Andrewes. Of Lake, Bishop of Bath and Wells, he gives a brief but interesting sketch in his British Worthies. His grateful spirit, here finds opportunity to requite in some degree, the fatherly affection of his now deceased uncle Bishop Davenant. "In his grave writings, he [the good Bishop] aims at God's glory and the Church's peace, with that worthy prelate, the second Jewel of Salisbury, whose comments and controversies will transmit his memory to all posterity." And, indeed, the learned will never fail to acknowledge the great acuteness and depth of Davenant. What praise can suffice for his animadversions upon Hoard, on the Universal love of God? A work in which Davenant enters, with a mind as fully prepared for such inquiries as can fall to the lot of man, into the most mysterious disputes that have ever divided philosophers and theologians.

* Brit. Critic, July, 1841, p. 45.

The character of the good Bishop is so inimitably drawn by Fuller, that we may readily conceive that he would himself, had his life been spared, have considerably outshone the witty Bishop Corbet, and have been transmitted to posterity as a second Toby Mathew; that cheerful prelate never to be forgotten by those who have been made acquainted with him through the pages of his friend, Sir John Harrington.

Of those, who in his day, depreciated the martyrs in the Marian persecution, he nobly observes, "However, their (the martyrs') real worth floats not with people's fancies, no more than a rock in the sea rises and falls with the tide." *

To that party (the precursors of the Tractarian School) Fuller again alludes in the third chapter of his Worthies of England: "I confess I have formerly met with some men, who would not allow them for martyrs, who suffered in the reign of Queen Mary, making them little better than felons de se, wilfully drawing their blood on themselves. Most of these, I hope, are since convinced in their judgment, and have learned more charity in the school of affliction, who, by their own losses have learned better to value the lives of others, and now will willingly allow martyrship to those from whom they wholly withheld, or grudgingly gave it before."

* The Life of Andronicus closes the Holy and Profane State.' It was first printed in 12mo. 1646, and afterward in 1648, appended to the second edition of the Holy and Profane State.'

CHAPTER VIII.

Fast Sermon 1642-Accession Sermon 1643.

ULLER was now residing in the midst of daily increasing perils. War had commenced, and the patriotic party (as they called themselves) shewed neither justice nor mercy to such of their fellow citizens as were bold enough to act upon more equitable principles. The King, insulted and unprotected in his metropolis, had, early in 1642, left it for York. Thither he was followed by the Lord Keeper Lyttleton and many of the nobility, and amongst them the Earl of Northampton and Lord Paulet; after the battle of Edgehill; he removed to Oxford.

Upon Innocents' day in the following December, ordered to be kept as a fast by the Parliament, (peradventure, as a religious mark of contempt for the institutions and observances of the Church of England,) Fuller preached at the Savoy in behalf of peace from St. Matthew, v. 9. Blessed are the peace-makers. He forcibly exposed the unchristian character of war, its opposition to the spirit of

prayer, faith, and obedience. He alluded to the miserable condition of the Irish Protestants, the desertion of whose cause must necessarily ensue in the continuance of the civil war at home. He pointed out the scandal and dishonour which would hereby redound to the Protestant religion, "whereof a true Christian ought to be more tender and sensible than of any worldly loss whatever." He replied to the objection, that the cause of truth would be sacrificed by peace. “Before this war began,

we had in England truth in all essential to salvation. We had all necessary and important truths, truly compiled in our thirty-nine articles. We had the word of God truly preached (I could wish it had been more frequently and generally), the sacraments duly administered; which two put together doth constitute a true church." He proceeded to the objection that errors had crept into our doctrine, new ceremonies and innovations in discipline ; "The best and only way to purge these errors out, is in a fair and peaceable way; for the sword cannot discern betwixt error and falsehood; it may have two edges, but hath never an eye. Let there, on God's blessing, be a synod of truly grave, pious, and learned divines; and let them both fairly dispute, and fully decide what is true, what is false, what ceremonies are to be retained, what to be rejected; and let civil authority stamp their command upon it, to be generally received under what penalty their discretion shall think fitting. But as long as war lasts, no hope of any such agreement; this must be a work for peace to perform."

"So then

under the notion of peace, hitherto we have and hereafter do intend such a peace, as when it comes, we hope will restore truth unto us in all the accidental and ornamental parts thereof, and add it to that truth in essentials to salvation, which we enjoyed before this war began; and in this sense I will boldly pronounce, Blessed are the peacemakers.""

6

He proceeds to the hindrances of peace, the many national sins of our kingdom not repented of, sins not of one army, or of one class of persons. "I never knew, nor heard," he says, "of an army all of saints, save the holy army of martyrs, and those, you know, were dead first, for the last breath they sent forth proclaimed them to be martyrs.

“But it is not the sins of the armies alone, but the sins of the whole kingdom which break off our hopes of peace: our nation is generally sinful. The city complains of the ambition and prodigality of the courtiers; the courtiers complain of the pride and covetousness of the citizens: the laity complain of the laziness and state-meddling of the clergy; the clergy complain of the hard dealing and sacrilege of the laity: the rich complain of the murmuring and ingratitude of the poor; the poor complain of the oppression and extortion of the rich. Thus every one is more ready to throw dirt in another's face than to wash his own clean. And in all these though malice set the varnish, sure truth doth lay the groundwork.

"Of particular hindrances, in the first place, we may rank the Romish recusants. Is not the hand