1660. and many reflections. Baxter said once, such things would offend many good men in the nation. Stearn, the archbishop of York, upon that took notice, that he would not say kingdom, but nation, because he would not acknowledge a king. Of this great com

1661.

The

ity made

harder.

plaints were made, as an indecent return for the zeal they had shewn in the restoration.

The conference broke up without doing any good. of conform-It did rather hurt, and heightened the sharpness that was then on people's minds to such a degree, that it needed no addition to raise it higher. The presbyterians laid their complaints before the king: but little regard was had to them. And now all the concern that seemed to employ the bishops' thoughts was, not only to make no alteration on their account, but to make the terms of conformity much stricter than they had been before the war. So it was resolved to maintain conformity to the height, and to put lecturers in the same condition with the incumbents, as to oaths and subscriptions; and to oblige all persons to subscribe an unfeigned assent and consent to all and every particular contained and prescribed in the book of common prayer w.

▾ He was then bishop of Carlisle. O.

w In the session of parliament, in the year 1663, a bill was sent from the commons to the lords, for the relief of such persons, as by sickness or other impediments were disabled from subscribing to the declaration of assent and consent, to the book of common prayer, required by the act of uniformity. The bill passed the lords

with a clause added to it, "de"claring the subscription of as"sent and consent, &c. should "be understood only as to "practice and obedience;" but the commons rejected the clause, which the lords not insisting upon, the bill passed without it; when this clause was added by the lords, some of them dissented to it, and entered their protestations against it, in these words; "being destruc

Many, who thought it lawful to conform in submis- 1661. sion, yet scrupled at this, as importing a particular approbation of every thing: and great distinction was made between a conformity in practice, and so full and distinct an assent. Yet men got over that, as importing no more but a consent of obedience : for though the words of the subscription, which were also to be publicly pronounced before the congregation, declaring the person's unfeigned assent and consent, seemed to import this, yet the clause of the act that enjoined this carried a clear explanation of it; for it enacted this declaration as an assent and consent to the use of all things contained in the book. Another subscription was enacted, with relation to the league and covenant; by which they were required to declare it unlawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take arms against the king, 183 renouncing the traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or those commissioned by him, together with a declaration, that no obligation lay on them or any other person, from the league or covenant, to endeavour any change or alteration of government in church and state, and that the covenant was in it self an unlawful oath. This was contrived against all the old men, who had both taken the covenant themselves, and had pressed it upon others. So they were now to own themselves very guilty in that matter. And those who thought it might be lawful upon great and illegal provocation to resist unjust invasions on the laws and liberties of the subjects, excepted to the subscription,

"tive to the church of Eng

66

land, as now established." The protest was first signed by the duke of York, and then by

some few temporal lords; but
not one bishop. See Journal of
the Lords of 25th of July 1663,
0.

1661. though it was scarce safe for any at that time to

The act of

have insisted on that point. Some thought, that since the king had taken the covenant, he at least was bound to stand to it.

Another point was fixed by the act of uniformity, uniformity. which was more at large formerly: those who came to England from the foreign churches had not been required to be ordained among us: but now all, that had not episcopal ordination, were made incapable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice. Some few alterations were made in the liturgy by the bishops themselves: a few new collects were made, as the prayer for all conditions of men, and the general thanksgiving. A collect was also drawn for the parliament, in which a new epithet was added to the king's title, that gave great offence, and occasioned much indecent raillery: he was styled our most religious king. It was not easy to give a proper sense to this, and to make it go well down; since, whatever the signification of religion might be in the Latin word, as importing the sacredness of the king's person, yet in the English language it bore a signification that was no way applicable to the king. And those who took great liberties with him have often asked him, what must all his people think, when they heard him prayed for as their most religious king? Some other lesser additions were made.

* (The same expressions of our most religious and gracious king, as appear in the present prayer for the parliament, occur in that which was used for the same assembly in 1625. It is to be found in the Summary of Devotions compiled and used by archbishop Laud. The be

ginning of which prayer, as far as the words of our sovereign and his kingdoms, and its conclusion, These and all other necessaries, &c. are exactly the same as in the present form, except in the late substitution of dominions for kingdoms.)

But care was taken that nothing should be altered, 1661. so as it had been moved by the presbyterians; for it was resolved to gratify them in nothing. One important addition was made, chiefly by Gawden's means ". He pressed that a declaration, explaining the reasons of their kneeling at the sacrament, which had been in king Edward's liturgy, but was left out in queen Elizabeth's time, should be again set where it had once been. The papists were highly offended, when they saw such an express declaration made against the real presence; and the duke told me, that when he asked Sheldon how they came to declare against a doctrine, which he had been instructed was the doctrine of the church, Sheldon answered, Ask Gawden about it, who is a 184 bishop of your own making: for the king had ordered his promotion for the service he had done. The convocation that prepared those alterations, as they added some new holy days, St. Barnabas, and the conversion of St. Paul, so they took in more lessons out of the Apocrypha, in particular the story of Bell and the Dragon2: new offices were also drawn for two new days, the thirtieth of January, called king Charles the Martyr, and the twenty-ninth of May, the day of the king's birth and return. Sancroft drew for these some offices of a very high strain. Yet others of a more moderate strain were preferred to them. But he, coming to be advanced to the see of Canterbury, got his offices to be published by the king's authority, in a time when so high a style as was in them did not sound well in

y See the author's History of the Reformation, vol. iii. page 5 of the preface. See bishop

1661. the nation 2. Such care was taken in the choice and returns of the members of the convocation, that every thing went among them as was directed by Sheldon and Morley. When they had prepared all their alterations, they offered them to the king, who sent them to the house of commons, upon which the act of uniformity was prepared by Keeling, afterwards lord chief justice.