knew not whether the ingredients mentioned in the bill were the same in the julap and plasters. This is the naked truth delivered by oath from the physicians to a select Committee two years after, when the Parliament voted the duke's act "a transcendent presumption;" though most thought it done without any ill intention. March 24th, four days before his death, he desired to receive the sacrament; and being demanded whether he was prepared in point of faith and charity for so great mysteries, he said he was, and gave humble thanks to God for the same. Being desired to declare his faith, and what he thought of those books he had written in that kind; he repeated the Articles of the Creed one by one, and said, he believed them all as they were received and expounded by that part of the catholic church which was established here in England; and said, with a kind of sprightfulness and vivacity, that whatever he had written of this faith in his life, he was now ready to seal with his death. Being questioned in point of charity, he answered prosently, that he forgave all men that offended him, and desired to be forgiven by all Christians, whom he in any wise had offended. Then, after absolution read and pronounced, he received the sacrament; and, some hours after, he professed to the standers-by, that they could not imagine what ease and comfort he found in himself since the receiving hereof; and so quietly resigned his soul to God, March 27th, having reigned twenty-two years and three days. * He was of a peaceable disposition. Indeed, when he first entered England at Berwick, he himself gave fire to, and shot off, a piece of ordnance, and that with good judgment. This was the only military act personally performed by him. So that he may have seemed in that cannon to have discharged war out of England. Coming to York, he was somewhat amazed with the equipage of the northern lords repairing unto him, (especially with the earl of Cumberland's,) admiring there should be in England so many kings; for, less he could not conjecture them,-such the multitude and gallantry of their attendance. But, following the counsel of his English secretary there present, he soon found a way to abate the formidable greatness of the English nobility, by conferring honour upon many persons; whereby nobility was spread so broad, that it became very thin, which much lessened the ancient esteem thereof. He was very eloquent in speech, whose Latin had no fault, but that it was too good for a king, whom carelessness (not curiosity) becomes in that kind. His Scotch tone he rather affected than STOW'S "Chronicle," page 819. 3, 4. His Majesty's Care to regulate Preaching. His Directions. Now was his majesty informed, that it was high time to apply some cure to the pulpits, as sick of a sermon-surfeit, and other exorbitances. Some meddled with state-matters; and generally, by an improper transposition, the people's duty was preached to the king at court; the king's, to the people in the country. Many shallow preachers handled the profound points of predestination; wherein, pretending to guide their flocks, they lost themselves. Sermons were turned into satires against papists or nonconformists. To repress the present and prevent future mischiefs in this kind, his majesty issued out his Directions to be written fair in every register's office, whence any preacher (if so pleased) might, with his own hand, take out copies gratis, paying nothing for expedition.* Herein the king revived the primitive and profitable order of catechising in the afternoon, (better observed in all other Reformed churches than of late in England,) according to the tenor ensuing:"Most reverend father in God, right trusty and entirely beloved counsellor, we greet you well.-Forasmuch as the abuses and extravagancies of preachers in the pulpit have been in all times repressed in this realm, by some act of Council or state, with the advice and resolution of grave and learned prelates; insomuch, that the very licensing of preachers had beginning by an order of Starchamber, the eighth day of July, in the nineteenth year of the reign of king Henry VIII. our noble predecessor: and whereas at this present, divers young students, by reading of late writers, and ungrounded divines, do broach many times unprofitable, unsound, seditious, and dangerous doctrines, to the scandal of the church and disquiet of the state and present government: we, upon humble representations unto us of these inconveniencies by yourself, and sundry other grave and reverend prelates of this church, as also of our princely care and zeal for the extirpation of schism and dissension growing from these seeds, and for the settling of a religious and peaceable government both in church and commonwealth; do, by these our special letters, straitly charge and command you to use all possible care and diligence, that these limitations and cautions herewith sent unto you concerning preachers be duly and strictly from henceforth put in practice and observed by the several bishops within your jurisdiction. And to this end our pleasure is, that you send them forthwith copies of these Directions to be by them speedily sent and communicated unto every parson, vicar, curate, lecturer, and minister, in every cathedral or parish-church • Cabala, part ii. page 191. nations." St. Paul corroborates the same," Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season." Man therefore ought not to forbid what God enjoins. II. This is the way to starve souls by confining them to one meal a-day, or, at the best, by giving them only a mess of milk for their supper, and so to bed. III. Such as are licensed to make sermons may be intrusted to choose their own texts, and not in the afternoons to be restrained to the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments. IV. In prohibiting the preaching of predestination, man makes THAT "the forbidden fruit," which God appointed for "the tree of life;" so cordial the comforts contained therein to a distressed conscience. V. Bishops and deans (forsooth) and none under the dignity, may preach of predestination. What is this but to "have the word of God in respect of persons?" as if all discretion were confined to cathedral-men, and they best able to preach who use it the least! VI. Papists and puritans in the king's letters are put into the same balance; and papists in the drime scale; first named, as preferred in the king's care, chiefly to the name of Jesus," are, with the apostles, "to obey God rather than man." But vast the difference betwixt a total prohibition, and (as in this case) a prudential regulation of preaching. Milk (catechetical doctrine) is best for babes, which-generally make up more than a moiety of every congregation. Such restraint hath liberty enough, seeing all things are clearly contained in, or justly reducible to, these three,—which are to be desired, believed, and performed. Indeed, predestination, solidly and soberly handled, is an antidote against despair. But, as many ignorant preachers ordered it, the cordial was turned into a poison; and therefore such mysteries might well be forborne by mean ministers in popular congregations. It must be presumed, that such of necessity must be of age and experience, and may in civility be believed of more than ordinary learning, before they attained such perferment. Besides, cathedral-auditories, being of a middle nature for understanding, (as beneath the university, so above common city and country-congregations,) are fitter for such high points to be preached therein. The king's letter looks on both under the notion of guilty persons. Had puritans been placed first, such as now take exception at their post-posing would have |