admitted him to orders, gave him a benefice, and employed him in the projected translation, himself revising the work. Having finished it in a few years, he was about to print it at his own expense; but, strange to say, was thwarted in his noble design by the opposition of some of his clerical brethren, among whom was Archbishop Laud; and so bitter was the hostility excited by this effort of our bishop, that on the ground of some trivial delinquency on the part of King, the translator, he was instantly deprived of his living, which was bestowed on the informer. The bishop would now have printed the Bible in his own house, but before ne could put his design into execution, the rebellion broke out, and tranquillity was not restored to the country when Bedell himself was called to a better world. The manuscript copy of his translation, however, was saved amidst the general confusion, but was not printed until the reign of King William, when the Hon. Robert Boyle, into whose hands the manuscript had fallen, besides reprinting the New Testament, printed King's translation of the Old, both at his own expense.

A few years before his death, Bishop Bedell was engaged in an amicable controversy with Dr Ward on the subject of baptism. The bishop was a Calvinist in sentiment, but took a warm interest in the design of reconciling the Lutherans and Calvinists. He died on the 7th of February 1642, in the 71st year of his age. Great numbers of the natives attended his funeral, and fired a volley over his grave, crying out at the same time, " Requiescat in pace ultimus Anglorum !" In his person, Bishop Bedell was tall and graceful, he wore a long and broad beard, which gave him a very venerable appearance. His eyesight sustained no decay from age, and his judgment and memory continued unimpaired to the last.'

Archbishop Laud.

BORN A. D. 1573.-died A. D. 1644.

WILLIAM LAUD, archbishop of Canterbury, was the son of a clothier at Reading, in Berkshire, where he was born in the year 1573. He received the elements of instruction at the free school of his native place, whence he removed to St John's college, Oxford, in 1590. He took priest's orders in 1601, and in the following year preached a divinity lecture in his college, in which he maintained the perpetual visibility of the church of Rome till the reformation, a doctrine which, he conceived, was necessary to support that of the perpetual visibility of the church of Christ upon earth. His sentiments on this point were strongly censured by Abbot, then vice-chancellor of the university, which laid the foundation of that animosity which Laud afterwards exhibited towards the archbishop. His first preferment was the vicarage of Stamford, in Northamptonshire, which he obtained in 1607. In the following year, he commenced D.D., and was appointed chaplain to Neile, bishop of Rochester. He was made king's chaplain on the 3d of November, 1611. In 1616, the king made him dean of Glou

cester.

1 Life by Burnet.-Christian Observer, vol. xv.- Bayle and Ed.

On the 29th of June, 1621, he was advanced to the see of St David's, with express permission, on the part of the king, to hold the presidentship of St John's in commendam, but he resigned the latter office the day before his consecration. Next year, at the king's command, he held a conference with Fisher, the jesuit, which was soon afterwards published. It seems but fair here to notice the terms in which Laud speaks of the church of Rome, and the manner in which he rejects the accusation under which he knew he laboured at this period. "Should I practice, (he says himself,) to superinduce Romish tyranny and superstition over the true religion established in England, I have taken a very wrong way to it. For I have hindered as many from going to the Roman party, and have reduced as many from it, and some of great quality, and some of great learning and judgment," [among whom the famous William Chillingworth,] "as I believe any divine in England hath done. And is this the way to bring in Romish superstition? To reduce men from it? Or is this the reward from the state which men must look for that have done these services?" Again, in reference to his work against Fisher, which was printed in April, 1623, he says: "The book which I have written against Mr Fisher, the Jesuit, must of necessity either acquit me of this calumny, or proclaim me a villain to the world. And I hope I have so lived as that men have not that opinion of me; sure I am I have not deserved it. And had this book of mine been written according to the garb of the time, fuller of railing than reason, a learned Jesuit would have laughed at it and me, and a learned Protestant might have thought I had written it only to conceal myself and my judgment in those difficulties. But being written in the way it is, I believe no Romanist will have much cause to joy at it, or to think me a favourer of their cause. And since I am thus put to it, I will say thus much more: This book of mine is so written (by God's great blessing upon me) as that whensoever the church of England (as they are growing towards it apace) shall depart from the grounds which I have therein laid, she shall never be able, before any learned and disengaged Christian, to make good her difference with and separation from the church of Rome. And let no man think I speak pride or vanity in this, for the outrages which have been made against me force me to say it; and I am confident future times will make it good, unless profaneness break in, and overrun the whole kingdom, which is not a little to be feared."-Troubles, &c. p. 160. Under the date February 4, 1622-3, page 9th of his Diary, we have this entry; "Wednesday, my conference held with Fisher the Jesuit, May 24, 1622, and put in writing at the command of King James, having been before read to the king, was this day put into the press, being licensed by the bishop of London. I had not hitherto appeared in print. I am no controvertist. May God so love and bless my soul as I desire and endeavour that all the never to be enough deplored distractions of the church may be composed happily, and to the glory of his name." Dr Grey has added the testimonies of Mr Edward Deering and Limborch to the negative evidence of Fisher's answer, in order to make out an exculpatory proof for Laud. But it is quite impossible to clear Laud, when archbishop, of the serious charge of symbolizing with the church of Rome in its two leading features, superstition and intolerance. May says, "not only the pomps of cere

monies were daily increased, and innovations of great scandal brought into the church; but, in point of doctrine, many fair approaches made towards Rome. Even Heylin says, the doctrines are altered in many things; as, for example, the pope not anti-christ, pictures, free-will, &c. the thirty-nine articles seeming patient, if not ambitious also, of some catholic sense."

On the death of James, in 1625, Laud was appointed to supply the place of the dean of Westminster at the coronation of the new king. Lake, bishop of Bath and Wells, died in May, 1626, and in July Laud was appointed to succeed him. On the 17th of June, 1628, he was advanced to the see of London. One of the bishop's first enterprises, after his translation to London, says Neal, was to stifle the predestinarian controversy, for which purpose he procured the thirty-nine articles to be reprinted, with the following declaration at the head of them. BY THE KING,

"Being by God's ordinance, and our just title, defender of the faith, &c. within these dominions, we hold it agreeable to our kingly office, for the preservation of unity and peace, not to suffer any unnecessary disputations which may nourish faction in the church or commonwealth : we, therefore, with the advice of our bishops, declare, that the articles of the church of England which the clergy generally have subscribed, do contain the true doctrine of the church of England, agreeable to God's word, which we do therefore ratify and confirm, requiring all our loving subjects to continue in the uniform profession thereof, and prohibiting the least difference from the said articles. We take comfort in this, that all clergymen within our realm have always most willingly subscribed the articles, which is an argument that they all agree, in the true usual literal meaning of them; and that in those curious points, in which the present differences lie, men of all sorts take the articles to be for them, which is an argument again, that none of them intend any desertion of the articles established: wherefore we will, that all curious search into these things be laid aside, and these disputes be shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the articles according to them; and that no man hereafter preach or print to draw the article aside any way, but shall submit to it, in the plain and full manner thereof, and shall not put his own sense or comment to the meaning of the article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense that if any public reader in the universities, or any other person, shall affix any new sense to any article, or shall publicly read, or hold disputation on either side; or if any divine in the universities shall preach or print any thing either way, they shall be liable to censure in the ecclesiastical commission, and we will see there shall be due execution upon them.”1

This declaration, Dr Harris observes, has been produced and canvassed in the famous Bangorian and Trinitarian controversies, which engaged the attention of the public for a great number of years. Life of Charles I. p. 183-199. Dr Blackburne has at large discussed the validity of it, and is disposed to consider James I. as the first publisher of it. He shows that it has been corrupted by the insertion of the word now; as, "we will not endure any varying, or departing, in the least degree, from the doctrine and discipline of the church of England now established;" a language, he justly observes, inconsistent with the principles of our present constitution. Confessional, p. 131-143. 3d edit.-Toulmin."

"Surely," exclaims Neal, and with good reason, "there never was such a confused and unintelligible declaration printed before !" It was made to serve its purpose, however: "In pursuance of his majesty's declaration, all books relating to the Arminian controversy were called in by proclamation and suppressed, and among others, Montague's and Manwaring's, which was only a feint to cover a more deadly blow to be reached at the Puritans; for at the same time Montague and Manwaring received the royal pardon, and were preferred to some of the best livings in the kingdom (as has been observed), while the answer to their books, by Dr Featly, Dr Goad, Mr Burton, Ward, Yates, and Rouse, were not only suppressed, but the publishers questioned in the star-chamber. The king put on the same thin disguise with regard to Papists; as proclamation was issued out against priests and Jesuits, and particularly against the bishop of Chalcedon; orders were also sent to the lord-mayor of London, to make search after them, and commit them to prison, but at the same time his majesty appointed commissioners to compound with them for their recusancy; so that instead of being suppressed, they became a branch of the revenue, and Sir Richard Weston, a notorious Papist, was created earl of Portland, and made lord-high-treasurer of England."

name.

In 1630, occurred the disgraceful prosecution and sentence of Dr Alexander Leighton, the father of the worthy and celebrated prelate of that "This divine," says Neal, "had published, during the last session of parliament, an Appeal to the parliament; or, Zion's plea against prelacy,' wherein he speaks not only with freedom, but with very great rudeness and indecency against bishops; calling them 'men of blood,' and saying, 'that we do not read of a greater persecution and higher indignities done towards God's people in any nation than in this, since the death of Queen Elizabeth.' He calls the prelacy of the church antichristian.' He declaims vehemently against the canons and ceremonies; and adds, that the church has her laws from the Scripture, and that no king may make laws for the house of God.' He styles the queen a daughter of Heth, and concludes with saying, what a pity it is that so ingenious and tractable a king should be so monstrously abused by the bishops, to the undoing of himself and his subjects. Now, though the warmth of these expressions can no ways be justified, yet let the reader consider whether they bear any proportion to the sentence of the court. The cause was tried June 4, 1630. The defendant, in his answer, owned the writing of the book, denying any ill intention; his design being only to lay these things before the next parliament for their consideration. Nevertheless, the court adjudged unanimously, that for this offence, the doctor should be committed to the prison of the Fleet for life, and pay a fine of £10,000; that the high-commission should degrade him from his ministry; and that then he should be brought to the pillory at Westminster, while the court was sitting, and be whipped; after whipping, be set upon the pillory a convenient time, and have one of his ears cut off, one side of his nose slit, and be branded in the face with a double S. S. for a sower of sedition: that then he should be carried back to prison, and after a few days be pilloried a second time in Cheapside, and be there likewise whipped, and have the other side of his nose slit, and his other ear cut of, and then be shut up in a close prison for the remainder

of his life.' Bishop Laud pulled off his cap while this merciless sen. tence was pronouncing, and gave God thanks for it !"

When Charles visited Scotland, he was attended, throughout his whole progress, by Laud, who had now become desirous to introduce the English liturgy into Scotland. On this occasion Laud preached before the king in the royal chapel at Edinburgh, and embraced the opportunity to enlarge on the excellencies of episcopacy, and of the ceremonies of the church. The death of Abbot at last raised Laud to the summit of his ambition: two days after the archbishop's demise, Laud was translated to the sea of Canterbury. One of the first acts of the new primate was the republication of King James's infamous declaration of the year 1618, concerning lawful sports to be used on Sundays after divine service. Countenanced by such grave authority, things went merrily on for a time: "the court had their balls, masquerades, and plays, on the Sunday evenings; while the youth of the country were at their morrice dances, May-games, church and clerk ales, and all such kind of revellings." A series of suspensions, fines, and imprisonments followed; for many refused to obey the archbishop's injunction to read the declaration from the pulpit. The archbishop next set himself to render the book of Common-Prayer more unexceptionable to the papists, and more distant from puritanism." Having succeeded tolerably well in this pious task; and got some quiet from the incessant railings of his arch-enemies, Prynne and Bastwick, by having them fined, pilloried, and imprisoned, he turned his thoughts against the Calvinists in Ireland, and resolved to confer the benefit of the articles of the church of England, with his own ceremonial amendments, on that kingdom. In this design he was opposed by Archbishop Usher, who moved in convocation, that their own articles, ratified by King James in 1615, might be confirmed; but the motion was rejected, and the primate of England triumphed over his brother of Ireland. A harder task awaited him in Scotland.

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The Scottish bishops had been ordered to prepare a book of service for their own use. The first liturgy of Edward VI. was made the basis and guide for the Scottish liturgy; but the compilers were instructed "to keep such Catholic saints in their calendar as were in the English, and that such new saints as were added should be the most approved, but in no case to omit St George and St Patrick; that in the book of orders, those words in the English book be not changed, 'receive ye the Holy Ghost;' and that sundry lessons out of the Apocrypha be inserted; besides these, the word presbyter was inserted instead of priest; and the water in the font for baptism was to be conse crated. There was a benediction or thanksgiving for departed saints; some passages in the communion were altered in favour of the real presence; the rubrics contained instructions to the people, when to stand and when to sit or kneel; to all which the Scots had hitherto been strangers. The main parts of the liturgy were the same with the English, that there might be an appearance of uniformity; it was revised, corrected, and altered, by Archbishop Laud and Bishop Wren, as appeared by the original found in the archbishop's chamber in the Tower, in which the alterations were inserted with his own hand."

This 'good work' being completed, was, together with a collection of canons, ratified by his majesty, and authorised by royal proclamation.