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of London, before, or very soon after, he had been consecrated bishop of Hereford, if he were more than elect of that church.

It was now a time of great ease and tranquillity; the king (as hath been said before) had made himself superior to all those difficulties and straits he had to contend with the four first years he came to the crown at home; and was now reverenced by all his neighbours, who all needed his friendship, and desired to have it; the wealth of the kingdom notorious to all the world, and the general temper and humour of it little inclined to the papists, and less to the puritan. There were some late taxes and impositions introduced, which rather angered than grieved the people, who were more than repaired by the quiet, peace, and prosperity they enjoyed; and the murmur and discontent that was, appeared to be against the excess of power exercised by the crown, and supported by the judges in Westminsterhall. The church was not repined at, nor the least inclination to alter the government and discipline thereof, or to change the doctrine. Nor was there at that time any considerable number of persons of any valuable condition throughout the kingdom, who did wish either; and the cause of so prodigious a change in so few years after was too visible from the effects. The archbishop's heart was set upon the advancement of the church, in which he well knew he had the king's full concurrence, which he thought would be too powerful for any opposition; and that he should need no other assistance.

Though the nation generally, as was said before, was without any ill talent to the church, either in the point of the doctrine, or the discipline, yet they

were not without a jealousy that popery was not enough discountenanced, and were very averse from admitting any thing they had not been used to, which they called innovation, and were easily persuaded, that any thing of that kind was but to please the papists. Some doctrinal points in controversy had been, in the late years, agitated in the pulpits with more warmth and reflections, than had used to be; and thence the heat and animosity increased in books pro and con upon the same arguments: most of the popular preachers, who had not looked into the ancient learning, took Calvin's word for it, and did all they could to propagate his opinions in those points: they who had studied more, and were better versed in the antiquities of the church, the fathers, the councils, and the ecclesiastical histories, with the same heat and passion in preaching and writing defended the contrary.

But because, in the late dispute in the Dutch churches, those opinions were supported by Jacobus Arminius, the divinity professor in the university of Leyden in Holland, the latter men, we mentioned, were called Arminians; though many of them had never read a word written by Arminius. Either side defended and maintained their different opinions as the doctrine of the church of England, as the two great orders in the church of Rome, the Dominicans and Franciscans, did at the same time, and had many hundred years before, with more vehemence and uncharitableness, maintained the same opinions one against the other; either party professing to adhere to the doctrine of the catholic church, which had been ever wiser than to deter

mine the controversy. And yet that party here, which could least support themselves with reason, were very solicitous, according to the ingenuity they always practise to advance any of their pretences, to have the people believe, that they who held with Arminius did intend to introduce popery ; and truly the other side was no less willing to have it thought, that all, who adhered to Calvin in those controversies, did in their hearts likewise adhere to him with reference to the discipline, and desired to change the government of the church, destroy the bishops, and so set up the discipline that he had established at Geneva; and so both sides found such reception generally with the people, as they were inclined to the persons; whereas, in truth, none of the one side were at all inclined to popery, and very many of the other were most affectionate to the peace and prosperity of the church, and very pious and learned men.

The archbishop had, all his life, eminently opposed Calvin's doctrine in those controversies, before the name of Arminius was taken notice of, or his opinions heard of; and thereupon, for want of another name, they had called him a papist, which nobody believed him to be, and he had more manifested the contrary in his disputations and writings, than most men had done; and it may be the other found the more severe and rigorous usage from him, for their propagating that calumny against him. He was a man of great courage and resolution, and being most assured within himself, that he proposed no end in all his actions or designs, than what was pious and just, (as sure no man had ever a heart more entire to the king,

the church, or his country,) he never studied the best ways to those ends; he thought, it may be, that any art or industry that way would discredit, at least make the integrity of the end suspected, let the cause be what it will. He did court persons too little; nor cared to make his designs and purposes appear as candid as they were, by shewing them in any other dress than their own natural beauty and roughness; and did not consider enough what men said, or were like to say of him. If the faults and vices were fit to be looked into, and discovered, let the persons be who they would that were guilty of them, they were sure to find no connivance or favour from him. He intended the discipline of the church should be felt, as well as spoken of, and that it should be applied to the greatest and most splendid transgressors, as well as to the punishment of smaller offences, and meaner offenders; and thereupon called for or cherished the discovery of those who were not careful to cover their own iniquities, thinking they were above the reach of other men's, or their power or will to chastise. Persons of honour and great quality, of the court, and of the country, were every day cited into the high-commission court, upon fame of their incontinence, or other scandal in their lives, and were there prosecuted to their shame and punishment: and as the shame (which they called an insolent triumph upon their degree and quality, and levelling them with the common people) was never forgotten, but watched for revenge; so the fines imposed there were the more questioned, and repined against, because they were assigned to the rebuilding and repairing St. Paul's

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church; and thought therefore to be the more severely imposed, and the less compassionately reduced and excused; which likewise made the jurisdiction and rigour of the star-chamber more felt, and murmured against, which sharpened many men's humours against the bishops, before they had any ill intention towards the church.

There were three persons most notorious for their declared malice against the government of the church by bishops, in their several books and writings, which they had published to corrupt the people, with circumstances very scandalous, and in language very scurrilous, and impudent; which all men thought deserved very exemplary punishment: they were of three several professions which had the most influence upon the people, a divine, a common lawyer, and a doctor of physic; none of them of interest, or any esteem with the worthy part of their several professions, having been formerly all looked upon under characters of reproach: yet when they were all sentenced, and for the execution of that sentence brought out to be punished as common and signal rogues, exposed upon scaffolds to have their ears cut off, and their faces and foreheads branded with hot irons, (as the poorest and most mechanic malefactors used to be, when they were not able to redeem themselves by any fine for their trespasses, or to satisfy any damages for the scandals they had raised against the good name and reputation of others,) men began no more to consider their manners, but the men; and every profession, with anger and indignation enough, thought their education, and degrees, and quality, would have secured them from such infamous judg

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