bishop told the Prolocutor that the Upper House would have adhered to their resolution of receiving nothing from the Lower until their irregularity in refusing to meet the Committee of the Upper House was set right, had not the Bishop of Sarum himself requested them to receive the Representation. The Bishops replied to the Representation that the Lower House had no right to examine books without first consulting with the Upper House; that they had no right to censure any books; that their action in censuring a book in general terms without specifying the particulars complained of, was defamatory and scandalous; and that the Bishop of Sarum, by his excellent history of the Reformation, approved of by both Houses of Parliament, and by his other writings, had done good service to the Church and justly deserved the thanks of the House". In the new Convocation which met at the commencement of 1702, Dr. Sherlock, Dean of St. Paul's, having preached the Latin Sermon, the Lower House marked their feeling against the Bishop of Sarum by electing as Prolocutor, by 37 to 30 votes, Dr. Wood In those disputes between the two Houses there were three Bishops, Compton, of London, Sprat, of Rochester, and Trelawney, of Exeter, who countenanced the proceedings of the Lower House; whilst in the latter there was a considerable minority, amongst whom were Beveridge, and Bull, and Sherlock, who, on more than one occasion, addressed the Bishops against the course taken by their brethren. ward, Dean of Sarum, who was at that time under prosecution by his Diocesan, his opponent being Dr. Beveridge, the candidate of the Whigs, and in this case, it must be confessed, the moderate party. In this Convocation the breach between the two Houses became widened. Hitherto it had been entered on the minutes of the Lower House that Convocation had met on the days and at the hours appointed by the Archbishop; but on January 28 a motion was proposed and carried enabling the Prolocutor to adjourn, or to continue the meetings of the Lower House in his own name. The Lower House, however, was divided against itself, till a plan was discovered by Beveridge, by whose advice a Committee was formed to compose the matter; and a kind of accommodation was for the time patched up d. On February 12, the Prolocutor having been seized with illness, deputed Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church, to act in his place; it was acknowledged on all sides that a deputy ought to be appointed, but a new difficulty arose, as to whose right it was to appoint. On the 13th of February, however, the Prolocutor died; Instead of the usual form Prolocutor intimavit hanc Convocationem esse continuatam, the form now used was Dominus Prolocutor continuavit et prorogavit quoad hanc domum. It consisted on one side of Drs. Hooper, Jane, Aldrich, Binkes, Wynne, and Mr. Needham, and on the other of Drs. Beveridge, Hayley, Willis, Kennet, Prideaux, and Mr. Lloyd. and the King dying on the following 8th of March, the Convocation virtually expired, although the Lower House claimed the same right as Parliament of sitting into the next reign. A CHAPTER VI. STATE OF THE CHURCH UNDER WILLIAM III. FTER the restoration of Charles II., such a general licentiousness and infidelity pervaded the country, and so lowered the standard of morals, as to threaten the very existence of society. For twelve dreary years the nation had tolerated a gloomy Puritanism, which not only rendered religion ridiculous, but sowed the seeds of the decay of morals which followed after the Restoration. The era of Puritanism was marked, beyond that spirit of persecution which was inherent in it, by two characteristics, its gloominess and its hypocrisy. Not only were innocent amusements of all kinds proscribed; not only was the Sunday rendered as gloomy as a Pharisaical Sabbath, and Christmas-day, which from time immemorial had been observed as a season of joy and domestic affection, converted into a Fast; but one of the first resolutions of the Barebones Parliament was that no person should be admitted into the public service until the House was satisfied as to his real holiness. The consequence was that the sincere, although mistaken, Puritans soon found themselves lost in a multitude not only of men of M 1 the world, but of the worst sort of men, who saw that their only road to favour lay in an outward profession of religion. When no man could rise to eminence without having upon him the conventional signs of godliness-the sad-coloured dress, the sour look, the lank hair, the nasal whine-the religious tenets of the party were adopted by the most notorious libertines, who lived in the constant practice of fraud, rapacity, and secret debauchery a. When the Restoration was effected, and the restraints of Puritanism were removed, the rebound was sudden and dangerous; Religion, in the minds of many people, was associated with gloominess and hypocrisy, and so people, whilst they shook off whatever was good, adhered to the bad part which had brought disgrace upon the Puritan name. They determined that, whatever they were, they would not be, and in truth they were not, hypocrites and dissemblers. The example of a good and moral king would have done much to counteract the evil. Charles II., a man by nature addicted to frivolous amusements, had been a prisoner in the hands of the austere Puritans, whose restraints he hated, and whose absurdities he ridiculed. Without belief in human virtue, he thought that every one could be brought to minister to his pleasures; and unfortunately the life which the King and the Court led, at a time |