No. 6. On Bishop Kennett's Historical Register. 547 -554. Provisions for ejected Ministers, by Long Parliament. Tar- tars posterity of the ten tribes. Unlearned preachers. Rev. T. College Exercise. Latin Dedications. Reordination. Mr. Ollyffe. Letter from T. De La Faye. AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF MY OWN LIFE, WITH SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE TIMES I HAVE LIVED IN. CHAPTER VI. 1703-1708. Farther hints as to Public Transactions. My Removal to Westminster, and Settlement there; with some Account of the Affairs of the Dissenters; of my own Ministerial Service; and of my concern with the New Prophets, their Adherents and Abettors. 1703. February 27th. The Commons passed "An Act for enlarging the time for taking the Oath of Abjuration, and also for recapacitating and indemnifying such persons as had not taken the same by the time limited." This being sent to the Lords, passed their House, with the material amendment of a clause added, "for the farther security of her Majesty's person, and the succession of the Crown in the Protestant line." After debate in the Commons upon the Bill sent from the Lords, thus amended, the question was offered to be put, whether that House agreed with the Lords? But a previous question was proposed, as customary to try the strength of parties. There were 117 Noes, and 118 Yeas: so that the Hanover family carried it but by a single vote.* * See Burnet's "Own Time," ii. 340. Soon after this vote, Burnet addressed "a Memorial to the Princess Sophia" (quoted Vol. i. p. 466, note). It is dated May 15, 1703, and designed to inform the Electress of "the ancient constitution of England, the crown, revenue, peerage, Parliament," &c. The original MS., the Bishop's undoubted autograph, was accidentally discovered "in the royal library at Hanover," and published the same year by M. Feder, the Librarian. Though the Memorialist, experienced in Courts and Cabinets, denounces "High Church," for having "preached up passive obedience and non-resistance," and seems to complain that "the great preferments of the Church are in the Crown; wherefore churchmen are forced to make their court there for their advancement;" yet, upon the whole, his political reputation has, probably, been little increased by the discovery. Though Milton and Sydney might be proscribed, Locke had written on Government, as exercised under a limited monarchy. Yet the Bishop has no author to recommend, for the knowledge of English history, or to mature the judgment and influence the administration of an expectant reigning Queen, but Butler and the Jacobite Lesley. He says: "A valuable English poet, called Hudibras, in his 2d Canto, of his 3d part, is, by all I can hear, the truest historian of the About the same time there was a libel published, intitled "King William's exorbitant Grants,"* dedicated to the Queen and the Commons; in which the Hanover succession was impudently arraigned,† and affairs of England from the death of Cromwell to King Charles his Restoration," an event which the Bishop attributes to "the genius of the English nation. We won't," says he, "be governed by one another, and therefore must have a sovereign to rule over us." Lesley is thus introduced and accompanied :-" The most ridiculous and yet the most dangerous sect we have among us, is the Quakers. I could write much concerning this sort of people, but it hath been so incomparably well done by a late author, that I neither would forestall, nor rob your Highness of the pleasure of reading the book in print, called, The Snake in the Grass, which I therefore humbly presume to send in the same pacquet with this, accompanied with my old friend Hudibras, who as he hath been the delight of the present age, so will he never be outdone by the next, nor any that shall come after. King Charles II. valued him beyond any English poet that ever wrote." The Memorialist who could find out "the most dangerous sect" in "the Quakers," would easily discover that "King Charles I. was certainly as good a Christian and as good a man as lived." At length, however, "rapt into future times," or rather, ad Græcas calendas, or "latter lammas," he "cannot but be persuaded that the Presbyterians, especially, and the Independents, will one day come into the Church of England of themselves;" among other reasons, because "their old teachers, Baxter, Bates, Owen, and the rest of their great men, are dead and gone." Memorial, (1814) pp. 33, 47, 48, 92, 93.—Ed. † On one occasion, according to Lord Halifax, "a clergyman, in a company of Convocation-men, had openly called the Prin a plan proposed for bringing in the Pretender, with the consent of her Majesty as his guardian. Yet the author, instead of being punished, was encouraged and rewarded.* At the rising of the Parliament, the Queen, in her Speech to the two Houses (Feb. 27,) putting them upon earnest endeavours to "continue and preserve the quiet and satisfaction of all her subjects," added that she "hoped that such of them as had the misfortune to dissent from the Church of England would rest secure in the Act of Toleration, which she was firmly resolved to maintain." And, "above all other things, she recommended to them peace and union among themselves, as the most effectual means that could be devised to discourage and defeat the designs of their enemies." Feb. 20th, died† the Marquis of Blandford, only son of his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, who was in the course of his education at Cambridge. Many had raised expectations from him. March 13th, the Elector of Hanover was installed Knight of the Garter at Windsor, by his proxy, the Lord Mohun. About this time came out, "A Letter to a Clergyman in the country, concerning the Votes of the Bishops in Parliament, upon the Bill against occacess Sophia, an unbaptized Lutheran." See "Proceedings of the Lords," ii. 155.-ED. The Queen, having no doubt of their affinity, would, naturally, incline to her brother's succession.--ED. "Of the small-pox." Burnet, ii. 347.-ED. |