with a character something inferior to the prelatic'. George Blackwell was, in consequence, nominated Arch-priest, with the pope's approbation, but not formally by his appointment'. Apparently, the new arch-priest was quite independent of the Jesuits, but really, secret instructions bound him to a dependence upon Garnet, the provincial of their order. Thus Persons gained by management a reasonable prospect of that influence over the English Romanists, which had been the object of his life, and which he hoped to render highly effective when the queen's demise should embolden competition for the throne. The secular priests of England, however, were highly dissatisfied with Blackwell's appointment, viewing it, in its true light, as a Jesuitic engine to depress them. But they submitted on the pontiff's formal approval of Blackwell's appointment, in 1599, and English Romanism was placed under the superintendence of three arch-priests in succession. Thus was formed, as another century opened, a compact, organised body, which has weathered every storm, and now assumes a tone to which England has been quite unused since the days of James II3.

§ 2. The church of England gained some advantages under James I., by the authorised compilation of a body of canons, a restraint upon the conveyance of ecclesiastical estates to the crown, otherwise than as a lessee on the ordinary terms, an increased strictness in exacting subscription from the clergy, and the completion of that version of Scripture, which has been authorised ever since. The canons were enacted by the convocation of the province of Canterbury, in the spring of 1604, Bancroft, then bishop of London, being president, as Abp. Whitgift had lately died. Their number is 141, and they were chiefly collected from the various articles, injunctions, and synodical acts which appeared under Edward VI. and Elizabeth. They were adopted by the province of York, and authorised by the crown, but never sanctioned by parliament.

"Father Robert Persons, an English Jesuit, was the chief person in credit at Rome, after the cardinal's" (Allen's)" decease, and commonly advised with in all matters relating to the English nation." (Dodd's Ch.

Hist. Lond. 1840. iii. 45.) Persons had originally approved of the episcopate.

2 In 1598.

3 See Mr. Tierney's notes to the new edition of Dodd."

Hence the court of king's bench has unanimously pronounced them no farther binding upon the laity than they may embody the provisions of common or statute law. They have, however, served to direct the proceedings of ecclesiastical courts, and although fallen into desuetude in various particulars, they continue down to the present day of considerable use in preserving one uniform face to the national church. By rendering illegal the transfer of ecclesiastical estates to the crown, James conferred a great boon upon the church. His predecessor had seriously impaired the resources of the dignified clergy by the powers which she obtained at the outset of her reign, for effecting exchanges, as they were called, with such as obtained high preferments in the church. Such powers, in the hands of James, from his extreme facility, and the rapacious importunity displayed by some of his personal favourites, especially those from Scotland, must have proved, in a few years, highly detrimental to the endowments which former covetousness had spared. He deserves, therefore, the respectful remembrance of those who value a church establishmeut, able to hold a high intellectual position, and to support liberally objects worthy of patronage, for consenting, in the very beginning of his power, to limit it in a point liable to so much abuse. The increased strictness in pressing subscription came from the anxiety to repress irregularities entertained by Bancroft, who had been translated to Canterbury within the year of Whitgift's death. He incurred thereby great odium among the Puritanical party, and its admirers have not forgiven him to the present day. But it is impossible to arraign his conduct in this, with any degree of fairness. Nothing can be more unreasonable, than to take the bread provided by an establishment which the recipient is bent upon undermining, or even upon remodelling according to his own private views; and really, pleas of conscience come from such a person with a very ill grace. Abp. Bancroft, however, has not only been very severely blamed for his conduct towards such persons, but also the number of them who suffered under him has been invidiously exaggerated. By the rolls delivered in by him, not long before his death, it church estates. Fuller, B. x. p. 27.

By the 13th Eliz. the subject had been disabled from accepting grants of

appears that only forty-nine clergymen were deprived on any account whatever. This is no great number when we consider the inveteracy of the evil with which he had to contend, and that it was spread over more than nine thousand parishes '. He might, indeed, have frightened some clergymen into a conformity to which they were unused, and for which they were disinclined. Such men may complain of hardship, as they will, to justify their previous conduct: they have evidently very slender claims upon the sympathy of others. The primate's care in this matter of subscription, was attended with immediate results of considerable importance. A degree of uniformity, and of attention to rubrical formalities, long unknown, became general, and probably, if the times had not grown all but irresistibly Puritanical, Bancroft's reforms might have immediately taken a permanent hold upon the church. The new translation of Scripture he did not live to see completed. A commission for executing it issued in 1604, but the work was not formally begun until 1607, and it did not appear in print until 1611. The divines employed upon it were in number forty-seven, and they were divided into six committees, each with its task, which met in Westminster, and in the two Universities'. In this body were included many scholars of unquestionable competence, and as their labours were conducted with extreme deliberation, the result could hardly fail of being, as it has been found, worthy of an enlightened nation's confidence. No version, scrupulously prepared, of originals so antient, various, and extensive, can be absolutely free from obscurities, and even inaccuracies, but upon the whole, the authorised English version is remarkably free from both, and forms, perhaps, the best vernacular Bible that any country has to boast.

§ 3. In one respect, James favoured the Puritanical party. Its theology took entirely the high Calvinistic direction, which Perkins had unfolded about the close of the last century, in his Armilla Aurea, in a more systematic manner than any former divine". Van Harmin, or Arminius, aroused by the

5 Collier, ii. 687.

6 Ibid.

7 Fuller, b. x. pp. 45. 57.

8 Heylin's Quinquarticular History. Tracts. Lond. 1681. p. 615.

popularity of this author', made a formal attack upon his theory', and the disgust which was occasioned among continental Predestinarians by such an examination of their doctrine was loudly echoed by the English Puritans. The king expressed himself, on some occasions, as warmly against the anti-Calvinistic party, as any of his subjects could desire: having even been heard to brand Arminius as the enemy of God'. Nor when the Dutch, embarrassed by the fury with which these disputes were conducted and their increasing adaptation to political purposes, convened the synod of Dort, did James decline his countenance, but sent over some British divines to assist at its deliberations. As the Arminian party was hardly represented at all in that famous assembly, the decisions could not fail of being such as they proved. They were, however, highly agreeable to the Puritanical portion of James's subjects, and had his conduct been invariably answerable to the part taken by him at Dort, he must have been popular with all that busy part of the nation. He had, indeed, already promoted George Abbot to the see of Canterbury; a prelate whose Puritanical predilections rendered him highly popular, but who undid much that his predecessor, Bancroft, had effected in enforcing clerical conformity. But, on the other hand, James had resisted, at Hampton Court, an attempt to impose the Lambeth articles, and had raised anti-Calvinistic clergymen to many of the first preferments. Upon the whole, therefore, he proved any thing rather than a promoter of the Puritanical cause; except in as much as he alternately irritated and encouraged its warmest abettors. Thus were effectually

sown the seeds, which grew so vigorously in the next reign, and eventually ripened in the general overthrow of English institutions.

§ 4. In Ireland, undoubtedly, James not merely allowed, but even formally sanctioned, a step in favour of Puritanism, which must have proved of considerable importance, had not Romanism been so much master of the country as to paralyse every Protestant movement. The established church there was, indeed, in a most deplorable condition, pillage of benefices, from the bishop down to the vicar, having reached such an intolerable height as placed serious difficulties in the way of maintaining the established worship. Much of the Protestantism also which succeeded in rooting itself, was adverse to the Anglican church. The province of Ulster had become, in a great measure, denuded of its old proprietors and inhabitants by means of the rebellions under Elizabeth. The vacancies thus made were partly filled up by bodies of colonists fitted out by the city of London, but still more by emigrants from Scotland. These last brought over all those violent Puritanical prepossessions that had occasioned so many fierce struggles at home'. Thus that portion of the island which seemed likely to be first in a general acceptance of the Reformation, was prejudiced against any view of its principles that did not come recommended from Geneva. Among the established clergy, James Ussher, eventually primate, was by far the most learned, and in consequence his opinion carried great weight. He had, however, espoused heartily those Calvinistic doctrines which study of the Institutes rendered so usual with a large portion of contemporary Protestant divines. The operation of these causes came strikingly before the world in 1615. The Irish convocation, under Ussher's influence, then incorporated the Lambeth articles with others of a Puritanical character, in a body of doctrine which clergymen were to subscribe. This variation from the English terms of conformity was ratified by the lord deputy Chichester, in the king's name. It was, however, soon found unseemly and inconvenient, to exact in Ireland

Bramhall to Laud, Aug. 10, 1633. 7 Collier, ii. 708.

Collier, ii. 760.