of our dear father of ever blessed memory dissolved as fruitless and unfit longer to be held on foot, and this by the counsel of both houses of parliament then sitting; so those two great and honourable bodies of the peers and people represented in parliament, led on this counsel and 5 course to a war with Spain; to effect this, they desired our aid and assistance, and used us to work our said dear father to entertain this course. This upon their persuasions and promises of all assistance and supply we readily undertook and effected, and cannot now be left in 10 that business, but with the sin and shame of all men. Sin, because aid and supply for the defence of the kingdom, and the like affairs of the state, especially such as are advised by parliamentary counsel, are due to the king from his people by all law both of God and men; and 15 shame, if they forsake the king, while he pursues their own counsel just and honourable, and which could not under God but have been successful, if he had been followed and supplied in time, as we desired and laboured for. One thing there is, which proves a great hin- 20 derance of this state, and not continued among the people without great offence against God, detriment both to church and state, and our great disservice in this and all other business; it is the breach of unity, which is grown too great and common among all sorts 25 of men; the danger of this goes far; for in all states it hath made way for enemies to enter. We have by all means endeavoured union, and require of you to preach it, and charity, the mother of it, frequently in the ears of the people. We know their loyal hearts, and therefore 30 wonder the more what should cause distracted affections. If you call upon them, which is your duty, we doubt not but that God will bless them with that love to himself, to his church, and their own preservation, which alone will be able to bind up the scatterings of divided affec- 35 tions into strength. To this end you are to lay before

them what miseries home-divisions have brought upon this and many other kingdoms, and to exhort all men to embrace it in time; the danger itself, besides all other Christian and prudent motives, is offence enough, where 5 it is duly considered, to make men join in all amity against a common, a great, and a growing enemy, and to do it in time, before any secret and cunning working of his may use one part in a division, to weaken the other: and in the last place, but first and last and all times to 1o be insisted upon, you are to call upon God yourselves, and to incite the people to join with you in humble and hearty prayers unto God, that he will be pleased now after long afflictions of his dear people and children, to look in mercy both upon them and us, and in particular 15 for the safety of the king of Denmark, and that army which is left him, that God would bless and prosper him against his and our enemies. Thus you are to strengthen the hearts and the hands of our loyal subjects and people in and upon God. And whereas the greatest confidence 20 men have in God, ariseth not only from his promises, but from their experience likewise of his goodness; you must not fail often to recall to the memory of the people with thankfulness the late great experience we have had of his goodness towards us. For the three great and usual 25 judgments, which he darts down upon disobedient and unthankful people, are pestilence, famine, and the sword; the pestilence did never rage more in this kingdom than of late; and God was graciously pleased in mercy to hear the prayers which were made unto him, and the ceasing 30 of the judgment was little less than a miracle.

The

famine threatened us this present year, and it must have followed, had God rained down his anger a little longer upon the fruits of the earth; but upon our prayers he stayed that judgment, and sent us a most blessed season 35 and a most plentiful harvest. The sword is the thing which we are now to look to, and you must call the

people to their prayers again against the enemy, that God will be pleased to send the like deliverance from this judgment also, that in the same mercy he will vouchsafe to strengthen the hands of his people, that he will sharpen their sword, but dull and turn the edge of 5 that which is in our enemies' hands; that so while some fight, others may pray for the blessing. And you are to be careful, that you fail not to direct and hearten our loving people in this and all other necessary services both of God, his church, and us, that we may have the com- 10 fort of our people's service, the state safety, the church religion, and the people the enjoying of all such blessings as follow these: and we end with doubling of this care upon you and all under you in their several places. Given at our palace at Westm. in the second year of our reign, 15 the 21st of September MDCXXVI.

The care which your lordship is to use in this behalf, is, to see them made known in the worthy preachers and ministers in your diocese, and so far as your lordship may, in your own person to put these things in execution, 20 and to call upon the clergy, which is under you, in their preaching and private conferences, to stir up all sort of people to express their zeal to God, their duty to the king, and their love unto their country, and one to another; that all good and Christian courses may be 25 taken for the preservation of the true religion both in this land and throughout all Christendom: which not doubting but your lordship with all diligence and speed will see effected, I leave you to the Almighty, and remain

Your lordship's loving brother,

Croydon, Sept. 26,

G. CANT.

30

MDCXXVI.

CXXXV.

Archiepisc. Cant.

GEO. ABBOT 17.

Anno Christi
1627.

Reg. Angliæ
CAROL. I. 3.

A commission to sequester archbishop Abbot from all his ecclesiastical offices and jurisdiction.-Rushworth's Coll. vol. i. p. 435. Frankland's Annal. p. 211.

CHARLES, by the grace of God king of England,

Scotland, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, etc. to the right reverend father in God, George, lord bishop of London, and to the right reverend father in 5 God, our trusty and well beloved counsellor, Richard, lord bishop of Durham, and to the right reverend father in God, John, lord bishop of Rochester, and John, lord bishop of Oxford, to the right reverend father in God, our right trusty and well beloved counsellor, William, lord 10 bishop of Bath and Wells, greeting.

A commission to sequester] The two opposite principles of church government, affecting also in their inevitable consequences the government of the state, had previously been confined to distinct and respective periods, but were now brought into direct conflict. They 15 were represented in the persons of the two distinguished prelates, Abbot and Laud, who had from an early period been personally opposed to each other, and were now placed in situations of great and rival eminence, the one filling the highest station in the church, and the other enjoying the unbounded confidence of the sovereign. And the 20 same event which had recently led to the advancement of the one, was now by a different train of consequences occasioning the depression of the other. A sermon preached by Dr. Sibthorp at Northampton, in favour of the measures which were then adopted by the court for the collection of their loan (see No. CXXXIV.), was sent to the arch25 bishop with his majesty's command that he should give it his license to be printed. The archbishop refused, alleging by way of excuse several passages of the sermon which he considered false in fact, and

Whereas George, now archbishop of Canterbury, in the right of the archbishopric, hath several and distinct archiepiscopal, episcopal, and other spiritual and ecclesiastical powers and jurisdictions, to be exercised in the government and discipline of the church within the province of 5 Canterbury, and in the administration of justice in causes ecclesiastical within that province, which are partly executed by himself in his own person, and partly and more generally by several persons nominated and authorized by him, being learned in the ecclesiastical laws of this realm, 10 in those several places, whereunto they are deputed and appointed by the said archbishop; which several places, as we are informed, they severally hold by several grants for their several lives; as namely, sir Henry Martin, knt. hath and holdeth by the grants of the said archbishop the 15 offices and places of the dean of the Arches, and judge, or master of the Prerogative court, for the natural life of the said sir Henry Martin,

Sir Charles Cæsar, knt. hath and holdeth by grants of

dangerous in principle, as regarded the liberty of the subject. This 20 refusal filled up the measure of his transgressions. The king appointed a commission to sequester the archbishop, acting on a principle which queen Elizabeth announced to her bishops in the parliament of 1584, and which appears to have been generally admitted in those times, that bishops could be deposed by the crown, not merely for wrong doing 25 in themselves, but also for not amending what was wrong in others. (D'Ewes Journal, 328.) But the archbishop was restored, and graciously received at court before the end of the same year, and a new parliament was summoned to meet on the 17th of March ensuing. He wrote a narrative of the transaction, that may be seen in Rushw. vol. i. 30 p. 438. Comp. Heylin's Laud, p. 195. Collier, vol. ii. p. 740. Biog. Brit. art. Abbot. Hallam, vol. i. p. 450. Lingard, vol. vi. p. 188.

Lord Clarendon's opinion of the archbishop is well known, and very unfavourable. (Hist. vol. i. p. 134.) An opposite description of his character, as drawn by Mr. Speaker Onslow, may be seen in Chalmers' 35 Biog. Dict. art. Abbot. Others are given in the Biog. Brit. in Collier, vol. ii. p. 757. Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. ii. p. 561. Neal, Purit. vol. i. p. 556. Heylin's Laud, p. 242.