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"For the Commissaries' Courts and the Censures of Excommunication and Suspension, they shall be mended, and the amendment is referred to the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice. But for their common and ordinary excommunication for trifles, it shall be utterly abolished. The fifth point was about the sole jurisdiction of Bishops; so he gained that of them, that the Bishops, in ordination, suspension, and degradation, and such like, they shall ever have some grave men to be assistants with them in all censures.

"For Ireland, the conclusion was (the King making a most lamentable description of the state thereof), that it should be reduced to civility, planted with schools and ministers, as many as could be gotten.

"These things done, he propounded matters whereabout he hoped there would be no controversy; as to have a learned ministry, and maintenance for them as far as might be. And for Pluralities and Non-residences, to be taken away, or at least made so few as possibly might be."

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This was the result of the first day's conference; which was between the King and the Bishops; the other party not being yet admitted and from this it would appear that the King had either anticipated or adopted most of the suggestions contained in Bacon's memorial, and was prepared to urge upon the Bishops the adoption of the principal changes which he recommended.

"On Monday the King called the other party by themselves: made likewise an excellent oration unto them, and then went to the matter; nobody being present but the Lords of the Council, and Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Sparke, Dr. Field, Dr. King, Mr. Chadderton, and Mr. Knewstubbs, all the Deans that were appointed, and myself.

"They propounded four points: The first, for purity of doctrine. Secondly, for means to maintain it, as good ministers, etc. Thirdly, the Courts of Bishops, Chancellors, and Commissaries. Fourthly, the Common-Prayer book.

"For doctrine, it was easily agreed unto by all. For ministers also: for jurisdiction likewise.

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"For the book of Common-prayer, and subscriptions to it, there was much stir about all the ceremonies and every point in it. The King pleaded hard to have good proof against the Ceremonies; and if they had either the word of God against them, or good authority, he would remove them but if they had no word of God against them, but all authority for them, being already in the Church, he would never take them away: For he came not to disturb the State, nor to make innovations, but to confirm whatever he found lawfully established; and to amend and correct what was corrupted by time. They argued this point very long. The Bishops of Winchester and London, who of all the Bishops were present, laboured this point hard, and divers of the Deans; but at length the King undertook them himself, and examined them by the Word and by the Fathers. There was not any of them that they could prove to be

VOL. III.

K

against the Word, but all of them confirmed by the Fathers, and that long before Popery. So that, for the Ceremonies, I suppose nothing will be altered. And truly the Doctors argued but weakly against them: so that all wondered they had no more to say against them. So that all that day was spent in Ceremonies: and I think, themselves being judges, they were answered fully in everything. At last it was concluded that day that there should be an uniform translation set out by the King of all the Bible, and one catechizing over all the realm, and nothing of the Apocrypha to be read that is in any sort repugnant to the Scripture; but to be still read; yet as Apocrypha, and not as Scripture; and for any point of the articles of Religion that is doubtful, to be cleared. This was the second day's work."

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It was a day of great honour and triumph for the King at the time and in some respects of very good service for the point of purity of doctrine was not in fact so easily settled as Dr. Montague's report seems to imply there being a strong attempt to get inserted into the book of articles "the nine orthodoxal assertions concluded on at Lambeth" an attempt which the King resisted with spirit and firmness, to the great benefit of liberty and promotion of peace in the Church. And yet it was this day's work that did the mischief, not the less. The Doctors no doubt found plenty of answers to the King's arguments as soon as they got home, and plenty of audiences to appreciate them. But they now knew that there was no hope of prevailing in those points with the King; if they were to prevail at all it must be against him. And though it be true, as Fuller remarks, that "thenceforward many cripples in conformity were cured of their former halting therein; and such who knew not their own till they knew the King's mind in this matter, for the future quietly digested the Ceremonies of the Church," it was far otherwise with those who had learned to regard these points of ceremony as emblems and flags of that faith, which except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

"The third day, which was Wednesday, the King assembled all the Bishops (the Lords of the Council only being present), and took order how to have these things executed, which he had concluded; that it might not be (as the King said) as smoke out of a tunnel, but substantially done to remain for ever. So they were debated to whom they might most fitly be referred, and by them made fit to be hereafter enacted by Parlia ment so all the Bishops and all the Council have their parts given them. This being done, the Ministers were called in, Dr. Reynolds and the rest, and acquainted with what the King had concluded on. They were all exceedingly well satisfied, but only moved one thing: That those ministers who were grave men and obedient unto the laws, and long had been

exempted from the use of ceremonies, might not upon the sudden be obliged unto them, but have some time given them to resolve themselves in using or not using them. The King answered, his end being peace, his meaning was not that any man should be cruel in imposing those matters, but by time and moderation win all men unto them: Those they found peaceable, to give some connivency to such, and to use their brethren, as he had used them, with meekness and gentleness, and do all things to the edification of God and his Church. So they ended these matters till the Parliament, and then these matters shall be enacted.

"A Note of such things as shall be reformed.

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"1. The Absolution shall be called the Absolution or General Confession of Sins.

"2. The Confirmation shall be called the Confirmation or further examination of the children's faith.

"3. The Private Baptism (now by laymen or women used) shall be called the Private Baptism by the Ministers and Curates only, and all those questions in that Baptism, that institute it to be done by women,

taken away.

"4. The Apocrypha, that hath any repugnancy to the canonical Scriptures, to be laid aside; and other places chosen, which either are explanations of Scripture, or serve best for good life and manners.

"5. The Jurisdiction of Bishops shall be somewhat limited, and to have either the Dean and Chapter, or some grave ministers assistant unto them, in ordination, suspension, degrading, etc.

"6. The Excommunication, as it is now used, shall be taken away both in name and nature, and a writ out of Chancery shall be framed to punish the contumacies.

"7. The Kingdom of Ireland, the borders of Scotland, and all Wales, to be planted with schools and preachers, as soon as may be.

"8. As many learned Ministers, and maintenance for them, to be provided in such places in England where there is want, as can be.

"9. As few double beneficed men and pluralities as may be; and those that have double benefices to maintain Preachers, and to have their livings as near as may be the one to the other.

"10. One uniform translation to be made, and only used in all the Churches of England.

"11. One Catechism only to be made and used in all places.

"12. The Articles of Religion to be explained and enlarged, and no man to teach or read against any of them.

"13. A care to be had to observe who doth not receive the Communion once in a year. The Ministers to certify to the Bishops, the Bishops to the Archbishops, the Archbishops to the King.

"14. A care had to inhibit Popish books from coming over; and if they come over, to be delivered into those men's hands that may give them out only to persons fit to have them.

"15. The High Commission to be reformed, and to be reduced to

higher causes, and fewer persons, and those of more honour and of better quality."

Such were the immediate results of the conference, as then understood and intended: which, if they had been simply announced as decisions taken by the King in Council upon consideration of the complaints and petitions,―without any personal disputation,-would in all probability have done a good deal towards the pacification of controversies and the union of action among the different parties in the Church. And here the matter, as far as Bacon had anything to do with it, may be considered as resting for the present.

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How little disposition there was to employ Bacon in the business of the Learned Counsel at this time, is well seen in the fact that his name does not anywhere appear in connexion with that singular conspiracy, or series of conspiracies, which ruffled the otherwise universal quiet of James's entrance into England:-a conspiracy in which so many representatives of different parties-the Catholic priest at open war with the Jesuits, the ordinary Catholic country gentleman, the high-couraged Puritan nobleman, the ambitious disappointed courtier, and (strangest of all) the soldier-sailor-statesman distinguished in peace and war for inveterate enmity to Spain-having no common object to aim at, no pretence to put forward, no injuries to resent, no adherents to rely upon, but drawn, it seems, only by a common hope of profiting in their several ways by the chances of confusion,met together in an insane project for overpowering the government. As Bacon took no part either in the investigation or the trials, as he has not left on record so much as an opinion upon any of the questions at issue, and as the current of affairs was not materially affected either by the attempt or the proceedings which followed, I am happily relieved from the duty of attempting to make the history of it intelligible. It is enough to say here that the main plotcommonly called the 'Priests' plot,' but in which Lord Grey the Puritan was an accomplice-came to the knowledge of the government about midsummer, and fell to pieces at once: that before Christmas the several persons implicated had been tried and found guilty that the Priests, against whom the case was strongest and clearest, were hanged, and the rest, with general consent and applause, respited: and that if it had not been for the manner in which the trial of Ralegh was conducted, for which I think Sir Edward Coke must be held singly responsible,-the whole thing would have ended there, and produced no further effect, direct or

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