ORDER AND FORM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT VOTED IN 1641.

[NOTE B. p. 241.]

THE following order, voted by the House of Commons, on Friday, July, 16, 1641, will speak for itself.

"Imprimis: every shire of England and Wales to be a circuit or diocese for the ecclesiastic jurisdiction, excepting Yorkshire, which is to be divided into three. II. A constant Presbytery of twelve divines to be selected in every shire or diocese. III. A constant President to be established as a bishop over this Presbytery. IV. This bishop in each diocese to ordain, suspend, deprive, degrade, excommunicate, by and with the consent and assistance of seven divines of his Presbytery then present, and not otherwise. V. The times of Ordination throughout the land to be four times every year; namely, the 1st of May, the 1st of August, the 1st of November, and the 1st of February. VI. Every bishop constantly to reside within his diocese; in some prime or chief city or town within his diocese, as in particular. VII. Every bishop to have one special particular Congregation, to be chosen out of the most convenient for distance of place from his chief residence, and the richest in value that may be had; where he shall duly preach, unless he be lawfully hindered, and then shall take care that his Cure be well supplied by another. VIII. No bishop shall remove or be translated from the bishopric which he shall first undertake. IX. Upon every death or other avoidance of a bishop, the King to grant a 'congé d'elire,' to the whole clergy of that diocese; and they to present three of the Presbyters aforesaid, and the King to choose and nominate whom he please of them. X. The first Presbyters of every shire to be named by the Parliament; and afterwards, upon the death or other avoidance of any Presbyter, the remaining Presbyters to choose another out of the Parish Ministers of that shire, and this to be done within one month next

after such death or avoidance. XI. No bishop or clergyman to exercise or have any temporal office, or secular employment; but only for the present to hold and to keep the probate of Wills, until the Parliament shall otherwise resolve. XII. The bishop once a year-at Midsummer-to summon a Diocesan Synod, there to hear and, by general vote, to determine all such matter of scandal in life and doctrine among the clergymen as shall be presented unto them. XIII. Every three years, a National Synod to be; which, for persons, shall consist of all the bishops in the land, and of two Presbyters, to be chosen by the rest out of each presbytery, and of two clerks, to be chosen out of every diocese by the clergy thereof. XIV. This National Synod to make and ordain Canons of the government of the Church, but they not to bind until they be confirmed by Parliament. XV. Every bishop to have over and above the Benefice aforesaid, a certain constant rent allowed and allotted, proportionate to the diocese wherein he is to officiate; that is to say, every Presbyter to have a constant yearly profit above his benefice. XVI. As for the revenue of the Bishops, Deans, and Chapters, &c.,' a strict survey to be taken of all their rents and profits, and at the same time to be represented at the beginning of our next Convention; and in the meantime no lease to be renewed, nor timber to be felled."-Hanbury, II. 138, 139.

MILTON'S VIEW OF THE ATTEMPT TO SEIZE THE FIVE

MEMBERS.

[NOTE C. p. 259.]

In the third part of his answer to Dr. Gauden's Eikon Basilike, Milton thus expresses his sentiments respecting Charles's attempt to seize the five members :

to.

"If to demand justice on the five members were his plea, for that which they with more reason might have demanded justice upon him, (I use his own argument,) there needed not so rough assistance. If he had 'resolved to bear that repulse with patience,' which his queen by her words to him at his return little thought he would have done, wherefore did he provide against it with such an armed and unusual force? but his heart served him not to undergo the hazard that such a desperate scuffle would have brought him But wherefore did he go at all, it behoving him to know there were two statutes, that declared he ought first to have acquainted the parliament, who were the accusers, which he refused to do, though still professing to govern by law, and still justifying his attempts against law? And when he saw it was not permitted him to attaint them but by a fair trial, as was offered him from time to time, for want of just matter which yet never came to light, he let the business fall of his own accord; and all those pregnancies and just motives came to just nothing."

“What a becoming sight it was, to see the king of England one while in the House of Commons, and by and by in the Guildhall among the liveries and manufacturers, prosecuting so greedily the track of five or six fled subjects; himself not the solicitor only, but the pursuivant and the apparitor of his own partial cause!"

"That I went,' saith he of his going to his House of Commons, ' attended with some gentlemen ;' gentlemen indeed! the ragged infantry of stews and brothels; the spawn and shipwreck of taverns and dicing houses: and then he pleads, 'it was no unwonted thing

for the majesty and safety of a king to be so attended, especially in discontented times.' An illustrious majesty no doubt, so attended! a becoming safety for the King of England, placed in the fidelity of such guards and champions! happy times, when braves and hacksters, the only contented members of his government, were thought the fittest and faithfullest to defend his person against the discontents of a parliament and all good men! Were those the chosen ones to preserve reverence to him,' while he entered 'unassured,' and full of suspicions, into his great and faithful counsel ? Let God then and the world judge, whether the cause were not in his own guilty and unwarrantable doings: the House of Commons, upon several examinations of this business, declared it sufficiently proved, that the coming of those soldiers, papists and others, with the king, was to take away some of their members, and in case of opposition or denial, to have fallen upon the House in a hostile manner. This the king here denies; adding a fearful imprecation against his own life, 'if he purposed any violence or oppression against the innocent, then,' saith he, 'let the enemy prosecute my soul, and tread my life to the ground, and lay my honour in the dust.' What need there more disputing? He appealed to God's tribunal, and behold! God hath judged and done to him in the sight of all men according to the verdict of his own mouth: to be a warning to all kings hereafter how they use presumptuously the words and protestations of David, without the spirit and conscience of David."-Milton's Prose Works, p. 283, 284.

GEORGE WITHER, THE PURITAN POET.

[NOTE D. p. 200.]

THE following account of Wither is taken from Bell's English Poets. Notwithstanding the party spirit of the writer, it is correct as to facts.

66

George Wither was born on the 11th of June, 1588, at Bentworth, near Alton, in Hampshire, and was of the family of the Withers of Manydowne, near Wotton St. Laurence, in the same county. He received the rudiments of his education under John Greaves, a schoolmaster of some note, and was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, about the year 1604, where he was put under the tuition of John Warner, afterwards bishop of Rochester. His inclination, however, diverting his thoughts into other channels, he made so small a proficiency in the studies to which his attention was directed, that after an interval of three years he was taken home by his friends, and sent to learn the law; first in one of the inns of Chancery Lane, and afterwards in Lincoln's Inn. But nature had made him a poet; and frustrated all these well-meant designs. While he was nominally studying the law, he wrote several pieces, which, being circulated among his friends, soon acquired him a flattering reputation. These were called his Juvenilia. They were afterwards lost. In 1612 he published two pieces relative to the death of Prince Henry; and in 1613 his Abuses Stript and Whipt, or Satirical Essays, in Two Books. For this poem, which reflected severely on the royalists, he was committed to the Marshalsea, and imprisoned there for several months. This temporary martyrdom established his fame with his own party, and he thence forth became the great poetic and pamphleteering oracle of the puritans, the more ignorant portion of whom looked upon him as a prophet, and fancied that they saw many things taking place as he was supposed to predict them. Possessing an intimate knowledge of human nature, and remarkable penetration and foresight, he