and not long after Prebendary of Ely, and then Dean of Lincoln; and having for many years past looked upon him with much reverence and favor, gave him a fair testimony of both, by giving him the bshopric of Worcester, and (which was not an usual favor) forgiving him his first-fruits; then by constituting him Vice-president of the principality of Wales. And having for several years experimented his wisdom, his justice, and moderation in the manage of her affairs in both these places, she, in the twenty-sixth of her reign, made him Archbishop of Canterbury, and not long after, of her Privy Council; and trusted him to manage all her ecclesiastical affairs and preferments. In all which removes, he was like the ark, which left a blessing upon the place where it rested; and, in all his employments, was like Jehoiada, that did good unto Israel.

These were the steps of this bishop's ascension to this place of dignity and cares; in which place (to speak Mr. Camden's very words, in his Annals), "he devoutly consecrated both his whole life to God, and his painful labors to the good of his church" And yet in this place he met with many oppositions in the regulation of church affairs, which were much disordered at his entrance, by reason of the age and remissness of Bishop Grindal (his immediate predecessor), the activity of the Nonconformists, and their chief

assistant the Earl of Leicester; and indeed by too many others of the like sacrilegious principles.

With these he was to encounter; and though he wanted neither courage nor a good cause, yet he foresaw, that without a great measure of the Queen's favor, it was impossible to stand in the breach that was made into the lands and immunities of the church, or to maintain the remaining rights of it. And therefore by justifiable sacred insinuations, such as St. Paul to Agrippa ("Agrippa, believest thou? I know thou believest"), he wrought himself into so great a degree of favor with her, as, by his pious use of it, hath got both of them a greater degree of fame in this world, and of glory in that into which they are now entered.

His merits to the Queen, and her favors to him were such, that she called him her little black husband, and called his servants her servants; and she saw so visible and blessed a sincerity shine in all his cares and endeavours for the church's and for her good, that she was supposed to trust him with the very secrets of her soul, and to make him her confessor, of which she gave many fair testimonies; and of which one was, "that she would never eat flesh in Lent, without obtaining a license from her little black husband;' and would often say, "she pitied him because she trusted him, and had eased herself by laying

the burthen of all her clergy cares upon his shoulders, which, she was certain, he managed with prudence and piety."

I shall not keep myself within the promised rules of brevity in this account of his interest with her Majesty, and her care of the church's rights, if in this digression I should enlarge to particulars; and therefore my desire is, that one example may serve for a testimony of both. And that the reader may the better understand it, he may take notice, that not many years before his being made Archbishop, there passed an act or acts of Parliament, intending the better preservation of church lands, by recalling a power which was vested in others to sell or lease them, by lodging and trusting the future care and protection of them only in the Crown; and amongst many that made a bad use of this power or trust of the Queen's, the Earl of Leicester was one; and the good bishop having by his interest with her Majesty put a stop to the Earl's sacrilegious designs, they two fell to an open opposition before her; after which they both quitted the room, not friends in appearance. But the bishop made a sudden and seasonable return to her Majesty (for he found her alone), and spake to her with great humility and reverence, and to this purpose:

"I beseech your Majesty to hear me with patience, and to believe that your's and the church's

safety are dearer to me than my life, but my conscience dearer than both; and therefore give me leave to do my duty, and tell you, that princes are deputed nursing fathers of the church, and owe it a protection; and therefore God forbid that you should be so much as passive in her ruin, when you may prevent it; or that I should behold it without horror and detestation; or should forbear to tell your Majesty of the sin and danger. And though you and myself are born in an age of frailties, when the primitive piety and care of the church's lands and immunities are much decayed; yet, Madam, let me beg that you will but first consider, and then you will believe that there are such sins as profaneness and sacrilege for if there were not, they could not have names in holy writ; and particularly in the New Testament. And I beseech you to consider, that though our Saviour said, 'he judged no man'; and to testify it, would not judge nor divide the inheritance betwixt the two brethren, nor would judge the woman taken in adultery; yet in this point of the church's rights, he was so zealous, that he made himself both the accuser and the judge, and the executioner to punish these sins; witnessed, in that he himself made the whip to drive the profaners out of the temple, overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and drove them out of it. And consider, that it was St. Paul

that said to those Christians of his time that were offended with idolatry, yet, 'Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?' supposing, I think, sacrilege to be the greater sin. This may occasion your Majesty to consider, that there is such a sin as sacrilege; and to incline you to prevent the curse that will follow it, I beseech you also to consider, that Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, and Helena his mother, that King Edgar, and Edward the Confessor, and indeed many others of your predecessors, and many private Christians, have also given to God and to his church much land, and many immunities, which they might have given to those of their own families, and did not, but gave them an absolute right and sacrifice to God: and with these immunities and lands they have entailed a curse upon the alienators of them. God prevent your Majesty

from being liable to that curse.

“And to make you that are trusted with their preservation the better to understand the danger of it, I beseech you, forget not that, besides these curses, the church's land and power have been also endeavoured to be preserved, as far as human reason and the law of this nation have been able to preserve them, by an immediate and most sacred obligation on the consciences of the princes of this realm. For they that consult Magna Charta shall find, that as all your predecessors were at