"the King, after many solicitations, at the treaty "of the Isle of Wight, offered" (says Neale) "to "license with a suitable preface: but, that treaty

proving unsuccessful, it was not accomplished." About fourteen years afterwards, viz. in the year 1662,-two years, or thereabouts, after the Restoration of Charles the Second,-comes the Act of Uniformity: (13 and 14th Ch. 2. c. 4.) and now it is, that that picture of the religion of Jesus, which bears upon the face of it the most perfect test of its faithfulness that the nature of the case admits of, is cast out: cast out, and in the place of it, the old daubing, on the face of which not so much as any the least pretence to the character of faithfulness is visible, is forced into use.

Thus it was that, for fourteen years, or thereabouts, viz. from 1648 to 1662, the Bible was in honour in England, as, before it came to be so in England, it had already been in Scotland. In comes the profligate King, with his Church-of-Englandism on his front, and his Church-of-Romanism in his heart, and now the Bible is cast out, and this breviary of the Church-of-England religion once more seated in the place of it.

One thousand six hundred and sixty-two is the year, in which, under the notion of its being the more trust-worthy, this account without vouchers was substituted to that to which so ample a stock of vouchers may be seen thus carefully and anxiously annext.

Four and thirty years had the first volume of the Institute of Human Law,-for which, such as it is, the world of law is indebted to Sir Edward Coke,-been in the knowledge, if not in the hands, of every man by whom any part was taken in this disastrous change. Quotations at length? no: room could not admit of it: importance did not require it. But, without indication given of his authorities, indication given in the usual way of reference, that lawyer, with all his confidence, would never have dared to encounter the public eye.

Not to speak of the Hales, the Hawkinses, the Burns, the Blackstones-by what one English lawyer, that, from that time ever wrote, was ever betrayed any such presumptuous and absurd conceit, as that, without reference to the original sources, from which the matter of his abridgments was respectively drawn, any work of his would either experience, or deserve to experience, any the smallest particle of regard?

No:-man's law is not to be thus dealt with:it is only of God's law, that profligate men, when the power is in their hands, dare make what they please.*

* On a subject, on which according to all parties the difference between heaven and hell is at stake, the conscientious sincerity and carefulness, of the republicanism of those times, forms so striking a contrast with the profligate and careless despotism, of the monarchy of those same times-not to speak of other

times, and moreover so instructive a lesson to all times,-that insertion could not here be refused to the two here following anterior pages in Neal, by which the account is taken up at a somewhat anterior period. Vol. iii. c. viii. pp. 350, 351, 352. To Rushworth, Whitlocke, and other unexceptionable authorities, are the references all along made.

"The Reverend Mr. Charles Herle succeeded to the Prolocutor's chair by order of Parliament, July 26, 1646, in the room of the late Dr. Twisse, when, the discipline of the Church being pretty well settled, it was moved to finish their confession of faith. The English Divines would have been content with revising and explaining the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, but the Scots insisting on a system of their own, a committee was appointed to prepare materials for this purpose, May 9th, 1645; their names were, Dr. Gouge, Dr. Hoyle, Mr. Herle, Gataker, Tuckney, Reynolds, and Vines, with the Scots Divines, who having first settled the titles of the several chapters, as they now stand in their confession of faith, in number thirtytwo, distributed them for greater expedition, among several sub-committees, which sat two days every week, and then reported what they had finished to the committec, and so to the Assembly, where it was debated paragraph by paragraph. The disputes about discipline had occasioned so many interruptions, that it was a year and a half before this work was finished; but on Nov. 26, 1646, the prolocutor returned thanks to the several committees, in the name of the Assembly, for their great pains in perfecting the work committed to them. At the same time Dr. Burges was appointed to get it transcribed, in order to its being presented to Parliament, which was done, Dec. 11, by the whole Assembly in a body, under the title of, The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines and others, now, by authority of Parliament, sitting at Westminster, concerning a Confession of Faith. The House of Commons having voted the Assembly thanks, desired them to insert the proofs of the several articles in their proper places, and then to print six hundred copies, and no more, for the perusal of the

houses.

The Reverend Mr. Wilson, Mr. Byfield, and Mr. Gower, were appointed, Jan. 6, to be a committee, to collect the scriptures for confirmation of the several articles; all which, after examination by the Assembly, were inserted in the margin. And then the whole confession was committed once more to a review of the three committees, who made report to the Assembly of such further amendments as they thought necessary; which being agreed to by the house, it was sent to the press, May 11, 1647. Mr. Byfield, by order of the House of Commons, delivered to the members the printed copies of this confession of faith, with scripture notes, signed

And because no more were to be given out at present, every member subscribed his name to the receipt thereof.

The House of Commons began their examination of this confession, May 19, when they considered the whole first chapter, article by article; but the disturbances which arose between the parliament and the army interrupted their proceeding the whole summer; but when these were quieted, they resumed their work, and October 2, ordered a chapter of the confession of faith at least to be debated every Wednesday, by which means they got through the whole before the end of March following; for at a conference with the House of Lords, March 22d, 1647-8, the Commons presented them with the confession of faith, as passed by their House, with some alterations: they agreed with the Assembly in the doctrinal part of the confession, and ordered it to be published, June 20th, 1648, for the satisfaction of the foreign churches, under the title of Articles of Religion, approved and passed by both Houses of Parliament, after advice had with an Assembly of Divines, called together by them for that purpose.

§ V.-II. Badness in respect of Matter.

For the proof of this, see the body of the work, which, from first to last, is directed to this office.

§ VI.-III. Badness in respect of Form.

For the proof of this, see § 8. in which the consciousness, of its unfitness in this respect, is provedproved upon those, who persevere but the more strenuously in thus forcing into the mouths of babes, almost as soon as they cease to be sucklings, the pill, the bitterness of which is all the while endeavoured to be gilded over by a covering of praise.

§ VII. Of the Badness of this Formulary in respect of Matter, the Framers of it were conscious.

Of this consciousness the proof consists-partly in the real badness of it, as displayed in the body of the present work; partly in the fact of their avoiding, as above, to afford, for the faithfulness of their picture, these securities, which the nature of the case presented to every man's view as well as their own, and which, by the framers of the Scottish Catechisms, and their collaborators the English Puritans, were accordingly, as hath been seen, (§ 4.) attached to their works.