to improvement, this institution has recently been incited to exertions of fresh activity, by the rise and prosperity of the Bible Society, an association, professing objects less multifarious, but more diffusive, and latterly regarded as an engine in the hands of dissent.

In this reign, a Society was likewise insti tuted for the Reformation of public Manners. The members informed the magistrates of all irregularities; and a fund for maintaining clergymen to read prayers in different places, was established out of the fines.

1698. A violent controversy, which arose among divines, concerning the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity, induced the King to direct that the Bishops should repress error and heresy, and watch against the introduction of new terms, and unaccredited explanations of holy mysteries.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE REIGN OF ANNE.

Contents.

1. State of religious Parties.-II. Convocation. The Lower House disavows Presbyterianism.-III. Bill against occasional Conformity.-IV. Debate on the Question, Whether the Church was in Danger.— V. Trial of Dr. Sacheverell.-VI. Controversy between Atterbury and Hoadly.-VII. Convocation inquires into the State of Religion.-VIII. Whiston's Arian Work.-IX. Fleetwood's Preface burnt.X. Queen Anne's Bounty.-XI. Fifty Churches built. -XII. State of Preaching.-XIII. Ireland and Scotland-XIV. Acts of Parliament.-XV. Learned and pious Divines.

I. THE Catholics being now rendered quietby a defeat of their hopes of ascendancy, and the sectaries satisfied with a general toleration, the Church of England rested after the storm, like the ark on the summit of Mount Ararat. This repose was lightly ruffled by the discontent of the Nonjurors, and the internal struggle between the High and Low Church parties. But the bitterness with which these oppositions in sentiment were maintained, was now much abated.

II. 1702. In Convocation, a warm dispute was agitated, respecting the right of the Lower

House to hold intermediate assemblies, between one general session and another. The Upper House expressed a willingness to consent to their having committees, who might sit at any time to arrange and prepare matters; but insisted on the power of the Archbishop, with the consent of his Prelates, to prorogue the whole Convocation. A proposal was made by the inferior House, to refer the decision to the Queen; but rejected by the Prelates as compromising the authority of the Archbishop. The argument was spiced with a charge of favouring Presbyterianism, directed against the Lower House; which they repelled, by acknowledging bishops to be a superior order to priests, and of divine or apostolical institution. This whole controversy was, in fact, a speculative question betwixt the clerical Whigs and Tories; and it is singular to observe the former of these parties seeking to vest an additional power in the Crown, while the advocates of passive obedience dispute its paramount authority*.

* In several following convocations, this dispute was revived; but though the Lower House had referred it to the Crown, the Queen took part against them in 1705, and directed the Archbishop to prorogue the Convocation. The obnoxious party now stood upon their rights, and continued their sittings in defiance of Her Majesty's orders. In 1707, that they might not object to the Union, the Archbishop prorogued the Convocation in the midst of the session of Parliament. This was unjustly complained of as an innovation; the two assemblies being

III. 1708. Though Anne, suspecting the Dissenters of designs to overthrow the Church, conceived them to have been too indulgently treated by her predecessor, she forbore to retrench the privileges they had obtained. Yet, as it was customary for many to receive the sacrament as a test, which might qualify them for civil offices intended only for Churchinen, while they united with the Nonconformists in all other religious exercises; as a check to this temporizing baseness, an attempt was made by the Tories to revive the bill against occasional conformity, which Burnet has termed a scheme of the Papists to set the Church and other Protestants at variance. In three several years it was successfully opposed; although, in 1704, the debate in the House of Lords was attended by the Queen in person, who wished to hear the arguments on both sides recapitulated.

At

conceived of equal life; for, precedents were found for the sitting of Convocation, both before and after the session of Parliament, and even when the civil Senate was dissolved. The Tory party thus obtaining an ascendancy, Sir William Dawes and Dr. Blackhall received the bishoprics of Chester and Exeter,

In subsequent meetings of Convocation, they were prorogued by the Archbishop from time to time; and the Lower House was thus converted into a nonentity. Yet, as these prorogations were by command of the Crown, they saw the partial triumph of their principle: which was afterwards rendered complete by the work of Archbishop Wake,

length, on the fourth trial, the Whigs permitted it to pass, in consequence of the clauses for tolerating Nonconformity, and securing the Protestant succession, with which it was rendered palatable.

IV. 1705. In the collision of the High and Low Church parties, a cry of "The Church is in danger!" was raised, probably by the adherents of both. This question was debated by the Lords, in presence of the Sovereign; and any one who should collect the various arguments employed, might well believe that, if they were all true, the Church was indeed in danger. Lord Rochester ascribed the danger to the Act of Security in Scotland, and the practice of occasional conformity. In the opinion of Compton, Bishop of London, it arose from profaneness, irreligion, and the licentiousness of the press. By His Grace of York the danger of the Church was referred to the increase of sectaries, and the number of their academies.; while Patrick of Ely, and Hough of Litchfield and Coventry, complained of the neglect of internal order, the disrespect of the clergy for their bishops, and the violent passion displayed against the Universities. In the rear, came Hooper of Bath and Wells, lamenting the distinctions of High and Low Church, and the disagreement of the clergy among themselves. The phalanx of opposition consisted of the Lords Halifax,