set of ecclesiastical laws, since in the present administration of those which existed several abuses were to be found, particularly with regard to excommunication for contumacy; while the licenses for pluralities, nonresidence, and the ordination of clergymen without any ministerial office, were frequently exposed to strong complaints. With regard to many of these points, the laws had done almost all that could be effected by legal enactments, and the bishops were anxious to remedy what was wanting; but it is curious to observe how many of these changes have been gradually and partially introduced. We must omit the introduction of the presbyterian government, in which we are nearly as we were; but the want of any thing of this sort depends probably more on circumstances, than in any fundamental reason in the constitution of our church establishment. These attempts, however, were at the time rendered fruitless; for Whitgift * addressed himself to the queen, urging her to stop all such proceedings, and to rest the discipline of the church on her own supremacy, a step to which her inclinations were always sufficiently disposed.

§. 453. This parliament was strongly impressed with the idea of resisting the Roman catholic party, which was at this time not only powerful, but very active in the world. They passed t therefore two acts, one for the surety of the queen's person, the other against Jesuits and seminary priests. The

* Strype's Whitgift, i. 391.

† Statutes of the Realm, 1, 2.

Elizabeth also soon afterwards undertook the protection of the Netherlands, and in the next spring sent Leicester to command in Holland against the forces of the Roman catholics and Spanish party.

9. 454. In this year a dispute took place, rendered memorable from having been the origin of Hooker's excellent treatise on Ecclesiastical Polity, a work which has tended more perhaps to settle the question of church government than any other which ever appeared *. On the death of father Alvie, master of the Temple, great interest was made by the friends of Travers to obtain this situation for him. He had long been engaged in giving the evening lectures there; but Whitgift, who entertained no good opinion of him, and doubted of his conformity, raised so decided an opposition to the nomination, that the mastership was procured for Hooker, by Sandys, bishop of London. The archbishop, indeed, had been well acquainted with Travers, who was formerly fellow of Trinity college, Cambridge, and had shewn a strong preference for the discipline of Geneva, according to the forms of which church he was afterwards ordained at Antwerp. As the queen deferred much to the opinion of the archbishop, the

to a Roman catholic. The oath of allegiance 3 Jac. I. ch. iv. 8.9, is much longer, and introduces the clause "damnable doctrine," &c. i William and Mary, ch. viii. §. 12, the present oath was established; so that the oath of Elizabeth is, among the four, the one which a Roman catholic would least scruple to take.

* Strype's Whitgift, i. 340. Ecc. Biog. iv. 245.

† Walton's Hooker, Wordsw.

he appealed to the council. In his Supplication to the council, he tries to vindicate his ordination, and license to preach, and finds fault with the doctrines delivered by Hooker; and as this document became

b Travers' Supplication to the council, and Hooker's answer, are printed in the end of the Ecclesiastical Polity. To those who are unacquainted with ecclesiastical law, the treatment of Travers may seem in some degree unjust. He argues that he was in orders because the statute (12 13 Eliz.) directed, that those who had been ordained by any other rites than those of the church of England should subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, implying, that after that act they were fully entitled to the advantages belonging to other members of the establishment. This applied directly to the Roman catholic priesthood, and the same law prevails now. But according to the doctrine of an episcopalian church, he who was ordained without the presence of a bishop was never ordained at all: he wants the essence of ordination, the laying on of the hands of the bishop; and this law, therefore, does not apply to him. It is difficult to determine the intention of the original framers of the law. The early practice was probably on the side of Travers, (as in the case of Whittingham, to which he appeals, and which was much stronger than his own.) (Strype's Annals, iv. 167.) The present interpretation of it is entirely in favour of the archbishop. The words are: “Every person under the degree of bishop, which “ doth or shall pretend to be a priest or minister of God's holy “word and sacraments, by reason of any other form of institu“ tion, consecration, or ordering, than the form set forth by “ parliament, in the time of the late king of most worthy me“mory, king Edward VI, or now used in the reign of our most “gracious sovereign lady, before the feast of the nativity of Christ “next following, shall in the presence of the bishop or guardian “ of the spiritualities of some one diocese, where he hath or shall “have ecclesiastical living, declare his assent, and subscribe “ to all the articles of religion, which only concern the con

fession of the true Christian faith, and the doctrines of the sacraments comprised in a book," &c. &c. (13 Eliz. ch. 12.)