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support of the prince of Orange's designs, and assisted in drawing up his declaration, &c. and when he undertook the expedition to England, Dr. Burnet accompanied him as his chaplain.

After his landing at Exeter, he proposed and drew up the asso ciation, and was of no small service on several occasions, by a seasonable display of pulpit-eloquence, to animate the prince's follow ers, and gain over others to his interest.

Nor did his service pass unrewarded; for king William had not been many days on the throne, before Dr. Burnet was advanced to the see of Salisbury, in the room of Dr. Seth Ward, deceased, being consecrated on the thirty-first of May, 1689. He distinguished himself in the house of lords, by declaring for moderate measures with regard to the clergy, who scrupled to take the oaths to William and Mary, and by exerting his abilities in promoting a legal toleration of the Protestant Dissenters.

In 1689, a passage in his " Pastoral Letter to the Clergy of his Diocese, concerning the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance to king William and queen Mary," which seemed to ground their ti tle to the crown on the right of conquest, gave such offence to both houses of parliament, that they ordered it to be burned by the hands of the common hangman.

As soon as the session of parliament for that year was ended, he went down to his diocese, where he was very exact in the discharge of his function; and he was particularly scrupulous in conferring of orders, and admitting to livings.

His attendance in parliament was constant every winter; and during the summer-seasons, he resided chiefly at Salisbury, but never failed to make annual visitations to all the principal towns in his diocese, when he made strict enquiry into the conduct of the clergy, and took great pains to have youth instructed in the Christian religion, for which purpose he encouraged catechising, looking upon confirmation without it as an idle ceremony.

He was a warm and constant enemy to pluralities of livings, except where two churches lay near each other, and were but poorly endowed. But whenever non-residence was the consequence of a plurality, he used his utmost endeavours to prevent it, and in some cases, even hazarded suspension rather than give instituition. In his charges to the clergy, he exclaimed against pluralites, as a sa

crilegious robbery of the revenues of the church and a remarkable effect produced by his zeal upon this subject is recorded: In his first visitation at Salisbury, he urged the authority of St. Bernard, who being consulted by one of his followers, whether he might not accept of two benefices, replied, " And how will you be able to serve them both?" " I intend," answered the priest, "to officiate in one of them by a deputy." "Will your deputy be damned for you too?" cried the saint. "Believe me, you may serve your cure by proxy, but you must be damned in person.' This expression so affected Mr. Kelsey, a pious and worthy clergyman there present, that he immédiately resigned the rectory of Bemerton, worth £200 a-year, which he then held with one of greater value. Nor was this act of self-denial without its reward; for though their principles in church-matters were very opposite, Burnet conceived such an esteem for him from this action, that he not only prevailed with the chapter to elect him a canon, but like. wise made him archdeacon of Sarum, and gave him one of the best prebends in the church.

In the point of residence, bishop Burnet was so strict, that he never would permit his own chaplains to attend upon him, after they had once obtained livings, but obliged them to be constantly resident upon them. Indeed he considered himself as under the same obligation, as pastor of the whole diocese, and never would be absent from it but during his attendance on the parliament, from which, as soon as the principal business of the nation was dispatch. ed, he always withdrew himself, in order to return to the duties of his episcopal office. And though king William, upon his going over to Ireland or Flanders, always enjoined him to attend upon queen Mary, and assist her with his faithful counsel on all emergencies; yet he would not upon such occasions, accept of lodgings at Whitehall, but hired a house at Windsor, in order to be within his own bishoprick, and yet near enough to the court, to attend there twice a week, or aftener if business required it.

He continued to be in great favor with king William and queen Mary during their whole reign; though the king is said to have been rather offended with his freedom of speech on some occasions; but nothing of this kind prevented his holding him to the last in high estimation. He did not, however, make the ordinary use of

the favor which he enjoyed at court; for though he obtained many employments and gratuities for others, yet it is said, that there was not a single instance, where he solicited favour for himself, or his family on the contrary, he declined preferment when it was offered to him.

In the year 1698, when it became necessary to settle the duke of Gloucester's family, king William sent the earl of Sunderland with a message to the princess of Denmark, acquainting her, "that he put the whole management of her son's household into her hands, but that he owed the care of his education to himself and his people, and therefore would name the persons for that purpose." Accordingly, the earl of Mralborough being nominated his governor, bishop Burnet was appointed his preceptor. He had then retired into his diocese, having lately lost his second wife by the small pox. He took that occasion therefore to wave the offer of this important charge; though he was assured that the princess had testified her approbation of the king's choice. He wrote to the earl of Sunderland and archbishop Tennison to use their interest with the king, that he might be allowed to decline this employment. But his majesty was very solicitous that he should accept the post; and the bishop's friends earnestly pressed him not to refuse a station, wherein he might do his country such signal service, as in the education of the duke of Gloucester. Being at length prevailed on, he waited on the king at Windsor, and acquainted him that he was willing to take the trust upon him; but as the discharge of his duty in this station must confine him constantly to court, which was inconsistent with his episcopal function, he desired leave to resign his bishoprick. The king was much surprized at the proposal, to which he would by no means consent. However, finding Burnet persisted in it, he was prevailed on to agree, that the duke of Gloucester should reside all the summer at Windsor, and that the bishop should have ten weeks allowed him every year, to visit the other parts of his diocese.

When he had entered upon his office of preceptor, he took great pains in the duke's education; though the good effects of his care were unhappily prevented by the untimely death of that prince. Speaking on this subject in his "History of his own Times." he says, "I took in my own province the reading and explaining the

scriptures to him, and instructing him in the principles of religion and the rules of virtue, and the giving him a view of history, geography, politics, and government. I resolved to look very exactly to all the masters that were appointed to teach him other things." In another place, speaking of the duke's death, Burnet says, “ I had been trusted with his education now for two years, and he had made an amazing progress. I had read over the Psalms, Proverbs, and Gospels with him, and had explained things that fell in my way very copiously.""I went through geography so often with him, that he went through all the maps very particularly. I explained to him the forms of government in every country, with the interests and trade of that conntry, and what was both good and bad in it. I acquainted him with all the great revolutions that had been in the world, and gave him a copious account of the Greek and Roman histories, and of Plutarch's Lives. The last thing I explained to him was the Gothic constitution, and the beneficiary and feudal laws. I talked of these things, at different times nearly three hours a day.”

In 1692, bishop Burnet published his "Discourse on the Pastoral Care." In 1699, he published in folio, his " Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England." And about the same time, he married his third wife, Mrs. Berekely, a widow lady, who was greatly distinguished by her knowledge, piety and

virtue.

At the trial of Dr. Sacheverel, in 1709, bishop Burnet made a long speech in the house of peers against that divine, and to shew that the doctrine of non-resistance was not the doctrine of the church of England. He was not in so much favor at court in the reign of queen Anne, as he had been in that of king William.. She treated him, however with sufficient respect, to encourage him to speak very freely to her majesty concerning the state of her affairs in the year 1710. He then told her, as he informs us himself what reports were spread throughout the nation, as if she favored the design of bringing the pretender to succeed to the crown, upon a bargain that she should hold it during her life. He was sure, he observed to her, that these reports were. spread about by persons who were in the confidence of those that were believed to know, her mind. He told her majesty, that if she was capable of making

such a bargain for herself, by which her people were to be deliver. ed up, and sacrificed after her death, as it would darken all the glory of her reign, so it must set all her people to consider of the most proper ways of securing themselves, by bringing over the protestant successors; in which, he told her plainly, he would concur, if she did not take effectual means to extinguish those jealousies. He said on this occasion some other very free things to her, all which she heard very patiently, though she made him but very little answer. " Yet," says he, " by what she said, she seemed desirous to make me think, she agreed to what I laid before her but I found afterwards it had no effect Yet I had great her. upon quiet in my own mind, since I had with an honest freedom, made the best use I could of the access I had to her.

When he had attained the seventy-second year of his age, bishop Burnet was taken ill of a violent cold, which soon turned to a pleu ritic fever. He was attended in it by his worthy friend and relation, Dr. Cheyne, who treated him with the utmost care and skill; but finding the distemper grew to a height, which seemed to baffle all remedies, he called for the assistance of sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead, who quickly found his case was desperate. As he preserved his senses to the last, so when he found his end approaching, he employed his few remaining hours in continual acts of devotion, and in giving the best advice to his family; of whom he took leave in such a manner as shewed the utmost tenderness, accompanied with the greatest constancy of mind. And whilst he was so little sensible of the powers of death, as to embrace its approach with joy, he could not but express his concern, for the grief which he saw it caused in others. He died in March 1715, and was interred in the pa. rish church of St. James, Clerkenwell, where a handsome marble monument was erected to his memory.

After his death, his "History of his own Times, with his Life annexed," was published by his son, Thomas Burnet, esq. agreeably to the intention of his father; for the bishop, by his last will and testament, had ordered that this history should not be printed till six years after his death, and then faithfully, without adding, suppressing, or altering it in any particular.