the Low Church party was the King. He had been bred a
Presbyterian: he was, from rational conviction, a Latitudinarian; and
personal ambition, as well as higher motives, prompted him to act as
mediator among Protestant sects. He was bent on effecting three great
reforms in the laws touching ecclesiastical matters. His first object
was to obtain for dissenters permission to celebrate their worship in
freedom and security. His second object was to make such changes in
the Anglican ritual and polity as, without offending those to whom
that ritual and polity were dear, might conciliate the moderate
nonconformists. His third object was to throw open civil offices to
Protestants without distinction of sect. All his three objects were
good; but the first only was at that time attainable. He came too late
for the second, and too early for the third.

A few days after his accession, he took a step which indicated, in a
manner not to be mistaken, his sentiments touching ecclesiastical polity
and public worship. He found only one see unprovided with a Bishop. Seth
Ward, who had during many years had charge of the diocese of Salisbury,
and who had been honourably distinguished as one of the founders of
the Royal Society, having long survived his faculties, died while
the country was agitated by the elections for the Convention, without
knowing that great events, of which not the least important had passed
under his own roof, had saved his Church and his country from ruin. The
choice of a successor was no light matter. That choice would inevitably
be considered by the country as a prognostic of the highest import.
The King too might well be perplexed by the number of divines whose
erudition, eloquence, courage, and uprightness had been conspicuously
displayed during the contentions of the last three years. The preference
was given to Burnet. His claims were doubtless great. Yet William might
have had a more tranquil reign if he had postponed for a time the well
earned promotion of his chaplain, and had bestowed the first great
spiritual preferment, which, after the Revolution, fell to the
disposal of the Crown, on some eminent theologian, attached to the new
settlement, yet not generally hated by the clergy. Unhappily the name
of Burnet was odious to the great majority of the Anglican priesthood.
Though, as respected doctrine, he by no means belonged to the extreme
section of the Latitudinarian party, he was popularly regarded as the