allegiance, during his stay there, was transferred from his majesty to the States.
This expression was at once laid hold of, and dropping the former prosecution, they proceeded against him for these words, as guilty of high treason, and passed against him a sentence of outlawry. It was then demanded of the States to deliver him up, or to banish him; but as he had been naturalized, the States refused to proceed against him, unless he were legally convicted of some crime; which, if his majesty found himself capable of doing, they would punish him according to their law. To narrate the important part he performed in the revolution, would be to write the history of that great event By the prince of Orange as well as by the friends of liberty in England, he was treated with unreserved confidence. He had a principal hand in drawing up the prince's declarations, as well as the other public papers written at the time to justify the undertaking. But for a particular account of these we must refer our readers to the history of England. At the Revolution, Dr Crew, bishop of Durham, having been on the high commission created by king James, offered to resign his bishopric to Dr Burnet, trusting to his generosity for one thousand a year for life out of the episcopal revenue; and sent the earl of Montague to the prince of Orange with the proposal; but when mentioned to Burnet he refused absolutely to have any thing to do with it on these terms, as he considered them highly criminal. He was shortly after promoted to the see of Salisbury. At the close of the Session of parliament 1689, Dr Burnet went down to his diocese, when he entered upon the duties of his episcopal office with that conscientious ardour which distinguished his character. His first pastoral letter, how-
ever, in which, to save betraying the discrepancies of his political creed, he founded king William's right to the throne upon conquest, gave so much offence to both houses of parliament, that they ordered it to be burnt by the hands of the
hangman. He maintained, nevertheless, unshaken credit with king William and queen Mary to the end of their days; and employed that credit in the most praise-worthy manner. He was by the king, in preference to all his ministers, appointed to name the princess Sophia, Electress of Brunswick, next in succession to the princess of Denmark, and her issue, in the famous bill for declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession to the crown; and when that succession was explicitly established in 1701, he had the honour of being chairman of the committee to which the bill was referred. He had also the pleasure in 1690, of being a successful advocate for Lord Clarendon, who had engaged in a plot against the king, arid been one of the Dr's bitterest enemies, at the time when popery and arbitrary power were in favour.
During the life of Mary, Dr Burnet being generally one of her advisers, the affairs of the church passed wholly through his hands. After her death, in 1694, a commission was granted for that purpose to the two archbishops and four prelates, of whom Dr Burnet was one. A commission of the same kind was granted in 1700, and the Doctor still continued a member. In 1698, he was appointed preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester, and, on that occasion, insisted on giving up his bishopric. King William, however, would not allow him to do so; but, in order to soothe him, made arrangements that he might be at hand, and still have it in his power to pay considerable attention to his diocese. In this high trust the bishop conducted himself so as to have the entire approbation of the princess of Denmark, who ever after retained a peculiar affection for him, of which he had many sensible tokens after she came to the throne; though in her last years he was in direct and open opposition to her measures. In the year 1699, he published his celebrated exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, and a short time before his death, a third volume of his History of the Reforma-
