those points, which are immediately connected with the Nonjurors.
Soon after the Archbishop's decease, Burnet published the sermon which he had preached on occasion of his funeral. This was a signal for renewed attacks upon the Bishops and Clergy, for their compliance with the new order of things. Hickes was perhaps the most severe in his animadversions, which must be regarded with some suspicion, since they proceeded from a man, to whom the Archbishop, in consequence of the line which he had taken, was most obnoxious. I am, however, inclined to think, that the severe remarks were partly called forth by the strain of panegyric, in which the preacher so largely indulged. "Burnet," says Ralph, "preached his funeral sermon; and the character he gave of the deceased (severely true, as he declares it was, and rather less than larger than the life) together with the overflow of rancour, which in the same breath he rashly discharged against the deprived clergy, drew both on the dead and the living as severe invectives: according to the preacher, Tillotson was a man whose life was free from blemishes, was shining in all the parts of it, was an example of all sublime and heroical piety and virtue, and a pattern both to Church and State: according to those who answered him, supposing these things to be true, they were not to be admitted on the authority of him who delivered them: according to them, Burnet had no authority, and Tillotson's life abounded more with blemishes than beauties: and the truth of the matter is, that prejudice was equally predominant on both sides."[1] Undoubtedly Tillotson was a man
- ↑ Ralph, ii. 535, 536.
