Under these circumftances, neither the authority of the univerfity, nor the folemnity with which the decree was iffued, could fecure the end proposed by it. It rather irritated the parties, than fettled their differences. Dr. Tennison, who then filled the fee of Canterbury, prevailed with the king to interpofe by his authority, and to give the royal fanction to certain injunctions drawn up by himself, and addreffed to the arch bishops and bishops, to be published in their dioceses, and enforced by their epifcopal authority, to maintain the purity of the Christian faith, and preserve the peace of the church. The proclamation directed,

That no preacher whatsoever in his fermon or lecture should prefume to deliver any other doctrine concerning the bleffed Trinity, than what was contained in the Holy Scriptures, and is agreeable to the three creeds and the thirty-nine articles of religion.

That in the explication of this doctrine they fhould carefully avoid all new terms, and confine themselves to fuch ways of explication as have been commonly used in the church.

The careful obfervance of the 53d canon, which prohibits public oppofition between preachers, and especially bitter invectives and fcurrilous language against all perfons whatever, was particularly recommended. Thefe rules were alfo enjoined on all who wrote on the difputed queftions. Thefe directions were not limited to the clergy alone to govern their conduct in the controverfy, but were alfo levelled at

those who were not of the clerical body, but who, it was understood, had prefumed to talk and difpute against the Chriftian faith concerning the doctrine of the Trinity, or had written or published or difperfed books and pamphlets against it: And the clergy were ftrictly charged and commanded, together with all other means fuitable to their holy profeffion, to use their authority according to law to repress and reftrain fuch exorbitant practices.*

No decree of a council, no bull of a pope, could be more decidedly marked by claims to authority over confcience, and to infallibility of judgment in the enactors of either, than were these royal injunctions drawn up by an epifcopal pen. The royal perfonage from whofe court they were given, and the prelate whose spirit dictated them, though credit fhould be given to the purity of their motives, forgot that they were proteftants. The only part of these injunctions that could poffibly answer a valuable end, and that properly fell within the province of the civil magistrate, was the order to abstain from bitter invectives and fcurrilous language. The other directions tended only to overbear the judgments of men, to fupprefs conviction, and to restrain inquiry.

The decree of the univerfity and the injunctions of the king were not merely dead letters. The partizans of orthodoxy in that day not only had recourfe to cenfures, but adopted vigorous measures, In 1695 was published a tract, reprinted by the London Unitarian Society in 1793, entitled "The *Tennifon's Life, p. 49-53.

defigned End to the Socinian Controverfy; or a ❝rational and plain Difcourfe to prove that no other "perfon but the Father of Chrift is Gon Most "High" by Mr. John Smith. "The author "discovers," fays the editor of the modern edition, "a very confiderable acquaintance with the Chriftian "fcriptures, and a mind influenced by the love of "truth." These recommendations did not screen him or his work from refentment and the vifitation of power. The work was feized, and the author was apprehended.* Dr. Trelawney, while bishop of Exeter, entered the lifts with peculiar fpirit against those who were deemed to be engaged in a confpiracy against the catholic faith, viz. Socinians, latitudinarians, and deniers of the mysteries; and he proceeded to the extreme measure of excommunicating Dr. Bury, who had been alfo folemnly condemned by the universities for notorious herefy.f

By these means the Trinitarian controversy had at last a temporary fufpenfion; but not till the leading difputants in it, Dr. Sherlock and Dr. South, had been ridiculed in a popular ballad, called "The Battle Royal." The various modes adopted

Preface to the laft edition.

† A Letter to a Convocation Man, 1697; afcribed to Dr. Binckes. N. B. In a copy of this tract in Dr. Williams's Library, Red-Cross-ftreet, London, the names of Trelawney and Bury are inferted in the margin; as one the actor, the other the sufferer.

§ This ballad was tranflated into several languages, particularly the Latin, by a curious hand, at the Univerfity of Cambridge; and presents were made to the author by the nobility and gentry. The ludicrous ftrain of it, which was very indecorous, confidering

for fuppreffing the works of the Unitarians occafioned ones who had written with acrimony against the friends of the Revolution, to remark" that cer

the eminent and learned perfons whom it reprimands, and the gravity of the queftions debated by the difputants, is a proof that the dispute was regarded as the contention of theologues rather than as the fober inveftigation of facred and important truth; and did not procure from all perfons respect to the divines concerned in it. As it is a document that shews the spirit of the times, and the impreffion made by the controverfy on the public mind, it may be acceptable to the reader.

"THE BATTLE ROYAL,"

To the tune of "A Soldier and a Sailor,"

A dean and a prebendary+
Had once a vagary;

And were at doubtful strife, fir.
Who led the better life, fir,
And was the better man.

The dean, he said, that truly
Since BLUFF was fo unruly,
He'd prove it to his face, fir,
That he had the most grace, fir.
And fo the fight began, &c.

When PREB replied, like thunder,
And roar'd out, it was no wonder,
Since Gods the dean had THREE, fir,
And more by Two than he, fir:
For he had got but one,
&c.

Now, while these two were raging,
And in difpute engaging,

The Matter of the CHARTERI

Said both had caught a tartar,

For gods, fir, there were none, &c.

* Dr. Sherlock.

That all the books of Mofes
Were nothing but supposes ;
That he deferved rebuke, fir,
Who wrote the Pentateuch, fir ;
'Twas nothing but a sham, &c.

That as for Father Adam,
With Mrs. Eve, his madam,
And what the ferpent fpake, fir,
'Twas nothing but a joke, fir,
And well-invented flam, &c.

That in the BATTLE ROYAL,
As none could take denial,
The dame for which they ftrove, fir,
Could neither of them love, fir,
Since all had given offence, &c.

She therefore, flyly waiting,
Left all THREE FOOLS a prating;
And being in a fright, fir,
RELIGION took her flight, fir
And ne'er was heard of fince.‡

+ Dr. South.

Dr. Thomas Burnet, mafter of the Charter-Houfe, who about this time published his Archæologia; in which he was charged by fome with having impugned and weakened the divine truths of the Old Testament.

South's Pofthumous Works, Memoirs, p. 128,--130.

$ Dr. Hickes.

"tainly there must be fomething formidabe in "their books and fome reasonings in them, which "could not be well answered, that fo much dili

THE diffenters had scarcely begun to enjoy peace, protection, and liberty, under the aufpicious influence of the Revolution, than they difagreed among themselves. Divifion and diffention, always to be lamented, were in feveral views, at that time, particularly difgraceful and unfeasonable. They furnished those who had predicted their difunion, if they were left to themselves, an opportunity of infulting and reproaching them. While the flames were breaking out in the Established Church, occafioned both by religious and practical animofities, if the diffenters had been wife and temperate enough to preserve harmony and union among themselves, they would have fecured honour to their principles, preferved the confiftency of their character as proteftants, and acquired refpectability and weight in the state. It had been prefumed, that a foundation

Preface to the late edition of Smith's Divine End, &c. p. vi.