594 The HISTORY of the PURITANS, Chap. V. Chafies I. The church was now in the height of its triumphs, and grafped not only at all fpiritual jurifdic`ìion, but at the capital preferments of fiate. Thegran-' This year Dr. ,uxon bifhop of London, was declared lord high treafurer wear f the, of England, which is the fill office of profit and power in the kingdom, and has precedence next to the archbifhop. yaxon's namehad hardly been known at court above twoyears ; till then he was no more than a private chaplain to the king, and head of a poor college in Oxford. Befides,, no churchman had held this poll fince the darker( times of popery, in the . reign of kingHenry the feventh; but Laud valued himfelf upon this no mination ; Now [fays he, in his Diary] if the church will not hold up them- 'dyes, under God, I can do no more. When the flaffof treafurer was put into the hands of 7uxon, lord Clarendon obferves, " That the nobility " were enflamed, and began to look upon the church as a gulph ready to fwallow all the great offices of ftate, there being other church-men in. " view who were ambitious enough to expeél the refi. The inferior " clergy took advantage of this- fituation of their affairs, and did not live- " towards their neighbours of quality, or patrons, with that civility and "good manners as they ufed to do, which difpofed others to withdraw their countenanceand good neighbourhood from them, efpecially after Pride and " they were put into the commitlions of peace, in moll counties of Eng- ", land." One of the members of the houle of commons Paid, " That tkmbcicrgyf " the clergy were fo exalted, that a gentleman might not come near the " tail of their mules; and that one of them had declared openly, that he "-hoped to fee the day, when a clergyman fhould be as good a man as " any:upflart Jack gentleman in the kingdom." 'Tis certain, the favour- able afpeflof the court had very much exalted their behaviour, and their new notions had made them conceive themfelves an order of men above the rank of the laity, for as much as they had the keys of the kingdom of heaven, at their girdle, and upon their prieftly character depended the ef- ficacy of all gofpel inftitutions. This made fome of them remarkably ne gligent of their cures up and down the country; others loft the little learn- ing they had acquired at the univerfrty, and many became very fcanda- Claren,, lolls in their lives; though lord Clarendon Pays, that there was not one Vet° I, church-man in any degreeof favour or acceptance [at court] of,,a fcanda- P,77 loos infuf£iciency in learning, or of.a more fcandalous condition of life; but on the contrary, mod of them of confeffed eminent parts in know- ledge, and, of virtuous and unblemifhed lives. ering.e > Great numbersof the.moft.ufeful and laborious preachers inall partsof Mr.. Rogers thecountry were buried in frlence; and forced to abfcond from the fury of of Dedham., the high.commiffìon; among whom werethe famous Mi. John'Dod, Mr. W, /atelyDr. Harris, Mr. Cape/,. and Mr. JohnRogers `of Dedham, one of the..irloftawakening preachers of his age, of ;whom bifhop.Brownrigge used
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