12 REMARKS UPON BISHQP BURNETT's 



principles as a churchman. The discontent and impatience, the 

 loud and angry clamours, which spread and multiplied under the 

 Scottish government in the reigns of the two last Stuarts, and 

 which converted the whole country into a field of blood, — the 

 levity, caprice, and tyranny, which prevailed in the councils of Mid- 

 dleton. Sharp, and especially Lauderdale, the heroic and courageous 

 sufferings of the Covenanters, and the fanaticism and sanguinary 

 spirit to which they gave birth, are all powerfully painted. Nor 

 does he ever stand forth more conspicuously a true, devoted, and 

 indefatigable servant of his country, than when, in his descriptions 

 of these distracting periods of Scottish history, he labours to impress 

 the ruling authorities with the criminality of obstinately maintain- 

 ing those abuses which are hateful to the people, and with the im- 

 perious necessity existing, in times of general discontent, to execute 

 the law of the land with steady hands» accompanied by a spirit of 

 conciliation. 



We are, sometimes, betrayed into dangerous prejudices by a prin- 

 ciple of association, rather than by decision of judgment. Unless 

 Burnett, however, can make a steady appeal to facts, no such 

 apology can be offered for the severe strictures he has passed 

 upon the great majority of his profession. The case, indeed, must 

 be very clear, strong, and important, which could justify a divine, 

 and especially a bishop, in putting forth such a sentiment as the 

 following: — " That he was always inclined to think ill of church- 

 men till he saw cause to think otherwise:" — a dictum much more 

 offensive to clerical ears, than that well-known sarcasm pronounced 

 by Lord Clarendon, " that clergymen understand the least, and take 

 the worst measure of human affairs, of all mankind who can read 

 or write." 



Now to suppose, as some have done, that Burnett railed against 

 the priesthood because he hated it, is unworthy of any serious no- 

 tice ; especially when his unceasing, and, at last, successful efforts 

 to employ those funds for the benefit of the inferior clergy which 

 Charles II. had lavished among his mistresses and natural children, 

 must ever be regarded as a striking proof of his zeal for the interest 

 of his order, as well as of his own earnest feelings in behalf of mo- 

 ral and religious truth. Whoever has examined the subject in 



