Life and Works of Henry King. 257 



" 'Tis tnie, divers waies were propounded, yet all found dangerous, 

 Under the Inquisition we then liv'd, both to the Undertakers and the 

 Actors. 



"His Majesty therefore at last thought of a safer & more certain 

 Expedient, to call over to Him Two of the remayning Bishops, who 

 joyned to a worthy Praelate residing with Him in His Exile might 

 Canonically Consecrate some of Those eminently deserving Divines 

 who then attended Him ; Thus Preserving the Order in a Few, untill 

 God gave opportunity to fill up the other Vacancies. 



"This desire was by a trusty Messenger sent over by His Majesty 

 communicated only to Five ; whereof (I shall not Magnifie my Office 

 to say) My self was One, who in the integrity of my Conscience can 

 profess that in the willing acceptance of this Summons I never 

 declin'd any hazard when I might doe the King my Master or the 

 Church Service. But great Age and greater Infirmity denying the 

 concurrence of any One of- the Rest (though otherwise most ready) 

 that designe fell : And God hath in the Miraculous Restoration of 

 His Sacred Majesty Restor'd the Church to that Luster wherein 

 (blessed be His Name) you now see it. 



"He in whose presence I here stand bears me record, I mention 

 not these Circumstances to any other End than my Soveraign's 

 Honour ; For it is not fit so meritorious an Act should be conceal'd 

 and smothered, but that all might take notice how CarefuU He was 

 to Preserve and Support the Church, at that Time when in His Exil'd 

 condition He could not well Support Himself." This was dangerous 

 service, with no prospect of reward, and none but a staunch Anglican 

 would have undertaken it. Furthermore, Hannah (Ixiii) records 

 the fact that in 1657 King actually ordained a minister, despite the 

 Protectorate's enactment forbidding it. (5) Henry King's Will, 

 dated July 14, 1653, and probated in the same form at his death in 

 1669, would naturally express his solemn conviction stated as in the 

 sight of God when all concern for this world had been laid aside ; 

 and yet in 1653, when Puritanism was flourishing without any 

 conceivable likelihood of overthrow, this was what he set down of his 

 religious beliefs :^ "I was bred up in the reformed Protestant Church 

 of England,^ wherein, as by his vouchsafed goodnes I was an vnworthy 



^ Taken from Hannah's copy of the certified transcript, cviii, cix. 



^ The almost bigoted orthodoxy of John King must have affected his 

 son, and traces of influence are not wanting. Nazianzen was a favorite with 

 the elder King (cf. Manningham's Diary, 71, and Nichol's Commentaries, 

 321) ; his ecclesiasticism is the pattern for his son's (Nichol, 327 ff.) ; and 



Tkans. Conn. Acad., Vol. XVIII. 18 November 1913. 



