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By SIR PHILIP WARWICK.
Archbishop Laud was a man of an upright heart and a pious soul, but of too warm blood and too positive a nature towards asserting what he beleived a truth, to be a good Courtier; and his education fitted him as little for it, as his nature: which having bin most in the University, and among books and scholars, where oft canvassing affairs, that are agitated in that province, and prevailing in it, rather gave him wrong than right measures of a Court. He was generally acknowledg'd a good scholar, and throughly verst in Ecclesiastical learning. He was a zealot in his heart both against Popery and Presbytery; but a great assertor of Church-authority, instituted by Christ and his Apostles, and as primitively practised; which notwithstanding, he really and freely acknowledged subject unto the secular authority. And therefore he carefully endeavored to preserve the jurisdiction, which the Church anciently exercised, before the secular authority own'd her; at least so much thereof, as the law of this our Realm had apply'd to our circumstances; which our common Lawyers dayly struck at; and thro' prohibitions and other appeals every day lessened; and this bred an unkindnes to him in many of the long robe, however some of them were very carefull of the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction.
He was a man of great modesty in his own person and habit, and of regularity and devotion in his family: and as he was very kind to his Clergy, so he was very carefull to make them modest in their attire, and very diligent in their studies, in faithfully dispensing God's Word, reverently reading the Prayers, and administring the Sacraments, and in preserving their Churches in cleanlines and with plain and fitting ornament, that so voyd of superstition, GOD's House in this age, where every man bettered his own, might not lye alone neglected; and accordingly he sett upon that great work of St. Paul's Church, which his diligence perfected in a great measure: and his Master's piety made magnificent that most noble structure by a Portico: but not long after the carved work thereof was broken down with axes and hammers, and the whole sacred edifice made not only a den of thieves, but a stable of unclean beasts, as I can testifie, having once gone into it purposely to observe: from which contamination Providence some few years since cleansed it by fire.
He prevented likewise a very private and clandestine designe of introducing Nonconformists into too too many Churches; for that society of men (that they might have Teachers to please their itching ears) had a designe to buy in all the Lay-Impropriations, which the Parish-Churches in Henry the VIII's time were robb'd of, and lodging the Advowsons and Presentations in their own Feoffees, to have introduced men, who would have introduced doctrines suitable to their dependences, which the Court already felt too much the smart of, by being forced to admitt the Presentations of the Lay-Patrons, who too often dispose their benefices to men, rather suitable to their own opinions, than the Articles and Canons of the Church.
All this bred him more and more envy; but if it had pleas'd God to have given him an uninterrupted course, and if few of his Successors had walked in his stepps, wee might, without any tendency to Popery, or danger of superstition, have serv'd God reverently and uniformely, and according unto Primitive practice and purity, and not have bin, as we are now, like a shivered glass, scarse ever to be made whole again. Thus finding Providence had led him into authority, he very really and strongly opposed both Popery and Presbytery. He was sensible, how the first by additions had perverted the purity of Religion, and turned it into a policy; but resolving not to contest Rome's truths, tho' he spared not her errors, both Papist and Presbyter, with all their Lay-Party, were well contented, that it might be believed, he was Popishly affected. And being conscious likewise, how Presbytery or the Calvinisticall Reformation, which many here, and more in Scotland, affected, by substraction and novel interpretation, had forsaken the good old ways of the primitive Church, and was become dangerous to Monarchy, he sett himself against this, as well as that: but both their weights crusht him….
As this good Arch-Bishop I write of, had these great eminences, so he may be acknowledged to have failed in those prudences, which belong unto a great Minister of State, who like a wise Physician is to consider times and seasons, as well as persons and diseases, and to regard those complications, which usually are mixed in ill habits of body, and to use more alterative than purgative Physick. For popular bents and inclinations are cured more by a steddy than precipitate hand or counsel; multitudes being to be drawn over from their errors, rather by wayes they discerne not, than by those, which they are likely to contest; whilst upon single persons and great men courses of violence and authority may be exercised. But Ministers of State unwillingly run this course, because they would have the honour of perfecting the work they affect in their own time; and the multitude of this good man's busines, and the promptnes of his nature, made those ceremonies, which are necessary by great Persons to be paid unto men in his station, to be unwelcome unto him, and so he discharged himselfe of them, and thereby disobliged those persons, who thought their quality, tho' not their busines, required a patient and respectfull entertainment. This I reflect upon, because I heard from a good hand, that the Marquiss of Argile making him an insidious visit, and he, knowing he neither loved him nor the Church, entertaining him not with that franknes he should have done, but plainly telling him, he was at that time a little busy about the King's affairs, this great Lord took it so much in indignation, and esteem'd it such a Lordly Prelacy, that he declaimed against it, and became (if possible) more enemy both to him and the Church, than he was before. The rectitude of his nature therefore made him not a fitt instrument to struggle with the obliquity of those times; and he had this infirmity likewise, that he beleived those forward instruments, which he employed, followed the zeal of their own natures, when they did but observe that of his: for as soon as difficulty or danger appeared, his petty instruments shrunk to nothing, and shewed, from whom they borrowed their heat.
He weighed not well his Master's condition; for he saw him circled in by too many powerfull Scots, who mis-affected the Church, and had joyned with them too many English Counsellors and Courtiers, who were of the same leaven. If he had perceived an universall concurrence in his own Clergy, who were esteemed Canonicall men, his attempts might have seem'd more probable, than otherwise it could: but for him to think by a purgative Physick to evacuate all those cold slimy humors, which thus overflowed the body, was ill judged; for the good affections of the Prince, back'd only by a naked or paper-authority, sooner begets contumacy, than complyance in dissaffected Subjects….
And this shall suffice to be said of that well intentioned, but not truly considerative, great man, unles wee add this single thing further, that he who looks upon him thro' those Canons, which in Synod passed in his time, will find him a true Assertor of Religion, Royalty, and Property; and that his grand designe was no other, than that of our first Reformation; which was, that our Church might stand upon such a foot of Primitive and Ecclesiastick authority, as suited with God's word, and the best Interpreters of it, sound reason and Primitive practice. And untill this Nation is blest with such a spirit, it will lye in that darknes and confusion the Sects at this time have flung it into.
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