great spiritual preferment, which, after the Revolution, fell to
the disposal of the Crown, on some eminent theologian, attached
to the new settlement, yet not generally hated by the clergy.
Unhappily the name of Burnet was odious to the great majority of
the Anglican priesthood. Though, as respected doctrine, he by no
means belonged to the extreme section of the Latitudinarian
party, he was popularly regarded as the personification of the
Latitudinarian spirit. This distinction he owed to the prominent
place which he held in literature and politics, to the readiness
of his tongue and of his pert, and above all to the frankness and
boldness of his nature, frankness which could keep no secret, and
boldness which flinched from no danger. He had formed but a low
estimate of the character of his clerical brethren considered as
a body; and, with his usual indiscretion, he frequently suffered
his opinion to escape him. They hated him in return with a hatred
which has descended to their successors, and which, after the
lapse of a century and a half, does not appear to languish.

As soon as the King's decision was known, the question was every
where asked, What will the Archbishop do? Sancroft had absented
himself from the Convention: he had refused to sit in the Privy
Council: he had ceased to confirm, to ordain, and to institute;
and he was seldom seen out of the walls of his palace at Lambeth.
He, on all occasions, professed to think himself still bound by
his old oath of allegiance. Burnet he regarded as a scandal to
the priesthood, a Presbyterian in a surplice. The prelate who
should lay hands on that unworthy head would commit more than one
great sin. He would, in a sacred place, and before a great
congregation of the faithful, at once acknowledge an usurper as a
King, and confer on a schismatic the character of a Bishop.