of both Kingdoms.”  This I saw, and suffered by it.  But when I look back upon the ruin of families, the bloodshed, the decay of common honesty, and how the former piety and plain dealing of this now sinful nation is turned into cruelty and cunning, I praise God that he prevented me from being of that party which helped to bring in this Covenant, and those sad confusions that have followed it.  And I have been the bolder to say this to myself, because in a sad discourse with Dr. Sanderson, I heard him make the like grateful acknowledgment.

[Sidenote:  Changes in the Service Book]

This digression is intended for the better information of the reader in what will follow concerning Dr. Sanderson.  And first, that the Covenanters of this nation, and their party in Parliament, made many exceptions against the Common Prayer and ceremonies of the Church, and seemed restless for a Reformation:  and though their desires seemed not reasonable to the King, and the learned Dr. Laud, then Archbishop of Canterbury; yet, to quiet their consciences, and prevent future confusion, they did, in the year 1641, desire Dr. Sanderson to call two more of the Convocation to advise with him, and that he would then draw up some such safe alterations as he thought fit in the Service-book, and abate some of the ceremonies that were least material for satisfying their consciences:—­and to this end they did meet together privately twice a week at the Dean of Westminster’s[16] house, for the space of three months or more.  But not long after that time, when Dr. Sanderson had made the reformation ready for a view, the Church and State were both fallen into such a confusion, that Dr. Sanderson’s model for reformation became then useless.  Nevertheless, his reputation was such, that he was, in the year 1642, proposed by both Houses of Parliament to the King, then in Oxford, to be one of their trustees for the settling of Church-affairs, and was allowed of by the King to be so:  but that treaty came to nothing.

[Sidenote:  Regius Professor of Divinity]

In the year 1643, the two Houses of Parliament took upon them to make an ordinance, and call an Assembly of Divines, to debate and settle some Church-controversies, of which many were very unfit to judge; in which Dr. Sanderson was also named, but did not appear; I suppose for the same reason that many other worthy and learned men did forbear, the summons wanting the King’s authority.  And here I must look back, and tell the Reader, that in the year 1642, he was, July 21st, named by a more undoubted authority to a more noble employment, which was to be Professor Regius of Divinity in Oxford:  but, though knowledge be said to puff up, yet his modesty and too mean an opinion of his great abilities, and some other real or pretended reasons,—­expressed in his speech, when he first appeared in the chair, and since printed,—­kept him from entering into it till October, 1646.

[Sidenote:  His lectures]