hich shone forth
not less conspicuously in his life than in his writings.

As a theologian, Tillotson was certainly not less latitudinarian than
Burnet. Yet many of those clergymen to whom Burnet was an object of
implacable aversion spoke of Tillotson with tenderness and respect.
It is therefore not strange that the two friends should have formed
different estimates of the temper of the priesthood, and should
have expected different results from the meeting of the Convocation.
Tillotson was not displeased with the vote of the Commons. He conceived
that changes made in religious institutions by mere secular authority
might disgust many churchmen, who would yet be perfectly willing to
vote, in an ecclesiastical synod, for changes more extensive still; and
his opinion had great weight with the King, [483] It was resolved that
the Convocation should meet at the beginning of the next session
of Parliament, and that in the meantime a commission should issue
empowering some eminent divines to examine the Liturgy, the canons, and
the whole system of jurisprudence administered by the Courts Christian,
and to report on the alterations which it might be desirable to make,
[484]

Most of the Bishops who had taken the oaths were in this commission;
and with them were joined twenty priests of great note. Of the twenty
Tillotson was the most important: for he was known to speak the sense
both of the King and of the Queen. Among those Commissioners who looked
up to Tillotson as their chief were Stillingfleet, Dean of Saint Paul's,
Sharp, Dean of Norwich, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, Tenison, Rector
of Saint Martin's, and Fowler, to whose judicious firmness was chiefly
to be ascribed the determination of the London clergy not to read the
Declaration of Indulgence.

With such men as those who have been named were mingled some divines who
belonged to the High Church party. Conspicuous among these were two
of the rulers of Oxford, Aldrich and Jane. Aldrich had recently been
appointed Dean of Christchurch, in the room of the Papist Massey, whom
James had, in direct violation of the laws, placed at the head of
that great college. The new Dean was a polite, though not a profound,
scholar, and a jovial, hospitable gentleman. He was the author of some
theological tracts which have long been forgotten, and of a compendium
of logic which is still used: but the best works which he has bequeathed
to posterity are his catches. Jane, the King's