Professor of Divinity,
was a graver but a less estimable man. He had borne the chief part in
framing that decree by which his University ordered the works of Milton
and Buchanan to be publicly burned in the Schools. A few years later,
irritated and alarmed by the persecution of the Bishops and by the
confiscation of the revenues of Magdalene College, he had renounced
the doctrine of nonresistance, had repaired to the headquarters of
the Prince of Orange, and had assured His Highness that Oxford would
willingly coin her plate for the support of the war against her
oppressor. During a short time Jane was generally considered as a
Whig, and was sharply lampooned by some of his old allies. He was
so unfortunate as to have a name which was an excellent mark for the
learned punsters of his university. Several epigrams were written on the
doublefaced Janus, who, having got a professorship by looking one way,
now hoped to get a bishopric by looking another. That he hoped to get a
bishopric was perfectly true. He demanded the see of Exeter as a reward
due to his services. He was refused. The refusal convinced him that the
Church had as much to apprehend from Latitudinarianism as from Popery;
and he speedily became a Tory again, [485]

Early in October the Commissioners assembled in the Jerusalem Chamber.
At their first meeting they determined to propose that, in the public
services of the Church, lessons taken from the canonical books
of Scripture should be substituted for the lessons taken from the
Apocrypha, [486] At the second meeting a strange question was raised
by the very last person who ought to have raised it. Sprat, Bishop of
Rochester, had, without any scruple, sate, during two years, in the
unconstitutional tribunal which had, in the late reign, oppressed and
pillaged the Church of which he was a ruler. But he had now become
scrupulous, and expressed a doubt whether the commission were legal.
To a plain understanding his objections seem to be mere quibbles. The
commission gave power neither to make laws nor to administer laws,
but simply to inquire and to report. Even without a royal commission
Tillotson, Patrick, and Stillingfleet might, with perfect propriety,
have met to discuss the state and prospects of the Church, and to
consider whether it would or would not be desirable to make some
concession to the dissenters. And how could it be a crime for subjects
to do at the request of their Sovereign that which it wou