Biographia Evangelica.

GEORGE ABBOT,

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ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

MINENT as this Prelate was by his ftation, he

was more fo by his parts and learning, and by his zeal for the Proteftant Religion. He had great influence in the public affairs of his time. We fhall leave, however, as much as poffible, the detail of his tranfactions, as a great member of the ftate, to the civil hiftorian, and confine ourselves, principally, to thofe circumstances of his life, which mark him as a public Governor in the Church, or represent him in his function as a Man of GOD.

He was born October 29, 1562, at Guildford, in Surry, of very worthy parents; remarkably diftinguished by their fteady fteal for the proteftant religion; for their living long and happily together, and for their fingular felicity in their children. While his mother was pregnant with this fon, fhe is faid to have had a dream which proved at once an omen and an inftruinent of his future fortunes. Her dream was this. She fancied fhe was told in her fleep, that if she could eat a jack, or pike, the child fhe went with would prove a fon, and rife to great preferment. Not long after this, in taking a pail of water out of the river Wey, which ran by their house, the accidentally caught a jack, and had thus an odd opportunity of fulfilling her dream. This ftory being much talked of, and coming to the ears of fome perfons of diftinction, they offered to become fponfors for the child, which was kindly accepted; and they had the goodness to afford many teftimonies of their affection to their Godson, while VOL. III.

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at fchool, and after he was fent to the univerfity. Such were the good effects at leaft of his mother's dream.

When he was grown up to an age proper for receiving the first tincture of learning, he was fent with his elder brother Robert to the free-fchool, erected in their native town of Guildford, by K. Edward VI. and having paffed through the rudiments of literature, under the care of Mr. Francis Taylor, who had then the direction of that fchool, he was in 1578 removed to the university of Oxford, and entered a ftudent in Baliol-college. On November 29, 1583, being then bachelor of arts, he was elected probationer-fellow of his college; and afterwards proceeding in the faculty of arts, he entered into holy orders, and became a celebrated preacher in the univerfity. He commenced bachelor of divinity in 1593, and proceeded doctor in that faculty in May 1597: And in the month of September, of the fame year, he was elected mafter of Univerfity-college. About this time it was, that the firft differences began between him and Dr. Laud, which fubfifted as long as they lived, and were the cause of great uneafinefs to both. In the year following, which was 1598, he published a Latin work which did him great honor; and which was afterwards reprinted in Germany.

On March 6, 1599, he was inftalled dean of Winchester, in the room of Dr. Martin Heton, who was prefered to the bishoprick of Ely: Dr. Abbot being then about thirtyfeven years of age. Some writers fay that he was allo dean of Gloucester, but this is abfolutely a mistake. In 1600, he was vice-chancellor of the univerfity of Oxford, and distinguished himself while in that high office, by the opinion he gave with respect to the fetting up again the crofs in Cheapfide, about which there were great difputes; but in the end he carried his point against Dr. Bancroft, then bishop of London, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; which gained him great reputation, as appears by a tract published on that fubject. The cross at Cheapfide was taken down in the year 1600, in order to be repaired, and upon this occafion, the citizens of London defired the advice of both univerfities on this queftion: Whether the faid crofs fhould be re-erected or not? And Dr. Abbot, as vice-chancellor of Oxford, gave it as his opinion, that the crucifix with the dove upon it fhould not be again fet up, but approved rather of a pyramid, or fome other matter of mere ornament, for the reafons affigned in his letter. In this determination he acted confiftently with his own practice, when in his