Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/142

436 tion. In the month of March, 1715, he was attacked with a pleuritic fever, which carried him off, being in the seventy-second year of his age. He was married first to the Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter to the Earl of Cassillis, celebrated for her beauty and her wit. Secondly, to Mrs Mary Scott, a Dutch lady of noble extraction and large fortune, by whom he had three sons. Thirdly, to Mrs Berkeley, a widow lady of singular talents and uncommon piety, by whom he had no issue. From the brief sketch which we have given of the principal events of his life, it is evident that Dr Burnet possessed a vigorous understanding, and was a man of great piety, and unwearied perseverance. Early prepossessions, however, which, vigorous as his understanding was, he evidently could not overcome, made him the dupe of―a system antiscriptural and superstitious a system which, whatever it may seem to promise in theory, has in practice been found cumbersome and inefficient―a system which, while it provides for the pampering of a few of the privileged orders of the clergy, leaves all the rest, together with the great body of the people, to pine and perish in want, contempt, and ignorance. What man as a bishop could do, Dr Burnet, while bishop of Salisbury, appears to have done; but he was hampered on all hands by insurmountable abuses originally inherent, or growing naturally out of the legalised order of things. His consistorial court he found to have become a grievance both to clergy and laity, and he attended for years in person to correct it. But the true foundation of complaint he found to be the dilatory course of proceedings, and the exorbitant fees, which he had no authority to correct. He could not even discharge poor suitors who were oppressed with vexatious prosecutions, otherwise than by paying their fees out of his own pocket, which he frequently did, and this was all the reform he was able to accomplish. In admitting to orders, he met with so much ignorance and thoughtless levity, that for the benefit of the church he formed a nursery at Salisbury, under his own eye, for students of divinity, to the number of ten, to each of whom he allowed a sum of money out of his own income for his subsistence, and in this way he reared up several young men who became eminent in the church; but this was soon discovered to be a designed affront put upon the method of education followed at Oxford, and he was compelled to give it up. Pluralities he exclaimed against as sacrilegious robbery, and in his first visitation at Salisbury quoted St Bernard, who, being consulted by a priest, whether he might not accept of two benefices, replied, 'And how will you be able to serve them.' 'I intend,' said the priest, 'to officiate in one of them by deputy.' 'Will your deputy be damned for you too,' said the saint; ' believe me, you may serve your cure by proxy, but you must be damned in person.' This quotation so affected one of his hearers, Mr Kilsey, that he resigned the rectory of Bemerton, worth two hundred pounds a year, which he held along with one of still greater value. The bishop was, at the same time, from the poverty of the living, frequently under the necessity of joining two of them together to have them served at all, and sometimes he found it necessary to help the incumbent out of his own pocket into the bargain. These, with other evils, it must be admitted, the Doctor lost no opportunity to attempt having redressed, but alas! they were and are inherent in the system, without a reform in which, they admit of no cure. He travelled over his diocese which he found "ignorant to scandal," catechising and confirming with the zeal of an apostle; and when he attended his duty in parliament, he preached in some of the London churches every Sabbath morning, and in the evening lectured in his own house, where a number of persons of distinction attended. So much conscientious diligence, confined to a legitimate locality, could scarcely have failed to produce a rich harvest of gospel fruits. Scattered as it was over such a wide surface, there is reason to fear that it was in a great measure unpro-