The Prince of Orange was too good a politician not to see, that the principles, talents, connections, and reputa tion of Burnet, all conspired to make him a valuable aux iliary to his cause, if he once espoused it warm. He therefore did not hesitate to refuse the sui render of him to the English government vvlien it was forn tally demand ed lie should be delivered up ; and in the progress of the preparations for the great enterprise which placed Wil liam on the throne of England, his experience of the fi delity and services of Burnet induced him to nominate him his chaplain, in which capacity he accompanied him in the expedition to Englund. On the successful issue of that great design, Burnet found himself hi the road to promotion, without any obstacle, either from principle or feeling. Ilis Nvell-known moderation suited the temper of the present government, and both his public services and private worth recommended him to ecclesiastical elevation. In 1639 he was raised to the see of Sarum, the duties of which lie discharged in a manlier the most exemplary, devoting himself to the labours of the pulpit and of the diocese, with a zeal and which have rarely been equalled, and never surpassed. An institu tion of a nursery of students in divinity at Salisbury, un der his own immediate inspection, shewcd how great was his anxiety to secure a pious and enlightened clergy. He. was, however, induced to abandon that favourite project, on being informed that it was regarded as a censure on the universities.
It is a singular fact, that in a pastoral letter to his clergy, the bishop maintained the right of William and Mary to the crown on the ground of conquest. But his aversion to Popery, and his zeal for the Protestant suc cession, were so great, that to his mind, conquest was a better title in a Protestant, than possession in a Papist. It is rather more extraordinary, that the celebrated phi losophical and sceptical writer, Charles Blount, should have maintained the same doctrine in a pamphlet, en titled King William and Queen Mary, Conquerors. Three years after the publication of the pattoral letter, it was ordered by Parliament to be burnt, together with Illount's pamphlet, by the hands of the common hangman.
Besides a number of minor productions, Burnet pub lished An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, a work which ranks 1% ith the theo logical treatises of that nature. Ile also left for publica tion after his decease, The history of his own Times, with an Account of his Life, which was published by his son Thomas, in two volumes folio, in the years 1723 and 1734. This work, V. ith'all its defects and redundan cies of style and matter, is valuable as a collection of au thentic memoirs of persons, whose names are connected with some of the most important events in English his tory ; and it is not rendered the less interesting to most readers, by the garrulity and egotism which it often dis plays, but which always exhibit the writer as a man of simplicity, integrity, and considerable parts, a great part of whose life was passed in intimacy with men of rank and genius, and who himself sustained a very im portant and honourable part in the great transactions of the day.
Many ant-dotes t CSpeCtIlig 111111 111 of dinar) ( ircu lat1011, smile Or 111.1.1• illtertSt, and other, of little at that i ty. Ile has himself left a re' ,rd of his instrument:dm in the conversion of the Lail of Rochester, in his pub lished account of the life and death of that nobleman Of the genuineness and saving efficacy of his Lith and repentance, he appears to have received a full conk action, more honourable to his heart than his judgment. It also certain that a k isit W111C11 he made to Mrs Robe ts, a mistress of the king, in her last moments, suggested to him the propriety or duty, as he supposed, of addressing a monitory and expostulatory h-tte• to Charles II. on thy vices of his life and errors of his government. It is said the king gave it a second perusal before he threw it into the fire, but that he never forgave the writer. The life of this honest man and exemplary prelate was terminat ed by a pleu•etic lever, March 17, 1715, in the 72d year of his age. See Burnet's History of Ills own Times, to 1 Biographia Dritannica.