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 LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 A PREBENDARY? 
 
 BEING AN ANSWER TO 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON POPERY, BY THE REV. J. STURGES, LL. D. 
 
 Prebendar)- and Chancellor of Winchester, and Chaplain to his Majesty ; 
 
 WITH REMARKS ON THE 
 
 Opposition of Hoadlyism to the Doctrines of the Church of England, 
 AND ON VARIOUS PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE LATE 
 
 CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF WINCHESTER. 
 
 BY THE REY. JOHN MILNER, M. A. F. S.A. 
 
 Printed and Sold by ROBBINS, of Winchester: 
 
 Sold also in London by CADELL and DAVIES, in the Strand ; ROBSON, New Bond Street ; LEIGH and SOTHEBY, 
 
 York- Street, Covent Garden ; NICHOLS, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street ; COGHLAN, Duke Street, Grosvwor 
 
 Square ; and CROSBY and LETTERMAN, Stationers Court, Ludgate Hill. 
 
 J800.
 
 1 . -5 O 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Introducltoii. 
 
 -li- HE unexpected occasion of the 'present publication. — The late Histoiy of \VLnche<;ter free from the 
 imputation which Dr. S. has cast upon it. — It is entirely founded on incontrovertible auUiority. — lili- 
 terality and impropriety of the terms Popery and Papists. — Injurious charges brought against (he 
 Catholic religion and the present writer. — Inquiry into the grounds of the abuse cast upon the latter \n 
 the Pursuits of Literature. — Hints concerning the author of that work.— Necessity of the writer's re- 
 pelling the attack of Dr. S. — Examination of the latter"s reasons why his work should not be answered. 
 Condition of the French clergy, and of tlie English Catholics. — The virulence of many late writers 
 against tlte latter. - ' - - - - Page 1— in. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Supremacy. 
 
 The discussion of the pope's supremacy not connected witli the late History. — Confiision of Dr. S.'s ideas- 
 on this subject. — False charges against the WTiter concerning it. — Character of Dr. S.'s favourite au- 
 thorities. — Deftece of St.Tiiomas Aquinas, and of scholastic logic. — Bad reasoning against an eccle- 
 siastical .supremacy. — ^This proved to have existed in the primitive church. — Mistakes concerning the 
 patriarchate of Constantinople. — Wrong inferences from the wickedness of some popes. — Similar argu- 
 ments made use of for the destruction of monarchy. — Essential services rendered by the popes of every 
 age to Christianity and society. — Obligations of the inhabitants of this island to them. — Character 
 
 • of the late pope, Pius VI. — His iirmness in defence of religion. — Insidious attempts of the disciples of 
 Hoadly to render a real spiritual authority suspicious to government. — Impartial statement of the dispute 
 between Henry II and St. Thomas Becket. . . , . P. 20— 30. 
 
 tETTER III. 
 
 Religious. Observances. 
 
 Present universal dread of superstition. — Advantage derived from this by Dr.S. — Fabulous and absurd 
 origin ascribed by him to Catholic observances. — Date of the monastic institute. — Misrepresentation 
 of it by Dr. S. — Ingratitude of this author to his original benefactors. — Vulgar error about ancient com- 
 pensations for sin, refuted from history. — Advantages of the ancient monasteries to the community. — 
 Obiections of Dr.S. against regular silence, fasting, and abstinence, refuted. — Occasion of the dispute 
 concer .iiig clerical celibacy. — Ludicrous arguments of Dr. S. against it, drawn from an irreligious poet. 
 — ^I'he strange and alarming positions of Dr. S. on this head. — Arg^iments for the celibacy of the clergy. 
 •—Exemplified in a late occurrence. - - - - P. 3/ — 50, 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Persecution. 
 
 G.^oundle's prejudice against Catholics on this head. — Artifices used to inflame and maintain it. — TI>« 
 justice of striking a true balance on this subject.— Those who declaim most against persecution gene- 
 
 ridlr. 

 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 rally the most intolerant. — Arguments of Dr. S. to prove that persecution is a tenet of the Catholic 
 faith, examined. — The accusation that Catholics have actually persecuted, effectually silenced. — Account 
 ef sufteiers on the subject of religion in France, Holland, England, &c. — Occasion of the severe laws 
 against the Albigenses. — 'Dr. llennell's quotation of canon iv, concil. Lateran. — Note on the consistency 
 of his character and vsrltings. — Egregious mistake of him and of Dr. S. concerning the supposed 
 authority- of that canon. — History of the Albigenses. — Their horrible immorality and impiety. — Seditious 
 and irreligious tenets of Wycliff and his followers. — These productive of dreadful tumults in England. 
 — ^The doctrines of Huss equally destructive of religion and civil government. — Refutation of Dr. S.'s 
 charges against the council of Constance on account of the execution of that innovator. — His misre- 
 presentation of the massacre of Paris. — Mistakes concerning the inquisition. — Falsification of a passage 
 in Bossuet's Variations, and mistatement of his doctrine. — Inquiry into the ground of queen Mary's 
 cruel persecution. — Dr. S.'s want of candour in defending the persecution of Elizabeth. — Number and 
 cliaracter of the sufferers on both sides. — Unwillingness of Dr. S. to come to a compromise on this 
 subject. - - - - - -' - P. 5" — 94. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 The Reformation, 
 
 Exaggerated charges of the irreligion and barbarity of former times by modern writers. — ^True state of 
 the arts, learning, and religion of the middle ages. — Comparison between the Reformers and those 
 whom they undertook to reform. — Luther's account of the effects of the Reformation on the morals of 
 the people. — Testimony of Erasmus. — State of morality in this nation at the latter end of the reign of 
 Henry VIII — In the reign of Edward VI — In that of Elizabeth. — Character of those chief Reformers 
 who are singled out by Dr. S. — Of Martin Luther as drawn by himself — Of Hooper — Latimer — Ridley 
 — Cranmer, — General Reflections. - - - - P. Q^ — 125. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Vindication of the Euglisk Catholics under Queen Elixabelh. 
 
 Hypocritical character of certain persecutions. — Private sentiments of Elizabeth in matters of religion.— 
 These subservient to her political interests. — Description of her three principal ministers and chief 
 agents in the persecution of Catholics : — Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester — Sir William Cecil, lord 
 Burghley — Sir Francis 'W-'alsingham, secretary of state. — Their unprincipled artifices to effect this pur- 
 pose. — ^The remarkable fidelity of the Catholics at the accession of Elizabeth. — Falsely accused by Dr. 
 S. in various instances. — The Northern Rebellion. — Excommunication of Elizabeth. — The foreign 
 seminaries. — Errors of Hum<e and Dr. S. — Pretended plot of Rheims and Rome — ^That of "William 
 Parry — His remarkable history. — Babington's plot a contrivance of Cecil and Walsingham to get rid of 
 the queen of Scots. — Horrid attempts of Elizabeth and her ministers to get her assassinated. — Curious 
 Jftter of the former, extracted from Stiype. — Mary's noble defence of herself. — Her death contrasted witli 
 that of Elizabeth. — Acknowledged loyalty of the Catholics at the time of the intended Spanish invasion, 
 yet persecuted with redoubled cTuelty on that account. — General observations .on Catholic loyalty. 
 
 P. i2tj—i66. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Siihsequeiit Historij of the English Catholics down to the present time. 
 
 Unreasonableness of the vulgar prejudices against Catholics. — Arts of Cecil, earl of Salisbury-, to wean 
 James I from his attachment to them. — Dr. S.'s misrepresentation of the gunpowder plot. — Number, 
 I haracter, and conscientious principles of the conspirators. — Cecil the chief artificer and promoter of 
 it. — His further views on the heads of the Catholics. — His consummate hypocri,sy in flattering the king 
 and alarming the nation. — Refutation of the assertion that tliis plot has no parallel in history. — Three, 
 Protestant gunpowder plots. — The absurdity and uncharitableness of celebrating the 5th of November. 
 — Dr. S.'s candour in this respect. — The fatal artifice used in drawing up the oath of allegiance. — 
 Absurd charges of disloyalty and plots against Catholics under Charles I. — Their unrivalled loyalt)' and 
 sufferings in the grand Rebellion.— The share tliey had in preserving tlie life of Charles II. — Fresh 
 
 accusat,ions
 
 CONTr.NTS, O 
 
 accusations ngalnst them at the 'Restoratten. — Strange assertions of Dr. S. — Fire of London. — Ihe 
 original contrivers of OaleVs plot. — Its ulipandleled malice against liotli tiic king and the Catholics. — 
 Charles II and James II less despotic tlian their predecessors. — Dispensations, of the penal laws in for- 
 mer reigns.' — Demonstration of the authotily exercised by former princes over colleges, in a detailed 
 series. — The title under which this autliority was claimed. — Modern instance of tiiis antlu.rity. — James 
 II a real patron of toleration. — EmbaiTa.ssment of Dr. S. on this head. — Absnrdity of his menacing 
 cJiarge upon the autlior's loyalty. — Retorsion of the charge upon himself.— I'xplicit avowal of the writer's 
 adherence to coustitutioiuil principles. — Alarming doctrines and positions on Uiis head ot Dr. Balgny and 
 Dr. S. — New penal laws after the Revolution. — Unreasonableness of this measure, and contradictions of 
 Dr. S. concerning it. — General reflections on the hypocritical pretexts of all the preceding persecutions. 
 —The relief granted to the Catliohcs under his present Majesty in 1/78. — ^The hypocTisy and intoW- 
 rance of former persecutors exempliiied in lord George Gordon and th.e Protestant Associators. — Their 
 attempts to intimidate tl;e legislature and overturn the government. — Their daring falsehoods. — ^Their 
 final history. — The more ample relief granted to the Catholics in I "91. — ^The benevolence of certain 
 individuals on the occasiou. .... - P. 16" — 213. 
 
 LETTER yrii. 
 Hoadli/ism. 
 
 The autlior's former observations on llils subject tlie real cause of die present controversy. — Proofs of 
 tlie uprightness of his views in opposing the doctrine of bishop Hoadly. — His wish to preserve t^c 
 genuine doctiincs of the Chmch of England as a barrier against infidelity. — Statement of his intended 
 arguments. — Doctrine of the Church of England in her Articles, Catechism, and Liturgy, conceming the 
 nature and authority of tlie Church of Christ, of episcopal ordination, and uninterrupted succession. — ■ 
 Positions of bishop H. in opposition to this doctrine, and of his most illustrious disciples. Dr. Balguy 
 and Dr. S. — Detailed examination of passages from their publications on this subject. — Doctrine of 
 the Church of England, concerning the two Sacraments, as professed in her Catechism, Articles, Li- 
 turgy, and Homilies. — ^The necessary opposition to this of Hoadly and his followers. — Examination of 
 Dr. B.'s Sermon on the Sacraments. — His avowal of tire aforesaid opposition in the point of . original 
 sin. — A theological demonstration that the ceremony of washing feet is a true and real sacrament of 
 the new law, on the principles of the Hoadlvites. — The church doctrine concerning tlie mysterious 
 and beneficial nature of tlie Eucharist. — Dr. B.'s confession of his inability to reconcile this to his 
 system. — Hib strange and profane derivation of the Lord's Supper from the Pagan sacrifices. — An ex- 
 amination of Dr. S.'s pretence in favour of the Hoadlyan scheme of the Sacrament. — Necessary rea- 
 soning of an intelligent Gentoo on this subject, — The bishop of Chester's remarks on the connection 
 between the aforesaid Hoadlyan scheme and Socinianism. — ^I'he clear, explicit, and energetical doctrine 
 of the Church of England concerning the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, contained in her 
 Articles and Creeds. — Strong presumptions against the orthodoxy of bishop H. on these points — Dr. B. 
 denies all mysteries whatsoever.— His untheological reasoning on this head. — His contempt of all spe- 
 culative articles of belief. — His impious doctrine concerning Christ, and insinuations against the mys- 
 tery of the Trinity. — His various schemes of explaining our salvation through Christ. — He denies Re- 
 velation to be a system of Ethics. — The doctrine of Dr. S. concerning the fundamental mysteries of 
 Christianity. — His wrong principle, that nothing can be believed but what is comprehended. — He . 
 
 ' teaches that nothing else is revealed by God of his own nature, except that he is one, and that he is 
 incorporeal. — An accurate discussion of what Dr. has published concerning the Trinity. — The statute 
 IS of Eliz c. 12, concerning Uniformity. — Act of Uniformity, requiring unfeigned assent and consent. — 
 Canons of the Church of England to the same effect. — Bishop Hoadly's method of satisfying his con- 
 science concerning the requisite assent and consent. — Dr. B.'s dissent from the established church. — 
 His excellent reasoning on the necessity of public uniformity. — This proved -to be equally necessary in 
 writing and conversation. — Dr. B.'s strong exceptions against the xxxix Articles. — His curious mode 
 of justifying the subscription of them. — Dr. S.'s forcible objections to them. — His call for a reformation 
 of them. — The author's motive for defending the doctrine of the establishment. — A Catholic departs 
 less from it than a Hoadlyite. — Character of Hoadly's political writings. — ^I'heir share in the present dis- 
 ! turbances of Europe. — The Catholic religion unjustly accused on this head by Dr. Rennell, and two 
 respectable prelates. — One great source of these calamities pointed out. - - P. 21t) — 275. 
 
 Ari'ENDlX,
 
 b eONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The Civil and Ecclesiastical History and Survey of Winchester. 
 
 ^\'lnt ouglit to have been the sole subject of Dr. S.'s criticism. — Discoveries of Rocher du Guerin and 
 Bonnaud. — Druidical remains at Winchester. — Absurdity of Dr. S.'s objections to them. — Histov)' of St. 
 Ursula. — Death of Rufus. — Authority of Dr. Collier. — Architectural criticism. — Instance of increasing 
 barbarism in Winchester cathedral. — The ideas of Dr. Warton and the late laureate Warton concerning 
 the ancient disposition of the cathedral — ^These refuted. — Bishop Lowth's pretended origin of the 
 practice of praying for the dead. — Refuted. — The unimportant controversy respecting the late Rev. Mr. 
 \\'avell. — Imprudence of his friends in this business. — Printed letter to the author from Dr. Hoadly Ashe 
 in defence of bishop Hoadly. — Real cause of the outciy against the writer concerning tlie bishop's 
 monument in the cathedral.^Questions, Has one of the pillars in the cathedral been cut into, in order 
 to receive the said monument .' Has the pillar thereby been vifcakened ? — The author's unequivocal 
 retractation of a mistake concerning the supposed dramatical compositions ot bishop H. — Imprudence of 
 Dr. S. and Dr. H. A. in urging this objection. — Emblems on the aforesaid monument. — Criticisms on the 
 late Histoi-y in the Hampshibe Repository. — The critic's constant practice of opposing conjectures to 
 the evidence of positive records. — Concerning the ancient state of the Isle of Wiglit. — Occasion of the 
 conversion of king Lucius. — The critic's topographical conjectures. — His bigotry and ignorance on 
 subjects of theology. — Note concerning two late transactions at Winchester. — Contradictions in the 
 critic. — His objections to the identity of language in the Franks and Saxons; also to the origin of the 
 useful arts amongst our ancestors. — Instances of his bold assertions in contradiction to positive evidence, 
 
 . The Anti-Jacobin Review. — Eulogium of the Reviewer. — His objections examined concerning 
 
 ancient records ; modern authors ; miracles ; etymology, &c. — Agreement with him concerning the 
 tendency of bishop Hoadly 's system. ... .p. 2yj — 30o. 
 
 lETTER
 
 LETTERS TO A PREBENDARY. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 JiOW is it possible that professing, as in all sincerity 
 I do, the same principles of conciliation and charity, together with the 
 same zeal for the maintenance of civil order and the general interests of 
 Christianity, which you so eloquently display, we two should find ourselves 
 opposed to each other in the characters of rival controvertists ? How, in 
 particular, should so unfortunate an event, as I am bound to consider it, 
 have arisen from the publication of my History (l), which, amongst other 
 ends, was certainly intended to promote those important objects. 
 
 It is true. Sir, when first I took up my pen to record the succeeding 
 events of two thousand years, and to elucidate the great variety of 
 obscure and doubtful matter, which presented itself in this research, I 
 was aware that I could not do justice do my readers or to myself, 
 without representing many points of history, chronology, topography, 
 architecture, and religion, in different lights from those in which they 
 have been exhibited by several other w^riters, and without combating 
 many deep-rooted prejudices of the present day. Hence I expected to 
 incur the odium, and to meet with the opposition of the ignorant and 
 the bigoted, that is to say, of those persons who were either unable or 
 unwilling to investigate the arguments on which I was prepared to ground 
 my opinions. But what encouraged me, on the other hand, were the 
 hopes of experiencing the approbation and support of that small, but 
 enlightened and liberal class of men, in which I had ever considered my 
 
 (i) THE HISTORY CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL, AND SURVEY OF THE 
 ANTIQUITIES OF WINCHESTER, in two vols. 4to. 
 
 B ' present
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 present antagonist as holding a high rank. As I was myself conscious ot 
 a disposition to i-enounce my own errors and prejudices, and a strong' 
 desire of discovering and exhibiting the truth on every question that fell 
 within the grasp of my abilities and industry, so I ascribed the same 
 inclination to all persons of that description ; and I took it for 
 granted, that amongst them at least I should meet with a candid hearing 
 and a hberal commendation for every real discovery that I should make, 
 of whatever nature that might be, or to whatever conclusions it might 
 lead. 
 
 With these ideas, how great must have been my disappointment at the 
 time of publication, to find my laborious and not unsuccessful efforts 
 in rescuing the history of this venerable city from the mists of fable and 
 iihcertainty with which it had heretofore been surrounded, and in adding 
 to the general mass of historical and antiquarian knowledge, received 
 with ungracious coolness, studiously misrepresented, and without mercy 
 condemned to oblivion and the Hames, on account of half a dozen lines 
 in each volume, censuring the sjstem of a late popular bishop of this see : 
 which system after all is seen, by the best friends both of church and 
 stiate, in the same light as by myself! How great, in particular, must 
 have been my mortification, when, it having been found impossible to 
 stifle my production, and when the most distinguished literary character 
 in the cit)^ and neighourhood of Winchester had undertaken to answer 
 it, I observed that this was attempted to be performed, not by disproving 
 my facts, by confuting my arguments, by invalidatirg my authorities, 
 or by opposing others to them, but by illnatured and groundless interpre- 
 tations of my views in writing my History, and by common place topics 
 of misrepresentation and calumny against the religion of our ancestors 
 under the illiberal and abusive term of Popery (]) ; such as have been a 
 thousand times urged, and a thousand times refuted. (2) 
 
 After 
 
 (1) The term of Catholic or Roman Cathol'ic being now sanctioned by law, (see the title to 
 the act of 31 Geo. III. c. 3 a) as well as by common usage, it is a mark of illiberality and bigotry 
 
 to
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 After all that has been said on the subject of these volumes by yourself. 
 Sir, and your fellow writers, in print, and by many other persons of more 
 zeal than prudence, from mere hearsay, in conversation, they will appear, 
 upon examination, to be historical, not controversial compositions, and to 
 consist of antiquarian researches, rather than of theological dissertations. 
 They are accordingly read and commended for the information which they 
 are supposed to contain, by many sincere as well as learned Protestants, and 
 they were not less praised by others of that description in this neighbour- 
 hood, until Dr. S. sounded the trumpet of religious alarm against them. 
 The fact is, having undertaken to write an account of this city, as connected 
 with the general history of the island, from the earliest records down to 
 modern times, for the express purpose of illustrating the obscurities, and 
 of dissipating the errors, as far as it might be within my power, of 
 many other writers, I have omitted no opportunity which occurred to 
 me of attempting this, on any curious or interesting subject whatsoever, 
 during the several periods of the British, the Roman, the Saxon, the 
 Danish, the Norman, and the English dominations. In case I have en- 
 larged more upon certain periods than I have upon others, and have more 
 frequently entered into ecclesiastical disquisitions than into such as are merely 
 literary or political, the reason is, that more obscurity and greater errors 
 seemed to prevail with respect to these than to other periods and subjects. 
 
 to denote the religion in question by the term of Pol>crj<, and the professors of it by those of 
 Papists, Romanists, &c. which words were invented in the time of persecution, in some 
 degree to serve as a' cloak for the exercise of it. It has been remarked of a former work 
 of Dr. S. {Considerations on the present State of the Church Esfah/ishment) that he every where 
 calls the professors of the ancient religion Papists, except where he says^ " The English clergy 
 succeed the Roman Catholic clergy of this country in part of their possessions." p. io8. 
 Catholics are in this point more liberal. They do not, either in writing or conversation, 
 apply invidious terms to their countrymen of a dincrent connnunion, but rather such as the 
 latter themselves choose to be denoted by. 
 
 (a) Dr. S. has presented us with a list of controvertists on his Adc of the question, p. 
 97. In opposition to these names I have no difficulty to place those of Stapleton, Parsons, 
 Hovvarden, jNJanning, Gother, and Challoner, as controversial writers who vicre inferior 
 to the former in no respect, except that their works are not so generally known. 
 
 2 B I
 
 8 LETTER I, 
 
 I was conscious, during the whole time of my holding the pen, that I 
 was amenable for whatever I advanced, not only to the civil state, but also 
 to the republic of letters, (which is the only republic that I \\ ish to be con- 
 cerned with). Hence, Sir, I do not complain of the attack which you 
 have made upon my late work, or of the quarter on which you have 
 made it, (these being matters for your own option) but only of the man- 
 ner in which you have conducted it. If, for example, you were disgusted 
 with the effulgence of piety and other virtues, with which I have invested 
 the characters of our religious ancestors, particularly of our primitive 
 bishops and other saints, ought not you to have shewn that I did wrong 
 in following the descriptions of the original authors, whom I every where 
 referred to, and who wrote many ages'before our present controversies un- 
 fortunately began, rather than those of modern writers, who can know 
 nothing of these matters but what they borrow from the former, and who 
 are mostly parties in these disputes ? If you really believed that I have 
 " vilified, abused, and misrepresented the Reformation, and the persons 
 who distinguished themselves in its favour," ought not you to have 
 proved that the most celebrated advocates of that cause, a Fox, a Heylin, 
 a Burnet, and a Collier, whose public testimony I every where appeal to, 
 have betrayed it in their professed apologies, or that I myself have misquoted 
 or misrepresented them ? If congeniality of principle or gratitude makes 
 you tremblingly anxious for the reputation of that prelate, ( i ) whose pene- 
 tration first discerned the opening powers of mind, which now, in their 
 fuU maturity, are directed against me, ought not you. Sir, by a fair 
 exposition of his theological and political system, to have demonstrated 
 that it contains nothing injurious either to the estiiblished church or the con- 
 stitution ? Instead of thus meeting me hand to hand, and foot to foot, like a 
 fair and generous adversary, you turn your back on the field of battle, and, 
 ■Parthian-like, shoot behind you the random shafts of declamation and 
 calumny. You bring forward every odious crime, or imputation of crime, 
 
 (i) Bishop Hoadly. 
 
 that
 
 IXXnODUCTIOX. Q 
 
 that has been raked togctlier from the general history of llie cuureh during 
 a great number of centuries, by v\ayof answering a connected and 
 atithenticated history of this city and country, the account of which you 
 recommend, by your constant advertisements in the newspapers, to be 
 bonnd up with it ; fancying that you will then have refuted my produc- 
 tion, when you shall have excited the public indignation against the 
 religion which I profess. In a word, without moderation or decency, 
 and without any exception in favour of the Gregories, the Augustines, 
 the Birinus's, the Swithuns, the Bedes, the Walkelins, the Wykehams, 
 the Egberts, the Alfreds, the Edgars, and the Edwards, that is to say, 
 of those persons to whom you yourself are indebted for all your comforts 
 in this world, and all your prospects of happiness in the next, you con- 
 clude your Reflections on Popery with denouncing the professors of it as 
 men, who systematically during many ages made religion " the instrument 
 of their own interest and ambition ; who adapted all their principles and 
 institutions (l) to this object ; who adopted all means, even the most 
 violent and cruel, to obtain and preserve it, and who were many of them 
 a disgrace not only to our religion, but to our nature. "(2) 
 
 It was in vain to expect a candid treatment for myself individually, 
 when you were so unjust to the whole church to which I belong, and. 
 which has so many fair titles to your respect and gratitude. Accordingly, 
 though in certain passages of your Reflections, you compliment me as a 
 writer and an antiquary, yet in others you bring the most odious, as 
 well as groundless accusations against me. You charge me with wishing 
 to make " Great Britain and Britons tributary to the Pope, and subject 
 to his temporal power ;" (3) and with desiring to " have the clergy inde- 
 
 (1) To enable Dr. S. to sec the inconsistency and dangerous lengths into which his 
 zeal against Popery betrays him, it will be sufficient to remind him, that amongst other 
 institutions of the religion in question, all of which he indiscriminately condemns, are 
 deans and chapters, surplices and organs, parishes and tythes, colleges and universities, the 
 substance of the common prayer book, &c. 
 
 (a) P. 113. (3) P. 14, Im- 
 
 pendent
 
 ]0 LETTER I. 
 
 pendent of the civil power, and not amenable to its jurisdiction. "(l) You 
 adopt, and make your own, the wanton and lawless abuse which the 
 most malignant of satirists has vented against me, in common with 
 many other more respectable characters. (2) Finally, you hold me out 
 
 to 
 
 (2) " Our author, Mr. Milner, receives from the satirist some very severe, but not un- 
 merited strokes for the intemperance of his zeal in a former publication." P. 4, note 2. Dr. 
 S. having^ in this passage adopted the virulent passage alluded to, in The Pursuits of L>ite- 
 ralure, part IV, note on verse 195, I think it incumbent on me now to take that notice of 
 it which I refused to do whilst it belonged only to an anonymous libeller. But first I ought 
 to explain by what means I became honoured with a share in the abuse of this modern 
 Menippus. The note-writer then, who is a distinct person from the versifier, having on a 
 sudden transformed his notorious partiality for the French emigrant clergy and their religion, 
 into as marked a hatred for them, such as he himself characterizes, where he adopts the, 
 motto of Luther, in the same career, Pestis ero vivcns. Purs, part IV, v. 190, thought proper 
 to make known his change of sentiments in a long note to verse 131, part III, which, that 
 it might not escape my notice, he sent to me, separately printed, in a letter by the post 
 from London. In this note he threatened, that if his mandate for the immediate 
 removal of the French clergy from the King's House was not immediately complied with on 
 the part of ministry, he would " maintain the same more solemnly and more- at large." 
 Accordingly very soon after appeared the printed Letter to the Marquis of Buckingham, in 
 which the writer, amongst many other falsehoods, asserted one of so scandalous and 
 inflammatory a natvirc, that I thought it incumbent upon me publicly to contradict it in 
 my own name. This I did in the moat positive manner, and with certain important hints to 
 the writer himself, N-s-hich he could not misunderstand, in the Gentleman's Magazine. 
 See appendix for 1796, p. J077. In the number for May of the same year, p. 373, may 
 be seen a letter from Dr. Sturges to Mr. Wilrnot, in which that calumny, .amongst 
 many othete, is also refuted. It was impossible for the note-writer to justify his fiilsehdod, 
 bat, as I foretold, he attempted to be revenged upon me for detecting it, in part IV of his 
 Pursuits, (see V. 190, note) which appeared soon after. 
 
 Let.iit now attend to the passage in question, the severity of which Dr. S. asserts that 
 I have merited. The note -writer then, having in four different forms of speech endeavoured 
 to elude my hints, and to remove the suspicion of his having the smallest knowledge of me, 
 or even of my place of abode, (though he knew exceedingly well how to direct to me the 
 ibrnier part of his Pursuits, mentioned abovi;, and had received an answer to it in my name 
 iVoni this city, by the Magazine) proceeds to " call the public notice," to a pamphlet 
 whicli I had lately wriltfii, " lor the virulence of its spirit, its extremity of fierceness, its 
 
 intolerant
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 to the notice of his Majesty's. Attorney General, as a person deserving of 
 pioseculion : (i) the grounds of which will be afterwards seen. 
 
 This 
 
 intolerant principles, and its deliberate application of them. This pamphlet, the title of 
 which is, A Reply to the Report oj the Cisalpine Club, relates solely to a private dispute 
 amongst Catholics themselves, concerning the authenticity of a certain deed in the British 
 Museum, and consists entirely of diplomatic criticism. It was so very uninteresting to the 
 public, that it was in a manner stitled in ihe birtli, and hardly a copy of it got into the hands 
 of any Protestant, except the note-v\ i iter, to wiioni 1 myself made a present of it. But 
 let us hear in what manner this brain-sick writer malies out, from the words of the pam- 
 phlet, " its virulence and fierceness." 'Ihey are these : It is aptrebended, says the pamphlet, 
 p. 36, that the publication of the facts in question might prove detrimental to the Catholic inti.reit 
 on any future application to the legislature. Who would not suppose from the expressions of 
 the note-u'riter, that the Catholics were mcditatnig on the means of nsurdering their fellow 
 subjects and of overiurning the state, instead ot presenting a respecttul petition to be 
 employed in defending them, which was actually the case ? We will now see how he 
 substantiates his other charge, viz. " my deliberate application of intolerant principles. ..and 
 thirsting for the blood of innocent victims." JVly words were these, speaking of a certain 
 form of words, which had been put into my mouth by other persons : Thus to my judgment 
 am I, and (be •whoU Catholic body, without our consenting to it, pledged in the Jace of the legis- 
 lature to condemn the -wars of Charlemagne, (I migiit have added some of those of Alfred) 
 and the crusade against the infamous Albigenses, p. 28. I shall have occasion to explain my 
 ideas concerning the Albigenses in the course of this work ; in the mean time it is proper 
 the uninformed reader should know, that the blood which I am accused of thirsting after, 
 was shed, part of it 600, and part of it 1000 years ago. Whether myself or this avowed 
 Pest of Papists appears to be most eager for living victims of persecution, the reader will 
 judge for himself. 
 
 It will be observed that I speak of the note-writer in the Pursuits of Literature as of a 
 person well known to me. In fact I believe the unimportant question, concerning the 
 name of this libeller is less a secret at Winchester than in most other places. Dr. S. and 
 most' literary men resident there, no less than myself, must have traced in a living character 
 most of the literary and moral features of the writer under consideration : an insatiable 
 thirst for knowledge of every kind, an unwearied application to study, a vast memory, a 
 lively imagination, an overpowering fluency and energy of language, accompanied with a 
 strange deliciency of judgment, the most whimsical capriciousness, the most violent j^re- 
 judiccs, a boundless liberty of satire, a disgusting pedantry, particularly in the use of Greek, 
 a flaming zeal for the reformation of all his neighbours, and a prurient warmth in defending 
 modesty, by calling up ideas which burn her cheeks with blushes. Dr. S. must have 
 
 remarked
 
 12 LETTER I, 
 
 This being^ the plain case, is it not ridiculous, Sir, to hear yov pro- 
 fessing so emphatically, as you do more than once, your utter dislike 
 of religious controversy, and filling whole pages with arguments against 
 it ? There was not the shadow of an existing controversy, when you 
 thought proper to attack me, and the religion which I profess, in the 
 violent and unwarranted manner that I have stated. Such a controversy, 
 however, in the existing circumstances, you have rendered unavoidable. 
 Honour, injured innocence, the truth of history, the respect and allegiince 
 which I owe to my king ?ind country, all oblige me to repel your charges, 
 and to make use of eveiy fair weapon that history iand argument furnish 
 me with for this purpose. If the production of any of thcbc should give 
 offence to you, or to any other person, I shall be sorry for it ; but the 
 blame must evidently rest with yourself. It is true, you describe me as 
 the aggressor in this contest, but the futility of such a pretext is evidently 
 seen in what has been already said. Indeed, it is the constant practice 
 of persons in a state of hostility, of whatever description, to aim at 
 fixing on each other the odium of the first assault. Thus, we are assured 
 by the present disturbers of the universe, in their manifestoes, it was 
 only by way of repelling injuries, and of defending themselves, that 
 they have invaded and oppressed so many powers of Europe, allies and 
 friends, no less than rivals and enemies. 
 
 Notwithstanding the state of this matter is exactly as I have represented 
 it, yet. Sir, if I must tell you the whole of my mind, 1 do not think that 
 I ought to entertain that absolute and unqualified dislike to every kind of 
 religious controversy which you profess. If the ditierent communions of 
 
 remarked In the conversation of that individual all and every one of the prejudices for, and 
 antipathies against, certain literary and political characters, and must have heard almost all 
 the sentiments expressed in the very same terms, together with a number of standing jests 
 and favorite quaintnesses and stories, that he reads in the aforesaid notes. He knows also, 
 that the person alluded to has an intimate friend of sufficient poetical merit to have composed 
 the verses, which have been pleasantly called pfgs to hang the nolvs upon, some of which he 
 probably added himself, 
 (i) P. 91. 
 
 Christians
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 Christians are not to discuss the subjects and the foundations of their 
 unhappy divisions, how arc tliese ever to be terminated ? The divine 
 author of Christianity employed a great proportion of his public lessons 
 in refuting the errors of the scribes and pharisees. The apostles and 
 ancient fathers vi^ere also indefatigable in labouring to convert the heretics 
 and schismatics, of their respective times. This they performed without 
 any breach of charity ; on the contrary, such zeal was the greatest proof 
 of their being possessed of.it. It is true, that controvertists of later 
 times have too often manifested a contrary spirit, and have defended their 
 respective modes and rules of faith in such manner as to pi'ove themselves 
 utterly destitute of the aforesaid more sublime and excellent virtue, 
 making religion a mere party distinction, a business of this world, not of 
 the next, and being more anxious to gain credit to themselves, by 
 confounding their adversaries, than to discover the truth upon the most 
 important of all questions. But these faults, however incident to the 
 discussion of religious questions, as I have shewn, are by no means in- 
 separable from them. What then should hinder you and me. Sir, since 
 we must contend together, from avoiding them, and thereby precluding 
 a common objection of infidels. In the present stage of our controversy, 
 this indeed will appear more difficult from the nature ot the objections, 
 which you have brought against me. For now I must necessarily follow 
 wherever you are pleased to lead me. But should I have occasion to 
 make another reply to you, I will try if it be not possible to put the 
 whole question at issue between us, into such a shape as shall remove 
 the danger of irritation on both sides, and still enable us, if we are so dis- 
 posed, to agree together in the acknowledgment of the same religious 
 truths. 
 
 After all, Sir, }'ou acknowledge that " there are times when religious 
 controversy is necessary ;" (l) but by the restrictions which you make to 
 the periods of the Reformation and the Revolution, (2) and by your 
 
 '1) P. :. (2) Ibid. 
 
 C practice
 
 14 LETTER I. 
 
 practice and reasoning on the present occasion, it is plainly your meaning, 
 that you shall be at liberty to make use of this weapon, whenever it suits 
 your ends, even for the purpose of attack, but that no one else shall 
 be permitted to take it up against you, not even in his ovi^n defence. You 
 accordingly proceed to state, with much greater eloquence than consistency 
 of argument, several considerations, the tendency of which, in my 
 opinion, is to deter me from giving an .answer to your book of Reflections. 
 The two first of these, grounded on the detriment that you think charity 
 on one hand, and the common cause of Christianity on the other, may 
 receive from discussing rehgious differences, (l) it is for you, Sir, to 
 answer, who have set on foot this discussion, and have on most points 
 calumniated the religion of your pious ancestors ; whereas the chief fault 
 which you yourself find with me is, that my History presents it in too 
 favourable a light, and thereby tends to appease the common prejudices 
 and acrimony against it. 
 
 A third reflection, which you make use of for the same purpose in the 
 conclusion of your work, seems to be equally misapplied, where arguing 
 from the " war that has been declared against the Catholic religion, by the 
 unprincipled governors of France," from the degraded state of the Roman 
 pontiff, whose sufferings you speak of in a manner consonant with your 
 general humanity, from the character of the English people and govern- 
 ment, you say, " that no time is more imfavourable than the present for 
 the success of the religion in question iii every part of the world. "(2) 
 HoAv this observation tends to appease your jealousy on the score of 
 that religion I can readily see, but how it militates against my wiping 
 off the aspersions that are thrown upon it I cannot understand, and 
 therefore I shall say no more concerning it. 
 
 A fourth argument you draw from the situation of the French emi- 
 grant clergy, (3) whose deep-felt obligations to the hospitality and bounty 
 of this country in general, and to yourself, Sir, amongst their more 
 
 (I) P. 3-' (^)P.io8, (3) P. 54. 
 
 generous
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 generous friends in particular, are. not lessened, because they concur with 
 the maxims of sound policy in our own behalf, (l) On this head, I must 
 first remark, that the condition of the native Catholics is very different 
 from that of the emigrants in question. We are in our own country. 
 Englishmen by birth and principle, the descendants of the men who 
 founded the constitution of this kingdom, which constitution we our- 
 selves endeavour to support, in our respective stations, to the utmost of 
 our power. In .the very article of religion, the only one in which we 
 differ from our countrymen, it is not we that have introduced a new 
 system; on the contrary, we barely maintain that of our Saxon pro- 
 genitors, as it was, according to the acknowledgement of all parties, 
 established by our apostles with the Christian name itself, at the close of 
 the sixth century. (2) If then, in refuting your heavy charges brought 
 against me, if in proving myself to be a good member of society and a 
 true Englishman, notwithstanding the difference of my religious creed, 
 I should happen to say an}' thing that may give you offence, I am sure, 
 Sir, that you are too generous and too just to shew any resentment against 
 the poor helpless guests above mentioned, unacquainted as they are with 
 
 (i) I do not mean to depreciate, in the smallest degree, the generosity of my country- 
 men to these victims of anti-christian tyranny. It proceeded from a sudden impulse of 
 pity and virtuous indignation, before reflection had leisure to calculate consequences. Still, 
 how^ever, it is true, and even the envenomed writer of the Pursuits is forced to allow, that 
 self-preservation has concurred with more noble motives to direct the measures of govern- 
 ment, particularly with respect to the priests. It is confessed, that the grand obstacle to a 
 peace vi-ith France does not arise so much from the difficulty of settling the terras, as of 
 ensuring the. continuation of it, and the idea of having an Algiers at Calais has alarmed 
 more politicians than Mr. Burke. It is equally obvious, that the only effectual remedy 
 for this evil would be the re-establishment of Christianity iii that country. But where are 
 the men to be found of sufficient zeal and qualifications to undertake that, meritorious 
 work, unless the former pastors, who indeed pant for the moment when they may begin 
 to devote their lives to it, regardless of temporal rewards and fearless of dangers. 
 
 (2) A slight inspection of Venerable Bcde's EccL-siast'ical History of the English Nation, 
 wrirten soon after its conversion, will shew, that the religion of Catholics now is the very 
 same that was preached to our ancestors by our first apostles. 
 
 2 C , our
 
 10 LETTER I. 
 
 our controversy, merely because they are of the same communion with 
 me. In the second place. Sir, if you have judged these conscientious 
 exiles to be so w^orthy of protection, at a time when you formed so 
 unfavourable an idea of the cause for which they were suffering, I trust 
 you will not think them less deserving of it, when I shall have dispersed 
 the chief prejudices which you had formed against them. 
 
 But you take care to remind me, that the EnglishCatholics themselves were 
 a few years ago in the condition of a proscribed people, from which they 
 were only rescued by the liberality of the act of 1791. (1) Hence you argue 
 on the supposed impropriety of their " religion being studiously brought 
 forward into public notice ;" (2) and significantly add, that " nothing can 
 so much tend, as such a conduct, to make the legislature regret, if they 
 could be induced by any thing to regret it, a measure which originated in 
 motives of wisdom and humanity, and had for its object the comfort and 
 relief of a considerable body of our fellow subjects." (3) The English 
 Catholics, Sir, do, and ever will, acknowledge with grateful hearts the 
 justice of that parliament, which, first of all, during the space of more 
 than two centuries, deigned to investigate the grounds of the popular cla- 
 mours and prejudices that had been excited against them, and also the 
 magnanimity which determined it to decide according to the result of its 
 inquiries. They will not forget, what you remind me of, that no class of 
 our legislators displayed more liberality on that occasion than the bench of 
 bishops ; (6) and I am happy to have it in my power to testify, that, at 
 the time we are speaking of, you yourself were animated with the same 
 spirit, and lent an hand, as I believe, to the great deed of toleration. 
 But, Sir, permit me to ask you, upon what ground was this parliamentary 
 relief granted ? Was it in the nature of a reprieve to convicted criminals; 
 or in that of a solemn declaration of the innocence of men who had been 
 long suffering under an unjust imputation ? 1 can answer for what the 
 ideas of Catholics were on that head, and I have reason to believe that the 
 
 (i) Pp.5, HI. (2) P. III. (3) Ibid. (4) P. 104. 
 
 opinions
 
 rNTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 not' 
 opinions of a great part of the legislators were different from theirs. Again, 
 
 Sir, were there any such conditions as those yovi hint at, either expressed 
 or imphed in the aforesaid act ? Was it then said to us, you are free from 
 the weight of the penal statutes, but it is on the condition, that you do 
 not bring your religion to public notice by any work of controversy or 
 even history that may be construed into a defence of it, or of its institu- 
 tions ? Every one shall be free to publish whatever Reflections on Popery 
 he pleases, charging you with every degree of absurdity, wickedness, and 
 sedition, but you shall not be at liberty to make any reply to them, or 
 even to write at all upon the subject of ecclesiastical antiquities ? (l) No, 
 Sir, the legislature was not so intolerant or so illiberal. They received 
 our pledges of fidelity to our king and country, and they left you and me 
 to settle whatever points of history or theology we might happen to 
 ditfer about, by the best records and arguments we are able to discover 
 for this purpose. To prove, however, that Catholics have not been of 
 late very eager to engage in controversy, even for the purpose of just 
 defence, it will be sufficient to notice, that whilst the pulpit has continued 
 to resound, and the press to groan, with the extravagant as well as mali- 
 cious declamations and surmises of a Williamson, a Towson, a Wrangham, 
 a Churton, a Daubeny, a Rennell, &c. (who, whilst they triumph over 
 the fall of Rome, delight, at the same time, in mangling, as they suppose, 
 her breathless carcase) not more than one of this class has been called to 
 a public account for his extravagancies, (2) and that by a lay gentleman, 
 who conceived himself to have received a personal affront from his anta- 
 gonist. (3) To convince you likewise, that I myself have not been so 
 ambitious of gaining controversial laurels, as you may suppose, permit 
 me to remind you, that I have by name been called out to the theo- 
 logical combat by the disputant last alluded to, (4) and that the first of 
 
 (1) See Hist, and Siirv. vol. ii, pref. p. i. (s) Rev. Ralph Churton, M. A. 
 
 (3) Francis Eyre, Esq. of Warkworth^ Letttr to R. C. on bis Address. &c. 
 
 (4) Answer to the aforesaid Letter, 
 
 those
 
 18' LETTER T, 
 
 those mentioned above, actually published a controversial treatise against 
 me, (l) both of M'liich challenges I have positively declined accepting. 
 
 I have ah'eady signified, that the legislature is far from rendering any 
 theological opinions whatsoever or characters of past time sacred, or 
 protecting them from the scrutiny of history and argument. It seems, 
 however, that you, Sir, are desirous of spreading your shield o\er every 
 person and cause, whether public or private, with which you hijve any 
 relation. To my mind, the language in different parts of your book, 
 where you complain of my having vilified certain public characters which 
 you respect and cherish, conveys the following meaning : Do not quote 
 the infuriate expressions of Martin Luther, because he was the father of 
 Protestantism. Do not mention the unworthy condescentions of Cranmer, 
 because he imported the same into England. Do not expose the ruinous 
 consequences of bishop Hoadly's theology, because he was my friend and 
 patron. Do not even acquaint the public of the falsehood, absurdity, and 
 contradictions contained in a former History of Winchester, which has 
 hitherto been ascribed to the Rev. Mr, Wavel, late rector of St. Maurice's, 
 because he w^as the friend and predecessor of the gentleman to Whom I 
 have thought proper to address -my Reflections. But, at this rate. Sir, 
 what becomes of literary freedom, of mental improvement, and of the 
 truth of history ? 
 
 This language was not that of your friend and fellow student in 
 the school of Hoadly, whose authority you so often appeal to, the late 
 learned and sagacious Dr. Balguy. So far from stifling historical truths, 
 he would not have the press shut even against theological controversy of 
 any kind whatsoever. The following are some of his maxims on this 
 
 head : " The most unbounded freedom is the most favourable tO' truth 
 
 The reception of truth, I mean religious truth, can never be prejudicial 
 
 to society The professors of every religion sliould be left at full liberty 
 
 to declare their sentiments to the world, and to explain tlie reasons on 
 
 . / Defence of the Doctrines, SSc. by J. Williamson, B. D. Prcb. of Line. &c. 
 
 w^hich
 
 INTROnUCTION. 15 
 
 which they are foutidcd. Opposition to the established religion, if carried 
 on bv no other instruments than the tongue and the pen, ought not to be 
 considered as a crime. To suppose otherwise is to make all reformation 
 impossible. It is to justify the persecution of Christians under Pagan 
 emperors. It is to justify the persecution of our own Protestant martyrs. 
 It is to justify, in some instances, the. inquisition itself." (i) 
 
 If, Sir, you are true to your own principles, and consistent with yourself, 
 you will be forced to subscribe to the whole of these maxims of your illus- 
 trious condisciple and thereby to condemn several of your late Reflections. 
 By the same rule you will be constrained, to acknowledge, that the Catholics 
 have no reason to fear, while their sentiments and conduct are such as 
 you yourself describe them to be, tliat the legislature will " regret that 
 wise and humane measure, which had for its object the relief and com- 
 fort of a considerable number of its subjects." For you a thousand times 
 repeat, that no.thing but imminent danger to the state can justify religious 
 persecution, nor did even the sanguinary Elizabeth ever profess to ground 
 hers upon any other motive. Now, Sir, from the thickest fight of acri- 
 monious controversy you have -the liberality to raise your voice in order to 
 do away that only pretext for penal statutes, in the following liberal 
 testimony : " I with pleasure do them (the Catholics) the justice of 
 acknowledging that their general conduct has long deserved the confidence 
 of government for loyalty and fidelity. "(2) 
 
 I have the honor to remain, &c. 
 
 (i) Discourses by Thomas Balguy, D. D. Charge III. on Religious Liberty, pp. 224, 
 225. (2) P. IC9. 
 
 LETTER
 
 20 LETTER II. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 I 
 
 T being manifestly your intention to render the 
 religion of your ancestors an object of suspicion to our government and 
 countrymen, at the present day, as may be gathered even from your title 
 page, and still more plainly from the passage cited below ;(l) hence, 
 you place in the front of your attack upon it, your strongest and most 
 popular argument for this purpose, under the following title to your second 
 letter : The Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope, with the Inde- 
 pendence of the Church on the Civil Power. 
 
 Before I proceed to answer your objections on these heads, I might 
 require you to prove the supposition on which they are grounded, or 
 rather your possitive assertion that these form one of " the prominent 
 topics of my History of Winchester." (2) But, Sir, to follow where you 
 are pleased to lead me, it is easy to shew, that from the confused and 
 indistinct view which you possess of the subjects j^ou undertake to treat of, 
 your arguments are shot at random, and however they may impose upon 
 ignorant and superficial readers, are incapable of making the smallest 
 impression on the minds of theologians and scholars. In fact, you every 
 where confound the pope's essential spiritual jurisdiction with his accidental 
 temporal power. You jumble together the very distinct subjects of the 
 supremacy and the infallibility. Nay you are so ill informed, or so un- 
 candid, as to charge Catholics with attributing impeccability, or an 
 exemption from human errors and vices, amongst other privileges, to their 
 chief bishops. Hence you triumph at discovering that some pontiffs, in 
 their long succession from St. Peter, during a space ot almost I800 years, 
 
 (1) " I me'an....to shew how unfavourable th6 opinions, which Mr. M. would rccoiTin)cnd^ 
 are to Government, to society, to our rights, and liberties as Englishmen." P. 6. 
 
 (2) P. 8. 
 
 have
 
 SUPREMACY. l;. 
 
 have disgraced their sacred- static i. (l) Hence, also, your taunting " pity 
 for the task of poor Catholic writers," and particularly of Cardinal Baronius 
 and myself, who, you say, " are obliged to support all that the councils 
 and popes have ever said or done," (2) and even those wars, usurpations, 
 and crimes which you so liberally ascribe to the popes. (3) Your ideas 
 are equally indistinct on the latter, as on the former part of the subject 
 which you announce, I mean the independence of the church on the civil 
 power. You place no boundaries between the power of teaching and 
 baptising all nations, which Christ communicated to the ministers of his 
 church to remain with them till the end of the world, (4) and those temporal 
 privileges and emoluments which they have derived from the piety of 
 Christian princes and states. You take no notice of the diversity that 
 has prevailed, both in the ecclesiastical and in the civil laws, with respect 
 to these privileges and emoluments in diiferent ages and countries. Thus, 
 because I justified in my History the celebrated primate who defended 
 the clerical privileges, as he found them established in the twelfth century, 
 you, after exhibiting them in the most odious colours, assert, that " I wish 
 to subject Great Britain and Britons to them at the present day." (5) I 
 am sorry to give so unfavourable an account of the work of an eminent 
 scholar upon a professional subject. The chief cause of this confusion I 
 conceive to be, the defective plan that you have followed in studying the 
 doctrines of the religion which you treat of. Had you laboured to acquire a 
 knowledge of these, from the famous schoolman St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 whom you boast. of being unacquainted with, (6) instead of liLs less learned 
 and edifying countrymen, Dante and Petrarch, (7) you wovdd certainly have 
 
 learnt 
 
 (t) p. 12. (2) P. 25. (3) P. 14. (4) St. Mat. xxviii, 19,20. 
 
 (5) ^- 15- ,W P-66. 
 
 (7) P. 15. Dr. S. promises to avoid quotations from infidel and interested historians, and 
 to prefer those which to me must appear unexceptionable, p. 7. To shew how well lie 
 fulfils this promise I will give a list ' of his principal authorities, viz. the poets Dante and 
 Petrarch, both of them remarkable for their irreligion and hatred of the reigning pontiffs ; 
 Giannone an unprincipled lawyer, who flattered the court of Naples in its attempt to get 
 
 D rid
 
 22 LETTER 11. 
 
 learnt to state them with more precision and accuracy, and also to reason 
 upon them with more solidity and force than you have done. 
 
 The necessity of that much degraded science of logic, for reasoning 
 justly on religious, as well as on other abstract subjects, is evident in your 
 first attempts to dispossess the Roman pontiff of all pre-eminence and 
 authority in the Christian church, which are grounded on the precepts of 
 its divine founder, addressed to all his disciples, of learning his meekness 
 and lowliness of heart, {\) of not assuming, but disclaiming autho- 
 rity,{2) as you profess to give the sense of the passages, (3) and of not con- 
 sidering his kingdom to be of this world. (4) Who, that is able to draw 
 a conclusion, does not see that these arguments, as you manage them, by 
 proving too much, prove nothing at all ? In fact, Sir, they equally militate 
 against the gradations of honour and authority of that church in which 
 you hold so high a station, as against those of any other church ; and 
 being addressed to the followers of Christ indiscriminately, they would, 
 in the same manner, prove the unlawfulness of any distinction or power 
 in civil magistrates, nobility, and kings. The best use, Sir, you could 
 have made of your scriptural know lege for your present purpose, would 
 have been to explain away, in the best manner you could, that clear 
 and energetical declaration of Christ, for the superiority of the first 
 bishop of Rome, St. Peter, over the rest of the apostles ; where this saint, 
 in reward of his glorious confession of his Master's divinity, is pronounced 
 by him blessed ; his name, which was before Simon, is changed into that 
 of Peter or Rock, (5) with an assurance that the church itself shall be 
 
 rid of the feudal tribute of the white palfrey due to that of Rome, by heaping up every 
 kind of abuse and cahunny against the latter ; Machiavelli, whose very name announces 
 deceit and infidelity ; finally, the treacherous Father Paul Sarpi, who professed one religion 
 in order to serve another, (see his life prefixed to The Rights of SovereighsJ and whose glaring 
 falsehoods, to the number of near 400, have been so well exposed by Pallavicini, in his 
 genuine History of the Council of Trent. 
 
 (1) St. Mat. xi, 2—9. (2J St. Mat. xx, 25, 28. 
 
 (3) P. 9. (4) St. John, xviii, ^6. 
 
 (5) 2u 'a Ue'fpos, v.ai ml favrr) ti) iter pa,, &c. 
 
 principally
 
 SUPREMACY. 23 
 
 principally built upon him,(l) where immediately afterwards the my- 
 sterious keys of heaven, to the exercise of which such important effects 
 are here ascribed, are specially committed to him ; (2) and that other pas- 
 sage, where the same Peter, w^ho, on every other occasion, is named the first 
 on the list of apostles, is in a most solemn and impressive manner, three 
 several times, appointed to the supreme pastorship in Christ's fold ; with 
 authority not only to feed the lambs, but also the sheep themselves, whom 
 the lambs are accustomed to follow. (3) 
 
 You allow that popes during the first three hundred years from the time 
 of Christ were exemplary and pious, (4) but you do not admit, that they had 
 any rank or authority superior to that of other bishops during those ages. 
 Nevertheless we find this superiority in the clearest and strongest terms 
 attributed to them, even during those primitive ages, by the most ancient 
 and illustrious fathers and writers who lived in them; particularly by St. 
 Irenaeus, (5) who boasts of his having been instructed by St. Polycarp,' the 
 disciple of the apostles ; (6) by Tertullian, the most ancient Latin father 
 w-hose works are extant ; (7) and by St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, the 
 great light of the church in the third century, (s) We find this prero- 
 gative claimed and exercised by pope Victor in the case of the churches 
 "of lesser Asia, which he threatened to excommunicate ; (9) whether on 
 sufficient grounds or not, is foreign to the present question ; in the case of 
 
 (i) Blessed art thou Simon Barjona ; for jiesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee, hut my 
 father, which is in heaven. And I saj to thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock' I will build mj 
 church, 8cc. St. Mat. xvi, 17, 18. 
 
 (2) Ajid I ivill give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, &c v. lo. 
 
 {3) S. John, xxi, 15. " Prius agnos, deinde oves commisit ei, quia non solum pastoreni, 
 sed et pastorum pastorem eum constituit." S. Eucher. Ep. Lugd. Sxc. v. In Vig. S. Pet. 
 
 (4) P. 10. (5) " Ad banc ecclesiani (Romanam) propter potiorem prlncipalitateni 
 
 necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, &c." Iren. 1. iii, contra Haeres, c. iii. 
 
 (6) Apud Euseb. 1. v. c. 20. 
 
 (7) "Audio edictum esse propositum...Episcopus episcoporum dicit," &:c. Tertul. 1. de 
 Pudic. c. I, 
 
 (8) " Petri cathedra, ecclesia principalis unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est." S. Cyp. Ep. 
 ad Cornel. Pap. (9) Euseb. Hist. 1. v. 
 
 D 2 the
 
 24 LETTER II. 
 
 the Montanists, and several other heretics, whom the same pope actually 
 did cut off from the communion of the church, (i) Finally, not to 
 multiply instances, we find this prerogative exercised in the cases of 
 certain bishops or other individuals in Gaul, (2) in Spain, (3) and in 
 Africa, (4) which were judged and decided upon at Rome bv pope 
 Stephen during the period in question. 
 
 Tour account of the means by which you suppose the sees of Rome 
 and Constantinople acquired ecclesiastical pre-eminence in the reign of 
 Constantine, viz. in consequence of the secular dignity ascribed to those 
 cities, " the episcopal dioceses, being the dioceses of the empire, and the 
 ecclesiastical conforming itself to the civil division of the country, "(5) 
 this account, I say, is full of inconsistencies, and contradicts the clearest 
 records of church history. In the first place, it is fully confuted by 
 what has been already proved. For we have shewn that the see of Rome 
 enjoyed its superiority, no less before the reign of that first Christian 
 emperor, than it did afterwards. 2d, Constantine, by transferring the 
 seat of empire from the Old to the New Rome, did not augment, but 
 rather diminished the civil dignity of the former city; it is therefore sin- 
 gularly absurd in you to fix upon that particular period for the commence- 
 ment of Rome's ecclesiastical dignity, when, on your supposition of its 
 conforming itself to the former, it must rather have been abridged. 3d, 
 The imperial city itself of Constantinople, which you describe as acquiring, 
 by its civil elevation, an equal rank with Rome, not only remained, for a 
 long time after the period in question, (6) inferior to Alexandria, which 
 was the second great patriarchate, and next to that of Rome; to Antioch, 
 which was the third on the list ; (7) to Jerusalem, Cesaraea, &c. but also 
 
 (i) Tertul. advers. Prax. &c. fa) St. Cyp. Ep. 67. (3)Id. Ep.38. 
 
 (4) Id. passim. (5) P. 10. 
 
 (6) The first attempt to raise Constantinople to the patri.irchal dignity, was made by the 
 Greek bishops, in the first great council held in that city during the reign of Theodosius, 
 viz. in 381. But this dignity was always opposed by the western church, until the great 
 council -of Lateran, in 1215. (7) Concju in JNic. i. CL^cum. can. vi. 
 
 to
 
 SUPKEMACY. 25 
 
 to the comparatively small see of Heraclea, on which it was immediately 
 depemlent. (i ) Lastly, the seat of empire, or imperial residence, was 
 frequently transferred, hoth in the east and the west, to different places ; 
 we occasionally find it at Nicomedia, at Sirniium, at Milan, at Ravenna, at 
 Lions, at Treves, and at York, without any change in the rank or au- 
 thority of the bishops of such places. In general no regulation or altera- 
 tion of this sort ever was, or could be effected, but by the act and deed 
 of the church herself, (2) and this in such sort, that the chief superiority 
 CA^er was immutably and necessarily acknowledged to reside in the see of 
 Rome. (3) 
 
 Enough has been said. Sir, to prove that your dissertation on the rise of 
 the pope's ecclesiastical power, however . plausible it may appear to an 
 ignorant reader, must excite the astonishment and indignation of men 
 who are acquainted with the monuments of Christian antiquity. This 
 would appear more fully were I to pursue, from the reign of Constantine 
 down to the middle ages, the history of the general councils that have con- 
 firmed this spiritual supremacy, (a) the testimonies of the ancient fathers 
 and historians that have defended it, (5) and the examples of oppressed 
 patriarchs and bishops that have found protection in it. (0) But instead of 
 
 (i) Balsamon. apud Cabassut. Not. Goncil. 
 
 (2) Even Bingham, whose testimony Dr. S. appeals to, acknowledges, in contradiction to 
 him, that " the church was not tied to observe this model (of the state) but used her 
 liberty in varying from it." Antiq. b. ix. c. i, s. viii. 
 
 (3) " Ecclesii Roniana semper habuit principatuni." Concil fficum. Chalced. can. xvi. 
 " Videmus omnes ante omni.i primatum et pra;cipuum honorem, secundum canones Dei, 
 archie))i5copo vettris Romae conservari." Ibid, 
 
 (4) Firticularly Concil. Saidic. can. vii. Ephe^. Acf. iii. Chalced. Act. ii, &c. 
 
 (5) Iren. Cyp. ut sup. Leo Scrm. i. in Nativ. SS. Pet. Paul, Hieron. Ep, xiv. ad Dam. 
 &c. fscc. Socrat. Hist. Ecc. 1. ii, c. v, ix, xi, xiii. Sozom. Hist. 1. iii, c. vii. 1. vi, c. xxiii. 
 Theodcr. Hist. 1. i, c. vii. l.-ii, c. xxiii, &c. 
 
 (6) It is notorious, that St. Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, SS. Paul, Chrysostom, 
 and Ignatius, patriarchs of Constantinople, vviili a great number of other prelates, severally 
 app' -Ivd to iie popes of their respective times, from the sentences of deposition which had 
 been issued against them in certain synods, and were restored by their authority. 
 
 producing
 
 26 LETTER II. 
 
 producing in detail the Christian authorities here referred to, I shall satisfy 
 myself with testimony to this etFect of a well informed Pagan author, 
 of the fourth century, who, on that account, may perhaps pass with you 
 for a less exceptionable "witness, than bishops and church historians. 
 Ammianus Marcellinus then, giving an account of the persecution raised 
 by the emperor Constantius against ihe famous patriarch of Alexandria, 
 St. Athanasius, tells us, that this prince laboured to get the condemnation 
 of the latter signed by pope Liberius, on account of the superior authority 
 enjoyed by the bishops of the Roman see. (i) So well known was the 
 pope's supremacy at this early period, even to the Pagans ! 
 
 The chief cause of your overlooking these strong proofs of the ecclesi- 
 astical supremacy in question, (the main point at issue between us) is 
 evidently your attention to that temporal dominion, which the pontiff 
 acquired in a part of Italy during the eighth century. Accordingly 
 it is to this subject you immediately direct all your thoughts, though of 
 comparatively little consequence in the present controversy. You admit 
 that the " sovereignty in question was honourably acquired," (2) which 
 though it bore no necessary connection with the pontiff's spiritual power, 
 yet was it one of the means in the hands of providence of preserving the 
 latter from corruption and violence, during those alterations that took 
 place, at the same period, in the general state of the Christian w^orld. (3) 
 
 Admitting 
 
 (i) Hunc (Athaiiasinni) per siibscriptionem abjicere sede sacerdotali, paria sentiens cseteris, 
 jubente principe ([Constantio) Liberius (Papa) nionitus persevcraiiter renitebatur, nee visum 
 hominem nee avidituni damnare nefas ultimum sspe exclamans ; aperte scilicet reeal- 
 citrans imperatoris arbitrio. Id enim ille, Athanasio semper im'ensus, licet sciret impletum 
 tamen auctoritate, qvia potiores aeternae u^fcis episcopi, firmari desiderio nitebatur ardenti." 
 Ammian. Marceil. Rer. Gest. 1. xv. (3) P. 11. 
 
 (3) Upon the dissolution of the Roman empire, as Fleury remarks, had not the popes, 
 become in some degree independant, they would unavoidably have been the creatures and 
 tools of certain princes and states, in a manner that would have incapacitated them to per- 
 form their spiritual duties to any effect with respect to others ; or rather the popedom itself, 
 with all its functions, would have been subject to the management and disposal of the most 
 powerful prince in Italy. We see in what manner the patriarchate of Constanstinople is 
 
 constantly
 
 SUPREMACY. 27 
 
 Admitting as I have explicitly done, both in my History and the present 
 Letter, that pontiffs, like other men, were liable to the self-love and 
 passions of human nature, it would be a greater miracle than any recorded 
 in holy writ, if some of them had not abused both their spiritual supre- 
 macy, and their temporal principality, to the gratification of their ambi- 
 tion and their avarice. Some abuses of this nature I have recorded, not 
 in terms of approbation, as you suppose I was bound to do, but of strong 
 censure, and I have shewn, that they were equally condemned and resisted 
 by the princes, prelates, and writers of those times, no less than they are 
 at present. ( 1 ) I could add, Sir, along list of canonized saints, and of 
 other most revered characters of those times, both in this and in other 
 countries; as St. Otho, of Germany; St. Louis, king of France ; St. 
 Edmund and Richard Wethershed, archbishops of Canterbury ; Hugh 
 Grosteste, bishop of Lincoln, &c. who proved by their conduct that they 
 knew how, as I have elsewhere said, " to acknowledge the spiritual su- 
 premacy of the pope, without ascribing to him an atom of temporal 
 authority" or property in this kingdom, (2) more than the legislature 
 condescended to give him. I could adduce many acts of the sovereign 
 and the legislature at home, to restrain the encroachments of the Roman 
 court, (3) without any impeachment or suspicion of their orthodoxy, by 
 way of shewing, that this nation was not heretofore in such an abject 
 state of dependence on the former, as you and most modern writers so 
 invidiously describe it to have been ; and I could call to your memory 
 the example of many of the pope's zealous children abroad, besides the 
 emperor Charles V, who have not scrupled to take up arms against his 
 temporal power, and to proceed to the length of imprisoning him, in 
 order to restrain that power within its due limits. 
 
 If the public vices of some popes, namely, their ambition and injustice, have 
 
 constantly bought and sold, and degraded in every possible way, by being in a state of 
 dependency on the Ottoman Porte. 
 
 (i) ir-t vol i, pp. 165, 236, 237, 238, 247, &c. (2) Ibid, p. 385. 
 
 (3) See Collier's Hist. vol. ii^ P*-e£ p. 7. Mat, West. an. 1301, &c. 
 
 not
 
 28 LETTER II. 
 
 not, SO neither have the private vices of certain others, deprived them of 
 their spiritual aifthority, or the.church of the benefits of its execution. Had 
 not Catholics writers acknowledged and recorded the crimes of these 
 wicked pontitis, paxticularlj of the tenth century, (i) you could never have 
 come to the knowledge of them. To argue, however, as you do, from 
 the accidental abuse of power, to the denial of the power itself, is copying 
 the example of the revolutionists in a neighbouring covmtry. We all 
 know, that they paved the w^ay for the destruction of monarchy amongst 
 them, by repeated publications, in various shapes, of the alledged crimes 
 of kings, without reflecting on what the event of their proceedings has 
 rendered so evident to every thinking person, namely, that if these crimes 
 had been much more numerous and atrocious than they were represented 
 to be, still they would be infinitely out-balanced in their effects, by the single 
 advantage of these sovereigns having served the purpose of a key-stone to 
 the whole edifice of the state over which they presided, and by preventing 
 the mischiefs of interminable divisions and changes. The advantages of the 
 supremacy in this point of view, by preventing schisms, and by serving 
 as a centre of union and an ensign of orthodoxy, has been seen and ac- 
 knowledged not only by the ancient fathers, but also by modern Pro- 
 testants. (2) This, however, is not the only benefit for which both 
 
 Christianity 
 
 (4) " By such popes," says Dr. S. " Mr. M.'s Saxon saints were canonized in the loth 
 century." Pi 13, n. He elsewhere reproaches Catholics, that the highest titles and honours 
 of sanctity were lavished on princes who had the merit of founding convents, whilst they 
 
 were refused to the great Alfred, pp.7, 8. All these assertions are very unfortunately 
 
 made for the credit of Dr. S.'s skill in history. For first, these Saxon saints were not 
 canonized by the popes at all, but by the prelates and people vvho had been witnesses of 
 their virtues and sanctity, adly, Alfred's name does actually occur in some of the ancient 
 calenders. 3dly, Not one of the princes in question was so famous for founding convents 
 as Alfred himself. 
 
 (2) P. 10. " Hoc omnes profitemur politiam ecclesiasticam rem esse sanctam et utilcm 
 ut sint episcopi, item ut Romanus pontifex prfesit omnibus episcopis." Melanch. Ep. ad' 
 Reg. Gall. With the same view the learned Bramhall, bishop of Derry, acknowledges, 
 tJiat much good might result from admitting a patriarchal power and a centre of unity in the 
 
 see
 
 SUPREMACY. 29 
 
 Christianity and society have been indebted, in every age, to the Roman 
 pontiffs. They have been incessantly watchful and laborious in pro- 
 pagating the faith and morality of the gospel amongst infidel nations, in 
 every part of the globe, (1) in performing which they have spent no small 
 part of those donations which the piety of surrounding nations conferred 
 upon them. Our island, in particular, was twice converted from the shades 
 of barbarous Paganism by their apostolic zeal. They vigorously and 
 successfully protected, at several different periods, all Christendom, from 
 the fury and oppression of the Saracens, Tartars, Turks, and other infidels, 
 under which it would otherwise have sunk. (2) They supported the 
 divine law and the canons of the church, admonishing and censuring 
 those offenders who were too powerful to receive this correction from 
 their own subjects. When they converted the different nations, they, at 
 
 see of Rome, if Catholics would be content v\ ith this. Answer to Militiere's Triumph of 
 Truth. The learned Grotius having asked how it happens that Catholics are enabled to 
 compose their religious- differences and not Protestants, makes answer, that this good effect is 
 owing to the primacy which subsists amongst the former. Ad Rivet, ad. art. vii. 
 
 (i) This apostolical work has been successfully carried on, by missionaries from Rome, 
 in India, Tartary, China, Cochinchina, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Canada, and other infidel 
 regions, during the two last centuries. It appears by letters lately published, that the 
 number of converts made in China and Cochinchina amounts annually to many thousands. 
 In the last century Christianity l:ad been so widely and vigorously propagated in the islands 
 of Japan, previously to the horrible persecution raised against it through the perfidy and 
 impiety of the Dutch merchants, that no fewer than 1,100,000 persons suffered martyrdom 
 before this religion could be eradicated. SeeBerault Bercastel. Hist. Ecc. vols, xix, xx. 
 
 (i) I have shewn the great benefit, or rather the necessity, of the crusades, for the safety 
 of Christendom, at the time when they were undertaken. Hist. vol. i, p. 266. The last of 
 these, set on foot by Pius V, produced the victory of Lepanto, which broke the alarming 
 naval power of the Musselmen. Dr. S. asserts, in answer to my arguments, " that the expen- 
 dit\ire of men and treasure, which these crusades occasioned, would have been better em- 
 ployed in defence of the several countries from whence they issued." P. 61 — This has 
 been precisely the language of too many amongst the present degenerate states of Europe, 
 and they have felt the fatal effects of their selfish policy. What would be the con- 
 dition ot England, if during the present war she had kept all her men and money within the 
 precincts of her own shores ? She would by this lime have been stripped of both. 
 
 E the
 
 30 ffiTTETR II. 
 
 tlie same time, civilized them. What savages v^ere not our* ancestors, 
 the Saxons, before St. Augustine and his companions were sent to instruct 
 them by pope Gregory the Great, who had himself set out to perform this 
 heroic charity; as likewise several nations of Germany and Scandinavia, 
 before St. Boniface and other apostles were employed by succeeding 
 popes in converting them ; not to mention the Irish, the Scotch, and 
 many other nations, who derive their refinement, together with their 
 Christianity, from the same source. The popes were incontestibly the 
 chief patrons and promoters, in every age, of literature and the {>olite 
 arts. Finally, they form.ed the Christian states into one great community, 
 and for many ages preserved the liberties of Europe, by preserving the 
 balance of its power. If they are accused of exciting some wars, they 
 certainly prevented or put a stop to a great many more, and by the Treve 
 de Dieu, (l) the protection which they afforded to the oppressed Jews, (2) 
 their institutions for ransoming captives, (3) and many others of the like 
 
 (1} The Treve de Dieu, which was set on foot and enforced by the popes and the bishops in 
 the nth and the following centuries, at a time when almost all the barons and petty states in 
 Europe were at war with the one next to them, was an admirable invention of humanity for 
 mitigating the evils of that calamity. By virtue of this it became unlawful to attack any 
 person going to or from church, holding the plough, or exercising other arts of husbandry, 
 as likewise women, children, merchants, and travellers. It was also forbidden to wage 
 war at all, amongst Christians, between Wednesday at night and Monday morning in every 
 week. See Act. Concil. Claramont, &c. These regulations could not have, answered their 
 purpose without the acceptance of the princes and people. But history informs us, that 
 they were received by them, as we may well imagine, with the utmost joy in most parts of 
 Europe. In this kingdom they were at least in part received, during the dreadful civil 
 war between king Stephen and the empress Maud, a council having been held for that pur- 
 pose in our city of Winchester, A. D. 1142. 
 
 (2) In all those popular insurrections which broke out from time to time, especially 
 during the 13th and 14th centuries, against the Jews, in this and most other Christian 
 countries, the Popes always interposed to the utmost of their power to protect them. 
 Many vigorous constitutions for tliis purpose of humanity, particularly by Gregory IX, 
 Innocent IV, John XXII, Clement VI, are still extant. 
 
 (3) The religious orders of Mercy and of the Holy Trinity, &c. were instituted for this 
 express purpose. 
 
 nature,
 
 SUPREMACY.. 31 
 
 nature, they most effectually served th? cause of humanity, and manifested 
 the genuine spirit of Christianity. 
 
 The worst popes, Sir, were of more service to the cause of religion hy 
 filling their station in the church, than they were of detriment to it by 
 the effect and scandal of their personal crimes. But how small is the 
 number of those who have disgraced this station, in comparison with, 
 those who have done honour toit. (i) la tlie catalogue of about 255 
 pontiffs, who have filled the chair of Rome, during a succession of almost 
 1800 years, since the days of St. Peter, perhaps not more than 30 names 
 occur which dishonour it, while double that number have been persons of 
 eminent virtues and heroic sanctity, whose examples is publicly held out 
 for the edification and example of Christians, and the rest have been 
 prelates of unblemished manners and edifying piety. Look at the present 
 pope, Pius VI, whose essential authority is not less real in the dungeons of 
 Dauphiny (2) than it was in the Lateran and Vatican basilics ; consider 
 him in all the vicisitudes of his lengthened life, and say, whether you 
 discover in him any of the marks of the beast, any of the characters of 
 the man of sin, the Anti-christ of the Revelations, which your former 
 colleague, and other angry controvertists and interpreters, pretend to have 
 found out, (3) To do you justice. Sir, you yourself have said nothing of 
 this sort. On this contrary, you have spoken with a humanity that does 
 
 (i) A writer, who had imbibed strong prejudices against the Catholic religion, admits, 
 that the pope " is generally a man of learning and virtue, mature in years and experience, 
 who has seldom any vanity or pleasure to gratify at his people's expence, and is neither en- 
 cumbered with wife, children, or mistresses," Addison's Remarks ort- Italy, p. 112. 
 
 (2) Since the above was written we have been informed of his death at Valence, 
 August 29. 
 
 (3) See the notes to Dr. Rennell's Sermon at St. Paul's, also the pamphlets of a croud of 
 modern expositors of prophecies. If these writers were of a character to be stopped by incon- 
 sistencies, they would perceive the absurdity of asserting, in conformity with their tystem, 
 that almost every nation which believes in Christ has been brought to the knowledge of 
 him by the agency of Anti-christ, and that the greater part of their own religious tenets, 
 liturgy, and institutions, together with their ministerial orders, have been derived from him. 
 
 E 2 you
 
 33 LETTER 11, 
 
 you honour, of Iiis sufferings, as an insulted and persecuted old man, and 
 with approbation of his good government and public spirit, as a prince, (l) 
 But permit me, at the same time, to remind you of what is most to our 
 present purpose, namely, of his edifying piety, patience, and charity, in 
 private hfe, (2) and of his unwearied watchfulness and zeal in the dis- 
 charge of his public duties. These qualities were eminently displayed in 
 his opposition to the unjust and irreligious innovations of the emperor Joseph 
 II, whom, laying aside all etiquette and personal considerations, he went 
 to visit at Vienna for this purpose. To the disaffection occasioned by the 
 introduction of these innovations into the Low Countries, the subsequent 
 loss of them to the French may justly be ascribed. We remark the same 
 qualities in his zealous and persevering efforts, guided by learning and pru- 
 dence, (3) to reclaim the ecclesiastical electors of Germany, the bishop of 
 Pistoja and others, who, under pretence of reforming abuses and errors, 
 were cherishing the grovv th of that infidelity which has since shot up to such 
 an astonishino; height. With what firmness has he not stood against the 
 constant attempts that have been made to seduce and intimidate him from 
 pursuing the straight line of his duty, since the overwhelming force of 
 that infidelity has spread itself over a great part of Europe, at a time when 
 all the neighbouring states have, in a great measure, yielded to it. Pius 
 VI M^as well aware of the dangers to which he exposed himself by refusing- 
 to sanction the Civil Constitution, as it was called, of the French clergy, 
 but he also knew what he owed to the cause of truth and the church, of 
 which he was the }iead. He has accordingly seen himself stripped of his 
 principality, his treasures, his works of art, his library, his conveniencies 
 and necessaries of life, without complaint, being satisfied with the con- 
 sciousness of having preserved the deposit of sacred truth and spiritual 
 
 (i) P. 108. 
 
 (a) I am just informed that the last act of his life consisted in a prayer offered up for his 
 enemies. 
 
 (3) See his learned and copious Responsio ad Electores, &c. 
 
 Jutisdictioa
 
 SUPREMACY. 23 
 
 jurisdiction whole and inviolate as he had received it. His ansvw-er to the 
 solicitations of the enemies of" the church, who were impatient to gain a 
 triumph over it, by some injproper condescension or other in its chief 
 pastor, was this : Tiie property and monuments of religion are at your 
 mercy, but the religion itself is out of your reach. It existed before 
 you, and it will subsist after you. With respect to myself I want not 
 your pensions or favours. The meanest food and cloathing will suffice 
 for this wretched body, during the short time that it has yet to remain 
 aboce the earth. This was a language and a conduct wortliy of the 
 father of the faithful, and similar to that which had a little before been 
 held by so many thousands of his children, the martyred and the exiled 
 clergy of France. Whilst you, Sir, glory in the mutability of your creed, 
 which you give us to understand can accommodate itself to fluctuating 
 opinions, (i) permit me to glory in the unchangeable nature of mine. 
 Fixed on the lirm basis of the faith ivhich was once delivered to the 
 saints, (2) it has already withstood the violences and calamities of 18 
 centuries, and it will, I am well assured, continue to withstand all oppo- 
 sition, until the second coming of its divine founder. 
 
 In speaking of the spiritual jurisdiction of the head of the church, I 
 have avoided entering into any scholastic questions concerning its precise 
 limits, the irreformability of the pontiff's doctrinal decrees in certain 
 particular circumstances, and other similar topics. All that I mean to 
 assert on these heads, at present, is confined within the following propo- 
 sitions: that the pope is possessed of a real superiority and authority in 
 the Christian church, conformably to the texts above; that the church 
 herself, as composed of a head and members, is, by virtue of the divine 
 promises (3) supernally assisted in preserving and teaching the truths that 
 were originally revealed to her; and that the said spiritual jurisdiction, 
 whether of the pope or of the church, is of a pure spiritual nature, and 
 
 (i) "Speaking of infallibility, I cannot help congratulating ourselves for not pretending 
 to possess it." ['. 25. (2) St. Jude, iii. 
 
 (3J St. Mut. x.wiii, 20. St. John xiv, 16. i Tim. iii, 15, &c. 
 
 perfectly
 
 34 LETTER II. 
 
 perfectly distinct from the temporal rights and authority of princes and 
 states. This last mentioned point, which is of principal importance on 
 the present occasion, as it is that on which you endeavour to render 
 the allegiance of Catholics suspected, is not only conformable to Scrip- 
 ture, (l) and to the doctrine of the most celebrated pontiffs and prelates 
 in ancient times, (2) but what is ot the most consequence, directly follows 
 from the solemn oath which the Catholics of late have taken to the legis- 
 lature, by its own appointment. (3) Notwithstanding this clear distinc- 
 tion between spiritual and temporal authority, you, Sir, profess not to be 
 satisfied, but maintain, that the independency of the former upon the 
 latter is a solecism in government, and emphatically warn the magistrate, 
 in the words of your friend Dr. Balguy, to guard against all persons, 
 who admit it, whether Protestants or Catholics, as dangerous subjects. (4) 
 You do very right. Sir, in classing Protestants with Catholics, when you 
 speak of those who admit a praper authority in the church independent of 
 the state, with respect both to faith and rites, as it is easy to shew, that this 
 is no less the doctrine of the church of England than it is of Catholics, 
 from the writing of her most learned divines, from her present established 
 terms of communion, (5) and from her repeated practice in holding synods 
 at home, and in sending representatives to those abroad, particularly to the 
 famous synod of Dort, in the reign of James I, where we all know that 
 religious questions were decided in as high a tone of authority as they were 
 in the council of Trent. I will add, Sir, if it be a solecism, as you tell us, 
 to admit such an independent authority as this, (the only one that Catholics 
 plead for) namely, such as shall be allowed to regulate their religious doc- 
 
 (i) St. Mat. xxii, 31. 
 
 (2) Osius Cordub. apud Athan. ad Solltat. Epist. Gelas. Pap. i, Ep. viii, ad Anast. Imp. 
 
 (3) " I do declare, that I do not believe that the pope or any other foreign prince, prelate, 
 he. hath, or ought to have, any civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly 
 or indirectly, within this realm." ^i Geo. Ill, c. 33. (4) Pp. 32, 23. 
 
 (j) "The church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in contro- 
 versies of faith." Art. xx, inter. 39. 
 
 trine
 
 SUPREMACY. 35 
 
 trine and worship, then I maintain, that not only our Alfreds and Edwards, 
 with all Christian states whatsoever, in past ages, were guilty of a sole- 
 cism, but also the Apostles and Christ himself. By the same rule, you give 
 us to understand, that if the Apostles or even Christ were now exercising 
 their functions in the land of Judea, and were to address an inspired 
 epistle to you on any religious subject whatsoever, you would think your- 
 self bound to reject its authority as clashing with the religious supremacy, 
 that you think resides alone in the civil magistrate. In like manner, by 
 this rule, you are not only exposed to the guidance of infants and women, 
 in matters of this nature, to which indeed you express no repugnance, (l) 
 but also to that of professed intidcls and atheists, if God, in his anger, 
 should abandon this country, as he has done France, to such a civil 
 domination. 
 
 I cannot finish this letter without saying a few words on the celebrated 
 dispute between king Henry II and primate St. Thomas Becket, as you, 
 Sir, like most modern writers, so grievously misrepresent it, (2) in con- 
 sequence of your not distinguishing its different stages and subjects. It 
 began indeed concerning the exemption which the clergy claimed from 
 the civil jurisdiction of the state, but it was chiefly carried on concerning 
 the exemption which certain lay persons pretended to from the spiritual 
 authority of the church. With respect to the former question I am aware, 
 and have already intimated, that the church has no inherent claim or pri- 
 vilege whatsoever, and I have not now to learn, that men by becoming 
 churchmen do not cease to be subjects. Nevertheless it having pleased 
 some of the greatest and wisest emperors that ever ruled the civilized 
 world, particularly Constantine, Justinian, (3) and Charlemagne, to confer 
 a judicial authority, particularly with respect to their inferior clergy, upon 
 bishops, and this privilege having been admitted, with the civil law 
 itself, into most Christian countries, and sworn to by the sovereigns of 
 them, the clergy had an undoubted right to claim it and to maintain it. 
 
 (i) P. 23. (2) Pp. 16, 17. (3) Novel, cxxii), c. xxii. 
 
 You
 
 35 LETTEll II. 
 
 You, Sir, think the iminunify in question was excessive, judging, as you 
 do, from the present state of the world. The aforesaid emperors, however, 
 thought it reasonable, conceiving it better tiiat a few criminals should 
 escape without a condign punishmeut, llian that an order of men should 
 be disgraced in the eyes of the people, who were no longer qualified to 
 fill their station than they could command their respect. Whichever of 
 these opinions was best grounded, certain it is, that the exemption in 
 question formed part of the law of the land in the 12th century. Of 
 course the primate, as head of the clergy, would have been inexcusable 
 had he not defended it in a lawful manner. But all such immunities have 
 long since been done away in this and other countries ; and that I wish 
 to recall them, is a false accusation, unsupported by the shadow of an 
 argument. In the progress of this controversy it appeared, that the 
 king claimed a right to exempt all his officers and tenants from the spiri- 
 tual jurisdiction of the church, and to interfere in the exercise of this 
 jurisdiction amongst the prelates themselves, as likewise to keep eccle- 
 siastical benefices vacant, as long as he pleased, in order to enjoy their 
 profits, with other requisitions of the same nature. To these it was im- 
 possible for the primate to yield. His opposition, however, was carried 
 on by no other arms than those proper to his spiritual calling, namely, 
 prayers, tears, exhortations, censures, and sufferings, even to the shedding 
 of his blood. 
 
 But after all your professed submission to the civil magistrate, in spiri- 
 tual as well as civil matters, it is easy, Sir, to shew, that tlie new demo- 
 cratic system, Mhich yourself and Dr. TUilguy have devised, of deriving 
 ecclesiastical authority from the peop'e, and on ^^ hich vou expatiate with 
 so' much eloquence, is infinitely more dangerous, in every point of view, 
 to the peace and security of the state, than were the highest pretensions of 
 the ancient church to independency, which you paint in such odious 
 colours. .This important topic, however, forms a distinct sabjcct, w hich 
 therefore I shall treat of apart in a future letter. 
 
 I have the honour, v:c. 
 
 I.ETTER
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 37 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 Ti 
 
 HE universal bug-bear of the present age is super-' 
 stition, a certain mark of its irueligion ; and every one pronounces his 
 neighbour superstitious, whose rehgious opinions and practice are stricter 
 than his own. Amongst the pretended philosophers of France, the behef 
 of an intelligent self-existant Creator is considered as a childish superstition ; 
 and a man would be ridiculed for weakness and bigotry who should pro- 
 fess himself incapable of understanding, how the mountains could be 
 formed by the digestion of oysters, and how elephants could spring from 
 the earth by the power of vegetation, (l) In this country, the opinions 
 and practices of popery furnish modern wits and fashionable writers with 
 the ordinary subject of their ridicule and declamation upon the topic of 
 superstition. I have been led to make these observations by reading your 
 third letter, which treats of Monastic Institutions, the Celibacy of the 
 Clergy, and other religious observances. In what I have to say. Sir, in 
 my turn, upon these subjects, I shall make no apology to you for some- 
 times opposing scriptural doctrines and examples, to your ingenious and 
 fine-spun dissertations, as I presume we at least agree in acknowledging 
 the truth of Revelation, and that these truths are never opposite to 
 morality and sound policy. 
 
 The reflection, with which you open your third letter, is certainly a 
 very favourite one, as you repeat it, in one shape or other, a great num- 
 ber of times, both in the work now before me and in your Letters to the 
 late bishop of London. (2) Oil the present occasion you express it in the 
 
 (1) See these and other absurdities of the most celebrated infidel philosophers of France, 
 <letailed and refuted by the learned and ingenious Abbe Barruel, in his Lcltres Hdvunnes. 
 
 (2) Considerations on the Present Establishment, &c. 
 
 F following
 
 38 LETTER III. 
 
 following terms: " As it was the policy of the court of Rome to detach 
 their clergy from civil connections with the country to which tb.ey 
 belonged, so was it also to detach them from their social connections.. 
 The more these ties were weakened or diminished, their obedience to a 
 foreign power was likely to be more complete." (l) To such unworthy 
 and inadequate causes do you ascribe the important institutions above 
 mentioned, in order to avoid acknowledging the true, the obvious, and 
 the honourable source of them ! 
 
 To speak first of a monastic life: it is plain, Sir, from your own 
 account, that this institution did not take its rise from the cause which 
 you here assign, namely, " the policy of the court of Rome in detaching 
 the clergy from civil connections with their country ;" for, in a subse- 
 quent passage, you carry up this institution as high as the retirement of 
 the famous St. Anthony into the desert, which happened in the third 
 century, (2) a period, at which you have acknowledged the conduct of 
 the popes to have been exemplary, and free from the ambitious policy here 
 spoken of. (3) The place also which you assign for its origin was very 
 remote from the ordinary sphere of their influence, viz. the Upper Egypt. 
 The fact however is, that an ascetical or retired and contemplative kind of 
 life was even more ancient than the time which you have marked out. 
 We clearly discover it in the second century. (4) We find evident traces 
 of it in the time of the apostles, (5) and of Christ himself. For, tell me, 
 Sir, what is your idea of the kind of life which the prophetess Anna led 
 in the temple, in prayer, fasting, and celibacy, (6) and of that which the 
 prophet, and more than a prophet, (7) St. John the Baptist, passed in 
 
 (i) P. 27. (3) P. 31. Dr. S. is guilty of an anachronism where he says, that St. 
 
 Anthony retired into the desert " at the beginning of the fourth century." This event took 
 place in the year 27a. See Tillemont Mem. Eccles. 
 
 (3) P. 10. (4) Euseb. Hist. Origen. (5) Acts^iv, 32. 
 
 (6) Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, lived with her husband seven jiears from her 
 virginity, and was a widow of about fourscore and four years, luho departed not from the temple, 
 but served God with fasting and prayer night and day. St. Luke, ii, ^6, 37. 
 
 (7) St. Mat. xi, 9. 
 
 the
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 3q 
 
 the desert ? (i) Do not these come under the description of an ascetic life? 
 Most certainly they are liable to all the objections which you have raised 
 against it. Again, has not this divine founder of our religion explicitly 
 recommended the essential practices of such a course of life bv his 
 doctrine, (2) and confirmed them by his example, being destitute of house 
 and money, (3) observing celibacy, being obedient to his own creatures, (4) 
 and employing whole nights in jM'ayer upon the tops of mountains and in 
 gardens ? (5) Did he not on one occasion, in particular, spend forty days 
 together in a viilderness, destitute of society, of food, and every worldly 
 comfort ? (6) 
 
 If from these exalted authorities, we descend to those of the most illus- 
 trious fathers and doctors of the church in the fourth, fifth, and the follow- 
 ing ages, many of whose names are enrolled in your sacred calendar, (7) no 
 less than they are in our's : Of what profession were the saints Athanasius, 
 Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostorae, Ambrose, Augustine, 
 Jerome, Benedict, Gregory, Swithun, Bonitace, Bede, &c. ? They were 
 all of them institutors, patrons, or members of monastic establishments. 
 How flimsy and trifling, Sir, must your airy speculations on " the utility 
 of virtue, on the social affections, and on the laws of nature," prove to 
 the sincere Christian, when confronted with the victorious maxims and 
 examples that I have here adduced ! How profane even must he judge your 
 repeated charges of folly, superstition, and enthusiasm, which he sees are 
 in fact directed against those sacred characters, whilst you direct them 
 against a course of life to which they gave so decided a preference ! 
 
 But, Sir, to meet you on your ground, give me leave to state aright, 
 the question which you have misrepresented. Do then the advocates of 
 
 (i) The child (John the Baptist) was in the deserts till the dtij of his shewing in Israel. St. 
 Luke, i, 80. The same John had his raiment of camels hair, and a leathern girdle about his 
 Joins, and his meat ivas locusts and wild homy. St. Mat. iii, 4. 
 
 (2) St. Mat. xix, 21. St. Mat, xix, 12. (3) St. Luke, ix, 58. St. Mat. xvii, 27. 
 
 (4) St. Luke, ii, 51. (5) St. Luke, vi, 12. St. John, xviii, 2. 
 
 (6) St. Mat. iv, a. (7) Prefixed to Book of Com. Prayer. 
 
 F 2 an
 
 AO LETTER lit. 
 
 an ascetic life atitlionze or defend the transgression of any civil or social 
 duty whatsoever ? No, Sir, they expressly require, that each individual, 
 who professes a desire of observing the evangehcal counsels, should first 
 have fulfilled the evangelical commands, by the performance of even"" 
 duty that he owes to his private relatives and to the community. Have 
 I, in my History, as you say, " commemorated, in terms of praise and 
 veneration, kings v/ho descended from their thrones, (where their presence 
 was necessary for the public good) or of wives for separating themselves 
 from their husbands, (except when it was done by mutual consent) for 
 the sake of embracing a life of greater piety and perfection }" (i) No, Sir, 
 if you again examine the circumstances of king Ina's and queen Ethelburga's 
 abdication of the crown, (2) which you seem to refer to, you will find no 
 such meaning convej'cd, as that which you intimate, but rather the 
 reverse. The question then only regards persons who are free from all 
 those ties of nature and society of which you speak ; namely, whether it 
 is lawful for them to retire from the tumult and the dangers of the world 
 on religious motives, which so many others do without blame, nay fre- 
 quently with the highest commendations, on philosophic, studious, or 
 sensual motives? Whether instead of that' lounging life, useless to the 
 parties themselves and to the rest of mankind, which so many persons of 
 both sexes lead, fivhose great business of the day h, as the poet says, to 
 dine, (3) an uncofeiS'ected individual may not, without any violation of civil 
 or social duty, employ six or eight hours daily in repeating David's Psalms, 
 and in other devotions .'' Whether those who are apprehensive of the force 
 of bad example, and other seductions, in a general intercourse with the 
 world on one hand, and of their ow^n weakness on the other, may not 
 avoid the temptations as much as they can, which they think them- 
 selves unequal to ? Finally, whether, being impressed with an idea of that 
 absolute perfection to which Christ calls all his followers, (4) there is any 
 thing wrong in making the attainment of this the constant subject of their 
 
 (i) P. 31. (2) Hist, vol.i, p. 104, &c. (3) Young's Satires. (4) St. Mat. v, 48. 
 
 study,
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 41 
 
 Study, and the business of their lives ? I must add, that the arguments to 
 which you resort on tliis subject, if well examined, will be found to 
 militate as strongly against your own conduct, as against that of the 
 ascetics in question. For you, Sir, have not chosen the more active and 
 laborious employments of life, such as the present season more particularly 
 requires. On the contrary, you have absolutely precluded yourself from 
 serving your country by your arms, and your friends by your eloquence. 
 You have spent a considerable and a chosen portion of your life in the 
 academic porticos of a college, during which you voluntarily engaged 
 in the observance of celibacy ; and yet, I am sure, you were not con- 
 scious to yourself of violating, in the smallest degree, any law either of 
 nature or society in the choice that you made. In conclusion, you em- 
 braced a state of life, from which you knew that a stricter morality and a 
 higher sense of religion w^as required by the judgment of mankind, than 
 from the ordinary class of Christians, and which therefore may be con- 
 sidered, in some sense, as a state of greater perfection. Do but examine 
 all this. Sir, by the rules of morality that you yourself have laid down, 
 and I am confident your equity will lead you to revoke the severe cen- 
 sures you have passed upon the monks and religious. 
 
 Having copied, at full length, my accoimt of the occupations of a 
 monastic dav, (which you pronounce to be very uninviting, for want of 
 being acquainted with the interior consolations that sweetened them) you 
 proceed to descant on the absurdity of " performing a routine of reli- 
 gious services, in pronouncing the same words, chaunting the same notes, 
 using the same gestures; the mind," as you say, " not accompanying the 
 actions of the body, but leaving them merely mechanical, (])... and the at- 
 tention being directed to the shadow instead of the substance of piety." (2) 
 When you wrote this, Sir, did it not occur to you, that the same words 
 would form as plausible an argument in the mouth of a deist or libertine 
 against your cathedral service, as they do in your's against the devotions 
 
 (I) P. 34. (3; P. 32. 
 
 of
 
 4a LETTER III. 
 
 of the ancient monks ? But pray. Sir, from what canon of the church, 
 or from what chapter of St. Benedict's rule, do you conclude, that the 
 founders of religious orders were satisfied with a mere mechanical wor- 
 ship, and confined their ideas to " the means, instead of the end of true 
 religion ?" (i) I have paid some attention to the study of this subject, 
 and I take upon myself to affirm, that the ancient ascetics were well 
 advised, that no species of prayer, without their best attention and devo- 
 tion, was of any avail to them, and that the exterior practices of piety and 
 penance did not constitute religion itself, but only the means, with divine 
 grace, of possessing and practising it. 
 
 There is not less misrepresentation and vulgar prejudice in what you 
 assert concerning the foundation of our ancient monasteries, namely, that 
 this " was thought the highest degree of religious merit, and the most 
 certain atonement for sins;" (2) and that "persons of the most pro- 
 fl.igate and lav.less, as well as others of more worthy characters, thought 
 they could atone for their sins, and secure their salvation, by establishing 
 and endowing such foundations." (3) Without any intentional disrespect, 
 permit me. Sir, here to observe, that I should hope gratitude would lead 
 you to admit, that there was some merit in the foundation and endow- 
 ment of one convent, at least, I mean St. Swithun's Pinory of Winchester, 
 on the remains of v^^hich you. Sir, have been for so many years liberally 
 supported, especially as I am sure you will agree with me, that there neither 
 is now, nor ever has been since the period of the Reformation, a sufficiency 
 of religious zeal in the community or individuals to erect and endow our 
 cathedra], if this had not been already done by the piety of our Catholic 
 ancestors. With respect to the above-mentioned hackneyed charge of 
 redeeming sins, by building churches and monasteries, I say, that the 
 truth of it is not to be determined by the style of charters, but by the 
 public doctrine of the church contained in her canons, and in the wri- 
 tings of her fathers and doctors, which was the same formerly that it is 
 
 • ;i:, Ibid. (2) p. 31. (3) p. 35. 
 
 now,
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 43 
 
 now, and, as far as I can Judge, the same as that of Protestants of the 
 present dav, with respect to the merit ofrehgious and charitable establish- 
 ments in gcMeral. 
 
 But the point at issue between us may perhaps be better illustrated by 
 iiistorical (acts than by theological reasoning. .You will recollect then, that 
 my History relates in what manner the cathedral church and cloister were 
 surrounded with fortifications, to secure them from the incursions of the 
 Danes, by our Saxon monarch Ethelbald, at the entreaty of our patron 
 saint Swithun (l). But tlid the holy bishop admit this meritorious work by 
 way of compensation for the criminal intercourse in which Ethelbald was 
 living with his mother-in-law Judith ? No, Sir, he required of the king 
 to dismiss the object of his passion, and to repair the scandal which he had 
 given, by condign penance, (2) and both the bishop and the king are more 
 extolled, by the monkish writers themselves, for their respective shares ia 
 the latter, than in the former transaction. I likewise mentioned the foun- 
 dation of two famous convents in this neighbourhood, Wherwell and 
 Amcsbury, by the beautiful Elfrida. But is it true, that she considered the 
 building and endowment of these, or the prayers that were offered up by 
 their religious inhabitants, as an atonement for her sins, whilst she con- 
 tinued to indulge in them ? No, Sir, I expressly stated that she, at the 
 same time, abandoned her sinful courses, and that withdrawing herself to 
 the former of these solitudes, she spent the remainder of her life in 
 piety and penance. (3) But the greatest friend to the monks, upon 
 English record, was the husband of the lady just mentioned, the renowned 
 king Edgar. He also had certain frailties to expiate ; but did the great 
 patron of a monastic life, St. Dunstan, by whom he was chiefly guided 
 both in his private and in his public conduct, teach him to believe, that 
 his numerous foundations and ample endowments of monasteries would 
 of themselves atone for these sins, and secure his salvation, according to 
 your account of the theology of the times ? No, Sir, I have proved, 
 
 (i) Hist. vol. i, p. aaa. (2) ibid. (3) Ibid. p. T69. 
 
 that
 
 44 * LETTER III. 
 
 that this famous monk, and legislator of monks, " did not connive at the 
 ipcontinencj of his friend Edgar any more than he had countenanced the 
 licentiousness of his enemy, Edwy," and that it was " through his aposto- 
 lical repi-oaches and exhortations, that this illustrious monarch, like another 
 David or Theodosius, vmdertook a voluntary penance of seven years." (l) 
 If these several histories, and innumerable others to the same effect that I 
 could adduce, are authentic, then. Sir, your account of the general ideas 
 and motives of our pious ancestors in founding and endowing monasteries 
 is false, and a libel vipon their memory. With respect to our own city, 
 you are aware, Sii', that the most celebrated founder of religious houses* 
 in Winchester, is described as a character possessing every virtue, and free 
 from every fault, namely, the illustrious Alfred. (2) At all events then 
 you must allow, that these establishments were not always the compen- 
 sation for sin, but sometimes the fruit of consummate virtue. 
 
 You very candidly acknowledge, that many of the public advantages 
 which I ascribed to these establishments, whilst they existed amongst us, 
 were actually derived from them, particularly the hospitality exercised in 
 them to travellers, when inns were much less common than they are at 
 present, their supporting the neighbouring poor, (3) without the aid of 
 
 public 
 
 (i) P. 158. (2) He was the chief founder of the royal abbey of Newminster (after- 
 
 wards Hyde) and of St. Mary. 
 
 (3) l'*3'5. — Dr. S. inserts a note here, misrepresenting what I have said on the subject of 
 Poor Houses, vol. ii, p. 187, in more respects than one. The truth is, I have not called in 
 question the zeal and attention of magistrates, and other respectable persons, for improving 
 the condition of the poor ; nevertheless I might be allowed to enquire, whether their efforts 
 have, in every instance, been made in the most judicious manner, and I am confident, that 
 most of the gentlemen in question are ready to hear and to weigh the observations that I, 
 or any other individual, may make on this subject, adly, I have not indiscriminately con- 
 demned all poor houses and houses of industry: on the contrary I am convinced, thatsuch 
 places are necessary in some circumstances, because some poor persons require to be punished. 
 I have only adduced certain arguments against indiscriminately confining deserving paupers 
 with the undeserving, where this can possibly be avoided ; and as Dr. S. has not answered 
 my arguments on this head, so I will venture to say, that they cannot .be satisfactorily 
 answered. Lastly, there is not the remotest contrast, in what I have said, between the 
 
 present
 
 RELIGIO.US OBSERVANCES. 45 
 
 public rates for this purpose, their schools for the education of youth, and 
 their hospitals for the reception of the sick ; (i) but you object to their 
 sanctuaries, to the number of their inhabitants, and to their wealth. (2) 
 With respect to the privilege of sanctuary, I think we shall not disagree 
 upon that point. I grant that this would be detrimental, instead of bene- 
 ficial, in circumstances where the laws were so equitable in themselves, 
 and so justly administered, as they happily are in our own country at 
 present. On the other hand, the authority of Scripture will convince you, 
 that this was advantageous when it was appointed by the law of God for 
 his people of old ; (3) and a little reflection will make you own, that it 
 was highly desirable in times of anarchy, of tyranny, of unsettled laws, 
 and of civil wars, such as that period was when I have said, that ploughs 
 enjoyed the privilege of sanctuary no less than churches. (4) In the second 
 place, if more persons embraced this course of life than were led to it by 
 proper motives, and if the practice of many was found to be widely 
 distant from their institute, these objections will only prove the necessity 
 of those strict laws which the church enacted in every age against such 
 abuses, and of those "frequent reforms of religious orders, which were the 
 general cause, and not that which you have assigned, (5) of so many diffe- 
 rent congregations. Lasth% as to the wealth of monasteries, which you 
 think was disproportioned and excessive ; we know that small capitals, by- 
 regular habits of industry and oeepnomy, naturally Ijccome great. If, 
 however, the income of any of them exceeded the real demands of a 
 moderate subsistence, and of those charities, to which you admit they were 
 generally applied, we all know, that the sucplus might, and frequently 
 
 present condition of the poor, and that of the poor before the Reformation. I have only 
 compared the mode of providing for the indigent in the aforesaid houses, with the old 
 manner of relieving them in their own cottages, that has obt lined for above two centuries. 
 My adversaries shew great ingenuity in discovering secret views in the History of Win- 
 chester for serving the cause of Popery, which never occurred to the writer of it. 
 
 (i) P. 37. (2) P. 38. (3) Deuteron. xix, 2. 
 
 (4) Vol. i, p. 2i5. (5) P. 31. 
 
 ' G has
 
 46 LETTER III. 
 
 has been, by due authority, diverted into other channels of piety or public 
 use. One thing is evident, and speaks highly in favour of these establish- 
 ments, considered in a moral and political light, namely, that villages, 
 towns, and cities arose, increased and flourished round most of our great 
 abbeys ; as for example, at Rumsey, Beaulieu, Amesbury, Croyland, 
 Peterborough, Ely, Durham, and Westminster itself, (i) 
 
 It seems extraordinary, that amongst the practices of a monastic life, 
 you should object to the observance of silence at stated times, " as the 
 height of folly and superstition. " (2) I should have expected, that the 
 example of Pythagoras, and other ancient sages, who imposed a still more 
 rigorous silence upon their disciples than the one in question, as the first 
 requisite to the study of philosophy, would have exempted this practice 
 from the imputation of folly ; and I should have made sure, that the many 
 forcible passages of holy writ, particularly in the sapiential books, and in 
 the Epistle of St, James, would have saved it from that of superstition. (3) 
 The ascetics, no less than the philosophers, considered a certain degree of 
 silence, not only as useful to restrain the vices of the tongue, but also to 
 feel the impression, as well as to understand the sense, of the lessons to 
 which they applied. It is proper, however, to inform you, Sir, of what 
 you seem to be ignorant, that the strictest ascetics were acquainted with 
 the maxim of the wise man : There is a time for being silent, and a 
 time for speaking ; (4) and were convinced, that it was their duty to 
 make use of the faculty just mentioned, as often as this was necessary for 
 their own, or their neighbours' relief, advice, instruction, or con- 
 solation. 
 
 But what can equal my surprise to find a divine of the Church of 
 England reckoning fasting and abstinence amongst the ascetic works, " that 
 answer no rnoral purpose, (5).. ..and that are to the last degree unmeaning 
 
 (1) All the cities here mentioned were absolute solitudes, before monasteries were erected 
 upon the site of them. (a) P. 41. 
 
 (3) Proverb, X, 29. xl, 12. xxv, 28. Psulrn c.-ixxix, 13. St. James i, 19 — 2,6. 
 
 (4) Eccles.iii, 7, (5) P. 40. 
 
 and
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 4/ 
 
 and cliildish." (l) I \'^ ill not fill my pages with the explicit and forcible 
 authorities that I might alledge from the writings and practice of all the 
 fathers and celebrated writers of the ancient church, from the days of the 
 apostles down to the present time, on the advantages and necessity of 
 fasting, as it concerns Christians in general ; but will content myself with 
 referring you to the most approved authors and to the public doctrine of 
 your own. Consult then the learned works on this subject of your cele- 
 brated prelates, Patrick, (2) Beveridge, (3) and Gunning. (4) See what is 
 expressed in The Whole Duty of Man concerning the obligation of observ- 
 ing the stated fasting days throughout the year, as well as those on special 
 occasions, " both by afflicting the body, in abstinence from meat, and in 
 humbling the soul." Take notice of the proofs there broiight from S'crip- 
 ture, that fasting ought to accompany repentance, that it is in the nature of 
 a punishment for former excesses, and that to overcome a certain dangerous 
 passion, in particular, it is adviseable to use both fasting and prayer. (5) 
 Turn next to the Book of Homilies, which, by due authority, is appointed 
 to be read by you in churches, where the following passage, amongst 
 others equally express on this point, occurs : " That we ought to fast is a 
 truth more manifest then that it should here neede to be proved, the 
 Scriptures which teach the same are evident ;" and where the following 
 moral effect is ascribed to it : " The first end of fasting which rendereth 
 it profitable to us or accepted of God. ...is to chastise the flesh, that. ...it be 
 brought in subjection to the spirit, &c."(6) Finally, look at TJie Table 
 of the Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence, to be observed in the 
 Year, prefixed to The Book of Common Prayer, which amount in all to 
 nearly one third part of the whole year. You may say of this, as you have 
 said of the sketch of practices mentioned above, that " it is not very 
 inviting;" nevertheless, it is the Church of England that presents it to 
 
 (i) P. 41. (2) On Repentance and Fasting. ' (3) Codex, Can. Ecc. Prim. 
 
 (4) On the Pascal or Lent Fast. (5) Part ii, §31. P. v, §34. P. vii, §24. 
 
 (6) Homily on Good Works and Fasting. 
 
 G2 
 
 your
 
 48 LETTER III. 
 
 your veneration and your practice, in conformity with the doctrine and 
 the example of all the illustrious servants of God recorded in scripture,(i) 
 and of Christ himself. (2) Perhaps you will say, that it is to the 
 abstinence or distinction of food you particularly applj,^ the epithets of 
 " unmeaning and childish." In answer to this I must observe, that days 
 of abstinence, no less than fasting days, are enjoined in the Common 
 Prayer Book ; that the first prohibition recorded in the Old Testament, (3) 
 and orte of the first that occurs in the New, regard a distinction of food, (4) 
 and that the whole law of Moses is full of these distinctions. I grant there 
 were superstitions in the very infancy of the church on this head, parti- 
 cularly that of certain persons who held particular kinds of food to be 
 impure, as proceeding from the evil principle, (5) but I find that those 
 enlightened prelates, who joined with the apostles (6) in condemning this 
 superstition, carried their own practice of abstinence so far as to confine 
 themselves to the mere use of bread or other dry meats, (7) on the days 
 of their stricter fast. , 
 
 You begin and end your dissertation, Sir, on clerical celibacy with just 
 panegyrics, in prose and verse, upon matrimony, and with unjust re- 
 flections on the Catholic church for having, as you alledge, prohibited 
 and dishonoured it. The truth is, this church prohibits no persons, from 
 marrying ; she only requires that those, who have freely taken upon 
 themselves a vow of celibacy, should keep that vow, having learnt from 
 St. Paul the heinousness of violating it. (s) At the same time, however, 
 she gives the preference to those, amongst her candidates for holy Orders, 
 who make choice of this engagement ; the reasons for which, T shall after- 
 Avards discuss-. On the other hand, so far from degrading matrimony, she 
 
 (i) Dan. ix, 3. Joel ii, 13. Jonas iii, 5. St. Mat. ix, 15. xii,-30, &c. 
 (2) St. Mat. iv, 3. (3) That of the forbidden fruit. Gen. ii, 17. 
 
 (4) Acts, XV, 29. 
 
 (_5J The Ebionites and other Gnostics, and afterwards the Manichaeans.' 
 (6) I Tim. iv, 3. (7) Called Xr,po(pct.yia. 
 
 (8) The younger luidows refuse : for ivhen they have begun to tvax wanton in Christ, theji ivUl 
 marry; having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith, 1 Tim. v. II, 12. 
 
 is
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. -^Q 
 
 is distinguished amongst other communions for the honours which she 
 pays to it. You are not ignorant, Sir, that this church ranks matrimony 
 amongst the sacraments of the new law, requiring the same pious dis- 
 positions in the parties who enter into it, as in those who approach to the 
 Lord's Table. You are not ignorant, that she deems so awfully and 
 mysteriously of this solemn contract, that she absolutely prohibits persons 
 who have engaged in it from ever violating it, on any pretext whatsoever, 
 during the life time of their partners ; thus strictly conforming to the 
 injunctions of our Saviour: what God hath joined together, let not man 
 put asunder, [i) The fatal consequence of disregarding this precept is 
 too publicly displayed in the scandalous and preconcerted crimes of the 
 present age. 
 
 Let me now look back to the occasion of the question between us. 
 The series of my History having led me to relate that remarkable change 
 which took place in Winchester cathedral during the reign of king Edgar, 
 by which monks were substituted to the secular canons, who had for 
 sometime before served it, in consequence of their incorrigible incon- 
 tinency ; and finding that the generality of modern authors conspired to 
 palm a falsehood on the public, in making them believe, that the secular 
 clergy, before this period, namely, the latter end of the tenth century, 
 were eveiy where left at liberty by the church laws to take wives, like 
 other men ; I could not, consistently with my plan, avoid exposing and 
 confuting so egregious an error. This I performed by a pretty ample 
 dissertation on clerical celibacy, (2) in which, by express references to 
 ancient councils, fathers, and ecclesiastical writers, I demonstrated that 
 the higher orders of the' clergy, viz. bishops, priests, and deacons, were 
 oblig.^d, from the very infancy of the church, to observe the law of con- 
 tinency,{3) that this law was introduced with Christianitj itself amongst 
 
 cur 
 h) St..Mat. xix, 6. (i) Vol. i, pp.163, i<54, 165. 
 
 (3) It is proper to add, that amongst the councils, cited in my note, vol. i, p. 163,, one 
 of them, viz. the second of Carthage, \MA A. D. 438, testifies, that the law of celibacy- 
 was derived from the apostles. " Ita placuit et condecet sacrosanctos antistites et De^ 
 
 sacerdote
 
 50 LETTER III. 
 
 our Saxon ancestors, at the end of the sixth century, by St. Augustine 
 and our other apostles; that the obligation of it was frequently confirmed 
 by synods held in this country, and, 1 may add, that the same was the 
 case in other parts of the church, in every age down to the present ; that, 
 however frequent the violation of it was in certain ages and coun- 
 tries, particularly during the tenth and eleventh centuries, so far from 
 being sanctioned or tolerated, it was constantly censured and opposed by 
 the church, which, on one occasion, went so far as to invalidate, as far 
 as this was possible, all ecclesiastical functions performed by clergymen, 
 who did not lead continent lives, (l ) 
 
 It is plain, that these proofs of the antiquity of ecclesiastical celibacy, 
 and this detection of the opposite error, are extremely grating to you. 
 But in what manner do you attempt to invalidate them ? Do you deny 
 the weight or authenticity of ray authorities ? No. Do you confront 
 them with other canons and quotations from the fathers of equal antiquity 
 and authenticity ? No. You have nothing, on a point of history, to oppose 
 to positive evidence, but fanciful conjectures and speculations. The sub- 
 stance of these, which are spun ~out through several pages, is, that the 
 law of celibacy originated in the policy of the popes, who detached the 
 clergy from social connections, in order to make them the tools of their 
 ambition. (2) But, Sir, you will recollect, that my vouchers for this 
 celibacy go beyond the period which you have assigned for the com- 
 
 sacerdotes, nee non et levitas, vel qui sacramentis divinis inserviunt continentes esse in omni- 
 bus, quo possint simpliciter quod a Deo postulant impetrare : UT QUOD APOSTOLI 
 DOCUERUNT et ipsa servavit antiquitas nos quoque custodiamus. — Ab universis episcopis 
 dictum est : Omnibus placet ut episcopi, presbyteri, diaconi et qui sacramenta contrectant, 
 pudicitise custodes, etiam se ab uxoribus contineant." 11 Concil. Carthag. can. 3. — Amongst 
 the testimonies of ancient fathers, I omitted to mention tliat of Origen of Alexandria, who 
 was born in the year 185, and who holds much the same language as that which I quoted from 
 Bede, viz. " Illius est solius offerre Deo sacrificium qui indesinenti et perpetuaa se de- 
 voverit castltat." Orig. Homil. 23 in Numeros. 
 
 (i) Mat. Paris, am 1124. Thorn. Walsingham.' (2) Pp.27, 4^^445 &c. 
 
 mencement
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 5 1 
 
 mencement of papal ambition, and extend to countries where the popes 
 supi-emacy was frequently resisted, and, in the end, rejected. In one 
 word. Sir, I must remind you again, that you have produced no authority, 
 either in opposition to my proofs, or in support of your own revolting 
 theory, except the ludicrous rhymes of an irreligious and obscene poet, 
 in the twelfth century, (l) and the forged speech of a cardinal in the 
 sixteenth. (2) 
 
 (i) P. 43. Dr. S.has quoted too much of the jocose verses^ as he calls them, of Walter 
 de M'apes, both for the gravity of the subject and of his own character. He has, however, 
 very prudently suppressed some of the more indecent, and irreligious amongst them : Of this 
 sort are the two first stanzas of the poem : 
 
 " INlihi est propositum in taberna mori, 
 
 Vinum sit appositum morientis ori : 
 
 Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori ; 
 
 Deus sit propitius huic potatori. 
 
 Poculis accenditur animi lucerna ; 
 Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna. 
 Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in taberna 
 Quam quod aqua miscuit prsesulis pincerna." 
 The most important passage, however, in the whole composition, for judging of the 
 authority to be derived from this poet against clerical celibacy, is the stanza in which he 
 draws his own self-convicted and reprobate character : 
 
 " Via lata gradior more juventutis; 
 Iniplico me vitiis immemor virtutis ; 
 Voluptatis avidus, magis quam salutis ; 
 Mortuus in anima curam gero cutis." 
 
 Camden's Remains, p. ^^^. 
 After all, the learned Pitsius gives us good reason to doubt whether these, and other 
 profane verses, ascribed to Walter Mapes by Camden, Thomas Warton, Dr. S. &c. are his 
 genuine composition, and not the work of a certain Golias, who fathered many of his 
 rhymes upon Mapes. i>e Illust. Ang. Script, p. 383. 
 
 (2) The accurate and faitliful Pallavicini, who wrote from the original memoirs of the 
 Council of Trent preserved in the castle of St. Angelo, his victorious confutation of Father 
 Paul's spurious history of the same council, has proved, that no such consistory was held as 
 that in wh.ich cardinal Rodclpho Pio is introduced as making the inconsistent speech which 
 Dr. S., after the former, ascribes to him. Hist. Concil. Tiid. lib, xv. c. 14. 
 
 But
 
 02 LETTER in. 
 
 But however ancient and inviolaMe the church laws may have been, 
 on the head of. clerical celibacy, you maintain, in a long dissertation, 
 that they are impracticable, and therefore nugatory and invalid. " The 
 impulse of nature," you say, " by which we are led to form connections 
 with the other sex, is one of the most powerful that belongs to us. ..it 
 cannot be suppressed, but might have been regulated."(i) You add, 
 " No authority, no laws, no decrees could counteract this strong propensity 
 of our nature. ..which may be guided, but will not be compelled : to regu- 
 late her impulses is wise, to suppress them altogether is impossible, and 
 therefore it is absurd and immoral to attempt it." (2) All thi&> according 
 to the plain sense of the words and the tenor of your argument, means 
 that it is possible for a human being to lead a chaste life with the help of 
 matrimony, but not without it. Such coarse ideas expressed in language 
 equally coarse, I had indeed met with in the works of the I'enegade friar, 
 Martin Luther ; (3) but I little expected to find them in the writings of a 
 person of your i-etlection and decorum. For are you sensible. Sir, what 
 a charge of incontinency you here bring against innumerable persons of 
 both sexes, who for want of fortune, of health, of beauty, or on account 
 of their situation in colleges, in the army and navy, of their social duties 
 to parents, children, &c. and even of their elevated birth and rank in life, 
 are equally precluded from entering into matrimonial engagements, with 
 the clergy and religious of the Catholic church ? Is it impossible, in all 
 these, " to suppress the impulse of nature, which tends to a connection 
 
 (I) P.~45- (2) 1^48. 
 
 (3) " Porro caste et integre viveretam iion est in manu nostra quam omliia alia Dei mira- 
 cula." Luther ad Wolfgan. Reisenbusb. toni. vii, f'ol. 505. Edit. Wittemb. " Ut non est 
 in meis viribus situm, ut vir non sim, tarn non est mei juris ut absque niuliere sini. Rursum 
 ut in tua manu non est ut foemina non sis, sic nee est in te ut absque viro degas." " Verbum 
 hoc crescite et multiplicamini non est prjeceptum sed plusquam prseceptum ; divinum puta 
 opus, quod non est nostrarum virium ut impediatur vel omittatur, sed tarn est necessarium 
 quam ut masculus sim, et magis necessarium quam edere, bibere, ^purgare, mucum eniun- 
 gere," &c. Lutlier. Sermo de Matrimon. torn, v, fol. 119. 
 
 with
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 53 
 
 with the other sex ?" Is it even in them " ahsurd and immoral to 
 attempt it ?" 
 
 Regardless nevertheless of consequences, however absurd and alarming, 
 you proceed to establish this scandalous theory of the impracticabiHty of 
 continence, by the following singular reasoning : "Laws, to be effectual, 
 must be conformable to our nature and founded on good sense : if they 
 are not such, they in a great measure defeat themselves. Power may, to 
 a certain degree, compel obedience to them ; but they will be continually 
 eluded, and eluded with impunity. When they shock our natural and 
 general feelings, humane and reasonable men would rather let the trans- 
 gressor, go unpunished, than be punished with what appears to them dis- 
 proportionate severity; or for a fault which, considering natural infirmities, 
 he could hardly help committing. They are ready to lay the blame on 
 the unreasonable law, rather than on the unfortunate, though perhaps 
 not quite innocent transgressor." (l) I own. Sir, lam astonished, and 
 almost ashamed, to hear such language as this, and on such a subject, 
 from you, who are both a divine and a magistrate. In fact, what an 
 apology have you here offered for tlie conduct of every wanton girl who 
 elopes from the just restraint of her parents or guardians, and of every 
 xmfaithful wife who dishonours her husband, whilst he is fighting the 
 battles of his country in a distant clime, as the courts of justice have too 
 often proved to be the case ! I hardly think, that a counsellor at the bar 
 would repeat the passage, which I have just quoted, in excuse for his 
 offending client ; certain I am, that it would not pass without reproof 
 from the guardian of morality on the bench. It is true, you make this 
 apology particularly in favour of the Catholic clergy, who violate their 
 vowed continence : but it is evidently seen to hold equally good in behalf 
 of every description of offenders against the laws of chastity, who can 
 plead the strength of their passions, and the restraints they lie under in 
 the use of the natural remedy. 
 
 (I) P. 46. 
 
 H Do
 
 .^^4 LETTER III. 
 
 Do not however mistake me, Sir, as if I made liglit of that domestic 
 enemy, the force of which St. Paul himself, after all his extacies, seems 
 to have stood in fear of, (l) or as if I denied that a great many of those, 
 particularly in the tenth and eleventh centuries, who had taken upon 
 themselves the vow of celibacy, lived in a scandalous violation of it. The 
 chief difference between our opinions is, that you suppose laws of this 
 nature to be absolutelv impracticable, whilst I maintain that, by making 
 use of the proper means for this purpose, with the help of God, they 
 may be, as they have been, by thousand and myriads in every age, faith- 
 fully observed. (2) These means are precisely the practices against which 
 you have declared yourself above, fasting, (3) assiduous prayer, retirement 
 as far as each one's station will permit from the allurements of the world, 
 and other exercises of piety and mortification, such as St. Paul himself 
 made use of for the same purpose. (4) 
 
 Could you admit the possibility of continency, you do not seem to 
 dispute its propriety and advantages with respect to the clergy, (5) parti- 
 
 (i) II Cor. xii, 7. 
 
 (2) Dr. S. declares, that his mind shrhihs from the idea of irrevocable engagements of 
 continency, and, in conformity with the vulgar opinion on that head, supposes that those 
 persons of the other sex who have entered into them were the victims of misery and despair, 
 p. 46, 47. Let us however judge from facts, not from suppositions. Of the many thousand 
 persons of this description, whom that harbinger of the Revolution, the emperor Joseph II, 
 turned out of their convents, none went out willingly, and some died embracing their 
 thresholds and door-posts. 1 have opportunities of knowing, that at the distance of some 
 years from that period, not one amongst them all had shewn by her conduct that she re- 
 pented of the vows she had made. The same in general may be said of the French nuns, 
 though the authors of the Revolution were at considerable pains to propagate a contrary 
 opinion. 
 
 (3) In addition to the authorities from the Homilies, &c. above stated, I may add that of 
 a Pagan poet, who was an experienced judge in these matters: Sine Baccho et Cercre frigct 
 Venus. Ovid De Remed. Amor. 
 
 (4) I Cor. ix, 27. 
 
 (5) " All this is very well, viz. that the time and thoughts of the clergy should be en- 
 tirely occupied in sacred functions, &c. if you could procure clergy made of materials dif- 
 ferent from those of which men are composed^" &c. p. 44. 
 
 cularlv
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 
 
 cularly in those points, in whioli it is commended bj St. Paul, (]) Origen, , 
 Bede, (2) and the first act of purhament that tolerated their marriage in this 
 kingdom. (3) You agree with me also in ascribing the boundless charities, 
 profuse hospitality, and the immortal works of piety and public benefit, 
 by which the great ecclesiastics of ancient times distinguished themselves, 
 (and none more so than the prelates of this see) to their having " no 
 families or lineal posterity who could have a natural claim on their super- 
 fluous wealth." (1) What is this, Sir, but confuting your own former 
 arguments, concerning the pretended effects of celibacy, in loosening the 
 ties of the clergy with society and the state? What is this but owning, 
 that it is more natural and easy for a continent clergy to become the 
 fathers of their people, and especially of the poor, and to be entirely 
 occupied in their sacred functions, than for others, whose tlioughts, and 
 whose study, must and ought to be devoted, in the first place, to the 
 welfare of their wives and family ? The ceremonies and emblems accom- 
 panying the consecration of a Catholic bishop are purposely invented to 
 remind him that his church is his spouse, and that liis diocesans are 
 -his children. 
 
 How great an obstacle the incumbrance of a family must be to zealous 
 clergymen of every degree, in the discharge of their duties under manv 
 particular circumstances, must be obvious, particularly in times of perse- 
 cution, when religion is to be propagated amongst infidel and barbarous 
 nations, and when any person or number of persons require the conso- 
 lations and helps of religion to support them who are dying of infectious 
 distempers. A remarkable case of the last mentioned kind, which clearly 
 illustrates my sentiments on this head, has occurred in our city, since you. 
 Sir, and 1 have been residents in it. When that dreadful contagion raged 
 amongst the prisoners of war, confined in the Ring's-house here, from 
 eighteen to twenty years ago, which carried olf so many hundreds of 
 
 (1) Hc^ that is uiwiarricd careth for the things that belong to the Lord, &c. I Cor. c. vli, 32. 
 (a) Hist. vol. i, p. 164. (3) 3 Edw. VI, c. 21. 
 
 (4) I'- 37. 
 
 H 2 them.
 
 50 LETTER in. 
 
 them, together with most of the medical attendants, keepers, and other 
 persons who resorted to them, as I have mentioned in my History, (l) a 
 considerable number of the said prisoners were French Protestants. These 
 earnestly called in their sickness for that attendance from some of their 
 numerous clergy in this city, which they saw administered to the Catholics 
 by one or two priests of their communion. This circumstance, to my 
 certain knowledge, was made known to some of the gentlemen in 
 question ; nevertheless the dying Protestants were not attended : in conse- 
 quence of which several of them desired the assistance of the priests. 
 The answer, which I understand to have been given on a certain appli- 
 cation, was this : W^e are not more afraid, as individuals, to face death 
 in the discharge of our professional duty, than the priests are, but we 
 must not carry a poisonous contagion into the bosom of our families. 
 You will remark, Sir, that I do not mention this occurrence, by way of 
 reproach to the clergy of this city, but only by way of argument as to the 
 point in debate, the celibacy of the clergy. In fact, I very much doubt, 
 whether my predecessor, the Rev. Mr. Nolan, who actually lost his life in 
 the exercise of this heroic charity, or the other priests who afterwards 
 exposed themselves to the same fate, one of whom was on the very brink 
 of it, would have shewn the courage they did, bad their feelings been 
 softened by a natural tenderness for wives and children. The conclusion I 
 think is evident, that however honourable and even holy the state of 
 matrimony is in itself, however necessary it is to the state, and however 
 conformable to the general condition of mankind, still that it may be for 
 the benefit of religion, that the small number, who, as Christ says, receive 
 this saying, (2) and who are called to the exercise of the Christian 
 ministry, should for the sake of their flocks lead continent lives. They 
 can have no other adequate motive for universally subjecting themselves 
 to this restraint. 
 
 I have the honour, &c. 
 
 (i) Hist. vol. ii, pp. 166, 167. (2) St.Mat. xix, 11. 
 
 LETTER
 
 PERSECUTION. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 Ii 
 
 F I have been unable to enlarge with the same co- 
 piousness and elegance of diction that you have done, on the excellency 
 of charity and the duty of mutual forbearance, I nevertheless greatly 
 deceive myself, if my HISTORY OF WINCHESTER is not better cal- 
 culated to promote these virtues, than are your REFLECTIONS ON 
 POPERY. 
 
 1 have had frequent opportunities of observing, that amongst the many 
 foul caricatures of the religion of our ancestors, held up to the public 
 view, that which exhibits it as a sanguinary system, supported by swords 
 and musiiets, and surrounded with racks, gibbets, and fires, is the one 
 which has been chiefly successful in inflaming the minds of Englishmen 
 with hatred against it, and its professors: a hatred which they do not 
 entertain for the unbaptised Quaker, or the antichristian Socinian, and 
 M'hich has sometimes led them into the extremities of cruelty, from the 
 mere hatred of cruelty, (i) Those who feel an interest or a pleasure in 
 exciting this odium are fully sensible of its fatal efficacy. Hence they 
 are never weary with ringing the changes on the names of John Huss, and 
 Jerom of Prague, on the massacre of Paris, and especially on the fires of 
 Smithfield. For the same uncharitable purpose we find the lying Acts 
 and Monuments of John Fox, with large wooden prints of men and 
 women encompassed with faggots and flames in every leaf of them, 
 chained to the desks of many country churches, whilst abridgments of 
 this inflammatory work are annually issued from the London presses, under 
 the title of The Book of iSuirtyrs. In the mean time it is carefully con- 
 cealed from the public view, that Catholics have suflered persecution in 
 
 (i) " Crudelitatis odio in crLidelltateni rultis." Tit. Liv. h iiij c. 5$. 
 
 this
 
 58 LETTER IV. 
 
 this country to a much greater degree than they ever inflicted it, anc^ that 
 even the various sects of Protestants have persecuted each other, on account 
 of their religious differences, to the extremity of deaih. I complain much 
 more of the information that is vi'ithcld from the public, than of that 
 which is communicated to them, even through a false and' magnifying 
 medium. For if they knev^^ the whole truth in this matter, 1 mean the 
 violences that have been exercised on both sides, it would be impossible 
 to excite their indignation exclusively against one party ; and the most 
 prejudiced and inveterate persons v\ou!(l be obliged to enter into those 
 terms of mutual forgiveness, which the Catholics do and must so sincerely 
 wish to see established. For the most avaricious and inexorable creditor 
 is forced to cancel his bond, when he finds that his debtor has a legal 
 demand upon him to the full amount of it. 
 
 In some circumstances then. Sir, it may be necessary, for the purposes 
 of peace and conciliation, to enter upon that most odious of topics, reli- 
 gious persecution, and to detail particular instances of it ; namely, when 
 such statements contribute to " a right understanding and balancing of 
 accounts in this matter, amongst Christians of different communions, and 
 thereby to the cutting away one of the most virulent sources of religious 
 animosity" that subsists amongst them.(l) .Such I conceive to be the 
 tendency of the account which my Flistory furnishes of the different acts 
 of persecution that have taken place in this city. The fact is, there is 
 not an individual here, who had not heard a thousand times of the 
 numerous executions of Protestants under queen Mary, and of the share 
 which onr prelate Gardiner had in these bloody scenes. The mutilated 
 state of his monument in the cathedral, is a striking memorial of the 
 pu])lic indignation agaihst him on that account. (2) But I can venture to 
 say, that not an individual amongst them had ever heard that their own 
 streets had repeatedly flowed in the reign of her sister Elizabeth with 
 the blood of Catholic priests and laymen, (s) shed merely for their having 
 
 practiced 
 
 (i) t]ist, vol.i, p. 380. (2) Ibid, vol. ii, p. 58. 
 
 (^5) To the list of Catholics residents in or connected with Winchester, who suffered death 
 
 for
 
 PERSECUTION. CtJ 
 
 practiced the religion of Alfred, St. Swithun, and William of Wyke- 
 luun, and that the Protestant prelates. Home, Cooper, and Neale, had 
 been in their days active and violent persecutors, until I had occasion to 
 acquaint the public with these particulars, (l) 
 
 It is for the same conciliatory purpose, Sir, and not for that of reproach 
 or recrimination, that I shall enter more at large into this subject of 
 persecution in the present letter. For it appears, that you are not yet 
 disposed to enter into the compromise that I proposed, by joining with me 
 in " lamenting the commo nviolencies of our forefathers on both sides, "(2) 
 and by dismissing the acrimonious subject of persecution for ever. On 
 the contrary, when you are even forced to admit, that I have a charge 
 of the same sanguinary nature against your friends that you have against 
 mine, you still chicane with me concerning the number of the respective 
 sutierers, and the nature of their torments. You aggravate your accu- 
 sation with every instance of severity that has been intiicted on the he- 
 terodox or schismatics of former ages, whether on account of their 
 theological errors, or their seditious doctrines. Finally, you implicitly 
 question the sincerity of the censure which I have passed on the burnings 
 of Mary's reign, where you profess to tremble for my " orthodoxy" on 
 that account ; (3) thus shewing yourself resolved to make me an abettor 
 of persecution, whether I will or not. 
 
 You now proceed to state your charge against the ancient religion, in 
 the foUow^ing terms : " Mr. M. says, that persecution was not a tenet of 
 the Roman Catholic religion. This is somewhat surprising; and, if it 
 be true, all of us Protestants must have been long under a most egregious 
 mistake." (-1) It is true, Sir, that you are inider an egregious mistake, 
 with respect to the real tenets of Catholics in this, and in most other. 
 
 for their religion under Elizabeth, which we have given. Hist. vol. i, p. 380, I must add 
 the name of John Adams, who was apprehended in that city for exercising his priestly 
 functions, though he was executed in London, Oct. 8, 1586. Append. Mem. Miss. Pr. 
 
 (i) Vol. i, pp.376, 380,386. (2) Vol. i, p. 379, 380. 
 
 (3) P- 57- (4) P. 53. 
 
 articles
 
 00 LETTER III. 
 
 articles, and it is a subject of glory to the latter, that their religion never 
 yet was attacked by any adversary whomsoever, without being first 
 misrepresented by him. But you profess to prove the point in question, 
 viz. that persecution is a tenet of their faith ; first, from the fact of their 
 having persecuted heretics in all parts of Europe ; and secondly, from the 
 decrees of councils, the declarations of popes, the establishment of tri- 
 bunals, and the assertions of writers of the highest authority with them." 
 
 1 now undertake to answer you on each one of these heads, after lament- 
 ing that it unavoidably requires more leisure and pains, at all times, to 
 refute calumnies than it does to advance them. 
 
 If the mere fact of Catholics having used violence against persons of a 
 different communion, were a proof that persecution w^as a tenet of their 
 faith, as you argue in the first instance, this would equally prove, that 
 this doctrine equally made part of the creed of almost all denominations 
 of Protestants. It cannot be effaced from the records of history, that 
 M^herever the reformers of the ]6th and 17th centuries became the trium- 
 phant party, not content with the free exercise of their own religion, 
 they violently overturned that of their ancestors, and carried on the most 
 severe and oppressive persecution against those who continued to 
 adhere to it. (l) This was the case in England, (2) Scotland, (.^) 
 
 France, 
 
 (i) C. Peterson Hooft urges with great spirit the whole passage of Livy, referred to 
 above, by way of reproach to \vs Protestant countrymen of Holland, for the early proofs of 
 religious intolerance which they had shewn : " Libertati praesidia quasrentes non licentias 
 ad impugnandum alios. Crudelitatis odio in crudelitatem ruitis, et ante pene quam ipsi 
 liberi sltis, dominari jam in adversaries vultis." Hist. Ref. Gcr. Brand, t. i, p. ^^^. 
 
 (2) Hist. vol. i, p. 380, 8cc. 
 
 (3) The Reformation may be said to have begun there, by the assassination of cardinal 
 Rcatoun, in whicli Knox was a party, and to which Fox, in his ylcts and Monuments, says, 
 the murderers were instigated " by the spirit of God." In 1560 the parliament, at one 
 and the same time, decreed the establishment of Calvinism and the punishment of death 
 against the ancient religion. " With such indecent haste," says Robertson, " did the very 
 persons who had just escaped ecclesiastical tyranny proceed to imitate the example." Hist. 
 of Scotl. See also the answer of the presbytery to the king and council, in 1596, concern- 
 ing
 
 PERSECUTION. Ol 
 
 France,(i) Ireland, (2) Germany, the Low Countries, (3) Sweden, Denmark, 
 
 Switzerland, 
 
 ing the Catholic carls of Huntley, Errol, &c. viz. that " as they had been guilty of ido- 
 latry, a crime deserving of death, the civil power could not spare them." 
 
 (i) In France, it is well known, that wherever the Huguenots carried their victorious 
 arms against their sovereign, they slaughtered the priests and religious, burnt the churches 
 and convents, dug up the dead to make bullets of their leaden coffins, &c. See Maimbourg, 
 Hist. Calvinism. One of their own writers, Nic. Froumenteau, confesses, that in the single 
 province of Dauphiny they killed 256 priests and 113 monks or friars. Li v. de Finance. In 
 these scenes the famous baron Des Adrets signalized his barbarity, forcing his Catholic 
 prisoners to jump from the towers upon the pikes of his soldiers, and his own children to 
 wash their hands in the blood of Catholics. 
 
 (2) The penal laws were in general no less severely exercised against the Catholics of 
 Ireland, though they constituted the body of the people, than they were against those of 
 England. Dr. Curry, amongst a great many other sufferers in the same cause, has preserved 
 the names of 27 priests, or religious, put to death on account of their religion in the single 
 reign of Elizabeth. Hist, of Civil Wars of Ireland, vol.i, p. 8. 
 
 (3) Dr. S. speaks with horror of the persecution of the Protestants in the Low Countries 
 by the duke of Alva, who, he says, p. 67, "boasted that he had delivered 18,000 heretics 
 (he should have said heretics or rebels, see Brandt) to the executioners." I heartily join 
 with him in condemning and execrating the sanguinary vengeance of the Spanish governor 
 and government against their seditious subjects of the Calvinistical persuasion ; but to form 
 an adequate judgment in this case, it is proper to attend to the provocations which they had 
 received from them. Not to mention then the conspiracy of Carli and Risot to assasssinate 
 the duke of Alva himself, at the monastery of Groonfelt, near Brussels, it is certain^ that 
 one class of the Reformers had endeavoured to erect the same fanatical and bloody kingdom 
 in Holland, which .John of Leyden actually established at Munster, crying out, that God 
 had given up the countrj to them, and that vengeance a%uaitcd all ivhrj did not join them. It was 
 an ordinary thing amongst them to assault the clergy in the discharge of their functions, 
 and the air resounded with their cries, k'tll the priests, kill the monks, kill the magistrates. 
 These violences became more common as the Reformation extended itself wider. Wherever 
 Vandermerk, or Sonoi, both of them lieutenants to the prince of Orange, carried their 
 arms, they uniformly put to death, in cold blood, all the priests and religious they could 
 lay their hands upon, particularl}' at Oudenard, Ruremond, Dort, Middlebourg, Delft, and 
 Shonoven. See Hist. Ref. des Pays Bas, by the Protestant minister de Brandt, also Dr. 
 Patinson in his Jerusalem and Babel, p. 385, &c. A celebrated biographer, still living, Feller's 
 Hist. Abreg. tom. i. art. Toledo, says, that Vandermerk slaughtered more unoffending 
 Catholic priests and peasants in the year 1572, than Alva executed Protestants during his 
 whole government. He gives us in the same plaee a copious extract from L'Abrege do 
 
 r I'Hisf
 
 d2 LETTER IV. 
 
 Switzerland, Geneva, though in different manners, and with different degrees 
 of violence. I have shewn, that the several sects of Protestants have, in 
 many places and upon principle, persecuted each other to the extremities 
 of exile, perpetual imprisonment, and death, (l) I think, Sir, by this time 
 
 you 
 
 I'llist. de I'Holland, par Mons. Kcrroux, in which this Protestant author, who professes to 
 write from judicial records still extant, draws a most frightful picture of the infernal barba- 
 rities of Sonoi on the Catholic peasants of North Holland. He says that some of these, after 
 undergoing the torments of scourges and -the rack, were enveloped in sheets of linen that 
 had been steeped in spirits of wine, which being inflamed they were miserably scorched to 
 death ; that others, after having been tortured with torches and burning sulphur in the 
 tenderest parts of their bodies, were made to die for want of sleep, executioners being placed 
 on guard over them to beat and torment them, with clubs and other weapons, whenever 
 exhausted nature seemed ready to sink into forgetfulness ; that several of them were fed with 
 salt herrings, without any other food, or a drop of water, until they expired with thirst; 
 whilst certain others, by contrivances for this purpose, which he describes, were devoured 
 alive by rats. Amongst the cruelties there recounted some of them will not bear repeating, 
 and those which occur above are only mentioned, to induce Dr. S. and other writers of his 
 class to join with me in burying the odious names of Alva and Sonoi in equal oblivion. 
 
 (i) Hist. vol. i, p. 357. — Amongst the more illustrious Protestants, who suffered by the 
 violence of other Protestants, it may be proper to mention the names of Servctus, Gentili, 
 Bolsac, Barneveld, and Grotius. The following is a more circumstantial account of the perse- 
 cution, which some Protestants have exercised upon others in this country, than is contained 
 in the passage above quoted. In the reign of Edw. VI, viz. in the year 1550, six Anabaptists 
 were condemned by archbishop Cranmer, some of whom recanted and carried faggots, in 
 sign of their having merited burning, and one of them, Joan Knell, was actually burnt alive. 
 The following year, George Paris was condemned and suffered in the same manner. Stow. 
 During the reign of Elizabeth, in the year 1573, Peter Burchet, a gentleman of the Middle 
 Temple, was examined on the score of heresy by Edwin, bishop of London, but recanted 
 his opinions. In 1575, twenty-seven heretics were atone time, eleven at another, and five 
 at a third, condemned for their errors, chiefly by the same bishop. Of these 20 were 
 whipped and banished, others bore their faggots, and two of them, John Peterson and 
 Henry Turwort, were burnt to death in Smithfield. In 1583, John Lewes, " for denying 
 the Godhead of Christ," says Stow, was burned atNorwich ; at which place also Francis Kett, 
 M. A. suffered the same kind of death, for similar opinions, in 1589. Two years afterwards 
 William Hacket was hanged for heresy, in Cheapside. Five others suffered death in this 
 reign for being Brownists, viz. Thacker, Copping, Greenwood, Barrow, and Pcnry. The 
 above particulars may be seen in Stowj Brandt, Collier, Neal, &c. Under James I, Legat 
 
 and
 
 PERSECUTION". 63 
 
 you will grant, that the mere acts of persecution do not of themselves 
 prove a persecuting creed, especially when you have considered, that the 
 severities in question were taken up by one party in its very infancy, and 
 by the other at a very advanced period of its existence. In fact. Sir, if 
 the doctrine and practice of persecution were an essential constituent in 
 the religion of our ancestors, as you repeatedly assure us was the case, it 
 was particularly incunibent on you to trace them up to the commencement 
 of Popery, at whatever period you may choose to fix this vera, (l) We 
 know that there have not been wanting, in every century, different 
 heresies and schisms, which have been condemned as such by the church ; 
 but (to speak only of the middle ages) we observe, that neither Felix of 
 I7rgel, nor Gotescalc, nor Beringarius, norAbelard, nor jSIarsilius of Padua, 
 nor AVycliff, was sentenced to any corporal sufferings by the church. 
 
 Whitman were executed for Arianism. In the time of Charles I, the Dissenters complained 
 loudly of their sufferings, and particularly that four of their number, Ixighton, Burton, 
 Prynne, and Bastwick, were cropped of their ears and set in the pillory. Limborch, Hist, of 
 Inquis. Neal, Sec. When the Presbyterians afterwards got the "upper hand, they continued to 
 put Catholics to death, and they treated those of the former establishment with almost equal se- 
 verity; at the same time appointing days of humiliation and fasting to beg God pardon for not 
 being more intolerant. Hist, of Churches of Engl, and Scotl. vol. iii. The editor of de Laune':< 
 Plea for Non-Conformists, says, that he was one of 8000 Protestant Dissenters, that " perished 
 in prison in that single reign, (viz. of Charles II) merely for dissenting from the church." Pref. 
 p. 2. He adds, that one of their people, Mr. White, had carefully collected a list of the 
 sufferers and sufferings of the Dissenters; that the Catholics, in the reign of James II, offered 
 him bribes to obtain this list ; that he rejected the offer, to prevent the black record from 
 rising up in judgment against the church, and that the dignified prelates sent thanks and 
 money to Mr. White in reward for his services." For the capital punishments and other 
 sufferings of the Quakers, see Pen's Life of George Pox, folio. 
 
 (i) Nothing has proved so embarrassing to controvertists as to fix the period of Popery's 
 commencement ; some carrying it up to the time of pope Silvester, at the beginning of 
 the fourth century ; others bringing it down to the days of Gregory VII, in the eleventh 
 century. Strange it must seem to every reflecting person, that so remarkable a change as 
 that by which the kingdom of Christ is supposed to have revolted against liim and become 
 the kingdom of Antichrist, should not have been perceptible at the time when it happened, 
 or be capable of being fixed at any time .-iince ! 
 
 I 2 when
 
 64 LETTER TV. 
 
 when she condemned theix' respective errors, during the ages of her 
 greatest power. We shall shortly see on what occasion, and by what 
 authority, this kind of punishment was resorted to in matter of religion. 
 
 You now proceed to general councils, on which head you are content 
 to acknowledge yourself under obligations to Dr. Rennell for so common 
 and hackneyed a quotation as the 3d canon of Lateran iv, (l ) held in 1215, 
 which excommunicated all heretics, and ordered that they should be 
 delivered up to the secular power to undergo due punishment, and that 
 the latter should be obliged, under pain of ecclesiastical censures and the 
 loss of their lands, to extirpate all heretics resident upon them. These are 
 the most material clauses of the canon, which Dr. Rennell gives at length ; 
 who adds, that " no Roman Catholic can disclaim one tittle of it, "(2) 
 and that the titular bishop of Waterford has lately given a comment upon 
 it, by which he admits it in all its latitude. (3) But what would you 
 
 and 
 
 (i) Dr. S. p. ^^, erroneously quotes " the 8th chapter," &c. for the 3d canon, &c. 
 
 (2) Sermon at Cambridge, July i, 179a, p. 50. 
 
 (3) P. 54. — As I do not wish, either from fesentment or policy, to impede the progress of 
 that gentleman in bis professional career, I shall not here take notice of any part of his 
 inconsistant and unchristian language and behaviour, with respect to Catholics and their 
 religion, except what he himself has chosen to make public. It is notorious then to Dr. S. 
 and the other inhabitants of Winchester, that Dr. R. during a long course of years mani- 
 fested the greatest respect and partiality for both of these ; that he openly countenanced with 
 his presence the most obnoxious ceremonies and services of the religion in question ; that his 
 house was for a long time crowded with the French emigrant clergy, to whose religious 
 opinions he drew so close, that they constantly spoke of him as of a man who was in his 
 heart of their persuasion ; finally, that he opposed their quitting the King's-house, for the 
 purpose of turning it into barracks, when the rest of the inspectors were content that this 
 measure should take place. — But let us hear him speak for himself on the merits of the 
 French clergy and the religion for which they suffer : " As the author has been led to an 
 incidental mention of those afliicted men, the venerable college of French ecclesiastics 
 inhabiting the King's-house, Winchester, he cannot but observe, that he feels himself 
 irresistably called upon to pay that homage to their virtues, which a close observation of 
 their character, and an extended acquaintance with many individuals amongst them, have 
 enabled him to do, in the course of his discharge of his duty as inspector of the house, an 
 office with which, in conjunction with six other gentlemen of the place, he has been 
 
 honoured
 
 PERSECUTION. CC, 
 
 and Dr. Rennell say, if I u ere to t'ollovv the account of one of our ancient 
 historians, who denies that these canons in general were the acts of the 
 council itself ; (i) or that of one of your most learned divines, who asserts, 
 that the canon above quoted in particular is spurious ? (2) But, without 
 entering into those discussions, it is proper" that Dr. R. and yourself should 
 he informed, that there is an essential difference, with respect even to 
 general councils, between defining articles of faith, as those are which 
 are opposed to the impieties of the Albigenses in the first canon of this 
 council, and ordering exterior points of discipline, such as those are in 
 this 3d canon. The former are considered as immutable truths, and such 
 as regard the whole church. The latter are frequently limited, with 
 
 honoured by the committee of subscribers. He is persuaded that he speaks the sentitiients 
 of all his colleagues in that respectable office when he says, concerning those persecuted 
 martyrs, that to their edifying piety, their calm and chcarful resignation, their warm and 
 exuberant gratitude, it is impossible to<s^ bear too strong a testimony. Great will be the 
 refreshment of every pious observer, that amidst the scenes of guilt and blood, with which 
 the earth is deluged, that amidst the decay of religious principle with which the world 
 abounds, he can find some circumstance of consolation on which he can rest, and that even 
 in these latter times God hath not left himself without witness here upon earth," Sec. The 
 French Republic founded on Blood-guiltiness, a Sermon preached in the Cathed. of Winch, 
 by Thomas Rennell, &c. Oct. 26, 1793, p. 24. — Let this " strong testimony, as Dr. R. calls 
 it, be contrasted with his raving philippics against the same clergy and religion in most of 
 his late sermons, particularly in that preached at St. Paul's, May 10, 1796, where, in the 
 true style of Lord George Gordon, he declaims against " the idolatry and anti-christianism 
 of Popery.... against the antipathy both of native and foreign Papists, which no benefits can 
 soften. ..against the effects of Roman superstition, in engendering infidel philosophy, Jacobinical 
 anarchy, atheism," Sec. — Is then that religion which produced persecuted martyrs, and which 
 refreshed the pious observer with consolation, that amidst the decay of religious principle God had 
 not left himself •without witness here upon earth, all at once turned into the cause of idolatry, 
 anti-christianism, Jacobinical infidelity, and atheism ? Are all the virtues of the venerable 
 French ecclesiastics, and particularly their exuberatit gratitude, which a close observation of them, 
 and an extensive acquaintance with them, irresistibly called him to pay homage to, on a sudden 
 hardened into insensibility, &c. ? Or is it, that the gale of promotion in favour of Dr. R. 
 appeared to blow from a different quarter formerly, from what it does now ? 
 
 (i) Mat. Paris, addict, an. (2) Collier's Ecc. Hist. vol. i, p. 424. 
 
 respect
 
 60 LETTER VI, 
 
 I'espect both to time and to place, and have no force upon individuals 
 until they are received and published in the several part of Christendom 
 by the civil power, in what regards civil matter; and by the ecclesiastical, 
 in what appertains to the church. Thus many exterior ordinances of 
 discipline that were decreed in the last general council of Trent, not 
 liaving been received in this kingdom, in France, and in other countries, 
 are not there considered as obligatory by the strictest Catholics. And 
 thus the canon in question, admitting it to have been genuine, and to 
 have been received in some places formerly, in regard to the particular 
 case for which it was decreed, has confessedly no force now in any part 
 of the church, (i) In the next place we, vs'ith the Continuator of Fleury, 
 observe, that the ordinances of this council which regarded temporal 
 matters, such as the corporal punishment of heretics, the deposition of 
 magistrates and feudatory princes, and particularly of the earl of Toulouse, 
 who was here glanced at, were made with the concurrence of those who 
 had competent authority in these matters. I speak of the different tem- 
 poral sovereigns of Christendom, most of whom attended this council in 
 person, or by their ambassadors, particularly the emperors of Germany 
 and Constantinople, the kings of England, France, Hungary, Arragon, 
 Sicily, Jerusalem, and Cyprus, with a great number of inferior poten- 
 tates. (2) Lastly, with respect to the justice of the canon in question, 
 it is to be remembered, that in the catalogue of heresies which have 
 prevailed in different ages, there was one of so impious, so perfidious, 
 and so infamous a nature, and above all so destructive of the human 
 species, that a Pagan government would betray its duty which neglected 
 to extirpate it by fire and the sword. Such were the heretics against 
 whom those severities, which you and Dr. R. complain of, were decreed 
 
 (i) If Dr. R. will consult r/jt; Answer to Ahtrndbj, by bishop Hay, and Dorrel's Case 
 stilted, in answer to C. Lesley, Sec. he will find that Catholies in general make the same 
 distinction that I do, in refuting the hackneyed objection drawn from can. iii of La- 
 teran i v . 
 
 '2) Fleury, Hist. Ecc. Contin. 1. l.xxvii. §49. 
 
 in
 
 PERSECUTION. O; 
 
 in the 4th council of Lateran, by a concurrence of the civil and the eccle- 
 siastical power. 
 
 The system of which I have been speaking, whatever might be its 
 origin amongst Pagans, was introduced amongst Christians by Cerdon, 
 Marcion, (]) and others Gnostics, in the age immediately following that 
 of the apostles. The person however who reduced it into form, and was 
 chiefly instrumental in propagating it, was the Persian heresiarch Manes, 
 in the third century. The leading tenet of it was the doctrine of two 
 principles or deities, one the author of good spirits, the New Testament, 
 &c. the other of bad spirits, of the flesh, of the old law, and of the Old 
 Testament. Hence, by a necessary consequence, flowed the impieties and 
 abominations above alluded to, which all cotemporary writers, and the 
 judicial acts still extant, prove to have been held by the Manicheeans ; 
 their denial of Christ's incarnation, their defiling the volumes of the bible 
 and the plate of the altar, their avowed system of perjury, their con- 
 demning the use of all animal food as impure, and still more the propa- 
 gation of mankind, as concurring to the work of the evil deity, whilst 
 ihey let loose the reins to every sensuality which was not productive of 
 that important end. (2) This heresy, like most others, branched out into a 
 
 great 
 
 (i) Tertul. advers. Marcionem. 
 
 (2) St. Augustine, wlio himself bad been nine years engaged in these errors, furnishes 
 the most circumstantial account of them, in Lib. de Hier, and his other writings. Rainier, 
 a learned writer of the 13th century, in giving- an account of the later sects of this heresy, 
 had the same advantage with St. Augustine, in having once been himself a follower of it. 
 The most atithentic information, however, concerning it, is to be derived from the acts of the 
 council of Albi, held againstit in 1 176, and from those of Lateran iii, in 1 179. The same may 
 be gathered from "the first canon of the 4th Lateran council, mentioned above, which, in op- 
 position to the Albigenses, defines the existence' of one God or first principle, the Creator 
 of all things, that the Devils were not from all eternity evil, but fell by sin, &c. that persons 
 may be saved in a state of marriage, as well as in that of celibacy, &c. With these ac- 
 counts agree those of our English historians, 'particularly Hoveden, Pars Post. Hen. II, 
 Gervas. Doiob. p. 1441, Ed. Twys. Gul. Neubrig. 1. ii, c. 13, Mat. Paris, an. 1215. The 
 latter mentions, in particular, their profanations of the scripture. " Libros evangeliorum in 
 sentinas projecerunt et calices cum vasis sacris enormiter dehonestaverunt." Even Limborch, 
 
 in
 
 08 LETTER IV. 
 
 great variety of sects, and assumed different names ; the current however 
 of its leading doctrines is clearly traced through the countries which it has 
 principally infected, from the infancy of the church down to a late period 
 in the middle centuries : some writers even bring it down to the com- 
 pletion of impiety and wickedness which we witness at the present day.(l) 
 From Persia, and the neighbouring provinces, where it principally pre- 
 vailed in the early centuries, we pursue it to the mountains of Armenia, 
 where, under the name of Pauhcians, its adherants carried on long and 
 bloody wars against the emperors of the East, at the close of the ninth 
 century. Its first grand establishment in the West, was in the kingdom 
 of Bulgaria, between the Danube and the Black Sea, then newly con- 
 verted to the faith. Thence it was propagated into France, Italy, and Spain, 
 in the loth and ilth centuries; from which circumstance, its adherents ob- 
 tained the general name of Bulgari, a name which has ever since continued 
 to denote persons addicted to the infamous practices to which they w^ere 
 addicted. (2) They were also called, in different times and places, Albi- 
 genses, Poplicoli, Paterini, Cathari, Turlupins, Beghardi, Brethren of the 
 Free Spirit, &c. all of which are proved to be of the same Manichean 
 stock, by their holding the discriminating doctrines of that heresy. In the 
 12th century it made its appearance in England, but did not succeed there, 
 the apostles of it being abandoned with abhorrence by all mankind. (3) 
 It was against these pests of society and human nature that fires were 
 
 in his History of the Inquisition, is obliged to acknowledge the impiety and wickedness of 
 these heretics. The best modern account of them, and of their distinction from the 
 Waldenses, with whom Dr. S. confounds them, p. 60, is to be met with in Bossiiet's Varia- 
 ,tions> b. xi. 
 
 (i) Abbe Barruel in his Mem. de Jacobinism. 
 
 (2; " Paterini et Bugares de quorum errore male tacere quani loqui." " Frater Robertus 
 (qui cognomcnto Bugre dicebatur) qui ab illo convcrsus, habitum suscepit praedicatorum." 
 Mat. Paris, an. 1244. 
 
 (3) " lisdem diebus (an 1163) crronei quidam vencrunt in Angliam, quos vulgo publicanos 
 vocant...baptisma, eucharistiam, conjuglum detestantes," Sec. Rer. Angl. Gul. Neubrig. 
 1. ii, C.13. 
 
 first
 
 PERSECUTION. 6q 
 
 first lighted in the west, (l) not by a pope, or other churchmen, but by the 
 rehgious king, Robert of France, in 1022 ; and it was to repress and root 
 out these, when, confiding in their numbers and the power of their protec- 
 tors, they proceeded to propagate their opinions by the sword, burning down 
 churches and monasteries, and perpetrating indiscriminate slaughter on all 
 ages, degrees, and sexes, (2) that the crusade of our Simon de INIontford 
 and the inquisilion were set on foot, and that the canons which you 
 and Dr. R. complain of were passed. See, Sir, into what disgraceful 
 company your zeal against Popery, and that of the note-^^'riter in the 
 Pursuits of Literature, (3) causes you and him to degrade yourselves, and 
 the cause of Protestancy with you, when, on the credit of such superficial 
 modern writers as INIezerai and Sandius, (4) you claim kindred with the 
 Albigenses. (o) I am happy, however, on the strength of more ancient 
 and authentic authorities, to disprove the relationship, and to shew that 
 there are tew features common to you and them, except your unfortunate 
 prejudice against the original parent stock, from which you both 
 separated. 
 
 From your much lamented persecution of the Albigenses, (to which 
 however we are indebted for the continuance of society and the human 
 
 (1) Fleury, Hist. Ecc. 1. 58, §54. I.59, §5. 
 
 (2) See Act Concil. iii, Lateral). Gervas. Dorob. p. 1451. Fleury, Sec. 
 
 (3) Part IV, note upon note to verse 190. 
 
 (4) Both these writers, no less than Dr. S. confound the tu o very different sects of Wal- 
 denses and Albigenses together. 
 
 (5) Mosheini speaking of the Albigenses, Turlupins, Begards, or Brethren of the Free Spi- 
 rit, as they called themselves, in the 13th centurj^, says : " Certain writers, who have accus- 
 tomed themselves to entertain a high idea of the sanctity of all those who, in the middle ages, 
 separated themselves from the church of Rome, suspect the inquisitors of having attributed 
 falsely impious doctrines to the Brethren of the Free Spirit. But this suspicion is entirely 
 o-roundless. Sec... Their shocking violation of decency was a consequence of their perni- 
 cious system. They looked upon decency and modesty as marks of inward corruption 
 
 Certain enthusiasts amongst them maintained, that the beJiever could not sin, let his con- 
 duct be ever so horrible or atrocious. Eccles. Hist. vol. ili, p. 284, by Maclaine. 
 
 K. race)
 
 /O LETTER TV. 
 
 race) you pass on to those exercised against WyclifF and Huss, by the 
 council of Constance. The chief of what you say concerning the former 
 of these, occurs later in your work, where you extol his courage and 
 vigour of mind, excuse his errors, and condemn the impotent vengeance 
 of the council, in causing his bones to be burnt, (l) A spirit of candour. 
 Sir, would have led you to the discoverv of something like tolei'ation in 
 the conduct of your illustrious founder, Wykeham, (2) and his brethren, 
 who, whilst they condemned Wycliff's errors, left his person vinpunished 
 and unmolested during the whole of his life; and an impartial view of the 
 dreadtul effects of his doctrine in this and other countries, would have 
 made you see, in the ordinance of the council against his memory and 
 remains, not an act of vengeance, but a wise and salutary instruction to 
 mankind. In speaking of this doctrine you say, that " there might be 
 some mixture of what was exceptionable in his opinions." (3) Is this. Dr. 
 Sturges, the proper qualification, particularly in such times as these, for 
 the most seditious and incendiary doctrines that ever were broached in 
 these kingdoms } Which, I pray you, Sir, of the inflammatory orators or 
 w^riters of the day has approached to the seditious excesses of WyclifF, 
 where he teaches the people, that if they can discover any mortal sin, 
 that is to say, any signal violation of sobriety, chastity, piety, meekness, 
 or humility in their rector, bishop, magistrate, or sovereign, they are at 
 liberty to disclaim his authority, and depose him if it is in their power? (4) 
 Which of them has instructed us, that we are not obliged to pay our 
 taxes or our tythes, or to regard any laws or statutes, unless the justice of 
 
 (i)P-75- 
 
 (2) Wykeham was one of the foremost prelates in condemnnig the errors of WycHtT, who, 
 
 in his turn, was the tool of the duke of Lancaster, Wykeham's great enemy and persecutor. 
 
 See Walsingham, Knyghton, Brady, &c. (3) P. 75. 
 
 (4) " Nullus est dominus civilis, nullus episcopus, nullus prselatus dum est in peccato 
 
 mortali." Opiniones et Conclusiones Mag. J. WyclifF, Error. 7. Knyghton, Col, 2648. 
 
 Walsing. Hist, Ang, p. 283. 
 
 them
 
 PERSECUTION. 7I 
 
 them can be demonstrated from the scripture ?(0 Which of them has 
 dared to tell our courts of justice, that they cannot lawfully exact an oath 
 from any witness , (2) or confirm the title of an estate to any person for 
 him and his heirs for ever ? (3) Which of them has proclaimed the sinful- 
 ness of a clergyman's having any temporal property, and has tumultuously 
 called upon the people to assist in despoiling them of it ? (4) I pass lightly 
 over a great number of other impious and seditious tenets of Wycliff and 
 his chief disciples, John Aston, Nicholas Hereford, William Swynderby, 
 &c. tending to the destruction of all religion, natural as well as revealed, 
 and to general robbery, massacre, and anarchy ; such as, that God ought 
 to obey the Devil; (5) that all human actions happen by inevitable 
 necessity ; (6) that literary institutions, such as colleges and universities, 
 are diabolical; (7) that it is unlawful to pray in churches or to keep holy 
 the Lord's day; (8) that if ecclesiastics are guilty of any sin their temporal 
 princes ought to cut ofi' their heads, and that if the prince himself is 
 guilty of sin, it is the business of the people to punish him. (9) 
 
 Nor were the doctrines of Wycliti', to whose " merit, amongst the 
 
 (i) " Ubi leges human.-c noti fundantvir in sciiptvira sacra subditi non tenentur obedire." 
 . Walsing. ibid. 
 
 (3) "Non licet aliquo modo jurare." "Nam sequela cujuslibet dicti eorum talis erat. 
 3; am .snhfr, ^t i^ ?Otij," &c. Knyght, Col. 2707. 
 
 (^) " Chartae humanitus adinventas, [de hsereditate civili perpetua, sunt impossibiles. 
 Deus non potest dare homini pro se et hwredibus suis," &c. Walsing. p. 204. 
 
 (4) " Est contra scripturam sacram quod viri ecclesiastici habeant temporales possessiones." 
 Knyglit. Col. 2648. — " Nunquam erit bona pax in regno isto, quousque teniporalia ista aufe- 
 rantur a viris ecclesiasticis et idee rogabat populuni, nianibus cxtensis, unusquisque adjuvaret 
 in ista materia." Walsingham, p. 284. 
 
 (5) " Deus debet obedire Diabolo." H^res Wycliff. Knyght. Col. 2648. 
 
 (6) Art. 27, Wycl. condemn. In Concil. Constan. 
 
 (7) Ibid. art. 29. (8) Hypodig. Walsing. p. 557, 
 
 (9) " Quod si persona ecclesiastica deliquerit et se non emendaverit licitum estdominis 
 secularibus hujusmodi radere per scapulas. Si dominus temporalis deliquerit licitum est po- 
 pularibus ipsum corrigere." Knyght. Col. 2657. 
 
 K 2 reformers,"
 
 72 LETTER IV. 
 
 reformers," you profess so much " respect and gratitude," (i) of an un- 
 productive nature. By the ministry of his chief apostles, John de Aston, 
 Nicholas de Hereford, William de Swynderby, John Purney, John Straw, 
 John Ball, and others, they were quickly disseminated through the mass 
 of the people; (2) and in the short space of four years, from the opening of 
 his mission, (3) produced that rank harvest of insurrection, plunder, 
 murder, and civil war, with which every one knows the reign of Richard 
 II was disgraced. It is true, that, amongst the ministers of state, only the 
 chancellor and primate, Sudbury, the lord treasurer, Hales, and the chief 
 justice. Cavendish, were actually put to death by the misled rioters ; but 
 it is clearly proved, that their intention was to have killed the king him- 
 self, with all the nobility, bishops, rectors, canons, and monks, who 
 sinned against WycliiF's fundamental doctrines, concerning the unlaw- 
 fulness of retaining temporal possessions, leaving only the friars to officiate 
 for them, who observed the strict poverty of which' they themselves made 
 profession. (-4) These rebellions, Sir, which nearly proved fatal to the king- 
 dom, are as evidently traced to the revolutionary and equalizing doctrines 
 of WyclifF and his followers, as an effect is to its cause in any other 
 instance whatsoever, and the same is possitively affirmed by cotemporary 
 writers, who had the best means of judging rightly in this point. One of 
 them remarks the circumstance of the rebellion breaking out at the same 
 
 (I) P-75- 
 
 (3) " Wyclyviani sive Lollardi...in tantuni in suls laboriosis dogmatibus prtevaluerunt 
 
 quod niediam partem populi, aut niajorem partem suse sectse adquisierunt. Quosdam autem 
 
 ex corde, quosdam vero prae timore et verecundia." Knyghton, Col. 2664. This author had 
 
 before contrasted the meekness of Christ with the violence of the Lollards : " Assistere 
 
 Solent juxta sic inepte praedicantes gladio et pelta stipati ad eorum defensionem....Christi 
 
 doctrina est, Si quis vos non audierit excuMe pzdverem pedum vestrorum in testimonium illis. 
 
 Istorum Wyclyvianorum disciplina longe aliter se habet : Si quis vos non audierit, eximite gla- 
 
 dium et percutite cum." Col. 2663. 
 
 (3) The first preaching of Wycliff is referred by Walsingham to the year 1377. Hypodig. 
 p. 531. The insurrection of the populace took place in June, 1381. 
 
 (4) See the dying confession of John Straw. Walsing. Hist. Ang. p. 365. 
 
 time
 
 PERSECUTION. 73 
 
 time in all the ditferent counties in which it raged, namely, in Kent, 
 Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, and that this 
 time was no other than the week appointed for celebrating the institution 
 of the blessed Eucharist, (i) which is well known to have been the chief 
 article of the received faith that Wvcl iff declaimed against. But What 
 alone is decisive as to this matter is, that the main body of the rebels,, 
 under Wat Heyler or Tyler, had for their chaplain a professed Lollard 
 priest, viz. John Ball, who in his famous sermon to them on Black-heath, 
 preached up to them every crime which they actually committed or endea- 
 voured to commit. (2) 
 
 It is clear, from our ancient historians, that the subsequent seditions 
 which marked this and the following reigns, are equally to be ascribed to 
 the pestiferous doctrines of these democratical reformers. Two years after 
 the grand insurrection above mentioned, the populace of the metropolis 
 were instigated by Wycliffand his followers, chiefly out of hatred against 
 the prelates, to fresh and violent outrages. (3) In the first year of our vic- 
 torious Henry V, Wyclitf's disciples, not content with claiming toleration 
 for themselves, fixed advertisements to the doors of the churches in 
 London, giving notice, that they were ready to rise to the number of 
 100,000 men against all those who did not relish their opinions. (4) Nor 
 
 was 
 
 (j) The octave week of Corpus Christi. Walsing. Hist. p. 266. 
 
 (3) " Docuit Joannes Ball perversa dogmata Joannis Wycliff, et opiniones quas tenuit et 
 insanias falsas... Propter qu£e prohibitus ab episcopo ne in ecclesiis prsedicaret, concessit in 
 plateas et vicos, vel in campos ad praedicandum. Postremo excommunicatus, cum nee sic 
 desisteret carceri mancipatur, ubi praedixit se deliberandmn per 20,000 amicorum, quod 
 postea evenit. Cum taliter deliberatus fuisset eos secutus est instigans ad plura mala perpe- 
 tranda. Ad le Black-heth, ubi 200,000 hominum fuerunt congregata hujus modi sermonem 
 est exortus : ailjr.a iDnui Dalfc aiio €lic jSpan, toijo Vnaji ti:an a <5cntlEuiaii ? Walsing. Hist. 
 
 P-2"5- 
 
 (3J " Londonlenses isto tempore coeperunt ultra modum insolescere, in perniciosum ex- 
 
 emplum urbium aliarum Aniuiati enim erant per Joannem Wyclift' et sequaces ejus ad 
 
 hujusmodi perpetranda in reprobationem prirlatorum." Walsing. Hist. p. 288. 
 
 (4) " Eo tempore LoUardi fixerunt shedulas in valvis ecclesiarum Londoniis, quae con- 
 
 tinebant
 
 ;4 LETTER VI, 
 
 \N'as this a vain threat, for in the following year, \\z. 1414, they endea- 
 voured to put it in execution in St. Giles's-fields, which their leader, the 
 famous Sir John Oldcastle, had appointed for their place of rendezvous ; 
 but being prevented by the activity of their warlike prince, several of 
 them Mere taken prisoners, and, after conviction, "were executed as 
 rebels; (l) many of whose names are inserted b}'- Fox in his Book of 
 Martyrs. (2) Three years later Oldcastle himself, who had hitherto 
 eluded the hand of justice, being apprehended, was examined in parlia- 
 ment, when he rested his chief plea on the pretended unlawfulness of 
 capital punishments. (3) Being condemned and brought to the place of exe- 
 cution, such was the delirium of his fanaticism, that he besought Sir 
 Thomas Erpingham, there present, to exert himself in procuring pro- 
 tection for the AA^ycliffites, in case he himself should rise to life on the 
 third day after his execution. (4) It was in consequence. Sir, of such 
 doctrines as the aforesaid, and of the fatal fruits of such doctrines, that the 
 act de Hceretico Comburendo was passed by the parliament in the reign 
 of Henry IV, without any solicitation either from the pope or the clergy ; 
 and it was owing to this very measure, on the part of the legislature, that 
 a single acre of land has been left in the realm for your support, or that 
 of any other clergyman. We have in this another instance of the blind- 
 ness of your zeal against Popery, no less than of John Fox's, and of certain 
 
 tinebaiit 100,000 parata ad insurgendum contra cunctos qui non saperent sectam suam. In- 
 vitabantur nempe viribus et ingenio cujusdam Joannis Oldcastell," &c. Walsing. p. 385. 
 (i) Walsingbam, p. 386. 
 
 (2) Amongst others are, Sir Roger Acton, J. Browne. J. Beverly, R. Silbeck, J. Claydon, 
 no less than Oldcastle himself, and the above-mentioned seditious preachers, Ashton, Swyn- 
 dcrby, &c. 
 
 (3) " Quffisitum fuit ab eo qualiter se yoluit excusare...coepit prsedicare.,.vindictam fore 
 bolius Dei," &c. Ibid. p. 399. 
 
 (4) " Adjurans eum ut si cerneret eum tertia die resurgere pacem procuraret sectse suae." 
 Ibid, p. 400. 
 
 other
 
 I'ERSECTJTIO^^ 75 
 
 other writers, which overlooks every consideration of private interest and 
 public benefit, in order to vilify the church of your ancestors, (l) 
 
 The communication between England and Bohemia, in consequence of 
 the marriage of Richard II with a princess of that kingdom, caused 
 Wyclitf's doctrines to be speedily wafted thither. They were principally 
 supported, in the university of Prague, by John Huss (to whose history 
 jou next direct our attention, (2) by way of proving that persecution is a 
 tenet of the Catholic faith) and upon the same motive of private resent- 
 ment, (3) which had occasioned their first publication in that of Oxford. (l) 
 They were productive however of still more fatal consequences in that 
 kingdom, than they had occasioned in this. They first caused violent 
 seditions, in which Huss himself took an active part, (5) They next excited 
 a general insurrection of the populace; and they ended in a dreadful fana- 
 tical revolution, which for many years deluged the plains of Bohemia 
 with blood. (G) You will please to observe. Sir, that if John Huss and 
 Jerom of Prague were put to death for heresy, it was not until the 
 doctrines of that heresy were proved l)y their effects, as well as by argu- 
 ments, to be utterly inconsistent with the peace of society and the very 
 existence of civil government. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, you maintain, that the execution of these men 
 
 (i) One of the most learned and respectable advocates of the established church, Dr. 
 Heylin, finds great fault with those who commend this precursor of the Reformation, Wy- 
 clift', of whom he says, " many of his opinions were so far from truth, so contrary to 
 peace and civil order, so inconsistent with the government of the church of Christ, as to 
 be utterly unworthy of so great a character. But such is the humour of some men as to 
 call every separation from the church of Rome the gospel, and the greater the separation, 
 the more pure the gospel." Animadvers. on Fuller, p. 65. 
 
 (2) Pp.84, 86. (3) Fleury, Ecc. Hist. 1. c. 
 
 (4) Ilarpsfield de Hist. Wycl. (5) Fleury, Hist. Liv. Contin. 1. ci, §40, 44. 
 
 (6) The Hussites began their career by murdering the mayor of Prague, they then over- 
 turned the government of the" kingdom, after fighting several pitched battles against their 
 sovereign in the field, and after every where burning down monasterieSj murdering the 
 clergy, £cc. jEneas Sylv. ap, Fleury. 
 
 by
 
 70 -LETTER IV. 
 
 hy a general council, after safe-conducts had been granted them, is a 
 proof, that the church held not only the teact of persecution, but also 
 that of perjury, (l) But, in the first place, is it true, that either John 
 Huss or Jerom of Prague was put to death by the council ? No, Sir, for 
 the council having examined their faith and excommunicated them, 
 expressly declared, that it had no power to proceed further against 
 them. (2) They were both of them successively committed to the flames 
 by order of the magistrates of Constance, in virtue of the standing laws 
 of the empire to this effect. (.3) 2dly, But were they not at least burnt 
 " at the instance of the council," as you assert was the case ? No, Sir, we 
 have the acts of the council still extant, and we have an elaborate 
 history of it by a celebrated Calvinist, (4) but no traces of such a solicitation 
 or instance on its part is to be discovered. On the contrary, the emperor 
 Sigismund, long before the condemnation of Huss, declared in the council, 
 that the errors of which he was accused, if proved against him, were 
 deserving of death; (5) and he assured Huss himself, if he did not retract 
 them, that he himself would, with his own hands, light the tire to burn 
 him. (6) You w ill then say, that the emperor at least violated his faith, 
 in causing John Huss to be executed, after the safe conduct which he 
 had given him ; and, in like manner, that the council itself was guilty 
 of perfidy in permitting Jerom of Prague to be put to death, who came 
 to it, as you say, " protected by the public faith of the council itself." 
 Permit me to ask, have you ever examined the different safe-conducts of 
 these two innovators ? If you have, you will have seen, that t e safe- 
 conduct of Huss is nothing more than a common travelling passport to 
 protect him from seizure or violence on his journey to and from the 
 council, where he loudly boasted, that he should prove his faith to be 
 orthodox ; but not in any sort any exemption from the ordinary course of 
 law, in case he should be found guilty of heresy. Neither did Huss 
 
 (1) P. 75. (2) Act Concil. Sess. XV. 
 
 (3) Made by the emperor Frederic II. (4) L'Enfant. 
 
 (.5) Ibid, b. iii, n. 12. (6) Ibid, n. 6. 
 
 solicit.
 
 PERSECUTION. '|^ 
 
 solicit, nor the emperor ever think of granting, an exemption of that 
 nature, (i) With respect to the safe-conduct of Jeroni of Prague, which 
 was granted at his request by the council, after he had imposed upon it 
 by a feigned retraction and clandestinely withdrawn from it, (2) a clause 
 was inserted to prevent the clamours which had been raised on the seizure 
 of Huss, and to guard against its being considered as derogating either 
 from the canon or the civil laws. (3) See, Sir, how many calumnies you 
 have heaped together against all the most learned and virtuous prelates of 
 Christendom in the i5th century, and in what glaring absurdities and im- 
 pieties you have involved yourself, in order to raise two seditious dogma- 
 tizers of Bohemia to the rank of " Martyrs of Jesus." (4) 
 
 Your 
 
 (i) In the advertisements which Huss caused to be fixed on the churches of Bohemia he 
 says : " I am going to the council to make it clear whether I have held or taught any 
 erroneous doctrines, which if they can prove against me I will readily submit to all the 
 pains of heretics." Before the council itself he declared, that " if a heretic will not re- 
 nounce his errors he ought to be corporally punished." L'Enfant, Hist. Cone. b. i. n. 61, 
 b. iii, n. 7. See a compleat investigation of this matter, in an Answer to the Rev. W. 
 Abernethy's Letter, by the Rev. G. Hay, V. A. EJinburg, 1778. It is proper to add, 
 that if Huss had been provided with a safe-conduct, as ample as Dr. S. supposes it to have 
 been, he nevertheless would have forfeited the benefit of it by his attempt to fly from Con- 
 stance, and still more by his continuing afterwards to inculcate his errors in that very city, 
 as was observed in the 10th session of the council. See Contin. Fleury, 1. cii. 
 
 (3) Though the council was guilty of no breach of faith to Jerom, yet was he guilt}' of a 
 flagrant breach of it to the council, in pronouncing a solemn condemnation of Wycliff" and 
 Huss, and making an explicit declaration of Catholic faith, both of which were foreign to 
 his mind, as he afterwards confessed. The Remonstrant or Arminian ministers, who, to 
 the number of 15, assisted at the synod of Dort, to give an account of their faith, on a 
 public summons to this effect, complained with more reason of a violation of public faith, 
 when they found themselves, at the breaking up of the synod, seized upon and hurried 
 away into perpetual exile, without being allowed so nmch as to see their fan ilie? . See De 
 Brandt. Hist. Ref. vol. ii. 
 
 (3) By the clause Salva Justltia. Contin. Fleury, 1. cii. 
 
 (4) P. 56. This is quoted from the early works of a prelate, now venerable for his age 
 as well as his learning, who has seen cause to doubt, in the course of late events, whether 
 it is quite so certain that the bishop of Rome is Antichristj as he once supposed. Let that 
 
 L matter
 
 78 LETTER Vi, 
 
 Your next argument, of persecution being a tenet of Catholic faith, is 
 drawn from the massacre of Paris, and the aliedged approbation of it by 
 a pope, namely, the celebrated reformer of the calendar, Gregory XIII. 
 With respect to the horrid deed itself of blood and perfidy, I will not 
 attempt to justify it, as the king, the qviecn dowager, and their ministers 
 did, at the time when it happened, by pretending that the Huguenots 
 were on the point of executing a plot to destroy them, and to overturn 
 the government ; (i) because it is now clear from history, that no such plot 
 then existed. I will not even extenuate its atrociousness by expatiating 
 on the two real conspiracies for seizing on this very king and his court, 
 and for subverting the constitution of their country, which the Calvinists 
 actually attempted to execute; (2) or on the four pitched battles which 
 they had fought against the armies of their sovereign ; or on their 
 treachery in delivering up Havre de Grace, the key of the kingdom, into 
 the hands of a foreign potentate, queen Elizabeth ; or even upon the 
 
 matter be as It may, I ask Dr. S. by what criterion of sanctity he pronounces those men 
 martyrs, who were chiefly condemned for holding that dominion is founded in grace ; that 
 110 one is a true king, hishop, &'c. ivhilst he is' in mortal sin ; that the people have a right to punish 
 their rulers ; that it is contrary to the law of Christ to bestozu properly on the church ? In fact it 
 has been demonstrated by Bossuet, Variat. h. xi, § 165, and is admitted by the learned Protes- 
 tants whom he quotes, that Huss and Jerom, on almost every point of modern controversy, 
 except communion in both kinds, (a mere matter of changeable discipline) maintained the 
 doctrine of Catholics, and particularly in those of transubstantiation, the mass, the intercession 
 of saints, purgatory, and the seven sacraments. By what criterion then, I ask again, does 
 Dr. S. and also bishop Hurd canonize them, unless they conceive that to have opposed the 
 established pastors of the church in any cause, however wicked, was meritorious, and that to 
 die in such a cause was to become a martyr of Jesus? 
 
 (1) Maimbourg, Hist. Calvin, l.-vi. 
 
 (3) Those of Ambpise and Meaux, the latter of which appeared so heinous in the king's 
 eyes, that he vowed never to forgive it. The Huguenots had before, when they took up 
 arms against him in 156a, threatened him with the greatest indignities, namely, to whip 
 him and bind him an apprentice to a mechanical trade. Ibid, 1. iv. It appears from Thuanus 
 that his chief resentment was directed against Coligni, and that it was the murder of him 
 which drew on that of the other Protestants. 
 
 massacres
 
 PERSECUTION, 79 
 
 massacres with which they themselves had previously inundated all 
 France, (l) So far from this, I am ready to exclaim with Tlnianus, or with 
 yourself, in contemplating the horrors of St.Bartholomew's-day : Excldat 
 ilia dies eevo, nee postern credant scecida. (2) But, Sir, let the blame 
 fall where it is due, on the black vengeance of the unrelenting Charles IX, 
 and on the remorseless ambition of the unprincipled Catherine of Medicis, 
 who alternately favoured the Catholics and Huguenots, as seemed best to 
 suit her own interest. The very calumnj' that I mentioned before, which 
 the king and queen invented to excuse their barbarity, is a sufficient proof 
 that thev did not conceive it lawful, to commit such crimes to serve their 
 religion, (3) for which indeed they neither of them felt much zeal ; and 
 OS this savage villainy was contrived without the participation of the 
 French clergy, so they were the most forward at the time to oppose its 
 completion, (4) and have ever since been the most warm in reprobating 
 it. (5) 
 
 (i) Not to speak, of the innumerable massacres committed by the Calvinists of France, 
 upon priests, religious, and other unarmed people, during the civil wars which they carried on 
 against their sovereigns, some of which have been already noticed, Davila relates, that upon 
 the death of Francis II, when liberty of conscience was granted them, besides burning 
 down churches and monasteries, they massacred people in the very streets of Paris. Heylin 
 relates, that in the time of a profound peace, these same people, taking offence at the pro- 
 cession of Corpus Christi, performed in the cily of Pamiers, fell upon the whole clergy 
 who composed it and murdered them ; and that they afterwards committed the same outrages 
 at Montauban, Rodez, Valence, Sec. Hist. Presb. 1. ii. (i) Thuan ex Static. 
 
 (3) This further appears from the proclamation of Charles immediately after the massacre : 
 " Eodem die edictum promulgatur, quo rex testabatur quidquid in hac re accidisset suo 
 diserto mandato gestum esse, non religionis odio, sed ut nefaris Colinii et sociorum conju- 
 rationi obviani iret." Thuan, 1. lii. 
 
 (4) It is particularly recorded of Henuycr, a Dominican friar and bishop of Lisicux, that 
 he opposed, to the utmost of his power, the execution of the king's order for the murder 
 of the Protestants in his diocese, answering the governor of the province when he commu- 
 nicated it to him : It is the duty of the good shepherd to lay dozutt his li/e for his sheep, not to let 
 them be slaughtered before his face. These are mj sheep, though they have gone astray, and I am 
 resolved te run all hazards in protecting them. Maimb. 
 
 (5) See Maimb. Contin. Flcury, &c. 
 
 L 2 But
 
 80 
 
 LETTER TV. 
 
 But you say, " I do not lay so much stress upon the act itself of the 
 massacre, as upon the joy expressed, and the marked approbation given 
 it, by the pope, in the public thanksgivings and rejoicings with which he 
 celebrated it." (i) You had undertaken. Sir, to produce bulls and declara- 
 tions of the popes establishing persecution as " a tenet of the Catholic 
 religion ;" (2) and you here refer me to the individual act of a pontiff, 
 which establishes no doctrine whatsoever, and in which he was as liable 
 to act wrong from ignorance or malice, as another man. If, Sir, I were 
 satisfied that Gregory XIII had approved of the foul deed of St. Bartho- 
 lomew's-day, after having viewed it in the same clear and steady light in 
 which you and I behold it, now that the clouds of royal calumny in 
 which it was invested have been dispersed, I should not even then think 
 that persecution was proved to be a tenet of his faith, but I should judge 
 him to have partaken of Charles's and Catharine's sanguinary disposition, 
 in opposition to the character which historians have stamped upon him. 
 But you will recollect the infinite pains which the French king 
 took, by letters, ambassadors, rejoicings, and medals, to make both his 
 subjects and foreign princes, but most of all the pope, believe, that in 
 killing the Huguenots he had only taken a necessary measure of self 
 defence to preserve his own life, together with the constitution and 
 religion of his kingdom. (3) If we admit these to have been believed 
 at Rome and Madrid, as there is every reason to suppose they actually 
 were, the rejoicings at those courts will put on a very different appear- 
 ance from that in which you exhibit them. 
 
 Your next common place is the inquisition, which you tell us, " corn- 
 pries in itself all the horrors of religious persecution." (1) But, Sir, 
 give me leave to observe to yoii, that the practices, and the very existence 
 of the inquisition, have as little connection with the Catholic religion as 
 they have with my History of Winchester, where they are not, to my 
 
 (I) P.54- 
 
 (3) ThuanuSj 1. iii. 
 
 (2) P. 52. 
 Maimb. 1. vi. 
 
 (4) P- 54- 
 
 recollection.
 
 PERSECUTION. 81 
 
 recollection, once mentioned. If I wanted arguments in favour of this 
 assertion, you yourself have furnished me with them. For you not only 
 ascribe a very late date to it, but also you tell us, that " several Catholic 
 countries, dreading the miseries which such a tribunal would produce, 
 persevered in refusing to admit it."(l) Is not this equivalent to a 
 confession, that the inquisition neither was, nor was considered as any part 
 of the religion of Catholics ; any more than the court of high commission, 
 which bore a near resemblance with it, both in its severity and in its 
 forms, (2) made part of the religion of Protestants ? It is not necessary 
 then to say any more on this subject, than barely to animadvert on two 
 considerable mistakes, as to matter of fact, which you have fallen into 
 concerning it. It is not true then, as you. Sir, assert, that St. Dominic 
 was the founder of the inquisition, or even a member of it; for it did 
 not even exist until after his death, (s) I grant that he vigorously 
 
 (1) P-55- 
 
 (2) The Dissenters filled the kingdom with complaints of the oppression which they 
 suffered from this court during the reigns of Elizabeth and the two first Stuarts, representing 
 it as much more intolerable than the inquisition itself. The historian Hume gives the fol- 
 lowing account of it : " Any word or writing which tended towards heresy, schism, or 
 sedition, was punishable by the high commissioners, or any three of them : they alone were 
 judges what expressions had that tendency : they proceeded, not by information, but upon 
 rumour, suspicion, or according to their own fancy. They administered an oath, by which 
 the party cited before them was bound to answer any question which should be propounded 
 to him : whoever refvised this oath, though under pretext that he might be thereby brought 
 to accuse himself, or his dearest friend, was punishable by imprisonment. In short, an 
 inquisitorial tribunal, with all its terrors and iniquities, was erected in the kingdom. Full 
 discretionary powers were bestowed witli regard to the inquiry, trial, sentence, and penalty 
 inflicted ; except only, that corporal punishments were restrained by the patent of the prince 
 which erected that court, not by the act of parliament which empowered him," &c. Hist, 
 of Engl. James I, c. vi. — A curious specimen of its vexatious and rigorous proceedings under 
 Elizabeth, was the search made in John Stow, the historian's, library, for forbidden books. 
 See an account of this transaction, and of the books seized upon as unlawful and papistical, 
 in Stype's Life of Grind:d. 
 
 (3) Butler's Lives of Saints, Aug. 4. Moiheim, ssec. xiii, who blames Limborch for falling 
 into this error. 
 
 opposed
 
 82 LETTER IV, 
 
 opposed the pernicious errors of the Albigenses, and that he converted 
 an incredible number of them ; but he never made use of any other arms 
 for this purpose than preaching, prayer, and the example of his virtues.(l) 
 On the other hand, it is a fact, that this tribunal, with all its severity, 
 w^as not competent to pass sentence of death, or the loss of limbs upon 
 any person whomsoever. 
 
 From the authority of councils and popes, you descend to that of 
 Catholic writers, on which topic you present us with a note, borrowed 
 from bishop Hurd's Introduction, concerning the opinion of Bossuet in 
 this matter. (2) Before I proceed any further. Sir, I must take the liberty 
 of complaining,- that the English bishop has both unfairly garbled and 
 imfaitlifully translated the passage of the French prelate. It is true then, 
 that Bossuet, writing under an absolute prince, just after the revocation of 
 the edict of Nantz, asserts " the right of sovereigns to use the sword against 
 their subjects, who are enemies of sound doctrine," without which, he 
 thinks, " the power of the legislature would be enervated and maimed." 
 But how does he attempt to prove his point ? Not by producing any 
 principle or decision of his own church to this effect, as in fact no such 
 decision or principle exists, but by an argumentum ad honiinein, or a 
 reference to the doctrine of the founders, and other most illustrious 
 writers of the Reformation on the point in question. He particularly cites 
 the works of Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, and Jurieu, (3) and likewise 
 the standing discipline of the church of Geneva, in confirmation of his 
 opinion. (-4) In reproaching then Bossuet with his persecuting doctrine, 
 bishop Hurd and yourself act uncandidly in suppressing the authority on 
 which he places it, namely, the maxims of the chief Protestants. This 
 
 (t) Contin. Fleury. Butler. (2) Pp.55, ^6. 
 
 (3) To these names he might have added those of Beza (see his work de Hereticis 
 puniendis a Civili Magistratu), Bullinger, Capito, Buccr, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, 
 
 Kdwin, he. &c. 
 
 (4) He might have added, of England, Scotland, 5cc. 
 
 being
 
 PERSECUTION. 83 
 
 being' so, it is an absurdity, as well as a falsity, to put into this author's 
 mouth the following sentence: There is no illusion more dani^erous than 
 to consider TOLERATION as a mark of the true church, Avhen in 
 fart, he did not admit that there was an atom of toleration amongst the 
 adversaries with whom he was contending. The truth is, he barely denies 
 that a state of SUFFERING is a mark of the true church, which was the 
 actual condition of the French Calvinists at the time when he wrote, (l) 
 In a word, Sir, whatever might have been the private opinion of Bossuet 
 on the lawfulness and expediency of revoking the edict of Nantz, and 
 whatever apprehensions you may affect to entertain for my orthodoxy in 
 
 (i ) "II n'y a point d'illusion plus dangereuse, que dc donner LASOUFFRANCE pour uu 
 charactere de vraj'e eglise." Hist, des Variat. ]. x, ^ ^^. Dr. S. admits, tliat Bossuet, 
 in the work, here quoted, proves his main point, namely, " the great variety of religious 
 opinions professed by Protestants." But he says, that there has been almost as great a dif- 
 ference of opinion amongst Catholics, only that this " has been concealed by the broad 
 mantle of papal supremacy." P. 58. What is this but to acknowledge that advantage of 
 the latter which Grotius points out, in having a superior and efficient authority for 
 composing their differences. See the above note, pp.28, 29. — Dr. S. also admits, that 
 Bossuet's inference, from the acknowledged variety of Protestants, concerning " the neces- 
 sity of adhering to one infallible church, vi'ould be just, if the church were infallible." He 
 elsewhere seems to grant, that infixllibility would be an incomparable benefit, if providence 
 were pleased to bestow it upon the church. P. 25. He, nevertheless, totally misrepresents 
 the argument of Catholics upon this subject, which may be stated as follows. — No legis- 
 lator ever established laws for a numerous society without appointing judges and magistrates 
 with due authority to explain and enforce them. Indeed it would be obviously better to 
 have no written code at all, than such a one which each individual is authorized to inter- 
 pret for himself, and to take into his own hands to execute. Can we then suppose, that 
 the wisdom and goodness of God has left his spiritual kingdom, the church, without those 
 necessary means of preserving its peace and its very existence ? Hence we shoidd naturally 
 conclude, that the body of the pastors, with the chief bishop at their head, were under 
 the protection and guidance of the Almighty, in deciding upon contested articles of faith, 
 even though Christ had not assured them as follows : The spirit of truth luill guide you into 
 all truth. St. John, xvi, 13. He that heareth you heareth me, and hethat despiscth you despiscth 
 me. St. Luke, x, 16. If he neglect to hear the church let kirn be to thee as an heathen or a 
 publican. St. Mat. xviii, 17. 
 
 consequence
 
 84 LETTER IV. 
 
 consequence of my avowed doctrine of toleration, (l) I am not afraid 
 of being disowned by the churcli on this account. On the contrary, I am 
 convinced that I speak her sentiments in adopting the language, quoted 
 below, of Tertullian, (2) of pope St. Leo, (3) of our apostle, St. Augus- 
 tine, (4) &c. and that I am influenced by her spirit in admiring the w^ell 
 known conduct of the great St. Ambrose and St. Martin, both of whom 
 .refused to hold any communion, even to gratify an emperor, with 
 Ithacius, a Spanish bishop^ and certain other persons, who sought to put the 
 Priscillian heretics to death. (5) In a word I am persuaded, where any 
 sect, whether of Christians or of Infidels, is found under a Catholi cdomi- 
 nion, separated from the great body of the Catholic church, but upon 
 mere questions of religion, without teaching any principle inconsistent 
 with the fundamental laws of morality or the peace of society, (as I am 
 convinced is the case in the Church of England, though I am certain of 
 the contrary with respect to the Albigenses, the Wickliffites, and the 
 Hussites) that it is equally the part of prudence, of justice, and of charity, 
 not to persecute them in any shape whatsoever, or to attack them with 
 any other sword, except the sword of spirit, which is the word of 
 God. (6) 
 
 I will now. Sir, venture to assert, after this discussion of your autho- 
 rities, that you have not proved the point which you so confidently boasted 
 of having proved, namel}^ that " persecution is a tenet of the Catholic 
 church," the falsehood indeed of which, without any proof at all, glares 
 in the face of those of our nobility and gentry who have made the tour of 
 Europe, and who have resided with as much peace and security in the 
 
 Ci) P. 57. (a) Non est religionis religionem cogere. 
 
 (3) " Ecclesia Dei non recip'rt psenas sanguineas" St. Leo ad Turib. 
 
 (4) " Didicerat (rex Ethelbertus) a doctorlbus et auctoribus suae salutis servitiuni Christl 
 voliintarium non coactitium esse debere." Beda, Hist. Ecc. Gent. Ang. 1. i, c. 26. 
 
 (5) See the respective accounts of these saints in Butler's Lives of Saints, Nov. 11 
 and Dec. 7: 
 
 (6) Ephes. vi, 17. 
 
 papal
 
 PERSECUTION, 85 
 
 Papal city of Rome as they did in the Protestant city of Geneva. I now 
 proceed to linish this disagreeable subject of persecution, by considering 
 what farther occurs concerning it in your following letter. I fear, if the 
 spirit of our respective churches is estimated by what you and I have 
 advanced concerning the persecutions which more immediately relate to 
 ourselves, namely, those which have taken place in this country since the 
 Reformation, that the balance of toleration will not appear to be in 
 favour of the church of which you are the advocate. 
 
 You say, " the persecution of Henry VIII was that of a pope ra- 
 ther than of a king," (i) and that " as a civil governor he was a tyrant, 
 as an ecclesiastical governor a pope." (2) Your meaning, as far as I 
 can gather it, is, that the oath of spiritual supremacy which he exacted 
 from his Catholic subjects was unjust, and the capital punishments which 
 he condemned them to for refusing it were acts of tyranny. You ac- 
 cordingly express no less indignation at the unworthy f^te of the vir- 
 tuous More, and the other Catholics, who died for opposing this hitherto 
 unheard-of spiritual supremacy of the crown, (3) than at that of the 
 Protestants and Anabaptists, (1) who were put to death in this and the 
 following reigns for their new opinions. This, Sir, is candid and liberal : 
 but by what rule you afterwards condemn the missionary priests that suf- 
 fered, in the self same cause, under Elizabeth, Who was no less a pope 
 
 (I) P. 69. (2) P. 63. 
 
 (3) P. 64. The total number of Catholics, who suffered the death of traitors for denying 
 Henry to be the spiritual head of the church, was 60. Of these John Fisher was bishop of 
 Rochester, (being no less the ornament of the clergy in his time, than Sir Thomas More was 
 of the laity) three were Benedictine abbots, those of Glassenbury, Reading, and Colchester, 
 three were Carthusian priors, 16 were Carthusian monks or other religious, 23 were cler- 
 gymen, and the rest knights, gentlemen, and yeomen. Besides these, 64 other Carthusians 
 or Franciscans were condemned to death, most of whom were starved to death in prison. 
 See Dodd's accurate account, Ch. Hist. vol. i, p. 342. 
 
 (4) It appears, from Stow, that 19 Protestants or Anabaptists, but chiefly of the latter 
 description, were put to death for their opinion in this reign, besides 15 others who were 
 condemned to it. 
 
 M than
 
 66 LETTER IV. 
 
 than her father, (l) I cannot understand. During tlie reign of the 
 child, Edward VI, when the Protestant religion was established by law, 
 five Anapabtists were condemned to death ; (2) besides Joan Knell and 
 George Paris, who actually underwent that sentence, the former for 
 disbelieving the reality of Christ's flesh, the latter for denying the divinity 
 of his person : in which persecutions the chief agent was archbishop 
 Cranmer. 
 
 I now come once more to speak of the furious and fatal persecution of 
 Protestants in queen Mary's reign. If I knew any more emphatical terms 
 to express my abhorrence of it, than those which I have already employed 
 in my History, I would here make use of them. To convey together 
 herds of poor weavers, sawyers, shoe-makers, and other working people, 
 women as well as men, to execution for civil ciimes, would be contrary 
 to the established rules of a just and j^rudent government ; (3) how much 
 more inhuman and unwise then must this have been, when it was done 
 on account of subtil controversies of faith, which the examination of a 
 great part of the sufferers proves them not to have understood } Having 
 expressed this same sentiment before, I asserted, of course, that " if 
 Mary was a persecutor, it was not in virtue of any tenet of her religion 
 that she was so." (4) I at the same time assigned the real cause of her 
 departing from that prudent, as well as humane, line of conduct, w'hich 
 she professed and followed during the early part of her reign, namely, 
 her resentment and mistaken policy, in consequence of the numerous 
 
 (i) See the proofs of this hi Hist, of Winch, vol. i, pp. ^6^, ^66. — The learned Protes- 
 tant centuriator, Chemnitius, speaking of Elizabeth's supremacy, saj's : " Foemineo fastu 
 et a seeculi? inaudito se papissam et caput ecclesiEe fecit." Ep. ad Elect. Brand. 
 
 (2) Stow,' An. 1549. 
 
 (3) The learned and sagacious doctor of the church, St. Augustine, speaking of abuses 
 that are become general in a community, lays down the line of conduct which a wise go- 
 vernment will ever follow : " Non aspere, non duriter ista tollantur. Tollantur magis docendo 
 quam jubendo, magis monendo quam minando : sic eniui agendum est cum multitudine 
 peccantium: severitas autem exercenda est in peccata paucorum." Ep. 64, vet. ed. 
 
 (4) Hist. vol. i, p. 355. 
 
 provocations
 
 PERSECUTION. 8; 
 
 provocations which she met with from the effervescent zeal of her Pro- 
 testant subjects. In fact, this spirit, however violent at first, would soon 
 have cooled of its own nature, had it not been fanned by the breath of 
 persecution. The above assertions I proved by arguments that to me 
 appear demonstrative, and I confirmed them by the authority of some of 
 the most learned and able advocates of the established church, who are 
 loud in condemning the excesses here alluded to. (i) These, however, you 
 have not condescended to examine ; instead of which, without argument 
 or testimony at all, you go on repeating your illiberal as well as absurd 
 charge, purporting, that the queen, by being a member of the Catholic 
 church, was obliged in conscience to light up the fires of Smithfield, and 
 to immolate whole hecatombs of her Protestant subjects. The real truth 
 is, the persecutions of Mary's reign are too powerful an engine on the 
 minds of the vulgar for any modern controversial writer or preacher to 
 relinquish, whilst he is capable of managing it. On the other hand, to 
 affix the odium of those violent measures to the memory of Mary and her 
 ministers alone, so that it should not attach to the character of Catholics 
 at the present day, would be to deprive this weapon of its chief efficacy. 
 But once again, Sir, permit me to ask, if the Catholic religion obliged the 
 queen in conscience to commence persecutor, would not the pope have 
 given her some intimation of this sort, in the detailed instructions which 
 he sent her for the regulation of her conduct, at her first accession to the 
 throne ? (2) If this persecution had been set on foot in virtue of any tenet 
 or obligation of the Catholic religion, would there not have occurred some 
 regulation or articles concerning it in the synod that was held in 1555, 
 by the pope's legate, cardinal Pole, and the other Catholic bishops, for 
 regulating all matters concerning their religion ? Look, Sir, 'at the heads 
 of that synod, as they are reported by Burnet himself, and you will find, 
 that this writer, with all his prejudices, gives credit to the cardinal for 
 his toleration, in a liberal manner that you are far from imitating, at the 
 
 (i) Heylin, Hist. Ref. p.47. Collier, Ecc.Hist. (2) Hist. vol. i, p. 355. 
 
 INI 2 present
 
 88 • . LETTER IV, 
 
 present day, with all your professed moderation, (i) Again, Sir, I beg 
 you will answer me (not by sarcasms but by arguments) how this pri- 
 mate of the English church and representative of the pope could openly 
 condemn in the council, as the Catholic preachers also did from the pulpit, 
 the cruelties in question, had they, consistently with your bigoted notion, 
 been carried on in virtue of any tenet of their religion ? (2) Finally, we 
 have the substance of the arguments employed on both sides in that 
 cabinet council, which took the fatal resolution of employing fire and 
 faggot against the new religion ; but do the most violent advocates for 
 that measure, do even Gardiner and Bonner, once intimate, in opposition 
 to the cardinal, that they have the doctrine of the church on their side ? 
 No, Sir, they resort to no other arguments than those of policy, and upon 
 these alone was the question fatally determined by Mary herself. (3) I 
 think. Sir, when you shall have weighed all this, you \\ill no longer 
 cavil at my assertion, that, if " Mary was a persecutor, it was not in 
 virtue of any tenet of her religion that she was so." 
 
 I should have expected. Sir, not so much in consequence of my abandon- 
 ing all defence of Mary's sanguinary proceedings, as of your own high- 
 toned and eloquent panegyrics on toleration and charity, that you would, 
 in your turn, have fairly and candidly given up, as indefensible, the long 
 arid severe persecutions carried on against Catholics by Elizabeth and her 
 successors. You cannot deny the bloody deeds themselves, which the 
 series of my History obliged me to bring forward, and which most former 
 historians have carefully kept from public view ; (4) nevertheless, you 
 refuse to balance the account of blood with me even-handed, but drive as 
 hard a bargain as you can about the number of the sufferers on both 
 sides, and the nature of the torments which they respectively endured, (5) 
 
 (i) Burnet speaking of this synod says ; "By all this it may appear how wyll tempered 
 the cardinal (Pole) was. He never set on the clergy to persecute heretics, but to reform 
 themselves," &c. Hist. Ref. P. ii, p. 326. 
 
 (2) Ibid, pp. 298, 305. (3J Ibid, p. 299. lieylin, p. 48. 
 
 (4) Hist. vol. i, p. 280—385. (5) Pp. 7ij 74- 
 
 as
 
 PERSECUTION. 8f) 
 
 as also concerning the occasion, which you conceive to have existed, tor 
 penal laws on your side of the question. The last mentioned of these 
 points forms a distinct subject, on which you spend much pains in mis- 
 representing the history of the English Catholics since the Reformation, 
 and which therefore will oblige me, in some of my subsequent letters, to 
 enter into much longer disquisitions than I wished to have done. I sliall 
 therefore finish the present letter with a few words on the two former 
 poinis which you object to me. 
 
 You assert tlien, on the authority of Hume, that the number of Pro- 
 testants who sujiered death, in the persecution of Mary was 277. This 
 account appears to have been collected from Fox's Martyrology, with 
 which it pretty nearly agrees, and on that presumption I have no difficulty 
 in saying, that very considerable abatements ought to be made in it. For 
 tirst, in strict justice, no Anabaptist, Arian, or other abettor of singular 
 opinions, who would equally have been sent to the fire by Cranmer and 
 his fellow prelates in the former reign, ought to be brought in testimony 
 against Mary's cruelty. (1) 2dly, All those who were guilty of any act 
 of sedition or felony, which otherwise rendered them obnoxious to capital 
 punishment, are manifestly to be struck off the list of martyrs. (2) It 
 is also inconsistent and absurd to reckon those as martyrs of any par- 
 ticular church, who died reprobating the doctrine or discipline of that 
 
 (t) See the Examen of Fox's Calendar, in Part iii of Parsons's Three Conversions of 
 England. 
 
 (2) Such as W. Flower, who stabbed a priest at the altar at St. Margaret's, Westminster, 
 April 9 ; W. Gardiner, another of these protended martyrs, was executed at Lisbon for 
 attacking the cardinal prince Henry, afterwards king of Portugal, when officiating at the 
 altar; G. Eagles, alias Trudge-over- ihe-workl, who openly prayed for the queen's death, 
 Aug. 30 ; C. Cauches, G. Gilbert, and P. Massey, the famous Guernsey women, whom 
 Parsons proves to have been felons and guilty of thch, July 19. The last mentioned of these 
 was mother of the pretended infant martyr, concerning whom such violent outcries have 
 been and still are raised. This author proves the mother to have been a prostitute, who, 
 by concealing her pregnancy, was the real cause of lier child's death, which event happened 
 previously to the burning of the infant's body by llic executioner. 
 
 church
 
 00 t^ETTER IV. 
 
 church :(i) nor ought those to be classed in the same calendar who 
 were notoriously at variance v^'ith each other on the leading tenets of their 
 faith. (2) With much greater reason ought those to be degraded from a 
 martyrology M^hom their own friends and advocates declare to have been 
 idiots or mad. (3) When all these deductions are made in consequence of 
 the blind prejudices of the original martyrologist, there will still be a con- 
 siderable allowance to be granted on the score of those precipitate blunders 
 and mistakes which he is proved to have been so subject to. 
 
 I reported in my History that, during the reign of Elizabeth, 200 persons 
 were put to death for the profession of the Catholic faith. (-4) In fact, I 
 
 have 
 
 (i) It appears, from Fox's account, that John Rogers, the first on the list of reHgious 
 sufferers in this reign, was no less a confirmed puritan than bishop Hooper, for he de- 
 nounced " a worse pxmishment than that of fire on all those who wore surplices, tippets, 
 &c." 
 
 (2) This is proved to have been the case with the greatet part of the number, by Parsons 
 passim . 
 
 (3) See Wm. Nichols, April 30 ; Thomas Whittle, Jan.ia; Edward Freeze, March 12. 
 Of two others who suffered in the year T538, and whom Fox has equally inserted in his ca- 
 lendar of martyrs, he himself writes thus : " With this CoUyns may be adjoined Cowbridge, 
 who likewise being mad and out of his right senses was condemned by Longland," &c. 
 P. 1033. — Other instances of gross error in this famous martyrologis: are hinted at in the 
 History of Winchester, vol. i, p. 358, and may be seen at large in the authors there re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 (4) Hist. vol. i, p. 385. — This list does not include any of those Catholics who were exe- 
 cuted for any plot real or imaginary, except the eleven priests who suffered in 1581-2 for 
 the pretended plot of Rheims and Rome, because that was so glaring a forgery that even 
 Camden allows these men to have been political victims, immolated to appease the populace, 
 who were in a ferment at the idea of the queen marrying a Catholic prince, the brother of 
 the king of France. It is proper here to notice, that these sufferers in general were persons 
 of a very different description from the generality of Fox's martyrs, being thoroughly in- 
 structed in the doctrines of the religion for which they died, perfectly agreeing in their 
 faith, and discipline, and proving themselves possessed of the most edifying piety, modesty, 
 charity, purity of life, allegiance to their sovereign, and obedience to the magistrates and 
 laws in all matters, except those of religion. Far the greater part of them, and particularly 
 all the priests, were men of education, having for the most part been educated in the university 
 
 of
 
 PERSECUTION", C) 1 
 
 have collected the names of 204 persons executed on that sole account, 
 chietly within the 20 last years of her reign, (i) Of this number 142 
 were priests, three were gentlewomen, and the remainder esquires, gentle- 
 men, and yeomen. Amongst them 15 were condemned for denying the 
 queen's spiritual supremacy, 126 for the exercise of their priestly func- 
 tions, and the rest for being reconciled to the Catholic faith, or for being 
 
 of Oxford, previously to their retiring abroad in order to embrace the ancient faith, and to 
 receive orders for the purpose of announcing the same to their countiymcn. 
 
 (i) Though the particulars of these persecutions have been overlooked by most of our 
 common historians, yet many individuals, both of our own nation and foreigners, were 
 careful in collecting the particulars of them ; as Dr. Bridgewater in his Concertatio Ecc. 
 Cath. Card. Allen in his ModeSt Defence. F. Parsons De Persec. Rishton De Schism. 
 Angl. Ribadineira in his Appendix to the same. Moore's Hist, of the Eng. Prov. Yepaz, 
 bishop of Tarasona, in his Spanish Hist, of Persecution. The most authentic sources 
 however of these matters are the MS. diaries of Douay college, and of the other colleges 
 and convents, in which the greaterpart of the sufferers received their education, and the 
 MSS. of different Catholic families, particularly of the Constable family, Dr. Champney, 
 Sec. It must be added, however^ that the Protestant writers, Stow in his Annals, and An- 
 tony Wood in his Antiq. Qxon, perfectly agree with these accounts, as far as the nature of 
 their works leads them to this subject. From these, and other sources, the laborious Dodd 
 collected his catalogue and biography of the above-mentioned, in his Church Historv, folio, 
 vol. ii, part iv, about the beginning of the century ; and still more recently the late R. 
 Challoner, D D. bithop of Debra, &c. composed his accurate and edifying Memoirs of 
 Missionary Priests and other Catholics, who have sutl'ered death in England on religious 
 accounts, from the year 1577 to 1684, 3 vols. 8vo. — Dr. S. by way of lessening the number of 
 Catholic sufferers during this reign, in a note to p. 74, adopts a quotation from Camden full 
 of mistakes, which he himself still more confuses by fresh errors. To make as short of the 
 matter as possible, we must remark, that the question is not how many priests were put to 
 death within ten years or any other given period of Elizabeth's reign, but how many Ca- 
 tholics priests and lay persons were executed during the whole of it ? The real number in 
 each year, with the circumstances of their lives, trials, and last conflict, may be seen in the 
 works here quoted. I must add, that it is an egregious mistake to speak of a work written 
 by the secular clergy against the Jesuits. No such work ever was composed. It is true in- 
 deed that one of their number, a man of a very turbulent character, published certain 
 false and uncharitable libels, which seem to be the source whence Camden draws his ac- 
 coint, and it is equally true that, when he came to die, he publicly retracted and asked 
 pardon for them, as I have before-mentioned in my History, vol. i, p. 395. 
 
 aiding
 
 92 LETTER IV. 
 
 aiding and abetting to priests. Besides these, I find a particular account, 
 togctlicr with most of the names, of go priests or Catholic lay persons 
 who died in prison, in the same reign,- and of 105 others who were sent 
 into perpetual banishment, (i ) I say nothing of many more who were 
 whipped, fined. (2) or. stripped of their property, to the utter ruin of their 
 families. In one night 50 Catholic gentlemen, in the county of Lan- 
 caster, were suddenly seized upon and committed to prison, on account 
 of their non-attendance at church. About the same time, I find, an equal 
 number of Yorkshire gentlemen lying prisoners in York castle, on the 
 same account, most of whom perished there. The latter were ever}' 
 week, for a twelve-month, dragged by main force to hear the service 
 performed at the castle chapel. (3) An account was published, by a cotem- 
 porary waiter, of 1200 Catholics who had been in some sort or other victims 
 of this persecution, previously to the year 1588, that is, during the period of 
 its greatest lenity. (4) I have heretofore given the number of the Puritans 
 or other Dissenters, who were put to death for their religious opinions, 
 during this period, and I shall have occasion to mention below the con- 
 tinuation of the persecution against Catholics, and the number of persons 
 who suffered in it, during the three subsequent reigns of the house of 
 Stuart, and the interregnum of the Commonw^ealth. [Upon a compa- 
 rative view of the persecutions that have been carried on in this coun- 
 try, since the Reformation, on both sides, it will appear that many 
 more Catholics than Protestants have suffered capital punishment on the 
 score of religion ; and if we take into consideration the whole effect of 
 the different penal laws, in their numberless branches, we shall find, that 
 the sufferings of the former have been greater than those of the latter 
 beyond all estimation. 
 
 (i) See Dodd's Hist. Challoner's Mem. 
 
 (3) The fine for recusancy alone was 20I. per month, besides pecuniary mulcts on other 
 accounts without number. 
 
 (3) See a circumstantial account of their behaviour. Memoirs, Sec. vol. i, p. 439, &c, 
 
 (4) Concert. Ecc. Cath. 
 
 But
 
 PERSECUTION. Q3 
 
 But you have another excuse for refusing to compromise with me in the 
 article of persecution, namely, a comparison, which you choose to in- 
 stitute, between the torments endured by the respective sufferers' on both 
 sides; for you say, " if in consequence of her (Elizabeth's) severe laws, 
 many unhappy persons (Catholics) were put to death, it was not to a 
 death of torture byJire....'Ma.ry put to death by fire, for there is a differ-, 
 ence even in the manner of death, 277 persons." (1) The same word Jirc, 
 emphatically marked, occurs a third time in the same page. It is a diffi- 
 cult nuitter, even for professional persons, to pronounce on the degree of 
 animal -pain' that occurs in different kinds of death ; (2) for my part, I 
 apprehend that in all capital punishments this depends more upon the execu- 
 tioner than upon the judge. But sinde. Sir, you oblige me to enter upib'n 
 this disgusting subject, I must tell you, with respect to the greater part of the 
 Catholic victims, that the sentence of the law was strictly and literally exe- 
 cuted upon them. After being hanged up, they were cut down, whilst 
 
 (1) P. 74. 
 
 (2) It was a usual thing in these executions to, tie bags of gunpowder round the sufferers, 
 which certainly must have greatly- abridged their torments ; Ha9{>er had a poundof gunpow- 
 der under his legs, and another under each arm. See Fox. Acts, &c. — Hume, in mentioning 
 the circumstance of Latimer aud Ridley having gunpowder about them at their burning, 
 ascribes .this circumstance rather, to "the humanity of the executioners than to that of the 
 judges.'.' If he had looked into Fox he \vould have seen, that tliis was owing, neither to 
 one party nor the other, but to the brother-in-law of .Ridley, who applied the said com- ■ 
 bustible.. It is evident, however, that this, merciful expedient could not have been in gene- 
 
 ral used withput, the consent of those men. iri. p,ower,,\vho direptp^ the executions. Haymg_. 
 
 mentioned one of Hume's errors respecting this reign, I cannot help pointing out anotherj, 
 however foreign to the melancholy subject now in hand, both as it aflects the History of 
 Winchester, and the veracity of this favourite author. He says, "A few days after 
 (Philip's arrival at Southampton) they (ijueen Mary and he) were married at Westminster, 
 and having made a pompous entry into London, she carried him to Windsor." How roundly 
 
 here does he relate a series of falsehoods ! The truth is, they were married at Winchester, 
 
 -■■'■''' i . . . 
 
 July '25, from which city they removed to Basing, and thence to Windsor, where they 
 
 arrived August 1 1 . Their next step was to Richmond, whence they proceeded to Southwark 
 
 August 17, and thence, the next day, to London. See Stow, Sec. 
 
 N they
 
 Q4 LETTER IV. 
 
 they were alive, they were dismembered, ripped np, and their bowels 
 burnt before their faces, after which they were beheaeled and quartered. 
 The time employed in this butchery was very considerable, and, in one 
 instance, lasted above half an hour, (l) I must add, that a great number 
 of these sufferers, as well as other Catholics, who did not endure capital 
 punishment, were racked in the most severe and wanton manner, in order 
 to extort proofs against themselv^es or others of their brethren. (2) 
 
 I fancy. Sir, that by this time you are as tired of the subject of perse- 
 pution as I am. Will you then at length enter into the proposed com- 
 promise, of not in future reproaching me with the fires of Mary's reign, 
 upon my consenting not to upbraid you with the knives and gibbets of 
 Elizabeth's ? If you do not agree to this, I think I can answer for it, that 
 the reader will decide that it is your duty so to do. • 
 
 I have the honour, &c. 
 
 (i) See in particular the account of Hugh Green, Mem. of Miss. v. ii, p. 224, and of 
 Edmund Gennings, vol. i, p. 274. 
 
 (2) See the account of Campian, Brian, Cottani, Sherwood, &c. Ibid. Pref. et passim. 
 This particular is confirmed by Camden, in his Annals, who speaking of the famous Cam- 
 pian says, that " he was not so racked but that he was still capable of signing his name." 
 It appears, from the account of one of these sufferers, that the following tortures were in 
 use against the Catholics in the Tower : i. The common rack, in which the limbs were 
 stretched by levers. 2. The Scavenger's Daughter, so called, being a hoop, in which the 
 body was bent until the head and feet met together. 3. The chamber, called Little-Ease, 
 being a hole so small that a person could neither stand up nor lie down in it. 4. The Iron 
 Gauntlets. Diar. Rer. Gest. in Turri. Lond. In some instances needles were thrust under 
 the nails. See Pref. above. 
 
 LETTER
 
 THE REFORMATION. i>S 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 SIR. 
 
 X OUR fifth letter is a professed vindication of the 
 Reformation, as it was carried on in foreign countries, and in our own. 
 But when. Sir, you undertook to defend the Reformation against my 
 History, ought not you first to have shewn in what manner this cause had 
 been attacked by it ? That task, however, you have not attempted to 
 perform. On the contrary, you have unnecessarily dragged into public 
 dispute a subject of pecuUar delicacy, which I should otherwise have 
 avoided discussing on the present occasion. If then. Sir, you should 
 now hear from me several unwelcome truths, with respect both to facts 
 and characters, you will have to blame yourself alone for bringing for- 
 ward this matter. For, in the existing circumstances, it is a duty incum- 
 bent upon me to refute your false statements, and to do the best justice in 
 my power to the cause of which I am the advocate. 
 
 It is the usual practice with most modern writers who mentioned the Re- 
 formation, to begin with drawing the most hideous caricature which their 
 pencils can trace, of the tyranny of the popes, and of the ignorance, super- 
 stition, and immorality of the clergy and people of Christendom, previously 
 to that event. I have already treated of the conduct of the popes ; and I 
 have shewn that whenever they exceeded their just bounds of authority, 
 there were not M^anting, to restrain their pretensions, Catholic divines with 
 the pen, and Catholic princes with the sword. With respect to the alledged 
 ignorance of the ages in question, I deny that this held good to the 
 extent that you and many other writers contend. Most certainly, Sir, 
 you are guilty of misrepresentation, when you say, that " the mass of 
 ancient literature lay dormant, unnoticed, and perishing during so many 
 
 N 2 ages."
 
 gO LETTER V. 
 
 ages." (i) Where in fact, Sir, was it preserved for looo years and more ? 
 Where was it found when the art of printing begun to disperse the 
 copies of it amongst the people at large, except in the libraries of the 
 monks, who if they had not kno<vn how to value it, would not have 
 constantly renewed it, as they did, with the labour of their own hand, 
 but would rather have destroyed the whole, as the first Reformers, in 
 the devastations which they committed amongst the monastic manuscripts, 
 destroyed such considerabl<? portions of it; But to put the matter out 
 o/; all doubt, let.us look into the works that have come down to us fronii 
 th© ages that a j-e most reproached with ignorance; we shall find/ that 
 t;b©ft''wr.iters, b^tb on ithe Continent, and ihthis island, were! n<? .strang^fS 
 to, the, merit, or to. the compositions, of Yirgil, Ovid, Horace, jCiQero,: 
 Plutarch, ;:§engca>;iLiyy, and .otjajcr classjicai authors. I nwintaift also^j 
 that many iQf;;fch0fi^.": historians, of barbarous and obscure times," asjVOiti. 
 term.them, (2) 8:ii(;'h as, Ingulphus., William of Malmsbury, Henry oC Hun- 
 tingdon, Roger Hoveden, &c. shew more good sense and solidity flf, re- 
 flection, no' .less. than a greater imparti'aldty and love of^ .truth, thanr-Rigny-. 
 celebrated writers, of later times; In a word, Sir, can we siippose th.Qise 
 ages to have been. destitute .either of learning or taste, which; prpduced;, and 
 knew how to admire^ an Anselm, a Bernard, a John of Salisbury, an 
 Aquinas, (3) a Gerson, aTostatus, (4) a Dante, a Petrarch, and a Chaucer? 
 
 If 
 
 (0 I'- 61. . , (2) P. 5. 
 
 (3)' It is very "much tlie'flishioii with modern \\-ritcrs to ridicule tlie works of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas, as specimens of fals6 re'asdning and nonsense, \^-l70, at the sUme time, liave never 
 so much as looked into them, which Dr. S. acknowledges to be the case with himself, p. 
 66. Were it in my power to persuade any of these gentlemen to try their skill in refuting 
 half a dozen conclusions, the first that they meet with, in the Sumnia Thfolpg'ur, I am per- 
 suaded they would shut this book with a much better opinion of the author's talents than 
 they opened it. If after this they will take the trouble to analyse, in a regular logical way, 
 the arguments of some of the most celebrated treatises and discourses of'the present day, and 
 pbserve in what manner the . conclusions are frequently drawn from the premises, they will 
 discover the advantage of the ancient syllogistic method of investigating truth over the vague 
 and inconclusive style that has obtained in later ages. 
 
 (4) Alphonsus Tostatus was a Spanish divine of the 15th century, of such universal and 
 
 profound
 
 THE BEFORMA.TIoy. 9^ 
 
 If, from surveying the state of literature during those ages, w hich you 
 speak of with so much contempt, we turn our eyes to the conditioi^ ot 
 the arts, we shall find, in the mouldring monuments of them, specimens 
 capable of humbling our pride at the present da\', with all our superior 
 advantages in many particulars. Look at the works of Wykeham and of 
 Fox, or at the chanteries of Beaufort and Waynflete in our own cathedral. 
 Survey King's College chapel, Lincoln cathedral, or York minster, and 
 reflect, Sir, what sublimity of invention, what mathematical knowledge 
 of combination, and what delicacy of execution, were requisite to make 
 those sacred edifices : what they originally were. If Tork minster were 
 now destrdyedi'.itj:jisj acknowledged, that all the science and all the skill 
 of the Royal Academy^ could ,not restore it. , Though architects and artists 
 w.ere.evertfouud fyr,thisi,work, it wovild exhaust the purse of a sovereign 
 to^ carry ifc>into:.exeGution; 
 
 The most important part, however, of the present inquiry is, that which 
 regjirds the state of religion and morality during the middle ages. You, 
 Sir,- with most modern, w'riters, represent these as sunk into superstition (l) 
 and ,vice, amid; you argue as if they no longer existed upon the earth, until 
 they were revived by the agency of such reformers as were Luther, Calvin, 
 Henry VIII, Cranmer, the duke of Somerset, and queen Elizabeth ! The 
 very idea is revolting to persons conversant with the history of the ages 
 in question. To convince yourself of your error, let me request you to 
 turn to the canons of the councils that were so frequently held during those 
 ages, and to examine whether the vital principles and the genuine spirit 
 
 profound learning, that he has been allowed to be worthy of the following epitaph, which 
 was made up9nihiiji :, . 
 
 ; •'■ , • " Hi § stupor est mundi, qui scibile discutit omne." 
 (i) On the subject of superstitior. Dr. S. refers me to Tetzel's Theses, which he knows to 
 have been condemned by the pope's nuncio,' Miltitz himself, and to the Rev. Mr. Townsend's 
 Travels, whose reflections in general on subjects of religion, partly from prejudice, and 
 partly from misapprehension, are a-kin to those of Dr. S. himself. 
 
 of
 
 08 LETTER V. 
 
 of Christianity were not constantly maintained and enforced in these 
 representative assemblies of the universal church. Read the works of the 
 most celebrated ascetical writers of the same times, ,yiz. of a Bernard, a 
 Bonaventure, an Antoninus, a Vincent Ferrier, a Thanlerus, a Gerson, and 
 a Thomas of Kempis. (i) Peruse the accounts that have been left us of 
 their lives, with those of their cotemporaries who have been equally cele- 
 brated for their sanctity, such as an ELdmund Rich, a Thomas Cantelupe, a 
 Richard de Wyche, a Francis of Assissium, aLouis IX of France, or a Henry 
 VI of England, and tell me, whether the practice of every Christian virtue, 
 inculcated by our Saviour Christ in his divine sermon on the mountain, (2) 
 could be more strongly recommended both by precept and by example 
 than it was by the writers and the holy personages whom I have men- 
 tioned. But not to go out of the precincts of our own city, tell me. Sir, 
 sincerely, whether you think that its first prelates of the reformed per- 
 suasion, Poynet, Home, Watson, Cooper, and Bilson, are to be preferred 
 before, or even compared with, their predecessors. White, (3) Beaufort, (4 ) ' 
 Fox, Langton, Courtney, Waynflete, and Wykeham, for assiduity in 
 prayer and other spiritual functions, for chastity, self-denial, meekness, 
 and works of piety and charity. 
 
 (i) Amongst numerous other works of this author written in the same spirit was the 
 celebrated one under the name of The Following of Christ, which has been translated into 
 most modern languages, and is we]l known to Protestants no less than to Cathohcs. 
 —Dr. S. assigns, as one of the causes of the Reformation, the dispersion of the learned 
 Greeks throughout the West, on the capture of Constantinople. But if they contributed 
 to reform us, why did not they make any advances tovyards reforming themselves ? It is an 
 indisputable fact, that the Greek church, separated as it has almost always been from the 
 Latin church, since the 9th century, has nevertheless luiiformly maintained every one of 
 ■the distinctive articles which Catholics support against the different classes of Reformers. 
 
 (2) St. Mat. chapters iv, v, vii. 
 
 (3) I do not speak of Gardiner, because he played a double part, having been equally 
 active and violent on both sides. 
 
 (4) See a vindication of Beaufort's religious character, from the misrepresentations of 
 Shakespeare. Hist. vol. i, p p. 30J, 303. 
 
 I
 
 THE HF.FORMATION. .<)f) 
 
 I grant, however, that there was an increasing spirit of irreligion and 
 immorality amongst different nations, and in none more so than in oiu 
 own, during a considerable time previous to the Ret'ormation. Jjiit the 
 (juestion, Sir, is, whether this spirit contributed to produce that event by 
 a natural course, as a cause produces its elFect, or by a counteraction ot 
 virtue and piety ? To decide this question we cannot make use ot a better 
 criterion than that w^hich is hiid down in the gospel, viz. to judge of the 
 tree by its fruits. If then the authors and abettors of the Reformation 
 are found to be persons most distinguished in each country for their piety 
 and purity of life, or if even a visible amendment in their religious and 
 mora! conduct was the consequence of their embracing it ; in a word, if the 
 bulk of the people w'ho went over to this cause were proved to be thereby 
 more addicted to prayer arid alms deeds more chaste, more temperate, more 
 meek and patient, more submissive to their lawful superiors, and more 
 amenable to the laws of the respective states under which they lived, 
 than they had been whilst they were Catholics, this will form a strong- 
 presumption of their being influenced by motives of religion and genuine re- 
 formation in the choice they made, and that this w^ork was truly the work 
 of God. But if it appears, that the Reformation was in every place, where 
 it prevailed, attended with precisely the opposite consequences, I shall 
 leave, you. Sir, to draw the conclusion. To elucidate this important 
 subject I will not here have recourse to Catholic authors, or indeed to any 
 others except to those whom you yourself have celebrated, namely, the 
 fathers, founders, and chief abettors of this very cause. 
 
 Let us first hear Martin Luther, who is well known to have set on foot 
 these religious changes in Germany, in the year 151/. Some of his 
 words to the present purpose are these : " The world grows every day 
 worse and worse. It is plain that men are much more covetous, ma- 
 licious, and resentful, much more unruly, shameless, and full of vice, 
 than they were in the time of Popery." (l) " Formerly, when we were 
 
 seduced 
 
 (i) " Magis vindictse cupidosj niagis avaros, magis ab omni, misericordia remotos, magis 
 
 immodestos
 
 100 LETTEK V. 
 
 seduced by the pope, men v\ illingly followed good works, but now all 
 their study is to get everything to themselves, by exactions, pillage, 
 theft, lying, and usury." (i) " It is a wonderful thing, and full of scan- 
 dal, that from the time when the pure doctrine was first called to light, 
 the world should daily grow worse and' worse." (2) Amongst the imme- 
 diate disciplies of Luther, I shall content myself witli' the famous Bucer's 
 testimony to the Same effect : " The greatest part of the people seem ionly 
 to have embraced the gospel, in order to shake off the yoke of discipline, 
 and the obligation of fasting, penance, • &c. which' lay upon them intthe . 
 time of Popery; and to live at their pleasure,* enjoying their IJist and 
 lawless appetites without controul. They therefore lent a willing ear to 
 the doctrine that we are justified by "faith alone and not by good works, 
 having no relish for them." (3) The testimariy- of the seCdnd great pa-: 
 triarch of the Reformation to' the skm6 purpose is equally forcible; :' " Of so: 
 many; thousands seemingly eager inembracing the gospel, how few have, 
 since amended their lives ? Nay, to what else do. the. greater part pretend, 
 except by shaking off the heavy yoke of superstition to launch out more 
 freely into every kind of lasciviouSness. "(4) L 
 
 Amongst the principal authors of the Refarmation^ as well; as re&toi-erK> 
 of literature, you place the famous Erasmus. (5) Cei-tain it is, 'tbat!l;i€;; 
 was an eye-witness of the effects of the change' of religion on the manner: 
 of the greater part of Europe that adopted it. ;Let.us then listen to hisevi- '■ 
 dence on this subject :" What an evangelical genepabion is this; ? Nothingj 
 was ever seen more licentious and more: seditious. ■ Nothing. isiless,e"\'ah*ii 
 gelical than these pretended evangelics." (6)^^" Take notice, of ibis evan- 
 
 ininiodcstDS et i11.di5ciplin4.tof,, mu^toque det^ri(^^es,quaii\,£L^erint in Papatu..'.' LiUh. Serauia,,^ 
 Postill. Evatiff, i. Adv. . ,..';,■.' 
 
 (I J l.uth. berm.Uoni. 26, post Tnn. (3) Luth. m Sermon Conviv. _ • . .■■ 
 
 •'(3) Bucer db- liegn. Ghristl'I.i'/'c. 4.vSee'kls6'Wblf^ahg'Musikusv "^Loid^f^^ 
 de Decalog. • ' ■ ^ ; ' . ,j^;ijo'i ■ '^HiJ ') \i !ii r:,i: voil; iicilJ 
 
 (4) " Ut excussa siiperstitionum jugo solutius in omncm lasciViam diffluerent." Calv. 
 ]. vi, de Scand. 
 "(5)|'P-.'?'5..' ••.j/(6);"Erasin'. Ep. l.vi,'4. ... jfljuiy aiijnl.l »' Ci) 
 
 ' ' gelical
 
 TI^E REFORMATION. J 01 
 
 gelical people, and shew me an individual amongst them all who from 
 being a drunkard has become sober, from being a libertine has become 
 chaste. I, on the other hand, can shew you many who have become 
 worse by the change." (l) — "Those whom I once knew to have been 
 chaste, sincere, and without fraud, I found, after they had embraced this 
 sect, to be licentious in their conversation, gamblers, neglectful of prayer, 
 passionate, vain, as spiteful as serpents, and lost to the feelings of hu- 
 man nature. I speak from experience." (2) I fancy, Sir, you had not 
 met with these testimonies when you pronounced so pompous a panegyric 
 on the religion of Ei'asraus. (3) 
 
 Let 
 
 (i) " Circumspice populuni ilium evangelicum & profer mlhi quern istud evangelium ex 
 comessatore sobrium, ex inipudico reddidcrit verecundum. Ego tibi multos ostendam qui 
 fact! sunt seipsis deterioros." lirasm. Spong. advers. Hutten. A.D. 1529. 
 
 (2) " Quos antea noveram puros, candidos et fuci ignaros, eosdem vidi, ubi sectse se de- 
 dissent, loqui coepissc de puellis, lusisse aleani, abjecisse preces, impatientissimos omnis in- 
 jurije, vanos, viperinos in moribus, ac prorsum hominem exuisse. Expertus loquor." Erasm. 
 ad Frat. Infer. Germ. — Sleiden speaks of these testimonies of Erasmus, at the end of the 
 6th book of his Gomment. de Stat. Relig. Sec. — Amongst the vices which Erasmus objects 
 to the first Reformers were their turbulence and sedition : " I beheld them coming from their 
 sermons with fierce and threatening countenances, like men that had been hearing bloody 
 
 invectives," &c. Ep. l.xix, 113. also De Libero Arblt.: Luther, in his answer De Serv. 
 
 Arbit. boasts of the wars and bloodshed which his preaching had occasioned. How ex- 
 tensive, inveterate, and fatal these calamities were in Germany, France, Switzerland, and 
 most parts of Europe, all history testifies. The scourge of religious warfare reached this 
 country later, but it was inflicted with proportionable severity In the grand rebellion, which 
 was chiefly begun and carried on under the pretext of ridding the nation of Popery. 
 
 (3) It is true, that Erasmus in some of his earlier works played oft" his wit in ridiculing 
 the superstitions of the people in a manner that sometimes injured religion itself; but there 
 is abundant proof of his subsequent remorse for these profane sallies, and of the sincerity 
 of his belief in the Catholic doctrines. In one of his epistles he reproaches the Protestants 
 with having set fire to the house in order to destroy the cobwebs in it. In another epistle, 
 quoted by Surius the Carthusian, addressed to a monk of his order who was tempted to quit 
 his solitude, in order to enjoy the liberty of the Reformation, Erasmus writes thus : " I see 
 no man better, but all worse, for this evangelical liberty, so that I am heartily grieved foj 
 all that I have heretofore written or said in favour of it." He proceeds to describe, in the 
 most odious colours, the profligacy of the apostate and married priests who over-run Gcr- 
 
 O many.
 
 102 LETTER V. 
 
 Let US now return to our own country, in order to survey the effects 
 of the Reformation in the several stages of it there upon the morals of 
 the people. We will first attend to the royal declaration of that king 
 who laid the foundations of it, Henry VIII, in a speech which he delivered 
 in parliament the year before his death. Having then complained of the 
 abuse which the people made of the permission which he had granted 
 them to read the scriptures in the vulgar tongue, (by " their own phan- 
 tastical opinions and vain expositions," instead of consulting him their 
 spiritual head), he goes on : "I am sure that charitie was never so faint 
 amongst you, and vertuous and godlie living was never less used, nor 
 God himselfe amongst Christians was never less reverenced, honored, or 
 served." (i) That the state of morality was not rendered better, but ra- 
 ther infinitely worse, in the following reign, when the Protestant religion 
 was fully developed and established, we have abundant and undeniable 
 evidence in the confessions of the most zealous advocates and abettors of 
 that cause. Let us first hear bishop Burnet's account of the state of 
 morality under Edward YI : " The sins of England did at that time call 
 down from heaven heavy curses on the land. They are sadly expressed 
 in a discourse that Ridley writ soon after, under the title of The Lamen- 
 tation of England : he says, that lechery, oppression, pride, covetousness, 
 and a hatred and scorn of all religion, were generally spread amongst all 
 people, chiefly those of the higher ranks." (2) Ridley's fellow bishop, 
 Latimer, speaks still more openly as to one particular species of guilt 
 in a sermon before the king, quoted by Heylin, his words are these : 
 " Lechery is used in England, and such lechery as is used in no other part of 
 the world. And it is made a matter of sport, a trifle not to be passed on 
 or reformed." To remedy'this, he begs that the church may be reinstated 
 in " her right of excommunicating notable otFendcrSi by putting them 
 
 many, and concludes with declaring, that if lie had strength of body for tlie undertaking, he 
 would rather join the Cartliusuui to whom he writes in his secluded convent, than become 
 the chief favourite in Caesar's palace. Surius, Hist, ad an. 1536. 
 
 (i) Stow's Annals, an. 1546. (3) Hist, of Reform, of Engl, part H, p. 326. 
 
 out
 
 THE REFORMATIOX. 103 
 
 out of the congregation." (l) The laborious collector, Strype, thougli a 
 most zealous advocate for the cause of the Reformation, yet draws the 
 most frightful picture of the wickedness that prevailed throughout the 
 nation, after its lirst establishment there, that is to be met with in history. 
 The account is too long to be here inserted at length, but it is comprised 
 under the following heads : " The covetousness of the nobility and gentry ; 
 the oppressions of the poor; no redress at law; the judges ready to barter 
 justice for money ; impunity of murders ; the clergy very bad, irom the 
 bishops to the curates; and above all, the increase of adulteries and whore- 
 dom. (2) The historian Camden's description of these times agrees with 
 those of other writers. He says, " The sacrilegious avarice of the times 
 rapaciously seized upon colleges, chantries, and hospitals, under the 
 pretense of superstition : whilst ambition and jealousy amongst the great, 
 and insolence and sedition amongst the people, swelled to such a pitch 
 that England seemed to be raging mad with rebellions, tumults, party 
 'zeal, &c."(3) During the reign of Elizabeth, though the civil state of 
 the realm was better regulated, yet in private life the vices of individuals 
 in every rank rose to the same height of profligacy as before. Of this we 
 have the testimony of cotemporary Protestant writers, (4) and we shall 
 
 (i) Heylin's Hist, of Rcf. Edw. VI, an. 1550. 
 
 (2) Strype's Memorials Ecclesiastical, Book 11, c.xxiii.— I do not know ^\•hether the fol- 
 lowing extract from a court sermon is more a proof of the corruption of the tribunals, or of 
 the indecency of the pulpits, at this period. It was preached by the famous Latimer, before 
 Edward VI. " There lacketh a fourth to make up the mess, which, so God help me, if I 
 were judge, should be Havgiim fwim, a tyburn tippet, to take with him, if it were the 
 judge of the king's-bench, the lord chief justice of England, yea if it be my lord chan- 
 cellor himself: to Tyburn with him." And again, speaking of a judge who took bribes, 
 " he would wish that of such a judge in England now we might have his skin hanged up. 
 It were a goodly sight, the sign of the judges skin." Ibid, p. 440. 
 
 (3) Camden, Appar. ad Annal. Eliz. 
 
 (4) .Stubb's Motives to Good Works, with an epistle dcdicatorie to the lord major of 
 London, an. 1596, where, amongst other things, he asserted, that the observation of Luther, 
 quoted above, p. 99, still held good. Also R. Jeflery's Sermon at St. Paul's Cross, an. 
 1604. 
 
 O 2 meet
 
 J 04 LETTER V, 
 
 meet with too many proofs of it, at least in the conduct of the queen and 
 her ministers, in a subsequent letter. 
 
 In the sketch that you draw of the Reformation, you seem sensible, 
 Sir, of the difficulty of that task which so many able writers have in vain 
 attempted, (l) namely, to give such a general history of its proceedings 
 and effects, in improving the piety and morals of the people, as may 
 make it pass for the work of God. You therefore choose to rest your 
 defence of this cause on certain shining characters, more particularly con- 
 nected with it, whose virtue, you seem to think, will illuminate many 
 others of a darker aspect. You indeed expressly give up the character of 
 Henry VIII, who laid the foundation of it in this kingdom, calling him 
 *' a pope and a tyrant ;" (2) and you tacitly abandon thoise of the duke 
 of Somerset, who chiefly raised its structure under the authority of his 
 nephew, Edward VI ; as also of queen Elizabeth, who restored it, after 
 it had been destroyed by her predecessor, Mary. In fact, both the above- 
 mentioned proved as arbitrary and tyrannical, in the management of reli- 
 gious matters, as Henry himself had been. (3) The personages then 
 
 whom 
 
 (i) Heylin, Burnet, Fuller, Strype, Collier. See the duchess of York's declaration, 
 ■concerning the effect which the perusal of the History by the first named anther caused in 
 her, in the duke of Brunswick's Fifty Reasons, and Dodd's Eccles. Hist. vol. iii,. p. 397. 
 
 (2) P. 63. 
 
 (3j I have, in my History, vol. i, p p. 365, 366, produced proofs of Elizabeth having 
 assumed a loftier tone of infallibility, and exercised a more arbitrary spiritual authority, than 
 were ever claimed by any pope since the days of St. Peter. Hear now in wliat manner 
 Seymour obliges his royal nephew, then a child only ten years old, to claim the same pre- 
 rogatives for him to make use of them. " We would not have our subjects so much mistake 
 our judoement, so much mistrust our zeal, as though we could not discern what ought to 
 be done, or would not do all things in due time. God be praised, we know both what, by 
 his word, is meet to be redressed, and have an earnest mind, with all convenient speed, to 
 set forth the same." Collier, Ecc. Hist. vol. ii, p. 246. — This ecclesiastical despot began his 
 protectorship by altering the established religion of the country, in a great variety of arti- 
 cles, on the strength of his own authority. See Heylin, p p. 34, ^^. Burnet, Collect, no. vii. 
 He reduced the bishops to such servility as to oblige them to take out a new commission for 
 governing their dioceses during the royal pleasure, {hccntiam ad noslru?n bene placitum ■dunlaxat . 
 
 duraturavi.
 
 THE REFORMATION. lO.', 
 
 whom joii choose for the subject of your panegyric are Wycliff, Luther, 
 Erasmus, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Hooper, I have already re- 
 vieued two of these characters, Wycliff and Erasmus, and I have placed 
 them in such different lights from those in which you had exhibited them, 
 that I hardly think they will any longer be the objects of your praise or 
 partiality. 
 
 It was natural for you to speak with rapture of Martin Luther, since 
 you consider him as " the instrument of Providence for accomplishing 
 the most important purposes. ...to whom are to be attributed all the 
 branches of 'the Reformation, which spread over the different parts of 
 Europe, after he had first planted it in Germany." (i) You admit indeed, 
 that " he was, in liis manners and writings, coarse, presuming, and im- 
 petuous ;" but these, you assert, " were qualities allied with those which 
 alone made him capable of supporting well the extraordinary character in 
 which he appeared. "(2) What this character was, you have not ex- 
 pressed, but he himself has informed us, namely, that it was the same, 
 which had been supernal u rally conftrred on the prophets and apostles : 
 "Martin Luther, Ecclesiastes,{3) of Wittenberg... .for," says "he, " it is 
 not fitting that I should be without a title, having received the work of 
 the ministry, not from man, or by man, but bv the gift of God, and the 
 revelation of Jesus Christ." (4) Now, Sir, admitting Luther's commission 
 to have been as sublime and as arduous as was that of the apostles, I 
 would first ask you, whether it appears, that " coarseness of manners and 
 writing, presumption and impetuosity," were allied with the character of 
 these envoys of the meek Jesus? And whether it was found that they 
 coidd not succeed in their great work without qualities of this complexion? 
 
 duraturom, Burn. Collect, do. xi), and issued his mandates to them, regulating the liturgy, 
 the manner ot receiving the sacrament, &c. with the most arbitrary and absolute authority. 
 Heyliu, Hist. pp. 55, 56, 58,59. 
 
 (I) P. 76. Cz) Ibid. 
 
 (3) The title of the writer of one of the books in the Old Testament. 
 
 (4) Adversus false nomin. Episcop. Ord. toni. ii, £01.339. 
 
 In
 
 lOO LETTER V. 
 
 In the second place, I wish to exg,mine how far the language and beha- 
 viour of Martin Luther correspond with the ideas we naturally form of a 
 chosen instrument of Providence, of an Ecclesiastes commissioned by 
 revelation. 
 
 In the first place, we should have expected, that a personage of this 
 character would have entered upon the ministry of reforming the religion 
 of Christendom from a thorough conviction of fhe errors with which it 
 was infected. But no such thing. It was a private quarrel between 
 Luther's order, the Augustine friars, and a rival order, the Dominicans, 
 in a matter of honour and profit, which first occasioned him to commence 
 reformer, (i) He after this continued to submit himself to the pope, as 
 long as he had any prospect of cajoling or intimidating him ; (2) and it 
 was only when his doctrines were condemned by that authority, to which 
 he himself had appealed, that he boasted of setting himself in opposition 
 to the united belief of every Christian in the world. (3) He proceeded 
 in his career with the same bad faith with which he had entered upon it, 
 taking up theological opinions trom sudden gusts of passion and revenge ; 
 as, when being called upon to retract a certain condemned position of 
 Huss, which he had advanced, he furiously exclaimed, that all the positions 
 of Huss were true, (l) which, in other circumstances, he had loudl}- 
 condemned. (5) Thus also he acknowledges that he had tried to persuade 
 himself of there being no real presence of Christ in the sacrament, on 
 purpose to spite the pope, but that the words of Scripture were too plain 
 in favour of it. (0) In like manner he plainly proclaims, to the whole 
 
 body 
 
 (i) Sleidaii, Comment. 1. i. " Casu non voluntatc in has turbas incidi." Luth. Prsef. Op. 
 
 (3) Opera Luth. torn. i. (3) Ibid. Prsefat. 
 
 (4) Assert. Artie, per Leon X condemn. Opera Luth. toni. ii, fol. 114. 
 
 (5) " Nunquam niihi placuit nee in sternum placebit Husse." Luth. in Collat. cum Eck. 
 Cochleus in Act. Luth. 1519. 
 
 (6) " Hoc diffiteri non possum nee volo, quod si Carlostadius aut quispiam ahus, ante 
 quinquennium, mihi persuadere potuisset in sacramento prater panem ac vinum nihil esse, 
 ille magno beneficio me sibi devinctum reddidisset. Gravibus enim curis in hac excutlenda 
 
 materia
 
 THE REFORMATION. 10^ 
 
 body of Protestants, in case they presume to consult together and deter- 
 mine about their common belief, that he will return back to the ancient 
 church, and revoke every word that he had ever wi'itten or taught; (i) 
 telling them, that even in acting right, when they acted without his 
 authority, they were plunging themselves into the jaws of hell. (2) 
 
 Again, Sir, we should have expected in a new apostle, that if he pre- 
 tended to any supernatural communication, it would have been with no 
 other than with celestial spirits. Instead of this, Luther has published to 
 the world, not only that he held frequent communications with the devil, 
 but also that he learned the most material part of his whole Reformation, 
 namely, the abolition of the mass, from him. You ^\ ill find, Sir, in his 
 treatise on that subject, an account of Satan's appearing to him by night, 
 and of a long dialogue that passed between them, in which Luther de- 
 fends the mass, and the devil argues against it. The conclusion is, that 
 the new apostle yields to the motives suggested by his infernal antagonist, 
 
 and adopts the important reform which he proposes, (s) 
 
 In 
 
 materia desudebam ; omnibus nervis me cxtricare et expedire conatus sum ; cum prohc pcr- 
 spicubmn hac re papatui aim. prunis me valde incommodare posse. \*erum ego me captum \udeo, 
 nulla elabendi via relicta. Textus enim evangelii nimis apertus est." Lutb. Epist. ad Ar- 
 gentin. tom.vii. fol. 502. 
 
 (i) " Quod si communibus istis constitutionibus id quod destinatis perficieritis, non du- 
 bitabo funem reducere, et omnium quae aut scripsi aut docui palinodiam cancre, et a vobis 
 descissere : boo vobis dictum esto." Sermo Luth. tom. vii. fol. 276. 
 
 (2) " Coram Papa et inflatis illis turgidisqiie capitibus facile quidem pro vobis causam 
 ilicercm. Atqui Diabolo vos purgare non ita proclive mihi est. Quum Cacodaemon iis qui 
 bujus rei capita fuerunt ac designatores in mortis conflictatione hos et similes scripturse locos 
 objiclet, omuls planlatio ?Sc. Currihant el non mitubam cos, &c. qui quneso subsistent ? In in- 
 ferorum fauces eos recta pr^cipitabit." Tom. vii. fol. 274. 
 
 (3) " Contigit me semel sub mcdiam noctcm subito expergefieri. Ibi Satan mecum ccpit 
 ejusmodi disputationem. Audi, inquit, Luthere, doctor perdocte, nosti etiam te quindecim 
 annis celebrasse missas privatas pene quotidie ? Quid si tales missae privatae horrenda esset 
 idololatria ? Cui respondi sum unctus sacerdos....bacc omnia feci ex mandate et obedientia 
 majorvun : hrec nosti. Hoc, inquit, totum est ^ crum ; sed TurciE et Gentiles etiam faciunt 
 omnia in suis templis tx obedientia." In his angustiis, in hoc agone contra Diabolum vo- 
 lebam retundere hostcm armis quibus assuetus sum sub papatu, &c. Verum Satan e contra, 
 
 fortius
 
 108 LETTER V. 
 
 In a word, Sir, we should have expected in a professed reformer of 
 Christianity, the strictest morahty, both of life and doctrine, and the most 
 edifying piety, modesty, meekness, and charity. Let ns examine, in a 
 few words, how far Martin Luther was possessed of this character. He 
 tells us, that whilst he continued a Catholic monii he " observed chastity, 
 obedience, and poverty, and that being free from worldly cares he gave 
 himself up to fasting, watching, and prayer ; (l) whereas, after he com- 
 menced reformer, he describes himself, as raging with the most violent 
 concupiscence, (2) to satisfy which he broke through his solemn vow of 
 continency, in direct opposition to his former doctrine, (3) by marrying a 
 religious woman, who was under the same obligation. He then pro- 
 ceeded to teach the shameful lessons that we have seen above ; (4) and 
 others , still more licentious, such as the permission, in certain cases, of 
 concubinage and polygamy, (5) and that pestilential doctrine, which is 
 the utter destruction of all morality, that there is no freedom in human 
 
 fortius et vehementius instans ; age, inquit, prome vibi scriptum est quod homo impius possit 
 consecrare. Sec. Atque ultra ursit Satan ; ergo non consecrasti, &c. Quae est haec in- 
 audita abominatio in coelo et in terra !..... Hoc fere erat disputationis summa." Opera Luth. 
 De Unct. et Miss. Priv. torn, vii, fol. 328, 229, 230. N. B. As it is possible that Dr. S. or 
 some of his friends may fancy that there is some fraud or mistake on my part or on that of 
 the editors, I have the works of Luther, in 8 vols, folio, printed at Wirtenberg in 1558 
 under the inspection of Melancthon, at his or their service if they chuse to call for them. 
 
 (1) Comment, ad Gal. ■ c. i, torn. v. 
 
 {2) In Colloq. Mensal. " Ut non est in mcis viribus situm ut vir non sim, tarn non 
 est mei juris ut absque muliere sim." Serm. de Matrim. torn. v. p. 119. 
 
 (3) Soptima species (impudicitias) est sacrilegium, ubi jam non tantum castitas polluitur, 
 sed etiam quaj Deo soli oblata fuit toUitur, et sanctum profanatur. In religiosis gravissimum 
 est, quia sponte sese consecraverunt Deo et rursum se subtrahunt." DecIam.Pop. torn, i, 
 fol. 36. (4) P-5^- 
 
 (5) " Tertia ratio divortii est ubi alter alteri subduxerit, ut debitam benevolentiam per- 
 solvere nolit, aut habitare cum renuerit. Hie oportunum est ut maritus dicat : Si tu nolueris 
 alter vnletx si chtnina nolit, adveniat ancilla." Serm. de Matrim. tom. v. fol. 123. See also 
 the dispensation granted by Luther, Melancthon. Buccr, and five other ministers, to the 
 prince of Hesse Cassel to have two wives at a time, lirst published by a descendant of that 
 prince, and copied by Bossuet, Variat. 1. vi. 
 
 actions.
 
 THE REFORMATIOX. 1 Og 
 
 actions. (l) Rut liow sliall 1 speak, of the phrenetic fury and outragious 
 abuse to «hich he abandons himself, and of his indecent buffoonery against 
 all those persons, of whatever dignity, \\ hetlier in chui-ch or state, vviio 
 venture to oppose him ! You admit, Sir, tliat iiis language is " coarse, 
 impetuous, and presuming." But are these the proper qualifications for 
 such excesses as those in question ? The usual llovvcrs of his speech, 
 when addressing the pope and other Catholic prelates, are: villain, thief, 
 traitor, apostle of the devil, bishop of Sodomites; (2) and the extent of 
 his charity to tlicni is to wish that their bowels were torn out, that they 
 were cast into the Mediterranean sea or into the flames, and that they were 
 hurried aw^ay to the devil ! (3) There are other passages, in great number, 
 too indecent to admit of being translated at all. Indeed, I alniost blush 
 to soil my paper with transcribing some of them inco my notes below, in 
 the original Latin. (-4) His treatment of the king of England, Henry YllI, 
 
 v.ith 
 
 (i) Sec the whole treatise of Luther against Erasmus, De Servo Arbitrio, in the later 
 editions of which many of the more extravagant expressions that occur in the former are 
 omitted. — The authors of the New Biographical Dictionary deny that Erasmus's work against 
 Luther, Diatribe de Libero Arbitrio, had any thing to do with Luther's dispute with the pope. 
 Luther himself however says directly the contrary, and acknowledges that the question, 
 whether man is possessed of free-will or not, is the very hinge of the dispute. He thus ad- 
 dresses Erasmus : " Hoc in te vehementer laudo quod solus rem ipsani es aggressus, hoc est 
 summam causae, nee me fiitigaris alienis istis causis de papatu, purgatorio, indulgentils et 
 similibus nugis, potius quam causis, in quibus me hactenus omnes fere venati sunt frustra. 
 Unus'tu solus cardinem rerum vidisti et ipsum jugulnm petisti." Luth. De Serv. Arbit. 
 torn, li, fol. 525. 
 
 (2) Adversus Papatum passim. Tom. vii. (3) Ibid. 
 
 (4) " Sunt (papae, &c.) desperati & perditi nebulones, latrones, proditores n)endaces, et 
 ipsissinia sentina omnium sceleratissimorum hominum qui vivunt. Ibid. tom. vii, fol. 151. 
 " Consujtius foret, si imperator et status imperii permitterent sceleratos istos nebulones 
 (papam et cardinales) perpttKo ad Satanam properare....Si detractant concilia. ...facinras 
 eis jus concacandi femoralia et a collo suspendenti." — Our Reformer next addresses himself 
 to pope Paul III, in the following terms : '' Progredere caute, care mi Paulule, mi asine ne 
 subsilias. Ah mi pap-aselle ne «ubsilias, charissime mi assclhde ne facias, ne forte labaris..., 
 et si forte inter cadendum tuam podicis animam amitteres, turn toti mundo te ridendum 
 propinareSj diceretque : Vah Diabolo ut pap-asinus se totum tcedavit !....Horrebam et profecto 
 
 P putabam
 
 no LETTER V. 
 
 with whom, as I have related, (l) he had at one time a theological contro- 
 tersy, (though afterwards they grew into a better understanding with each 
 other), (2) was not more respectful than "his treatment of the pope. Luther 
 makes no difliculty to call his royal antagonist, a Thomistical pig, an ass, 
 a Jakes, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon 
 disguised in a king's robe, a mad fool with a frothy mouth and a whorish 
 face. He even addresses him as follows : You liej you stupid and sacri- 
 legious king. (3) 
 
 You will probably be offended with this portrait of the first reformer, 
 but remember, Sir, it is not I who traced it, but that it comes from his 
 own pen. There was no question concerning Luther's writing or 
 character, until you introduced a panegyric upon them,, in order to make 
 me pass for a writer \^'ho had in some indirect way traduced them. But 
 why. Sir, after all, should you be so solicitous for the credit of Martin 
 Luther, since he has'bet^ore hand excluded you from every degree of 
 religious intercourse or communion with him ? For you declare yourself 
 in your writings, to be of the opinion of those, who in the time of 
 Luther were called Sacramentarians, that is to say, you do not admit a 
 
 putabam me tonitrus fragorem audire, tarn niagnam et terribilem crepltum ventris piipasinus 
 iste deflabat." Ibid, The same kind of filthy ideas runs through several others of this 
 grave divine's treatises, no less than through -that which I have quoted. In torn, ii, fol. 
 434, we are presented with a caricature wooden print of a papasinns or pope-ass, according 
 to Luther's idga of. one ; and fol. 429, with th:it o^ a. monacho-vilul us or monk-calf. 
 
 (1) Vol. i, p. 331. 
 
 (2) See Epis. Luth. ad Reg. Angl. an. 1525, torn, ii, fol.^-;]. 
 
 (3) Contra Reg. Angl. an. 1522, torn, ii, fol. 356, &c. passim. In the original edition of 
 this treatise he addresses the king in the following scandalous terms : " Damnabllis putredo 
 ct vermis jus mihi erit pro meo rege majestatem Anglican) luto et stercore ccrispergere, et 
 coronam illam blasphemam in Christum pedibus conculcare." ,. Opera Thomce Mori, apud 
 Collier, Ecc. Hist. vol. ii, rec. iii. — The most extraordinary circumstance, however, attending 
 this whole dispute is, that Luther, giving an account of his book, reproaches himself with 
 having used, too great mildness in it towards the king, saying tha the did so at the request 
 of his friends, in hopes that his sweetness would giiin Hcniy. Ad Maledic. Reg. Ang. 
 torn. ii. 
 
 real
 
 THE REFORMATIO-^?. 1)1 
 
 TC^a] and corporal presence of Christ in the sacrament. ( i ) TMs was a suffi- 
 cient rhotive for liim to pour out against you the ?ame fbul-mouthcd 
 epithets and curses Avhich he employed against the pope. Again and 
 again he devotes 3'ou to everlasting perdition ; and he even grounds his 
 oun hones of finding mercy at the tribunal of the great Judge on the 
 opposition which he has made to those of your sentiments. (2) See, Sir, 
 Iiow unwisely you act in undertaking the defence of this arch-reformer, 
 since in extolling him you condemn yourself. 
 
 You excuse me from the task of reviewing the characters of the other 
 chief reformers abroad, such as Zuinglius, (3) Carlostadius, (-4) (Ecolom- 
 
 (i) Pp. 99, 100. 
 
 (a) " Hereticos serio censenuis et alienos ab ecclesia Dei esse omnes Zuinglianos et onines 
 sacramentarios qui negant corpus et sanguinem Christi ore carnali sumi in venerabili Sacra- 
 mento." Contra 32 Art. Lovan. Theol. toni. ii, fol.454. " Sacranientarii hcretici, blas- 
 pbenii, infideles, ethnici, larvati Diaboli," &c. Def. Verb. Caen, contra Phanatic. Saram. 
 passim, tom.vii. fol. 379. " Alterutram partem (aut Sacranientarii aut Lutherus) aDiaboIo 
 exagitari contra Deuni necesse est ; tertium nullum esse potest." Ibid. fol. 384, "Age 
 ergo qua ndo adeo sunt impudentes et omnes contemptui et ludibrio habent, ideo ego Lu- 
 theranani adjiciam cohortationem : nialedicta sit in omnem aeternitatem ilia caritas et cnncordia 
 (cum Sacramentariis) eo quod talis concordia ecclesiam dllacerat et more diabolico irridet." 
 Ibid. " Hoc testimonium, hancque gloriam ad tribunal Jesu Cbristi allaturum quod sacra- 
 mentorum hostes Carlostadium, Zuinglium, CEcolompadium, Stenkfeldium eorumq'ue disci- 
 pulos toto pectore damnarit atque vitarit." Brerely's Apology and Woodhead's Spirit of Lu- 
 ther ex Serm. German. Lutheri. 
 
 (3) Luther declared that he dispaired of the salvation of Zuinglius, because, not satisfied 
 with opposing the sacrament, he admitted the founders of idolatry and the abettors of suicide, 
 such as Numa, Cato, &c. equally to the kingdom of heaven with the apostles and martyrs. 
 Zuinglius at length died sword in hand fighting for the reformation which he preached. 
 
 (4) Carlostadius was Luther's first disciple of any considerable note, but who having ven- 
 tured to make some alterations at Wittenberg, in Lutiier's absence, in the year 1531, and 
 at the same time denying the real presence, Luther declared war against him and his fol- 
 lowers, and condemned them in the terms we have seen above, note (2). Melancthon, 
 another chief disciple of Luther, calls him a brutal, ignorant man, void of piety and hu 
 manity, and more of a Jew than a Christian. 
 
 P 2 padius,
 
 1 12, LETTER Y. 
 
 padiua, (l) Ochin, (2) Calvin, (s) and Beza, (4) by not introducing their 
 names into your panegyric; otherwise it would be an easy matter to 
 trace, from their own writings, and the accounts of their professed 
 friends, separate portraits of them, almost as disgusting as that of 
 Liither himself. You now lead me back into England, in order to 
 contemplate " the integrity and virtue" of the chief champions of the 
 same cause there, namely, of the I'ive Protestant bishops who suffered 
 death in Mary's odious persecution. I join with you, Sir, in conimis- 
 erating their sufferings, arid I do not envy them any fair praise which they 
 
 (i) Qi^colonipaduis was a Brigittine friar, who quitting his monastery, married a young 
 wife, and thereby occasioned Erasmus, who had been his friend, to say, that the grand tra- 
 gedy of the Reformation in most instances had the catastrophe of a comedy, inasmuch at it 
 generally ended in a marriage. Having met with a sudden death, as was afterwards the 
 case with Luther himself, the latter published that he was strangled bv the devil. See De 
 Miss. Priv. 
 
 (3) Ochin \'i'as an apostate Capucin friar, who fled from his order to Geneva, for the pur- 
 pose of getting a wife. He afterwards wrote in fivour of polygamy, and became a professed 
 Socinian. He is accused of having formed a conspiracy at Vincenza in 1546, with Trevisan, 
 Rugo, Maier, Lelius Socinus, &c. for the destruction of Christianity ; which conspiracy is 
 said to be developed in the impiety of the present day. See a late work entitled Le Voile 
 Leve. 
 
 (3) Calvin was as intemperate in his language as Luther himself,- calling his adversaries, 
 at every turn, v/hether Protestants or Catholics, dogs, swine, asses, fools, madmen, rogues, 
 &c. aad nmch more violent and cruel in his disposition, of which, amongst others, his 
 burning Servetus is a memorable instance. To say nothing of Bolsee's account of his life 
 and death, (who having been an object of Calvin's persecution, may be suspected of pre- 
 judice against him), Conradus Schlusselburg, a learned Lutheran, draws an equally frightful 
 picture of them. It will be sufficient to mention one leading part of his doctrine, that " when 
 princes will not reform religion, it is lawful for subjects to do it, even by force of arms." 
 
 C4) Beza was a true disciple of Calvin. He has left a monument of his intolerfliice in his 
 Tractatus de Hfrr/ieis pnnioidh, and of his dissolute manners in his epigrams, printed at Paris 
 in 1548. One of these contains the following lines : 
 
 Abest Candida, Beza quid moraris ? 
 Andeberius abest, quid hie moraris? 
 S'jd utrum, rogo, prceferam di orun ?... 
 Ampleetor quoque sic hune et i lam, &c. 
 
 are
 
 TILE REFORMATION. ^ 113 
 
 arc entitled to. Nevertheless, I think, that either from pity or partiaHty, 
 their faults have been concealed and their real characters disguised, by 
 yourself and by most modern writers. The question then is, whether, 
 standing as I do in the character of your literary antagonist, I shall en- 
 deavour to shew that your general encomium on these prelates is as remote 
 from historical truth as your statements are in so many other particulars ; 
 or whether, in compliance with the prejudices of the public, I shall leave 
 the latter in possession of their mistaken notions on tliis subject ? I 
 think the greater part of them will vote for hearing the evidence on one 
 side as well as on the other. 
 
 The first of these prelates whom you mention, was John Hooper,- a 
 Cistercian monk, who abandoning his religious order and state of con- 
 tinency, to both of which he was bound by solemn vows, married a 
 Flandrican woman, (i) These sacrilegious perjuries, you, Sir, may be 
 inclined to excuse, on account of the impossibility you have stated " of 
 counteracting the propensities of nature ;" (2) but I believe very many 
 Christians of all communions w ill view them in their true light, no less 
 than myself. Tou admit, that " Hooper had a certain superstitious nar- 
 rowness of mind about him, which gave to ceremonies and vestments a 
 degree of importance which they did not deserve." (3) The truth is, he 
 was a thorough-paced Zuinglian, (4) having been trained in that discipline 
 by his master, BuUinger, in Switzerland, (5) and is justly accused of 
 being the founder of that puritanical sect in England, which caused such 
 confusion, tumults, and blood-shed there, during the space of more than 
 a century. (6) You may possibly excuse his objections to the vestments 
 and ceremonial in question, on the score of a mistaken conscience ; but 
 how then will you reconcile his compliance in these points, by consenting 
 to \^ear the vestments, (7) after having engaged the young king to write 
 
 (i) Wood's Atben. Oxon. (2) P. 42. 
 
 • (3) P. 78. (4) Heylin, Hist. Ref.'p. 92. 
 
 (5) " Cranmer maligned liim for his worse than Calvinistical principles." Wood's Athen. 
 
 (6) Fox, Acts and Monum. (7) Heylin, p. 92. 
 
 to
 
 114 THE REFORMATION. 
 
 to Cranmer that these " were offensive to his conscience?" (i) and also 
 his taking the oath of supremacy, after having made his patron, Dudlej, 
 write to the same Cranmer, that this oath " was burthensouie to his 
 conscience," (2) when he found that he could not get promotion without 
 these steps ? Again, how will you excuse his obtaining and holding the 
 bishopric of Worcester, in addition to his former bishopric of Gloucester, 
 especially after having inveighed so strongly as he did, in hi5 sermons, 
 against pluralities ? (3) In a word, the best friends of the church accuse 
 Hooper of being the principal instrument in those sacrilegious robberies of 
 it, which they represent as having so much disgraced the first establiyh- 
 ment of the Reformation here. (4) I cannot close this article without 
 expressing my surprise at the passage, which I have quoted from your 
 Reflections, concerning the alledged " superstition of Hooper, in giving 
 to ceremonies and vestments an importance which they did not deserve." 
 In fact, Sir, is not this censure a two-edged sword, which wounds the 
 church of England as deeply as it does the Puritans ? For most certainly 
 one party did not attach more importance to the abolition of these things, 
 than the other did to the preservation of them. If there was any super- 
 stition in this controversy, it was evidently on the side of the church. 
 -But I am convinced this was not the case, but rather that there was a 
 great deal of fanaticism on the side of the Puritans. I shall have other 
 occasions, Sir, of defending this church against the attacks which you 
 make upon her. 
 
 Latimer, you say, " possessed perfect simplicity and honesty, without 
 perhaps much prudence or judgement to direct "them." (5) His want of 
 prudence and judgement, I think, is very manifest in the sermon which I 
 have quoted above, and might be made still more manifest by citations 
 from other of his sermons, particularly from thot on the pack of cards, 
 preached at Cambridge. (0) However, I have nothing to do with his 
 
 (1) Fox, Acts and Mon. p. 1504, 4th edit. (3) Ibid. 
 
 (3) Sander. De Schism. (4) Heylin, Edw. VI, p. 94. Collier, 
 
 (5) P-78- i^) F«x, p. 1 73 1. 
 
 simplicity.
 
 THE REFORMATION. 115 
 
 bimplicity, but have only to inquire how far he is entitled to that high 
 character of " integrity and virtue which you, and most modern writers, 
 bestow upon him. For, admitting him to have been conscientiously per- 
 suaded of the truth of the Keformation, was it consistent with Christian 
 integrity and virtue to dissemble his religion for twenty years together, 
 and repeatedly to abjure it, as he certainly did as often as he found him- 
 self threatened with any, serious danger by adhering to it? (i) Was it 
 consistent with integrity and virtue to accept of one of the highest offices, 
 the bishopric of Worcester, in a church which he so much reprobated, and 
 even to take an oath of opposing, to the utmost of his power, all persons 
 who dissented from or were disobedient to it ? (2) But supposing you are 
 disposed to overlook all this, what will you say to the share which he took 
 in the religious persecutions both of Henry's and Edward's reign ? \\^hat 
 "will you say when you find him sending Protestants victims to the stake, 
 at which he himself afterwards suffered; (3) or to his becoming the tool 
 
 of 
 
 (1) " He was called up to the cardinall (Wolsev) for hercsie, where he was content to 
 subscribe and graunte unto such articles as they propounded unto him." Fox, Acts, p. 1736. 
 This happened in the year 1529. In 1531 he was cited before the archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Wareham, on fresh charges of heresy, and Fox is unwiHingly obliged to own that he was 
 forced to sign an abjuration of them, which he sets down, p. 1738. The third time he was 
 called upon, with certain others, to give an account of his opinions, by Henry himself, on 
 which occasion he escaped by an absolute submission of himself to his supreme head in 
 spiritual matters. His fourth and last recantation was when he was deprived of his bishopric, 
 and committed prisoner to the Tower, where he lay till the end of Henry's reign, on sus- 
 picion of heresy, and for violating the fast and abstinence of Good Friday. Fox glosses 
 over this matter; but Parsons shews the absui'dity of believing that the tjTant Henry, who 
 at this very time forced Shaxton, bishop of Salisbury, to recant his Lutheran opinions and 
 to carry a faggot at the burning of four other Protestants in 1546, would have been content 
 with less from' Shaxton's fellow prisoner, Latimer, than a solemn abjuration of his doctrines. 
 See Exam, of Fox, p. 222. 
 
 (aj Consecration oath in the Pontifical. 
 
 (3) It appears, from Collier and Fox, that he was one of the chief bishops who sat upon 
 the trial of the famous martyr, John Lambert, and that lie and Cranmer had previously 
 endeavoured to persuade him to subscribe to the doctrine of the real presence. All that has 
 
 been
 
 ] lO LETTER V. 
 
 of the unnatural Sejm^ur, in bringing his brother, lord Thomas, to the 
 scaffold, on the most frivolous of all pretences ? (l) I fear it will be 
 ditHcult to reconcile all this, either with tlie virtue of a martyr, or the 
 integrity of an ordinarj' Christian. 
 
 Ridley, you tell us, was " active in the conduct of ecclesiastical 
 affairs." I think, Sir, 3'ou will grant, that. he shewed rather too much ac- 
 tivity in these affairs, to be consistent with integrity, after I shall have 
 reminded you, that, when bishop of Rochester in Henry's da^•s and when 
 bishop of London in those of Edward, he w-as as forv\ ard in persecuting 
 Protestants and Anabaptists, as Cranmer, Latimer, and the rest of the pre- 
 lates were ; (2) that he purchased the latter see by alienating the most 
 valuable of its manors ; (3) and that he was one of the most zealous and 
 forward of Dudley's partisans in endeavouring to interrupt the regular 
 succession of the throne, and in raising that rebellion which was attended 
 with the loss of so much blood. (4) 
 
 But 
 
 been said in defence of them is, diat they had not yet, in 1558, settled their behef in this 
 leading article. Collier, p. 151. Burnet, &c. See also Latimer's name, in the sentence 
 against Joan of Kent, who was burnt for heresy, in 1549. Burnet, Hist, of Ref. part ii, 
 book i, rec. ^^. 
 
 (1) Heylin, Hist. Ref. Edw. VI, p. 72. Stow, ann. 1549, and other writers, speak of an 
 invective which Latimer preached against the admiral a few days after his execution ; but 
 Saunders, who was present on the occasion, says that Latimer paved the way for this pro- 
 secution by a previous sermon at Oxford, charging the adn'iiral with treason. 
 
 (2) See his signature to a sentence against Van Parre, similar to that quoted above against 
 Joan of Kent, Burnet, ut supra. 
 
 (3) Within nine days after his promotion to the see of London, he alienated four of its 
 best manors, and amongst others Stepney and Hackney, to the king, in order to " gratify 
 some of the courtiers." Strype, Mem. Ecc. vol. iii, p. 234. The same author says of Poynet 
 the first Protestant bishop of Winchester, that " he passed away all the temporalities of his 
 see conditionally to his preferment to it ;" in return for which he was content to receive 
 divers rectories. Ibid. p. 272. 
 
 (4) Stow says : " Dr. Ridley vehemently persuaded the people in the title of the lady Jane, 
 and inveighed earnestly against the title of the lady Mary." Ann. J553. — Dr. S. is unjust to 
 the memory of Robert Farrer, one of the five Protestant bishops who were burnt in Mary's
 
 THE REFORMATION. 11; 
 
 But as the chief agent of the Reformaiion in this country was certainly 
 archbishop Crann-'cr, so you, HI:e most inoclern v/riters, spare no pains in 
 embeUishing his character eo the utmost of your power. For my part, 
 I will draw no cbarc'c^cr at a^l, hct barely rela-e facts, as I fiid them 
 recorded by the most celebrated ProtesianL writers, and then lerve your- 
 self, and every other reader who wishes -.o be guided by truth and not by 
 prejudice, to form an opinion concerning this celebrated preliAe. The 
 first remarkable circumstance in the life of Cranmer was his pri%'ately 
 marrying a woman of low condition, whilst he was fellow of Jesus' 
 College, Cambridge, (l) contrary to the engagements of his admission. 
 He afterwards, when a priest, married a second wife in Germany, by a 
 much more flagrant violation of his vows of celibacy, (2) and having 
 brought her privately into England, (3) he continued to live with her, (4) 
 in equal opposition to the laws of the church, and of the land. (5) Being a 
 
 reign. The truth is, though he was much persecuted by other Protestants, yet the charges 
 against him are much less serious than those against his four brethren. The following short 
 account of him is extracted from the Oxford historian : " Farrer was one of Cramner's 
 chaplains, and being in great favour with the duke of Somerset, was by him appointed bishop 
 of St. David's. But upon the fall of the said duke, who was an upholder of him and his 
 unworthy doings, ^6 articles were drawn up against him by some of his neighbours, ac- 
 cusing him as an abuser of his authority, a maintalner of superstition, covetous, negligent, 
 foolish, &c. all which he being unable to answer, was committed to close custody in London 
 during the remainder of Edward's reign." For the articlts themselves, and Farrer's answers, 
 see Acts and Mon. (i) Acts and Mon. 
 
 (2) Besides the violation of his vow of continency, he, in this case, fell into the irregularity 
 attached to bigamy. 
 
 (3) He is said to have brought his wife to England in a large chest, which being landed 
 at Gravesend, and set on the wrong end, the poor inclosed woman was obliged to cry out, 
 in order to save her life. For the truth of this story, Parsons refers to Cranmer's daughter- 
 in-law, then living. It is also allowed by Mason, in his Defence of English Consecrations, 
 &c. 
 
 (4) This he admitted upon his trial, (Fox, p. 1877) ; though, when questioned by Henrj', 
 whether /As bed-chamler luoiild siuHcl the test of the six articles, he said that he had sent his 
 v^ife home to Germany. Collier, vol. ii, p. 200. 
 
 (5) Particularly the law of the Six Articles, 31 Hen. VHI, cap. 14. This act made it fe- 
 Igny for any clergj-man to cohabit with a wife. 
 
 Q Lutheran
 
 1 18 LETTER V. 
 
 Lutheran in principle as far back as the year 1520, (l) he afterwards ac- 
 cepted the office of pope's penitentiary, and when named to the arch- 
 bishopric of Canterbury, he was content to receive different bulls from the 
 pontiff, to take upon himself the character of his legate in England, and 
 even to take a solemn oath of obedience to him, (2) with an obligation of 
 opposing all heretics and schismatics, that is to say, according to the 
 received sense of the words, all persons of his own religious persuasion. (3) 
 In like manner he must necessarily have said mass, which, in his opinion, 
 was an idolatrous worship, both at his consecration, and at an infinite num- 
 ber of other times, during the fourteen years that he governed the church 
 of England under Henry. He must also necessarily have, from time to 
 time, ordained other priests to do the same, and have imposed upon them 
 the obligation of that continency which he did not observe himself. In a 
 word, we see his subscription still affixed to a great variety of doctrinal 
 articles and injunctions, issued during that reign, which we know to have 
 been in opposition to his real sentiments. (4) 
 
 Everyone knows, that Cranmer owed his rise in the church to the 
 part which he took in Henry's divorce from queen Catherine of Arragon. 
 I shall here only take notice of the concluding scenes of that transaction. 
 This prince then, being tired out with the opposition of Rome, and im- 
 patient to be united with his beloved. Ann Boleyn, privately marries her, 
 Nov. 14, J 533, and Cranmer himself is one of the witnesses of the con- 
 tract. (5) On the nth of the following March this same prelate writes 
 a letter to Henry, from " pure motives of conscience " as he declares, (6) 
 but from a pre-concerted scheme as the facts prove, representing the 
 
 (i) Fox. 
 
 (3) It is true he made an a£l of protestation in opposition to tlie tenor of his consecration' 
 oath ; but this reservation, so far from diminishing, rather augmented his guilt. Collier, 
 vol. ii, rec. 22. (3) Pontif. Rom. 
 
 (4) See the two books. The Institution of a Christian Man, and The Eruditio?i of a Christian 
 Man, subscribed by him, with many other records, in Burnet and Collier. 
 
 (5) Heylin, Hist. Eliz. p. 89. (6) Cdllier, vol. ii, rec. 24. 
 
 necessity
 
 THE REFORMATION. lig 
 
 necessity there was of terminating the long-depending cause between 
 him and Catherine, and demanding of him the necessary ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction to decide it. (i) This being granted, he on the 20th of May 
 pronounces a sentence of divorce between the royal pair, and authorises 
 Henry to take another wife ; (2) six months after he himself had officiated 
 as witness to his marriage with Ann Bolcyn, and only four months be- 
 fore the latter was dehvered of an infant, who was aftervs^ards cjueen Eli- 
 zabeth. (3) Can you here, Sir, avoid exclaiming, What a scandalous col- 
 lusion in so important a matter of conscience and public example ! In 
 less than three years however the tyrant grows wcarv of the consort 
 whom he had moved heaven and earth to gain, and becomes enamoured 
 of a new beauty. Nevertheless, appearances must be saved ; and Cran- 
 mer is the ready instrument in smoothing the way to the gratification 
 of his passions. After a faint effort to save Ann, to whose family he had 
 such infinite obligations, in a cold adulatory letter to the king, which he 
 wrote on the occasion, (j) he lent all his aid to ruin and oppress her, 
 permitting, if not persuading, Iier (standing as she then did upon the verge 
 of eternity) to confess what he knew to be false; (5) and pronouncing 
 a sentence of divorce, which contained, that she had never been validly 
 married to Henry, at the very time that she was lying under sentence 
 of death for violating his bed by adultery ! (0) Henry's fourth match 
 was with Ann of Cleves, which was highly satisfastory to Cromwell and 
 Cranmer, on account of her being of the reformed persuasion. On this 
 
 (i) Collier, vol. ii, rec. 24. (2) Burnet, Collect, b. ii, n. 47. 
 
 (3) The royal pair were married by Dr. Rowland Lee, in the presence of Cranmer, the 
 duke of Norfolk, &c. Nov. 14, 1.532. Heylin, Hist. Eliz. p. 89. Stow fixes the marriage 
 two months later, viz. Jan. 25, 1,533. Elizabeth was born Sept. 7, 1533. 
 
 (4) See the letter in Burnet's Hist. Ref. b. iii, p. 300. 
 
 (5) See Burnet, p. 203, who iirst shews that there was evidence before the two archbishops 
 that Ann Boleyn was under no previous contract when she married Henry ; and secondly, 
 that Cranmer did actually divorce her on what he calls " an extorted confession." 
 
 (6) " The two sentences, the one of attainder for adulterj'^, the other of a divorce be- 
 cause of a pre-contract, did so contradict one another, that one if not both must be unjust." 
 Burnet. 
 
 Q 2 occasion
 
 120 LETTER V. 
 
 occasion the latter was commissioned io examine into the nature of a 
 former engagement between that lady and the duke of Lorrain's son. 
 Finding however that it had only passed between the parents of the par- 
 ties, when they were infants, and that they themselves, when they were 
 of a proper age, had broken it off by mutual consent, (l) he of course 
 pronounced that there was no lawful impediment to the king's marriage 
 with her ; which was accordingly celebrated Jan, 0, 1540. Henry however, 
 in less than half a year, becoming compleatly disgusted with his foreign 
 bride, Cranmer was found just as ready to dissolve the matrimonial knot, 
 both in convocation and in parliament, as he had been before to tie it. 
 He now finds that impediment to be valid, which he had a little before 
 pronounced null; and accordingly issues a sentence justifying his luxurious 
 master in proceeding to fresh contracts. Here the primate's ablest friends 
 are forced to abandon him, and to allow that in this doctrinal decision, he 
 and his brethren of the convocation were too much governed by the will 
 of their prince. (2) 
 
 Upon Henry's death Cranmer appeared no less obsequious to the pro- 
 tector Seymour, in whose favour he set aside in a great measure the last 
 will of his old master, of which he was the firsi-named executor, (s) 
 Having raised this ecclesiastical and civil idol to undue power, he was 
 ready to pay homage lo him with all the essential authority of the church, 
 taking out a new commission for his archbishopric, under the unheard of 
 pretext that his former power had expired with the former king, and pro- 
 fessing to be a prelate no longer than the child Edward, or Seymour him- 
 self, should acknowledge him to be so. (-4 ) He had before surrendered 
 more than sixteen manors of the archiepiscopal see to Henry; (5) and 
 
 (i) Burnet, parti, b. iii, p- 273- 
 
 (2) Collier, Ecc. Hist. vol. ii, p. 178. 
 
 (3) " Of which last will how little was performed, and how much less would have been 
 performed if some great persons, his (e-xecutors) might have had their will, we shall here- 
 after shew." Heylin, Edw. p. 38. 
 
 (4) Collier, vol. ii, p. ai8, Burnet. (5) Collier, vol.ii. rec. 67. 
 
 now
 
 THE RRFORMATION. 121 
 
 now he alienated above half of its remaining property to the favourites 
 of the day. ( 1 ) 
 
 Cranmer concurred no less in the other injustices and disorders of 
 this infant reign, than he did in those stated above. He gratified So- 
 merset by subscribing the death-warrant of his brother, lord Thomas 
 Seymour, the admiral ; though he had such a fair plea, as the canons of 
 the church afforded him, for keeping his hands clean from that political 
 sacrifice. (2) He was as forward as any of the courtiers in paying his 
 court to the rising power of Dudley, earl of \yarwick, when he found 
 the interest of the latter growing stronger than that of the duke of So- 
 merset ; and he carried his ingratitude to his deceased benefactor Henry, 
 and his infidelity in the discharge of that prince's last will to such a 
 length, as to concur in excluding his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, 
 from their lawful inheritance and right to the crown, in order to place it 
 on the head of Dudley's daughter-in-law, the lady Jane. (3) If Eliza- 
 beth, Sir, had succeeded to the throne immediately after Edward, she 
 would no more have spared Cranmer and Ridley, than Mary did. 
 
 In conclusion, Sir, if Cranmer was burnt to death for heresy, reflect 
 how many persons he himself, whilst he had power in his hands, had 
 condemned to the same punishment, on the self-same pretext. How dis- 
 ingenuously have you disguised and misrepresented this matter, where 
 you say : " When the respectable Cranmer is committed to the flames... 
 I wish to forget that he had procured the execution of an Anabaptist." (4) 
 For is it not true, that he was instrumental in the execution of many 
 other persons, besides Joan Knell, for religious opinions, and that some 
 of them held the very tenets for which he himself afterwards suffered ? 
 Though this part of his conduct has been kept out of sight as much as 
 
 (3) " Cranmer was forced to part with the better half of the possessions of his see. 
 Ridley, soon after his entry into London, was forced to give away four of the best manors 
 of his see in one day." Anc. Harmer. apud Collier. 
 
 (a) See Burnetj part ii, b. i. p. joo. (3) Ibid. p. 334. b. ii, p. i^S- 
 
 (4) P- 64. 
 
 possible.
 
 122 LETTER y.- 
 
 possible, yet we have certain proofs of his having been one of the chief 
 instruments, under Henry VIII, in bringing to the stake, John Lambert, 
 Ann Askew, John Frith, and Wilham Allen, (]) for denying the real pre- 
 sence of C hrist in the sacrament, besides a great number of Anabaptists. 
 In the reign of Edward VI, besides other most severe persecutions which 
 he carried on against Gospellers, Anabaptists, and other sectaries, amongst 
 whom two at least were Sacraraentarians, he was the active promoter, and 
 the immediate cause of the burning of Joan Knell, (2) and George Paris 
 or Van Perr, (3) for certain singular opinions. Amongst those who escaped 
 with their lives, a great part of them m ere forced to recant, through the 
 fear of torments, and to carry lighted tapers and faggots in testimony of 
 their having merited burning, (-i) To say something now more particular 
 
 of 
 
 (1) Fox, who disguises die share which Crannier had in these executions, yet is forced 
 te make the following awkward apology for him : " He purged away (by his death) his of- 
 fences in standing against Lambert and Allen, or if there were others with whose burning 
 and blood his hands were polluted." 
 
 (2) " When he (Cranmer) was on the point of passing sentence upon her,... .she re- 
 proached him for passing the like sentence on another woman, Ann Askew, for denying the 
 carnal presence of Christ in the sacrament ; telling him that he had condemned the said 
 Ann Askew not long before for a piece of bread, and was then ready to condemn her for 
 a piece of flesh." Heylin, Edw. VI, p. 89. — As three other Protestants, Lassels, Otterden, 
 and Adams, were burnt with Askew for the self-same cause, there is every appearance that 
 Cranmer was as instrumental in their punishment as he was in that of Askew. 
 
 (3) See the process of their condemnation, in Burnet's Collect, of Rec. part ii, b. i. n. 35. 
 
 (4) In 1538 I llnd a special commission granted to Crannier, with two other bishops and 
 six other persons, to try siwimarie et Jeplino, even though they had not been denounced or 
 detected, all Anabaptists, &c. and to deliver them over to the secular arm. Collier, vol. ii, 
 rec. 46. Within a month of the date of this connnission, viz. Nov. 24, I find two Anabap- 
 tists burnt, and four bearing faggots. Stow. About a year after this, by virtue of a special 
 commission, Cramner with certain other bishops tried Alexander Seaton for Protestaut 
 opinions, and condemned him to bear a faggot and recant at St. Paul's Cross, which he did 
 accordingly. Collier, vol. ii, p. 184. The same year three other Anabaptists were burnt, 
 by virtue of the former commission. Stow. In Edward's reign, certain " chiefs (of the 
 Gospellers and Anabaptists) were con vented, April 12, T549, before the archbishop (Cranmer) 
 the bishop of Westminster, and Drs. Cox, May, Cole, and Smith. Being convicted, some 
 
 Of
 
 THE REFORMATION, 123 
 
 of the execution alluded to, which you admit to have been procured by 
 Cranmor, I maintain, that w hen it is considered, \\ ith all its attendant 
 circumstances, it will be hard to find a mure cruel and wanton act ol per- 
 secution, than this of which C ranmer was the author. The subject of it 
 was a woman, Joan Knell or Butcher, of Kent. The doctrine for which 
 she suffered was of an abstract nature, not calculated to gain proselytes 
 or to occasion any public disturbances. She was barely accused of main- 
 taining, that " C hrist passed through the Blessed Virgin's Body as water 
 through a conduit, without participating of that body through which he 
 passed." (l) For no other cause than persisting in this opinion, she was 
 " convented, in the church of St. Paul, before archbishop Cranmer and his 
 assistants, convicted, and delivered over to the secular arm." We have 
 the sentence that he pronounced on the occasion, which is rigorous be- 
 yond the usual terms ;(2) and we have a certificate of it, addressed to the 
 king, in which, instead of petitioning for mercy, as was usually the case, 
 the convict heretic is expressly recommended "to receive due punish- 
 ment." (3) Nor w^as this all, for the royal youth being unwilling to sign 
 the w-arrant for the execution, Cranmer employs all his theological ar- 
 guments in persuading him to comply, amongst other things telling hini, 
 that " princes, being God's deputies, ought to punish impieties against 
 
 of them were dismissed only with an admonition, some sentenced to a recantation, and 
 others condemned to bear their faggots at St. Paul's." Heylin, p. 73. About the same 
 time .John Champneys of Stratford was convented before Cranmer, Latimer, and two other 
 doctors, at which time he was forced to recant upon oath certain " heresies and damnable 
 opinions " concerning regeneration, &c. as also to carry a faggot. In like manner John 
 Ashton, priest, being convented before Cranmer, abjured his heresies, &c. and took an oath 
 to submit to whatever penance was enjoined. Ex Kegist. Cranm. Collier, part ii, p. 266. 
 (i) Ileylin, Edw. VI, p. 88. Burnet, part ii, b. i, rec. 35. 
 
 (2) " Idcirco nos Thomas archiep. &c. te .Toannem Bocher alias de Kent tanquam per- 
 
 tinacem hasreticam, judicio sive curiae secular! ad omnem juris effcctum, qui cxinde sequi deheat 
 aut potent relinquimus," &c. See the sentence, ibid. p. 167. 
 
 (3) " Brachio vestro secular! dic-tam haereticam relinquimus condigna animadversmie plcc- 
 tendam." See the certificate, ibid. p. i68. 
 
 God."
 
 124 LETTER V. 
 
 God." (i) In the end, Edward sets his hand to the warrant, but with 
 tears in his eyes, telhng Cranmer, that •' if he did wrong, he (the said 
 Cranmer) should answer for it to God." (2) At length, by a change in 
 circumstances, the archbishop being condemned as a heretic to suffer that 
 cruel death, to which, on the same account, he had condemned so many 
 others, he was far from imitating the firmness of the greater part of them. 
 It is not however with Cranmer's fear of death that I here find fault, but 
 with your account of it. Is it then true, that his recantation was the 
 effect of " a momentary weakness," as you describe it to have been ? (3) 
 Was it a single act, and that of short continuance ? No, Sir, he is proved 
 to have deliberately subscribed six different forms of recantation, at so 
 many different periods, each one of which was more ample and express 
 than the preceding one ; and he remained during the whole five or six last 
 weeks of his life, and until the very hour of his death, cither a sincere 
 Catholic or an egregious hypocrite. (5) At length finding that, notwith- 
 standing all his retractions, he was upon the point of being executed, he 
 revoked them all, and shewed a resolution at his death which he had ex- 
 hibited in no one occurrence of his life. 
 
 Methinks, Sir, you will hardly forgive me this statement of facts, 
 bearing so hard on characters, which you have celebrated as models " of 
 virtue and integrity." But after all. Sir, reflect, that as I have not in- 
 
 (i) Burnet, part ii, b. i, p. ill. (2) Ibid. p. 112. 
 
 (3) P. 79. Dr. S. seems in this, as in many other passages, to liave been misled by that 
 treacherous guide, Hume, whose words are these : " He allowed, in an unguarded hour, 
 the sentiments of nature to prevail over his resolution." Hist, of Tudors. 
 
 (4) The two first of these retractations are without date. The third appears to have been 
 signed Feb. 14. The fourth is dated Feb. 16 ; and the last is dated March 18. See Strype's 
 Mem. Ecc. vol. iii, p. 234. Cranmer retracted his recantations and was executed March 21. 
 
 (5) Dr. S. is guilty of the greatest inconsistency, as well as uncharitableness, where he 
 ascribes the conduct of Cranmer's enemies in making him recant, to a " refinement of 
 cruelty,. ...in order that infamy might be added to his death." Did then Mary's divines 
 think it infamous to retract heretical opinions ? No : they thought it honourable in this 
 world, and advantageous for the next, wliich latter was the real motive of their persuasions. 
 
 vented
 
 THE KEFORMATIOX. 12.1 
 
 vented these facts, or foisted tliein into those records to which I have 
 referred for their existence, so neither is it in your power to suppress 
 them. And why indeed shoukl you wish to suppress them ? You have 
 seen that I have acknowledged and reprohated the crimes of a Sergius, a 
 John X, an Adrian Vl, and of every other bad pope, which I have found 
 recorded in genuine history. "Why then should you not be equally liberal 
 in abandoning as indefensible the characters of a Luther and a Cranmer. I 
 grant indeed, that the truth or falsehood of a religious system is not so 
 much connected with the behaviour of its later members or superiors, as 
 it is with that of its original preachers and founders. For though we 
 find, at all times, many of God's ministers, who go on in ordinary 
 succession to be bad men, yet we never find any but persons of the most 
 eminent piety and virtue charged by him with any extraordinary com- 
 mission of making known his will to men, as we observe in Noah, Abra- 
 ham, ISIoses, Samuel, the several prophets, John the Baptist, and the 
 apostles. Still, however. Sir, the cause of truth is inseparably connected 
 with that of religion ; and to tell the plain truth ought to be our first 
 concern, both as writers and as Christians. In fact, with the cause of truth 
 that of religion and of public happiness is intimately united. Bel'ore I 
 conclude I cannot refrain from making one more reflection of the same 
 tendency with the former. I see amongst the nobility and gentry of our 
 communion, the posterity of several men who were the agents and con- 
 federates of king Henry, Somerset, and Cranmer, in the measures which 
 I find fault with ; on the other hand, I behold amongst the nobility and 
 even the clergy of your's, the descendants of those who were instrumental 
 in the burnings of Mary's reign. Who knows but your progenitor, be- 
 tween two and three hundred years ago, was a retainer of the latter class, 
 and mine of the former ? Thus much I can confidently assert, that if 
 your boasted martyrs. Hooper and Rogers, were now alive, and saw^ you 
 officiating in your proper habit at the cathedral altar, they would turn 
 from you as from a superstitious papist ; and if Cranmer and Ridley were 
 now alive and sitting in judgement on some of your publications, which 
 I shall have occasion to notice, they would infallibly sentence you to th(; 
 same cruel fate which they themselves suffered. I have, &c. 
 
 R
 
 120 LETTER VI. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 V_JF all the Pagan persecutions which the primitive 
 Christians endured, from the reign of Nero down to that of Julian, they 
 were most sensible to the one which was raised against them by the last 
 mentioned emperor, as mistating the cause of their sufferings, and depriving 
 them of their reputation together with their lives. For this artful apostate, 
 who affected nothing so much as the character of humanity and bene- 
 volence, at the very time that he was inundating the whole empire with 
 the blood of innocent Christians, professed to be exempt from every de-. 
 gree of religious intolerance, and to be guided by no other sentiment than 
 zeal for the welfare of his people, (l) The English Catholics, Sir, have 
 reason to make the same distinction between the persecutions which 
 they suffered from Henry VIII, and from his daughter Elizabeth. 
 Those who lost their lives by the former, particularly the two most 
 learned and virtuous men of the whole kingdom, sir Thomas More and 
 bishop Fisher, are universally regretted, as the victims of undisguised and 
 tyrannical intolerance whilst the missionary priests, and other Catholics, 
 who suffered in the latter, though their cause was in all respects the same, 
 yet by the misrepresentation of their enemies, both at that period and 
 since, have passed for criminals who merited their fate. The truth is, 
 no portion of our history has been more poisoned and perverted than that 
 
 (i) Furebat ad versus nos nefandus imperator, ac ne eos honores qui martyribus haberi 
 solent consequeremur (hos eniiii Christianis invidebat) primum illius artificiuni hoc fuit ut 
 qui Christ! causa patiebantur, tanquam sontes et facinerosi cruciatu afficirentur....Hoc nio- 
 litur Apostata, ut vim afferat, et afferre non videatur ; ut nos supplicla perferanuis, et eo in- 
 terim honore, qui pro Christi nomine patientibus haberi solet, careamus." S. Greg. Naz. 
 orat. i. in Julian, ex vers. lat. 
 
 of
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. 127 
 
 of the EnoTish Catholics, from the Reformation down to the Revolution. 
 The immediate actors in the tragical scenes here alluded to were in- 
 fluenced by political and selfish motives, which would. not admit of being 
 exposed to the world; hence thej were under a necessity of inventing 
 the most odious calumnies against the subjects of their oppression, in 
 order to justify their own conduct in oppressing them. The consciousness 
 of their injustices against the Catholics, according to the general perver- 
 sity of hunian nature, (l) sharpened their cruelty, and produced in their 
 breasts a confirmed hatred of them. Being otherwise persons on whom 
 Providence was pleased to bestow splendid talents, and great success in 
 their temporal pursuits, hence their calumnies descend to us with redoubled 
 weight, and their whole conduct is viewed through the most flattering 
 medium. Thus every circumstance concurs to overwhelm the reputation 
 of Catholics with odium ; and I am by no means surprised that you, 
 Sir, should have adopted the general prejudices against them, though 
 certainly you had no occasion to give scope to them in your answer to 
 my History; unless you had disproved some one or more facts, which I 
 had advanced in opi)osition to them : a task that I do not see you have 
 attempted to perform. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the disadvantages which I have stated, I trust that 
 I shall be able to vindicate the conduct of the Catholic body during the 
 whole period in question, and to wipe off the numerous aspersions which 
 yon, after other writers, have cast upon it. The great luminary of the 
 world is not extinguished by the dark clouds that frequently interrupt 
 its rays : It is sure to shine forth again, sooner or later, with fresh 
 lustre, which is often augmented by reflection from these very obstacles. 
 It is a great benefit to me, that part of the road which I shall have to 
 tread, has of late been enlightened before me, by certain Protestant 
 writers, worthy of eternal memory for their impartiality as well as their 
 talents; (2) and it is now proved, beyond the possibility of a reply, that 
 
 (i) " "Proprium est humani generis odisse quern lacseris," Tacit. 
 (2) Goodall, Stuart, Tytler, Whitaker. 
 
 R2 - the
 
 128 LETTER VI, 
 
 the world, through the cahimnies and misrepresentations which I have 
 been speaking of, has been for two whole centuries under the most egre- 
 gious mistakes with respect to the characters and conduct of those rival 
 queens of the lOth century, Mary of Scotland and Elizabeth of England. 
 Before however I enter upon my subject, I must remind you, Sir, that 
 the English Catholics were not answerable for the politics or conduct of 
 foreign courts, which happened to be of the same religious profession 
 with them : no not even for those of the pope himself, unless it should 
 appear that they were governed by them, and acknowledged them as 
 rules for their own conduct. I must also premise, that 1 am defending 
 the conduct of the great body of the Catholics, not ot each individual 
 that belonged to it. In every great society there will be found certain 
 men of a different spirit from the generality ; and more particularly in 
 every church there will be discovered many persons who adhere to it from 
 motives of policy, rather than of religion. You have seen. Sir, in my 
 History, that I have not alledged, either the seditious doctrines or beha- 
 viour of Protestants abroad, or the particular instances of sedition or in- 
 surrection that occurred in those at home, during the reign of Mary, 
 by way of justifying the persecution which she inflicted upon the whole 
 church of England, because I do not conceive that this church is answer- 
 able for the doctrine or conduct of French or Scotch Calvinists, and 
 because I am satisfied that the seditions and insurrections above-mentioned 
 neither infected the great body of her people, nor grew out of her avowed 
 doctrine, but rather stood in opposition to it. 
 
 Ehzabeth, in her private sentiments, was far from entertaining any 
 aversion to the religion of Catholics. It was chiefly owing to her par- 
 tiality for the hierarchy, for the decency and regularity of public worship, 
 and for many other points of the ancient faith and discipline, (i) that the 
 
 church 
 
 (i) Heylin, p. i6^. — Dr. Harding, in his Epistle to the Queen, printed in the year 1565, 
 commends her for many orthodox opinions which she held, and particularly for having 
 on the preceding Good Friday applauded a preacher who had defended the real presence of 
 Christ in the saCrament. In consequence of this her belief, the declaration which stood 
 
 against
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH, 129 
 
 church of England is \\hat it is, and that it has departed less from the an- 
 cient church than any other sect of Protestants whatsoever. Certain it is, 
 that the inclination of most of her Protestant subjects led them strongly to 
 Puritanism; those of higher rank being influenced by motives of avarice, (i ) 
 the lower order by those of fanaticism. Nor is this all; for the queen was 
 known in private conversation to ridicule her ow-n spiritual supremacy, 
 and to acknowledge that of the pope ; (2) she even intimated a wish, if cir- 
 -cumstances would have permitted it, to follow the original faith. (3) But 
 as ambition was amongst all her strong passions the most violent ; and as 
 the counsellors, to whom. she referred the question of religion, convinced 
 her that it was for her temporal interest to cast off' the pope'sjurisdiction, 
 and to suppress the ancient religion, (4) which her sister had restored, 
 she took her determinations accordingly, and became, in the end, one of 
 the most violent persecutors of Catholics upon record. Her dissimula- 
 tion, (5) cruelty, (0) and profligacy of manners, (7) were only inferior to 
 
 against it in article 29 of Edward VI, is left out in the corresponding article of Elizabeth. 
 See article 28 among the 39. 
 
 (i) It is certain that her three most active ministers, whose characters I shall shortly 
 sketch, Leicester, Cecil, and Walsingham, were all strongly inclined to Puritanism. See 
 Collier, &c. 
 
 (2) The author of An Answer to Sir Edward Coke's Reportes, says, that Lansac, who had 
 been sent envoy to Elizabeth on a certain* business, declared to many persons, on his return 
 to France, that she had owned to him her conviction that the spiritual supremacy did not 
 belong to her, but to St. Peter's successors ; but she said that her parliament and people 
 obliged her to assume it. P. 365. 
 
 (3) The same author refers to lord Montague and the earl of Southampton for the truth 
 of the queen's declarations to the aforesaid effect. Ibid. 
 
 (4) Camden, Annales Elizabethae, ann. 1558. 
 
 (5) The strongest instance of disshnulation and hypocrisy upon record is Elizabeth's so- 
 lemn appeal to heaven that she was innocent of Mary's death, and that she abhorred the 
 above mentioned vices, in her letter to James. 
 
 (6) See the proofs of her being privjr to the murder of Rizzio and Darnley, and of her 
 cncoura2;ing different attempts to assassinate queen Mary and king James, in Whitaker's 
 Vindicition passim. 
 
 (7) See an account of the scandalous amours of this boasted virgin-queen with Leicester, 
 HattoHj Simier, Raleigh, Blount, &c. ibid. vol. ii, c. v. 
 
 her
 
 130 LETTER VI. 
 
 her ambition ; and as it was not to be expected that her court would be 
 more virtu6us than herself, hence it is described, by an eye-witness and 
 member of it, " as a scene of all enormities, where wickedness reigned 
 in the highest degree ;" (i) and it has been asserted, with respect to her 
 ministry in particular, by an author of high character, that it was " the 
 most wicked which has been known in any reign." (2) 
 
 What has been said of the profligacy of Elizabeth's ministry is appli- 
 cable, in the first degree, to the three most distinguished members of it, 
 who were also the bitterest enemies of the Catholics, and the chief pro- 
 moters of those plots and persecutions that were set on foot against them. 
 The first of these, Robert Dudley, whilst he had the fate and dying de- 
 clarations of his father fresh in his memory, (3) led a quiet and unblame- 
 able life in that mediocrity of fortune to which the catastrophe here 
 alluded to had reduced him. (1) But being afterwards distinguished by 
 the queen for the beauty of his person, and raised by her to the earldom 
 of Leicester, and other high dignities, he launched forth into every excess 
 with all the insolence and impunity of a royal minion. He broke the 
 neck of his first wife, in order to pave the way for his expected union 
 with the queen. (5) Being disappointed in this hope, he debauched lady 
 Sheffield, under promise of mari'iage ; (6) but getting into an intrigue 
 
 with 
 
 (i) Viz. Nicholas Faunt, under secretary to Walsingham. Birdie's Mem. Eliz. vol. i. 
 (3) Short View of English History, by Bevil Iliggons, p. 192. 
 
 (3) Viz. Dudley earl of Warwick and duke of Northumberland, beheaded for rebellion 
 In the former reign. At his death he professed himself very penitent for his crimes, and a 
 convert to his ancient faith. This man's father was the Dudley who was executed with 
 Empson for his extortions under ^Henry VII. His grandfather w^as a carpenter. 
 
 (4) See a learned but anonymous work, in Latin, published at Augsburg in 1593, intituled, 
 Responsio ad Edictum Eliz. Reg. Ang. p. 14. 
 
 (5) Ibid. p. 16. See Wliitaker and his authorities, vol. iii, p. 558, where other instances of 
 his talent in poisoning are mentioned. Camden relates, that when Elizabeth was consider- 
 ing of the manner of putting Mary to death, that Leicester proposed poison, and sent a di- 
 vine to Walsingham to prove that it was lawful so to do. Ann. 1586. 
 
 (6) He had a son by her, who lived in great splendor in Tuscany, assuming the title of 
 
 duke
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. 131 
 
 with the wife of Waher earl of Essex, he attempted to poison her, and 
 actually poisoned the said nobleman, as he was returning home from 
 Ireland, to revenge the injury that had been offered to him ; after u hich 
 Leicester married that infamous countess. This scandalous behaviour lost 
 him the affections of Elizabeth, but not her protection. Such was his 
 private life. With respect to his public conduct, the celebrated Dr. Hey- 
 lin has drawn the following sketch of it : " He (Leicester) engrossed the 
 disposing of all offices of state and preferments of the church ; proving 
 himself so unappeaseable in his tnalice, so insatiable in his lusts, so sacri- 
 kj^ious in his rapines, so false in his promises, so treacherous in point of 
 trust, and destructive to particular persons, that his finger lay heavier on 
 English subjects than the loins of the favourites in the two last reigns." 
 He concludes with saying, that Leicester " cloaked all his monstrous 
 vices under a pretended zeal for religion, being the head of the Puritan 
 faction." (i) This last particular is confirmed by another great advocate 
 of the establishment, who says, that Leicester was " the chief of those 
 who said that nu bishops ought to be tolerated in a Christian land," and 
 that he had cast a covetous eye on Lambeth palace." (2) 
 
 Sir William Cecil was an apt political instrument for the ever-varying 
 and unprincipled times in which he lived. Sprung from an obscure family 
 that had been settled at Stamford in Lincolnshire, (3) he became first 
 known as an mferior agent in Henry's oppressions. In the next reign, 
 having gained the favour of the protector Somerset, he rose to the rank 
 of his principal secretary. Eut when he found his master's credit sinking, 
 he joined the party of his enemies, and was greatly instrumental in bring- 
 
 duke o£ Nortlmmberland, and who suggested to the grand dvike the means of making 
 Leghorn that place oi importauoe wliich it is. Dodd, Ch. Hibt. vol. ii. 
 (i) Hcylin, Hist, of Eliz. p. 168. 
 
 (2) Madox's Answer to Neal's Hist, of Purit. p. 18,7. 
 
 (3) His tather he'd an infeior situation in the rosal wardrobe; his grandfather kept an , 
 inn at Stamford, and was afteruards one of the royal guards. Resp. p. 24. 
 
 ing
 
 132 LETTER VI, 
 
 ing him to the scaffold ;(l) after which he became the confident and 
 assistant of Dudley in all his other criminal measures. These being de- 
 feated, and Mary placed on the throne, he was equally obsequiouo to the 
 views and inclinations of this Catholic sovereign, being assiduous in 
 hearing masses, repeating olKces and litanies, and dropping his beads, 
 which he had seldom out of his hands. He is even said to have mounted 
 the pulpit in his parish church at Stamford, and there to have made a 
 voluntary abjuration of his apostacy from the ancient faith. (2) By this 
 hypocrisy he imposed upon cardinal Pole, sir William Petre, and others; 
 but not upon the queen herself, who refused to place any confidence in 
 him. Upon Elizabeth's succession he soon made it appear that he was 
 of the religion of those who think tJint gain is godliness, (3) declaring 
 for that system which promised him and his associates the greatest share 
 of church plunder. In the sacrilegious scramble which then took place, 
 he contrived to secure for himself the greater part of the endowments of 
 Peterborough cathedral, which made an adequate estate to support his 
 new dignity of lord Burghley. (4) In a word, without speaking of the 
 mnocent blood of the queen of Scots and of the other Catholics shed at 
 home, this unprincipled politician was the chief agent in promoting those 
 rebellions and civil wars amongst the subjects of foreign princes, particu- 
 larly in Scotland, France, and Flanders, and those various acts of piracy 
 in the West Indies, South America, and our own seas, by which the 
 government of Elizabeth was rendered so infamous in the eyes of the 
 other powers of Europe. (5) 
 
 (i) He is saiJ to liavc drawn up the impeachment of Somerset. Ibid. 
 
 (2) Ibid. p. 25. (3) I Tim. vi, 5. 
 
 {4) " During the vacancy of the see of Norwich, and during his (Dr. Scambler's) in- 
 cumbency, sir William Cecil, principal secretary of state, possessed himself of the best 
 manors in the Soke, which ^selonged to it, and for his (the bishop's) readiness to confirm 
 them to him, he preferred him to the see of Norwich." Heylin, p. 138. 
 
 (5) The celebrated exploits of Drake, Cavendish, Holkstoke, &c. also the sending of 
 troops to the insurgents in the Netherlands, the capture of the Spanish treasure galleon ship- 
 wrecked on our coast, were all contrary to the law of nations, having taken place in the 
 time of professed peace. 
 
 Next
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. 133 
 
 Next to Cecil, for subtility in contriving plans of treachery, corruption, 
 assasination, and forgery, but superior to him for boldness and dexterity 
 in executing them, was his fellow secretary of state, sir Francis Walsing- 
 ham. To his savage nature the actual perpetration of cruelty, independent 
 of ttie advantages to be derived from it, was peculiarly grateful. He was 
 accustomed to beat and kick the Catholic prisoners who were brought 
 before him for examination ; (i) and his mistress knew his disposition so 
 -weW, that when she had signed the death-warrant for the execution of 
 Mary, she ordered it to be immediately carried to Walsingham, as the 
 most efficacious cordial for raising his spirits, then depressed by a se- 
 vere illness. (2) He was the master artificer in those horrid forgeries, 
 for which a writer of high character still living, and a clergyman of the 
 established church, says the heads of the Reformation at that time were 
 infamous, both in England and in Scotland. (3) Finally, he was the more 
 immediate agent in those murderous arts, both of assasination and per- 
 verted justice, which Elizabeth's ministers employed to shorten the days 
 of the illustrious queen of Scots, (4) and of others against her son James I. 
 
 When men of such principles had the wealth and power of a great 
 kingdom in their hands, we may easily conceive to what lengths of ca- 
 lumny, oppression, and cruelty, they were capable of proceeding against 
 any man or body of men who had the misfortune to incur their hatred 
 or their jealousy, as was the case with the hapless professors of the an- 
 
 (i) Respon. p. 19. See an account of the secretary's savage behaviour to the priest and 
 fellow of New College, John Mundyn. Mem. Miss. Pr. vol. i, p. 158. 
 
 (2) See Davidson's Apology, ap. Whitaker, vol. iii, p. 547. 
 
 (3) " Forgery, 1 blush for the honour of Protestantism while I write it, seems to have 
 been peculiar to the reformed...! look, in vain for one of those accursed outrages of impo- 
 sition amongst the disciples of Popery." Whitaker, Vindic. of Mary, vol. iii, p. 3. See also 
 pp.45, 46, &c. — "Forgery appears to have been the peculiar disease, of Protestantism." 
 Ibid, p. 54. 
 
 "(4) Mary, at her trial, reproached Walsingham "with having practiced against her own 
 and her son's life." Gamden, Annales Eliz. — He was deep in the Gowry conspiracy, £cc. 
 See more of this afterwards. 
 
 S cient
 
 134 LETTER VI. 
 
 cient religion. We are indeed not left to our suppositions on this head, 
 or to the mere relations of the sufferers themselves, but we have a 
 detailed account, bj a cotemporary writer of the first rank and a professed 
 panegyrist of Elizabeth, of the infamous arts which her ministry employed 
 against the above mentioned. We learn from him, that many " under- 
 hand artifices were practiced to discover people's inclinations." (f) So 
 that it was not enough for the subject to be blameless in action, but 
 methods were taken to extort his private wishes and thoughts. " Forged 
 letters in the name of the queen of Scots and of the English emigrants 
 abroad were conveyed into the houses of Catholics." (2) Other fojged 
 letters in their names were conveyed to the queen of Scots. (3) Thus is 
 fairly acknowledged, what Catholics always suspected, and what is other- 
 wise proved to have been the case, both in Elizabeth's and in the subse- 
 quent reigns, that their enemies hatched seditious and treasonable plots, 
 and then made use of their agents to see how many persons of that com- 
 munion they could draw into them, either to get rid of the parties them- 
 selves, or to throw a general infamy on the whole body to which they^ 
 belonged. " Emissaries were dispersed abroad every where to collect 
 rain rumours and to catch unguarded words." (4) It is certain, that such 
 impostors were not only employed in England to feign themselves Catho- 
 lics, and thereby to discover the priests who were hidden, but also many of 
 them were sent into foreign countries, to Rome, to Paris, to Douay, &c. 
 where they took notes, and sometimes portraits, of all the students, ; nd 
 other Catholics whom they met with, so that upon their arrival at any 
 sea-port in England they were sometimes immediately known and seized 
 
 (i) " Certe ad explorandos hominum animos subdolee artes fuere adhibitte. Cam. Ann. 
 J584. 
 
 (2) " Litterae ementitae sub regina Scotorum et profugorum nominibus clam submissae et 
 in poniific'.orum sedibus relictx." Ibid, 1586. 
 
 (3) " Suhrepscruiit emissarii et submissae sunt tarn fictse quam verje literre quibus in per- 
 niclem inipelleretur " Ibid. 
 
 (4) " Emissarii ubique ad colligendos rumores et verba captanda dispersi." Ibid. 
 
 upon ;
 
 CATHOLTCS ITXDER ET-TZABETH. 135 
 
 iipon;(l) at other times the above mentioned notes were employed in 
 fabricating pretended, or extending real, plots. The emissaries in ques- 
 tion were sometimes criminals or other prisoners, who procured their 
 freedom by accepting of such base employments. Sometimes they were 
 out-laws, who were permitted to return to England on the same condi- 
 tions. (2) Not a few were disorderly youths who had been dismissed 
 from the seminaries, or other apostate Catholics who were actuated by 
 resentment, want, or the fear of persecution. (3) Finally, we are even 
 told, that " false informers were encouraged," (4) when their errand was 
 to accuse Catholics, and that the latter complained of being surrounded 
 with such snares that it was impossible for them to escape the imputation 
 
 (i) Mem. Miss. Pr. passim. 
 
 (2) Sucli was Egremond Radcliff", iialf brotlier to the carl of Sussex, who having beei* 
 out-lawed for the share he had in the Northern rebellion, wrote the most earnest letters from 
 abroad to Cecil, in which he repeatedly oflcred himself to perform any service that might be 
 put upon him, or to undergo any danger to which he might be exposed, provided he might 
 obtain his pardon. He accordingly came over to England, in 1577, where he conferred 
 with Walsingham, and was again sent abroad : soon after which he was executed, with his 
 servant Grey, for an attempt upon the life of Don John of Austria, governor of the Low 
 Countries. Camden acknowledges, that the Spaniards testified his having confessed, at his 
 death, that he was commissioned by Walsingham to undertake this assassination, but that 
 the English denied the fact. It is impossible, however, to read that wretch's several letters 
 to Burghley, in Strype, and to compare circumstances together, without the fullest conviction 
 that what the Spaniards asserted was true. Upon the death of Marj^ an English assassin was 
 sent to take off her son James, by poison or some other way, as Whitaker proves from 
 Moyse's Memoirs. See Vindication, vol. i, p. 265. — Different attempts were made upon tha 
 life of cardinal Allen, and the common well of the seminary of Douay was poisoned, which 
 crimes were with just cause ascribed to the emissaries of Walsingham. Sec Rishton's Ap- 
 pend, to Sanders, Sec. Schism, Angl. c. v. — See afterwards the history of W. Parry. 
 
 (3) Such were Elliot, Munday, ^ledd, Norton, also the apostate priests Tyrrel, Nichols, 
 Bennet, &c. It is true these last mentioned retracted their depositions, and asked pardon 
 of those whom they had accused, as may be seen in Kishton, Dodd, Strj'pe, and Challoncr's 
 Memoirs, passim. 
 
 (4) " ^'ana dcferentes admissi." Camd. ibid. 
 
 S2 of
 
 130 - LETTER YI, 
 
 of disloyalty ; (i) which account is confirmed by the historian himself, 
 who says, speaking of them, " innocence itself, when guarded by pru- 
 dence, was no security to them." (2) These observations are proper to be 
 suggested to every person of candour, who peruses the general accounts 
 of ihe Catholics during the long persecvition that Elizabeth carried on 
 against them, and more particularly the inflamed charges by which you 
 endeavour to vindicate that persecution. I may apply to the whole of 
 this historical controversy the judicious and candid remark of the saga- 
 cious historian, whom I have referred to above, concerning that part of it 
 which relates to the queen of Scots, " Thus surrounded," he says, " as 
 we are by artifice and imposture on every side, when we find in the 
 records of the times any thing that looks like real evidence, we cannot 
 but suspect it of being sophisticated." (3) 
 
 In proceeding to state your arguments against the fidelity of Catholics 
 under Elizabeth, were not you struck with the contrast that occurred be- 
 tween their behaviour at the beginning of her reign, and that of the chief 
 Protestants, both clergy and laity, at the beginning of the reign of her 
 sister Mary ? The latter you know rose in arms and endeavoured to enthrone 
 a usurper, of their own religion, (4) in the place of the lawful sovereign, 
 
 (i) " Baro Pagettus car. Amndellus cum alils coiiqucrebantir- reginam mails Leicestrii et 
 Walsinghami artibus ab ipsis immerito abalienari, singularia fraudis genera excogitari, ten- 
 diculas occultas poni, ut laqueis Iseste majestatis, velint nolint, improvidi irrctirentur, nee 
 domi spem salutis ullam." Ibid. 
 
 (•2) " Vix prsesidioerat innocentia prudens." Ibid. — Tbe most singular circumstance in 
 the whole account is, that Camden excuses all this oppression upon a pretence which will 
 justify the cruelty of every tyrant upon record. His words are these : " Nee hujusiiiodi 
 quidem artes, et prona credulitas vana censenda, cum de principis salute timeatur." Ibid. 
 — How far a just government is allowed to prucced in detecting conspiracies that actually 
 exist, I am not prepared to say ; but to invent or encourage ihem, in order to gd rid of 
 obnoxious persons, is a practice that ought to be confined to those wicked spirits who tempt 
 men to sin here, in order to punish them hereafter. 
 
 (3) Whitaker. 
 
 (4) The lady .lane, who was supported by Cranmer, Ridley, Jewel, and the whole 
 council that had effected the change of religion in the former reign. 
 
 and
 
 CATHOLICS U>fDER ELIZABETH. 13/ 
 
 nnd when suppressed and treated with lenity, they renewed their rebel- 
 lion a second time in little more than the space of half a year;(]) 
 whereas the Catholics, tho' unquestionably at that time the more powerful 
 partv, made not the smallest opposition to the accession of Elizabeth, 
 notwithstanding the illegitimacy of her birth in the eye of the canon law, 
 and the refusal of that " violent old pontiff," as you call him, (2) Paul IV, 
 (whose conduct I blame no less than yourself,) to acknowledge her title. 
 All the bishops indeed, except Oglethorp of Carlisle, declined to officiate 
 in the ceremony of her coronation ; (3) but they never disputed her right 
 to the crown, since it was recognized by the legislature, and the Catholic 
 nobilitv beheld her violate her coronation oath, and make the most im- 
 portant changes in the established religion, ( i) by her own authority, and 
 previously to the meeting of parliament, without the smallest symptom 
 of sedition or disloyalty. The case is, for want of evidence on this oc- 
 casion at home against the Catholics, you are obliged to seek for it abroad, 
 and accordingly you tell us, that " the king of France, not succeeding in 
 his endeavours to procure from the pope Elizabeth's excommunication, 
 ordered his son, the dauphin, and Mary queen of Scots, to assume the 
 title of king and queen of England, &c. and that after his death they 
 retained the same pretensions." (5) But pray, Sir, inform me, did any of 
 the English Catholics acknowledge the justice of these pretensions ? If 
 
 (1) The rebellions of the duke of Suffolk, lord Grey, bishop Poynet, sir Thomas Wyat, 
 Sec. Dr. S. expresses himself in terms of implied approbation of the latter, where he says, 
 " Wyat's insurrection was occasioned by the just apprehension of the public, both on 
 account of religion and national independency." P. 70. — I wish he would speak out fairly 
 and tell us, whether it is equally unlawful for every sect to rebel against a government of a 
 different religion from themselves, or whether some one or more sects- have an exclusive 
 privilege of this nature. 
 
 (2) P. 55. (3) Heylin, p. 106. 
 
 (4) " By a proclamation, published Deo. 30, 1558, she required that all such rites and 
 ceremonies should be observed in parish churches as were used in her chapel." Heylin, 
 p. 104. " (5) P. 66. 
 
 not,
 
 138 LETTER ri. 
 
 not, this first argument you have brought in justification of the penal 
 laws against them is the strongest recoiiimcndation of their 'fidehty, and 
 afforded the most equitable claim, on their part, to the protection and 
 favour of a just government : for it proves, that if thej had been disposed 
 to raise a rebellion in behalf of their religion, thej would not have 
 wanted the assistance of one of the most powerful princes in Christen- 
 dom. You are not less imsuccessful, Sir, in your attack upon the pope, 
 in the passage I have quoted, than in that upon the English Catholics. 
 For, whereas you undertake to demonstrate that " every attempt directed 
 against Elizabeth Mas carried on under the avowed patronage and sanction 
 of Rome ;" (i ) you are forced to acknowledge that the very first attempt 
 of this nature met with a direct opposition from that quarter ; the pope 
 refusing, as you inform us, to excommunicate the queen, at the solicita- 
 tion of the court of France. Your next instance is as little to the pur- 
 pose as either of the former, in criminating either the Catholics or the 
 pope. You say, " In 156l a conspiracy was formed by two nephews of 
 cardinal Pole, in favour of Mary." But, Sir, neither your author, 
 Hume, (2) nor any osher author, has pretended to trace this conspiracy to 
 Rome, or to the EnglishCatholics, nor has any of them furnished grounds 
 to believe, that these two young men were even of the Catholic commu- 
 nion. In a word, this foolish conspiracy was not, after all, directed 
 against the person or government of Elizabeth, but only calculated to 
 support the succession of Mary, in case of the former's decease, which 
 some astrologers had taught them to expect within the compass of a 
 year. (3) By following the above-mentioned treacherous guide you have 
 fallen into an egregious error in making the duke of Norfolk the author 
 
 (OP. 73. 
 
 (a) How servilely Dr. S. follows Hume appears by his copying even his anachronisms. 
 Thus, in the present instance, he follows this very inaccurate historian, in placing the present 
 conspiracy in 1361, whilst Heylin, (Eliz. p. i_54) wliom they both equally qviote, refers it 
 to 1562, as also Camden, Strype, Sec. (3) Camden, ann. 1562. 
 
 of
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZAHF/rU. ] 3Q 
 
 of" the Xortheni rebellion, \\ Iierc you write as follows : " An insurrection, 
 occasioned bv the duke of Norfolk, who wished to marrv INIarv, took 
 place in 1509."(]) It is true, that Hume, who, like a dramatic writer, 
 is ever intent on thickening his plot, endeavours to connect together those 
 two events. But the following authentic facts entirely overthrow his 
 and vour theory. Norfolk was a prisoner in the Tower, in punishment of 
 his matrimonial project, (though concerted with all the queen's ministers 
 except Cecil and Bacon) at the time of Northumberland's taking up arms 
 in the North, (2) when, so far from aiding the rebellion, he gave orders to 
 his vassals and tenants to afford all their assistance in quelling it. (3) 
 Finally, it is unjust in you to alledge the conduct of Norfolk, whatever 
 that might have been, by way of criminating Catholics, as this nobleman 
 lived and died a professed Protestant. (4) But still it may be said, (though 
 you, Sir, have overlooked this strongest ground for your charges,) that r. 
 rebellion was actually raised in the North by the earls of Northumber- 
 land and Westmoreland, for which the abrogation of the Catholic religion 
 was one of the foremost pretexts. This, Sir, I grant, nor am I surprised 
 that persons in their situation, who had taken up arms against govern- 
 ment, should make use in their manifesto of so popular an argument as 
 that in question still was amongst the majority of the nobility, gentry, 
 and peasantry, at a distance from the capital. But, Sir, there were other 
 motives which had a much greater w^eight with the authors of this in- 
 surrection than those of religion, namely, a jealousy of the undue 
 
 {i) P. 66. 
 
 (1) Norfolk was committed prisoner to the Tower, Oct. 11. Northimiberland, being 
 egged on by the particular artifices whjch Camden describes, took up arms Nov. 14. It is a 
 circumstance which has escaped all our historians, that the original plan ot Norfolk's mar- 
 riage with Mary was laid at the marquis of Winchester's house in London, in 1568, at 
 a meeting of the prime nobihty, one of whom was the earl of Leicester, who afterwards 
 betrayei t!ie secrets of tlv^ meeting to Elizabeth. One part of their plan was to prosecute 
 Cecil and Bacon and to get them executed. Kespon. ad. Edict, p. 32. 
 
 (3) Camden. Echard. (4) Camden, ann. 1573. 
 
 influence
 
 140 LETTER VI. 
 
 influence of Cecil and his friends over the mind of their sovereign, (i) and 
 resentment for a particular injury which the duke of Northumberland had 
 suffered, in the seizure of a rich mine that had been discovered upon 
 his estate, by the officers of the crown. (2) In a word. Sir, whatever 
 may be said of the immediate authors of this insurrection, the incident 
 itself only served to display the fidelity of the Catholics at large through- 
 out the kingdom, to a Protestant and a persecuting sovereign, in the most 
 advantageous light. For we are assured, that they were universally soli- 
 cited to take advantage of the situation of public affairs and to join in 
 the rebellion ; which if they had done, considering the power and in- 
 fluence of the nobility and gentry at that time, I am convinced they 
 might have acted the same part by Elizabeth in England, W'hich Mary's 
 Protestant subjects were then acting by her in Scotland : but they knew 
 their duty too well to violate their allegiance, in order to redress their re- 
 ligious grievances. Accordingly we are assured by unquestionable authority, 
 that " the greater part of them sent the letters and messengers which they 
 had received for the above-mentioned purpose to the queen, and that all 
 of them offered their lives and fortunes in her defence : so that she was 
 highly dehghted and returned thanks to God for this singular proof of the 
 loyalty of her subjects." (3) 
 
 (i) " Ut multitudinem Imperitam contraherent, alios Iniperarunt utarmati se conjungerent 
 ad reginam tutandam, aliis innuerunt universos Angllse proceres ad Romanam religioneni 
 restaurandam conspirasse aliis se necessaric adactos ut arma sumerent ne prisca Angliae nobi- 
 litas a novis hominibus concul caretur." Camd. — It is to be particularly remarked, tliat in 
 their manifesto they did not deny, but expressly acknowledged the queen's title. " Decla- 
 rant se in reginam nihil moliri, cui obsequentissimos subditos esse et fore devovent." Camd. 
 
 (3) Ibid. 
 
 (3) " Literas ad pontiticios circumquaque per regnuni missitant, ut vires conjungerent. 
 Tantum autem abfuit ut se consociarint, ut plerique acceptas literas cum latoribus ad regin«ii 
 transmiserint ; suamque singuli ex omnibus regni partibus operam et opes contra illos, et 
 ipse etiam Norfolcius, certatim oljtulerint. Adeo ut sunimam certe et singularem subditorum 
 fidem in ipsam pcrspexerit^ ethoc noHiine divinambenignltatcm gratissimo animo agnoverit." 
 Camd. 
 
 To
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. ] -1 1 
 
 To proceecUc.with your catalogue of charges against the Catholics : 
 " Pius IV," you say, "in l.T/O, published a bull against Elizabeth, ex- 
 communicated her, declared her title to the crown void, and absolved her 
 subjects from their oaths of allegiance." (i) Not to speak of your mis- 
 taking T'lws IV, who died in 1555, for Pius V, and the year 15/0 for 
 15O9, (■_') I shall here, previously to my answering the substance of your 
 objection, make a very necessary and striking distinction. I presume 
 then. Sir, you will not dispute the pontiff's right of declaring who are, 
 and who are not, members of his communion, or, in short, of exercising 
 the mere spiritual right of excommunication, with respect to every indi- 
 vidual who is, or who pretends to be, a member of the universal church, 
 of which he is the head. At all events the Catholics acknowledge this 
 spiritual authority in him, and I must abide by any unfavourable conse- 
 quences that you are able to draw from this avowal. But, Sir, the case is 
 very different with respect to the claim of deposing princes, or depriving 
 other persons whomsoever of their temporal rights, which some pontiffs 
 have asserted and exercised. For this has ever been contested with such 
 pontiffs, in the very zenith of their power, by Catholics of the most 
 orthodox principles, and the most exemplary lives; nor have the popes, 
 on account of this resistance, ceased to hold communion with them : as 
 the example of the w^hole Galilean church proves. To form a clear idea 
 of this matter, you must remark, Sir, that the abettors of tlie deposing 
 power maintained it, not as an article of Catholic faith, but as a scholastic 
 doctrine, which they thought they could defend by sufficient arguments 
 of theology : they grounded it not on any supposed temporal dominion of 
 the successor of St. Peter, but upon his authority to arbitrate amongst 
 Christians, and to decide that nice point, which the reformers decided for 
 themselves, (3) namely, when the tyranny of superiors is grown to be so 
 
 oppressive 
 
 (i) P. 66. (2) See the date of the bull, viz.50 Kal. Martii, 1569. Camd. 
 
 (3) Dr. S. introduces a note, p. 66, in which he attempts to answer a theological expo- 
 sition of the doctrine of oaths, which I had occasion to give in my History, vol.i, p. 358 
 
 T by
 
 142 LETTER VI. 
 
 oppressive that submission to them ceases to be a conscientious obligation. 
 I now, Sir, come to speak of the case which jou have proposed. It is 
 true, that the pope did issue a decree pretty nearly of the tenor which 
 you have described. But the grand question recurs, how far this affected 
 the allegiance of the English Catholics ? Did they receive that sentence 
 of deposition against their sovereign ? Did they act up to the spirit of it ? 
 The fact is, only one person in their whole number, John Felton, a lay 
 gentleman, who affixed it to the door of the bishop of London's house, is 
 known to have approved of it, for which act he died, condemned by the 
 whole Catholic body no less than by Protestants, (l) You go on : " In 
 1571 Norfolk entered into a new conspiracy, for which he suffered. Both 
 these attempts were made in concert v^'ith the duke of Alva." In the 
 name of common sense, Sir, how are the English Catholics, or the pope, 
 answerable for the matrimonial intrigues of that Protestant nobleman, or 
 for the political views of the governor of the Low Countries ? 
 
 From England you carry us to France and the Netherlands, in order to 
 
 by sarcasms instead of arguments, and pretends to argue, In particular, from the general 
 practice, that Catholics consider their oaths of allegiance to Protestant sovereigns to be sudi 
 as admit of being dispensed with. This is a very unfortunate remark on his part, as it 
 has been demonstrated by Dr. Patinson, Parsons, and others, that more sovereign princes 
 were deposed, in the whole or in part of the dominions, by their protestant subjects, 
 durino- the first century after the Reformation, than vi^ere deposed by the popes from the 
 time of their first pretending to any such power. 
 
 (i) " Hanc bullam pontificii plerique modestiores improbabant, multique eorum in debita 
 d'einceps obedientia firmi pernianserunt, cum vicinos principes et Catholicas provincias 
 assuetis cum regina commerciis minime abstinere et bullam tanquam vanum verborum 
 fragorem contemni viderent." Camd. an. 1570. Amongst those who disproved of the ex- 
 commxinication, we are assured, were cardinal Allen and bishop Watson, who wished " that 
 the whole business had been left to the judgement of God." Patinson, Image of Churches, 
 p. 503. This writer remarks, that Pius V must have had some very particular reasons for 
 the conduct in question, as Elizabeth was the only one of our Protestant sovereigns who 
 was publicly excommunicated by the see of Rome, and as none of the foreign princes, who 
 embraced the Reformation, were subjected to this disgrace, in Germany, Sweden, Den- 
 mark, Scotland, Berne, &c. 
 
 state
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELU-ABETH. 143 
 
 State certain transactions which have already been noticed. All that I 
 shall say further concerning them is, to request you. Sir, to lay your hand 
 upon your heart, and to answer me sincerely, whether you think the beha- 
 viour of the Catholics, that is to say, the professors of the ancient religion 
 of this country, towards their Protestant sovereign, Elizabeth, would suf- 
 fer by a comparison with the conduct of the Huguenots of France 
 towards their Catholic monarchs, or of the Calvinists of the Low Coun- 
 tries towards Charles V and Philip II, even previously to tlie arrival of 
 the duke of Alva amongst them ? I will not pay so bad a compliment, 
 either to your information or your candour, as to doubt, whether this 
 single question would not make you wish to withdraw all your charges 
 against the fidelity of the English Catholics. 
 
 Your next attack is made upon the foreign seminaries : " About this 
 time," you say, " institutions were formed and levelled against the reli- 
 gion of the country.- These were seminaries at Douay, Rheims, and 
 Rome, under the direction of the Jesuits, for the express purpose of edu- 
 cating English ecclesiastics, who were to act as missionaries, to inspire the 
 queen's subjects with detestation of her as an heretic and devoted to per- 
 dition, and to encourage them to execute on her the papal sentence." (i) 
 This is an abridgement of the unfaithful and calumniating Hume's ac- 
 count of this matter, and almost in his words. But, Sir, if I make it 
 appear, that you and your guide are guilty of the most egregious errors 
 with respect to plain matter of fact in your account of these seminaries, 
 I think no one will give you credit for your opinions concerning the in- 
 tentions for which they were instituted. In the first place then, you 
 yourself assign two different dates for the first establishment of this 
 nature, and both of them ditFerent from the real date of it. In the pas- 
 sage above quoted, you ascribe this institution to about the year 1572. 
 In another place you say, " the hostile seminaries of Rheims and Douay 
 were instituted about the 23d year of Elizabeth's reign," (2) which corres- 
 
 (I) P. 67. (2) P. 73. 
 
 T 2 ponds
 
 144 LETTER YI. 
 
 ponds with the year of Christ 1581. In the second place, you describe 
 the seminaries of Rheims and Douay as two distinct cstabhshments ; 
 whereas there was but one and the same society, which having been first 
 founded in 1508 at Douay, by Dr. Allen, (l) (who had been formerly 
 principal of St. Mary's-hall, Oxford, and became afterwards cardinal) was 
 forced, by the popular commotions in the Low Countries, to retire to 
 Rheims in 15 78, where its members continued until the year isgs, when, 
 the commotions being quelled, they returned to Douay. (2) Lastly, both 
 yourself and Hume impose a direct falsehood upon your readers, where 
 you assert, that the seminaries of Douay, Rheims, and Rome, " were 
 under the direction of the Jesuits." The grand establishment that re- 
 moved from Douay to Rheims, and from Rheims again to Douay, (being 
 the chief nursery for Catholic priests, as having alone furnished 150 of that 
 order who laid down their lives for their religion) was never under the 
 direction of the Jesuits, and even the small college at Rome was not 
 originally subject to them. But, Sir, to meet your accusation more di- 
 rectly, tell me, in what respect the seminaries were more " levelled 
 against the religion of their country," or more " hostile" to it, than the 
 
 (i) David Hume, who is as much a romance-vyriter as he is an historian, introduces the 
 kino- of Spain as pondering on the necessity of giving the Catholic youth and ecclesiastics 
 " some species of literature in order to support their doctrine and controversies, and for 
 this reason founding the seminary of Douay." He adds, that " the cardinal of Lorraine 
 imitated his example by erecting a like seminar)^ at Rheijus." The fact is, Philip and his 
 government, so far from founding the seminary at Douay, which was done at the expence 
 of Dr. Allen himself and his friends, did not even afford it effectual protection. Camden, how- 
 ever, expresses himself in too strong terms of the Spanish governor, Requesens, where he says. 
 of him, " that he dissolved the seminary of Douay at the request of the English ambassador, 
 Wilson." Aim. 1575. — Strype, who was a much more careful historian, though a more 
 virulent writer than Hume, makes cai-dinal Allen himself a Jesuit. He was so ill informed 
 In Catholic affairs, as to say, that Douay college was transferred into Scotland 3 but what is 
 infinitely worse, he puts down a false and forged form of oath, which he pretends to have 
 been taken in that seminary. Vol. ii, p. 630. 
 
 (2) Dodd, vol. ii, p. 46. 
 
 Enslish
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. 145 
 
 English Protestant societies, under the direction of Cox, Knox, Fox, 
 Jewel, Horn, Goodman, and Whittingham, at Zurich, Franckfort, and Ge- 
 neva, had been in the reign of queen Mary ? It is true they were instituted 
 for preserving the ancient religion of England, being the only means left 
 for this purpose, when the means of obtaining a liberal education and 
 Catholic ordination were intercepted at home by the persecution of 
 Elizabeth's government ; but it is a shameful calumny, that the " express 
 purpose of educating English ecclesiastics in them was to inspire the 
 queen's subject with detestation of her, and to encourage them to execute 
 on her the papal sentence," or, as Hume more openly expresses it, that 
 " sedition, treason, and sometimes assassination, were the expedients by 
 which they (the seminary priests) purposed to effectuate their purposes 
 againt her." (i) So far from any thing of this sort being true, I will 
 venture to say of the seminaries in question, and of the other colleges 
 which were afterwards founded in imitation of them, that from the time 
 of their institution until they were swallowed up in the present deluge of 
 impiety and anarchy, they were models to all places of education 
 throughout Christendom, for the religious piety, the strict morality, the 
 regular discipline, and the constant application to study, which prevailed 
 in them. The young men that chiefly peopled them in the reign of 
 Elizabeth were students from Oxford, w'ho had quitted all their wordly 
 comforts and hopes, and exposed themselves to the most ignominious and 
 cruel death, in order to embrace the religion which their consciences 
 most approved of, and to communicate it to others. (2) They were 
 taught indeed to prefer this' to every other consideration, but they were 
 also instructed to be suhject to their princes and civil magistrates in all 
 points, except those of a religious nature, not only for wralh, but also for 
 conscience sake. (3) They were particularly admonished to acknowledge 
 the queen's title to the throne, notwithstanding the sentence of excom- 
 munication thai stood out against her ; and the question concerning the 
 
 (i) Eliz. c. iv. (3) See Memoirs of Miss. Pr. Dodd's Hist, passim. 
 
 (3) Rom. xiii, 5. 
 
 pope's>
 
 140 LETTER VI. 
 
 pope's claim to depose princes was absolutely shut out of their schools, 
 and prohibited from being canvassed, even in private conversation, amongst 
 them, (i) We have still in our hands many publications that issued 
 from these seminaries, and so far from inculcating the seditious lessons 
 that yourself indirectly, and Hume more openly, charges them with, 
 they will be found to teach directly the contrary. (2) In particular 
 we are assured, that on the occasion when they were most heavily 
 calumniated, namely, on the disclosure of Babington's plot, "they, the 
 divines of Rheims, directed a pastoi-al to the Catholics of England, warn- 
 ing them against disturbing the govei'nment, and telling them, that 
 prayers and tears were the only arms which they ought to make use of 
 against their persecutors." (3) Hence, Sir, you will not find more than 
 one Catholic, whether priest or layman, amongst the 200 sufferers for 
 their religion under Elizabeth, that refused to acknowledge her title to the 
 crown, (4') and not more than one seminary priest, out of above 130 of 
 that description then executed, who appears to have been concerned in 
 any real conspiracy. (5) It is true, a pretended plot, against the queen's 
 person and government, which you hint at, (6) that was said to have 
 been formed at Rheims and Rome, was sworn to by a set of perjured hire- 
 
 (i) Cardinal Allen's Answer to Cecil's Execution of Engl. Just. This work has been 
 misrepresented by a croud of writers, who never saw a page of it, as teaching quite opposite 
 doctrines to those which it actually contains. A summary of it may be seen in Strype's 
 Annals of Ref. vol. iii, p. 66. 
 
 (2) See the Rheims Testament with the Annotations upon it, where th.e learned trans- 
 lators strongly enforce the conscientious obligation of performiog " every duty of obe- 
 dience to lawful princes, even though they are Infidels." P. 301. See also the Survey of 
 Religions, by the celebrated Dr. Kellison, fourth president of Douay college, in which he 
 demonstrates " no loss of authority to accrue from the loss of faith." 
 
 (3) Collier, Ch. Hist. vol. ii, p. 599. 
 
 (4) James Leyburn, executed at Lancaster in 1583, whose name is therefore omitted in 
 Dr. Challoner's Memoirs. 
 
 (.5) John Ballard. (6) P. 73. 
 
 lings,
 
 CATHOLICS UNDFR TLIZABETH. 1-47 
 
 lings, ap:ainst the priests, Canipi.in,(i) Siierwin, and about a dozen 
 others, and they were actually put to death upon the charge at the close 
 of the year 1581. But the taisefiood of the whole accusation appears 
 from the account of the queen's professed advocate, Camden. This au- 
 thor admits, that Elizabeth was o%'ercome, by the entreaties of her 
 ministers, to consent that Canjpian and his companions should be tried 
 for treason^ which would not have been the case if she had really 
 thought them guilty of it. Pie moreover acquaints-us with the motives 
 for these trials and subsequent executions, namely, to appease the minds 
 of the multitude, who thought that the Protestant religion was in danger, 
 in. consequence of Elizabeth's projected marriage with the duke of An- 
 jou. (li) Finally, we are to observe, that their lives were severally offered 
 to most of them on the condition of changing their religion ; (3) which 
 every one must see would have been no atonement for real treason. 
 
 The villainy of William Parry, which was in fact a plot of Elizabeth's 
 unprincipled ministry against the lives of Catholics, is now adduced by 
 you as a conspiracy of their's against her life; which conspiracy, you say, 
 was " encouraged by a Jesuit, a nuncio, a cardinal, and the pope," (4) 
 Such I know is the account of your author, Hume, whose wrong date 
 
 (i) F. Campian was a man who had been distinguished by his talents and public exer- 
 cises at Oxford, previously to his embracing the CathoHc faith. Upon his return to 
 England, he addressed to that university a work, still extant, called Decern Rationes, dis- 
 tinguished by its purity of style and perspicuity of reasoning. Amongst other persons of 
 consideration whom he reconciled to the ancient church, was the bishop of Gloucester, Dr. 
 Cheney. Sirype's Annals, vol.ii, p. 107. On his trial he entirely overthrew all the argu- 
 ments brought to establish his guilt, to the satisfliction of all present, and the attorney- 
 general, P..pl'..im, was constrained to signify to the jury, that it was her majesty's pleasure 
 the prisoner should suffer. See the authorities cited in Mem. Miss. vol. 1. 
 
 (2J " Post Andini in Angliam adventum, regina ut formidinem demeret, quas multorum 
 aninios occuparat religionenv immutatam iri, et pontificios tolerandos, iniportunis precibus 
 evicta permisit ut Edni. Campianus, R. Shcrwin, See. sacerdotes judicio sisterentur ex lege 
 xxvEdw. Ill," fkc. Canid. Ann. 1581. 
 
 (3) Mem. Miss. Pr. vol. i, p. 51, &c. (4) P. 67. 
 
 you
 
 148 LETTER VI. 
 
 you again adopt (l) with the rest of his errors, and of some other superfi- 
 cial and prejudiced writers. That romancing author begins his account of 
 this egregious impostor as follows: " William Parrj', a Catholic gentle- 
 man, had received the queen's pardon for a crime by which he was 
 exposed to capital punishment, and having got permission to travel he re- 
 tired to jSIilan, and made open profession of his religion, which he had 
 concealed whilst he i-emained in England." (2) There is hardly a word of 
 truth in the w'hole of this exordium. The fact is, he v\'as a Protestant 
 of the meanest birth, and of a still more sordid and vicious mind, (3) 
 though by some means or other he contrived to get the degree of LL. D. 
 and a place in the queen's service. (4) Having committed a burglary, and 
 wounded a man with an intent to rob him, (5) he redeemed his forfeited 
 life by engaging in the dangerous service of a foreign spy (0) to Walsing- 
 ham and Burghley, from the latter of whom he also obtained a pension. 
 This happened in 1580, in which, and during the three following jears, 
 we have proofs of his execiiting his commission to the satisfaction of his 
 employers, by his letters to Burghley from Paris, Lyons, Venice, and other 
 places, in which he communicates intelligence concerning Catholics, both 
 natives and foreigners, and boasts of the mischiefs that he had done them, 
 particularly in " shaking the seminary of Rheims, and overthrowing the 
 pensioners at Rome, by courses strange and extraordinary." (7) He did 
 not fail, however, to solicit for more ample supplies of money, by means 
 
 (i) Viz. 1584, instead of 1585, which is assigned as the real date of the conspiracy in 
 consequcTice of tlie supposed disclosure of it. See Camden, Stow, &c. 
 
 (2) EIlz. c. iv. 
 
 (3) His father kept a miserable ale-house at Northop, in Flintshire. He himself was 
 guilty of divers frauds and other crimes in Wales. Strype, vol. iii, p. 353. 
 
 (4) Camd. Ann. 1.565. (5) Ibid, Strype, vol. iii, p. 255. 
 
 (6) " This man (W. Parry) had earnestly requested of Burghley to travel abroad to do the 
 queen service, as a spy and private intelligencer in the Popish countries:" Strype's Annals, 
 vol.ii, p. 593. . 
 
 (7) Ibid, pp.648, 649, vol. iii, pp.79, 80, 188, 255, 256, &c. 
 
 of
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. I^IQ 
 
 of which he promised to do still greater things. The more effectually to 
 impose upon Catliolics, he twice went through the ceremony of abjuring 
 Protestantism, and of being solemnly received into the Catholic commu- 
 nion, namely, at Paris and at Milan, (i) His grand object %vas to get 
 access to persons of distinction and note. Some of these, amongst whom 
 was the experienced F. Parsons, kept him at a distance, suspecting him to 
 be what he really was, a spy to the English ministry. (2) With others he 
 succeeded in forming more or less of an acquaintance, either in person or 
 by letters. Amongst other persons, to whom he got recommended, was car- 
 dinal Cosmo, the pope's minister at Rome, who being assured that he was 
 a person who had it both in his power and his inclination to render great 
 service to the afllicled Catholics in England, (3) wrote him a letter of 
 compliments, telling him that the pontiti' applauded his zeal, exhorted him 
 to persevere, and gave him his apostolical blessing in the usual form. 
 There is not a word in the letter that so much as glances at the horrid 
 crime of assassinating Elizabeth. (-1) It is true, according to his own 
 account, that he sounded some persons abroad concerning it. Amongst 
 these, if we believe this account, Creichton the Jesuit, and Watts the 
 priest, absolutely condemned the project, and only Thomas Morgan, an 
 agent, to the queen of Scots at Paris, and Edmund Nevil, kinsman to 
 Cecil, approved of it. (5) In 1583 he returned to England and gave an 
 account of his proceeding to the queen in person, and also to her ministers, 
 who were so well satisfied with his conduct that they consented or rather 
 concurred to his getting a seat in Parliament. In this situation he conti- 
 
 (i) See his last speech, Strype, vol. iii, p. 250. His being reconciled twice over proves 
 that the whole was a mere farce and imposition. 
 (3) Patinson, Image of Ch. p. 513. 
 
 (3) He got a letter conveyed to Cosmo by Raggazoni, the pope's nuncio at Paris, in which 
 he acknowledges that he had done the Catholics much mischief, but said he was returning 
 to England to repair it. Ibid, p. 516. 
 
 (4) See a translation of the letter, Strype, vol. iii, p. 249. 
 
 (5) Camd. Annal. Strype, vol. iii. Append, n. 46. Patinson. 
 
 U - nued
 
 159 LETTER Yl, 
 
 luied to act the same hypocritical part, patronizing the Catholics in public, 
 
 in order to deceive them, and communicating with them in private 
 
 in order to betray them. He over acted his part so much oh the occasion 
 
 of a new penal law against Priests and Jesuits, in the beginning of the year 
 
 1585, exclaiming against the proposers of it in the most violent terms, 
 
 that he was taken into custody, most probably by order of the speaker 
 
 of the Commons, and being called upon to explain his conduct, he refused 
 
 to give any account of it, except to the queen's council, (l) In fact, they 
 
 were in the secret of his behaviour, and accordingly they ordered him to 
 
 be discharged. In conclusion, growing sullen and mutinous at being 
 
 refused the mastership of St. Catharine's, and also a pension, for both 
 
 which he solicited, and having a quarrel about the same time with his 
 
 former acquaintance, Nevil, now become lord Latimer (each one accusing 
 
 the otiier of treason, and the question being which of them was the dupe 
 
 and which the impostor) he was abandoned by his old master and left to 
 
 the severity of the law : on wdiich occasion he exclaimed, that he had 
 
 been the author of his own fate by his inconsistency of conduct. (2) If, 
 
 in any circumstances, a flilse hypocritical wretch of this description is to 
 
 be believed, it is upon the scaffold, when his wiles being exhausted, -he 
 
 finds himself on the point of suffering the consequences of his villainy. 
 
 Accordingly, in this situation. Parry made the most solemn declarations 
 
 of his being, and ever having been, the most faithful servant of Elizabeth, 
 
 pleading the goodness of his intention towards her in all that he had done, 
 
 but acknowledging his fault in having made that two-fold recantation, 
 
 mentioned above ; which alone proves that he never was a Catholic. (3) 
 
 Being charged by the pursuivant,. Topcliff, with cardinal Cosmo's letter, 
 
 as a proof that he intended to murder Elizabeth at the suggestion of the 
 
 pope, he replied, " O! Mr. Topcliff, you clean mistake it: I deny such 
 
 matter to be in the letter." (4) 
 
 You 
 
 (i) Camd. (3) " Mihi moriendum video qua mihiipsi minime constiterim." Canid. 
 
 (3) Canid. Strype, vol. iii, p. 250. 
 
 (4) Ibid.— Dr. S. by his note on tliis matter, and what he says of pope Gregory XHI 
 
 elsewhere
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETfT. 151 
 
 Tou now lead us to the completion at once of the triumph and of the 
 inflimy of Elizabeth and her ministry, namely, Babington's plot, " to 
 which," you say, " Mary acceded, and for which she suffered." The 
 fart is, this plot was contrived and carried on by that ministry, whose 
 tools, Babington and his associates were, for the express purpose of her 
 destruction. It has been proved that each one of those great trials and 
 misfortunes, with which' this most amiable and innocent princess had been 
 previously afflicted, was either directly caused, or efficaciously promoted, 
 by her envious and unprincipled rival, Elizabeth, and her still more re- 
 morseless ministry. These were the numerous seditions and rebellions 
 against her in Scotland, the assassination before her eyes of her faithful 
 secretary, Rizzio, the strange murder of her husband, king Henry Darnly, 
 with his servants, and then the infamous charge, supported by daring 
 forgeries, of having caused that murder, which the perpetrators of it en- 
 deavoured to throw otF themselves upon her. (i) Having, at length, 
 taken refuge in this country, by the pressing invitation of its sovereign, 
 from the blood-thirsty fury and fanaticism of her own rebellious subjects, 
 instead of an hospitable reception she met with a prison, where she was 
 detained a captive the ig last years of her life, subject to constant vexa- 
 tions, insults, and persecutions, and denied, even till the last moment of 
 her life, the private exercise of her religion, (4) So early as the year 1 572, 
 that is to say, within the fourth year of her captivity, ministry was 
 
 elsewhere, is very desirous of making him pass for a man of blood and the assassin of Eli- 
 zabeth. How much Dr. S." wTongs his memory, in the latter particular, appears by a letter 
 from Anthony TjTrell, a priest from Rome, then confined in prison, which he addressed to 
 her by way of recanting certain falsehoods, that the fear of torments had extorted from him. 
 He says " As to pope Gregory I protest, as I hope to be saved, I never beared him speak 
 any thing for your prejudice. But I have seen him shed tears for your Majesty, and he has 
 by his own mouth commanded us to pray for you,, and not to intermeddle with any thino-but 
 what directly concerned our profession." Strj-pe, Annal. vol. iii. Append, p. 158. 
 
 (i) See tliese several points proved by Whitaker, in his Vindication of Mary. 
 
 (a) Camden, An. 1587. 
 
 U 2 resolved
 
 152 LETTER VI. 
 
 resolved upon bringing her to a public execution, (l) and the acticles of lur 
 impeachment were actually drawn up ; (2) but the haughty i'iizabeth, 
 who dreaded the degradation of royalty, even in the person of an enemy, 
 put a stop to the proceedings. Upon this, the chief minister, Cecil, made 
 offers of delivering up the royal victim into the hands of her rebellious 
 subjects, upon, security being given tliat she should be put to death, (3) 
 on a charge of that very murder which they themselves, with his con- 
 currence, had committed. What petitions were not procured, what 
 associations were not formed, what acts of assassinations were not at- 
 tempted against the life of this unfortunate queen, merely because she was 
 a Catholic and the heir apparent of the crown ! (4) It is certain, that 
 each one of that ministerial junto, described above, at diflerent times, 
 used means to get her privately murdered, and that Elizabeth herself 
 
 (i) See letters of that date to the said effect from Burghley, Leicester, and Walsingham. 
 Strype's Annals, vol.ii, b, i, c. 15. 
 
 (2) Ibid. 
 
 (3) See Cecil's letter to Killigrew. Murdin's State Papers, p. 225. 
 
 (4) " Leicestrius, qui credebatur de pervertenda legitima successione moliri sicarios sub- 
 niisit ut perhibent nonnulli, qui illam se medio tollevent. Drnrius autem recti honestique 
 cultorscelus ex animo perosus, omni accessu prohibuit." Camd. An. 1584. — In 1586, previously 
 to any trial of Mary, Leicester proposed his usual expedient to get rid of her, namely, 
 " poison, and he sent a divine to convince Walsingham that this was lawful." Camd. Eut 
 in fact there was no need of the casuistry of divines to persuade that unprincipled man, 
 whose conscience was scared with a hot iron, that any thing was lawful which was expedient. 
 Mary charged him upon her trial, with having "practiced, as she had beared, both against 
 her own life and that of her son." Camd. We have his letter, subscribed also by his 
 fellow secretary of state, Davison, to Mary's keeper, sir AmiaS Poulet, urging him to take 
 the burden of shedding blood off Elizabeth, and to find soiiie ivay to shorten the life of Mary, 
 making use of motives of religion and conscience, amongst others, for this purpose. See 
 the letter in Whilaker's \'indic. vol. iil, p. 550. But the principal contriver and aclor in 
 this bloody scene, was the hoary hypocrite, Cecil, lord Burghley, as this author proves, 
 ibid, p. 563 ; though it seems to have escaped him, and other late writers, that Cecil was 
 on this account driven from Elizabeth's presence, and treated with the same feigned re- 
 sentment by Elizabeth as Davison himself was. See Cecil's Letters to Eliz. Strype's Annals, 
 Yol, iii, b. ii, c. i. 
 
 promoted
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. 153 
 
 promoted and ir-gcd the execution of the bloody project; (i)- which would 
 inevitably have taken place, had not Mary's keepers felt some sparks of 
 conscience within their breasts, or rather had they not foreseen that in 
 this case, they would have been left to the infamy and punishment of their 
 crime, in order to serve the j.-assions of others, (i) At length it being 
 
 resolved 
 
 (i) " Porro Powlettum ct Drurium culpavit (Elizabetha) quod cam hac cura non liberassent 
 et optavit ut Walsingliamus eorum aniuios hac de re tentaret." Camd. Ann. 1587. See Da- 
 vison's Apology, from wliich tliv passage is taken, more at length in Whitaker, vol. 
 iii, Append, n. 16, with that stiv|;acio'i.s writer's comments upon it. Amongst tlie records of 
 this important transaction, which have been so industriously sought out by late writers, 
 I am surprised that hone of them have met with a letter from Elizabeth herself to sir 
 Amias Poulct concerning it, being the master-piece of that queen's characteristical hypo- 
 crisy and cruelty. Strypc, vol. iii, p. 361, from MSS. Cecil. It will remind the readers 
 of Shakespeare of the scene between king John and Hubert, when the former endeavours 
 to work up the latter to undertake the murder of liis neplievv Arthur. 
 " To viy Ja'itkfvl Amy as, 
 
 " Aniyas my most careful and faithful servant, God reward thee treblefold in the double 
 for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged. If you knew, my Amyas, how kindly 
 besides dutifully, mj' grateful heart accepteth vour double labours and faithful actions, 
 your wise orders and safe conduct, performed "in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it 
 "would ease your troubles and rejoice your heart. And (which I charge you to carry this 
 most just thought) that I cannot balance in any weight of my judgement, the value I 
 prize you at: and I suppose no treasure to countervail such faith : and condemn myself in 
 that fault which I have committed if I reward not such deserts. Yea let me lack when 
 I have most need, if I acknowledge not such a merit, with a reward non ommhus datum. 
 
 But letyour wicked mistress know how with hearty sorrow her vile deserts compel those 
 orders ; and bid her from me ask God forgiveness for her treacherous dealings to the saver 
 of her life many years to the intolerable peril of her own. And yet not content with so 
 many forgivenesses must fall again so horribly, far passing a woman much more a princess. 
 Instead of excusing whereof, not one can serve, it being so plainly confessed by the actors 
 of niy guiltless death. Let repentance take place, and let not the fiend possess so as her 
 best part be lost. Which I pray with hands lifted up to him that may both save and 
 spill. With my loving adieu and prayer for thy long life. 
 
 Your assured and loving sovereign in hearl, by good desert induced, 
 
 Elrzab: th Regina." 
 
 The unusual style of flattery which prevails throughout the former part of this letter, we 
 see, is admirably calculated to work up Paulet's vanity and expectations to the greatest 
 
 heiaht
 
 154 LETTER VI. 
 
 resolved upon to have recourse to legal execution, an express act of par- 
 liament was procured for Mary's destruction, in which the objection that 
 had hitherto stood in the way of ministry, namely, that she Nvas not an 
 English subject, was obviated. All then that nOw remairted to be done 
 was to engage some rash young men of the Scotish, or the Catholic party, 
 in a conspiracy, to set Mary at liberty, with some intended violence 
 against the person of Elizabeth or the peace of the realm, and then to 
 procure evidence real or forged of Mary's being implicated in it; and this 
 work, Walsingham, by means of his band of spies, hypocrites, and 
 forgers, was soon enabled to accomplish. 
 
 We are not to be surprized if the account that has reached us of this 
 dark and complicated conspiracy should be imperfect and confused, as all 
 the evidence concerning it has passed through the hands of a party con- 
 cerned in it, who are proved to have been guilty of the most shameful 
 frauds and forgeries in conducting it. Hence no writer yet has been able 
 to furnish a consistent or plausible account of it. Camden, who is on 
 every account entitled to the most credit, is nevertheless proved to have 
 made many mistakes, and confounded the order of events. Thus much 
 is clearly ascertained, that the aforesaid secretary of state acted the prin- 
 cipal part in the beginning, in the progress, and in the conclusion, of this 
 
 most 
 
 height possible, after which his whole vengeance is directed against his prisoner, Mary, as 
 the intentional murderer of his benefactress and friend, Elizabeth. He is left to execute 
 this in any manner that he himself may devise, provided he exhorts the victim to repentance, 
 so that her better part (her soul) may not he lost. — In the end, these delicate hints, and after- 
 wards other downright directions, both to Paulet and Drury, proving ineffectual, Elizabeth 
 called them " nice and precise fellows tuho in words would do great things for her' safety^ but in 
 deed perform nothing. She concluded that the work should be done without them, and said, 
 that Wingfield, with some others, would undertake it." Davison's Apol. See Whit. vol. 
 
 iiij P- 55^- 
 
 (i) See Paulet's answer to Wa'singham, in which he excuses himself from "doing an 
 
 act which God and the law forbideth." Ibid. Upon Elizabeth's urging that her rival 
 
 should be privately taken off by her keepers, Paulet and Drury, secretary Davison " told 
 
 her,
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. 155 
 
 most bloc^dy tragedy. Giifard, (i) v\'ho is mentioned as being active in 
 corrupting Savage, the principal assassin, and who was afterwards em- 
 ployed in attempting to ensnare the poor captive Mary herself, was the 
 chief agent of Walslngham. (2) " The vile impostor Maud, who took the 
 priest Ballard with him abroad," in order to get the English emigrants 
 and some foreign power to take part in the plot, M-as the hired emissary 
 of Walsingham ; (3) and that " master of deception. Policy," who, by 
 
 her, that it was a mar\'ellous extremity she would have exposed those gentlemen unto. 
 For it" ihcy should have done that she desired ; she must either allow their act or disallow it- 
 If she allowed it, she took, the matter upon herself, with an infinite dishonour. If she 
 disallowed it, she overthrew those faithful gentlemen." Apol. ut supra. — We can have no 
 doubt what Elizabeth would have done in this case. For if she made such loud and confident 
 protestations, throughout Europe, of her innocence of Mary's death, when the latter was 
 executed by her own warrant ; and if she punished Davison so severely for obeying her re- 
 peated orders 10 that effect, we can have no doubt but she would have exclaimed and la- 
 mented with tenfold violence, and have made Paulet and Drury die the most cruel death of 
 murderers, if they had put their royal prisoner to death illegally and without her warrant, 
 however desirous she was of their doing it. 
 
 (i) This was not Dr. Giffard, a superior in the seminary of Rheims, who was afterwards 
 archbishop of Rheims, as Echard supposes, nor was he a priest at all, as Hume and even 
 Camden relate, but a degenerate young man, by name Gilbert Giffiuxl, of the Chillington 
 family, whose father was at that time a prisoner for his religion in London. Being at Paris 
 in 1585, he compleatly deceived Mary's agent there, Morgan, who recommended him to 
 her as a person capable of doing her great service. ■ See Morgan's Letter to Mary in Murdiii's 
 Scale Papers, p. 454. This Giffard afterwards went abroad, where being cast into prison, 
 for the wickedness of Lis life, he died in g eat misery. Camden. 
 
 (2) Camden. 
 
 (^) " B.ill.irdus sacerdos in Galliam commitatus Maudo, Walsinghami emissario vaferrimo, 
 qui il!i impudcnti fucum fecerat redit." Hume transforms JVlaud also into a priest, and 
 Ayrites of him as f' Hows : " That artful minister (Walsingham) had engaged Maud, a 
 Catholic priest, whom he retained in his pay, to attend Ballard in his journey to France." 
 To judge of this historian's accuracy, I request, that the sentence, just quoted, may be 
 compared with Camden's original given above. Is it that Munie did not understand Latin, 
 or that being indifferent to the truth of history, he was only anxious to weave a plausible 
 narration ? 
 
 his
 
 150 rr.TTr.R yi. 
 
 his afTcoted zeal for tlie service o. . ...ry, (l) drove the rash youths with 
 wh,;ni he associated into greater excesses than they would otherwise have 
 thought of, " had every day access to this minister, in order to give him 
 an account of what was going forward." (2) Even Babington himself 
 was, for some days previously to the disclosure of the plot, entertained 
 bv Walsingham at his house as a guest, and proposals passed between 
 them of his enlisting in the service as a spy upon the Catholic emigrants. 
 (.3) In the mean time the secretary was busily employed with his clerks, 
 ^Jliomas Philips and Arthur Gregory, who were trained to such arts, in 
 writing forged letters with the name and private cypher of jMary or of other 
 persons, and in opening their real letters and inserting such postscripts in 
 them as tended to increase the guilt and number of the conspirators. (4) 
 He even procured a picture of the assembled conspirators, with a suitable 
 motto beneath it, to be made, which he shewed to Elizabeth, at once to 
 recommend his own diligence in detecting the plot, and to work her up 
 to a proper degree of fury against the unfortunate Mary, in whose behalf 
 it was carrying on. (5) He wished to have spun out the affair to a still 
 
 greater 
 
 (i) It appears, from another letter of Morgan's to Mary, dated July 30, 1585, that 
 Policy had been abroad, and had hnposed upon him no less than Maud did, and had even 
 procured money through his means. Murdin, p. 446, &c. 
 
 (2) " In societatem (conjuratorum) se insinuavit Pollius in reglnjs Scotorum negotiis ap- 
 prime instructus, simulandi et dissimulandi peritissimus, qui omnia eorum consilia Walsing- 
 hamo indies aperuisse etjuvenes in mala pronos pcjora suggcrendo, pirascipites impulisse cre- 
 ditur." Canid. 
 
 (3) Camd. (4) Ibid. 
 
 (5) That a picture of Babington, surrounded by his fellow conspirators, was painted 
 from the life, and shewn by Walsingham to the queen, who said that she knew the faces 
 of none of them, except that of Barnwell, I fully believe on the credit of Camden, who 
 relates it ; but I cannot admit his supposition, which has passed current with all subsequent 
 writers, that this picture was executed by the order of Babington himself, and that every 
 one of the 15 persons concerned would consent to put his life into the hands of a common 
 painter, and of innumerable other persons who might chance to see it, merely to gratify a 
 momentary vanity. For we are to observe, that the figures were portraits shewn to the 
 queen, tc see if she could recognize the features of any of them, — On the other hand, we 
 
 know
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. 15/ 
 
 greater lenplh, bnc Elizabeth required liim to cut it short ;(l) when it 
 proved an easy matter for him to seize upon the 14 unfortunate dupes 
 of his villrdny, and not a more "difficult one to get them condemned and 
 executed \vith circumstances of peculiar barbarity. They died acknow- 
 ledging and deploring their guilt, particularly the six who had been ac- 
 quainted with 'and engaged in the scheme of assassination. (2) This cir- 
 cumstance alone suffices to acquit these men's religion of that guilt which 
 you and other writers endeavour to affix to it in consequence of their 
 crime. 
 
 But the grand catastrophe was not yet unfolded ; a more noble prey 
 was wanting to grace the savage triumph of Walsingham ; in short, the 
 queen of Scots was indicted upon the late act, which had been made for 
 this express purpose, as being a party to the conspiracy for murdering the 
 queen of England. Never did a prisoner at the bar labour under greater 
 disadvantages than Mary did on this occasion. She had to contend with 
 45 of the ablest men (3) that their age and country could produce, 
 amongst whom were her s\\ orn enemies, Leicester, Burghlcy, and Wal- 
 singham. She had neither advocate to plead for her, nor counsellor to 
 advise her. (4) She was even deprived of the use of her papers, all 
 which were in the custody of her enemies. Besides this, she had to fight 
 against the dreadful engine of forgery, which was employed against her 
 in this trial, as it had been before in her examination, concerning the 
 
 know that Walsingham was accustomed to procure portraits of those whom he suspected, 
 and it was an easy matter for liim, being possesed of tliosc of the conspirators, to get them 
 put into one picture. I have shewn above what useful purposes this picture was calculated 
 to answer for his ends. 
 
 (I) Camden. (2) Ibid. 
 
 (3) So many names of persons appear in the commission for trying her. 
 
 (4) Consiluiriis sum destltuta ; chartse et notulie sunt ablatae, nullus est qui patronum 
 mihi se prjebere audet." Camd. — Even the unfortunate Louis XVI and Antoinette, in the 
 midst of Jacobinical daggers and guillotines, found,' and were allowed to have, faithfial and 
 able official defenders, before they met with that fate, to which Mary, amongst sovereigns, 
 first led them ihe way. 
 
 X death
 
 158 LETTER VI, 
 
 death of her liusband, Darnley. But what was the most cruel circum- 
 stanqe of all, her own secretaries proved unfaithful to her, and charged her, 
 behind her back, with having dictated certain letters concerning the 
 assassination, which they themselves had written without her privity. 
 The fact is, they were now prisoners in the hands of men who knew full 
 well how to employ the motives both of hope and terror, in order .to bend 
 them to their views ; (i ) and indeed they had no other means of saving their 
 own lives, but by pleading that what they bad written was by the order of 
 their mistress. Still, however, the conscious innocence of Mary, and the 
 native powers of her mind, supported her under all these difficulties, and 
 enabled her to make a defence which still stands an invincible monument 
 of her innocence and her characteristic virtues. (2) On this occasion shp 
 defied her accusers to produce a single line of her own hand-writing, or 
 a single living witness, to prove her to tiave been privy to the crimes of 
 which she stood accused. She said, that letters might have been written 
 in her name and cypher, either by one of her honoui'able judges there 
 present (Walsingham), who was a practitioner in such arts, (.s) or by her 
 secretaries, who frequently took the liberty of writing in her name what 
 she had never dictated ; that it was very possible for Babington and his 
 companions to suppose that the letters they had received came, from her, 
 and that it was still more likely that when apprehended, the fear of tor- 
 ments and death might make them pretend they had acted by her orders. 
 In a word, she said, that if her enemies intended to make use of their 
 evidence against her, they ought to have confronted them with her. She 
 
 (i) Camden says, it is proved by letters, that when Mary's secretary Curl demanded his 
 promised reward of Walsingliam, the latter reminded him of the special pardon which he 
 had received, thereby intimating that it was enough for him to have escaped with . his life. 
 Hence this author concludes his account of Mary with this sentence : " Amanuenslum ab- 
 sentium, qui pretio corrupti videbantur, testimoniis oppressa." 
 
 (2) Camden. See also Causin's Holy Court. 
 
 (3) " Facile esse aliorum characteres & cyphras ementiri 5 vercri etiam ne hoc in suum 
 caput jam factum perWalsinghamum." Camden. 
 
 acknowledged
 
 CATHOLICS UXDER ELIZABETH. IjQ 
 
 acknowictlged that she liad, at different times, sought to regain that 
 liberty of which she had been near 20 years deprived, contrary to all the 
 laws of hospitality and of justice, and that she had earnestly wished to 
 procure relief for the poor persecuted Catholics ; but she protested, that 
 however earnestly she desired the accomplishment of these ends, she 
 would not procure them by the death of the meanest wretch upon earth, 
 much less by that of her cousin Elizabeth ; adding emphatically, that she 
 loved her own aoiil loo ivcll to drfile it with such a crime ; (i) in short, 
 that she had chosen Hester for her model and not Judith. She referred to 
 her papers, then in the possession of her accusers, for proofs that she was 
 averse to any service being rendered to her by crimes or violences of any 
 sort ; and in particular, she said, it would appear from them that her par- 
 tisans had begged her pardon for not informing her when they meditated 
 any thing of that nature, knowing th^t she would not consent to it. 
 With respect to the testimony of her secretaries (which is universally 
 allowed to be the hinge on which the whole evidence against her turned) (2) 
 she proved they were not competent witnesses against her for many rea- 
 sons, particularly, because they were sworn to keep her secrets, and 
 therefore, by the very attempt to criminate her, uould prove themselves 
 perjured wretches, undeserving of credit. She alledged that they very 
 often had wTitten in her name without her authority ; and finally, she 
 required that, if they were still living, they might be confronted with 
 her, declaring, that they would not dare to charge her to her face with 
 being privy to the assassination in question. (3) The refusal of any pro- 
 secutor to accept of such a challenge would alone suffice to overturn this 
 
 (1) "AnimcE naufragium conjumndo in perniciem charlssimoe sororis nunquam fecerim." 
 Camden . 
 
 (3) " Sententiaj ex amanucnsiim fide tota pependit." Camden. Hume makes the same 
 concession. 
 
 (3) " Certe scio quod si (amanuenses) adessent me extra omnem culpam causamque po- 
 nerent." Camden. This author remarks, that by a statute of the reigning queen it was 
 required that all witnesses should be confronted with the accused. 
 
 X 2 charge
 
 160 LETTEH TI. 
 
 charge in the minds of every equitable jury nov/ a days, and to draw from 
 them a verdict of not guilty in favour of the most ill-famed wretch who 
 could be brought before them. In short, it is impossible to conceive that 
 Elizabeth's ministers would have neglected to bring Nau and Curl to sup- 
 port their testimony openly in the presence of their mistress, even tho' she 
 herself had not required it, if they had not been conscious that these poor 
 intimidated and bribed secretaries could not stand her examination with- 
 out overwhelming them with confusion. In the end, she was officially 
 informed by lord Buckhurst and Beal the clerk of the council, ihat she 
 was condemned to die, and " that public security required that she should 
 suffer, because the established religion was thought not to be secure 
 whilst. she ivas in being.'' (l) The same caxise was still more clearly ex- 
 pressed by Henry Grey, earl of Rent, who was appointed to superintend 
 her execution : " Your life," said he, " will be the death of our religioni, 
 and your death will be the life of it." Upon this, turning to Burgoign, 
 her physician, she exclaimed, " How great is the force of truth ; I am 
 condemned for conspiring against the queen's life, but now the earl of 
 Kent has confessed that I am to suffer for the security of their religion. "(2) 
 I need not say any thing of her conduct at her death, except to remark, 
 that it is not thus conscious murderers die. This, even as related hv her 
 greatest enemies, exhibits the meek fortitude of a Christian heroine, and 
 the edifying sanctity of a martyr. (3) If from Mary's dying scene we 
 turn to that of Elizabeth, where all was sullen melancholy, deep rCmorse, ' 
 and fixed despondency, (4) we shall have no difficulty in determining, 
 
 without 
 
 (1) Camden. (s) Ibid. (3) Hume, Echard, &c. 
 
 (4) Collier, speaking of Elizabeth's death, says, " Without pronoiujciiig on the < ause, 
 it is certain her last scene was dark and disconsolate." One of her courtieis, Robert Cary, 
 earl of Monmouth, in the Memoirs of his own Life, cited by Whitaker, Vindic. vol. i. p. 46, 
 gives some particulars of this scene. He says, that he found the queen, in her last sickness, 
 " seated upon cusbons," where she persisted in remaining, on the ground, " four davs and 
 nights at least ;" that he " used the best words he could to persuade her from this me- 
 lancholy, but that it was too deeply rooted in her heart to be removed ;" that in her dis- 
 course
 
 CATHOLICS UN'DF.n ELIZABETH. ](>J 
 
 without further proi^t', which of these rival queens laboured under the 
 real guilt of murder. 1 think, Sii-, ^lou have not consulted the interest of 
 your cause in introducing the Catliolic queen as conspiring against the life 
 of the Protestant sovereign, and thereby rendering the present comparison 
 of them necessary. 
 
 Tou charitably spare me the task of unravelling and exposing the ri- 
 diculous plots of Squires and the poisoned saddle, and of the Jew phy- 
 sician, Lopez ; though these are regularly enumerated by other writers 
 who have preceded 3'ou in the employment of denouncing the crimes of 
 Catholics, and in justifying the penal laws that were enacted against 
 them. Instead of bringing these upon the carpet, you present me with 
 a view of the Spanish Armada, and of the fresh excommunication and 
 deposition denounced against the murderer of I\[ary ln\thc Roman pontitF. 
 (1) But how, Sir, did this projected invasion of the kingdom by fo- 
 reigners criminate the English Catholics, if, so far from co-operating with 
 it, they joined with their fellow-subjects in opposing it to the utmost of 
 
 course with him " slie fetched not so few as 40 or 50 great sighs," whereas he had " never 
 known her fetch a sigh before, except when the queen of Scots was beheaded ;" that " she 
 refused all sustenance, or to go to bed, and that she grew worse and worse " because she 
 would be so, and refused all remedies." Camden adds, that she called herself " a mise- 
 rable forlorn woman ;" and exclaimed, " they have put a yoke about my neck : I have none 
 to trust in : my condition is strangely changed." The account of Parsons, fin Lis Dis- 
 cussion of Barlow's Answer,) which he received from soma of Elizabeth's prime courtiers, 
 agrees with the authors above quoted in the circumstances which they relate, though he 
 eaters into a greater detail, and softens some of them. Nevertheless he adds the following 
 singular particulars : That the queen told two ladies of the court, that as she lay in her bed, 
 at the beginning of her illness, she thought " she saw her own body lean, fearful, and in 
 a light of lire ;" which circumstance will perhaps account for her obstinate refusal to be 
 put any more to bed; that "she cholerickly rated the prelates who came to her, bidding 
 them be packing;" that she seemed to place more conlidencc in charms, and spells, than 
 in prayer to God; that she wore a piece of gold in her ruff, by means of which m-. old 
 woman in Wales was said to have lived to the age of 100 years; that the card called the 
 queen of hearts was found nailed to the bottom of her chair, &c. 
 (i) P. 68. 
 
 their
 
 l02 < LETTER VI. 
 
 their power, as you very candidly admit to have been the case } The 
 truth is, the king of Spain in his manifesto published the motives which 
 induced him to undertake this war, and they are purely of a political na- 
 ture, namely, to repel the numerous acts of hostility which had been 
 committed by Elizabeth upon his dominions, both in Europe and America, 
 and to avenge the common cause of sovereigns, which had been outraged 
 in the person of the queen of Scots. Elis general, the duke of Feria, 
 assured the English ambassador, that he neither knew, nor was concerned 
 about the Pope's bulls against Elizabeth, (i) but merely acted in obedience 
 to the orders of his sovereign. Not one English Catholic is know^n to have 
 been concerned in this expedition ; (2) and so jealous was Philip of them, 
 that he confined tlx; persons of this description, who resided at Lisbon, 
 whilst it was in agitation. (3) In a word, the English Catholics not only 
 petitioned to be placed in the foremost ranks of their countries army 
 against the common enemy, as I related before, (4) but even your favourite 
 historian, quoting another of higher authority, (5) allows that '• some of 
 their gentlemen, when they could not obtain commissions- in the army 
 and navy, served in them as volunteers : some equipped ships at their 
 own charge, and gave the command of them to Protestants : others were 
 active in animating their tenants, vassals, and neighbours, to the defence 
 of their country." (G) Tome, Sir, it appears, that this instance of fide- 
 lity and loyalty of a large and powerful body of people to a government 
 that oppressed them, in opposition to every motive of interest and ambi- 
 
 (i) Camd. Ami. 1588. 
 
 (2) Camden reniarks, that he refused to entrust the earl of Westmoreland, Stanley, or any 
 other English fugitive, with a command in the expedition, though the last mentioned was 
 one of the bravest and ablest generals of his age. Echard objects, that above 100 Jesuits and 
 monks were on board the Spanish fleet, under the superintendance of cardinal Allen. The 
 fact is, cardinal Allen was at that time at Rome in a very infirm state of health. There 
 were, indeed, chaplains in the fleet, a particular account of whom is to be seen in Strype, 
 vol. iii, but not one of them appears to have been an Englishman. 
 
 (3) Dodd. (4) Hist. vol. i, p. 384. (5) Stow's Annals. 
 (6) Hume's Historj^ Eliz. c. v. 
 
 tion.
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. 103 
 
 tion, is the most singular and glorious that history can afford. By what 
 logic then do you introduce it in justification of that persecution which 
 continued to rage against them ? In fact, this example demonstrates better 
 than a thousand arguments, that Catholics will not forfeit theip allegiance 
 even to promote that religion for which they are ready to shed their blood; 
 and what is no less important, it proves, that there is no danger to a Pro- 
 testant state from the ecclesiastical supremacy acknowledged to reside in 
 the bishop of Rome ; because, if from passion or policy, he should exceed 
 the just bounds of his spiritual authority, and attempt to depose their 
 lawful sovereign, they will not obey him. 
 
 But, to draw towards a conclusion of the present subject, in proportion 
 as the loyalty of the Catholics was more conspicuous, and the danger to 
 be apprehended from tolerating them (had any danger really existed) was 
 further removed, by the death of Mary and the defeat of the armada, 
 Elizabeth's government aggravated its cruelty and oppression upon them. 
 This was chiefly attributed to the counsels of that wicked Haman, the 
 earl of Leicester, who expressed his wish to " see the streets of London 
 washed w^ith the blood of Papists ;" and who, having caused many Catho- 
 lics to be put to death, had made out a list of fresh victims for the san- 
 guinary tribunals of that reign, (l) when he himself was suddenly sum- 
 moned away by death, in this same year of the invasion, to a more just 
 and awful tribunal ; being supposed to have fallen a victim to his own 
 arts of poisoning, by the contrivance of his infamous countess, whom he 
 was conveying to Renilworth, in order to confine her, and who afterwards 
 married the object of his jealousy, Blount. (2) To have been opposed and 
 persecuted by such a character as Leicester, (3) was itself a recommen- 
 dation of any person or cause. What is certain, is, that in the year of 
 the Spanish expedition, 1588, six new gallowses were erected in London, 
 
 (i) Memoirs Miss. Pr. vol. i, p. 210. 
 
 (2) Resp. ad Edict, p. 18. St'-pc says that lie died at an inn as he was going to Kenil- 
 worth, and that there were suspicions of foul play. 
 
 (3) See his character above, hom Dr. Heylin, p. 130. 
 
 or
 
 l64 LETTER Vr. 
 
 or adjoining to it, and 32 Catholics, priests and lay persons, suffered the 
 death of traitors, for the mere exercise of the religion of their ancestors., (i) 
 To shew more fully the spirit by which the queen's head ministers were 
 actuated with respect to the objects of their persecution, it wi!) be suf- 
 ficient to mention, that when a great number of them, priests as well as 
 lay gentlemen, had drawn up and signed a most loyal address to Elizabeth, 
 expressive of their firm attachment to her government, and their abhor- 
 horrence of every disloyal principle and practice attributed to them, but 
 at the same time praying for some relaxation of the penal laws, and had 
 procured it to be presented to her as she walking in the park of Greenwich, 
 by one of their number, Richard Shelley, esq. of Mainfield in .Sussex ; the 
 only notice taken of this address was, that this ;,';entleman was seized upon 
 and cast into the Marshalsea prison, where he continued until death set 
 him free, for having presumed to offer such a petition to the queen, 
 without the permission of the council. (2) The truth is, these men 
 dreaded not the disloyalty, but the loyalty of Catholics, which being once 
 recognized, would have deprived them of their pretext for plundering 
 and tormenting them. 
 
 In opposition to all that yourself and other prejudiced writers 
 have advanced against the behaviour of Catholics during the reign of 
 Elizabeth, I maintain that it was eminently loyal and meritorious. I 
 have answered the several objections which you have brought against 
 them, in such manner as to prove that they reflect much more honour 
 than disgrace upon them. But if even every one of these charges had 
 been well founded to the utmost extent at wliich you state them, how 
 small a proportion of that body would they affect ? Not a thousandth part 
 of the whole. Of course it would have been the height of injustice and 
 cruelty to punish the Catholics at large for the faults of the few indivi- 
 duals in question. In one word, Sir, if you persist in screening the intoler- 
 
 (i) Rishton, Append. De Schism. Mem. Miss. Pr. vol. i. Dodd, vol. li. 
 
 (2) Pattinson's Image, Sec. p. 496. Memoirs, vol. i, p. 170. Strype's Annals. 
 
 ance
 
 CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. l05 
 
 ance of Elizabeth and her ministry towards the professors of the ancient 
 taith, and in asserting, that those amongst them who were pUmdered, 
 imprisoned, tortured, and executed, suflcred not for their religion, but 
 for their civil crimes, or for that state necessity which you talk of, 
 give me leave to ask you what did Lewis and Rett, with the other Arians 
 and Dissenters who were burnt to death in this reign, sutFcr for? It is 
 unworthy the candour which you profess, and sometimes display, cither 
 to deny the prevalence of this intolerant and persecuting spirit, or to at- 
 tempt to justify it on hollow and false pretexts. I repeat it, the conduct 
 of the great body of the Catholics at that period is unrivalled for its fide- 
 lity. They saw a princess mount the throne, whose title was invalid by 
 their church law, and whose conduct in their regard they anticipated in 
 idea, without otiering the smallest resistance to it. They saw her violate 
 her consecration oath, by changing the religion of the kingdom, which 
 had been established in it almost looo years before, and beginning her reign 
 with enacting the penalty of death against the profession of it. (i) They 
 experienced pecuniary mulcts and corporal punishments, multiplied and 
 aggravated without number or measure, in order to extirpate them from 
 the land of their nativity ; they found themselves, at every turn, accused 
 and punished for pretended conspiracies ; and, what was the most cruel 
 circumstance of all, they perceived innumerable snares, and the most 
 scandalous arts of seduction and forgery employed by ministry to draw as 
 many as possible of their number into real ones. In the mean time they 
 were told by the head of their church that they were no longer obliged 
 to obey; and they beheld the most powerful prince in Europe sending an 
 armament, that passed for Invincible, to invade the realm, the success of 
 which would at once have placed them over the heads of their persecutors. 
 Yet, in spite of all this, they continued, priests and laity, when at liberty 
 and when in prison, in their hiding places and under the gallows, to 
 acknowledge the title of their unnatural sovereign, to pray for her pros- 
 
 (i) By the Act of Supremacy, i Eliz. 
 
 T perity,
 
 l66 LETTER VI. 
 
 perity, and to condemn all enterprises to secure their lives and the free 
 exercise of their religion at the expence of the public peace and of the 
 lawful government. We have moreover seen, that when the occasion 
 called for such exertions, those who had it in their power to make them, 
 supported the established government, in opposition to the interests of 
 their religion, with their piirses and their swords. If you turn your eyes 
 from England to the surrounding nations of Europe during the period of 
 this reign, I ask, in which of them did the professors of the new religion 
 prove the same loyalty to their Catholic sovereigns or magistrates who 
 persecuted or opposed them ? Did they not universally in such cases fly 
 to arms, and overturn the governments, if it was in their power to do so ? 
 You should have glanced at the conduct of the Anabaptists and the 
 Lutherans in Germany, the Huguenots in France, the Gueux in the Nether- 
 lands, the Zuingiians in Switzerland, the Presbyterians in Scotland, and 
 the Calvinists at Geneva, before you charged the Catholics of England 
 with disloyalty to queen Elizabeth. But, Sir, I spare you the recital of 
 the histories I here glance at ; and 
 
 I have the honour, &c. 
 
 LETTER
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. IO7 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 SIB, 
 
 Ii 
 
 F you have been unable to make good your 
 charge of disloyalty against the English Catholics under the last sovereign 
 of the house of the Tudors, you will find it still more difficult to effect 
 this during the several reigns of the Stuart family. It is true, you will 
 not want pretexts for accusing them ; because the heat of popular pre- 
 judice against them continuing rather to increase than diminish during 
 the whole 17th century, a succession of conspiracies and other crimes 
 were continually imputed to them. Hence, whatever party prevailed, the 
 penal laws went on increasing in number and severity, and the general 
 cry was kept up for a more rigorous execution of them. Just so we 
 read that in the Pagan persecutions, under every foreign and domestic 
 misfortune, the people of Rome were accustomed to clamour for the 
 Christians to be devoured by wild beasts. (]) 
 
 It must appear extraordinary to those who have not searched into the 
 causes of this fact, that the Catholic religion, amongst all others, should 
 have been so long the peculiar object of national prejudice and persecution. 
 The Calvinists or Puritans, wherever they prevailed, w^ere sure to over- 
 turn both the civil and ecclesiastical ertablishment of the country. The 
 Anabaptists, in their native provinces of Germany and Holland, had been 
 guilty of more frantic excesses and horrors, than those which Jacobinical 
 fury has produced at the present day, the principles of which they still 
 
 ^i) " Christianos ad leoiiem." Tcrtul. Apolog. 
 
 Y 2 maintain
 
 lG8 LETTER VII. 
 
 jnaintained. The Quakers, at their first rise, were as frantic and turbu- 
 lent, if not so sanguinary and violent, as the former, and they still per- 
 sist in refusing to join their fellow-subjects in many duties essential to 
 the common welfare, particularly in bearing arms against its declared 
 enemies. Yet the hatred and persecutions against these several sects, were 
 at all times comparatively modoi'ate, and gradually subsided ; whilst those 
 which were raised against the ancient religion of the country, to which 
 it was indebted for its Constitution and its Christianity, and from which 
 the established church differed in less essential points than from any of 
 the sectaries mentioned above, went on, as we have remarked, with in- 
 creasing force during the whole dynasty of the house of Stuart. It is 
 not necessary to assign all the several means by which these effects, so 
 fittal to Catholics, were produced ; it will be sufficient for my present 
 purpose to mention some of them, namely, intrigues and jealousies in 
 the cabinet and the senate, and misrepresentation and calumny in the 
 pulpit and the press. 
 
 James I was not only the son of the Catholic heroine, Mary, as you, 
 Sir, remind me, (l) but he v/as also himself baptized in the Catholic 
 church, (2) and retained during his own life the strongest bias towards 
 its faith and discipline, (3) as his Puritanical enemies did not fail to object 
 to him. He had corresponded from Scotland with the Roman pontiff, (4) 
 as also with several English Catholics, clergymen as well as laymen. One 
 of these was the priest Watson, mentioned in my History, (5) who was 
 a warm partisan of his interest against that of Spain, and to whom, 
 amongst others, he made strong promises of shewing indulgence to the 
 Catholics of England, whenever he should mount the throne of this 
 country. He declared in open parliament, that he considered the church 
 
 (i) P. 80. (a) Dodd's Ch. Hist. vol. ii, p. 346. 
 
 (3) See an account of James's remarkable conference with the French envoy, the arch- 
 bishop of Embrun. Echard's Hist, of Eng. p. 406. 
 
 (4) See his letter to pope Clement VHI, Sept. 24, 1559. Rushworth's Collect, vol. i. 
 
 (5) Vol. J, p. 391, &c. 
 
 of
 
 StTBSEQUENT IIISTORV OF CATHOLICS. 1 69 
 
 of Rome as " the mother church, though defiled ^vith some corrup- 
 tions ;"(l ) and in liis theologica.1 writings he went so far as to admit tlie pope 
 to be the patriarch of the West, (2) which implied that he acknowledged 
 some degree at least of ecclesiastical supremacy belonging to him. Such 
 were the genuine sentiments and inclinations of this king, particularly 
 when he first succeeded to the English crown. But, on the other hand, 
 we are to remark, that a strong spirit of Puritanism, the most opposite of 
 all others to that of the ancient church, was at this period fermenting 
 throughout the nation. The ioiiexible severity of Elizabeth had kept it 
 within bounds ; but under the weak government of James, it swelled to 
 such a pitch as soon after to sweep away both the church and the throne. 
 Add to this that there was still a Cecil at the head of the royal counsels; 
 not indeed theinsidiousWilliam, lord Curghley, the contriver of Babington's 
 plot and of Mary's murder, for he was now no more, but his son Robert, 
 lately created earl of Salisbury, the true inheritor of his father's treachery 
 and cruelty. He had betrayed his late mistress, Elizabeth, in the decline 
 of her age and vigour, to her hated rival, James ; and now, in return, he 
 required that James should sacrifice his mother's and his own genuine 
 friends to his hereditary detestation of them. 
 
 Cecil began his ministry, under the present reign, by playing off that 
 most absurd and incoherent farce, called sir Walter Raleigh's plot, (3) by 
 means of vvhieh, he got rid of one man peculiarly obnoxious to him, the 
 aforesaid priest, Watson, who was privy to the king's promises in favour 
 of Catholics. He endeavoured to get rid of other persons of higher rank, 
 who were equally odious to him, on different accounts, but James's con- 
 science interfered and saved them, as they were on the point of execution 
 on the Castle-green of Winchester, in the extraordinary manner that I 
 have related. (4) This artful minister was not long without an oppor- 
 tunity of wreaking his vengeance upon the whole Catholic body, and 
 
 (1) Stow, Echard. (a) Perron's Answer. (3) See vol. i, p. 390, &c. 
 
 (4) Ibid, p. 395. 
 
 which
 
 170 ■ " 
 
 (which was his principal object ulving all the ties by whirh the 
 
 king was united with them. This ae accomplished by means of the fa- 
 mous Gunpowder Plot, of which iie was "either the original author, or at 
 least the main conductor, as his father had been of tliat by which this 
 king's mother w^as brought to the sCiitTold. You tell mc, Sir, that " the 
 Catholic writers have called in question the reality of this atrocious de- 
 sign," particularly " Philips, in his Life of Cardinal Pole'' (i) I have 
 not however met, in the course of my reading, with any Catholic writer 
 that denies the fact, and as to Philips, I cannot find that he so much as 
 mentions it. Let us examine this matter at once, with historical and 
 with Christian candour; not as is usually done by passionate writers and 
 preachers on the 5th of November : after which you shall be at liberty to 
 pronounce how far the Catholic body was then deserving of those aggra- 
 vated penal laws which were enacted against them on the occasion, and 
 how far they have been deserving, during almost two centuries that have 
 since elapsed, of being held up to the abhorence of their fellow subjects, 
 on this account. 
 
 In the first place, you speak of this diabolical conspiracy as being the 
 act and deed of the Catholics at large, in revenge for the king's disap- 
 pointing the hopes which they had entertained of meeting with mdulgence 
 from him. (2) Accordingly you Justify the rigorous treatment which the 
 whole body of them afterwards met with, on the score of this plot. 
 Now, Sir, how many individuals amongst them were concerned in this 
 villainy? Only l6 persons are so much as accused of it in the act of 
 attainder that passed on the occasion ; (s) and it does not appear that 
 more than seven were acquainted with the worst part of it ; (4) the rest 
 being only concerned in the scheme of an insurrection, (5) or barely know- 
 ing 
 
 (1) P. <Si. (2) Ibid. (3) 3. Jacob. I, c. 3. 
 
 (4) Catesby, Piercy, Fawkes, Thomas Winter, Keys, Bates, and Tresham. 
 
 (5) Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, Grant, Rockvvood, John Wright, and Christopher 
 Wright. These six persons appear only to have been acquainted in gencr.d that something 
 of importance was going on for their party, in which their services would be wanted. They 
 
 accordingly
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. }~l 
 
 ing it as a conscientious secret, ami whicli they used every means in their 
 power to discourage and prevent, (i) What was the weight and character 
 of these, conspirators amongst CathoUcs ? They were rash youths, (2) 
 comparatively of small consequence, w!io, by their conformity with the 
 established religion, were looked upon as apostates and outcasts in the 
 said body, (s) The first Catholic of rank and character whom Cecil en- 
 deavoured 
 
 accordingly agreed to be ready for the purpose with their horses and servants. The first 
 mentioned of these, a most aceomplished youth only 24 years of age, and father of sir Kenelm 
 Digby, pleaded giulty to his indictment, and suffered death with great compunction ; de- 
 claring at the same time that he was not let into the whole foulness of the plot ; which if 
 he had known, he would not have concealed it to gain the world. Slow, Contin. 
 
 (i) Three Jesuits are mentioned in the act as being consenting to the conspiracy, viz. F. 
 Garnet, Tesniond or Greenway, and Gerard. The last of these, though apprehended and 
 confined in the Tower, was never brought to any trial ; which seems to argue that there was 
 no proof of guilt against him. The second escaped abroad; but his case was exactly the 
 same with that of F. Garnet, who sufiered on this occasion, and was peculiarly hard. They 
 \vere both of them successively consulted by Catesby, as divines and under conscientious 
 secresy, concerning the lawfulness of the plot, and they both of them strongly condemned 
 it, intreating that infatuated wretch to lay aside the thought of it. Garnet, in particular, 
 when he found that his arguments were ineffectual, by way of gaining time and in the end 
 defeating the villainy, begged of him to send a messenger to consult the pope concerning it ; 
 knowing well, as he said, that the latter would never give his consent to such a horrible 
 crime. Catesby was at liberty to speak of this consultation, though Garnet was not. He 
 accordingly informed his companions of it ; in consequence of which, Tresham, when a pri- 
 soner, by way of gaining favour for himself, accused Garnet and Tesmond of being privy 
 to the plot. The former was accordingly apprehended, as was also F. Oldcorne, for having 
 entertained him at Henlip ; and the jury, who paid no attention to the manner in which he 
 came by his knowledge of the plot, brought him in guilty of it. At his death he exhorted 
 the Catholics to avoid all ccDnspiracies against the state, declaring that if the one which he 
 had known but was not at liberty to reveal had succeeded, he should ever have hated it 
 and the persons concerned in it. See Dodd, vol. ii, p. 395, and his authorities ; also Mem. 
 Miss. Pr. vol. ii, p. 476. 
 
 (2) Except Piercy and Tresham. 
 
 (3) A cotemporary and well-informed writer speaks of the conspirators as follows : "They 
 were a few wicked and desperate wretches, whom many Protestants termed Papists, although 
 the priests and tnie Catholics knew them not to be such : nor can any Protestant say that 
 
 any
 
 172 LETTER VII. 
 
 dcavourcd to draw- into a share of the guilt, lord Monteagle, carried- the 
 anonymous letter he had received, to the real autlior of it, Cecil himself, 
 and therebv occasioned what was caHed the discovery of the plot ; that is 
 to say, he obliged the last mentioned to break the thread of the conspiracy 
 and make the matter known about the court, ten days sooner than he had. 
 intended. Yes, Sir, the world has a right to know, what has been in- 
 dustriously concealed from it, that, if Catesby and Piercy were nominal 
 Catholics, lord Monteagle w^as a real one, having, no less than his father 
 and mother, been a great sufferer for the Catholic cause in the preceding 
 reign. The earl of Worcester also and the earl of Northampton, who, 
 with the latter's kinsman the earl of Suffolk, were the principal persons 
 in detecting the conspirators, were both of theni Catholics. This obser- 
 vation leads me to ask another question : If the explosion had taken 
 place, (of which however there w^as no danger, as Cecil was the invisible 
 manager of the whole business), who would have been sufferers by it? 
 The king, I grant, and the heads of the Protestant cause both in church 
 and state ; but not more so than the supporters and chiefs of the Catholic 
 interest, 20 of whom sat at that time in the house of lords ; (i ) for none of 
 them received notice to be absent from parliament except lord Monteagle. 
 A more important question for our present purpose than any of the for^ 
 nier is. Did the conspirators act in conformity with the principles of their 
 religion, even as they conceived it, and did they think the horrid attempt 
 in which they were engaged, to be lawful and meritorious ? You intimate 
 that they did so ; and Hume, in unison with other modern writers, asserts 
 that " no one of these pious devotees," as he calls them, " ever enter- 
 tained any compunction with regard to the cruel massacre which they 
 projected." The falsehood of this will appear from their dying behaviour. 
 
 any one of them was such as the law terms Popish recusants." Prot. Plea for Priests, p. 56. 
 Ann. 1621. 
 
 (1) Amongst these were the marquis of Winchester, the earls of Northumberland, South- 
 ampton, and Arundellj the lords Montague, Morley, Abergavenny, DJgby, Stourton, Mor- 
 daunt, &c. 
 
 After
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. 173 
 
 After the seizure of Fawkes, wlicn Catesby, Piercy, the two Wrights, and 
 some of the other conspirators, found themselves surrounded, at Holbeach 
 house in Statibrdshire, by the party of sir Richard Walsh, and that they 
 must necessarily die either at the gallows or in the field ; " in the first place 
 they fell upon their knees and asked God pardon for the villainy they 
 intended ; (l) they then opened the gates of the house, resolved to break 
 through their opposers or to die fighting. Catesby and Piercy were killed 
 with one shot, and Winter was wounded and made prisoner." (2) In 
 like manner, when this Winter and the ren>aining conspirators came to 
 suffer the just punishment of their crimes, " they all of them, excepting 
 Grant, died very penitently ; Fawkes declared his repentance more remark- 
 ably than the rest, and exhorted all Catholics never to engage in any 
 such bloody enterprise, it being a method never allowed nor prospered 
 by God." (3) It was not extraordinary, that F. Garnet, the Jesuit, who 
 had endeavoured to prevent the conspiracy when it was first made known 
 to him, should express his detestation of it when he came to suffer for 
 not having revealed what it was not lawful for him to reveal concerning 
 it. With respect to the Catholic body at large, the king himself, in his 
 speech in parliament, immediately upon the disclosure of the plot, takes 
 care to acquit them of the guilt of it, and goes so far as to declare the 
 Puritans worthy of fire who will admit no salvation to any Papist. (4) 
 They unquestionably felt the most lively horror of that desperate scheme, 
 the execution of which would have proved still more fatal to themselves than 
 to the nation at large, and they expressed it by every means in their power. 
 In particular, the arch-priest, Blackwell, and the other heads of the Catho- 
 lic clergy, immediately circulated a pastoral letter, in which they quahfied 
 the late attempt detestable and damnable, assuring the Catholics that 
 the Roman pontiff had always condemned such unlawful practices. (5) 
 
 (i) King James's Works, quoted by Collier, vol. ii, p. 689. 
 
 (3) Ibid. (3) Ibid. 
 
 (4) Collier, vol. ii, p. 689. Guthrie Gen. Hist, of Eng. vol. iii, p. 651, 
 
 (5) Collier, p. 670. 
 
 Z Having,
 
 174 LETTER VII. 
 
 Having, a few months afterwards, received a brief from Rome to the 
 said effect, they published a second pastoral in the same spirit with the 
 former, (l) 
 
 I have already mentioned some of the reasons there are for supposing 
 that Cecil, earl of Salisbury, was as deep in this plot, as his father, lord 
 Burghley, is proved to have been in that of Babington. Certain it is, 
 that these reasons have had equal weight with many intelligent Pro- 
 testants, as with Catholics. One of them calls it, " a neat device of the 
 secretary ;" (2) another says, that he " engaged some Papists in this des- 
 perate plot, in order to divert the king from making any advances towards 
 Popery, to which he seemed inclinable, in the minister's opinion." (3) 
 James himself was so sensible of the advantages which his minister 
 reaped from this plot, that he used afterwards to call the 5th of November 
 Cecil's Holiday. Finally, a third Protestant writer assures us, that 
 " this design was first hammered in the forge of Cecil, who intended to 
 have produced it in the time of Elibabeth ;....that, by his secret emissaries, 
 • he enticed some hot-headed men, who, ignorant whence the design first 
 came, heartily engaged in it." (4) Thus muoh seems certain, that the 
 famous letter delivered by an unknown messenger (5) to lord Moiiteagle, 
 never was written by a real conspirator, whose life was concerned in the 
 issue of the plot. Such a character would not unnecessarily, and with in- 
 finite risk to himself and his cause, have given notice to his friend of the 
 approaching danger ten days before hand ; whereas, supposing the letter 
 to have been sent by Cecil in order to draw that young lord into a parti- 
 cipation of the crime, a certain space of time was requisite, that it might 
 be seen whether he would make the contents of it known to ministry; 
 which if he had neglected to do, there is no doubt but the same snare 
 
 (1) Collier, p. 670. (2) Osborne's Histor. Memoirs of James I. 
 
 (3) Pol. Gram. (4) Short View of Eng. Hist, by Bev. Higgons. 
 
 (5) We may observe, that Babington was first drawn into the plot for which he suffered 
 by such a letter, delivered to him by an unknown person. 
 
 would
 
 . SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. 1/5 
 
 would have been laid for other Catholic peers ; and probably, in succes- 
 sion, for ail of them. 
 
 2dly, The secretary's delaying for the space of five days to communi- 
 cate a business of that importance to his master, and his purpose!}- de- 
 ferring to have the cellars under the parliament-house examined previously 
 to the very clay of opening the session, prove that he had the manage- 
 ment of the plot in liis hands, and that he delayed the disclosure of it 
 in order to have time for throwing his net over a greater number of per- 
 sons and those of higher quality than were yet engaged in it. (i) 
 
 3dly, The character and history of Francis Tresham, esq. one of the 
 conspirators, leads us to suspect that he was to the earl of Salisbury in 
 this plot, what iNIaud and PoUey had been to his father, lord Burghley, 
 and Walsingham, in a former plot, almost 20 years before. Tresham w^as 
 of a restless and intriguing disposition, and had been concerned in the con- 
 spiracy of the earl of Essex. He was well acquainted with Cecil, and is 
 known to have had some communications wath him concerning the affairs 
 of Catholics. At the disclosure of the plot, be never attempted to fly, pre- 
 suming, no doubt, that he was sufficiently protected at court ; but, on the 
 contrary, he offered his services to apprehend the conspirators. (2) Being 
 however seized upon and committed to the Tower, he met with a sudden 
 death in the course of a very few days, before any trial or examination 
 of him took place. On this occasion a report was spread abroad, that he 
 was carried off by the strangury, which is not a disorder that takes a sud- 
 den turn ; whereas the physician who attended him pronounced that he 
 died of poison. (3) 
 
 Lastly, The fraudulent art and consummate hypocrisy with which it is 
 now evident that Cecil acted in disclosing this plot, confirms the idea 
 that he had the management of it from the beginning. It is proved then 
 from this secretary's own papers, that he had known of a conspiracy 
 
 (i) See a Relation of the Discovery of the Gunpowder, Sec. preserved in tlic Paper Office, 
 and corrected in the hand writing of Cecil, earl of Salisbury. Archceol. vol. xii, p. 304. 
 (2) Baker's Chron. (3) Wood, Athcn. Oxon. 
 
 Z 2 amongst
 
 1 76 LETTER VII. 
 
 amongst the Papists, of some kind or other, three months before the letter- 
 was brought to him by Monteagle, Oct. 20. ( 1 ) It is proved by his own con- 
 fidential letter to the ambassador at the court of Spain, written immedi- 
 ately after the breaking out of the plot, (2) that he was acquainted with 
 the whole diabolical malice of it, viz. that it was intended to blow up 
 the parliament with gunpow-der. He accordingly, for his own security, 
 as soon as he had received the letter, communicated it to the lord cham- 
 berlain SufTolk, whose office it was to see to the security of the parliament- 
 house when the king was to go thither: they conversed about the diffe- 
 rent apartments adjoining to it, and particularly about the great vault 
 under it. (3) They agreed however (that is to say, the prime minister 
 thought it best) that the search in it should not take place before the 
 session of parliament, which was not to take place for ten days, in order, 
 as he confesses, that " the plot might run to full ripeness ;" (4) and to see 
 whether any " other nobleman would. receive similar advertisements, "(5) 
 that is, to allow him time to send fresh letters to persons of that rank (whom 
 most of all he wished to entangle) if he found it expedient; finally, to 
 attack the king on his weak side, by making him pass for the Solomon of 
 Great Britain, and to work np the nation to a paroxysm of fury against 
 the Papists, by the apparent imminent danger to which all that was illus- 
 trious in it would appear to have been exposed. Having a letter of this 
 importance to the nation and the king's person in his custody, he never- 
 theless declined giving James any information concerning it, by writing 
 or messenger, at Royston, where he then was, during five days, that is 
 to say, during half the time that was to run before the winding-up of. 
 the catastrophe ; because he wished to deliver it in person, in order to 
 guide both the king and the plot to his intended ends. On the last day 
 of October, (G) the king being then at Whitehall, he presents the letter 
 privately ; no one but himself and the earl of Suffolk being present. They 
 
 (i) Archseol. vol. xii, p. 203. (2) Nov. 9, 1605. 
 
 (3) Guthrie, vol. iii. Win wood's Mem. (4) Relation of Discovery. 
 
 (5) Ibid. (6) Ibid. 
 
 neither
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. 177 
 
 neither of them delivered any opinion of their own concerning its con- 
 tents, attending; to hear " his majesty's conceit ;" and there is no doubt 
 bxit Cecil then addressed to him that fulsome and ridiculous compliment, 
 which he afterwards committed to writing as his genuine sentiments con- 
 cerning him, viz. that " his majesty was endued with the most admirable 
 guifts of piercing conceipt, and a solide judgement that was ever heard of 
 in any age; but accompanied also with a kind of divine power in judg- 
 ing of the nature and consequence of such advertisements." (i) Such a 
 bait was too w^ell seasoned for James's appetite, not to be swallowed by 
 him. Accordingly, at the opening of parliament a few days afterwards, 
 he declared himself to have been supernaturally assisted in detecting the 
 ploti (2) by interpreting the letter in a dilFerent manner from what any 
 otiier learned man, however well qualified, would have done(3) His 
 artful minister, still more to indulge his vanity and afford him greater 
 matter of subsequent triumph, affected to ridicule the whole business, 
 telling him, that " the letter must be written either b}^ a fool or a mad- 
 man, because of those words in it, tlie danger is past as soon as you 
 Iiace burnt this letter ; for if the danger were so soon past, what need 
 of any warning." (4) The king however persisting in interpreting the 
 letter as every other man, without his majesty's inspiration, would have 
 done, namely, that there was a mine stored with gunpowder under the 
 parliament house; and accordingly he ordered it to be searched for. Ce- 
 cil however majvcs him insensibly fall into the measure which he had pre- 
 viously concerted with the lord chamberlain, that of deferring the exami- 
 nation until the very eve of the parliament's meeting. Accordingly, late 
 in the evening on that day, the said chamberlain surveys the parliament- 
 house and the vault under it, and finds every thing just as he expected. 
 He sees the heap of faggots under which the powder was concealed, and 
 
 (i) Relation of Discovery, p. 205. 
 
 (a) " The discovery would be thought the more miraculous by you all, were you as well 
 acquainted with my natural disposition as those be who be near about me," &.c. King's 
 Speech, Nov. 9. Journal of Lords. 
 
 (3) Ibid. (4) Echard's Hist, of Eng. Baker's Chron . 
 
 he
 
 ]7S - ■ LETTER VII. 
 
 he meets with Guy Fawkes, who had been engaged to set fire to it. At 
 midnight, Knevet, a justice of peace, is sent to secure that wretch, and 
 to uncover the barrels of powder. Thus Cecil gained his second point, 
 in rousing the nation to a greater sense of horror, in proportion as it ap- 
 peared to have approached nearer to the brink of destruction, and in 
 making its escape appear more extraordinary and miraculous. Accordingly 
 the people were taught to believe, that as nothing less than inspiration 
 had enabled the king rightly to interpret Monteagle's letter ; so nothing 
 short of a miracle (i) had enabled ministry to find 36 barrels of gunpow- 
 der lying on the ground, and only covered over with faggots, a few hours 
 before they were to have been fired ; whereas, we have seen, that they 
 knew of gunpowder being lodged in the very cellar where it was found, 
 at least ten days before, and that they agreed together not to look 
 for it till this very time, that is, till the very day of the parliament's 
 meeting. 
 
 I have one more observation to make on this subject. You, Sir, no less 
 than the writers whom you quote, exhaust your eloquence in representing 
 the crime of those wretched dupes of Cecil's villainy as a wickedness un- 
 exampled as well as unequalled in history. (2) It is impossible that you 
 should detest it more than I do ; but when you speak of it as a new and 
 unheard of species of guilt, you pay a oompliment to the inventive 
 genius of the contriver of it, whether that was Cecil or Catesby, which 
 he is not really entitled to. For, Sir, did you never hear of the preceding 
 conspiracy of the Protestants rn the Netherlands to blow up the prince 
 of Parma, governor of those countries, with all the nobility and magistrates 
 belonging to them, at a solemn procession in the city of Antwerp ? (3) 
 Tf } ou have not heard of this, you cannot at least be ignorant that the 
 
 (i) The inscription still extant in the Tower, is a striking monument of this inflituation : 
 " Deo Opt. Max. Triuno, Sospitatori....conjurationis nitrosi pulveris....in ipso pestis dere- 
 pente inferendoe articulo, (1605, Nov. 5°) tarn prater spcm c^m\\ supra jid em, mirijice et 
 ilivinitiis dctectK....vindici," &c. Archasol. vol. xii, p. 196. 
 
 (z) P. St. (3) Michael ab Isselt dc Bell. Belg. 
 
 father
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. 1 TO 
 
 tather of the very sovereign, against whotn the guiipow dcr treason was 
 devised, king Henry -Daruley, was actually blown up and destroyed, as 
 were all his servants, with gunpowder, in bis house of Kirk-a-field, at 
 Edinburgh, as he lay sick in bed, by a conspiracy of the earls of iNIurray, 
 Morton, Botiiwell, Lethington, siv James Balfour, &c. with the privity and 
 consent of lord Burghley, the earl of Salisbury's father, (i) The chief 
 difference between this original and too successful gunpowder plot in 
 Scotland, and its bungling imitation here' in England, is, that the "Pro- 
 testants who devised and executed the former, were the heads and 
 founders of the Reformation in that country; whereas the Catholics that 
 were concerned in the latter, were the disgrace and outcasts of their 
 religion in this. 
 
 Having exhibited, this enlarged and faithful view of the powder plot, 
 I may be permitted to ask, where is the charity, nay, where is the justice 
 of those acrimonious sermons and services, (2) and of those tumultuous 
 rejoicings, which have been annually made and directed against the Ca- 
 tholic body on that account tor almost 200 years ? It is undoubtedly 
 
 (i) Whltaker's Vindication, vol. iii, p. 355. — This author, with his usual candour and 
 zeal for truth, admits, that the gunpowder plot in England was the imitation and offspring 
 of that in Scotland ; and he applies to them both those lines of Virgil : 
 Crudelis mater magis, an puer improhus tile ? 
 hnprohus illc puer, crudelis tu quoque mater. 
 
 (2) In the first collect of the service in question, the Almighty is thanked for the deli- 
 verance of king James I, Sec. from Popish treachery ; thereby transferring the crime- of 13 
 self-convicted wretches to the whole church of which they were the disgrace. In the last 
 • prayer the Catholics are indiscriminately called cruel and blood-thirsty enemies. — I once had 
 occasion to hear one of those annual philippics against Catholics from the pulpit. Having 
 afterwards complaintid of the calumnies and misrepresentations contained in it, a worthy 
 literary character expressed his surprise that I should be dissatisfied with the discourse ; 
 saying that it ivas a very good Jifth-of-November sermon. — My answer was as follows : So then 
 I find thcit the Catholics, li'^e Shrovetide pov.ltry, are once every year fair game for every 
 one who chouses to pelt at them ; and I am left to understand that what is false every oiher 
 day in the year, is true on the fifth of November. 
 
 proper
 
 180 LETTER Vn. 
 
 proper to return thanks to the Ahnighty for all public blessings ; but there 
 have been other deliverances no less important and still more extraordinary 
 than this, for which no festivals or rejoicings have been instituted, or 
 which after being instituted have fallen into disuse and oblivion, (l ) The 
 Catholics, who are so commonly charged with uncharitableness, had no 
 festivals abroad to commemorate the discovery of the conspiracies of 
 Amboise and Meaux. Those at home do not meet, either at church or 
 board, on the day \^•hen their grand enemy, Shaftsburj^ fell into the 
 disgrace and punishment which he had prepared for them. They have 
 already forgotten that it was on the gth of June, in. the year 1780, when, 
 100,000 Protestant rioters, that were up in arms to exterminate them, 
 and to anticipate the horrors of Jacobinism in this country, were beyond 
 expectation, and almost beyond hope, quelled, and themselves and their 
 country saved. To speak the truth. Sir, your candour on this, as on 
 some other occasions, breaks through the cloud of religious and party zeal. 
 You express a wish that the commemoration of the powder plot were 
 abolished, as " tending to perpetuate ancient animosity ;" and you argue 
 very justly on the inconsistency of " tolerating the Catholics as friends, 
 and treating them as enemies." (2) 
 
 Whatever may be said of ttie above-mentioned conspiracy in other 
 respects, certain it is, that it answered the most sanguine wishes of the 
 enemies of the Catholics, during the reign of James I. That weak prince 
 was ever afterwards obliged to dissemble his partiality for them, and his 
 relations with them. When importuned by the bigoted clamours of the 
 Puritans, who every day gained new strength, to promote the glory of 
 
 (i) The fifth of August was appointed a day of thanksgivhig for James's deliverance from 
 the Gowry conspiracy, on which occasion, if we believe the king himself, he was in much 
 greater danger of being assasinated by the Protestant earl of that name and his brother, 
 and afterwards of being blown up with all his attendants by a second Protestant gunpowder 
 plot on the part of the burgers of Perth, than ever he was from that concerted five years af- 
 terwards by Catesby and his associates. See Collier, Ch. Hist. vol. ii. p p. 66'3,, 664. 
 
 (2) P. 82. 
 
 God
 
 SUBSEQUENT ITISTOllY OF CATHOLICS. 181 
 
 God by shedding the blood of CathoHcs (l) he found himself constrained 
 to atlect a severity which w as foreign to his heart ; and, notwithstanding 
 his avowed j)rineiples of toleration, he actually sent to the gibbet and the 
 block 18 priests and seven laymen, for the mere exercise of the Catholic 
 religion ; (2) besides 128 persons of the former description, who were cast 
 out into perpetual exile, and without mentioning the heavy fine of 2ol. 
 per month upon every Catholic who did not attend the church service. 
 This penalty he dispensed with at the beginning of his reign ; {^) but it 
 was rigorously exacted after the disclosure of the powder plot. 
 
 I cannot close my observations on this reign, without reminding you. 
 Sir, that you have overlooked a much more plausible, though, after all, 
 an unjustifiable pretext for these persecutions, than the treason, however 
 black, of the before mentioned 13 conspirators; I mean, the refusal ot 
 the Catholics to take the oath of allegiance that was then offered to them. 
 Yes, Sir, it is true, that infinitely the greater part of their body, laity as 
 well as clergy, refused to take that oath ; some of them even when they 
 might have redeemed their lives b}'^ so doing. The truth however is, 
 they did not object either to the duties of allegiance or to a solemn pro- 
 fession of that allegiance ; (i) but only to the insidious terms in which the 
 
 oath 
 
 (i) See the Petition of both Houses of Parhament against Popish Recusants, in which the 
 petitioners having begged him " generally to put in execution the laws against them," con- 
 chide that " this will much advance the glory of Almighty God." Rushworth, Col. vol. i. 
 To see more clearly the dreadful spirit of persecution that then pervaded the highest and 
 most learned as well as the lowest ranks of persons, it may be proper to look at the letter 
 of the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, to the king, on the proposal of a toleration, 
 in which the primate assures him, that " this act is hateful to God. ...and that it will draw 
 Jown upon him and his kingdom God's heavy anger and indignation." Ibid. 
 
 (2) Sec their names and history. Memoirs Miss. Pr. vol. ii, also Dodd, Ch. Hist. vol. ii. 
 From this catalogue the reader will see how much the public has been imposed upon by 
 Hume, where he says : " The severity of death was sparingly exercised against the priests 
 by Elizabeth, and almost never by James." 
 
 (3) Protest. Plea for Pr.' 
 
 (4) It is worthy of observation, that two of the priests who were executed in this reign 
 
 I A for
 
 182 LETTER VII. 
 
 oath in question had been drawn up, by a prelate (l) of a very different 
 spirit from our present liberal bench of bishops, and by an apostate Jesuit, 
 (2) whom the lord treasurer Cecil's son had seduced from his college at 
 Rome. By this formula they were not only required to make the usual 
 declarations of allegiance, and to abjure the deposing power, which several 
 of them had already done, but also to swear that the doctrine in favour 
 of it was lieresy, impiety, and deserving of damnation ; as likewise that 
 the civil power, in pronouncing upon these abstract theological matters, 
 did no more than exercise its just authority. (3) These objections against 
 the form of the oath, however insuperable they were to Catholics, were 
 not of a nature to strike the generality of Protestants. Nevertheless they 
 were foreseen by the Machiavelian policy of its framers and abettors, who 
 did not w^ish for a fair test of Catholic loyalty, but for a fresh pretext to 
 persecute and calumniate them as lurking traitors. 
 
 The following reign was, as we all know, a reign of calamity and con- 
 fusion. Nevertheless, amongst the various and extraordinary scenes by 
 which it was distinguished, one circumstance is found to be prominent 
 and unchangeably the same; namely, the Catholics were still calumniated 
 and oppressed. In all those inflammatory petitions, with which the un- 
 fortunate Charles I was persecuted and insulted, the execution of the 
 penal laws against the Papists was still the burden of the song; the Pa- 
 pists were ever described as the occasion of all public calamities; just as 
 
 for their priestly orders, and who might have saved their lives by taking the oatli of allegi- 
 ance, Robert Drury and -Roger Calwallador, had in the last year of the late queen's reign 
 subscribed, with other heads of the clergy, a solemn Protestation of Allegiance, which 
 seems to have satisfied her at that period. In this Protestation, amongst other things, they 
 abjured the deposing power, without however swearing that the acknowledgement of it was 
 heresy. The priest, whose name was at the head of the subscribers, William Bishop, was 
 afterwards appointed, by the see of Rome, the first Catholic prelate and V. A. that had 
 been seen in England since the Reformation. 
 
 (1) Bancroft, archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 (a) Perkins, afterwards dubbed sir Christopher Perkins. 
 
 (3) See the oath. Dodd, vol.ii, p. 463. 
 
 I
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. 183 
 
 I have said the primitive Christians had heretofore been by their Pagan 
 persecutors, (l) and their blood was considered as a remedy for all public 
 grievances. (2) The old expedient of forging state plots, in the name of 
 the Catholics, was now more frequently resorted to than ever; but being- 
 managed by men who were destitute of the talents, as also of the advan- 
 tages of situation, which the Walsinghams and the Cecils possessed, they 
 came forth such mis-shapen tools, as would have created ridicule, instead 
 of any serious alarm, in times of greater quiet. At one period the Catholics 
 were accused of a plo*' to murder their best friend, the king, and of ex- 
 citing the Scotch rebels against him ; (3) at a time when they were draining 
 their estates by a voluntary contribution, in order to enable him to sup- 
 press those insurgents. (4) At another time, they were solemnly de- 
 nounced as " the sowers of discord between the king and his faithful 
 commons." (5) Now the nation was terrified with the report of " an 
 army of Papists training to the use of arms under ground ;" (0) then the 
 inhabitants of London were frightened with the intelligence of a new 
 gunpowder plot for '* blowing up the river Thames, and drowning that 
 faithful Protestant city." (7) At last, one Beale, a taylor at Cripplegate, 
 was introduced to the house of commons, (by no less a man than John 
 Hampden, esq.) who, " walking in the fields near a bank, overheard, 
 from the opposite side of it, the particulars of a plot concerted by the 
 priests and other Papists for 108 assassins to murder 108 leading mem- 
 
 (i) " Si Tiberis ascendit in mcenia, si Nilus non ascendit in arva, si ccelum stetit, si terra 
 movit, si fames, si lues statim Christianas ad Uoncvi." Tertul. Apolog. c. 40. 
 
 (3) The Petition of the Commons in 1628, reduces " all public-misery to the increase of 
 idolatry and superstition, or in other words of Popery." Guthrie, Gen. Hist. vol. iii, p. 873, 
 — The Petition of 1640, the Remonstrance of 1641, and most other acts of this nature 
 at that period, breathe the same spirit. Nalson's Collect, vol. i, p. 738. 
 
 (3) See the particulars of a plot, communicated to archbishop Laud by Andrew ab 
 Habernfield. Nalson's Collect, vol. i, pr469. 
 
 (4) Guthrie, vol. iii, p. 957. (5) Remonstr. of Pari. an. 1641. 
 
 (6) Exam, of Neal's History of Puritans by Grey, vol. ii, p. 260, (7) Ibid. 
 
 2 A2 bers
 
 J 84 LETTER VII. 
 
 bers of parliament, at the rate of ten pounds for every lord, and of 
 forty shillings for every commoner so murdered." (i) To shew, Sir, the 
 bigotry of the first men in the nation at that time against the Catholics, 
 it will be sufficient to mention, that upon this very deposition of the 
 Gripplegate taylor, stuffed ,with other circumstances equally absurd,' the 
 parliament proceeded to the most violent measures against them ; (2) 
 and under pretence of greater security, ordered the train bands and 
 militia of the kingdom to be in readiness, and placed them under the 
 command of that real traitor, the earl of Essex. (2) 
 
 At length, Sir, a great and eventful crisis in the affairs of the nation 
 arrived, when the allegiance and fidelity of the subject was to be tried, 
 not bv boasting professions and extravagant oaths, but by actions and 
 sufferings in the cause of duty. In short, a civil war broke out, when 
 those boasted patriots who atFected to dread such danger to the state from 
 the treason of Papists, were generally found in arms against their king 
 and constitution, w^hich arms they refused to lay down, until they had 
 murdered the one and overturned the other ; whilst the Papists on the other 
 hand were seen lavishing their blood and treasures in defence of a country 
 from which they had Httle to hope, and had hitherto experienced rather the 
 harshness of a stepmother, than the affection of a natural parent. They 
 v^^ould have still refused the oath of allegiance, had it been tendered to 
 them ; but they, one and all, in their respective stations, performed the 
 several duties of allegiance with a heroism which has extorted the praises 
 of their more candid enemies, (4) and even your's, Sir, amongst the rest. 
 (5) No_ sooner was the standard of loyalty erected, and permission given 
 for Catholics to serve, than the whole nobility of that communion, the 
 Winchesters and Worcesters, the Dunbars, the Carnarvons, the Powises, 
 the Arundels, the Cottingtons, the Monteagles, the Langdales,^ with an 
 
 (1) See the deposition at large in Nalson's Collect, vol. ii, p. 646, &e. 
 
 (i) Ibid, p. 648. (3) Ibid, p. 649. 
 
 (4) Exam, of Neal, vol. iii, p. 67. (5) P. 83. 
 
 equal
 
 SUBSEQUENT ITISTORY OF CATHOLICS. IS') 
 
 equal proportion of Catholic gentry and jyeomanry, were seen flocking 
 round it, impatient to wash away with their blood the stain of disloyalty, 
 which they had been unjustly constrained to sutler during the greater 
 part of a century, that is, ever since the accession of Elizabeth. Those 
 Avho were possessed of castles and strong holds, turned them into royal 
 fortresses ; (i) and the rest of them raised what money their estates could 
 afford, in support of the king and constitution. (2) We may Judge of 
 their exertions by their sufferings in this cause. Of about 500 noblemen 
 and gentlemen, who are computed to have lost their lives in it, the names 
 of 194 Catholics, being nearly two-fifths of the whole number, have been 
 collected. (.3) Their pecuniary sufferings on this occasion bore a still 
 greater proportion to those of other loyalists. Above one half of the lands 
 confiscated by the rebels, were Catholic property, (t) In the mean time 
 we may be sure that the penal laws were not permitted to sleep over 
 those who were particularly obnoxious to them. One priest and one lay- 
 man had been executed on account of religion at the beginning of Charles's 
 reign ; (5) and a little before the breaking out of the civil war, the lives 
 of two other priests were extorted from him, in the same manner as his 
 minister Strafford's was, by his sanguinary enemies. (5) But when these 
 had taken^the executive power into their hands, no fewer than 17 priests 
 were ejcecuted ; to whom are to be added two others that suffered death 
 under the protectorship of Cromwell. (7) Yet, notwithstanding the dis- 
 ting-uished" exertions and uncommon sufferinffs of the whole Catholic 
 
 try D 
 
 body in the cause of loyalty during the civil wars, such has been the in- 
 curable malignity of their calumniators, that, after the Restoration, they 
 were Accused of having been the promoters and actors in the rebellion 
 
 (i) Such were Winchester castle, Arundel castle, Wardour castle, Kagland castle, Basing 
 house, &c. (2) Dodd, vol. iii, p. 27. Echard, vol. ii. 
 
 (3) Lord Castlehaven's Apology, cited by Dodd, vol. iii, p. 28," and Challoner's Memoirs^ 
 vol. ii. (4) Ibid. 
 
 fj) F. Arrowsniith and R. Hurst, in 1638. ' (6) In 1641. 
 
 (7) See Memoirs ui Uiss. Pr. vol. ii. 
 
 and
 
 18G LETTER VII, 
 
 and the murder of their sovereign, Tt has been confidently asserted by 
 respectable writers, that several priests were sent into the rebel army by 
 the pope, in the character of Puritans, &c. ; that the bodies of many known 
 Jesuits were found amongst the dead troopers of the parliamentary army, 
 after the battle of Edge-hill ; in short, that the infamous judge Bradshaw, 
 and the very executioner who beheaded the gallant Charles, were both of 
 them Jesuits, (l) 
 
 The Catholics were not daunted by the fate of their late master, or de- 
 pressed by their own sufferings, but continued to prove the same un- 
 shaken fidelity to Charles II, that they had shewn to his royal father. A 
 great number of them shed their blood in the fatal battle of Worcester ; 
 on the issue of which the king's life was entirely in their hands, during 
 the six following days that he spent at White Ladies, at Mosely,' and in 
 the Royal Oak at Boscobel. The names of 52 persons of their commu- 
 nion, and amongst the rest of three priests, are upon record, who during 
 that interval were acquainted with the dignity of the royal fugitive, not 
 one of whom was tempted to betray him, either by the immense rewards 
 or terrible punishments that were held out to all the subjects for this pur- 
 pose. (2) On one particular occasion the king owed his life to the care 
 and ingenuity of a priest, who concealed him in the hiding-hole which was 
 provided for his own safety, (s) I have mentioned these circumstances 
 because they are invidiously suppressed by the generality of writers. 
 
 The church being now suppressed, together with the state, the mem- 
 bers of the former had occasion to taste of that cup of calumny, hatred, 
 and oppression, of which the Catholics had been so long forced to drink. 
 The pulpits were filled with what the parliament termed " a godly, faithful, 
 
 (i) Salmonet, Bramhall, Dumoulin, he. cited by Echard, Hist, of Eng. vol, ii, p. 662. 
 Dodd, vol. iii, p, 26. 
 
 (2) See the names in Dodd's Hist. vol. iii, p. 181, from the Observatory by sir Roger 
 L'Estrange. Dodd, ibid, p. 28. 
 
 (3) F. Orleans' llevol. d'Ang. Dodd. 
 
 painful,
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATTIOMCS. 1R7 
 
 painful, gospel-preaching ministry," w ho railed against the nialignanej, 
 treachery, barbarity, superstition, popery, and idolatry of their predeces- 
 sors in office, with as little moderation or regard to truth as the Catholics 
 had before experienced in the anniversary discourses on the 5th of Novem- lA. 
 
 ber. The Presbyterians hov^■ever did not long retain their power ; for 
 Cromwell being tired of their yoke, put himself at the head of those who 
 were for a more perfect equality and independency in church aflairs than 
 the former were willing to allo\\\ Accordingly his highness in person 
 sometimes mounted the pulpit, and modelled the scriptures, as he had 
 modelled the la\^ s, to the views of his own ambition. In the end how- 
 ever, when this usurper found himself assailed with the extravagancies of 
 the Quakers, (i) and the anarchical ravings of the Fifth-monarchy-men, 
 who would admit of no other ruler but Christ himself, and of other fran- 
 tic enthusiasts, (2) each of them \yith his bible in his hand prepared to 
 demonstrate his system to be the only one therein revealed, he must have 
 felt the fatal consequences of that unlimited right of interpreting scrip- 
 ture \#iich he had supported. It was absolutely necessary to restrain se- 
 dition, yet this could not be done without violating that pretended right. 
 From what has been said, it will appear what just claims the Catholics 
 had, not only to common protection, but also to a certain degree of fa- 
 vour, upon the restoration of Charles II. But you. Sir, it seems, are of 
 a contrary opinion ; in conformity with which you justify not only the 
 continuance of the old penal laws, but also the framing of those new and 
 unprecedented statutes against them which marked that prince's reign. It is 
 not however against the Catholics alone that you declare yourself, but the 
 restored monarch also comes in for a share of your censure ; you accord- 
 ingly lament, that " the nation re-admitted him with open arms, almost 
 unconditionally, and had not the prudence.. ..to fix more exact boundaries 
 to the prerogative of the crown and the liberty of the people." (s) 
 
 (1) See the Life of G. Fox, by Penn, fol. 
 
 (a) Exam, of Neal's Hist. vol. iv, p. 92, &c. (3) Pp.84, 85. 
 
 Amongst
 
 18S > JLETTER VII, 
 
 Amongst other things, you complahi of the king and his brother the 
 duke of York for having both been converted to the " Roman Catholic 
 religion, during their exile abroad." (2) Had this been true, as it was cer- 
 tainly false, (3) yet I cannot see how Charles would have forfeited any part 
 of his right to_the allegiance of his subjects by so doing, as the laws then 
 stood; any more than Elizabeth did by choosing her own I'eligion ; much 
 less can I see how this would have justified those black calumnies, those 
 sanguinary combinations, and that cruel persecution, to which the Ca- 
 tholics found themselves exposed from the beginning till the end of his 
 reign. Not a session of parliament passed over without the most impor- 
 tunate solicitations for the lives and fortunes of Catholics to be sacrificed, 
 as of enemies not only to the civil constitution, but also to the king's per- 
 son ; not a public calamity took place, but what, as in the former reign, 
 was laid at their door. We have a striking instance of this in the fatal 
 fire of London, which, though it took place on the very day on which it 
 was proved that some of the late executed rebels had conspired to per- 
 petrate that crime, (3) and though there was not the shadow of a^proof 
 that any Catholic whosoever was concerned in it, yet was the guilt of 
 it ascribed to them : just as the burning down, of Rome had been charged 
 
 (i) P. 84. — Dr. S. says, on the authority of Hume and the Depot des Affaires Etrang. that 
 Ch. II entered into a pecuniary treaty with Louis XIV, for the purpose of settling the Ca- 
 tliolic religion in England. It seems certain, however, that nothing was done on the side 
 of the king and Catholics towards the execution of such a treaty. On the other hand, it is 
 clear from the said Depot, that the boasted patriots and enemies of Catholics, Algernon 
 Sidney, Hampden, Armstrong, Shaftsbury, 8cc. were pensioners of France, and that lord 
 Russel himsel fwas in an intrigue with it. Dahymp. Mem. Append, p. 315. 
 
 (2) Charles II, though a convert to the Catholic religion in his own private opinion some 
 time before, as appears by the two papers found after his death in his strong box, did not 
 become a member of it imtll his death-bed scene, when he was reconciled by F. Huddle- 
 stone. See the latter's account of this transaction abridged by Dodd, vol. iii, also Dal- 
 rymple's Memoirs : James II was not a Catholic until alter the death of Ids first wife, the 
 earl of Clarendon's daughter, who herself died a Catholic. They were both converted by 
 reading Heylln's Hist, of the Reformation. See Orleans' Hist, of Revol. 
 
 (3) Sept. 3, being Cromwell's fortunate day. Echard, Hist.p. 832. 
 
 by 
 
 I
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. . 1 8<) 
 
 by Nero, the real incendiary, to the primitive Christians, (l) We need 
 not liistoriuns for proof that this unblushing calumny was actually brought 
 against the Catholics, since that lofty Monument, which, as the poet says, 
 " like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies," (2) (inscribed by a magistrate 
 (3) convicted of perjury) still remains to attest, not the crime of Catho- 
 lics, but the dread till bigotry and intolerance of the times when it was 
 raised. 
 
 In this state of the public mind nothing was wanting but the con- 
 trivance of a Walsingham or a Cecil to forge a new Popish plot, and 
 thereby to furnish a pretext for exterminating the whole race of English 
 Catholics, and for involving the royal family in their ruin. Such an artist 
 was found in the hoary traitor, Shaftsbury, who having begun his career, 
 as he afterwards finished it,' in the darkest conspiracies and treasons, was 
 best qualified to forge plots against others. He had associates worthy of 
 himself in the two infamous clergymen. Dr. Tongue and Dr. Oates, the 
 latter of whom gave his name to the plot in question. (4) For a I'cal plot 
 it was, and a most fatal one, being contrived not by the Catholics, but 
 against them and their royal protectors. It had been considered as the 
 summit of malice, in the rebellious parliament under the former sovereign,* 
 to oblige him to send his faithful minister, Stratford, to the scaffold, as a 
 traitor to him. But this villainy was exceeded in this reign, by the king's 
 enemies constraining him to sign the death-warrants of those tried friends 
 who had saved his life after the battle of Worcester, under a pretence 
 that they had now conspired to take it away by poison, by gunpowder, and 
 by the sword. (5) It is not necessary for me to enlarge on the revolting 
 absurdity of the plot itself in its several parts, on the blasted characters of 
 
 (i) Tacitus, Annal. (2) Pope's Ethic Epistles. 
 
 (3) Sir Patience Ward. He was convicted of perjury in the trial of Pilkington, SeeEchard. 
 
 (4) Dalrymple ascribes the formation as well as progress of the plot to Shaftsbury. When 
 the absurdity of it was mentioned to him, his answer was, " We shall do no good with the 
 people if wc cannot make them swallow greater nonsense than this." Mem. of Great Brit. 
 
 (5) Deposit, of Oates. 
 
 2 B the-
 
 IgO LETTER VII. 
 
 the witnesses who were admitted to give evidence concerning it, on the 
 corruption and violences that were alternately employed to seduce other 
 witnesses, since these are admitted and detailed by your favourite historian, 
 and by other writers, who do justice to Catholics in hardly any other 
 instance. Let it sutlice to say, that the nation was nearly two years 
 under this fatal delirium, that the reality of Oates's plot was voted by 
 two ditferent parliaments, and that one peer, lord viscount Stafford, was 
 beheaded, and seventeen other Catholics, priests or laymen, were hanged, 
 drawn, and quartered, as being guilty of it;(l) besides a great number 
 of others who were tried or imprisoned on the same account, amongst 
 whom were five other peers and four baronets ; without mentioning seven 
 more priests who were executed about this time for the mere exercise of 
 their spiritual functions, (2) whom the king did not dare to reprieve 
 at such a juncture. I should have expected, Sir, from your candour, that, 
 admitting as you must do the horrid oppression and cruelty exercised 
 upon the Catholics, at least in this concern, you would have stated that 
 some reparation was due to them from the justice of their country as soon 
 as the delusion was w-ithdrawn. The least I should have looked for 
 would be, that the gunpowder treason should have been balanced with 
 Oates's plot, and that henceforward they should both be cast into the gulph 
 of oblivion. Instead of this, I find you vindicating the penal statute, (I 
 mean the exclusion of Catholics from their seats in parliament) which was 
 grounded on that very deed of forgery and barbarity. (.3) les, Sir, that 
 ignominious expulsion, which neither the plots of Babington nor of Ca- 
 tesby, though containing some reality, had drawn upon the Catholic 
 peers and gentry, was now voted, in consequence of a trumped up plot, 
 in which there was not an atom of reality on their part, except that they 
 were really condemned and executed for it. 
 
 It is in times most distinguished by faction and sedition that the outcry 
 
 (1) See an account of them in Dodd, vol. iii, and Mem. Miss. Pr. vol. li. 
 
 (a) Ibid. (3) 30 Car. II. c. II. , * 
 
 of
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. igi 
 
 ot tyranny against lawful government is heard the loudest. What 
 homage, in a neighbouring country, was not paid to the boasted equity of 
 a Louis XIV" at the end of the last century ! and what terrible vengeance 
 has not been taken for the pretended tyranny of a Louis XVI at the end 
 of this ! Thus, in our own country, the good queen Elizabeth, who 
 ruled by prerogative and punished by martial law, (l) is still the boast of 
 ignorant and prejudiced patriots ; whilst the royal brothers, Charles and 
 James, who professed to make the law the boundary of their authority, are 
 held up by most writers, judging by later instead of former precedents, 
 no less than by yourself, as the very models of despotic tyrants. In op- 
 position to this idea, your favourite historian will inform you, of what is 
 otherwise evident, that, from the beginning till the end of the 17th cen- 
 tury, that is to say, during the whole dynasty of the house of Stuart, the par- 
 liament continued to '* gain upon the prerogative, and to acquire powers 
 favourable to liberty." (2) It is well known, that Charles rejected Shafts- 
 bury's proposals to make him absolute and independant of parliament ; (3) 
 and that, in revenge for his disappointment, this modern Ahitophel (4) 
 returned to the traitorous practices of his early life, which brought him to 
 ruin and an ignoble end. With respect to the other brother, he began his 
 reign with solemn declarations, both in council and in parliament, that he 
 was " determined to preserve the government both in church and state as 
 he found it established, and that the law was sufficient to make him as 
 greait a king as he wished to be." (5) Towards the close of his life, 
 when, with every thing else, he had lost his hopes also, and could have 
 no interest in deceiving, he assured his confidential friends, that it ever had 
 been his intention to govern according to law. (0) That such was actually 
 his intention seems to result from the care which he took in causing the 
 
 (i) See Hume, Hist. Eliz. c. vii. Stow. (2) Hume. 
 
 (3) Dalrymp. Mem. vol. i, p. 33. Orleans' Revel. Higgoiis. 
 
 (4) The name given to Shaftsbury in Dryden's beautiful poem of Absalom and Ahitophel. 
 See II Sam. c. xvii. (5) Dalrymp. Mem. 
 
 (6) See the discourse between James and sir Edw. Halesj Dodd, vol. iii, p. 421. 
 
 2 B 2 most
 
 1Q2 LETTER VII. 
 
 most obnoxious branch of his prerogative, the dispensing power, to be 
 tried in the court of Ring's Bench, and decided upon by the judges. 
 With all this honesty and good intention, which. I beheve James to have 
 possessed, I am ready to grant, that he was ignorant of the state and 
 constitution of the nation which he had undertaken to govern, and that he 
 was precipitate, violent, and head-strong. But God grant that no future 
 sovereign of this countrVj. who is devoid of these defects, may be ever 
 exposed to the same unfavourable circumstances, as those in which he 
 was placed, with a people worked up to' madness by religious prejudices 
 and forged plots^ with judges who misled him, with counsellors who 
 deceived him, with a prime minister who intentionally and systematically 
 led him on to destruction, (l) and with the most heart-breaking trea- 
 chery amongst his dearest domestic ties. 
 
 In speaking of that change of the government and constitution of this 
 country which took place in the year 1688, it neither is my intention 
 now, nor was it when I wrote my History, to throw any reflections 
 upon it. I have solemnly submitted to that change, and have sworn to 
 support the consequences of it. There are indeed some circumstances 
 in the language and conduct, of the Tories who took a part in it, which 
 I should have felt a satisfaction in discussing with you, as mere literary 
 questions, (for the Whigs acted a consistent part, and so far I respect 
 them) ; but I judge from your book, now before me, that you, and other 
 respectable characters, are not possessed of sufficient temper to hear this 
 discussion from me, however patiently you have already heard it from 
 others. I wave then the agitation of all constitutional questions, after 
 having declared with all sincerity, that whatever the law considers as il- 
 legal in the conduct of the deposed monarch, that I admit, to be illegal 
 also. In a word, I mean to confine myself entirely to my province as 
 an historian, and your antagonist, in barely comparing certain instances 
 
 (i) See lord Sunderland's letters to king William, in which he boasts of the share which 
 he had in bringing about the Revolution. Dalrymp. Append. 
 
 of
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. 193 
 
 of tyranny which you object to me, with former precedents that I have 
 met with in my reading. This is the hne which I followed, in the few- 
 remarks I made on the event in question, in my History. I flatter myself 
 that I have there brought forward somevery strong and interesting cases 
 in point, (i) which, on a subject that you dwell so largely upon, you ^\ ere 
 bound by the laws of literary warfare to have noticed, either by dis- 
 proving them, or by shewing that they are not conclusive. Instead hov/- 
 ever of this more difficult task, you choose to walk in the beaten path of 
 general declamation against the imprudent and illegal behaviour of the 
 misguided James. The subject on which you insist the most, is the right 
 claimed by l;im of dispensing with the persecuting statutes against Ca- 
 tholics. On this I need say the less, as an historian, since the author 
 whom you principally consult, has proved in an ample dissertation that 
 the dispensing power had been exercised on certain occasions by all our 
 preceding sovereigns. (2) With respect to the penal laws against Catho- 
 lics in particular, it is demonstrated, from better authorities, that the ex- 
 ecution and the relaxation of them had depended almost entirely on the 
 Avill of the sovereign, in every reign since they had been enacted. 
 Charles II, Charles I, James I, and even Elizabeth, (3) employed CathoUcs in 
 their armies, navies, and about their persons ; sometimes in greater num- 
 bers than James ever had. (4) Each one of these sovereigns had also 
 
 frequently 
 
 (i) Vol.), p. 439. (2) Hume, Hist, of James II, c. i. 
 
 (3) Amongst a great number of other Catholics employed in those reigns were the follow- 
 ing noblemen : Under Elizabeth were the earls of Worcester and Northumberland, the for- 
 mer am.bassador in France (see Strype), the latter an admiral against the Spanish armada, &c. 
 Under James I were the earl of Northampton, lord Digby, &c. Under Charles I, were the 
 earl of Bristol, lord Cottington, as well as his fellow secretary of state, sir F. Windebank, 
 &c. Under Charles II, were the lord treasurer Clifford, Arlington, &c. 
 
 (4) The only Catholics of any note whom I find to have been employed by James in his 
 council, were the lords Powis, Arundel, Bellasis, Dover, Tyrconnel, Castlemain, Peter- 
 borough, and F. Petre. Thtise in public offices, were the lords Widdrington, Langdale, 
 Cecil earl of Salisbury, and Thomas Howard, the baronets Tichborne, Hales, and Butler. 
 Messrs. Brown^ Porter, and Bonavcnture Giffard. The Catholic officers in the army, were 
 
 the
 
 19-t LETTER VII. 
 
 frequently mitigated oi* entirely suspended the execution of the persecut- 
 ing statutes; (i) and however loudly the actual exercise of this mercy 
 was complained of, as detrimental and irreligious, by the puritanical par- 
 liaments of James I and Charles I ; yet the right of exercising it was 
 never called in question, being then considered as an unquestionable 
 branch of the prerogative. With respect to certain imprudent acts of 
 James in the exercise of the religion that he professed, which you bring 
 forward on this occasion, I shall content myself with saying, that there 
 is much misrepresentation on your part as to the facts themselves, much 
 misapprehension as to the meaning of the existing laws, and that there 
 are not wanting precedents in former reigns to excuse some of the more 
 obnoxious of these acts, particularly the suspension, by virtue of the su- 
 premacy, of Bp. Compton and Dr. Sharp. (2) 
 
 But of all the arbitrary acts of James II, that which you most insist 
 upon is his issuing a mandamus for the election of a president of Magda- 
 len college, Oxford, and enforcing his supposed right to do so. This 
 also some other gentlemen of your acquaintance have dwelt upon in 
 their publications, as a most unwarrantable invasion of private pro- 
 
 the duke of Berwick, the lords Dunbarton and Montgomery, and colonel Hamilton. In the 
 navy, the only Catholic officer was sir Roger Strickland. 
 
 {i) Even Elizabeth granted dispensations for the exercise of the Catholic religion. Cow- 
 dry-house was a privileged place for all priests. Mrs. Felton, wife of John Fclton, men- 
 tioned before, p. 142, having been a favourite court lady of Elizabeth, though a Catholic, 
 had the privilege from her of protecting one priest, to officiate for herself and her family. 
 Dodd, vol. ii, p. 153. It may be added, that all the numerous proclamations which took 
 place in all the persecutions, were so many dispensations of the penal laws, which required that 
 Catholics should be put to death. Strype, Annals, vol. ii, p. 329. Dodd, &c. See, in par- 
 ticular, the Instructions of James I to his Ministers, &c. exempting the Catholics, at a cer- 
 tahi period, from prosecution. Dodd, vol. ii, p. 439. 
 
 (3) Archbishop Grindal was suspended by Elizabeth, for refusing to suppress prophesying ; 
 archbishop Abbot of Canterbury and bishop Williams of Lincoln were both suspended by 
 Charles I, on different pretexts, but in reality for opposition to Government ; and bishop 
 Goodman of Gloucester was not only suspended but also imprisoned, for refusing to sub- 
 scribe to Laud's synod. 
 
 perty,
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. lpr> 
 
 perty ; (i ) and your author declares it to have been " the most illegal and 
 arbitrary act of violence of all those committed during the reign of 
 James." (2) On this point you even challenge me to the test of prece- 
 dents, vi'here you say, " No other king, I believe, ever claimed visitorial 
 power over any college to which a particular visitor was appointed by its 
 founder." (8) I own, Sir, I am surprised that yourself, and the gentle- 
 man whom you appeal to with such confidence, should be so uninformed 
 upon a subject relating to yourselves as members of colleges. Be that as 
 it may, I \si\\ meet you upon the proposed ground, after having briefly 
 observed, 1st, that I condemn the monarch as being guilty of the greatest 
 imprudence in committing himself with the fellows of a college concern- 
 ing the meaning of their statutes. He would have acted much more 
 wisely in oA'crlooking that affront at Oxford, as well as a similar one at 
 Cambridge, where Alban Francis, whom he. recommended for the poor 
 distinction of M. A. was rejected, because he was a Catholic, though a 
 professed Mahometan had been recently elected to it. (4) 2dly, I do not 
 undertake to shew, that James's conduct in this very business was legal, 
 even as the laws then stood, much less as they are supposed to stand at 
 present ; having professed that I have nothing to do with legal questions, 
 but merely to state matter of fact. 3dly, On the same ground I feel my- 
 self dispensed from examining the weight of those arguments, by which 
 yourself and those other writers attempt to aggravate the alledged in- 
 justice of the sovereign in that transaction. I now. Sir, call your atten- 
 tion to the chain of precedents collected in the notes below, (5) from 
 
 the 
 
 (i) Hampshire Repository, Append, pp. 131, 132. (2) Hume, Hist. James, c. i. 
 
 (3) P. 105. (4) The secretary to the ambassador of Morocco. 
 
 (5) In the year T534 the act of Supremacy passed, by which the king was declared " to 
 have full power to visit and refcrni all heresies, abuses. Sec. which by any manner of spiritual 
 authority may lawfully be ordered or reformed." a6Hen.Vin, c. i. The very next year, 
 Henry made his visitation of the universities. Dr. Leigh was his commissioner at Cambridge, 
 whence he carried away the charters, bulls, and rentals, at the same time introducing a new 
 set of injunctions or statutes. Amongst other things he undertook to new model the 
 
 studies
 
 1q6 letter VII. 
 
 the very time of passing the act of supremacy, in the reign of Henry VIII, 
 down to that-of the dispute in question. When you have examined this, 
 
 which 
 
 studies of the university. Collier, vol. ii, p. no. Strype, Mem. Eccl. vol. i, p. 309. The 
 following is an extract from the despotic mandate of the royal visitor : " Has leges & in- 
 junctioncs jam tuiimus, reservantes nobis & praefato Thomas Cromwell visitatori generali po- 
 testatem quascunque alias injunctiones iudicendi, cseteraque pro nostro sive ejus arbitrio fa- 
 ciendi, qua; nostras ipsiusve discretion! visum fuerit." Ibid. rec. 58. The deputy visitor 
 at Oxford was Dr. Lay ton, whose letter to vicar-general Cromwell, giving an account of 
 his arbitrary proceedings and punishments in that university, particularly at Magdalen col- 
 lege, may be seen in the last quoted author. Mem. Eccl. vol. i, p. 210. 
 
 In the year 1549, under Edw. VI, a college visitation of a very rude nature was set on 
 foot by the protector Somerset. The visitors were empowered, in virtue of the supremacy, 
 not only to make new statutes, but also to suppress certain colleges, and to convert some 
 theological fellowships into others for the study of the laws. Bishop Ridley, who was one 
 of the number, being touched with the complaints of the students, and jealous for the 
 honour of his own profession, wrote to Somerset, excusing himself from executing the lat- 
 ter part of his orders. But the protector persisted in his measures, telling him in answer 
 that the public service required them. Burnet, Hist. Ref. part ii, p. 120. Ibid. rec. 59, 60. 
 The latter, with archbishop Cranmer, had in the preceding year, in a summary way, ap- 
 pointed two foreigners divinity professors in the universities, Peter Martyr at Oxford, and 
 Martin Bucer at Cambridge. Mem. Eccl. vol. ii, p. 121. In 1552, "The king and coun- 
 cil provided two new masters for colleges, the one in Cambridge, the other in Oxford. Dr. 
 Walter Haddon was intended for the presidentship of Magdalen college in Oxford, Dr. Ogel- 
 thorp, the president, having been dealt withal to resign it. But it happened, that neither 
 Ogelthorp was after willing to resign, nor the fellows to elect Haddon. Which caused the 
 king, after one letter to that college without success, to send them a second angry one. 
 
 But at last he was placed there," Mem. Eccl. vol. ii, p. 386: In Mary's reign, ann. 1557, 
 
 both vmivcrslties were visited, not indeed by virtue of the royal supremacy, but by that of 
 the primate cardinal Pole. Burnet, part ii, p. 345. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth having resumed the supremacy, continued, during the whole of her 
 reign, to exercise the most unbounded jurisdiction over the universities and colleges. Even 
 before that act passed, she had made some changes' in the colleges of Winchester and Eton ; 
 but soon after it she made a general visitation of all churches, collegiate as well as cathedral 
 and parochial, throughout the whole kingdom ; and all other power or jurisdiction, whether 
 of visitors, bishops, or others, was suspended whilst this was performing. The royal visitors, 
 (who were almost all of them laymen of various creeds and characters) or any two of them, 
 were authorized to examine and punish, by ecclesiasrticaj censures, imprisonment, &;c. all 
 
 manner
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. ^97 
 
 which I could have extended to a greater length had it been necessary, 
 I am of opinion that you will candidly retract your above-cited assertion, 
 that " no other king (except James II) ever claimed visitatorial powers 
 over any college to which a particular visitor w'as appointed by the foun- 
 der." 
 
 manner of ecclesiastical persons, bishops as well as others, and to reform all heresies, ir- 
 regularities, Sec. according to their own judgment. Collier, vol. ii, p. 435. Strype, Ann. 
 of Rcf. vol. i, p. 167. In this visitation, amongst other things, Cozins, master of Catherine 
 Hall, Cambridge, having been forced to resign. Bill the visitor would not permit the fellows 
 of it to choose his successor, but wrote to the primate to nominate one. Life of Parker, by 
 Strype, p. 89. In 1561 the said archbishop not only visited Eton college, by commission 
 from the queen, but also framed new statutes for it contrary to those which had been sworn 
 to, asserting that no statutes whatever ought to stand in opposition to better order. Ibid, 
 p. 105. Append, rec. 16. The same year the queen, being displeased in her progress to 
 see " so many wives, women, and children in cathedrals and colleges, which," she said, 
 " was contrary to the intent of the founders, and so much tending to the interruption of 
 studies,.... issued an order to forbid the resort of women to the lodgings of cathedrals and 
 colleges, upon pain of losing their preferment. And the order was to be entered into the 
 book of statutes. The copy of this order was sent to the two archbishops and to the chan- 
 cellors of the universities for their charges." Life of Parker, pp. 106, 107. The same 
 year, Covency, president of MagdaJen college, Oxon, having been turned out, Laurence 
 Humphreys, a noted Puritan and afterwards dean of Winchester, made interest with the 
 archbishop and the bishop of London to obtain the place. The fello\is however refused 
 to elect him, urging that their consciences would not permit them to choose a man who 
 vi'as disqualified by their statutes. But in the end they were content to submit to the 
 court favourite. Ibid. p. Ii3. In the year 1572, lord Burghley being chancellor of Cam- 
 bridge, sent down several new statutes for that university. Collier, vol. ii, p. 537. Three 
 years afterwards, great dissentions prevailing there, (in St. John's college,). " a new set of 
 statutes was framed and established for that house," by a royal commission. Ann. of Ref, 
 vol. ii, p. 373. About the same time there was great confusion at Christchurch, Oxford, 
 in consequence of numerous letters from the queen, appointing different persons to fellow- 
 ships there, contrary to the established rules and practice of that college. Ibid. p. 374. 
 The same method of obtaining benefices at Cambridge was so frequent, that we are assured 
 " the ordinary application was to courtiers, for their letters to th^ heads of colleges for 
 mandamus's from the queen for preferment : so that tree suffrages for preferment was im- 
 peached." Tlie university repeatedly begged of Burghley to interpose his credit with the 
 queen for rcmoviug this grievance ; but instead of such an effect, " there were more tnari- 
 damus's and dispensations with the statutes sent down than ever." Annals, vol. 11, p, 540. 
 
 3 C In
 
 igar LETTER VII. 
 
 der," I think also you will admit, that it was neither from " ignorance 
 of the subject," nor from any wilful mistatement of it, that I maintained 
 " the dispensation of the crown, by virtue of the supremacy, to have been 
 the only ground on which the fellows of colleges could have excused their 
 
 non- 
 
 In 1581 we have an instance nearer home for my present purpose, which I should have ex- 
 pected a Wykehamist would have been better acquainted with than myself. Elizabeth 
 sent a letter to the college of this city, requesting a long lease to be granted of their rectory 
 of Downton, in order to gratify therewith the clerk of the council, Mr. Wilkes. The an- 
 swer of the warden and fellows to this requisition, still extant, shews great embarrassment 
 on their part. Recollecting, I presume, that Ensc petit supplex potctis, they indeed grant the 
 lease for the term of 40 years ; but they earnestly intreat that they may not be urged 
 with similar requisitions in future. They fail not to mention their oath of preserving the 
 foundation ; but conceive that their departing from it in the occurring instance will be ex- 
 cused by the performance of their duty as obedient subjects. Annals, vol. iii, p. 54. 
 
 In proof of the authority claimed and exercised by James I over colleges, I may content 
 myself with another domestic example, already mentioned in my History. Being in want 
 of a spacious building in this city for the accommodation of the judges, when the law term 
 was to be kept there, he perernptorily orders the warden, fellows, and students to withdraw 
 themselves from the college, and to give it up to him for so long a time as he should want it 
 for the said purpose. What appears most extraordinary is, that no opposition or objection to 
 this act of the royal visitor seems to have been made by the sufferers, on the score of their 
 statutes, oaths, or the like. To speak the truth, he dispenses with their observance of those 
 obligations. See History, vol. i, p. 390. James's mandate to this effect has since been pub- 
 lished in the Hampshire Repository, p. iii. 
 
 During the reign of Charles I, archbishop Laiid insisted upon visiting the universities in 
 his own right as primate. This claim they resisted ; but, at the same time, they formally 
 acknowledged the king's right to visit them, and offered to receive Laud, provided he came 
 to them in virtue of a royal commission to this effect. The question was debated in council, 
 and in the end the king decided that the primate was competent to make this visitation 
 without any such delegatioH. Guthrie's Compleat Hist, of Engl. vol. iii, p. 938. 
 
 The long parliament, assuming all the authority of the executive power visited the uni- 
 versity of Cambridge in 1643, and that of Oxford in 1648. In the former, 13 heads of col- 
 leges and above aoo students were displaced, and others were appointed in their place, by 
 the parliamentary visitor, the earl of Manchester. Similar violations of statutes took place 
 at Oxford, Winchester, &c. Collier. Ant. Wood. 
 
 Upon the Restoration, new commissions were issued by Charles II to reform those seats 
 of learning ; and we find frequent mention of royal letters for fellowships and degrees in behalf 
 
 of
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. ] QQ 
 
 aon-observance of different statutes of their founders." (l) To render 
 your mistake, in a point which you state with so much confidence, more 
 clear to you, I need but place before your eyes extracts from the speeches 
 of James's visitor. Dr. Cartwright, bishop of Chester, on one hand, and 
 of Dr. Hough, the champion of the refractory fellows of Magdalen col- 
 lege, on the other. You .will therein see the respective grounds on which 
 the king rested his claim to appoint their president, and on which the}' 
 opposed it. After some general observations on the duty of obedience, 
 the bishop of Chester, addressing the fellows, proceeds as follows : " The 
 king hath bound himself, by his sacred promise, to protect our altars, at 
 which he does not worship, and, in tlie first place, to maintain our 
 bishops and archbishops, and all the members of the church of England, 
 in their rights, privileges, and endowments. No doubt but he will do 
 his own religion all the right and service he can, without unjust and cruel 
 methods, which he utterly abhors, and without wronging ours, which is 
 
 by law established But though you have been very irregular in your 
 
 provocations, yet the king is resolved to be exactly regular in his pro- 
 ceedings, and accordingly as lie is supreme ordinary of this hingdorn, 
 which is his inherent right, and of which he never can be divested, and 
 the unquestional'le visitor of all colleges, he hath delegated his com- 
 missioners with full powers to proceed according to thejust measure of 
 the laws, and his royal prerogative, against such offenders as shall be 
 found amongst you, and not otherwise." (2) You yourself have helped 
 me to Hough's answer to the commissioners, from the State Trials, which 
 I might otherwise have overlooked, and which you say, deserves to be 
 recorded in his own words: ■" I must be plain with your lordships. I 
 find that your commission gives you authority to change and alter the 
 
 of favourites, during his reign, Wood, Allien. Oxon. et Fasti Oxen. Amongst other in- 
 stances, in 1666 a mandamus was issued for the election of Dr. Andrew Sparrow to the 
 mastership of Queen's college, Cambridge. Nevertheless a majority of the fellows persisted 
 in the choice of Dr. Patrick, afterwards bishop. In consequenfe of this, some, if not ajl the 
 opposition ^ucmbers were expelled thq college. Wood's ad diet. an. 
 (l) P. 96. (2) Dodd's Hist. vol. iii, p. 530. 
 
 2 C 2 Statutes
 
 200 LETTER VII. 
 
 Statutes, and to make new ones, as you think fit. Now, my lords, we have 
 an oath not only to observe these statutes (laying his hand on the book) but 
 to admit no new ones or alterations in these. This must be my behaviour 
 here. I must admit of no alteration from it, and by the grace of God I 
 never will." (l) I am astonished. Sir, you did not perceive the opposition' 
 there is between your defence of the fellows of Magdalen college and Dr. 
 Hough's. In fact, the former does not deny the king to be supreme 
 ordinary of the Jiingdojn, or the unquestionable visitor of all colleges, 
 as you do ; he does not ground his disobedience on the want of authority 
 in the sovereign, but on the indispensable nature of his own oath. He 
 does not say, I cannot admit of your Majesty's right to qualify Mr. An- 
 thony Farmer, or the bishop of Oxford, to be our president, unless it is 
 supported by the two other branches of the legislature ; (2) but he says : 
 ." We have an oath to observe these statutes, and not to admit of any new 
 ones or alterations in these, and by the grace of God I never will." No\'i-, 
 Sir, this answer not only proves the defectiveness of your statement, but 
 also demonstrates, what I farther asserted in my History, that Dr. Hough 
 and his associates were guilty of the greatest hypocrisy in this transaction. 
 (3) They declared themselves to be bound by an indispensable oath to 
 observe the statutes of their founder, the good bishop Waynllete, and yet 
 it was notorious that they were living in the constant breach of a great 
 proportion of them. 
 
 I have professed only to speak of rules and precedents previously to 
 the Revolution ; nevertheless as you. Sir, and my other antagonists, so 
 
 (i)P.95- 
 
 {2) It is certain that the legislature never exercised its authority with respect to a great 
 
 number of subordinate statutes that are still extant in the codes of different colleges, such as, 
 De -non exeundoforas sine socio ; de canibus et fcris ?ion alendis ; de mora 7ion facieudd in aula, &c. 
 In regard to many other statutes of founders of greater weight, it is certain that the legisla- 
 ture has never prohibited the complying with them. There is no law, for example, which 
 hinders a fellow from saying such a portion of David's psalms every day which constitutes 
 the divine office. There is no law which obliges the principal or fellow of any college to 
 marry, &c. (3) Vol. i. p. 440, 
 
 loudly
 
 SUBSEQUENT HlSTORt OF CATHOLICS. 201 
 
 loudly call upon ine to -produce an instance of a king of the Brunswick line 
 having claimed the authority of nominating to a college benelice, where he 
 himself was not the regular visitor, (for the passage in my History (l ) only 
 refers to ecclesiastical livings of that description) ; I answer. Sir, that you 
 will find, upon examining the public offices, that such a one occurred with 
 respect to the very college in this city. When the duke of Newcastle 
 was secretary of state, I think it was in the year ] 726, Jolin Treuchard 
 Broomfield obtained a royal mandate for a fellowship in Wykeham's col- 
 lege of Winchester, to the great displeasure of the warden and fellows, 
 who opposed his nomination. In the expostulation which they made on 
 this occasion, they recurred to the same arguments that had been employed 
 in the contest at Magdalen college; and, in particular, they endeavoured to 
 discredit the practice of mandamus's, as having been a reproach to the 
 reigns of Charles II and James II ; though in fact these princes, as we have 
 seen, made much less -use of them than most of their immediate prede- 
 cessors. In conclusion, the duke of Newcastle writes for answer, that as 
 the society disputed his majesty's right to make the nomination in 
 question, his attorney-general must settle the business with them. I need 
 not add, that Mr. Trenchard Broomfield obtained his fellowship. 
 
 There is one circumstance relating to the transaction in question with 
 .which you are evidently much embarrased. You acknowledge that James's 
 "Declarations of Indulgence were the critical acts by which his destiny was 
 determined." (2) In other words, he lost his crown by declaring, that as 
 long as he was king, no Catholic, Arian, or Anabaptist should be put to 
 death, and that no Quaker, Dissenter, or other Protestant, should be 
 whipped, fined, or imprisoned, as had been the case in all the preceding 
 reigns, for the mere profession or exercise of his religion, \\ hatever that 
 might be. The question is not here, Sir, concerning the legality of 
 James's declarations, but about the consistency of your own. The reader 
 will recollect the warm controversy I have had with you concerning the 
 
 (i) Vol.i, p. 440. (a) P. 87. 
 
 execution
 
 202 LETTER VII. 
 
 executions of Mary's reign, and your repeated assertions, that " if she was 
 a persecutor it u^as in virtue of her religion that she was so." Unfortu- 
 nately for the truth of these you are forced to allow, that the very next 
 Catholic sovereign who mounted the throne was dispossessed of it because 
 he refused, in any manner whatsoever, to concur in the work of perse- 
 cution. And we know, that his conduct, in this particular, was approved 
 of by all the Catholic world. In vain. Sir, you try to extricate yourself 
 from this perplexing situation, In vain you labour to defend, at the same 
 time, the opposite causes of persecution and toleration. Yon flounder 
 from one contradiction to another, so as to move the pity of every intelli- 
 gent reader. In the first place you say, " It is a gross imposition to repre- 
 sent James as a patron of toleration, because he belonged to the most in- 
 tolerant of all religions." (i) This, Sir, I must remind you, is what 
 logicians call a petitlo prlncipii, or bi gging the question. By this time 
 the reader will be enabled to judge of ibis point for himself, and to de- 
 cide by facts, not only with respect to our religions, but also to the tem- 
 per of our minds, in this particular. In vindication of James's sincerity 
 I have to remind you, not only that he did eifectually screen all other reli- 
 gions from persecution as well as his own, whilst he supported the church 
 of England, in much the same manner as is the case at present, but also 
 that he exerted the utmost zeal and liberality in protecting and supporting 
 the French Protestants, who fled from their own country into this, on the 
 revocation of the edict of Nantz. (2) I must add, that he had promoted 
 the abolition of the statute De Heretico Comburendo in the former 
 reign. (3) This behaviour cannot be rationally accounted for on any other 
 principle than that of genuine toleration. In proof, however, that he 
 was guilty of deception in his declarations, you alledge, that " he 
 threatened the clergy." (4), But with what did he threaten them ? Was 
 it with arbitrary expulsion or degradation in the style of Edward, Eliza^ 
 
 (i) P. 90. (2) See Hist, of Winch, vol. i. 438. 
 
 (3) Collier, vol. ii, p. 897. {4) P. 91. 
 
 beth
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY Or CATHOLICS. 203 
 
 betb, or James I ? No, Sir, we have seen in the speech of his visitor, the 
 bishop of Chester, that he threatened the fellows of Magdalen college 
 with the effect of the law, and of that alone, (l) With the same intent 
 vou complain that he imprisoned the seven bishops. (2) The fact is, they 
 were resolved to be imprisoned. For they not only refused to find bail 
 for answering to the king's charges, but also to stand bail for one another, 
 when this privilege was offered them. No doubt they afterwards repented 
 of the storm which they had raised, when they found themselves ship- 
 wrecked in it, and deprived of their bishoprics, but they triumphed for the 
 moment, and were reverenced as confessors of the faith. 
 
 I consider it. Sir, as the greatest proof of perplexity into which yoa 
 have brought yourself upon the subject of toleration, that you stoop to 
 threats and hold out against me the terrors of the law. Having men- 
 tioned in my History, what you also ai"e constrained to allow, (3) that the 
 deposed monarch fell a victim of toleration, I added the following short 
 reflection : " To fall in such a cause was worthy of a Ring." In return, 
 you ask, " If I had no apprehensions when I wrote this of being prose- 
 cuted by the Attorney-general ?" and you assert, that this expression 
 '* deserves such a prosecution much more than Mr. Reeves's unfortunate 
 metaphor." ( l) I might here reply to you. Sir, in the words of your pa- 
 tron, bishop Hoadly, where he says, " For one Christian divine to tell 
 another that he contradicts acts of parliament, would have an odd ap- 
 pearance." (5) But 1 do not wish to adopt the sentiments of that prelate 
 either on constitutional or ecclesiastical questions ; and I am ready to 
 meet your charge on the footing of fair argument. Is it then a doubtful 
 point, after all your animated panegyrics on toleration, whether the prac- 
 tice of it is a right and commendable thing, or the contrary ? If it is right 
 and commendable, can any power on earth hinder it from being honour- 
 able and worthy of a King ? The present. Sir, is not a question of law. 
 
 (i) See above, p. 199. (2) P. 91. (3) P. 87. (4^ P. 91. 
 
 (5) Answer to Dr. Snape's Letter. 
 
 bu
 
 204 LETTER VII. 
 
 but of ethics. I admit the change of government under consideration to 
 have been legally effected, because the legislature has decided that it was 
 so. But this my concession, as a subject, does not preclude me, as an his- 
 torian, from observing, that the deposed monarch derived honour to him- 
 self from the circumstances of his fall. Let us suppose that Charles I 
 had persisted, in opposition to his parliament, in refusing to send his 
 faithful minister Straiford to die the death of a traitor. I believe there can 
 be no doubt that in this case he would have lost his crov^ n sooner than he 
 actually did. But would you have joined with those divines who recom- 
 mended that measure, (l) which stung him with so much remorse at his 
 own death. Or let us suppose that Charles II had refused to sign the death- 
 warrant of the virtuous lord Stafford and of the other Catholics, victims 
 of Oates's infamous plot, every intelligent person must be satisfied that 
 he would have been the deposed monarch instead of his brother. But if 
 he had possessed the firmness of mind, or rather the Christianity, to have 
 sacrificed his crown in this cause of humanity, would not his fall have 
 been worthy of a King ? But why need I state imaginary cases, when 
 you yourself furnish me with a real one ? You assert, that archbishop 
 Bancroft and the other five bishops who lost their sees for refusing to 
 abandon their doctrine of passive obedience and to swear allegiance to 
 king William, " would not have shewn more virtue by concurring in the 
 measures of the Revohition, under the new government," (2) than they 
 
 (i) The famous Usher of Armagh, and Morton of ]3urham, WiUiams of Lincoln, and 
 Potter of Carlisle. SceColHcr, vol. ii, p. 8oi. 
 
 (3) P. 95. — Dr. S. boasts, that the university of Oxford, which carried its theory of obe- 
 dience so high in its decree of 1683, should be the first to refute it in practice. P. 88. — The 
 same observation is applicable to certain dignitaries of the first rank at that period. Tillot-' 
 son, who replaced Sancroft in the see of Canterbury at tlie Revolution, having, together 
 with Burnet, attended lord Russel at his execution, in 1683, required him to abjure the 
 doctrine of resistance, as inco?>ipatah!e ivith the Protestant religion and all hopes of salvation. 
 See his letter to lord Russel. Echard. Tillotson's successor. Dr. Tennison, in his Exa- 
 mination of Hobbes's Creed, had written thus : " Wo' to all. the princes of the earth if this 
 doctrine (of resistance) be true, and become popular Such as owti these pernicious doc- 
 trines, so far from deserving our love and care, ought to he destroyed at the public charge." 
 
 did
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTOllY OF CATHOLICS. 205 
 
 did by opposing them. So then, according to you, Sir, there was virtue 
 (and of course I presume honour) in opposing the Revohitioh even after 
 it had been estabhshed by law. This is a great deal more, Sir, than I as* 
 serted in the passage you have denounced to the attorney- general ; which 
 implies no more than that one of the causes which previously led to it was 
 honourable. See, Sir, into what absurdities your want of candour, or your 
 want of logic, has betrayed you ! Your friends and admirers who happen 
 to cast their eyes on this page, will no longer boast of the advantage which 
 they suppose you have gained oA^er me ; and you yourself will no more 
 venture to object to me, that I have weakened his majesty's title to the 
 crown, (l) I have already said, that T submit to the doctrine of the con- 
 stitution on this point ; in the mean time I may be permitted to settle this 
 title in my own mind on what appears to me the most solid and secure 
 of all foundations, the same by which every ancient freeholder claims 
 and holds his estate, viz. long established and undisputed possession ; to 
 which, in the present instance, must be added, the oaths, the interests, and 
 the affections of the whole community. Had I indeed advanced any thing 
 like what your friend and fellow disciple has done upon this subject, in a 
 work which you yourself constantly cite with applause, I should not be 
 without fear for my safety. (2) Nor should I be quite satisfied at least with 
 my own conscience, in such times as these, if some of the passages which 
 occur in your dissertation upon it, in the pages now open before me, were 
 to be met with in any publication of mine, For example, in aggravatino- 
 the alledged tyranny of James II, you say, " He had seen the miseries 
 into which the nation had been plunged by attempts to extend the royal 
 
 (I) P. 91. 
 
 (3) "The prejudices of the people and the circumstances of the times concurred in placing 
 William, a stranger and a soldier, on the throtie of Britain. Hence a door was opened to 
 innumerable evils, some of them remaining to this day, and likely to remain to the latest 
 posterity." Discourses by Thomas Balguy, D. D. dedicated to his present Majesty. Disc, 
 iv. On the Restoration, p. 68. - What these prrjutlices of ih,: people were, we are not in- 
 formed ; but from what is said p. 58 and other passages we arc left to conclude, that tliey 
 are those in favour of monarchy. 
 
 2 D authority
 
 200 LETTER Vn. 
 
 authority beyond its legal bounds, and the invincible spirit of the people 
 with which such .attempts were resisted." (i) Here the whole misery at- 
 tendant on the civil war is charged to the account of the honest and re- 
 ligious Charles I ; and no part of it to the republican spirit of Puritanism, 
 to the hypocrisy of the Covenanters, to the turbulence of Pym, to the 
 enthusiasm of Peters, to the pride of Hampden, to the ambition of Crom- 
 well, and to the democratic fury of the times. On the contrary, the be- 
 haviour of Charles's enemies is unqualifiedly approved of. Your inten- 
 tions are no doubt very innocent, but certainly your language is sinr 
 gularly imprudent in such times as these. I must say the same of another 
 passage which I meet with on the same subject, where, speaking of the 
 inconveniencies attendant on the dispensing power, you say, that if this 
 be admitted, " all that our ancestors obtained from Charles would go for 
 nothing." (2) Docs not this expression convey an implied approbation of 
 that absurd and fatal principle of false patriots, that whatever power is 
 extorted from the crown, is so niucli real gain to the subject P In fact 
 we know, that our infatuated ancestors gained from Charles I, the abo- 
 lition of the hierarchy, the command of the fortresses and the militia, and 
 the disposal of the purse. If you did not mean to approve of all their 
 acquisitions at that period, you ought not to have expressed yourself in 
 such vague and unqualified terms. I think your theological doctrine is 
 still more faulty in this matter than your constitutional principles are> 
 particularly where you intimate that the passages of the apostle : Be sub- 
 ject to every ordinance.... whether it he to the king as supreme, &c. iPet, 
 c. xi, V. 13, and that other. Honour the king, v. 17, do not apply to " a 
 constitutional English monarch." (3) But the most singular passage in 
 the whole dissertation is the following, where, speaking of the obedience 
 enjoined to civil government by scripture, you say, " It does, as in other 
 instances, give a general rule, and leaves the application in each particular 
 instance to the good sense and virtue of individuals." (-4) When I meet 
 
 (x)P. 91. (2) P. 87. (3) P. 88. (4) Ibid. 
 
 with
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. 207 
 
 with these and some other passages in your Reflections, I am forced to 
 look at the form and title of the work, to satisfy myself that I have not 
 by mistake laid my hand on some work of Dr. Priestley or Gilbert 
 Wakefield. For my part, when I have occasion to mention those texts 
 of St. Peter, I teach that the obedience enjoined in them is no less due to 
 his present majesty, than it was to the Roman emperors under whom St. 
 Peter wrote, that the obligation of it is incontestible, and that the appli- 
 cation of it is to be determined, not by the virtue of individuals, but by 
 the laws and constitution of the state in which we live. 
 
 " James having sacrificed his crown to his religion, and that religion 
 being declared a disqualification in future to any claims of succession," 
 you tell us, that Catholics " were placed in a situation still more adverse 
 to government." (l) This you alledge in vindication of " the new penal 
 laws with increased severities enacted against them." (2) In your account 
 of the preceding reigns, particularly that of Charles II, you and other 
 writers have represented the strength of Catholics in those times, and tlifi 
 favour of government to them, as motives for the fresh penal acts and 
 persecutions they then experienced ; and now you describe their weak- 
 ness, in consequence of the Revolution, and the disfavour of government 
 in their regard, as furnishing equal grounds for " new penal laws and in- 
 creased severities against them." Thus, in the most opposite situations of 
 public affairs with respect toCatholics, it seems that their sufferings were al- 
 ways a measure of expediencj'^ : and, according to an ancient proverb, every 
 tree was good to make an arrow to shoot against them. The additional 
 arguments which you bring forward in support of this fresh persecution, 
 are equally delusive and absurd. You signify that James's claim was 
 supported by Louis XIV. (3) For that very reason it was opposed by 
 Austria, Spain, and other Cathoiic powers, who were jealous of the too 
 great power of France. " Ireland," you svlj, " was full of Catholics." 
 (4) — This was the very reason why, in sound policy, setting justice apart, 
 
 (i) P. 92. (2) P. 93. (3) P. 92. (4) Ibid. 
 
 2 D 2 the
 
 208 ' LETTER VII. 
 
 the Catholic religion ought to have been protected. The fatal' conse- 
 quences of sacrificing the peace and welfare of a whole nation to the 
 virulence and avarice of a small party, have been a vast drawback upon 
 the prosperity of the British empire, from a period much anterior to that 
 in question, but have never been so severely felt and so openly acknow- 
 ledged as at the present time. " Plots were formed of the most desperate 
 kind" against king William and his government, (i) — T grant there were; 
 but the chief authors of them were the declared enemies of the Catholics, 
 viz. those very Whigs who, but a year before, planned and effected the Re- 
 lution.(2) " A conspiracy was formed in iOqO to assassinate the king."(3) 
 — True ; but the assassins were all Protestants. " A great part of the nation 
 was dissatisfied, from an habitual attachment to the deprived family. "(4) — 
 Therefore it was right to single out the Catholics for pvmishment. Wliat 
 a consequence ! The Presbyterians in Scotland were mostly attached to 
 their native royal branch, as the subsequent rebellions pi'oved. A great 
 part of the landed gentry were of the same political principles, which 
 they shewed by their padiamentary opposition to government. A large 
 and respectable society of Nonjurors continued to support their ancient 
 doctrines of non-resistance and indefeasable right ; and even in that ce- 
 lebrated university where you, Sir, received your education, it was uni- 
 versally known that the same opinions were for a long time cherished, and 
 success to the exiled family hailed with the sincerity of wine. (5) Not- 
 withstanding this, repeated acts of parliament passed in favour of the 
 Dissenters, the gentry and clergy were left in full possession of all the 
 good things which the nation afforded, and even the Nonjurors were left 
 unmolested whilst they were guilty of no overt act against government. 
 Only the little, retired, and unresisting body of Catholics were persecuted. 
 They became the scape-goat on whom the political sins of the whole 
 community were charged. This is conformable to your own account, 
 where, having described the dangers to which king William's government 
 
 (i) P. 92. (3) S'lee Dalrymple's Memoirs ami Records. 
 
 (3) P. 92. (4) Ibid. (5) Junius's Letter to the Earl of Mansfield. 
 
 was
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS, 209 
 
 was exposed from foreign wars, domestic plots, and hy " tlie general 
 feelings of a great part of the nation " for the Stuart family, yovi gravely 
 tell us, that " to meet these new dangers, new laws were enacted with 
 additional severities and restraints" against Catholics, (i) In fact, they 
 were harrassed with domiciliary visits in search of arms, with double 
 taxes and other imposts, with the seizure of their horses, &c. They were 
 banished from the metropolis, rendered incapable of inheriting or pur- 
 chasing, required to enregister their estates, and a reward of lool. was 
 held out to informers for the conviction of every clergyman of their re- 
 ligion. These penalties were not all of them imposed in the time of king 
 William ; but some or other of them continued to be enacted in every 
 reign, until that of his present majesty, and the penalty of them has been 
 frequently enforced even during the course of his reign. 
 
 1 will venture, Sir, now to assert, that your laboured defence of the 
 persecution of English Catholics is solidly refuted, and that these are now 
 proved to have been for the space of two hundred years an injured and 
 oppressed people. The visor of civil justice and public security is torn off 
 from the hypocritical face of bigoted intolerance, and she stands confessed 
 in all her native hideousness. Were I to pass from the department of 
 historical to that of theological controversy, and to exhibit the gross false- 
 hoods and misrepresentations which those divines, whose writings you 
 celebrate as invincible, a Stillingfleet, a Tillotson, and a Burnet, (2) are 
 guilty of, in exhibiting the religion of all the saints in the calendar as a 
 system of idolatry, immorality, and perjury. (3) I should shew by what 
 
 means 
 
 (1) P. 93. (2) P. 97. 
 
 (3) As a specimen of the virulent declamation and shameful calumnies, to which many of 
 the most respectable characters have, even until a late period, been accustomed to give scope, 
 in a situation where they were not liable to be contradicted, and where Popery was the theme, 
 I will transcribe the following passage from a Discoiu-se of Dr. S. himself, which he has not 
 scrupled to entitle, On Moderation with respect to Religious Differences, amongst others in the 
 same spirit. Having enlarged on the allcdged past corruptions of the Catholic church, 
 which he signifies are sutlicient tojustify the application to her of the passages relating to 
 Antichrist and the whore of Babylon, he proceeds to state " some doctrines," which he says, 
 
 notwithstanding
 
 210 LETTER VII. 
 
 means that spirit of bigotry and persecution was excited and icept up, and 
 should be enabled to produce a picture of equal deformity with that 
 which I have already held up to view. The task would be light and easy, 
 compared with that which I have performed. But you. Sir, have not 
 challenged me upon that ground. 
 
 At length the prejudices of persons in the higher ranks of life wearing 
 away, and the wisdom of uniting the inhabitants of this island in one 
 interest, becoming every day more manifest, at a time when America was 
 nearly lost, and France began to threaten, a deputation of the Catholic 
 bodv was permitted to approach the throne, and to pour into the bpsom 
 of the father of his people those sentiments of veneration, loyalty, and 
 affection, with which they were truly and universally penetrated. This 
 auspicious measure was followed by a certain relaxation of the penal 
 laws, in 1778, which, however small in itself, was as great as the temper 
 of the times would bear. For now^the green-eyed uionster of religious 
 jealousy, which had so long slept over his unresisting prey, at the first 
 
 notwithstanding her present more decent and moral conduct, " remain fixed upon her by- 
 virtue of her own principles. To propagate religion. ...by persecution armed with all its 
 terrors, by slaughter, by devastation, by executions ; to consider every crime, even of the 
 blackest kind, sanctified by this end ; to offer the human expedients of pardons and indul- 
 gencles, in order to exempt men from moral obligations, and to make them easy under the 
 violation of them, are doctrines and practices, which still remain authorised by the infallible 
 voice of her popes and the decrees of her councils." Disc, xvi, pp. 327, 328. It is im- 
 possible to be a man, and not to feel such bitter reproaches, especially when made under 
 the mockery of Rrligious Moderation ; and it is impossible to be a divine, without possessing 
 the ability of refuting such mingled ignorance and falsehood. But a Catholic consoles him- 
 self in such circumstances with the reflection, that the meek, amiable, and unresenting dis- 
 ciples of Jesus, even in the golden age of the Apostles, were accused, convicted, and put to 
 the most horrible kinds of death, precisely on the charge of their hating ^11 manUnd. " Odio 
 humani generis convict! sunt." Corn.Tacit. Annal. lib. xv. To shew the force of the preju- 
 dice, which even liberal minds are liable to on the subject of religion, it will be sufficient to 
 mention, that this celebrated historian, in the same passage, terms the Christians, " sontes, 
 reos, novissima exempla meritos....per flagitia invisos," and their religion itself, " exitialis 
 superstitio." Ibid. 
 
 appearance
 
 SUBSEQUENT piSTORY OF CATHOLICS. 211 
 
 appearance of its escape from bis cruel fangs began to rouse himself to all 
 his past fury. The pulpits of the lower sort, particularly those of John 
 Wesley and his associates, (i) resounded, and the presses of the metropolis 
 groaned, with hypocritical lamentations on the pretended increase of 
 Popery, and the fatal consequences to be apprehended from the late in- 
 d ulgence granted to its professors ; a religion, which it was asserted, 
 " had slain its thousands by its cruelty, and its tens of thousands by its 
 ignorance." (2) By these, and other inflammatory harangues, a society 
 was collected together at the beginning of the ensuing year, 177Q, under 
 the title of 21ie Protestant Assocuitiun, professedly instituted on tlie 
 plan of similar associations in the last century, (3) and particularly on 
 that of the Solemn League and Covenant. The pretext which they held 
 out to the public, whom they loudly called upon, especially the clergy of 
 the metropolis, (4) to join them, was the preservation of the civil con- 
 stitution and the Protestant religion, by petitioning parliament for a 
 repeal of the late act ; but it was plain, from the beginning, that they 
 meant to carry their measure more by intimidation and force, than by 
 humble supplication. In the course of the same year, j4n Appeal from 
 the Protestant Association to the People of England was published and 
 dispersed all over the kingdom, inviting the people to form similar asso- 
 ciations in the different counties, and, at the same time, to appoint coni- 
 
 (1) See John Wesley's Popery Calmly Considered, 1779; and his Defence of the Pro- 
 testant Association, 1780. 
 
 (2) See Deed of the founders of the Protestant Association, and the Plan of ditto, in 
 Wesley's Strictures on the State and Behaviour, pp. 32, 34. In the same strain of intol- 
 lerance, these enthusiasts, in their Appeal to the People of England, after " bewailing the 
 loss of millions of poor pe'ople who are prohibited by Papists from reading the scriptures," 
 (though it were a charity, says the judicious and lively O'Leary in his Answer to Wesley, 
 to teach them first to spell) they go on : " To tolerate Popery is to be instrumental in the 
 perdition ef immortal souls, and of millions that only exist in the prescience of God, and 
 is the direct way to provoke the vengeance of a holy and jealous God against our fleets and 
 armies." Appeal from Prot. Assoc, p. 18. 
 
 (3) See the above-quoted pamphlet, p. 32. (4) See Plan of Prot. Assoc, ibid, p. 37. 
 
 mittces
 
 212 LETTER VII. 
 
 mittees for transacting their business, and corresponding with the grand 
 Association in London. Subscriptions were also opened at the houses of 
 three eminent bankers, and at that of Jabes Fisher, secretary to the so- 
 ciety, for defraying the expences of the grand undertaking, (l) At a 
 general meeting, towards the close of that year, it was unanimously 
 i-esolved, that " on account of the noble zeal for the Protestant interest, 
 which had distinguished the parliamentary conduct of lord George Gor- 
 don, he should be requested to become the president of the Association." 
 (2) In consequence of the above-mentioned Appeal, various clubs in dif- 
 ferent parts of the kingdom were formed, on the model of that in London, 
 many of which sent up petitions to parliament, breathing rancour and 
 persecution against their fellow subjects of the CathoUc communion, 
 under the pretexts of religion and humanity. Tlie 2d of June, in the 
 year 1 780, will ever be memorable in the history of this country, for the 
 presentation of the grand petition of the London Associators to the House 
 of Commons, containing 44, 000 signatures, and carried thither by a po- 
 pulace of 50,000 men. On this occasion the members of parliament were 
 attacked as they passed through the streets, and required to promise or 
 swear that they would vote for the repeal ; soon after which, on the 
 same day, the chapels and houses of the Catholics began to be burnt down, 
 and demolished ; which riots continued during the six following days, 
 or extended their dreadful effects from the habitations of the Catholics 
 to the prisons, the pay-office, the bank, the palace, and to almost every 
 other part of the metropolis, and more or less of the whole kingdom. 
 
 It is not. Sir, for the purpose of complaint or of recrimination that I 
 recal these horrors to your mind, of which you were a spectator, and I, 
 to a certain degree, was a victim, (3) ; (though I greatly doubt, whether 
 
 (1) See Plan, &c. p. 37. (i) Ibid, p. 39. 
 
 (3) Having received incendiaty letters, and being indebted for protection to a strong mi- 
 litary guard. Though no Catholics were put to death by the rioters, yet a very cousiderable 
 number of thcni, particularly women and sick persons, lost their lives by the terrors which 
 they suffered, and the agitation of their minds, in being dri\'en from their homes, and hunted 
 from place to place. 
 
 you
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CVTHOLICS. 213 
 
 you would have been so generous, it history had furnished you with an 
 instance of such wanton and deliberate malice on the part of a similar 
 number of Catholics against {eaceable and unotJinding Protestants) ; these, 
 I say, are not the objects which I have in view, but only to illustrate 
 the past history of the enemies of the Catholics, by the events which 
 have passed under your own eyes, and to exhibit, as in a mirror, the 
 canting hvpocrisy, the counterfeit patriotism, the unrelenting bigotry, and 
 the impudent falsehoods of a lord Shaftsbury and other persecutors of 
 Catholics during the time of Charles IT, in a lord George Gordon and his 
 fellow associators during our own. We have a glaring instance of the 
 last-mentioned vice, (which however has many parallels in the last cen- 
 tury) in the attempt of the Protestant Association to remove the blame 
 and punishment of the above excesses, when they had failed of obtaining 
 their intended objects, from themselves to the Catholics. They accord- 
 ingly asserted with great earnestness, and attempted to make the world 
 believe, that it was a Popish mob, which, seizing by force upon the blue 
 flags and cockades of their 50,000 quiet petitioners, (1) insulted the mem- 
 bers of parliament, obliging them to cry out, No Popery ; (2) which com- 
 mitted all the other violences that brought the British empire to the very 
 brink of ruin, and which even burnt down their own houses and chapels ! 
 Yes, Sir, these impudent and revolting falsehoods were maintained, not 
 
 (i) Some accounts make them amount to 100,000 men. Polit. Mag. 
 
 (a) The managers of the Association foreseeing the consequences of assembling together 
 so large a body of people, particularly on such a business, (for lord G. G. declared that he 
 would not present the petition if 30,000 men did not attend him, and March 8, 1780, he 
 boasted that he had 100,000 men at his back) a plot was concerted before hand for throwing 
 the blame of the ensuing riots upon those very persons against whom they were directed ; 
 and with this view, whilst this immense mdb' was collecting in St. George's Fields, a hand- 
 bill was distributed amongst them, giving them notice, that there was ".great reason to be- 
 lieve a great number of Papists would assemble, with the intent of breeding a riot at the 
 peaceable and la-.vful meeting of the Protestants to attend their worthy president, lord G. 
 Gordon, therefore all Protestants were requested to be patient, and not to resent any insult, 
 &c." See Strictures, &c. also Political Mag. for June 1780, Sec. 
 
 2 E only
 
 214 J.ETTER Vn. 
 
 only in the publications of the Association, (l) but also in the solemn 
 courts of justice. (2) 
 
 In conclusion, this Corresponding Protestant Society seems to have 
 transformed itself into the Corresponding Society for Political Informa- 
 tion ; and its honourable president, who had professed such ardent zeal 
 for the Protestant religion, abjuring the name of Christ, became a Jewish 
 proselyte, and ended his life in Newgate a prisoner for sedition. After 
 all. Sir, the riots served to purge away the black bile of many bitter ene- 
 mies of Catholics, and to open the eyes of others, who were of a more 
 liberal turn, to the real characters both of the persecuted and the perse- 
 cutors. Hence the wise and beneficent act of toleration, which passed 
 in 1791, met with no enemies in parliament, and with very fcM^ out of 
 it. It was deemed indeed expedient to throw out a tub to the leviathan 
 of public prejudice, if this were still lurking in the deep, by requiring the 
 Catholics once more to abjure a number of wicked and absurd doctrines 
 which they had never held. In this, and in the whole business of their 
 emancipation, they were assisted by the talents and virtues of several of 
 the greatest and best men of whom this nation can boast ; and more par- 
 ticularly by that illustrious character, to whom it was principally indebted 
 
 (i) "It was a preconcerted scheme to bring an odium on the Protestant Association.... 
 Papists destroyed two chapels of foreign ministers, (the Sardinian and Bavarian) and at- 
 tempted to charge innocent persons with the crime." Wesley's Strictures, p. 63. The same 
 writer equally accuses the Catholics of burning down the clwpel in Moorfields and Newgate 
 prison, and of attacking the bank, &c. pp. 65, 68. " One of the rioters shot in Fleet- 
 market proves to be a Roman Catholic. Three men shot in Cornhill (at the attack of the 
 bank) prove to be of the same religion,, one of whom appears to be a noted Jesuit, who 
 has resided in this kingdom for many years." Polit. Mag. for June 1780, p. 246. Also 
 Wesley's Strict, p. 68. — It is a greater trial of patience to be insulted with these unblush- 
 ing calumnies, than to be exposed to such wanton and cruel persecutions. — N. B. John 
 Wesley's name is not affixed to the Strictures here quoted, but only the initial fV. There 
 is however good reason, from that preacher's connexions with the Association, from the 
 stile of the work, and other internal evidence, to beliew it to be his composition. 
 
 (2) See the trial of lord G. Gordon and of the other rioters. . 
 
 for
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CATHOLICS. 215 
 
 for its salvation at a certain crisis from that precipice of anarchy, on the 
 brink of which it hung. It may be permitted me, now that he is no 
 more, to proclaim how much the Catholics, and especially that portion of 
 them in whose concerns I was employed, w ere indebted on that occasion 
 to the wisdom, experience, and exertions of the immortal Edmund Burke. 
 Those respectable characters also who have been mentioned above are 
 entitled to all the merit which you have ascribed to them, and you your- 
 self. Sir, shewed a liberality of mind which I have always acknowledged 
 with pleasure. What hath fascinated you to trace back steps which 
 did you so much honour, and to force me into the situation in your re- 
 gard in which I now stand ? 
 
 I have the honour, &c. 
 
 2 E 2 LETTER
 
 210 LETTER VIII. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 I 
 
 COME now to the most important charge, or at 
 least that which has produced the greatest sensation in this city, amongst 
 all those which have been brought against The Civil and Eccle- 
 siastical History of Winchester ; I mean the censure which I have 
 passed on its famous prelate, Hoadly. (i) Had I left this celebrated 
 champion of liberty and the low church untouched, I have reason to be- 
 lieve, that all the disrespectful things which I am accused of saying 
 against other eminent or favourite characters, would not have procured 
 me the honour of your public notice. I most unfeignedly respect and 
 applaud your gratitude to a benefactor, who cannot now bestow any 
 further favours upon you. In return. Sir, I hope you will give me credit 
 for the uprightness of my motives in the disapprobation which I have 
 expressed, and must ever continue to express, for the theological principles 
 which this able writer was chiefly instrumental in propagating throughout 
 the nation. As an individual I can have no private pique against an 
 eminent man, with whom I never had the most distant relation, and whose 
 endowments and manners, I make no doubt, were as commendable and 
 amiable as you have represented them. As a writer T cannot but respect 
 a personage, who not only supported the cause of literature by his own 
 learned and acute writings, but also by the patronage which he afforded 
 to men of genius and application, of which you. Sir, are a living 
 proof. As a Catholic even it will appear improbable that I should 
 
 (I) Vol. i, p. 445- "^"l-i'? P-3-- 
 
 be
 
 HOADLYISM. 21/ 
 
 be displeased with an author who has given such evident advantages 
 to the rehgion which I defend, and has eventually proved, that the pro- 
 fessors of it are entitled not only to an exemption from penal laws of 
 every sort, hut also to the honours and emoluments of the state. 
 Yes, Sir, it is an incontestiblc fact, that bishop Hoadly has surrendered a 
 great part of the leading points of controversy, which the Catholic au- 
 thors of the two preceding centuries had loaded the shelves of libraries in 
 endeavouring to prove. Your most learned and able writers have seen 
 and lamented the event, (i) On the other hand, this prelate carried his 
 principles of toleration so far as to declare, in times of great religious acri- 
 mony, that even Catholics could not be excluded from civil offices on any 
 pretext, except that of disaffection to government. (2) Now, Sir, this 
 pretext being abandoned in your writings, and done away by the acts of 
 the legislature itself, it follows that a mere principle of self-interest 
 would lead me to raise Hoadly's authority to the highest point possible. 
 I say nothing of the advantage to be derived from yielding to the current, 
 and supporting the popular side of each question, by every writer that is 
 desirous of gaining applause. You will ask, what then is the motive ot 
 my opposition to this celebrated writer? I ans\A er, a regard for the gene- 
 ral interests of Christianity, and for the peace and welfare of the com- 
 munity. If I cannot persuade Christians to admit of that living speaking 
 
 (1) " Your lordship tells Dr. Snape, that he sayeth and unsayeth, to the great diversion 
 of the Roman Catholics. But if your lordship would unsay some things you have said, it 
 would be a greater mortification to them than all that ever you said or writ in your whole life. 
 To deny the necessity of any particular communion, to expose the validity of the sacraments, 
 and rally on the uninterrupted succession of priests, and pull down every pillar in the church 
 of Christ, is an errand on which Rome hath sent many a messenger." W. Law, in his 
 Answer to the Bishop of Bangor's (Hoadly) Sermon, p. 17. — The New Biographical Diet, 
 says with truth, that Hoadly's " ablest opponent \\as the celebrated William Law, who in 
 many points may be said to have gained a compleat victory." 
 
 (2) " I cannot justify the exclusion of a Papist from civil offices on any account but that 
 of his open avowed enmity to civil goveriunent, as now settled in this land." Hoadly's 
 Common Right of Subjects. 
 
 tribunal
 
 218 LETTER VIII. 
 
 tribunal in the pastors of the universal church, which I conceive to be as 
 necessary for preserving it in absolute peace and unity, as the living speak- 
 ing tribunal of judges and magistrates is found to be for the safety of the 
 state, I wish to prevent them from frittering away their religion, and 
 launching into that latitudinarianism, with which Hoadly has been so ge- 
 nerally and justly reproached; (l) being persuaded that this is the direct 
 and short road to the philosophic incredulity of modern times. If they 
 will not be good Catholics, I am desirous that they should remain good 
 Church-of England-men, convinced that thereby the sacred code of 
 Revelation will be much less violated, and the public peace and happiness 
 much more effectually secured. 
 
 Before I enter upon the question before me, I must premise, 1st, That it 
 is not my intention to refute the doctrines of Hoadly by arguments drawn 
 from scripture, or from any other theological source, but barely to con- 
 trast them with the articles and liturgy of the church of England, not by 
 way of justifying the expression in my History, (2) which has been the 
 source of all your opposition to me and the religion I profess, but of de- 
 monstrating the fact itself, to which that assertion relates, with the view 
 of opposing the further progress of incredulity, and of guarding our com- 
 mon country against tl^e consequences that are to be apprehended from it. 
 
 (i) It is well known, that a representation was drawn up by a committee of the lower 
 house of convocation against bishop Hoadly's Sermon of March 17 17, and his Preservative, 
 as " tending to subvert all government and discipline in the church of Christ, and to re- 
 duce it to a state of anarchy and confusion, and as making void those powers with which 
 he himself was vested, and which he was bound to exercise in conferring orders, inflicting 
 censures," &c. This representation was to have been carried up to the prelates in the higher 
 house ; when the ministry of that day, in tenderness to their favourite bishop, caused the 
 convocation to be dissolved, which has never been allowed to proceed to any business ? nee. 
 If the bishop did not procure this measure, he at least approved of it, as proceeding from 
 " a sincere regard to the constitution in church and state." See Hoadly's Preface and An- 
 swer to the Represent, ch. iv. 
 
 (2) " Thus it may be said with truth of Dr. Hoadly, that both living and dying he un- 
 dermined the church of which he was a prelate." Vol. ii, p. 32. 
 
 2dly'
 
 IIOADLYISM. 2ig 
 
 2dly, I shall not take the unnecessary pains of tracing this system in the 
 voluminous works of Hoadly himself, through all the ambiguities, dis- 
 guises, and contradictions, which his rank in the church and the opposi- 
 tion of his able opponents obliged him to adopt, in order to palliate it; 
 since I find it exhibited in a more concise, open, and systematical manner 
 by two of his most illustrious disciples; than whom none can be better 
 qualified by their talents and other advantages to comprehend it and do 
 justice to it. I shall therefore make much more use, in the present discus- 
 sion, of the writings of the scholars than of the master. There are other 
 reasons for this conduct. One of the respectable characters whom I allude 
 to, is still living to defend himself, or, if he pleases, to retract his errors. 
 This gentleman has adopted and made his ow-n the publication of the other, 
 which I shall have occasion to refer to. In a word, he is no other than my 
 present opponent, the very person who has taken such uncommon pains to 
 exhibit me to the nation as a vs'^riter that has weakened the establishment 
 in church and state.(i) It will now be seen whether he or I is most deserv- 
 ing of this character. The points on which I shall contrast the plain 
 doctrines of the Establishment \shh. those of Hoadlyism are, the nature 
 and form of the Church, the Sacraments, the Christian Mysteries, and the 
 assent and subscription that are required to the xxxix Articles and the 
 Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 1. The nature of the church is particularly described in the xxth of the 
 above mentioned articles, as follows : " The visible church of Christ is a 
 congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, 
 and the sacraments be duly ministered." The xxvii article asserts, that 
 " men are grafted into the church by baptism, as by an instrument," and 
 and the whole liturgy of this sacrament, in the Common Prayer Book, is 
 grounded upon that doctrine. (2) Again, the xxxiiid article teaches, that a 
 
 person 
 
 ■^i) Reflections on Poperj'^, pp.6, in, &c. 
 
 (3) Before baptism the minister prays, that the person to be baptised, whether a cliild 
 or one of riper years, " may be received into tlie ark of Christ's church." Immediately as 
 he pours the water he says, " We receive this child (or person) into the congregation of 
 
 Christ's
 
 220 LETTER VIII. 
 
 person may, " by open denunciation of the church, be rightly cut ofF 
 from the unity of the church and excommunicated," in which case " he 
 ought to be taken of the whole multitude as an heathen and publican,.... 
 until he be received into the church by a Judge which hath authority 
 thereunto." It is needless to add, that the sentence of excommunication 
 is strictly conformable to this doctrine, (i) Finally, the xviiith article goes 
 so far as to pronounce, that " they are to be had accursed who presume 
 to say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he protesseth, 
 so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law, and the light 
 of nature." 
 
 With respect to the authority and constitution of the church, she claims, 
 in her, articles, not only " the power to decree rites and ceremonies," but 
 also " authority in controversies of faith." (2) She teaches, that the 
 orders of her ministers have descended from the apostles, and are ap- 
 pointed by God; (3) and that the power given to them in the ceremony 
 of ordination is communicated by the Holy Ghost ; (4) moreover, that 
 
 the 
 
 Christ's flock." In conclusion he thanks God for having " adopted and incorporated him 
 into his church." See the Common Prayer Book. 
 
 (i) This censure is of the same tenor in the kirk of Scotland and other reformed com- 
 munions. See the sentence of deposition and excommunication against the four Scotch 
 bishops for receiving consecration to the office of episcopacy. Collier, vol. ii. rec. 113. 
 
 (2) Art. XX. (3) See the prayers appointed in the form of ordaining, &c. 
 
 (4) The order of priesthood is conferred in the following words of scripture, agreeably 
 to the Roman pontifical : Receive the Holy Ghost, it;h(tse sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ; 
 and luhosc sins thou dost retain, thejy are retained. St. John xx, i2, 23. The form of con- 
 secrating bishops is : Receive the Holy Ghost, and remember to stir up the grace that has been 
 given you by the imposition of hands. Burnet, Hist. Rcf. torn. ii. In addition to the spiritual 
 powers mentioned above, which are claimed by the Church of England, must be allowed 
 that of absolving from sin, expressed in the form of ordination of priests, unless the great- 
 est perversion of language, and that upon the most solemn occasion, be supposed. In 
 confirmation of this assertion, the reader may consult the IVarning for the celebration of the 
 Communion, in the Common Prayer Book, where such as cannot otherwise quiet their con- 
 sciences, are directed to come to the minister, " in order to receive the benefit of absolu- 
 tion." This is more clearly inculcated in the. Order for the Visitation of the Sick. "Here 
 
 shall
 
 HOADLYISM. 22) 
 
 the form of episcopacy is divine and essentially necessary to her existence. 
 In proof of this we observe, 1st, that it is required by the act of Uni- 
 formity (l) that no person shall be allowed to hold any living who has 
 not received episcopal ordination ; though, from the confusion which had 
 prevailed in the kingdom for almost twenty years before the passing of 
 that act, this had been impracticable with respect to the generality of 
 ministers : 2dly, that the practice of the Church of England ever has been 
 to admit the ordination of the Catholic clergy, and of others ordained by 
 bishops, Mho have passed over to her communion, but to reject that of 
 Dissenting ministers of every class, whether natives or foreigners, to whom 
 this hath been wanting. (2) 
 
 In opposition to these tenets, Hoadly himself defines a church to be 
 " the number of persons, whether great or small, whether dispersed or 
 united, who are sincerely and willingly subjects to Christ alone,, as to a 
 lawgiver and judge, in matters relating to the favour of God and eternal 
 salvation." (3) According to this definition, neither purity of doctrine, 
 nor the right administration of the sacraments, are essentially necessary 
 
 shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, it he feel his con- 
 science troubled with any weighty uiatter. After which confession the priest shall absolve 
 
 him in this sort : " Our Lord, who hath left pqwer in his church to absolve sinners, 
 
 Sec. forgive thee, and I by his authority committed to me absolve thee from all thy sins." 
 
 (i) 13 & 14 Car. II, 0.4. 
 
 (a) Collier, vol, ii, p. 619. Strype's Life of Whltgift. The cotemporary of this arch- 
 bishop, viz. Aylmer, bishop of London, condemned the Puritan minister Wright, for preach- 
 ing, as being only a layman, though he was ordained in a foreign church. Hist, of Churches 
 in Engl, and Scotl. vol. ii,p. 234. In 1661, episcopacy being restored in Scotland, four mini- 
 sters in Presbyterian orders having been nominated bishops, and sent to be consecrated by the 
 bishop of Winchester and other assistant prelates, they were previously re-ordained, after 
 disclaiming the validity of their former ordination. Collier, vol. li, p. 887. The impor- 
 tance that has been attached by the established clergy to the controversy concerning the 
 Lambeth Register of Archbishop Parker's Consecration, from the time of Mason, 200 years 
 agq, down to that of Courayer, within our own memory, may be also alledged in proof of 
 the Church of England's opinion concerning the necessity of regular and uninterrupted 
 succession from Christ and his Apostles in the sacred ministry. 
 
 (3) Serm. March 31, 1717. 
 
 2 F to
 
 222 LETTER VIII. 
 
 to constitute the church of Christ, but only a general disposition, in any 
 collection of people whomsoever, to be subject to Christ as a lawgiver 
 and judge, which every sect and heresy, however impious or infamous, 
 from the time of the apostles, has professed no less than the church of 
 England does : for surely there never was a Christian, of any description, 
 from Simon Magus down to Jack of Leyden and David George, (i) who 
 did not acknowledge, and that with sincerity, Christ to be his lawgiver. In 
 conformity with this latitudinarian tenet, which tends to render men in- 
 different about all religious doctrines and practices whatever, and to 
 make them, ground their title to God's favour upon a pretended sincerity 
 of mind, (which, in fact, those are destitute of who neglect carefully 
 to examine and practice what he teaches and commands) Hoadly as- 
 serts in express terms, that every one may " find it in his own conduct 
 to be true, that his title to God's favour cannot depend on his actual be- 
 ing or continuing in any particular method f of religion), but in his real 
 sincerity in the conduct of his conscience." (2) It was impossible to re- 
 concile with these tenets the belief of any efficacious ministry in the 
 clergy of any description to admit persons into the church by baptism, 
 or to exclude them from it by excommunication. Nor could it be of 
 any essential consequence whether the pastors derived their ministry and 
 authority in a regular line from the apostles, or from any other source. 
 Accordingly he instructs his royal and noble audience, " When they are 
 secure of their integrity before God,.... not to be afraid of the terrors of 
 men or the vain words of regular and, uninterrupted successions, (3) au- 
 
 (i) The former was an enthusiastic Anabaptist, who made hhnself king ofMunster, and 
 committed the greatest extravagancies and horrors. The second was of the same religion, 
 and pretended to be the successor of the Messiah, and the nephew of God. Hist. Reform. 
 •Pais Bas, vol.i. (2) Preservative, &c. 
 
 (3) It is true that H. has written A brief Defence of Episcopal Ordinatio7i, by way of per^ 
 suading the Dissenters to unite with the established church. But, in conformity with his 
 general principles, he says in this very treatise, " I cannot argue that episcopacy is essential 
 to a Christian church because it is of apostolical institution." 
 
 thoritative
 
 HOADLYISM. 223 
 
 thoritative benedictions, excommunications,. ...nullity or validity of God's 
 ordinances on account of niceties and trifles, and any other the like 
 dreams." (l) 
 
 I need not mention that the late Dr. Thomas Balguy is the disciple of 
 Hoadly alluded to above, M'hose sentiments on church-authority you 
 adopt with so much warmth, as to declare, that " this subject has been 
 treated by him in his Discourses, with a precision of thought and correct- 
 ness of reasoning almost peculiar to the author." (2) His definition of a 
 church is still more extensive than that of Hoadly, and applies not only to 
 all Christians, but likewise to the greater part of Pagans. In his princi- 
 ples " a church is a number of persons agreeing to unite in public assem- 
 blies, for the performance of religious duties." (3) According to this 
 definition, we may speak with propriety of the church of Diana of Ephe- 
 sus, of the church of Jupiter Capitolinus, and of the church of Venus of 
 Paphos, to which in fact the greater part, if not the whole of this disser- 
 tation that you so much admire, is as applicable as it is to the Church of 
 England or to any other Christian church whatsoever. He proceeds to 
 ask, in the next page to that which I have quoted, " Why men should 
 meet at all for the performance of religious duties ?" (4) And it appears, that 
 he is totally unacquainted with any institution or appointment of Christ 
 to this effect, in regard of his followers : for he answers the question 
 solely on the ground of human arguments and apparent expediency. He 
 is equall}^ destitute of convincing arguments, from revelation or tradition, 
 to prove the necessity of religious pastors or ministers of any description 
 whatsoever; for he declares it to be " highly expedient, if not ahsolutely 
 necessary, that the offices of religion should be committed to some certain 
 persons, and regulated in some certain manner." (5) He is however clear, 
 
 (i) Preservative. See also Sermon on Superstition. (2) Reflections, p. 32. 
 
 (3) Discourses on Various Subjects, by Thomas Balguy, D. D. Archdeacon and Preben- 
 dary of Winchester, See. dedicated to the King, 1785. Disc, vi on Church- Authority, 
 p. 89. 
 
 (4) P-90. (5) Ibid. 
 
 2 F 2 that
 
 224 LETTER Vri. 
 
 that " to what persons these are to be committed, and in what manner 
 performed, the society itself must judge or appoint others to Judge for 
 them."(i) This is as much as to say, that Christians are left to decide 
 according to their own judgment or inclinations, whether they will be 
 governed by presbyters or bishops ; whether they will have men to offi- 
 ciate for them,, or women, as the Collyridians had ; (2) whether the pub- 
 lic worship shall consist in prayer, or in dancing and public games, as was 
 the case, in a greatineasure, amongst the heathens of Greece and Rome. 
 These points being thus settled, Dr. Balguy pronounces, that " we have 
 here the first sketch" of what may be called church-authority. For a 
 power in the society of appointing its ministers, implies an exclusion of 
 others from the ministerial office. In like manner, a power in the society 
 of prescribing the forms of its public offices, implies an exclusion of all 
 others." (3) In conformity with this doctrine, so far from teaching that 
 excommunication renders a person like a heathen or a publican, he makes 
 it consist in nothing more than in " declaring the incapacity of any per- 
 son to remain in a certain society ;" ( l) and he signifies, that as the com- 
 munity retains its authority over its ministers, so " it may take away 
 what it has given," viz. the power and character of ecclesiastical mi- 
 nistry. (5) 
 
 Dr. B. next informs us, that a religious society or church may exercise 
 their pretended church-authority, " either collectively, (that is to say by 
 democratic assemblies) or they may commit it, if they please, and as 
 much as they please, to representatives (for example to bishops) ; nay, 
 that they may very properly commit the executive part of it to a single 
 person" (for example to a king). In short, he says, " various forms of 
 government may be assigned, any one of which would be sufficient for 
 
 (.)P. 91. 
 
 (2) An obscure heresy in the fourth century, mentioned by St. Epiphanius. In like 
 manner the office of the vestal virgins, and of the priestesses of Apollo, proves that women 
 formed part of the public ministry of ancient Paganism. 
 
 (3) P- 94- (4) IWd. (5) Ibid and p. 99. 
 
 the
 
 IIOADLYISM. 225 
 
 the ends proposed of appointing ministers, of prescribing forms, and of 
 enforcing obedience." (i) He then points out the expediency, when a 
 number of congregations have freely, and by their own choice, united tu 
 forn: a church, of exercising their essential power by representatives, and 
 concludes, that as " in civil societies, even of the freest kind, however 
 the people may have i-eserved to themselves the supreme legislative au- 
 thority, yet the ordinary administration of government is committed 
 either to a prince or a senate; so by a like delegation of power, either single 
 men, or small bodies of men, may and must be authorized to govern the 
 church." (2) 
 
 If this doctrine be true, what becomes of the grace communicated in 
 the sacraments ? Can a popular assembly confer the power of admini- 
 srating this ? I know that the Hoadlyites deny the existence of such 
 sacramental grace, but I also know that the Church of England maintains 
 it. Again, what an empty farce, in this case, is the boast of a regular 
 succession in the clergy, the doctrine concerning the necessity of their 
 being ordained by bishops, and the liturgy in which the spirit of God is 
 said to be communicated in the ceremony under consideration ! For it is 
 as clear as the noontide light, that in Dr. Balguy's system, a deacon, a 
 priest, or a bishop, might as well and as validly be ordained by a justice 
 of the peace, or by the town crier, with the mere help of his bell, if the 
 people either collectively, or through their representatives, determined 
 that it should be so, as by the primate and the whole bench of bishops. 
 And what is the cause of this strange departure from the doctrine of 
 the establishment, and of all Christian antiquity, and for the invention and 
 propagation of such an unheard-of and incoherent system ? It is evidently 
 for the purpose of introducing Hoadly's favourite doctrine of Whig- 
 ism (3) into the church as well as into the state; to make all power, 
 
 ecclesiastical 
 
 (1) P. 95. (2) P. 97. 
 
 (3) I will here transcribe a note from Dr. S. to prove that greater and abler men than I am,, 
 at the present day, see Hoadly's character in the same point of view that I do. "■ He 
 
 (Hoadly)
 
 226 LETTER VIII. 
 
 ecclesiastical as well as civil, center in the people ; and, by destroying all 
 pretensions in the pastors to any degree of authority from Christ, to found 
 a mere philosophic system of natural religion, such as Hoadlyism actually is. 
 But you will probably ask, if Dr. Balguy has not admitted that the 
 Christian church has a divine origin, and that it derives its authority from 
 God ; and if you yourself have not taken care to quote that passage in 
 your Reflections, p. 20 ? I grant. Sir, that you have each of you 
 taken the precaution of adding the words which I shall insert in the note 
 below, (i) by way of stifling the complaints which you had reason to 
 expect from a too open disclosure of your system. But this stratagem of 
 literary warfare is easily counteracted by any person of ordinary talents 
 who has made that system his study. For, 1st, if it is the people 
 who authorize, by a delegation of power, single men, or small bodies of 
 men, to govern the church ; if they may either exercise church authority 
 themselves collectively, or commit it, in case they please and as much as 
 they please, to representatives, there is evidently no room left for that 
 
 (Hoadly) did not deserve for this to be called the Republican Bishop by bishop Ilorsley, in a 
 note, p. 12, of a sermon preached before the House of Lords, Jan. 30, 1793." Reflect. 
 
 P- 98. 
 
 (i) " But it may not be improper to obviate an objection, which may seem to strike at the 
 very foundatioti of the doctrine here advanced. It will be urged perhaps, that I have consi- 
 dered a church as an institution merely human, whereas the Christian church derives its autho- 
 rity from God. — ^This will be readily admitted, but the divinity of its origin is a circumstance 
 of no moment in the present inquiry. For there is not the least reason to presume that the 
 founders of our holy religion intended it to be governed by any rules, or on any principles, 
 opposite to those which nature and reason prescribe. They appointed indeed ministers and 
 offices of religion : it was scarce possible for any religion to subsist without them. They 
 established church-government : for the church must be governed in some fortn, or there 
 could be no government. But their directions to us are for the most part very general. 
 Even their example must be cautiously urged in different circumstances. In this one 
 point they are clear and explicit, that authority once established must be obeyed." P. 104. 
 We may observe the author admits, that the objection here stated "seems to strike at the 
 very foundation of his doctrine" on church authority. Whether or no he has answered that 
 objection, the learned reader will judge by what I have said in the text above. 
 
 kind
 
 MOADLYISM, 227 
 
 kind of authority", derived from Christ and his apostles, which is univer- 
 sally understood by the terms, divine authority of the church. But, se- 
 condly, we are enabled to gather from this very passage, what is more clearly 
 expressed in others, that the authority of the church is considered no 
 otherwise divine, except in as much as it is the will of God that the 
 church, no less than the state, should be regulated according to the princi- 
 ples of nature and reason; and that the origin of the church is no otherwise 
 divine, except that the apostles did model the church in some form or other, 
 and appoint some officers or other, during their own life time ; because 
 no institution can subsist without some shape, nor last, even for a short 
 time, without some ministers. But Di'. B, and yourself both plainly tell 
 us, that the apostles have given no rule for subsequent ages to follow in 
 these particulars, and that we ourselves are left at full liberty, either to 
 continue their method of public worship and church government, or to 
 adopt Hny other that we may think will suit our circumstances better. 
 That the passage under consideration is destitute of that precision for 
 which you praise the dissertation in general, is evident to every reader, 
 and the circumstance is easily acconnfed for ; but that I give a faithful ex- 
 posision of the author's meaning will be still plainer from what follows. 
 
 In his second Consecration Sermon your learned friend, overlooking the 
 text of scripture appointed in the liturgy for the occasion then present, (1) 
 and the final commission of Christ to his apostles, (2) can find no stronger 
 ground in scripture for building church-authority upon than this : " Sub- 
 mit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." (3) Ac- 
 cordingly he sets out with asserting, that there is " the same reason for 
 submitting to ecclesiastical as to civil ordinances ;" (4) namely, because 
 " the benefits of society carmot be obtained without submission to public 
 
 (i) Receive ye the Holy Ghost. St. John, xx, 32. See Form of Consecrating Bishops. 
 N. B. This Sermon was preached at the consecration of Dr. Hurd for Worcester, and of 
 the present primate^ Dr. Moore, for Bangor. 
 
 (2) St. Mat. xxviii, 9, 28. St. John, xx, 21, Sec, 
 
 (3) iPet.ii, 13. (4) P. iio. 
 
 authority.
 
 228 LETTER VIII. 
 
 authority, and that God having made us social beings, wills us to discharge 
 the essential duties of society ;"....but he says, that " the particular man- 
 ner in which this authority is to be constituted, whether it is to be vested 
 in single men, or in general assemblies, these are points left to human 
 prudence :" (l) in short, that " supernatural direction being withdrawn, 
 the guides of religion are ordained of men." This is just as much as to 
 say : it is the will of God that religious no less than civil societies should 
 organize themselves in some manner, so as to secure the benefits of peace 
 and order amongst themselves. Whilst the supernatural guides, the apos- 
 tles, were living, . it was necessary to retain the episcopal form of church- 
 government which they established ; but as soon as Timothy and Titus, and 
 the rest of the bishops ordained by the apostles, were no more, there v/as 
 no obligation of obeying the bishops whom the latter had consecrated, but 
 the people were at liberty to form ecclesiastical monarchies, or aristocracies, 
 or democracies, accordingly as human prudence might direct them ; but, 
 these forms being once esta-blished, it became a duty not only of natural, 
 but also of revealed religion, which tells us to submit to every ordinance 
 of man for the Lord's sake, to comply with the regulations of them. Such 
 is Dr. B.'s method of establishing a divine authority in the church, for preach- 
 ing the word of God, and administering the sacraments. But unfortunately 
 after all this demonstration, it will appear, that bishops and clergymen 
 have in no other sense authority from God in their ecclesiastical functions, 
 than constables and bailitfs have in apprehending prisoners. In the end Dr. 
 B. himself is obliged to admit this consequence, where he says, " In 
 every proper sense of the word, the ministers of the state, as well as 
 those of the church, receive their authority from God." (2) 
 
 Your own sentiments, as may be well expected from what has 
 been said above, are strictly conformable to those of bishop Hoadly and 
 Dr. Balguy. In your Discourse on Religions Establislunents, (3) you 
 
 (l) P. 112. (2) P. 114. 
 
 (3) Discourses chiefly on the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, by John 
 Stur^es, LL. D. Chancellor of Winch, kc. 1792. 
 
 tell
 
 IIOADLYISil. 229 
 
 tell US, that " in the first planting and propagating of Christianity the 
 means employed were miraculous ; (l).. ..that when the gospel had once 
 taken root in the several countries where it had been planted, it seems 
 conformable to the divine wisdom to leave the care of it to the ordinary 
 and natural abilities of its professors, (2) who were to employ proper 
 means in order to support it;" (3) that, for reasons which you enlarge 
 upon, it was requisite " the doctrines and precepts of the gospel should be 
 inculcated and enforced. (4) Hence," you say, " the necessity of religious 
 services and religious instruction ; and consequently of a succession ot 
 men whose olfice it shall be to administer them." (5) So then, it seems, 
 Sir, you are seriously of opinion, no less than Dr. B. that notwithstand- 
 ing religion could not subsist without public services, instructions, and 
 ministers, yet the apostles were so unwise or so negligent as to provide 
 none of these things in the churches which they founded, at least none 
 of a permanent nature, no not so much as the very sacraments, but left 
 both the necessity of them and the means of procuring them to be found 
 out " by the natural abilities of the professors of the gospel !" The same 
 reflection is applicable to your doctrine concerning the form of church- 
 government ; which is briefly this, that as the Almighty has not settled 
 any determined form of governing the state, so neither has he of go- 
 verning the church ; but has left the people at liberty either to consitute 
 bishops, as is the case in England ; or to establish presbytery, as they did 
 at Geneva ; or to have temporary and occasional ministers, as the Quakers, 
 Muggletonians, &c. have ordered it. That I may not be accused of mis- 
 representing your doctrine in this instance, I will insert below certain 
 extracts from your publications, in which every man who is capable of 
 reasoning will discern the tenets here laid down. (0) But why this de- 
 parture 
 
 (i) Disc. xvii. On Religious Establishments. P. 336. 
 
 (2) I'. 338. (3) P-339- (4) Ibid. (5) P. 340. 
 
 (6) " It is not my intention to enter into the arguments deduced from scripture on tlie 
 
 form of eh virch -government To whatever opinion different parties may be inclined on 
 
 these arguments, it seems pretty apparent, that neither Christ nor his apostles meant to 
 
 2 G prescribe
 
 230 LETTER VIII. 
 
 parture from the doctrine of the Church of England and of all Christian 
 antiquity ? For it is notorious, that in no one church, from Judea to India, 
 on one hand, and to Spain, on the other, is there any trace of such a 
 formation of an ecclesiastical constitution, or of such a beginning to 
 public services, instructions, and a ministry, or of such a delegation of 
 power from the people to the pastors, as you have described. On the 
 contrary, it is demonstratively proved, that wherever the apostles founded 
 churches, they ordained .bishops and priests in them, with the obligation 
 of instructing the faithful and administering the sacraments; that they 
 also appointed stated times of public worship, and particularly the Lord's 
 
 day ; 
 
 prescribe minutely those regulations by which the future church should be governed in the 
 several countries where it was to subsist. What we meet with in scripture are intimations 
 and examples of their practice concerning this government, rather than direct commands." 
 Considerations on the Present State of the Church Establishment, in Letters to the Rt. Rev. 
 Lord Bishop of London, by John Sturges, LL. D. Prebendary of Winchester, &c. 1779, PP' 
 
 58, 59. See also the Discourses, p. 344. " I have always considered the government of 
 
 civil and religious societies as much on the same footing.. ..Society and religion are both 
 equally of God's appointment. It is as much his will that the civil laws be obeyed,. ...as it 
 is that we should believe those truths and obser%'e those precepts which more immediately 
 constitute our religious duty. But the particular means by which these purposes are to be 
 obtained, the particular regulations which will best produce them, are left in both cases to 
 be determined by human wisdom, and to be accommodated to the different circumstances 
 of the societies for which they are wimted." Consid. pp. 60, 61. " I do not see the im- 
 propriety of this mode of governing, viz. by bishops, in any country ; but if it be thought 
 that there should be a sort of analogy in all countries between the ecclesiastical and civil 
 constitution, I should say, that in our own the episcopal form was more proper than any 
 other for the government of the church, from its being more analogous to that of the state." 
 
 Ibid. p. 62. " In all Christian countries provision should be made for explaining the 
 
 truths and inculcating the precepts of the gospel. It is also highly expedient that this pro- 
 vision should be adapted to the different circumstances of each country — Many things re- 
 specting the outward form of religious institutions are in themselves indifferent, and not de- 
 termined by Christ or his inspired followers, and may therefore safely be committed to human 
 discretion, which will select, dispose, and modify them as the character of each country 
 may require ; provided always that those truths and precepts are preserved in their purity, 
 of which the outward form is only the instrument and vehicle." Discourses, Sec. p. 343. — 
 
 Each
 
 IIOADLYISM. 231 
 
 day ; and that they established a public liturgy, the most sacred part of 
 which was the breaking of bread, as it is called in scripture, (i) or the 
 ministration of the Holy Eucharist. It is a matter of fact equally de- 
 monstrated, that these bishops, so ordained, as one of their number died, 
 consecrated another, (2) and thus have perpetuated themselves, together 
 with their essential authority and institutes, without a moment's inter- 
 ruption, during 18 centuries down to the present day. The only answer 
 then that can be given to the question stated above, is, that it was ne- 
 cessary for Hoadly and his followers to overturn the ancient system of 
 ecclesiastical government and authority, because it was impossible to re- 
 concile with it their fundamental tenet of the original and fundamental 
 power of the people in these matters, and to escape the thunders of the 
 convocation, which hung over the former's head, in consequence of his 
 dangerous innovations in various particulars. 
 
 By way of more securely guarding the Palladium of Hoadlyism, as the 
 tenet in question may justly be termed, I find that you have answered an 
 objection which I do not see noticed by Dr. B. The xxth article of the 
 establishment defines, that " the church hath authority in controversies of 
 faith." What degree of authority she claims is quite at present out of 
 the question, because it is repugnant to your creed to allow her any such 
 authority at all. Hence there is seen to be a necessity of eluding the 
 
 Each of these quotations tends to the same conchision, viz. tliat Christ and his apostles in- 
 stituted no form of church-government to remain to future times, whether episcopalian, 
 presbyterian, or independent, but left Christians to settle this most important matter ac- 
 cording to their own human discretion, and the state of their civil government, whether 
 this was monarchic, aristocratic, or democratic. This is confirmed by the analogy between 
 civil and ecclesiastical government, which onr author points out. after Dr. B., where he says, 
 in concluding this subject, " There is no dovibt that God designed man for a social as well 
 as a religious being,.... but he has not dictated the laws or prescribed the precise form of 
 eac,h society ; it being the province of human wisdom to accommodate these to each parti- 
 cular case," &c. Ibid. p. 344. 
 
 (i) Acts, ii, 42, 46. XX, 7. 
 
 (2) See Euseb. Ch. Hist. S, Irjen. adv. Hxr. 
 
 2 G 2 evident
 
 233 LETTER VIII. 
 
 evident meaning of" this article in some shape or other. What you say is, 
 that the mdhorily of the church, here mentioned, " is a power of de- 
 claring her judgement, in order to determine, vt'hat her sense of scripture 
 is, and her interpretation of it concerning them." (]) But pray, Sir, has 
 not every man a power of declaring his judgement concerning the sense 
 of scripture ? What need then of an article requiring assent and subscrip- 
 tion to determine that point, in favour of the whole, or even of a national 
 church ? Tn fact, such a power, as is here spoken of, was never denied 
 or doubted of by any divine whomsoever or other individual in his senses. 
 Again, Sir, if the church is so uncertain in her creed, as you represent, 
 where you barely allow her " the power of declaring Iter judgement,'' 
 &c. I ask, with what justice can she require the unfeigned assent and 
 consent of all the clergy to it ? Another branch of authority claimed by 
 the church you do not even attempt to vindicate, but openly condemn. 
 I shall cite your own words: "Excommunication, my lord, is unfor- 
 tunately the instrument, by which the ecclesiastical jurisdiction is to 
 assert its authority. I have no scruple in saying, that the instrument is 
 improper and bad." (2) When you wrote this, I believe, you were not 
 chancellor of the diocese. But I never heard that when you accepted of 
 that office, to which the assertion of the power and the use of the instru- 
 ment in question are particularly attached, you retracted this p-assage. I 
 need not remind you, how strange a declaration the following would be 
 from any judge in a civil court: I am forced to pronounce a sentence 
 which I believe to he improper, and which I do not even think I have 
 autliority to pronounce. (3) Now, Sir, the learned world shall deter- 
 mine whether you or I have contributed most to disgrace and weaken the 
 
 (1) Letters to Bishop Lowth, p. 34. (2) Ibid. p. 70. 
 
 (3) According to the principles of Hoadlylsni, it is not in the power of any persons 
 wholnsoever to cut off the most scandalous sinner from the churcli of Christ, as the words 
 of excommunication import. Nor did even St. Paul attempt this in the case of the in- 
 cestuous Corintliian. See Hoadly's Answer to the Representation of the Lower House of 
 Convocation, sect. vii. 
 
 established
 
 IIOADLVISM. 233 
 
 established church. For do you think that the people will bear any great . 
 respect for clergymen, who openly disclaim all authority from God to 
 pix;ach and to minister, other than constables have for the discharge of 
 their menial office. And is there no danger that some financiering poli- 
 ticians, without supposing them to be infidels, may not calculate upon 
 how much cheaper terms the church may be served than it is at present, 
 if they shall hear the most learned and respectable dignitaries of it pro- 
 claiming that the established form of it does not descend from Christ and 
 his apostles, but that any other may be conscientiously substituted for it, 
 which the people or their representatives in the legislature may prefer 
 to it ? 
 
 II. From comparing the doctrine of the Church of England with Hoad- 
 lyism concerning the nature and formation of the Ark of Christ's Church, 
 as it is called in the eistablished liturgy, (i) I proceed to a comparison of 
 them on the general means of salvation, namely, the Sacraments. Yes, 
 Sir, this church teaches in her code of public instruction, that the two 
 sacraments which she acknowledges, "Baptism and the Lord's Supper, are 
 generally necessary to salvation." (2) This doctrine, which is absurd in 
 the highest degree on the principles of Hoadlyism, is consistent and ne- 
 cessary according to her definition of a sacrament, which in fact is much 
 the same with that of Catholics; namely, "an outward and visible 
 sign of inward and spiritual grace, given unto us by Christ himself, as 
 a means wherchy me receive the same, and a pledge to assure us there- 
 of." (3) With this definition of a sacrament in the Catechism, agrees the 
 description of it in the Articles. (l) " Sacraments. ..be not only badges and 
 
 (i) See the first prayer in the Ministration of Baptism, where, after recounting the sal- 
 vation of Noah in the ark from the deluge, the Church of England prays that the person 
 to be baptised, " may be washed, sanctified with the Holy Ghost, delivered from God's 
 wrath, and received in the ark of Christ's church." 
 
 (2) Catechism in the Conuiion Prayer Book. (3) Ibid. 
 
 (4) Article xxv amongst the xx.xix of the Church of England. In the Latin text of the 
 articles, which is of equal authority with the English, the sacraments are defined, " Signa 
 efficacia gratia 8c bonse in nos voluntatis Dei." Burnet's Exposit. 
 
 tokens
 
 234 LETTER VHI. 
 
 tokens, ...but rather sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace and God's 
 free will towards us, by the which lie doth work inuisibly in us," &c. 
 The most material part of this description is confirmed in the book 
 of Homihes, (i) where it is said, that " a saciaraent setteth out to the 
 eyes and other senses the inward working of God's free mercy. "(2) With 
 respect to the " inward and spiritual grace" of baptism, in particular it 
 is declared to consist in " a death unto sin, and a new birth to righteous- 
 ness, so that being by nature born in sin and the children of w-rath, we 
 are hereby made the children of grace.'' The plain doctrine contained 
 in this exposition concerning the present spiritual effects and the necessity 
 of baptism is illustrated and confirmed by every rubric, every exhorta- 
 tion, and every prayer in the public liturgy appointed for the ministration 
 of it. (3) The articles also declare, that " Baptism is not only a sign of 
 ditFerence between Christian-men and others that be not christened, but 
 also a sign of regeneration whereby, as by an instrument, they that re- 
 ceive baptism rightly are grafted into the church, and the promises of 
 the forgiveness of sin and of our adoption, &c. are visibly signed," &c. 
 (4) To form a clear and precise idea of the nature of that death to sin 
 and " regeneration " or new birth to righteousness, which the established 
 church describes in these passages as the chief effect of baptism, it is 
 necessary to attend to her express doctrine concerning Original or Birth 
 Sin. On this point she pronounces that " Original Sin standeth, not in 
 the following of Adam, but in the fault and corruption of every man 
 of the ofi'spring of Adam,. ...and in every person born into the world it 
 deserveth God's w^rath and damnation." (5) 
 
 In opposition to the whole of this system, we have witnessed the ri- 
 
 (x) This book in the xxxvth article is said to " contain a godly and wholesome doctrine," 
 and as such is "judged to read in churches." 
 
 (2) Homil. on Common Prayer and Sacraments, &c. 
 
 (3) See the same in the Common Prayer. (4) Art. xxvii. (5) Art. ix. 
 
 dicule
 
 nOADLYISM. 235 
 
 dicule which Iloadly casts upon authoritative benedictions, (i ) of which 
 the sacraments are evidently the chief, and in short, upon all exterior 
 means of salvation, viith respect to those whom he vainly describes as 
 "secure of their integrity before God." We have seen your own ac- 
 count of the naked and unprovided state of the church, as you supj^osc it 
 to have been left by the apostles, without a public liturgy or ministry of 
 any kind, and with nothing but the uncertain resource of human pru- 
 dence for the discovery even of the^necessity of them.{2) Now, Sir, 
 it is as clear as the sun at noon-day, that you could never have asserted 
 any thing of this sort, had you admitted, with the established church, 
 that there are and of course were then, two sacraments generally neces- 
 sary to salvation, instituted by Christ, and consisting of outward and 
 visible signs, as a means whereby we receive inward and spiritual grace, 
 and a pledge to assure us thereof: because, in fact, such outward and 
 visible signs would have constituted a public service then, as they still 
 constitute the most essential part of it, and would have required, at all 
 times, public ministers and those possessed of other powers, than they 
 could possibly, derive from the people, either collectively or by their re- 
 presentatives. Such are the inevitable consequence with respect to the 
 sacraments of the joint principles of yourself. Bishop Hoadly, and Dr. 
 Balguv. However, as the last mentioned divine has left us a Charge, 
 addressed to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Winchester, in his otiicial 
 capacity, on the present subject, in which he attempts to reconcile his 
 opinions upon the sacraments with those of the church, (3) it is peculiarly 
 incumbent on me to examine how far he has succeeded in this 
 undertaking. 
 
 Of all the controversies that have been agitated of late years concern- 
 ing the sacraments, the most important is evidently, whether they do or 
 do not confer a real interior and spiritual grace. I have shewn that the 
 
 (1) Seep. 222. (2) See p. C29. 
 
 (3) " In this inquiry the Church itself shall be my guide." Charge vii. On tl)e Sa- 
 craments. P. 396. 
 
 Church
 
 235 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Church of England asserts the affiiniative of this question in the plainest 
 words that can be employed ; but I have remarked, that it is essential to 
 deny the existence of this sacramental grace in the principles of Hoadly- 
 ism. Accordingly Dr. B. tries his skill in endeavouring to make the 
 doctrine of the former bend to that of the latter. With this view he sets 
 out with inquiring, what is meant by the " interior aud spiritual grace," 
 which is said in the Catechism " to be given by means of the sacraments." 
 (i) In a word, he denies that " the assistance of God's holy spirit" is 
 signified thereby ; and maintains, though without the shadow of an ar- 
 gument, that it means no more than " a spiritual benefit;" (2) which be- 
 nefit he afterwards explains to consist in the mere empty sign of a fu- 
 ture benefit. (3) But in using this notorious violence with the definition 
 of the Catechism, why did he not equally try his skill in perverting that 
 of the Articles, which asserts that the sacraments are the " effectual 
 signs of grace and God's good will towards us, by which he doth work 
 invisibly in us, and not only quicken but also conjinn faith,'' and also 
 the words of the Homily quoted above ? But it was too difficult a task 
 even for the abilities of a Balguy to attempt the explanation of these in 
 his sense ; and therefore he pi*udently avoided noticing them. Notwith- 
 standing these and other equally conclusive passages of the Articles and 
 Liturgy, he goes on to assert, that a sacrament is " a siga declaratory 
 only, not efficient." (4) I shall add no more on this head than barely 
 to remark, that if efficient and effectual are the same word differently 
 inflected, as I take them to be, there is not only an opposition in meaning,, 
 but also in terms, between the Church of England and Dr. B. The for- 
 mer says that the sacraments are effectual signs of grace ; the latter says 
 that a sacrament is not an efficient sign. 
 
 Our author proceeds to investigate the first of the sacraments, baptism, 
 but he finds an invincible obstacle by the way in the doctrine of original 
 
 (I) P. 297. (:) P. 298. ■ 
 
 (3) " The grace signified by Baptism is repentance ; tlie grace signified by the Lord's 
 Supper is pardon." P. 318. (4) P. 298. 
 
 sin.
 
 ttOADLT^ISM. 23; 
 
 sin. He is aware, that if this be admitted, the efficacy of baptism would 
 follow of course with other doctrines, to the utter ruin of Hoadlyism. 
 What is to be done in these streights ? He suppresses the strong and ex- 
 press texts of scripture, wliich support the above mentioned mysterious 
 tenet; (l) and produces another, which is susceptible of difterent inter- 
 pretations, (2) as the ground work on which it stands. In the mean 
 time he spares me the trouble of confronting his Pelagian doctrine with 
 that of the church, in the passages above referred to, by fairly abandoning 
 the latter as untenable. His words are these : " The passages in our ar- 
 ticles (3) which might seem to favour such an expression, have long been 
 understood, as it were, by common consent, to admit of some latitude in 
 their interpretation." ( l) But it soon becomes necessary, for the accom- 
 modation of Hoadlyism, to apply the same latitude of interpretation to 
 the words of Christ in the institution of baptism. Our Saviour says to 
 Nicodemus : Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of 
 water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (5) 
 To this Dr. B. answers : " Our Saviour's assertion amounts to this, that 
 no man can enter into the kingdom of heaven without the profession of 
 Christianity and the observance of its laws." (0) In the conclusion of 
 this subject our author tells us, that he does not " exclude the assistance 
 of the spirit" from baptism. This, however, is but a delusive symptom, 
 of returning orthodoxy: for he immediately afterwards tells us, that 
 though we have " an assurance of receiving this assistance on all fit occa- 
 sions, yet there is no such assurance of receiving it expressly conveyed in 
 the rite of baptism." (7) I will add no more at present, than barely to 
 
 (i) Rom. iii, 23. v. 12. (2) Ephes. ii, ^. 
 
 (3) He might have added, the whole liturgy of baptism, of which the following address, 
 appointed to be made by the minister, is a specimen : " I certify you, &c, concerning the 
 baptising of this child ; who being born in onglncd sin and in the lurath of God, is now, by 
 the lavour of regeneration in baptism, received into the number of the children of God and 
 heirs of everlasting life," &c. 
 
 (4) P. 301. (5) St. John, iii, 5. (6) P. 303. (7) P. 304. 
 
 2 H observe,
 
 2 38 LETTER VIII. 
 
 observe, that the Hoadlyan system, so far from rendering the doctrine of 
 the sacraments more simple and intelligible, encumbers it with a great 
 number of perplexing consequences, which tend to multiply these divine 
 rites, and to blend them togeiher in the strangest manner possible. In 
 particular, I here solemnly maintain, in the face of the learned world, 
 that the ceremony of washing of feet, mentioned in the gospel, possesses 
 every requisite to constitute a true sacrament of the Christian church in 
 the principles of your learned friend Dr. B. And I here, Sir, call upon 
 you to disprove this very serious consequence, if there is a possibility of 
 doing so. ( I ) 
 
 (i) 111 proof of this assertion, let us first hear the gospel account of this ceremony: 
 xVoOT before the feast of the passove?; when Jesus hieiv that his hour ivas come. ...having loved his 
 own. ...he loved them to the e?id....And supper being ended. ...he riseth from supper and laid aside 
 his garments, and took a towel and girded himself. After that he poureth %uater into a bason, and 
 began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them ivith a towel. ...Peter saycth to him: Thou shall 
 never wash my feet. Jesus answereth him, if I wash thee nut thou hast no part with me. Peter 
 saycth unto him, Lord, not niy feet only, but also 7ny hands and my head. Jesus sev^eth to him, he 
 that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every where : andje are clean, but 
 not all. For he knew who should betray him — So after he had washed their feet he said. ...if 1 
 your Lord and master have washed your feetj ye ought also to wash one anothers feet. I have 
 given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. St. John, xiii. — Let us next 
 attend to the church definition of a sacrament, viz.' " An outward visible sign of inward 
 spiritual grace, instituted by Christ himself," &c. Let us lastly observe Dr. B.'s conuuents 
 upon this definition, and his illustration of it. " The grace, here spoken of, does not 
 mean the assistance of God's holy spirit, but a favour or benefit." P. 377. " The sign (or 
 sacrament) is a means of grace, by declaring our acceptance of the benefit and God's promise 
 to confer it. ...The sign is declaratory only, not efficient." 298. " The promises of God are 
 shadowed out to us under the images of the sacraments." P. 302. " Baptism represents a pu- 
 rification from sin." Ibid. "No assurance of God's spirit is conveyed in baptism." P. 304. 
 " Tiie benefits of the Lord's Supper are not present but future. The sacrament is no more 
 than a sign Or a pledge to assure us thereof." In one word, the essential difference between 
 the doctrine of the Catholics and Protestants, on one hand, and of Dr. B. with other disciples 
 of Hoadly, on tht other, is, that the former maintain a real present grace or as'sistance of God 
 to be conveyed in the sacrament to the worthy receiver ; whereas the latter assert, that 
 iiothinp- more than a sign or figure of such grace is afforded. Let us now collect the 
 result of the wliole. In the ceremony of washing feet (still practised in religious commu- 
 j'.ities^ and at our court on Maundy Thursday) there is evidently, ist, a. visible sign ; adly, 
 
 the
 
 HOADLYISM. 239 
 
 I coine now to treat of that which is called The Sacrmnent, by way 
 of excellence. Of this its divine institutor himself speaks in eacli of the 
 four Evangelists in the most impressive terms, and represents it as a rite 
 equally mysterious and beneficial, (l) The holy fathers and ecclesiastical 
 authors of all countries and all ages have vied with each other in extol- 
 ling it as the master-piece of the divine bounty. Whatever disputes 
 Catholics and Protestants have had concerning the nature of it, they have 
 agreed in representing it as of so supernatural an order, that the partici- 
 pation of it is necessarily attended either with the most salutarv or the 
 most fatal effects to the souls of the receivers, according to the good or 
 bad dispositions they bring with tlicm to it. But to speak more particu- 
 larly of the definitive doctrines of the Church of England on this ponit. 
 She positively asserts that the " body and blood of Christ are verily and 
 indeed taken and received in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper," (2) 
 and she requires her ministers to signify the same in the very act of dis- 
 tributing it. (3) Conformably with this tenet, she asserts, in her articles, 
 
 that 
 
 the institution of Christ; and lastly, the sign or figure of invisible grace, namely, of purification 
 
 from sin : If Iiuash thee not thou hast no part S-vith me You are clean, but not all : for he knew 
 
 ivho should betray him. 
 
 (1) JVhoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. For my flesh is meat indeed, 
 and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dvvelleth in me 
 and I *in him. Sec. St. John, vi, 54, ^^, 56. St. Mat. xxvi, 26. St. Mark, xvi, 22. St. 
 Luke, xxii, 19. 
 
 (2) Catechism, in the Common Prayer. 
 
 (3) " The body of Christ, &.c. preserve thy bddy and soul unto everlasting life. The 
 blood of Christ," Sec. Common Prayer. — Dr. Heylin, in his Introduction to the Life of 
 archbishop Laiid, shews, that these words, which stood in the first liturgy of Edward VI, 
 were afterwards, when Zuinglianism obtained, expunged, as approaching too near to the 
 Catholic doctrine, and then again restored to tlic present liturgy in the time of Elizabeth. 
 The reason of this Hurnet shews in his History of the Reformation, viz. because it was 
 resolved apon, that tiie articles and liturgy should be so framed as to suit the consciences 
 of Protestants who believed in the Real Presence, amongst whom was the queen herseilf. For 
 the same reason the passage in the 29th article of Edward VI, which declared-that the body 
 of Christ being now in heaven, carmot be also in the sacrament, was suppressed, in the cor- 
 responding 38th article of Elizabeth. Heylin, in the passage above quoted, proves, that a 
 
 a H 3 great
 
 240 LETTER VIII. 
 
 that, " to those who worthily receive, the bread is a partaking of the 
 body of Christ, and the cup is a partaking of the blood of Christ." (l) 
 The whole liturgy and public homilies of the Church of England an- 
 nounce the same tenet of an actual communication with Christ, and of a 
 present grace derived from this communication. In particular, the first 
 part of the homily which treats of this subject, says, " thus much we 
 must be sure to hold, that in the supper of ti-.e Lord there is no vain cere- 
 tt)onie, no bare signe, no untrue figure of a thing absent, but, as the 
 scripture sayeth, the table of the Lord is the bread and cup of the Lord, 
 the memorie of Christ, the annunciation of his death, yea, the commu- 
 nion of the body and blood of the Lord in a marvelous incorporation." (2) 
 In contradiction to this doctrine of the established church, delivered 
 with so much precision and energy, concerning the mysterious sublimity 
 and boundless efficacy of the sacrament, bishop Hoadly teaches that it is 
 a mere positive rite, containing no mystery at all or efficacious grace, 
 even with respect to the most worthy receiver ; (3) and you,. Sir, step out 
 of yourw^ay (4) on purpose to pronounce a panegyric on the justice and 
 conclusiveness of the arguments on which he builds this Socinian scheme, 
 
 great number of the chief lights of the Church of England,- before the time of Laud, firmly 
 maintained that doctrine, particularly, bishop Ridley, Nowel prolocutor of the famous 
 convocation of 1562, Bilson and Andrews, bishops of Winchester, and Morton, bishop of 
 Durham. To these names maybe added, that of the learned Bramh:dl, bishop of Derry, 
 who writes as follows, in his Answer to Militiere's Triumph of Truth : " No genuine son of 
 the Church of England did ever deny a true real presence. Christ said, This is mj body; 
 what he said, we do stedfastly believe. He said neither con, neither sub, neither trans. 
 Therefore we place these amongst the opinions of schools, not amongst articles of faith. 
 P. 74. Amongst the divines of the present day, who have not been ashamed of the genuine 
 doctrine of the Church of England in this point, is the prelate above cited. He says : 
 " The "-reat object with our Reformers was, whilst they achiGtuledgcd the doctrine of the 
 Real Presence, to refute that of transubstantiation ; as it was afterwards to refute the notion 
 of impanation or consubstantiation." Bishop of Chester's Sermon, Nov. 25, 1787, p. 2. 
 
 (j) Art. xxviii. (2) Hom. on the Sacr. part I. 
 
 (3) Plain Account. (4) Reflect, p. 99. 
 
 as
 
 HOADLYISM, 241 
 
 as a learned divine, who is at present upon the bench of bishops, terms 
 it. (i) You seem sensible indeed that this scheme stands in opposition, 
 not only to the authority of the ancient fathers and modern divines in 
 general, for which you declare, in the words of Dr. Pearce, that you 
 " have long since divested yourself of all prejudice," to the end you may 
 •' in matters of faith learn to go alone," (2) but also to that of the Church 
 of England. In fact, you claim the approbation and the thanks of all 
 true Protestants in favour of your friend, the bishop, for " recalling them 
 to the authority of scripture alone on a subject which," you say," had 
 been overwhelmed with misapprehension and superstition." (3) If, Sir, you 
 were not of opinion that the Church of England, like the rest, had been 
 involved in error and superstition on this point, it is evident that Hoadly 
 would not be entitled to the merit that you here ascribe to him. It is 
 true you boast of having scripture on your side : And what extravagant 
 or impious innovator in the church during 18 centuries has not made the 
 same boast ? If every other argument, demonstrating the necessity of a 
 living speaking tribunal, to determine the sense of scripture, were want- 
 ing, the confidence with which yourself and others of the most learned 
 divines of the present day appeal to the four Evangelists, in proof that 
 the sacraments are devoid. of all mystery and grace, would alone be suf- 
 ficient to convince me of it. 
 
 It remains for me to shew, what your learned friend and fellow disciple 
 in the school of Hoadly has asserted concerning the Sacrament, in his 
 Charge to the Clergy on this subject. (1) Having mentioned the doctrine 
 of the Church of England, namely, that " the body and blood of Christ 
 are verily and indeed received in the sacrament, he is equivalently forced 
 to own that it cannot be reconciled with the tenets of Hoadlyism. It 
 would be too much however to expect that he should sacrifice the latter 
 
 (1) Sermon on the Sacrament, before the University of Oxford, Nov. 25, 1787, by the 
 lord bishop of Chester. 2d ed. p. 7. 
 
 (2) Reflect, p. too. (3) Ibid, p. 99. 
 (4) Balguy's Discourse on the Sacraments. 1781. 
 
 to
 
 242 LETTER VIII. 
 
 to the former. What he says is, that it would " be uncandid to charge 
 the Church of England with favouring the doctrine of transubstantiation," 
 
 (1) which he conceives would be the consequence of admitting verily 
 and indeed in their plain natural sense to mean really. He proceeds : 
 " The words cannot have this meaning, whatever else they may mean." 
 
 (2) But he himself is incapable of devising any other sense for them, 
 and accordingly he leaves them as he found them to speak for themselves. 
 What method, Sir, I ask you, can possibly be devised of escaping the 
 present dilemma ? Have the most learned prelates and divines of Eliza- 
 beth's reign been guilty of framing an obscure and delusive expositioh 
 of the most sacred rite of their religion ; or was your friend, who was 
 one of the most acute and learned scholars of his age, really incapable of 
 understanding a catechism for children ? 
 
 Having said thus much, in opposition to the avowed doctrine of the 
 established church, he proceeds still further to undermine it, by substi- 
 tutino- a new and unheard-of phantom of spiritual grace in the sacrament, 
 instead of that actiial communication with Christ, in deed and reality, 
 for the strengthening of the soul, which the said church confesses to 
 take place in it. In a word, he asserts, that the grace received is nothing 
 more than " an acceptance of the benefit of Christian redemption. ...The 
 due administration of the sacrament has the force of a promise made by 
 God, and humbly accepted by the devout communicant," (3) Was there 
 ever a greater mockery of words, I appeal to the common sense of man- 
 kind, on the part of Dr. B. if we believe the scriptures and the establish- 
 ment, or on the part of these, if we give credit to Dr. B. ! In fact, Sir, 
 what is there more sacred and awful in his idea of the sacramental com- 
 munion, than there is in reading the scriptures, or in performing public 
 worship and prayer ? Have not these confessedly the force of a promise of 
 the Christian redemption on the part of God, and of an acceptance of it 
 on the part of the devout believer ? What necessity should there be of a 
 
 (i) P. 306. (3) Ibid. (3) P. 307- 
 
 stricter
 
 lIOADLYrSM, - 243 
 
 stricter self-examination in one case than in another, (l) and what greater 
 reason to apprehend " diverse diseases and sundry kinds of death" (2) 
 from unworthily receiving the empty types of bread and wine, than from 
 unworthily reading the ^vritten word of God ? Our learned archdeacon 
 seems sensible how strange and capricious this explanation of the sacra- 
 ment, (by which the act of receiving bread and wine is made barely to 
 signify our faith in Christ) (3) will sound in the ears of Christians. To 
 obviate their objections on this head he has recourse to the sacrifices of 
 the Pagans, (4) and he leaves us to conclude, that our Saviour borrowed 
 his idea of the Lord's Supper from their impious rites and prq/ane feasts, 
 (5) Having again repeated, in different forms of speech, his two funda- 
 
 (i) Dr. B. seems sensible of this, where e5q)laii)ing the qualiiication of self-examination 
 required in the catechism of the chvirch, he says in opposition to her : " The necessit_y of 
 the self-examination may first perhaps have been suggested by a mistaken interpretation of 
 a passage in one of St. Paul's Epist. i Cor. xi, 28 ; and it ought not to be dissembled, that 
 there is no passage in scripture which expressly requires it of us, as a condition of receiving 
 the sacrament." P. 315. 
 
 (2) " As the benefit is great,. ...so is the danger great, if we receive unworthily. For 
 then we are guilty of the body and blood of Christ ; we kindle God's wrath, and provoke him 
 to plague us with diseases and sundry kinds of death," &c. See Common Prayer ; also 
 I Cor. xi, 30. — The prelate above quoted justly remarks, in answer to the advocates of the 
 theory in question concerning the alledged profanation " of the Sacramental Test, that they 
 leave nothing in the sacrament which can well be profaned." Bishop of Chester's Sermon 
 before the Univ. Nov. 28, 1790, p. 2. (3) P. 308. 
 
 (4) " Nothing can be clearer or more reasonable, if we attend to the forms of religion 
 which had been established all over the world at the time when this rite was instituted. 
 The religion of Pagans to a very great degree consisted in sacrifices ; that is, in feasts given 
 to the gods. Tn many of these feasts there was a sort of community between gods and 
 men The participation of the victim was understood to imply a share in the benefits ex- 
 pected from the sacrifice." P. 309. 
 
 (5) " Whether these Pagan ideas were originally derived from the institutions of God 
 liimsclf, or he was pleased to accommodate his own institutions to the prejudices of man- 
 kind, is a point on wliich I have no occasion to speak." P. 310. — He admits indeed that 
 the Jewish sacrifices were of divine appointment; but the tenor of his argument leaves us 
 to suppose that the Lord's Supper was borrowed rather from the idea of the Pagan than of 
 the Jewish sacrifices. 
 
 mental
 
 2-14 LETTER VIII. 
 
 mental principles, that the Lord's Supper is " an offer and an acceptance 
 of redemption," (l ) and that Christ " instituted it in analogy to the sacri- 
 ficial feasts then in use, (2) he conckides this strange theory with assert- 
 ing the grand principle of Hoadlyism, for the sake of which it was in- 
 vented, viz. that " the benefits of this feast are not present hut future :" 
 in other words, that the sacrament is no more than a sign or a pledge to 
 
 assure us thereof." (3) 
 
 III. 
 
 (i) P. 311. (2) P. 312. 
 
 (3) Pp. 112, li^.' — I cannot quit this Socinian scheme of the Sacrament, as tlie bishop of 
 Chester calls it, without examining an argument which Dr. S. borrows from bishop Pearce 
 in recommendation of it, in the following words : " Nothing has occasioned the loss of that 
 due reverence which is owing to the sacraments so much as the making more of them that 
 scripture has done, and representing them as ?njysteries when they are plain religious actions. 
 The imintelligible parts of a sacrament is what the free-thinkers have chiefly ridiculed. 
 Had the Eucharist been represented, as I have represented it, it never could have been men- 
 tioned by infidels with disrespect ; at least it would have given them fio occasion of treating it with 
 any." Reflect, p. 100. To judge properly in this case, I will suppose an intelligent Gentoo wri- 
 ting from this country, in order to give an account of its religion to his correspondent in Hin- 
 dostan. His account of the matter that has been treated of above must necessarily be to the fol- 
 lowing effect : " Having informed myself of the doctrine of Christians, concerning the nature 
 and attributes of the Deity whom they acknowledge, and of the salvation which they 
 believe to have been wrought for them by Christ, I asked, whether there are any rites or 
 ceremonies by which they conceive the Deity may be rendered propitious, and this re- 
 demption applied to their souls ? They answered me, that there are two such, instituted by 
 Christ himself, and acknowledged to " be generally neceisary to salvation." Upon inquiry I 
 found that these ceremonies consist in washing a new born infant, or other person that is to 
 be initiated into their society, with water ; and, for those who actually belong to it, in their 
 eating bread and drinking wine. I took pains to inform myself whether there was no 
 mysterious meaning, or supernatural grace, supposed to be annexed to these simple and 
 ordinary ceremonies. The person to whom I first addressed myself for this information was 
 a verjj^ learned man, the disciple of a famous doctor who died about forty years ago, and who 
 wrote near 100 books great and small, named Hoadly. His answer to me was, that these 
 ceremonies had been " involved in a great deal of misapprehension and superstition," 
 before his master published a certaii book called A Plain Account, <?#c. but that now they 
 were proved to be mere positive ceremonies, without any mysterious meaning or eflect 
 whatsoever. — And does then your Messiah, I replied, require, as the conditions of his 
 favours, and a.s jnea.ns generally necessary to salvation, two mere animal functions, viz. washing 
 
 and
 
 HOADLYISM. 245 
 
 III. I have shewn, that the denial of all real grace in the sacraments 
 necessarily follows from what I take to have been Hoadlj's original and 
 fundamental error, namely, that of Ecclesiastical Whiggism, in grounding 
 the authority and constitution of the church upon the power of the people. 
 I am also clearly of opinion, that the system in question goes great lengths 
 of itself towards philosophic infidelity, and in its consequences leads di- 
 rectly to it. For my own part I will assert nothing more on this subject 
 than I am enabled to prove; but I should not do justice to my readers, if 
 I were to withhold from them the opinions of other men, better qualified 
 from their station, their experience, and their talents, to judge and pronounce 
 upon it, than I am. We have heard the alarming censure under which a 
 Right Rev. Bishop, who is the ornament of the diocese of Chester and 
 of the university of Oxford, qualifies ther Hoadlyan scheme of the sa- 
 crament. Nor was it a hasty epithet that he employed when he termed 
 it Soclnion : for he deliberately asserts, at the end of a long dissertation 
 on the subject, that the work of your celebrated patron which you, Sii", 
 so highly extol as " a specimen of just and conclusive argument, (l) (I 
 mean the Plain Account of the Sacrament, &c.) " has been so much cried 
 up of late years by some for the sake of its connection with Socinian no- 
 
 and eating ? This is really as absurd as what our bramins teach concerning the waters of 
 the Ganges and the cattle of Brumah. Since writing the above I have conversed with two 
 other teachers, who joined in condemning the explanation that I had heard from the former, 
 as an irreligious novelty. Concerning the ceremony of washing they agreed, that the Al- 
 mighty has attached a most essential purification of the soul to it. With respect to the 
 bread and wine, one of them told me, that these are the means by which Christ actually 
 communicates himself to his followers ; the other added, that this implies a real presence of 
 Christ, and that, in fact, by a continuation of that love which made him appear during a 
 certain number of years, in a human shape, he is truly present under the appearance of bread 
 and wine : in the same manner as, he said, the Holy Ghost and Angels had been seen in ex- 
 terior forms. Jii the discussion that took place I could not deny, that all this was possible 
 to Onmipotence, and I was forced to own that if the arguments in favour of these mysterious 
 effects were sufficiently convincing, the ceremonies to which they were attached would no 
 longer appear absurd, but on the contrary exceedingly awful." (i) P. 99. 
 
 2 I tions."
 
 2-lC LETTER VMI. 
 
 tions." (l) At the beginning of the dissertation in question, the learned 
 prelate quotes Dr. Waterland to shew, that " in general, discussions which 
 had for their object immediately to lessen the dignity and importance of the 
 Lord's Supper, were in reality designed as so many attacks upon the Di- 
 vinity of Christ." (2) The bishop proceeds to confirm this important 
 assertion; remarking, that " as the Socinians, by denying the Divinity of 
 Christ, do necessarily lo\\ er the dignity and advantages of this rite, so 
 whoever considers this rite simply as a remembrance of his death, doth, 
 in effect, deny the Divinity of Christ : For example ; the idea of the sa- 
 crifice of Christ's death, just as it is allowed or denied, decides ultimately 
 and at no great distance upon the truth of Christ's divine nature." (3) 
 In a word, Sir, the two grand mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarna- 
 tion, namely, that there is one God in three distinct and co-equal persons, 
 and that one of these persons became man and wrought our salvation 
 upon the cross, are the fundamental tenets of the Church, of England, 
 as I shall proceed to shew, and have ever been considered as the very 
 groundwork of Christianity itself: now that bishop Hoadly agreed in opi- 
 nion with his friend Dr. Clarke, the most redoubted enemy of this doc- 
 trine whom later times have produced, seems to be the notion of his 
 friends (4) no less than of his enemies, and evidently follows from the 
 nature of the commendations which he bestows upon him. (5) You also. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 (1) Sermon before the University of Oxford, Nov. 28, 1790, p. 38. 
 
 (2) Ibid, p. 3. 
 
 (3) Ibid. See also his satisfactory reasoning on this head, p. 4. 
 
 (4) See the article Hoad/j in the Supplement to the old Biographia Britannica, one part 
 of which is stated to have been drawn up by the bishop's son, the Lite chancellor of the 
 diocese. Of this the following is an extract: " From this account of Dr. Clarke, and his 
 (bishop Hoadly's) extraordinary veneration for that divine, it has been inferred, that his lord- 
 ship inclined to Dr. Clarke's doctrine concerning the Trinity ; which indeed, thou i; not 
 improbable, yet it is evident, if he did so, that he knew how to distinguish between a private 
 opinion and the doctrine of the church." — This is saying, that Hoadly ofi'ered divine wor- 
 ship to Christ as God in public, which he believed, in his own mind, to be idolatry. 
 
 (5) See Hoadly's Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Clarke, in which 
 
 be
 
 HOADLYISM. 247 
 
 Sir, as well as Hoadly, place the name of Clarke amongst those " who 
 have most excelled in establishing the great truths of recealed no less 
 than of natural religion." (i) 
 
 The following are some of the definitions and declarations of the 
 Church of England, with respect to the above mentioned mysteries, con- 
 tained in those articles and that liturgy, which are so often assented and 
 subscribed to by all her dignified and officiating clergy. "There is but one 
 God. ...And in Unity of this Godhead there be three Persons of one sub- 
 stance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 
 (2) " The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from ever- 
 lasting of the Father, very and eternal God, of one substance with the 
 Father, took man's nature. ...so that the godhead and manhood were 
 joined together in one person, whereof is one Christ, very God and very 
 Man." (3) " I believe in Jesus Christ.. ..very God of very God, being of 
 the same substance with the Father." (i) "' The Catholic faith is this, 
 that we worship one God in Trinit3% and Trinity in Unity : neither con- 
 founding the persons nor dividing the substance, &c. This is the Catholic 
 faith: which, except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." (5) 
 In confirmation of the importance attached to these fundamental articles 
 of Christianity, by the Reformers no less than by Catholics, I might 
 
 he asserts, that in this capital enemy of the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Arius of the 18th 
 century, " the world was deprived of as bright a light and as masterly a teacher of truth as 
 ever appeared amongst us ;" adding, that his greatest ambition is that his own name may go 
 down to posterity closely joined with Clarke's. 
 
 (1) P. 97. 
 
 (2) " Articles agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the 
 whole clergy, in the convocation holden at London in the year 1562, for avoiding diversity 
 of opinions, and establishing consent touching true religion." Art. i. 
 
 (3) Art. ii. (4) Nicene Creed. Com. Prayer. 
 
 (5) Athanasian Creed, ibid. N. B. In the aforesaid Articles it is decreed, that " Tlie 
 
 three creeds, Nice creed, Athanasius creed, and... Apostles creed ought to be thoroughly 
 received and believed, for they may be proved by certain warrant of holy scripture." 
 Art. viii. 
 
 2 I 2 again 
 
 «■>&_
 
 2 13 LETTER VIII, 
 
 again recount the stories of Servetus and Gentilis, of Joan Butcher and 
 Edward Wightman, and of a whole hecatomb of other Arians and Socini- 
 ans, who have been burnt to ashes in this and other Protestant countries, 
 at the instigation of the very apostles of their religion, ()) not by way of 
 expressing my approljation of these sanguinary measures, but of proving 
 how incompatible with the very name of Christian, those men held any 
 doubt or variation to be in the two great mysteries of the Trinity and the 
 Incarnation. 
 
 T have shewn what grounds there are for questioning Hoadly's ortho- 
 doxy on these points. It is true, his elevated rank in the established 
 church, the power and abilities of his antagonists, and still more, the 
 general spirit of orthodoxy that prevailed in his time, rendered him cau- 
 tious in expressing himself concerning them ; nevertheless be has spoken 
 sufficiently plain, as I have said before, to convince the learned world 
 that he agreed with Dr. Clarke in his capital tenet of Arianism. The 
 same motives. Sir, must have operated, to a certain degree, upon Dr. B. 
 and yourself; but it will be evident, by the passages which I am going to 
 quote from your printed works, now in the hands of the public, that 
 neither of you have thought it necessary to speak with quite so much 
 caution as the bishop did. 
 
 Your learned friend, Dr. B. in his -1th Charge to the Clergy of his Arch- 
 deaconry, lays down a general maxim on the subject of Mysteries, which 
 at once cuts them all up by the root, and destroys not only those of the 
 Trinity and Incarnation, but also those of the Sacraments and Original Sin 
 mentioned above, as likewise the Atonement of Christ, the Existence of 
 Grace, the Resurrection of the Flesh, the Creation of the World, and all 
 other truths of natural as well as revealed religion, however certain, which 
 are not clearly understood by us. To explain myself better, it is proper 
 
 (i) The reader will recollect, in particular, the assurances which Cranmer made to young 
 Edward VI, that it was not lawful for him to tolerate wretches like Joan Butcher, who erred 
 •concerning the mystery of the Incarnation. See pp. i23, 124. 
 
 to
 
 HOADLYISM. 2-iQ 
 
 to observe, that heretofore the divines of every coniniunion agreed in 
 pronouncing faith to be an act of the mind supernaturally aided, by which 
 we believe certain truths, precisely because God has revealed t/iem. 
 Hence thev have univcrsaily allowed that when Christ and his apostles 
 preached the truths, of the gospel to mankind, the business of the latter 
 was to attend to their credentials, and if these appeared incontestible, in 
 the miracles winch they wrought, the prophecies which they uttered, and 
 the other motives of credibility which they contained, those persons were 
 inexcusable who refused to believe the said truths, on account of their 
 being unable to comprehend them, (i) On the same ground they have 
 taught, that obscurity in the articles proposed to be believed is an es- 
 sential condition to the merit of faith; (2) that when , we see a thing by 
 the light of reason become evident, we no longer believe it, precisely be- 
 cause God has revealed it, and the understanding no longer pays its 
 proper homage to him. This, they maintain, is the reason why, accord- 
 ing to the doctrine of the apostle, (3) there will be no faith, any more than 
 hope, in the region of perfect charity ; the obscurity of faith being en- 
 lightened by vision, and hope being sm allowed up in fruition. 
 
 Let us now hear Dr. B. " It is no way essential to a mystery to be 
 ill understood : the word evidently refers to men's past ignorance, not 
 their present. In this sense the revelation of a mystery destroys the very 
 being of it. The moment it becomes an article of belief, it is mysterious 
 no longer." (4) I need add no more to prove, that Dr. B. in etFect denies 
 the whole mass of doctrines of the Church of England, quoted above from 
 her Articles and her Creeds ; because it is universally allowed that the 
 said mysteries are and must be " ill understood," as he expresses it; that 
 is to say, imperfectly comprehended : in a word, it is admitted that they 
 continue still, what they are termed, mysteries. In conformity with this 
 doctrine, our author says, in terms much fitter for a sentimental novel, 
 
 (1) See St. John, xv, 34. (3) Sec Heb. xi, i. 
 
 (3) I Cor. xiii. (4) Discourses by T. Balguy. D. D. p. 337. 
 
 than
 
 250 LETTER VIII. 
 
 than a doctrinal Charge to the Clergy of an Archdeaconry, that " True 
 religion is a practical thing : not addressed to the head, but the heart. 
 Articles of faith are of no further significance than as they direct or ani- 
 mate us in the discharge of our duty." (l) If this doctrine be accurate, 
 undoubtedly the greater part of the Articles of the Church of England's 
 Faith, not only concerning the Trinity and Incarnation, but also concern- 
 ing a great number of other points, " are of no further significance," 
 since evidently they are not of a " practical " nature, and are rather " ad- 
 dressed to the head than to the heart." The following assertions in the 
 same Charge are liable to a still heavier censure : " As far as I under- 
 stand the proposition (that we are saved by Christ) I firmly believe it.... 
 It is our business to apply God's mercy. ..to active obedience ;... not to 
 scrutinize the reasons. of the divine dispensations; not to explain the 
 mysteries of God's grace by the maxims of vain philosophy ; not to swell 
 out the slender articles of belief contained in scripture by mere human 
 inventions ; and least of all to censure and persecute our brethren, per- 
 haps for no better reason, than because their nonsense and ours wear 
 a different dress. Scripture doctrine lies in a narrow compass. It is 
 confined to a few very general propositions, which give us only just light 
 enough to direct our steps in the way to eternal happiness. They who 
 pretend to see more, see less than nothing, and mistake the illusions of 
 fancy for the objects of faith," &c. (2) This language, though expressed 
 in general terms, is very significant, and no less strongly militates against 
 the Articles and Creeds of the Church of England, as swelling out the 
 alledged " slender articles " of scripture doctrine with human inventions, 
 and dressing them out in nonsense, than it does against any other system 
 of theology whatsoever ; since the former are not less copious, diffusive, and 
 precise, at least upon the grand mysteries imder consideration, than any 
 of the latter are. 
 
 In the passage, however, M'hich I shall next quote, Dr. B. declares his 
 
 ()) P. 187. ■ (2) P. 192. 
 
 meaning
 
 lIOADLYISIvr. O^n 
 
 meaning in more plain and direct terms with >espect to the said myste- 
 ries. His words are these: " A man will have no cause to fear that he 
 believes too little, if he believes enough to make him repent and obev. 
 If we are firmly persuaded that Jesus was sent from God ; if we are 
 sincerely desirous to obey his laws, and hope for salvation in and throuoh 
 him ; it will never be laid to our charge that we have misconceived certain 
 metaphysical niceties, which have been drawn from obscure passages of 
 scripture by the magical operation of Pagan philosophy." (i) Every one 
 knows, that the Soeinians and Free-thinkers have accused the orthodox 
 Christians of learning the doctrine of the Trinity from the Pagan phi- 
 losophy of Plato ; we see plainly then, that " the metaphysical niceties," 
 here censured, mean nothing less than the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, 
 together with the 1st and 2d articles amongst the xxxix of the Church of 
 England. This is announced to one of the most considerable and re- 
 spectable portions of its clergy, in an official charge from their archdeacon, 
 and they are assured, that after all the zeal which their own church, as 
 well as every other Christian church, has manifested in defending the 
 divinity and consvibstantiality of our Lord Jesus Christ, against Arius, 
 Socinus, Servetus, Clarke, and other anti-trinitarian heretics, ancient and 
 modern, nothing more is required than to believe that Jesus was sent 
 from God, to be desirous of obeying- him, and to hope for salvation in 
 him and through him. If nothing more is required to be believed of Jesus,, 
 than that " he was sent from God," it is plain, that the Mahometans 
 have orthodox faith in Christ, no less than Christians : , for they believe 
 him to have been a true prophet sent from God : only they suppose Ma- 
 homet to have been a greater prophet. The French Theophilanthropists 
 also have inscribed the name of Jesus in their temples, together with 
 those of Confucius and Luther, as teachers divinely commissioned. But 
 it may be asked, do these Turks and French philosophers " hope for sal- 
 vation in and through Jesus ?" I answer, yes they do, as far as Dr. B. 
 
 (1) P. 178- 
 
 judges
 
 252 LETTER VIH. 
 
 judges , this to be necessmry : for he has proposed a numlDcr of schemes, 
 any of which he conceives sufficient to verify the general scripture propo- 
 sition, that C/imf is the author of eternal salvation. Amongst these 
 are the following: Christ may be said to save us either by his doctrine,-^ 
 by his example, — or " by the authority that is given him to confer par- 
 don, &c." (l) Now the very admission of Christ as a teacher divinely 
 sent, implies a certain confidence at least, in the effects of his doctrine. 
 In conclusion : it might be expected, that from the little account which 
 our celebrated prebendary makes of the speculative truths that are gene- 
 rally supposed to have been revealed in the gospel, he would have 
 expressed the greatest respect and gratitude for that most sublime and 
 perfect system of morality, which Christ brought with him from heaven, 
 and opened in his sermon on the mount. (2) But no such thing: he as- 
 sures the clergy, and the public in general, that " Revelation is nrot a 
 system of ethics ; that such a system was not wanted at the time of our 
 Saviour's appearance ; that if it had been wanted, the New Testament 
 would not have supplied the defect ; that Xenophon, Aristotle, and Cicero, 
 have left us a rule little short of perfection ; and, that what was deficient 
 in the writings of the philosophers, common sense and common utility, 
 in a great measure, supplied." (3) 
 
 I come now, Sir, to consider your own doctrine on the Christian Mys- 
 teries, upon which I had reason to expect the greater satisfaction, as you 
 have an express Discourse on this subject. Previously however to my 
 
 fi) "A man may understand and believe a general proposition who is not able to assign 
 the particular mode of it.... Thus we are, taught in scripture, that Christ is the author of eternal 
 salvation. There are who maintain that he effects our salvation by bringing us to repentance: 
 there are who contend that he makes our repentance effectual. Those who maintain the for- 
 mer may say, that he saves us by his doctrine, or by his example. ...or by the authority 
 p.iven him to confer pardon, &c....Some may doubt, whether any or all of them be in pos- 
 tsession of the truth. ...Yet take which opinion you please, it is still intelligible and true, 
 hat Christ is the author of eternal salvation." P p. 239, 240. 
 
 (2) St. Matt. V, 21, 27, 33' 38- (3) PP- 194. 195- 
 
 first
 
 IIOADLYISM, 25S 
 
 first examining this, I must inform you, I diligentl}' read over youv pre- 
 ceding Discourses on the Coming, the DeaUi, and the Resurrection of 
 Christ, in order to discover whether you any where expressed yoursch" 
 conformably to the doctrine of the established church in her articles and 
 creeds concerning the nature and dignity of the world's Redeemer. So 
 far from this, 1 every where remarked a studied distinction between God 
 and Christ, (l) It is true you term him " a divine person ;" (2) you ad- 
 mit that he " made a propitiation for the sins of the world ;" (.3) and you 
 even call him " the Son of God." (4) But all this you are aware, Sir, 
 has been said by Dr. Clarke and other Arians, ancient as well as modern, 
 who allowed the Messiah to have been the adoptive Son of God, in a 
 certain manner, but who never could stand the test of that term consiib- 
 stantial, and of those explicit creeds which the ancient Catholic Church 
 invented, and which the Chuixh of England has borrowed from her, as 
 a safeguard against the impieties in question. 
 
 Coming now to your Discourse on the Mysteries, I find the same ge- 
 neral doctrine concerning them which I have confuted in Dr. B., viz. 
 that the object of revelation is not barely to make us believe, but also 
 to make us comprehend the truths that are proposed to us. (5) The con- 
 sequence of this wrong principle is evident : We are all conscious that 
 we cannot comprehend the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation ; 
 and therefore, in your opinion, they have not been revealed to us. You 
 illustrate your svstem by giving an instance of what you conceive to 
 have been actually revealed to mankind by the inspired messengers of 
 God, viz. his own " Unity and Spiritual Nature." (6) You say, that a 
 divine revelation was necessary to make mankind imderstand these truths ; 
 and yet Dr. Clarke has demonstrated, in those works for which he is truly 
 deserving of praise, (7) that natural reason plainly and directly conducts 
 to the knowledge of these truths; and it is known to everyone, that 
 
 (i) Pp.112, 115, 117, 149. (2) Pp. 94, 121. 
 
 (3) Pp-9^, 1^4, 115- (4) I'P- 120, 122, 131. (5) P. 180. 
 
 (6) P. 181. (7) Discourses concerning the Being and Attributes of God. 
 
 2 K Socrates
 
 254 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Socioites and Plato and Cicero, and a thousand other Pagans, by the light 
 of reason alone, without any revelation at all, have attained to it. 
 
 But to return to the main question ; wh'ch is, how far you a^lmit the 
 Almighty to have revealed those fundamental articles of the Church of 
 England, and of Christianity at large, concerning the Trinity and the In- 
 carnation, that I have before quoted ? (i) This question you quickly re- 
 solve. •' The great object," you say, ".of the Jewish law was to preserve 
 amongst mankind the notion of God uncorrupt ; that lie was one God, 
 and that he was a spirit, and therefore ti vat no likeness of him could be ex- 
 pressed by any bodily representation. The Christian religion inculcates 
 on us every where the same truths. ...But if v\e carry our inquiries beyond 
 this, if we are not satisfied w"ith knowing that there is one only God, 
 and that he is a spiritual being, and would endeavour to comprehend how 
 and in what manner he exists, to form clear and adequate notions of him 
 as we do of one another, we find ourselves immediately at a loss ; and 
 if w'e expect to have what is wanting supplied by revelation, we expect 
 more than it professes to give, more than we are enabled to receive from 
 it." (2) The question is not about comprehending the nature of God, 
 and forming clear and adecjuate notions of him, (for the brightest seraphim 
 in heaven is unequal to that task) but barely to determine, whether this 
 incomprehensible being has deigned to make known to us any circum- 
 stances concerning his divine nature, and the redemption which hq has 
 wrought for us, beyond these two simple articles, that there is one God, 
 and that God is a spirit ? It is more particularly to settle, whether the 
 Articles and the three Creeds of the Church of England, in which so 
 many other particulars concerning the mysterious nature of God occur, 
 are or are not founded on revelation } You declare that revelation does 
 not supply us with any information, and that we are incapable of re- 
 ceiving any beyond those two points. After some metaphysical common- 
 place on the limited nature of the mind, you return to the same point 
 and express yourself as follows : " So impossible is it for man to have a 
 
 1) P. 247. (2) Pp. 182, 183. 
 
 perfect
 
 IIOADLTISM. 
 
 perfect knowledge of the nature of God." (No reasonable man ever 
 pretended to ha^^e a perfect knowledge of the nature of God.) " Of this, 
 if Christians had been sensible," (all well instructed Christians are J'liUy 
 sensible that an infinite being can never be comprehended or perfectly 
 known by a limited understanding) " the mysterious union of the Son and 
 Holy Spirit with the Deity," (Christianity teaches that they are the Deity 
 himself) " would never have been the subject of so much unprofitable dis- 
 pute." (l) (The Church of England does not believe it to be unprofitable 
 to defend the buhvark of Christianity against the attacks of infidels, 
 and she actually requires of you, Sir, by your assent and subscription, 
 to take part with her in this very dispute. In general men may ratio- 
 nally argue concerning what they actually know of any matter without 
 professing .to comprehend the whole of it.) " The unity of God, as it 
 stood foremost in the law of Moses, has also the same place in the gospel 
 of Christ. The gospel has received and confirmed every part of the 
 law which was applicable to mankind at large.. ..and must never be un- 
 derstood to teach any thing inconsistent with this truth, the basis of all 
 religion. But in the New Testament the Son and the Holy Ghost ava. 
 spoken of as intimately united with God the Father, and divine qualities 
 are attributed to them." (2) (Then, it seems, the scripture has supplied us 
 with some information concerning God beyond that of unity and sim- 
 plicity.) " Here then it must be allowed is a great difiiculty :" (it would 
 not be prudent to say a great //icons /5 few cy, though your minor propo- 
 sition', to correspond with your major, evidently requires the word incon- 
 sistency) " But how should it have been treated ? Would it not have been 
 better to confess that to be inexplicable, which never has been and never 
 can be explained," (the church does not attempt to explain how one God- 
 head can subsist undivided in three divine persons, she only proposes it as 
 ail article of faith to be believed on the credit of manifest revelation) 
 " than to perplex men with endless disputes, and involve the Christian 
 world in animosity and discord ?" (3) (The church does not encourage 
 
 (i) P. 186. (2) Ibid. ^^ (3) P. 187. 
 
 2 K 2 disputes
 
 052 LETTER VIII, 
 
 disputes and discord, but condemns them. She must not however, any 
 more than civil government, abandon the fundamentals of her constitu- 
 tion, and permit absolute licenLiousness and anarchy, because there are 
 pertinacious innovators who refuse to admit them.) I am sorry, Sir, to 
 be obliged to j)oint out tbc defectiveness of your logic as well as of your 
 theology. If, however, any person will read your text without my com- 
 mentary upon it, he will certainly attach this sense to your imperfect 
 syllogism : " The gospel must never be understood to teach any thing in- 
 consistent with that truth which is the basis of all religion, and stands 
 foremost in the gospel as well as in the law of INIoses, namely, the Unity 
 of God :" but the union of the three persons, as " it is spoken of in the 
 New Testament," is inconsistent with the Unity of God ; therefore the 
 gospel is not to be understood to teach it. That I offer no violence to 
 your argumentation is clear from the principles which you so often repeat,, 
 and which all your dissertation is intended to illustrate, namely, that 
 " what is revealed to men is as intelligible, and appears as evident, as 
 those things which their own inquiries could discover, and their own rea- 
 soning ascertain." (l) The plain consequence is, if the union of the three 
 persons here spoken of were revealed in the gospel, it would form no 
 ditficultv at all. In a word, you have expressly told us, that "if we 
 carry our inquiries beyond this, that there is one only God, and that he 
 is a spiritual being,. ..we expect more than revelation professes to give, 
 more than wc are enabled to receive from it." (2) 
 
 IV. A late biographer of bishop Hoadly, having mentioned his depaif- 
 ture from the doctrines of the church, expresses his " wonder upon what 
 principles he continued throughout life to profess conformity with it !" (3) 
 
 The 
 
 (I) P. 180. (2) P. 183. 
 
 (3) New Biographical Dictionary. Article Hoadly. The same author asserts very justly, 
 that the bishop's latitudinarian tenet, concerning " the sufficiency of sincerity, whatever are 
 our opinions, is fiir from being defensible on the genuine principles of Christianity." He 
 moreover relates an anecdote, which proves that archbishop Seeker was of the same opinion : 
 It is to the following effect : A person having said^ in his grace's hearing, that certain re- 
 viewers
 
 IIOADLYISM. 257 
 
 The same observation seems applicable to the disciples no less than to the 
 master. Let us. Sir, first" see what the laws civil and ecclesiastical re- 
 quire on that head, and then what the Bishop, Dr. Balguj, and yourself 
 liave published more immediately relating to it. To omit former acts of 
 parliament to tJie same effect, by the 13th Eliz. c. 12, it is enacted, that 
 " no person .shall be admitted to any benefice with cure unless he shall 
 have subscribed the articles, (l) in the presence of the ordinary, and pub- 
 licly read them in the parish church, with a declaration of his unfeigned 
 assent, &c. nor shall any person be permitted to preach, without a testi- 
 monial from the bishop of the diocese of his professing the iloctrine ex- 
 pressed in the said articles." (2) The act of Uniformit}', which is the 
 Magna Charta of the Church of England, confirms all former acts of the 
 same nature, particularly that just quoted, and enacts, that no person 
 shall be admitted as a lecturer, or be permitted to preach, &c. unless, " ia 
 the presence of the bishop, &c. he read the xxxix articles, with declara- 
 tion of his unfeigned assent to the same. ..and that every person a\ ho is 
 appointed or received as a lecturer, &c. shall, the first time he preacheth,... 
 and also upon the first lecture day of every month, openly and publicly, 
 before the congregation, declare his unfeigned assent and consent unto 
 and approbation of the book (of Common Prayer, &e.) according to the 
 form aforesaid,. ..viz. /, A. B. do here declare my unfeigned assent and 
 consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the 
 book, intituled The Book of Common Prayer,'' Sec. (3) In conformity 
 with these acts of the legislature, the Church of England has decreed as 
 follows : " Whoever shall affirm any of the xxxix articles... are super- 
 stitious or erroneous,. ..let him be excommunicated ipso facto, and not re- 
 stored but by the archbishop, after repentance and revocation of such his 
 
 viewers were Christians, the latter made answer : " if they are so, it is certainly according 
 to the Winchester system : sixiljulum usiim IVinton." 
 
 (i) Viz. the -vxxix Articles which had been pubhshcd by the Convocation of 156:. 
 
 (2) 13 Eliz.c. xii. See Collier, vol. ii, p. 519. (3) 13 and 14 Car. II, c. iv. 
 
 Wicked
 
 258 LETTER VIII. 
 
 wicked errors." (i) By a subsequent canon, made at the same time with 
 the former, all ministers are required to subscribe " willingiy and ex 
 animo, that they acknowledge all and every one of the xxxix articles to 
 be agreeable to tlie word of God." (2) 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose that bishop Hoadly satisfied his own con- 
 science, in swearing to the doctrine of the established church, (3) which 
 lie disbelieved in so many instances, by the same arguments that he made 
 use of to persuade the Dissenting ministers to concur in this measure. 
 In a word, he maintains that nothing more is required of the clergy than 
 to declare their assent and consent to the use of the Book of Cojiinton 
 Prayer, &c. whafever their opinion may be of the contents of it. (4) 
 This he endeavours to prove by a forced construction of a paiticular ex- 
 pression in the act of Uniformity, which, after all, only regarded the 
 clergy who enjoyed any ecclesiastical benefice at the time of passing 
 the act. (5) With respect to their successors, there is not so much as 
 a pretence for the evasion of assenting and consenting to the mere use 
 of the book, but it is absolutely required that they should, once every 
 month, declare their " unfeigned assent and consent unto, and approba- 
 tion of the book" itself; and " if the sermon or lecture is to be preached 
 or read in any cathedral or collegiate church, the lecturer shall openly 
 declare his assent and consent to all things contained in the said book, 
 according to the form aforesaid." (6) That form has been given above, and 
 
 (i) Canon v of the Church of England, passed in Convocation in 1603. See Gibson's 
 Codex, vol. i, p. 396. (2) Canon xxxvi. 
 
 (3) I cannot for ray own part consider a solemn profession of faith, appointed by law and 
 made in a place of worship, in any other light than as an oath. 
 
 (4) " I must enti eat you to consider, that we are commanded to confine this assent and 
 consent to the use of all things contained and prescribed in this book by the express WL.rds of 
 the act itself; and forbid plamly by it to refer the consent to the vse of all things, and the 
 assent to the truth of every proposition as plainly as we can be." See Hoadly's Reasonable- 
 ness of Conformity, part i. 
 
 (5) See the act itself, where the passage which Hoadly comments upon will be found to 
 regard only tlie " parsons, vicars, &;c. who were to read the Common Prayer, before the 
 feast of St. Bartholomew, 1662. (6) See die Act. 
 
 .suffices
 
 HOADLYISM. 259 
 
 surfices alone to refute the bishop's perversion of the particular expression 
 relerred to. Supposing, however, that nothing more were required of a 
 subscriber than barely to make use of the Book of Common Prayer, with 
 what conscience could he, for example, read the several passiiges in the 
 communion service, and teach the catechism contained in it, concerning 
 the mysterious efficacy of the sacraments, belie\'ing in his own conscience 
 at the same time, that they are mere possitive rites, productive of no 
 such etFect at all as is there ascribed to them ? And when all this is got 
 over, what will Hoadly and his disciples say to the subscription required 
 to be made unfeignedly and ex aiiuno, that " all and every one of the 
 xxxix articles are agreeable to the word of God ?" (l) 
 
 Had not my subject led me to point out certain particular instances of 
 your own, and Dr. Balguy's dissent from the doctrine of the establish- 
 ment, I might have satisfied myself with producing the passages from 
 your publications, in which this is generally expressed. It would be in- 
 consistent in me to find fault with the learned archdeacon's liberality of sen- 
 timent in regard of those who differ in opinion from himself, or from the 
 established church, some instances of which I have already quoted. (2) 
 But the question now is, how far, according to his doctrine, a man is 
 
 (i) Even Hoadly's admired friend, bishop Burnet, whose conscience was not of the most 
 delicate kind, proves, that the subscription required of the clerg)- is declaratory of " their 
 own opinion, and not a bare consent to an article of peace, or an engagement to silence and 
 submission." See Burnet's Exposition of the xxxix Articles. Introduction, p. 8. 
 
 (2) " The most unbounded freedom is the most favourable to truth. ...The reception of 
 truth, I mean religious truth, can never be prejudicial to society. ...It follows, that the fol- 
 lowers of every religion should be left at full liberty to declare their sentiments to the world, 
 and to explain the reasons on which they are founded. It follows, that opposition to the 
 established religion, if carried on by no other instruments than the tongue and the pen, 
 ouglit not to be considered as a crime. To suppose otherwise is to make all reformation im- 
 possible, it is to justify the persecutions of Christians under Pagan emperors, it ii to justify 
 the persecution of our own Protestant martyrs, and, in some instances, the inquisition itself." 
 Charge iii, pp. 224, 325...." The magistrate most certainly has no pretence of reason for 
 exempting his own form of religion from public examination, and it is impossible it ever 
 should be e.\amlned, if men are not permitted to speak and to write against it. Ibid. p. 229. 
 
 obliged
 
 2^0 LtTTER VI 11, 
 
 obliged to believe in what he solemnly assents and subscribes to? First 
 then, in the Discourses which you, Sir, so warmly commend, (] ) he insinu- 
 ates a very disrespectful, though indistinct charge against the liturgy and 
 doctrines of the church, where he asserts, that in the former, " doubtless 
 there are some things found capable of amendment, though, upon the 
 whole, we may think it lawful to use it and subscribe to it; (2) and, 
 with respect to the latter, that the clergy " are not obliged, in their dis- 
 courses from the pulpit, to explain or defend every particular doctrine set 
 forth in the articles of religion." (3) In a subsequent passage, of the same 
 Discourse, he alloy's the clergy, not only to abandon the defence of cer- 
 tain doctrines which they have solemnly assented and subscribed to, but 
 also to speak, and even to write against them, provided they do not at- 
 tack them officially and from the pulpit. His words are these : " I am far 
 trom wishing to discourage the clergy of the established church from 
 thinking for themselves, or from speaking what they think : not even 
 from writing, where the importance of the occasion may seem to de- 
 'jiand it, and where no weightier reason forbids it. I say nothing 
 against the right of private judgement : against the freedom of speech. I 
 ovXy contend, that men ought not to attack the church from those very 
 pulpits in which they were placed for her defence." (4) Our learned di- 
 vine elsewhere assigns his reason for this restriction : it is not, however, 
 such a one as at all relates to the truth or falsehood of the doctrines them- 
 selves, or to any obligation of a Christian's believing the articles and 
 creeds which he professes and signs ; but is merely grounded on prudential 
 motives and expediency. He says, " Nothing is clearer than that the 
 uniform appearance of religion is the cause of its general and easy recep- 
 tion. Destroy this amiformity, and you cannot but introduce doubt and 
 perplexity into the minds of the people. When they hear in the same 
 town, perhaps in the same church, the most irreconciieable contradiction 
 of doctrine : when they are told, suppose, in the morning, that Christ 
 
 (1) Reflect, p. 22. (2) Discourses, p. ii5. (3) P. 118. (4) P. r^o. 
 
 came
 
 HOADLYISM. 20 1 
 
 came down from heaven, that he died for the sins of the world, that he 
 has sent his holy spirit to assist and comfort us ; and are told, in the after- 
 noon, that he did not come down from heaven, that he did not die for 
 the sins of the world, that he did not send his holy spirit : what must 
 they, what can they think ? Would you have them think for themselves ? 
 Would you have them hear and decide the controversies of the learned ? 
 Would you haA'e them enter into the depths of criticism, of logic, of 
 scholastic divinity ? You might as well expect them to compute an eclipse, 
 or decide between the Cartesian and the Newtonian philosophy, &c." (i) 
 In short, he concludes that the effect of such contradictory doctrines in 
 the same religion will be to " destroy all religious principle and the state 
 itself." (2) His argumentation on this point carries conviction along with 
 it. But, Sir, give me leave to ask you, in the place of your deceased friend, 
 if such consequences are to be apprehended from the opposition of dif- 
 ferent clergymen belonging to the same communion, what may not be 
 expected when the first dignitaries of the church, such as bishops, chan- 
 cellors, archdeacons, and prebendaries, are found to contradict themselves? 
 When, in compliance with their public ministry, they inculcate, for ex- 
 ample, the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, the efficacy of the 
 Sacraments in the Articles, Creeds, and Liturgy, which they publicly read 
 and subscribe, and then, making use of the freedom of speech and writing, 
 which w^e have before heard, of, they as publicly, though not so officially^ 
 undermine all these tenets ? Can any thing have so fatal an effect on the 
 minds of the people in extinguishing every spark of religion in them, as 
 an opinion that the ministers of it do not themselves believe the doctrines 
 which they teach ? 
 
 There are other passages in our late learned prebendary's writings that con- 
 tain a general avowal of his dissent from the doctrines of the establishment, 
 (3) the chief heads of which have been pointed out above. I shall however 
 
 (I) P. 257. ^ (2) P. 258. 
 
 (3) " Non is sum qui contendam nihil esse quod corrigi possit aut fortasse deheat in ccdesul 
 *Anglkand," Concio pro gradu Doctoratus. P. 336. 
 
 2 L satisfy
 
 262 LETTER YIII. 
 
 satisfy myself with producing one more extract to this effect from his Dis- 
 courses ; which I have selected chiefly because it seems to point out the 
 principle on which he reconciled it to his conscience to subscribe them. 
 " The Articles, we will say, are not exactly what we wish them to be. 
 Some of them are expressed in doubtjid terms : others are inaccurate, 
 perhaps unphilosopJtical : others again may chance to mislead an igno- 
 rant reader into some erroneous opinion. But is there any one amongst 
 them that leads to immorality ? Is there one in the number that will 
 make us revengeful, cruel, or unjust ?" (l) If the innocency of a theo- 
 logical system, as to such effects as are here pointed out, be sufficient to 
 justify our solemnly assenting and subscribing to it, we may, I believe, 
 safely subscribe the Abracadabra of Basilides, and far the greater part 
 of the Koran of Mahomet. 
 
 Your own doctrine, Sir, on this, as on other points which I have had oc- 
 casion to examine, is. in unison with that of Dr. Balguy. This will appear 
 from the following extracts from your Letters to Bishop Lowth : " I con- 
 fess, my Lord, that our Articles appear liable to these objections ; the par- 
 ticulars of them are too numerous ; the subjects of some of them are of a 
 inost obscure and disputable hind, where it may seem unnecessary and 
 perhaps improper to go so far in defining ; on both these accounts, the 
 assent required from our clergy may appear too strict.'' (2) Give me 
 - leave. Sir, here to ask, upon what principle you pronounce that the Ar- 
 ticles are too numerous, if you do unfeignedly assent to them all as being 
 true, and " acknowledge all and every one of them to be agreeable to 
 the word of God ?" Has God then been too liberal in his revelation to 
 us ? Or is there any point which we believe him to have revealed, and 
 yet are desirous to avoid openly declaring ? To be brief. Sir, if you had 
 no difficulty in publishing that the xxxix Articles were too numerous, me- 
 
 (1) P- 293- 
 
 (a) Considerations on the Church Establishment, by John Sturges, &c. Prebendary of 
 
 Winchester, &c. p p. 27, 28. 
 
 thinks
 
 HOADLTISM. 203 
 
 thinks you ought to have mentioned how many, and which of them, you 
 were desirous of having suppressed. 
 
 You object in the second place, that " the subjects of some of them 
 (the xxxix articles) arc of a most obscure and disputable kind." We are 
 not at a loss to guess which articles those are that you particularly glance 
 at; but whichever they are, in case. Sir, you really believe that the Church 
 of England has pronounced a true decision concerning them, is it not. 
 evidently an inestimable advantage to have obscurities in matters of re- 
 ligion cleared up, and doubtful points determined ? But if you understand 
 by that expression, as your words seem to imply, that the said church has 
 declared some articles to be certain which still remain disputable and 
 doubtful, you not only accuse her of error in defining them, as she has 
 done, and cut yourself ofF from licr communion, (i) but also you pro- 
 claim the unlawfulness of your subscribing or assenting to the Articles at 
 all. For it is avowedly unjustifiable even in the ordinary communications 
 amongst mankind for any person to assert as a positive truth that which 
 he believes to be doubtful. After some prefatory compliments paid to the 
 English Reformers, you proceed to recommend that " their work should 
 be corrected and improved." (2) You then propose, as a motive for such 
 a " revision of the articles and forms" of the said church, that " the ease 
 of her own ministers m ould be consulted by it ;" (.3) which sufficiently shews 
 that you think them burdensome to the consciences of many of the said 
 ministers, as they are now subscribed to; and you conclude with rccorii- 
 mending, that in the new Reformation which you call for, " the basis 
 of the establishment should be made as broad as possible, and nothing 
 retained in the forms of public worship but, what you term, " the striking; 
 features and leading tenets of religion." (4) 
 
 I think, Sir, that I have now demonstratively vindicated that expression 
 ■which has proved so otFensive to you and to several of your friends, and has 
 
 (1) " Whoever shall affirm that any of the xxxix articles ara in ««>' part superstitious or 
 erroneous, let him be excommunicated ipso facto," 8cc. Canon v. Ecclcs. Angl. A. D. 1603. 
 
 (2) Considerations, p. 29. (3) Ibid, pp.29, 30. (4) P. 31. 
 
 2 L 2 probably
 
 204 LETTER V'lII. 
 
 probably given occasion to the present controversy, namely, that bishop 
 Hoadly has, by his doctrines, UNDERMINED THAT CHURCH OF 
 WHICHHE WAS A PRELATE, (i) Of the nature and tendency of 
 those doctrines, I can judge as well as any other divine, endowed with 
 common sense and information ; but as to the extent of their influence 
 upon the minds of others, you have opportunities of knowing this superior 
 to what I possess ; I have reason, however, to apprehend that it is great 
 indeed ; and I particularly lament that, amongst the persons infected with 
 them, should have been two of the greatest ornaments of this learned 
 city, and chief dignitaries of this venerable cathedral ; to the moderation 
 of one of whom (if the same cannot be affirmed of the other) it has been 
 owing that he did not rise to the very first rank in his profession. Never- 
 theless, it has not been so much for the sake of vindicating the expression, 
 as of refuting the system itself, and of stopping the course of the prevail- 
 ing incredulity and irreligion, which I am convinced are the natural 
 growth of it, that I have entered into the present discussion. You ob- 
 serve that I do not take the obvious advantages that I might take from 
 the doctrines of Hoadly, on one hand, and the arguments, drawn from 
 the supposed right of private judgment, by which he supports them, on 
 the other, in favour of the Catholic rule of faith and the authority of the 
 ancient church ; but I have contented myself with defending the Church 
 of England, as far as she agrees with the great body of Christians, in 
 different ages and countries, in those articles which are the indispensable 
 constituents of Christianity itself. Yes, Sir, however strange a sight it may 
 appear to those who judge in these matters hymen's dresses and situations 
 in life, I, who do not communicate with the Church of England, hav€. 
 defended it, and that not unsuccessfully, against you, who hold so dis- 
 tinguished a post in it ; and I will venture to affirm, that there is not one 
 of its great lights, in the two last centuries, who, if he were reduced to 
 the necessity of holding communion with a Catholic or a Hoadlyite, 
 
 (I) Vol. ii, p. 32. 
 
 would
 
 HOADLYISM. 265 
 
 would not prefer uniting Avith the former. Yes, Sir, if a Ridley, a 
 Jewel, a Parker, a Hooker, a Bilson, an Andrews, a Pearson, a Laud, a 
 Gunning, or a Ken, were now living to witness the new and unheard-of 
 doctrines, which I have quoted from certain late publications, and con- 
 trasted with the articles, creeds, catechism, and liturgy of the Church of 
 England, I appeal to the judgement of the learned, who are acquainted 
 with the history, the opinions, and the character of those divines, whether 
 he would not express himself to the following effect : — It is of infinitely 
 less consequence ivhetlier we should desire the saints in heaven to pray 
 for us or not, than whether we should acknowledge and worship Jesus 
 Christ as true God, consubstantial with the Father, or not. Again, he 
 would say, that ancient question, in what manner Christ is present and 
 communicates his grace to us in the sacrament f' is not at all of such 
 importance, as this new one, viz. whether he communicates any grace 
 at all, or is present there in any manner whatsoever P Finall}^, he 
 would exclaim, the business now is not so much to determine, which is 
 the true church of Christ P as to decide, whether Chjnst has any church 
 ivhdtsoever upon earth that is divinely instituted P 
 
 But, Sir, there is another point at issue between you and me concerning 
 bishop Hoadly ; I mean, the character of his political sermons and other 
 writings. You celebrate these as highly commendable ; I, on the other 
 hand, have signified that they are exceedingly pernicious and blameable. 
 We have heard in our days of the holy duty of insurrection, (l) and the 
 whole world has felt the effects of this inflammatory language : but after 
 all it is not so extraordinary in the mouths of those who are found to 
 make use of it. But to observe a Christian divine unceasingly incul- 
 cating the doctrine of resistance to lawful authority, from the pulpit and 
 the press, and proclaiming such sentiments as those quoted in the notes 
 below, (2) is hardly less extraordinary, than to hear from the same cha- 
 racter 
 
 (i) See the the harangues of Mirabeau, and other demagogues, at the commencement of 
 the French Revolution. 
 
 (2) " When the higher powers do not promote the happiness and good of human society, 
 
 they
 
 266 LETTER VIII. 
 
 racter such theological opinions as those which I have confuted. It is 
 not. Sir, that I am an advocate for the tenet of passive obedience; the 
 Catholic Church never made it an article of faith, though the Church of 
 England did. I know that cases may occur, in which it will become law- 
 ful to resist and bind a parent, or to eat another man's bread without his 
 consent ; but such doctrines are not to be preached to the people, who 
 will not want any instructions or exhortations to make use of the law of 
 self-preservation when such extreme and very rare cases occur. On the 
 contrary, it is the business of the true Chri-stian preacher to assist his 
 hearers in repressing those congenial vices of pride, ambition, and re- 
 sentment, which naturally incline them to raise themselves up against the 
 lawful authority of their superiors, and to imagine or magnify grievances, 
 to their own disturbance and that of the state. Even in the case of an 
 unavoidable revolution in government, the same public language is ne- 
 cessary, for the security of the new government. On the contrary, those 
 who arc incessantly boasting of the principles and merits of a past revo- 
 lution, are incontestibly busy in sowing the seeds of a new one. Notwith- 
 standing the evident conformity of these positions both with sound policy 
 and genuine Christianity, I find you, Sir, extolling bishop Hoadly, for 
 teaching and acting in direct opposition to them; you even boastingly 
 proclaim of him, that " civil liberty perhaps owes more to one great man 
 of the clerical profession (Hoadly) than to any other single writer of any 
 
 they cannot be said to be from God : any more than an inferior magistrate may be said to 
 act by a prince's authority, when he acts directly contrary to his will." Serm. before the 
 lord mayor, Sept. 39, 1705. " In answer to what he (Dr. Sherlock) observes, that he en- 
 dcavo\n-s to justify the legislature and the laws of liis country,...! beg leave, once for all, to 
 tell him that the whole c|uestion is, whether the laws we defend be good and just, equitable 
 and righteous, and not whctlicr they he the laws of the land or not." Common Rights of 
 Subjects, 8cc." I have .shewn that it is a prostitution of the Holy Sacrament to apply it (^by 
 virtue of the Test Act) to a difierent purpose from what the great iustitutor solemnly appro- 
 priated it."^ — In this point, viz. in endeavouring to get tfe Test Act abolished and the Dis- 
 .senters admitted to equal privileges with the Churchmen, I do not find that Dr. B. and Dr. S. 
 concur with tlielr great leader. 
 
 denomination."
 
 nOADLYISM. 2C1J 
 
 dcnoniifiation." (1) What, Sir, does this cause owe more to Hoadly than 
 it does to the delusive Loeke ? — than to the clamorous Wilkes ? — than to 
 the daring Junius ? It" this be true, how deeply guilty is this democra- 
 tical bishop in that wild uproar which has unhinged society, and carried 
 devastation round the globe ! 
 
 As the important subject just mentioned here presents itself to our view, 
 and as a great deal of foul and prejudicial misrepresentation as to the 
 real source of the calamities in question, has been industriously propa- 
 gated throughout the nation, it seems. Sir, to be an act of justice due 
 to the community at large, no less than to the immediate sufferers by 
 these falsehoods, to refute them, and to point out the real causes of those 
 evils. It has been lately asserted, in different ways, by a hundred writers, 
 chiefly of the theological (;lass, that the Catholic religion gave rise to the 
 impiety and anarchv of the French Revolution. Such a charge must ap- 
 pear strange and absolutely inconceivable to a candid reader, who is unac- 
 quainted with the malice and bigotry of the spirit which dictates it. But 
 after having, in the preceding sheets, seen the professors of this religion 
 represented as the authors of the grand Rebellion against Charles I ; after 
 having beheld them tried and put to death for plotting to murder 
 Charles II, and after having heard them accused of burning down their 
 own houses aiul chapels in the Riots of ] 780, we are prepared for the 
 charge of their being the primary cause of that anti-christian persecution, 
 of which thej' are exclusively the victims. Is it not notorious ^o the 
 whole world, that the impious and seditious contrivers of all the horrid 
 scenes which we have M^itnessed, despaired of being able to execute their 
 projects, whilst the Catholic religion prevailed in France, and whilst there 
 were Catholic priests to instruct the people in their social and religious 
 duties ? Have not those boasted patrons of toleration, for this purpose, 
 murdered more than 600 of the officiating clergy of France by the dagger 
 and the guillotine, and driven the rest out of it, to starve, as they vainly 
 hoped, in foreign lands, to the number of Go, 000 ; one-tenth part of 
 
 (i) Letters to Bishop Lowth, p. 165. 
 
 whom
 
 2^8 LETTER VIII, 
 
 whom have been hospitably and charitably received and saved by'the sove- 
 reign and people of England ? Does not the sentence of death, or of trans- 
 portation to the poisonous swamps of Guyana, stand decreed at the pre- 
 sent day, and is it not frequently executed upon such priests as are con- 
 victed of exercising the Catholic religion ? And have those apostles of 
 Deism and Atheism, paid this homage of persecution to any other system 
 of Christianity except the Catholic ? In many parts of France the Pro- 
 testants were more numerous than the Catholics ; they had ministers in 
 abundance, and the exercise of their religion was legally tolerated, pre- 
 viously to the Revolution, (l) But who has heard of any one of the 
 aforesaid ministers suffering death or exile at the hands of these enemies 
 of Christ ? So far from it, they have, in the times of their greatest distress, 
 refused so much as to take the property set apart for the support of the 
 said religion. (2) They have observed the same line of conduct in the 
 different countries which they have reduced. I do not hear of a single 
 Protestant clergyman of Geneva, Holland, or Switzerland, that has been 
 persecuted on the score of his religion ; whereas I have very good reason 
 to know, that the numerous Catholic clergy of the once happy and reli- 
 gious provinces of Brabant and Flanders are punished in the same manner 
 as those of France are, if they are convicted of practicing or administering 
 the rites of their church. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding this declared and striking opposition between th6 
 cause of Catholicism, on one hand, and that of anarchy and impiety, on the 
 other, the writers whom I have alluded to above, pretend to have discover- 
 ed the most intimate connection and alliance betv/een them. Dr. Rennell 
 exclaims : " To this superstition (the Catholic religion, which he had 
 just before termed Idolatry and Anti-christianism) it is impossible not to 
 
 (i) Viz. in 1787. 
 
 (3) It will be found, upon consulting the public papers, that within the last five or six 
 months, a motion having been made in the Convention for appropriating to the necessities of 
 the Republic, the funds in France appointed for the support of the Protestant worship, it was 
 got rid of by the order of the day. 
 
 trace
 
 UOADLTISM. 2C)iJ 
 
 trace the greatest part of what Europe now feels ami fears." (i) He next 
 asserts, that " Popery generated Atheism ;" (2) and, on a subse(|ucnt oc- 
 casion, attempts to shew, at length, that " Atheism reproduces I'operj." (3) 
 In fact, he reproaches his learned audience, at Cambridge, that none of 
 them has vet discovered from Revelation what he had ascertained from 
 " Pagan wisdom," viz. tliat " so closely are Atheism and Superstition 
 joined, that they act reciprocally, as cause and effect," upon each other.(l) 
 But not to contend with an author of such acknowledged depth and pre- 
 cision of thought on a metaphysical subject, I shall rather congratulate 
 my countrymen on the prospect which Dr. R. holds out to them of a 
 return of the reign of Superstition, now that Atheism has reached its 
 zenith ; since whatever that is, in other respects, it is acknowledged to be 
 infinitely less baleful than Atheism to the peace and safety of Europe. 
 AVith Dr. R. in sentiments antl language, on this as on every other subject, 
 agrees the anonymous note-writer in the Pursuits of Literature. (.'») Of 
 course the same observation is applicable to them both, if they should 
 prove to be separate personages. A croud of other fanatics next present 
 themselves, who seeing in the calamities of Italy and France the long 
 wished for destruction of Anti-christ and the Harlot of the Revelations, 
 are obliged, like Dr. R., to represent the same events as reciprocally cause 
 and effect to each other. What a pity it is, for the consistency of this 
 system, that the kingdom of Anti-christ should be thus exhibited as divided 
 against itself, and that his firmest supporters should be found, in such 
 numbers, laying down their lives for the name of Christ ! 
 
 A much more respectable character than any of the former, rather hints, 
 than positively affirms the fact in question, namely, that the Catholic re- 
 ligion is the cause of the French Revolution. His words are these : 
 " There is one material difference between Popery and Protestantism, 
 which I am willing to think furnishes some ground of hope, that English- 
 
 (i) Sermon at St. Paul's, notes. (2) Ibid. 
 
 (3) Sermon before the University of Camb. note 5, (4) Ibid, p. 24. 
 
 (5) Advertisement to part iv, p. 12. 
 
 2 M men
 
 2;0 ' 7.ETTER VIIT. 
 
 men can never be guilty of such enormities as have been committed in 
 France. It is amongst the maxims of Popery, by forbidding the reading 
 of the scriptures anil by performing service in an unknown tongue, to 
 keep the lower ranks in extreme ignorance : hence their minds, enslaved 
 by blind superstition, are peculiarly lial)le to receive any evil impressions.... 
 l)Ut can it be believed that persons whose minds have been. ...improved by 
 the gospel.. ..who have been accustomed to join in the devout prayers of 
 tiie liturgy. ...will ever trample on the obligations of morality and reli- 
 gion .^"(l) It is ditficult to enumerate all the falsities that are here as- 
 su.iied tor facts. It is supposed, that the common people of France were 
 less instructed in the religion which they professed, and in the general 
 morality of tiie gospel, th;in persons of the same description are at home. 
 It is supposed, that the whole collection of the inhabitants of France, and 
 particularly those who were most scrupulously attached to the tenets and 
 practices of their religion, (2) became at once " divested of the common 
 feelings of human nature, set at defiance the majesty of heaven, and 
 trampled upon morality and'religion." (3) In fact, such an idea seems to 
 be too prevalent on this side of the water. But does the heroical firmness 
 of the officiating clergy in general, of a great number of the religious 
 men, and of all the religious women, throughout France, of most of the 
 people in Poictou, Anjou, Normandy, &c. and of an innumerable multi- 
 tude of other inhabitants of France, the particulars of which are little 
 known in this country, under such a persecution as has raged in France 
 during almost ten years, favour such an idea ? There is too much reason 
 to fear, that the greater part of the people in every country profess the 
 
 (i) Sermon of the Bishop of Lincoln, quoted by Dr. Rennell. 
 
 (z) The observation here signified is a sufficient answer to the anonymous writer of a work 
 quoted by Dr. S. called Considerations addressed to the French Emigrant Bishops and Clergy, 
 In this the author attempts to shew, that the Revolution, of which they were the victims, 
 was owing to their previous strictness in requiring absolute uniformity of faith, and an exact 
 observance of a very rigid discipline of devotion and self-denial. — I answer in one word, not 
 an individual who was faithful to the precepts of his church in those particulars was after- 
 wards found to be a Jacobin. (3) Sermon, ut supr. 
 
 religion
 
 HOADLTISM. 271 
 
 religion of it more from habit than conviction. But has not the 
 number of sufferers, in the cause of Christianity and morahty, been as 
 great in France, as there is reason to expect, in similar circumstances, 
 from the inhabitants of any country whatsoever ? The middle of the last 
 century beheld similar scenes, in England to those which are now going 
 on, avowedly in imitation of them, in France, viz. a king beheaded, a 
 government overthrown, and an oppressive and cruel tyranny established 
 under the name of liberty; but I appeal to all the histories of that period, 
 whether these crimes were owing to the want of a Bible in the mother- 
 tongue, or to the opportunities which this very circumstance afforded for 
 the most ignorant and ill-disposed persons to interpret it in conformity with 
 their own passions ? How unjust would it have beei» in foreigners to judge 
 of the religion and morality of the inhabitants of this country, by the 
 conduct of the English republicans in Cromwell's time! Should God, in 
 his mercy, at length drop the scourge with which he chastises France, it 
 will be seen that he hath reserved to himself, nut barely seven thousand, 
 as in the apostacy of Israel, (l) but seven millions of people, who have 
 never bowed the knee to the Baal of Anti-christian apostacy. 
 
 Lastly, it is presumed in the passage which I have (piotcd, that no per- 
 sons except those who had been Catholics were guilty of the crimes under 
 consideration. But of what religion were Necker, Chenier, (2) Emeri, 
 La Source, Rabaud, and a great number of others who have acted the most 
 
 (i) I Kings, xix, 18. 
 
 (a) The following extract of Chenier's speech, made July 26, 1798, in the Council of 
 Five Hundred, in the name of the Committee appointed to report on the situation of Geneva, 
 seems to deserve attention on the present subject : " Hasten to determine the fate of those 
 happy regions that have always deserved well of the sciences, human reason, and philosophy ; 
 •where the liberty of writing and thinking itshired hi the dawn of 'Ripuhl'ican principles ; where 
 the 1 6th century beheld Calvin treading iu the vestiges of Luther, and breaking down some 
 steps of the papal throne ; where the 17th century saw the satellites of Emanuel discoinfitted 
 by citizen soldiers, and after tlic lapse of thirty years the downfill of the popedom ; where 
 the iiSt'n century saw Bonet starting up a rival to Newton, Jean Jaccpics Rousseau proclaim- 
 ing the code of nations, and Voltaire infusing into Europe the impulse of philosophy." See 
 the Star, for August 3, 1798. 
 
 2 M 2 distinguished
 
 272 LETTER VIII. 
 
 distinguished parts in these tragical scenes ? Of what religion v\ere the 
 men of Nismes, who, in the first year of the Revolution, fell suddenly 
 upon their Catholic fellow citizens, particularly upon the priests and reli- 
 gious, and murdered six hundred of them ? (l) They had read the Bible 
 and had heard the service performed in their vulgar tongue, yet they were 
 amongst the most determined of the democratic insurgents. Accordingly 
 the whole party had determined, in case of a defeat, to concentrate their 
 force in the neighbourhood of Nismes. (2) I have yet to take notice of 
 another celebrated writer, respectable for his rank and talents, who urges 
 the same charge against the Catholic religion, though upon ditferent 
 groun'ds." He asserts, that it would be an easy matter to shew with respect 
 to those impious philosophers of the age, who, as I agree with him, have 
 been the chief contrivers and instruments of the calamities we lament, 
 that " the superstition of the Church of Rome made them infidels." (s) 
 He then proceeds to paint the tenets of Catholics in the most injurious and 
 false, as well as the most odious and ridiculous colours ; in order to con- 
 firm this revolting assertion. Does he then really believe that it was for 
 want of being acquainted with a more rational and evangelical system of 
 Christianity than that of Catholics, that Rousseau, Voltaire, Frederic II, 
 D'Alembert, Diderot, Condorcet, with the whole tribe of infidel philoso- 
 phers of the present age, declared against the gospel and professed them- 
 selves Deists ? The supposition is too absurd to be dwelt upon : and the fact 
 is, that some of these were educated in Protestant tenets, from which, 
 like innumerable others in this country, claiming the right of private 
 judgement, they immediately launched forth into infidelity. The first 
 mentioned of these, in particular, who was by far the most able reasoner 
 as well as the most fatal enemy to Revelation amongst them, was educated 
 a Protestant, and was well acquamted with the grounds of the contro- 
 versy between the Catholic religion and his own, yet he has not hesitated 
 
 (i) See Barruel's Hist, du Clerge, p. 88. (2) Ibid, p. 87. 
 
 (3) Address to the People of England, by the Bishop of Landaff. 
 
 - to
 
 HOADLYISM, 2/3 
 
 to bear the following testimony to the arguments in favour of the former : 
 " Si j'etois Chretien, je me ferois Cathoiique demain." 
 
 Whence then, in conclusion, have these disturbers of the world princi- 
 pally borrowed those arms, with which they attack and threaten to eradicate 
 the religion of Jesus Christ ? In the cure of every malady, moral as well 
 as physical, the first grand requisite is to trace it to its original cause. 
 The necessity of this is more evident in the present case ; because it seems 
 to have been ordained in the wise counsels of Providence, that the course 
 of this wide-wasting pestilence should be chiefly stopped by efforts made 
 in that country, where its ravages were at first principally apparent. 
 Let us hear, upon this subject, the celebrated Protestant historian, 
 Mosheim, in his account of the early part of the present centurj^ : when 
 that rank seed was sown, the harvest of which we are doomed to reap. 
 He says : " There is no country in Europe, where infidelity has not exhaled 
 its poison, and scarcely any denomination of Christians, amongst whom 
 we may not find several persons, who either aim at the total extinction 
 of all religion, or at least endeavour to invalidate the authority of the 
 Christian system. But no where have these enemies of the purest reli- 
 gion, and consequently of mankind, appeared with more effrontery, than 
 under the free governments of Great Britain and the United States. In 
 England, more especially, it is no uncommon thing to meet with books, 
 in which not only the doctrines of the gospel, but also the perfections of 
 the Deity, and the solemn obligations of virtue, are called in question and 
 turned into derision." (l) With this account of the Lutheran doctor 
 agrees, as far as relates to our own country, that of a celebrated divine 
 of the Church of England, who was particularly qualified to pronounce 
 in tTiis case, from the unremitting attention and labour that he bestowed 
 •to counteract the evil which he described. His words are these : " Never 
 in any country, where Christianity is professed, were there such repeated 
 
 (i) Ecclesiatical History by J. L. Mosheim, D. D. translated by A. Maclaine, D. D. vol. 
 vi, p. 7. 
 
 attempts
 
 2/4 LETTER VIII. 
 
 attempts to subvert its divine authority (as in this) carried on, sometimes 
 under various disguises, and at other times w^ithout any disguise at all." 
 (]) But independently of these authorities, it is a fact generally known, 
 that the patriarch of philosophy, as Voltaire was called, learnt the greater 
 part of his irreligious lessons in London, and drew almost all of his ar- 
 guments against the Bible from the English infidels who preceded him. 
 Much the same may be said of many other celebrated modern philoso- 
 phers, as they are pleased to call themselves, in foreign countries. The 
 original cause of the mischief is hinted at by Mosheim, namely, that li- 
 centiousness in matters of religion, which you, Sir, so much extol under the 
 name of religious freedom ; the consequence of which is, that men refuse 
 to acknowledge any authority here upon earth, even in the assembled 
 pastors of the universal church, to explain the sense of scripture, and to 
 guide them in the service of God. From an endless diversity of opinions 
 that prevailed here in expounding the essential doctrines of the Bible, 
 many were led to question the authority of the Bible itself. The fo- 
 reigners who of late took up this fatal principle of religious liberty, uni- 
 versally carried it to all the lengths it was capable of conducting them, 
 and at once rushed into Deism or Atheism. (2) The only expedient 
 to prevent the same religious evils at home, which are witnessed abroad, 
 is to support and enforce the established Creeds and Articles that contain 
 
 (i) Leland's View of Deistical Writers. Prcf. 
 
 (2) That an txlravagant passion for civil liberty in many individuals in this country, has 
 occasioned that political licentiousness abroad which has subjugated Europe under the pre- 
 tence of setting it at liberty, is too manifest a point to require proving. Whence was that 
 chimerical and pernicious principle derived, that men are slaves unless they at the same time 
 possess sovereignty, and form the laws by which they are governed. I love the constitution 
 o our own country, and believe it to be the best adapted to our situation, but the people 
 of the Continent are by this time thoroughly sensible, tliat re];resentaL!vcs, and juries, and 
 justices of the peace, are in themselves no safeguard against tyranny, and no sufficient pledge 
 for the security of person and property : in a word, that j«i/ laws aju'ilnhly adin'inlstiTcd arc what 
 constitute the civil happiness of a state. 
 
 most
 
 HOADLYISM. 275 
 
 most of the leading articles of Christianity. How far this is generally 
 practicable and consistent with the right of private judgement claimed 
 by Luther, Calvin, Chillingworth, &c. it is not for me to explain, nor can 
 1 explain it. So far however is certain and self-evident, that the disciples 
 of Hoadly, who freely profess and subscribe those Creeds and Articles', 
 and yet make such great advances towards infidehty, as their publications 
 demonstrate, are without excuse. 
 
 I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 Having discussed the controversial charges which you have 
 exhibited to the pubHc in your REFLECTIONS ON POPERY, I proceed to the less im- 
 portant objections, which alone ought to have employed your pen, in case you were dis- 
 posed to draw it against me, namely, those wliich immediately regard my late CIVIL AND 
 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF VvTNCHESTER. But here I have to notice the 
 strictures of other critics besides yourself. They will undoubtedly expect that I should pay 
 some attention to their observations on my work ; but they cannot reasonably expect, that, 
 having a controversy of the present magnitude on my hands with a person of Dr. S.'s cha- 
 racter for learning and abilities, I shovxld separately engage with each one of them. I shall 
 therefore, Sir, continue to address myself to you, in the answers which I shall make to 
 their criticisms, as well as to your own. The remarks which you yourself. Sir, make, are 
 on every account entitled to be first considered ; but, turning as they do upon a great va- 
 riety of matter which would require ample dissertations thoroughly to unfold, consisting 
 also very frequently of loose conjectures, rather than of positive assertions, and sometimes 
 even conveying very handsome compliments to the Histor)', it will not be expected that I 
 should animadvert upon them all. I purpose however to say something on every subject 
 that you have started which I conceive will prove particularly interesting or curious to the 
 reader. 
 
 In the first place, Sir, I am surprised that, as a friend to literature and the inspired writings, 
 yoii should be inclined to dispute the merit of the late excellent Rocher du Gucrin's and 
 Bonnaud's discovery, (i) which gained them so much deserved applause throughout Europe, 
 namely, that there are certain traces of the captivity of the Hebrew people amongst the 
 Egyptians, amidst the heterogeneous particulars whlcii the father of history, as Herodotus 
 is called, has gleaned up concerning that ancient people. I need not observe, what a strong 
 argument for the veracity of the sacred writings this discovery furnishes, if it is admitted 
 to be well founded. Some traditionary records of the state of innocence, the creation, the 
 deluge, the ark, and other particulars related in the book of Genesis, have been discovered 
 amongst pagans and barbarians in most ages and countrisB : no wonder then that more cir- 
 cumstances of the same history should have been preserved zaoo years ago in the country 
 
 (1) Postscript to the Reflections, p. 113. N. B. I do not subscribe to these authors' problematical 
 
 conjectures concerning the siege of Troy, though I certainly do to their clear discoveries concerning the 
 
 ancient Egyptian history. 
 
 3 N where
 
 378 APPENDIX. 
 
 where Moses and Ills people sojourned for so long a time. The strongest argument how- 
 ever in favour of the curious work which I have particularly referred to, (i) is, that many 
 circumstances of the Egyptian dynasties related by Herodotus are ptrfcctly iin'inrcHigible 
 and mere nonsense without the key that Bonnaud applies to them from the Bible; which, 
 with the help of it, form the clearest sense. 
 
 The object of your second criticism is to take away fi^om the late History of Winchester 
 tlie credit of first pointing out the relics of Druldical worship, that abound in and near it. 
 The merit of this discovery however I am not disposed to surrender to you, without better 
 arguments than you have brought against it. You assert, that huge sand-stones, similar 
 to those which I have called Into public notice, are to be found on the sea-shore opposite 
 to the Isle of Wight, between high and low water mark. (2) Supposing this to be the case, 
 and tliat our huge stones were fetched from the sea-shore, instead of the nelghbomhood 
 of Frimley, the question still remains, for what purpose were they conveyed hither, a journey 
 of 25 miles, before hard roads were made ? For you yourself are unable to discover any, 
 in their natural situation, at a less distance. They are evidently useless, as I have observed, 
 for carving or for building ; hence they are generally found lying ryeglected by the sides of 
 streets and roads. And yet they must have once answered some important purpose, to repay 
 the toll and expence of transporting them. They could serve no such purpose that we can 
 discover to the Normans, the Danes, the Saxons, or the Romans ; whereas we know for 
 certain, that the ancient Britons made use of the very same kind of stones, both as to ma- 
 terial and shape, for their temples and altars, and that they were accustomed to convey them 
 from distant situations for these purposes. (3) This is so well ascertained, that it would be 
 a just matter of surprise If in an ancient British city, of the Importance of Caer Gwent, no 
 remains of Druldical temples or altars were to be found. Such were the arguments on vi^hich 
 I grounded my theory concerning the Druldical relics that I had discovered. Rather how- 
 ever than allow the antiquary's merit, you call upon the naturalist to assign a cause for the 
 appearance of these stones in their present situations. Do you then seriously mean that 
 they were rolled by an earthquake, or shot by a volcano, from the sea-shore or from Frimley- 
 heath, to our ancient city, instead of being conveyed by human labour and art ? If so, you 
 will, on the sai-»ie principle, readily account for the structure of Stonehenge by a natural 
 cause ; and It will henceforward be Idle for the antiquary to enquire at what period, or for 
 what purposes, or by what mechanism, that stupendous work was executed. 
 
 The narration of the martyrdom of St. Ursula and her 11,000 companions, (4) is not con- 
 nected with the truth of any religious system that I am aware of; nevertheless, after all the 
 
 (1) HiSTOBV, vol. i, p.2. (2) p. 113. 
 
 (3) No such stones as those of which Stonehenge is composed arc to be found hi their natural situations 
 widiin fifteen or twenty miles of diat place. 
 
 (4) The JVIartyrology only commemorates St. Ursula and her companions, without determining any 
 number of tliem. But the circumstances of their histoiy, according to the best accounts we have received 
 '^f it, renders it by no means unlikely diat they might amount to the number therein mentioned. 
 
 ridicule
 
 HISTORY OF WINCHESTER. 27(^ 
 
 ridicule that you and other writers have thrown upon it, I should be glad to know, pre^ 
 cisoly on what ground you pronounce that " it exceeds the bounds of legendary exagge- 
 ration." (i) All history, profane as well as ecclesiastical, assures us, that this island was, 
 about the time assigned for the tragedy in question, twice stripped of all its young men 
 capable of bearing arms, who never returned back, to it, but settled in the province of Bre- 
 tagne, where their descendants retain the British language to the present day. In such cir- 
 cumstances, was it unlikely that these young men should wish to have wives from their own 
 country ? Was it unlikely that a proportionable number of young women could l^e found 
 to accept of their honourable proposals ? Was it unlikely that a fleet of" transjiorts bound 
 down the channel, might be driven up it by strong westerly winds upon the coast of Hol- 
 land ? Or finally, was it unlikely that Christian virgins, betrothed to youths of their own 
 religion and country, should prefer death at the hands of a band of Pagan pirates to their 
 adulterous embraces ? I am sorry. Sir, you should form so bad an opinion of the virtue and 
 heroism of the sex, to which elsewhere you have expressed so strong an attachment. 
 
 My mentioning that the untimely death of William Rufus in the New Forest was considered 
 by cotemporary historians, as a mark of divine vengeance on the family of the Conqueror, 
 who depopulated that district, occasions you to reproach Catholics, in the words of the irreli- 
 gious Father Paul, with their credulity in ascribing the untimely ends of the famous Reformers 
 Zuinglius and Q^colompadius to the justice of Providence. (2) Whatever Catholics might 
 think of these events, it is certain that the tragical death of the former, on the field of battle, 
 fighting sword in hand for his religion, was a great subject of scandal amongst Protestants ; 
 and that the sudden death of the latter is positively ascribed, by the patriarch Luther, (who 
 afterwards himself met with the same fate) to the immediate operation of the devil. (3) 
 
 I am glad you admit the ecclesiastical historian Collier to have been an able man, and 
 still more so, that you have not found any cause to impeach his veracity. (4) This being 
 the case, how idle is it in you to ascribe the use which I have made of his authority, to 
 a partiality for him, in consequence of his having been a Nonjuror ! 
 
 To your correction I bow with due submission, where you remind me, that Edward IV 
 was not the srj7i, but the grandioji of the earl of Cambridge, who was beheaded at South- 
 ampton. I cannot however agree with you. Sir, in admitting Edward's claim to the crown 
 to have been superior to that of Henry VI, after the father and the grandfather of the latter 
 had enjoyed the quiet and undisputed possession of it for so many years, and had even re- 
 ceived the homage of Edward himself and of his progenitors. 
 
 You now. Sir, conduct me into a wide field of architectural criticism, in v> nich however 
 I find very little said by you that afliscts my positions on the same subject ; except your 
 concluding lines, in which you "^ay, that " Wherever Lowth or Warton are Boncerned, Mr. 
 M. is a very willing critic." (5) To shew how far this is from the truth, I beg leave to refer 
 
 (1) p. 113. (2) P. 114. (3) De Unct. & Miss. Privat. torn. vii. 
 
 (4) P. 114. (5) P. 116. 
 
 to
 
 a^O APPENDIX. 
 
 to the preflices of both my volumes, in which I explicitly state my opinion concerning the 
 high and just character of those writers, as likewise to the passages themselves in whicli 
 I am obliged to correct their oversights. It will be found that this is always done with 
 the respect that is due to literary men of the first rank. You begin with admitting the 
 justice of my censure both upon Warton's account of the supposed Saxon architecture of the 
 east end of the cathedral, and upon Lowth's theory which supposes it to be of Norman 
 workmanship. As to what you afterwards urge at great length in defence of the last men- 
 tioned writer, who was your particular friend, I cannot perceive that you have disproved 
 a single point in v/hicli I differ from him. If you think otherwise, I am content that the 
 intelligent reader' should form his judgement from the pieces that have been already pub- 
 lished, and from his actual survey of the edifice, without adding another word on my part. 
 These pieces are bishop Lowth's celebrated account of Wykeham's architecture- in the 
 cathedral; (i) my remarks on this account, m The History and Survey of IVinchester ; {z) and 
 your commentary on tlie former, in The Reflections. (3) By way however of illustrating my 
 leading notion, viz. that a great deal more of the Norman prelate Walkclin's original work was 
 left standing and incorporated with the new work of Edington and Wykeham, than Lowth 
 supposes, and by way of shewing in what manner the Saxon architecture of our churches 
 was very frequently transformed into the Pointed, or Gothic, I must refer you and other ar- 
 chitectural virtuosi to the grand conventual churches of St. Alban in the town of that name, 
 and to Rumsey church in this county. In both of these, you- will see the operation in 
 question begun without being finished, some of the Saxon pillars being cased in clusters, 
 and some of the round arches being contracted to a point, in what is calletl the Gothic style, 
 whilst others are left in their original simplicity. 
 
 To your own observations on the architecture and original disposition of our cathedral, 
 you add the favourite system of the respectable Dr. Warton, and his learned brother, the 
 laureate, which I have heard them descant upon, with the greatest eloquence, on the spot 
 itself. Their idea was, that the high altar originally stood close to the wall, directly under 
 the great east window, before bishop Fox erected the present altar-screen at a certain distance 
 from it, in order to leave sufficient space for his own mortuary chapel, with the other 
 two chapels adjoining to it. They were also of opinion, that the choir extended no farther 
 in a westward direction, than to the line of the eastern walls of the .transepts. It is true, I 
 so far meet their ideas as to grant, that the present extent of the choir westward is a defect. 
 This defect however unavoidably arose from the circumstance of the church having been 
 built by piece-meal at different periods. For it was necessary to make the choir large enough, 
 on one hand, for a community of 60 or 70 monks, besides chaplains, novices, and choristers; 
 and, on the other, it was impossible to remove the altar-screen to a sufficient distance east- 
 ward, without destroying a considerable part of the venerable old church, built, for the last 
 
 (1) It is quoted at lengtli in all the former Histories, Descriptions, and Guides of Winchester. 
 
 (2) Vol.ii, 5. 16. (3) Pp. U5, 116. 
 
 time
 
 HISTORY OF WINCHESTEn. 281 
 
 time, by bishop Dc Lucy. Such a uu asure was still more improper in Fox's time than it had 
 been before, in consequence of the magnificent chantries of his predecessors, Beaufort; and 
 Waynflete, that had been erected there. In a word, I deny, Sir, that there is any proof 
 or the smallest probability, that the choir, including the presbytery and altar, reached further 
 towards the east before Fox's time than it did afterwards. Certain it is, that the intermediate 
 chapels, between the altar-screen and the great east window, existed in Beaufort's time, 
 w^hen Thomas Rudborne wrote his Htstoria Major, that is to say, 70 years before Fox's alte- 
 rations, (il no less than they did afterwards. One observation which incidentally falls from 
 you on the present subject, and which seems to be amongst those for which you own 
 yourself indebted to the respectable gentlemen named above, I do wosit .emphatically protest 
 against. You say, that ■'■' in many churches the view from the choir is carried on, through 
 the arches and pillars behind, in a perspective which has a very beautiful effect. (2) This 
 alludes to the practice of the half-learned Gothic architects of the present day, in levelling 
 the altars and altar-gcreens, jand introducing the low disproportioned arches and slender pil- 
 lars of the Lady chapel into the grand view of the nave, thus destroying the proper effect 
 of them both ; as is the case in Salisbury cathedral. I have deniQUstrated, in an express 
 Dissertation on this subject, that the practice in question is as contrary to the rules of the 
 Beautiful and Sublime, asilaid.down by the great Burke, as it is to the original and proper dis- 
 position of a cathedral, to the rubrics of the Church of England, to the interests of science, 
 
 and to the sacred rights of the dead. (?) 
 
 With 
 
 (1) Vol. ii, p. 5-. (2) P. Uy. 
 
 (3) A Dissertation on the modern Style of altering ancient Cathedrals, as it is ex- 
 emplified in the Cathedral. of Salisbury, 4to. Nichols, Robbins, and Coghlan. 
 
 As the present matter in debate regards die internal beauty gif a Gothic cathedral, I take tliis oppor- 
 timity of pointing out one of the most barbarous devastations and grossest violations pf miiformity ot 
 style any where to be met with ; which is annually gaining ground in our venerable cathedral, and which, 
 if not stopped, threatens tlie destruction of all its appropriate decorations. To enable a person at a 
 distance to form a clear idea of the barbarism in question, it is necessary to paint to his imagination the 
 massive cluster columns, in die cejitre of WykeJiam's magnificent work, like the tnmks of huge trees in 
 a grand visto, shooting out their main branches to form die gi;and arches of the nave, and thence 
 towering up to a vast height, ramifying into the various intersections of the vaulted ceiling. Corresponding 
 with tliose branches, but in a difterent direction, are boughs, which meeting in a point with other boughs 
 diat grow from a series of smaller cluster columns on the opposite sides, form the enchanting perspective 
 of die long-drawn side isles. The intercolumnations of die nave are of course open ; those of die side isles 
 form the principal windows, down to within about 15 feet, by computation, of the pavement. These 
 .spaces have been decorated by the taste and skill of Wykcham with cinque- foil arches and mouldings, 
 exactly corresponding witii the muUions of the windows, and being in fact a continuation of them down 
 to the ground. Thus the whole main body of the church, as it came from the liands of its last immortal 
 founder, was uniformly ornamented, with a tasteful elegance tiiat hardly admitted of any addition, and 
 with a chaste simplicity that certainly allowed of no diminution. Now what has been done in our times 
 .and under our own eyes, not in consequence of poverty, but of profiasion and by way of ornament ? 
 
 2 That
 
 a8a APPENDIX. 
 
 With respect to Mr. Thomas Warton's "elaborate and curious MS. Essay on the Lady 
 Chapel in our Cathedral ;" in case he there asserts, according to your intimation, (i) that 
 Philip and Mary were married at the high altar, and not in the said chapel, in opposition 
 to local tradition, I shall not contest the point with him, but only observe, that he himself 
 has said directly the contrary in his printed work. (2) I hope, Sir, you will have interest 
 enough to procure that this Essay may be communicated to the public, and that in the per- 
 fect state in which the author left it. One thing is certain, that the discoveries which I 
 had the good fortune to make in that chapel, by explaining the curious paintings on the 
 walls, (3) which had never before been attempted, were highly applauded by that worthy 
 antiquary, and first procured me the honour of his acquaintarice. 
 
 In speaking of Barton farm, near St. Cross, I observe, that it was formerly called De la 
 Bcrton. This derivation you find fault with, and endeavour to disprove. Nevertheless it 
 is certain, that in the assertion which I made I was guided by no less an authority than that 
 of William of Wykeham, who in some of his deeds calls it by that name. 
 
 Happily there is but one point of religious controversy that occurs in your whole Post- 
 script. Bishop Lowth having occasion to remark the extraordinary solicitude which his 
 
 That beautiful arch-work just mentioned, which is so necessary for the perfection of the plan above de- 
 scribed, has in most of die intercolumnations of the isles been wholly covered over with screens of dead- 
 white stone-work, without the smallest decoration whatsoever, or they have been disfigured and blocked 
 up with heavy insidebuttressesof tlie same material and colour, and equally unornamented. This has been 
 done, in both instances, merely to support a marble tablet wish an urn, or some other smaller ornaments, 
 which could have been fixed against the wall, without, at least, so great a demolition of the original deco- 
 rations as the aforesaid screens and bvittresses occasion. In fact it will be found, that die few tablets, or 
 other mural monuments of a small size, which were placed in the cathedral during the last century and the 
 early part of this, have been fixed in the above-mentioned manner. But why should not all monuments be 
 constructed in the style of tlie edifice in which they are placed ? Any person, moderately skilled in the 
 Pointed or Gothic architecture, would show how a monument of any dimensions whatsoever, from a simple 
 sliield to a gorgeous mausoleum, might be so constructed as not to disfigure, but rather to decorate an 
 ancient cathedral. Would it be too much to require of the opulent relatives of distinguished personages 
 who are desirous of placing memorials of their friends in such a place, that they should not injure the 
 uniformity of its style and ornament .' On the other hand, how inconsistent is it in persons, who every 
 Jay point out to their friend* the incongruity of Inigo Jones's elegant Corinthian screen at the entrance of 
 the choir, at the same time to countenance those barbarisms that are year after year taking place in the side 
 isles .' I have been chiefly moved to make this representation by observing, that since I published my His- 
 tory, the system here reprobated has been carried from Wykcham's part of the cathedral into that of De 
 Lucy ; where one of those hideous buttresses is built up, near Beaufort's unparalleled chantry, in order to 
 support a mural tablet to the memory of Dr. Turner, and has thereby buried a part of that beautiful series 
 of projecting columns and trefoil arches, which ornament that part of the cathedral on both sides of it and 
 afford a beautiful species of the early Gothic. 
 
 (1) P, 113. (2) Description of Winchester, &c. p. 77. 
 
 (3) See Monuments of Ancjent Sculpture aiid Painting, by John Carter, Architect, vol.* 
 
 pious
 
 HISTORV or WINCHESTER. 283 
 
 pious founder Wykeham expressed to have prayers offered up after his death for tlie repose 
 of his soul, launches out into a dissertation in order to explain the origin of the practice of 
 praying for the dead, in which he asserts, though without the shadow of any proof or 
 authority, that the idea of the utility of such prayers arose from the ignorance of the 
 people, in observing that prayers generally accompanied funerals, (i) In opposition to this 
 chimerical hypothesis, I referred to the most illustrious bishops and fathers of the church in 
 the fourth, fifth, and following ages, who expressed the strongest conviction of the benefit 
 of this practice to Christians dying in a state of imperfect justice. Some of them even trace 
 this practice and opinion up to the apostles themselves. (2) By way of answering this 
 argument, you deny that the authority of an Ambrose, an Augustin, a Chrysostom, and 
 a Bede, is " sufficient to justify this practice." (3) But, Sir, you will please to observe 
 that the question at present is not about justifying the practice, but about accounting for its ori- 
 gin. The determination of this point depends upon deciding whether bishop Lowth in the 
 18th century, or the above mentioned primitive fathers of the church, are best qualified to 
 pronounce upon the true origin of a religious practice of Christianity that subsisted in their 
 times. How necessary. Sir, is the science of logic amongst literary disputants ! Yet how 
 much neglected is it by them at the present day ! 
 
 I shall now reply to your complaint concerning the injury which I am supposed to have 
 done to the memory of the lafp. Rev. Mr. Wavell, the friend and predecessor in office of 
 the gentleman to whom you have inscribed your Reflections. The accusation against 
 me is, that I have, in my late History of Winchester, mentioned uniformly a former ano- 
 nymous History of the same place, in two small volumes, as the work of Mr. Wavell ; and 
 the most ridiculous as well as invidious causes are assigned for my ascribing a work full of 
 errors to him. You signify that my prejudice against him may be accounted for from his 
 being described in his epitaph as " a searcher into true religion, unadulterated with the 
 commentaries of men," and from the circumstance of " bishop Hoadly having been his pa- 
 tron." (4) The fact however is, that I never knew any thing of the deceased, or of his epi- 
 taph, except what you and your correspondent were pleased to communicate, nor have I to 
 the present day lieard any thing of his studies or his writings, except that he was the author 
 of the aforesaid History, which, I will venture to say, was the general opinion in this city 
 until of late. So fully convinced was I of this being a fact, that six or seven years ago, at 
 a time when I had never examined into the merits of the work, a question having been 
 proposed in The Gentlonan's Magazine, whether the late Mr. Porter of this city were not the 
 author of it ; I myself returned an answer in the negative, asserting that it was the com- 
 position of the late Rev. Mr. Wavell. The said query and my answer to it will be found in 
 looking a few years back into that Miscellany. Let me here ask, why you or some other 
 friend of the deceased did not contradict that assertion when I first published it in the 
 manner that I have related, or even inform me then of my mistake as you have done since? 
 
 (1) Life of Wykeham, p. 250. (2^ Vol.ii, p. 27. (3) P. II7. (1) P- lO/- 
 
 Til .
 
 a8,4 APPENDIX. 
 
 The fact. Sir, is, t6 have been considered as the author of the work in question was thought 
 no disgrace to Mr. Wavell or to any one else, (for it held an honourable place in libraries, and 
 a high price in booksellers' catalogues) until my late History and Survey detected and 
 exposed part of its gross errors and contradictions. If you wish to know why I generally quoted 
 that faulty work rather under the name of IVavelVs History, than as The History of Winchester, 
 I beg leave to assure you, that it was merely for the relief of the reader's memory, who 
 might not be able to distinguish in his own mind the several publications tliat have taken 
 place on the same subject, by their titles, viz. The Description of IVincbestcr, — The Antiquities 
 vf Winchester Cathedral,-^— The History of the Antiquities of Winchester, — The Wiyichcster Guide, 
 Sec. For the same reason, you will find, that I always quote the names of Gale and Warton, 
 rather than the titles of their aforesaid works, when I have occasion to refer to them. No 
 sooner, however, did your correspondent assure me, by a private letter, that to his certain 
 knowledge Mr. Wavell wrote no more of the faulty History than the account of Magdalen 
 Hospital, in the ad part of it, consisting of 55 pages, than I inserted in the Preface to my 
 vol. II, which was the only part of it not then printed, an extract from that gentleman's 
 letter, and a formal retractation of assertions and suppositions which I had made to the 
 above-mentioned purport, (i) And do you ciill'this " a cold and reluctant deed, and a vetvy 
 'poor amends to Mr. Wavell ?" (2) I am sorry to meet with so little candour from you in a 
 transaction, of which you as an experienced writer are so well qualified to judge. In the- 
 mean time, Sir, to convince you, your correspondent, and thcipublic in general, how little 
 disposed I was maliciovisly to injure the posthumous fame of the late Rector of St. Maurice's, 
 I now find it necessary to assure you, that the very account of Magdalen Hospital, which 
 •you allow to have been written by him, (3) and which you describe as being " authentic 
 to the utmost minuteness," (4) besides being intoUerably dull, contains some very gross 
 errors, which prove the writer to have been a very ill-informed antiquary. This I have 
 never before hinted, but I pledge myself to pro\'e it, if you or your correspondent choose 
 openly to contest the'point with me. 
 
 I proceed, in the next place, to notice the work which the Rev. Dr. Hoadly Ashe has done 
 me the honour to address to me, (5) in vindication of the bishop, " whose name his present 
 
 (1) Vol. ii, Pref. p. 2. (2) P. 106. 
 
 (3) I' am bound to believe that he wrote no more than the said 55 pages, because Mr. N, positively says 
 fhat he wrote no more, and yet some one person, tho' without a name, stands forward in tlie Dedication 
 as author of the whole ; and, by all that I can learn, Mr. Wavell was the man, who applied to the late 
 Mr. Duthy for the use of the Trussel MSS. which are appealed to in various parts of the work. 
 
 (4) P. 106. 
 
 (5) A LetUr to the Rev. John Milner, M. A. F. S. .L Aullmr of the Civil and Ecclesiastical History of 
 Winchester, occasioned hij liis false and illiberal aspersions on the memonj and writings of Dr. Benja- 
 min Hoadly, Bishop if IVinchcster, hij Robert Hoadly Ashe, D.D. 
 
 Majesty
 
 HISTORY OF WINCHESTER. 28^' 
 
 Majesty, hy a particular indulgence, allowed him to prefix tp his own." (i) In a word. Sir, 
 whatever the degree of connection may be between the present writer and the deceased pre- 
 late, I applaud tlie sentiments of respect and gratitude which prompt him, as they have 
 done you, to stand forth in that prelate's defence ; and I sincerely wish that it were lawful 
 in me to gratify them by disavowing my charges against a character, which I sincerely 
 believe to have been greatly instrumental in exciting that spirit of civil and religious licen- 
 tiousness which is so exceedingly dangerous at the present time. The first part of Dr. H. 
 A.'s letter consists of objections to what I have advanced on the subject of the bishop's mo- 
 nument. These, as far as they consist of arguments, and agree with what you. Sir, have 
 said with more conciseness on the same subject, I mean to reply to ; for I shall not follow 
 liim through all the flights of fancy in which he indulges his poetical genius on the present 
 occasion. The latter part of the pamphlet, consisting of an attempt to vindicate the bishop's 
 theological system, I shall certainly not attempt to answer, as we do not agree together even 
 in the use of professional terms. After all, I think that Dr. H. A. will not be offended (he 
 most assuredly has no reason as a friend to bishop H.) that I should prefer discussing that 
 important matter with you, rather than with himself. 
 
 I am not to be iitiposed upon, nor do I think the public will be imposed upon to believe 
 that the violent outcry which has been raised against me on the subject of bishop Hoadly's mo- 
 nument in the cathedral, has been occasioned merely by my observations on the obvious in- 
 congruity of the emblems with which it is charged, or on the excavation of one of the main 
 columns of that sacred edifice, that has taken place in order to receive it. No, Sir ; it is the 
 allusion which I have made to that other kind of " undermining the church of which he was 
 a prelate," by degrading her asserted prerogatives, jurisdiction, doctrine, and sacraments, 
 that excites so great a ferment in this ecclesiastical city. However, as very acrimonious ac- 
 cusations have been brought against me on the subject of the monument itself, I must answer 
 them in the best manner I can. The first, or at least the most important, question relative to 
 the present subject is, whether or no the placing of the monument in its present situation Jias 
 in any degree weakened the great cluster-column in which it is inserted ? If the affirmative 
 of this question is proved to be true, T shall be satisfied with the decision of every reader 
 of candour and taste on the propriety ot the expressions in my History, as far as relates 
 to the monument ; namely, " that the column against which the monument is placed has 
 been cut away to a considerable depth, evidently to the weakening of the whole fabric ; and 
 that thus it may be said with truth of Dr. Hoadly, that living and dying he undermined the 
 church of which he was a prelate." (2) I shall therefore leave Dr. H. A. in possession of 
 whatever advantages he can derive from the sagacious queries : How a dead man can be 
 *said to undermine a pillar ? and how, in particular, this can be true in the present instance, 
 since the prelate's remains are not close to the monument and the pillar, but at a certain dis- 
 tance from them ? (3) On the same principle. Sir, I do not think that it is of the least con- 
 
 (1) Dr. H. A.'s Letter, p. 31. (2) Vol. ii, p. 32. (3) Letter, p. 29. 
 
 g P se(juence
 
 a86 APPKNDIX. 
 
 sequence to determiixe, whether the monument was inserted in the pillar by the bishop\ 
 friends at the time of his decease, or by the dean and chapter at a subsequent period, on 
 which business you spend so many words. The only questions regarding the present con- 
 troversy are the two following : Has one of the main^columns of the church been cut into 
 in order to make room for bishop Hoadly's monument ? Has that cutting away in any de- 
 gree weakened the column and the church ? Vou yourself, Sir, positively say, " the pillar 
 was not cut away, but the monument placed against it ;" and yet it is obvious to every 
 spectator, that it has been " cut away to a considerable depth," as I expressed it in my 
 History, (i) Dr. H. A., with all his circumlocutions, must say the same, or else he 
 says nothing by way of disproving my assertion. Unfortunately, however, the very tes- 
 timony of the professional man, Mr. S. Walldin, stone-mason of the cathedral, which Dr. 
 H. A. has taken the pains to procure, clearly confutes his. and your assertion, and confirms 
 mine. He positively says, " the pillar against which the monument is erected, ...was evi- 
 dently cut aixmy for the purpose .'" (a) The first question being thus determined, I think the 
 second will not bear diSpnting upon ; namely, whether the cutting away of the pillar at the 
 bottom of it, has weakened it, and thereby, in a certain degree, undermined the church, 
 which it so materially contributes to support ? It is true. Dr. H. A., by a similar artifice in 
 altering my expression with that which I have just now detected in yourself, charges me 
 with asserting, that " the monument has endangered the whole fabric ; whereas what I said 
 was, that it has been " cut away, to the iveakening of the whole fabric." (3) The question 
 is (evidently not about the degree in which the column has been weakened, but simply, whe- 
 ther it has haen lueakened at all ? However, I have no objection to hear the remaining 
 part of Mr.Walldin's report on the subject referred to him. He says, " Although the pillar 
 was evidently cut away for the purpose, (that of receiving the monument) yet I cannot per- 
 ceive the smallest appearance of its having sustained any injury." You will please to ob- 
 serve, that he does not deny the pillar to have suffered any injury, but only that he cannot 
 perceive any appearance of the injury at the present day. He probably thinks that there is 
 no danger to the cathedral from this circumstance for a century or two to come, which is a 
 period far beyond what modern architects extend their calculations. He goes on to give us the 
 dimensions of the pillar. " The diameter," he says, " I found to be 10 feet 4 inches, the girt 
 or circumference I imagine to have been, before cut away, 30 feet 8 inche?." The most im- 
 portant point for him to have ascertained would evidently have been, the quantity of the 
 column that has been actually cut away ; but to this point he declines speaking at all, be- 
 
 (1) P. 101. — It is an evident proof of a desperate cause, when a writer of Dr. S.'s reputation is forced 
 to mis-state the assertion of his antagonist, in order to combat it. In tlie words above quoted he repre* 
 seiited me as affirming, in an unqualified manner, that " the pillar was cut away," that is to say, cui 
 <]Uite away, wliereas what I wrote was, that " it has been cut away to a considerable depth." 
 
 (2) P. 28. 
 
 (3) " How is it possible for a little monument, &c. to endanger the whole fabric ? Wheil a grave 
 
 historian writes thus^ I cannot believe that he is serious." P. 29. 
 
 cause.
 
 HISTORJ OF W.I.NCHESTER. S^J 
 
 cause, as he intimates, he cannot speak witli absolute precision. In the mean time. Sir, for 
 want of a more authentic report on this business, I will venture to say, that the bottom 
 part of a three-quarters circular shaft", of from lo inches to a foot in diameter, is removed ; 
 whicli shaft now terminates innuedlatcly above tlic monument in a modern corbel. In the 
 next place, there is a mass, of about five feet in its greatest length and of about two feet in it# 
 greatest depth, hewed out of the main cluster-column, part of which cavity is now occupied 
 by bishop Iloadly's elegant, but unsubstantial monument, (i) It is clear. Sir, that Dr. II. A. 
 has still more weakened his own cause, by setting on foot the present inquiry, than even the 
 pillar is weakened by the prelate's "monument. 
 
 Amongst the en)blenis carved on the monument that I found fault with, were the demo- 
 cratic pike and cap of liberty, as being very improperly associated and placed in saltire with 
 the pastoral erosl'er. In return, you deny that any pike is there represented ; (2) and Dr. 
 H. A. maintains, that what I call a, ^i^t-, is nothing but a a'(7?iJ, asserting, on the authority 
 of Spence, that the Roman Goddess of Liberty is always characterised by a wand ; though 
 he admits that the Gallic Liberty wears a pike. (3) The fact is, the former is sometimes 
 found upon coins with a wand, sotuetimes with a spear, and sometimes with two poniards. 
 As to the proper name of the instrument that supports the cap in the present instance, 
 a spectator will certainly pronounce of it by its appearance; and since the part which is 
 
 exposed 
 
 (1) The part of the excavated pillar which overhangs the monument, witliout tlie appearance even of 
 aay support, I judge to be in depdi, including the above-mentioned shaft, from 15 to 18 inches. 
 
 (2) P. 101. 
 
 (3) P. 41. — ^The mention of tlje pike on bishop Iloadly's tomb causes Dr. H. A. to forget all his 
 manners and iill his Christianity. In the spirit of Dr. Rennell on the same subject, he describes tlie 
 deluded Irish Insurgents as " kissing the consecrated pikes, which," he says, " they are bound to plunge 
 into the breasts of his Majesty's Protestant subjects." P. 44. — This is intended as an insinuation that the 
 Irish rebels acted in conformity with the tenets of their religion, and the instructions of dieir pastors, in 
 the late unhappy tumults in their counUy. It is, ho\\'ever, undeniably true, diat whatever dieir own 
 religion was, their seducers and their generals were almost universally of the Protestant persuasion. — 
 Of the Catholic clergy not one in a hundred was found wanting in loyalty and duty on Uiat occasion : 
 the great body of them, and particularly the bishops, exerted themselves in the cause of allegiance 
 and social order in an heroical manner that has never been surpassed : and their energetical Remon- 
 strances to dieir flocks, which have been reprinted in this kingdom ('by CoghlanJ, deserve to be circulated 
 all over Europe, for their credit, and for die information of unfortunate wretches who have been blinded and 
 led astray by Jacobinical artifices. Xor has it been by addresses only that the Catholic prelates and clergy 
 of Ireland have evinced their loyalty and zeal for public peace and order, but by every odier kind of 
 active exertion, and by their sufferings also in die same cause. Amongst odiers the example of my 
 respected friend. Dr. Moylan, the Catholic bishop of Cork, will be ever memorable for the display of the 
 abovementioned virtues in dieir full lustre. At the unexpected moment, when Hoche's fleet and army 
 appeared in the pride and vigour of their unbroken strength on the neighbouring coast, when all was 
 despair in the city of Cork, and English bank notes were waste paper, he did not calculate chances or 
 
 w*it
 
 388 < APPENDIX, 
 
 exposed to view Is full three inches in ilim ii l i, i .^ it is certainly much more natural to consider 
 it as a pike than as a wand. There is the greater reason for this, as, by my opponent's own 
 confession, the proper attribute of the reigning Goddess of Liberty, whose throne bishop H. 
 has been so instrumental in raising, is a pike. 
 
 In return for the mortification which I may have given yourself and Dr. H. A. in the 
 preceding observations, I am now. Sir, going to afford you both a compleat triumph for 
 the time that it may last. In a word, I unequivocally acknowledge the error into which 
 I fell in my late work, where I insinuated that bishop Hoadly, amongst his other nu- 
 merous productions, had composed certain dramatical pieces ; and, in making this acknow- 
 ledgement, I feel the greatest satisfaction, that this and the other mistake, concerning 
 the author of the anonymous History of Winchester, are the two greatest, if not the 
 only two errors, which the sagacious criticism of my numerous opponents has been able 
 to point out in as many quarto volumes, containing an infinite variety of new matter; (i) 
 I intimated above, that your own and Dr. H. A's. triumph would be of short continuance. 
 In tact. Sir, what is the consequence of aggravating the error in question, by calling it 
 " an illiberal aspersion," and " an insidious attack," as this gentleman does, (3) except to 
 transfer the redoubled load of disgrace, whatever he and you may make of it, from the 
 shoulders of the bishop, to those of your more intimate friend, and Dr. H. A.'s 
 
 ■wait for intelligence, but consulting only the genuine principles of his religion, he took an instantaneous and 
 decided part, in issuing that eloquent, loyal, and truly Christian exhortation to his numerous flock, which was 
 acknowledged in the ofBcial letters of the lord lieutenant to have been so highly beneficial in confirming 
 their loyalty. If it be asked, to what causes that fatal rebellion was owing ? I say, that it has been as- 
 certained by the official reports to have been caused by the revolutionary artifices of ambitious men, who 
 move at right angles with respect to the religion of genuine Catholics. The grinding misery of the Irish 
 peasantry must also be taken into the account; and still more, the rancour and malice of a party, that is 
 much more numerous in Ireland than in England, which, like Dr. H. A. in the passage above quoted, 
 stops at no degree of calumny or insult in order to oppress Catholics. The idea of Dr. H. A.'s " conse- 
 crated pikes " seems to be borrowed from Chenier's play of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, which was 
 exhibited, gratis, at the beginning of the Revolution, in order to flesh the popidace for the ensuing 
 slaugliter of the 2d of September, 1792. — In tlils the cardinal of Lorraine was introduced consecrating 
 the pikes to be used in the massacre of the Protestants, though history informs us that he was then absent 
 in Italy, and though the other clergy instead of taking part in it opposed it. See p. 79. 
 
 (1) Dr. II. A. will see that I am too candid to avail myself of his generosity in furnishing mc with a 
 proof that the bishop did actually write the prologue to the play of All for Love, as it was acted at 
 Blenheii^.:, in 1/18, which prologue he now publishes, pp. 19, 21. — I shall say nothing of the propriety 
 or impropriety of this comiwsition with relation to the bishop's character, but merely to the occasion of 
 its production. In a word, I cannot agree with Dr. H. A. that a stage play was "an oil of comfort" so 
 becoming a prelate " to pour into the wounds of an expiring" Christian, as a good act of contrition 
 would have been ; especially when the dying man ^\•as .Tohn, duke of Marlborough. 
 
 (2) Pp. la, 2 1. 
 
 nearer
 
 niSTOrvY OF WINCHESTER, 289 
 
 Ticarer relative, the bislio[>'s son ? If it is so very indecorous and improper an cniplovment, as 
 you and Dr. H. A. represent it, for a bishop to employ hiniselt in theatrical compositions 
 and representations, it is evidently but one degree less so, for a prebendary and the chan- 
 cellor of a diocese to be thus employed. Now, Sir, both yourself and Dr. H. A. signify, (i) 
 what the world is otherwise informed of, how passionately addicted the personage here 
 alluded to ever was to this kind of writing and amusement ; and, Sir, it is a certain fact, that 
 it was by confounding together in my own mind the compositions of the late chancellor of 
 the diocese. Dr. John Iloadly, nith those of his father, the bishop, (2) that I fell into the 
 mistake, with which you and the abovfe-mentioiied gentleman so unadvisedly reproach me. 
 
 Dr. H. A. having exhausted his eloquence upon me for the remarks which I made upeii 
 some of the emblematical ornaments of the monument, next finds fault witli me for not 
 taking notice of certain others which are there exhibited, though he very inconsistently 
 asserts, that if I had noticed them, they would have been equally " the objects of my 
 calumny." (3) These are, the dove upon the Hoadly crest, which he informs us was given 
 to the family by Charles II, in reward for the share which they had in effecting the Restora- 
 tion ; and the pdicun in the coat, which, he says, the college of heralds allowed to that family 
 as a lively emblem of their patriotism. (4) He then runs into an episode of several pages 
 concerning the last mentioned bird, in which many of his positions are still more incongru- 
 ously assorted^ than the ornaments are on the bishop's tomb. Amongst other things he says, 
 that " it is absurd, impious, and blasphemous, to represent Christ shedding his blood for 
 mankind by the emblem of a pelican feeding its young with its blood," because it is a 
 vulgar error to suppose, that this bird does actually open its breast for that purpose. (5) 
 He admits, however, that this very emblem, notwithstanding the aforesaid fictitious cir- 
 cumstance, is very properly adopted as " a lively emblem of a true patriot, who is ready 
 to shed his blood for his country." (6) He goes on to term this religious emblem, " an 
 absurd, impure, and unclean image," (7) for no better reason than because this bird was 
 reckoned amongst those which it was unlawful for the Jews to eat of, and which, on this 
 account, were called unclean in the ancient law. But surely our bibhcal student might have 
 recollected, that the eagle, the lion, and other animals, stood in the same class of prohibited 
 food, and yet, being possessed of noble qualities, are employed in the bible to characterize 
 the most sacred personages and things. (8) Lastly, he does not " scruple to say, that this 
 
 (1) See Reflect, p. 103. Letter, p. 13, &c. The New Biograpiiical Dictionary, art. Hoadly, John. 
 
 (2) Both Dr. S. p. 101, and Dr. H. A. p. 17, positively assert, that I have ascribed the composition of 
 a comedy, calWd The Suspicious Husband, wliich it seems was written by the bishop's son, Benjamin H. 
 the physician, to the bishop himself; and the latter asserts, that the dean and chapter at their audit did 
 me the honour to mention nie as being possessed of " certain prools" of that fact. The truth however is, 
 that I was so grossly ignorant in dramatic literatme, as never to have heard of the aforesaid physician as a 
 writer in that line, or so much as of the existence of the play called The Suspicious. Husband. 
 
 (3) P. 41. (4) P. 50. (5) F.48. (6) V.60. (/) P. 47- 
 (8) Ezek. i, 10. Rev. V, 5. St. John, iii, 14, 
 
 a a very
 
 2^0 APPENDIX. 
 
 very bird is an emblem unworthy not only of a Protestant church. ...but even of a Catholic 
 church." And yet it is certain, that it was placed in tlie situation which It at present 
 holds, carved as large as life, and emblazoned with gilding and other ornaments, in the 
 centre of the gorgeous canopy over the communion table, by an eminent bisliop and 
 dean of Winchester, both staunch Protestants, in the reign of Charles I ; (i) and it is 
 equally olivious, that if Dr. H. A. were at liberty to destroy, as he seems to wish, every 
 figure of the pelican which occurs in the cathedral, to the number of some hundred times, 
 both within and without, his prejudices against this alledged unclean bird, would prove 
 no less injurious both to its outside and inside beauty, than bishop Home's and his 
 associates' enmity to the figure of the cross has proved. (2) 
 
 I come now, Sir, to take some notice of those critics by profession, who have done 
 me the honour of noticing my History in their Reviews, the first of whom is the 
 autlior of The Hampshire Repository. Without inquiring, whether this writer has 
 proved his title to the magisterial chair in which he has seated himself, by observing the 
 first canon of his science. Let those turn critics u)ho have uiriften ivcll; (3) I shall proceed 
 to inquire into the justice of the censures which he has passed upon me, in several parts of 
 his Review. These, in general, are of such a nature, that, I believe, it would appear to the 
 learned world, as it certainly would to myself, a matter of injustice to claim any merit 
 from the compliments which he pays me in other passages. 
 
 The principal subject of my complaint against the Hampshire Critic, is on account of the 
 confidence with whicli he, in most places, opposes his conjectures to the historical evidence 
 that I bring forward. If there is any merit in my History, it consists in the attention and 
 pains that I have bestowed in collecting and placing before the reader the most ancient and 
 authentic records that I could procure in support of the facts I have advanced. Judge then 
 what a trial it must be to my temper to find a critic at my elbow obtruding his conjectures 
 upon every subject that is started, without deigning to examine the authorities on which I 
 ground my narration, much less without opposing other testimony of equal weight with it. 
 
 I have diS'erent instances of the aforesaid presumption in the outset of his animadversions. 
 I asserted, on the authority of Diodorus, who speaks of the ancient Britons conveying their 
 tin to the Isle of Wight by carts, that there was once a fordable passage into it from the main 
 land at low water, the vestiges of which passage, like the sand bank between Milford and Hurst 
 Castle, I conceive are still to be traced at the Shingles and the Needles. This assertion, thus 
 grounded on ancient authority, the H. C. controverts, for no better reason than because Por- 
 chester Harbour has since the period in question been choaked up with mud ; (4) whereas it 
 
 (1) See History, vol. ii, pp. 3f), -10. 
 
 (2) This enmity wiis so great that tlie extreme leaf of the trefoil on all the pinnacles belonging to 
 Wj'keham's chantr)', and many other pinnacles in the cathedral and other places, have been broken off, 
 because they resembled a cross. 
 
 (3) Pope's Essay on Criticism. (4) Hampshire Repository, part ii, p. U5.
 
 HISTORY OF WIMCHESTER. 29! 
 
 h evident that the openhig of one passage may possibly have occasioned the obstruction of 
 another, (i) A still more glaring example of the self-confidence in question occurs in this 
 writer's strictures on my account of the conversion of king Lucius, the particulars of which 
 I drew from Bede, Nennius, and other authentic and original sources. It would take up 
 too much time to point out all the blunders that occur on this subject. I shall, then, content 
 myself with mentioning the following. He says, " We think it much more probable that 
 upon the eriipcrors conversion, Lucius, little better than his vice-roy in Britain, paid him tli^, 
 compliment of following his example ;" (2) viz. rather than that he became a Christian 
 from conviction. I need not inform you, Sir, that the emperor in question was the famous 
 Pagan philosopher Marcus Aurelius ; and I need not tell a common *chool-boy, that the 
 first emperor who professed Christianity was Constantine the Great, almost a century and 
 a half later than the reign of Lucius. It is not indeed that our critic is always destitute of 
 authority ; for in the very paragraph before me he appeals to Platina, a superficial Italian 
 author, (who wrote the lives of the popes in the 15th century) concerning the number of 
 the ancient British cities, in opposition to the positive testimony of Gildas, of Nennius, of 
 Higden, of Rudborne, and of a whole host of other original chroniclers, whom I followed \ 
 He soon afterwards even finds fault with me for my blind attachment to the authority of 
 records. " I fear," he says," that our historian copies others too implicitly, without reflect- 
 ing on the improbability of shipping being so large in these seas, at the time of this (the 
 Saxon) invasion." (3) For my part, I think that the first duty of a modern historian is to 
 be guided by the accounts of the original writers ; aud I am clearly of opinion, that an en- 
 terprizing and indefatigable people, with the forests of Germany at their disposal, were 
 capable of building cuyles or keels for transporting an army of even a greater size than was 
 requisite for the invasion of Britain, in the manner that is universally reported ; though 
 much less vessels might afterwards be found by them to be better adapted to the purposes 
 of war. 
 
 The H. C. shews himself very eager to dispute with me the credit of my topographical 
 discoveries. He will have it that CracknorHard and Netley Marsh, near Redbridge, places 
 unknown in ancient history, and totally disagreeing with the accounts of the Saxon Chro- 
 nicle and other original authorities, are the CcrDlcCjSorc and j!iatanfca0, which Camden^ Gib- 
 son, Carte, and myself, are in search of. In confirmation of his opinion, he supposes the 
 neighbouring village of Eling to have taken its name from Ella, who, he says, " might 
 have landed" there. (4) Unfortunately, however, for this system, we have authentic evi- 
 dence that Ella, who was founder not of the West Saxon, but of the South Saxon kingdom, 
 
 (1) If the writer is desirous of learning how the sea has encroached on some parts of our coast, and 
 receded from it in other places, at no great distance, he will find 3 good account of tlicse particulars in 
 the learned and sagacious Whitaker's History of Manchester, b. i, c. xi. 
 
 (2) 1>. 115. (3) P. llO, (.() P. 117. 
 
 landed
 
 'i<)% APPENDIX. 
 
 landed in the peninsula of Selsea, nt a place which was Called from his son CfiiTCniforfj (i) 
 and that he never came near Eling in the course of his reign. Our critic approves of my 
 attempt to clear up the history of king Arthur, but he ridicules the idea of " swords of 
 gold being borne before a petty prince, little superior to a savage barbarian, and the vaga- 
 bondization of a monarch to the Holy Land." (2) It is evident, from this passage, that the 
 H. C. is very little acquainted with the state and manners or ttie civilized Christian Britons, 
 and with the practices of Christian nations in general, during the 5th centur3^ He may 
 learn from their countryman, Gildas, that the former were a civilized, polished, and even a 
 luxurious people ; and he may gather from St. Jerom, and other writers of the age, that 
 visits to Palestine were then exceedingly common. 
 
 Our critic now drags me vmwillingly forward to religious inquiries, on which subject I 
 am forced to say, that his information is even less extensive than it is on subjects of anti- 
 quity. He begins with complimenting me on my supposed admission of an error in the 
 Roman Martyrology, (3) where I assert that Amphiballus was perhaps not the real name of 
 St. Alban's preceptor, but that it might have been given him from the circumstances which 
 I have mentioned. I should have no difficulty in acknowledging any real error that might 
 be actually detected in that venerable record, but the mistake here is not in the Martyrology, 
 i)ut in the H. C. From this imaginary error in ecclesiastical history, our writer launches 
 forth into the widest fields of extravagant conjecture. He supposes that our famous apostle 
 St, Birinus, an Italian bishop, who died in the year of Christ 650, might be the same per- 
 son with St. Amphiballus, a British martyr, who had been put to death about the year 300. 
 The name itself, Atnphiballus, he imagines to be a misnomer for Amfhibitus, which word, 
 he informs us, signifies a man " who is capable of walking both on sea and land." (4) In 
 another part of his book (5) he derives the aforesaid name of Birinus from the brine of the 
 sea, whi^ he is said to have walked upon. When we meet with such etymologies in a 
 grave criuc^Vve are led to doubt whether Swift might not have been serious in deriving the 
 name of Achilles from the supposed cry of the Trojans, on seeing that hero, Ah-kill-us ; 
 that of Pelofonesus, from the call of the Grecian maids in the said peninsula for help to raise 
 up their buckets of water, viz. Pail-up-and-ease-us ; finally, that of Strabo, in consequence 
 of the beauty and the travels of that geographer through different nations, who therefore 
 termed him the Stray-beau ! 
 
 The H. C. now puts forth the whole strength of his theological learning, by way of dis- 
 crediting me and the religion which I profess. He signifies that the celebrated miracle of 
 St. Birinus, reported by all our ancient writers, and the first step towards the conversion of 
 our Pagan ancestors, is " supported by me as essential to the prevalence of the Romish 
 religion," because, he tells us, that miracles in general, and particularly that of walking on 
 the water, is " the principal ground of the divinitj/" of images, the " worship of which 
 
 (1) Hen. Hunt. &c. (2)P. I19. (3) Ibid. (4) Ibid. 
 
 (5) See the Poetry, part ii, p. 5/. 
 
 images,
 
 HISTORY OP WINCHESTER. 293 
 
 images," he asserts, "is an article of the Roman Catholic faith," (1) and amongst " tlie 
 first principles of Mr. M.'s religion." {2^) In the course of his dissertiition he introduces me 
 arguing, in a vicious circle, (which he calls a true thaAogical circle) from the worship of 
 images to miracles, and from miracles back again to the worship of images. (3) \^^lcther 
 such a confiision of ideas as this mode of arguing implies, is more likely to be found in my 
 intellects, or in those of my adversary, the reader will judge for himself, by the tenor of 
 our reasoning. He will at the same time decide, whether so much ill nature, joined with 
 so much ignorance and self-confidence, as prevails throughout the whole column which 1 
 quote from, as well as through other passages in the same work, entitles the critic to any 
 favour at my hands. (4) But we have not yet done with our critic's discoveries in this 
 
 business. • 
 
 (I) P.lip. (2) P. 120. (3) P. IHI. 
 
 (4) I cannot neglect the opportunity of making a few observations on two yeiy long and tedious ar- 
 ticles, consisting of forty columns of close printing, from page 130 to 150, at the end olf the first part of 
 the Hampshire Repositor)', which display as much iilihieralify and bigotry, amidst the most unbdunded 
 professions of candour and toleration, as "^ is any where to be met with. — -The tirst article relates to a 
 French emigrant priest, of the name of Couvef, who resided at Winchester four years ago, and whose 
 history, or rather tragi-comedy of errors, is briefly diis. Having been at times questioned by some of 
 the poor people, who lived in tlie same house with him, on the subject of his religion, (for he was not m 
 field preacher, nor did he obti-ude diat topic even in private conversation), he expressed himself with 
 the earnestness that might naturally be expected from a man who had lost eveiy diing, except his life, ui 
 defence of it, but In such a mixed jargon of English and French as to have been totally misapprehended 
 on the most materials points of his speeches, (as now appears by die charges that have been brougiit 
 against him), particularly by a Scotch presljyterian woman, to whom he spoke with more freedom, under 
 a mistaken idea, as he afterwards declared to me, tliat his proselyting a member of tlie kirk of Scodand 
 could give no offence to the clergy of the church of England. He was afterwards convented upon tlie subject 
 of these conversations, when, from want of the pardes comprehending each odier, fresh misunderstandings 
 occurred on both sides, all of which would hav*e been prevented "if Ih'ose gentlemen had permitted nie' 
 to have been present at the interview, as I conceive I oiigfit to have been, both in quality of a joint in- 
 spector of the French clerg}-, and of an individual implicated in the affidavit. But the confusion did not 
 end here, one gentlemafi opens a letter directed to" another person, and when the circumstance is coin- 
 plained of by the respectable WTi'ter of it, instead of a proper apology for his conduct, he publishes fliat 
 letter, and with it a tedious and unintelligible answer to it] from which nothing can be collected, except 
 the persecuting principles of the WTiter cairled into effect to the utmost extent that they were capable of. 
 In fact, tliis very gendeman, who fiUs whole pages wiUi professions of liberality, boasts in die passage 
 which I refer to, of having actually contributed, by his importunities with persdris in power, io (he ex:- 
 pelling of poor Couvet (a considerable time aftei- h6 had left the city) from the kingdom ;' on no other 
 charge than that of having, in private coiivefsati'on in the re'ces's of His own poor lodgings,' extolled and 
 recommended the Cadiolic religion, in' the heariiig of two or iSree poor wiretc'hes wiio'radst likely before 
 had no religion at all ! ' ' ' '"' ' "' ' ' ' 
 
 The second instance of the writer's bigotr)', which I have to mention, rclr'.;; also to a French cler- 
 
 2 R gjTiK-n.
 
 294 APPENDIX. 
 
 business. He has found out that my opposition to bishop Hoadly, Is the consequence of liis 
 refutation of a ridiculous speech, that I never heard of, made by an advocate at Thorn, 
 concerning a St. Jacek, whose very name I never met with iu the whole course of my ec- 
 
 ecclesiastical 
 
 gyman, by name Meffre, but it consists, not in censuring but in praising, not in' persecuting 
 but in rewarding. I have a copious collection of original letters, relating to this case (as I liave 
 others concerning the former) from the countrymen and friends of Mons. Meffre, particularly from the 
 captain of the vessel of which he was nominal chaplain, and the superiors of the English Catholics, 
 to whom his conduct occasioned an infinite deal of trouble ; but I shall be as brief on the business as 
 possible. By these papers, and his own printed account, it appears, that he was originally a Catholic ; 
 that during the early part of the French Revolution he complied with all the impious terms required of 
 him by the destroyers of the religion of his country, swearing to the civil constitution of tlie clergy, as it 
 was called, accepting of the employment of a vicaire or curate, (for that was the extent of his promotion) 
 and, as I have reason to believe, also the higher orders, from the profligate usurper of the see of Toulon. 
 Soon after this, Royalism getting die ascendancy In that neighbourhood, Mons. M. applied to the repre- 
 sentative of the lawful bishop in order to be re-admitted into die pale of his former church, from which 
 he had been excluded by excommunication. This request, however, not being immediately granted, he 
 obtruded himself into the Catholic ministry, and, without any lawful commission or authority, presumed 
 to officiate as the Catholic chaplain of the ship Pompee, when it sailed from the aforesaid port. Arriving 
 in England, he found himself equally rejected as he had been at Toulon by real Catholics. At length, 
 however, by a great shew of repentance, and retracting his past engagements, he contrived to get ab- 
 solved from his censures, and re-admitted into the aforesaid church. Ordiodoxy of itself, howevei-, in 
 tliis situadon, was not sufficient, and Mons. M. appeared to be of die opinion of Dr. S. which I have 
 controverted in my third letter, concerning die law of clerical celibacy. One indication of this nature, 
 wliicu ,';.'":'pened at Salisbury, and threatened other more serious consequences, had the effect of causing 
 the Rt. Rev. Dr. Walniesley, F. R. S. and vicar apostolic of the district, to suspend him from all ecclesiastical 
 functions. In conclusion, Mons. M. finding it useless to wear die mask of Catholicism any longer, ap- 
 plied to certain gentlemen of die establishment to be admitted a member of their communion. It might 
 have been expected, that the well known histoiy of Archibald Bower, and diose of bishop Hoadly 's pre- 
 tended converts, Pilloniere and Fournier, would have made them a little cautious on such an occasion. 
 Instead however of that, the proposal was readily accepted of. Mons. M. was permitted, without hesi^ 
 tation, to read his recantation in Winchester cathedral. A much more valuable, because a much more 
 secure, pension than that which he enjoyed before was procured for him ; and, what was the most im» 
 portant point of all, he got rid of the law of celibacy, and was enabled to marrj' a lady, with whom he 
 had before got acquainted in diis city. 
 
 The statement of these particulars seems an act of justice, due not only to the Catholic body, but also 
 to the public at large, after the falsehoods that have been imi>osed upon diem in the joint production of 
 the proselyte himself and of his spiritual father, in the Hampshire Repository. The latter may continue 
 to boast, that the work in which he has been so instrumental is " a most disinterested, premeditated, 
 elaborate, deep, clear, and conscientious case of conversion, doing equal credit to the convert himself, 
 and to the church to which be becomes thus converted." P. 150. Still it will always remain incontro- 
 
 vertibly
 
 HISTORY OF WINCHESTER. 295 
 
 ctesiastlcal reading! (f) I shall ake no other reply on this occasion to those illiberal and 
 groundless charges of blind superstition and gross idolatry which the critic heaps up against 
 me, than by referring him for the information which he evidently stands in need of, to the 
 first child of the Catholic communion whom he meets with in our city. 
 
 I pass lightly over a number of other theological criticisms in the work before me, which 
 clearly display die bigotry of the writer. In one place he speaks of the self-denials and 
 austerities practiced by the ancient monks, as having been apparent only. (2; In another 
 place, by an evident contradiction, he grants them to have been real, (3) and condemns 
 them accordingly, arguing, that to fast, and mortify sensuality, is to reject blessings offered 
 us by Providence, as " though we were better judges of what we ought to accept, than 
 himself of what he ought to grant." (4) Epicurus himself could not wish for more ample 
 indulgence than is here sanctioned. For, if this argument has any force at all, it proves 
 that we ought not to refuse a.ny gratification that lies before us, under an idea 'that it is a 
 blessing sent us by Providence. In like manner, it would justify our first parents in eating 
 of the forbidden fruit. It is not with St. Birinus however alone that our critic is disposed 
 to quarrel, but with every illustrious character of antiquity, who, for his private virtues and 
 public benefits, was honoured by our forefathers with the appellation of Saint. This is the 
 excess of ingratitude ; as it is easy to prove, that without a St. Birinus, a St. Swithun, a St. 
 Ethelwold, &c. the writer never would have had those good things of this world, the en- 
 joyment of which he conceives to be so necessary a duty. 
 
 But I have done with theological controversies, and return to those of history and antiqui- 
 ties. Our author recommends to me the omission of, what he calls, Verstegan's discovery, 
 viz. that the native language of the Franks, before it was altered by their incorporation 
 with the conquered Gauls, was the same with that of their neighbours, our Saxon ances- 
 tors ; (5) in other words, that the original language of the French was radically the same 
 with our own. I .lust however reply, that I do not think myself warranted in following 
 this advice. I look upon \^erstegan to be a mucli better antiquary than the H. C, and I 
 consider liis proofs in the present matter to be absolutely demonstrative. The system in 
 question moreover agrees with Bede's account of the first envoys from St. Gregory the 
 Great to our Saxon ancestors, bringing interpreters with them from the southern parts of 
 France. Does the critic then believe that the Franks spoke a language in any sort re- 
 sembling modern French, when they resided in the forests of Westphalia ? But he boasts 
 of having drawn an argument from my own narration, in favour of his system. I have, it 
 is true, related of Kcnewalch the second Christian king of the West Saxons, that he was 
 disgusted with St. Agilbert, a Frenchman, and the successor to St. Birinus, on account of a 
 
 vertibly true, that this versatile religionist, who is so honourably received by one church, was an ontcast 
 from die other, aiic' iiad repeatedlv been pun-shed witli every censure which it \vas in her power to inflict, 
 suspension, interdict, irregularity, and excommunicadon ! 
 
 (1) P. 1:20. (2) loid. (3) P. 124. (4: Ibid. (5) P. 119- 
 
 foreign
 
 296 APPENDIX. 
 
 foreign accent in which he preached. Oji this occasion the critic asks, why could not Agil- 
 bert pronounce English properly in case this were at that time the language of France ? (.i\ 
 I shall answer thijS query, when the critic has answered me another, exactly parallel with iit : 
 Why do not the Scotch and the Irish pronounce the English ]a,nguage properly, .wher\ it is, 
 acknowledged that this is the prevailing language of tl^eir respective countries ? 
 
 Being desirous of stripping the good monks, who first preached .^tie gospel to our ances- 
 tors, of rhe merit of civilizing them and instructing thern in architecture and other useful 
 arts, which I asserted to have been the case, he says, " We. conceive that tlie Romans could 
 instruct our countrymen in architecture, &<.(^. before the .-^rriv^ of Christian missionaries." (3) 
 Who can avoid expressing his astonishment at ^uch ignpra.nce. in an ^.ntiquary and a critic ! 
 The fact is, the Roma;;is did instruct the Britons in the arts of civil life, but being in pro- 
 cess of time forced to withdraw themselves (^om the island, oyr barbarous ancestors landed 
 there from Germany, and swept the Britons from oft" the face of it, desti:oying, with the in- 
 habit£^nts theniselves, all the.ir monuments and institutions. It was a whole century after 
 this, desolation that St. Augustine and his cpmpatpipns arrived^ who at once converted, anci. 
 civilized the barbarian conquei^ors. Amongst other arts which they introduced, I mentioned 
 that of glazing w'indows. ^n opj)osit^on to this ^iccount, the H. C. professes to prove, from 
 John Spelma^i, that "Alfrcel (qt a. mufh latey period) invented \a.n\.bor7is, glass not being 
 then Itnow.n in England." (3) In the first place I ask, whether John Spelman is a suflficient 
 authority to oppose, on a question of the present nature, to Bede, Malmsbury, &c. \yho 
 ppsitivply asser^ that glass was intrpcluced amongst us by St. Bennet ^iscop, the cotemporary 
 aqd friend qf Kenewajch who h\\i\t our cathedral in th^e 7.th century. ? In the second place, 
 \YJ^a^ ^iiall we s^y of thp critic, when wq find Spelman's authority perfectly corifqrrnable 
 to that pf the ?\ncient authors;. (4) In a worc^, he admits that the" use of glass was well 
 kqpwn ii^ the island ftom the peripci above mentipned ; but signifi.es, that it was. a rare com- 
 modity iq Alfred'? reign, the reason of which is obvious, yiz. the recent (Jeyastations o( the 
 bar|:|arpus Dapeg. J|ie H. p. <^bjects, tliat "_ the. testimony of St- Aldhelpi's writing odes, 
 is no proof of his cqmppsing anagrams and enigmas." (5) The case however is, that I re- 
 ferred tq the express passage of the original aiithqr, which proves thq latter fact no less 
 thivq the fpmi^r. It is plaiP \\\f. ^- ^- '? fP'^^'y HPacquainted with him. Our critic goeg 
 on to assent, that 4^sseriu§ " dpes not make mention of the coronation of Alfred by pope Leo, 
 apd that Charlemagne ^i4 not keep his court at Aix-la-Chapeile before he was elected em- 
 peror, in 800. (6) For a clear refutatipn of these bold falsehoods I refer to the notes 
 below. (7) >Vbeq fhe critic asks how ^t|iel|tan, sitting on a tower in the Northern walj^ 
 
 of 
 
 (1) P. 120. (2) P. 121. (3) P. 120. 
 
 (4) " Vitmrn illi (Alfredo) i^qn suppetebat ; (juod etsi jampridern in Angliam a Benedicto ajjbate 
 inyectura, tap§ii adbuP insol^ns, i^^c usibus praesto erat." ^Ifredi Vita a Clariss. J. Spejm^n, 1. iii, p. 162. 
 
 (5) P. 121. ' (0) Ibid. 
 
 (7) " D. Leo infantem AJfredura unctum olco consecravit in regem." Annal. Asserii. " In regem 
 
 consecravit."
 
 HISTOKY OF ^VINCHESTER. 297 
 
 of the citj-, could behold a combat at Chilcomb, (i) he confounds together the tw^ separate 
 accounts of this popular transaction by Rudborne and by Knyghton, the differences in 
 which I have carefully noted. In deriving the etymology of Letley Abbey a Lido Loco, tho 
 pleasant place, and of the neighbouring Abbey of Beaulieu, a Bello Loco, the beautiful place, 
 I was not giving scope to my own imagination, but copying the registers of Dugdale, Speed, 
 &c. drawn from original titles. Is it not then sporting with the reader, no less than with nie, 
 to controvert such authority, and to support the pronunciation of the unlearned vulgar, in the 
 following manner : " We might say properly, Netley Abbey, from the Italian Netto Luogo" ? (2) 
 I fancy by this time you must be as weary of our critical antiquary's company as I am ; I 
 shall therefore only detain you with copying one more of his assertions, so glaringly false, 
 and yet so confidently made. I related in my History, that John Warren, earl of Surrey, 
 killed Alan de la Zouche, chief justice of Ireland, as he sat upon the bench in Westminster- 
 haJl, in the year 1270. In reply, the H. C. says : " It was Jolvt Planingcnct, not John IVar- 
 rcn, earl of Surrey, who killed the chief justice, &c. the male line of the Warrens had been 
 long extinct." (3) The learned reader will make his own reflections on this passage when he 
 has looked into my notes below. (4) I cannot conclude this article without expressing my 
 astonishment, that a writer who boasts of his skill in the science of antiquity, as well as iu 
 every other department of literature, should approve of all and every one of the depreda- 
 tions that have been committed on the monuments of that science in this city and neigh- 
 bourhood, namely, the levelling of the city gates and walls, the filling up of the military 
 ditches, the demolition of Wolvesey palace and of the venerable church and hospital of St. 
 Mary Magdalen. He has given me his advice on different subjects at length : in return, I 
 give him mine briefly, not to write upon any subject, until he has read a considerable deal 
 concerning it ; and least of all to touch on the science of antiquity, until he has acquired a 
 taste for it. 
 
 consecravit." Chron. Sax. — Charlemagne succeeded hi* fadier Pepin in 768, and became sole king of France 
 in 771 • Soon after this he built a palace and a famous chapel at Aix, called from diat circumstance Aix-la- 
 Chapelle. In consequence of this being the chief residence and seat of government of the sovereign, 
 different councils, well known in church history, were held there in 7S9, 799> &^c. 
 
 (1) P. 121. (2) P. 125. (3) P. 127. 
 
 (4) " Inter Joanuem de Warrenio et Alanum de Sucive lites magna; movebantur. Dictns coiYies in 
 Abnunr et fillum ejus irruens patrem seniivivum rclinquens, etiam filium vulneravit.' Mat. Wcstmon, 
 " Sub iisd^m dinbus Joannes de Warrena Alauuui le Souche in aula Westmonastcrii propria manu peremit." 
 Gul. Rishang. an. 1269. " Joannes de Warrena Alanum la Souche interfccit." Ypodigma Neustrlae, 
 p. -171. See also Chron. Gul. Thorne. Annal. Winton. an. 127O, also Annal. AVigorn. an. 1272, &:c. — 
 N. B. It might have been cxpi-cted that our critic would have been more cautious in contra'dictlug Harps- 
 field on a point which he asserted from his ovsu knowledge, namely, that " cardinal Pole was a member 
 of Coqius Cliristi College, Oxon," yet this he does for no better reason than because he was first educated 
 at MagJiden College. The fact is, he passed from the latter to the former, being appointed to a f<llo\\-- 
 ship in it by the founder himself. See Wood's Athen. Oxon. 
 
 a S From
 
 ^98 APPENDIX, 
 
 From (flir provincial critic, I turn with pleasure to a critic of different qualifications, 
 namely, the writer in The Anti-Jacobin Review, who has given an account of Thk 
 History Civil and Ecclesiastical of Winchester, in the numbers of that work 
 for February and March 1799. His approbation of the author's acquaintance with ancient 
 authors and architecture, and of his diligence in detecting the errors of Hume and other 
 modern writers, is truly flattering, because the Reviewer himself appears to be conversant 
 with the subjects of which he treats. For the same reason I listen with respect to his re- 
 prehensions, even when they do not seem to be justly merited ; as I conceive to be the 
 case in most of the following particulars. 
 
 I shall say nothing more on the subject of miracles, having so often before discussed the 
 grounds of the one attributed to St. Birinus, except that in my opinion the continuance of 
 miracles, on necessary occasions, such as the conversion of infidels, is clearly promised in 
 the New Testament, (i) With respect to the instances of divine justice that are actually 
 at issue between me and the Reviewer ; (2) if we cannot agree upon the point, we must 
 each of us retain our own opinion. As to the opinion of other persons, I think, if the facts 
 themselves are admitted, with all their circumstances, in the manner they are usually de- 
 scribed, I shall have a large majority on niy side. To speak now of modern writers : I do 
 not apprehend that the R. will accuse John Stow of forgery or deliberate falsehood in any 
 matter, which he had an opportunity of knowing; (3) and I am not conscious of having 
 appealed to him upon any otlier. So far from admitting Trussel's MSS. to be " indisputable 
 evidence," (4) I have very frequently pointed out the mistakes that abound in them. But 
 iu every kind of inquiry we must be content with the best evidence that can be procured, 
 and must not dispute the testimony of an honest man, as Trussel undoubtedly was, without 
 some proof or presumption of falsehood. Of the modern books mentioned by the R., seve- 
 ral I have consulted, others my library does not afford ; however, the R. himself allows, 
 that I have been tolerably diligent in turning over the original authors from whom the 
 information contained in such books on subjects of history and antiquity is principally to he 
 obtained. I know, for example, without consulting Maddox, from Roger de Hoveden, (5) 
 that king Henry H, in a council held at Nottingham in 1176, did divide the kingdom into 
 six circuits, assigning three itinerant judges to each of them, and yet I have positive proof 
 from the historians and annalists of the times, that this regulation was far from being accu- 
 rately observed in the reign of Henry III, in any of its particulars. After all, however, I 
 am of opinion that my assertions on this subject which the R. finds fault with were too ge- 
 
 il) St. Mark, xvi, 17. St. John, xiv, 12. . 
 
 (2) See Review for Maich, p. 249. I must here observe, that I myself have objected to the story of 
 J^mma's fiery trial, not because I believe a deliverance in such a case to be out of the extraordinary course 
 
 •>->{ God's providence, but because tlie fact itself is not supported by sufficient evidence of histor}'. 
 
 (3) Ibid. (4) Ibid, (5) Anna). Pars Post. Hen. II. Edit. Savil. p. 545. 
 
 general
 
 HISTORY OP fJ-INCHESTEU. 299 
 
 neral and too positive. Another mistake with which Trussel and myself are charged, does 
 not secmjto be liable to this objection. It is not said by him or me, that earl Waltheof was 
 absolutely the first person who was tried by his peers, but merely that he is the first person 
 upo7i record who was so tried, (i) Had I been guilty of the next fault that is imputed to me, 
 it would certainly have been inexcusable, in my capacity of the historian of Winchester, 
 namely, had I proved myself to have been ignorant " that not only the abbey of St. Mary, 
 but also St. Peter's, Winchester, was an entire barony of royal foundation under the 
 Saxon monarchy, inasmuch as their superiors ranked as peers." {%) The fact is, that this 
 abbey of St. Peter was no other than New-Minster, called, after its removal, Hyde- Abbey, 
 the history and privileges of which, I trust, I have brought to light and accurately traced. 
 The mistake here is evidently not in me, but in the R. 
 
 The chief remaining controversy between the R. and me is concerning a point of eccle- 
 siastical antiquity, which I cannot yield to him without proofs of a different nature from 
 those that he has actually produced. The question is, whether the clergy of this kingdom 
 in ancient times were or were not " allowed to marrj'-," (3) In support of the affirmative, 
 the R. refers to certain records, to shew that some of them did at certain periods enter 
 into matrimonial contracts ; which fact I have fully acknowledged. But, on the other hand, 
 the numerous ecclesiastical canons which I have cited invincibly prove that such clergymen 
 were considered as transgressors of the established discipline, and their marriages were ac- 
 cordingly held to be both illicit and inva,lid. — Notwithstanding what the R. has advanced 
 on the derivation of the two terms, God legate and Ordeal, I must still adhere to my own 
 etymology. The former term I consider as no more than the beginning of Edward the 
 Confessor's charter ; it being usual to quote bulls and charters in that manner. The latter 
 is explained in the same sense by the most eminent philological antiquaries, as it is by my- 
 self. (4)- — Whether or no I have been too severe on the memory of Cranmer and the early 
 Reformers, depends upon the nature of the proofs which I have adduced on this subject in 
 my History and in the present work. — On one important point, which has caused so great 
 a ferment in this city, I am happy td' find myself supported by so zealous a defender of civil 
 order and revealed religion as the Anti-Jacobin Reviewer : I mean the reflections which I 
 have made in both my volumes on the tendency and effects of bishop Hoadly's writings. 
 
 Most certainly, as I have said befoi-e, I entertain no private malice against the memory of 
 
 (1) On this subject Spelman says, " Danda est Polydorio (Vergilio) venia 12 virOram judicium u Gullel- 
 nio Conquestore illatum asserenti : jintea eriim satis videtur dilituisse." Glossar. 
 
 (2) P. 250. (3) Ibid. 
 
 (4) Du Cange, Gloss. Spelman, Gloss. Hick's Dissert. Epist Verstegan. Remains. Somner. Gloss, 
 apud Decern Script. Twysden. The last mentioned writer refutes the Reviewers GeiTnan etymon of 
 Vrtel or Urtheyl. 
 
 «Iiat
 
 >^ 
 
 .300 APPENDIX. 
 
 that celebrated prelate ; and the respect. Sir, which I bear to you, notwithstanding the pre- 
 sent controversy, for your general character, and in particular for your gratitude to a 
 deceased patron, makes me regret that it should be necessary in me to oppose his prin- 
 ciples, in order to prove my esteem for two of the greatest blessings of the Almighty, 
 Christianity and Civil Government. 
 
 I haVe the honour to remain, with unfeigned respect, Sir, your faithful servant, 
 
 Winchester, Jan. 18, 1800. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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