THis is the Short of what passed in this little Court of Cen­sure upon this Bishop's Funeral Sermon; and I shall pro­ceed to discourse upon it in the same Order, and begin with that which he will think the severest Part of it, which is to shew, That though what he said of the late Dean of Canterbury were true, yet no Man ought, as I believe few will, believe it upon [Page 4] his Authority; because he hath so contradicted himself, and the most serious Parts of his own Writings; and is so apt to write his own Fancys and Inventions for truth, and to write with Biass and Partiality to serve a Turn; to prevaricate and play Tricks with his own and other Mens Work; to let himself be transported with Passion, which hinders him from writing in cool Blood; and is not a whit also behind Varillas in that bold Quality, Reflexions on Varillas, p. 15. which he tells him he loves not to set down by its proper Name.

To prove this Charge, which I have drawn up against him, I must now and then mention Things which are not commonly known of him, beginning with that Circular Letter which he sent to all the Bishops of Scotland above 20 Years ago. In this Letter he boldly reflected upon them, and the Clergy, for fre­quenting the Court, and great Mens Houses; for keeping of Coaches, though the Primate was the only Person that kept a Coach among them, and for converting the Money of their Eccle­siastical Revenues to their own proper Uses. The several Copies of this Letter were all, or most of them, written in his own hand wri­ting; that which I saw was left in England by the worthy Primate of his Name, when he was Archbishop of Glascow, and among others it was read by Dr. Stillingfleet, Dr. Fowler, and Dr. Hascard who pretended to lose it; and I appeal to them not only for the Truth of these few Reflexions, which I remember in it at this di­stance, but for the Impudence of the whole Letter, which I heard one of them say he could not have believed, unless he had seen. Not long after the Writing of this Letter he came to London, where the Reflexions above-mentioned, and others, were the common Topicks of his Discourses upon the Clergy. Dr. Outram once told me that he entertain'd him, as I remember, at the first Visit which he gave him, upon the subject of Clergy-mens haunting of Courts, and Noble-mens Houses, but the next day the good Doctor hap­ning to take the Air in St. James's Park saw his young Reformer in the Mall walking and stalking with Two or Three Foreign Ministers; and this, with some other Observations which he and some others made of his Plying at Court, particularly at St. James's, and being seen, above all Divines about the Town, in Noble-mens Houses, and in their Coaches, made him lose his respect for him, and presage Things of him in some ominous Expressions, which have since come to pass. The World knows very well how contrary the [Page 5] whole Course of his Life hath been, and still is, to these Self deny­ing Pretensions, and particularly as to the Levying and Taking Fines for Church Lands, and Converting them to his own, and not to the Churches use, which he condemns in his P. 80. History of the Rights of Princes. It must needs lessen the Credit of any Writer thus to be at Variance with himself, and to practise contrary to what he would impose upon others. One cannot but suspect such a Man for a Pharisee, who is for tying Burthens upon other Men, which he will not bear him­self; and so much Enthusiasm, and Hypocrisy, as must go to make a Clergy-man discern Motes in his Brethrens Eyes, and not see the Beam in his own, will easily incline him to write for a Party, to side with Interest against Truth, to set up Heroes and Heroick Exam­ples for his own Cause, and to flatter their Memories as indecently as the French Clergy, in his Opinion, did the French King; who he Pref. to the History of the Rights of Princes p. 96. tells us, Considered more what were the Highest Things that could be said of him, than what was either true in it self, or suitable to the Gravity and Sincerity of their Profession. It must needs astonish a Man to read so many Passages in this Book, I mean his Hi­story of the Rights of Princes, which have now a very scurvy Aspect upon him; and shew how disagreable the Practices of the Bishop are to the Precepts and Censures of the Doctor; and how the one do thwart and contradict the other. But because the large Field of Matter I have in view against him will not let me insist upon them, I desire my Reader at his leisure to cast his Eyes upon the P 7 11. 14. 30 32. 34 48. 73. 80. 88. 97. 117. 118. 138. 161. 203. 226. 293. 320. Pages cited in the Margent, and thereupon to make a little Reflexion, and then I am confident he will be apt to think, That as little Credit is due to him, as he P. 8. of the History of the Rights of Prin­ces. saith is to the Greek Writers, who when they like a Bishop praise him so unreasonably, and reproach others so incredibly, that it is hard to tell what we ought to believe. But, God be thanked, that is not our Case yet; for let him, or others like him, praise some or reproach others of our Bishops as they please, we know both them, and what to believe, and will take care to transmit Truth unto Po­sterity.

From that I fear now invisible Manuscript, and the History of the Rights of Princes, let us proced to his modest and free Conference be­tween [Page 6] a Conformist and a Nonconformist, Printed at Glascow in Seven Dialogues, 1669. In the Seventh Dialogue he tells the Noncon, That the first Precedent in History for Subjects fighting upon the Account of Religion was Pope Gregory the Seventh, who armed the Subjects of Germany against the Emperour Henry the Fourth; and that the latest is the Holy League of France, from which our whole Matter (saith he) seems transcribed; and then asks Noncon, If he was not ashamed in a Matter of such importance to symbolize with the worst Gang of the Roman Church; for, saith he, the better Sort condemn it. And I think we have much more Reason, after the Writing of this, to ask him the same Question; and if he had any Conscience or Shame, one would think he should be ashamed to symbolize with them, and to see himself, and the greater part of the Church of England (if they can now be said to be of the Church of England) follow the Example of the worst part of the Church of Rome. Methinks he should blush now at this just Re­flexion, if Something, as bad as he thinks the Order, Pref. to the History of the Rights of Princes p. 39. did not set him above the Modesty of Blushing, and make that of Pasquin as true of himself, as he says it is of the Arch­bishop of Paris, Ibid p. 41. Pudebit, sed non Erubescet. But if he will not be ashamed, I know no reason why any Man, that would not be deceived, should take Things upon Trust from such a shameless Writer, whom an impenitent Conscience hath hardened against the Confusion of Remorse and Blushing; and made one of the greatest Examples of Impudence that ever dishonoured the Lawn Sleeves. I hope it is a just Indig­nation that forces this Reflexion from me; but if it seems too se­vere, I beg the Reader's Patience till I lay before him another of this unhappy Man's Books, intituled, A Vindication of the Autho­rity, &c. of the Church and State of Scotland, Printed 1673. This Book is full of very many Doctrins, Rules and Precepts, to which the Author's Life, and all his Books since the beginning of the Revolu­tion, have been an open Contradiction. In the Entrance of his Preface to the Reader, saith he, How sad, but how full a Commentary doth the Age we live in give of those Words of our Lord; I am come to send Fire on Earth, Suppose you that I am come to give Peace upon Earth, I tell you nay, but rather Division. Do we not see the Father divided against the Son, and the Son against the Father; and engaging into such angry Heats, and mortal Feuds, upon Colours of Religion, as if the Seed of the Word of God, like Cadmus Teeth, had spawned a Generation [Page 7] of Cruel and Blood thirsty Men: But how surprizing is the Wonder when Religion becomes the Pretence. And after this; Among all the Heresies this Age hath spawned, there is not one more contrary to the whole Design of Religion, and more destructive of Mankind, than is that bloody Opinion of defending Religion by Arms, and of forceable Resistance upon the Colour of preserving Religion. The Wisdom of this Policy is Earthly, Sensual, and Devillish; savouring of a carnal, unmortified, and unpatient Mind, that cannot bear the Cross, nor trust to the Providence of God. Religion then as well as since was the Civil Property of these King­doms, but at the time of the Revolution In his En­quiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority. he distin­guished the Christian Religion from it self as Religion, and as it was one of the principal Rights and Proper­ties of the Subject; and though as Religion it ought not to be defended by Arms, yet he affirmed, That as a Civil Right and Property it might. Would any Man but such a Bishop have had the Confidence to say, That it was Lawful to sight for Religion, as a Civil Right and Property, who had published the Book above-mentioned, and I know not how many after it, to prove it Unlawful for Subjects to take up Arms in defence, or under pretence of defending any Right or Property whatsoever? Let such a Man say of Things or Persons, or of Persons Dead or Living, what he pleases; he shall never be believed by me, farther than he brings Proof.

The Passages of his forecited Book, which now stare him in the Face, are very many, and very Emphatical; and there is scarce a Page in it which is not a Record against him: I must take notice of some, and recommend P. 8. to p. 18. p 35. 39. 40. 41. 42. 46. 47. those in the Margent to the curious Reader's perusal at his leasure, that he may make the same use of them that I am go­ing to do of those that follow. In the 68th Page of that Book, he makes it of more dangerous Conse­quence to place the Deposing Power in the People, than in the Pope, Less Disorder, saith he, may be apprehended from the Pretensions of the Roman Bishops, than from those Maxims that put the Power of Judging and Controuling the Magistrate in the Peoples hands, which opens a Door to endless Confusion, and sets every private Person in the Throne. These Consequences of placing the Deposing Power in the People, we have seen verified by Experience, and still shall be more convinced of the Truth of them; but yet his Enquiry into the Measures of Sub­mission and Obedience; which he owns among his 18 Papers, and the [Page 8] Enquiry into the present State of Affairs, which is his, though he does not own it, were both written upon the Principles of the Resisting and Deposing Power. For in the one, he Exhorts the People to re­sist the King, as having fallen from his Authority; and in the other, to take upon them the Power and Authority of Deposing of him: And to encourage them the more to it, he doth affirm, That the Power of the People of Judging the King in Parliament is a part of the Law of England; and goes about to prove it from the Sentence of Deposition against King Edward the Second, and Richard the Second; which, contrary to the Truth of History, and I am con­fident of his own Knowledge, he saith, were never annulled by any subsequent Parliaments, and therefore remain part of our Law. Such an impudent Assertion, contrary to so many Acts of Par­liament printed in the Statute Books, and In Pryn's Juris­diction of the Lords. elsewhere, would, as Monsieur le Grand saith of him upon another Occasion, J'avoue qu'en fai­sant ces remarqu [...]s, je suis dans une veritable Contrainte de ne pas appeller M. Burnet de tous les Noms quile me­rite. Lettre de M. Bur­net a M. Thavenot a­vec les remarques de MLG. p. 33. Provoke a Man to call him by all the Names that he deserves. But I pass on to the second Thing I intended to note in that Book, and it is his own Answer to the Arguments for Resistance, which, in the first Conference, he puts in the Mouth of Isoti­mus, the Presbyterian, to justify taking up Arms against our Lawful Governors; from the Ex­ample of the Maccabees rising up in Arms against Antiochus; and of the Christians, who under Constantine the Great made no difficulty of figh­ting against the other Emperour his Colleague Licinius. These Arguments he there pursues as far as they will go in the Mouth of Isotimus, and then Answers them fully in the Per­son of Basilius the Royalist, by whom he represents himself; yet he lately made use of the very same Arguments to perswade his Clergy of the Lawfulness of taking up Arms against the King, to bring about the Revolution, and of the Obligations they were under to submit to it, and support it, without either retracting the Answer which he had made to those Arguments (and which he might suppose some of them had read) or replying to them, or so much as men­tioning of them; but tells them in his Preface to his four Discourses, That they had heard him urge them with seeming Satisfaction, which I suppose was one sort of Satisfaction, and Admiration too in many of them, which I had rather hint than Name.

The third great Instance of that Book, in which he hath contra­dicted himself is his Arguing for the Duty of Nonresistance from the Example of the Thebean Legion, (p. 58.) which I cannot forbear to re­peat in his own Words. Saith he, There is no Piece of Story which I read with such Pleasure as the Accounts given of the Martyrs; for methinks they leave a Fervour upon my Mind, which I meet with in no Study, that of the Scriptures excepted. Say not then, They were not able to have stood to their Defence, when it appears how great their Numbers were, or shall I here tell you the known Story of the Thebean Legion which Consisted of 6666. &c. In the Year 1673. the Stories of the Primitive Martyrs, and this in particular, left a Fervour upon his Mind, which he ne­ver felt in his usual Studies; but in 1687, the Year before the Re­volution, he stages it for a copious and incredible Legend in his Preface before Lactantius, without so much as telling the World, that he had been in that common Errour of the Learned, and thought the Fable true.

The Arguments with which he Assaults it are all Negative, and such as one would think he could not believe himself. First, he argues against it from the Silence of Eusebius, though Hist. Eccl. l. 8. c. 13. Eusebius in his History of the Dioclesian Persecution professes to omit many of the Conflicts of those who suffered in divers Parts of the Empire, leaving them to be described by those that were Eye witnesses to them. Secondly, from the Silence of Sulpitius Severus, who mentions not one single Fact of that Persecution; saying no more of it, than that it conti­nued X Years, in which time the whole World was Dyed with the Blood of the Martyrs: The Christians then striving for Martyr­dom, which, he saith, was more sought for among them than Bishop­ricks by the ambitious Clergy of his time; from whence it came to pass, That the World was never so much wasted by any War that stands upon Record in History, as by that Persecution successively for X Years, in which the Christians had so many Triumphs. (The Famous Martyrdoms of that time are yet extant, which I shall not set down here, because I would keep within the small Compass of this little Work.) This is the short Ac­count of that Persecution in Sulpitius; and if the Christians of the Empire then strove for Martyrdom upon the stupid Principle of Non-resistance, why might not a Christian Legion, under the Con­duct of a Non-resisting Leader, grow as stupid as other Christians? And if all the World (which is the Phrase for all the Empire) was Dyed with Christian Blood, why might not Agaunum have as [Page 10] deep a Tincture, as any other Place? But Agaunum was in Gaul, and Lactantius, says he, excepts the Gauls from Persecution: But the Thebean Legion were Strangers, and not Gauls; and though Constan­tius might protect the Gauls, he had no Right to protect them; or if he had, he could not prevent what happen'd to them; their Ex­ecution being not a State of Persecution, but a Casual unforeseen Days-work of Military Discipline on the Edge of Gaul, where Con­stantius was not present to countermand or oppose it. But if he had been present, he could have had no Authority to have hinder'd it, because it was done by the Command of Maximian, who was Au­gustus; and as Augustus had Authority over Constantius, who was then but Cesar, and so by the Dioclesian Constitution of the Empire was subject to his Authority. But he, saith Lanctantius, must needs have heard of so remarkable a Transaction as the Passion of this Legion, if it were true. Here is the Negative Argument again; but I say it might be true, and he yet not hear of it: For it was but a few hours work of military Discipline in an obscure Corner of the Alps, and Lactantius was at that time in Africk, where, to use his own Argument upon another Occasion, A Relation of a Conference had a­bout Religion by Ed­ward Stillingfleet, and Gilbert Burnet, p. 119. there was neither Printing, nor Stages for Pacquets, nor Publishing of Mercuries, Gazettes, and Journals; and Men were not wont to amuse themselves at what was doing in the World.

I could tell him of a Mornings Work, in the High-lands of his own Country, not much un­like this in Cruelty, and done about Three years ago, which half of this Nation, and of the Clergy themselves, have not yet heard of; and of those that have, if they were to write an History of the Revolution, few of them would mention it; not excepting our Funeral Orator, who I have Reason to think would be content to pass it over in Silence, though I do believe Tradi­tion from Father to Son will preserve an Account of it in the Val­ley of Glancow, as it did that of the Thebean Legion till the time of Euch [...]ius, who was the first that committed it to Writing. But in one Word, the Silence of Lactantius is no Argument against the Truth of it, who in his History passed over whole Persecutions, which, one would think, he must needs have heard of; and who in the Reign of Dioclesian describing only the Decennial Persecution, which began at Nicomedia, could not by the terms of his Account mention the Massacre of the Thebean Legion, which was done so many [Page 11] Years before. No Man would reasonably expect an Account of the fatal and bloody Fight at Edge Hill, from an Historian that commences his History from the Tryal of Charles the First, or the Restauration of his Son; and therefore if our Panegyrist hath no better Arguments against the truth of that Story of the Thebean Le­gion, he may read it still with his old wonted Fervour; or if he thinks it worth his pains, he may proceed to find out new Argu­ments against it, which such learned Men as Grotius and Ʋsher have not yet found out; but though I have a great Deference for their Authority, and that Story upon the Account of it, yet I am un­concern'd whether it be Truth or a Fiction, and will only put him in Mind that the very Fiction of it proves that the Doctrine of Non­resistance, however now exploded by him, was the general Belief and Practise of the Antient Christians, and a Badg of their Profes­sion in Times of Persecution, as much as Baptism it self, or any Article in their Creed. They call'd it the Doctrine of the Cross, and he once pretended to be all Primitive, and all Christian for it: It used to create a Fervour in his Blood, but now he is turned Apo­state from it, and from the Church of England, although he pre­tends to be a Bishop of it according to his own Words, Serm on the 30 of Ja­nuary 1672. p. 36. This Doctrine we justly Glory in; and if any, who have had their Baptism and Education in our Church, have turn'd RENEGADOS from it, They prov'd no less Enemies to the Church herself, than to the Civil Authority; So that their APOSTACY leaves no Blame upon our Church. No in­deed! His Apostacy leaves no Blame on it; but however it is such a Blot upon himself, that if I were one of those, as I profess I am not, who thought Dr. Tillotson deserved the Praises he has given him, I should be sorry that an Apostate, and an Apostate by his own Confession, should be his Encomiast, and transmit his Memo­ry to Posterity. For Divines that contradict themselves, and their most serious Doctrines, which they pressed upon the Consciences of Men, as he hath done, are always to be Suspected; and as for himself, he, above all others, hath brought upon himself the Fate of Cassandra, and is not to be believ'd when he speaks Truth upon his own Authority: And if what I have hitherto said will not justifie the Severity of this Censure, I hope what I am going to write will.

In his first Letter to my Lord Middleton, bearing Date the 27th of May, 1687. he tells his Lordship, That few have preacht more than [Page 12] himself against all sorts of Treasonable Doctrines and Practices, and particularly against the Lawfulness of rising in Arms upon account of Religion.— I have preacht a whole Sermon at the Hague, saith he, against all Treasonable Doctrines and Practices, and in particu­lar against the Lawfulness of Subjects rising in Arms against their Sovereigns upon the account of Religion, and I have maintained this both in Publick and Private; so that I could, if I thought it convenient, give Proofs of it, that would make all my Enemies ashamed.— As often as I have talked with Sir John Cochran— I took occasion to repeat my Opinion of the Duty of Subjects to submit and bear all the ill Administration that might be in the Govern­ment, but never to rise in Arms upon that Account. And in his third Letter to his Lordship, bearing Date Hague 27. June, 1687. he concludes with these Words; But to the last Moment of my Life I will pay all Duty and Fidelity to his Majesty. And yet before the Date of these Letters, wherein he makes such high and solemn Profes­sions of his Principles of Loyalty, and of his Duty to the King, he was engaged in one of the Deepest and most Heinous Treasons that Subject was ever engaged in against his Sovereign; I mean, in per­swading the Princess of Orange to Consent to the unnatural Invasion of her Father's Kingdom by the Prince, which then was resolv'd upon, and with him to take his Crown, if the Invasion should suc­ceed. This he thought so meritorious and honourable a Piece of Service, that soon after he came to London, he could not deny him­self the Satisfaction of telling some Friends, That he was the Man pitcht upon to break the Design of deposing the King her Father to her Royal Highness Two Years before the Revolution; and that he gained her Consent, upon Condition that the Prince might assume the Royal Power with her, and be Crowned be­fore her.

He told it to this purpose in the Deanry-house of St. Pauls, and for the Truth of it I appeal to the then Dean of that Church Dr. Stil­lingfleet, and to the worthy Bishop of Peterborough, I mean Dr. White, who was present when he spoke to that Effect; and I make bold to mention his good Name, because he hath spoken of it in many Places; and to this Authority I could add that of a Right honou­rable Person of great Esteem, in whose Hearing he spake in ano­ther Place to the same purpose. Let this be written upon his Mo­nument, and embalm his Memory to Posterity, That he was the Man who perswaded the yet innocent Daughter, Absalon like, to [Page 13] conspire the Destruction of her Father, and to seize his Throne. This he did against a King, who, according to his own Expression of the King his Father, was, by a Serm. on the 30 of Ja­nuary, 1674. p. 7. Tract of undisputed Succession, what Saul was by immediate Revela­tion, God's Anointed: And after he had done it, he again promised Fidelity to him to the last Moment of his Life; and after that again invaded his Kingdom, and used him the worst of all his Enemies. I have been told that he was a Year in overcoming that unhappy Princess into this unna­tural Resolution; and if any one desire to know what Arguments, and of what Sort he used to pervert her, I am of Opinion he may find them in a French Book, called, Le Salut de la France; which was written by Mounsieur Jurieu, a French Minister, to perswade the Dauphin of France, to whom it is addressed, to dethrone his Fa­ther. They were both great Acquaintance one with the other, both lived together in Holland, both great Enthusiasts, both acted with the utmost Revenge against their respective Sovereigns, both engaged in the Interests of the Confederacy, and it would be very strange if two such Wits and Incendiaries, so agreeing in their Temper, Design, and their way of Writing, should not jump in their Arguments on this Subject. At the same time he was at work with the Princess he wrote many Seditious Libels to disaffect the People of these Kingdoms against the King; contrary not only to his professed Fidelity, but to the Respect he had before pretended was due to Crown'd Heads. In his P. 6. Re­flections on Varillas he pretends, That the sublime Cha­racter of a Crowned Head laid a restraint on those Groans, which he would otherwise vent in behalf of the French Refugees. And in his Letter to Mounsieur Thavenot, he is very severe upon M. le Grand for speaking hardly of our Henry VIII. telling him, That there is a Reverence due to the Ashes of Kings, which ought to make us speak of their Faults in the safest Words, and avoid such reproach­ful ones, as Lying and Imposture. To which M. le Grand cries out in his Note upon that Passage, Behold this Man who fills England and France with the most Seditious and Outragious Libels, that were ever made against any Prince, speaking at this rate. And I say, behold this Man, with all his Fidelity to his own King, and all the Respect he had professed to Crown'd Heads, treating his own Sovereign as if he had not been anointed with Oyl. At Exeter he would not let them say the Morning and Evening Prayer for the King's Majesty; at Salisbury he sat down when it was said; and at another Place in [Page 14] their March, when a Noble Lord, out of Respect to his Master's Crown'd and Hoary Head, asked him this Question with disdain, What then must we do with the King? He presently answered, He must be deposed, He must be deposed. At St. James's he took upon him to require Mr. West, whom I ought to mention with Honour, to leave off praying for him, and the Prince of Wales; See Tempora Mutantur, p. 5. for whom though he had often prayed by Name in the Chapel Royal at the Hague, yet in his Mea­sures of Submission and Obedience he calls him a base Imposture; for which if Men do not, God, in his ap­pointed time, will call him unto Judgment. In his P. 167. History of the Rights of Princes, he calls the War which the Children of King Lewis began against their Father, and afterwards continued against one another, an un­natural War; and yet he hath since been a Firebrand to kindle a War in his own Country, so much the more unnatural, as it is up­on the Score of Religion; of which he saith, in P. 194. his Reffections on Varillas, That it were better for Mankind that there were no revealed Religion at all, and that human Nature should be left to its self, than that there were such a Sort of revealed Religion receiv'd, that overthrows all the Principles of Morality. I suppose he did not argue at this rate to the Princess of Orange, when he perswaded her to consent to the unnatural Inva­sion of her Father's Kingdom, upon the Account of Religion. No, this is the true Character of Religion which he gives in opposition to that of Reflections, p. 39. M. Varillas, who, as he tells us, saith, That in Matters of Religion, Con­science doth so intirely conquer all the Powers of the Soul, and reduces them to such a Slavery, that it forces a Man to write that which it dictates, without troubling himself whether it be true or false. And it is evident from what I have said, That he hath had many such Fits of Religion; and that he was in a great and long Fit of it all the while he supplied Satan's Place, and did the Office of a Tempter to the Princess of Orange, till he overcame her into a Consent to dishonour her Father more than Cham did his, and af­ter all to take Possession of his Crown. Without such Religious Fits of writing Things, whether true or false, he could never arrive to such Perfection of writing Contradictions to serve turns. In his Sermon before the Prince of O. at St. James's, he tells us his Royal Highness came abhorring Conquest. In his Pastoral Letter he ad­vances his imaginary Conquest of us into an Argument for Alle­giance [Page 15] to him; and afterwards in his P. 12. Funeral Ser­mon upon Mr. Boyle, The true Names for Conquest were Robbery, and Murther, and it was nothing but a specious Colour for the worst Things that human Nature is capable of, Injustice and Cruelty. Thus is he troubled with the same Fits with which he so often re­proaches Varillas; and, I fear, I shall make it appear he was in one of them, when he wrote his Funeral Sermon upon Dr. Tillotson, though I heartily wish he had been free.

But to go on, to shew how Unfortunate he hath been in weak­ning his own Authority; in the first Volume of his History of the Reformation, he P. 108. When Hen. IV. had treasonably U­surpt the Crown. speaks of Hen. IV. as of a Traytor, and Usurper, and yet, as I observed before, contrary to all the Acts of Parliament which declare him, and his Son, and Grandson Usurpers; and which it is a Disparagement to his Character, as an Historian to suppose him ignorant of, in his Enquiry into the pre­sent State of Affairs, he asserts, That the Deposition of Ric. II. was never condemned by any subsequent Acts of Parliament. Surely when he wrote this, his Conscience was in a great Fit, neither considering what he had written before, nor whether he wrote true or false.

The next Place in which I must set him to be viewed in oppo­sition to himself, is his Preface to Lactantius; where I must com­pare what he hath written of Persecution, Persecutors, and the Perse­cuted, with what he hath done against the present Sufferers, against whom he hath been a very Bonner to the utmost of his Power, and thirsted after their Destruction. Shortly after the Revolution, asking an honourable Gentleman, if he would not come into the Government? And he answering, He could not; then, saith he, we will drive you out of the Kingdom, or you shall drive us. On Sept. 4. 1690. he told See Paper 1. in the Ap­pendix. Dr. Beach, whom I mention with that great Esteem which is due to his Piety and Learning, that he hoped by the next Christmas not to see one deprived Clergy-man left in the Kingdom; saying, that they were worse than Papists, and that he would shew more Mercy to a Popish Priest than to any one of them. And when the Doctor replied, I hope we shall find Justice, if not Mercy: He answered, I will shew you neither; I will prosecute you to the utmost Extremity. And I believe the Doctor hath found that he was as good as his Word. This Righ­teous and Gentle Temper of his, in obstructing Justice, as well as [Page 16] Mercy, from the suffering Remnant, appeared the last Year in the House of Lords; where he spoke not against the Cause, but the Person of an honourable and most worthy Gentleman, against whom, because he had been Kind and Hospitable to his Fellow-Sufferers, he harangued it in a manner altogether unbecoming his Character, both as a Bishop, and a Judg. Had he argued against the Justice or Equity of his Cause, he had spoken as became his Place; but having nothing to say against that, he spoke against him, as a Person disaffected to the Government, who made his House a common Harbour to the Enemies of it. This might have looked proper had the Gentleman sued to the House for a Favour; but being a Suiter for Justice, and before the last Resort, he spoke not like a Judg but an Enemy, and a Persecutor, who regards Men more than Causes; and indeed like one who hath neither Bowels of Mercy, nor Conscience of Justice, for those un­fortunate Persons, whose greatest Fault is (to use his Preface to Lactantius. own Words) That they cannot think of some Things as he doth, nor submit their Reasons to his. In like man­ner he inveighed bitterly against a most pious and learned Gentleman to his Father, for keeping Company with, and entertaining some of the Non-swearing Clergy, whom in his Pre­face to his four Discourses he calls false Brethren, who pretend to be of the Church of England, but are not, and are of the Synagogue of Satan. This evil Spirit of Persecution shewed it self in a Zeal for an Oath of Abjuration, when speaking like himself in the House, he said to this Effect; Let him die the Death of a Dog, and be buried with the Burial of an Ass, that wishes or hopes for the return of K James. It hath also shewed its cloven Foot in his Funeral Sermon; and it would be endless to recite the intemperate Speeches which, upon the least Occasion, he is apt to vent against a Company of Suf­fering Men; who, to use the Words of his own Plea for the Persecuted, Ibid. have no other Fault, but that they cannot shake off the Principles of their Educa­tion, which, saith he, stick so fast to the worst sort of Men, that Atheists themselves cannot shake them off so entirely, but that they will be apt to return upon them.

Thus he that pretended to be so far from Persecuting Men of any Perswasion, that he apologiz'd even for Atheists, is now all Fury and Persecution against those, who, as the late Bishop of St. Asaph frankly observed to Archbishop Sancroft, are the Men that preserve the Nation from Atheism. Nay, he apologizes even [Page 17] for Idolaters, and argues in the following manner for To­leration, and Forbearance. Ibid. That a Man is scarce the Ma­ster of his own Thoughts, and Constitution; that he cannot see Things in another Light, than that to which he hath been accustomed to view them; That he can no more change his Notions of Things, because a set of new Opinions would accommodate him better, than change the Relish of his Senses; and that the forcing a Man to say or do otherwise than he thinks by Threatnings, the Execution whereof is above his Force to endure, is only the delivering up such a Person to the Rack of his own Conscience here, and the Portion of Hypocrites hereafter. These, and many more Things, he then wrote to serve a Turn in behalf of the Persecuted against Persecution; but now the Scene is shifted he acts a contrary part to what he acted before: Not considering how his former Writings reproach his present Practices, and with what an ill Grace he persecutes now. Of Persecution he saith, Ibid. That it arises from an imperious Temper of Mind, and a Spirit impatient of Contradiction; that it hath most effect on base minded Men, and works quite contrary on generous Minds, and awakened Understandings; that it vitiates the Morals of Persecutors; that Persecutors do naturally engage themselves into the Intrigues of Courts; that though they triumph for a while with the Spoils of their Enemies, yet they will soon feel how it sinks their Credit among indifferent Spectators, and good natured Men; and abundance more to this purpose. And yet forgeting all he hath said with such a Copia on this Subject, he hath signaliz'd himself in the Persecution of those he calls Jacobites, though their Books and Apologies lie unanswered; and particularly those Two that were written against his Enquiry into the Measures of Submission &c. and his Phoenix Pastoral Letter, in which, as he saith of Varillas, His Falla­cies and Prevarications are laid open in a manner capable of making any Man blush besides himself; but he hath neither had the Conscience to con­fess his Errours, nor the Sense of Honour to justify himself.

The next Thing which stands in contradiction to him, and to his whole Practice in complying with the present Government, but most of all with his persecuting Zeal for it, is a Passage in his Re­flexions on Parliamentum Pacificum in the following Words: The In­stance which is proposed to the Imitation of the Nation, is that Parliament which called in the late King, and yet that cannot so much as be called a Parliament, unless it be upon a common-wealth Principle; that the Sove­reign Power is radically in the People; for it being chosen without the King's Writ was such an ESSENTIAL NULLITY that no subsequent Ra­tification could take it away. Methinks this Passage, if he had a Mind [Page 18] to remember it, should oblige him to treat the Non-swearers, if not with Respect, yet with Gentleness: For if it is not a sufficient Ju­stification of them against the Government, yet while it stands unretracted, it is an unanswerable Vindication of them against him and confutes every Thing he hath written against them; and especially that impudent Thanksgi­giving Serm. before the K and Q. p. 19. Passage, in which he asserts, That K. W. was raised up to the Throne by a Title that let ungrateful Men say what they will, hath more both from God and Man in it, than any the World hath seen for many Ages.

I shall now proceed to Things of something a different Nature; but which will shew no less what little Credit is to be given to him, and how unsafe it is to rely upon his Authority. He dedicated his Vindication of the Authority, &c. of the Laws of Scotland to the Duke of Lauderdale, then High Commissioner of Scotland: In that Dedication he tells the Duke, How worthily he bore that noble Cha­racter, with the more lasting and noble Characters of a Princely mind; and praises him for the long uninterrupted Tranquility that Kingdom had enjoyed under his wise and happy Conduct; and saith, That he was a Prince greater in his Mind than Fortune; and that there was something inward to him, which commanded all the Respect that could be paid by all such that had the Honour to know him, as well as he did. He acknow­ledges also the particular Engagement by which he was obliged to him; and saith, That it was not fit for him to express the Sense he had of them, and of the vast Endowments of his mind, for fear he should seem to flatter him. Then he instances in the profoundness of his Understand­ing, and well-ballanced Judgment; for which he might deservedly pass for a Master in all Learning. And, in the Conclusion, tells him, That from him they expected an happy Settlement, and wished that Success and Blessings might attend his Endeavours.

Not long after the Printing this Book at Glascow he brought a great part of the Impression to London, where he sold it to Mr. Mo­ses Pitt; and not long after that again, he came to him to desire him with great Earnestness to sell the Copies of it without the De­dication: For by this time the Duke had fallen out with him, and discarded him for some Arts and Qualities he had observed in him, which I need not name. Mr. Pitt gave him very good Reasons why he ought not to do so; and particularly told him, he could not honestly sell an imperfect for a perfect Copy: Upon which he was angry, and threatned him with the Loss of all the Favours he intended to do him in his Trade. This Mr. Pitt can testify, if he [Page 19] is Living; but if he is not, it can be attested by an honourable Per­son, who heard him solicit Mr. Pitt to this base unworthy Practice. But though Mr. Pitt would not consent to sell the Books without the Dedication, yet he was consent to let him have them again; and then they came abroad without it. And so hard it was 'till it was privately Reprinted to get one single Copy with it, that I pro­fess I could never get such a one, 'till a Gentleman presented me with one out of his private Study. And when he dilated his Pa­tron to the House of Commons, Sir A. Ferrester, his Grace's Secre­tary, told me, That after the utmost Diligence he could get but one single Copy with the Dedication, though he would have pur­chased more at any Rate, to shew the Gentlemen of the honou­rable House what kind of Man his Evidencer was, that would pub­lish such Things in the Commendation of the Duke, after he knew, See his Vin­dication in his XVIII Papers. as he pretended, he had a Design of bringing in an Army out of Scotland for the spoiling and subduing of England. This Discovery of the Dedica­tion, and his Suppressing of it, coming to be known, made all the House curious to see it; and he foreseeing what use would be made of it against him, was willing to decline his Noble Undertaking: But the House, by the Interest of the Duke's Friends, who increased much upon that Discovery, made him testify what, he since saith, created Horrour in him; and how much Reputation he got by it I need not now tell the World. I am sure many of the Duke's greatest Enemies looked upon it as an horrible Lye; not thinking the Design, or the Discovery of it if he had designed it, consistent with so much Wisdom as he was Master of, a [...]ove most great Men of his time.

The next Thing of this Nature which I shall relate, concerns his Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton; he had prepared that Book for the Press before the Breach which happen'd betwixt him and the Duke of Lauderdale, and intended to dedicate it also to him; and accordingly when he had finished his first Original of it he gave the Duke a fair Copy, which he desired his Grace to peruse in order to the Printing thereof. In this Copy several remarkable Things are related for the Honour of the Duke, with very great Characters of him: But before his Grace had leisure to read this Copy, the Difference broke out between them, and then the Me­moirs were published without them; as may be seen in the Copy which is still extant (though I fear his Circular Letter, and Case of Barrenness hereafter mentioned, are not) and one day, I hope, [Page 20] will be published; and then the World will see, and, I believe, say more of him than I desire to say now.

The next Thing concerns a marginal Note against Resistance, in the 446 Page of Bishop Bedel's Life; where under a Passage in one of the Bishop's Letters, that seems to favour Resistance, he hath put these Words. This Passage above is to be considered as a Relation, and not as the Author's Opinion. But yet for fear of taking it by the wrong handle, the Reader is desired to take Notice, That a Subject's re­sisting his Prince, in any Court whatsoever, is unlawful and impious. This Note of his being remember'd by some after the Revolution, and coming very much to be talked of, many curious Persons were desirous to see it; but when they came to the Booksellers to consult the Place (for the Book was never but once Printed) they found it altered thus. This Passage above is to be considered as a Relation, and not as the Author's Opinion, lest it should mislead the Reader into a dangerous Mistake: And it is observable at first Sight, That that single Leaf had been Reprinted for the sake of the Alteration, and Pasted into all the Copies where it is found. One may presume that his Bookseller durst not make this Alteration without some or­der from him; and those who are so curious as to compute when it began to be sold without it, found it was a little time after the Revolution.

The Case of Barrenness above-mentioned was drawn up by him at the time when the talk was that Queen Catherine was to be divorced from Charles the II. Every Body knows that this was a Project of my Lord Shaftsbury, and his Party, to put by the Duke of York from succeeding to the Crown. And as for this Case which looked that way, I had the Honour, with several others, to have it shewn me by a Right honourable Person, and many more of both King­doms have seen it besides. I cannot now give so particular an Account of the State of the Case, as others who have seen it per­haps may: But thus much in the general I remember, That after urging the Inconveniences that Barrenness brings upon Families, and Successions, he determines in the affirmative, That it is a just Cause of Divorce. At the least this is very dangerous and loose Casuistry, and contrary to the Determinations of the whole Stream of Canonists, Civilians, and Divines. It would have helped to have divorced more Queens and Princesses than Catherine, and God and his own Conscience know best at whose Motion, and for what De­sign, he wrote it; and I leave him, as well as my Readers, espe­cially of the Female Sex, to reflect upon what I say.

The next Instance of his Ingenuity is to be found in his Pastoral Letter; where, contrary to his own Sight and Knowledge, he makes King John's Charter to be the Measure of our English Go­vernment, in a most prevaricating manner. If any Man besides himself thinks me too rash or severe in this Censure, let him but compare that part he hath published of it, with the whole Charter in Dr. Brady's History of King John, and consult what Mr. L— hath said upon it, in his excellent Answer to his Pastoral Let­ter, and then if he continues to think so, I will retract my Cen­sure.

The next Instance of his Sincerity, is to be found in the 105 Page of the second Part of his History of the Reformation; and I think it a greater Blemish to him, and his History, than hath been yet noted: But if he pleases he may lay the Blame of it too upon the late Bishop of St. Asaph. There he tells us of a Project to re­concile the Lutherans and Zuinglians, in the Point of the Sacrament, by a middle Opinion, in which, he saith, Luther was willing to have the Difference composed. This he pretends to prove from an ori­ginal M. S. of Luther, in C. C. C's Library in Cambridge, which he pretends to exemplify in his Collection, P. 166. N. 34. but very im­perfectly and falsely, as may be seen by a true and perfect Copy of the Original in the N. 11. Appendix hereunto annexed. The Reader by comparing them together will find the many Prevarications which he hath used to set up this Patern of Comprehension. For first, after CONTRARII he leaves out SACRAMENTO, and instead of Nihil minus he puts Nihilominus, and after Utile leaves out Quam. A little after, for Orientur he puts Orientium, leaving a Gap for a Word which he saith is wanting, and guesses to be OCCLUDENDI; whereas there is not the least Sign of a void Space in the Original, and by consequence no occasion for Criticism or Conjecture. After Pro futuris, he leaves out all the Arguments by which Luther pertina­tiously defends his Opinion; and then for Conscientiae bona capti sunt in Alteram Sententiam, he puts Conscientia bona sunt in Altera S [...]en­pia; and after Accedere he leaves out a great deal in the Conclu­sion, wherein Luther declares he could bear with them in hopes of future Communion; but that he could not be of their Belief and Opinion, but he could allow of Civil Concord or Commu­nion with them, as of Marrying, or Trading with one another. After which again, he expresses how strict he was for his own Doctrine, and by consequence far from a middle trimming Opi­nion, [Page 22] which might unite them into one Commu­nion. He seems here, as he saith of In his Re­flections on Va­rillas. Monsieur Maim­bourg, to have broken loose from the common Measures of Honesty and Shame, and to pay his Reader in false Coin, which he truly tells Varillas is more Criminal in History than in other Matters; and the least I can say of this pretended Willingness of Luther to make up the Diffe­rence between those of Ausbourg, and them of the Helvetian Confes­sion, by a middle Opinion, is what he saith of Varillas, That it is all Vision, his own Invention, and composed out of his own Imagi­nation, to serve the popular Design of Comprehension; which Dr. Sherlock bemoaned before he took the Oaths, That it was still carried on by our Latitudinarians, to the indangering of every Thing that hath been received for Catholick and Fundamental in Chri­stianity in the purest Ages of the Church. Indeed Comprehension, and in order thereunto an universal, unlimited Toleration, was for many Years the great Diana of our Funeral Preacher; and those who doubt of this may soon satisfy themselves in his old Acquaintance Mr. Papin's P. 410. 414. 419. 420. 421. 422. Book, entitled, La tolerance des Protestants, &c. in which he vindicates what he had written for Toleration in a former Book, entitled, La Foi reduite à ses justes bornes, and a great part of his Vindication of it consists in Copies of Dr. Bur­net's Letters, wherein he highly commends the 'foresaid Book, and another more extravagant in Latin, on the same Subject, written by Strimesius. But the horrour Papin had of this boundless Lati­tude, which our Church of England Universalist Approved, and which, as he observes, ends in absolute Scepticism, gave him a Pretence of turning Romanist, to take Sanctuary in the Authority of the Church.

And now I am upon the Subject of Latitude, I will beg leave of the Reader to tell him a Story of Toleration, or Comprehension, (for the Difference sometimes is not great between them) which in the end will touch a little on our Preacher; of whom I must observe once for all, That it is his Opinion that Reflections on the History of Varillas, p. 7, 8. an Historian who favours his own Side is to be forgi­ven, though he puts a little too much Life in his Colours when he sets out the best Side of his Party, and the worst of those from whom he differs; and if he but slightly touches the Failures of his Friends, and severely aggravates those of the other Side, though in this he departs from the Laws of an exact Historian, [Page 23] yet this Biass is so Natural, that if it lessens the Credit of the Writer, yet it doth not blacken him. This shews how apt he is to favour his own Friends, and his own Party, beyond what is just and true; and being a known Latitudinarian, by his own Rule we can never safely trust him when he commends or defends any of his Friends of that Side. And it was upon the Score of Latitudinariism, and mystical Devotion, that he loved to extol Dr. Layton, though by some Canons he hath cited in his History of the Rights of Princes, he was an Usurper of the See of Glascow, as Dr. Tillotson was esteemed to be in a more offensive Degree of the See of Canterbury. But to return to his admired Dr. Layton, he was so great a Libertine in Comprehension, that he freely offered to receive the ejected Pres­byterian Ministers without Episcopal Ordination, if they would come in, and to transact all Things in the Government of the Church with his Presbyters by plurality of Suffrages, strictly speaking as if he were no more than a Presbyter among them. Archbishop Burnet, into whose Chair he intruded, told Dr. Gunning Bishop of Ely this Story of his Intruder; and he wondering that any Bishop should give up that Power without which he could not act as Bishop, ask­ed Dr. Burnet of the truth of it, which he positively denied. This denial of his obliged the good Archbishop for his Vindication to refer Bishop Gunning to a Book which he had left with a Friend, for the truth of what he had told him of the comprehensive Lati­tude of Dr. Layton. I saw the Book, and remember it was printed at Glascow, and it so fully satisfied the Bishop, that he took it home with him; but before he went made some Reflections on the want of Ingenuity in Dr. Burnet, and concluded his Animadversions up­on him with a Trick he shew'd himself: It relates to a Book cal­led Naked Truth, which the Bishop intended to answer. Dr. Burnet, among others, hearing of it, come to wait upon him; and when that Discourse arose between them, he asked the Bishop upon what Scheme he intended to make his Answer. He, who was one of the most frank and communicative Men in the World, told him how he would answer it from Part to Part; which the Doctor observing with Design, carried every Thing away, and being a swift and ready Writer, printed his Answer to it, before the other had finished his.

I said before that he was also an Admirer of I suppose he is the Angelical Man of whom he speaks such hyperbolical Things in the plural Number, and promises a particular Account of him in his Pref. before Bedel's Life. Dr. Layton upon the Account of mystical Devo­tion; for he was an Enthusiast [Page 24] of the first magnitude, and it was a great Mischance, that this Preacher preached not his Funeral Sermon. And as upon that Account he admired him, so was he wonderfully taken with Lab­bades Writings, and would have perswaded the Duke of Lauderdale to send for him into Scotland. One of his greatest London Friends hath also cold me what Pains he, and some others, formerly took to correct the Enthusiasm of his Temper, and keep him from plun­ging himself into mystical Divinity: And when he was Professor at Glascow, he was got so far into a Fit of it, that he set up for an Ascetick; and once, being in the Archbishop's House, and discour­sing with his Daughter upon some common Subject, all on a sud­den he leaped out of his Chair, and with a Tone, Look and Ge­sture, all Extatick and Enthusiastical, said Words to this Effect: Now am I sure of my Salvation, now am I sure, that if the Earth should open and swallow me up this moment, my Soul would go to Heaven. I had this Story from the good Archbishop, and I mention it be­cause I have observed, in very many Instances, how Enthusiasm with its Religious Heats makes those in whom it is prevalent do the same ill Things, that Atheism in the same degree makes others do. They are indeed Depravations of the Mind very different in their Nature and Theory, but they agree in the same unrighteous Practices, and have a tendency to act the same Evils. For if the Atheist does Evil because he believes not; the Enthusiast will up­on a thousand Occasions believe he may do any Evil. If the one sticks at no Means, though never so wicked, the other thinks the Goodness of the End will sanctify the most wicked Means. In a word, They both make a Cloak of Religion for Covetousness, Ambition, and Cruelty: They will both Lye, Murther, Rob, and Rebel for holy Church, and Religion; and there never yet was any Holy League, Covenant or Association, to begin or carry on Rebellion, under the holy Pretence of Religion, wherein the Ring-leaders were not Atheists, or Enthusiasts; and of the Two it is hard to tell which hath done most Mischief in any Kingdom, and especially in ours. But the Enthusiast makes the more plausible and taking Hypocrite of the Two; he can sooner melt into Tears, and more naturally counterfeit the Spiritual Man among the People, and transform himself with a better Grace into an Angel of Light. And one cannot but suppose that he had a great Dose of Enthusiasm in him, when he undertook to perswade the late unhappy Princess to invade her Father's Kingdom, against the Light of Nature, and the Principles of her Education; and that [Page 25] he season'd his Perswasives with the Salt of Pharisaical Tears, pre­tended to be shed in Commiseration of the Church of England: For it is well known that he hath Tears at Command, as Enthu­siasts of all Religions have. He wept like any Crocodile at Mr. Napleton's Relation of the barbarous Usage which the King met with at Feversham: And pray Mr. Napleton, said he, still wi­ping his Eyes, carry my Duty to the King, and let him know my Con­cern for him. Which puts me in mind of a Story that I have heard of that Master-Enthusiast Cromwel, who when a Gentleman came to entreat his Excellency, That he would give leave that he might have a Lock of the Beheaded King's Hair for an honourable Lady. Ah! no, Sir, saith he, bursting into Tears, that must not be; for I swore to him, when he was Living, that not an Hair of his Head should Perish.

I beg my Reader's Pardon for this Digression of Enthusiasm, though I hope it is not altogether impertinent to my Undertaking, and now return to shew by other Examples how apt our Preacher, or Historian, (call him which you please) is to write his Phan­sies and Inventions for true History; and that he is very little, if any Thing at all, behind Varillas in this Fault, which a Man of Letters, especially a Divine, that desires to have a lasting Reputa­tion, ought to avoid, as much as a Tradesman that values his Cre­dit ought to take care not to sell Counterfeit or Sophisticated Goods. In his first Volume of his History of the Reformation, p. 209. he tells us of Two original Letters, the one in Italian, and the other in English, which the Lady Elizabeth not yet Four years of Age wrote to Queen Jane Seymour, when she was with Child of King Edward; and that they were both writ in the same hand that she wrote all the rest of her Life. These are Two strange and incredible Things: First, That a Child not yet Four years old should have learned a foreign Language, to such a Degree of Per­fection, as to be able to write Letters in it; and Secondly, That she should write then so well, as never to mend or alter her hand after. And to these Two, I may add those pretty waggish Con­ceits in the English Letter, which he hath there set down with this marginal Note, Her Letter to the Queen not yet Four years of Age. In this Letter she Compliments her Highness upon the Pain it was to her to write, her Grace being with Child; and then after many other Passages which could not be the first Blossoms of a Child, as he thinks, these Words follow; I cannot reprove my Lord for not doing your Commendations in his Letter, for he did it; and although he had [Page 26] not, yet I will not complain on him, for that he shall be diligent to give me knowledg from time to time, how his busy Child doth; for if I were at his Birth, no doubt I would see him beaten for the trouble he hath put you to. Now I appeal to any considering Man, whether those look like the Conceits of a Child not yet Four years old? And none certainly but an Historian so rash and phanciful in his Wri­tings, as he is, would for this Reason have thought that this Letter was written to the Queen: And had he taken time enough to reflect, and considered his Q. Eliz. was born Sep. 7. 1533. Cath. Par died in Child-bed of her Daughter in the beginning of Sep. 1548. Re­cord better, he would have found that her High­ness was not the Queen, but Catherine Par; and my Lord not the King, but the Lord Admiral, to whom she was married; and, by consequence, that the Lady Elizabeth was then Fifteen years of Age. How many Lashes must poor Varillas have had without mercy, if he had been guilty of such a Blunder; I know, saith he, in his P. 29. Reflections upon him, There are a Sort of Men that are much more ashamed when their Ignorance is discovered, than when their other Vices are laid open; since degenerate Minds are more jealous of the Reputation of their Understandings, than of their I suppose he means Sincerity. Honour. And whether this Discovery touches the Reputation of his Understanding, or his Ho­nour most, I leave him to judge.

From hence I pass to Bishop Bedel's Life; of which he saith in the Preface, That his Part in it was so small, that he can scarce assume any Thing to himself, but the Copying out of what was put into his Hands by Mr. Clogy. And in the P. 175. Book he saith again, That Mr. Clogy is much more the Author of it than he is. For this we have only his own Word, which I profess signifies little with me. But to know what was his, and what Mr. Clogy's, he hath left us to Conjecture; though, I think, few that know his way of Writing will so much as doubt that the Romantick Passages, which I am going to cite out of it, and which are obtruded upon the World for true History, are his own Inventions, and not Mr. Clogy's: But however, though they were Mr. Clogy's, he is answerable for them for letting them pass unob­served, and unchastised into the World. But if they are his own, as I am confident they are, then let Men of the greatest Candor judge what Censure is fit for a Man that would write his own Imaginations for truth; though he had declared in the Preface, [Page 27] That Lives were to be written with the Strictness of a severe Historian, and not helped up with Invention; and that those who do otherwise, dress up Legends, and make Lives rather than write them. To deceive, and at the same time to declare against deceiving, is double Im­posture and Imposition in an Historian. But Bishop Bedel it seems was worthy for whom our Historian should dispense with the Laws of History, as he 13 Eli. 12. did with an Act of Parliament upon a certain Occasion for reading the 39 Articles. It is manifest from the Bishops Letters, That he was a Latitudinarian in some Opinions, and from his Life, if it be true written, that he disliked the use of Organs in Divine Service, bow­ing at the Name of Jesus, the use of the Common Prayer in his private Family; and these, and some other pretended Antipathies to some innocent common Practices, tempted our Historian, con­trary to the Duty which he ow'd Truth, and his Readers, to dress up his Life into a Romance: And to give him an heroick Fame, to say many Things for his Honour which he knew were not true, or at least was uncertain whether they were, or no. Thus (p. 4) he saith, That his Reputation was so great, and so well established, both in the University and in Suffolk, that when King James sent Sir H. Wootton to be his Ambassador at Venice, at the time of the Inter­dict, he was recommended as the fittest Man to go Chaplain in so critical a Conjuncture. This sounds well for his Hero's Honour, had it been reconcilable to Truth; but it neither agrees with the Date of Sir H. Wootton's Credentials, nor the Time of his being in Venice, nor of the Interdict, all which shews that it was his own Invention, and not matter of Fact: For the Credentials of Sir H. bare date in June, 1604. after which, in all probability, they got to Venice by Michael­mas after; whereas Pope Paul the V. who had that Quarrel with the Venetians, and put them under the Interdict, was not Pope till May, 1605. and he did not begin to Threaten and Thunder at them till September after, when Sir Henry and his Chaplain had been there about a Year. And Father Paul's History of the Inter­dict, translated into Latin by Mr. Bedel, gives so particular an Ac­count of the Time of this Difference, that our Historian can have no tolerable Excuse, for saying he was thought the fittest Man to go Chaplain in so critical a Conjuncture.

In Pag. 10. he saith, That during his stay at Venice, Ant. de Do­minis, Archbishop of Spalato, came to Venice, and having received a just Character of Mr. Bedel he discovered his Secret to him, &c. But for God's sake what Secret? Was it the Secret Design of leaving [Page 28] not only his own Country, but all the Papal Dominions, which he so often In his Consi­lium profect. tells us he had thoughts of, for Ten years and upwards, before his putting it in Execu­tion? Or was it the Secret Design he had of chan­ging his Religion, to which the other Design was but subordinate? But how doth the Discovery of these Secrets agree with what he saith Consil profect. Sect. 3. That the Call he had was Divine not Hu­man, and with calling God and his own Conscience to witness, that no Perswasions or Invitations, of what sort soever, had ever reacht his Ears, and that he had used no Man's Councel, nor consulted with any Mortal in that Business? The improbability of this Passage, be it his, or be it Clogy's, makes me suspect the truth of what follows; viz. That the Archbishop shewed Bedel his Ten Books de Rep. Ecclesiastica, which he afterwards, saith he, printed at London; and that Bedel correc­ted many ill Applications of Texts of Scripture, and Quotations of Fathers in them, all which the Archbishop took in good part, and used to say he could do nothing without him. Page 10, 11, he saith, That a Passage fell out during the Interdict▪ that made greater Noise than the Importance of it could perhaps amount to, but it was suited to the Italian Genius. There came a Jesuit to Venice, Thomas Ma­ria Caraffa, who Printed a Thousand Theses of Philosophy and Divinity, which he Dedicated to the Pope with this extravagant Inscription, PAU­LO V. VICE DEO, &c. This seems very strange, That a Jesuit should come to Venice, and do such bold and provoking Things in the time of the Interdict, when the whole Order had quitted the Venetian Dominions; and the State was so severe as to shut the Door upon them, and to keep them out at the Time of the Re­conciliation, though great Endeavours were used to the contrary. This I say seems very strange; but to put the whole Matter out of all Dispute, First, This fell not out during the Interdict, but in 1608. whereas the Interdict was at an end in the beginning of 1607. as appears from the History of it. Secondly, Thomas Maria Caraffa was not a Jesuit, but a Dominican. Thirdly, He came not to Venice, but Printed his Theses at Naples, and at Rome; and Copies of them were sent as Novels from Rome, and did the more amuse the Venetians, because of the Controversy that State had with the Pope a little before. All this he might have seen in Bedel's Letters to Waddesworth, p. 365, 366, 367. And whereas he also writes in the forecited Place of his Life, That Mr. Bedel observing the numeral Letters of the Words, PAULO V. VICE DEO to make 666. the Number of the Beast in the Revelation, communi­cated [Page 29] his Observation to P. Paulo, and the Seven Divines, and that they carried it to the Duke, and Senate, who entertained it, as if it had come from Heaven. He himself, in the forecited Place of his Letters to Mr. Waddesworth, saith no such Thing; but only that the New Title Vice Deo, and that of Omnipotency, gave matter of Wonder; and that the next day it was noised about the City, that the Picture of the Pope, under which it was written, was the Picture of Anti­christ; for that the Inscription, Paulo V. Vice Deo, contained exactly in the numeral Letters the Number of the Beast in the Revelation, 666. But to prevent the Amusement which might otherwise arise in the Mind of the Reader, about this impersonal way of Mr. Bedel's tel­ling the Story of that ingenious Observation, he tells, he was too modest a Man to claim the Discovery of it. But Sir H. Wootton assured King James, that he first observed it: But how shall we be assured that Sir Henry told the King so? I profess his wilful Mi­stakes about Caraffa, and his Theses by which he contradicts both the History of the Interdict, and Mr. Bedel's own Account of the Fact, makes me notwithstanding doubt of this Particular, and here Query, having as yet no other Authority for it, Whether it be true, or no?

Pages 12, 13, 14, 15, he is so impudent as to build up the Fame and Reputation of Mr. Bedel upon the Infamy of Sir Henry Wootton his Patron, contrary to Truth, and the Justice that is due to the Memory of that great and good Man. ‘Here, saith he, I must add a Passage, concerning which I am in doubt, whether it re­flected more on the Sincerity, or on the Understanding of the English Ambassador. The Breach between the Pope and the Republick was brought very near a Crisis; so that it was expected a total Separation not only from the Court, but the Church of Rome, was likely to follow it. It was set on by Pope This is but a slight Mi­stake; but because it is so of­ten repeated; it should be ta­ken notice of: For P. Paulo was himself one of the Se­ven, there being but Six em­ployed by the Senate besides. Paulo, and the Seven Di­vines, with much Zeal, and was very prudently conducted by them. In or­der to the advancing of it, King James ordered his Ambassador to offer all pos­sible Assistance, and to accuse the Pope, and the Papacy, as the chief Authors of all the Mischiefs of Christendom.— P. Paulo, and the Seven Divines, pressed Mr. Bedel to move the Ambassador to present King James's PREMONITION TO ALL CHRISTIAN PRINCES AND STATES, then put in Latin to the Senate, and they were confident it would produce a great Ef­fect. [Page 30] But the Ambassador could not be prevailed with to do it at that Time, and pretended that since St. James's day was not far off, it would be more proper to do it on that day. If this was only for the sake of a Speech that he had made on the Con­ceit of St. James's Day, and King James's Book, with which he had pretended to present it, it was a Weakness never to be excused: But if this was only a Pretence, and that there was a Design under it, it was a Crime never to be forgiven. All that Bedel could say or do, to perswade him not to put off a Thing of such Importance, was in vain; and indeed I can hardly think that Wootton was so weak a Man as to have acted Sincerely in this Matter. Before St. James's Day came — the Difference was made up, and the happy Opportunity was lost; so that when he had his Audience on that Day, in which he presented the Book, all the Answer he could get was, That they thanked the King of England for his good Will, but they were now reconciled to the Pope. It may be easily imagined what a Wound this was to his Chaplain.’

Behold here a Story as false, as formal; and great pity it is that Sir H. Wootton's Heir, if any such be alive now to represent him, should not have the Benefit of an Action against our Historian, to repair the Honour of his Ancestor, which is so deeply wounded by him. For if this Story were punctually true, it would not bear the severe Reflections which he hath made upon Sir H. for it; because he might not think fit to follow his Chaplain's Advice without order from the King his Master, which he might hope to receive before St. James's Day; and yet for private Reasons not think sit to tell his Chaplain the Reason of his Delay. But the Story must needs be false; because the King's Book, of which he makes mention, was not then extant. For the Pope and the Venetians were reconciled in Bed. Hist. of the Ven. Interd. p. 218. April, 1607. and the King's Premonition came not out till 1609. Nor will it help him to say, That this was only a Mi­stake of the Premonition for the Apology, which was Reprinted with it, and to which, in the King's own Phrase, it was a Preamble. For the first Edition of the Apology was as little extant before the Reconciliation mentioned, as the Premonition. For that which occasioned the King's Writing the Apology, as himself tells us, was the Two Breves sent over by the Pope, and Cardinal Bellarmin's Letter; and the later of the Breves bears date from Rome but in August 23, 1607. and the Letter September 28, follow­ing: By which it appears that the Reconciliation▪ was made several [Page 31] Months before either of these were written, and longer before they could come to the King's hand, longer yet before he could finish the Apology in English, and again longer before it could be put into Latin. From whence it appears, That this fine told Story, which so dishonours the Memory of Sir H. Wootton to Ho­nour that of his Chaplain, is a pure Fiction, and as much the Birth of some Bodies Brain, as ever any Thing the Vanity of Va­rillas wrote was his.

But to go on with the Inventions of our Historian, p. 17. he saith, That P. Paulo might never be forgot by Bedel he gave him his Picture — the invaluable Manuscript of the History of the Council of Trent, toge­ther with the History of the Interdict, and of the Inquisition. No Body doubts of Father Paul's, Kindness to Mr. Bedel, but it will appear that these Tokens of it are more than questionable from what fol­lows: First, as to his Picture, he that reads his Life will scarce believe he was so forward to give his Picture, or that he had it to give. Life of Father Paul. Lond. p. 76. For he would never let his Picture be drawn from the Natural, notwithstanding it were desired by Kings, and great Princes. And although many of his Pictures go abroad for Originals, yet they are all but Copies of one which is said to be in the Gallery of a great King, which was ta­ken against his Will, and by a Stratagem. But for himself this may give Assurance, that he did not endure to have his Picture drawn; because in the last Years of his Life, being intreated by the most illustrious and excel­lent Dominico Molin, and likewise by his Confident Fra. Fulgentio being set on to beseech him, yet it could not be obtained so much as to give a famous Painter leave to take his Picture, though he was promised he should not sit above an Hour. Whosoever considers this Account, and more to the same purpose in the same Place, must needs think that the Father had no Picture of himself to give Mr. Bedel. Indeed there is mention of an Original Picture of the Fa­thers sent by Bedel's Life, p. 255. Sir H. Wootton to Dr. Collins; but by the Account I have given out of the Father's Life, which was written by a great Friend of his, it must have been that which he saith was in the Gallery of a great King, or one taken by the like Stratagem. Secondly, as to the History of the Council of Trent, it was not extant when Mr. Bedel left Venice, as may be gathered from a Letter of Reliq. Woot­ton, p. 493. Sir H. Wootton's, written in 1619. or perhaps 1618. where­in it is mentioned as a work then in hand, or but newly finished, whereas Bedel left Venice in 1610. Thirdly, as to the History of the [Page 32] Interdict, it was indeed lent by the Father at Venice to Mr. Bedel, but with this Condition, as he himself tells us, in the Epistle prefixt to the Translation, that he should not transcribe it; and if he had given it to him when he parted with him, there is no doubt but Bedel would also have mentioned that. Lastly, for the History of the Inquisition, there are some Passages in it which shew plainly, That it was not then in Being: For there is mention made in it, not only of Things which happen'd in 1610. just upon the return of Mr. Bedel, but also 1607. which appears not to be a Mistake in the Print by a Character there added, that it was 48 Years after 1569. which makes the Year 1610. Page 18. he saith, When Be­del came over he brought along with him the Archbishop of Spalata, and one Despoline a Physitian, who could no longer bear with the Corruptions of the Roman Church, &c. It was in the Year 1610. that Mr. Bedel return'd with Sir. H. Wootton into England, and the bringing them over should in all Reason and Decency have been ascribed to the Ambassador, rather than his Chaplain; but having set him up for a Man that had his own Dislikes to bowing at the Name of Jesus, the alternative Reading and Singing of Psalms, bowing towards the Altar, instrumental Musick in Churches, and the use of the Common Prayer in private Families, he was resolved to paint him with a Glory, and transmit his Memory to after Ages by Fic­tions as well as true Stories, and even rob his Patron of his due Praises to extol him. Both these are evident from what he saith of Bedel's bringing over Spalatensis and Despoline; for as for the for­mer, it is evident from his Consilium Profectionis, That he did not come over with Bedel, it bearing date at Venice 1616, near 6 Years after Mr. Bedel's return from that Place, and accor­dingly Dr. Heylin saith in the P. 102. Life of Laud, that Antonius de Dominis betook himself for Sanctuary to the Church of England, An. 1616. And as for the latter, Sir H. Woot­ton claims to himself the Credit of bringing him over, as appears by his Letters. In Reliq. Woot­ton, p. 400. one to Sir Edm. Bacon he writes thus; There cometh to you with him an Italian Doctor of Physick, by Name Gasper De­spolini.— I was glad to be the Conductor of him where his Conscience may be free. In another to my dear Ibid. p. 349. Nic. he saith, more than a voluntary Motion doth now carry me towards Suffolk, especially that I may confer by the way with an Excellent Physitian at B— whom I brought my self from Venice.

I could produce more Instances out of Bedel's Life to shew how apt our Author of it is to write his own Inventions for true Hi­story, and thereby impose upon the World; but I believe I have brought enough for that purpose, and hope I have thereby Con­vinced all Lovers of Truth more than of Mens Persons, how un­safe it is to take Things upon trust from him. Mr. Bedel was re­ally a Man of great Merit for his Learning, Life, and Christian Temper, which endear'd him to Father Paul, who took him into his very Soul, and See Sir Henry Wootton's Life by Mr. Walton. c [...]mmunicated his most inward Thoughts to him. He was also up­on a strict Principle of Duty very Exemplary in Conformity to the Rites of the Church. He kept all Ember weeks, and observed all the Canonical Hours of Prayer very conscientiously, and all the Feasts and Fasts of the Church. But Dr. Burnet, by writing so many Things to his Honour which are not true, hath very much dishonoured his Memory, and given those, who are come to the knowledge of him only by his Life, occasion to suspect every Thing he hath said of him, and that he hath described him not as he was, but as he would have the World believe him to have been. But to apply all to the Purpose of my own Writing; if he hath taken such Poetical Liberties where he promised to write with the Severity of a strict Historian, and to give only a bare and simple Relation of Things; I say, if he hath taken such Liberties, and made so bold with Truth, in the Life of one Bishop, contrary to his own Promises, I think we cannot be too cautious how we believe him in his Funeral Sermon upon the other; although he professes to speak of him with Plainess and Simplicity, with great Reserves, and with a Modesty of Stile through his whole Discourse. But I think I have shewed how little Professions of this Nature signify, when they come from him; and will only add, That our blessed Saviour's Advice of taking heed whom and what we hear, is very strictly to be observed then when we hear or read him, who is so apt to Romance, and to speak of Things and Persons as he would have them to be, rather than as they are: And that he hath so spoken in many Respects of Dr. Tillotson, and praised him above his Merits, and more than his Memory deserves, is according to the Method of the mentioned Conference which I proposed to follow, to be the Subject of the ensuing Chapter.

AMong the many worthy Men of our Church, whose Me­mories have been transmitted to Posterity, we read of some who have forbidden Sermons to be preached at their Funerals; of others, who have forbidden that any mention should be made of them in their Funeral Sermons; and others again have taken care to nominate Persons to preach at their Fu­nerals, in whose great Prudence and Judgment they had an entire Confidence, that they would speak more to the Living than of the Dead; and that what they spoke of them would be Just, Modest, and Genuin; and such as they might have said of themselves without Arrogance had they been Living, or heard others say of them without Confusion. Had Dr. Tillotson been so careful as to follow any one of these Examples, or his Friends so well advised as to follow them for him, he would have had more rest in his Grave, and perhaps not had his Name so soon, and so strictly cal­led into question: But having had the Misfortune after his Death to have his Funeral Sermon preached by a Man who hath shewed so little Temper and Justice in his Character, but raised his Fame to an undue Pitch upon the Defamation of others more worthy than he; I thought I should do a Work acceptable to all Lovers of Truth, and of the true Church of England, if I shewed in some In­stances how undeserving he was of that Character; and by noting some of his defects, which ought to be noted, prevent the Danger which unwary Readers, and Hearers of his Funeral Sermon, might otherwise fall into, of following him upon the implicit Belief of this Character, in the Wrong as well as in the Right, and walk after him as securely in the devious paths of Errour, as in the strait way of Truth. For who would not chuse to follow the Example of a Man, P. 28. whose Life was free from Ble­mishes, and shined in all the Parts of it; and P. 2. who was an Example of all sublime and heroical Piety and Vertue and a Patern both to Church and State? And who more especially of our Religion, would not follow a Church-man who will be such a lasting Honour to it, and who P. 30. kept the sacred Trust of the Christian Faith and Doctrine, and maintain'd it pure and undefiled to his dying Day? This is the lofty Character which our Preacher hath given us of Dr. T. but falsely, and so much above his Merit, That he hath had the deplorable Infelicity to do [Page 35] many Things contrary to every part of it, as I shall shew in some signal Instances; which were blemishes in his Life, and will remain such Blots upon his Memory, as no Apology will ever be able to wash out

My first Instance shall be in his Apostacy from his own avowed Principle and Doctrine of the Church of England, the once vene­rable Doctrine of Non-Resistance, or Passive Obedience; in which our Church hath taught her Children how they should behave them­selves towards Men, and approve themselves towards God, if she and they should come to be persecuted for the Tryal of their Faith, as the purest Churches and best Christians have been in former Ages. He did not only In his Sub­scription to the Book of Homilies. subscribe to the Truth of this Doctrine, and in the Profession of the Truth of it, declare it un­lawful to take up Arms against the King upon any Pre­tence whatsoever; but pressed it upon the Consciences of Living and Dying Men: And when he preached against Popery, he as­serted it not only in the most serious manner that good Divines use to do the most important matters of Christiany, but with that Strength and Clearness, which, our Preacher saith, is his peculiar Talent.

In his Letter to my Lord Russel in N [...]wgate, which the Reader will find in the N. 3. Appendix, he told his Lordship, who did not believe that Doctrine, what a great and dangerous Mistake he was in, and that his disbelief of it, which was but a Sin of ignorance before he was Convinced of the Truth of it, became a Sin of a more heinous Nature after his Convic­tion, and called for a more deep and particular Repentance; and that if he dyed in a disbelief of it, he was like to leave the World in a De­lusion and false Peace; and pursuant to this, in his last Prayer with his Lordship on the Scaffold, he said, Grant, Lord, that all we who survive, by this and other Instances of thy Providence, may learn our Duty to God and the King. What could a Man have said more in behalf of any Doctrine of the Christian Religion? Or what could he have done more, to convince the World he was in good Earnest, than to publish it after he said it? And yet in his Thanks­giving Sermon Jan. 31. 1688. preached at Lincolns Inn, he tells us, That our Deliverance (then the Phrase of the Revo­lution) was the Lord's doing, although it was brought about by the utter Violation of that Doctrine, and the whole Duty of Subjects, which results from it; and then reciting the Strange [Page 36] means by which it was brought about. We must not, saith he, here forget the many Worthies of our Nation, who did so generously run all hazards of Life and Fortune, for the Preservation of our Religion, and the Asserting our Ancient Laws and Liberties. Behold the Preacher at Lincolns Inn, and the Confessor in Lincolns Inn Fields, contradicting one another. The Confessor told my Lord Russell, That the Chri­stian Religion plainly forbids the Resistance of Authority, and that the same Law which established our Religion▪ declares it not lawful to take up Arms upon any Pretence whatsoever. But the Preacher, now turned Apo­state from the Confessor, commends the many Worthies, as he calls the Traytors and Rebels of our Country, for soliciting a Fo­reign Prince, and the Creature of another State, to invade their own Sovereign's Dominions, and assisting of him in the Underta­king, till they had driven him out of his Kingdoms. He saith, It was generously done of them to run all hazards of Life and For­tune, and he might have added of their Salvation too, for the Preservation of our Religion and Liberties; although he had told the World before, that our Laws forbid the Preservation of them by those means; nay, that the Laws of Nature, and the Rules of Scrip­ture, had not left us at Liberty to use them; which was in effect to say, That neither our Laws would have our Religion, nor our Religion have it self preserved, by the Means those Worthies used for its Preservation. The Belief of the Lawfulness of Resisting, when our Rights and Liberties should be invaded, was a Sin of a dangerous and heinous Nature in my Lord Russel; but the Practice of it was laudable in I know not how many Lords and Gentlemen more, for preserving our Religion, Laws, and Liberties by it; and if any of them since are gone out of the World in a Delusion and false Peace, he is one of those Divines who more especially must Answer to God for it. For it was after a close Consult with him, and one or two more, that a Motion was made in the House of Lords for Appointing a Day of Thanksgiving to God for having made his Highness P. O. the glorious Instrument of delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power: And then it was that our English Worthies, as well as the Heroe under whom they acted, were applauded in the Pulpits for the Success of that Glorious Enterprize, which to think or speak of in a slighting manner, was, in his Opinion, to be guilty of the foulest and blackest Ingratitude both to God, and them.

One would wonder how any Christ [...]an Man, but more especially how a Christian Preacher, should so plainly contradict himself, and his most serious Doctrines; and yet have the Confidence since [Page 37] to Reprint them, as if he had never said, nor done any Thing in­consistent with them. Hear therefore what he saith of Religion, our dear and holy Religion, which the Worthies of our Nation run such an Hazard to preserve. Serm. preach­ed on the Fifth of Nov. 1678. and Reprinted 1691. As for Religion, the very Heathens always spoke of it as the great Band of human Society, and the Foundation of Truth, and Fidelity, and Justice, among Men. But when Religion once comes to supplant moral Righteous­ness, and to teach Men the absurdest Things in the World, to Lye for the Truth, and to Kill Men for God's sake; when it serves to no other Purpose, but to be a Bond of Conspiracy to inflame the Tempers of Men to a greater Fierceness, and to set a keener Edge upon their Spirits, and to make them ten times more the Children of Wrath and Cruelty than they were by Na­ture; then surely it loses its Nature, and ceases to be Religion: For let any Man say worse of Atheism and Infidelity if he can. And for God's sake what is Religion good for, but to reform the Manners and Disposi­tions of Men, to restrain human Nature from Violence and Cruelty, from Falshood and Treachery, from Sedition and Rebellion? Better it were there were no revealed Religion; and that human Nature were left to the Conduct of its own Principles and Inclinations—then to be acted by a Religion which inspires Men with so wild a Fury, and prompts them to commit such Outrages, and is continually supplanting Government, and undermining the Welfare of Mankind. In short, such a Religion that teaches Men to propagate and advance (and he might have added, preserve) its self by means so evidently contrary to the very Nature and End of Religion.

This is Dr. Tillotson's fam'd Character of Religion; and not to descant in long Applications upon it, I desire my Reader to con­sider, if it is not as applicable to the New as to the Old Fifth of November, and the Worthies of the Protestants, as well as the Po­pish Religion, who conspired against James the Second, as these did against James the First. Tell me, O ye Worthies of the Church of England, who have hazarded your Lives and Fortunes to preserve our Religion, Is it more lawful to Plot and Rebel for holy Church of England, than for holy Church of Rome? And is it not as much Priestcraft in our Divines to applaud you as Worthies for so doing, as it was in the Pope to compare the Duke of Guise, and his Partizans, to those Jewish Worthies, Jephtha, Gideon, and the Maccabees, and do you not despise them for their sordid Flat­tery of you in open Contradiction to their own Doctrines, and the Principles of that Religion which they pretend still to profess; [Page 38] May I not say with Dr. Till. against himself, Serm. Vol. 3. p. 77. That a Miracle is not enough to give Credit to a Man who teaches Things so contrary to the Nature of Religion, and that P. 20. the Heathen Philosophers are better Casuists than he. This he said of the Jesuists, and the Ca­suists of the Church of Rome, for maintaining the Lawfulness of deposing Kings, and subverting Government, and yet without Blushing he maintained the Lawfulness of this in commending you.

But this is but one Instance of acting in contradiction to his own Doctrine, when the appointed time of tryal came; there are many more so well known, that I need not mention them: For indeed his whole Practice since the Revolution hath been one Series of Apostacy, and by which he hath not only dishonoured his Me­mory, and made all his other Good be evil spoken of, but been a Scandal to our holy Church and Religion, to which our Preacher saith, he was such an Honour; given the Enemies of them great occasion to Triumph, their best and most stedfast Friends great occasion of Grief and Shame: And lastly, tempted loose and un­principled Men to turn Atheists, and ridicule our Priesthood and Religion; and this he hath been told of in such dif­ferent manners, that I do not wonder Fun. Serm. p. 27. it sank deep into him, and had such influence upon his Health.

I cannot imagine but that one Letter which was sent to his Lady for him, superscribed for Dr. Tillotson, must needs disquiet him very much, if he received it, and read it. It is written through­out with a serious Air, and every Line of it speaks to his Con­science; and because I know the worthy Gentleman who wrote it, and that it is a full and clear Proof of what I have said, I pre­sent my Reader, but more especially the Preacher of his Funeral Sermon, with a few Paragraphs of it, if he will have the Patience to read them. It begins thus, Letter p. 2. ‘Sir, I shall preface what I am about to say with an Assurance, That I have formerly had the greatest Veneration for you, as well for your Piety as good Sense and Learning; that my Notions of Government are so large, that the first Thing I ever doubtfully Examined, that had your Name affixed to it, was your Letter to my Lord Russel: But your Actions since do less quadrate with that Opinion, and seriously make me address my self to you to know how you reconcile your present Actings to the Principles either of Natural or Revealed Religion; especially [Page 39] how you reconcile them with the Positions and Intentions of that Letter, and consequently whether you have a Belief of God, and the World to come.— P. 5. But to come to your more particular Case; I beseech you to publish some Discourse (if you can clear Things) to de­monstrate either your Repentance of what you wrote to my Lord Russel, or the Reasons that make that, and what you now do, consistent; and that you, with the usual Solidity with which you treat upon other Subjects, justify the Proceedings, and explain the Title of K. W. I know no Body hath a stronger and clearer Head, and, if you have Truth on your Side, you can write un­answerably. God's Glory, and the Reputation of the Protestant Reli­gion, is at Stake. Your own good Name calls for it, and more espe­cially because you have accepted a most Reverend and Devout Man's Archbishoprick. A Man who hath given Evidence how un­alterably he is a Protestant. A Sufferer formerly for the Laws, and Church of England; and a Sufferer for those very Principles upon which that Letter to my Lord was written, for those very Principles which you disputed for, when he had so short a time to Live: Nay, which you remember'd him of even upon the Scaffold, with the dread­ful Commination of eternal Woe. Really, Sir, if there be any Truth, if there be any Vertue, if there be any Religion, what shall we say to these Things? What will you say to them? You must be at the Pains to clear this matter, that we may not be­lieve the Boundaries of Right and Wrong, the Measures of Vio­lence and Justice, quite taken away; that we may not be tempted to P. 7. speculative, and from thence to practical Atheism. This Change has made many sober Men sceptical, and gone further towards the eradicating all the Notions of a Deity, than all the Labours of Hobs; and your part in it hath, I confess, more stagger'd me, than any one Thing else. I have been ready to suspect, That Religion it self was a Cheat, and that it was a Defect in my Un­Understanding that I could not look through it: For I think if I can know my Right-hand from my Left, our present Govern­ment stands upon Foundations that contradict all those Discour­ses which you, as well as others, have lent to Passive Obedience. The excessive Value I have for you, for your Knowledg, your Judgment, your largeness of Spirit, your Moderation, and ma­ny other great Qualities, that have signaliz'd your Name, once made you one of the greatest Ornaments of the Christian [Page 40] Church. — Apostacy from what you preached, and wrote, pre­tended to believe, and would have others believe, shake me so violently in the first Credenda of Religion, That I beseech you, if you think it necessary upon no other Account, that you will publish such a Discourse at least for the Satisfaction of mine, and other Men's Consciences, who I can assure you of my own Knowledg lie under the same Scruples with my self; have the same Scruples in relaion to the Government, and the same Temptations to question Religion it self upon your Account. — P. 8. I beg of God Almighty to lay an happy constraint upon me [...]o do what may be most for his Glory, and the Good of these Nations; and I ear­nestly supplicate him, that he will enable me to suffer whatever may be necessary for those great Ends▪ and that he will incline you to publish your Reasons, or Repentance.’

The Gentleman who wrote this Letter to Dr. T. is a Person of great Candour and Integrity, and was once a great Admirer of him; and from his Example we may see what a mighty Scandal the Doctor's Apostacy hath been to the very Notion of all Reli­gion, as well as that professed in the Church of England: And I have heard him say, since Dr. Tillotson's Death, that he thinks he was an Atheist, as much as a Man could be, though the gravest, said he, certainly that ever was; and this Opinion, which this Gen­tleman, and many others have of him is owing to that great and scandalous Blemish of his Life, his Apostacy from his own Doc­trines about Non-resistance, and the Nature of Religion; and this foul Blemish which hath tempted that serious and worthy Gentleman, and others, to question Religion it self upon his Account, is like to be an everlasting Blot upon his Memory, unless his Funeral Prea­cher, or Dr. Sherlock, or Dr. Pain, who have mentioned him in their Sermons with so much Respect, will please to write a Dis­course on purpose to reconcile the Contradiction between his late Practice, and former Principles and Precepts, which he himself, though called on in so solemn a manner, had not the Hardiness to do. I beg Mr. Manningham's, who is one of his Doctors, Par­don, for not mentioning of him among the others; for he per­haps hath found out a way to reconcile them, because he Sainted him in his Prayer before the Sermon, which he preached to the Sons of the Clergy-men at Bow: But if he is pleased to undertake a Discourse of that Nature, he must take care not to forget him­self; who in a Sermon at the Rolls, while the Convention was a sit­ting, [Page 41] said, That a Convention of English Subjects could no more make a King, than a Convention of Atoms make the World.

That which gave the great Offence to the Gentleman, whose Letter I have cited, was the Inconsistency of the Doctor's Practices with his Principles since the Revolution; to which I must further add, That his Practices long before it were not well reconcilable with them, nor they with his Practices: And of this I will give one Instance, and that was his great Intimacy with the late Lord Shaftsbury; and particularly about that time when he preached on the Fifth of November, 1678. and his Acting in consort with him then in upholding the Pretensions of the Duke of Monmouth to be the King's Legitimate Son, and giving credit to those innumerable Lyes which were invented at Thanet House to support the Credit of the Popish Plot. I question very much whether more Lyes and Calumnies against the King and the Government were then dis­persed from his, or my Lord Shaftsbury's House: I have particular Reason for what I say; for I was then well acquainted with a Person who was very intimate with one of his Favourite Ac­quaintance, to whom he used to go very often, in great kindness to disabuse his Credulity, and confute those Stories which he used to hear in Amen Corner often to his disturbance. He was pleased to call that Gentleman his Sive, because he was wont to separate the Tares from the Wheat, and the Bran from the Flour of his Stories; and by conversing with him, I came to know more of the great Intercourse and Correspondency there was between my Lord Shaftsbury, and the Dean of Canterbury, than was commonly known. The Dean used to go in those Days Three or Four times a Week to my Lord's House, but very privately; and there often met a­mong others one of his Relations, a great Lord of the Court, whom I think not fit to Name. My Lord D. who was then committed to the Tower, by the Malice of his Enemies, knew well how much the Dean was in their Interests, and particularly the great Esteem he was in among those who were the Confidents at Thanet House. This obliged his Lordship to write to him to entreat him to do him all the good Offices he could among that Party: The Dean up­on this went to wait upon his Lordship in the Tower; but how far he engaged in that Negotiation for my Lord's Service, I can­not now remember, but the Event shew'd that there was little Effect of it.

Remembering these Stories, and the many slanderous Reports that had come from his House, and used to be told upon his Au­thority [Page 42] against the King and Government, I was curious to see his Sermon against Evil Speaking, upon Tit. 3.2. which was occasioned by some ill Reports and Reflections that went abroad of himself, and this Government more especially, in the unlicensed Prints of the Times. There I was very much pleased to find him condemning Evil Speaking, as a detestable Vice; whether it were by being the first Authors of ill Reports, or by relating them from others; by speaking be­fore a Man's Face, or behind his Back, directly or obscurely, by way of Insinuation, by down-right Reproach, or with a Preface of Commenda­tion, &c. More especially was I pleased, and astonished withal, to find him setting forth the heinous Nature of reviling those whom God hath placed in Authority, and to slander the Footsteps of the Lord's Anointed. I could not but admire the Power of Conscience, and of Divine Truth, to extort this from a Man who had been so guilty of it, as you shall find by the following Story.

King Charles the Second taking Notice of the false and scandalous Report of his Marriage with the Duke of Monmouth's Mother, made a Declaration on the Sixth of January, 1679. written with his own Hand, in these Words following. — I do here declare, in the Presence of Almighty God, that I never was Married, nor gave any Contract to any Woman whatsoever, but to my Wife Queen Catherine, to whom I am now Married. This Declaration was made in the Presence of W. Cant. H. Finch, C. H. Coventry, J. Williamson. In March following his Majesty made a more publick Declaration in the Privy Council, to strengthen the former, in these Words. — For the avoiding any Dispute which may happen in time to come, concer­ning the Succession to the Crown, I do here declare, in the Presence of Al­mighty God, that I never made, nor gave any Contract of Marriage, nor was Married to any Woman whatsoever, but to my present Wife Queen Catherine now Living. Whitehall the Third of March, 1679. This Declaration, attested by Sixteen Privy Counsellers; was en­tered in the Council Book, and Copies of it quickly got abroad; and as it came to Dr. Tillotson's Hands sooner we may be sure than most Men's; so he had the Ingenuity to note it for an Equivocal Declaration: As if the King, contrary to the Punctation of it, and the common Usage of English Speech, had meant it in this Sense; I do here declare, in the Presence of Almighty God, that I never made, nor gave any Contract of Marriage, nor was Married to any Wo­man whatsoever NOW LIVING, but to my present Wife Queen Catherine. I had this Story from one whom I shall Name if cal­led [Page 43] upon for it, to whom he made this Observation; and though I never mentioned it to any Person till very lately, yet the Obser­vation was whispered about, and coming to the King's Ears, with other additional Rumours concerning his Marriage with the Duke of Monmouth's Mother; he set out a Declaration June the 8. 1680. in which, after a Lond. Ga­zette, N. 1519. Recital of his two former Declarations, are these Words: And we do again call God Almighty to Witness, and declare upon the Faith of a Christian, and the Word of a King, That there was never any Marriage, or Contract of Marriage, had or made between us, and the said Mrs. Walters, alias Barlow, the Duke of Monmouth 's Mother, nor between us and any Woman whatsoever, our Royal Consort Queen Catherine that now is only excepted. This last Declaration put an end to this Calumny, which I think was slandering the Lord's Anointed, and back-biting him with a Witness; as I think also what he saith of the French King, in his Thanksgiving Sermon for the late Victory at Sea, may justly be esteemed. There he compares him to Lucifer, and taxeth him of Pride, Presumption, sottish Ignorance; of Tyranny, Oppres­sion, Injustice, and of Cruelty; more barbarous than ever the most barbarous Nations did commit; and all this in manifest repug­nance and contradiction to the Sermon he had preached against Evil Speaking, in which he taxeth all Parties that love to blast the Reputation of their Adversaries, and especially those that are of a different Religion. But all this of King Lewis, whom his own Subjects stile the Just, and the Great, is nothing in comparison to the most un­christian Slanders with which he hath loaded his own Sovereign, both before and since the Revolution. Although he, among the rest of the London Clergy in their App. N. 4. Ad­dress to his Majesty, did not only bless God for his Accession to the Crown, but promise all faithful and dutiful Alle­giance to him, and also prayed for his long and happy Reign. After this a Man of heroick Honour, much more of heroick Piety, would have scorned and abhorred to represent his Prince as one of the greatest Villains; 'tis his Majesty's own Phrase for himself, upon the Supposal that he could be so unnatural to his own Daughters, and Subjects, as to conspire, with his most vertuous Consort, to forge a Son and Heir to the Crown. All Casuists and Divines teach us, That it is as great a Sin to slander any innocent Person with a Crime of any Sort, as it would have been for him to commit it; and this, according to his own Sermon against Evil Speaking, [...] a [Page 44] greater Sin when a Inst. Lib. 4. de Injuriis. A [...]rox injuria aestimatur ex persona veluti si Magistra­tus injuriam passus fuerit, vel si Senatori ab humili per­sona injuria facta sit, aut Pa­renti, Patronov. fiat à Libe­ris vel Libertis. Subject slanders his own Sovereign, and God's Anoin­ted: And yet he had the Misfortune to be a private Defamer of their Majesties with that pretended unnatural Impo­sture; and the Authority of his Whis­pers and Suspitions, added much Credit all over the Town to the wretched Re­port. I am not able to express the Atro­city of this complex Injury to the King, the Queen, and the Prince of Wales, and the Mischiefs that have thereupon ensued to the Three Kingdoms: And this Heroick and Unblemished Man of Piety, for any Thing we know to the con­trary, went out of the World without any Remorse for it; at least without such a penitential Remorse, as brought him to make what Satisfaction he was able to God and the King for it: And let our Preacher say what he pleases now, or hereafter, when he brings forth his Reserves, this is such a Stain and Blemish in his Life, as he with all his Arts and Artifices will never be able to get out. He tells us, He had no Burthen on his Conscience on his Death Bed: No more had his Uncle Cromwel; and I protest considering these Things, and his Intrusion into the Archbishop's Throne, and that long train of Sins that followed thereupon, one would almost be tempted to fear that he died in Delusion and false Peace of Conscience, or that his Belief of his own Doctrine of Hell Torments gave his Mind ease.

This brings me to another Blemish of his Life, and that is, his Sermon of the Eternity of Hell Torments, upon Matth. 25.46. which the Reader may find in the Fourth Volume of his Sermons. In this Sermon, as he openly and directly writes against the Eter­nity of Hell Torments; so covertly he undermines the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction, by asserting, P. 163. That what Proportion soever there is between, and Punishment, the Justice of God is not concerned in it. And then as for the Tor­ments of Hell, he saith, They are so terribly Severe, that P. 175. we can hardly tell how to reconcile them with the Justice and Goodness of God: And that P. 165. God keeps the Right of Punishing in his own hand, and is not, obliged to execute what he threatens, any further than the Reasons and End of Government require; and that he may remit and abate [Page 45] as much as he pleaseth of the Punishment that he hath threatned. P. 173. We are all bound to preach, and you to believe, the Terrours of the Lord, saith he, ye not so as sawcily to determine and pronounce what God must do in this Case; for after all, he may do what he will. And in another Place yet more emphatically; The Sentence of Judgment at the last Day, Depart ye Cursed into everlasting Fire, and likewise this Declaration in my Text, that the Wicked shall go into everlasting Punishment, do not restrain God from doing what he pleases. This he has said of Hell Torments, which God hath not only threatned as a Judge, and solemnly enacted and decreed as a Law-giver, but our Saviour taught, as the great Doctor and Prophet of his Church; and yet notwithstanding these Considerations, and the constant uniform Belief of all Christians, and all Churches and Sects of Christians, of the Se­verity and eternal Duration of Hell Torments, P. 166. he makes God, notwithstanding his Sanction and Threat­nings, and our Saviour, after all his and his Apostles Doctrines concerning these Punishments, as free not to execute them as he was not to destroy Nineveh, after his Prophet Jonas (whom he de­cently calls his peevish Prophet) had denounced the Destruction thereof. Nay, he counts it Sawciness to believe and assert this Ca­tholick Doctrine; and his Example of Nineveh also implies, that there is room for Repentance in the next World, which is a most presumptuous, dangerous, and heretical Insinuation. And all this was preached at Court: And is it not sweet and delicious Doctrine 1 Tim. 1.9, 10. for the Lawless and Disobedient, for the Ungodly and for Sin­ners, for the Unholy and Prophane, for Voces Graecae eos signifi­care possunt qui citra necem parentes percusserunt, idem­que valent quod [...], & [...], ut no­tant Suidas, Hesych. Eu­stath. Polisynops. in locum. Mur­therers of Fathers, and Murtherers of Mothers, for Man-slayers, for Whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with Mankind, for Man-stealers, for Lyars, for perjured Persons, or any other Things that is contrary to sound Doc­trine? And accordingly when it was first Published, the Atheists, and Deists, and So­cinians of the Town, carried it about them to shew it in all Pla­ces, glorying every where in the Doctrines of it, and extolling the Author for a Man who durst speak Truth, and set Mankind free from the Slavish Notion of eternal Torments; and saying they believed most of our Clergy-men were of the same Opinion, if they durst speak out. I tell this the rather to provoke the Convo­cation [Page 46] to purge themselves of the Scandal this Sermon hath raised upon them, by a publick Censure of it; their own Honour, and the Honour of the Church, and the Care they have of Peoples Souls, obligeth them to do it. Nay, the People have a Right to demand and require it in God's Name of them; and the not doing of it, I think in my Conscience, will be such an heinous Sin of omission, as may justly provoke God to forsake the Church of England, as he forsook the Seven Asian Churches, and make it as desolate as them. Nay, furthermore I dare be bold to say, That had this Man lived in that Age when the Bishops rose up and de­posed Paulus Samosatenus for his Blasphemies, they would have de­posed him for his. For to apply the Words of the Apostle upon another Occasion, If Christ, the great Doctor and Legislator of his Church, and Judg of all Men at the last Day, after all his Doctrines and Threatnings concerning Hell-Torments, is not ob­liged to execute them accordingly, then is your Preaching, O ye Clergy vain, and our Faith vain; yea, and you are found false Witnesses of God, because you have testified that he will in­flict eternal Torments, although he is free to do what he will, and may please whether he will inflict them, or no. This is the natural Reflection which every Clown will make upon the Clergy upon this Man's Doctrine of Hell Torments; and therefore it is to be hoped they will make haste to Anathematize it, and that there is more than ordinary Cause for them to do so, will appear from this following Story, which I had from a Learned Clergy-man of great Sincerity, concerning the Secret of this damnable Opinion. The first Author of it among us was an old Sceptick of Norwich, who wrote a Book of the Subject, which he used to put into the hands of others to proselyte them to his Opinion. When he put it into the hands of this Clergy-man, upon whose Autho­rity I tell this Story, he protested to him, That he had Converted Dr. Tillotson, and Five or Six Divines more, most of which are now in great Places of the Church. I wish I could have seen that Treatise of his, to compare it with this Sermon of Hell Torments; and then I should have seen whether the Author of it borrowed it thence, as some of his Friends have assured me he borrowed his Rule of Faith, in answer to Mr. Serjeant's Sure Foooing, from the Discourses of the Learned Dr. Cradock, who designed to answer that Book.

I have said a great deal on the Occasion of this wretched Ser­mon; but one Thing more I must Remark, and it is this: [Page 47] P. 156. He tells us, That if God intended his Threatnings of Hell Torments should have their Effects to deter Men from Sinning, it cannot be imagined that in the same Reve­lation, which declares these Threatnings, any intimation should be given of the Abatement or Non-execution of them. But for God's sake, what need God be so careful not to intimate that which this Man could find out? Or why would it weaken his Laws more, or take off the Edge and Terrour of his Threatnings, for him to intimate this Abatement, than for his Ministers to do it? And therefore to turn his own Conclusion in his own Phrases up­on himself; Was it not a very impious Design in him, and a betray­ing Men into misery, not only to intimate this Abatement, but to teach it, and by Arguments in a set Discourse to go about to per­swade Men into a Belief of it? Had he lived in the Days of that Great and Apostolick Archbishop, whose Works he hath Licensed to be published with the just and glorious Title of Martyr, he and his Sermon had not passed so free from Censure. Oh may that English Cyprian's Primitive Apostolical Spirit of Orthodoxy and Discipline fall upon our English Clergy, that God may bless them, and delight to do them and the Church good; and make them as much the Veneration and Glory, as latitude in Projects and Opi­nions, loosness in Discipline, and departing in Practice from their Principles, have made them the Scorn and Contempt of the World.

From his Sermon on Hell Torments, I pass to that preached at Whitehall in April 1680. upon Joshua 24.15. In which the follow­ing Passage, though levelled at the Papists, gave great Offence to very many both of the Church and Dissenting Communions. ‘I cannot think till I be better informed (which I am always ready to be) that any Pretence of Conscience warrants any Man, that is not extraordinarily Commissioned, as the Apostles and first Publishers of the Gospel were, and cannot justify that Commission by Miracles, as they did to affront the Established Religion of a Nation, although it be false, and openly draw Men off from the Profession of it, in contempt of the Magistrate and the Laws. All that Persons of a different Religion can in such a Case reasonably pretend to, is to enjoy the private Liberty and Exercise of their own Consciences and Religion, for which they ought to be very thankful; and to forbear the open making of Proselytes to their own Religion (though they be never so sure they are in the Right) till they have either an extraordinary [Page 48] Commission from God to that purpose, or the Providence of God make way for it, by the Commission or Connivance of the Magistrate.’ This is down-right Hobbism; and a witty Lord stan­ding at the King's Elbow when he spake it, said, Sir, Sir, do you hear Mr Hobs in the Pulpit? In truth, according to this Doctrine, there's no stemming the Torrent of any Errour, or Irreligion; no not of Idolatry it self, when it happens to be Regnant, and get the Civil Sanction: And it severely reflects not only upon the Ho­nour of the Orthodox Bishops and Clergy in the Arian Reigns, but on the Memory of the most celebrated Reformers in most Coun­tries. And should God permit Popery to get but one Act of Par­liament, how Bribed and Pensionary soever in this Nation, our Cler­gy by this Doctrine would have nothing to do, but to pray at home, and deliver up their Flocks to the Wolves. Dr. Gunning, the good and learned Bishop of Ely, was so sensible of this conse­quence, that he complained loudly of it in the House of Lords, as a Doctrine that would serve the Turn of Popery; and so in­consistent is it with, and destructive of the Rights of the Church, as a Society distinct from the State, and independent of it, espe­cially in Times of Persecution, when it must stand upon its own Rights, That it occa­sioned Dr. Lowth of the Subject of Church Pow­er, in whom it resides, its force, extent, and ex­ecution. Printed for B. Tooke, 1685. a very Orthodox and Learned Di­vine to write an excellent Book against it, to which it is hoped he will put his last hand, and give another Edition. And what Dr. Patrick then thought of this easy, but treacherous Doctrine, may be seen in what he wrote to Dr. Parker then Arch-deacon of Canterbury, in the fol­lowing Words. ‘A Passage, I assure you, which I and some of our common Acquaintance read not without a great deal of Trouble, when we fi [...]st saw it.— They think it would be well to admonish him in a Letter of this Errour, and to represent the Consequences of it to him, Exposing his Opinion. — It is plain, by another Passage in that Sermon, that he was not A­wake, nor had his Wits about him, as he used to have at other Times, when he wrote it. The Place I mean is Page 9. There the very Existence of a God may be thought to be called into question by him, and to be in his account but a Politick Inven­tion: For thus he writes, pressing Religion as the strongest Band of human Society; God is so necessary to the Happiness and Welfare of Mankind, as if the Being of God himself had been purposely designed [Page 49] and contrived for the Benefit and Advantage of Men. In which his meaning is so untowardly expressed, that you cannot but think he was indisposed, when he wrote so untowardly. He hath altered this Passage I hear in the The Reader is desired here to observe, That though he printed this Sermon a Second time, yet the Second Edition is not noted in the Title Page. Se­cond Edition, but so it is as I have reci­ted it in that which he sent me at its first coming out; and indeed that very Paren­thesis in the first part of the Sermon (till I better informed) shews he was in too great haste at least when he composed it, else he would never have adventured to de­liver his Opinion in a matter of such Mo­ment, till he had been better informed of its Truth. — I do not write this out of any Change there is in my mind concern­ing Persons or Things, having the very same Thoughts I had when you and I conversed more frequently together, but the lamentable Case of Things. — I cannot but have a love to Dr. Tillotson's Person, though I have none for his Opinion; I therefore would gladly have him well treated, though he be ne­ver so sharply reproved.’ This with more will be produced un­der Dr. Patrick's Hand, if there be Occasion; and he afterwards confirmed it all to Dr. Parker when they met at London, and said that he ought to give Satisfaction by a Retractation, or else be ex­posed. — If he will not be reduced he ought to have no mercy, but to be hunted out of the Christian Church, when he will not own it.

And then as for the Dissenters to whom this Passage was no less offensive, as our Preacher saith, That P. 11. he had a just Value, and due Tenderness for them: So he must give me leave to add on this Occasion, That his Tenderness for them was much greater than for those of the Church; for he made them Satisfaction for the Scandal this Passage gave them, but would never do any Thing to remove the Offence which he gave his Brethren of the Church. I came to know this Secret by an honourable Person of my Acquaintance, who happening to give Dr. Cox a Visit, presently after Dr. Stilling­fleet had published his Sermon of the Mischief of Separation, found Mr. Baxter at his House vehemently inveighing both against it, and him. This gave occasion to that Gentleman to ask him, why he was so severe upon that Sermon, and the Author of it; and yet took no notice of another which was newly come out, and which he thought had given the Men of his Party as muh offence [Page 50] as it did to those of the Church of England? What Sermon is that? said Mr. Baxter. It is the Dean of Canterbury's Court Ser­mon, saith he; wherein he tells you, That you must not affront the Established Religion, nor openly draw Men off from the Profession of it. Oh! replied Mr. Baxter, he gave us great Offence indeed, but he hath cried Peccavi; and made us Satisfaction; but your other Dean is a proud haughty Man, that will retract nothing. The Gentleman having finished his Visit, took leave of the Doctor, and Mr. Baxter; and the same day called upon the Dean of Paul's, to give him an Account of what had passed betwixt him and Mr. Bax­ter, and finding the Dean of Canterbury with him; told the Story to them both. Upon which the Dean of Paul's asked the Dean of Canterbury, And did you in good earnest cry Peccavi to Mr. Baxter? Pish, replied he, will you mind what Mr. Baxter saith? But the Dean of Pauls not being satisfied with that evasive Answer pressed him to a categorical Answer; upon which, his Countenance alter­ing, he went away in disorder without any Reply. I tell this Story on purpose to shew our Reverend Clergy of the Convocation what great Reason they have to Censure this Passage; because he would never make the Church Satisfaction for it, nor do any Thing that looked like Satisfaction; but on the contrary hath lately Reprinted it in the Third Volume of his Sermons. And I hope Dr. Patrick; who was formerly so justly offended at it, will; now he hath taken an higher Character upon him, promote and propose the Censure of it in Convocation. The duty the Clergy owe the Church, and the honour of their own Order, requires them to Censure it; especially since it is so contrary to the Pur­port of their Ordination, and their Duty prescribed in it, both as Priests and Bishops. There they are told, That they are Messen­gers, Stewards, and Watch men of the Lord; that they are not to leave the Sheep when the Wolf cometh; and that they are to be ready, with all faithful Diligence, to drive away and banish all strange Doctrines contrary to God's Word, as need and occasion shall require. More especially in the Consecration of Bishops, St. Paul is proposed as an Example to them, who are indeed the Successors of the Apostles, in the Epistle to be read on that Oc­casion. There he saith, That he counted not his Life dear unto him, so that he might finish his Ministry; but this Man's Doctrine, who was his own Patern of Preaching, teacheth the Shepherds to fly when the Wolf cometh, and to stop the Course of their Ministry, when the Exercise of it without a Miracle will cost them their Lives. It is [Page 51] only in the Case of a Divine Commission, and Miracles to prove it, that according to him a Priest or Bishop is to abide all Hazards, or to expect extraordinary Assistance, and supernatural Supports in their Sufferings; contrary to the common Doctrine of Christianity, and that in particular of the Church of England, which teacheth us that God in suffering Times will give his faithful People suffering Spirits: And likewise to the Histories of all Persecutions since Miracles ceased; and more especially to our own Martyrology in Queen Mary's Reign.

His Encomiast P. 13. tells us, That he was little disposed to follow the Paterns of Preaching which former Times set, but that he set a Patern to himself. And from these Instances I have brought, we may see the Truth of what he saith: For the Hookers, the San­dersons, and Hamonds, and Pearsons, before him, never set such Paterns of Preaching, as he set himself; but such a one it is, That I hope it will neither be long, nor much followed, though his Funeral Orator hopes it will.

I have exemplified above how contrary the Practice of this un­blemished Heroe hath been to his Principles and Doctrine, and more particularly to his genuin and orthodox Notion of the Nature of Religion; and I now proceed to shew that he hath not followed the generous and laudable Example of another Person, in the very Case in which he hath proposed it for Imitation. ‘It cannot be denied, nor am I much concerned to dissemble it (saith he in his Funeral Sermon on Dr. Whitchcot) that here he possessed another Man's Place, who by the Iniquity of the Times was wrongfully ejected: I mean Dr. Collins, the famous and learned Divinity Professor of that University; during whose Life (and he lived many Years after) by the free Consent of the College, there were two Shares out of the common Dividend allotted to the Provost one whereof was constantly paid to Dr. Collins, as if he had been still Provost. To this Dr. Whitchcot did not only give his Consent (without which the Thing could not have been done) but was very forward in the doing of it; though hereby he did not only considerably lessen his own Profit, but likewise in­cur no small Censure and Hazard, as Times then were. And lest this had not been Kindness enough to that worthy Person, whose Place he possessed, in his last Will he left to his Son, Sir John Collins a Legacy of an hundred Pounds.’

One would think that such an heroick Vertue should have followed such a generous Example of his own proposing; but as Dr. Whitch­cot [Page 52] had Dr. Collins's Place, so he had Dr. Gunning's Fellowship at the same Time, and never allowed him one Farthing; though he was as wrongfully ejected as Dr. Collins, and stood in more need of an Allowance than the Doctor did. But there is one Thing more to be said for the Honour of Dr. Witchcot which he took no notice of, and it is this, That he had Dr. Collins's Consent to take his Place, which he himself had not from Dr Gunning to take his; and yet he was very angry at him for resuming his Fellowship from him at the Restauration. This would pass for a Blemish in any other Man's Life, but Dr. Tillotson's; or if it would not, methinks his taking the Archbishop's Place, not only without but against his Consent, should pass for a Blemish in his Life: He having not only got him extruded by Force out of it, but thereby made himself the Author and Architect of a most scandalous and outragious Schism; which will not only be an everlasting Blot upon his Me­mory, but if not healed an everlasting Blemish upon the Church. Methinks he might have so far followed Dr. Whitchcot's Example, and to have made him an offer of some Allowance, though he had refused it, as I am sure he would have done: But far from doing that, he behaved himself towards him with the greatest In­humanity; as appeared from expressing his Joy unawares to Dr. Be­veridge for the glorious Device of the Writ of Intrusion, thinking the Doctor had come to talk with him as one that had excepted the Bishoprick of Wells; but when he found that he came to excuse himself from the Acceptance of it, he turned Pale upon reflecting he had discovered too much. He also suffered his Grace's Steward and Nephew, Mr. Sancroft, who kept Possession at Lambeth for his Uncle, to be Imprisoned and Fined, though he might have preven­ted both if he would; and yet lest him not a Legacy for repara­tion of his great Fine, as Dr. Whitchcot did to Sir John Collins, though he had all the Fruits and Profits of the Archbishoprick, from the time of the Deprivation to the time that he took Possession there­of. And it is further observable, That as he enjoyed the Place of of one, who was deprived by those who had usurped the Authority of Charles the First, and that of another, but of vaster Conse­quence, who was deprived by the Power of those who had first de­prived K. James the Second; so he took the Place of a third, a Mi­nister in Suffolk; who was Legally ejected by the Bartholomew Act, upon the Return of Charles the Second: Which shews, That he was a Man of all Times, and all Governments, Right or Wrong; and which in truth makes him look more like a Vicar of Bray, than an [Page 53] Heroe in Vertue, and will in most Mens Opinion take him down from that tall Character into an ordinary Man. But to return again to Dr. Whitchcot's Funeral Sermon; there is another Pas­sage in it, which all the Men I ever spoke with, that heard or read it, took for a Reflection upon the Church of England, in the following Words: He disclaimed Popery, and, as Things of near affinity with it, Superstition and Usurpation upon the Consciences of Men. I know one Clergy-man who had a fair Respect for him be­fore, that from this time would never defend his Reputation: And the most learned Mr. Dodwel, who indeed is a great Ex­ample of heroick Piety and Vertue, was much offended with this Passage, and went on purpose to him to let him know what just Offence he had given by it; but notwithstanding he prin­ted it again in his Third Volume of Sermons, with the Re­flection in the Italick Character; which further proves what I said before, That how tender soever he was to the Dissen­ters, and extensive in his Charity to them, he had not such ten­derness for true Church-men, nor such a Loathness to offend these as those.

I now come to the Character of Orthodoxy which our Preacher gives of him, in telling us of the P. 2. convincing Argu­ments by which he so clearly proved the Truth and Excellency of our holy Faith; and in the P. 7. Character of St. Paul, whom he makes his Exemplar, he insi­nuates his great Concern for the Truth and Honour of the Chri­stian Religion, and more particularly that he asserted the great P. 31. Mystery of the Trinity, when he was de­sired by some, and provoked by others to do it, with that Strength and Clearness which was peculiar to him. As to the first, I thought the Torments of Hell, as well as the Joys of Hea­ven, had been part of our holy Faith; and taught as plainly by Christ, the great Doctor of his Church; and also as much implied in the Doctrine of the Resurrection, and the last Judgment: But how convincingly he hath proved the Truth of them appears from what I have said above. And as to his great Concern for the Truth and Honour for the Christian Religion, that appears in the same manner, by his Apostacy in his Practice from that true and ho­nourable Character he gave of it in his Fifth of November Sermon; and as for the Strength and Clearness with which he hath proved the Mystery of the Trinity, I refer the Reader to the Book, in [Page 54] the Entitled, The Charge of Socinianism against Dr. Tillotson consider'd, in Ex­amination of some Sermons he hath lately published to clear himself from that Imputation, by way of Dialogue. To which are added some Reflections upon the Second of Dr. Burnet's Dis­courses delivered to the Clergy of Sa­rum, concerning the Divinity and Death of Christ, with a Supplement. Margent, which I hope will see the Light before these Dis­courses of mine. There he will find that his Vindication of him­self is but a shuffling Vindica­tion, which hath much of Arian Cunning and Reserve in it: And that he never departed from his Moderation in this point, as our Author saith he did not in ano­ther.

To this I shall add in the next place what he hath said of the heinousness of the Sin of Perjury, in his Assize Sermon upon Heb. 6.16. But I shall not insist upon the Application of it, as of some former Passages, because it will apply it self; nor make some severe and dangerous Reflections upon his heroical Piety, because they are so ob­vious, that the Reader may make them himself. ‘There, he saith, that all departure from the Simplicity of an Oath is Perjury, and that a Man is never a whit the less forsworn, because his Perjury is a little finer, and more artificial than ordinary. That he is guilty of Perjury, who having a real Intention when he swears to per­form what he promiseth, yet afterwards neglects to do it; not for want of Power, but for want of Will, and due Regard to his Oath. That the primary and sole Intention of the Third Com­mandment, is to forbid the great Sin of Perjury; and that it is observable; That there is no Threatning added to any other Commandment; but to this and the Second; which intimates to us, that next to Idolatry, and the Worship of a false God, Perjury is one of the greatest Affronts that can be offered to the Divine Majesty. — This is one of those Sins that cries aloud to Heaven, and quickens the pace of God's Judgments.— This Sin, by the Secret Judgment of God, undermines Estates and Fami­lies, to the utter ruin of them; and among the Heathens it was always reckoned one of the greatest Crimes, and which they did believe God did not only punish upon the guilty Person himself, but many times upon whole Nations, as the Prophet also tells us, That because of Oaths the Land mourns. I need not use many Words to aggravate this Sin; It is certainly a Crime of the highest Nature, deliberate Perjury being directly against a Man's knowledge; so that no Man can commit it without staring his Conscience in the Face, which is one of the greatest Aggrava­tions [Page 55] of any Crime; and it is equally a Sin against both Tables, being the highest Affront to God, and of most injurious Conse­quence to Men. — In respect of Men, it is not only a Wrong to this or that particular Person, who suffers by it; but Treason to human Society, subverting at once the Foundations of publick. Peace and Justice.’

This is just what our suffering Clergy and People say of Perjury, and in consequence of it for their own Vindication. Indeed they suffer like Men of heroick Piety, because they could not outstare their Consciences, as some other Men did; and in their Opinion, which they have so nobly defended, commit Treason against Mankind, and the King. Dr. Sherlock told the Bishop of Killmore, He would be sacrificed before he took the new Oath of Allegiance: And Dr. Dove said, He would give a Thousand Pound that he might not take it; such Strug­lings they had to overcome the Dictates of their own Consciences, which preached unto them the heinous Nature of Perjury: And if those, who took that Oath with so much Difficulty, would but remember their own Case, they would have more Compassion for those who could not take it at all; more especially had that Tender­ness which our Preacher saith his Heroe of Piety had for the Dis­senters been genuin, and the undesign'd Effect of his tender and extensive Charity, he would have been as tender and compassio­nate to the Dissenters in this Reign, as to those of the two former. It was fear of Perjury, the most heinous Sin of Perjury, against which he preached so well, that made them stand out; and if they are under a Mistake, he ought to have pitied and sympathiz'd with them more than other Men. Nay, upon reading this excellent Passage against Perjury, one would think he should have had more Tenderness and Pity for them than for the dissenting Parties; but instead of that, he was an early and vigorous Persecutor of them, and so continued to his last Stroke; though they had defended their Cause much better than the Dissenters were, or ever will be, able to defend theirs. The Sunday after the First of February, the day of Deprivation, some of the Non-swearing Clergy preached in their Churches, as I remember Dr. Sherlock was one; and on Munday Morning following one of my Acquaintance going to this Man about some Business, he inveighed severely against their Pre­sumption, and said, Government was not to be so affronted. At St. Lau­rence, where he lies buried, he preached often against them; twice more especially, at the beginning of Two several Sessions of Parliament, and by degrees forgetting what he had preached against [Page 56] the heinous Sin of Perjury. He thought Prisons, and all the hard Usages of them, which in former Reigns he was wont to call un­christian and inhuman Methods of converting Men, not too bad for the best of them. When others sometimes would pity them for being deprived, and also dragoon'd by the new way of double Taxing, he would say, They brought their Sufferings upon them­selves; and which was yet more inhuman, he endeavoured to rob them of the Glory of their suffering for Conscience, and to bring yet more Sufferings upon them: As if indeed they had been what Mr. Dolben called them at the Sessions in Northampton, The Vermin of the Nation which ought to be destroyed. Yet our Preacher saith, That P. 26. 27. he had a Sweetness and Gen­tleness in his Nature that lean'd to Excess, and that he he never did an ill Office, or hard Thing, to any Person; whereas in his Thanksgiving Sermon at Whitehall for the Victory at Sea, he represents his old suffering Brethren only as Pre­tenders to Conscience, and in his sly way insinuates, that the most likely and effectual way to reduce them, was to load them yet with more Sufferings. Saith he, As bad an Argument as Success is of a good Cause, I am sorry to say it, but am afraid it is true; it is like in the Conclusion to prove the best Argument of all others to convince those; who have so long pretended Conscience against submission to the pre­sent Government. One such Intimation at Court against the Dis­senters, and such a Character of them, in the former Reigns, would have been said to have proceeded from an unchristian Spirit of Persecution; but for fear one Insinuation should not have been enough against our present Sufferers, in the next Paragraph he saith it over again in other Words to the same purpose. Meer Suc­cess is certainly one of the worst Arguments in the World of a good Cause, and the most improper to satisfy Conscience; and yet we find by Experience that in the Issue it is the most successful of all other Arguments, and doth in a very odd, but effectual way, satisfy the Consciences of a great many Men, by shewing them their Interests; which is the true Purport, In­tent, and English of that Latin Sentence of his dear Friend the Master of the Charter house, whom he made Clerk of the Closet in the Dedication of his Archaeologia to K. W. Ne quid detrimenti Res­publica capiat ex nimia Caesar [...]s Clementia Oramus supplices.

From hence I proceed to make some Animadversions upon some Sayings of our Preacher, concerning his Heroe, which lie scatter'd about his Funeral Sermon: P. 29. He tells us he never affected pompous Severities, by which we know [Page 57] very well he means the Austerities of Fasting and Abstinence, which the Church not only recommends but enjoyns, and that P. 21. he complied with the ill Practice of ha­ving Pluralities in the former Reigns, because it was common; and P. 27. intimates also plain enough, That the ill Usage he met with by those Reflections which he describes as Calumnies and Reproaches, help to break his Heart. But now, for God's sake, how doth the Character of heroick Piety agree to a Man that practised no Austerities, and that complied for his Advantage with the corrupt Customs of the Times? For heroick is always severe Piety, and full of Self-denial, and addicted to observe the wholesom Rules and Doctrines of Mortification, es­pecially those that are prescribed by the Wisdom of the Church; and it never complies with, but resists the prevailing Corruptions of the Times, like Abraham in Chaldea, Lot in Sodom, or Daniel in Babylon. And with what Congruity did he set him forth for an Example of heroick Vertue, who had so little Christian Courage, or support from his own Innocency, as to sink under the Calumnies of Men, which Cato, and Socrates, and a Thousand brave Heathen Heroes, would have despised? Certainly this Character of heroick Piety and Vertue agrees much better with the deprived Clergy, who are Men generally speaking of more austere Lives; and bear not only Calumnies, and Reproaches, and cruel Mockings, but the Loss of all they had with exemplary Patience, Courage, and Re­signation to the Will of God, by which they are conformed in their Sufferings to those Worthies which the Apostle proposes for our Imitation in the 11th Chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews; and deserve now to be reverenced by all good Christians as Con­fessors, who dare be Honest and Poor; and prefer the Truth and Honour of their Religion, before the Lands and Revenues of the Church. More particularly it agrees much better with the late Archbishop Dr. Sancroft, upon whom our Preacher thinks he neatly couched a Reflection, when he told us that his Heroe who intruded upon him did not affect pompous Austerities. In­deed he practised them, but without Pomp, or Ostentation. And as for his Sufferings of all Sorts, both in these and former Times, he bore them with exemplary Courage and Chearfulness: They had no influence on his Health, but quite contrary. He blessed God for them; and told my Lord N. when his Lordship went to Lam­beth [Page 58] to try his Constancy, That he had rather suffer any Persecution under a Lawful Prince than be preferred under an Usurper.

He tells us again, P. 28. That few Men observed hu­man Nature better than his Hero, or could make larger Allowance for the Frailty of Mankind than he did: And so it appears from the Character he gave his Master, in his Thanksgiving Ser­mon for the Victory at Sea. There he saith, That he was a Prince who hath made it the great Study and Endeavour of his Life to imitate the Divine Perfections, as far as the Imperfection of human Nature in this mortal State would admit. Before I make any other Reflection upon this Passage, I must here tell the World, That in the for­mer Reigns no Man could less endure any Thing spoken in the Pulpit, though never so modestly and correctly in the Praises of our Kings. It was his common Practice to censure it in others on all Occasions, and to say, That Flattery was so mean and de­spicable a Thing in it self, and savour'd so strong of Interest and Design in the Pulpit, that Clergy-men ought to avoid all appea­rance of it: And yet behold how shamefully he flatters his King here, and I doubt not See the Re­marks upon some late Ser­mons. but it is owing to the ill Example he set the Clergy in this, and some former Sermons, that we have had of late so many fulsom and despicable Sermons of Flat­tery, as no Age ever saw, or will I hope see again. But this of his Prince's imitating the Divine Perfections, is the highest Strain of all; and shews with a Witness what large Allowances he made for the Frailties and Imperfections of Men. For at this rate Abolishing and Abjuring of Episco­pacy, making War in the most Hostes hi sunt qui Nobis, aut quibus nos publicè Bellum Decrevimus. Caeteri Latro­ [...]es, aut praedones sunt F. de v. s. thie­vish and predonical Manner, without first demanding Reparation; slandering and robbing of Parents, massacring in cold Blood, Adultery, or if there be any Thing worse than these may pass among Divines for human Frailties, and the worst of Sinners with those Allowances for the best sort of Saints.

He tells us P. 19, 20. of the great Concourse of the Clergy-men to his Lecture, which made People consider him as the [Page 59] Head of that Learned Body. But the Concourse of the Clergy to that Lecture hath continued since, and yet no Man looks on the ingenious Person that succeeds him, as the Head of them: And how far he was considered from being the Head of the Clergy, did appear in the Convocation, where, to his great Disappoint­ment, and the Astonishment of our Preacher, another was cho­sen Prolocutor, who for Learning and Orthodoxy was much fit­ter for the Chair than he.

He tells us also, P. 18. That he turn'd the greatest Part of this vast City to an hearty Love of the Church: So that all the rest of the London Clergy turned not half so many to the Love of the Church as he alone did. But I could name some of them who turn'd Two for his One to an hearty Love of it; and to such an hearty Love of it, as they endured Persecution for ad­hering to it: But as for his Converts to the Church they were, generally speaking, but imperfect Conformists to the Church; such as did not live in the full or sole Communion of it, and such as rather bore with it than lov'd it; because he preached and perswaded them to it as a tolerable, but not as a laudable and ex­cellent Constitution. And hence it came to pass that so many of them did not love the Worship of it, with a Love of Delight and Complacency, which is the Love of the Heart; but were con­tent to use it for want of better, as the common Proverb saith of nice and curious Palats, That they can make a Shift with brown Bread, till they can get white. I have known many of his constant Followers, and have found by Experience what I say to be true, and I appeal to the Clergy of London, if they have not made the same Observation; and particularly I knew one venerable Clergy-man, now with God, to whom one of his and our Preacher's Admirers too, I mean my Lord Russel, made no difficulty to acknowledge, That he took not such Delight in the Common Prayers, as others; and had rather have had others in his Chappel, if he might, than those.

He also tells us, That he had a superiour Judgment to most Men: But how doth that appear from one whole Sermon, and some Passages out of others, which I have observed? Had he not been so unhappy as to set himself his own Patern, but followed [Page 60] some Paterns of former Times, particularly the Judicious Sanderson's, he had never preached so many dangerous, false, and inconside­rate Things; nor given Dr. Sherlock when he preached against his Sermon of Hell Torments at St. Dunstan's occasion to say, That he had no cause to think himself a greater Master of Reason than other Men, or that he had more of it than they. And that he was not always attended with this superiour Judgment even in his most deliberate Composures, appears from a Passage in his P. 103. Third Ser­mon of Education, where he saith, That the Duty of nursing Children, being a natural Duty of Women, is of more ne­cessary and indispensible Obligation, than any positive Precept of Religion. Good God! Is it of more necessary and indispensible Obligation than to believe in Christ, which is but a positive Duty▪ Or is the Neglect of it in a Mother, that hath no Excuse for neglect­ing of it, a more crying Sin than to live in the constant Neglect of the Sacrament, or Prophanation of the Lord's Day, or utter Con­tempt of the Ministry, or to run into wilful Heresy and Schism? Our Preacher also P. 14. tell us, That we shall have more Essays of his Preaching, but I hope we shall have no more such Essays of his superiour Judgment; but unless some Judgment superior to his review them after him, I fear we shall have more: Although we are told, That P. 25. he was reviewing them at his Minutes of leisure, and given them his last Touches.

He tells, P. 22. That he rejoyced in our happy Deliverance, and observed the amazing Steps of Providence in it. So did his Uncle Cromwel too; and will you hear him speak upon this Subject of Providence in his Declaration, which he put forth in his own, and his Council of Officers Names, after they had turned the Commons out of Doors, the 23 of April, 1653. — ‘ Flagellum, or the Life of O. Cromwel, Printed for L. R. 1663. p. 138. Nor to mind in this Declaration the various Dispensations through which Divine Provi­dence has led us, or the witness the Lord hath born, and the many signal Testimonies of Accep­tance which he hath given to the sincere Endea­vours of his most unworthy Servants. — After it had pleased God not only to reduce Ireland, and [Page 61] give in Scotland, but so marvelously to appear for the People at Worcester — but on the contrary, there more and more ap­peared among them [ the Parliament so called] an Aversion to the Things themselves, with much bitterness and opposition to the People of God, and his Spirit working in them. — Lest this Cause, which the Lord hath so greatly blessed, and bore witness to, should languish under our hands. — It seemeth to be a Duty incumbent upon us, who had seen so much of the Power and Pre­sence of God going along with us — That as we have been led by Necessity and Providence to act as we have done, even beyond and above our own Thoughts and Desires; so we shall, and do, in that of this great Work which is behind, put our selves wholy upon the Lord for a Blessing. — That all Men, as they would not provoke the Lord to their own Destruction, would wait for such an Issue as he shall bring forth. — And to know that the late great and glorious Dispensations, wherein the Lord hath so wonderfully appeared in bringing forth these Things, by the Travel and Blood of his Children, ought to oblige them.’ — We see by this Ex­tract out of Cromwel's Declaration, how great and stupendious Steps of Providence went along with him in all his Enterprizes; and what a Series of Successes attended him in his most execrable Undertakings. And therefore I hope we shall hear no more of the amazing Steps of Providence, which were observable in the late Re­volution, since that Usurper saith, he was led by Providence to act beyond and above his Thoughts and Desires. And all this shews, That as Divines say we must try Miracles by Doctrines, as well as Doctrines by Miracles; so if we would not be led into fatal Mi­stakes, we must consider the Justice of any Cause, as well as the miraculous Providences that attend it: Since God, for our Tryal, suffers Providences and Successes equally stupendious to attend Causes, Good and Bad, as he makes the Sun to shine upon the Just and Unjust.

He saith, That their Majesties P. 23. made choice of him for the Archbishoprick, as the fittest Person; and I agree with him, That he was as fit a Person for that Turn, as they could have pitched upon. And further he tells us, That though he was unwilling to accept it, yet their persisting in their Intentions made him think it was the Call and Voice of God, and so he submitted. To which I shall say no more, but that in judging of a Call, we are to consider not only who Calls us, but to what we are Called; [Page 62] and that Kings may call, and tempt, and importune us to commit deadly Sins, as well as other Men. Furthermore, by the Example of the Lord Protector Cromwel, we may see that when Kings call us, we are to consider well what kind of Kings they are; or else we may sometimes be in danger to mistake the Temptations of the Devil, and our own wicked Hearts, for the Call of God.

He tell us also, P. 3. That he would speak with great Reserves of him, and so he hath. For how often was he wont to declare his Resolution, that he would ne­ver be a Bishop? I have often heard him admir'd upon the Ac­count of that self-denying Resolution, and also observed how ve­nerable his Refusal of some Bishopricks would render his Name to Posterity. But when Men make such Resolutions, they make them it seems with a tacit Reserve to the persisting Call of a King. For I can name two Persons, now in the Places of deprived Bi­shops, and one of them to my certain knowledg, who vehement­ly declared against taking of the Places of any of the deprived Bi­shops: But I suppose their Majesties made choice of them too, as the fittest Persons, and that they looked upon their persisting in their Intentions as the Call and Voice of God, dispensing not only with their former most deliberate Resolutions, but also with all the Fundamental Laws of Ecclesiastical Unity to the contrary, the Examples of the best and purest Ages, and the Canons of the Church.

He also tells us, P. 10, 11. That his first Education was among the Puritans, but of the best Sort; and that he was soon free'd from his first Impressions and Preju­dices, or rather that he was never mastered with them: But I have reason to think that they were not the best sort of Puritans, under whom he had his first Education. First, Because his Father very early turned Anabaptist, which gave some Occasion to call his Baptism into question: And Secondly, Because the best sort of Pu­ritans, as hath been often shewed, were far from the Principles of Resistance and Rebellion; but under whomsoever he had his first Education, he came seasoned to the University of Cambridge with those Principles. For not long after he came thither, King Charles the First was brought by Cambridge to Hampton Court, and Lod­ging at Sir John Cuts his House at Childerly near that University, the Scholars went thither to kiss his Hand: But he, and some few more, had so signaliz'd themselves for those they then called [Page 63] Round-heads, that they were not admitted to that Honour with the rest of the Scholars. Within a Year or two after he went out Midsummer-Batchelor of Arts; by which, having locally qualified himself for a Fellowship, he got the Rump's Mandamus for Dr. Gun­ning's, (which I think one of his own Gang enjoyed a little be­fore him) as a Reward for his good affection to the Cause. From that time to his discontinuance he governed the College; the Se­nior Fellows not daring to oppose him, because of the Interest he had with his great Masters: And so zealous was he for them, That the Corner of the College, which he and his Pupils took up in the new Building, was called the Round-head Corner. And when King Charles the Second was beaten at Worcester, he sent for the Tables in which the College Grace was written, and after the Passage of Thanksgiving for their Benefactors, Te Laudamus pro Benefactoribus nostris, &c. he added with his own Hand, and of his own Head, Praesertim pro nupera Victoria contra Carolum Stuartum in Agro Wigorniensi reportata, or to that effect. In the Year 1656. or the Beginning of 1657. he discontinued from the College, be­ing invited by Prideaux, Cromwel's Attorney General, to teach his Son, and do the Office of a Chaplain in his Family; and the Reader may please to take notice, That his Son was the same Mr. Prideaux who was in the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion. I have related all this upon very good Authority, to shew that Dr. Tillotson had not his first Education under the best Puritans, and that he was not so soon free'd from the Prejudices and Impressions of it; but that hitherto he was perfectly master'd by them: And whether or no they had not some influence over him all his Life long, I leave the Reader, from what I have said of him in this Chapter, to judge.

He tell us again, P. 11. That though ha was soon free'd from the first Prejudices of his Puritanical Education, yet he stuck to the Strictness of Life to which he was bred under them. This is one of our Preacher's side-wind Reflections upon the true Sons and Daughters of the Church of England; as if they were not wont to breed up their Children in as strict an Exercise of true Piety and Vertue, as the Puritans did.

He also saith, P. 20. That his extraordinary Worth forced some, who had no Kindness for him, to advance him: THE SOME he means is only King Charles the Second, who plainly perceived that he was not quite free'd from the Prejudices of his first [Page 64] Education; for when he officiated in the Closet, instead of Bow­ing at the Name of Jesus, or rather to Jesus at the mentioning of his saving Name, that he might seem to do something, and yet not do the thing it self, he used to step and bend backwards, casting up his Eyes to Heaven; which the King observing, said, He Bowed the wrong way, as the Quakers do when they salute their Friends. And yet though his Majesty, who was a great Discerner of Men, perfectly knew him, he preferred him to gratify the Heads of a Party. And may all Princes, who for Politick Ends prefer those for whom they have no Kindness, and who have not true Kindness for them, be requited as he was.

He tells us, P. 13. That he studied all the Ancient Philoso­phers, and Books of Morality. But bate me an Ace of that, quoth Bolton; for I will be bold to say, He was so far from Reading them all, that he scarce Saw them all, or had the curiosity to read them, especially those in the Greek Language. Then he tells us, That among the Fathers, St. Basil, and St. Chrysostom, were those he chiefly read. But how came he, who had such a superior Judgment, to read so many Philosophers, and so few Fathers, and to take up with Two of Five more which our Preacher saith See his Pref. before Bedel's Life. were the Beauties of the Silver Age of the Church? Methinks one that desired to be a consummat Divine should have been as willing to read the great Athanasius, the Gregorys, St. Jerom, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustin; but more especially one that desired to be an Orthodox Divine should methinks have well studied the Clements, the Ignatius's, the Polycarps, the Ire­naeus's, the Tertullians, and the Cyprians, who Ibid. he saith, were the Glories of the Golden Age of the Church. He had better by much have studied all them, than all the Ancient Philo­sophers; and had he went into all the best Things of those Fathers, as it seems he did into all the best Things of Bishop Wilkins, I need not fear to say, he had been a much surer Guide, as well as a more learned and profound Divine; and had not been so ready at all times to treat away those Things with Dissenters, which give such an Advantage to the Church of England above all the Reformed, and more particularly enable her to answer that unhappy Question of our common Adversaries, Where is your Mission? The not being able to answer which, as we can do, hath contributed more to the Ruin of the French Reformed Church, than all the late Perse­cution. [Page 65] For he would have learned in those Fathers, who lived nearest to the Times of the Apostles, that Bishops were their Suc­cessors, and next under Christ the Heads of their particular Dio­ceses: From whom the Presbyters derived their Powers, and to whom they, and the People, were to be subject for Christ's sake. Had he thoroughly learned and imbibed this Doctrine, which is best learned from those Fathers, he would in all likelihood have been as loth to part from it, as those the Latitudinarian Pro­jectors are apt to call narrow and angry Men; because they are not for Treaties of Comprehension with Dissenters upon such Terms, as are not consistent with the Catholick and Apostolick Tradition concerning Episcopacy, and Episcopal Ordinations; and which, if yielded to, would be of more dangerous Consequence to the Religion we profess, than all our Dissenters are, or can be.

Notwithstanding all this, our Preacher cannot but tell us P. 17. of his tender Method of treating with Dissen­ters, and of his Endeavours to extinguish that Fire, and to unite us among our selves: But he doth not tell us what were the Principles and Terms of Union upon which we were to be uni­ted, nor how many of the Dissenters were to be taken in. I can tell one Project which will take them all in, and Roman Catho­licks with them; and that is, to comprehend all who will subscribe to the Divine Authority of the Scriptures, and all the Doctrines contained therein: And if he shall say, That such a Comprehension is too wide, and such an Union more than all Divisions; I am afraid when we shall know what this Man's tender Method of Union, or pious Designs, as Temp. Ch. Serm. preach­ed Dec. 30. 1694 p. 17. Dr. Sherlock calls them, were, there will be Reason to say the same Thing of it, and them. For I make no difficulty to confess to the Reverend Doctor, That I am one of those many Thousands who suspect his admirable Primates pious Designs of ser­ving the Church his own way: For he was always for blending of Orders under Pretence of Union, and since he commenced admi­rable Primate, he was wont to advise the Scottish Episcopal Clergy-men to submit to their Presbyterians, and do all Acts of Compliance to their pretended Authority; which was in effect to advise them not only to commit the highest Act of Disobedience and Schism against their own Bishops, but to abjure Episcopacy with those who detest and abjure it as an Antichristian Usurpation over the [Page 66] Church of God. The good Lord of his Mercy deliver his Church from such admirable Primates and Bishops, as are Traytors to their own Order; and from such tender Methods of Union, and pious De­signs of serving the Church, as they may without breach of Charity be supposed to have. Our Preacher, as well as his Heroe, may be numbred among those pious Designers for going to wait upon the Duke of Hamilton, when he was last in London, some days before he went for Scotland: He took upon him to tell his Grace, That he would ruin his Interest, if he did not stick fast to the Presbyterian Cause; for they began to fear that he was not for it to them. And thereupon he advised him, as he regarded his own Stan­ding, and the Kings Favour, to be sure to promote the Presby­terian Interest. This the Duke told to a Person of Honour before he left the Town. And now hear, O ye See the Pref. before Bedel's Life. Clements, Ignatius's, Polycarps, Deny's, Irenaeus's, and Cyprians, of the Golden Age of the Church, was not this Apostolical Councel in a Man that bears your holy Character? Could he do any Thing more un­worthy of it, than to advise a Prince of his Country to support those, and stick to these, who have declared your Holy Order to be Antichristian, and abolished it as an Usurpation, and depri­ved your Successors, as much as in them lies, for Usurpers over the Church of God. Nay, let all Men that read this Story con­sider it a little in its just Consequences, and Reflections upon this wretched Man, as he is a Bishop, and a Bishop who formerly as­serted the Office of a Bishop to be an Apostolical Institution. Read what he hath wrote for it in his Preface to Bishop Bedel's Life. It is not possible to think that a Government can be Criminal, under which the World received the Christian Religion and that in a Course of many Ages; in which, as all the Corners of the Christian Church, so all the Parts of it the Sound as well as the Unsound, that is, the Orthodox, as well as the Hereticks and Schismaticks, agreed. The Persecutions that then lay so heavy upon the Church, made it no de­sirable Thing for a Man to be exposed to their first Fury, which was always the Bishops Portion: And that in a Course of many Centuries; in which there was nothing but Poverty and Labour to be got by the Employment. There being no Princes to set it on, as an Engin of Government; and no Synods of Clergy men gathered to as­sume that Authority to themselves, by joynt Designs and Endeavours. [Page 67] And can it be imagined that in all that glorious Cloud of Wit­nesses to the Truth of the Christian Religion, — there should not so much as one single Person be found, on whom either a Love of Truth, or an Envy of the Advancement of others, prevailed so far as to declare against such an early and universal Corruption, if it is to be esteemed one? When all this is complicated together, it is really of so great Authority, that I love not to give the pro­per Name to that Temper that can withstand so plain a Demon­stration. For what can a Man even herited with all the Force of Imagination, and possessed with all the Sharpness of Prejudice, ex­cept to the Inference made from these Premisses, That a Form so soon introduced; and so wonderfully blest, could not be contrary to the Rules of the Gospel, and cannot be ascribed to any other Origi­nal, but that the Apostles every where established it as a Fence about the Gospel which they planted; so that our Religion and Go­vernment are to be reckoned Twins, born at the same Time, and both derived from the same Fathers? —Therefore it will perhaps be necessary, in order to the giving a fuller and amiabler Prospect of that Apostolical Constitution, &c. And if it is an Apostoli­cal Constitution, with what Face or Conscience could he solicit the Duke of Hamilton to adhere to those who de­clare it to be a Diabolical and Antichristian Usurpation? But if it is not, and by consequence not an Institution of unalterable Right, Why do we continue it? Why is the Church troubled with two Orders of Priesthood when one would serve? It hath cost this Nation much Blood and Treasure to support it. The Earl of Strafford might have had his Life, if he would have bought it at so dear a Hate, as to perswade King Charles the First to consent to the Abolishing of it: That blessed Prince died a Martyr for it: And our Primate of everlasting Memory, Archbishop Laud, was sacrificed for it. And yet, alas! it is now abo­lished in one Kingdom, and disgraced and polluted with Schism in the other two: And the very Foundation of it hath been and is still an undermining under the popular Pretences of tender Methods and pious Designs. Let the Ob­servation of the Lord's Day, Infant Baptism, the Two Sacra­ments, the Doctine of the Holy Trinity, which stand upon the same bottom, be all treated away with it. To dis­pence [Page 68] with those, as well as with this, will make the Union yet more Glorious and Comprehensive, and more worthy of the pious Undertakers. For I know no Reason why the Anabaptists, Quakers, and Socinians, should not also be taken in: But as to my own particular, I must here de­clare, That I am for pure Catholick and unmixt Com­munion; and if after this designed Comprehension of the Sects, there is to be found but One such Church of Two or Three, in what corner of the Land soever, I will join my self to that.

HAVING shewed in the first Chapter, that al­though the Character which Dr. Burnet hath given of Dr. Tillotson were true, yet it is not to be be­lieved upon his Authority; and having also shewed, by many Instances in the second, that it was not a true and just Character of him, but much above his Merits: I now proceed in this, according to the Method mentioned in the Introduction, to animadvert upon several other Passages in his Funeral Sermon, which I think my Undertaking obliges me not to pass over without some Remarks. I shall begin with that strange Expression which he useth of the Apostle, who P. 7. he saith had large Thoughts concerning the Idol Feasts, and Meats offered to Idols. As this is a crude and indecent way of Speaking of an Apo­stle, so it is groundless and false; he having stated the Case of Idol Feasts, and of Eating of Meats, and Drinking of Drinks, that have been offered up in Sacrifice to Idols, with all the Strictness that the Nature of them required. For first, as to the Idol Feasts, or of Eating and Drinking at the Feasts in the Heathen Temples, which were joyned to the Sacrifices offered unto Idols, he determines it to be unlawful in a two fold Respect. First, with respect to the Substance of the Action, as it as it was 1 Cor. 10.20, 21. Demonolatry, or worshipping of Devils, and holding Communion with them; [Page 69] which therefore provoked the Lord to Jealousie, when those who drank his Cup, would drink the Cup of Devils; and partakers of his Table, would also partake of the Tables of Devils. Second­ly, he determines it to be unlawful with respect to the circumstance, or consequence of the action, because those pretenders to know­ledge among the Christians, who frequented Idol-Feasts, did not only confirm the Gentiles in their Idolatry, and harden the Jews in their unblief, but 1 Cor. VIII. v. 9, 10, 11, 12. also by their contagious Ex­amples drew the weaker Christians to pollute them­selves with Demonolatry, or Communion with De­vils, and so were answerable to God, for causing their Brethren to perish, for whom Christ died. And now let any serious man consider this determination of the Apostle against Christians going to Idol Temples to eat at Idol Feasts, either with respect to the substance, or Circumstance of the thing, and then let him tell me if it is not as strict, and free from latitude, or largeness of thought, as the Doctrine of worshiping the one true God, and having no other Gods but him.

The like strictness we shall also find in determining the case of Christians eating of meats, which had been offered unto Idolls at their own, or at their unbelieving Friends Houses: For it seems part of the Sacrifices which had been offered unto Idolls were often sold to the Butchers by the Idol-Priests; from which arose two que­stions among the Christians of these times, one whereof was, whether they ought to eat what was bought in the Shambles at their own Houses? Because what they eat might perhaps have been such portions of the Sacrifices as the Idol Priests had sold to the Butchers; and the other was whether they ought to eat at their unconverted Friends, or Relations Houses of every thing that was set before them without asking if it had been any part of those Sacrifices which had been offered unto Idolls? The parti­cular reason of this later question was, as I conceive, because the Gentiles esteemed those portions of Idol Sacrifices, as more holy, than common flesh, and would be sure to buy them for their Feasts and Entertainment if they could get them. To these two questions the Apostle answers in general, that it was lawful for them to enjoy any of God's Creatures, none of them being in their own nature impure, and that therefore they might safely eat what­soever was sold in the Market without thinking themselves bound in conscience to enquire whether any thing they met with in the [Page 70] Shambles, or were to eat at their own, or their Friends Houses, were portions of Idol Sacrifices, or no? But then if any man told them, that such, and such meats had been offered unto Idols, then they were neither to buy them in the Market, nor eat of them at their own, or at their Friends Houses for fear of giving 1 Cor. X v. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32. offence to others, whether Believers or Unbelievers. First to Believers especially of the weaker sort, who seeing them buy, or eat, what they had been told was offer'd unto Idols might from the former relation those portions had unto the Idol, think they worshipped the Idol, and so be encourag'd to eat against their Consciences, and perhaps proceed further to eat at the Idol Feasts, which was downright Idolatry. Secondly, To Unbelievers, Jews or Gentiles; the former whereof coming to know that Christians bought, or eat what had been offered unto Idols, would be scandalized thereby against Christi­anity; and the later in like manner seeing them do so, would be encourag'd to persist in their Demonolatry, because they might presume that the Christians buying, or eating wittingly, and wil­lingly what had been offered up in Sacrifice to their Gods, did so out of respect to them, as they themselves did. I think this was very strict Divinity to forbid Christians the use, and enjoyment of those things, which otherwise they were free to use, and enjoy both at home, and abroad, purely upon the account of other mens Consciences, because they were to give no offence neither to the unbelieving Jew, nor to the Idolatrous Gentiles, nor to the weaker Members of the Church of God. Had our Preacher lived in those days, I am afraid he would have censured the Apostle, as a man of narrow thoughts, who was too much influenced by Jewish notions, and superstition in these severe determinations, but be­cause he was to make a Parallel between the Apostle, and his Latitudinarian Hero, therefore right, or wrong he was to take some occasion to let us know, that the Apostle had his large thoughts too.

Another of his Phrases, which he chose rather to use improper­ly, than to omit, is that of the p. 9. just freedoms of Human Na­ture, where he tells us, that his Heroick Primate asserted the great Truths of Religion, when he saw them struck at, with an authority, and zeal proportioned to the importance of them, while in lesser matters he left men to the just freedoms of Hu­man Nature — but he should have said, had he spoke properly, [Page 71] to their Christian Liberty, for the freedoms of Human Nature relate to men, as they are considered in a civil, or in their natural state, if there ever had been, or were any such. But this being one of the golden Phrases of the Latitudinarians, he was resolved to tip his Tongue, and gild one Period with it, for that sort of men, have their Jargon, and Cant, as well as others, and particularly affect to talk of the Rights, Liberties, or Freedoms of Mankind, or of the Rights, Liberties, or Freedoms of Human Nature, altho' every man in the World only hath such Rights, and such Liberties as the Laws and Customs of the Country, where he is born, or whither he betake himself give him, and no more. Hence the Inst. Lib. 1. de jure pers [...]narum. Roman Law defineth Liberty to be a Natural Pow­er, or Faculty, which every man hath to do what he pleaseth, as far, as he is not hindered by law or force. This definition shews, that mens natural liberty is restrained more or less, accor­ding to the civil constitutions of different Countrys, and this is so true, that in some places, the greatest part of Mankind have almost no Liberties; and Slaves which were the greatest part of Mankind in the Roman Empire, as now in some of our Plantati­ons, had none at all. Yet notwithstanding this is so plain, and obvious a Notion, our Latitudinarians, when it serves their turn (as it did in former Reigns) love to talk of the Rights, and Liberties of Mankind, or Human Nature, because they are splendid Phrases, which by seeming to have something great in them, are apt to gull unthinking men, tho' they signifie nothing at all. Tell them of Passive Obedience, or the unlawfulness of Resistance, they will tell you again, that it is a Doctrine against the Rights and Freedoms of Mankind. I knew a Gentleman, to whom an unfortunate Lord of our Preachers acquaintance said so, and we may without mak­ing a bold inference guess from whom he had the deceitful insig­nificant Phrase, which to serve ill purposes may be used against Laws and Constitutions, that restrain mens Liberties in civil Soci­eties, in any other respect, as well as in not resisting the Supream Power, and would help to justifie insurrections not only of Slaves, but of Subjects, and more especially of the common People all the World over. So the Dispensing Power under King James's Ad­ministration was against the just freedoms of Human Nature, and the French Government was, and is against the Rights, and Li­berties of Human Nature, though some Governments harder than it, and the exercise of them is not so in other places, where Pro­testants, [Page 72] as Conscientious, and at least as Orthodox as those of France are ruined, and undone for Conscience sake, and as ef­fectually Dragoon'd without Dragoons by Deprivation and double Taxes, of which I am confident our Preacher would say, if he suffered such Penalties, that they were against the Rights of Human Nature, and the Liberties of Mankind. But for my own part, as I always suspected such specious Phrases, and those, who used them: so I know not to what purpose they serve, but to beget false no­tions in the minds of men, and incite them to subvert States, and Kingdoms, and level all Orders of Men in them, and I have al­ways observed that those who used them, set up for Demagogues, and were most forward when it was in their power to invade o­ther mens Rights, and abridge other mens Liberties, especially those of their lawful Kings, and their Loyal Fellow Subjects with­out any regard to the Laws of Nature, the Laws of God, or the Laws of the Land.

In the same place he tells us, that while the Defunct asserted the great Truths of Religion, he left men in lesser matters to be governed by those great measures of Discretion, and Charity, a care to avoid Scan­dal, and to promote Edification, and Peace, and Decency, and Order. This in an Author so given to subtile, and malicious insinuations, looks like one upon the generality of the Clergy, as if they did not so, but were more zealous for the lesser, than the greater matters of our Religion. But not to mention the Great men among our pre­sent Clergy, did not our Hookers, Sandersons, and Hammonds, as well as those, who have followed their example, assert the great Truths of Religion, as zealously, as his Hero did, and tho' they defended both the Authority, and Wisdom of the Church in en­joyning Ceremonies, and things in themselves indifferent to be ob­served (which he means by lesser matters) and also took care to in­form the Consciences of the People; what a great, and weighty Duty Obedience, and Submissions to the Orders of the Church was, and that morally considered, it was none of the lesser matters of Christianity: yet in their just freedoms they left them to be governed, as he saith his Archbishop did, by the measures of Discretion and Charity, and a care to avoid Scandal, and to promote Edification, and Peace, and Decency, and Order. But in Truth this Character of leaving men to their Freedoms, as Christians, was so very true of Doctor Tillotson, that he left them to their Freedoms, where neither he nor they were free, and to govern themselves by their own private [Page 73] Consciences and discretion, when they neither promoted Charity, nor Edification, nor Peace, Decency, or Order, but gave scandal in both Senses, as it signifies grieving our fellow Christians, and by our Example occasioning others to sin. I will instance in his giving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to those, who would receive it in no posture, but that irreverent one of sitting. This was his Practice at Lincoln's Inn Chappel, whither a great Lady of Dr. Owen's Congregation, and one of his Hearers too, would sometimes resort to receive the Sacrament, because, as she told a Noble Lord of my acquaintance, she could re­ceive it the [...]e sitting. And his Practice, as a devout Gentlewoman, who lived in that Neighbourhood, assured me, was first to walk about with the Elements to those in the Pews, where the Sitters were, and give it them first, but in the last place to those who kneel'd at the Rail, within which he would not go, as decency would have directed another Man, but coming behind them, he gave it them in the Letter of the Proverb, over the left Shouldier. So the late Bishop of St. Asaph at Dr. Kidder's Church not long after the Revolution gave Dr. Bates, and some others the Sacrament in the same irreverent posture, to the great offence of some part of the Congregation, that saw it; and for ought he knew, to the endangering of others to despise the Orders of the Church. I could give other instances of this nature in the other Sacrament of Bap­tism, wherein the defunct Hero, hath acted without excuse against the Churches Orders, to the great scandal of others who came to know it, and violating the prescribed Rules of Decency, and Edification, which I suppose come under our Preacher's lesser Matters, and when I consider how notoriously He, and his Hero have acted in other instances a­gainst Justice, Mercy, Faith, and Charity, I cannot tell what he esteems the great Truths and Duties of Christianity, or the weightier Matters of the Law.

But he p. 15. tells us however that his UNBLEMISHED HERO saw with a deep regret the fatal Corruptions of this Age, while the Hypocrisies and Extravagancies of former times disposed many to Atheism, and Impiety. But methinks he should have said nothing of the Hypocrisies, and Extravagancies of former Times, since they cannot but put men in mind of the Hypocrisies and Extravagancies of these, which for kind have been the same, and for degree, or Atrocity, as great as those, and have also as much disposed men to Atheism, and Impiety. Was it not rebelling under the Holy pretence of Religion? Was it not for taking God's Holy Name in vain in Fasts, and Thanksgivings to break his Holy Laws, and Judgements with a Popular shew of Sancti­mony, that he means by the Hypocrisie of former Times, and have not the same things been done over again in these? And then as for the [Page 74] Extravagancies of those former Times, does he not mean by them the proceeding so far under those hypocritical Pretences, as first to rise up in Arms against Charles the I. then to abdicate him in the Vote of Non addresses, then to murder him before his own Palace, and last of all, to defend those Extravagancies under the same hypocritical Pretences, and magnifie those, who did them, as our Deliverers, to whom we owed the conservation of our Religion, Lives, and Liberties? And if this be his meaning, as in appearance it must, then I pray him to compare Times with Times, Facts with Facts, and Pretences with Pre­tences, and then to tell me, if as great Extravagancies have not been done in our days? And lastly, as to disposing men to Atheism, and Impiety, I appeal to the Consciences of all serious observing men, if what hath been done, in, by, and since the Revolution, call it by what name you please, hath not disposed many more to Atheism, and Im­piety, than what he calls the Hypocrisies and Extravagancies of former Times.

I have heard that in one of his Visitation Speeches to the Clergy of Wiltshire, he complained of the deluge of Atheism and Impiety that over­flowed this Nation, and would to God he would lay his hand upon his heart, and consider whether He, and his Hero, and his Hero's Suc­cessor, have not among some others helped to set open the Floudgates to that overflowing Deludge, by what they have done under the irreligi­ous Pretence of serving, and preserving our Religion, by acting not only against the plainest Precepts of it, but the common notions of Justice, Truth, and Honesty, and their own former Doctrines, which now bear witness against them, and will hereafter without Repentance, rise up in Judgment against them, and condemn them, when our Lord shall say unto them, and every one that hath acted like them, out of thy Mouth, out of thy Writings, will I condemn thee, thou wicked Servant. In that day this will be the aggravation of their condemnation above the Marshalls, the Calamies, the Owens, and the Goodwins of former Times, that they acted the same Iniquities against their own avowed Doctrins, and Principles, and Subscriptions, whereby they had most publickly, frequently, and solemnly Anathematiz'd the Practises of those men, and I will take upon me to say, that for any one Athiest He, or his Hero converted before the Revolution, they have made ten since, and that if those men slew their thousands these have slain their ten thousands, and I pray God, He and some others, who have time of Repentance yet left them, may consider what I say before it is too late.

It is scarce worth my pains to examine what he hath said in the same page of the Design, that was laid (he means in the Reign of King Charles the II.) to make us first Athiests, that we might more easily be made [Page 75] Papists, this seems to be an odd design, at least an odd way of expres­sing it, to make men Athiests, that they may more easily be made Pa­pists, that is, first to bring them to believe no Religion, that they may believe the Popish, and teach them to laugh at the three Creeds that they might believe all the Articles of Pope Pius the IV. with all the supernumerary Traditions of the Roman Church. King Charles the II. indeed was not so careful as he should have been in the great Concern of Religion, but that was to be imputed also to the Hypocri­sies, and Extravagancies of former Times, which did with his Father, as these have done with his Brother, but to suggest that he laid a Design to make men Papists, by first making of them Athiests, is as ridiculous as to say it now, when Atheism abounds much more than it did in his Reign. One may as reasonably say, that he laid a design to make us first Papists, that he might more easily make us Rebels, or Socinians, as our Preacher hath been long made. But if by making us Papists, he means outward Professors of Popery, I must tell him that King Charles the II. was too wise a Prince to think, that Athiests could ever be brought to that in such a Nation and Government as this, where no inquisition, or force sufficient to bring that about could be set up. For nothing less than a mighty force could make our Athiests submit to Popery, no, as they despise the special Doctrines of it, as much as any other men: So the liberties to which they are inur'd make them abhor, and detest it for the severity of its Discipline, which they know will not allow them to practise their lewdness so openly, to curse, damn, and blaspheme, to call the Priesthood Priestcraft, and to ridicule every thing that belongs to Religion, as they do now, and more than ever in the Houses of our King; therefore we saw them not long ago as averse to Popery, as other men, and associating under the common pretence of preserving our Religion with Enthusiasts, Hypocrites, and Apostates, nay with foreign mercenary Papists to drive a Sovereign Prince of that Communion, whose Title to the Crown depended not upon his Religion, out of all his Realms.

I now proceed to examine the Libel he hath so maliciously made upon our suffering Clergy, and more especially upon our ejected Bi­shops, where his want of Generosity, and Charity appears in every Article of it, tho' but six lines before he pretends to write every thing in his Sermon with an Air free from Resentment, but as I have shewed he writes many Falsehoods where he pretends to write strict Truths: So where he pretends to write generously with candour, and with­out resentment I always suspect there is something to follow of a quite different nature, and here I found, I was not disappointed, I could tell him of some of his Hearers, and those friends to the present Government who [Page 76] that no man of Honour would have so treated men in affliction, as he did, and given such an unreasonable Testimony of an unmortified Temper in a Funeral Sermon, but let the Sermon be what it will, and let him pretend to write with never so much humanity, and sweetness, I will lay of Natures side against him, because his passions are so hard for him, that he cannot but shew his Nature, and mix his Choller with his Ink, when he should write without resentment as he hath done in this Libell with all the ill nature imaginable against the late Archbishop of venerable Memory, and the most worthy Bishop of Ely, whereof the former made him Doctor, when he could not make himself one, and the other as is still remembred in Cambridge, most generously entertained him in his Lodging; at St. John's Colledge, while he resided in that University to inspect Records espe­cially at C. C. C. although at that time, he was in disgrace at Court, and almost every where else. And it is a further aggravation of his ill-nature, that because he had not, he took an occasion of making this Libel against them, and their suffering Brethren; for after he had told his Hearers that the Defunct rejoyced in the happy deliverance of these Nations, then without any necessity, or connexion he tells us, that many of those, who had long'd for it, and wisht well to it, did of a sudden start back. It is plain here that by his many, he means many of the deprived Clergy, but if by his happy deliverance he means, as I have shewed he must, our pretended deliverance by the Revolution, I challenge him to name one of them, who long'd for it, or wished well to it, for as many of those, who have complied, abhorred the thoughts of it: So of those, who have not complied, I know not one, but did, nor he neither I dare say. But then let us suppose that many of them long'd for the Prince of Orange's coming, and wished as well to it, as he himself did, might they not afterwards, nay were they not in Conscience bound, when they saw their error, and his design, to start back? What doth he mean by this Objection against: them? Must men go on in what they think iniquity, and as one of the Bishops, who certainly long'd for the Revolution, said, Over Shooes, over Boots. Is this too a Maxim of our Preacher, would he have men proceed from longing for a thing they thought good, to favouring and upholding it, when they found it ill, and from wishing well to it under one per­suasion, to acting for it under another? I believe he will make no dif­ficulty to say that Dr. Sherlock was in a great error for two years to­gether after the Revolution in refusing so long to close with it, and yet if he did well in closing at last with it, he ought not to be reproached for having stood out so long against it; although he said to some Persons of great honour, who consulted him for his Opinion about taking the New Oath, That whoever took it would without repentance, as [Page 77] certainly burn in Hell-fire, as that fire, saith he, pointing to the Chimney, burns there, or to that effect. But besides him who stood out so long, it would be easie to name many more, who neither longed for it, nor wished well to it, that yet at last complied with it, and I hope he will not blame them for starting from their first Resolves, and coming in at the last hour of the day. For men are to be allowed the benefit of second Thoughts, and of Repentance, which often times is the blessed effect of long and serious Consideration; and when they turn Peni­tents by the Laws of Honour, as well as Christian Charity, their for­mer faults are to be buried in Oblivion, and never to be mentioned with reproach. Hath the great Historian of our Reformation forgotten what the first Archbishop of it did through Human Frailty, and after­wards repenting, died a Martyr, and put his right hand first in the Flames, because that part of his Body should be first punished, which was first in fault.

But to give other instances of starting back nearer a kin to the matter in hand: In the Tragical Reign of Stephen, whom the Historians re­present as a perjured Usurper, Robert the great Earl of Gloucester through fear, and surprize took the Oath of Homage with the other Nobles to King Stephen, but not long after with some other Lords took an opportunity to renounce it, and let the Usurper know by Word and Deed that he was ashamed, and repented of the Homage he had done unto him contrary to his Allegiance to Queen Maud; and the Historians of those Times Were so far from reproaching him with his first compliances, that they have celebrated his Memory upon the score of his Repentance, and his constant Allegiance ever after to the Queen. In the Reign of Lovis of France, whom the Barons set up in the room of King John, many Lords began to relent before he died, and many more after he was dead revolted from Lovis their own Idol, crowned the young Prince Henry the III. and soon made the Usurper glad to compound for a safe conduct out of the Realm. In the Reign of Henry the IV. who, our Preacher saith in his History of the Refor­mation, traiterously Usurped the Crown, Archbishop Scroop, and many other Lords, who perhaps had longed for it, and for a while wished well to it, afterwards saw their error and repented, and being resolved to undo, as much as they could, what they had most unjustly done, they rose up against Henry under the Title of Lord Henry Derby, and put out a most remarkable Remonstrance against his Usurpation, and an Excommunication against him, which may be seen in Foxe's Acts, and Monuments of that Reign; and of which because it is so scarce to be had, I have put an abridgment in the N. VI. Appendix: and in the Reign of his Grandson Henry the VI. The whole Peerage [Page 78] then assembled in a Parliament of that Prince's own calling, being made sensible of their error, and the injustice of their Ancestors in deposing Richard the II. and setting up Henry the IV. declared upon Richard Duke of York's Claim by Birth-right, and proximity of Blood, that his Title could not be defeated, but that the Crown of Right be­long'd to him: this with all that was done thereupon may be seen in Roll. Parl. 39. Henry VI. N. 10. as it is in Cotton's Abridgement put out by Mr. Pryn, or rather in the Record at large, as it is Printed in the 31 page of the An Enquiry into the remarkable instances of History and Parliament Records used by the Author of the Unreasonableness of a new Separati­on, whether they are faithfully ci­ted and applied. Book mentioned in the Margent, and I mention it, because I think it, as well as the Book in which it is Printed, worthy to be read of all men. And what another Parliament 1 Edw. IV. declared against the Usurpation of the three Henries as against God's Law, Man's Allegiance, and unnatural in its self. I need not recite here, because it is to be seen in the Printed Statutes of that Reign. And in our Preachers former times of Hypocrisie, the Times of the great Rebellion, which began in 41: many Persons of Honour and Quality in both Kingdoms, who were concern'd in the Prologue, or first Scenes, or Acts of that bloody Tragedy, being afterwards con­vinced of their Errors, not only started back, and repented, but brought forth Fruits meet for such Repentance, and I need but name the Great Montrose, his Patron the Duke of Lauderdale, and Mr. Henderson of his own Country as Examples of what I say; and the two Heroick Penitents the Lords Hepton and Capell both of Immortal Memory in ours. The former of these Lords, as Report saith, went with a Rope about his Neck as a Token of his Repentance, to throw himself at the King's Feet, and how they both after repentance signaliz'd themselves in his service, and the Lord Capell in his Son's, is known so well, that I need not relate it. So William Pryn, not to mention all the Commis­sioners, who were sent to treat with the King at Holmby-House started back also, though it is to be wished they had done it sooner, and how severely he censured his old Actions, and endeavoured to undo what he had done, may be seen from what he hath written in his Plea for the Lords, his Concordia Discors, and a Paragraph or two, in his Preface to Cotton's Abridgment which I have also put in the N. VI. Appen­dix. Nay the Members of that very Convention which called home Charles the II. were the men that began and carried on the Re­bellion against his Father, and yet by God's Grace they started so far back, as to declare point blank against their former Practise, that by the undoubted, and fundamental Laws of this Kingdom; neither the Peers of this Realm, nor the Commons, nor both together, nor the People collective­ly, [Page 79] nor representatively, nor any other Persons whatsoever ever had, have, or ought to have any Coercive Power over the Persons of the Kings of this Realm. And sometime before that, when the King was in his return, the Lords and Commons of that Convention, together with the Lord Mayor, Common Council-men, and Freemen of London, in a Appen. N. VII. Proclamation did declare, ‘That His Majesty's Rights, and Titles to his Kingdoms were, every way compleat by the death of his Royal Father without the Ceremony or Solemnity of a Proclamation, and that the Imperial Crown of this Realm did by inherent Birth right descend to him, as next lineal, and rightful Heir of the Blood Royal.’ Here are sta [...]ters back with a witness, and I hope their starting back from a Cause in which they were so long engaged, was neither a reproach to them, nor an argument for the goodness, but the intollerable illness thereof. And so if any of our suffering Clergy did, as he affirms, long for the Revolution, and wish well to it, their starting back shews no more than that they were mislead in the Croud, and afterwards thought otherwise of it, than they did at the first. Therefore God is to be praised, and they commended that they started back so soon, and proceeded no further with relucting consci­ences, as many others unhappily did. I could tell of one now in the highest place of the Church, who said sometime after the Revolution, said to this effect, That it was one entire piece of iniquity, and after that again in the plural Phrase, That we, and by consequence he had gone too far, and yet he goes on still, and I fear will not start back. Others I could name to their honour, who proceeded so far, as to take the Oath, and to comply for sometime after, but since, God be praised, have started back, and offered like true Penitents, to do pennance, and begg'd Absolution for what they thought so grievous a sin, and now I have told it, let our Preacher make what he can of their starting back, but when Dr. Sherlock started from the other side, to which these men went back, I never heard that he had the least remorse for continuing so long in his great error, as he must acknowledge it to have been, much less that he was willing to do pennance for it (besides the pennance he did in Print) or desired the Absolution of the Church.

After this he proceeds to tell us, that some in high Stations (that is some Bishops) of the Church would neither openly declare for it, nor against it according to the authority of their Characters: one of which certainly they ought to have done: if they did then judge it so unlawful, as they would now represent it, they ought to have thunder'd both with their Sermons, and Cen­sures against it, especially in the first Fermentation, when a vigorous opposition might have had considerable effects, and would have made them look like Confessors indeed, to which they afterwards pretended. Here our Preacher [Page 80] reflects upon our suffering Fathers for not having declared, and acted against the Revolution betimes, and thunders against them for not ha­ving thundered with their Sermons and Censures against, in the first Fermentation, i. e. when the Mob were Masters in all places, and would have tore them in pieces for it, as some of them were threatned, and that indeed would have been a considerable effect. This puts me in mind of the Question he so often asked Mr. Napleton of Feversham, Why did you not let the King go? To which Mr. Napleton made answer the first time to this purpose, Sir, We could not govern the Rabble, and if the King had offered to go, they would have torn him in pieces. After some time the good Dr. asked Mr. Napleton again, Why did you not let the King go? I told you Sir, replied Mr. Napleton, because the Rabble would have torn him in pieces, if he had offer'd to go. And after that again, a third time, Why did you not let the King go? Sir, replied Mr. Napleton, with some emotion, I have told you twice, because if he had offered to go, the Rabble would have murdered him; Eigh, but Mr. Napleton, saith he again, You should have let him go, i. e. as Mr. Napleton apprehended, and all others must, you should have let him been murdered by the People: This account I had from a Gentleman in whose hearing Mr. Napleton told the Story; and so here in like manner, he saith, they should have thunder'd with their Sermons, and Censures against the Revolution in the first Fermen­tation, when the Mob were the fermenting Particles, that they might have been torn in pieces, or knocked in the head. The Non comply­ing Bishops are as it were so many living Records against him, and how glad would he have been, that they had been martyred in the first Fermentation, that might not have been Confessors now, and now alive to reproach him with their Testimony and Sufferings. They did it not, saith he, and God, and they be thanked, say I, that they did it not out of Season; for there is a time to suffer, and a time to de­cline Suffering, a time to speak as Confessors, and a time to keep si­lence, a time to die Martyrs, and a time to fly from Martyrdom; and our Spiritual Guides and Pastors were Judges of the Season, God having left much to their prudence to act and suffer, or to forbear acting in some times and places, that they may not suffer, as to them shall seem expedient most for God's Glory, and the preservation of his Church. For it is in the spiritual, as it is in the secular Warfare, some­times the Souldiers of Christ, but especially the Leaders must Husband their Lives more than at other times, and sometimes Spiritual Pru­dence directs them to be as it were prodigal, and sometimes to be sparing of their Blood. Would it have been wisdom in Athanasius, when there were so few faithful Bishops, to have thunder'd with his Sermons against the Arrian Heresie before the Arrian Mob of Alexan­dria, [Page 81] when it was much fitter for him to fly from their rage, that he might reserve himself for better times, and in the interim direct, and encourage the faithful, and live to settle the Church in its former State. Let us hear what he saith in his own vindication, for not acting accor­ding to the Authority of his Character, and not thundering with Sermons, and Censures in his Province, when he might have made a vigorous oppo­sition, but fled to save his Life. When they charge us with fear, saith he, they consider not that this reflects upon themselves, who gave occasion for it; for if it be a fault to fly, it is a much greater to persecute— If they reproach us for hiding our selves from those, who seek to take away our Lives, and for flying from the Persecutors, what will they say to Jacob, who fled from his Brother Esau, or to Moses, who departed into the Land of Madian for fear of Pharaoh, or to David who fled from Saul? What would they say to the Great Elias, who hid himself because of Ahab, and fled because of Jezabell 's Threatnings, as the Sons of the Prophets were also by Fifties in Caves. The Disciples of our Lord hid themselves for fear of the Jews, and Paul at Damascus being sought for by the Governour, was let down from the Wall in a Basket, and so escaped his hands. The Law appointed Cities of refuge to flee unto for the safety of those who were sought for to be put to death, but in these last Times that Word of the Father who spake before to Moses, gave Commandment, that, when his Disciples were persecuted in one City, they should flee unto another.—This the Saints knew, and managed themselves accordingly— And this is the Rule for men to attain perfection, namely to do what God commands. Hence the Word himself, who became in­carnate for us, when he was sought for, thought it not amiss to hide him­self, as we do, or to fly from Persecution. When he was a Child he warned Joseph by an Angel to arise, and take the young Child, and his Mother, and fly into Egypt. And after Herod 's death he went aside into Nazareth, because of Archelaus. When he had cured the withered hand, and the Pharasees took counsel to kill him, he departed thence, and when he had rais'd Lazarus from the dead, and was in danger by it, he walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed thence into the Wilderness. And when the Jews took up Stones to cast at him for affirming himself to have been before Abraham, he hid himself, and went out of the Temple, and passing through the midst of them, made his escape. When John had suffered Martyrdom, and his Disciples had buried his Body, Jesus hearing of it withdrew himself, took Ship, and went privately into a Desart place: What therefore is thus written of our Saviour, is written for the common benefit of Mankind. He would not permit himself to be apprehended before his time came, nor would any longer hide himself, when once it was come, but dis­covered himself to those, who came to take him—Being persecuted they fled, and saved themselves by lying close, but if they hap­pened [Page 82] to be discovered, they were ready to suffer Martyrdom for the Faith.

Thus far the Great Athanasius by way of Apology for his flying, and absconding, and it is, every word of it, as good a justification of our suffering Fathers, for not openly declaring, and acting, and for not preach­ing, and thundering in the first Fermentation, when the Mob, not to name other Persons, were more terrible than Esau, or Pharaoh, or Ahab, or Jezabel, or Herod, or the Jews, to which they were so like in every respect. Wherefore in all appearance, if our Fathers had declared and acted then, we had not had the comfort, and benefit of them now, but had been left like Sheep without a Shepherd. And tho' to have died, and de­parted in Martyrdom would have been gain, and advantage to them, and really far better than to live in such wretched times, yet their abiding in the flesh, was, and is more needful for us, and for the suc­cession, and preservation of the Church.

But then suppose that we should admit, which we have no reason to do, that they were defective in their duty through fear, and sur­prize, or other human frailties, in the first, sudden, and fearful Fermen­tation, which so small a number could not stand against: Is not this a common and venial Infirmity? Did not Peter in a surprize of fear deny his Master; and the rest fly? And yet he, and all of them lived Confessors, and died Martyrs after. Have not many of the most celebrated Confessors and Martyrs, been at some time overcome with this human infirmity, especially upon sudden Revolutions, and violent Fermentations, when the Faithful could scarce know their Brethren, and who would be true, and who false? And therefore if this had indeed been the case of our suffering Fathers, it is so common, not only to Human Nature, but sometimes to the best men of it, that I would not reverence them, or their Memory after them, one jot the less upon that account. No man pretends to reverence the Memory of Father Paul more than our Preacher doth in his Life of Bedell, and in his Travells, altho' the Father was so timerous, that he durst not make one publick step towards a Reformation, or do one Heroick act in order to it. He would indeed often commend the Scriptures in his Sermons to the People, and once holding a Greek Testament in one hand, while he clapt it with the other, This, this, saith he, is the Book, of Life, with more to that purpose. This occasioned a Gentleman to go to him, and expostulate with him upon his Sermon, how he could so recommend that Book, and yet act so contrary to it every day, but especially in his solemn Masses, to which he replied bursting out into tears, Deus non mihi dedit Spiritum Lutheri. God hath not given me the Spirit of Luther. And I question not, but if God had seen it fit that our [Page 83] suffering Fathers should have thundered in the first Fermentation, he would have poured out the Spirit of might upon them, and given them a thundering courage from above, which all their Adversaries, and all their Captains of Fifties, and Hundreds had not been able to resist. But this I say again was not their case, because they acted ac­cording to the standing Rules of Spiritual Wisdom, and the liberty that God hath allow'd in all Persecutions, where he is not pleased to inter­pose by inspired courage, and thereby over-rule the Spirits of Men. Wherefore it was not a Season for them then to thunder, especially with Censures: To have done so against Foreigners, would have been to no purpose, because they were of other Communions, and to have thundered against our own People, would have been to excommuni­cate the Multitude, which is against the Rules, and directions of the Canon Law.

But to proceed, he saith, They left their authority entirely with their Chancellors, who acting in their name, and by their Commission, were the same persons in Law with themselves, and that Oaths, which they thought unlawful, were tender'd to others, and taken by them in their name. This Expression of leaving their authority with their Chancellors is ambigu­ous, either signifying, that they gave special Orders, and Commission upon that occasion to give Institution, and to Administer the Oath, or that the Chancellors having those Powers in their Patents before, as most Chancellors had, gave Institutions, and Administred the Oaths by their Patent Power, when those Bishops would not. If the former be meant by him, then I confess, if any of them did so, they did amiss, and what they cannot, nor I believe, will undertake to justifie, but meekly acknowledge their Error, which their haughty Censour is not apt to do. But upon the best inquiry, I have had the opportunity to make, I cannot find, that one of them did so, and if our Preacher knows of any one that did, he may name him, when he pleases. But if the later be only meant by him, then they are not to be blamed for what they could not hinder their Chancellors from doing, who indeed are but too much one Person in Law with them, as Dr. Duck, Chancellor of Wells, shew'd Dr. Peirce the Bishop of that Diocess many years ago. How could they hinder their Chancellors from Admini­string the Oaths, who were more officious to the Government then them, and who having not the conscience, nor courage to suffer with them, were willing to signalize their good Intentions to it, whether they would or no? It is very well known how the first Thanksgiving Books, and all the Fast, and Thanksgiving Offices afterwards, were sent to their Chancellors, Officialls, or Registers to be distributed about their Diocesses without them, and for this reason he might as well have said that Fasts, and Thanksgivings were observed by [Page 84] their order, and direction, although they thought them unlawful.

Then it follows, That though they thought the Oaths unlawful, yet they would scarce say so much in confidence to any of their Clergy, that asked their opinions about it, both concealing their Principles, and withdrawing from the Publick Worship, and yet not daring to act, or speak against it. At what a rate doth he juggle here: They would scarcely say so much, but it seems they did say it, and they would scarcely say so much in confi­dence, when the Persons that asked them their Opinions of the Oaths were it may be in their Opinions, Persons not be confided in. Indeed they had need be upon their guard at that time, but more especially the Archbishop, the Person whom he means, had reason to suspect that some of the Clergy, and others came to entrap him, as the Pharisees did our Saviour. I have heard him complain of it, and therefore his common answer to some, whom he suspected, or knew not, was to this effect: What need you come to me to ask my Opinion, the World knows it, and my Practice declares it, and you knew it before you came; and if it be my reasons, that you would ask me, then let this one suffice, I cannot take contrary Oaths. But where he had confidence in Persons, no man spoke more or better upon the Subject, as many are ready to attest. And I would ask our Preacher, how could the notoriety of his Practice, and particularly his withdrawing from Publick Worship, be consistent with concealing his Principles; which not only the Learned, but the un­learned knew; Captain Tom's Regiment, and the Watermen knew them, as well as the Bishops and the Clergy, and those, who forsooth went to him, to ask his opinion about the Oath, might as well have asked him what Religion he was of, for the one was as well known as the other.

Then he tells, That they hoped at this rate to have held their Sees, and enjoy'd their Revenues, while in a silent, but fearful manner, they still ad­hered to an Interest, which, as one of them wrote, they could no more part with, than with their Interest in Heaven. The very reverend, and worthy Prelate, who said that, did neither in a silent, or fearful manner adhere to that Interest, for it is very well known with what boldness, and danger too, he preached up our duty as Subjects at Cambridge, and o­ther Places of his Diocess immediately before the first Fermentation, not to mention the Interest he espoused in the Convention. But I believe he more especially means the Archbishop, who never came to speak his mind there; but nothing can be more absurd than to ascribe it to a design of holding his Revenues: first because no man ever despised them more, especially in comparison of his Duty; and secondly, be­cause he must needs know, that coming, or not coming to the Con­vention, he could not hold his See long, if a new Government were set up. The Reasons will one day be told, why he would not come [Page 85] thither; it was not fear, but conscience, and a real persuasion, that his appearance there would do no good, which made him decline coming to a Meeting, which he thought was so illegally, and unauthorita­tively called.

Then it follows, Thus did they abandon the Government of the Church, and I will say just as the King abandoned, and relinquished the King­dom, or as a man abandons his House, that is driven from it by force of Arms. Is not this a modest way of representing matter of fact, and doth it not excellently well become an Ecclesiastical Historian to call suspending and ejecting, Abandoning? The word might perhaps have passed in the next Age, but no man besides our Preacher would have called it so now, that is not Abandoned by Modesty, and the love of Truth.

Then it follows, We were in such a Posture by their means, that neither our Laws, nor our Princes could bear it long. What our Princes would, or could have born in that Affair, I cannot determine, but it is well known, how they were importuned after the Victor's return from the Boyn, by our Preacher and others of his Robe, to put other Bishops into the places of the deprived, or perhaps it might have been longer before the Schism had been commenced. The writ of Intrusion was also devised, and prepared in order to this good Work, and the pleasure his Hero took in the Invention of that Expedient shews, that he was not so incapable, as he p. 29. makes him of craft, or vio­lence, and that there was something in the p. 27. World he thought worth much art, and great management, namely to get Posses­sion of an Archbishoprick worth five thousand pounds a year. But then as for our Laws they would have born with it, as long as our Princes pleased, for it is a Maxim in our Constitution, which our Preacher (if he knew) forgot, or dissembled, that nullum tempus occurrit Regi, and whether it had not been more for the honour of our Church, and the reputation of our Religion to have deferred filling up the Sees of our suffering Fathers, till their deaths had really made them vacant, I leave any indifferent Person to judge. I am sure Diocesses have been longer kept vacant, than that in probability would have been, in the best Reigns, and for less important Reasons, and if the like forbearance had been practised now, this Schism, this horrible and unnatural Schism had been prevented, nor had we lost the unvaluable advantage we had before over our Adversaries, by now having, as they have had, Bishop against Bishop, and Pope against Pope.

And then to conclude all, saith he, most triumphantly: Therefore the same authority made their Sees void, that had displaced the Non-conformists in 61. and the Popish Bishops in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth 's Reign. That it was the same authority, which displaced the Popish Bishops in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, and the Non-conformists in 61. every true [Page 86] Englishman will confess; but that that Authority, and this, which de­prived our suffering Fathers is the same, a great part of the Nation, who are as well versed in our Antiquities, Histories, Records, and Laws, as any other men, and have studied our Constitution to inform their Consciences, as every one knows, utterly deny; so that our Preacher's asserting that Authority and this to be the same, without proving it, is precarious and signifies just nothing at all. I will not take upon me to be a Judge in this Controversie, for it is above my Sphere, but only set down some Observations; which I have made in reading Books on both sides. First then as to the Authority of our Hereditary Kings, I observe, first, that those who in former Reigns have maintained the Cause of our Non Hereditary Princes, never had the confidence to deny it, but the other side have always taken upon them to deny their Power to be Authority, because in their opinion it wanted Right. Secondly, I have observed, that the Arguments, or rather Argument for the Authority of our Hereditary Kings is in all Writers of all Reigns, and Ages one, and the same, but in other Writers various, different and inconsistent one with another, and as for this Government, our Preacher advanced one Argument for it in his Pastoral Letter, for which the House of Commons damned the whole Book to the Flames, where all the other Arguments for taking the Oath, but Dr. Sherlock's Providential Right were burnt together with Conquest by the hand of the common Hangman. Thirdly, I have ob­served, that many Usurpers of this Kingdom, have notwithstanding all their other patched Titles, pretended also to Birth-right, as the best of all, and I appeal to the best Friends of the present Government, if they would not most willingly exchange all their other Titles for that, as the Fox in the Fable, who when he was hotly pursued by the Hounds would have given all his shifts, which he proudly reckoned up but a little before, for that single one of the Cat. And how much it once prevailed above all the rest, upon the most solemn hearing, that ever was on both sides in any Kingdom, may be seen in Roll. Par. 39 Hen. VI. n. 10. which I cited before, and once more recommend to the Reader, and to our Preacher too. But which soever of the two is the best side of the Controversie, it did not become him of all men in the Kingdom, to affirm those Authorities to be the same, who had declared Henry IV. to be an Usurper, and the meeting of a Convention without the King's Writ to be an Essential Nullity; and who likewise in his third Discourse, deliver'd to his Clergy concerning the infallibility, and authority of the Church, declares that in all Constitutions among men, the most evident thing, is this, where the supream Authority rests, that there should be no danger of mistaking, and where, and in whom it evidently rests by our constitutions, those who have read the many recognition Acts in our Statute Book, and the Oath of Supremacy may easily tell.

But then in the second place, let us suppose those Authorities to be the same, yet it doth not follow, that the Cases of the Deprivations are the same too. For the same lawful Authority may in one Reign deprive justly, and in another unjustly; sometimes it may make good, and sometimes it may enact wicked Laws; sometimes punish evil-doers, and sometimes punish well-doers, and banish, deprive, or premunire Men, or put them to death for keep­ing as well as for breaking the Commandments of God, and for adhereing to Truth, Justice, and common Honesty, which are the Ligaments of all Human Communions, as well as for acting against them, and the plain Maxims of Right and Wrong, which are engraven upon the Consciences of Men. Our Preacher therefore should not only have asserted the Authorities depriving to be the same, but the Causes, and Reasons of the Deprivations to have been the same too; but this he hath not had assurance enough to do, and therefore for any thing he hath written to the contrary, the Deprivation of our suffering Bishops and Clergy may be unjust, and wicked, and a direful persecution, and they as much Confessors, for Righteousness, Truth, and common Pro­bity, as he saith, they now pretend to be: There are such Apologies, and Defences written for them, that I protest, if I were their most implaca­ble Enemy, as I fear our Preacher is, I could not tell how to answer them, and till they are answer'd, they, and those, who hold Com­munion with them, and wish well to them, will presume the Truth to be on their side. This I say upon supposition, that the Authority which deprived them is as lawful, as our Preacher can wish it, but if it should be otherwise, as it may be for any thing he hath said to the contrary, then upon this supposition, I believe he will not deny, but that as Christians they suffer Persecution, and tyrannical Oppression as Free­born Subjects of this Realm.

Further, there is something more in this matter, which the deprived insist upon with great force of Reason, and that is the want of Validity in any Civil Authority whatsoever to deprive Bishops, a point which Dr. Hody the chief Vindicator of the present Deprivations hath not yet ventured upon, though he hath See his Preface to the Case of the Sees va­cant stated, &c. promised a particular Treatise of it, and he is earnestly de­sired to reserve it no longer, that the most Learned and Pious Vindication of the deprived Bishops, who hath long expected it, may return an answer to both.

Having now ended my third Chapter, I should proceed in a fourth, to censure the Stile of our Preacher with the same freedom, that he hath taken upon him to censure that of so many other Writers, and most of them greater men, than himself. The Stile of Dr. Lowth, who is a much greater Divine, is in his account rough, and shaggy; his Author Lactantius wrote not in a stile becoming an Historian; [Page 88] Varillas his Periods, though they had their Beauties, yet were but whipt Cream; Maimbourgh's Writings smelt of Champaigne, and Moun­sieur Le Grand, whose learning is an­swerable to his name, wrote like an Si Monsieur Burnet avoit vû les deux conclusions qui sont à la fin de la De­fense de Sanderus, & de la resutation des deux premiers Livres de la Refor­mation, il auroit raison de dire, qu'en ces endroits là, le Stile de Monsieur Le Grand, est le Stile dùn Avocat, & d'un Avocat vehement, qui gourmande furieu­sement sa partie. Et on peut assurer que cét Avocat appelle icy de la sentence de Monsieur Burnet, comme de juge in­competent. Lettres de Monsieur Burnet avec les remarques de M. L. G. p. 13. Ad­vocate, and Pleader of Causes, and if Sir George Mackensie had lived, his would have smelt so too. No Stile of any sort of Writers, plain or polished, course or fine, can please him in any Language; be they English or Foreign­ers, Protestants or Papists, Divines or Lawyers if they are his Adversaries, they cannot escape his insolent Censure. But if they are friends, or partisans, and men of his Feather, then their Funeral Serm. p. 13.14. Style is exact, neither sinking nor swelling, plain, distinct, short, clear, all of one piece, without superfluity of Words, superficial Strains, false Thoughts, or bold Flights; all solid, yet lively, and grave, as well as free. The Wilkinses and Tillotsons, that are for the Liberties of Mankind, and have large Thoughts of things, those who are their own Patterns, and above the Examples of former Times, they shall all have the highest Characters; they are all Patterns for the World to follow; but the men of strict Principles, the narrow, the hot, the warm, the angry, and the peevish men, are unaccurate, and little Writers, that understand true Eloquence as little, as the just freedoms of Human Nature. Nor have they any thing of Propriety, Beauty, or Strength of Stile, when they happen to write against him. But notwithstanding all the provocations he hath given to examine the Stile of his Funeral Ser­mon, and shew how incongruous it is to the Occasion▪ and boyish in affectation of Words; and Phrases, I will not spend my time, and Paper in an undertaking so unsuitable to my Genius, but leave it to the Wits, and Criticks of the Town, and particularly to the fourth Person of the Conference mentioned in the Introduction, who will not act against the Rules of Honour, if they call him, and other haughty Writers to the test of Eloquence, and by the severity of a strict Censure expose their Writings, as much as it is their common practice to expose other mens. For my own part, as I am sensible of many defects in my own Stile, so I seldom censure other mens, always minding more what is written, than the manner of writing of it, and the truth, weight, and congruity of things in Sermons, and all other Tracts, more than the Stile in which the Author sets them before his Reader; and where there is no excep­tion against the former, or none just or matterial, I always conceal the defects I think there may be in the later.