In the mean time, what use would my gentleman here make of his lordship’s doubts, his belief, or his affirmation? Are the embers too hot for him, that he uses the bishop’s foot to pull out the chesnut? Suppose our prelate had believed there were no Antipodes, is this a time of day to give him credit? But I wonder the less why our author attributes so much to his ipse dixit upon all occasions; for the whole body of his answer to this paper is in effect a transcript from the bishop’s preface. He purloins his arguments, without altering, sometime, so much as the property of his words. He has quoted him five times only in the margin, and ought to have quoted him in almost every line of his pamphlet. In short, if the master had not eaten, the man (saving reverence) could not have vomited. But it is easy to be seen through all the grimaces of that bishop, that he found himself aggrieved he was not thought on, when her Highness spoke of the two best or most learned bishops of England; and that his opinion was not consulted, when, indeed, he had offered it, though unasked.
I know his defender will reply, that his lordship has modestly disclaimed any such pretence to learning, in his preface, where he says, “No, I am not, I know I am not, I am sure I am not the most learned bishop.” See, how he mounts in his expressions at three several bounds. It is true, all these asseverations, like his three nolos,[75] needed not; for any reasonable man, who had read his works, would have taken his bare word, without repetition. Yet this notwithstanding, he might have some inward grudgings, that his pupil thought him not so great a doctor.[76]
But it is not fit that a matter of such importance should end in a bare Ay and No on either side; for though the parties have been so long dead, yet there is a witness still alive, and such a one, that all loyal subjects are bound to join with me in prayers for the long continuance of his life, and even for his continuance in the true religion, as far as the English liturgy can oblige them.
The Duchess thought herself bound to make his Royal Highness acquainted with every one of these several conferences which she had either with archbishop Sheldon, or bishop Blandford; and that account was the very same in substance with what she communicates to her friends in this present paper, as he is pleased to permit me to assure the world, after having had the honour to hear him solemnly affirm it, which puts an end to the whole matter of dispute; and this which follows is as authentic.
The day it pleased Almighty God to call her to his mercy, some relations of hers, who are yet living,[77] were desirous that she should speak with the bishop of Worcester; which the Duchess did not absolutely refuse upon their importunity, but requested the then Duke to stop the bishop a little in the antechamber, and prepare him, according to her directions, before he entered the bedchamber. Accordingly his Highness, having met the bishop, acquainted him, “that she was actually reconciled to the Catholic church:” he then enquired, “whether she were fully satisfied in all points of the doctrine which she had embraced?” and the Duke answered, “that she was entirely satisfied in the doctrine of the Catholic church.” At length the bishop asked, “whether she had already received the last sacraments of the church?” naming particularly those of the blessed Eucharist, and the Extreme Unction; and it being replied by the Duke, that she had received them, the bishop answered, “That then he doubted not but that her soul was in a very safe condition.” Before they parted, his Royal Highness told him, “That it was the desire of the Duchess, he would not trouble her with any matter of dispute, nor offer to pray with her; but if he had any spiritual counsel fitting for a person in her condition, in order to prepare her for her death, he might freely tender it:” upon this he was admitted to her bedchamber, and made her a brief exhortation; after which, his stay there was very short.[78]
This being matter of fact, and of unquestionable truth, I hope the answerer will acquiesce in it. What he will think of his bishop, concerns not me; but as a Protestant, he has reason for his thanking God, that the cause of his church does not depend on the singular opinion of one bishop in it. It appears plainly by this relation, that the bishop of Worcester was ignorant, almost to the last, of her conversion; so that if that will serve our author’s turn, he is acquitted from intending any such act of charity; but that he contributed to it without any such intention, is apparent.
Yet our author will not so sit down; he will condemn her Highness from her own words again; and prove, from her saying,—“that she owed the blessing of her conversion to God Almighty,” that therefore the bishop could have no hand in it.
What obligation has he to defend the honour of his church by a piece of sophistry? She owed it wholly to Almighty God; for “of ourselves we can do nothing.” But, as the answerer confesses, this excluded not her own endeavours; God inspired her with a desire of being reconciled to his church, in answer to her frequent prayers,—not by immediate illumination, or shewing her the right belief miraculously, but by affording her the ordinary means, and conducting her by his good spirit in the use of them. If she had been immediately enlightened, she needed not to have recourse to any of the bishops; but it pleased God, who often works good out of evil, that the arguments they used, or rather the answers which they made, produced a contrary effect, and added more to the desire she had to be a Catholic: in this sense, therefore, it may be said, that the bishops sent her to the priest; for an unresistable, overruling power made them contribute to her change, by opposing it; and the very hands which laboured to hold her fast in the Protestant persuasion, carried her half seas over, and put her into other hands, which carried her the other half. Truly they would have received hard measure, if they had been found guilty on the statute of persuasion, who, far from endeavouring to make her change, dissuaded her from changing, though the Protestant flints happened to strike Catholic fire; so that I cannot but think there was an extraordinary hand of Providence in her case, and of which she had reason to be extraordinary sensible. But we must have, I perceive, a care of praying, and owning benefits from God; for that, or nothing, made her pass for an enthusiast with the answerer; she did nothing besides praying, which our author does not acknowledge it her duty to have done. She read the history which was put into her hands, to confirm her in her first belief; she examined the scripture; she conferred with her divines; and yet he can make an obstinate woman of her, for doing that very thing to which he would advise her. “But,” says our author, “all pretenders to enthusiasm do as solemnly and wholly ascribe the blessing to Almighty God, and look on it as the effects of such prayers as she made to him in France and Flanders.”
They ascribe it indeed wholly to God in our author’s sense, but not in her’s; for she meant not immediate illumination by the word wholly, as I have already proved; they may look on their false light as the effect of their prayers; but she looks on her conversion as the effect of her’s, after having used the means.
“He had thought,” he says, “that the pretence to a private spirit, or enthusiasm,” (for he joins them both afterwards,) “had not been at this time allowed in the church of Rome.”
Somebody once thought otherwise, or he had never diverted the young gallants of the town with his merry book, concerning the fanaticism of the church of Rome.
He next enquires, what need she had of an infallible church, if she owed her change so wholly to Almighty God?
Wholly is already explained to him, and then his argument is of no more force against her, than against all Catholics who have once been Protestants; which is a new subject of dispute, and foreign to the argument in hand.
“Her conclusion,” as he tells us, “is, that she would never have changed, if she could have saved her soul otherwise;” whereupon he infers, “if this were true, she had good reason for her change; if it were not true, (as most certainly it was not,) she had none.”
But her words (which he hath falsified in this place) are these: “I would never have changed, if I had thought it possible to have saved my soul otherwise.” He never misquotes without design. Now by altering these words—if I had thought it possible to save my soul, into these—if I could have saved my soul, he would shuffle off her true meaning; which was, that her conscience obliged her to this change. And that is a point he would not willingly have touched; for he cannot deny, upon his own principles, but that, after having examined the scriptures, as she professes to have done as well as she was able, concerning the points in dispute, and afterwards using the assistance of her spiritual guides, the two bishops, she was to judge for herself in the last resort; and the judgment she made, according to her conscience, was, that the scripture spoke clearly in behalf of the Catholic church, or church of Rome, as he calls it: therefore, according to his principles, and her conscience, she was to be of that church, of whose truth she was thus convinced; so that whether she could be otherwise saved or no, was not the proposition to be advanced, but whether she thought it possible to be otherwise saved. And therefore, though it were true that she could otherwise be saved, yet she had a sufficient reason for her change, (though he says she had none,) which was, her conscience; and supposing that were erroneous, yet, upon his principles, she must be the judge of it without appeal.
“Her scruples began upon reading Dr Heylin’s ‘History of the Reformation;’ and there she found such abominable sacrilege upon Harry the Eighth’s divorce, King Edward’s minority, and Queen Elizabeth’s succession, that she could not believe the Holy Ghost could ever be in such councils.” Thus he compendiously quotes her paper, as being, it seems, ashamed of the particulars therein mentioned; but for once I will follow him his own way.
To read Dr Heylin’s history, in order to settle her, he confesses, was none of the best advices given to such a person. He is much in the right on’t, as appears by the success; and I add, nor any other, either Protestant or Catholic writer then extant; for no paint is capable of making lovely the hideous face of the pretended Reformation. “But,” says he, “there are two distinct parts in the history of it, the one ecclesiastical, the other political; the first built on scripture, antiquity, and the rights of particular churches; the other on such maxims as are common to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who labour to turn all revolutions and changes to their own advantage.”
But why might not her Highness consider it her own way, which is that of nature, in the causes which produced it, and the effects which it produced; though I doubt not but she considered it his way too, because a child could not have missed it, that very distinction being inserted into the history by the author himself. Now the immediate cause which produced the separation of Harry the Eighth from the church of Rome, was the refusal of the Pope to grant him a divorce from his first wife, and to gratify his desires in a dispensation for a second marriage. Neither the answerer, nor I, nor any man, can carry it so high as the original cause with any certainty; for the king only knew whether it was conscience and love, or love alone, which moved him to sue for a divorce. But this we may say, that if conscience had any part in it, she had taken a long nap of almost twenty years together before she awakened, and perhaps had slept on till doomsday, if Anne Bolleyn, or some other fair lady, had not given her a jog: so the satisfying of an inordinate and a brutal passion cannot be denied to have had a great share at least in the production of that schism, which led the very way to our pretended Reformation; for breaking the unity of Christ’s church was the foundation of it.
I pass over the manner of those first proceedings, and the degrees by which they came to terminate in schism, though I doubt not but her Highness was sufficiently scandalized in both, and could not also but observe some of the concomitant causes, as revenge, ambition, and covetousness; all which, and others, drew with a strong bias towards it. But the immediate effects, even of this schism, were sacrilege, and a bloody persecution of such as denied the king’s supremacy in matters wholly spiritual; which no layman, no king of Israel, ever exercised, as is observed by my Lord Herbert[79]. As for the Reformation itself, what that produced is full as obvious in the sequel of history, where we find that chanteries and hospitals, undevoured by Henry the Eighth, were left only to be morsels for Edward the Sixth, or rather for his ministers of state; and the reason was given, that the revenues of them were fruitlessly spent on those who said prayers for the dead. Now this was as naturally produced from the Reformation, as an effect is from the cause; so that, as it is observed by some, had that young king reigned any considerable time longer, the church of England had been left the poorest of any one in Christendom; the rich bishopric of Durham having been much retrenched by him, and it is probable those of Rochester and Westminster. Harry the Eighth had indeed eaten so much of the church’s bread out of his son’s mouth beforehand, that even Calvin complains of it in a letter to Cranmer, (concerning the paucity of good pastors in England,) in these words: Unum apertum obstaculum esse intelligo, quod prædæ expositi sunt ecclesiæ redditus; “one open obstacle I find to this, (he meaneth the increase of good pastors,) is, that your church revenues are exposed to rapine.”
Besides these things, what an usurpation this change of religion caused is most notorious; that of the Lady Jane Gray being evidently grounded on the testament of Edward the Sixth, by which she was made his successor, because she was of the Protestant religion.
As for the title of Queen Elizabeth to the crown, the histories lie open; and I shall not be over-forward to meddle with the rights of princes, especially since the answerer has avoided that dispute. It is enough in general to say, that her interest carried her against the Pope, whose power if good, she was illegitimate. She had also been informed by the English resident at Rome, that the Pope expected she should acknowledge her crown from him, and not take upon her to be queen without his leave. These were strong solicitations, in a new unsettled succession, for her to shake off a religion, whereof his Holiness is head on earth. What matter of conscience was in the case, I say not; but her temporal interest lies bare-faced and uppermost to view, in reassuming of the supremacy, and (to make the breach yet wider) in subverting the foundations of the faith. For the affront is the same, to turn round a man’s hat, and to strike him on the face; but the advantage is the greater in a lusty blow.
But the handle by which our answerer would have the Reformation taken, is not by the causes and effects, the means and management, and indeed the whole series of history: these are nothing to concern his present enquiry, though they raised such scruples in the Duchess, and will do in any other conscientious reader; he will have the Reformation considered his own way, that is, in the political part of it, and the ecclesiastical. Now the political part (if you observe him,) he gives for gone at the first dash: “It was grounded,” he says, “on such maxims as are common to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who labour to turn all revolutions and changes to their own advantage.”
That is, it is common for statesmen to be atheists at the bottom; to be seemingly of that religion which is most for their interest; to crush and ruin that from which they have no future prospect of advantage, and to join with its most inveterate enemies, without consideration of their king’s interest: and this was the case of the Duke of Somerset. All which together amounts to this; that it is no matter by what means a Reformation be compassed, by what instruments it be brought to pass, or with what design, though all these be never so ungodly; it is enough if the Reformation itself be made by the legislative power of the land. The matter of fact then is given up, only it is faced with recriminations; that Alexander the Sixth, for example, was as wicked a Pope as King Henry was a king: as if any Catholic denied, that God Almighty, for causes best known to his divine wisdom, has not sometimes permitted impious men to sit in that supreme seat, and even to intrude into it by unlawful means. That Alexander the Sixth was one of the worst of men, I freely grant; which is more than I can in conscience say of Henry the Eighth, who had great and kingly virtues mingled with his vices. That the Duke of Somerset raised his estate out of church lands, our author excuses no other ways than by retorting, that Popes are accustomed to do the like in consideration of their nephews, whom they would greaten. But though it is a wicked thing for a Pope to mispend the church revenues on his relations, it is to be considered he is a secular prince, and may as lawfully give out of his temporal incomes what he pleases to his favourite, as another prince to his. But as our author charges this miscarriage home upon some late Popes of the former and the present age, so I hope he will exempt his present Holiness[80] from that note. No common father of God’s church, from St Peter even to him, having ever been more bountiful, in expending his revenues for the defence of Christendom; or less interested, in respect of his relations, whom he has neither greatened, nor so much as suffered to enter into the least administration of the government.
But after all, what have these examples to do with this lady’s conversion? Why, our author pretends, that these bad Popes, and their ill proceedings, ought as reasonably to have hindered the Duchess from entering into the Catholic church, as the like proceedings under Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and Queen Elizabeth, might move her Highness to leave the Protestant.
The subject in hand was the pretended Reformation: the Duchess observed the scandalous and abominable effects of it;—that an inordinate lust was one principal cause of the separation; that the Reformation itself was begun by worldly interests in the Duke of Somerset, and carried on by the ambition of Queen Elizabeth. Have the examples produced by our author on the contrary side any thing to do with a Reformation? Suppose, in the first place, that she had never read nor heard any of those things concerning Pope Alexander, or the advancing of nephews by profusion of the church treasure; the first is very possible, and she might interpret candidly the latter. But make the worst of it; on the one side there was only a male administration of a settled government, from which no state, either spiritual or temporal, can always be exempt; on the other side, here is a total subversion of the old church in England, and the setting up a new; a changing of received doctrines, and the direction of God’s holy spirit pretended for the change; so that she might reasonably judge that the Holy Ghost had little to do with the practices of ill popes, without thinking the worse of the established faith: but she could never see a new one erected on the foundations of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation, without great scruples whether the spirit of God were assisting in those counsels.
As for his method of enquiry, “Whether there was not a sufficient cause for the Reformation in the church? Whether the church of England had not sufficient authority to reform itself?” and, “Whether the proceedings of the Reformation were not justifiable by the rules of scripture and the ancient church?” I may safely join issue with him upon all three points, and conclude in the negative,—that there was no sufficient cause to reform the church in matters of faith, because there neither were, nor can be, any such errors embraced and owned by it. The church of England has no authority of reforming herself, because the doctrine of Christ cannot be reformed, nor a national synod lawfully make any definitions in matters of faith, contrary to the judgment of the church universal of the present age, shewn in her public liturgies; that judgment being equivalent to that of a general council of the present age. And, for the third point, the proceedings of the Reformation were not justifiable by the rule of scripture, according to the right interpretation of it by the fathers and councils, which are the true judges of it; nor, consequently, by the rules of the ancient church. But Calvin’s excuse must be your last refuge; Nos discessionem a toto mundo facere coacti sumus: “We are compelled to forsake the communion, or to separate from all the churches of the world.”
“These,” says our author, “she confesses, were but scruples.” According to his mannerly way of arguing with the king, I might ask him, “These” what? Does he mean—these scruples were but scruples? for the word these begins a paragraph. But I am ashamed of playing the pedant, as he has done. I suppose he means—these passages of Heylin only raised some scruples in her, which occasioned her to examine the points in difference by the holy scripture. “And now,” says he, “she was in the right way of satisfaction, provided she made use of the best helps and means for understanding it, and took in the assistance of her spiritual guides.”
That she did take in those guides, is manifest by her own papers, though both of them (the more the pity) did but help to mislead her into the enemy’s country; but then, for our comfort, neither of them were church of England men, though they were both bishops, and one of them no less than primate of all England.
And now, for a relishing bit before we rise, he has kept in store for us the four points, which, about the midst of her paper, the Duchess told us she found so easy in the scripture, that she wondered she had been so long without finding them. He will needs fall into dispute with her about them, though he knows beforehand that she will not dispute with him. This is a kind of petition to her, that she will permit him to make that difficult which she found easy; for every thing becomes hard by chopping logic upon it. I am sure enough, that the wall before me is white, and that I can go to it; but put me once upon unriddling sophisms, I shall not be satisfied of what colour the wall is, nor how it is possible for me to stir from the place in which I am. Alas! if people would be as much in earnest as she was, and read the scriptures with the same disposition, the same unprejudiced sincerity in their hearts, and docility in their understanding, seeking to bend their judgments to what they find, not what they find to their judgments, more, I believe, would find things as easy as she did, and give the answerer more frequent occasion for his derision of a willing mind.
But not to dilate on that matter, I presume he will not pretend, by his disputing, to make any thing plainly appear against her; if he can, let him do it, and end controversy in a moment; for every one can see plain things, and all Christians must be concluded by the scripture. But he knows well enough there is no such thing to be performed. A mist may be raised, and interposed, through which the eye shall not discern what otherwise it would, if nothing but the due medium were betwixt, and the object before it. And that is all the fruit of this sort of disputation, and all the assistance, for which the answerer was so earnest. Upon the whole, his mortal quarrel to the Duchess is, that she would not become an experiment of the perfection to which the art of learned obscurity is improved in this our age; and the honour he has done to the church of England is, that he has used her name to countenance the defamation of a lady. I suspected whither he would bring it, when I saw that honour pretended in the beginning of his pamphlet. If he thinks his bishops have reflected a scandal on his church by their discourses with the Duchess, he ought to have proceeded a more reasonable way than to insinuate, that she forged them, without proving it. If she had been living, and he had subscribed his name to so infamous a libel, he knows the English of a scandalum magnatum; for an inuendo is considered in that case; and three indirect insinuations will go as far in law towards the giving a downright lie, as three foils will go towards a fall in wrestling.
To conclude: I leave it to the judgment of the impartial reader what occasion our answerer has had for his song of triumph at the end of his scurrilous saucy pamphlet. I have treated him as one single answerer, though, properly speaking, his name is Legion;[81] but though the body be possessed with many evil spirits, it is but one of them who talks. Let him disguise his defeat by the ringing of his bells: it was an old Dutch policy, when the Duke[82] had beaten them, to make bonfires; for that kept the populace in heart. Our author knows he has all the common people on his side, and they only read the gazettes of their own writers; so that every thing which is called an answer, is with them a confutation, and the Turk and Pope are their sworn enemies, ever since Robin Wisdom[83] was inspired to join them together in a godly ballad. In the mean time, the spirit of meekness and humble charity would become our author better than his boasts for this imaginary victory, or his reflection upon God’s anointed; but it is the less to be admired that he is such a stranger to that spirit, because, among all the volumes of divinity written by the Protestants, there is not one original treatise, at least that I have seen or heard of, which has handled distinctly, and by itself, that Christian virtue of humility.[84]
I have now done as to matter of reason and argument:[85] the third paper chiefly relates to matter of fact; which, if I were mistaken in, even the brisk defender of it doth me that right to say, the bishop of Winchester did mislead me: For “the whole body of my answer,” he saith, “is in effect a transcript from the bishop’s preface; that I purloin his arguments without altering sometime so much as the property of his words; that I have quoted him five times only in the margin, and ought to have quoted him in almost every leaf of my pamphlet; in short, if the master had not eaten, the man (saving reverence) could not have vomited.” This is a taste of the decency and cleanliness of his style, especially in writing for princes and great ladies, who are not accustomed to such a sort of courtship to others, in their presence; but, as coarse as the compliment is, it clears me from being the author of any mistakes, and lays the blame on the bishop, who is not able to answer for himself: yet, as if I had been the sole contriver and inventor of all, he bestows those civil and obliging epithets upon me, of “disingenuous, foul-mouthed, and shuffling;” one of “a virulent genius, of spiteful diligence, and irreverence to the royal family, of subtle calumny and sly aspersion;” and he adds to these ornaments of speech, “that I have a cloven foot, and my name is Legion;”[86] and that my answer is an “infamous libel, a scurrilous saucy pamphlet.” Is this, indeed, the spirit of a new convert? Is this the meekness and temper you intend to gain proselytes by, and to convert the nation? He tells us in the beginning, that “truth has a language peculiar to itself:” I desire to be informed, whether these be any of the characters of it, and how the language of reproach and evil speaking may be distinguished from it? But zeal in a new convert is a terrible thing; for it not only burns, but rages like the eruptions of Mount Ætna: it fills the air with noise and smoke, and throws out such a torrent of liquid fire, that there is no standing before it. The answerer alone was too mean a sacrifice for such a Hector in controversy: all that standeth in his way must fall at his feet. He calls me Legion, that he may be sure to have number enough to overcome. But he is a great proficient indeed, if he be such an exorcist to cast out a whole legion already. But he hopes it may be done “without fasting and prayer.”
If the people continue stedfast to their religion, they are the rabble, and the only friends I can perceive he allows us. “My good friends the rabble,” in one place, and in another, “our author knows he has all the common people of his side.” What! nothing of honour, or dignity, or wit, or sense, or learning, left of our side? Not so much as a poet, unless it be Robin Wisdom. I pray, sir, when was it that all our friends degenerated into the rabble? Do you think that heresy, as you call it, doth ipse facto degrade all mankind, and turn all orders of men, even the House of Lords itself, to a mere rabble? If all the common people be of our side, we have no reason to be troubled at it. But there is another thing of our side which you like worse, and that is common sense, which is more useful to the world than school divinity. But methinks he should not be angry with the common people, when he takes such pains to prove, “that the kingdom of heaven is not only for the wise and learned,”[87] and that “our Saviour’s disciples were but poor fishermen; and we read but of one of his apostles who was bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, and that poor people have souls to save, as precious in the sight of God as the grim logicians.” Would not any one take this for an apology for the common people, rather than for the Duchess of York, whose wit and understanding put her far beyond the need of such a mean defence? Could she be vindicated in no other manner than by putting her into the rank of the persons of the meanest capacities? But this is another part of the decency of this defence. He had several pretty sayings, as he thought, upon this subject; and therefore out they come, without regarding the reflection implied in them on a person of her capacity, as well as dignity. And so he goes on, in his plea for the ignorant, i.e. for the common people, as I am resolved to understand it. “Must they be damned unless they can make a regular approach to heaven in mood and figure? Is there no entering there without a syllogism? or ergoteering it with a nego, concedo, et distinguo?”[88] This may pass for wit and eloquence among those I think he pleads for; and so I am content to let it go, for the sake of my friends, the common people. But this is somewhat an unusual way of defending, to plead for those he professes to despise, and in such a manner as to reproach the person he undertakes to defend.
From the common people we come to churchmen, to see how he uses them. And he hath soon found out a faction among them, whom he charges with “juggling designs;”[89] but romantic heroes must be allowed to make armies of a field of thistles, and to encounter wind-mills for giants. He would fain be the instrument to divide our clergy, and to fill them with suspicions of one another; and to this end he talks of men of a “latitudinarian stamp:” For it goes a great way towards the making divisions, to be able to fasten a name of distinction among brethren,—this being to create jealousies of each other. But there is nothing should make them more careful to avoid such names of distinction, than to observe how ready their common enemies are to make use of them, to create animosities by them; which hath made this worthy gentleman to start this different character of churchmen among us, as though there were any who were not true to the principles of the church of England, as by law established. If he knows them, he is better acquainted with them than the answerer is, for he professes to know none such. But who then are these men of the “latitudinarian stamp?” To speak in his own language, they are a sort of “ergoteerers, who are for a concedo rather than a nego.” And now I hope they are well explained: Or, in other words of his, “they are,” saith he, “for drawing the nonconformists to their party,” i.e. they are for having no nonconformists. And is this their crime? “But they would take the headship of the church out of the king’s hands.” How is that possible? They would (by his own description) be glad to see differences lessened, and all that agree in the same doctrine to be one entire body. But this is that which their enemies fear, and this politician hath too much discovered; for then such a party would be wanting, which might be played upon the church of England, or be brought to join with others against it. But how this should touch the king’s supremacy, I cannot imagine. As for his desiring loyal subjects to consider this matter, I hope they will, and the more for his desiring it; and assure themselves, that they have no cause to apprehend “any juggling designs of their brethren,” who, I hope, will always show themselves to be loyal subjects, and dutiful sons of the church of England.
The next he falls upon, is the worthy answerer of the bishop of Condom’s exposition, and him he charges “with picking up stories against him, and wrapping them up with little circumstances.”[90] How many fields doth he range for game, to find matter to fill up an answer, and make it look big enough to be considered? But that author hath so well acquitted himself in his defence, as to all the little objections made against him, that I can do the reader no greater kindness than to refer him to it.
I must not say, the poor bishop of Winchester is used unmercifully by him, for he calls him “that prelate of rich memory;”[91] as though, like some popes, he had been considerable for nothing but for leaving a rich nephew. But as he was a person of known loyalty, piety, and learning, so he was of great charity, and a public spirit, which he showed, both in his lifetime, and at his death. Could nothing be said of him, then, but “that prelate of rich memory?” or, had he a mind to tell us he was no poet? or, that he was out of the temptation of changing his religion for bread?
The bishop of Worcester is charged with downright prevarication, i.e. being in his heart for the church of Rome, but for mean reasons continuing in the communion of the church of England. “Therefore,” saith he, “take him, Topham; and now what can I do more for the poor bishop?”[92] The most he will allow him is, “that he was a peaceable old gentleman, who only desired to possess his conscience and his bishopric in peace, without offence to any man, either of the Catholic church, or that of England.” Yet he hath so much kindness left for the poor bishop, that for his sake he goes about to defend, “that a man may be a true member of the church of England, who asserts both churches to be so far parts of the Catholic church, that there is no necessity of going from one church to another to be saved.”[93]
This is a very surprising argument from a new convert. Why might he not then have continued still in the communion of this church, though he might look on the church of Rome as part of the Catholic church? The reason I gave against it was, that every true member of this church must own the doctrine of it contained in the Articles and Homilies, which charge the church of Rome with such errors and unlawful practices, as no man who believes them to be such, can continue in the communion of that church; and therefore he must believe a necessity of the forsaking of one communion for the other; and that no true member of this church can, with a good conscience, leave this church, and embrace the other.
Let us now see what a talent he hath at ergoteering: “If this be true,” saith he, “then to be a member of the church of England, one must assert, that either both churches are not parts of the Catholic, or that they are so parts, that there is a necessity of going from one to another.” He would be a strange member of the church of England, who should hold, that both churches are not parts of the Catholic, for then he must deny that parts are parts; for every true church is so far a part of the Catholic church. Therefore, I say, he must hold, though it be in some respects a part of the Catholic church, yet it may have so many errors and corruptions mixed with it, as may make it necessary for salvation to leave it. “The second,” he saith, “is nonsense.” How nonsense? He doth well to hope, that men may be saved that do not understand controversy, nor approach heaven in mood and figure. “A necessity of a change,” saith he, “consists not with their being parts, for parts constitute one whole, and leave not one and another to go to or from.” We are not speaking of the parts leaving one another, but of a person leaving one part to go to another. Suppose a pestilential disease rage in one part of the city, and not in another, may it not be necessary to leave one part, and go to the other, though they are both parts of the same city, and do not remove from one to the other? But he saith, with great assurance, “that necessity of change makes it absolutely impossible for both churches to be parts of the Catholic,” which plainly shews he never understood the terms of communion with both churches; for no church in the world can lay an obligation upon a man to be dishonest, i.e. to profess one thing, and to do another, which is dissimulation and hypocrisy; and no church can oblige a man to believe what is false, or to do what is unlawful; and rather than do either, he must forsake the communion of that church.
Thus I have given a sufficient taste of the spirit and reasoning of this gentleman.
As to the main design of the third paper, I declared that I considered it, as it was supposed, to contain the reasons and motives of the conversion of so great a lady to the church of Rome.
But this gentleman hath now eased me of the necessity of further considering it on that account: for he declares, “that none of those motives or reasons are to be found in the paper of her Highness,”[94] which he repeats several times. “She writ this paper, not as to the reasons she had herself for changing, &c. As for the reasons of it, they were only betwixt God and her own soul, and the priest with whom she spoke at last.”[95]
And so my work is at an end as to her paper; for I never intended to ransack the private papers, or secret narratives, of great persons; and I do not in the least question the relation now given, from so great authority as that he mentions, of the passages concerning her; and therefore I have nothing more to say as to what relates to the person of the Duchess.
But I shall take notice of what this defender saith, which reflects on the honour of the church of England.
(1.) “The pillars of the church established by law,” saith he, “are to be found but broken staffs by their own concessions.”[96] What! is the church of England felo de se? But how, I pray: “for after all their undertaking to heal a wounded conscience, they leave their proselytes finally to the scripture; as our physicians when they have emptied the pockets of their patients, without curing them, send them at last to Tunbridge waters, or the air of Montpellier.” As though the scripture were looked on by us as a mere help at a dead lift, when we have nothing to say. One would think he had never read the Articles of the church of England; for there he might have seen, that the scripture is made the rule and ground of our faith. And, I pray, whither should any persons be directed under trouble of mind, but to the word of God? Can any thing else give real satisfaction? Must they go to an infallible church? But whence should they know it to be infallible, but from the scriptures? So that on all hands persons must go to the scriptures, if they will have satisfaction. But this gentleman talks like a mere novice as to matters of faith, as though believing were a new thing to him, and he did not yet know that true faith must be grounded on divine revelation, which the pillars of our church have always asserted to be contained only in the scripture; and therefore whither can they send persons but to the scripture? But it seems he is got no farther than the collier’s faith; he believes as the church believes, and the church believes as he believes, and by this he hopes to be too hard for “a legion of devils.”
(2.) He saith, “we are reformed from the virtues of good living,”[97] i.e. from the devotions, mortifications, austerities, humility, and charity, which are practised in Catholic countries, by the example and precept of that lean, mortified apostle, St Martin Luther.
He knows we pretend not to canonize saints; and he may know, that a very great man in the church of Rome once said, “that the new saints they canonized would make one question the old ones.” We neither make a saint nor an apostle of Martin Luther, and we know of no authority he ever had in this church. Our church was reformed by itself, and neither by Luther nor Calvin, whom he had mentioned as well as the other, but for his lean and mortified aspect. But after all, Luther was as lean and mortified an apostle as Bishop Bonner; but a man of far greater worth, and fit for the work he undertook, being of an undaunted spirit. What a strange sort of calumny is this to upbraid our church, as if it followed the example and precept of Martin Luther? He knows how very easy it is for us to retort such things with mighty advantage; when for more than an age together that church was governed by such dissolute and profane heads of the church, that it is a shame to mention them; and all this by the confession of their own writers. But as to Luther’s person, if his crimes were his corpulency, what became of all the fat abbots and monks? “But they were no apostles, or reformers:” I easily grant it; but must God choose instruments, as some do horses, by their fatness to run races. As to Luther’s conversation, it is justified by those who best knew him, and are persons of undoubted reputation; I mean, Erasmus, Melancthon, and Camerarius. And as to matters in dispute, if he acted according to his principles, his fault lay in his opinions, and not in acting according to them.
But whether our church follow Luther or not, it is objected, “that we have reformed away the virtues of good living.” God forbid; but I dare not think there is any church in the world, where the necessity of good living is more earnestly pressed: but I confess, we of the church of England do think, the examples and precepts of Christ, and his apostles, are to be our rules for the virtues of good living; and, according to them, I doubt not, but there are as great examples of devotion, mortification, humility, and charity, as in any place whatsoever. But I am afraid this gentleman’s acquaintance did not lie much that way, nor doth he seem to be a very competent judge of the ways of good living, if he did not know how to distinguish between outward appearances and true Christian virtues. And, according to his way of judging, the disciples of the Pharisees did very much outdo those of our blessed Saviour, as appears by a book we esteem very much, called the New Testament: but if I mention it to him, I am afraid he should think I am “like the physicians, who send their patients to Tunbridge wells, or the air of Montpellier.”
(3.) “That two of our bishops, whereof one was primate of all England, renounced and condemned two of the established articles of our church.”
But what two articles were these? It seems “they wished we had kept confession, which, no doubt, was commanded of God, and praying for the dead, which was one of the ancient things of Christianity.” But which of our thirty-nine articles did they renounce hereby? I think I have read and considered them, as much as this gentleman, and I can find no such articles against confession, and praying for the dead. Our church, as appears by the office of the visitation of the sick, doth not disallow of confession in particular cases; but the necessity of it, in order to forgiveness, in all cases: And if any bishop asserted this, then he exceeded the doctrine of our church, but he renounced no article of it. As to the other point, we have an article against the Romish doctrine of purgatory, article 22d, but not a word concerning praying for the dead, without respect to it: But he, out of his great skill in controversy, believes, that prayer for the dead, and the Romish doctrine of purgatory, are the same; whereas, this relates to the deliverance of souls out of purgatory, by the suffrages of the living, which makes all the gainful trade of masses for the dead, &c; but the other related to the day of judgment, as is known to all who are versed in the writings of the ancient church. But this our church wisely passes over, neither condemning it, because so ancient, nor approving it because not grounded on scripture, and therefore not necessary to be observed.
(4.) But his great spite is at the reformation of this church, “which,” he saith, “was erected on the foundation of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation: and that no paint is capable of making lovely the hideous face of the pretended Reformation.”
These are severe sayings, and might be requited with sharper, if such hard words and blustering expressions had any good effect on mankind: But instead thereof, I shall gently wipe off the dirt he hath thrown in the face of our church, that it may appear in its proper colours.
And now this gentleman sets himself to ergoteering, and looks and talks like any “grim logician, of the causes which produced it, and the effects which it produced. The schism led the way to the Reformation, for breaking the unity of Christ’s church, which was the foundation of it; but the immediate cause of this, which produced the separation of Henry VIII. from the church of Rome, was the refusal of the Pope to grant him a divorce from his first wife, and to gratify his desires in a dispensation for a second marriage.”
Ergo, the first cause of the Reformation was “the satisfying an inordinate and brutal passion.” But is he sure of this? If he be not, it is a horrible calumny upon our church, upon King Henry VIII., and the whole nation, as I shall presently show. No, he confesses he cannot be sure of it: for, saith he, “no man can carry it so high as the original cause with any certainty:” and at the same time, he undertakes to demonstrate, “the immediate cause to be Henry the Eighth’s inordinate and brutal passion:” And afterwards affirms, as confidently as if he had demonstrated it, that “our Reformation was erected on the foundations of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation. Yet,” saith he, “the king only knew whether it was conscience or love, or love alone, which moved him to sue for a divorce.”[98] Then, by his favour, the king only could know what was the immediate cause of that which he calls the schism. Well! but he offers at some probabilities, that lust was the true cause. Is ergoteering come to this already? “But this we may say, if conscience had any part in it, she had taken a long nap of almost twenty years together before she awakened.” Doth he think that conscience doth not take a longer nap than this in some men, and yet they pretend to have it truly awakened at last? What thinks he of late converts? Cannot they be true, because conscience hath slept so long in them? Must we conclude in such cases, that “some inordinate passion gives conscience a jog at last? so that it cannot be denied,” he saith, “that an inordinate and brutal passion had a great share, at least, in the production of the schism.” How, cannot be denied! I say, from his own words, it ought to be denied; for he confesses “none could know but the king himself;” he never pretends that the king confessed it; how then cannot it be denied? yea, how dare any one affirm it? especially when the king himself declared, in a solemn assembly, in these words, saith Hall, (as near, saith he, as I could carry them away,) speaking of the dissatisfaction of his conscience—“For this only cause, I protest before God, and in the word of a prince, I have asked counsel of the greatest clerks in Christendom; and for this cause I have sent for this legate, as a man indifferent, only to know the truth, and to settle my conscience, and for none other cause, as God can judge.” And both then, and afterwards, he declared, that his scruples began upon the French ambassador’s making a question about the legitimacy of the marriage, when the match was proposed between the Duke of Orleans and his daughter; and he affirms, that he moved it himself in confession to the bishop of Lincoln, and appeals to him concerning the truth of it in open court. Sanders[99] himself doth not deny, that the French ambassador (whom he calls the bishop of Tarbe, afterwards Cardinal Grammont; others say it was Anthony Vesey, one of the presidents of the parliament of Paris) did start this difficulty in the debate about this marriage of the king’s daughter; and he makes a set speech for him, wherein he saith, “that the king’s marriage had an ill report abroad;” but then he adds, “that this was done by the king’s appointment, and that Cardinal Wolsey put him upon it;” but he produces no manner of proofs concerning it, but only, “that it was so believed by the people at that time, who cursed the French ambassador.” As though the suspicions of the people were of greater authority than the solemn protestation of the king himself.
But I think it may be demonstrated, as far as such things are capable of it, from Sanders his own story, that the king’s first scruples, or the jogging of his conscience, as our author styles it, could not come from an inordinate passion to Ann Bolleyn; for he makes Cardinal Wolsey the chief instrument in the intrigue. Let us then see what accounts he gives of his motives to undertake it: he not only takes notice of the great discontent he took at the emperor Charles V., the queen’s nephew, but how studious he was upon the first intimation of the king’s scruples, to recommend to him the Duchess of Alençon, the King of France’s sister; and that, when there were none present but the king, Wolsey, and the confessor. Afterwards Wolsey was sent on a very splendid embassy into France, and had secret instructions to carry on the match with the King of France’s sister. But when he was at Calais, he received orders from the king to manage other matters as he was appointed, but not to say a word of that match. “At which,” saith Sanders,[100] “he was in a mighty rage, because he carried on the divorce for nothing more than to oblige the most Christian king wholly to himself by this marriage.” How could this be, if from the beginning of his scruples he knew the king designed to marry Ann Bolleyn? But Sanders thinks to come off with saying, “that Wolsey knew of the king’s love, but he thought he designed her only for his concubine.” But this is plainly to contradict himself; for before he said,[101] “that Wolsey knew from the beginning whom he intended to marry.” Besides, what reason could there be, if the king had only a design to corrupt her, that he should put himself and the world to so much trouble to sue out a divorce? for the divorce was the main thing aimed at in all the negociations at Rome; other applications had been more proper, if his design was only upon having her for a concubine; “but she would not be corrupted.” If this were the reason, he must again contradict himself, for he makes her a lewd vicious woman. And it doth not seem so probable, if she had been such a person as he describes her, that she would have put the king to so much trouble, and such a tedious method of proceeding, by so many forms of law. But again, Sanders saith,[102] “when she returned from France, and was at court, she found out what Wolsey designed;” which makes it evident, by Sanders his own words, that the design of the divorce was before the thoughts of Ann Bolleyn: and it seems very probable, that Cardinal Wolsey might carry on a public design by it, to draw the king off from the emperor, and to unite him with France. And the Pope at that time being highly displeased with the Emperor, he might think it no difficult thing to procure a dispensation, the King of France’s interest being joined with our king’s. Some have written, “that the Pope himself was in this intrigue at first;”[103] but seeing no proof of it, I dare not affirm it: It is sufficient for my purpose, that the first design was laid quite another way. I confess afterwards, when Wolsey, upon his return from France, saw how things were like to go, he struck in with the king’s humour, as appears by the letters of Ann Bolleyn to him; but yet carried himself so coldly afterwards in the matter of the divorce, that it proved one occasion of his fall. Thuanus, being an historian of great judgment, saw the inconsistencies of Sanders his relations; and therefore concludes, that Wolsey was surprised with the business of Ann Bolleyn, after he went into France, having notice sent him by his friends; and that Wolsey wholly aimed at the French match. Mezeray saith, “the cardinal could not foresee the love of Ann Bolleyn, but his design was to be revenged on the emperor;” and he questions whether the king were smitten with her, till Wolsey was sent into France; when the king so unexpectedly forbade him to proceed in that match, cum summo eras dolore, as Sanders confesses.[104] From all this we see plainly, that since Sanders makes Cardinal Wolsey the great contriver and manager of this business, the immediate cause of the schism could not be the love of Ann Bolleyn.
But we have other kind of proofs concerning this matter, besides Sanders his inconsistencies; and those shall be from some of the greatest and most active men of that time, and some remarkable circumstances.
The first is a person of unquestionable integrity, and accounted a martyr for his conscience at that time, I mean Sir Thomas More, then lord chancellor; who, after he had delivered to the House of Commons the original papers of the universities in favour of the divorce, he then said, “that all men should clearly perceive, that the king hath not attempted this matter of will and pleasure, as strangers say, but only for the discharge of his conscience, and the security of the succession to the crown.” Which was a reason alleged by the king himself, and seems to have been built on the grounds which Charles V. assigned for breaking his oath, which he made to marry the Lady Mary, by the first article of the treaty at Windsor. Lord Herbert owns,[105] that the emperor, to avoid the force of this treaty, had alleged something against the marriage between the king and his aunt. But another author, who lived much nearer the time, doth affirm,[106] “that, when the match was debated in the Spanish council, it was then said, that although the match between the king and his brother’s relict were not yet disputed, yet, if the king should die without issue male, rather than the kingdom should pass to foreigners, the English nation would dispute the validity of the marriage;” and to confirm this, in Sir Henry Spelman’s Manuscript Register of the proceedings of the Legatine Court about the divorce, subscribed by the three notaries there present, the witnesses deposed, “that at the time of the marriage, the people said commonly, that it was unfit one brother should marry the other brother’s wife.” And archbishop Warham, then upon oath, declared, “that he told King Henry VII., that the marriage seemed to him neither honourable nor well pleasing to God;” and he confesses the people then murmured at it, but that the murmuring was quieted by the Pope’s dispensation: So that all the satisfaction that was given about it, arose from the Pope’s extraordinary dispensing power with the laws of God, which was a thing vehemently opposed by many in the church of Rome; and the university of Bononia itself afterwards declared, “that the match was abominable, and that the Pope himself could not dispense with it;” and this they say was “after they had read Cardinal Cajetan’s defence of the marriage.” The like was done by the university of Padua, besides many others which I shall not mention, and are easily to be seen.
So that the succession to the crown by this match must depend upon an extravagant power in the Pope, which the Roman church itself never owned, and the wisest statesmen thought by no means fit to depend upon.
The notice of this debate in the Spanish council being sent over to Cardinal Wolsey, seems to have been the first occasion taken of starting the question about the lawfulness of the king’s marriage; which Wolsey, out of a private grudge to the Emperor, as well as for other reasons, was not wanting to carry on till he saw which way it was like to end. And the Pope himself was willing enough to grant the bull for the divorce, till he made a secret peace with the Emperor; and it is easy to see, that the Pope went forwards and backwards in the whole affair, merely as politic considerations moved him; which being fully known to so discerning a prince as Henry VIII., it gave him just occasion to question, whether that authority were so divine as was pretended, which, in so great a matter, did not govern itself by any rule of conscience, but by political measures.
One remarkable circumstance in this matter ought not to be omitted, viz. that the king’s agent at Rome sent him word, “that the Pope’s advice was, that if the king’s conscience were satisfied, he should presently marry another wife, and then prosecute the suit; and that this was the only way for the king to attain his desires;”[107] but the king refused to do it. And when Cardinal Wolsey sent a message to the king to the same purpose, the king replied, “if the bull be naught, let it be so declared; and if it be good, it shall never be broken by any by-ways for me.” And when he objected the tediousness of the suit, he answered, “since he had patience eighteen years, he would stay yet four or five more, since the opinion of all the clerks of his kingdom (besides two) were lately declared for him;” adding, “that he had studied the matter himself, and writers of it, and that he found it was unlawful de jure divino, and undispensible.”
Thus we have found the king himself declaring, in public and private, his real dissatisfaction in point of conscience; and that it was no inordinate affection to Ann Bolleyn which put him upon it; and the same attested by Sir Thomas More, and the circumstances of affairs. I now proceed to another witness.
The next is Bishop Bonner himself, in his preface to Gardiner’s book of “True Obedience;” for thus he begins: “Forasmuch as there be some doubtless now at this present, which think the controversy between the king’s royal majesty and the bishop of Rome, consisteth in this point, for that his majesty hath taken the most excellent and most noble lady Ann to his wife; whereas in very deed, notwithstanding the matter is far otherwise, and nothing so.” So that, if Bishop Bonner may be believed, there was no such immediate cause of the schism, as the love to Ann Bolleyn. And withal he adds, “that this book was published, that the world might understand what was the whole voice and resolute determination of the best and greatest learned bishops, with all the nobles and commons of England, not only in the cause of matrimony, but also in defending the gospel’s doctrine, i.e. against the Pope’s usurped authority over the church.” Again he saith, “that the king’s marriage was made by the ripe judgment, authority, and privilege, of the most and principal universities of the world; and then with the consent of the whole church of England; and that the false pretended supremacy of the bishop of Rome was most justly abrogated: and that if there were no other cause but this marriage, the bishop of Rome would content himself, i.e. if he might enjoy his power and revenues still, which,” he saith, “were so insupportable, that there lay the true cause of the breach: For his revenues here were near as great as the king’s; and his tyranny was cruel and bitter, which he had exercised here under the title of the Catholic church, and the authority of the apostles Peter and Paul, when notwithstanding he was a very ravening wolf, dressed in sheep’s cloathing, calling himself the servant of servants.” These are Bonner’s words, as I have transcribed them out of two several translations, whereof one was published while he was bishop of London.
Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, in his book, not only affirms the king’s former marriage to be unlawful, and the second to be just and lawful, but that he had the consent of the nation, and the judgment of his church, as well as foreign learned men for it; and afterwards he strenuously argues against the Pope’s authority here, as a mere usurpation. And the whole clergy not only then owned the king’s supremacy, (Fisher excepted,) but in the book published by authority, called “A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man,” &c., the Pope’s authority was rejected as an usurpation, and confuted by Scripture and antiquity. King James I. declares, “that there was a general and catholic conclusion of the whole church of England in this case;” and when some persons suspected, that it all came from the king’s marriage, Bishop Bonner, we see, undertakes to assure the world it was no such thing.[108]
The separation was made, then, by a general consent of the nation; the king, and church, and people all concurring: and the reasons inducing them to cast off the Pope’s usurpation were published to the world at that time; and those reasons have no relation at all to the king’s marriage: and if they are good, as they thought they were, and this gentleman saith not a word to disprove them, then the foundation of the disunion between the church of Rome and us, was not laid in the king’s inordinate passion, but on just and sufficient reasons.
Thus it appears, that this gentleman hath by no means proved two parts of his assertion, viz. “That our Reformation was erected on the foundations of lust and usurpation.”
But our grim logician proceeds from immediate and original, to concomitant causes; which, he saith, “were revenge, ambition, and covetousness.”[109] But the skill of logicians used to lie in proving; but this is not our author’s talent, for not a word is produced to that purpose. If bold sayings, and confident declarations, will do the business, he is never unprovided; but if you expect any reason from him, he begs your pardon; he finds how ill the character of a grim logician suits with his inclination. However, he takes a leap from causes to effects; and here he tells us, “the immediate effects of this schism, were sacrilege, and a bloody persecution, of such as denied the king’s supremacy in matters wholly spiritual, which no layman, no king of Israel ever exercised.”[110]
What the supremacy was, is best understood by the book published by the king’s order, and drawn up by the bishops of that time. By which it appears, that the main thing insisted on was, rejecting the Pope’s authority; and as to the positive part, it lies in these things: 1. In defending and protecting the church. 2. In overseeing the bishops and priests in the execution of their office. 3. In reforming the church to the old limits and pristine estate of that power which was given to them by Christ, and used in the primitive church. “For it is out of doubt,” saith that book, “that Christ’s faith was then most pure and firm, and the Scriptures of God were then best understood, and virtue did then most abound and excel; and therefore it must needs follow, that the customs and ordinances then used and made, be more conform and agreeable unto the true doctrine of Christ, and more conducing unto the edifying and benefit of the church of Christ, than any custom or laws used or made by the bishop of Rome, or any other addicted to that see and usurped power since that time.”
This book was published with the king’s declaration before it; and therefore we have reason to look on the supremacy to be taken as it is there explained. And what is there now “so wholly spiritual, that no layman, or king of Israel, ever exercised in this supremacy?” But this writer never took the pains to search into these things, and therefore talks so at random about them.
As to the persecutions that followed, it is well known that both sides blame King Henry the Eighth for his severity; and therefore this cannot be laid to the charge of his separation. For the other effect of sacrilege, I do not see how this follows from the Reformation; for although some uses might cease by the doctrines of it, as monks to pray the dead out of purgatory; yet there were others to have employed the church lands about, as some of them were in founding new bishoprics, &c. And I have nothing to say in justification of any abuses committed that way; only that the king and parliament could not discern the difference between greater and lesser, as to the point of sacrilege; and since the Pope had shewed them the way, by granting bulls for the dissolution of the lesser monasteries, they thought, since the Pope’s power was taken away, they might, with as little sacrilege, dissolve the rest. I will shut up this with the words of archbishop Laud: “But if there have been any wilful and gross errors, not so much in opinion as fact, (sacrilege too often pretending to reform superstition,) that’s the crime of the reformers, not of the Reformation, and they are long since gone to God to answer it, to whom I leave them.”[111]
The method I proposed for satisfaction of conscience about the Reformation, was to consider, whether there were not sufficient cause for it? Whether there were not sufficient authority? And, whether the proceedings of our Reformation were not justifiable by the rules of scripture, and the ancient church? He tells me, “he may safely join issue with me upon all three points, and conclude in the negative.” But upon second thoughts, he finds he may much more safely let it alone: and very fairly would have me take it for granted, “That the church of Rome cannot err in matters of faith;” (for that he must mean by the church there,) “and that our church hath no authority of reforming herself; and that our proceedings were not justifiable, according to the right interpretation of scriptures by the fathers and councils.” But if I will not allow his affirmations for proofs, for his part he will act the grim logician no longer; and in truth, it becomes him so ill, that he doth well to give it over. When he will undertake to prove, that the church of Rome is the one Catholic and infallible church of Christ, and answer what I have produced in the former discourses, I will ease him of any farther trouble; for then I will grant that our Reformation cannot be justified. But till then, I shall think it no want of humility to conclude the victory to be on our side. And I would desire him not to end with such a bare-faced assertion of a thing so well known to be false, viz. “That there is not one original treatise written by a Protestant, which hath handled distinctly, and by itself, that Christian virtue of humility.” Since within a few years, (besides what hath been printed formerly,) such a book hath been published in London. But he doth well to bring it off with, “at least that I have seen or heard of;” for such books have not lain much in the way of his enquiries. Suppose we had not such particular books, we think the Holy Scripture gives the best rules and examples of humility of any book in the world; but I am afraid he should look on his case as desperate, if I send him to the scripture, since he saith, “Our divines do that, as physicians do with their patients whom they think incurable, send them at last to Tunbridge-waters, or to the air of Montpellier.”