AN ANSWER

TO SOME

EXCEPTIONS IN BISHOP BURNET'S

THIRD PART OF THE

HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION, &c.

THESE papers being written before bishop Burnet's death, the reader is desired to take them as they were.

net's Hist.

p. 2 to 6.

The learned author of the History of our English Reformation, has in his third part, lately published, made some animadversions on the second volume of my Ecclesiastical History. What he has offered upon this subject is so gentle Bp. Burand inoffensive in the proof, that at first I was unresolved Reform. about an answer: but considering he is pleased to question pt. 3. Pref. my integrity in no small instance, and charge me with unfair representation: that I sit hard on the memory of our reforming princes, and varnish the character of those of a different persuasion since he has given the reader warning of my book, for fear it might infect his orthodoxy, and lead him into some dangerous mistakes: these things considered, I thought a few pages, by way of return, might not be unnecessary: I say a few pages, for as for any length of vindication, he has given no manner of occasion for it.

:

This learned prelate offers four instances to show with what principle, spirit, and design I set out insinuation, are much out of order.

VOL. IX.

and all these, by his Id. Pref. To examine these as p. 3. Ff

3.

Id. Pref.

p. 3.

4.

Bp. Bur

p. 63.

they lie. Becket comes up first: and here I have asserted, that "though this archbishop's conduct in his dispute with king Henry II. was not altogether defensible, he was far, however, from being guilty of that gross mismanagement with which he is charged." The bishop's remark is this: “I will leave the judgment that must be passed upon this period to all who are in any sort acquainted with the history of that time." As much as to say, the relation is romantic, and clearly contrary to matter of fact. What I have advanced by way of mitigation for Becket, is taken from contemporary authors of the best authority; from Hoveden and Newbrigensis, from Quadrilogus and Gervase of Canterbury. And does this reverend prelate produce any counter testimonies better than these? No. Does he offer any disproof from any inconsistency in the account, from any high improbability in substance or circumstance? Nothing of this neither. He affords no more than bare affirmation for the point. If we will not resign to implicit belief, wink against evidence, and take his word for the controversy, we must keep our old opinion, for here is no light let in to inform us farther.

This learned prelate at his triennial visitation, after some net's Charge, other unsupported remarks, makes the softening Becket's A.D. 1714. behaviour one article. And yet he is so frank as to confess he never read my first volume; although there is a reference of ten pages to this history in my second volume, to justify the softening objected, and that in the very place cited by this learned prelate. Now what incomprehensible justice is it to give sentence without hearing the cause; to censure an author without reading him; especially when he refers to evidence, and points directly to a defence?

But this learned prelate had given a different account of Bp. Burnet, this matter, and called in a very unfortunate vouchee. His pt. 1. p. 243. author is one William Thomas: this Thomas was a flaming rebel, advised the assassinating queen Mary, for which Wyat abhorred him, stabbed himself with a pen-knife in the Tower, and justified his treason at his execution. Now, whether a person of this temper and principles, who flattered the memory of Henry VIII., and wrote almost four hundred years after p. 623, 624. Becket's time; whether, I say, the report of such a person as this ought to weigh down the authority of eight or nine historians who lived at the time of the transaction, had fair opportunities

Stow's

Annal.

Hollingshed,

p. 1104.

of knowing the truth, and lay under no exceptionable character, I leave the reader to judge. But notwithstanding Becket had a discharge from the hardest imputations, his whole conduct does not pass without dislike.

Eccles. Hist.

To mention something of the dispute between king Henry II. and him he is blamed for going upon insufficient grounds in the controversy. That possibly he overlooked the later constitutions in the Theodosian and Justinian Codes, or rested too much on the canon law: that the exemption of clerks Collier's from the civil courts was no right inseparable from their order, vol. 1. but only a privilege granted by the crown. And therefore p. 373. since the parliament and Clarendon had revoked this concession, the archbishop ought not to have insisted on it. He is Id. p. 374. blamed for fluctuating and inconstancy, for engaging and retracting, and quitting the kingdom without the king's leave. He is farther censured for refusing to return to his see upon the most advantageous precedents, and the best terms enjoyed by any of his predecessors: and for breaking off the accommodation only for being denied the Kiss of Peace. His tenet, that the civil government received its authority from the Church, is marked as a false principle, and a grand mistake. And lastly, his excommunicating the archbishop of York for Ibid. crowning the young king, and not waiving his right at so nice a juncture, is remarked as unseasonable stiffness. And now I hope it is pretty clear, that though I am willing to do justice to every body, I was not biassed with any partiality to archbishop Becket.

To proceed: This learned prelate complains of my having represented king Edward VI. under a character of disadvantage. That "he was tinctured with Erastian principles, and seems to have had no notion of sacrilege; and that most of the hardships put upon the Church happened in the latter end of his reign, when his judgment was in the best condition." Bp. Burnet, I grant all this is said; and for the truth of the remark, Hist. Ref. besides other proof from history and records, I vouched this prince's Remains in the Cotton Library.

This learned prelate, being not prepared to disprove the narrative, applies to another expedient. He makes it a fault, that these severe reflections (as he calls them) are not corrected. This looks like impracticable advice for which way can truth be corrected unless by delivering that which is false?

Ibid.

Bp. Burnet,

But I conclude immediately with his death, without adding a word of his good qualities. As to the bright part of this king's character, I had given it to a considerable length just before; and to what purpose would it have been to have cloyed the reader with repetition?

And here it may be farther considered, this prince was deep in his minority, not sixteen at his death; and therefore all misfortune in his conduct and principles must fall upon those who formed his education and governed his person. Now, that those who swayed in the court, and sat at the helm, were not men of regularity, and staunch conscienced, is largely confessed by this reverend prelate. To produce some instances:

He reports a memorable passage from Ridley's Life. That pt. 3. p. 197. when this bishop had bestowed a prebend in St. Paul's upon Grindall," He received a letter from the council to stop collation for the king was to keep that prebend for the furniture of his stable." So that it seems the horses made part of the chapter. At the close of this reign he observes, “The untimely end of this prince was looked on as a just judgment of God upon those who pretended to love and promote a reformation; but whose impious and flagitious lives were a reproach to it. The open lewdness in which many lived, without shame or remorse, gave great occasion to their adversaries to say, they were in the right to assert justification by faith without works, since they were, as to every good work, reprobate. Their gross and insatiable scrambling after the goods and wealth that had been dedicated with good designs, though to superstitious uses, without applying any part of it to the promoting the Gospel, the instructing the youth, or relieving the poor, made all people conclude that it was for robbery, and not for reformation, that their zeal made them so active." To this he subjoins an authentic account of the court's indirect dealing with respect to the deanery of Norwich. Our learned historian goes on to lament the want of probity and Christian behaviour in the politicians and grand monde, in a very solemn and tragical strain. He reports, these men of distinction "talked of the purity of the Gospel, while they were wallowing in all sensuality and uncleanness; pretending to put all their confidence in the merits and sufferings of Christ, while they were crucifying him afresh and putting him to open shame. That there was no redress of crying abuses to be expected

5.

་

Id. pt. 3.

p. 216.

Id.

P.

218.

from the men in power, because they found their account too evidently in them; that these were men in whose hands things grew every day worse and worse; whose arrogance, and other disorders, our chief reformers were forced in some measure to connive at, that they might not provoke them to retard a work that could in no wise be carried on without their countenance and authority, though they saw the prejudice it brought upon them to be obliged to apply to and to make use of such tools; that the righteous souls of our best reformers were much grieved to find themselves engaged with men that were ready to pull down, especially when anything was to be got by it, but were as backward in building up as they were forward in plucking down, so that they seemed to design to leave all in a great ruin. These were hindrances to the progress of the Reformation, as they were both the burden and the shame of our Reformers." Our author, in the page before this, has a Id. p. 217. great deal more to the same purpose.

It is true this reverend prelate confines the mal-administration chiefly to the beginning of this reign, as if matters mended upon

the course; but this account is quickly retracted; for in the Id. p. 217. next leaf he recollects himself, and assures us that "things P. 218. grew every day worse and worse.'

Now, after all this keenness and length of satire, I desire he would please to recall his censure, and not charge me with overloading the administration, and discovering a "particular virulence against the memory of this prince."

Id. p. 217.

Eccles. Hist.

His third instance, to discover the mysterious principles and design with which I wrote, relates to Mary queen of Scots. The dangerous words are these: "Her fortitude and devotion were very remarkable: she supported her character with all imaginable decency, and died like a Christian and a queen." Collier's And what harm is there in this? It is no more than bare vol. 2. justice to her memory. Even Cambden gives her a larger Bp. Burnet, commendation than this comes to; and, which is more, queen pt. 3. Pref. Elizabeth is deeply censured for breach of promise, for confining and maltreating this princess; and, lastly, for bringing an independent queen, her cousin, first to her trial, where she had not the benefit of the law, and then to the block.

But Mary queen of Scots was a Roman Catholic; therefore a good word is too much for her. To what purpose else can this passage be cited? But this learned prelate was of another

P. 601

p. 3.

Cambden,

Eliz.