bishop, it is plain, expressed himself in the very terms of the commissions granted on this occasion, viz. "Negotio illis summarie et de plano, sine ullo strepitu et figura judicii exposito et declarato, per summariam examinationem et discussionem negotii per vos fiendam."

Col. 2. The bishop is said to make "a hard reflection on the honourable house of commons," 1554: because he tells us, that "Gardiner had beforehand prepared them by giving the most considerable of them pensions." As if this was more than the learned Heylin had said of Edward VI.'s parliament, viz. that "the cards were so well packed by sir Ralph Sadler, that there was no need of any other shuffling till the end of the game."

Page 398, col. 2. Mr. Collier tells us, that the bishop "makes a tragical complaint of the rasure and destruction of records in this reign." His lordship's words are, "it is not upon record how they executed this commission, to search all registers, to find out both the professions made against the pope, and the scrutinies made in abbeys, but the effects of it appear in the great defectiveness of the records, in many things of consequence, which are razed and lost."

Mr. Collier's business is to show that "that there were no such rasures." He is pleased to observe, that "the design of this search was to inform the queen of the contents of such instruments, and that they might be considered, and disposed of as her majesty thought fit." But it appears by the commission, that the contents of these instruments were already come to her majesty's knowledge and understanding. What now could be the meaning of this commission to have brought before the commissioners, "all and singular the said accounts, books, scroles, instruments, or other writings concerning the premises," but to prevent the supposed mischief of them, which is said to be the tending to subvert and overthrow all good religion, and religious houses? Mr. Collier particularly instances in some of these accounts, books, &c. being extant after the execution of this commission. But the bishop does not say that the records were all razed and lost, but only that "many things of consequence" in them were razed and truly this is too sure to be seriously denied.

Page 404, col. 1. Mr. Collier questions the truth of the bishop's saying, that "he found it said that some advised that courts of inquisition, like those in Spain, might be set up in

England." This the learned historian treats as a falsehood of the bishop's own invention. "He is not pleased," says he, “to tell us by whom it is said, neither can he meet with this advice in any of our historians: nay, even Fox himself, (as if he stuck at nothing to blacken the Papists,) is silent in the case." And is not this demonstration that the bishop is a liar? The learned and faithful historian goes on in observing, that "the queen declared her resolution to maintain the prerogative and constitution. King Philip's confessors declaimed against persecution in the pulpit;" to which he adds the gentleness and uncontested good-nature of cardinal Pole. Considering these things," says he, "one would think the project of an inquisition looks very improbable." See Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer. The bishop might, and I believe did, find it said in some of the written memoirs of those times, that an inquisition was projected and advised by some hot fiery spirits. If a man's honesty may be questioned, only because he does not produce vouchers for every thing he says, though of no consequence to the history he writes, what a character will most historians have, particularly Heylin and Collier?

Page 424, col. 1. Again is the crimen falsi attempted to be fixed on the bishop. His lordship had wrote that "the bill for restoring of all persons that were deprived of their benefices because of their marriage, was ordered by the queen to be laid aside." "But," says Mr. Collier, "had this been matter of fact, but this author is somewhat mistaken." Mr. Strype intimates there were "two bills of the same import," and that the old one that had been twice read was thrown by.

Page 435, col. 2. All that I find laid to the bishop's charge is, that his lordship "appears inclined to justify the queen's commissions for a royal visitation all over England."

These are the several places of Mr. Collier's Ecclesiastical History, to which we are referred by the Advertiser, to prove the bishop guilty of "apparent and undeniable misperformances, and one who deserves no manner of credit to any bare affirmation of his. But besides these we are directed to see Mr. Collier's" Answers to some exceptions in bishop Burnet's third part of the History of the Reformation." With your leave, therefore, I will take a view of that, so far as the bishop is concerned in it.

Page 4, col. 1. The bishop is represented as doing “incom

prehensible justice in giving sentence without hearing the cause; censuring an author without reading him; especially when he refers to evidence," &c. All this satire is occasioned by his lordship's saying, "A voluminous author, who has lately pretended to have written our ecclesiastical history, seems to have carried one design in his mind from the beginning to the end of the second volume, (I have not read his first) to soften and excuse the corruptions of popery," &c. But his lordship had no occasion to read the first volume, to know that Mr. Collier had "softened even Thomas Becket's behaviour," with so mild a censure, as that "his conduct in this dispute, was not altogether defensible, although he was far from being guilty of that gross mismanagement with which he is charged by William Thomas, viz. that upon his retiring, the king and kingdom was excommunicated and put under an edict upon his account."

But Mr. Collier is so hardy as decisively to pronounce this relation as a mistake.

Let him, therefore, hear Fitzstevens.-" Iterum jubet [rex] subtilius præcavens tandem, ut nullus in Angliam transfretaturus recipiatur, nisi habeat regis literas; ne forte aliquis interdicti sententiam quam sciebat archiepiscopum habere in Angliam deferret."

This the bishop knew full well: but because his lordship thought it needless, particularly to prove so notorious a fact, our learned historian declaims against him, as "affording no more than bare affirmation for the point." "If, says he, "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."

Page 290, col. 2, of his History, (a place, it seems, which had escaped the Advertiser's notice,) Mr. Collier observes, that "here, as it happens, the bishop has been led into a mistake, in mentioning the difference between the Ordination Book set out at that time, 1549, and that we now use.' The two first editions of the Ordinal made in King Edward's reign have none of the different rites mentioned by this gentleman," quoth Mr. Collier. He now owns (p. 6, c. 1), that "the Ordinals he perused, printed in 1552, were not the first;” and (in the Postscript) that, "upon perusal of the Ordinal printed A. D. 1549, of which at last he had a sight by the favour of a gentleman uncommonly well furnished with curiosities of the

press, he finds the Bible laid on the bishop's neck, the pastoral staff put in his hand, and the chalice with bread in it for the priest, some of the consecrating and ordaining ceremonies." But he comforts himself with this consideration (p. 7, c. 1), that he "can better afford to be somewhat mistaken than the bishop; for, granting him right in this remark, he is plainly wrong in all the rest." How true this is, let any one judge who considers what has been said of Thomas Becket. But as it was the design of Providence, by permitting Mr. Collier to blunder as he does, to teach him humility, he mistakes even after reproving the bishop, and inspecting the book, or “an oyer of the record." Let him look once more: he will find that "the chalice with the bread in it" is not one of the ordaining ceremonies" for a priest. The words of the Rubric are: 66 The bishop shall deliver to every one of them the Bible in the one hand, and the chalice or cup with the bread in the other hand, and say." It seems taken from the Roman Pontifical, "De Ordinatione Presbyteri," where the bishop is thus represented: "Tum tradit cuilibet successive calicem cum vino et aqua et patenam superpositam cum hostia." One would think Mr. Collier might have known, that, though putting the bread in the cup be a mass-ceremony, it is not an ordaining one.

66

GENERAL INDEX

COLLIER'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.