Count Teck

Math. Paris.

I believe it would be some difficulty to produce a legal warrant in the government of Venice or Holland, for the subjects to levy an army, and call the magistracy to an account. I confess I never heard of any express liberty, and public provision, made for this purpose, unless in the charters of Andrew II. Thuan. king of Hungary, and John king of England. And in this ley's Life. latter instrument there was a clause of security for the crown 1st. The barons were not to hurt the king's person, or any of his children. And, 2dly. When they had made themselves reparation for what had been suffered, they were to return to their allegiance as before. Thus we see passive obedience may be claimed by every species of government, and therefore can be no peculiar support to hereditary right. And why the first should be charged as a principle to establish the latter, is not easily accounted for. I cannot forbear saying, the tacking these two together for such significant service, is extraordinary justice! And that the force and friendliness of all his observations are equally remarkable.

POSTSCRIPT.

April 2, 1715.

By the favour of a gentleman uncommonly well furnished with curiosities of the press, I have at last gotten a sight of the Ordinal, printed anno 1549. Upon perusal, I find 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.

BISHOP NICHOLSON'S OPINION

OF

COLLIER'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

EXTRACTED FROM THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY."

1708.

ANOTHER General Church History of England is lately published by Mr. Collier, in two volumes, and in both these the critical reader will be apt to observe some special respects occasionally paid to the bishops and see of Rome. In the former Fol. Lond. of them, W. Prynne's voluminous proofs of the supremacy of our kings, are shown to have no strength, and that his own records demonstrate that those princes acknowledged that all their power in spirituals was derived from papal concessions. We are indeed desired to take notice, that this dispute is only with Mr. Prynne, and therefore we must (in this place) so understand the author, as if he had not any design to state the extent of the regale in the following parts of the work. There are several passages which can hardly admit of so fair an apology. He insinuates that most of the modern erroneous doctrines of the Roman Church (even that of purgatory) were maintained here in the Saxon times; that archbishop Anselm's behaviour to W. Rufus, in the case of pope Urban, was on the right side of the question, and becoming a prelate of his fervent zeal and invincible courage; that Becket's conduct towards Henry II. was also innocent, as to any practice against the crown, the man having acted all along upon a principle of sincerity; that Edward III.'s letter to the pope (concerning provisions) misrepresents matter of fact, since, under the Saxon heptarchy, the English bishops were not (as is there asserted) creatures of the crown, &c. This volume ends with the death of Henry VII. The second begins with the reign of Henry + Fol.Lond. VIII., and ends with the death of king Charles II. The Reformation, he observes, wrought so great a change in the faith

1714.

458

BISHOP NICHOLSON'S OPINION, &c.

and worship (as well as in the revenues and jurisdiction) of the English Church, that its history cannot be undertaken without some hazard. But, to avoid the failings of his predecessors, he resolves neither to take too much freedom with the dead, nor to be over-awed by the living. This rule seems to have been sometimes out of his thoughts, and more particularly when he drew the pictures of such divines as had the greatest shares in the reformation of foreign Churches. Hence Mr. Luther is represented as one upon the verge of distraction, a raiser of civil disturbances in the empire; a man that made no ceremony in breaking the chains of the canon law, and rushing too far towards the other extreme. John Calvin is said to be a professed enemy to liberty of conscience, and against all method of moderation; a forward intermeddler in the settlement of religion in England and elsewhere, insolently dictating to such princes as did him the honour to advise with him. Above all, John Knox is the most severely handled, as making unusual room in the conscience for loose and over indulgent maxims; using the Bible as coarsely as the civil magistrate, by wresting the Scriptures to mislead subjects from their duty, and teaching them to treat their governors with much harsher language than St. Michael thought fit to use against the devil. Our martyrologist, Mr. Fox, is despised as an injudicious and lean-tempered writer to be read with caution, and hurried sometimes to an extremity of madness by prejudice and passion. He makes as free with king Henry VIII., whom he taxes with cruelty and covetousness, but confesses that these vices were not without a mixture of good qualities. This latter part of his character looks faint, and falls very much short of that of king Charles II., who is represented as a prince admirably qualified for the station he was born to, having some abatements in his private life, but dying with faction at his feet. What views soever the author might have at his first setting out, it is manifest that (in this volume) his business is to compromise differences betwixt the Churches of England and Rome, and to establish (on the authority of our two universities, with which he concludes) a fundamental hereditary right of succession to the imperial crown of this realm, supported by passive obedience and non-resistance.

OBSERVATIONS

UPON

THE REMARKS OF MR. COLLIER,

IN HIS ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY,

ON SEVERAL PASSAGES IN

BISHOP BURNET'S HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. (EXTRACTED FROM GUTCH'S "MISCELLANEA CURIOSA.")

BY J. LEWIS, MINISTER OF MARGATE.

TO BRITANNICUS.

THE love of historical truths which you show yourself to have, and the willingness you express to "convey into the world any facts, if they are truly and sufficiently attested, and not accompanied with rancour and spite," encourages me to send you the following remarks. Among other instances of the hatred of the late bishop Burnet conceived in the minds of some men this is one; the publishing an Advertisement in the Evening Post, No. 2254; wherein we have notice given us, that in such pages of Mr. Collier's Ecclesiastical History, vol. 2, as are there mentioned, the bishop's "mistakes, defective reasonings, and partialities" in his first and second volumes of the History of the Reformation are plainly discovered: and that these "misperformances" of his are " rent and undeniable." This, I suppose, the advertiser thought to be the shortest way with the bishop, and a most compendious method of destroying his credit and reputation. And so indeed it would be, was what he so confidently affirms as implicitly and without any examination believed.

appa

Mr. Collier's second volume here referred to was published long enough before the bishop's death for his lordship to peruse. Accordingly the bishop gave this character of it, that the learned writer finds his History often in his way,

... and designs all through to set such remarks on it, as,

if they were well grounded, must destroy the credit it has

hitherto obtained.

Without any breach of charity, we may well suppose this was Mr. Collier's design; but with what success he has managed it I leave you or any one to judge, after having considered the following observations on the places particularly specified in the forementioned Advertisement.

The first is page 10, 11: where our learned Church historian rallies the bishop as the author of "a very severe charge upon the then Church of England, and guilty of a mistake in matter of fact," in saying, that when popery prevailed here parents "teaching their children the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Creed, in the vulgar tongue, was crime enough to bring them to the stake." To justify this censure of the bishop, Mr. Collier tells us, "The bishop cites Fox for his authority, and that Fox cites no other authority than one Mother Hall." Let Fox now be turned to, vol. 2, p. 40, there you will find bishop Longland's Register transcribed, to prove that several were delated for teaching and learning the Ten Commandments, Pater-noster, Ave, and Creed in English, and were forced to abjure their doing so, to have their liberty. Why were they to "abjure," if their learning the Ten Commandments, &c. in English was no crime? I do not find that Mr. Collier offers to assert, that there was at this time any translation of the Ten Commandments, &c. into English allowed of by the then Church of England: what translation there was of them seems to have been made by that famous reformer, Dr. John Wickliff. Now, by a constitution of archbishop Arundel, any who read any little book or tract of John Wickliff, without its being first examined and approved by one of the universities, was decreed and ordained to suffer as a promoter of schism and heresy: in other words, this was 'enough to bring them to the stake." As to what Mr. Collier adds, that "the Lollards struck at the fundamentals of the Church, and had very dangerous opinions both with respect to faith and property;" whatever truth there may be in the former part of the censure, if by Church he means the then Church of England, there is none in the latter, as Mr. Collier would have known had he kept to his motto; "Juvat integros accedere fontes."

P. 19. col. 2. Mr. Collier refers to Anthony Harmar, whom