Part 13

My Lord begins his Introduction with an account of the reasons why he was guilty of so many mistakes in the first volume of his "History of the Reformation:" His excuses are just, rational, and extremely consistent. He says, "he wrote in haste,"[8] which he confirms by adding, "that it lay a year after he wrote it before it was put into the press:"[9] At the same time he mentioned a passage extremely to the honour of that pious and excellent prelate, Archbishop Sancroft, which demonstrates his Grace to have been a person of great sagacity, and almost a prophet. Dr. Burnet, then a private divine, "desired admittance to the Cotton library, but was prevented by the archbishop, who told Sir John Cotton, that the said doctor was no friend to the prerogative of the crown, nor to the constitution of the kingdom." This judgment was the more extraordinary, because the doctor had not long before published a book in Scotland, with his name prefixed, which carries the regal prerogative higher than any writer of the age:[10] however, the good archbishop lived to see his opinion become universal in the kingdom.

[Footnote 8: Page 6.]

[Footnote 9: Page 10.]

[Footnote 10: This was Burnet's "Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church and State of Scotland," dedicated to the Duke of Lauderdale, and published in 1672. The dedication contains an eulogium of the duke, and the work a defence of episcopacy and monarchy against Buchanan and his followers. At a later period, the author did not probably recollect this juvenile publication with, much complacence.

It is somewhat remarkable to see the progress of this story. In the first edition of this "Introduction," it should seem, "he was prevented by the Archbishop," &c. When the "Introduction" was reprinted a year after with the "History," it stands: "A great prelate had been beforehand and possessed him [Sir John Cotton] against me--That unless the Archbishop of Canterbury would recommend me--he desired to be excused--The Bishop of Worcester could not prevail on the Archbishop to interpose." This is somewhat less than preventing, unless the Archbishop be meant by the "great prelate." Which is not very probable. 1. Because in the Preface to this very third volume, p. 4, he says, "It was by Archbishop Sancroft's order he had the free use of everything that lay in the Lambeth Library." 2. Because the Author of "Speculum Sarisburianum" (p. 6), tells us, "His access to the Library was owing solely to the recommendation of Archbishop Sancroft, as I have been informed by some of the family." 3. Because Bishop Burnet, in his "History of My Own Times," vol. i. p. 396, says it was "Dolben, Bishop of Rochester (at the instigation of the Duke of Lauderdale), that diverted Sir John Cotton from suffering me to search his Library." ["Miscellanies," vol. viii. 1745.]]

The Bishop goes on for many pages, with an account of certain facts relating to the publishing of his two former volumes of the Reformation, the great success of that work, and the adversaries who appeared against it. These are matters out of the way of my reading; only I observe that poor Mr. Henry Wharton,[11] who has deserved so well of the commonwealth of learning, and who gave himself the trouble of detecting some hundreds of the Bishop's mistakes, meets with very ill quarter from his Lordship. Upon which I cannot avoid mentioning a peculiar method which this prelate takes to revenge himself upon those who presume to differ from him in print. The Bishop of Rochester[12] happened some years ago to be of this number. My Lord of Sarum in his reply ventured to tell the world, that the gentleman who had writ against him, meaning Dr Atterbury, was one upon whom he had conferred great obligations; which was a very generous Christian contrivance of charging his adversary with ingratitude. But it seems the truth happened to be on the other side; which the doctor made appear in such a manner as would have silenced his Lordship for ever, if he had not been writing proof. Poor Mr. Wharton in his grave is charged with the same accusation, but with circumstances the most aggravating that malice and something else could invent[13]; and which I will no more believe than five hundred passages in a certain book of travels[14]. See the character he gives of a divine, and a scholar, who shortened his life in the service of God and the church. "Mr. Wharton desired me to intercede with Tillotson for a prebend of Canterbury. I did so, but Wharton would not believe it; said he would be revenged, and so writ against me. Soon after he was convinced I had spoke for him, said he was set on to do what he did, and, if I would procure any thing for him, he would discover every thing to me[15]." What a spirit of candour, charity, and good nature, generosity, and truth, shines through this story, told of a most excellent and pious divine, twenty years after his death, without one single voucher[16]!

[Footnote 11: Henry Wharton (1664-1694-5), a divine, born at Worstead, Norfolk, and educated at Cambridge. Became chaplain to Archbishop Sancroft in 1688, and then rector of Chartham. Wrote "A Treatise on the Celibacy of the Clergy;" "The Enthusiasm of the Church of Rome demonstrated in the Life of Ignatius Loyola;" "A Defence of Pluralities;" "Specimen of Errors in Burnet's 'History of the Reformation;'" "Anglia Sacra, sive Collectio Historiarum;" and "History of Archbishop Laud." The criticism on Burnet's "History" was written under the _nom de guerre_ of Anthony Farmar. [T. S.]]

[Footnote 12: Dr. Atterbury.]

[Footnote 13: Page 22.]

[Footnote 14: Burnet's "Travels."]

[Footnote 15: Page 23.]

[Footnote 16: Burnet's account of this matter was reprinted in the Preface to his "History of the Reformation," and it contains also the bishop's rejoinder against Wharton's method of criticism in the "Specimen": "He had examined the dark ages before the Reformation with much diligence, and so knew many things relating to those times beyond any man of the age; he pretended that he had many more errors in reserve, and that this specimen was only a hasty collection of a few, out of many other discoveries he could make. This consisted of some trifling and minute differences in some dates and transactions of no importance, upon which nothing depended; so I cannot tell whether I took these too easily from printed books, or if I committed any errors in my notes taken in the several offices. He likewise follows me through the several recapitulations I had made of the state of things before the Reformation, and finds errors and omissions in most of these; he adds some things out of papers I had never seen. The whole was writ with so much malice, and such contempt, that I must give some account of the man, and of his motives. He had expressed great zeal against popery, in the end of King James's reign, being then chaplain to Archbishop Sancroft, who, as he said, had promised him the first of those prebends of Canterbury that should fall in his gift: for when he saw that the archbishop was resolved not to take the oaths, but to forsake the post, he made an earnest application to me, to secure that for him at Archbishop Tillotson's hands. I pressed him in it as much as was decent for me to do, but he said he would not encourage these aspiring men, by promising any thing, before it should fall; as indeed none of them fell during his time. Wharton, upon this answer, thought I had neglected him, looking on it as a civil denial, and said he would be revenged; and so he published that specimen: upon which, I, in a letter that I printed, addressed to the present Bishop of Worcester, charged him again and again to bring forth all that he pretended to have reserved at that time, for, till that was done, I would not enter upon the examination of that specimen. It was received with contempt, and Tillotson justified my pressing him to take Wharton under his particular protection so fully, that he sent and asked me pardon. He said he was set on to it; and that, if I would procure any thing for him, he would discover any thing to me. I despised that offer, but said that I would at any price buy of him those discoveries that he pretended to have in reserve. But Mr. Chiswell (at whose house he then lay) being sick, said he could draw nothing of that from him, and he believed he had nothing. He died about a year after."--BURNET'S _History of the Reformation_ III, vii. [T. S.]]

Come we now to the reasons, which moved his lordship to set about this work at this time. He "could delay it no longer, because the reasons of his engaging in it at first seem to return upon him[17]." He was then frightened with "the danger of a popish successor in view, and the dreadful apprehensions of the power of France. England has forgot these dangers, and yet is nearer to them than ever[18]," and therefore he is resolved to "awaken them" with his third volume; but in the mean time, sends this Introduction to let them know they are asleep. He then goes on in describing the condition of the kingdom[19], after such a manner as if destruction hung over us by a single hair; as if the Pope, the devil, the Pretender, and France, were just at our doors.

[Footnote 17: Page 27.]

[Footnote 18: Page 28.]

[Footnote 19: Page 28.]

When the Bishop published his History, there was a popish plot on foot, the Duke of York a known papist was presumptive heir to the crown, the House of Commons would not hear of any expedient for securing their religion under a popish prince, nor would the King or Lords, consent to a bill of exclusion: The French King was in the height of his grandeur, and the vigour of his age. At this day the presumptive heir, with that whole illustrious family, are Protestants, the Popish Pretender excluded for ever by several acts of Parliament, and every person in the smallest employment, as well as the members in both Houses, obliged to abjure him. The French King is at the lowest ebb of life; his armies have been conquered and his towns won from him for ten years together, and his kingdom is in danger of being torn by divisions during a long minority. Are these cases parallel? Or are we now in more danger of France and popery than we were thirty years ago? What can be the motive for advancing such false, such detestable assertions? What conclusions would his Lordship draw from such premises as these? If injurious appellations were of any advantage to a cause, (as the style of our adversaries would make us believe) what appellations would those deserve who thus endeavour to sow the seeds of sedition, and are impatient to see the fruits? "But," saith he[20], "the deaf adder stops her ear let the charmer charm never so wisely." True, my Lord, there are indeed too many adders in this nation's bosom, adders in all shapes, and in all habits, whom neither the Queen nor parliament can charm to loyalty, truth, religion, or honour.

[Footnote 20: Page 28.] Among other instances produced by him of the dismal condition we are in, he offers one which could not easily be guessed. It is this: That the little factious pamphlets written about the end of King Charles II's reign, "lie dead in shops, are looked on as waste paper, and turned to pasteboard." How many are there of his Lordship's writings which could otherwise never have been of any real service to the public? Has he indeed so mean an opinion of our taste, to send us at this time of day into all the corners of Holborn, Duck Lane, and Moorfields, in quest after the factious trash published in those days by Julian Johnson, Hickeringil, Dr. Oates, and himself[21]?

[Footnote 21: The Rev. Samuel Johnson, degraded from his clerical rank, scourged, and imprisoned, for a work called "Julian's Arts to undermine Christianity," in which he drew a parallel between that apostate and James, then Duke of York. [S.]

Edmund Hickeringil, a fanatic preacher at Colchester. He appears, from the various pamphlets which he wrote during the reigns of Charles II. and his brother, to have been a meddling crazy fool. He was born in Essex, 1630, and was educated at Cambridge. He entered the army, and went to Jamaica, of which place he wrote a very curious account. Afterwards he entered holy orders, and became rector of All Saints, Colchester. He was a most eccentric individual. [T. S.]]

His Lordship, taking it for a _postulatum_, that the Queen and ministry, both Houses of Parliament, and a vast majority of the landed gentlemen throughout England are running headlong into Popery, lays hold on the occasion to describe "the cruelties in Queen Mary's reign, an inquisition setting up faggots in Smithfield, and executions all over the kingdom. Here is that" (says he) "which those that look toward a popish successor must look for."[22] And he insinuates through his whole pamphlet, that all who are not of his party, "look toward a popish successor." These he divides into two parts, the Tory laity, and the Tory clergy. He tells the former, though they have no religion at all, but "resolve to change with every wind and tide; yet they ought to have compassion on their countrymen and kindred."[23] Then he applies himself to the Tory clergy, assures them, that "the fires revived in Smithfield, and all over the nation, will have no amiable view; but least of all to them, who if they have any principle at all, must be turned out of their livings, leave their families, be hunted from place to place into parts beyond the seas, and meet with that contempt with which they treated foreigners who took sanctuary among us."

[Footnote 22: Page 36.]

[Footnote 23: Page 36.]

This requires a recapitulation, with some remarks. First, I do affirm, that of every hundred professed atheists, deists, and socinians in the kingdom, ninety-nine at least are staunch thorough-paced Whigs, entirely agreeing with his Lordship in politics and discipline; and therefore will venture all the fires of hell, rather than singe one hair of their beards in Smithfield. Secondly, I do likewise affirm, that those whom we usually understand by the appellation of Tory or high-church clergy, were the greatest sticklers against the exorbitant proceedings of King James, the best writers against popery, and the most exemplary sufferers for the established religion. Thirdly, I do pronounce it to be a most false and infamous scandal upon the nation in general, and on the clergy in particular, to reproach them for "treating foreigners with haughtiness and contempt:" The French Huguenots are many thousand witnesses to the contrary; and I wish they deserved a thousandth part of the good treatment they have received.[24]

[Footnote 24: Swift's disparaging reference to the Huguenots must be put down to the fact that he included them among Dissenters, on account of their Calvinism. [T. S.]]

Lastly, I observe that the author of the paper called _The Englishman_, hath run into the same cant, gravely advising the whole body of the clergy not to bring in Popery, because that will put them under a necessity of parting with their wives, or losing their livings.

The bulk of the kingdom, both clergy and laity, happens to differ extremely from this prelate, in many principles both of politics and religion: Now I ask, whether if any man of them had signed his name to a system of atheism, or Popery, he could have argued with them otherwise than he does? Or, if I should write a grave letter to his Lordship with the same advice, taking it for granted that he was half an atheist, and half a papist, and conjuring him by all he held dear to have compassion upon all those who believed a God, "not to revive the fires in Smithfield," that he must either forfeit his bishopric, or not marry a fourth wife;[25] I ask whether he would not think I intended him the highest injury and affront?

[Footnote 25: Bishop Burnet had already been married three times. [T. S.]]

But as to the Tory laity; he gives them up in a lump for abandoned atheists: They are a set of men so "impiously corrupted in the point of religion, that no scene of cruelty can fright them from leaping into it [Popery] and perhaps acting such a part in it, as may be assigned them."[26] He therefore despairs of influencing them by any topics drawn from religion or compassion, and advances the consideration of interest, as the only powerful argument to persuade them against Popery.

[Footnote 26: Page 37.]

What he offers upon this head is so very amazing from a Christian, a clergyman, and a prelate of the Church of England, that I must in my own imagination strip him of those three capacities, and put him among the number of that set of men he mentions in the paragraph before; or else it will be impossible to shape out an answer.

His Lordship, in order to dissuade the Tories from their design of bringing in Popery, tells them, "how valuable a part of the whole soil of England, the abbey lands, the estates of the bishops, of the cathedrals, and the tithes are;"[27] how difficult such "a resumption would be to many families; yet all these must be thrown up; for sacrilege in the church of Rome, is a mortal sin." I desire it may be observed, what a jumble here is made of ecclesiastical revenues, as if they were all upon the same foot, were alienated with equal justice, and the clergy had no more reason to complain of the one than the other. Whereas the four branches mentioned by him are of very different consideration. If I might venture to guess the opinion of the clergy upon this matter, I believe they could wish that some small part of the abbey lands had been applied to the augmentation of poor bishoprics, and a very few acres to serve for glebes in those parishes where there are none; after which I think they would not repine that the laity should possess the rest. If the estates of some bishops and cathedrals were exorbitant before the Reformation, I believe the present clergy's wishes reach no further than that some reasonable temper had been used, instead of paring them to the quick: But as to the tithes, without examining whether they be of divine institution, I conceive there is hardly one of that sacred order in England, and very few even among the laity that love the Church, who will not allow the misapplying of those revenues to secular persons, to have been at first a most flagrant act of injustice and oppression: Though at the same time, God forbid they should be restored any other way than by gradual purchase, by the consent of those who are now the lawful possessors, or by the piety and generosity of such worthy spirits as this nation sometimes produceth. The Bishop knows very well that the application of tithes to the maintenance of monasteries, was a scandalous usurpation even in popish times: That the monks usually sent out some of their fraternity to supply the cures; and that when the monasteries were granted away by Henry VIII., the parishes were left destituted, or very meanly provided of any maintenance for a pastor: So that in many places, the whole ecclesiastical dues, even to mortuaries, Easter-offerings, and the like, are in lay hands, and the incumbent lies wholly at the mercy of his patron for his daily bread. By these means there are several hundred parishes in England under £20 a year, and many under ten. I take his Lordship's bishopric to be worth near £2,500 annual income; and I will engage at half a year's warning to find him above 200 beneficed clergymen who have not so much among them all to support themselves and their families; most of them orthodox, of good life and conversation, as loth to see the fires kindled in Smithfield, as his Lordship, and at least as ready to face them under a popish persecution. But nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want. How can the neighbouring vicar feel cold or hunger, while my Lord is seated by a good fire in the warmest room in his palace, with a dozen dishes before him? I remember one other prelate much of the same stamp; who when his clergy would mention their wishes that some act of parliament might be thought of for the good of the Church, would say, "Gentlemen, _we_ are very well as _we_ are; if they would let _us_ alone, _we_ should ask no more."[28]

[Footnote 27: Page 38.]

[Footnote 28: Scott, in a note, thinks this reflection on Burnet to be unjust, because of that prelate's zeal "in forwarding a scheme in 1704 for Improving the livings of the poorer clergy." [T. S.]]

"Sacrilege" (says my Lord) "in the church of Rome, is a mortal sin;"[29] and is it only so in the church of Rome? Or is it but a venial sin in the Church of England? Our litany calls fornication a deadly sin; and I would appeal to his Lordship for fifty years past, whether he thought that or sacrilege the deadliest? To make light of such a sin, at the same moment that he is frighting us from an idolatrous religion, should seem not very consistent. "_Thou_ that sayest, a man should not commit adultery, dost _thou_ commit adultery? _Thou_ that abhorrest idols, dost _thou_ commit sacrilege?"

[Footnote 29: Page 38.]

To smooth the way for the return of Popery in Queen Mary's time, the grantees were confirmed by the Pope in the possession of the abbey lands. But the Bishop tells us, that "this confirmation was fraudulent and invalid" I shall believe it to be so, though I happen to read in his Lordship's history: But he adds, that although the confirmation had been good, the priests would have got their land again by these two methods; "first,[30] the Statute of Mortmain was repealed for 20 years, in which time no doubt they reckoned they would recover the best part of what they had lost; besides that, engaging the clergy to renew no leases, was a thing entirely in their own power, and this in forty years time would raise their revenues to be about ten times their present value." These two expedients for increasing the revenues of the Church, he represents as pernicious designs, fit only to be practised in times of Popery, and such as the laity ought never to consent to: Whence, and from what he said before about tithes, his Lordship has freely declared his opinion, that the clergy are rich enough, and that the least addition to their subsistence would be a step toward Popery. Now it happens, that the two only methods, which could be thought on, with any probability of success, toward some reasonable augmentation of ecclesiastical revenues, are here rejected by a Bishop, as a means for introducing Popery, and the nation publicly warned against them. The continuance of the Statute of Mortmain in full force, after the Church had been so terribly stripped, appeared to Her Majesty and the kingdom a very unnecessary hardship; upon which account it was at several times relaxed by the legislature. Now as the relaxation of that statute is manifestly one of the reasons which gives the Bishop those terrible apprehensions of Popery coming on us; so I conceive another ground of his fears, is the remission of the first-fruits and tenths. But where the inclination to Popery lay, whether in Her Majesty who proposed this benefaction, the parliament which confirmed, or the clergy who accepted it, his Lordship hath not thought fit to determine.

[Footnote 30: Page 39.]