THE LETTER Writ by the last Assembly General OF THE Clergy of France TO THE PROTESTANTS Inviting them to return to their Communion TOGETHER With the Methods proposed by them for their Conviction Translated into English and Examined By GILBERT BURNET D. D. LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Paul's Church-yard M DC LXXXIII THE PREFACE THE fate of most that Answer any particular Book or Treatise is such that one may be justly discouraged from undertaking it For besides the great trouble the Answerer is put to in following his Author in all his Digressions and perhaps Impertinences and the small game he is often engaged in about some ill-sounding expression or some misunderstood period the issue of the whole business in matters of Controversies comes at best to this That it may be confest his Adversary has been too unwary in some assertions or unconcluding in some of his Arguments But still men retain their old perswasions And if one whom they had set up for their Champion should happen to be baffled they will only say that they mistook their man and be being made quit the Stage another is set in his room So that at most their engagement proves to be of the nature of a single Combate in the issue of which only two Individuals and not two Parties are concerned But when a whole Body speaks in one Voice here the undertaking of a single person in opposition to them may be thought indeed too hardy and bold but yet the debate becomes of more consequence at least to the one side because the Credit of those against whom he writes is so well established that a satisfactory Answer to what they offer as the strength of their cause must needs have great effect on these who examine those matters Critically and judge of them Impartially The World hath been filled with the noise of the Conversions lately made in France but it has been generally given out that the violences of Monsieur de Marilliac and the Souldiers and the Payments dispensed by Monsieur Pellisson have been the most prevailing Arguments hitherto made use of That Great King has indeed interposed in this matter with a Zeal that if it were well directed might well become one who reckons these to be his most esteemed Titles that he is the Most Christian King and the Eldest Son of the Church But amidst all this noise of Conversions we have heard more of the Temporal than Spiritual Sword and except in the violences and out-rages of some of the Clergy we have not heard much of any share they have had in this matter It is true the Celebrated Explication of their Faith written some years ago by the then Bishop of Condom now of Meaâ—x has made a great shew and most of the Conversions are esteemed the effects of that Book And the eminent Vertues of the Author joined with that great gentleness by which he insinuates himself much into the Hearts of all those that come near him have perhaps really wrought much on some whose Consciences were by other motives disposed to be very easily perswaded Soft words and good periods have also had some weight with superficial Enquirers But that Explication of his which may be well called a good Plea managed with much Skill and great Eloquence for a bad cause has been so often and so judiciously answered that I am confident such as have considered these Answers are no more in danger of being blinded with that dust which he has so ingeniously raised For it must be confessed That his Book deserves all the commendations that can be given it for every thing except the sincerity of it which I am sorry to say it is not of a piece with the other excellent qualities of that great Prelate But now we have before us a work of much more importance in which we may reasonably conclude the strength of the Roman cause is to be found Since it is the unanimous voice of the most learned and soundest part of that Communion For while the Spaniards have chiefly amused themselves mith the Metaphysical subtilties of School-Divinity and when the Italians have added to that the study of the Canon Law as the best way for prefermâ—nt the French have now for above an Age been set on a more solid and generous pursuit of tâ—ue Learning They have laboured in the publishing of the Fathers Works with great diligence and more sincerity than could be expected in any other part of that Church where the watchful Eyes of Inquisitors might have prevented that Fidelity which they have observed in publishing those Records of Antiquity So that the state of the former Ages of the Church is better understood there than in any other Nation of that Communion Nor has the Secular Clergy or Laity only laboured with great faithfulness in those enquiries such as Albaspine De Marca Godeau Launnoy Huetius Rigaltius Valesius and Balusius to name no more but even that Order which is not so much admired over the World for great scrupulosity of Conscience has produced there several great Men that are never to be named but with Honour such as Fronto Ducaeus and Petavius but above all Sirmondus through whose Writings there runs such a tincture of Candour and Probity that in matters of fact Protestants are generally more enclined to acquiesce in his authority than those of his own perswasion are which made them afraid at Rome to give him free access to their Manuscripts Nor is the Learning of the Gallican Church that for which they are chiefly to be esteemed It must also be acknowledged that from the study of the Ancient Fathers many of them seem to have derived a great measure of their Spirit which has engaged diverse among them to set forward as great a Reformation as the Constitution of their Church can admit of They have endeavoured not only to discover the corruptions in Morality and Casuistical Divinity and many other abuses in the Government of the Church but have also infused in their Clergy a greater Reverence for the Scriptures a deeper sense of the Pastoral Care and a higher value for Holy Orders than had appeared among them for divers Ages before Some of their Bishops have set their Clergy great Examples and a disposition of Reforming mens Lives and of restoring the Government of the Church according to the Primitive Rules hath been such that even those who are better Reformed both as to their Doctrine and Worship must yet acknowledge that there are many things among them highly Imitable and by which they are a great reproach to others who have not studied to copy after these patterns they have set them The World will be for ever bound to Honour the Names of Godeau Paschall Arnauld and the Author of the Essays of Morality and those thoughts which they have set on foot are so just and true that though their excellent Bishops are now almost all gone off the Stage and
are not succeeded by men of their own tempers yet it is to be hoped that these seeds so sown do still grow where they find a soil disposed for them For though such Notions are not very grateful to some whose Interests biass them another way or to others whose ill lives make them look on all Books of a severe Piety and that design a strict Discipline as so many Satyrs writ against themselves yet to such as are not prepossessed nor corrupted nothing does so easily enter and continue so fixed as those Maximes which they infuse particularly those of the necessity of a Vocation of the Holy Ghost before one enters into Holy Orders and a strict application to the care of Souls after one has engaged in them Truth and Goodness are in their Natures so Congenial that there is no way so certain to lead men to the knowledge of the Truth as to form their minds inwardly to such a sense of Piety and Goodness as may make them fit receptacles of Truth Thus did the Heathen Philosophers begin at the purging their Auditors minds by their cleansing Doctrines before they communicated to them their sublimer Precepts Among the Jews the Sons of the Prophets were long prepared in a course of Mortification and Devotion that so they might become capable of Divine illapses and our Saviour began his Instructions with the correcting the ill Morals of his Followers and Hearers and did not communicate the higher Mysteries of his Doctrine to them till they were well prepared for it since as he said himself the way to know his Doctrine whether it was of God or not was to do his will which makes the sense of the Soul become as exact in judging of its object as a sound state of Health makes the Organs of our Bodily Senses fit to represent their objects distinctly to us And therefore that Church that has advanced so far in the reforming the Morals of the People and the Conduct of the Clergy may be very justly esteemed the best as well as the most learned part of the Roman Communion Though it is not to be denied but the Iealousie that those men of better Notions have fallen under what by the Interest the Jesuites have gained both at Court and in the Sorbonne what by the willingness that is in the greatest part of Men particularly of corrupt Ecclesiasticks to love looser Principles and what by the odious names of Innovators of Men enclined to Heresie Schism or Faction is such that as on the one hand they are lookt at with an ill Eye as a sort of men that are neither good Subjects to the King nor to the Pope So they on the other hand to free themselves from these imputations have perhaps departed too much from these sincere principles which they had at first laid down and have betaken themselves to some Arts and Policies that do not become men so enlightned as they are But I will not enlarge more on this because I honour them so much and have learned so much from them that I will rather bewail than insult over their failings But though they themselves are thus suspected yet such is the force of Truth and the Evidence of those Maximes which they hold and the World is so possessed with them that even their greatest Enemies are forced to yield to them rather perhaps because they dare not scandalize the World by keeping up abuses of which all people are convinced than out of any inward affection they bear to a severe or Primitive Discipline By this means it is that there is now nothing more common in all the parts of France than to talk of a Reformation of abuses even in those places where the Prelates Example is perhaps one of the most conspicuous of all the Abuses To what has been said this may be added That their Glorious and Conquering Monarch being now possessed with this Maxime That he will have but one Religion in his Dominions every one there looks on the reducing many of those they call Hereticks as a sure way to obtain his favour and so to attain to great Dignities in the Church It is certain the most refined Wits there are now set on work to bring out the strength of their cause with the greatest advantage that is possible Therefore the Assembly General of their Clergy being called together and being so much the more engaged to shew their Zeal against Heresie that they might cover themselves from the Reproaches of some that are more bigotted for their compliance with the King in the matter of the Regale hath now made an Address to all the Calvinists of France inviting them to return to their Communion to which they have added Directions to those that shall labour in these Conversions which they call Methods by which their minds are in general to be wrought upon without entring into the detail of these Arguments by which the Controversies have been hitherto managed I confess when I read these first I was astonished at most things in them and could have almost thought that a Veron or a Maimbourg had published their Visions in the name of that August Body but I know the Press there is so regulated and the Constitution of that Kingdom is such that so gross an abuse could not be put upon the World Besides when I had over and over again laid all these methods together I found that indeed all the strength of their Cause lay divided among them So that if there is no extraordinary force in them it is because the Cause can bear nothing that is more solid or more convincing I doubt not but the Letter and these Methods will be examined in France with that clearness and exactness that may be expected from the many extraordinary Pens that are there But I being earnestly desired to write somewhat concerning it have adventured on it I have first begun at home and since here we have the concurring voice of so great and so learned a Church concerning the methods of converting Protestants I hope it will be no unacceptable thing to this Nation to put these in English together with such Reflections on them as may be more easily apprehended by every Reader that has but a due measure of Application and Iudgement though â—e has not amused himself much with deep studies of Divinity I shall hold in the general and to the Rational part as they do without going further in any particular Enquiry than shall seem in some sort necessary I ought to make great Apologies for so hardy an Enterprize but I cannot do that without giving the Reasons that determined me to it which is not at present convenient Therefore I must only in general beg the Readers Charity and that he will not impute this attempt to any forwardness of mine or to any extravagant opinion I may have of my self as if I were fit to enter the Lists with such great persons to whom I pay all that Reverend esteem which
if their Absolution is thought to have any other Vertue in it than a giving the Peace of the Church with a Declaration of the terms upon which God pardons Sinners If the Vertue of the Sacraments upon which so much depends according to their principles is so entirely in the Priests power that he can defeat it when he pleases with a cross intention so that all mens hopes of another state shall depend on the Priests good disposition to them by which every man must know how necessary it is to purchase their favour at any rate If likewise they pretend to an Immunity from the Secular Judge and do all enter into Oaths which center in him whom they acknowledge their Common Head whose authority they have advanced above all the powers on Earth so that he can depose Princes and give away his Dominions to others It must be confessed that all these have such Characters of Interest and Ambition on them and are so little like the true Spirit of Christianity or indeed the Common Principles of Natâ—ral Reason and Religion that a man is very partial who does not think it reasonable to suspect such proceedings and a Church that holds such Doctrines 3. It is likewise reasonable to suspect any Church that holds many opinions that tend much to a vast encrease of their Wealth and to bring the greatest Treasures of the World into their hands The power of redeeming Souls out of Purgatory has brought more Wealth into the Church of Rome than the discovery of the Indies has done to the Crown of Spain Such also was the power of Pardoning and of exchanging Penances for Money by which the World knew the price of Sins and the rates at which they were to be compounded for The Popes power of granting Indulgences the vertue of Pilgrimages the communication of the merits of Orders to such as put on their Habits and in a word the whole authority that the Câ—â—râ— of Rome has assumed in these latter ages that tend so much to the encrease of their Revenue are all such evident Indications of particular ends and private designs that he must be very much wedded to his first impressions that does not upon this suspect that matters have not been so fairly carried among them that nothing ought to be doubted which is defined by them 4. It is a very just cause of suspecting every thing that is managed by a company of Priests if they have for several Ages carried on their designs by the foulest methods of Forgery and Imposture of which they themselves are now both convinced and ashamed When the Popes authority was built on a pretended Collection of the Letters which the Popes of the first ages after Christ were said to have writ and their assumed Jurisdiction was justified by those precedents which are now by themselves acknowledged to be forgeries When the Popes Temporal Dominion was grounded on the Donations of Constantine of Charles the Great and his Son Lewis the Good which appear now to be notorious forgeries When an infinite number of Saints of Miracles Visions and other wonderful things were not only read and preached to the people but likewise were put into the Collects and Hymns used on their Festivals which wrought much on the simplicity and superstition of the vulgar many of which are now proved to be such gross impostures that they are forced to dash them out of their Offices and others against which there lyes not such positive proof yet depend on the credit only of some Legend writ by some Monks When many Books past over the World as the Writings of the most Ancient Fathers which were but lately writ and many of their genuine Writings were grossly vitiated When all those things are become so evident that the most Learned Writers amongst themselves particularly in the Gallican Church have not only yielded to the proofs brought by Protestant Writers in many of these particulars but have with a very Commendable Zeal and Sincerity made discoveries themselves in several particulars into which the others had not such advantages to penetrate There is upon all these grounds good cause given to mistrust them in other things and it is very reasonable to examine the assertions of that Church with the severest rigour since an Imposture once discovered ought to bring a suspicion on all concerned in it even as to all other things 5. There is likewise great reason to suspect all that are extream fierce and violent that cannot endure the least contradiction but endeavour the ruine of all that oppose them Truth makes men both confident of its force and merciful towards such as do not yet receive it Whereas Errour is Jealous and Cruel If then a Church has decreed that all Hereticks that is such as do not submit to all her decisions are to be extirpated if she has bound all her Bishops by Oath at their Ordinations to Persecute them to the utmost of their power If Princes that do not extirpate them are first to be excommunicated by their Bishops and after a years Contumacy are to be deposed by the Popes and their Kingdomes to be given away If all Hereticks upon Obstinacy or Relapse are to be burnt and if they endeavour in all places as much as they can to erect Courts of Inquisition with an absolute authority in which Church-men forgetting their Character have vied in Inventions of Torture and Cruelty with the bloodiest Tyrants that have ever been Then it must be confessed that all these set together present the Church that authorizes and practises them with so dreadful an aspect so contrary to those bowels and tendernesses that are in the nature of man Not to mention the merciful Idea's of God and the wonderful meekness of the Author of our Holy Religion that we must conclude that under what form soever of Religion such things are set on foot in the World such a Doctrine is so far from improving and exalting the nature of man that really it makes him worse than he would otherwise be if he were left to the softness of his own nature And certainly it were better there were no revealed Religion in the World than that mankind should become worse more cruel and more barbarous by its means than it would be if it were governed by Nature or a little Philosophy Upon all these grounds laid together it is no unreasonable thing to conclude that a Church liable to such imputations ought justly to be suspected and that every one in it ought to examine well on what grounds he continues in the Communion of a society of men against which such strong prejudices lie so fairly without the least straining or aggravating matters too much I proceed now to the second part of my undertaking which is to shew that the grounds upon which that Church builds are certainly weak if not false And 1. They boast much of a Constant Succession as the only infallible mark to judge of a Church and