all we live under a Legal Government by which even our Kings are bound so that any Order that comes from them whether in Matters Temporal or Spiritual that is not founded on Law or that is contrary to it is null of it self The King's Supremacy among us amounts to no more than that the Execution of the laws that relate to Religion and to the Persons of Church men belongs to our Kings And all the difference between the French Constitution and ours as to this is that whereas the French King Acts Arbitrarily in those Matters ours are limited by Law. So that if a Clergy-man is legally proved to be guilty of a Crime our King indeed orders the Law to pass upon him in his Courts of Justice But the King can shut up no Clergy-men in Prisons or detain them there during Pleasure We do not know what those Letters of the Cachet are nor the Exiles or Imprisonments which go according to the Pleasure of a King and the Directions of a Father Confessor We retain the Freedome of the Elections of our Bishops there being only a Temporal punishment laid on us by Law if we do not follow the King's Recommendation And except in Matters of Marriages an Appeal from the Spiritual Court is scarce ever heard of in England And even when an Appeal is brought it is to be Judged by Delegates that are named by the King's Authority a considerable number of whom are always Bishops Nor have our Parliaments or our Princes medled any other way in Matters of Religion but that they have given the Civil Sanction to the Propositions made by the Church and this is that which all Christian Princes do in all places so that after all the Clamour that is made on our being Subjected to the Civil Power it is certain that the Gallican Church is much more Subject to it than we are And yet these Men who have abandoned all the Immunities of the Church Reproach us with Thomas Becket tho' there is not one of them that dares make any one of those steps which procured to him his Saintship These Men do also swear the Oath that is in the Pontifical to the Pope of which Mr. Claud put Mr. de Meaux in mind long ago but he is Wiser than to take any notice of a thing which he knows he cannot answer for I would gladly see how they observe any one of all the Articles that are in that Oath Mr. de Meaux is offended at Cranmer for the Protestation that he made explaining to what degree he thought himself bound to observe it and yet tho' he and his Brethren swore it it does not appear that it makes any great impression on their Consciences They are resolved to have no regard to it only they cannot endure Cranmer's Honesty for protesting to that purpose But if they fail in this part of their Oath they have been most exactly true to another Branch of it which obliges them to Persecute Hereticks to the utmost of their Power Thus it appears how just it was for Mr. de Meaux to apprehend that we should Recriminate And that in all points the Recrimination falls much heavier on their Church than the Charge it self can fall on ours He takes notice of an Objection that he finds I made upon the Subject of those prejudices which is that if we enter on a Personal Dispute concerning the Reformers the worst things that even their Enemies can lay to their charge come far short of those Enormous Crimes of which even their own Historians confess their Popes to have been Guilty and that some times in a Series of many Ages together in which not so much as one good Pope Interveened so uninterrupted was that Succession Now Popes being according to the general Doctrine of that Church the Infallible Oracles of Truth and the Universal Bishops and according to all the rest of their Communion they being the Heads of the Church Christ's Vicars and the Centers of Unity they are much more concerned in all that relates personally to their Popes than we are in the Lives of our Reformers All that Mr. de Meaux says to this is that the Reformers are the Authors of our Sect and that therefore we are more immediately concerned in them But it seems Mr. de Meaux understands the Principles of the Reformation very ill We own no Sect but that of which Jesus Christ is the Author And we have no other Interest in the Reformers but that they were Instruments by whose Means the World was awakened to Read the Scriptures and to examine Matters of Religion And that they discovered many things of which the World was formerly ignorant and in which the Clergy studied still to keep them in a blind Subjection to them and since they found too much advantage in those Corruptions to be willing to part with them the Reformers went on in their Discoveries and at length by the Blessing of God and the Labours of the Reformers as well as by the Persecution of their Enemies this Work had so great a Progress that it will still be reckoned one of the wonders of Providence But after all the Reformers were only the Instruments of opening this Light but not at all the Authors of our Sect so that we are no other way concerned in them but that we gratefully acknowledge their Labours and honour their Memory And what Mistakes Weaknesses or Passions soever may have mixed with their Conduct this proves nothing but that they were Men and were Subject both to Sin and to Errour Mr. de Meaux is also at a great deal of pains to shew how unsteady the Protestants have been in setling some Notions in particular the manner of Christ's Presence in the Sacrament and the true Notion of a Church on which he enlarges himself very copiously But is it possible that he is so ignorant either of Antiquity or of the Age of the School-Men as not to know how long they were before they setled on almost all the Notions of Divinity F. Petaw can inform him how dark the Fathers of the first three Centuries were even in their Idea's of the Trinity and it were easie to shew that even after the Definition of the Council of Nice it was long before they setled on the same Notion of the Unity of the Divine Essence with that which has been received now for many Ages in the Church It were easy to shew how even the so much cited and admired Saint Austin differed from himself in his Disputes with the Manicheans the Donatists and the Pelagians and that one sees in his works very different Notions not only of the Freedom of the Will but even of the Nature of the Church When he writ against the Donatists who had contrary to all Reason broke the Peace of the Church he raised the Unity of the Church and the submission to the visible Authority that was in it very high But when he writ against the Pelagians the
the 16th of April in which he gives an account of the Bishop of Paris's passing thro' that Town who told him how precipitated the Sentence was that the Pope was indeed for a delay and if that had been granted only for six days the King would have submitted but the Imperialists would hear of none tho' when the Courier came a day after they were sorry for the hast they had made By all these Indications it appeared plainly that the Court of Rome was governed in this matter only by Political Motives and Maxims and therefore according to the Maxims of the Gallican Church set forth lately with so much Zeal by Mr. Talon in a matter of much less moment the King of England had no Reason to have any great Regard to the Judgments or Thunders of that Court. But as I hold my self infinitely obliged to Mr. le Grand for the Present he made me of so valuable a Book which affords me so many Confirmations of the most important parts of my History so I am extream sorry that he has been so far wanting to himself as to suppress them and that he has put me on so uneasie a thing as to make use of a Present that he made me so much to his disadvantage But in this case I must say magis amica veritas And tho' he thinks me to be extreamly jealous of the Honour of my Writings p. 2. yet if the Concerns of Religion did not enter in this case I could more easily abandon my own But I will not pursue this Censure further at present nor am I yet sure whether I will write more upon this Subject or not for till I see his other three parts and till I know what effects this has I can form no Resolution as to that matter In the mean while I beg your Pardon both for giving you so great a trouble and for addressing it to you in so Publick a manner For since I Censure a Book already Printed I thought it was necessary to do it in this manner I am Sir with all possible Respect At the Hague the 10th of May 1688. Your most Humble and most Obedient Servant G. BURNET A CENSURE OF Mr. DE MEAUX's HISTORY OF THE Variations of the Protestant Churches Together with some further Reflections on Mr. Le Grand SIR YOU ask my Opinion of Mr. de Meaux's long expected Work And I will give it freely It seems he intends to let the World see that he can set forth the Reformation with as much Sincerity as he had formerly shewed in setting forth his own Doctrine and that he can shew as much Art in making the one appear Black as he had done to make the other appear Fair. Some of my Countrymen have of late exposed him in so severe a manner that his Credit in England was so much sunk before this new attempt that he has made upon it that there was no need of this Work to destroy it quite The truth is great Respect is due to his Age and Character But if he will lay himself too open and take so much pains to make himself be known he will compass it at last A Man of his Wit and Softness of Expression should have held himself to general Speculations in which a lively Fancy and a good Stile might have helped him out even when Truth failed him But of all the Men I know he should have avoided the most to meddle with Matters of Fact. For the gentlest Censure that can be past on his Performances that way is that some others furnish him with Extracts which he manages to the best advantage but without examining them Yet when Mr. Larogue had shewed him or at least had shewed it to all the World if he would not see it that there was not one single Passage of all those which he had with so much Pomp produced for justifying the taking away the Chalice that was either sincerely or pertinently made use of by him and it seems Mr. de Meaux himself was convinced of it since I have not heard that he has yet said one word to justify himself He should not have ventured again tho' he has returned with a particular degree of assurance to say in this Work that in the Primitive Church Men received the Sacrament either in the one or the other Species He may now perhaps say that he never Read Larague's Book with the same Truth that he writ to England that he had never seen F. Crasset's The Truth is Reason is a tame thing which bends easily to a Man of Wit and Fancy But Facts are sullen things they are what they are Wit has no place there but Boldness and Confidence can supply all defects Yet since Mr. de Meaux found that his under-work-men had dealt so ill with him he should have been more cautious in trusting them for the future And since even his most solemn Protestations have been laid open to the English Nation as having more of an Air of assurance than of a scrupulous Regard to Truth in them he ought to have taken a little more care of himself and of his Friends in England who have ill Success enough already in what they themselves have writ and in some small aid which he has sent them and therefore it is too cruel in him to give new occasions to those who will be sure to make the best of all that is given them for shewing the weakness of a Cause which how prosperous soever it may be in the hands of Dragoons yet has never had worse success than of late in England The Calumnies of Cochlee Florimond de Raimond and other Writers of the last Age were already revived and put in more Modern French by Maimbourg and Varillas who have not failed to tell the Tale over again in the best Language and with the best Grace they could so that it was a little below Mr. de Meaux's Greatness to come after them in a design which has succeeded so ill with them It is true he has much more Wit and gives a better Air to the Malice that he bears the Reformed Churches who have done nothing to provoke him if it was not that they chuse rather to take that to be Doctrine of his Church which they found both in the Decrees of their Councils the Publick Offices and the Chief Writers of Controversy that have explained those Matters ever since the Dispute was first set on foot than the new Tour that he has thought fit to give it In short he is in ill Humour because his Exposition was not successful enough to save his Church the Infamy of the Dragoons Hinc illae lachrimae and therefore he has now gathered together all that the Writers of the last Age had set forth and added to that all the Extracts that his tools could furnish him with that so he might Triumph over us with as much Scorn as Malice He mixes all along with it the Flowers of a melting and
which he to their Reproach destroyed or of the second by their way of treating St. Gregory of Nazianze who was one of the greatest Men of the Age and that had done the most for the Truth in the former Persecution under Valens we will not form a very favourable Opinion neither of the one nor the other of those two great Assemblies But since I have named that Great Man I will let Mr. de Meaux see how easie it is to give an ill Character even of the greatest Men. I will not mention his indecent Invectives against Iulian nor his high Eloges of Constance But if we consider his Life after he was a Bishop he despised Zasim where he was first setled and was offended with his Friend S. Basil for putting him in it and in the end he forsook it for it was a mean place and a Town full of disorders as being situated on the great Road. After that he came and assisted his old Father at Nazianze but upon his Death he left that and without any Canonical Vocation he came to Constantinople where he acted long as Bishop And in conclusion when he saw it was like to be questioned by the Council he withdrew indeed But as appears by his Letter to Procopius he grew upon that so disgusted at all Councils that he could neither think nor write of them with patience Here are many Blots in a Life of which we have very little left us and yet after all this he was one of the greatest Men that not only his Age but the Greek Church ever produced But here Mr. de Meaux will complain that I am doing that which he apprehends so much and that I am recriminating He had Reason to apprehend this for the Subject is Copious and the Matter is Obvious only with this difference that a just Recrimination destroys the whole bottom on which the Roman Church is founded for the certainty of Tradition and the Infallbility of the Church being their Foundation if Variations are proved among them these are shaken and so their whole Fabrick falls but Variations even proved among us signifie nothing they only prove that the Reformers were Men subject to mistakes that in some things they might bend matters too far in opposition to that which they saw Reason to Condemn before they had so clearly discovered the Truth that was wrapped up in so much Corruption that it was to discern the Truths which might have carried Cranmer in opposition to the Ecclesiastical Tyranny to raise the Power of the Civil Magistrate too high In other points they thought they might retain some received expressions giving them sound Explanations and so change the Ideas of things without changeing the Language And thus tho' they retained the Real Presence with some other Phrases that were consonant to it yet they gave it another Sense And Mr. de Meaux ought not to make so much as he does of their Submission to some Princes when not to mention the base compliances of some Bishops in this Age who are indeed a Reproach to their Character nor what was mentioned formerly of Gregory and Remy even the Apostle of France S. Martin himself complied with the Tyrant Maximus in such a manner that as Sulpitius Severus sets it out it does little Honour to his Memory Only in this he differed from the Bishops of this present Age that he interposed vigorously to hinder the Persecution of a Sect that had neither Laws nor Edicts in their Favours and that are represented in History as a very odious sort of Men and indeed not worthy to live whereas in our days we have seen Bishops not only pushing on a Prince to an Infamous violation of Edicts and to an unheard of Cruelty but making Panegyricks upon it while others were most Impudently denying it even at the same time that they were writing private Letters in defence of it These are indeed unworthy and scandalous Compliances and yet those who are guilty of them have the Face to Reproach us for things that are not to be once named in comparison with them So true does the Character of a Pharisee remain to this day of warning others to take the Mote out of their Eye while there is a Beam in their own Among all the Compliances in Henry the 8th's Reign is there any one that carries with it such a Reproach to Religion as it is for the Bishops of a whole Church one or two perhaps only excepted to see Men required to Receive the Sacrament by the force of Royal Edicts in particular by that Famous Monument of the Impiety and Inhumanity of the Age against those who refused to receive it in their Sickness By which those from whom the violences of Dragoons had extorted a Signature are required to do that which in the Opinion of all Christians is a high Profanation of the Sacrament but in the Opinion of that Church is a Prophanation without a name and beyond all that can be set out in words This is an Edict relating to the Sacredest of all the Acts of Worship and is a higher Invasion of the Sanctuary than any that can be found in all King Henry's Reign And yet those who Reproach us so severely have not had the Honesty nor the Courage to interpose and require their Clergy not to give the Sacrament to any but to such as were duely prepared for it that believed their Doctrine and came to Receive it with that disposition of Mind which became them The Silence of those Bishops upon so Sacrilegious an Attempt is an indication of a Slavish compliance far above all that they can Charge on Cranmer As for those Tragical Exclamations that Mr. de Meaux makes on the Supremacy that was declared to be in our Kings as well in Queen Elizabeth's time as in King Henry's and King Edward's this is also very unjustly urged by a Clergy that suffer under a much greater Invasion of the Rights of the Church than any that we can complain of By the Concordate the Kings of France have Invaded the Liberties of that Church and have assumed to themselves the Nomination of all the Bishops of France and by the Pretensions to the Regale they have assumed also a right of conferring Spiritual Employments to which a care of Souls is annexed and that pleno jure Their Courts of Parliament are the last resort even of all Spiritual Matters and receive all Appeals under the pretence of some abuse in the Sentence so that the whole Exercise of the Episcopal Power is subject to the Secular Court. And whatsoever they may talk of their Union with the Holy See even in this they are also Subject to the Secular Court since no Bull or Breve can be Executed in France without an approbation from thence And yet these are the men that complain of the King's Supremacy among us tho' there is nothing clearer than that this Servitude lies much heavier on them than it does on us For after
invisible Assembly of the Elect was the Church Any Man that has been at the pains to Read all that he has writ on these Heads from end to end and that has not only pickt up here and there some quotations that are drawn out of him must needs find so much confusion in him that they will easily pardon others if any such disorder appears in the Writings of the Reformers And for the Notion of the Presence in the Sacrament there has appeared of late such a History of the Disorders of the Schoolmen before they came to settle on the Notion of Transubstantiation and even in the explanation of that after the fourth Council of the Lateran that it will give no great Reputation to any Man that will take advantage from the Variations that may have been among us when it appears that there have been Changes of another Nature among them Mr. de Meaux is so pleased with this Prospect of the Variations among us that he will even make the suppressing of a more copious condemnation of the Corporal Presence that had been made in King Edward's time but was left out in Queen Elizabeth's to pass likewise for one The Matter of Fact was this in King Edward's time both Transubstantiation and the Corporal Presence were expresly rejected in our Articles and it was declared that Christ was present only in a Spiritual Manner and that he was received by Faith alone when Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown it was thought enough to reject both Transubstantiation and the Adoration of the Sacrament it was also declared that the Wicked did not receive Christ's Body or Blood in the Sacrament That he was present only after a Heavenly and Spiritual manner and that the Means by which he was Received was Faith only the rejecting the Corporal Presence with the Reasons upon which it was rejected was left out The Church did not at all change its Doctrine but it being fit to put nothing in the Articles of the Church but what is necessary it had been an unseasonable rigour to put in them a long explanation of a Negative Article The positive Articles can only be necessary and tho' some Negative Articles ought to be kept in Confessions if the Errour rejected by them is very dangerous yet no Man can say that all Negatives ought at all times to be proposed So that this is a matter of Discretion and Prudence and therefore the Adoration of the Sacrament being according to us Idolatry and Transubstantiation leading Naturally to that these were still Condemned that so the Purity of the Worship might be secured but this being done if our Church had carried the matter further and had imposed on every one the more particular and disputable Opinions concerning the Presence she had approached too near to the Rigour of that Church from which she had separated her self And therefore she shewed that Regard both to Lutherans and others who might have peculiar Notions of a Corporal Presence as not to put such a Definition in the body of her Articles as might drive them out of her Society And if she went too far in King Edward's Time we are so far from being ashamed of the Moderation that she shewed in Queen Elizabeth's Time that we rather Glory in it We are neither affraid nor ashamed to follow Saint Paul who Circumcised Timothy that by such a compliance he might gain the Iews and that went to Purifie himself in the Temple in which there was always a Sacrifice of one sort or another which he did long after the Vertue and the Obligation of those Rites was extinguished and if he went so far in positive Compliances the Silence of our Church in a Negative Article when done upon the considerations of Charity and Prudence is rather an Honour than a Reproach to it Indeed it is no wonder to see those of a Church that has thundred with her Anathema's upon the smallest Matters and has followed these with all the Cruelties that either the Rage of Dragoons or the Fury of Inquisitors could invent it is no wonder I say to see them censure us for our Gentleness since by this it appears that ours is the true Mother that cannot see her Children cut to pieces But here I stop I will not go further upon a Subject that is like to be handled by so able a Pen that I am only sorry that such a man should imploy so much time upon so Barren a Subject since it it must be confessed that this Age has scarce produced a Book that has been writ with so much pains but to so little purpose and with so little sincerity Yet since one has resolved to undertake it who I know will manage it with much force as well as with great Truth that so his Book may be in all Respects the reverse of that which he answers I will not anticipate further upon him But will now add only a little in Vindication of the short Account which I gave of the Troubles of France on design to justify the Assistance which Queen Elizabeth gave to the Protestants there upon which Mr. de Meaux thinks that he has great advantages He Reproaches me for my Ignorance of the Affairs of France which he shews first in my calling the Union of the Cardinal of Lorrain and the King of Navarre the Triumvirat but this could have only made a Duumvirate yet I named the Constable whom he has thought fit to pass over and I said not one word of a Triumvirat but only mentioned the Union of these three with Queen Catherine It is true the Translator has thought fit to add beyond what I had said par une espece de Triumvirat which shews that as I am not at all concerned in this matter so even my Translator himself had a mind to distinguish this from the famous Triumvirat He also charges me for having accused the Duke of Guise as having designed the Business of Vassy but in my English there is not a word of any premeditated Design and I am only accountable for the English nor is this plain in the Translation tho' there is more in it than in the Original Executer leur dessein does not import that the Business of Vassy was premeditated but only that the Design being laid the occasion offered at Vassy was laid hold on It is true I do not know how I came to say that the King of Navarre was declared Regent I had reason to say that the Regency fell to him by Law and that appeared as Mr. de Thou observes in the Famous Decision in the Case of Philip le Valois I had also Reason to say that the Power of the Regent was limited and so I only erred in setting the word Regent for Governour or Lieutenant of the Kingdom I am not ashamed to own mistakes when I am convinced that I have made them But it will soon appear whether he or I have committed more Errours in Treating of the Affairs of
Burnet Poor Man as he is takes this from Raynaldus who saies expresly and which is more Ad An. 1503. Num. 11. 22. cites Authors to prove it that the Cardinal of Rouen himself had aspired but that Iulius was preferred to him and the same Author saies that he granted the Bull for the King of England's Marriage which was proposed to him as a mean for bearing down the French and for strengthning the Party against them ad deprimendos Gallos confirmandasque adversus eos vires communes Upon the occasion of the Bull I had said that Isabel of Castile is called Elizabetha in it I neither said more nor less upon this nor made I any reasoning upon it and my Design in it was occasioned by a Discourse that I had once had with some who pretended that these were different names Hist. de Div. p. 125. Def. de Sand. Art. 35. Rej. de Bur. Art. 11. and yet in three or four places Mr. le Grand according to his usual Sincerity and with his cold Railery of calling me an able Man for it has said that I have made that an Argument to prove that the Bull was a Forgery Mr. le Grand Reproaches me for saying that the Count of Tholouse was the first that felt the effects of the fourth Council of the Lateran and shews me that he was Censured and Deposed before that Council But this shews how unfit he is to Write upon Critical Matters Ad. Conâ— Lat. 4. p. 233. what I said is justified by Cossart's Annotations who says expresly that till then the Dominions of the Count of Tholouse were only sequestred but that a Decree was made in that Synod translating a great part of them to the Count of Monfort for ever and for this he not only Cites Petrus Vallisarnensis but sends his Reader to Dachery's Spicilegium for the Decree it self It is true the Count of Tholouse was Depos'd before that time but by the Feudal Law upon his Deposition either his Heresy was to be accounted only a Personal Crime and then the Fee was to go to the next Heir or if it was to be made equal to a Crime of Treason then the Fee was to return to the Superiour Lord and so in this Case it was to have fallen to the Crown of France but it was the fourth Council of the Lateran that first gave the Pope the Power of transferring the Dominions of Hereticks to others whereas before that he could only Depose them It is also plain that Mr. le Grand treats this whole Matter very mildly and not with that Detestation that some Writers of that Church affect when we reproach them with the Deposing Power After all if I have many reasons to complain of Mr. le Grand I confess there is one for which I am much beholden to him and that is the pains that he is at to prove the constant Tradition in Catholick States to proceed Capitally against Hereticks This Book was writ by him chiefly for the English Nation and if this one thing does not hinder it it will probably be put in English But as we are beholden to those who set on the Persecution of France and must acknowledge that we owe our Preservation in a great measure to it since the Allarm which that gave this whole Nation was a stronger Argument than any that we could have invented for shewing them their danger for sensible and barbarous things affect all the World But now the Men of the Mission think fit to disclaim the Persecution of France and throw it on the King's Bigotry yet taking still great pains to clear Father de la Chaise of it as if he had alwaies opposed it so that we are forced to justify Lewis le Grand in that matter and to shew that he has acted in all things Conform to the Doctrine and Spirit of his Church This our Missionaries deny and endeavour to persuade us that Liberty of Conscience is the Principle and Doctrine of their Church And that therefore we need not apprehend any mischief from them that they not only abhor all Capital Proceedings but even the Fining of Men or the excluding them from Imployments on the Account of Religion that they cannot forgive those lesser Severities practised by Men of the Church of England and that all Men of all Perswasions may expect to live easy and happy under them But Mr. le Grand has spoiled all this and thus they see what it is to imploy Men in their Cause that are not yet Initiated into the Mysteries of the Society tho' a little common Prudence had preserved Mr. le Grand from committing such an Errour But 't is not just to expect from Men that which they have not I will not carry this Censure further at present for I have not near me the Books and other Documents that are necessary for a fuller Answer And those in England to whom I sent for the Resolution of some things have so much work given them at present by those whose Favour Mr. le Grand is Courting that it is not to be wondred at if they have not leisure to send me the Materials which I wanted They are in a Storm which all the World knows tho' they are not yet reduc'd to that which the Reverend Father Petre has threatned them with in that Modest and Savoury Expression of his That the Church of England shall be made to eat its own Dung. This is indeed a true Essay of the Charity of the Order and it is that which we have Reason to expect from it But I will now put an end to this long Letter I am Sir At the Hague the 10th of September 1688. Your most Humble Servant G. BURNET POSTSCRIPT I Have seen Mr. le Grand's Annotations upon my Letter to Mr. Thevenot I perceive clearly by it that this hot Summer and his extraordinary Application have so dryed his Brain and given him such an over flowing of the Gall that all the answer I can bestow on him is to wish his Friends to look to him and keep him from running about the Streets for he is in a fair way to that They will do well to Bleed him over and over again to give him some inward Refrigeratives and now and then a few Grains of Laudanum and to take a special care of him at New and Full Moons Pen Ink and Paper must be kept from him as poyson for these things set his Head so a going that his Fits redouble upon him at every time that he gets them in his hands But above all things care must be taken not to name me nor the Bibliotheque Universels to him for that will certainly bring on him a most violent Paroxisme and he being Young and so mightily in love with himself good Air and good Keeping may at last bring him out of this Raving Distemper So to be sure I will have no more to do with a Man that writes like a Lunatick