BY THE REVEREND EDWARD STILLINGFLEET.[57]

The third paper is said to be written by a great lady, for the

satisfaction of her friends, as to the reasons of her leaving the

communion of the church of England, and making herself a member of the

Roman Catholic church. If she had written nothing concerning it, none

could have been a competent judge of those reasons or motives she had

for it, but herself; but since she was pleased to write this paper, to

satisfy her friends, and it is thought fit to be published for general

satisfaction, all readers have a right to judge of the strength of them;

and those of the church of England, an obligation to vindicate the honour

of it, so far as it may be thought to suffer by them.

I am sensible how nice and tender a thing it is, to meddle in a matter

wherein the memory of so great a lady is so nearly concerned, and wherein

such circumstances are mentioned which cannot fully be cleared, the

parties themselves having been many years dead; but I shall endeavour to

keep within due bounds, and consider this paper with respect to the main

design of it, and take notice of other particulars, so far as they are

subservient to it.

The way of her satisfaction must needs appear very extraordinary; for,

towards the conclusion, she confesses she was not able, nor would she

enter into disputes with any body. Now, where the difference between the

two churches lies wholly in matters of dispute, how any one could be

truly satisfied as to the grounds of leaving one church and going to the

other, without entering into matter of dispute with any body, is hard to

understand. If persons be resolved beforehand what to do, and therefore

will hear nothing said against it, there is no such way as to declare

they will enter into no dispute about it. But what satisfaction is to be

had in this manner of proceeding? How could one, bred up in the church

of England, and so well instructed in the doctrines of it, ever satisfy

herself in forsaking the communion of it, without enquiring into, and

comparing the doctrines and practices of both churches? It is possible

for persons of learning, who will take the pains of examining things

themselves, to do that without entering into disputes with any body;

but this was not to be presumed of a person of her condition: For many

things must fall in her way, which she could neither have the leisure to

examine, nor the capacity to judge of, without the assistance of such who

have made it their business to search into them. Had she no divines of

the church of England about her, to have proposed her scruples to? None

able and willing to give her their utmost assistance in a matter of such

importance, before she took up a resolution of forsaking our church? This

cannot be imagined, considering not only her great quality, but that just

esteem they had for her, whilst she continued so zealous and devout in

the communion of our church.

But we have more than this to say. One of the bishops,[58] who had

nearest relation to her for many years, and who owns in print,[59] that

he bred her up in the principles of the church of England, was both able

and willing to have removed any doubts and scruples with respect to our

church, if she would have been pleased to have communicated them to him.

And however she endeavoured to conceal her scruples, he tells her in his

letter[60] to her, which he since printed for his own vindication, “that

he had heard much discourse concerning her wavering in religion, and that

he had acquainted her highness with it, the Lent before the date of this

paper;” and was so much concerned at it, that he obtained a promise from

her, that if any writing were put into her hands by those of the church

of Rome, that she would send it either to him, or to the then bishop of

Oxford, whom he left in attendance upon her.[61] After which, he saith,

“she was many days with him at Farnham; in all which time she spake not

one word to him of any doubt she had about her religion.” And yet this

paper bears date, August 20th, that year, wherein she declares herself

changed in her religion; so that it is evident she did not make use of

the ordinary means for her own satisfaction, at least as to those bishops

who had known her longest.

But she saith, “that she spoke severally to two of the best bishops[62]

we have in England, who both told her, there were many things in the

Roman church, which it were much to be wished we had kept; as confession,

which was no doubt commanded of God; that praying for the dead, was one

of the ancient things in Christianity; that, for their parts, they did

it daily, though they would not own it. And afterwards, pressing one[63]

of them very much upon the other points, he told her, that if he had

been bred a Catholic, he would not change his religion; but that being

of another church, wherein he was sure were all things necessary to

salvation, he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that

church wherein he received his baptism. Which discourses,” she said, “did

but add more to the desire she had to be a Catholic.”

This, I confess, seems to be to the purpose; if there were not some

circumstances and expressions very much mistaken in the representation

of it: but yet suppose the utmost to be allowed, there could be no

argument from hence drawn for leaving the communion of our church, if

this bishop’s authority or example did signify any thing with her. For

supposing he did say, “that if he had been bred in the communion of the

church of Rome, he would not change his religion;” yet he added, “that

being of another church, wherein were all things necessary to salvation,

he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that church

wherein he had received his baptism.” Now, why should not the last words

have greater force to have kept her in the communion of our church, than

the former to have drawn her from it? For why should any person forsake

the communion of our church, unless it appears necessary to salvation

so to do; and yet this yielding bishop did affirm, “that all things

necessary to salvation were certainly in our church; and that it was an

ill thing to leave it.” How could this “add to her desire of leaving

our church?” unless there were some other motive to draw her thither,

and then such small inducements would serve to inflame such a desire.

But it is evident from her own words afterwards, that these concessions

of the bishop could have no influence upon her; for she declares, and

calls God to witness, “that she would never have changed her religion, if

she had thought it possible to save her soul otherwise.” Now what could

the bishop’s words signify towards her turning, when he declares just

contrary, viz. not only that it was possible for her to be saved without

turning, “but that he was sure we had all things necessary to salvation;

and that it was a very ill thing to leave our church?” There must

therefore have been some more secret reason, which encreased her desire

to be a Catholic after these discourses; unless the advantage were taken

from the bishop’s calling the church of Rome the Catholic religion; “if

he had been bred a Catholic, he would not have changed his religion.” But

if we take these words so strictly, he must have contradicted himself;

for how could he be sure we had all things necessary to salvation, if we

were out of the Catholic church? Was a bishop of our church, and one of

the best bishops of our church, as she said, so weak as to yield, “that

he was sure all things necessary to salvation were to be had out of the

communion of the Catholic church?”

But again; there is an inconsistency in his saying, “that he thought it

very ill to leave our church;” which no man of common sense would have

said, if he had believed the Roman church to be the Catholic, exclusive

of all others that do not join in communion with it.

The utmost then that can be made of all this, is, that there was a

certain bishop of this church, who held both churches to be so far

parts of the Catholic church, that there was no necessity of going from

one church to another. But if he asserted that, he must overthrow the

necessity of the Reformation, and consequently not believe our articles

and homilies, and so could not be any true member of the church of

England.

But the late bishop of Winchester hath made a shorter answer to all this;

for he first doubts whether there ever were any such bishops who made

such answers; and afterwards he affirms, that he believes there never

was, in _rerum naturâ_,[64] such a discourse as is pretended to have

been between this great person, and two of the most learned bishops of

England. But God be thanked, the cause of our church doth not depend upon

the singular opinion of one or two bishops in it, wherein they apparently

recede from the established doctrine of it. And I am sure those of the

church of Rome take it ill from us, to be charged with the opinion

of particular divines, against the known sentiments of their church.

Therefore, supposing the matter of fact true, it ought not to have moved

her to any inclination to leave the church of England.

But after all, she protests, in the presence of Almighty God, that no

person, man or woman, directly or indirectly, ever said any thing to

her since she came into England, or used the least endeavour to make

her change her religion; and that it is a blessing she wholly owes to

Almighty God. So that the bishops are acquitted from having any hand

in it, by her own words; and, as far as we can understand her meaning,

she thought herself converted by immediate divine illumination. We had

thought the pretence to a private spirit had not been at this time

allowed in the church of Rome; but I observe, that many things are

allowed to bring persons to the church of Rome, which they will not

permit in those who go from it; as the use of reason in the choice of a

church; the judgment of sense; and here, that which they would severely

condemn in others as a private spirit, or enthusiasm, will pass well

enough if it doth but lead one to their communion: any motive or method

is good enough which tends to that end; and none can be sufficient

against it. But why may not others set up for the change, as to other

opinions, upon the same grounds, as well as this great person does,

as to the change from our church to the church of Rome? and we have

no pretenders to enthusiasm among us, but do as solemnly ascribe the

blessing wholly to Almighty God, and look on it as the effect of such

prayers as she made to him in France and Flanders.

But I wonder a person, who owed her change so wholly to Almighty God,

should need the direction of an infallible church; since the utmost they

can pretend to, is no more than to have such an immediate conduct; and

the least that can be meant by it is, that she had no assistance from any

other persons, which may not exclude her own endeavours: but supposing

them to be employed, and an account to be here given of them, yet there

is no connection between any of the premises, and the conclusion she drew

from them; and therefore it must be immediate impulse, or some concealed

motive, which determined her choice.

The conclusion was, “that she would never have changed, if she could have

saved her soul otherwise.” If this were true, she had good reason for

her change; if it were not true, she had none, as it is most certain it

was not. Now let us examine how she came to this conclusion, and I will

suppose it to have been just in the method she sets it down in.

First, she saith, she never had any scruples till the November

before; and then they began upon reading Dr Heylin’s “History of the

Reformation,” which was commended to her as a book to settle her; and

there she found such abominable sacrilege upon Henry the Eighth’s

divorce, King Edward’s minority, and Queen Elizabeth’s succession, that

she could not believe the Holy Ghost could ever be in such counsels.

This was none of the best advices given to such a person, to read Dr

Heylin’s History for her satisfaction:[65] For there are two distinct

parts in the history of our Reformation; the one ecclesiastical, the

other political: the former was built on scripture and antiquity, and the

rights of particular churches; the other on such maxims which are common

to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who labour to turn all

revolutions and changes to their own advantage. And it is strange to me,

that a person of so great understanding, should not distinguish these

two. Whether Henry VIII. were a good man or not, whether the Duke of

Somerset raised his estate out of the church-lands, doth not concern our

present enquiry; which is, whether there was not sufficient cause for a

reformation in the church? and if there was, whether our church had not

sufficient authority to reform itself? and if so, whether the proceedings

of our Reformation were not justifiable by the rules of scripture,

and the ancient church? These were the proper points for her to have

considered, and not the particular faults of princes, or the miscarriages

of ministers of state. Were not the vices of Alexander the Sixth, and

many other heads of the church of Rome, for a whole age together, by the

confession of their own greatest writers, as great at least as those of

Henry the Eighth? And were these not thought sufficient to keep her from

the church of Rome; and yet the others were sufficient to make her think

of leaving our church? But Henry the Eighth’s church was, in truth, the

church of Rome under a political head, much as the church of Sicily is

under the king of Spain. All the difference is, Henry the Eighth took it

as his own right; the king of Spain pretends to have it from the pope, by

such concessions, which the popes deny. And suppose the king of Spain’s

pretence were unlawful to that jurisdiction which he challengeth in the

kingdom of Sicily, were this a sufficient ground to justify the thoughts

of separation from the church of Rome?

But the Duke of Somerset raised his estate out of church lands, and so

did many courtiers in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Are there not miscarriages of the like nature in the church of Rome? What

is the pope’s making great estates out of the church lands, for their

nephews to be princes and dukes? a thing not unheard of in our age: And

is it not so much worse to be done by the head of the church?

These, she confesses, were but scruples, but such as occasioned her

examining the points in difference by the holy scripture. Now she was

in the right way for satisfaction, provided she made use of the best

helps and means for understanding it, and took in the assistance of her

spiritual guides. But it seems, contrary to the doctrine of the church of

Rome, she found some things so easy there, that she wondered she had been

so long without finding them out. And what were these? No less than the

real presence in the blessed sacrament, the infallibility of the church

confession, and praying for the dead.

These were great discoveries to be made so easily; considering how those

of the church of Rome, who have been most versed in these matters, have

found it so difficult to make them out from thence.

(1.) As to the real presence, as it is in the dispute between us and

the church of Rome, it implies the real and substantial change of the

elements into the body and blood of Christ. But where do our Saviour’s

words, in calling the sacrament his body and blood, imply any such thing?

The wisest persons of the church of Rome have confessed, that the bare

words of our Saviour can never prove it; but there needs the authority of

the church to interpret them in that sense. How then could she so easily

find out that, which their most learned men could not? But there is

nothing goes so far in such discoveries as a willing mind.

(2.) As to confession, no doubt the word is often used in scripture,

and therefore easily found. But the question between us is not about

the usefulness, or advantage, of confession in particular cases; but

the necessity of it in all cases, in order to remission of sins. And I

can hardly believe any bishop of our church would ever say to her, that

confession, in this sense, was ever commanded by God; for then he must

be damned himself, if he did not confess every known sin to a priest.

But some general expressions might be used, that confession of sin was

commanded by God; “confess your sins one to another:” but here is nothing

of a particular confession to a priest necessary, in order to forgiveness

of sin.

(3.) As to praying for the dead, it is hard to find any place of

scripture which seems to have any tendency that way, unless it be with

respect to the day of judgment, and that very doubtfully. But how came

this great person to think it not possible to be saved in our church,

unless we prayed for the dead? How did this come to be a point of

salvation? And, for the practice of it, she saith, the bishops told her

they did it daily. Whether they did it or not, or in what sense they did

it, we cannot now be better informed; but we are sure this could be no

argument for her to leave the communion of our church, because she was

told by these bishops they did it, and continued in the communion of it.

(4.) Lastly; as to the infallibility of the church; if this, as applied

to the Roman church, could be any where found in scripture, we should

then indeed be to blame not to submit to all the definitions of it.

But where is this to be found? Yes, Christ hath promised to be with

his church to the end of the world; not with his church, but with his

apostles: And if it be restrained to them, then the end of the world is

no more than always. But suppose it be understood of the successors of

the apostles; were there none but at Rome? How comes this promise to be

limited to the church of Rome; and the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria,

and all the other eastern churches (where the bishops as certainly

succeeded the apostles as at Rome itself) not to enjoy the equal benefit

of this promise? But they who can find the infallibility of the church of

Rome in scripture, need not despair of finding whatever they have a mind

to there.

But from this promise she concludes, that our Saviour would not permit

the church to give the laity the communion in one kind, if it were

not lawful so to do. Now, in my opinion, the argument is stronger the

other way: the church of Rome forbids the doing of that, which Christ

enjoined; therefore it cannot be infallible, since the command of Christ

is so much plainer than the promise of infallibility to the church of

Rome.

But, from all these things laid together, I can see no imaginable reason

of any force to conclude, that she could not think it possible to save

her soul otherwise, than by embracing the communion of the church of

Rome: And the public will receive this advantage by these papers,

that thereby it appears, how very little is to be said by persons of

the greatest capacity, as well as place, either against the church of

England, or for the church of Rome.

A DEFENCE OF THE PAPER WRITTEN BY THE DUCHESS OF YORK, AGAINST THE ANSWER

MADE TO IT.

I dare appeal to all unprejudiced readers, and especially to those who

have any sense of piety, whether, upon perusal of the Paper written by

her late highness the Duchess, they have not found in it somewhat which

touched them to the very soul; whether they did not plainly and perfectly

discern in it the spirit of meekness, devotion, and sincerity, which

animates the whole discourse; and whether the reader be not satisfied,

that she who writ it has opened her heart without disguise, so as not to

leave a scruple, that she was not in earnest. I am sure I can say, for

my own particular, that when I read it first in manuscript, I could not

but consider it as a discourse extremely moving; plain, without artifice,

and discovering the piety of the soul from which it flowed. Truth has

a language to itself, which it is impossible for hypocrisy to imitate:

dissimulation could never write so warmly, nor with so much life. What

less than the spirit of primitive Christianity could have dictated her

words? The loss of friends, of worldly honours and esteem, the defamation

of ill tongues, and the reproach of the cross,—all these, though not

without the strugglings of flesh and blood, were surmounted by her; as if

the saying of our Saviour were always sounding in her ears, “What will it

profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul!”

I think I have amplified nothing in relation either to this pious lady,

or her discourse: I am sure I need not. And now let any unbiassed and

indifferent reader compare the spirit of the answerer with hers. Does

there not manifestly appear in him a quite different character? Need the

reader be informed, that he is disingenuous, foul-mouthed, and shuffling;

and that, not being able to answer plain matter of fact, he endeavours to

evade it by suppositions, circumstances, and conjectures; like a cunning

barreter of law, who is to manage a single cause, the dishonesty of which

he cannot otherwise support than by defaming his adversary? Her only

business is, to satisfy her friends of the inward workings of her soul,

in order to her conversion, and by what methods she quitted the religion

in which she was educated. He, on the contrary, is not satisfied, unless

he question the integrity of her proceedings, and the truth of her

plain relations, even so far as to blast, what in him lies, her blessed

memory, with the imputation of forgery and deceit; as if she had given

a false account, not only of the passages in her soul, and the agonies

of a troubled conscience, only known to God and to herself, but also of

the discourses which she had with others concerning those disquiets.

Everywhere the lie is to be cast upon her, either directly, in the words

of the bishop of Winchester, which he quotes; or indirectly, in his own,

in which his spiteful diligence is most remarkable.

In his answer to the two former papers, there seems to have been some

restraint upon the virulence of his genius, though even there he has

manifestly past the bounds of decency and respect; but so soon as he

had got loose from disputing with crowned heads, he shews himself in

his pure naturals, and is as busy in raking up the ashes of their next

relations, as if they were no more of kin to the crown than the new

church of England is to the old reformation of their great-grandfathers.

But God forbid that I should think the whole episcopal clergy of this

nation to be of his latitudinarian stamp; many of them, as learned as

himself, are much more moderate; and such, I am confident, will be as far

from abetting his irreverence to the royal family, as they are from the

juggling designs of his faction to draw in the nonconformists to their

party, by assuring them they shall not be prosecuted (as indeed, upon

their principles, they cannot be by them); but, in the mean time, this

is to wrest the favour out of the king’s hands, and take the bestowing

it into their own, and to re-assume to themselves that headship of the

English church which their ancestors gave away to king Henry VIII. And

now let any loyal subject but consider, whether this new way of their

proceeding does not rather tend to bring the church of England into the

fanatics, than the fanatics into the church of England.

These are the arts which are common to him and his fellow-labourers; but

his own peculiar talent is that of subtle calumny and sly aspersion, by

which he insinuates into his readers an ill opinion of his adversaries,

before he comes to argument; and takes away their good name rather by

theft than open robbery. He lays a kind of accumulative dishonesty to

their charge, and touches them here and there with circumstances, instead

of positive proofs, till at last he leaves a bad impression of them; like

a painter who makes blotches of hard colouring in several parts of the

face, which he smooths afterwards into a likeness. After this manner he,

or one of his brethren in iniquity, has used Monsieur de Condom,[66] by

picking up stories against him in his Preface, which he props up with

little circumstances, but seldom so positive, that he cannot come off

when their falsity shall be detected. In the mean time, his cause goes

forward with the common reader, who, prepossessed by the Preface, is

made partial to his answer. The same kind of artifice, with some little

variation, has been used in other of their books, besides this present

libel against the duchess.

But the cloven foot of this our answerer appears from underneath the

cassock, even in the first step he makes towards his answer to the

present paper; “which,” he tells us, “is _said_ to be written by a great

lady.” How doubtfully he speaks, as if there were no certainty of the

author! But surely it is more than barely said, for it is published by

the same authority which ordered the two other papers written by his

late majesty, to the press; and the original of it is still remaining

in the hands of the present king. Indeed, the bishop of Winchester may

seem to have given him some encouragement for this in the Preface to

his Treatises, where he tell us,—that “Maimbourg, the Jesuit, recites

something which,” he says, “was written by the late duchess,” and which

he afterwards calls,—“the papers _pretended_ to be written by her.” But

if that bishop had lived to see what our answerer has seen, her paper

printed and published by his majesty, I cannot think he would have

been so incredulous as to have made that doubt. It may be allowed him

to suspect a stranger of forgery; but with what face can this son of

the church of England suspect the integrity of his king? In the mean

time, observe what an excellent voucher he has got of this dead bishop,

and what an excellent argument he has drawn from him. Because he would

not believe what he did not think she said, we must not believe what

we know she did say. Let our author, therefore, come out of his mists

and ambiguities, or give us some better authority for his unreasonable

doubts; for, at this rate, if it be already suspected, whether what she

writes be matter of fact, and, indeed, whether she writ at all, it may be

doubted hereafter, whether she changed, and, perhaps, whether there were

ever such a woman.

After he had thus begun, that “this paper was said to be written by

a great lady, for the satisfaction of her friends,” he shuffles in

commodious words for an answerer, and which afford him elbow-room; for

he talks of the reasons and motives which she had for her leaving the

communion of the church of England, &c. and of the right which all

readers have to judge of the strength of them. Now, as luck will have it,

none of those motives and reasons are to be found in the paper of her

highness. She expresses herself clearly to write for the satisfaction

of her friends, not as to the reasons she had herself for changing, but

as to the censures which she might expect from them for so doing; and

her whole paper shews this was her only design: So that, against the law

of all romances, he first builds the enchanted castle, and then sets up

to be the doughty knight who conquers it. It seems, he found that a bare

denial, which is the proper answer to matter of fact, was a dry business,

and would make no sport; and therefore he would be sure to cut himself

out sufficient work. But it is not every man’s talent to force a trade;

for a customer may choose whether he will buy or not.

This great person changed not lightly, nor in haste; but after all the

endeavours which could be used by a soul which was true to itself, and

to its eternal interest. She was sensible, as I before hinted, that she

should lose her friends and credit; and, what to her condition at that

time was more sharply piercing, expose the Catholics of England to the

danger of suffering for her sake. On these considerations, she makes a

plain relation of all the passages in her change; and, expecting severe

censures from the world, took care to satisfy her friends concerning it.

As for the reasons of it, they were only betwixt God and her own soul,

and the priest with whom she spoke at last. What a wonderful art has this

gentleman, to turn a bare narrative into motives and inducements? When he

is arrived to the perfection of calling down a saint from heaven, he may

examine her concerning them; in the mean time, he must be content with

the relation which she has left behind her here on earth; and if he will

needs be mistaking her scruples for her motives, who can help it?

His design, as he tells us a little after the beginning, is, “to

vindicate the honour of the church of England, so far as it may be

thought to suffer by the paper of her late highness.” I might here tell

him, that he has an obligation antecedent to the honour of his community,

which is that to God and his own conscience. But the honour of the church

of England is no farther concerned in the paper of her highness, than in

relation to the persons of two or three prelates; and those he leaves

at last to shift for themselves as they are able, with this melancholy

farewell, that—“God be thanked, the cause of our church does not depend

upon the singular opinion of one or two bishops in it, wherein they

apparently recede from the established doctrine of it.”

In the next place, “he is sensible how nice and tender a thing it is to

meddle in a matter wherein the memory of so great a lady is concerned.”

Here he is sensible, once for all; for, after this one civility, you

hear no more of his good manners, to the end of the chapter; but the

honour of the church of England so wholly takes up his thoughts, that he

forgets the respect which is due to her sex, her quality, her memory, her

relations, and confutes her as coarsely as the parson did Bellarmine.[67]

He goes on to inform us, how hard a task he has undertaken in answering

these papers, “wherein such circumstances are mentioned as cannot fully

be cleared, the parties themselves having been many years dead; yet he

shall endeavour to keep within due bounds,” &c.

These due bounds either are, or ought to be, respect to the great lady,

and caution in regard of circumstances, which I hope he will not put upon

his readers for arguments, the parties being dead so long ago.

But let the reader here take notice, that in this very place he is

clapping his cups together, and shuffling his balls from hand to hand, to

lay the foundation of his juggling, and to prepare the way for all the

tricks which he is to play hereafter.

For, the parties being dead long since, that is, the duchess, in the

first place, not being alive to justify the several conferences which she

had with the bishops; nor they, in the second, to answer, as in the sight

of God, whether she had such discourse with them, the field is open for

him, as he vainly imagines, by laying circumstances of time and place

together, and racking her own paper till it seemingly speaks against her,

to render it suspected to his good friends, the rabble, that she has

falsified the whole matter.

Well, we shall see what he builds upon this foundation: let him speak for

himself.

“The way of her satisfaction was very extraordinary; for, towards the

conclusion, she confesses she was not able, nor would she enter into

disputes with any body.”

Commend me to him for a man of quick dispatch. At the first dash, he is

bringing the two ends of her paper together; for he says,—“towards the

conclusion she confesses.” It was well searched of him, however, to hunt

counter, and run to the end of her discourse for the beginning of his

own. He will lose no advantages, I warrant him. Press that home, doctor.

She modestly owns, that she was neither able nor willing to enter into

disputes; therefore she had no other way to satisfy herself: when the

whole drift of this pious and sincere discourse is to inform her friends

of the methods by which God Almighty brought her into his church; her

paper being a plain and short history of her conversion.

The answerer is of opinion, there is nothing to be done, no satisfaction

to be had in matters of religion, without dispute; that is his only

recipe, his nostrum for attaining a true belief. But doctors differ

in this point: For another witty gentleman of his church[68] desired

no other epitaph upon his tomb than this: “Here lies the author of

this sentence, _Disputandi pruritus, scabies ecclesiæ_;” the itch of

disputation is the scab or tetter of the church. Now, if the learned

avail themselves so little of dispute, that it is as rare as a prodigy

for one of them to convince another, what shall become of the ignorant,

when they are to deal with those fencers of divinity, who can hit

them in tierce and quart at pleasure, while they are ignorant how to

stand upon their guard? And yet such poor people have souls to save, as

precious in the sight of God as the grim logician’s. Must they be damned

unless they can make a regular approach to heaven in mood and figure?

Is there no entering there without a syllogism? or _ergoteering_ it

with a _nego, concedo, et distinguo_? The best on it is, our Saviour’s

disciples were but poor fishermen, and we read but of one of his apostles

who was bred up at the feet of Gamaliel. I would beseech our answerer to

consider, whether he has argued upon his own principles, in affirming,

that none can be satisfied as to the grounds of leaving one church and

going to the other, without entering into dispute? Has he not allowed,

that every man is to interpret the Scripture for himself, in reference

to his own salvation? With what face then can he positively say,—“That

this lady,” who had not only read the Scriptures, but found them in

her judgment plainly to decide the great controversy betwixt Catholics

and Protestants, “might not leave his church, and enter into that of

Christ, by interpreting ‘this is my body,’ in the literal and obvious

meaning?” If, from a Catholic, she had become a Protestant, by expounding

those words in a figurative sense, he would have applauded her for not

discerning the Lord’s body, and said, she was in the right to interpret

for herself. But she, it seems, must be an exception to his general rule,

and not have that privilege allowed her, which he dare not deny to any

sectary of the nonconformists. The fanatics think the Scripture is clear

in all matters of salvation; and if so, what need, say they, of those

spiritual directors? Even the pillars of the church by law established,

from their own concessions, are found to be but broken staffs; for,

after all their undertaking to heal a wounded conscience, when the arrows

of the Almighty are stuck into it, they leave their proselytes finally

to the Scripture, as our physicians, when they have emptied the pockets

of their patients without curing them, send them at last to Tunbridge

waters, or the air of Montpellier.

“But if persons be resolved beforehand what to do, (says our answerer,)

there is no such way as to declare—they will not enter into dispute.”

Here he would make us believe, that she swallowed a new religion without

chewing it, because she disputed not. I have shewed already what is

the common fate of disputation. But had she no other way of satisfying

her conscience? (as he immediately infers she had not.) If he were not

obstinately blind, or rather had not an intention to blind his reader,

he might have observed the methods and gradations of her change, and

that, though she disputed not, yet she discoursed (which is entering into

matter of dispute) with some of the ablest of the English clergy, even

with him particularly who was left by the bishop of Winchester to be her

spiritual director; by which it plainly appears, notwithstanding all the

jugglings and glosses of our answerer, that the better part even of his

own prescription was put in practice by her, though without effect, as

to her satisfaction. Why, then, does he ask so many idle questions? “Had

she no divines of the church of England about her? none able and willing

to afford her their utmost assistance?” when she takes care to inform the

world that she had such divines, that she imparted her scruples, and,

after all, remained unsatisfied with their answers.

“Persons of learning,” indeed, he says, “may possibly be satisfied

without entering into disputes of matters which she had neither the

leisure to examine, nor the capacity to judge of.”

Then, as I said before, the kingdom of heaven is chiefly, if not only,

for the wise and learned of this world, though our Saviour was not of

this judgement. But is not every man to be satisfied _pro modulo suo_,

according to the measure of his own understanding? Can an ignorant

person enter into the knowledge of the mysteries of our faith, when

even the most learned cannot understand them? Can the answerer himself

unriddle the secrets of the incarnation, fathom the undivided Trinity,

or the consubstantiality of the Eternal Son, with all his readings and

examinations? From whence comes it then, that he believes them, since

neither the scripture is plain about them, nor the wit of man can

comprehend them? As for her comparing the doctrines of both churches,

no question she did it to the best of her ability; for if he will

believe her in any thing, she both read the scriptures, and conferred

with the most learned Protestants, before she had any discourses with a

Catholic priest. But if she had not, as he rudely says, the capacity of

judging in deep controversies, it is very probable she might want that

of understanding the instructions of her guides; for, if I may similize

in my turn, a dull fellow might ask the meaning of a problem in Euclid

from the bishop of Salisbury,[69] without being ever the better for his

learned solution of it. So then her capacity will break no squares, at

least from the doctrine of the English church, and the Presbyterians, put

them both together, as they now stand united; for, either the scriptures

are clear, and then a mean capacity will serve to understand them, or,

though they are never so obscure, yet the upshot of all is, that every

man is to interpret for himself.

What farther quarrel he can have against the lady in this particular, I

know not, unless it be upon the bishop of Winchester’s account; namely,

that she refused to advise with him, and admitted the two others[70]

to a conference; and what reason she had for so doing, if I were as

penetrating as my author, I should undertake to demonstrate by the

infallible evidence of circumstances and inferences: but since the

parties are dead, and so long since, I will not give my own opinion why

she refused him, and of what principles she might possibly have thought

him. At present I will not trouble myself farther with that prelate of

rich memory, whom I warrant you our author would not commend so much for

his great abilities and willingness to resolve the lady’s doubts, if he

had not some journey-work for him to do hereafter; neither will I meddle

much with the long impertinent story of his letter to the duchess, and

her silence at Farnham, where she would not consult him in any of her

doubts. Whatever great matters are made of these by our answerer, she had

a very sufficient reason for not asking his advice, as will instantly

be made appear. But now our author is at another of his dodging tricks,

comparing times and dates of letters, the bishop’s bearing date the 24th

of January, that very year in which she changed; but that he may not

puzzle himself too much in reckoning, I will unriddle the matter of fact

to him, which I have from a most authentic hand. The duke and duchess

were at Farnham in the beginning of September, where they continued

about three days, in the year 1670. Her highness’s paper bears date the

20th of August, 1670; by which it is manifest, that it was written twelve

or fourteen days before her visit to the bishop. Now where, I beseech

you, is the wonder, that she spoke nothing to him concerning any points

of a religion in which she was already satisfied? Would any man ask

another—what’s o’clock, after he had been just looking upon a sun-dial?

So that all his aggravations dwindle at length into this poor inference,

that it is evident she did not make use of the ordinary means for her own

satisfaction; at least (mark how he mollifies, for fear of being trapped)

as to those bishops who had known her longest.

Now this is so pitiful, that it requires no answer; for it amounts to

no more than that she liked not the bishop, and therefore, from the

beginning, concealed her scruples from him; and she changed her religion

the same year, (though before he writ to her,) because she was satisfied

of another. But does it follow from hence, as he infers, that, in the

mean while, she did not use the ordinary means for her satisfaction?

Supposing she had liked the other two bishops as little as she did him,

had she no other ordinary means but by those two, or even by any other

bishops? Satisfied, to be sure, she was, or she had not changed; and if

the means had been wholly extraordinary, from the inspirations of God’s

holy spirit only, she had thereby received the greater favour; but not

omitting to give God thanks for his supernatural assistance, she used

also the ordinary means.

It appears that her first emotions were from her observing the devotions

of the Catholics in France and Flanders; and this is no news to any

traveller. Ask even our Protestant gentlemen at their return from

Catholic countries, and they cannot but confess that the exercises of

their devotion, their mortifications, their austerities, their humility,

their charity, and in short, all the ways of good living, are practised

there in a far greater measure than they are in England; but these are

the virtues from which we are blessedly reformed by the example and

precept of that lean, mortified apostle, St Martin Luther.

Her first scruples were raised in her by reading Doctor Heylin’s “History

of the Reformation,” and what she found in it we shall see hereafter.

It appears, that history had given her some new apprehensions; and to

satisfy them, she considered of the matters in difference betwixt the

Catholics and Protestants; and so considered them, as to examine them

the best she could by scripture, which she found to speak clearly for

the Catholics; and she, upon our author’s principles, was judge of this:

after which, she spoke with two of the best bishops in England, and their

doubtful or rather favourable answers, did but add more to the desire

she had to be a Catholic. All these ordinary ways she took, before she

could persuade herself to send for a priest, whose endeavours it pleased

the Almighty so to bless, that she was reconciled to his church, and her

troubled conscience was immediately at rest.

I have been forced to recapitulate these things, and to give them the

reader at one view; for our answerer is so cunning at his trade, that he

shews them only in parcels, and by retail, that it might not be thought

she used the ordinary means. One thing I had omitted, which was, that the

bishop affirms in his letter to her Highness, that she had made him a

promise, in case any writing were put into her hand by those of the Roman

church, she would send it either to him or the bishop of Oxford.[71]

Why does our author put down that promise thus at large? If he means any

thing more by it, besides a justification of his bishop for having done

his part, which signifies just nothing, he would tacitly insinuate that

she broke her word, by not sending any such writing to him. If so, he

is at his legerdemain again. He would have it thought she kept not her

promise, but does not positively affirm it; but since it is manifest, by

the order of time in her paper, that she neither sent for any priest, nor

conferred with any learned Catholic, till after she had done with the two

bishops, it may, and ought to be supposed, that she received no writings

from any of that religion; for if she had, she would certainly have

mentioned them.

If then the bishop of Winchester would insinuate, that she had such

papers, which she sent not to him, according to her engagement, I may

at least answer with my author, that the lady was dead long before the

bishop published his letter, so that the circumstances therein mentioned

cannot be so fully cleared.

But to return to our answerer. He has brought us at length to the several

discourses which her Highness had with the two bishops, his Grace of

Canterbury, and the bishop of Worcester; and since he has thought fit to

put all that concerned this matter into one long paragraph, quoted from

the Duchess, I must follow his example. These are her words:—“After

this, I spoke severally to two of the best bishops we have in England,

who both told me there were many things in the Roman church, which it

were very much to be wished we had kept; as confession, which was no

doubt commanded of God; that praying for the dead was one of the ancient

things in Christianity; that for their parts, they did it daily, though

they would not own it. And afterwards, pressing one of them very much

upon the other points, he told me—that if he had been bred a Catholic, he

would not change his religion; but that being of another church, wherein

he was sure were all things necessary to salvation, he thought it very

ill to give that scandal, as to leave that church wherein he had received

his baptism. All these discourses did but add more to the desire I had to

be a Catholic, and gave me the most terrible agonies in the world,” &c.

“This (he confesses) seems to be to the purpose;” and where he confesses

the least advantage on our side, the reader may swear there is somewhat

more than ordinary in the matter. But he retrenches immediately, and

kicks down the pail, by adding this restriction—“if there were not some

circumstances and expressions very much mistaken in the representation

of it.” Yet in the next line again, as if he were ashamed of his own

fearfulness, he is for making a bold sally, and putting all to the push;

for, “supposing the utmost to be allowed (says he) there could be no

argument from hence drawn for leaving the communion of our church;”

but he restrains that too with this caution—“if the bishop’s authority

and example did signify any thing with her.” Thus, from yielding at

first, he comes to modify his concession, and from thence to strike out

magnanimously.

But then he retreats again with another _if_. It is a sign he is uneasy,

when he tosses and turns so often in a breath; and that he is diffident

of his cause, when he shifts his plea. It is evident that the Duchess

laid a great stress on these concessions: and well she might; for what

a startle would it give to a doubting soul, which already had taken the

alarm, to hear two bishops, whereof one was primate of all England,

renouncing and condemning two of the established articles of their

church? But it is well known, that those two prelates were not, nor,

if they were now living, would be, the only clergymen of the church of

England who are of opinion they have over-reformed themselves in casting

off prayers for the dead, and consequently, the doctrine of a third

place. But these are church of England men of the old stamp; betwixt

whom, and the faction of this answerer, there is just as much difference

as betwixt a true episcopal man and a latitudinarian; and this latter,

in plain terms, is no otherwise different from a presbyterian, than by

whatsoever titles and dignities he is distinguished. So that our answerer

was much in the right to skip over the first half of this paragraph

without answering in this place, and to gallop to the last sentence of

it, which begins with Bishop Blandford’s saying,—“That if he had been

bred in the communion of the Roman church, he would not change his

religion:” whither, as in duty bound, I follow him.

To overbalance the weight of these concessions, our author would have us

think, that the subsequent words of the bishop ought to have had greater

force to have kept her in the communion of the Protestant church, than

the former to have drawn her from it; for the bishop comes off with

this excuse,—“That being of another church, wherein he was sure were

all things necessary to salvation, he thought it very ill to give that

scandal, as to leave that church wherein he received his baptism.”

First, take notice, that the Duchess says, the bishop was pressed by

her very much before he made the concession—that if he had been bred

a Catholic, he would not have changed; which shews, that a truth was

forced out of him, which he would willingly have concealed. For, both in

regard to his own credit, and the retaining of so great a person in his

church, it was not his interest to have yielded—that a Catholic might be

saved, at least on as easy terms as a Protestant. But he goes farther,

when he confesses—that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not have

altered his religion; for therein he seems even to regret his being bred

a Protestant, at least he yields, that all things necessary to salvation

were in the Roman Catholic church; for otherwise, had he been educated

in it, he ought, in conscience, to have changed, which he owns he would

not have done. Now this is manifestly more than what he said for the

church of England; for his following words are rather an excuse for his

continuance in his church, than an argument to dissuade her Highness

from turning Catholic:—“He thought it very ill to give that scandal

to leave the church wherein he was baptized.” Now the word _scandal_,

plainly relates to his own person, and signifies no more than that he

was ashamed to change; for it was impossible for him to think he should

sin against his conscience in changing, who had declared—that he would

not have changed, in case he had been bred a Catholic. And the reason he

gives is made of the same yielding metal, viz. that he had his baptism

in the Protestant church; for that argument in itself is of no weight,

since the right reverend well knew that the baptism even of heretics is

good; so that, if he had been christened in the Lutheran, the Abyssine,

or the Russian church, he must for that reason have continued in it. But

he timorously pleads his fear of giving scandal, which is, as I said,

no justification of himself, no dissuasive to her, but only a mean,

interested apology for his not changing.

As for his intimating,—that all things necessary to salvation were to be

had in the church of England, let any reasonable man be judge whether he

could possibly have said less in defence of himself for continuing in it;

for this only shewed, that he thought salvation was to be had in both

churches, as even this author himself is forced to confess afterwards,

in these words: “The utmost that can be made of this is, that a certain

bishop of our church” [who in the mean time has proved himself an

uncertain one,] “held both churches so far parts of the Catholic church,

that there was no necessity of going from one church to another.”

That which he calls—the utmost we can make of it, is in truth the least

which the bishop’s words will naturally bear; and I may safely put the

cause upon this issue,—whether such a discourse might not reasonably add

more to the desire she had to be a Catholic?

Let us hear now what he has to answer; and I will reply briefly, because

I have taken away the strength of his argument already.

First, he says in effect, That the bishop’s authority and example ought

to have prevailed with her on the one side, more than his concessions on

the other.

I reply—Not his authority, because he spoke more for the church of Rome

than against it: nor his example, for he gave her no encouragement to

follow it, by saying, that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would

not have changed. His example of praying daily for the dead shewed his

opinion at the bottom; but his not publicly owning that he did so, has

proved him little better than a black bishop, who has entered privately

into the white one’s walk.[72]

Our author asks, in the second place,—Why any person should forsake the

communion of the Protestant church, wherein the bishop affirmed were all

things necessary to salvation? And I enquire, How she could be bound to

believe him, since confession, and prayers for the dead, are wanting in

it? one of which he had before acknowledged to be commanded of God; the

other, to be one of the ancient things in Christianity!

Thirdly, he urges, That the bishop had told her, it was an ill thing to

leave the church of England. And I reply, That the answerer has falsified

his words. “The bishop only thought it very ill to give that scandal, as

to leave the church wherein he was baptized.” First, he spoke of himself

only, not of her. Mark that fallacy. And then he said not,—it was ill

to leave the church; but—very ill to give that scandal, as to leave the

church; relating again to his own particular.

Fourthly, he says, It is evident that the bishops could have no influence

upon her; though she positively says those discourses, in which were

those concessions, did but add more to the desire she had to be a

Catholic. This is full upon the vizor[73]; but the dead are to take

all things patiently. Well! How, if he can convince her of falsity from

her own words? why then he will carry his argument, as well as his good

manners, to the height; and how broad soever the word may be which he has

slily given her, yet he will tell you, that freedom ought to be permitted

him, as sustaining the honour of the church of England.

His argument is this: “She declares afterwards, that she would not have

changed, if she had thought it possible otherwise to have saved her soul;

but the bishop had told her, that all things necessary for salvation were

in the English church; therefore the bishop contributed nothing to her

change.”

So the mitre be safe in its reputation, no matter what becomes of the

ducal coronet. Now I can be very well content that the bishop should have

no part in the honour of her conversion; for it is plain that he desired

it not; and why should he do good against his will?

I wish my author would have furnished me with an argument to have brought

him wholly off; but I will bring him on his way as far as by the help of

the answerer’s scarf I can fairly drag him. I say therefore, that though

her Highness changed not her belief upon the concessions of the bishop,

yet his concessions were an occasion of her farther scruples, in order

to her change; for, she says, “they added to the desire she had to be a

Catholic.”

The bishop did indeed tell her, that all things necessary to salvation

were in the English church; but tell me, Sir, I beseech you, was that

all he told her? By your favour, you have left out the better half of

what he said; for he told her also, “that if he had been bred a Catholic,

he would not have changed.” And she had reason to believe what he said

to the advantage of a church of which he was no member, as being sure

he would say no more than scanty truth. And he acknowledges into the

bargain, that “confession was commanded of God;” and, that “praying for

the dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity.” What a shameful

way of arguing is this, to make a general negative conclusion from

half the premises? or, in other words, to maintain, that the bishop’s

concessions could have no influence upon her, because they had not the

greatest influence? And you in a manner confess it before you were aware,

in the close of your argument, where you say, “There must therefore

have been some more secret reason, which increased her desire to be a

Catholic, after these discourses.” Now some more secret reason does not

hinder the bishop’s concessions from being one; nay, it argues, that they

were one of the reasons, though not the most prevalent, because there was

one more secret. You have now contradicted yourself so plainly, that you

have wholly justified the Duchess; and the broad word, without naming it,

is fairly brought back to your own door.

After this, our answerer does but piddle, and play at small game, as if

her Highness might possibly take encouragement from the bishop’s calling

the church of Rome the Catholic religion; but she was too much in earnest

to lay hold upon a word. Neither is more advantage to be taken from

his calling the church of Rome the Catholic religion, than we receive

disadvantage from the playing upon the word of Roman Catholic.

Next, for want of a quarrel, he is falling upon his late dear friend

the bishop: “Was he,” says our answerer, “so weak, to mean the word

_Catholic_ in the strictest sense, he must then have contradicted

himself; there was an inconsistency in his words,”—and so forth.

From the inconsistency of the bishop’s words in this and other places,

our answerer, perhaps, would make a secret inference, that he never said

them; and obliquely draw the Duchess into the statute of coining; so that

the two spiritual hectors may make a sham-duel of it, for aught we know.

For it is a common trick with robbers to clash their swords together in

the dark, to draw company together, and then some third person pays for

it. Take it in this manner, and then the argument against her Highness

will stand thus: the sayings which she relates are inconsistent, and

therefore she must not be believed, though she affirms she heard them.

Why, do not as many as have ears hear inconsistent things said every day?

and must every body needs lie, who reports them again? That inconsistency

of the words is, in truth, an argument, that these things were said; for

what bids fairer for adding to the desire she had of being a Catholic,

and of giving her the terrible agonies she felt? But after all, if the

answerer’s quarrel be in earnest with the bishop, it is pity they should

fall out for such a trifle. As weak as the bishop was, and as strong as

our answerer makes his inconsistencies appear, I dare answer for him, he

meant nothing less than to convert her.

You do ill therefore, to play the bully with a peaceable old gentleman,

who only desired to possess his conscience and his bishopric in peace,

without offence to any man, either of the Catholic church, or that of

England.

But if he held, that both churches were so far parts of the Catholic,

that there was no necessity of going from one church to another to be

saved, if he asserted that you say, he must overthrow the necessity of

your Reformation; and then down goes his belief of your homilies and

articles, (thirty-nine at a tip,) and consequently he could be no true

member of the church of England.

And now what can I do more for the poor bishop? for most certainly he

did imply thus much in saying, that “if he had been bred a Catholic, he

would not change his religion.” Therefore, Take him, Topham![74] there’s

no help, but he must be turned out of the church of England, even so long

after he has been dead.

In the mean time, let us a little examine this proposition. Our answerer

affirms, “That he cannot be a true member of the church of England, who

asserts both churches to be so far parts of the Catholic church, that

there is no necessity of going from one church to another to be saved.”

If this be true, then, to be a member of the church of England, one

must assert,—that either both churches are not parts of the Catholic,

or that they are so parts, that there is a necessity of going from one

to another. Of these two, the first is not for the honour of one of

the churches, and the second is direct nonsense. A necessity of change

consists not with their being both parts; for parts constitute one whole,

and leave not one and another, to go to or from. There is no church in

France or Italy, to which a Spanish Catholic can go, but what he left in

Spain; nor can he leave his own, by going to either of them. He may be

under other governors in the same church; but let him go wheresoever he

shall please, he cannot be of another, so long as he remains a Catholic.

In short, necessity of change makes it absolutely impossible for both

churches to be parts of the Catholic, and forces the church of England to

maintain—either that she is a part, and the Roman Catholic none, or else

that it is no matter whether she be a part or no; to which I wish they

may not, with the pretence of zeal for her honour, desire to drive her,

who have nothing better to say in their own behalf.

But though our answerer has laid one bishop flat, I warrant you he has

another in reserve; for now the bishop of Winchester (who, as I said

formerly, was not commended so much for nothing,) is brought back in

triumph from his palace of Farnham, to make a short end of the dispute.

At first he doubts, whether ever there were any such bishops who made

such answers; and then affirms, that he believes there never was _in

rerum naturâ_ such a discourse as is pretended to have been betwixt this

great person and two of the most learned bishops in England.

This is downright indeed; for our answerer, to do him justice, has

often collaterally accused the Duchess for her good invention at making

stories: but here is plain English upon the point. What pity is it, in

the mean time, that my Lord of Winton gives not so much as one single

reason, either for his doubt, or his contrary belief? So that having only

his lordship’s opinion, and her highness’s affirmation before me, I might

say, with at least as much good manners as that prelate, that I believe

as little of his pretended letter sent to the Duchess so long after her

decease, as he does of her pretended discourse with the two bishops.

In the mean time, what use would my gentleman here make of his lordship’s

doubts, his belief, or his affirmation? Are the embers too hot for him,

that he uses the bishop’s foot to pull out the chesnut? Suppose our

prelate had believed there were no Antipodes, is this a time of day to

give him credit? But I wonder the less why our author attributes so

much to his _ipse dixit_ upon all occasions; for the whole body of his

answer to this paper is in effect a transcript from the bishop’s preface.

He purloins his arguments, without altering, sometime, so much as the

property of his words. He has quoted him five times only in the margin,

and ought to have quoted him in almost every line of his pamphlet. In

short, if the master had not eaten, the man (saving reverence) could not

have vomited. But it is easy to be seen through all the grimaces of that

bishop, that he found himself aggrieved he was not thought on, when her

Highness spoke of the two best or most learned bishops of England; and

that his opinion was not consulted, when, indeed, he had offered it,

though unasked.

I know his defender will reply, that his lordship has modestly disclaimed

any such pretence to learning, in his preface, where he says, “No, I am

not, I know I am not, I am sure I am not the most learned bishop.” See,

how he mounts in his expressions at three several bounds. It is true,

all these asseverations, like his three _nolos_,[75] needed not; for any

reasonable man, who had read his works, would have taken his bare word,

without repetition. Yet this notwithstanding, he might have some inward

grudgings, that his pupil thought him not so great a doctor.[76]

But it is not fit that a matter of such importance should end in a bare

_Ay_ and _No_ on either side; for though the parties have been so long

dead, yet there is a witness still alive, and such a one, that all loyal

subjects are bound to join with me in prayers for the long continuance of

his life, and even for his continuance in the true religion, as far as

the English liturgy can oblige them.

The Duchess thought herself bound to make his Royal Highness acquainted

with every one of these several conferences which she had either with

archbishop Sheldon, or bishop Blandford; and that account was the very

same in substance with what she communicates to her friends in this

present paper, as he is pleased to permit me to assure the world, after

having had the honour to hear him solemnly affirm it, which puts an end

to the whole matter of dispute; and this which follows is as authentic.

The day it pleased Almighty God to call her to his mercy, some relations

of hers, who are yet living,[77] were desirous that she should speak

with the bishop of Worcester; which the Duchess did not absolutely

refuse upon their importunity, but requested the then Duke to stop the

bishop a little in the antechamber, and prepare him, according to her

directions, before he entered the bedchamber. Accordingly his Highness,

having met the bishop, acquainted him, “that she was actually reconciled

to the Catholic church:” he then enquired, “whether she were fully

satisfied in all points of the doctrine which she had embraced?” and the

Duke answered, “that she was entirely satisfied in the doctrine of the

Catholic church.” At length the bishop asked, “whether she had already

received the last sacraments of the church?” naming particularly those

of the blessed Eucharist, and the Extreme Unction; and it being replied

by the Duke, that she had received them, the bishop answered, “That then

he doubted not but that her soul was in a very safe condition.” Before

they parted, his Royal Highness told him, “That it was the desire of the

Duchess, he would not trouble her with any matter of dispute, nor offer

to pray with her; but if he had any spiritual counsel fitting for a

person in her condition, in order to prepare her for her death, he might

freely tender it:” upon this he was admitted to her bedchamber, and made

her a brief exhortation; after which, his stay there was very short.[78]

This being matter of fact, and of unquestionable truth, I hope the

answerer will acquiesce in it. What he will think of his bishop, concerns

not me; but as a Protestant, he has reason for his thanking God, that

the cause of his church does not depend on the singular opinion of one

bishop in it. It appears plainly by this relation, that the bishop of

Worcester was ignorant, almost to the last, of her conversion; so that

if that will serve our author’s turn, he is acquitted from intending

any such act of charity; but that he contributed to it without any such

intention, is apparent.

Yet our author will not so sit down; he will condemn her Highness from

her own words again; and prove, from her saying,—“that she owed the

blessing of her conversion to God Almighty,” that therefore the bishop

could have no hand in it.

What obligation has he to defend the honour of his church by a piece of

sophistry? She owed it wholly to Almighty God; for “of ourselves we can

do nothing.” But, as the answerer confesses, this excluded not her own

endeavours; God inspired her with a desire of being reconciled to his

church, in answer to her frequent prayers,—not by immediate illumination,

or shewing her the right belief miraculously, but by affording her the

ordinary means, and conducting her by his good spirit in the use of

them. If she had been immediately enlightened, she needed not to have

recourse to any of the bishops; but it pleased God, who often works good

out of evil, that the arguments they used, or rather the answers which

they made, produced a contrary effect, and added more to the desire she

had to be a Catholic: in this sense, therefore, it may be said, that the

bishops sent her to the priest; for an unresistable, overruling power

made them contribute to her change, by opposing it; and the very hands

which laboured to hold her fast in the Protestant persuasion, carried

her half seas over, and put her into other hands, which carried her the

other half. Truly they would have received hard measure, if they had been

found guilty on the statute of persuasion, who, far from endeavouring

to make her change, dissuaded her from changing, though the Protestant

flints happened to strike Catholic fire; so that I cannot but think there

was an extraordinary hand of Providence in her case, and of which she

had reason to be extraordinary sensible. But we must have, I perceive, a

care of praying, and owning benefits from God; for that, or nothing, made

her pass for an enthusiast with the answerer; she did nothing besides

praying, which our author does not acknowledge it her duty to have done.

She read the history which was put into her hands, to confirm her in her

first belief; she examined the scripture; she conferred with her divines;

and yet he can make an obstinate woman of her, for doing that very thing

to which he would advise her. “But,” says our author, “all pretenders to

enthusiasm do as solemnly and wholly ascribe the blessing to Almighty

God, and look on it as the effects of such prayers as she made to him in

France and Flanders.”

They ascribe it indeed wholly to God in our author’s sense, but not in

her’s; for she meant not immediate illumination by the word _wholly_, as

I have already proved; they may look on their false light as the effect

of their prayers; but she looks on her conversion as the effect of her’s,

after having used the means.

“He had thought,” he says, “that the pretence to a private spirit, or

enthusiasm,” (for he joins them both afterwards,) “had not been at this

time allowed in the church of Rome.”

Somebody once thought otherwise, or he had never diverted the young

gallants of the town with his merry book, concerning the fanaticism of

the church of Rome.

He next enquires, what need she had of an infallible church, if she owed

her change so wholly to Almighty God?

_Wholly_ is already explained to him, and then his argument is of no

more force against her, than against all Catholics who have once been

Protestants; which is a new subject of dispute, and foreign to the

argument in hand.

“Her conclusion,” as he tells us, “is, that she would never have changed,

if she could have saved her soul otherwise;” whereupon he infers, “if

this were true, she had good reason for her change; if it were not true,

(as most certainly it was not,) she had none.”

But her words (which he hath falsified in this place) are these: “I would

never have changed, if I had thought it possible to have saved my soul

otherwise.” He never misquotes without design. Now by altering these

words—_if I had thought it possible to save my soul_, into these—_if I

could have saved my soul_, he would shuffle off her true meaning; which

was, that her conscience obliged her to this change. And that is a

point he would not willingly have touched; for he cannot deny, upon his

own principles, but that, after having examined the scriptures, as she

professes to have done as well as she was able, concerning the points in

dispute, and afterwards using the assistance of her spiritual guides, the

two bishops, she was to judge for herself in the last resort; and the

judgment she made, according to her conscience, was, that the scripture

spoke clearly in behalf of the Catholic church, or church of Rome, as he

calls it: therefore, according to his principles, and her conscience, she

was to be of that church, of whose truth she was thus convinced; so that

whether she could be otherwise saved or no, was not the proposition to be

advanced, but whether she thought it possible to be otherwise saved. And

therefore, though it were true that she could otherwise be saved, yet she

had a sufficient reason for her change, (though he says she had none,)

which was, her conscience; and supposing that were erroneous, yet, upon

his principles, she must be the judge of it without appeal.

“Her scruples began upon reading Dr Heylin’s ‘History of the

Reformation;’ and there she found such abominable sacrilege upon Harry

the Eighth’s divorce, King Edward’s minority, and Queen Elizabeth’s

succession, that she could not believe the Holy Ghost could ever be in

such councils.” Thus he compendiously quotes her paper, as being, it

seems, ashamed of the particulars therein mentioned; but for once I will

follow him his own way.

To read Dr Heylin’s history, in order to settle her, he confesses, was

none of the best advices given to such a person. He is much in the

right on’t, as appears by the success; and I add, nor any other, either

Protestant or Catholic writer then extant; for no paint is capable of

making lovely the hideous face of the pretended Reformation. “But,”

says he, “there are two distinct parts in the history of it, the one

ecclesiastical, the other political; the first built on scripture,

antiquity, and the rights of particular churches; the other on such

maxims as are common to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who

labour to turn all revolutions and changes to their own advantage.”

But why might not her Highness consider it her own way, which is that

of nature, in the causes which produced it, and the effects which it

produced; though I doubt not but she considered it his way too, because a

child could not have missed it, that very distinction being inserted into

the history by the author himself. Now the immediate cause which produced

the separation of Harry the Eighth from the church of Rome, was the

refusal of the Pope to grant him a divorce from his first wife, and to

gratify his desires in a dispensation for a second marriage. Neither the

answerer, nor I, nor any man, can carry it so high as the original cause

with any certainty; for the king only knew whether it was conscience

and love, or love alone, which moved him to sue for a divorce. But this

we may say, that if conscience had any part in it, she had taken a long

nap of almost twenty years together before she awakened, and perhaps had

slept on till doomsday, if Anne Bolleyn, or some other fair lady, had not

given her a jog: so the satisfying of an inordinate and a brutal passion

cannot be denied to have had a great share at least in the production of

that schism, which led the very way to our pretended Reformation; for

breaking the unity of Christ’s church was the foundation of it.

I pass over the manner of those first proceedings, and the degrees by

which they came to terminate in schism, though I doubt not but her

Highness was sufficiently scandalized in both, and could not also

but observe some of the concomitant causes, as revenge, ambition, and

covetousness; all which, and others, drew with a strong bias towards

it. But the immediate effects, even of this schism, were sacrilege, and

a bloody persecution of such as denied the king’s supremacy in matters

wholly spiritual; which no layman, no king of Israel, ever exercised, as

is observed by my Lord Herbert[79]. As for the Reformation itself, what

that produced is full as obvious in the sequel of history, where we find

that chanteries and hospitals, undevoured by Henry the Eighth, were left

only to be morsels for Edward the Sixth, or rather for his ministers

of state; and the reason was given, that the revenues of them were

fruitlessly spent on those who said prayers for the dead. Now this was as

naturally produced from the Reformation, as an effect is from the cause;

so that, as it is observed by some, had that young king reigned any

considerable time longer, the church of England had been left the poorest

of any one in Christendom; the rich bishopric of Durham having been much

retrenched by him, and it is probable those of Rochester and Westminster.

Harry the Eighth had indeed eaten so much of the church’s bread out of

his son’s mouth beforehand, that even Calvin complains of it in a letter

to Cranmer, (concerning the paucity of good pastors in England,) in these

words: _Unum apertum obstaculum esse intelligo, quod prædæ expositi sunt

ecclesiæ redditus_; “one open obstacle I find to this, (he meaneth the

increase of good pastors,) is, that your church revenues are exposed to

rapine.”

Besides these things, what an usurpation this change of religion caused

is most notorious; that of the Lady Jane Gray being evidently grounded on

the testament of Edward the Sixth, by which she was made his successor,

because she was of the Protestant religion.

As for the title of Queen Elizabeth to the crown, the histories lie

open; and I shall not be over-forward to meddle with the rights of

princes, especially since the answerer has avoided that dispute. It is

enough in general to say, that her interest carried her against the

Pope, whose power if good, she was illegitimate. She had also been

informed by the English resident at Rome, that the Pope expected she

should acknowledge her crown from him, and not take upon her to be queen

without his leave. These were strong solicitations, in a new unsettled

succession, for her to shake off a religion, whereof his Holiness is head

on earth. What matter of conscience was in the case, I say not; but her

temporal interest lies bare-faced and uppermost to view, in reassuming

of the supremacy, and (to make the breach yet wider) in subverting the

foundations of the faith. For the affront is the same, to turn round

a man’s hat, and to strike him on the face; but the advantage is the

greater in a lusty blow.

But the handle by which our answerer would have the Reformation taken,

is not by the causes and effects, the means and management, and indeed

the whole series of history: these are nothing to concern his present

enquiry, though they raised such scruples in the Duchess, and will

do in any other conscientious reader; he will have the Reformation

considered his own way, that is, in the political part of it, and the

ecclesiastical. Now the political part (if you observe him,) he gives for

gone at the first dash: “It was grounded,” he says, “on such maxims as

are common to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who labour to

turn all revolutions and changes to their own advantage.”

That is, it is common for statesmen to be atheists at the bottom; to be

seemingly of that religion which is most for their interest; to crush

and ruin that from which they have no future prospect of advantage,

and to join with its most inveterate enemies, without consideration of

their king’s interest: and this was the case of the Duke of Somerset.

All which together amounts to this; that it is no matter by what means a

Reformation be compassed, by what instruments it be brought to pass, or

with what design, though all these be never so ungodly; it is enough if

the Reformation itself be made by the legislative power of the land. The

matter of fact then is given up, only it is faced with recriminations;

that Alexander the Sixth, for example, was as wicked a Pope as King Henry

was a king: as if any Catholic denied, that God Almighty, for causes

best known to his divine wisdom, has not sometimes permitted impious men

to sit in that supreme seat, and even to intrude into it by unlawful

means. That Alexander the Sixth was one of the worst of men, I freely

grant; which is more than I can in conscience say of Henry the Eighth,

who had great and kingly virtues mingled with his vices. That the Duke

of Somerset raised his estate out of church lands, our author excuses

no other ways than by retorting, that Popes are accustomed to do the

like in consideration of their nephews, whom they would greaten. But

though it is a wicked thing for a Pope to mispend the church revenues

on his relations, it is to be considered he is a secular prince, and

may as lawfully give out of his temporal incomes what he pleases to his

favourite, as another prince to his. But as our author charges this

miscarriage home upon some late Popes of the former and the present

age, so I hope he will exempt his present Holiness[80] from that note.

No common father of God’s church, from St Peter even to him, having

ever been more bountiful, in expending his revenues for the defence of

Christendom; or less interested, in respect of his relations, whom he

has neither greatened, nor so much as suffered to enter into the least

administration of the government.

But after all, what have these examples to do with this lady’s

conversion? Why, our author pretends, that these bad Popes, and their

ill proceedings, ought as reasonably to have hindered the Duchess from

entering into the Catholic church, as the like proceedings under Henry

the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and Queen Elizabeth, might move her

Highness to leave the Protestant.

The subject in hand was the pretended Reformation: the Duchess observed

the scandalous and abominable effects of it;—that an inordinate lust was

one principal cause of the separation; that the Reformation itself was

begun by worldly interests in the Duke of Somerset, and carried on by the

ambition of Queen Elizabeth. Have the examples produced by our author

on the contrary side any thing to do with a Reformation? Suppose, in

the first place, that she had never read nor heard any of those things

concerning Pope Alexander, or the advancing of nephews by profusion of

the church treasure; the first is very possible, and she might interpret

candidly the latter. But make the worst of it; on the one side there

was only a male administration of a settled government, from which no

state, either spiritual or temporal, can always be exempt; on the other

side, here is a total subversion of the old church in England, and the

setting up a new; a changing of received doctrines, and the direction of

God’s holy spirit pretended for the change; so that she might reasonably

judge that the Holy Ghost had little to do with the practices of ill

popes, without thinking the worse of the established faith: but she

could never see a new one erected on the foundations of lust, sacrilege,

and usurpation, without great scruples whether the spirit of God were

assisting in those counsels.

As for his method of enquiry, “Whether there was not a sufficient cause

for the Reformation in the church? Whether the church of England had not

sufficient authority to reform itself?” and, “Whether the proceedings of

the Reformation were not justifiable by the rules of scripture and the

ancient church?” I may safely join issue with him upon all three points,

and conclude in the negative,—that there was no sufficient cause to

reform the church in matters of faith, because there neither were, nor

can be, any such errors embraced and owned by it. The church of England

has no authority of reforming herself, because the doctrine of Christ

cannot be reformed, nor a national synod lawfully make any definitions

in matters of faith, contrary to the judgment of the church universal

of the present age, shewn in her public liturgies; that judgment being

equivalent to that of a general council of the present age. And, for the

third point, the proceedings of the Reformation were not justifiable by

the rule of scripture, according to the right interpretation of it by the

fathers and councils, which are the true judges of it; nor, consequently,

by the rules of the ancient church. But Calvin’s excuse must be your

last refuge; _Nos discessionem a toto mundo facere coacti sumus_: “We are

compelled to forsake the communion, or to separate from all the churches

of the world.”

“These,” says our author, “she confesses, were but scruples.” According

to his mannerly way of arguing with the king, I might ask him, “These”

what? Does he mean—these scruples were but scruples? for the word _these_

begins a paragraph. But I am ashamed of playing the pedant, as he has

done. I suppose he means—these passages of Heylin only raised some

scruples in her, which occasioned her to examine the points in difference

by the holy scripture. “And now,” says he, “she was in the right way

of satisfaction, provided she made use of the best helps and means for

understanding it, and took in the assistance of her spiritual guides.”

That she did take in those guides, is manifest by her own papers, though

both of them (the more the pity) did but help to mislead her into the

enemy’s country; but then, for our comfort, neither of them were church

of England men, though they were both bishops, and one of them no less

than primate of all England.

And now, for a relishing bit before we rise, he has kept in store for us

the four points, which, about the midst of her paper, the Duchess told

us she found so easy in the scripture, that she wondered she had been so

long without finding them. He will needs fall into dispute with her about

them, though he knows beforehand that she will not dispute with him.

This is a kind of petition to her, that she will permit him to make that

difficult which she found easy; for every thing becomes hard by chopping

logic upon it. I am sure enough, that the wall before me is white, and

that I can go to it; but put me once upon unriddling sophisms, I shall

not be satisfied of what colour the wall is, nor how it is possible for

me to stir from the place in which I am. Alas! if people would be as much

in earnest as she was, and read the scriptures with the same disposition,

the same unprejudiced sincerity in their hearts, and docility in their

understanding, seeking to bend their judgments to what they find, not

what they find to their judgments, more, I believe, would find things as

easy as she did, and give the answerer more frequent occasion for his

derision of a willing mind.

But not to dilate on that matter, I presume he will not pretend, by his

disputing, to make any thing plainly appear against her; if he can, let

him do it, and end controversy in a moment; for every one can see plain

things, and all Christians must be concluded by the scripture. But he

knows well enough there is no such thing to be performed. A mist may be

raised, and interposed, through which the eye shall not discern what

otherwise it would, if nothing but the due medium were betwixt, and the

object before it. And that is all the fruit of this sort of disputation,

and all the assistance, for which the answerer was so earnest. Upon the

whole, his mortal quarrel to the Duchess is, that she would not become

an experiment of the perfection to which the art of learned obscurity is

improved in this our age; and the honour he has done to the church of

England is, that he has used her name to countenance the defamation of

a lady. I suspected whither he would bring it, when I saw that honour

pretended in the beginning of his pamphlet. If he thinks his bishops have

reflected a scandal on his church by their discourses with the Duchess,

he ought to have proceeded a more reasonable way than to insinuate, that

she forged them, without proving it. If she had been living, and he

had subscribed his name to so infamous a libel, he knows the English of

a _scandalum magnatum_; for an inuendo is considered in that case; and

three indirect insinuations will go as far in law towards the giving a

downright lie, as three foils will go towards a fall in wrestling.

To conclude: I leave it to the judgment of the impartial reader what

occasion our answerer has had for his song of triumph at the end of his

scurrilous saucy pamphlet. I have treated him as one single answerer,

though, properly speaking, his name is Legion;[81] but though the body

be possessed with many evil spirits, it is but one of them who talks.

Let him disguise his defeat by the ringing of his bells: it was an old

Dutch policy, when the Duke[82] had beaten them, to make bonfires;

for that kept the populace in heart. Our author knows he has all the

common people on his side, and they only read the gazettes of their own

writers; so that every thing which is called an answer, is with them a

confutation, and the Turk and Pope are their sworn enemies, ever since

Robin Wisdom[83] was inspired to join them together in a godly ballad. In

the mean time, the spirit of meekness and humble charity would become

our author better than his boasts for this imaginary victory, or his

reflection upon God’s anointed; but it is the less to be admired that

he is such a stranger to that spirit, because, among all the volumes of

divinity written by the Protestants, there is not one original treatise,

at least that I have seen or heard of, which has handled distinctly, and

by itself, that Christian virtue of humility.[84]