Remarks on the two Papers, writ by his late Majesty King Charles C. L. II. concerning Religion. By Gilbert Burnet, D.D. 4to Hague, 1687 This was the third answer to King Charles's Tracts published in the reign of James. Of these answers Dr. Lingard appears to have been ignorant. In vol. x. p. 215, he writes thus: "A question respecting their [King Charles's Tracts] authenticity was soon raised by persons who, with Evelyn and Burnet, maintained that both papers displayed a much greater proficiency in controversial learning than the laughter-loving Monarch had ever possessed. On the other side competent judges, acquainted with the handwriting of Charles, pronounced them genuine, and, from the erasures and corrections and interlineations with which they abounded, drew the conclusion that they were not mere copies of documents presented to that Prince, but compositions of his own, which he had revised and improved on different occasions. It was speedily known that numerous conversions to the Roman Catholic creed had occurred among the nobility and the dependants on the Court: the example of the higher was gradually imitated by the lower classes; and the more zealous of the Catholic body were careful to reprint editions of the two tracts, which they triumphantly dispersed among their neighbours. But the most unaccountable thing was the torpor with respect to them of the Protestant press. During the whole reign of James nothing was published in the shape of refutation; not a writer came forward to enter the lists against the royal theologian. This was a circumstance to which James has alluded with evident marks of satisfaction."- James's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 9. In the same page is added, "There was something of an answer published by an unknown hand; but the drift of it was rather to prove that the papers were not the late King's, than any reply to the arguments in it." Reprinted in State Tracts, 1660-89. An Answer to a book, entituled, A short and plain way to the C. L. "It may perhaps be objected, that I have said nothing to the Two Mr. Huddleston's Sincerity and fair dealing in that relation. For I have been told by a person of no mean Quality and Known Integrity, who attended his Majesty from the time presently after his fall in that fatal Distemper to the last minute of his Life, excepting the space of about one half hour, when he and others were desired to withdraw, to make room for some other company, whereof Mr. Huddleston was one, that the King at that time was not able to speak three words together without great difficulty, and those so brokenly and unintelligibly that they were forced to guess at his meaning. Now let any man well consider all the Formalities and parts which Mr. Huddleston tells us he then acted, and you will scarce allow it to be done with any decency in less than an hour and a half (although nothing should have passed at that time between the King and Queen to hinder or interrupt his proceedings) and that is three times as long as he was there. But the strangest thing of all is that he puts long speeches in the King's Mouth, and makes him speak them Readily and Chearfully; whereas that Honourable Person tells me, that when he and the others went in again to the King, they observed his speech to fail more, and so it continued to his death. Now how came he to speak so well and readily then, who could do it neither before nor after ?”— Pref. A Letter to the King, when Duke of York, persuading him to return to the protestant Religion, wherein the chief errors of the Papists are exposed. By an old Cavalier and faithful son of the church of England as established by law. A single sheet. 4to 1688 Probably the same as the Letter addressed by Sir Leoline Jenkins to the Duke of York in Scotland in 1680 above referred to. CHAP. III. Of the discourses written upon the design of abrogating the penal Laws and Test. 20. Reasons for abrogating the test imposed upon all members of C. L. parliament. First written for the author's own satisfaction, and now published for the benefit of all others whom it may concern. By Samuel Parker, L. Bp. of Oxon. pp. 131, 4to Lond. 1688 See Contin. p. 50. Ath. Ox. vol. ii. col. 820. (Edit. Bliss, vol. iv. col. 820.) Born in 1640, died in 1687. A defence of the Declaration of Indulgence, or rather a defence of the doctrine of transubstantiation. This piece called forth many answers, particularly one from Burnet, written with extraordinary vigour and acrimony. See Enquiry into the Reasons for abrogating the Test, &c., infra. 21. Transubstantiation a peculiar article of the Roman catholick C. L. faith, which was never owned by the antient church or any of the reformed. In answer to a late discourse called, Reasons for abrogating the test. By teacher in London. Goodwin, a dissenting See Cat. p. 33. Contin. p. 50. I can find no notice of this writer although not a theologian κατα συμβεβηκος. “How unsuccessfully he (Bp. Parker) has managed this design of expounding transubstantiation has been shewn in a late Discourse proving transubstantiation to be the peculiar doctrine of the Church of Rome, and in the Preface to the Examination of the New Articles of the Roman Creed by Catholic Tradition."- Wake. 22. A discourse concerning the nature of idolatry, in which a late C. L. author [Samuel L. Bp. of Oxon's] true and only notion of Idolatry [in his reasons for abrogating the test, as above, No. 20.] is considered and confuted. By William Wake, M.A. Pref. pp. xvi., 96, 4to Lond. 1688 See Cat. No. 160. Contin. p. 50. Born in 1657, died in 1737. Archbishop Wake was early and long engaged in controversy with the papists; and of all the great Divines who stood forward in defence of the Church of England in that protracted and memorable contest he, after Stillingfleet, was at once the most profoundly skilled in the learning, the most acute, solid and judicious in the argument of his cause. His gentle spirit led him to be moderate; but to convince you how he really thought and wrote of the Church of Rome, I will beg leave to add one or two quotations from his works in return for yours. The charge of idolatry is repeatedly enforced by him, and that not incidentally and by the way, but directly and argumentatively. The title of one of his chapters is as follows. That the Church of Rome thus worshipping of images is truly and properly guilty of idolatry . . . . Of the Adoration of the Host he says, the Church of England, consequently to her principles of the Bread and Wine remaining in their natural substances, professes that she thinks it to be Idolatry, and to be abhorred of all faithful Christians. Of the Sacrifice of the Mass, that it both makes up the chiefest part of the Popish worship, and is justly esteemed one of the greatest and most dangerous errors that offend us. See Exposition of the Doctrines of the Church of England." Letter to Charles Butler, Esq. By the Rev. Henry Phillpotts, D.D. The question so laboriously dilated upon in Moncaii Aaron Purgatus sive de Vitulo Aureo simul Cheruborum Mosis, Vitulorum Jeroboami, Theraphorum Micha formam et historiam Explicantes, Atrebati, 1606, (of which there is an analysis in Poole's Synopsis ad Exod. xxxii.) viz. Whether the Golden Calf was set up in honour of Apis, the Egyptian god, or symbolically in honour of Jehovah, was involved in the controversy between Godden and Stillingfleet, and again in the revival of that controversy between Parker and Wake. "I shall not discuss the question of Moncæius," [who believed Aaron and the Levites to have offered relative worship only, whilst the rest of the congregation were guilty of apostasy]-says the Rev. Dr. Townsend in Scriptural Communion with God, or the Pentateuch and the Book of Job, vol. ii. p. 287-"neither shall I enquire into the accuracy of the opinion of Pfeiffer and of the majority of commentators, that it was set up in honour of Apis. I believe that it was framed in honour of the God of the patriarchs, the God of Israel, Jehovah." Our learned author has evidently misrepresented the opinion of Pfeiffer, as will appear from the following extract from his Difficiliorum S. S. Locorum Centuriæ, Ultrajecti 1704, p. 131. Eum vitulum Israelitæ non habebant pro Deo sed verum Deum representa- The first Apologists indeed exulted in a religion more dogmatical and spiritual than that of the subjects of the ceremonial law,' and zealously and severely condemned the frequent defections of the Jews, C. L. |