nor has the Author perhaps been fufficiently careful to adjust his remarks upon them to the prefent period, fo as to avoid the imputation of anachronisms.

The Free and Candid Difquifitions, and afterwards the Efay on Spirit, gave occafion to feveral little pamphlets on the fubject of a review of our public fervice, and to the difcuffion of feveral particular points, which were fuppofed to be proper objects of it. And at the fame time, when cards were not in the way, the fame topics were debated in private parties.

Into one of these the Author was accidentally thrown, where it was his hap to mention a glaring inconfiftency in the cafe of fubfcription to our established articles of rel gion. Some gentlemen of good fenfe and refpectable ftations, then prefent, expreffed the utmost furprize on the occafion; nor did a dignified divine, who alfo made one of the company, feem to have been apprized of the impropriety before it was then mentioned, though for the honour of the church, he made an attempt at a folution by that fort of cafuiftry, of which feveral famples may be met with in the enfuing difcourfes.

One of the lay-gentlemen defired to have the cafe ftated upon paper, which after fome time, was prefented to him, and makes a part of the following work, though placed at fome distance from the beginning. In going through the particulars then to be confidered, the author found new matter arifing upon him; which he purfued at leifure hours, without thinking of putting any thing into form upon the fubject immediately.

In thofe days, the two principal fees were filled with two prelates, well known, while they were in fubordinate stations, for their zealous attachment to civil liberty, and for their enlarged, generous, and Chriftian fentiments in religion; in which one of them perfifted to the laft moment of his life, and in the highest eminence of ftation, and gave proof of it in a remarkable inftance, which, when the time comes to give his character its full luftre, will do him honour with our latest pofterity.

"Here was then encouragement to venture fomething for the truth, and on that fair occafion, the author methodized and put the finishing hand to his collections. But a fudden change in the face of affairs quickly convinced him, that a publication of fuch fentiments would be now quite out of feafon.

It would certainly now be demanded, if out of season then, what is it that hath brought to light a work of this fort at a period, when there is not only fo confiderable a change in the public tafte, but when other circumftances, unfavourable to the cause of reformation, feem to diffuade an enterprize of this kind, for ftill more cogent reafons?

It

"It may look like a paradox to allege (in anfwer to this expoftulation) that there are others who can give a better account of this matter than the author himself; which however is pretty much the cafe. Suffice it to fay on the part of the author, that his principal inducement to acquiefce in the publication was, his obferving the redoubled efforts of popery to enlarge her borders, without being at the pains, as heretofore, to cover her march, and the furprizing indifference with which fome public and even clamorous notices of her progrefs were received, where, one would have thought, both intereft and duty were concerned to remark and obftru&t her paffage.'

What our Author intimates here, and in other parts of his work, concerning the fpread of popery, and the indifference of those who are principally concerned to watch her steps, and check her progrefs, is very alarming, and calls aloud for the attention of every friend to the liberties of his country. Even upon the fuppofition that what is faid upon this subject is not always fufficiently grounded, it can never be improper to have a watchful eye over our avowed and inveterate enemies, who, we well know from fatal experience, will avail themselves of every favourable opportunity to hurt us, and who are well acquainted with the various arts of feducing the ignorant and unfufpecting.

We now come to the work itself, which is divided into eight chapters; in the firft of which our worthy Author takes a fummary view of the rife, progrefs, and fuccefs of established confeffions of faith and doctrine in Proteftant churches. In the fecond he confiders the claim of a right to establish confeffions as tefts of orthodoxy, in Proteftant churches; and in the third examines, very particularly, their expedience and utility.

The fourth chapter contains a particular examination of Bifhop Burnet's introduction to the expofition of the thirty-nine articles of the church of England. Before our Author confiders his lordship's folutions of the feveral difficulties which have been supposed to encumber the cafe of our English fubfcriptions, he thinks it neceflary to give a little previous attention to the motives and reafons which engaged his lordfhip in this particular work of expounding the articles of our church.

He

In the fenfible conclufion, fubjoined to this prelate's history of his own times, his lordship has not fcrupled to declare, that the requiring fubfcription to the 39 articles is a great impofition. had exprefled himself to the fame purpose to the principal men of Geneva, with refpect to their confenfus doctrinæ, many years before he could have any view to the circumftances which gave ife to the Expofition, and that with fo much zeal and eloquence, that, according to the writer of his life, (a witnefs worthy of all belief) it was through his credit, and the weight of his character, that the clergy at Geneva were releafed from thefe fubscriptions,

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fcriptions, and only left fubject to punishment or cenfure, in cafe of writing or preaching against the established doctrine.

Thefe being his lordship's uniform fentiments, in the earlier, as well as the latter part of his life, a question is naturally fuggefted, why he should write a book, in the mean time, with the avowed purpose of making men eafy under their obligations to fubfcribe? An attempt which could have no other tendency than to perpetuate the impofition in all fucceeding times. For the point the Bifhop was to clear being this, that the articles were capable of the feveral fenfes of different Doctors, the confequence would be, that all might fafely subscribe them: which would of course fupercede the neceffity of abolishing subscriptions on the part of the church, let the impofition be ever fo grievous to those who could not come into the Bishop's expedients; and this, as his lordship had good reason to know, was

no uncommon cafe.

Whether Bishop Burnet confidered, or indeed whether he faw his enterprize in this point of light, our Author fays, cannot be determined. That there were jomie confiderations, however, which, notwithstanding the weight of a royal command, made him enter upon this talk with no little reluctance, appears pretty plainly, he thinks, from the following particulars.

1. In his lordship's remarks on the examination of his expofition of the fecond article of our church, pag. 2. we are informed that he undertook his expofition, at the command of Queen Mary; by whom he likewife fays elfewhere, he was firit moved to write it. But in the preface to his expofition, he fays, he was firft moved to undertake that work, by the great prelate, who then fat at the helm (Archbishop Tillotson) and only determined in it, by the command above-mentioned afterwards.

You may, if you please, fays our Author, call this a contradiction; to me the truth of the cafe is clearly this, that the. great prelate, unable to prevail with his friend Burnet, to undertake an affair of that nature at his own motion, applied to the Queen, whofe influence, added to his own, left the good Bfhop no room to decline the fervice, however difagreeable it might be to him.

2. The Queen and the Archbishop, dying foon after the expofition was finifhed, and before it was put to the prefs, the Bithop, as he informs us himself, "being advifed not to publifh it, by fome of his friends, who concurred with him in opinion, that fuch a work would lay him open to many malicious attacks, kept it by him, in manufcript, no lefs than f years: at the end of which interval, he was prevailed on by the Archbishop [Tennifon] and many of his own order, to delay

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the

the publishing it no longer *. To which follicitations, we may fuppofe his lordship to have given way with the lefs difficulty, as he was now at liberty to speak his mind in a preface, which it is highly probable, had never feen the light in the circumftances we now have it, if the Queen and Tillotson had furvived the publication of the expofitión. For,

3. In this preface, the Bishop takes particular care to apprize his readers," that his expofition was not a work of authority; and that in what he had done, he was, as to the far greater part, rather an historian, and a collector of what others had written, than an author himself." But what is still more, he there freely declares, the flender opinion he had of the effect of fuch expedients as he had fuggefted in his introduction. "The fettling on fome equivocal formularies," fays his lordship, “will never lay the contention that has arifen, concerning the chief points in difference between the Lutherans, and the Calvinists +." An obfervation which will equally hold good, with respect to equivocal fenfes put upon more pofitive and dogmatical formularies. In neither cafe are the men of different systems

left free, as the Bishop thinks they should be, to adhere to their own opinions :" and fo long as they are not, they will be for ever ftruggling to break loofe. No peace will enfue.

Thefefentiments, I humbly apprehend had not appeared where we now find them, if the expofition had been published as foon as it was finished. The right reverend Author would moft probably have fuppreffed them, in mere tenderness to the good Archbishop, whofe notions concerning thefe healing meafures, and middle ways were very different from thofe of Bishop Burnet. His Grace's temper was mild and cautious, even to the borders of timidity. His leading object was to keep church-matters in peace. What he thought of fubfcriptions is not very clear. Poffibly he might think they were unwarrantable impofitions, and wifh at the bottom, to be well rid of them ‡. But the virulence of the * Hift. O. T. ubi fupra.

+ See Bayle's Dia. MUSCULUS, Rem. [G]

And yet Dr. Birch, in his Life of this eminent prelate, hath preferved an anecdote, by no means favourable to this furmife. I mean that frange equivalent propofed by his Grace, in lieu of the common form of fubfcription, viz. We do submit to the dorine, difcipline, and warship of the Church of England, as it SHALL BE eftablished by law, and promise to teach and practife accordingly. This would be bowing our necks to the yoke with a witnefs. What we fubfcribe to now, is before us; and in a condition to be examined before hand. What SHALL BE eftablished hereafter, we know not. By fuch a fubfcription, a man might oblige himfelf to teach and practife popery itself: "The Church of England," faid B fhop Burnet once in a debate," is an equivocal expreffion; and if popery fhould prevail, it would be called the Church of England till." See Vox Cleri, pag. 68. Birch, Life of Tillifon, 8vo. pag. 183.

oppofition

oppofition to a propofed review of the liturgy in 1683, had taught him caution with respect to fuch attempts. His Grace mi ht, and certainly did, with to procure more liberty for himself and all honeft men, to write and speak their fentiments freely. But the articles flood in the way, an immoveable barrier to the church, a fort of a guard-boufe, to which the centinels of the hierarchy were for ever dragging poor culprits, who had ftrayed ever fo little beyond the verge of the court. All that could be done, as the cafe then flood, was to expound thefe articles fe, that men of different opinions might fubfcribe them; and by that means, be brought to bear with each other in controvertible points, and to debate matters freely, without incurring fufpicions or reproaches of herefy or prevarication. Into this fervice, I prefume, was the Bishop of Salisbury preffed by his Grace of Canterbury; and with whatever reluctance he might undertake it, we may be fure he would never mortify his friend by publicly declaring, as he does in his preface, the contemptible opinion he had of fuch expedients.

4. There is one circumftance farther to be obferved on this fubject, which is well worth our notice. Bifhop Burnet was under a greater difficulty with refpect to fuch an undertaking, than most men. The readieft way to have answered Tillotson's purpose, would have been to confider and expound this articular fyften fo, that fubfcription to it might ftand for no more than a peaceable acquiefcence, or, at moft, an engagement not openly to contradict it. But unluckily for the prefent expounder, he had long before declared in a celebrated work, "that there appeared no reason for this conceit, no fuch thing [as their being intended only for articles of peace] being declared when the articles were fift fet out; infomuch, that they who fubfcribed them then, did either believe them to be true, or elfe they did grofsly prevaricate *."

It is, indeed, highly probable, that his lordship never altered his opinion in this matter. For even when his Expofition was about to be published, Bishop Williams ftrongly recommended, that they might be confidered only as articles of peace. Upon which the late Judge Burnet, mentioning this incident in his father's life, obferves, "that there might, perhaps, be reafon to wish that they had only been impofed as fuch, but there was nothing in our conftitution to warrant an expofitor in giving that fenfe to them." His father was plainly in the fame fentiments when he fet out his Expofition; which makes it the more extraordinary, that fome modern writers fhould still contend for this pacific fenfe of fubfcription, when two fuch able judges, the one of the original intention of the church, the other of the

Hift. Reformat. vol. ii. p. 169.