Part 16

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.