SOME REMARKS ON DR. KENNET'S SECOND AND THIRD LETTERS. WHEREIN HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS OF MR. COLLIER'S ECCLESIASTI- CAL HISTORY DISPROVED. DOCTOR KENNET, in his Second Letter, was pleased to charge my Church History with partiality. The articles, I confess, run high, and touch an author's credit in the most sensible part. However, the instances being few, I hoped the reader would not take the doctor upon content, but examine the evidence. The bare inspecting the books, I knew, was sufficient to discover and disappoint the doctor. I chose, therefore, to say nothing under ill usage, rather than publicly engage in a squabble; but since the doctor has printed a Third Letter upon the same subject, enlarged his impeachment, and gone farther in his former civility, silence will be construed guilt, and I can be passive no longer he has dragged me into the quarrel, and I must enter the lists, though never so unwilling. The doctor begins with affirming, "their advancing their churchmen for being contenders and champions against the powers of sovereign princes, is the partial favour of their Church historian, Mr. Collier, who all along defends the prelate against the king, not only in the case of Anselm, but of that greater incendiary, Thomas Becket, whose extreme insolence upon the breach of his faith to the king and lords was, I say, it may be, pushing matters too far." To this I answer,— First. As to Anselm, though Fox discommends him for contesting with king William Rufus about the owning pope Urban II., yet, that Anselm held the right side of the quesEccles. Hist. tion, I have endeavoured to make good by several arguments, which the doctor should have disproved before the preferring his complaint. p. 297. And as for the dispute between the crown and this archbishop in the next reign about the investitures, the king was satisfied with the pope's temper for adjusting the difference, gave up his claim as to the main, and was perfectly reconciled to Anselm; and thus, excepting the stretch of the pope's pretensions, there was nothing unprimitive desired; for, that the first English bishops used to enter upon their office without an authority from the crown, shall be proved afterwards. I come now to the second branch of the doctor's charge, where he tells the reader, that "incendiary Thomas Becket's insolence and breach of faith to the king and lords" is softened almost to an excuse, and gently reproved only with a "may be it was pushing matters too far." Now, to show the doctor's net's Second talent in quotations, I shall bring the point to the test, and cite the passage in question somewhat at length. Dr. Ken Letter, p. 10. 2. Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. 1. p. 374. And here he is reported "inexcusable for traversing the ground; moving backwards and forwards, engaging and retracting, with respect to the articles of Clarendon. He was likewise to blame for quitting the kingdom without the king's leave, this being a direct breach upon the fourth article of those constitutions. Farther, his tenet, that the civil government had its authority from the Church, was a grand mistake, and misguided his practice. His refusing to return to his see upon the most advantageous precedents and the best terms enjoyed by any of his predecessors, and, farther, his breaking off the accommodation only for being denied the kiss of peace," are indefensible lengths of incompliance. And for his stiffness in these points, he is blamed even by Neubrigensis." Thus, we see, there is a direct censure upon several parts of his conduct his memory is loaded with inconstancy and breach of faith with respect to the articles of Clarendon; he is charged with maintaining a false principle of dangerous consequence : not to repeat the rest. And all this without any questioning the faults, without any softening "it may be's," or abatements for mitigation. Now, since these remarks upon arch bishop Becket were laid all together, the doctor's misreporting them in so lamentable a manner must be extremely surprising. And, to mention only one part of the censure, I can assure him, I reckon the breach of faith to a king, &c., a crime of no ordinary size; and, if I had diluted the charge, and lessened the misbehaviour in Becket, with an "It may be it was pushing matters too far," I should have deserved what the doctor would put upon me; but since all this is affirmed without any colour of truth, since the looking upon my History is demonstrative disproof, the article of misrepresenting will fall to his own share, and the charge rebound strongly upon himself. The doctor goes on, and seems surprised at my saying, "the Ibid. most unexceptionable parts of Becket's conduct may be said to have been more the faults of the age than of the man." That this remark is no compliment to the archbishop's memory, appears by what I observed, from the privileges granted the clergy by the Theodosian and Justinian codes, by the canon law in Gratian's Decretum, and by several precedents and authorities in the old English constitution: from all which there were pretty strong colours to mislead an honest mind in the question then debated, that is, the exemption of clerks from being tried in temporal courts. And now, if the doctor Collier's wonders at anybody's art or ignorance in representing the case, it must be his own. The next article runs still higher: for if the doctor may be believed, "I not only speak smoother things of queen Mary, the burner of heretics, than of our Protestant queen Elizabeth; but I really speak better of Gardiner and Bonner, papal Fox and Butcher, than of Cranmer, &c." Eccles. Hist. vol. 1. p. 373 to 375. Dr. Kennet's Second Exceptions The parallel I drew between the two queens with respect to Letter, the Church was one of bishop Burnet's objections: and, to the p. 11. answer I then returned, I shall refer the reader. And what An Answer "smooth things" I "speak" of the "burning heretics," the to some doctor knows very well, if he has read my book; and, if he has in Bishop not, I think justice should have kept him silent. However, Third Part since he prosecutes with so much warmth and assurance, tory of the I must transcribe one passage amongst others for counter- Reformaevidence. The words then are these :— "The proceedings against the reformed in this reign were extremely bloody and barbarous. To destroy people for points of mere speculation, and which have no ill effect upon practice Burnet's of the His tion, &c. p. 5. Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. 2. p. 397.382. Ibid. vol. 2. p. 393. 406. 407. and civil government, seems very remote from the spirit of Christianity. Supposing truth on the persecuting side, yet to burn a man, because he will not belie his conscience and turn hypocrite, is strangely unaccountable.” I might go on much farther to the same purpose; but this may serve for another proof of the doctor's clear dealing. And whereas he says, "I speak really better of Gardiner and Bonner, than of Cranmer, &c." I shall only desire the reader to consult the History, where, at first sight, he will plainly discover the falsehood and unbenevolence of this affirmation. His joining my historical performance with a book under public censure, without distinguishing upon the quota, and assigning the proportion to each, his making these books most remarkably "calculated for softening popery,” and bringDr. Ken- ing in "tyranny of Church and crown,”—is another instance Letter, p. 37. of the doctor's temper. net's Second 38. Dr. Ken net's Third p. 7. But all this coming without any pretence of proof as to my particular, and that which follows being nothing but naked invective, nothing but rambling and railing, I shall consider it no farther. And as I have meddled with nothing in the doctor's second letter, but what relates to myself, I shall confine my remarks upon his third within the same compass. And here the first thing I shall observe is his flourish upon Wickliff's character: he commends him for his honesty, but offers nothing to make it out: he says he "left several judicious and zealous followers," meaning the Lollards. That Letter, &c. these Lollards maintained their opinions with a great deal of zeal, or heat, is beyond dispute: their remonstrance to the parliament, the rebellion under sir John Oldcastle, to mention nothing more, is sufficient warrant for this part of their character: but that their judgment was far short of their vigour is pretty plain from their declaring war and capital punishment utterly unlawful. Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. 1. p. 598. 632. 645. 646. vol. 2. Pref. p. 8. Spelman, Conc. vol. 2. p. 646. et deinc. Dr. Kennet, ibid. p. 9. Besides, their pretending a divine commission for publishing this false doctrine is no good evidence for their honesty. The doctor goes on with his commendation, and makes Wickliff the glory of our nation, and the honour of our mother Oxford, with some other exalted strains of panegyric. Now, not to repeat the heterodoxies charged upon Wickliff, and the authorities for proof, which the reader may see in the first |