[87] Alluding to the persecution of the Huguenots in France, after the recall of the edict of Nantes.
[88] This phrase occurs in the address of the Ministers of the Gospel in and about the city of London, commonly called Presbyterians: "Your majesty's princely wisdom," say these reverend sycophants, "now rescues us from our long sufferings, and by the same royal act restores God to the empire over conscience." This it is to be too eloquent; when people set no bounds to their rhetoric, it betrays them often into nonsense, and not seldom into blasphemy.—History of Addresses, p. 107.
[89] A gentle insinuation, that, if the sectaries could renounce the ordination by presbyteries or classes, in favour of the church of England, it would require but a step or two farther to bring them to a conformity with that of Rome.
[90] Who freed the Jews from their bondage, and gave them permission to rebuild their city and temple.—See the Book of Esdras.
[91] In his ardour for extending the Catholic religion, James II. had directed copies of the papers found in his brother's strongbox in favour of that communion, with the copy of a paper by his first duchess, giving the reasons for her conversion to that faith, to be printed, and circulated through the kingdom. These papers were answered by the learned Stillingfleet, then Dean of St Paul's. A Defence of the Papers was published "by command," of which it appears, from the passage in the text, that our author wrote the third part, which applies to the Duchess of York's paper. Stillingfleet published a vindication of his answer, in which he attacks our author with some severity. A full account of the controversy will be found attached to Dryden's part of the Defence, among his prose works.
[92] In the controversy between Dryden and Stillingfleet, the former had concluded his Defence of the Duchess of York's paper, by alleging, that "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, the Christian virtue of humility." This Stillingfleet, in his reply, calls a "bare-faced assertion of a thing known to be false;" for, "with-in a few years, besides what has been printed formerly, such a book hath been published in London." Dryden, in the text, replies to this allegation, that Duncombe's treatise, which he supposes to be meant, is a translation from the Spanish of Rodriguez, therefore, not originally a Protestant work. Montague, in the preface to "The Hind and Panther Transversed" alleges, that Dryden has mistaken the name of the author of the treatise alluded to; which was not, he asserts, Duncombe, but Allen. See the matter more fully canvassed in a note on the original passage, in "The Duchess of York's Paper Defended."
[93] Dryden is not quite candid in his statement. In Stillingfleet's answer to the Duchess's paper, it is indeed called, the "paper said to be written by a great lady;" but there is not another word upon the authority, which, indeed, considering it was published under the king's immediate inspection, could not be very decorously disputed. Dryden seizes upon this phrase in his defence, and, coupling with it some expressions of the Bishop of Winchester, he argues that it was the intention of these sons of the church of England, to give the lie to their sovereign. In this vindication of the answer, Stillingfleet thus expresses himself: "As to the main design of the third paper, I declared, that I considered it, as it was supposed to contain the reasons and motives of the conversion of so great a lady to the church of Rome.
"But this gentleman has now eased me of the necessity of farther considering it on that account. For he declares, that none of those motives or reasons are to be found in the paper of her highness. Which he repeats several times. 'She writ this paper, not as to the reasons she had herself for changing, &c.' 'As for her reasons, they were only betwixt God and her own soul, and the priest with whom she spoke at last.'
"And so my work is at an end as to her paper. For I never intended to ransack the private papers or secret narratives of great persons; and I do not in the least question the relation now given from so great authority, as that he mentions of the passages concerning her; and therefore I have nothing more to say as to what relates to the person of the duchess."
It is obvious that Dryden, probably finding the divine too hard for him on the controversial part of the subject, affects to consider the dispute as entirely limited to the authenticity of the paper, which it cannot be supposed Stillingfleet ever seriously intended to impeach.