[Footnote 13: Page 22.]
[Footnote 14: Burnet's "Travels.">[
[Footnote 15: Page 23.]
[Footnote 16: Burnet's account of this matter was reprinted in the Preface to his "History of the Reformation," and it contains also the bishop's rejoinder against Wharton's method of criticism in the "Specimen": "He had examined the dark ages before the Reformation with much diligence, and so knew many things relating to those times beyond any man of the age; he pretended that he had many more errors in reserve, and that this specimen was only a hasty collection of a few, out of many other discoveries he could make. This consisted of some trifling and minute differences in some dates and transactions of no importance, upon which nothing depended; so I cannot tell whether I took these too easily from printed books, or if I committed any errors in my notes taken in the several offices. He likewise follows me through the several recapitulations I had made of the state of things before the Reformation, and finds errors and omissions in most of these; he adds some things out of papers I had never seen. The whole was writ with so much malice, and such contempt, that I must give some account of the man, and of his motives. He had expressed great zeal against popery, in the end of King James's reign, being then chaplain to Archbishop Sancroft, who, as he said, had promised him the first of those prebends of Canterbury that should fall in his gift: for when he saw that the archbishop was resolved not to take the oaths, but to forsake the post, he made an earnest application to me, to secure that for him at Archbishop Tillotson's hands. I pressed him in it as much as was decent for me to do, but he said he would not encourage these aspiring men, by promising any thing, before it should fall; as indeed none of them fell during his time. Wharton, upon this answer, thought I had neglected him, looking on it as a civil denial, and said he would be revenged; and so he published that specimen: upon which, I, in a letter that I printed, addressed to the present Bishop of Worcester, charged him again and again to bring forth all that he pretended to have reserved at that time, for, till that was done, I would not enter upon the examination of that specimen. It was received with contempt, and Tillotson justified my pressing him to take Wharton under his particular protection so fully, that he sent and asked me pardon. He said he was set on to it; and that, if I would procure any thing for him, he would discover any thing to me. I despised that offer, but said that I would at any price buy of him those discoveries that he pretended to have in reserve. But Mr. Chiswell (at whose house he then lay) being sick, said he could draw nothing of that from him, and he believed he had nothing. He died about a year after."—BURNET'S History of the Reformation III, vii. [T. S.]
Come we now to the reasons, which moved his lordship to set about this work at this time. He "could delay it no longer, because the reasons of his engaging in it at first seem to return upon him[17]." He was then frightened with "the danger of a popish successor in view, and the dreadful apprehensions of the power of France. England has forgot these dangers, and yet is nearer to them than ever[18]," and therefore he is resolved to "awaken them" with his third volume; but in the mean time, sends this Introduction to let them know they are asleep. He then goes on in describing the condition of the kingdom[19], after such a manner as if destruction hung over us by a single hair; as if the Pope, the devil, the Pretender, and France, were just at our doors.
[Footnote 17: Page 27.]
[Footnote 18: Page 28.]
[Footnote 19: Page 28.]
When the Bishop published his History, there was a popish plot on foot, the Duke of York a known papist was presumptive heir to the crown, the House of Commons would not hear of any expedient for securing their religion under a popish prince, nor would the King or Lords, consent to a bill of exclusion: The French King was in the height of his grandeur, and the vigour of his age. At this day the presumptive heir, with that whole illustrious family, are Protestants, the Popish Pretender excluded for ever by several acts of Parliament, and every person in the smallest employment, as well as the members in both Houses, obliged to abjure him. The French King is at the lowest ebb of life; his armies have been conquered and his towns won from him for ten years together, and his kingdom is in danger of being torn by divisions during a long minority. Are these cases parallel? Or are we now in more danger of France and popery than we were thirty years ago? What can be the motive for advancing such false, such detestable assertions? What conclusions would his Lordship draw from such premises as these? If injurious appellations were of any advantage to a cause, (as the style of our adversaries would make us believe) what appellations would those deserve who thus endeavour to sow the seeds of sedition, and are impatient to see the fruits? "But," saith he[20], "the deaf adder stops her ear let the charmer charm never so wisely." True, my Lord, there are indeed too many adders in this nation's bosom, adders in all shapes, and in all habits, whom neither the Queen nor parliament can charm to loyalty, truth, religion, or honour.
[Footnote 20: Page 28.] Among other instances produced by him of the dismal condition we are in, he offers one which could not easily be guessed. It is this: That the little factious pamphlets written about the end of King Charles II's reign, "lie dead in shops, are looked on as waste paper, and turned to pasteboard." How many are there of his Lordship's writings which could otherwise never have been of any real service to the public? Has he indeed so mean an opinion of our taste, to send us at this time of day into all the corners of Holborn, Duck Lane, and Moorfields, in quest after the factious trash published in those days by Julian Johnson, Hickeringil, Dr. Oates, and himself[21]?