IV.

ing little books and tracts in the English tongue. It is CHAP. added, that these books contained heresies, errors, and things sounding ill against the determination of holy mother Church, and contrary to the orthodox faith. So that our Bishop seems to have been prosecuted on this constitution, which, as has been already observed, was intended as a net to catch whomsoever the ruling Clergy did not like.

of a Trea

Hist. Wic

65. Father Parsons charges our Bishop with denying Third Part expressly three articles of the Creed, and Archdeacon tise, &c. p. Harpsfield accuses his Lordship of taking away four arti- 266. cles from the holy Creed; the falseness of both which dis- lif, p. 719. agreeing testimonies is very obvious, by what has been already said. The former of these writers accuses Mr. Fox in very coarse language of great impudence and folly, for intimating that our Bishop repented him afterward of his recantation. But it is very plain that his Lordship's abjuration was the effect of force, and not of choice; and so it seems to have been then understood by the Bishop's adversaries. Otherwise they would not very probably have been so zealous for his deprivation, as to assert, that it would be to the great jeopardy of the realm, if he was not put from his see. But thus do the delegates, commis- Certificatio sioned by the King to advise him in this matter, represent dato regio, our Bishop almost a year after his abjuration." Foras- &c. MS. e "much as the damnable doctrine and pestiferent sect of Ep. Petro"Reginolde Pecock exceedeth in malice and horribility all burg. "other heresies, and sects of heretics, to us here before "known by hearing or writing, in the which the said Re66 ginolde destroyeth not only the power and jurisdiction "of regalia and priesthood, and so subverteth all order " and direction of the law positive and politic governance " among Christian people, as well in spirituality as tem"porality; but also despiseth and annulleth the authority "of all holy Scripture, as well of the Old Testament as "the New, impugning the principles and ground of the 66 religion and doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom, 66 among other blasphemies and detestable heresies, he

super man

Collect.

IV.

CHAP. "ascribeth ignorance and imperfection, and namely in "making the holy prayer of the Pater-noster: and over "that of his arrogant presumption reproveth the doctrine "of Moses, and other Prophets of God, and also of the

Collier's

Eccles.

Hist. vol. i. p. 675. col.

Apostles, Evangelists, and Disciples of Christ, contemn❝ing also the decrees and ordinances of general Councils, "with the edicts and holy expositions of holy Doctors, "and Fathers of Christ's Church, as well upon the Ten "Commandments, comprised in the two tables of Moses, "and the twelve articles of the faith, and seven Sacra"ments of the Church: and to speak summarily, he in"tendeth by his blasphemous and detestable doctrine ut"terly to destroy the honour and name of Christ, and to "confound finally the authority and state of Christian re"ligion." This shews, that in these deputies' opinion our Bishop was so far from having changed his mind by his abjuration, to which he was compelled by the Archbishop, as rather to wax worse and worse. Any one must observe, that the accusation here brought against the Bishop is much more heinous and criminal, than the Conclusions for which he was convened before the Archbishop, and sentenced by him to lose his bishopric, &c. But how much stretched and overloaded it is will be seen in the next chapter.

66

66. A late ecclesiastical historian very rashly, and without any authority, pronounces on our Bishop, that “he seems to have been a person of a floating desultory humour, and unsettled in his judgment to that degree, as "sometimes to preach and write counter to himself, and "contradict his former opinions." For proof of this he tells us, that " about two years after his maintaining the 66 seven propositions in defence of the Bishops, mentioned "before, he declaimed against the Bishops (whom he had "before defended) in the pulpit, in very warm intempe❝rate expressions; and notwithstanding he had lately dis"charged them from the exercises of the pulpit, he now "reproaches them for their omissions of this kind: is so "hardy as to affirm, that it was either their ignorance or

IV.

"their luxury that occasioned this negligence; and that, CHAP. "if they would do any good in preaching, they must re"commend those good qualities they had not the honesty "to be masters of."

of

say on the

Reason.

67. But this declamation this historian made for the Bishop, against whose memory, as a supposed heretic, he is very zealous; and interest and inclination, he knew, have a strange power in deceiving us. The good man, it Collier's Esis plain, has quite mistaken his own author, and blunders Weakness in reading, or, however, in representing what he writes. of Human Anthony a Wood, whom the learned historian quotes, re- Hist. Oxon. lates from Gascoigne, that they were the common people vol.i.p.222, who with so much vehemence, passion, and ill language, in the open streets reproached the Bishops with laziness and neglect of preaching, and insulted their character on that score. Wood indeed represents it, as if this rage the populace against the Bishops was occasioned by our Bishop's sermons. But Gascoigne tells us, that the sermons of the Bishop were no otherwise the occasion of these affronts, which the Prelates of that time met with, than as they were in defence of their Lordships, and to shew that they were by their office exempted from preaching; the subject of them being in Gascoigne's own words, de Episcopis concionandi munere liberandis. But was this otherwise, where is the probity of the historian, and his not daring to say any thing that is false, to transcribe, or rather to frame a rude invective made by the mob in the streets, and call it a declamation of our Bishop's in the pulpit? So far was his Lordship from deserving the character of a person unsettled in his judgment, that, if we may judge of him by those few of his writings which are preserved out of the common destruction of them, he was very consistent with himself. It was indeed his unhappiness to live in such troubled and disordered times, and to have such for his judges, who, it appears, were not only very partial, but really ignorant of what they ought to have known. This was intimated by our Bishop, when he desired his writings might be examined by those who were

IV.

CHAP. well skilled in the questions debated in them. His Lordship's resolution indeed failed him at last; he had not courage and constancy enough to resist unto blood. But, as Father Paul used to say, every one has not the spirit of Martin Luther. This behaviour of our Bishop therefore does not shew that he was of a floating desultory humour, or of an unsteady and inconstant temper, but only, that when perhaps he thought he stood, he was not resolute enough not to fall.

68. Our Bishop being thus deprived of his bishopric 2, the Archbishop thought it proper to encourage such, as he thought fit for such an undertaking, to write answers to the Bishop's books, or however to the principal of them. Among these was John Bury, who styles himself a poor son and provincial Friar of the Order of the Friar Heremites of St. Austin, of which the Archbishop was the most benign conservator. He was commanded by his Grace to answer the Bishop's book called the Repressour, &c. of which I have before given so large and particular an account. This answer he proposed to divide into two parts, or books: the first of which, to use his own words, quandam disputationis formam induens mores eos, quibus Deo vivitur, e Scripturarum sanctarum visceribus ostendet exortos, should shew, that those morals, by which we live to God, do spring from the bowels of the holy Scriptures. The second was to discuss the several books of the Repressor, and to shew, that whatever is there said in the

z Quum nuper ille Reginaldus Pecocke Cicestrencis—Respon. Bury, MS. in Bibl. Bodl. B. 1. 1960. 18. being sixteen sheets of vellum in quarto, ill written with abbreviations. Bury, in his dedication of this his first book to the Archbishop, styles the Bishop nefandus ille Reginaldus: and says of him, that he brought the Archbishop and the Church into fresh danger, vobis ovilique vestro nova discrimina intulisse visus est: that exacuit calamos, libellos pinxit, grandia etiam tonavit in cœlum usque; but that at length he is justly allotted a place among the inhabitants of wretched Babylon. As to the Bishop's book called the Repressour, &c. he gives this character of it, that there are in it several heresies, and the footsteps of many errors; that he prefers the dictates of human reason in the direction of our manners to those of the holy Scripture, and blasphemes the Sacraments, corrupts the divine commands, shews a contempt of gifts, and confounds the articles of our belief.

IV.

behalf of drowsy reason, is nothing to the purpose. The CHAP. first part being finished, he dedicated it to the Archbishop, assuring his Grace that the second should follow with God's leave; but whether it ever did so, I do not know.

69. In this first book Bury tells the Archbishop, he had given sentence in the suit or cause by the sword of Solomon, which is the word of God; and observes, that the mutterers in behalf of the Bishop do almost every where blame our divines and jurists, that they so perversely expound or interpret, what in the Bishop's own words is very rightly expressed. Being therefore, he says, made more cautious by this instance, he had not translated the Bishop's writings word for word, but had mixed his English as he writ it himself, with his own Latin; so, he says, he has answered an imprudent man according to his Prov. xxvi. folly, lest he should be wise in his own conceit; and yet he has not studied to answer him in the mother tongue, which he uses, lest he should be thought like unto him.

66

66

66

5.

Prov. xxvi.

cap. 1.

70. Bury takes notice of thirteen Conclusions of our Bishop's, which he first sets down in English, and then answers in Latin. The first of these he thus represents. 71. "The ferste conclusion of Reynold Pecokke, in hys MS. p. iii. a. "book namyd the Repressor, laboryng effectually agens "the liberte of holy Scripture, ys this. It longyth not to 66 holy Scripture, nethir it is parte, for to grounde ony governance, or dede, or servyse of God, or ony lawe of God, or ony trouthe, whiche manys resoon be nature may fynde, lerne, or knowe. Thys conclusion he prov"ith thus: Every fundament shewet suffyciently by the "self for that thing, to whom it is fundament: but holy "Scripture only shewet not thus for swich laws, vertues, "and governances, wych mannys resoon may fynde: where"fore holy Scripture is not to swich a sufficient funda"ment. Example of this: My place ys founded here, and "not in anothir place; for if it were in anothir, it scode "and shulde not be here. And in lyke maneere, if this "trouthe and governaunce, that eche man schuld kepe "meeknesse, were knowe be sume othir thyng than be