THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For SEPTEMBER, 1769.

A Supplement to the Quarto Edition of Dr. Mofheim's Ecclefiaftical Hiftory; containing the Additions and Improvements inferted in the Octavo Edition of that Work; and, among others, A Defence of the first Reformers against Mr. Hume, Some Thoughts on the prefent State of the reformed Religion, and the Influence of Improvements in Science on its Propagation, &c. And, An Hiftorical Account of the Correspondence between Archbishop Wake and the Doctors of the Sorbonne, concerning a projected Union between the English and Gallican Churches. By Archibald Maclaine, D. D. 4to. 3s. Cadell. 1768.

HE advertisement to the octavo edition of Mofheim's Ecclefiaftical History is prefixed to this Supplement, and is as follows. The favourable reception, which the first edition of this work met with, has encouraged the tranflator to employ his utmost care in rendering the fecond ftill lefs unworthy of the acceptance of the public. He has corrected a paffage, erroneously tranflated in the fecond volume, at the 574th page of the quarto edition; and he has revifed the whole with a degree of attention, which he hopes will fecure him against the charge of any other inadvertency. He takes this opportunity of acknowledging the goodnefs of the learned and worthy Dr. Neve of Middleton Stoney, who favoured him with feveral notes, and with fome hundreds of additional articles and corrections for the index. Many of thefe are inferted in this edition, and an N fubjoined to each to diftinguish them from thofe of the transla

tor *.

The editor has published apart, in quarto, the corrections and additional notes and differtations, that the purchasers of the first edition may have no reafon to complain."

These notes, and the additions to the index, are all inferted in this fupplement to the quarto edition.

Voi. XLI.

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The

The Supplement contains three appendixes, in the first of which the learned and ingenious Tranflator vindicates the firft reformers against the charge of fanaticism that has been brought against them by Mr. Hume. His defence of them is candid and judicious-Luther, Calvin, Melanctthon, Bucer, Beza, &c. he obferves, were men of learning, who came forth into the field of controversy with a kind of arms, that did not at all give them the afpect of perfons agitated by the impulfe, or feduced by the delufions of fanaticifm. They did not pretend to be called to the work they undertook by vifions, or internal illuminations and impulfes ;-they never attempted to work miracles, nor pleaded a divine commiffion;-they taught no new religion, nor laid claim to any extraordinary vocation ;-they respected government, practised and taught fubmiffion to civil rulers, and defired only the liberty of that confcience, which God has made free, and which ceases to be conscience, if it be not free.-— They maintained, that the faith of Chriftians was to be determined by the word of God alone ;-they had recourse to reason and argument, to the rules of found criticism, and to the authority and light of hiftory.-They tranflated the fcriptures into the popular languages of different countries, and appealed to them as the only teft of religious truth. They exhorted Chriftians to judge for themselves, to search the scriptures, to break afunder the bonds of ignorant prejudice and lawless authority, and to affert that liberty of confcience to which they had an unalienable right, as reasonable beings. Mr. Hume himself acknowledges, that they offered to submit all religious doctrines to private judgment, and exhorted every one to examine the principles formerly impofed upon him. In fhort, it was their great and avowed purpose to oppose the grofs corruptions, and the spiritual tyranny of Rome, of which Mr. Hume himself complains with a juft indignation, and which he cenfures in as keen and vehement terms as those which were used by LUTHER and CALVIN in their warmeft moments.

Dr. Maclaine acknowledges, that the zeal of the reformers was sometimes intemperate; but this intemperate zeal, he obferves, was the refult of that ardor, which takes place in all divifions and parties, that are founded upon objects of real or fuppofed importance; and it may be affirmed, he fays, that, in fuch circumftances, the moft generous minds, filled with a perfuafion of the goodness of their end, and of the uprightness of their intentions, are the most liable to tranfgrefs the exact bounds of moderation, and to adopt measures, which, in the calm hour of deliberate reflection, they themselves would not approve. In all great divifions, the warmth of natural temper, the provocations of unjuft and violent oppofition,—a fpirit of fympathy, which connects, in fome cafes, the most diffimilar

characters,

characters, renders the mild violent, and the phlegmatic warm, -nay, frequently the pride of conqueft, which mingles itself, imperceptibly, with the beft principles, and the most generous views, all these produce or nourish an intemperate zeal, and this zeal is, in fome cafes, almoft inevitable.

The fecond Appendix contains fome very judicious obfervations concerning the prefent ftate of the reformed religion, and the influence of improvements in philofophy and fcience on its propagation and advancement, occafioned by fome paffages in the preface to the CONFESSIONAL.

The third Appendix contains a circumftantial and exact account of the correfpondence that was carried on, in the year 1717 and 1718, between Dr. William Wake, archbishop of Canterbury, and certain doctors of the Sorbonne at Paris, relative to a project of union between the English and Gallican

churches.

I have been favoured, fays Dr. Maclaine, with authentic copies of the letters which paffed in this correspondence, which are now in the hands of Mr. Beauvoir of Canterbury, the worthy son of the clergyman, who was chaplain to lord Stair in the year 1717, and alfo with others, from the valuable collection of manufcripts left by Dr. Wake to the library of Chrift'schurch college in Oxford. It is from these letters that I have. drawn the following account, at the end of which, copies of them are printed, to ferve as proofs of the truth of this relation, which I publish, with a difinterested regard to truth. This impartiality may be, in fome measure, expected from my fituation in life, which has placed me at a distance from the fcenes of religious and ecclefiaftical contention in England, and cut me off from those personal connections, that nourish the prejudices of a party fpirit, more than many are aware of; but it would be ftill more expected from my principles, were they known,

• From this narrative, confirmed by authentic papers, it will appear with the utmoft evidence:

Ift, That archbishop Wake was not the first mover in this correfpondence, nor the perfon that formed the project of union between the English and Gallican churches.

IIdly, That he never made any conceffions, nor offered to give up, for the fake of peace, any one point of the established doctrine and difcipline of the church of England, in order to promote this union.

IIidly, That any defires of union with the church of Rome, expreffed in the archbishop's letters, proceeded from the hopes (well founded or illufory, is not my butinefs to examine here) that he at firft entertained of a confiderable reformation in that church, and from an expectation that its moft abfurd doctrines

M 2

would

would fall to the ground, if they could once be deprived of their great fupport, the Papal authority;-the deftruction of which authority was the very bafis of this correfpondence.

It will further appear, that Dr. Wake confidered union in external worship, as one of the beft methods of healing the uncharitable diffentions that are often occafioned by' a variety of fentiments in point of doctrine, in which a perfect uniformity is not to be expected. This is undoubtedly a wife principle, when it is not carried too far; and whether or no it was carried too far by this eminent prelate, the candid Reader is left to judge, from the following relation.'

We fhall conclude this article, with obferving, that fuch of our Readers as are defirous of being informed about archbishop Wake's conduct in relation to the abovementioned correfpondence, may, by an attentive and candid perufal of Dr. Maclaine's narrative, and the letters annexed to it, receive ample fatisfaction.

Occafional Remarks upon fome late Strictures on the Confeffional. Part II. Containing chiefly Remarks on the First of Three Letters to the Author of that Work. And an Examination of Dr. Maclaine's Defence of Archbishop Wake, in the Third Appendix of a Supplement to the Quarto Edition of Dr. Mofheim's Ecclefiaftical Hiftory. Addreffed to a refpectable Layman. 8vo. 3s. 6d. fewed. Bladon. 1769.

TRE a, leave the Reader at no kind of lofs to know who the Author is, and fhew, very clearly, that he is. in no one respect inferior to the author of the CONFESSIONAL. The friends to civil and religious liberty will perufe them with pleasure, and though they may, and, no doubt, fometimes will, differ from him, in fome incidental matters, which are, comparatively, but of fmall importance, will yet think themselves under peculiar obligations to him for his generous and manly defence of the fundamental principles of proteftantifm, and for fhewing the neceflity there is for a farther reformation of our ecclefiaftical conftitution, with fo much ftrength and freedom.

HE bold, fpirited, and fenfible manner in which these

He introduces his remarks on Dr. Maclaine's third appendix in the following manner: I was going on to confider what the Letter-writer hath faid on the behalf of Archbishop Wake, with respect to his tranfactions with the doctors of the Sorbonne, concerning an union between the English and Gallican churches, when, being informed that Dr. Maclaine had undertaken the

For our account of the First Part, fee Review, vol. xxxviii. p. 321.

archbishop's

archbishop's defence against the author of the Confeffional, in a particular tract, I determined to wait for its publication, and not long after received the doctor's Supplement to the quarto edition of his tranflation of Mofheim's Ecclefiaftical Hiftory, where, in a third appendix, and a feries of letters fubjoined, is contained his defence of Archbishop Wake.

Dr. Maclaine's reafoning upon the correspondence there exhibited is much the fame with that of the Letter-writer, as likewife his reproofs of the Author of the Confeffional, infomuch, that it is poffible, if not probable, they may have conferred notes upon the tubject; there is at least a remarkable refemblance in their fentiments, and even in their language, which feems ftrongly to mark congenial talents for defending fuch a cause as that of Archbishop Wake, and taking down the intrepidity of fuch adventurers as he of the Confeffional.

But as Dr. Maclaine is much the more temperate and agreeable writer of the two, and has nothing of that devotional grimace, which the Letter-writer is perpetually intermixing with the overflowings of a very different fpirit, it is much more eligible to debate the matters in queftion with him, which I hope to do without tranfgreffing thofe rules of civility and goodmanners, that ought to be obferved towards a gentleman and a fcholar, though an adverfary, at leaft in the fame degree that the doctor himself hath obferved them towards the Author of the Confeffional:

In perufing the archbishop's letters exhibited in this Supplement, I was immediately ftruck with a reflection, that if, as .was natural to fuppofe, the Author of the Confeffional had undertaken to defend Archbishop Wake against Mofheim's, or rather Dr. Maclaine's account of this tranfaction, and Dr. Maclaine had stood up to vindicate his author, and to fix the charge upon the archbishop, nothing could have been more to the doctor's purpose than thefe very letters; and I cannot but look upon the expedient of furnishing Dr. Maclaine with thefe authentic copies, as one token that the answerers of the Confeffional were taken by furprize, and determined in the conduct of their feveral defences, rather by the neceffity of anfwering an obnoxious book at all events, than by the merit and propriety of the materials employed in that fervice.

On another hand, to fome people it may appear whimfical enough, that the defence of an Archbishop of Canterbury, fufpected of Romanizing a little, fhould be committed to the care of a minifter of the English church at the Hague, against the cenfures of one who, as the ferious and folemn Letter-writer is ready to make oath, has an ecclefiaftical station and character in the ecclefiaftical church of England.'