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NO. XIII.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM ARCHBISHOP WAKE TO MR. BEAUVOIR. March 16, S. V. 1718.

I THANK you for your account of what passed between Mons. Hop and you relating to the project of an union. I doubt that gentleman will not be pleased with it; because, indeed, the Gallican church will never unite with any church that has not an orderly episcopacy in it. I am very sorry my poor letters are made so public. public. The next thing will be, that either the imprudence of our friends, or the malice of our enemies, will print them; and then I shall have censures enough for them, perhaps some reflections printed upon them, or answers made to them; but this shall not engage me in any de.ence of them, or in taking any farther notice of them. I beg you to keep those i have written to yourself from all view; for I have no copies of them, and I wrote them as I do my other ordinary letters, without any great thought or consideration, more than what my subject, as I was writing, led me in that instant to. This is the liberty to be taken with a friend, where one is sure what he writes shall go no farther; but, for the same reason, will require the strictest suppression from any other view. I cannot yet guess what this turn means, nor how it will end; I wish your doctors could give you some farther light into it.

P.S. I entreat you never to forget me to the two good doctors, whom I love and honour; keep up the little interest I have with them. As soon as ever the present turn is over, I will write to Dr. Girardin. I hope my letters will not always be carried as criminals before the Secretary of State, though I am persuaded he bears no ill will

to me.

NO. XIV.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM ARCHBISHOP WAKE TO MR. BEAUVOIR.

April 29, 1718:

I AM much concerned to hear that Dr. Du Pin decays so fast; I feared, by his last letter, that he was sinking apace. Pray, is there any good print of him taken these last years for I have one that was made when he was a young man.

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I am sorry Dr. Piers grows faint hearted. I never thought any thing could be done as to a reformation in France, without the authority of the court; but I was in hopes the regent and others might have found their account in such an attempt; and then the good disposition of the bishops, clergy, and Sorbonne, with the parliament of Paris, would have given a great deal of spirit and expedition to it. I have done what was proper for me in that matter. I can now go no farther, till the abbe Du Bois is better disposed; yet I shall still be pleased to keep up a little esteem between those gentlemen, which will do us some good, if it does not do them any service. I am apt to think, the good old man, Du Pin, does not think us far from the kingdom of heaven. I have with this sent a letter of friendship to Dr. Piers, which you will be so kind as to send him, with my kind respects.

NO. XV.

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OF ARCHBISHOP WAKE TO DR. DU PIN, DATED Lambeth, May 1, 1719.

N.B. Du Pin was dead before it arrived at Paris.

SPERAVERAM equidem tua auctoritate, constantia, eruditione, pietate, moderatione, quæ omnia adeo in te perfecta esse noscuntur, ut vix in aliis singula, præclari aliquid ad Dei gloriam. Ecclesiæque Gallicanæ utilitatem perfici potuisse. Crediderim advenisse tempus, in quo excusso Romanæ tyrannidis jugo, una nobiscum in eandem communionem coalesceretis. In dogmatibus, prout a te candite proponuntur, non admodum dissentimus: in regimine Ecclesiastio minus in fundamentalibus, sive doctrinam sive disciplinam spectemus, vix omnino. Quam facilis erat ab his initiis ad concordiam progressus, modo animos haberemus ad pacem compositos! Sed hoc principibus seculi non arridet, unionis inimicis etiam plurimum displicet: neque nobis forte dabit Deus esse tam felicibus, ut ad hujusmodi unionem nostram qualemcunque opera conferamus. Relinquamus hoc Illi, in cujus manu sunt rerum omnium tempora et occasiones. Sufficiat voluisse aliquid in tam insigni opere, forte et semina in terram projecisse, quæ fructum tandem multiplicem proferant. Interim, quod nemo nobis denegare possit, nos invicem ut fratres, ejusdem mystici corporis membra, amplectamur.

NO. XVI.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM ARCHBISHOP WAKE TO MR. BEAUVOIR. Feb. 9, S. V. 1719-20.

I HEARTILY Wish there were either spirit or inclination enough in the Sorbonne to go on with our friend the abbe's project; but the fire decays, men's inclinations cool; the court will do nothing, and you are very sensible that without the court nothing can be done in any such affair. Nevertheless, their good opinion of the church of England should be kept up as much as possible; we should encourage them all we can to account of us as of brethren, who have only thrown off, what they are weary of, the tyranny of the court of Rome, without any change in any fundamental article, either of the doctrine or government of the catholic church. And upon this ground I shall be ready to continue a brotherly correspondence with any of their great men, provided it be done with such caution as may not expose my letters to be made prisoners to a secretary of state, a thing which can never become my character, and may carry an ill aspect, even in our own court, till the thing be rightly understood.

NO. XVII.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM THE ARCHBISHOP TO MR. BEAUVOIR. March 31, 1720.

I THANK YOU for your account of the present state of the French church. It is a very odd one indeed; but will settle into an agreement at last. When once the appellants begin to break, the court will drive all the obstinate, as they will call them; I should name them, the honest men, of courage and constancy, to a compliance.

.NO. XVIII.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM THE ARCHBISHOP TO MR. BEAUVOIR. April 19, O. S. 1720.

I PERCEIVE, by some late letters from him, Piers Girardin, that he begins to despair of the business of the constitution. He has reason; the cardinal de Noailles is ensnared, and has gone too far to retire. The new archbishop

of Cambray will be a cardinal, and this affair of the constitution must procure the calot for him. The regent himself is afraid of the Spanish party, and the Jesuits; and he will gain, or at least appease them. For all these reasons, the doctrine of the church, and the Gallican liberties, must be abandoned; and on the slight pretence of a comm'. of no esteem with the opposite party, an accommodation will certainly be made; and those who will not voluntarily go, shall be driven into it. If our poor friend be one of those who must hereby suffer, why may he not consider of a retreat hither? and since he cannot yet bring on an union with the two churches, unite himself with ours, from which I am sure his principles, aud I believe his inclinations, are not greatly distant? But this must be managed very tenderly, and rather by a kind of rallying, than a direct proposal of it. If he inclines to it, he will easily understand your meaning; if not, it is best not to go on far with him in a matter in which you will have no good success.

NO. XIX.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM ARCHBISHOP WAKE TO MR. LE CLERC.

April, 1719.

NOVUM Testamentum Gallicum, notis tuis feliciter ornatum, totum, nec sine fructu, perlegi. Præfatione tua eidem præfixa mirifice affectus sum; legi, relegi, quin et sæpius deinceps repetam. Ita me in ipso præsertim ejus initio commovit, ut veræ pietatis in ea relucentem spiritum nunquam satis laudare possim, vel animo meo satis alte imprimere.

Et quamvis in annotationibus tuis quædam liberius dicta occurrant, quæ non aque omnibus placeant, neque mihi ipsi ubique satisfaciant; fero tamen, et vel in ipso tuo a communi sententia discessit aliquid mihi invenire videor, quod ignoscere magis quam acerbius reprehendere debeam, multo minus inclementius damnare. Libertatem prophetandi, modo pia ac sobria sit, cum charitate, ac mansuetudine conjuncta, nec contra analogiam fidei semel sanctis traditæ, adeo non vituperandam, ut etiam probandam censeam. De rebus adiaphoris cum nemine contemnendum puto. Ecclesias reformatas, etsi in aliquibus a nostra Anglicana dissentientes, libenter amplector. Optarem equidem regimen Episcopale bene temperatum, et ab omni in

justa dominatione sejunctum, quale apud nos obtinet, et, siquid ego in his rebus sapiam, ab ipso Apostolorum ævo in Ecclesia receptum fuerit, et ab iis omnibus fuisset retentum; nec despero quin aliquando restitutum, si non ipse videam, at posteri videbunt. Interim absit ut ego tam ferrei pectoris sim, ut ob ejusmodi defectum, sic mihi absque omni invidia appellare liceat, aliquas earum a communione nostra abscindendas credam; aut cum quibusdam furiosis inter nos scriptoribus, eas nulla vera ac valida sacramenta habere, adeoque vix Christianos esse pronuntiem. Unionem arctiorem inter omnes reformatos procurare quovis pretio vellem. Hæc si in regimine Ecclesiastico, ac publicis Ecclesiarum officiis obtineri potuit; aut ego plurimum fallor, aut id solum brevi conduceret ad animorum inter eos unionem conciliandam; et viam sterneret ad plenam in omnibus majoris momenti dogmatibus concordiam stabiliendam. Quantum hoc ad religionis nostræ securitatem conduceret; quantum etiam ad Pseudo-catholicorum Romanensium conversionem, cæcus sit qui non videat. Sed abripuit me longius quam par esset hæc semper mihi dulcis de pace ac unione Ecclesiarum Reformatarum cogitatio, &c. &c.

NO. XX.

ARCHBISHOP WAKE'S LETTER TO THE PASTORS AND PROFESSORS OF

GENEVA.

April 8, 1719.

QUAMVIS literis vestris nihil mihi gratius potuit afferri, non tamen absque summo dolore, vix oculis siccis, eas perlegi; neque credo quenquam esse tam ferrei pectoris, qui ad ea mala quæ in illis referuntur non perhorrescat ; mireturque talia ab hominibus erga homines, a popularibus erga populares suos, a Christianis denique erga Christianos, idque, quod fidem omnem exuperare valeat, etiam religionis causa, fieri et perpetrari.

Vos interim, venerandi viri, quod vestri erat officii, sedulo præstitistis. Delegatos Ecclesiarum Hungaricarum amice accepistis. Querimoniam eorum, ea qua par erat charitate atque sympathia fraterna audivistis; nullaque mora adhibita ad remedium malis ipsorum inveniendum omnes vestras cogitationes convertistis. Per illustres magistratus vestros cæteros Reformatæ Religionis principes

VOL. IV.

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