APPENDIX. A circumstantial and exact account (by Dr. Maclaine) of the Correspondence that was carried on, in the years 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. Magis amica veritas. WHEN the famous Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, laid an insidious snare for unthinking protestants, in his artful Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome, the pious and learned Dr. Wake unmasked this deceiver; and the writings he published on this occasion gave him a distinguished rank among the victorious champions of the protestant cause. Should any person, who had perused these writings, be informed that this "pretended champion of the protestant religion had set on foot a project of union with a popish church, with concessions in favour of the grossest superstition and idolatry1," he would be apt to stare at least he would require the strongest possible evidence for a fact, in all appearance so contradictory and unaccountable. This accusation has, nevertheless, been brought against the eminent prelate, by the ingenious and intrepid author of the Confessional; and it is founded upon an extraordinary passage in Dr. Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, where we are told, that Dr. Wake "founded a project of peace and union between the English and Gallican churches, founded upon this condition, that each of the two communities should retain the greatest part of their respective and peculiar doctrines." 2 This passage, though it is, perhaps, too un 'See the Confessional, 2d edition, Preface, p. 76. Dr. Mosheim had certainly a very imperfect idea of this correspondence; and he seems to have been misled by the account of it, which Kiorning has given in his dissertation, de Consecrationibus Episcoporum Anglorum, published at Helmstadt in 1739; which account, notwithstanding the means of information its author seemed to have by his journey to England, and his conversations with Dr. Courayer, is full of mistakes. Thus Kiorning tells us, that Dr. Wake submitted to the judgment of the Romish doctors, his correspondents, the conditions of peace between the two churches, which he had drawn up ; — that he sent a learned man (Dr. Wilkins, his chaplain) to Paris, to forward and complete, if possible, the projected union; that, in a certain assembly holden at Paris, the difficulties of promoting this union without the pope's concurrence were insisted on by some men of high rank, who seemed inclined to the union, and that these difficulties put an end to the conferences; — that, however, two French divines (whom he supposes to be Du-Pin and Girardin) were sent to England to propose new terms. It now happens, unluckily for charitably interpreted by the author already mentioned, would furnish, without doubt, just matter of censure, were it founded in truth. I was both surprised and perplexed while I was translating it. I could not immediately procure proper information with respect to the fact, nor could I examine Mosheim's proofs of this strange assertion, because he alleged none. Destitute of materials, either to invalidate or confirm the fact, I made a slight mention, in a short note of a correspondence which had been carried on between archbishop Wake and Dr. Du-Pin, with the particulars of which I was not acquainted; and, in this my ignorance, only made a general observation, drawn from Dr. Wake's known zeal for the protestant religion, which was designed not to confirm that assertion, but rather to insinuate my disbelief of it. It never could come into my head, that the interests of the protestant religion would have been safe in archbishop Wake's hands, had I given the smallest degree of credit to Dr. Mosheim's assertion, or even suspected that this eminent prelate was inclined to form an union between the English and Gallican churches, "founded on this condition, that each of the two communities should retain the greatest part of their respective and peculiar doctrines." If the author of the Confessional had given a little more attention to this, he could not have represented me as confirming the fact alleged by Mosheim, much less as giving it what he is pleased to call the sanction of my approba Mr. Kiorning's reputation as an historian, that not one syllable of all this is true, as will appear sufficiently to the reader who peruses with attention the account and the pieces, which I here lay before the public. But one of the most egregious errors in the account given by Kiorning, is at page 61 of his dissertation, where he says, that archbishop Wake was so much elated with the prospect of success in the scheme of an accommodation, that he acquainted the divines of Geneva with it in 1713, and plainly intimated to them, that he thought it an easier thing than reconciling the protestants with each other. Let us now see where Kiorning received this information. Why, truly, it was from a letter of Dr. Wake to professor Turretin, of Geneva, in which there is not one syllable relative to a scheme of union between the English and Gallican churches; and yet Kiorning quotes a passage in this letter as the only authority he has for his affirmation. The case was this Dr. Wake, in the former part of his letter to Turretin, speaks of the sufferings of the Hungarian and Piedmontese churches, which he had successfully endeavoured to alleviate, by engaging George I. to intercede in their behalf; and then proceeds to express his desire of healing the differences that disturbed the union of the protestant tion. I did not confirm the fact; for I only said there was a correspondence on the subject, without speaking a syllable of the unpleasing condition that forms the charge against Dr. Wake. I shall not enter here into a debate about the grammatical import of my expressions, as I have something more interesting to present to the reader who is curious of information about archbishop Wake's real conduct in relation to the correspondence already mentioned. I have been favoured with authentic copies of the letters which passed 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 also with others, from the valuable collection of manuscripts left by Dr. Wake to the library of Christ Church 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 serve as proofs of the truth of this relation, which I publish with a disinterested regard to truth. This impartiality may be, in some measure, expected from my situation in life, which has placed me at a distance from the scenes of religious and ecclesiastical contention in England, and cut me off from those personal connexions that nourish the prejudices of a party spirit, more than many are aware of; but it would be still more expected from my principles, were they known. From this narrative, confirmed by authentic papers, it will appear with the utmost evidence First, That archbishop Wake was not the first mover in this correspondence, nor the person who formed the project of union between the English and Gallican churches. Secondly, That he never made any concessions, nor offered to give up, for the sake of peace, any one point of the established doctrine and discipline of the church of England in order to promote this union. Thirdly, That any desires of union with the church of Rome, expressed in the archbishop's letters proceeded from the hopes (well founded, or illusory, is not my business to examine here) that he at first entertained of a considerable reformation in that church, and from an expectation that its most absurd doctrines would fall to the ground, if they could once be deprived of their great support, the papal authority;—the destruction of which authority was the very basis of this correspondence. It will further appear, that Dr. Wake considered union in external worship as one of the best methods of healing the uncharitable dissensions that are often occasioned by a variety of sentiments in point of doctrine, in which a perfect uniformity is not to be expected. This is undoubtedly a wise 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. In the month of November, 1717, archbishop Wake wrote a letter to Mr. Beauvoir, chaplain to the earl of Stair, then ambassador at Paris, in which his grace acknowledges the receipt of several obliging letters from Mr. Beauvoir. This is manifestly the first letter which the prelate wrote to that gentleman, and the whole contents of it are matters of a literary nature.3 In The perusal of this letter (which the reader will find among the pieces here subjoined, No. I.) is sufficient to remove the suspicions of the author of the Confessional, who seems inclined to believe that archbishop Wake was the |