fpire you with fuch refolution, as, if well on this fide heaven. Your Lordship has chosen to express some part of your grief this way, by giving the world an opportunity of grieving with you; which it will certainly do, wherever my Lady Cutts's character is truly known; and I have endeavoured to make it known in the following pages, with all the fincerity that becomes my profeffion; a quality which, I must own to your Lordship, I would not forfeit upon any account; no, not though I were fure of doing the greatest good by it. Some part of what is there written I know, and the reft I do in my confcience believe, to be true, after a very strict and particular enquiry. If I may be fo happy, in what I have faid, as to contribute any ways towards fixing a true opinion of my Lady's merit, and spreading the interests of virtue and piety by the means of it, I have all the ends I propofed to myself in this difcourfe, befides the honour of publishing to the world that I am your Lordship's moft obedient and most humble fervant, FRANCIS ATTERBURY. CHA ་ ་ CHARACTER of LUTHER, By Bp. ATTERBURY †. MAR ARTIN LUTHER'S life was a continual warfare; he was engaged against the united forces of the Papal world, and he ftood the fhock of them bravely both with courage and fuccefs. After his death, one would have expected that generous adverfaries fhould have put up their pens, and quitted at least so much of the quarrel as was perfonal. But, on the contrary, when his doctrines grew too ftrong to be taken by his enemies, they perfecuted his reputation; and *Extracted from "An Anfwer to fome Con"fiderations, &c." of which the preface has been already given at large, vol. I. p. 452. t "Ever fince I knew what Popery was, I dif"liked it; and the better I knew it, the more I "opposed it. Thirty-feven years ago I wrote in "the defence of Martin Luther, the great champion of the Reformation; and was perhaps the only Divine, or member of this Church, that "has defended him in a treatife exprefly writ for "that purpose from the infancy of the Reformation "to this day." ATTERBURY's Speech, vol. I!. P. 162. 3 by by the venom of their tongues fufficiently convinced the world, that the religion they were of allowed not only Prayers for the dead, but even Curfes too. that have engaged in this Among the reft unmanly design, our Author appears : appears not indeed after the bluftering rate of fome of the party, but with a more calm and better diffembled malice: he has charged his inftrument of revenge with a fort of white powder, that does the fame base action, though with lefs noife. It is cruel thus to interrupt the peace of the dead; and Luther's fpirit has reafon to expoftulate with this man, as once the fpirit of Samuel did with Saul-"Why haft thou difquieted 66 me, to bring me up*?" He knows the fequel of the ftory: the answer that was given was no very pleafing one; it only afforded the enquirer an account of his own discomfiture. Let us fee whether this disturber of Luther's afhes will have any better fortune. The method of the pamphlet is every way infufficient; and let the Spirit of Martin Luther be as evil as it is fuppofed to be, yet the proof of this would not blaft any one fingle truth of that Religion he profeffed. But to * Ecclef. xlvi. 20. 1 Sam. xxviii. 15. take take off all feeming objections, and stop the mouths of the most unreasonable gainfayers, I have examined even this little pretence too; and find, upon a faithful enquiry, that Luther's life was led up to thofe doctrines he preached, and his death was the death of the righteous. Were I not confined by the character of an answer merely to wipe off the afperfions that are brought, I could fwell this book to twice the bulk, by fetting out that beft fide of Luther which our author, in the picture he has given us of him, has, contrary to the method of painters, thrown into fhade, that he might place a fuppofed deformity or two the more in view. He was a man certainly of high endowments of mind, and great virtues: he had a vast understanding, which raised him up to a pitch of learning unknown to the age in which he lived; his knowledge in Scripture was admirable, his elocution manly, and his way of reafoning with all the fubtilty that those honest plain truths he delivered would bear: his thoughts were bent always on great defigns, and he had a refolution fitted to go through with them: the affurance of his mind was not to be fhaken or furprized; and that wapinoia of his (for I know not what VOL. III. G g elfe elfe to call it) before the Diet at Worms, was fuch as might have become the days of the Apoftles. His life was holy; and, when he had leisure for retirement, fevere: his virtues active chiefly, and homilitical, not thofe lazy fullen ones of the cloyfter. He had no ambition but in the fervice of God: for other things, neither his enjoyment nor wishes ever went higher than the bare conveniences of living. He was of a temper particularly averse to covetoufnefs, or any base fin and charitable even to a fault, without refpect to his own occafions. If among this crowd of virtues a failing crept in, we must remember that an Apostle himself has not been irreprovable: if in the body of his doctrine one flaw is to be feen ; yet the greateft lights of the Church, and in the pureft times of it, were, we know, not exact in all their opinions. Upon the whole, we have certainly great reafon to break out in the phrase of the Prophet, and fay-" How "beautiful upon the mountains are the feet "of him that bringeth glad tidings !” The |