Two letters of the right reverend father in God Doctor John Cosin, later Lord Bishop of Durham, with annotations on the same. Also the opinion of the Reverend Peter Heylin, D.D. concerning the metrical version of David's Psalms, with remarks and observation upon them. / By R. Watson, D.D.

SIR,

AS I expose his Reverence's Letters to publick view, so I submit my Annotations on them to your savourable censure, which are as follow.

Annotations.

(a) AFter Sequestration of his Estate, a vast debt incurr'd for advance∣ment of the Kings Interest, the sale of most he had, in any sort of value, even to his Plate and Coach-Horses; and the Rebels plunder of what he had left, at Torrington, our Noble Lord had no fair means of subsistence for himself, much less wherewith to exercise his liberality toward the Chaplain and few Servants he had then attending on him, whom, yet notwithstanding their loss of all like∣wise

at Torrington, Divine Providence preserved then, and many years after, in their state of exile, and carried them mercifully through all the difficulties in∣cident thereunto.

(b) If we return to them in those Do∣ctrines and Practices, whatsoever they are, wherein we may, (which I will not presume to enumerate) and mode∣rate our selves, in some measure, as to the rest, by the meek Cassandrian, and Grotian Spirit of a mutual charitable in∣clination toward an amicable reunion, though they continue to exclude us their Communion, for not subscribing to those new Doctrines and Articles, we, so far, shall lay the Schism at their doors, and may rest satisfied in our persevering Members of that Primitive, and once Catholick Church, which hath prescribed an ex∣cellent Canon of Belief and Practice, un∣to us both.

(c) For what we suppose they have altered in the old Credenda, let us be so exact as we fairly may be, yet not over∣nicely Critical, lest we become uncha∣ritable; nor so fond of our own opini∣ons, as not to hearken unto the pacific language of the learned Grotius, and

other eminent persons of his temper; a List of whose Names he hath publish'd, and whom he directs us to; their search and intimacy having, perhaps, discover∣ed a better meaning than we, at more di∣stance, can apply to the Letter of their Profession.

(d) As I fear they do (though not un∣der the Anathema of Damnation, de∣nounced against Dissenters) if a strict scrutiny were made into the genuine sense of these Confessions, with other Books and Writings generally owned by them. Beside, that they meddle with the Agenda and Rites of Religion, with∣out any justifiable Call, or Commission; for which reason alone (were there no other) we ought not to join with them in their Publick Worship, or Communion.

(e) Then God may, I doubt not, ac∣cept the Will for the Deed, although we decline Communion, or Religious Com∣pliance with either party, from both whom we differ, and at many their Do∣ctrines, or Practices, we justly scruple; wherein I might well have satisfied my self, if I had been so well acquainted then, as afterward, with the learned Grotius's opinion de Christiano Segrege,

who himself, if he dyed in that state (as many, that mean thereby to reproach him, would have believed) departed, I make no question, a good Member of the Catholick Church; and so, I hope, many of us lived, when, in our state of Exile, wheresoever we found no Orato∣ries of our own, we asked admission nei∣ther into the Churches of the Roman Ca∣tholicks, nor the Temples, or Meeting∣places, of the Lay-reformed Calvinists, (for Ecclesiasticks I dare not acknow∣ledge those whom they pretend to make such.)

(f) In too many of either; whether we take them for Agenda or Credenda.

(g) Mine they never had, but wherein they had the Deans likewise, until, it seems, he chang'd his mind, and depart∣ed from his aequilibrium of Indifference, by making one Scale overmuch to prae∣ponderate the other.

(h) But I know too much, and am sa∣tisfied from others who know them bet∣ter; that if we join not with them in their Articles of opinion, (many of which they adhere to no less than those of the Christian Creed) no better Cha∣racter shall we have from them, than as

Limbs of Antichrist; and consequently of being in the same state of Damnation with him or his.

(i) Many of them in their Writings and Discourses, when not too much pro∣voked, appear more moderate (at least in their manner of expression, whatso∣ever may be in their thoughts) and ought, in Charity, to be exempted from the ri∣gour of so severe a Sentence.

(k) That resolution was sent his Reve∣rence, though I cannot say in the same hard terms; and I hope I shall not re∣cede from it, until convinced by stronger Arguments than I heard abroad, or since, at home.