The judgement of the late Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland 1. Of…

That which Mr. Pierce professeth, viz. That he published it to the Immortal honour of that great Prelate, doth not well suit with the expressions in the next breath, calling it an error which had possest him, and intimating it to be a retraction of his aberrations, or a penitency of his sins, which he having no sense of, or not expressing it till then, he must have contracted a great guilt all his life, both in preaching and writing to the subversion, possibly, of many. This if he had found himself guilty of, a verbal retraction would not have sufficed, but he should have given satisfaction also by his pen: His judgement having been by that transmitted beyond the Seas, which one Sermon in a Church in London, or opening his mind to a few in private, could not have expiated: neither would so good a man as he, have rested in it, but with S. Augustine humbly have revoked his error in that way also; but I believe ⟨p. 54⟩none of those pretended witnesses of his change will say that he gave them that promise or that they did so much as request it of him, though they had time enough to have wrote unto him, if omitted in the conference. And certainly Mr. Pierce, (to use his own expression) had in singleness of affection done him more right and honour, if he had left him wholly to his works; which do sufficiently testify of him, rather than thus to bring him upon the Stage after his death, and give sentence on him only upon hear-say: There being no necessity in this dispute to have so much as named him. Neither can I think those, any Cordial friends of the Bishops (as he stiles them) who have been the occasion of putting him upon it. And I do remember that the last time he was in London, he did express a suspicion of some that came to visit him, that they would by wresting his words, make some such use of them, as now appears: who proposed ⟨p. 55⟩discourses of the like subjects to him, and whereupon he did confirm at full that which had been his judgement of them formerly.

That which Mr. Pierce professeth, viz. That he published it to the Immortall honour of that great Prelate, doth not well suit with the expressions in the next breath, calling it an error which had possest him, and intimating it to be a retraction of his aberrations, or a penitency of his sins, which he having no sense of, or not expressing it till then, he must have contracted a great guilt all his life, both in preaching and writing to the subversion, possibly, of many. This if he had found himself guilty of, a verball retraction would not have sufficed, but he should have given satisfaction also by his pen: His judgement having been by that transmitted beyond the Seas, which one Sermon in a Church in London, or opening his mind to a few in private, could not have expiated: neither would so good a man as he, have rested in it, but with S. Augustine humbly have revoked his error in that way also; but I believe