362 OBSERVATIONS ON BISHOP BURNETT'S 
formerly expressed, when provoked by him. But I confess,” pro- 
ceeds he, “I had a true zeal of maintaining the honour of the work, 
and justifying it from all blemishes. I will not open so black a 
scene as to tell what pains some, who are called protestants, have 
taken to undermine the credit of the book. The three persons who 
were most concerned in it have answered it elsewhere. Two of 
them were the under-workmen to one of an higher form ; but hi- 
therto all the attempts that have been made that way have suc- 
ceeded, contrary to expectation, to the raising and establishing the 
credit of that work.”’ Burnett then proceeds to tell us that in the 
summer of 1769 he was desired by Dr. Thomas Tenison, afterwards 
Archbishop of Canterbury, to go and examine the manuscripts in 
Corpus Christi College, in Cambridge. He met Dr. Barker there ; 
and that learned society afforded him all the conveniences for read- 
ing or copying their manuscripts. He was likewise received with 
great kindness by Dr. Turner, afterwards one of the non-juring 
bishops, who not only lodged him with himself, but furnished him 
with two amanuenses, Mr. Smith and Mr. Tomkinson, who after- 
wards also refused the oaths: ‘ but they are men of truth and pro- 
bity ; and I appeal to them how faithfully every. thing was copied 
out, and how exactly all was compared.” The hands of the re- 
formers, Luther’s in particular, were very hard to read ; and though 
he had then been much practised in reading the hands of that age, 
yet he and his amanuenses were often put to guess rather than read. 
In some letters, which could not be read, Archbishop Parker had 
written their reading in the margin. That letter of Luther grew 
so hard to be read that he could not go far in it; so that he only 
copied out the beginning and the end of it. It seemed to agree so 
entirely with the method which most of the divines of the Church 
of England took, for a great while, of explaining Christ’s presence 
in the Sacrament in the term “real presence,” without using the 
word “ figure,” that “ though,” says Burnett, ‘I never liked that 
method too well—for I never cared to use the phrase of real pre- 
sence, nor avoided to call the Sacrament a figure—yet I was willing 
to show that here a way was proposed, and (as I thought) once 
agreed to, of keeping the matter in those general words. And 
thus, in compliance with a method that I had never used myself, I 
honestly published as I thought we had read it. No comprehension 
could be designed by this, but that which has been promoted by 
many of the most zealous divines of this church. The learned and 
noble Seckendorf addressed some persons to me to be satisfied con- 
cerning that letter, who directed them the best I could. They had 
