PREFACE. THE Works of Archbishop Bramhall were collected, and published at Dublin in a large folio volume, in 1674-7, a few years after the author's death. In republishing them, the order, in which they were then arranged, will be strictly followed. They were divided in that arrangement, principally according to the subjects treated, into four Parts. Of the first of these, containing the Discourses against the Romanists, the present volume comprises the first two Discourses, viz., the "Answer to La Milletière," and the "Just Vindication of the Church of England from the Unjust Aspersion of Criminal Schism." The paging of the same edition is retained in the present upon the inner margin of the page. Of the two Discourses now published, the text of the first has been corrected by that of the earlier editions of the work in 1653 and 1654. Neither of these, unfortunately, was printed under the author's own superintendence; the former having been taken from a copy of his MS. procured surreptitiously, and the latter being merely a reprint by the same parties, with one and one only correction by the author himself a. They are, however, the only editions, to which any weight can be attached; since no steps were taken by Bramhall himself, beyond a general acknowledgment and this one correction, towards publishing an accurate copy of his tract; nor did the Dublin editor make use of any new materials (if any were within his reach), but contented himself with reprinting the former of the early editions, uncorrected. A similar course has been followed with the second treatise a See pp. xxvi., 45. 1. 32, 276. note u. |