Bossuet was Bishop of Condom, but resigned that
office on being appointed tutor to the Dauphin : in
1 68 1 he was made Bishop of Meaux. Bossuet was a
controversialist of the highest skill, Hallam's description
of him as " the eagle of Meaux, lordly of form, fierce
of eye, and terrible in his beak and claw," is well known.
It says something for Wake's learning and confidence
in his own learning that at thirty he should have
crossed swords with so doughty a foe. It fell out
thus : Bossuet had put forth a work called An Exposition
of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church, with the object
of grounding the celebrated Turenne in the Romish
creed. In its original form it wanted, as Wake
declares, the chapters on the Eucharist, Tradition, the
authority of the Church and Pope, which afterwards
appeared as part of it, and generally stated the Roman
creed in terms as little likely to offend Protestants as
possible. But it got the approval of the Archbishop
of Rheims and nine other bishops. Bossuet however
wanted more, and just before the general issue of the
work applied to the Sorbonne for its imprimatur
But the theologians of the Sorbonne instead of this
marked several passages as being so incomplete as to
be a perversion of the true Roman doctrine. The
first impression was hastily suppressed ; the defective
passages were omitted or corrected, and with all speed a
new edition was issued as if there had been no earlier
one. But somehow Wake had got into his hands a copy
of the first impression, marked, as he says, by the doctors
of the Sorbonne.
