Ex Libris Gulielrni Kenneth
Macrorie;D.D. Episcopi Can-
•onici Eliensis qui migravit
ab L uce XVI? Kal.Och nrvcmv
anno LXXV2 oefextis suoe

iral Li'

ECCLESIASTICAL BIOGRAPHY ;

OR,

LIVES OF EMINENT MEN,

CONNECTED WITH THE

HISTORY OF RELIGION IN ENGLAND;

FROM THE

COMMENCEMENT OF THE REFORMATION
TO THE REVOLUTION ;

SELECTED AND ILLUSTRATED WITH

NOTES,

BY

CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D.

LATE MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
AND RECTOR OF BUXTED, WITH UCKFIELD, SUSSEX.

WITH MANY ADDITIONAL HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. IV.

LONDON:
FRANCIS & JOHN EIVINGTON,

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.

1853.

LONDON t

GILBliUT AND UIVINGTON, PRINTER-*,
ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.

CONTENTS OF VOL. IV.

PAGE

I. GEORGE HERBERT Isaac Walton. 1

II. SIR HENRY WOTTON Isaac Walton. 65

III. NICHOLAS FERRAR Dr. Peckard. 117

IV. BISHOP HALI Himself. 265

V. DR. HENRY HAMMOND Bishop Fell. 327

VI. BISHOP SANDERSON Isaac Walton. 409

VII. RICHARD BAXTER Himself. 489

VIII. SIR MATTHEW HALE Bishop Burnet. 521

IX. EARL OF ROCHESTER Bishop Burnet. 599

X. ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON Anonymous. 677

INDEX 727

We exhort all that desire to be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, that
they decline from these horrid doctrines of the Papacy, which in their birth
are new, in their growth are scandalous, in their proper consequents are infi-
nitely dangerous to their souls. — But therefore it is highly fit that they should
also perceive their own advantages, and give God praise that they are
removed from such infinite dangers, by the holy precepts, and holy faith
taught and commanded in the Church of England and Ireland ; in which the
Word of God is set before them as a lantern to their feet, and a light unto
their eyes ; and the Sacraments are fully administered according to Christ's
institution; and Repentance is preached according to the measures of the
Gospel; and Faith in Christ is propounded according to the rule of the
Apostles, and the measures of the Churches Apostolical ; and Obedience to
kings is greatly and sacredly urged ; and the authority and order of Bishops is
preserved, against the usurpation of the Pope, and the invasion of Schis-
matics and Aerians, new and old ; and Truth and Faith to all men is kept
and preached to be necessary and inviolable ; and the Commandments are
expounded with just severity and without scruples; and Holiness of Life
is urged upon all men as indispensably necessary to salvation, and therefore
without any allowances, tricks, and little artifices of escaping from it by
easy and imperfect doctrines ; and every thing is practised which is useful to
the saving of our souls; and Christ's Merits and Satisfaction are entirely
relied upon for the pardon of our sins ; and the necessity of Good Works is
universally taught; and our Prayers are holy, unblameable, edifying, and
understood ; are according to the measures of the Word of God, and the
practice of all Saints. — In this Church, the children are duly Baptized ; and
the baptized in their due time are Confirmed ; and the confirmed are Com-
municated; and Penitents are absolved, and the impenitents punished and
discouraged ; and Holy Marriage in all men is preferred before unclean
concubinate in any ; and nothing is wanting that God and his Church hath
made necessary to salvation.

BISHOP TAYLOR.

GEORGE HERBERT.

VOL. IV.

The world o'erlooks him in her husy search

Of objects more illustrious in her view;

And occupied as earnestly as she,

Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.

She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not :

He seeks not her's, for he has found them vain.

Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed,

And censured oft as useless.

Perhaps the self-approving haughty world
Receives advantage from his noiseless hours
Of which she little dreams. Perhaps she owes
Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring
And plenteous harvests to the prayer he makes,
Thinking for her who thinks not for herself.

COWPER.

INTRODUCTION.

IN a late retreat from the business of this world, and those many
little cares with which I have too often cumbered myself, I fell
into a contemplation of some of those historical passages that are
recorded in sacred story; and, more particularly, of what had
passed betwixt our blessed Saviour, and that wonder of women,
and sinners, and mourners, saint Mary Magdalen. I call her
saint, because I did not then, nor do now consider her, as when
she was possest with seven devils ; not as when her wanton eyes,
and dishevelled hair, were designed and managed, to charm and
insnare amorous beholders : but, I did then, and do now consider
her, as after she had exprest a visible and sacred sorrow for her
sensualities ; as, after those eyes had wept such a flood of peni-
tential tears as did wash, and that hair had wiped, and she most
passionately kist the feet of her and our blessed Jesus. And, I
do now consider, that because she loved much, not only much was
forgiven her ; but that, beside that blessed blessing of having her
sins pardoned, and the joy of knowing her happy condition, she
also had from him a testimony, that her alabaster box of precious
ointment poured on his head and feet, and that spikenard, and
those spices that were by her dedicated to embalm and preserve
his sacred body from putrefaction, should so far preserve her own
memory, that these demonstrations of her sanctified love, and of
her officious and generous gratitude, should be recorded and
mentioned wheresoever his gospel should be read; intending
thereby, that as his, so her name should also live to succeeding
generations, even till time itself shall be no more.

Upon occasion of which fair example, I did lately look back,
and not without some content (at least to myself) that I have
endeavoured to deserve the love, and preserve the memory of my
two deceased friends, Dr. Donne, and sir Henry Wotton, by

B 2

4 INTRODUCTION.

declaring the several employments and various accidents of their
lives : and, though Mr. George Herbert (whose life I now intend
to write) were to me a stranger as to his person, for I have only
seen him ; yet, since he was, and was worthy to be their friend,
and very many of his have been mine, I judge it may not be
unacceptable to those that knew any of them in their lives, or do
now know them, by mine, or their own writings, to see this con-
junction of them after their deaths ; without which, many things
that concerned them, and some things that concerned the age in
which they lived, would be less perfect, and lost to posterity.

For these reasons I have undertaken it, and if I have prevented
any abler person, I beg pardon of him, and my reader.

GEORGE HERBERT.

GEORGE HERBERT was born the third day of April, in the year
of our redemption 1593. The place of his birth was near to the
town of Montgomery, and in that castle that did then bear the
name of that town and county. That castle was then a place of
state and strength, and had been successively happy in the family
of the Herberts, who had long possest it ; and, with it, a plentiful
estate, and hearts as liberal to their poor neighbours. A family,
that hath been blest with men of remarkable wisdom, and a wil-
lingness to serve their country, and indeed, to do good to all
mankind ; for which they are eminent. But alas ! this family did
in the late rebellion suffer extremely in their estates ; and the
heirs of that castle saw it laid level with that earth that was too
good to bury those wretches that were the cause of it.

The father of our George was Richard Herbert, the son of
Edward Herbert, knight, the son of Richard Herbert, knight, the
son of the famous sir Richard Herbert, of Colebrook, in the
county of Monmouth, baronet, who was the youngest brother of
that memorable William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, that lived
in the reign of our king Edward the fourth.

His mother was Magdalen Newport, the youngest daughter of
sir Richard, and sister to sir Francis Newport, of High Arkall,
in the county of Salop, knight, and grandfather of Francis, lord
Newport *, now comptroller of his majesty's houshold. A family,
that for their loyalty, have suffered much in their estates, and
seen the ruin of that excellent structure, where their ancestors
have long lived, and been memorable for their hospitality.

1 Francis, lord Newport.'] Afterwards, in 1675, created Viscount Newport,
and in 1694, earl of Bradford: which titles, extinct in 1762, were revived in
1815, in the family of Bridgman, connected with the Newports by female
descent.

6 GEORGE HERBERT.

This mother of George Herbert (of whose person, and wisdom
and virtue, I intend to give a true account in a seasonable place)
was the happy mother of seven sons, and three daughters, which
she would often say, was Job's number, and Job's distribution ;
and, as often bless God, that they were neither defective in their
shapes, or in their reason ; and very often reprove them that did
not praise God for so great a blessing. I shall give the reader a
short account of their names, and not say much of their fortunes.

Edward, the eldest, was first made knight of the bath at that
glorious time of our late prince Henry's being installed knight of
the garter ; and after many years useful travel, and the attain-
ment of many languages, he was by king James sent ambassador
resident to the then French king, Lewis the thirteenth. There
he continued about two years ; but, he could not subject himself
to a compliance with the humours of the duke de Luines, who
was then the great and powerful favourite at court ; so that upon
a complaint to our king, he was called back into England in some
displeasure ; but at his return he gave such an honourable account
of his employment, and so justified his comportment to the duke,
and all the court, that he was suddenly sent back upon the same
embassy, from which he returned in the beginning of the reign of
our good king Charles the first, who made him first baron of
Castle- Island 2, and not long after 3 of Cherbury, in the county of
Salop. He was a man of great learning and reason, as appears
by his printed book de veritate ; and by his History of the Reign
of King Henry the Eighth, and by several other tracts.

The second and third brothers were Richard and William, who
ventured their lives to purchase honour in the wars of the Low
Countries, and died officers in that employment. Charles was
the fourth, and died fellow of New-college in Oxford. Henry was
the sixth, who became a menial servant to the crown in the days
of king James, and hath continued to be so for fifty years:
during all which time he hath been master of the revels ; a place
that requires a diligent wisdom, with which God hath blest him.
The seventh son was Thomas, who being made captain of a ship
in that fleet with which sir Robert Mansel was sent against
Algiers 4, did there shew a fortunate and true English valour. Of
the three sisters, I need not say more, than tliat they were all

3 Baron of Castle- Island '.] In Ireland. 3 Not long after.] May 7, 1629.
4 Against Algiers.'] In 1620.

GEORGE HERBERT. 7

married to persons of worth, and plentiful fortunes ; and lived to
be examples of virtue, and to do good in their generations.

I now come to give my intended account of George, who was
the fifth of those seven brothers.

George Herbert spent much of his childhood in a sweet content
under the eye and care of his prudent mother, and the tuition of
a chaplain or tutor to him, and two of his brothers, in her own
family (for she was then a widow) where he continued, till about
the age of twelve years ; and being at that time well instructed
in the rules of grammar, he was not long after commended to the
care of Dr. Neale, who was then dean of Westminster ; and by
him to the care of Mr. Ireland, who was then chief master of that
school ; where the beauties of his pretty behaviour and wit shined
and became so eminent and lovely in this his innocent age, that
he seemed to be marked out for piety, and to become the care of
heaven, and of a particular good angel to guard and guide him.
And thus he continued in that school, till he came to be perfect
in the learned languages, and especially in the Greek tongue, in
which he after proved an excellent critic.

About the age of fifteen (he being then a king's scholar,) he
was elected out of that school for Trinity college in Cambridge, to
which place he was transplanted about the year 1608; and his
prudent mother well knowing, that he might easily lose, or lessen
that virtue and innocence which her advice and example had
planted in his mind, did therefore procure the generous and
liberal Dr. Nevil 5, who was then dean of Canterbury, and master
of that college, to take him into his particular care, and pro-
vide him a tutor ; which he did most gladly undertake, for he
knew the excellencies of his mother, and how to value such a
friendship.

This was the method of his education, till he was settled in
Cambridge ; where we will leave him in his study, till I have paid
my promised account of his excellent mother ; and I will endea-
vour to make it short.

I have told her birth, her marriage, and the number of her
children, and have given some short account of them. I shall
next tell the reader, that her husband died when our George was
about the age of four years. I am next to tell that she continued

6 Dr. Nevil.'] Whose life has been written by the late archdeacon J. H.
Todd, amongst those of the other deans of Canterbury.

8 GEORGE HERBERT.

twelve years a widow : that she then married happily to a noble
gentleman8, the brother and heir of the lord Danvers earl of
Danby, who did highly value both her person and the most excel-
lent endowments of her mind.

In this time of her widowhood, she being desirous to give
Edward her eldest son, such advantages of learning, and other
education as might suit his birth and fortune, and thereby make
him the more fit for the service of his country, did at his being of
a fit age, remove from Montgomery castle with him, and some of
her younger sons to Oxford7; and, having entered Edward into
Queen's college, and provided him a fit tutor, she commended him
to his care; yet, she continued there with him, and still kept
him in a moderate awe of herself; and so much under her own
eyes, as to see and converse with him daily ; but she managed
this power over him without any such rigid sourness, as might
make her company a torment to her child; but, with such a
sweetness and compliance with the recreations and pleasures of
youth, as did incline him willingly to spend much of his time in

6 A noble gentleman."} Sir John Danvers, who was of very different opinions
from his brother, the loyal earl of Danby. He was member for the university
of Oxford in the last two parliaments of Charles I., and when the troubles
began he became an open enemy to the king, taking a commission as colonel
in the parliamentary army. He sat as one of the judges on the trial of
Charles I., and signed the warrant for his execution. Lord Clarendon says
of him, " Between being seduced, and a seducer, he became so far involved in
their councils, that he suffered himself to be applied to their worst offices,
taking it to be a high honor to sit upon the same bench with Cromwell, who
employed and contemned him at once. Nor did that party of miscreants look
upon any two men in the kingdom with that scorn and detestation as they
did upon Danvers and Mildmay." His brother, the earl of Danby, disinherited
him, but the parliament declared the will to be void. He died before the
Restoration, but his name was inserted in the act excepting him from pardon,
as if living, by which means his wealth was lost to his heir. His excellent
wife, whose influence might have saved him, was buried at Chelsea, June 8,
1627; Dr. Donne preached her funeral sermon. Sir John Danvers had no
issue by her, but by his second wife Elizabeth, grandchild and heir of sir
John Dauntsey of Lavington in Wiltshire, he had a daughter Elizabeth,
wife of the notorious Robert Villiers, second Viscount Purbeck, who professed
hatred to the name of Villiers, and took the name of Danvers. Their de-
scendants claimed unsuccessfully the earldom of Buckingham.

7 To Oxford.'] " For their education she went and dwelt in the university,
to recompence the loss of their father " (as Barnabas Oley prettily expresses
it) " by giving them two mothers." — Life of Mr. George Herbert, signat. K 9,
subjoined to his Country Parson.

GEORGE HERBERT. 9

the company of his dear and careful mother ; which was to her
great content; for, she would often say, "That as our bodies
take a nourishment suitable to the meat on which we feed ; so,
our souls do as insensibly take in vice by the example or conver-
sation with wicked company :" and, would therefore, as often say,
" That ignorance of vice was the best preservation of virtue : and,
that the very knowledge of wickedness was as tinder to inflame
and kindle sin, and to keep it burning." For these reasons she
endeared him to her own company ; and continued with him in
Oxford four years : in which time, her great and harmless wit,
her cheerful gravity, and her obliging behaviour, gained her an
acquaintance and friendship with most of any eminent worth and
learning, that were at that time in or near that university ; and
particularly, with Mr. John Donne, who then came accidentally
to that place, in this time of her being there : it was that John
Donne who was after doctor Donne, and dean of Saint Pauls,
London : and he at his leaving Oxford, writ and left there in verse
a character of the beauties of her body and mind. Of the first,
he says,

" No spring nor summer-beauty, has such grace
As I have seen in an autumnal face."

Of the latter he says,

" In all her words to every hearer fit
You may at revels, or at council sit."

The rest of her character may be read in his printed poems,
in that elegy which bears the name of the Autumnal Beauty.
For both he and she were then past the meridian of man's life.

This amity, begun at this time, and place, was not an amity
that polluted their souls ; but, an amity made up of a chain of
suitable inclinations and virtues ; an amity, like that of St. Chry-
sostonVs to his dear and virtuous Olympias ; whom, in his letter
he calls his saint : or, an amity indeed more like that of St.
Hierom to his Paula ; whose affection to her was such, that he
turned poet in his old age, and then made her epitaph ; wishing
all his body were turned into tongues, that he might declare her

just praises to posterity. And this amity betwixt her and Mr.

Donne, was begun in a happy time for him, he being then near to
the fortieth year of his age (which was some years before he

10 GEORGE HERBERT.

entered into sacred orders) : a time, when his necessities needed
a daily supply for the support of his wife, seven children, and a
family : and in this time she proved one of his most bountiful
benefactors : and he, as grateful an acknowledger of it. You
may take one testimony for what I have said of these two worthy
persons, from this following letter, and sonnet.

u Madam,

" Your favours to me are every where : I use them, and have
them. I enjoy them at London, and leave them there ; and yet,
find them at Mitcham. Such riddles as these become things
unexpressible, and, such is your goodness. I was almost sorry to
find your servant here this day, because I was loth to have any
witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed of my
coming this morning : but, my not coming was excusable, because
earnest business detained me ; and my coming this day, is by the
example of your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose early upon Sun-
day, to seek that which she loved most ; and so did I. And,
from her and myself, I return such thanks as are due to one to
whom we owe all the good opinion, that they whom we need most,
have of us. By this messenger, and on this good day, I com-
mit the inclosed holy hymns and sonnets (which for the matter,
not the workmanship, have yet escaped the fire) to your judg-
ment, and to your protection too, if you think them worthy of it :
and I have appointed this inclosed sonnet to usher them to your
happy hand.

" Your unworthiest servant,

" unless, your accepting him to be so,
" have mended him,

"Mitcham, July 11, 1607. "Jo. DONNE."

To the Lady Magdalen Herbert ; of St. Mary Magdx!, i> .

Her of your name, whose fair inheritance

Hethina was, and jointure Magdalo ;
An active faith so highly did advance,

That she once knew, more than the church did know,
The resurrection ; so much good there is

Deliver'd of her, that some fathers be
Loth to believe one woman could do this ;

But, think these Magdalens were two or three.

GEORGE HERBERT. 11

Increase their number, lady, and their fame :

To their devotion and your innocence :
Take so much of th' example, as of the name ;

The latter half; and in some recompence
That they did harbour Christ himself, a guest,
Harbour these hymns, to his dear name addrest.

J. D.

These hymns are now lost to us ; but, doubtless, they were
such, as they two now sing in heaven.

There might be more demonstrations of the friendship, and the
many sacred endearments betwixt these two excellent persons (for
I have many of their letters in my hand) and much more might
be said of her great prudence and piety : but, my design was not
to write her's, but the life of her son ; and therefore I shall only
tell my reader, that about that very day twenty years that this
letter was dated, and sent her, I saw and heard this Mr. John
Donne, (who was then dean of St. Paul's) weep, and preach her
funeral sermon, in the parish-church of Chelsea near London,
where she now rests in her quiet grave : and, where we must now
leave her, and return to her son George, whom we left in his
study in Cambridge.

And in Cambridge we may find our George Herbert's behaviour
to be such, that we may conclude, he consecrated the first-fruits
of his early age to virtue, and a serious study of learning. And
that he did so, this following letter and sonnet which were in the
first year of his going to Cambridge sent his dear mother for a
new-year's gift, may appear to be some testimony.

— " But I fear the heat of my late ague hath dried up those
springs, by which scholars say, the Muses use to take up their
habitations. However, I need not their help, to reprove the
vanity of those many love-poems, that are daily writ and conse-
crated to Venus ; nor to bewail that so few are writ, that look
towards God and heaven. For my own part, my meaning (dear
mother) is in these sonnets, to declare my resolution to be, that
my poor abilities in poetry, shall be all, and ever consecrated to
God's glory : and I beg you to receive this as one testimony."

My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of martyrs once did burn,

Besides their other flames ? Doth poetry
Wear Venus' livery ? only serve her turn ?

12 GEORGE HERBERT.

Why are not sonnets made of thee ? and lays

Upon thine altar burnt ? Cannot thy love
Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise

As well as any she ? Cannot thy dove
Out-strip their Cupid easily in flight ?

Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the same,

Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name !
Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might

Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose

Than that, which one day worms may chance refuse ?
Sure, Lord, there is enough in thee to dry

Oceans of ink ; for, as the deluge did
Cover the earth, so doth thy majesty :

Each cloud distils thy praise, and doth forbid
Poets to turn it to another use.

Roses and lilies speak thee ; and to make
A pair of cheeks of them, is thy abuse.

Why should I women's eyes for chrystal take ?
Such poor invention burns in their low mind

Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go

To praise, and on thee, Lord, some ink bestow.
Open the bones, and you shall nothing find

In the best face but filth ; when, Lord, in thee

The beauty lies, in the discovery.

G. H.

This was his resolution at the sending this letter to his dear
mother ; about which time, he was in the seventeenth year of his
age : and as he grew older, so he grew in learning, and more and
more in favour both with God and man ; insomuch, that in this
morning of that short day of his life, he seemed to be marked out
for virtue, and to become the care of heaven ; for God still kept
his soul in so holy a frame, that he may, and ought to be a pattern
of virtue to all posterity, and especially, to his brethren of the
clergy ; of which the reader may expect a more exact account in
what will follow.

I need not declare that he was a strict student, because, that
he was so, there will be many testimonies in the future part of liis
life. I shall therefore only tell, that he was made batchelor of
arts in the year 1611 ; major fellow of the college, March 15,
1615 ; and that, in that year, he was also made master of arts,
he being then in the 22d year of his age ; during all which time.
all, or the greatest diversion from his study, was the practice of
music, in which he became a great master ; and of which, he
would say, " That it did relieve his drooping spirits, compose his

GEORGE HERBERT. 13

distracted thoughts, and raised his weary soul so far above earth,
that it gave him an earnest of the joys of heaven," before he pos-
sest them. And it may be noted, that from his first entrance
into the college, the generous Dr. Nevil was a cherisher of his
studies, and such a lover of his person, his behaviour, and the
excellent endowments of his mind, that he took him often into
his own company ! by which he confirmed his native gentleness.
And if during this time he exprest any error, it was that he kept
himself too much retired, and at too great a distance with all his
inferiors ; and his cloaths seemed to prove that he put too great
a value on his parts and parentage.

This may be some account of his disposition, and of the
employment of his time till he was master of arts, which was
anno 1615, and in the year 1619 he was chosen orator for the
university. His two precedent orators were sir Robert Nanton
and sir Francis Nethersoll. The first was not long after made
secretary of state ; and sir Francis, not very long after his being
orator, was made secretary to the lady Elizabeth, queen of
Bohemia. In this place of orator our George Herbert con-
tinued eight years, and managed it with as becoming and grave a
gaiety as any had ever before or since his time. For he had
acquired great learning, and was blest with a high fancy, a civil
and sharp wit, and with a natural elegance both in his behaviour,
his tongue, and his pen. Of all which there might be very many
particular evidences ; but I will limit myself to the mention of
but three.

And the first notable occasion of shewing his fitness for this
employment of orator was manifested in a letter to King James,
upon the occasion of his sending that university his book, called
Basilicon Doron 8 ; and their orator was to acknowledge this great
honour, and return their gratitude to his majesty for such a
condescension ; at the close of which letter he writ,

" Quid Vaticanam Bodleianamque objicis hospes !
Unicus est nobis bibliotheca liber."

This letter was writ in such excellent Latin, was so full of
conceits, and all the expressions so suited to the genius of the
king, that he inquired the orator's name, and then asked William

8 Basilicon Doron.'] The original, written in James's own hand, is preserved
amongst the royal manuscripts in the British Museum.

14 GEORGE HERBERT.

earl of Pembroke if lie knew him ? whose answer was, " That he
knew him very well, and that he was his kinsman ; but he loved
him more for his learning and virtue than for that he was of his
name and family." At which answer the king smiled, and asked
the earl leave "that he might love him too ; for he took him to
be the jewel of that university."

The next occasion he had and took to shew his great abilities
was, with them, to shew also his great affection to that church in
which he received his baptism, and of which he profest himself a
member; and the occasion was this. There was one Andrew
Melvin9, a minister of the Scotch church, and rector of St.
AndrewX who, by a long and constant converse with a discon-
tented part of that clergy which opposed episcopacy, became at
last to be a chief leader of that faction ; and had proudly ap-
peared to be so to king James, when he was but king of that
nation ; who the second year after his coronation in England
convened a part of the bishops and other learned divines of his
church to attend him at Hampton Court, in order to a friendly
conference with some dissenting brethren, both of this and the
church of Scotland ; and he being a man of learning, and inclined
to satirical poetry, had scattered many malicious bitter verses
against our liturgy, our ceremonies, and our church government ;
which were by some of that party so magnified for the wit, that
they were therefore brought into Westminster school, where
Mr. George Herbert then, and often after, made such answers
to them, and such reflexion on him and his kirk, as might
unbeguile any man that was not too deeply pre-engaged in such

a quarrel. But to return to Mr. Melvin at Hampton Court

conference : he there appeared to be a man of an unruly wit, of a
strange confidence, of so furious a zeal, and of so ungoverned
passions, that his insolence to the king and others at this con-
ference lost him both his rectorship of St. Andrew"^ and his
liberty too ; for his former verses, and his present reproaches
there used against the church and state, caused him to be com-
mitted prisoner to the Tower of London, where he remained
very angry for three years. At which time of his commitment
he found the lady Arabella l an innocent prisoner there ; and he
pleased himself much in sending, the next day after his commit-

9 Melvin.'] Or Melville, the follower and successor of John Knox.
1 The lady Arabella.'] Lady Arabella Stuart.

GEORGE HERBERT. 15

ment, these two verses to the good lady 2, which I will under-
write, because they may give the reader a taste of his others,
which were like these 3.

" Causa tibi mecum est communis carceris, Ara-
Bella tibi causa est, Araque sacra mini."

I shall not trouble my reader with an account of his enlarge-
ment from that prison, or his death ; but tell him, Mr. Herbert's
verses were thought so worthy to be preserved, that Dr. Duport,
the learned dean of Peterborough, hath lately collected, and
caused many of them to be printed, as an honourable memorial
of his friend Mr. George Herbert and the cause he undertook.

And in order to my third and last observation of his great
abilities, it will be needful to declare, that about this time king
James came very often to hunt at New- Market and Royston ;
and was almost as often invited to Cambridge, where his enter-
tainment was comedies suited to his pleasant humour, and where
Mr. George Herbert was to welcome him with gratulations, and
the applauses of an orator ; which he always performed so well
that he still grew more into the king's favour, insomuch that he
had a particular appointment to attend his majesty at Royston,
where, after a discourse with him, his majesty declared to his
kinsman, the earl of Pembroke, " That he found the orator's
learning and wisdom much above his age or wit." The year
following, the king appointed to end his progress at Cambridge,
and to stay there certain days ; at which time he was attended
by the great secretary of nature and all learning, sir Francis
Bacon (lord Verulam) and by the ever memorable and learned
Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchester, both of which did at that
time begin a desired friendship with our orator. Upon whom the
first put such a value on his judgment, that he usually desired his
approbation before he would expose any of his books to be

2 To the good lady.'] Rather to her husband, William Seymour, afterwards
marquis of Hertford, who, as it is well known, was imprisoned for marrying
her without the king's consent. Arabella Stuart was first cousin to James I.,
who was jealous, and not without reason, of her rights to the throne of England.
Her story is best told by lady Theresa Lewis in The Gallery of Lord Chancellor
Clarendon and his Contemporaries, vol. i.

3 Like these.'] Fuller, in his Church History, gives the lines thus :

" Causa mihi tecum communis carceris, Ara
Regia Bella tibi, regia sacra mihi."

16 GEORGE HERBERT.

printed ; and thought him so worthy of his friendship, that
having translated many of the prophet David's Psalms into
English verse, he made George Herbert his patron, by a public
dedication of them to him, as the best judge of divine poetry.
And for the learned bishop, it is observable that at that time
there fell to be a modest debate betwixt them two, about predes-
tination and sanctity of life ; of both which the orator did not
long after send the bishop some safe and useful aphorisms, in a
long letter written in Greek ; which letter was so remarkable for
the language and reason of it, that after the reading it, the bishop
put it into his bosom, and did often shew it to many scholars,
both of this and foreign nations ; but did always return it back to
the place where he first lodged it, and continued it so near his
heart till the last day of his life.

To these I might add the long and entire friendship betwixt
him and sir Henry Wotton, and doctor Donne, but I have pro-
mised to contract myself, and shall therefore only add one testi-
mony to what is also mentioned 4 in the life of doctor Donne ;
namely, that a little before his death he caused many seals to be
made, and in them to be engraven the figure of Christ crucified
on an anchor (the emblem of hope,) and of which Dr. Donne

would often say, Crux mihi ancliora. These seals he gave or

sent to most of those friends on which he put a value ; and at
Mr. Herberts death these verses were found wrapt up with that
seal which was by the doctor given to him.

" When my dear friend could write no more,
He gave this seal, and so gave o'er.

" When winds and waves rise highest, I am sure,
This anchor keeps my faith, that me secure."

At this time of being orator he had learnt to understand the
Italian, Spanish, and French tongues very perfectly ; hoping that
as his predecessors, so he might in time attain the place of a
secretary of state, he being at that time very high in the king^s
favour, and not meanly valued and loved by the most eminent
and most powerful of the court nobility. This, and the love of a
court conversation, mixt with a laudable ambition to be some-
thing more than he then was, drew him often from Cambridge to
attend the king wheresoever the court was, who then gave him a

4 Alto mentioned.] At vol. iii. p. 6G7, and also, in the Life of Hooker, p. 540, n.

GEORGE HERBERT. 17

sinecure 5, which fell into his majesty's disposal, I think, by the
death of the bishop of St. Asaph. It was the same that queen
Elizabeth had formerly given to her favourite sir Philip Sidney,
and valued to be worth an hundred and twenty pounds per
annum. With this, and his annuity, and the advantage of his
college, and of his oratorship, he enjoyed his genteel humour for
cloaths and court-like company, and seldom looked towards
Cambridge, unless the king were there, but then he never failed ;
and at other times left the manage of his orator's place to his
learned friend Mr. Herbert Thorndike, who is now prebend of
Westminster.

I may not omit to tell, that he had often designed to leave the
university, and decline all study, which he thought did impair his
health ; for he had a body apt to a consumption, and to fevers,
and to other infirmities, which he judged were increased by his
studies ; for he would often say, " He had too thoughtful a
wit : a wit, like a pen-knife in too narrow a sheath, too sharp
for his body." But his mother would by no means allow him to
leave the university or to travel ; and though he inclined very
much to both, yet he would by no means satisfy his own desires
at so dear a rate as to prove an undutiful son to so affectionate a
mother, but did always submit to her wisdom. And what I have
now said may partly appear in a copy of verses in his printed
poems ; it is one of those that bears the title of Affliction : and
it appears to be a pious reflection on God's providence, and some
passages of his life, in which he says,

Whereas my birth and spirit rather took

The way that takes the town :
Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book,

And wrap me in a gown :
I was entangled in the world of strife
Before I had the power to change my life.

Yet, for I threatened oft the siege to raise,

Not simp'ring all mine age :
Thou often didst with academic praise,

Melt and dissolve my rage :
I took the sweetened pill, till I came where
I could not go away nor persevere.

3 A sinecure.~] The place of cup-bearer to the king.
VOL. iv.

18 GEORGE HERBERT.

Yet, least perchance I should too happy be

In my unhappiness,
Turning my purge to food, thou throwest me

Into more sicknesses.

Thus doth thy power cross-bias me, not making
Thine own gifts good, yet me from my ways taking.

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

None of my books will shew :
I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree,

For then sure I should grow
To fruit or shade ; at least, some bird would trust
Her houshold with me, and I would be just.

Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek ;

In weakness must be stout :
Well, I will change my service, and go seek

Some other master out :
Ah, my dear God ! though I am clean forgot,
Let me not love thee, if I love thee not.

G. H.

In this time of Mr. Herberts attendance and expectation of
some good occasion to remove from Cambridge to court ; God, in
whom there is an unseen chain of causes, did in a short time put
an end to the lives of two of his most obliging and most power-
ful friends, Lodowick duke of Richmond 6, and James marquis of
Hamilton7; and not long after him, king James8 died also, and
with them, all Mr. Herbert's court hopes : so that he presently
betook himself to a retreat from London, to a friend in Kent,
where he lived very privately, and was such a lover of solitariness
as was judged to impair his health more than his study had done.
In this manner of retirement he had many conflicts with himself,
whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a court life,
or betake himself to a study of divinity, and enter into sacred
orders? (to which his dear mother had often persuaded him.)
These were such conflicts as those only can know that have en-
dured them ; for ambitious desires and the outward glory of this
world are not easily laid aside; but at last God inclined him to
put on a resolution to serve at his altar.

He did at his return to London acquaint a court friend with

6 Duke of Richmond.'] Died Feb. 16, 1624-5.

7 Marquis of Hamilton.] Died March 3, 1624-5.

8 King James.] Died March 27, 1625.

GEORGE HERBERT. 19

his resolution to enter into sacred orders, who persuaded him to
alter it, as too mean an employment 9, and too much below his
birth, and the excellent abilities and endowments of his mind.
To whom he replied, " It hath been formerly judged that the
domestic servants of the King of Heaven should be of the
noblest families l on earth ; and though the iniquity of the late
times have made clergymen meanly valued, and the sacred name
of priest contemptible, yet I will labour to make it honourable,
by consecrating all my learning, and all my poor abilities, to ad-
vance the glory of that God that gave them ; knowing that I can
never do too much for him that hath done so much for me as to
make me a Christian. And I will labour to be like my Saviour,
by making humility lovely in the eyes of all men, and by following
the merciful and meek example of my dear Jesus."

This was then his resolution, and the God of constancy, who
intended him for a great example of virtue, continued him in it ;
for within that year he was made deacon, but the day when, or
by whom, I cannot learn ; but that he was about that time made
deacon is most certain ; for I find by the records of Lincoln,
that he was made prebend of Lay ton Ecclesia 2, in the diocese of
Lincoln, July 15, 1626, and that this prebend was given him by
John 3, then lord bishop of that see. And now he had a fit occa-
sion to shew that piety and bounty that was derived from his
generous mother and his other memorable ancestors; and the
occasion was this.

This Layton Ecclesia is a village near to Spalden4, in the county
of Huntingdon, and the greatest part of the parish church was
fallen down, and that of it which stood was so decayed, so little,

9 Too mean an employment.'] "And for our author (The Sweet Singer of the
Temple), though he was one of the most prudent and accomplished men of
his time, I have heard sober men censure him, as a man that did not manage
his brave parts to his best advantage and preferment, but lost himself in an
humble way. That was the phrase, I well remember." — Life of Mr. George
Herbert by Barnabas Oley, prefixed to his Country Parson.

1 Of the noblest families^ Compare Christian Institutes, vol. iii. p. 348 ;
Barrow, and n.

2 Layton Ecclesia.'] Leighton, in Huntingdonshire, five and a half miles
N.E. of Kimbolton. Dr. Zouch confounds it with Leighton Buzzard, in
Bedfordshire. Both places are attached to prebends in Lincoln.

3 JohnJ] John Williams, afterwards archbishop of York.

4 Spalden.'] Or rather, Spaldwick, about two miles from Leighton. Spal-
den, or Spalding, is in Lincolnshire.

c 2

20 GEORGE HERBERT.

and so useless, that the parishioners could not meet to perform
their duty to God in public prayer and praises ; and thus it had
been for almost twenty years, in which time there had been some
faint endeavours for a public collection to enable the parishioners
to rebuild it, but with no success till Mr. Herbert undertook it ;
and he, by his own, and the contribution of many of his kindred
and other noble friends, undertook the re-edification of it, and
made it so much his whole business, that he became restless till he
saw it finished as it now stands 5 ; being, for the workmanship, a
costly mosaic ; for the form, an exact cross ; and for the decency
and beauty, I am assured it is the most remarkable parish church
that this nation affords. He lived to see it so wainscoated as to
be exceeded by none; and by his order the reading-pew and
pulpit were a little distant from each other, and both of an equal
height ; for he would often say, " They should neither have a
precedency or priority of the other ; but that prayer and preach-
ing, being equally useful, might agree like brethren, and have an
equal honour and estimation/'*

Before I proceed farther I must look back to the time of Mr.
Herberts being made prebend, and tell the reader, that not long
after, his mother being informed of his intentions to rebuild that
church, and apprehending the great trouble and charge that he
was like to draw upon himself, his relations, and friends before it
could be finished, sent for him from London to Chelsea, (where

she then dwelt,) and at his coming, said " George, I sent for

you, to persuade you to commit simony, by giving your patron as
good a gift as he has given to you ; namely, that you give him
back his prebend ; for, George, it is not for your weak body and
empty purse to undertake to build churches." Of which he de-
sired he might have a day's time to consider, and then make her
an answer. And at his return to her the next day, when he had
first desired her blessing, and she had given it him, his next re-
quest was, " That she would, at the age of thirty- three years,
allow him to become an undutiful son, for he had made a vow to
God, that if he were able he would rebuild that church." And
then shewed her such reasons for his resolution, that she pre-
sently subscribed to be one of his benefactors, and undertook to
solicit William earl of Pembroke to become another, who sub-

5 As it now stands."} A view of the church is given in Dr. Zouch's edition
of Walton's Lives, ii. 54.

GEORGE HERBERT. 21

scribed for fifty pounds ; and not long after, by a witty and per-
suasive letter from Mr. Herbert, made it fifty pounds more. And
in this nomination of some of his benefactors, James duke of
Lenox 6, and his brother sir Henry Herbert, ought to be remem-
bered ; as also the bounty of Mr. Nicholas Farrer and Mr. Arthur
Woodnot, the one a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Layton,
and the other a goldsmith in Foster-lane, London, ought not to
be forgotten ; for the memory of such men ought to outlive their
lives. Of master Farrer I shall hereafter give an account in a
more seasonable place ; but before I proceed farther I will give
this short account of master Arthur Woodnot.

He was a man that had considered overgrown estates do often
require more care and watchfulness to preserve than get them ;
and considered that there be many discontents that riches cure
not ; and did therefore set limits to himself as to desire of wealth :
and having attained so much as to be able to shew some mercy
to the poor, and preserve a competence for himself, he dedicated
the remaining part of his life to the service of God, and to be
useful for his friends ; and he proved to be so to Mr. Herbert ;
for, beside his own bounty, he collected and returned most of the
money that was paid for the rebuilding of that church ; he kept
all the account of the charges, and would often go down to state
them, and see all the workmen paid. When I have said, that
this good man was a useful friend to Mr. Herbert's father, and to
his mother, and continued to be so to him till he closed his eyes
on his death-bed, I will forbear to say more till I have the next
fair occasion to mention the holy friendship that was betwixt him

and Mr. Herbert. From whom Mr. Woodnot carried to his

mother this following letter, and delivered it to her in a sickness
which was not long before that which proved to be her last.

A Letter of Mr. GEORGE HERBERT to Ms mother, in her sickness.

Madam,

At my last parting from you I was the better content, because
I was in hope I should myself carry all sickness out of your
family ; but since I know I did not, and that your share con-
tinues, or rather increaseth, I wish earnestly that I were again
with you : and would quickly make good my wish, but that my

fl Duke of Lenox.'] Brother of Lodowick, duke of Richmond and Lenox,
mentioned in p. 18.

22 GEORGE HERBERT.

employment does fix me here, it being now but a month to our
commencement ; wherein my absence by how much it naturally
augmenteth suspicion, by so much shall it make my prayers the
more constant and the more earnest for you to the God of all

consolation In the mean time, I beseech you to be cheerful,

and comfort yourself in the God of all comfort, who is not willing

to behold any sorrow but for sin. What hath affliction

grievous in it more than for a moment ? or why should our afflic-
tions here have so much power or boldness as to oppose the hope

of our joys hereafter ! Madam ! as the earth is but a point

in respect of the heavens, so are earthly troubles compared to
heavenly joys ; therefore, if either age or sickness lead you to
those joys, consider what advantage you have over youth and

health, who are now so near those two comforts. Your last

letter gave me earthly preferment, and I hope kept heavenly for
yourself: but would you divide and choose too? Our college
customs allow not that, and I should account myself most happy
if I might change with you ; for I have always observed the
thread of life to be like other threads or skeins of silk, full of
snarles and incumbrances : happy is he whose bottom is wound

up and laid ready for use in the New Jerusalem. For myself,

dear mother, I always feared sickness more than death, because
sickness hath made me unable to perform those offices for which
I came into the world, and must yet be kept in it ; but you are
freed from that fear, who have already abundantly discharged
that part, having both ordered your family, and so brought up
your children that they have attained to the years of discretion,
and competent maintenance. — So that now if they do not well,
the fault cannot be charged on you, whose example and care of
them will justify you both to the world and your own conscience ;
insomuch that whether you turn your thoughts on the life past or
on the joys that are to come, you have strong preservatives

against all disquiet. And for temporal afflictions, I beseech

you consider all that can happen to you are either afflictions of

estate, or body, or mind. For those of estate ; of what poor

regard ought they to be, since if we had riches we are com-
manded to give them away ? so that the best use of them is,
having, not to have them. But perhaps being above the com-
mon people, our credit and estimation calls on us to live in a
more splendid fashion. But, 0 God! how r;i>il\ i> that an-
swered, when we consider that the blessings in the holy Scripture

GEORGE HERBERT. 23

are never given to the rich but to the poor. I never find, Blessed
be the rich, or Blessed be the noble ; but Blessed be the meek,
and Blessed be the poor, and Blessed be the mourners, for they shall

be comforted. And yet, 0 God ! most carry themselves so as

if they not only not desired, but even feared to be blessed.

And for afflictions of the body, dear madam, remember the holy
martyrs of God, how they have been burnt by thousands, and
have endured such other tortures as the very mention of them
might beget amazement ; but their fiery trials have had an end ;
and yours (which praised be God are less) are not like to con-
tinue long. 1 beseech you let such thoughts as these moderate

your present fear and sorrow ; and know, that if any of your^s
should prove a Goliath-like trouble, yet you may say with David,
— That God who hath delivered me out of the paws of the lion
and bear will also deliver me out of the hands of this uncircumcised

Philistine. Lastly, for those afflictions of the soul : consider

that God intends that to be as a sacred temple for himself to
dwell in, and will not allow any room there for such an inmate

as grief, or allow that any sadness shall be his competitor.

And above all, if any care of future things molest you, remember
those admirable words of the psalmist : Cast thy care on the Lord,
and he shall nourish tJiee. (Psal. 55.) To which join that of St.
Peter, Casting all your care on the Lord, for he careth for you.

(1 Pet. v. 7.) What an admirable thing is this, that God puts

his shoulder to our burthen ! and entertains our care for us that

we may the more quietly intend his service. To conclude, let

me commend only one place more to you, (Philip, iv. 4.) St.
Paul saith there, Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say
Rejoice. He doubles it, to take away the scruple of those that
might say, What, shall we rejoice in afflictions ? yes, I say again
Rejoice ; so that it is not left to us to rejoice or not rejoice : but
whatsoever befalls us we must always, at all times rejoice in the
Lord, who taketh care for us : and it follows in the next verse :
Let your moderation appear to all men, the Lord is at hand : be
careful for nothing. What can be said more comfortably \ trou-
ble not yourselves, God is at hand to deliver us from all or in all.
Dear madam, pardon my boldness, and accept the good
meaning of

Your most obedient son,

GEORGE HERBERT.
Trin. Coll. May 25, 1622.

24 GEORGE HERBERT.

About the year 1629, and the 34th of his age, Mr. Herbert
was seized with a sharp quotidian ague, and thought to remove it
by the change of air ; to which end he went to Woodford, in
Essex, but thither more chiefly to enjoy the company of his
beloved brother, sir Henry Herbert, and other friends then of
that family. In his house he remained about twelve months, and
there became his own physician, and cured himself of his ague,
by forbearing drink, and not eating any meat, no not mutton,
nor a hen, or pigeon, unless they were salted ; and by such a
constant diet he removed his ague, but with inconveniences that
were worse ; for he brought upon himself a disposition to rheums
and other weaknesses, and a supposed consumption. And it is
to be noted, that in the sharpest of his extreme fits he would
often say, u Lord, abate my great affliction, or increase my
patience ; but, Lord, I repine not ; I am dumb, Lord, before
thee, because thou doest it." By which, and a sanctified sub-
mission to the will of God, he shewed he was inclinable to bear
the sweet yoke of Christian discipline, both then, and in the
latter part of his life, of which there will be many true testi-
monies.

And now his care was to recover from his consumption by a
change from Woodford into such an air as was most proper to
that end. And his remove was to Dantsey, in Wiltshire, a
noble house, which stands in a choice air ; the owner of it then
was the lord Danvers 7, earl of Danby, who loved Mr. Herbert so
very much, that he allowed him such an apartment in it as might
best suit with his accommodation and liking. And in this place,
by a spare diet, declining all perplexing studies, moderate exercise,
and a cheerful conversation, his health was apparently improved
to a good degree of strength and cheerfulness : and then he
declared his resolution both to marry and to enter into the sacred
orders of priesthood. These had long been the desires of his
mother and his other relations ; but she lived not to see either,
for she died in the year 1627. And though he was disobedient
to her about Layton church, yet, in conformity to her will, he
kept his orator's place till after her death, and then presently
(1(< lined it ; and the more willingly that he might be succeed' •<!

7 The lord Danvers.] Henry Danvers, created Lord Danvers of Dantsey,
27th July, 1603, and earl of Danby in 1626. He was the founder of the
Botanic Garden at Oxford. He died in 1643, when his titles became extinct.
His brother was George Herbert's stepfather, see p. 8.

GEORGE HERBERT. 25

by his friend Robert Creighton, who is now Dr. Creighton, and
the worthy bishop of Wells.

I shall now proceed to his marriage ; in order to which it will
be convenient that I first give the reader a short view of his
person, and then an account of his wife, and of some circumstances
concerning both. — He was for his person of a stature inclining
towards tallness ; his body was very straight and so far from
being cumbered with too much flesh, that he was lean to an
extremity. His aspect was cheerful, arid his speech and motion
did both declare him a gentleman, for they were all so meek and
obliging that they purchased love and respect from all that knew
him.

These, and his other visible virtues, begot him much love from
a gentleman of a noble fortune, and a near kinsman to his friend
the earl of Danby ; namely, from Mr. Charles Danvers, of
Bainton, in the county of Wilts, esq. This Mr. Danvers, having
known him long and familiarly, did so much affect him, that he
often and publicly declared a desire that Mr. Herbert would
marry any of his nine daughters (for he had so many) but rather
his daughter Jane than any other, because Jane was his beloved
daughter. And he had often said the same to Mr. Herbert
himself ; and that if he could like her for a wife, and she him for
a husband, Jane should have a double blessing : and Mr. Danvers
had so often said the like to Jane, and so much commended
Mr. Herbert to her, that Jane became so much a Platonic as to
fall in love with Mr. Herbert unseen.

This was a fair preparation for a marriage ; but, alas ! her
father died before Mr. Herbert's retirement to Dantsey; yet
some friends to both parties procured their meeting, at which
time a mutual affection entered into both their hearts, as a
conqueror enters into a surprised city ; and love having got such
possession, governed, and made there such laws and resolu-
tions as neither party was able to resist; insomuch that she
changed her name into Herbert the third day after this first
interview.

This haste might in others be thought a love-phrensy, or worse ;
but it was not ; for they had wooed so like princes as to have
select proxies : such as were true friends to both parties, such as
well understood Mr. Herbert's and her temper of mind, and also
their estate so well before this interview, that the suddenness
was justifiable by the strictest rules of prudence ; and the more,

26 GEORGE HERBERT.

because it proved so happy to both parties ; for the eternal lover
of mankind made them happy in each other's mutual and equal
affections and compliance ; indeed so happy that there never was
any opposition betwixt them, unless it were a contest which
should most incline to a compliance with the other's desires.
And though this begot and continued in them such a mutual
love, and joy, and content, as was no way defective ; yet this
mutual content, and love, and joy, did receive a daily augmenta-
tion by such daily obligingness to each other as still added such
new affluences to the former fulness of these divine souls as was
only improvable in heaven, where they now enjoy it.

About three months after his marriage, Dr. Curie, who was
then rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire, was made bishop of Bath
and Wells, (and not long after translated to Winchester,) and
by that means the presentation of a clerk to Bemerton did not
fall to the earl of Pembroke, (who was the undoubted patron of
it,) but to the king, by reason of Dr. Curie's advancement: but
Philip 8, then earl of Pembroke, (for William was lately dead ',)
requested the king to bestow it upon his kinsman George Herbert ;
and the king said, " Most willingly to Mr. Herbert, if it be
worth his acceptance :" and the earl as willingly and suddenly
sent it to him without seeking. But though Mr. Herbert had
put on a resolution for the clergy, yet, at receiving this presenta-
tion, the apprehension of the last great account that he was to
make for the cure of so many souls made him fast and pray often,
and consider for not less than a month ; in which time he had
some resolutions to decline both the priesthood and that living.
And in this time of considering, "He endured" (as he would
often say) " such spiritual conflicts as none can think but only
those that have endured them."

In the midst of these conflicts, his old and dear friend Mr.
Arthur Woodnot took a journey to salute him at Bainton (where
he then was with his wife's friends and relations), and was joyful
to be an eye-witness of his health, and happy marriage. And
after they had rejoiced together some few days, they took
journey to Wilton, the famous seat of the earls of Pembroke ; at
which time the king, the earl, and the whole court were th«T<>.
or at Salisbury, which is near to it. And at this time Mr.

" Philip.] A great favourite of James, who had previously created him earl
of Montgomery.
9 Lately dead.] 10th April, 1630.

GEORGE HERBERT. 2.7

Herbert presented his thanks to the earl, for his presentation to
Bemerton, but had not yet resolved to accept it, and told him
the reason why ; but that night, the earl acquainted Dr. Laud,
then bishop of London, and after archbishop of Canterbury, with
his kinsman's irresolution. And the bishop did the next day so
convince Mr. Herbert that the refusal of it was a sin ; that a
taylor was sent for to come speedily from Salisbury to Wilton,
to take measure, and make him canonical cloaths, against next
day : which the taylor did ; and Mr. Herbert being so habited,
went with his presentation to the learned Dr. Davenant, who
was then bishop of Salisbury, and he gave him institution imme-
diately (for Mr. Herbert had been made deacon some years
before), and he was also the same day (which was April 26,
1630) inducted into the good and more pleasant than healthful
parsonage of Bemerton : which is a mile from Salisbury.

I have now brought him to the parsonage of Bemerton, and to
the thirty-sixth year of his age, and must stop here, and bespeak
the reader to prepare for an almost incredible story of the great
sanctity of the short remainder of his holy life ; a life so full of
charity, humility, and all Christian virtues, that it deserves the
eloquence of St. Chrysostom to commend and declare it ! A
life that if it were related by a pen like his, there would then
be no need for this age to look back into times past for the
examples of primitive piety : for, they might be all found in the
life of George Herbert. But now, alas ! who is fit to undertake
it ! I confess I am not : and am not pleased with myself that I
must ; and profess myself amazed, when I consider how few of
the clergy lived like him then, and how many live so unlike him
now. — But, it becomes not me to censure : my design is rather
to assure the reader, that I have used very great diligence to
inform myself, that I might inform him of the truth of what
follows ; and though I cannot adorn it with eloquence, yet I
will do it with sincerity.

When at his induction he was shut into Bemerton church,
being left there alone to toll the bell, (as the law requires him :)
he staid so much longer than an ordinary time, before he returned
to those friends that staid expecting him at the church-door,
that his friend Mr. Woodnot looked in at the church-window,
and saw him lie prostrate on the ground before the altar : at
which time and place (as he after told Mr. Woodnot) he set

28 GEORGE HERBERT.

some rules to himself, for the future manage of his life ; and then
and there made a vow, to labour to keep them.

And the same night that he had his induction, he said to Mr.
Woodnot, " I now look back upon my aspiring thoughts, and
think myself more happy than if I had attained what then I so
ambitiously thirsted for. And, I can now behold the court
with an impartial eye, and see plainly, that it is made up of
frauds and titles, and flattery, and many other such empty,
imaginary, painted pleasures : pleasures, that are so empty, as
not to satisfy when they are enjoyed; but, in God and his
service, is a fulness of all joy and pleasure, and no satiety. And
I will now use all my endeavours to bring my relations and
dependants to a love and reliance on him, who never fails those
that trust him. But above all, I will be sure to live well, because
the virtuous life of a clergyman is the most powerful eloquence to
persuade all that see it to reverence and love, and at least, to
desire to live like him. And this I will do, because I know we
live in an age that hath more need of good examples, than
precepts. And I beseech that God, who hath honoured me so
much as to call me to serve him at his altar, that as by his
special grace he hath put into my heart these good desires, and
resolutions; so, he will by his assisting grace give me ghostly
strength to bring the same to good effect. And I beseech him
that my humble and charitable life may so win upon others, as to
bring glory to my Jesus, whom I have this day taken to be my
master and governor ; and I am so proud of his service, that I
will always observe, and obey, and do his will ; and always call
him Jesus my master1 ; and I will always contemn my birth, or
any title or dignity that can be conferred upon me, when I shall
compare them with my title of being a priest, and serving at the
altar of Jesus my master."

And that he did so, may appear in many parts of his book of
Sacred 1'oL-ms; especially in that which he calls the Odour. In

1 Jesus my master.'] " To testify his independency upon all others, and to
quicken his diligence, he used in his ordinary speech, when he made mention
of the blessed name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to add, My
Master.''— Printer's Preface to The Temple, or Sacred Poems, &c.

• 1 1 is motto, with which he used to conclude all things that might seem to
end any way to his own honour, was,

" Lets than the least of God's mercies."— Ibid.

GEORGE HERBERT. 29

which he seems to rejoice in the thoughts of that word Jesus, and
say that the adding these words my master to it, and the often
repetition of them, seemed to perfume his mind, and leave an
oriental fragrancy in his very breath. And for his unforced
choice to serve at God's altar, he seems in another place of his
poems (the Pearl, Matth. xiii.) to rejoice and say — " He knew
the ways of learning ; knew, what nature does willingly ; and
what when it is forced by fire : knew the ways of honour, and
when glory inclines the soul to noble expressions : knew the
court : knew the ways of pleasure, of love, of wit, of music, and
upon what terms he declined all these for the service of his
master Jesus," and then concludes, saying,

" That, through these labyrinths, not my groveling wit,
But, thy silk-twist, let down from heaven to me,
Did, both conduct, and teach me, how by it,
To climb to thee."

The third day after he was made rector of Bemerton, and had
changed his sword and silk cloathes into a canonical coat, he
returned so habited with his friend Mr. Woodnot to Bainton :
and, immediately after he had seen and saluted his wife, he said
to her — " You are now a minister's wife, and must now so far
forget your father's house, as not to claim a precedence of any of
your parishioners ; for you are to know, that a priest's wife can
challenge no precedence or place, but that which she purchases
by her obliging humility ; and, I am sure, places so purchased
do best become them. And, let me tell you, that I am so good
a herald as to assure you that this is truth." And she was so
meek a wife, "as to assure him that it was no vexing news to
her, and that he should see her observe it with a chearful willing-
ness." And indeed her unforced humility, that humility that was
in her so original as to be born with her ! made her so happy as
to do so ; and her doing so begot her an unfeigned love, and a
serviceable respect from all that conversed with her ; and this
love followed her in all places, as inseparably, as shadows follow
substances in sun-shine.

It was not many days before he returned back to Bemerton,
to view the church, and repair the chancel ; and indeed, to re-
build almost three parts of his house which was fallen down, or
decayed by reason of his predecessor's living at a better parsonage-

30 GEORGE HERBERT.

house ; namely, at Minal, sixteen or twenty miles from this place.
At which time of Mr. Herberts coming alone to Bemerton, there
came to him a poor old woman, with an intent to acquaint him
with her necessitous condition, as also with some troubles of her
mind ; but after she had spoke some few words to him, she was
surprised with a fear, and that begot a shortness of breath, so
that her spirits and speech failed her ; which he perceiving, did so
compassionate her, and was so humble, that he took her by the
hand, and said, " Speak, good mother, be not afraid to speak to
me ; for I am a man that will hear you with patience ! and will
relieve your necessities too, if I be able : and this I will do wil-
lingly, and therefore, mother, be not afraid to acquaint me with
what you desire." After which comfortable speech, he again took
her by the hand, made her sit down by him, and understanding
she was of his parish, he told her, " He would be acquainted
with her, and take her into his care :" and having with patience
heard and understood her wants (and it is some relief for a poor
body to be but heard with patience) he like a Christian clergyman
comforted her by his meek behaviour and counsel : but because
that cost him nothing, he relieved her with money too, and so
sent her home with a chearful heart, praising God, and praying
for him. Thus worthy, and (like David's blessed man) thus lowly,
was Mr. George Herbert in his own eyes : and thus lovely in the
eyes of others.

At his return that night to his wife at Bainton, he gave her an
account of the passages betwixt him and the poor woman ; with
which she was so affected, that she went next day to Salisbury,
and there bought a pair of blankets and sent them as a token of
her love to the poor woman : and with them a message, " That
she would see and be acquainted with her, when her house was
built at Bemerton."

There be many such passages both of him and his wife, of
which some few will be related ; but I shall first tell, that he
hasted to get the parish church repaired ; then to beautify the
chapel (which stands near his house) and that at his own great
charge. He then proceeded to re -build the greatest part of the
parsonage-house, which he did also very compleatly, and at his
own charge ; and having done this good work, he caused these
verses to be writ upon it. or engraven in the mantle of the chim-
ney in his hall.

GEORGE HERBERT. 31

" To my successor.

" If thou chance for to find
A new house to thy mind,

And built without thy cost :
Be good to the poor,
As God gives thee store,

And then my labour's not lost."

We will now by the reader's favour suppose him fixed at Be-
merton, and grant him to have seen the church repaired, and the
chapel belonging to it very decently adorned, at his own great
charge (which is a real truth), and having now fixed him there, I
shall proceed to give an account of the rest of his behaviour both
to his parishioners, and those many others that knew and
conversed with him.

Doubtless Mr. Herbert had considered and given rules to him-
self for his Christian carriage both to God and man, before he
entered into holy orders. And it is not unlike, but that he
renewed those resolutions at his prostration before the holy altar,
at his induction into the church at Bemerton ; but as yet he was
but a deacon, and therefore longed for the next ember-week, that
he might be ordained priest, and made capable of administering
both the sacraments. At which time, the reverend doctor
Humphrey Hinchman, now lord bishop of London (who does not
mention him, but with some veneration for his life and excellent
learning,) tells me, " He laid his hand on Mr. Herbert's head,
and (alas !) within less than three years, lent his shoulder to carry
his dear friend to his grave."

And that Mr. Herbert might the better preserve those holy
rules which such a priest as he intended to be, ought to observe ;
and, that time might not insensibly blot them out of his memory,
but that the next year might shew him his variations from this
year's resolutions ; he therefore did set down his rules, then
resolved upon, in that order, as the world now sees them printed
in a little book called, The Country Parson, in which some of his
rules are :

The Parson's Knowledge.

The Parson on Sundays.

The Parson Praying.

The Parson Preaching.

The Parson's Charity.

32 GEORGE HERBERT.

The Parson comforting the Sick.

The Parson Arguing.

The Parson Condescending.

The Parson in his Journey.

The Parson in his Mirth.

The Parson with his Churchwardens.

The Parson blessing the People.

And his behaviour toward God and man may be said to be a
practical comment on these, and the other holy rules set down in
that useful book. A book, so full of plain, prudent and useful
rules, that that country parson, that can spare twelve pence and
yet wants it, is scarce excusable ; because it will both direct him
what he ought to do, and convince him for not having done it.

At the death of Mr. Herbert, this book fell into the hands
of his friend Mr. Woodnot ; and he commended it into the
trusty hands of Mr. Barnabas Oly, who published it 3 with a most
conscientious, and excellent preface ; from which I have had some
of those truths, that are related in this life of Mr. Herbert. —
The text for his first sermon was taken out of Solomons Proverbs,
and the words were, Keep thy heart with all diligence. In which
first sermon, he gave his parishioners many necessary, holy, safe
rules for the discharge of a good conscience, both to God and man.
And delivered his sermon after a most florid manner ; both with
great learning and eloquence. But at the close of this sermon,
told them, " That should not be his constant way of preaching ;
for, since almighty God does not intend to lead men to heaven by
hard questions, he would not therefore fill their heads with unne-
cessary notions ; but, that for their sakes, his language and his
expressions should be more plain and practical in his future ser-

2 Who published it.'} The Country Parson has been lately reprinted at the
Clarendon Press, by the University of Oxford, in a volume intitled The Cler-
gyman's Instructor; which contains also Bishop Burnet's Pastoral Care,
Bishop Bull's Directions to Candidates for Holy Orders, and some other
excellent tracts on the ministerial duties ; the whole forming a very valuable
addition to the highly important services which have recently been rendered
by that University to the cause of religion, and of the Church of England in
particular, by the republication of a collection of works of our English
divines, for the use of the younger clergy, and students in theology. The
collection comprises the Homilies, Hooker's Works, Pearson on the Creed,
Stillingfleet's Origines Sacra, Barrow's Works, Walton's Lives, Wheatly on
the Common Prayer, &c. &c.

GEORGE HERBERT. 33

mons." And he then made it his humble request, that they
would be constant to the afternoon's service, and catechising.
And shewed them convincing reasons why he desired it ; and his
obliging example and persuasions brought them to a willing con-
formity to his desires.

The texts for all his future sermons (which God knows were
not many) were constantly taken out of the gospel for the day ;
and he did as constantly declare why the church did appoint that
portion of Scripture to be that day read : and in what manner
the collect for every Sunday does refer to the gospel, or to the
epistle then read to them ; and, that they might pray with under-
standing, he did usually take occasion to explain, not only the
collect for every particular Sunday, but the reasons of all the
other collects and responses in our church-service ; and made it
appear to them, that the whole service of the church was a rea-
sonable, and therefore an acceptable sacrifice to God ; as namely,
that we begin with confession of ourselves to be vile, miserable
sinners: and that we begin so, because till we have confessed
ourselves to be such, we are not capable of that mercy which
we acknowledge we need, and pray for : but having in the prayer
of our Lord, begged pardon for those sins which we have confest ;
and hoping that as the priest hath declared our absolution, so by
our public confession, and real repentance, we have obtained that
pardon ; then we dare and do proceed to beg of the Lord, to open
our lips, that our mouths may shew forth his praise ; for till then,
we are neither able nor worthy to praise him. But this being
supposed, we are then fit to say, Glory be to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Ghost ; and fit to proceed to a further service
of our God, in the collects, and psalms, and lauds that follow in
the service.

And as to these psalms and lauds, he proceeded to inform them,
why they were so often, and some of them daily repeated in our
church-service : namely, the psalms every month, because they be
an historical and thankful repetition of mercies past ; and such a
composition of prayers and praises, as ought to be repeated often,
and publickly; for with such sacrifices, God is honoured, and
well-pleased. This for the psalms.

And for the hymns and lauds, appointed to be daily repeated
or sung after the first and second lessons are read to the congre-
gation ; he proceeded to inform them, that it was most reason-
able, after they have heard the will and goodness of God declared

VOL. TV. D

34 GEORGE HERBERT.

or preached by the priest in his reading the two chapters, that it
was then a seasonable duty to rise up and express their gratitude
to almighty God for those his mercies to them, and to all man-
kind ; and then to say with the blessed Virgin, That their souls
do magnify the Lord, and that their spirits do also rejoice in God
tlwir Saviour. And that it was their duty also to rejoice with
Simeon in his song, and say with him, That their eyes have also
seen their salvation ; for, they have seen that salvation which was
but prophesyed till his time : and he then broke out into those
expressions of joy that he did see it, but, they live to see it
daily, in the history of it, and therefore ought daily to rejoice,
and daily to offer up their sacrifices of praise to their God, for
that particular mercy. A service, which is now the constant em-
ployment of that blessed Virgin, and Simeon, and all those
blessed saints that are possest of heaven : and, where they are at
this time interchangeably, and constantly singing, Holy, holy, holy

Lord God, glory be to God on high, and on earth peace. And he

taught them, that to do this was an acceptable service to God,
because the prophet David says in his psalms, He that praiseth 1l<>
Lord, hwoureth him.

He made them to understand, how happy they be that are
freed from the incumbrances of that law which our fore-fathers
groaned under ; namely, from the legal sacrifices, and from the
many ceremonies of the Levitical law ; freed from circumcision,
and from the strict observation of the Jewish Sabbath, and the
like : and he made them know, that having received so many,
and so great blessings, by being born since the days of our Sa-
viour, it must be an acceptable sacrifice to almighty God, for
them to acknowledge those blessings daily, and stand up and wor-
ship, and say as Zacharias did, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he linlli (in our days) visited and redeemed his people; and (he
hath in our days) remembered, and shewed that mercy which by the
mouth of tlie prophets lie promised to our forefathers : and this he
hath done, according to his holy covenant made with them. And
h< made them to understand that we live to see and enjoy the
benefit of it, in his birth, in his life, in his passion, his resurrec-
tion and ascension into heaven, where he now sits sensible of all
our temptations and infirmities; and where lie is at this present
time making intercession for us. to his, and our Father: and
therefore they ought daily to express their public gratulutimis.
and say daily with /;. >/ //, ///,// A//,-// God of I*

GEORGE HERBERT. 35

that hath thus visited, and thus redeemed his people. These were

some of the reasons by which Mr. Herbert instructed his congre-
gation for the use of the psalms, and the hymns appointed to be
daily sung or said in the church-service.

He informed them also, when the priest did pray only for the
congregation, and not for himself; and when they did only pray
for him, as namely, after the repetition of the creed, before he
proceeds to pray the Lord's prayer, or any of the appointed col-
lects, the priest is directed to kneel down, and pray for them,

saying The Lord be with you And when they pray for

him, saying And with thy spirit ; and then they join together

in the following collects ; and he assured them, that when there
is such mutual love, and such joint prayers offered for each other,
then the holy angels look down from heaven, and are ready to
carry such charitable desires to God almighty ; and he as ready
to receive them ; and that a Christian congregation calling thus
upon God, with one heart, and one voice, and in one reverend and
humble posture, look as beautifully as Jerusalem, that is at peace
with itself.

He instructed them also, why the prayer of our Lord was
prayed often 3 in every full service of the church ; namely, at the

3 Why the prayer of our Lord was prayed oftenJ] " Marvel not that I use
at the sermons end to make prayer, for I do it not of singularitie : but when
I am at home, and in the countrey where I goe, sometime when the poore
people come and aske it me, I appose them my selfe, or cause my servant to
appose them of the Lordes Prayer, and they aunswere some, ' I can my
Latin Pater noster;' some, ' I can the old Pater noster, but not the new.'
Therefore, that all that can it not may learne, I use before the Sermon and
after to say it. Wherefore now I beseeche you let us say it together ; Our
Father whiche art in heaven, fyc." Latimer's Sermons, fol. 100, edit. 1584.
Calvin " ever concluded his prayer before or after sermon with repeating of
the Creed and Lord's Prayer, conceiving it to be of good use to have these
often sounding in the ears of the people, as Beza tells us in writing his life."
Bernard's Life of Archbishop Usher, p. 84. " It is no wonder you are
thought a legal preacher " (says Mr. Clark, in a letter to Dr. Doddridge,
when a young man) " when you have the ten commandments painted on the
walls of your chappel : besides, you have a clerk, it seems, so impertinent as
to say Amen, with an audible voice. O tempora ! 0 mores I that such a rag
of popery should ever be tolerated in a congregation of protestant dissen-
ters : and to conclude all, you, the minister, conclude your prayers with a
form called the Lord's Prayer. — It may be you are surprised what this means.
In a few words then, Mr. Chandler of Bedford, being on his return home, at
Mr. Eccles's, desired him upon my motion to write to Hertford, to recom-
mend you to them in his name, as a very fit man to be their minister. Upon

D2

36 GEORGE HERBERT.

conclusion of the several parts of that service ; and prayed then,
not only because it was composed, and commanded by our Jesus
that made it, but as a perfect pattern for our less perfect forms
of prayer, and therefore fittest to sum up and conclude all our
imperfect petitions.

He instructed them also, that as by the second commandment
we are required, not to bow down, or worship an idol, or false
god ; so by the contrary rule, we are to bow down and kneel, or
stand up and worship the true God. And he instructed them,
why the church required the congregation to stand up at the
repetition of the creeds ; namely, because they did thereby de-
clare both their obedience to the church, and an assent to that
faith into which they had been baptized. And he taught them,
that in that shorter creed or doxology so often repeated daily,
they also stood up to testify their belief4 to be, that the God that
they trusted in was one God, and three persons ; the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost ; to whom they and the priest gave glory :
and because there had been heretics that had denyed some of
these three persons to be God, therefore the congregation stood

this, two members of that congregation went the other day to Kibworth to
hear you preach : but no sooner did they come into the place but they found
themselves disappointed : and what they heard at the close confirmed them
so much in their prejudices, that they thought it needless to say any thing
of their intention to you. Going to preach last Sunday at Ware, I heard
all this there; and afterwards at Hertford." Letters to and from Dr. Dod-
dridge, p. 14.

4 To testify their belief.'] " I know a minister " (says Fuller in his Church
History, speaking of the times when the liturgy was forbidden by an ordi-
nance of the parliament, and the presbyterian directory was established) " I
know a minister who was accused for using the Gloria Patri (conforming his
practice to the directorie in all things else,) and threatened to be brought to
the committee. He pleaded the words of Mr. Cartwright in his defence,
'confessing* (Reply against IVhitgift, p. 107, sect. 4.) 'the gloria Patri
founded on just cause, that men might make their open profession in the
church of the divinity of the Son of God, against the detestable opinion of
Arius and his disciples. But now (saith he) that it hath pleased the Lord
to quench that fire, there is no such cause why those things should be
used.' But seeing (said the minister) it hath pleased God for our sins to
condemn us to live in so licentious an age, wherein the divinity both of
('hrist and the Holy Ghost is called frequently and publickly into question,
the same now (by Mr. Cartwright's judgment) may lawfully be used, not to
say cannot well be omitted. — I remember not that he heard any more of the
matter." Church History of Britain, Cent. 17, p. 224. Compare Hooker's
Ecclesiastical Polity, book r>, c. 42.

GEORGE HERBERT. 37

up and honoured him, by confessing, and saying, It was so in the
beginning, is now so, and shall ever be so world without end. And
all gave their assent to this belief, by standing up and saying,
Amen.

He -instructed them also, what benefit they had by the church's
appointing the celebration of holidays 5, and the excellent use of
them ; namely, that they were set apart for particular commemora-
tions of particular mercies received from almighty God ; and (as
reverend Mr. Hooker says) to be the land-marks to distinguish
times ; for by them we are taught to take notice how time passes
by us ; and, that we ought not to let the years pass without a ce-
lebration of praise for those mercies which those days give us oc-
casion to remember; and therefore they were to note that the year
is appointed to begin 6 the 25th day of March ; a day in which we
commemorate the angePs appearing to the blessed Virgin, with
the joyful tidings that she should conceive and bear a son, that
should be the redeemer of mankind ; and she did so forty weeks
after this joyful salutation ; namely, at our Christmas : a day in
which we commemorate his birth, with joy and praise ; and that

6 Celebration of holidays.'] "In the year 1643, the ministers of the city of
London met together to consult whether they should preach on the Christ-
mas-day following, as they had been wont to do, or take no notice at all of
the day. One of them, whom I shall not name, of great authority amongst
them, was against their preaching, and was very near prevailing with the rest
of his brethren to forbear. Our author " (Dr. John Lightfoot) " was at that
meeting (being at that time minister at St. Bartholomew's aforesaid), who
was so far from consenting to the advice of that person who gave it, that he
took him aside, and argued the point with him ; and did not only maintain
the lawfulness of the thing in question, but the expedience of it also : and
shewed that the omitting it would be of dangerous consequence, and would
reflect very much upon those men who made profession of no other design
but reforming what was culpable and faulty. In a word, he so far prevailed
with the company, that when it was put to the question, it was carried in the
affirmative, and there were not above four or five of the whole who dissented."
Strype's Life of Lightfoot, prefixed to his works, p. 3. See also Hooker's
Ecclesiastical Polity, book 5, c. 69. The first distaste of the celebration of
holy-days in the church of England, was contracted at Geneva. See Good-
man's How to obey, A.D. 1558, p. 158.

f) Appointed to beain.~\ " I shall observe (though perhaps every body
knows it), that we use two different computations in this nation, viz. the
common or Julian, which begins the year on the first day of January ; and
the ecclesiastical, which begins the year on the twenty-fifth of March." Ben-
net's Essay on the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 247. On this subject see the note
at vol. ii. pp. 491, 492.

38 GEORGE HERBERT.

eight days after this happy birth, we celebrate his circumcision ;
namely, that day which we call New-year's day. And that upon
that day which we call Twelfth-day, we commemorate the mani-
festation of the unsearchable riches of Jesus to the Gentiles : and
that that day we also celebrate the memory of his goodness in
sending a star to guide the three wise men from the east to
Bethlem, that they might there worship, and present him \\ith
their oblations of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And he (Mr.
Herbert) instructed them, that Jesus was, forty days after his
birth, presented by his blessed mother in the temple ; namely,
on that day which we call the purification of the blessed virgin,
saint Mary. And he instructed them, that by the lent-fast, we
imitate and commemorate our Saviour's humiliation in fasting
forty days ; and, that we ought to endeavour to be like him in
purity. And, that on Good-friday, we commemorate and con-
dole his crucifixion. And, at Easter, commemorate his glorious
resurrection. And he taught them, that after Jesus had mani-
fested himself to his disciples, to be that Christ that was crucified,
dead and buried; and by his appearing and conversing with lii.s
disciples for the space of forty days after his resurrection, he then,
and not till then, ascended into heaven, in the sight of those disci-
ples ; namely, on that day which we call the ascension, or Holy
Thursday. And that we then celebrate the performance of the
promise which he made to his disciples, at or before his ascension ;
namely, that though he left them, yet he would send them the Holy
Ghost to be their comforter ; and that he did so on that day which

the church calls Whitsunday. Thus the church keeps an

historical and circular commemoration of times, as they pass by
us ; of such times, as ought to incline us to occasional praises,
for the particular blessings which we do, or might receive by
those holy commemorations.

He made them know also, why the church hath appointed
ember-weeks ; and, to know the reason why the commandments,
and the epistles and gospels were to be read at the altar, or com-
munion table : why the priest was to pray the litany kneeling ;
and, why to pray some collects standing ; and he gave them many
other observations, fit for his plain congregation, but not fit for
me now to mention ; for, I must set limits to my pen, and not
make that a treatise, which I intended to be a much shorter
account than I have made it. — But I have done, when I have
told the reader that lie was constant in catechising every Sunday

GEORGE HERBERT. 39

in the afternoon, and that his catechising was after the second
lesson, and in the pulpit, and that he never exceeded his half
hour, and was always so happy as to have an obedient, and a full
congregation.

And, to this I must add, that if he were at any time too
zealous in his sermons, it was, in reproving the indecencies of the
peopled behaviour, in the time of divine service ; and of those
ministers that huddled up the church-prayers, without a visible
reverence and affection; namely, such as seemed to say the
Lord's prayer, or a collect, in a breath ; but for himself, his
custom was. to stop betwixt every collect, and give the people
time to consider what they had prayed, and to force their
desires affectionately to God, before he engaged them into new
petitions.

And by this account of his diligence, to make his parishioners
understand what they prayed, and why they praised, and adored
their Creator, I hope I shall the more easily obtain the reader's
belief to the following account of Mr. Herbert's own practice,
which was, to appear constantly with his wife, and three nieces
(the daughters of a deceased sister) and his whole family, twice
every day at the church-prayers, in the chapel which does almost
join to his parsonage-house. And for the time of his appearing,
it was strictly at the canonical hours of ten and four ; and then
and there he lifted up pure and charitable hands to God in the
midst of the congregation. And he would joy to have spent that
time in that place, where the honour of his master Jesus dwelleth ;
and there, by that inward devotion which he testified constantly
by an humble behaviour, and visible adoration, he, like Joshua,
brought not only Ms own /household thus to serve the Lord ; but
brought most of his parishioners, and many gentlemen in the
neighbourhood, constantly to make a part of his congregation
twice a day. And some of the meaner sort of his parish, did so
love and reverence Mr. Herbert, that they would let their plough
rest when Mr. Herbert's saint's-bell rung to prayers, that they
might also offer their devotions to God with him : arid would
then return back to their plough. And his most holy life was
such, that it begot such reverence to God, and to him, that they
thought themselves the happier, when they carried Mr. Herbert's

blessing back with them to their labour. Thus powerful was

his reason, and example, to persuade others to a practical piety
and devotion.

And his constant public prayers did never make him to neglect

40 GEORGE HERBERT.

his own private devotions, nor those prayers that he thought him-
self bound to perform with his family, which always were a set
form, and not long ; and he did always conclude them with that
collect which the church hath appointed for the day or week. —
Thus he made every day's sanctity a step towards that kingdom
where impurity cannot enter.

His chiefest recreation was music, in which heavenly art he was
a most excellent master, and did himself compose many divine
hymns and anthems, which he set and sung to his lute or viol ;
and, though he was a lover of retiredness, yet his love to music
was such, that he went usually twice every week on certain
appointed days, to the cathedral church in Salisbury ; and at his
return would say, " That his time spent in prayer, and cathedral
music 7, elevated his soul, and was his heaven upon earth." But
before his return thence to Bemerton, he would usually sing and
play his part, at an appointed private music-meeting; and, to
justify this practice, he would often say, " Religion does not
banish mirth, but only moderates, and sets rules to it."

And, as his desire to enjoy his heaven upon earth drew him
twice every week to Salisbury, so his walks thither were the
occasion of many happy accidents to others : of which, I will
mention some few.

In one of his walks to Salisbury, he overtook a gentleman that
is still living in that city, and in their walk together, Mr. Her-
bert took a fair occasion to talk with him, and humbly begged to
be excused, if he asked him some account of his faith, and said,
" I do this the rather, because though you are not of my parish,
yet I receive tythe from you by the hand of your tenant ; and,
sir, I am the bolder to do it, because I know there be some
sermon-hearers that be like those fishes, that always live in salt
water, and*yet are always fresh."

After which expression, Mr. Herbert asked him some needful
questions, and having received his answer, gave him such rules
for the trial of his sincerity, and for a practical piety, and in so
loving and meek a manner, that the gentleman did so fall in love
with him, and his discourse, that he would often contrive to
meet him in his walk to Salisbury, or to attend him back to
Bemerton ; and still mentions the name of Mr. George Herbert
with veneration, and still praiseth God for the occasion of
Knowing him.

1 Cathedral music.'] See above, vol. i. p. 314, note.

GEORGE HERBERT. 41

In another of his Salisbury walks, he met with a neighbour
minister, and after some friendly discourse betwixt them, and
some condolement for the decay of piety, and too general contempt
of the clergy, Mr. Herbert took occasion to say,

" One cure for these distempers, would be for the clergy
themselves to keep the ember-weeks 8 strictly, and beg of their
parishioners to join with them in fasting and prayers for a more
religious clergy.

"And another cure would be, for themselves to restore the
great and neglected duty of catechizing 9, on which the salvation
of so many of the poor and ignorant lay-people does depend ; but
principally, that the clergy themselves would be sure to live
unblameably ; and that the dignified clergy especially, which
preach temperance, would avoid surfeiting, and take all occasions
to express a visible humility, and charity in their lives ; for this
would force a love and an imitation, and an unfeigned reverence
from all that knew them to be such." (And for proof of this, we
need no other testimony, than the life and death of Dr. Lake *,
late lord bishop of Bath and Wells.) "This" (said Mr. Her-
bert) " would be a cure for the wickedness and growing atheism
of our age. And, my dear brother, till this be done by us, and
done in earnest, let no man expect a reformation of the manners
of the laity : for it is not learning, but this, this only, that must
do it ; and till then, the fault must lie at our doors."

In another walk to Salisbury, he saw a poor man, with a
poorer horse, that was fallen under his load. They were both in
distress, and needed present help ; which Mr. Herbert perceiving,
put off his canonical coat, and helped the poor man to unload, and
after, to load his horse. The poor man blest him for it ; and he
blest the poor man ; and was so like the good Samaritan, that he
gave him money to refresh both himself and his horse ; and told
him, " That if he loved himself, he should be merciful to his

beast." Thus he left the poor man, and at his coming to his

musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that Mr.
George Herbert, which used to be so trim and clean, came into

8 To keep the ember-weeks."] See vol. iii. Life of Hooker, p. 526, or Index,
under Ember-weeks.

9 Duty of catechizing.'] See above, Life of Colet,vo\. i. p. 438, n. See also
Index, under Catechizing.

1 Of Dr. Lake..'] See a Short View of the Life and Virtues of Dr. Arthur
Lake, Bishop of Bath and Wells, prefixed to his Sermons, fol. 1 629.

42 GEORGE HERBERT.

that company so soiled and discomposed ; but he told them the
occasion : and when one of the company told him, " He had dis-
paraged himself by so dirty an employment ;" his answer was,
" That the thought of what he had done, would prove music to
him at midnight ; and that the omission of it would have
upbraided and made discord in his conscience, whensoever he
should pass by that place ; for, if I be bound to pray for all that
be in distress, I am sure that I am bound so far as it is in my
power to practise what I pray for. And though I do not wish
for the like occasion every day, yet let me tell you, I would not
willingly pass one day of my life without comforting a sad soul,
or shewing mercy ; and I praise God for this occasion : — and now
let's tune our instruments."

Thus, as our blessed Saviour after his resurrection did take
occasion to interpret the Scripture to Cleophas and that other
disciple, which he met with and accompanied in their journey to
Emmaus ; so Mr. Herbert, in his path toward heaven, did daily
take any fair occasion to instruct the ignorant, or comfort any
that were in affliction ; and did always confirm his precepts,
by shewing humility and mercy, and ministering grace to the
hearers.

And he was most happy in his wife's unforced compliance with
his acts of charity, whom he made his almoner, and paid con-
stantly into her hand a tenth penny of what money he received
for tythe, and gave her power to dispose that to the poor of his
parish, and with it a power to dispose a tenth part of the corn
that came yearly into his barn ; which trust she did most faith-
fully perform, and would often offer to him an account of her stew-
ardship, and as often beg an enlargement of his bounty, for she
rejoiced in the employment ; and this was usually laid out by her
in blankets and shoes, for some such poor people, as she knew to
stand in most need of them. This, as to her charity. — And for
his own, he set no limits to it ; nor did ever turn his face from
any that he saw in want, but would relieve them; especially his
poor neighbours ; to the meanest of whose houses he would go
and inform himself of their wants, and relieve them cheerfully if
they were in distress, and, would always praise God, as much for

being willing, as for being able to do it. And, when he was

advised by a friend to be more frugal, because he might have
children. lii> answer was, " He would not sec the danger of want
BO far nfV. luit. ln-in^ the Scripture does so commend clmrit;

GEORGE HERBERT. 43

to tell us, that charity is the top of Christian virtues, the covering
of sins, the fulfilling of the law, the life of faith : and that charity
hath a promise of the blessings of this life, and of a reward in
that life which is to come ; being these, and more excellent
things are in Scripture spoken of thee, O charity, and that,
being all my tithes, and church-dues, are a deodate from thee,
0 my God ! make me, O my God, so far to trust thy promise, as
to return them back to thee ; and, by thy grace, I will do so, in
distributing them to any of thy poor members that are in
distress, or do but bear the image of Jesus my master. Sir,"
(said he to his friend) " my wife hath a competent mainte-
nance secured her after my death, and therefore as this is
my prayer, so this my resolution shall by God's grace be
unalterable."

This may be some account of the excellencies of the active
part 2 of his life ; and, thus he continued, till a consumption so
weakened him, as to confine him to his house, or to the chapel,
which does almost join to it; in which he continued to read
prayers constantly twice every day, though he were very weak ;
in one of which times of his reading, his wife observed him to
read in pain, and told him so, and, that it wasted his spirits, and
weakened him : and he confessed it did, but said, " His life could
not be better spent, than in the service of his master Jesus, who
had done and suffered so much for him. But," said he, " I will
not be wilful : for though my spirit be willing, yet I find my flesh
is weak ; and therefore Mr. Bostock shall be appointed to read
prayers for me to-morrow, and I will now be only a hearer of
them, till this mortal shall put on immortality." And Mr. Bostock
did the next day undertake and continue this happy employment,

till Mr. Herbert's death. This Mr. Bostock was a learned and

virtuous man, an old friend of Mr. Herbert's and then his curate
to the church of Fulston, which is a mile from Bemerton, to

which church Bemerton is but a chapel of ease. And this

Mr. Bostock did also constantly supply the church service for
Mr. Herbert in that chapel, when the music-meeting at Salisbury
caused his absence from it.

About one month before his death, his friend Mr. Farrer (for
an account of whom I am by promise indebted to the reader, and
intend to make him sudden payment) hearing of Mr. Herbert's

- The active part.~\ "His time he ever measured by the pulse, that native
watch which God has set in every one of us." Life by Barnabas Oley.

44 GEORGE HERBERT.

sickness, sent Mr. Edmund Duncon (who is now rector of Fryer
Barnet in the county of Middlesex) from his house of Gidden-hall,
which is near to Huntingdon, to see Mr. Herbert, and to assure
him, he wanted not his daily prayers for his recovery ; and, Mr.
Duncon was to return back to Gidden, with an account of Mr.
Herbert's condition. Mr. Duncon found him weak, and at that
time lying on his bed, or on a pallat ; but at his seeing Mr. Dun-
con, he raised himself vigorously, saluted him, and with some
earnestness enquired the health of his brother Farrer ; of which
Mr. Duncon satisfied him ; and after some discourse of Mr. Far-
rer's holy life, and the manner of his constant serving God, he

said to Mr. Duncon u Sir, I see by your habit that you are a

priest, and I desire you to pray with me ;" which being granted,
Mr. Duncon asked him " what prayers f to which, Mr. Herbert's
answer was, " 0 sir, the prayers of my mother, the church of
England, no other prayers are equal to them ! but, at this time,
I beg of you to pray only the Litany, for I am weak and faint ;"
and Mr. Duncon did so. After which, and some other discourse
of Mr. Farrer, Mrs. Herbert provided Mr. Duncon a plain sup-
per, and a clean lodging, and he betook himself to rest. — This
Mr. Duncon tells me ; and tells me, that at his first view of Mr.
Herbert, he saw majesty and humility so reconciled in his looks
and behaviour, as begot in him an awful reverence for his person ;
and says, " his discourse was so pious, and his motion so gentle
and meek, that after almost forty years, yet they remain still fmsh
in his memory."

The next morning Mr. Duncon left him, and betook himself to
a journey to Bath, but with a promise to return back to him
within five days, and he did so ; but before I shall say any thing
of what discourse then fell betwixt them two, I will pay my pro-
mised account of Mr. Farrer.

Mr. Nicholas Farrer (who got the reputation of being called
saint Nicholas, at the age of six years) was born in London, and
doubtless had good education in his youth ; but certainly, was at
an early age made fellow of Clare-hall in Cambridge, where he
continued to be eminent for his piety, temperance, and learning.

About the twenty-sixth year of his age, he betook himself to

tr.ml; in which he added to his Latin and Greek, a perfect
knowledge of all the languages spoken in the western parts of
our Christian world ; and understood well the principles of their
religion, and of their manner, and the reasons of their worship.

GEORGE HERBERT. 45

—In this his travel he met with many persuasions to come into
a communion with that church which calls itself catholic : but, he
returned from his travels as he went, eminent for his obedience to
his mother, the church of England. In his absence from England,
Mr. Farrer's father (who was a merchant) allowed him a liberal
maintenance ; and not long after his return into England, Mr.
Farrer had by the death of his father, or an elder brother, or
both, an estate left him, that enabled him to purchase land to the
value of 4 or 500£. a year ; the greatest part of which land was at
Little Gidden 3, four or six miles from Huntingdon, and about
eighteen from Cambridge : which place, he chose for the privacy
of it, and for the hall, which had the parish church, or chapel be-
longing, and adjoining near to it ; for, Mr. Farrer having seen
the manners and vanities of the world, and found them to be, as
Mr. Herbert says, " a nothing between two dishes ;" did so con-
temn it, that he resolved to spend the remainder of his life in
mortifications, and in devotion, and charity, and to be always
prepared for death. And his life was spent thus.

He, and his family, which were like a little college, and about
thirty in number, did most of them keep Lent, and all ember-
weeks strictly, both in fasting, and using all those mortifications
and prayers that the church hath appointed to be then used :
and he and they did the like constantly on Fridays, and on the
vigils, or eves appointed to be fasted before the saints-days : and
this frugality and abstinence turned to the relief of the poor : but
this was but a part of his charity, none but God and he knew
the rest.

This family, which I have said to be in number about thirty,
were a part of them his kindred, and the rest chosen to be of a
temper fit to be moulded into a devout life ; and all of them were
for their dispositions serviceable and quiet, and humble, and free
from scandal. Having thus fitted himself for his family, he did
about the year 1 630, betake himself to a constant and methodical
service of God, and it was in this manner. He being accom-
panied with most of his family, did himself use to read the
common prayers (for he was a deacon) every day at the appointed
hours of ten and four, in the parish church which was very near
his house, and which he had both repaired and adorned ; for it
was fallen into a great ruin, by reason of a depopulation of the

3 Little Gidden.'] About four or five miles from Leighton.

46 GEORGE HERBERT.

village before Mr. Farrer bought the manor; and, he did also
constantly read the mattins every morning at the hour of six,
either in the church, or in an oratory, which was within his own
house : and many of the family did there continue with him after
the prayers were ended, and there they spent some hours in
singing hymns, or anthems, sometimes in the church, and often
to an organ in the oratory. And there they sometimes betook
themselves to meditate, or to pray privately, or to read a part of
the New Testament to themselves, or to continue their praying
or reading the psalms : and, in case the psalms were not always
read in the day, then Mr. Farrer, and others of the congrega-
tion, did at night, at the ring of a watch-bell, repair to the
church or oratory, and there betake themselves to prayers, and
lauding God, and reading the psalms that had not been read in
the day ; and, when these, or any part of the congregation grew
weary, or faint, the watch-bell was rung, sometimes before, and
sometimes after midnight : and then another part of the family
rose, and maintained the watch, sometimes by praying, or singing
lauds to God, or reading the psalms : and when after some hours
they also grew weary or faint, they rung the watch-bell, and
were also relieved by some of the former, or by a new part of the
society, which continued their devotions, (as hath been mentioned)

until morning. And it is to be noted, that in this continued

serving of God, the psalter, or whole book of psalms, was in
every four and twenty hours, sung or read over, from the first to
the last verse : and this was done as constantly, as the sun runs
his circle every day about the world, and then begins again the
same instant that it ended.

Thus did Mr. Farrer, and his happy family, serve God da\
and night: thus did they always behave themselves, as in his
presence. And, they did always eat and drink by the strictest
rules of temperance ; eat and drink so, as to be ready to rise at
midnight, or at the call of a watch-bell, and perform their d

tions to God. And it is fit to tell the reader that many of

the clergy that were more inclined to practical piety, and devo-
tiim. than to doubtful and needless disputations, did often come
to Gidden-liall. and make themselves a part of that happy society,
and stay a week or more, and then join with Mr. Farn-r. and the
family in these devotions, and assist and ease him or them in
their watch by ni^ht ; and tli«-r \.-mm.is drvntimis had n-

;han tunnfth.- d«»nn--tir family in the ni^ht ; and the \\atch

GEORGE HERBERT. 47

was always kept in the church or oratory, unless in extreme cold
winter nights, and then it was maintained in a parlour which had
a fire in it ; and the parlour was fitted for that purpose ; and
this course of piety, and great liberality to his poor neighbours,
Mr. Farrer maintained till his death, which was in the year
1639.

Mr. Farrer's, and Mr. Herbert's devout lives, were both so
noted, that the general report of their sanctity, gave them occa-
sion to renew that slight acquaintance which was begun at their
being contemporaries in Cambridge ; and this new holy friend--
ship was long maintained without any interview, but only by
loving and endearing letters. And, one testimony of their
friendship and pious designs may appear by Mr. Farcer's com-
mending the Considerations of John Valdesso 4 (a book which he
had met with in his travels, and translated out of Spanish into
English) to be examined and censured by Mr. Herbert before it
was made public ; which excellent book Mr. Herbert did read,
and return back with many marginal notes, as they be now
printed with it : and with them, Mr. Herbert's affectionate
letter to Mr. Farrer.

This John Valdesso was a Spaniard, and was for fiis learning
and virtue much valued and loved by the great emperor Charles
the fifth, whom Valdesso had followed as a cavalier all the time
of his long and dangerous wars ; and when Valdesso grew old,

4 John Valdesso.~\ Juan Valdes, a noble Spaniard, knighted by Charles V.,
was one of the first who introduced the doctrines of the Reformation into
Naples. He died there in 1540. The original Spanish text of his " Considera-
tions " has never been printed. An Italian version of the work, (by whom
made is uncertain,) was taken to Basle by Pietro Paolo Vergerio, when he
threw up his bishopric of Capo d'Istria, in order to join the reformed church,
and it was placed by him in the hands of Celio Secondo Curione, who added
a preface, and published it at Basle in 1550. Another edition was printed at
Lyons in 1563. From the Italian it was translated into French by C. K.
(Claude de Kerquifinem,) and printed at Paris in 1565. In the French version
the author's name is turned into " Jean de Val de d'Esso." Nicholas Farrer's
English version was made from the Italian, and, with a preface by Dr. Jack-
son, was printed at Oxford, by L. Lichfield, in 1638, in 4to. Copies of the
English translation are in the Bodleian and Sion College libraries. The
Bodleian and the British Museum possess the first Italian edition, and the
Bodleian has also the French translation. It may be remarked as singular,
that at the present time, (1852) when so many books have been reprinted, a
work translated by Nicholas Farrer, having notes by George Herbert, and a
preface by Thomas Jackson, should have remained unnoticed.

48 GEORGE HERBERT.

and grew weary both of war and the world, he took his fair
opportunity to declare to the emperor, that his resolution was to
decline his majesty's service, and betake himself to a quiet and
contemplative life, because there ought to be a vacancy of time

betwixt fighting and dying. The emperor had himself, for

the same, or other like reasons, put on the same resolution : but,
God and himself did, till then, only know them; and he did
therefore desire Valdesso to consider well of what he had said,
and to keep his purpose within his own breast, till they two might
have a second opportunity of a friendly discourse : which Val-
desso promised to do.

In the mean time, the emperor appoints privately a day for
him and Valdesso to meet again, and, after a pious and free dis-
course they both agreed on a certain day to receive the blessed
sacrament publicly : and, appointed an eloquent and devout friar,
to preach a sermon of contempt of the world, and of the hap-
piness and benefit of a quiet and contemplative life ; which the

friar did most affectionately. After which sermon, the emperor

took occasion to declare openly, " That the preacher had begot
in him a resolution to lay down his dignities, and to forsake the
world, and betake himself to a monastical life." And, he pre-
tended, he had persuaded John Valdesso to do the like ; but this
is most certain, that after the emperor had called his son Philip
out of England, and resigned to him all his kingdoms, that then
the emperor, and John Valdesso did perform their resolutions.

This account of John Valdesso I received from a friend, that
had it from the mouth of Mr. Farrer : and, the reader may note,
that in this retirement, John Valdesso writ his one hundred and
ten considerations, and many other treatises of worth, which want
a second Mr. Farrer to procure, and translate them.

After this account of Mr. Farrer, and John Valdesso, I
proceed to my account of Mr. Herbert, and Mr. Duncon, who.
according to his promise, returned from the Bath the fifth day,
ami then found Mr. Herbert much weaker than he left him : and
therefore the discourse could not be long; but at Mr. Duncon's

parting with him, Mr. Herbert spoke to this purpose " Sir,

I pray give my brother Farrer an account of the decaying con-
dition of my body, and tell him, I beg him to continue his daily
prayers for me: and, let him know, that I have considered, That
God only is what In- would he; and. that I am by his gran-
me now v«. like him. as to be pl.--a>ed \\ith what pleas.-th

GEORGE HERBERT. 49

him ; and tell him, that I do not repine but am pleased with my
want of health ; and tell him, my heart is fixed on that place
where true joy is only to be found, and, that I long to be there,
and do wait for my appointed change with hope and patience."
Having said this, he did with so sweet a humility as seemed to
exalt him, bow down to Mr. Duncon, and with a thoughtful and

contented look, say to him " Sir, I pray deliver this little

book to my dear brother Farrer, and tell him, he shall find in it
a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have past betwixt
God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus
my master ; in whose service I have now found perfect freedom :
desire him to read it ; and then, if he can think it may turn to
the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public :
if not, let him burn it : for, I and it are less than the least of

God's mercies." Thus meanly did this humble man think of

this excellent book, which now bears the name of THE TEMPLE :
or, Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations ; of which, Mr. Farrer
would say, " There was in it the picture of a divine soul in every
page ; and, that the whole book was such a harmony of holy
passions, as would enrich the world with pleasure and piety.11
And, it appears to have done so : for there have been more than
twenty thousand of them sold since the first impression.

And this ought to be noted, that when Mr. Farrer sent this
book to Cambridge to be licensed for the press, the vice-chancellor
would by no means allow the two so much noted verses,

" Religion stands a tip-toe in our land,
Ready to pass 5 to the American strand,"

5 Ready to pass.] " Now, I beseech you, let me know what your opinion
is of our English plantations in the New World. Heretofore I have won-
dered in my thoughts at the providence of God concerning that world, not
discovered till this old world of ours is almost at an end ; and then no foot-
steps found of the knowledge of the true God, much less of Christ. And
then considering our English plantations of late, and the opinion of many
grave divines concerning the Gospel's fleeting westward, sometimes I have had
such thoughts, why may not that be the place of New Jerusalem ? But you
have handsomely and fully cleared me from such odd conceits. But what ?
I pray you, shall our English there degenerate and join themselves with Gog
and Magog. We have heard lately divers ways, that our people there have no
hope of the conversion of the natives. And the very week after I received
your last letter, I saw a letter written from New England, discoursing of an
impossibility of subsisting there; and seems to prefer the confession of God's
truth in any condition here in Old England father than run over to enjoy

VOL. IV. E

50 GEORGE HERBERT.

to be printed ; and Mr. Farrer would by no means allow the
book to be printed, and want them. But after some time, and
some arguments, for and against their being made public, the
vice-chancellor said, " I knew Mr. Herbert well, and know that
he had many heavenly speculations, and was a divine poet, but, I
hope the world will not take him to be an inspired prophet, and
therefore I licence the whole book." So that it came to be
printed, without the diminution or addition of a syllable, since it
was delivered into the hands of Mr. Duncon, save only, that Mr.
Farrer hath added that excellent preface that is printed, be-
fore it.

At the time of Mr. Duncon*s leaving Mr. Herbert, (which was
about three weeks before his death) his old and dear friend Mr.
Woodnot came from London to Bemerton, and never left him,
till he had seen him draw his last breath ; and closed his eyes on
his death-bed. In this time of his decay, he was often visited and
prayed for by all the clergy that lived near to him, especially by
his friends the bishop and prebends of the cathedral church in
Salisbury ; but by none more devoutly than his wife, his three
nieces (then a part of his family) and Mr. Woodnot, who were
the sad witnesses of his daily decay ; to whom he would often

speak to this purpose. u I now look back upon the pleasures

of my life past, and see the content I have taken in beauty, in
wit, in music, and pleasant conversation, are now all past by me,
like a dream, or as a shadow that returns not, and are now all
become dead to me, or I to them ; and I see that as my father
and generation hath done before me, so I also shall now suddenly
(with Job) make my led also in the dark ; and, I praise God I am
prepared for it ; and I praise him, that I am not to learn patience,
now I stand in such need of it ; and, that I have practised mor-
tification, and endeavoured to die daily, that I might not die
eternally ; and, my hope is, that I shall shortly leave this valley

their liberty there : yea, and that the Gospel is likely to be more dear in New
England than in Old : and lastly, unless they be exceeding careful, and God
wonderfully merciful, they are like to lose that life and zeal for God and his
truth in New England, which they enjoyed in Old : as whereof they have
already woeful experience, and many there feel it to their smart." Letter
of Dr'. W. Twisse to Joseph Mede, dated March 2, 1634. Mede's Works,
p. 799.

Barnabas Oley, in his Life of Herbert, referring to the same lines, says,
" I pray God he may prove a true prophet for poor America, not nyainst poor
England."

GEORGE HERBERT. ol

of tears, and be free from all fevers and pain : and, which will be
a more happy condition, I shall be free from sin, and all the
temptations and anxieties that attend it ; and this being past, I
shall dwell in the new Jerusalem, dwell there with men made
perfect ; dwell, where these eyes shall see my master and Saviour
Jesus ; and, with him see my dear mother, and all my relations

and friends. But I must die, or not come to that happy place.

And, this is my content, that I am going daily towards it ; and,
that every day which I have lived hath taken a part of my ap-
pointed time from me ; and, that I shall live the less time, for,
having lived this, and the day past." — —These and the like
expressions, which he uttered often, may be said to be his enjoy-
ment of heaven, before he enjoyed it. The Sunday before his

death, he rose suddenly from his bed or couch, called for one of
his instruments, took it into his hand, and said

" My God, my God,
My music shall find thee,

And every string
Shall have his attribute to sing."

And having tuned it, he played and sung :

" The Sundays of man's life,

Threaded together on time's string,
Make bracelets, to adorn the wife

Of the eternal, glorious King :
On Sundays, heaven's door stands ope ;

Blessings are plentiful and rife,
More plentiful than hope."

Thus he sung on earth such hymns and anthems as the angels
and he, and Mr. Farrer, now sing in heaven.

Thus he continued meditating and praying, and rejoicing, till
the day of his death ; and on that day, said to Mr. Woodnot,
" My dear friend, I am sorry I have nothing to present to my
merciful God but sin and misery ; but the first is pardoned : and
a few hours will now put a period to the latter ; for I shall sud-
denly go hence and be no more seen." Upon which expression,
Mr. Woodnot took occasion to remember him of the re-edifying
Layton church, and his many acts of mercy ; to which he made
answer, saying, " They be good works, if they be sprinkled with
the blood of Christ, and not otherwise." After this discourse he
became more restless, and his soul seemed to be weary of her
earthly tabernacle ; and this uneasiness became so visible, that

K 2

52 GEORGE HERBERT.

his wife, his three nieces, and Mr. Woodnot, stood constantly
about his bed, beholding him with sorrow, and an unwillingness
to lose the sight of him whom they could not hope to see much

longer. As they stood thus beholding him, his wife observed

him to breathe faintly, and with much trouble ; and observed him
to fall into a sudden agony ; which so surprised her, that she fell
into a sudden passion, and required of him to know, " how he
did f to which his answer was, " That he had past a conflict with
his last enemy, and had overcome him, by the merits of his master
Jesus." After which answer, he looked up, and saw his wife and
nieces weeping to an extremity, and charged them, u If they
loved him, to withdraw into the next room, and there pray every
one alone for him, for nothing but their lamentations could make
his death uncomfortable.1'* To which request, their sighs and
tears would not suffer them to make any reply : but they yielded
him a sad obedience, leaving only with him, Mr. Woodnot, and
Mr. Bostock. Immediately after they had left him, he said to
Mr. Bostock, " Pray sir open that door, then look into that
cabinet, in which you may easily find my last will, and give it into
my hand ;" which being done Mr. Herbert delivered it into the
hand of Mr. Woodnot, and said, " My old friend, I here deliver
you my last will, in which you will find that I have made you my
sole executor for the good of my wife and nieces ; and I desire you
to shew kindness to them, as they shall need it. I do not desire
you to be just : for, I know you will be so for your own sake ;
but, I charge you, by the religion of our friendship, to be careful
of them.1' And having obtained Mr. Woodnot^s promise to be
so ; he said, " I am now ready to die :" after which words he
said, " Lord, forsake me not now my strength faileth me : but
grant me mercy for the merits of my Jesus ; and now Lord,
Lord now receive my soul.11 And with those words he breathed
forth his divine soul, without any apparent disturbance: Mr.
Woodnot, and Mr. Bostock, attending his last breath, and closing
his eyes.

Thus he lived, and thus he died like a saint, unspotted of the
world, full of alms-deeds, full of humility, and all the examples of
a virtuous life; which I cannot conclude better, than with this
borrowed observation :

"... All must to their cold graves ;
But the religious actions of the just,
Smell sweet in death, and blossom in the dust."

GEORGE HERBERT. 53

Mr. George Herbert's have done so to this, and will doubtless

do so to succeeding generations. 1 have but this to say more

of him : that if Andrew Melvin died before him, then George

Herbert died without an enemy. 1 wish (if God shall be so

pleased) that I may be so happy as to die like him.

Iz. WA.

There is a debt justly due to the memory of Mr. Herbert's
virtuous wife ; a part of which I will endeavour to pay, by a very
short account of the remainder of her life, which shall follow.

She continued his disconsolate widow about six years, bemoan-
ing herself, and complaining, " that she had lost the delight of her
eyes," but more " that she had lost the spiritual guide for her pool-
soul ;" and would often say, " 0 that I had like holy Mary, the
mother of Jesus, treasured up all his sayings in my heart : but
since I have not been able to do that, I will labour to live like
him, that where he now is, 1 may be also." And she would often
say (as the prophet David for his son Absalom) 0 that Iliad died
for him ! Thus she continued mourning, till time and conversa-
tion had so moderated her sorrows, that she became the happy
wife of sir Robert Cook of Highnam in the county of Gloucester
knight : and though he put a high value on the excellent accom-
plishments of her mind and body ; and was so like Mr. Herbert,
as not to govern like a master, but as an affectionate husband ;
yet, she would even to him often take occasion to mention the
name of Mr. George Herbert, and say, " That name must live in

her memory, till she put off mortality." By sir Robert, she had

only one child, a daughter, whose parts and plentiful estate make
her happy in this world, and her well using of them, gives a fail-
testimony, that she will be so in that which is to come.

Mrs. Herbert was the wife of sir Robert eight years, and lived
his widow about fifteen ; all which time she took a pleasure in
mentioning, and commending the excellencies of Mr. George
Herbert. She died in the year 1663, and lies buried at Highnam :
Mr. Herbert in his own church, under the altar, and covered with
a grave-stone without any inscription.

This lady Cook had preserved many of Mr. Herbert's private
writings, which she intended to make public : but they, and
Highnam house, were burnt together, by the late rebels, and so
lost to posterity. I. W.

54 GEORGE HERBERT.

LETTERS written by Mr. GEORGE HERBERT, at his being in Cam-
bridge: with others to his mother, the lady MAGDALEN HER-
BERT, written by JOHN DONNE, afterwards Dean of St. PauFs.

Mr. GEORGE HERBERT to N. F.6 the translator of Valdesso.

My dear and deserving brother, your Valdesso I now return
with many thanks, and some notes, in which perhaps you will
discover some care, which I forbear not in the midst of my griefs ;
first for your sake ; because, I would do nothing negligently that
you commit unto me ; secondly for the author's sake, whom I
conceive to have been a true servant of God ; and to such, and
all that is theirs, I owe diligence ; thirdly for the church's sake,
to whom by printing it, I would have you consecrate it. You
owe the church a debt, and God hath put this into your hands
(as he sent the fish with money to St. Peter) to discharge it :
happily also with this (as his thoughts are fruitful) intending the
honour of his servant the author, who being obscured in his own
country, he would have to flourish in this land of light, and
region of the gospel, among his chosen. It is true, there are
some things which I like not in him, as my fragments will express,
when you read them ; nevertheless, I wish you by all means to
publish it ; for these three eminent things observable therein :
first, that God in the midst of popery should open the eyes of
one to understand and express so clearly and excellently the
intent of the gospel in the acceptation of Christ's righteousness :
(as he sheweth through all his considerations,) a thing strangely
buried, and darkened by the adversaries, and their great stum-
bling block. Secondly, the great honour and reverence which he
every where bears towards our dear master and lord ; concluding
every consideration almost with his holy name, and setting his
merit forth so piously ; for which I do so love him, that were
there nothing else, I would print it, that with it the honour of my
lord might be published. Thirdly, the many pious rules of order-
ing our life, about mortification, and observation of God's king-
dom within us, and the working thereof; of which he was a very
diligent observer. These three things are very eminent in the

6 N. F.] Nicholas Ferrar, see p. 47.

GEORGE HERBERT. 55

author, and overweigh the defects (as I conceive) towards the
publishing thereof.

From his Parsonage of Bemerton, near
Salisbury, Sept. 29, 1632.

To SIR J. D /

Sir,

Though I had the best wit in the world, yet it would easily tire
me, to find out variety of thanks for the diversity of your favours,
if I sought to do so ; but, I profess it not : and therefore let it be
sufficient for me, that the same heart, which you have won long
since, is still true to you, and hath nothing else to answer your
infinite kindnesses, but a constancy of obedience ; only hereafter
I will take heed how I propose my desires unto you, since I find
you so willing to yield to my requests ; for, since your favours come
on horseback, there is reason, that my desires should go on foot :
neither do I make any question, but that you have performed
your kindness to the full, and that the horse is every way fit for
me, and I will strive to imitate the completeness of your love,
with being in some proportion, and after my manner,

Your most obedient servant,

GEORGE HERBERT.

For my dear sick sister 8.

Most dear Sister,

Think not my silence forge tfulness ; or, that my love is as dumb
as my papers ; though businesses may stop my hand, yet my
heart, a much better member, is always with you : and which is
more, with our good and gracious God, incessantly begging some
ease of your pains, with that earnestness, that becomes your

7 Sir J. D.] Sir John Danvers, step-father to George Herbert.

8 Sick sister.'] Elizabeth, the eldest, married to Sir Henry Jones. " The
latter end of her time was the most sickly and miserable that hath been
known in our times, while for the space of about fourteen years she lan-
guished and pined away to skin and bones, and at last died in London."
Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, p. 15.

56 GEORGE HERBERT.

griefs, and my love. God who knows and sees this writing, knows
also that my soliciting him has been much, and my tears many
for you ; judge me then by those waters, and not by my ink, and
then you shall justly value

Your most truly,

most heartily,

affectionate brother,

and servant,

Decem. 6, 1620. GEORGE HEUBEI; i

Trin. Coll.

Sir',

I dare no longer be silent, least while I think I am modest, I
wrong both myself, and also the confidence my friends have in
me ; wherefore I will open my case unto you, which I think
deserves the reading at the least ; and it is this, I want books
extreamly. You know sir, how I am now setting foot into
divinity, to lay the platform of my future life, and shall I then be
fain always to borrow books, and build on another's foundation ?
What tradesman is there who will set up without his tools?
Pardon my boldness sir, it is a most serious case, nor can I write
coldly in that wherein consisteth the making good of my former
education, of obeying that spirit which hath guided me hitherto,
and of atchieving my (I dare say) holy ends. This also is aggra-
vated, in that I apprehend what my friends would have been for-
ward to say, if I had taken ill courses, " Follow your book, and
you shall want nothing." You know sir, it is their ordinary
speech, and now let them make it good ; for since I hope I have
not deceived their expectation, let not them deceive mine. — But
perhaps they will say, " You are sickly, you must not study too
hard." It is true (God knows) I am weak, yet not so but that
every day I may step one step towards my journey's end ; and I
love my friends so well, as that if all things proved not well, I
had rather the fault should lie on me, than on them. — But they
will object again, "What becomes of your annuity?" Sir, ii'
tin-re l»i aii\ truth in me, I find it little enough to keep me in
health. You know I was sick last vacation, neither am I yet

9 Sir.] Sir John Danvers.

GEORGE HERBERT. 57

recovered, so that I am fain ever and anon, to buy somewhat
tending towards my health, for infirmities are both painful and
costly. Now this Lent I am forbid utterly to eat any fish, so
that I am fain to diet in my chamber at mine own cost ; for in
our public halls, you know, is nothing but fish and whit-meats.
Out of Lent also twice a week, on Fridays and Saturdays, I must
do so, which yet sometimes I fast. Sometimes also I ride to
Newmarket, and there lie a day or two for fresh air ; all which
tend to avoiding of costlier matters, if I should fall absolutely
sick. I protest and vow, I even study thrift, and yet I am scarce
able with much ado to make one half yearns allowance, shake hands
with the other : and yet if a book of four or five shillings come in
my way, I buy it, though I fast for it ; yea, sometimes of ten
shillings. But alas sir, what is that to those infinite volumes of
divinity, which yet every day swell, and grow bigger. Noble sir,
pardon my boldness, and consider but these three things. First,
the bulk of divinity. Secondly, the time when I desire this
(which is now, when I must lay the foundation of my whole life.)
Thirdly, what I desire, and to what end, not vain pleasures, nor
to a vain end. If then, sir, there be any course, either by engaging
my future annuity, or any other way, I desire you, sir, to be my
mediator to them in my behalf.

Now I write to you, sir, because to you I have ever opened my
heart ; and have reason, by the patents of your perpetual favour
to do so still, for I am sure you love

Your faithfullest servant,

GEORGE HERBERT.

March 18, 1617.
Trin. Coll

Sir1,

This week hath loaded me with your favours. I wish I could
have come in person to thank you, but it is not possible ; presently
after Michaelmas, I am to make an oration to the whole university
of an hour long in Latin, and my Lincoln journey hath set me
much behind hand. Neither can I so much as go to Bugden, and
deliver your letter, yet have I sent it thither by a faithful mes-
senger this day. I beseech you all, you and my dear mother and

1 Sir.'] Sir John Danvers.

58 GEORGE HERBERT.

sister to pardon me, for my Cambridge necessities are stronger to
tie me here, than your's to London. If I could possibly have
come, none should have done my message to sir Fr. Nethersole
for me ; he and I are ancient acquaintance, and I have a strong
opinion of him, that if he can do me a courtesy, he will of himself;
yet your appearing in it affects me strangely. I have sent you
here inclosed a letter from our master in my behalf, which if you
can send to sir Francis before his departure, it will do well, for
it expresseth the university's inclination to me ; yet if you cannot
send it with much convenience, it is no matter, for the gentleman
needs no incitation to love me.

The orator's place (that you may understand what it is) is the
finest place in the university, though not the gainfullest. Yet
that will be about 30£. per an. but the commodiousness is beyond
the revenue; for the orator writes all the university letters,
makes all the orations, be it to king, prince, or whatever comes
to the university. To requite these pains, he takes place next
the doctors, is at all their assemblies and meetings, and sits above
the proctors, is regent or non-regent at his pleasure, and such like
gaynesses, which will please a young man well.

I long to hear from sir Francis. I pray sir send the letter you
receive from him to me as soon as you can, that I may work the
heads to my purpose. I hope I shall get this place without all
your London helps, of which I am very proud ; not but that I
joy in your favours, but that you may see, that if all fail, yet I
am able to stand on mine own legs. Noble sir, I thank you for
your infinite favours, I fear only that I have omitted some
fitting circumstance, yet you will pardon my haste, which is very
great, though never so, but that I have both time and work
to be

Your extream servant,

GEORGE HERBERT.

Sir2,

I have received the things you sent me, safe ; and now the
only thing I long for, is to hear of my dear sick sister ; first, how
her health fares, next, whether my peace be yet made with IK r

" Sir.] Sir John Danvers.

GEORGE HERBERT. 59

concerning my unkind departure. Can I be so happy, as to hear
of both these, that they succeed well ? Is it not too much for
me ? Good sir, make it plain to her, that I loved her even in my
departure, in looking to her son, and my charge. I suppose she
is not disposed to spend her eye-sight on a piece of paper, or else
I had wrote to her : when I shall understand that a letter will be
seasonable, my pen is ready. — Concerning the orator's place all
goes well yet : the next Friday it is tried, and accordingly you
shall hear. I have forty businesses in my hands ; your courtesy
will pardon the haste of

Your humble servant,

GEORGE HERBERT.
Jan. 19, 1619.
Trin. Coll.

Sir3,

I understand by sir Francis NethersoFs letter, that he fears I
have not fully resolved of the matter, since this place being civil
may divert me too much from divinity, at which, not without
cause he thinks I aim. But, I have wrote him back, that this
dignity hath no such earthiness in it, but it may very well be
joined with heaven ; or if it had to others, yet to me it should
not, for ought I yet knew : and therefore I desire him to send
me a direct answer in his next letter. I pray sir therefore, cause
this inclosed to be carried to his brother's house of his own name
(as I think) at the sign of the Pedler and the Pack on London-
bridge, for there he assigns me. I cannot yet find leisure to
write to my lord, or sir Benjamin Ruddyard ; but I hope I shall
shortly. Though for the reckoning of your favours I shall never
find time and paper enough, yet I am

Your readiest servant,

GEORGE HERBERT.
Octob. 6, 1619.
Trin. Coll.

I remember my most humble duty to my mother, who cannot
think me lazy, since I rode two hundred miles to see a sister,
in a way I knew not, in the midst of much business, and all
in a fortnight, not long since.

3 Sir.] Sir John Danvers.

60 GEORGE HERBERT.

To the truly nolle SIR J. D.4
Sir,

I understand by a letter from my brother Henry, that he hath
bought a parcel of books for me, and that they are coming over.
Now though they have hitherto travelled upon your charge, yet
if my sister were acquainted that they are ready, I dare say she
would make good her promise of taking five or six pound upon
her, which she hath hitherto deferred to do, not of herself, but
upon the want of those books which were not to be got in
England. For that which surmounts, though your noble dispo-
sition is infinitely free, yet I had rather fly to my old ward, that
if any cause could be taken of doubling my annuity now, upon
condition that I should surcease from all title to it after I
entered into a benefice, I should be most glad to entertain it,
and both pay for the surplusage of these books, and for ever after
cease my clamorous and greedy bookish requests. It is high
time now that I should be no more a burden to you, since I can
never answer what I have already received; for your favours
are so ancient, that they prevent my memory, and yet still grow
upon

Your humble servant,

GEORGE HERBERT.

I remember my most humble duty to my mother. I have wrote
to my dear sick sister this week already, and therefore now I
hope may be excused.

I pray sir, pardon my boldness of inclosing my brother's letter in
yourX for it was because I know your lodging, but not his.

To the worthiest Lady^ MRS. MAGDALEN HERBERT.

Madam,

Every excuse hath in it somewhat of accusation, and since I
am innocent, and yet must excuse, how shall I do for that part
of accusing? By my troth, as desperate and perplrxcd nun
L;TO\V from tlicucc bold ; so must I take the boldness of accusing
you, who would draw so dark a curtain betwixt UK.- and your pur-

4 Sir.} Sir John Danvcrs.

GEORGE HERBERT. 61

poses, as that I had no glimmering, neither of your goings, nor
the way which my letters might haunt. Yet, I have given this
licence to travel, but I know not whither, nor it. It is therefore
rather a pinnace to discover ; and the intire colony of letters, of
hundreds and fifties, must follow; whose employment is more
honourable, than that which our state meditates to Virginia,
because you are worthier than all that country, of which that is
a wretched inch ; for you have a better treasure, and a harmless-
ness. If this sound like a flattery, tear it out. I am to my
letters as rigid a puritan, as Csesar was to his wife. I can as ill
endure a suspitious and misinterpretable word as a fault ; but
remember that nothing is flattery which the speaker believes;
and of the grossest flatteries there is this good use, that they tell
us what we should be. But madam, you are beyond instruc-
tion, and therefore there can belong to you only praise; of
which though you be no good hearer, yet allow all my letters
leave to have in them one part of it, which is thankfulness
towards you.

Your unworthiest servant,

Except your excepting

have mended him,

Mickin, JOHN DONNE.

July 11, 1607.

To the worthiest Lady, MRS. MAGDALEN HERBERT.

Madam,

This is my second letter, in which though I cannot tell you
what is good, yet this is the worst that I must be a great part
of it ; yet to me that is recompensed, because you must be
mingled. After I knew you were gone (for I must little less
than accusingly tell you, I knew not you would go) I sent my
first letter, like a Bevis of Hampton, to seek adventures. This
day I came to town, and to the best part of it, your house ; for
your memory is a state-cloth and presence, which I reverence,
though you be away ; though I need not seek that there, which
I have about and within me. There, though I found my accusa-
tion, yet any thing to which your hand is, is a pardon ; yet I
would not burn my first letter, because as in great destiny no
small passage can be omitted or frustrated, so in my resolution of

62 GEORGE HERBERT.

writing almost daily to you, I would have no link of the chain
broke by me, both because my letters interpret one another, and
because only their number can give them weight. If I had your
commission and instructions to do you the service of a legier
ambassador here, I could say something of the countess of Devon,
of the states, and such things. But since to you, who are not
only a world alone, but the monarchy of the world yourself,
nothing can be added, especially by me ; I will sustain myself
with the honour of being

Your servant extraordinary,

And without place,

JOHN DON XL.
London, July 23, 1607.

To the worthiest Lady, MRS. MAGDALEN HERBERT.

Madam,

As we must die before we can have full glory and happiness, so
before I can have this degree of it, as to see you by a letter, I
must almost die, that is, come to London, to plaguy London ; a
place full of danger, and vanity, and vice, though the court be
gone. And such it will be, till your return redeem it. Not that
the greatest virtue in the world, which is you, can be such a
marshal, as to defeat, or disperse all the vice of this place ; but
as higher bodies remove, or contract themselves when better
come, so at your return we shall have one door open to innocence.
Yet madam, you are not such an Ireland, as produceth neither
ill, nor good ; no spiders, nor nightingales, which is a rare degree
of perfection ; but you have found and practised that experiment,
that even nature, out of her detesting of emptiness, if we will
make that our work, to remove bad, will fill us with good things.
To abstain from it, was therefore but the childhood, and minority
of your soul, which had been long exercised since, in your manlier
active part, of doing good. Of which since I have been a witness
and subject, not to tell you sometimes, that by your influence
and example I have attained to such a step of goodness, as to be
thankful, were both to accuse your power and judgment of
impotency and infirmity.

Your ladyship's in all services,

August 2, 1607. .!«MIN-

GEORGE HERBERT. 63

On MR. GEORGE HERBERT'S Book, intitled The Temple of
Sacred Poems, sent to a Gentlewoman.

Know you, fair, on what you look ?

Divinest love lies in this book :

Expecting fire from your eyes,

To kindle this his sacrifice.

When your hands untie these strings,

Think you've an angel by the wings,

One that gladly will be nigh,

To wait upon each morning sigh ;

To nutter in the balmy air,

Of your well-perfumed prayer.

These white plumes of his he'll lend you,

Which every day to heaven will send you,

To take acquaintance of the sphere,

And all the smooth-fac'd kindred there.

And though Herbert's name do owe

These devotions, fairest, know

That while I lay them on the shrine

Of your white hand, they are mine.

To the Hlght Honourable the Lady ANNE, Countess of PEMBROKE
and MONTAGUE 5, at Court.

Madam,

What a trouble hath your goodness brought on you, by
admitting our poor services? Now they creep in a vessel of
metheglin, and still they will be presenting or wishing to see if
at length they may find out something not unworthy of those
hands at which they aim. In the mean time a priests blessing,
though it be none of the courtstile, yet doubtless madam, can do
you no hurt. Wherefore the Lord make good the blessing of

5 Montague."] An error for Montgomery; Anne Clifford, sole daughter
and heir to George, earl of Cumberland, widow of Richard, earl of Dorset,
and afterwards wife of Philip, earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. " She
was the oldest, but the most independent courtier in the kingdom : had
known and admired queen Elizabeth : had refused what she deemed an ini-
quitous award of king James ; rebuilt her dismantled castles in defiance of
Cromwell ; and repelled, with disdain, the interposition of a profligate mi-
nister under Charles the Second." — Whitaker's Craven.

64 GEORGE HERBERT.

your mother upon you, and cause all her wishes, diligence,
prayers and tears, to bud, blow and bear fruit in your soul, to
his glory, your own good, and the great joy of

Madam,

Your most faithful servant
in Christ Jesu,

GEORGE HERBERT.
Dec. 10, 1631, Bemerton.

Madam, your poor colony of servants present their humble
duties.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

VOT,. IV.

.... Tandem hoc didicit, ANIMAS SAPIENTIORES FIERI QUIESCENDO.
PREFACE TO WOTTON ON ARCHITECTURE.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

SIR HENRY WOTTON (whose life I now intend to write) was
born in the year of our redemption 1568, in Bocton-hall (com-
monly called Bocton, or Boughton-place, or palace,) in the parish
of Bocton Malherb, in the fruitful country of Kent ; Bocton-hall
being an ancient and goodly structure *, beautifying and being
beautified by the parish church of Bocton Malherb adjoining unto
it, and both seated within a fair park of the Wottons, on the brow
of such a hill as gives the advantage of a large prospect and of
equal pleasure to all beholders.

But this house and church are not remarkable for any thing so
much as for that the memorable family of the Wottons 2 have so
long inhabited the one, and now lie buried in the other, as appears
by their many monuments in that church : the Wottons being a
family that hath brought forth divers persons eminent for wisdom
and valour ; whose heroic acts and noble employments, both in
England and in foreign parts, have adorned themselves and this
nation, which they have served abroad faithfully in the discharge
of their great trust, and prudently in their negotiations with
several princes ; and also served at home with much honour and
justice in their wise managing a great part of the public affairs
thereof, in the various times both of war and peace.

1 Goodly structure.'] See some engravings, with descriptions of its present
remains, in Henry Shaw's Elizabethan Architecture.

2 Family of the Wottons.'] Catharine Wotton, eldest daughter and coheir of
Thomas, second lord Wotton, and great niece of sir Henry Wotton, married
Henry, lord Stanhope, son of Philip, first earl of Chesterfield. She was
created countess of Chesterfield for life. Her grandson, Charles Stanhope
(younger brother of the third earl of Chesterfield), inherited her estates
and took the name of Wotton. He died without issue.

F 2

68 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

But lest I should be thought by any that may incline either to
deny or doubt this truth, not to have observed moderation in the
commendation of this family; and also for that I believe the
merits and memory of such persons ought to be thankfully
recorded, I shall offer to the consideration of every reader, out
of the testimony of their pedigree, and our chronicles, a part
(and but a part) of that just commendation which might be
from thence enlarged; and shall then leave the indifferent
reader to judge whether my error be an excess or defect of
commendations.

Sir Robert Wotton, of Bocton Malherb, knt. was born about
the year of Christ 1460 : he lived in the reign of king Edward
the fourth, was by him trusted to be lieutenant of Guisnes, to be
knight porter, and comptroller of Calais, where he died, and lies
honourably buried.

Sir Edward Wotton3, of Bocton Malherb, knight, (son and
heir of the said sir Robert) was born in the year of Christ 1489,
in the reign of king Henry the seventh : he was made treasurer
of Calais, and of the privy council to king Henry the eighth,
who offered him to be lord chancellor of England ; but (saith
Hollinshed, in his Chronicle) out of a virtuous modesty he
refused it.

Thomas Wotton, of Bocton Malherb, esquire, son and heir of
the said sir Edward, (and the father of our sir Henry that occa-
sions this relation,) was born in the year of Christ 1521 : he was
a gentleman excellently educated, and studious in all the liberal
arts, in the knowledge whereof he attained unto a great perfec-
tion ; who, though he had (besides those abilities, a very noble
and plentiful estate, and the ancient interest of his predecessors)
many invitations from queen Elizabeth to change his country
recreations and retirement for a court, offering him a knighthood,
(she was then with him at his Bocton-hall,) and that to be but as
an earnest of some more honourable and more profitable employ-
ment under her ; yet he humbly refused both, being a man of great
modesty, of a most plain and single heart, of an ancient freedom
and integrity of mind. A commendation which sir Henry
Wotton took occasion often to remember with great gladness,
and thankfully to boast himself the son of such a father; from

3 Sir Edward Wot ton."] His sister, Margaret, married Thomas Grey, se-
cond marquis of Dorset, and was grandmother of lady Jane Grey.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 69

whom indeed he derived that noble ingenuity that was always
practised by himself, and which he ever both commended and
cherished in others. This Thomas was also remarkable for hos-
pitality, a great lover, and much beloved of his country ; to which
may justly be added, that he was a cherisher of learning, as
appears by that excellent antiquary Mr. William Lambert4, in his
Perambulation of Kent.

This Thomas 5 had four sons, sir Edward, sir James, sir John,
and sir Henry.

Sir Edward was knighted by queen Elizabeth, and made
comptroller of her majesty "s household. He was (saith Cambden)
a man remarkable for many and great employments in the state
during her reign, and sent several times ambassador into foreign
nations. After her death he was by king James made comp-
troller of his household, and called to be of his privy council, and
by him advanced to be lord Wotton, baron of Merly in Kent, and
made lord lieutenant of that county.

Sir James (the second son) may be numbered among the
martial men of his age, who was in the 38th of queen Elizabeths
reign (with Robert earl of Sussex, count Lodowick of Nassau,
don Christophoro, son of Antonio king of Portugal 6, and divers
other gentlemen of nobleness and valour) knighted in the field
near Cadiz7 in Spain, after they had gotten great honour and
riches, besides a notable retaliation of injuries by taking that
town.

Sir John, being a gentleman excellently accomplished both by
learning and travel, was knighted by queen Elizabeth, and by her
looked upon with more than ordinary favour, and with intentions
of preferment ; but death in his younger years put a period to his
growing hopes.

Of sir Henry my following discourse shall give an account.

The descents of these fore-named Wottons were all in a direct
line, and most of them and their actions in the memory of those

4 Lambert .] More properly Lambard.

5 This Thomas.'] Who died llth January, 1587.

6 King of Portugal.'] Antonio of Portugal, prior of Crato, was a natural
son of the infant Dom Luis, and grandson of the king Dom Emanuel. After
the death of the king Dom Sebastian, in 1578, Antonio was one of the pre-
tenders to the throne of Portugal, and he was supported in his claims by
Elizabeth of England and by France.

7 Near Cadiz.'] In June and July, 1596, by the earl of Essex, who gave
offence to queen Elizabeth by the number of knights he then made.

70 SIR HENRY WO1TON.

with whom we have conversed ; but if I had looked so far back
as to sir Nicholas Wotton, (who lived in the reign of king
Richard the second,) or before him, upon divers others of great
note in their several ages, I might by some be thought tedious ;
and yet others may more justly think me negligent if I omit to
mention Nicholas Wotton, the fourth son of sir Robert, whom I
first named.

This Nicholas Wotton was doctor of law, and sometime dean
both of York and Canterbury ; a man whom God did not only
bless with a long life, but with great abilities of mind, and an
inclination to employ them in the service of his country, as is
testified by his several employments3; having been nine times
ambassador unto foreign princes ; and by his being a privy coun-
cillor to king Henry the eighth, to Edward the sixth, to queen
Mary, and queen Elizabeth ; who also, after he had been during
the wars between England, Scotland, and France, three several
times (and not unsuccessfully) employed in committees for settling
of peace betwixt this and those kingdoms, died (saith learned

Cambden) full of commendations for wisdom and piety. He

was also by the will of king Henry the eighth made one of his
executors, and chief secretary of state to his son, that pious
prince Edward the sixth. Concerning which Nicholas Wotton8

* Camden in his Britannia.

8 Concerning which Nicholas WottonJ] When we consider the numerous
and very important negotiations in which Nicholas Wotton was engaged, it
appears at first sight somewhat strange that so few of his letters or papers
should be known to exist : that such is the case is owing in all probability to
the caution of lord Burghley, with whom even from early life Wotton was
intimate, and whose secrets he possessed. After the death of dean WTotton,
lord Burghley applied to the nephew (the Thomas Wotton who was saved by
the well-timed dream mentioned at p. 74, father of sir Henry), and received
from him, on the 1 8th of March, 1583, the great bulk of the dean's papers.
They are not now however to be found amongst the Cecil Papers, which be-
longed to lord Exeter, and which are now in the British Museum, neither are
they amongst those belonging to the marquess of Salisbury, who possesses
only the few letters of Wotton which are printed by Murdin and Haynes.
There are some few in the State Paper Office which have been recently brought
to light by Mr. Fraser Tytler, and are printed in his England during the reigns
of Edward VI. and Mary. Two very curious volumes of historical and genea-
logical collections in the handwriting of the dean are preserved in the British
Museum, and the late sir George Nayler possessed a similar volume, which
now (1852) belongs to sir Thomas Phillipps, bart. These volumes sufficiently
attest the writer's great knowledge and research.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 71

I shall say but this little more : that he refused (being offered it
by queen Elizabeth) to be b archbishop of Canterbury ; and that
he died not rich, though he lived in that time of the dissolution
of abbeys.

More might be added : but by this it may appear, that sir
Henry Wotton was a branch of such a kindred as left a stock
of reputation to their posterity ; such reputation as might kindle
a generous emulation in strangers, and preserve a noble ambition
in those of his name and family to perform actions worthy of
their ancestors.

And that sir Henry Wotton did so, might appear more per-
fectly than my pen can express it, if of his many surviving friends
some one of higher parts and employment had been pleased to
have commended his to posterity. But since some years are now
past, and they have all (I know not why) forborne to do it, my
gratitude to the memory of my dead friend, and the renewed
request of some c that still live solicitous to see this duty per-
formed ; these have had a power to persuade me to undertake it ;
which truly I. have not done but with some distrust of mine own
abilities, and yet so far from despair, that I am modestly confi-
dent my humble language shall be accepted, because I shall
present all readers with a commixture of truth and sir Henry
Wotton^s merits.

This being premised, I proceed to tell the reader, that the
father of sir Henry Wotton was twice married, first to Elizabeth,
the daughter of sir John Eudstone 9, knight ; after whose death,
though his inclination was averse to all contentions, yet neces-
sitated he was to several suits in law, in the prosecution whereof
(which took up much of his time, and were the occasion of many
discontents) he was by divers of his friends earnestly persuaded
to a remarriage ; to whom he as often answered, That if ever he

b Hollinshead.

c Sir Edward Bish, clarencieux king of arms, Mr. Charles Cotton, and
Mr. Nick Oudert, sometime sir Henry Wotton's servant.

9 Sir John Rudstone.'] Who had been lord mayor of London in 1528, and
died in 1531. There was a triple alliance between his family and that of the
Wottons, as two of his children married two of sir Edward Wotton's, sir
Edward himself having married sir John's widow. He seems to have been
possessed of great wealth. The Harleian MS. 1231 contains nothing else
than his will, inventories of his goods, and deeds relative to his widow and
her marriage.

72 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

did put on a resolution to marry, he was seriously resolved to avoid
three sorts of persons :

C that had children,
namely, those -j that had law-suits.

v that were of his kindred.

And yet, following his own law-suit, he met in Westminster-
hall with Mrs. Elionora Morton, widow to Robert Morton l of
Kent, esquire, who was also engaged in several suits in law ; and
he, observing her comportment at the time of hearing one of her
causes before the judges, could not but at the same time both
compassionate her condition and affect her person (for the tears
of lovers, or beauty drest in sadness, are observed to have in
them a charming eloquence, and to become very often too strong
to be resisted,) which I mention, because it proved so with this
Thomas Wotton ; for although there were in her a concurrence
of all those accidents against which he had so seriously resolved,
yet his affection to her grew then so strong, that he resolved to
solicit her for a wife ; and did, and obtained her.

By her (who was the daughter of sir William Finch a, of East-
well, in Kent,) he had only Henry his youngest son. His

mother undertook to be tutoress unto him during much of his
childhood ; for whose care and pains he paid her each day with
such visible signs of future perfection in learning as turned her
employment into a pleasing trouble, which she was content to
continue till his father took him into his own particular care, and
disposed of him to a tutor in his own house at Bocton.

And when time and diligent instruction had made him fit for a
removal to an higher form (which was very early) he was sent to
Winchester school, a place of strict discipline and order ; that
so he might in his youth be moulded into a method of living
by rule, which his wise father knew to be the most necessary
way to make the future part of his life both happy to himself,
and useful for the discharge of all business, whether public or
private.

And that he might be confirmed in this regularity, he was at
a fit age removed from that school to be commoner of New college

1 Robert Morton.'] By whom she was mother of sir Albertus Morton.
: Sir William Finch.] Ancestor of the earls of Winchelsea and Nottingham,
and Aylesford.

3 To be commoner.] He was admitted in 1584.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 73

in Oxford, both being founded by William Wickham, bishop of
Winchester.

There he continued till about the eighteenth year of his age,
and was then transplanted into Queen's college, where within that
year he was by the chief of that college persuasively enjoined to
write a play for their private use, (it was the tragedy of Tan-
credo,) which was so interwoven with sentences, and for the
method and exact personating those humours, passions and dis-
positions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the
gravest of that society declared he had in a slight employment
given an early and a solid testimony of his future abilities. And
though there may be some sour dispositions, which may think
this not worth a memorial, yet that wise knight Baptista Guarini 4
(whom learned Italy accounts one of her ornaments) thought
it neither an uncomely nor an unprofitable employment for
his age.

But I pass to what will be thought more serious.

About the twentieth year of his age he proceeded master of
arts, and at that time read in Latin three lectures de oculo ;
wherein he having described the form, the motion, the curious
composure of the eye ; and demonstrated how of those very many,
every humour and nerve performs his distinct office, so as the
God of order hath appointed, without mixture or confusion ; and
all this to the advantage of man, to whom the eye is given, not
only as the body's guide, but whereas all other of his senses
require time to inform the soul, this in an instant apprehends
and warns him of danger, teaching him in the very eyes of others
to discover wit, folly, love, and hatred. After he had made
these observations he fell to dispute this optique question,
" Whether we see by the emission of the beams from within, or
reception of the species from without f and after that, and many
other like learned disquisitions, he in the conclusion of his lectures
took a fair occasion to beautify his discourse with a commendation
of the blessing and benefit of seeing ; by which we do not only
discover nature's secrets ; but with a continued content (for the
eye is never weary of seeing) behold the great light of the world,
and by it discover the fabric of the heavens, and both the order
and motion of the celestial orbs ; nay, that if the eye look but
downward, it may rejoice to behold the bosom of the earth, our

4 Guarini.'] Giovanni Battista Guarini, the author of the Pastor Fido.

74 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

common mother, embroidered and adorned with numberless and
various flowers, which man sees daily grow up to perfection, and
then silently moralize his own condition, who in a short time
(like those very flowers) decays and withers, and quickly returns
again to that earth from which both had their first being.

These were so exactly debated, and so rhetorically heightened
as, among other admirers, caused that learned Italian, Albericus
Gentilis 5 (then professor of the civil law in Oxford) to call him
Henrice, mi ocelle ; which dear expression of his was also used by
divers of sir Henry^s dearest friends, and by many other persons
of note, during his stay in the university.

But his stay there was not long ; at least, not so long as his
friends once intended ; for the year after sir Henry proceeded
master of arts, his father (whom sir Henry did never mention
without this or some like reverential expression, as That good
man my father, or my father the best of men :) about that time this
good man changed this for a better life, leaving to sir Henry, as
to his other younger sons, a rent-charge of an hundred marks a
year, to be paid for ever out of some one of his manors of a much
greater value.

And here, though this good man be dead, yet I wish a circum-
stance or two that concern him may not be buried without a rela-
tion ; which I shall undertake to do, for that I suppose they may
so much concern the reader to know, that I may promise myself
a pardon for a short digression.

In the year of our redemption 1553 Nicholas Wotton, dean of
Canterbury (whom I formerly mentioned) being then ambassador
in France, dreamed that his nephew, this Thomas Wotton, was
inclined to be a party in such a project as, if he were not suddenly
prevented, would turn both to the loss of his life and ruin of his
family.

Doubtless the good dean did well know that common dreams
are but a senseless paraphrase on our waking thoughts, or of the
business of the day past, or are the result of our over-engaged
affections when we betake ourselves to rest; and knew that tin-
observation of them may turn to silly superstitions, as they too
often do : but though he might know all this, and might also
believe that prophecies are ceased, yet doubtless he could not but

' Gentilis.] Of whom an account is given by Ant. a Wood.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 75

consider, that all dreams are not to be neglected or cast away
without all consideration, and did therefore rather lay this dream
aside than intend totally to lose it ; and dreaming the same again
the night following, when it became a double dream, like that of
Pharaoh, (of which double dreams the learned have made many
observations) and considering that it had no dependence on his
waking thoughts, much less on the desires of his heart, then he
did more seriously consider it, and remembered that almighty
God was pleased in a dream to reveal and to assure Monica d,
the mother of St. Austin, that he, her son, for whom she wept so
bitterly and prayed so much, should at last become a Christian.
This I believe the good dean considered ; and considering also
that almighty God (though the causes of dreams be often un-
known) hath even in these latter times also, by a certain illumi-
nation of the soul in sleep, discovered many things that human
wisdom could not foresee : upon these considerations he resolved
to use so prudent a remedy, by way of prevention, as might in-
troduce no great inconvenience either to himself or to his nephew.
And to that end he wrote to the queen (it was queen Mary) and
besought her, " That she would cause his nephew Thomas Wot-
ton, to be sent for out of Kent ; and that the lords of her council
might interrogate him in some such feigned questions as might
give a colour for his commitment into a favourable prison ; de-
claring that he would acquaint her majesty with the true reason
of his request when he should next become so happy as to see
and speak to her majesty."

It was done as the dean desired ; and in prison I must leave
Mr. Wotton till I have told the reader what followed.

At this time a marriage was concluded betwixt our queen
Mary and Philip king of Spain ; and though this was concluded
with the advice, if not by the persuasion of her privy council, as
having many probabilities of advantage to this nation, yet divers
persons of a contrary persuasion did not only declare against it,
but also raised forces to oppose it ; believing (as they said) it
would be a means to bring England to be under a subjection to
Spain, and make those of this nation slaves to strangers.

And of this number sir Thomas Wyat, of Boxley Abbey, in
Kent, (betwixt whose family and the family of the Wottons there
had been an ancient and entire friendship) was the principal

d St. Austin's Confessions, book iii. ch. ii.

76 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

actor ; who having persuaded many of the nobility and gentry
(especially in Kent) to side with him, and he being defeated and
taken prisoner, was legally arraigned and condemned, and lost
his life 6 : so did the duke of Suffolk, and divers others, especially
many of the gentry of Kent, who were there in several places
executed as Wyat^s assistants.

And of this number, in all probability, had Mr. Wotton been
if he had not been confined ; for though he could not be ignorant
that another man's treason makes it mine by concealing it, yet
he durst confess to his uncle, when he returned into England,
and then came to visit him in prison, that he had more than an
intimation of Wyat's intentions, and thought he had not con-
tinued actually innocent if his uncle had not so happily dreamed
him into a prison ; out of which place when he was delivered by
the same hand that caused his commitment, they both considered
the dream more seriously, and then both joined in praising God
for it ; that God who ties himself to no rules, either in preventing
of evil, or in shewing of mercy to those whom of good pleasure he
hath chosen to love.

And this dream was the more considerable, because that God,
who in the days of old did use to speak to his people in visions,
did seem to speak to many of this family in dreams ; of which I
will also give the reader one short particular of this Thomas
Wotton, whose dreams did usually prove true, both in foretelling
things to come and discovering things past ; and the particular is
this : — This Thomas, a little before his death, dreamed that the
university treasury was robbed by townsmen and poor scholars ;
and that the number was five : and being that day to write to his
son Henry at Oxford, he thought it worth so much pains as by a
postscript in his letter to make a slight inquiry of it. The letter
(which was writ out of Kent, and dated three days before,) canic
to his son's hands the very morning after the night in which the
robbery was committed; and when the city and university \v.-n-
both in a perplexed inquest of the thieves, then did sir Henry
\Vntton shew his fathers letter, and by it such light was gi\«'ii
of this work of darkness, that the five guilty persons were pre-
sently discovered and apprehended, without putting the university
to so much trouble as the casting of a figun .

6 Lost his life.] He was beheaded, April llth, 1554.

7 Casting a figure J] In our days it sounds strangely that the university of
Oxford should have resorted to astrology.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 77

And it may yet be more considerable, that this Nicholas and
Thomas Wotton should both (being men of holy lives, of even
tempers, and much given to fasting and prayer,) foresee and fore-
tell the very days of their own death. Nicholas did so, being
then seventy years of age, and in perfect health. Thomas did the
like in the sixty-fifth year of his age, who being then in London
(where he died) and foreseeing his death there, gave direction in
what manner his body should be carried to Bocton ; and though
he thought his uncle Nicholas worthy of that noble monument 8
which he built for him in the cathedral church of Canterbury, yet
this humble man gave direction concerning himself to be buried
privately, and especially without any pomp at his funeral. — This
is some account of this family, which seemed to be beloved of
God.

But it may now seem more than time that I return to sir Henry
Wotton at Oxford, where, after his optic lecture, he was taken
into such a bosom friendship with the learned Albericus Gentilis
(whom I formerly named) that if it had been possible Gentilis
would have breathed all his excellent knowledge, both of the
mathematics and law, into the breast of his dear Harry, (for so
Gentilis used to call him) and though he was not able to do that,
yet there was in sir Henry such a propensity and connaturalness
to the Italian language, and those studies whereof Gentilis was
a great master, that this friendship between them did daily
increase, and prove daily advantageous to sir Henry, for the
improvement of him in several sciences during his stay in the
university.

From which place, before I shall invite the reader to follow him
into a foreign nation, though I must omit to mention divers per-
sons that were then in Oxford, of memorable note for learning,
and friends to sir Henry Wotton, yet I must not oinit the men-
tion of a love that was there begun between him and Dr. Donne,
(sometime dean of St. Paul's,) a man of whose abilities I shall
forbear to say any thing, because he who is of this nation, and
pretends to learning or ingenuity, and is ignorant of Dr. Donne,
deserves not to know him. The friendship of these two I must

8 That noble monument.'] Of which an engraving by Cole is in Dart's
History of Canterbury Cathedral: a smaller engraving is in Hasted's History
of Kent.

78 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

not omit to mention, being such a friendship as was generously
elemented : and as it was begun in their youth, and in an univer-
sity, and there maintained by correspondent inclinations and
studies, so it lasted till age and death forced a separation.

In Oxford he staid till about two years after his father's death,
at which time he was about the two and twentieth year of his
age ; and having to his great wit added the ballast of learning,
and knowledge of the arts, he then laid aside his books, and be-
took himself to the useful library of travel, and a more general
conversation with mankind ; employing the remaining part of his
youth, his industry and fortune, to adorn his mind, and to pur-
chase the rich treasure of foreign knowledge ; of which, both for
the secrets of nature, the dispositions of many nations, their
several laws and languages, he was the possessor in a very large
measure, as I shall faithfully make to appear, before I take my
pen from the following narration of his life.

In his travels, which was almost nine years before his return
into England, he staid but one year in France, and most of that
in Geneva, where he became acquainted with Theodore Beza
(then very aged), and with Isaac Casaubon, in whose house (if I
be rightly informed) sir Henry Wotton was lodged, and there
contracted a most worthy friendship9 with that man of rare
learning and ingenuity.

Three of the remaining eight years were spent in Germany,
the other five in Italy (the stage on which God appointed he
should act a great part of his life) where both in Rome, Venice,
and Florence, he became acquainted with the most eminent men
for learning, and all manner of arts; as picture, sculpture,
chemistry, architecture, and other manual arts, even arts of
inferior nature ; of all which he was a most dear lover, and a
most excellent judge.

He returned out of Italy into England about the thirtieth
year of his age, being then noted by many, both for his person
and comportment ; for indeed he was of choice shape, tall
of stature, and of a most persuasive behaviour; which u;i>
so mixed with sweet discourse, and civilities, as gained him

" Worthy friendship.'] Wotton's improvidence in pecuniary matters ap-
pears to have brought Casaubon, who had become his bondsman, into very
considerable anxiety and difficulty. The matter however, in the end, was
settled satisfactorily. This was in the years 1594 and 1595. See Isaaci
Casauboni Epiatobr, fol. 17<M>. p. 11. 12. 1:1. 17. 19.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 79

much love from all persons with whom he entered into an
acquaintance.

And whereas he was noted in his youth to have a sharp wit,
and apt to jest ; that by time, travel, and conversation, was so
polished, and made so useful, that his company seemed to be one
of the delights of mankind ; insomuch as Robert earl of Essex
(then one of the darlings of fortune, and in greatest favour with
queen Elizabeth) invited him first into a friendship, and after a
knowledge of his great abilities, to be one of his secretaries ;
(the other being Mr. Henry Cuife, sometime of Merton college
in Oxford ; and there also the acquaintance of sir Henry Wotton
in his youth ; Mr. Cuffe being then a man of no common note
in the university for his learning; nor after his removal from
that place, for the great abilities of his mind ; nor indeed, for the
fatalness of his end.)

Sir Henry Wotton being now taken into a serviceable friend-
ship with the earl of Essex, did personally attend his counsels
and employments in two voyages at sea against the Spaniards,
and also in that (which was the earl's last) into Ireland ; that
voyage wherein he then did so much provoke the queen to anger,
and worse at his return into England ; upon whose immoveable
favour the earl had built such sandy hopes, as encouraged him
to those undertakings, which with the help of a contrary faction
suddenly caused his commitment to the Tower.

Sir Henry Wotton observing this, though he was not of that
faction (for the earl's followers were also divided into their several
interests) which encouraged the earl to those undertakings which
proved so fatal to him, and divers of his confederation ; yet,
knowing treason to be so comprehensive, as to take in even cir-
cumstances, and out of them to make such positive conclusions as
subtle statesmen shall project, either for their revenge or safety ;
considering this, he thought prevention by absence out of England,
a better security than to stay in it, and there plead his innocence
in a prison. Therefore did he, so soon as the earl was appre-
hended, very quickly, and as privately glide through Kent to
Dover, without so much as looking toward his native and beloved
Bocton ; and was by the help of favourable winds and liberal
payment of the mariners, within sixteen hours after his departure
from London, set upon the French shore; where he heard
shortly after, that the earl was arraigned, condemned, and be-

80 SIR HENRY WOTTOX.

headed ! ; and that his friend Mr. Cuffe was hanged, and divers
other persons of eminent quality executed.

The times did not look so favourably upon sir Henry Wotton,
as to invite his return into England ; having therefore procured
of sir Edward Wotton, his elder brother, an assurance that his
annuity should be paid him in Italy, thither he went, happily
renewing his intermitted friendship and interest, and indeed, his
great content in a new conversation with his old acquaintance in
that nation ; and more particularly in Florence (which city is
not more eminent for the great duke^s court, than for the great
recourse of men of choicest note for learning and arts,) in which
number he there met with his old friend seignior Vietta ', a gen-
tleman of Venice, and then taken to be secretary to the great
duke of Tuscany 3.

After some stay in Florence, he went the fourth time to visit
Rome, where in the English college he had very many friends
(their humanity made them really so, though they knew him to be
a dissenter from many of their principles of religion,) and having
enjoyed their company, and satisfied himself concerning some
curiosities that did partly occasion his journey thither, he returned
back to Florence, where a most notable accident befell him ; an
accident that did not only find new employment for his choice
abilities, but introduce him to a knowledge and an interest with
our king James, then king of Scotland ; which I shall proceed
to relate.

But first, I am to tell the reader, that though queen Elizabeth
(or she and her council) were never willing to declare her suc-
cessor; yet James then king of the Scots, was confidently
believed by most to be the man upon whom the sweet trouble of
kingly government would be imposed ; and the queen declining
very fast, both by age and visible infirmities, those that were of
the Romish persuasion in point of religion (even Rome itself, and
those of this nation) knowing that the death of the queen, and
the establishing of her successor, were taken to be critical
days for destroying or establishing the protestant religion in this

1 Beheaded.] In 1600.

2 Seignior Vietta.] Who is not to be confounded with the great mathema-
tician Francois Viete, then living, a Frenchman, born at Fontenay, in Poitou,
and master of requests to Margaret of Valois.

3 Great duke of Tuscany.] Ferdinand de* Medici.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 81

nation, did therefore improve all opportunities for preventing a
protestant prince to succeed her. And as the pope's excom-
munication 4 of queen Elizabeth, had both by the judgment and
practice of the jesuited papist, exposed her to be warrantably
destroyed ; so (if we may believe an angry adversary 5, a " secular
priest against a Jesuit ") you may believe, that about that time
there were many endeavours, first to excommunicate, and then to
shorten the life of king James.

Immediately after sir Henry Wotton's return from Rome to
Florence (which was about a year before the death of queen
Elizabeth) Ferdinand the great duke of Florence had intercepted
certain letters that discovered a design to take away the life of
James the then king of Scots. The duke abhorring the fact,
and resolving to endeavour a prevention of it, advised with his
secretary Vietta, by what means a caution might be best given
to that king ; and after consideration, it was resolved to be done
by sir Henry Wotton, whom Vietta first commended to the duke,
and the duke had noted and approved of above all the English
that frequented his court.

Sir Henry was gladly called by his friend Vietta to the duke,
who after much profession of trust and friendship, acquainted him
with the secret ; and being well instructed, dispatched him into
Scotland with letters to the king, and with those letters, such
Italian antidotes against poison, as the Scots till then had been
strangers to.

Having parted from the duke, he took up the name and lan-
guage of an Italian ; and thinking it best to avoid the line of
English intelligence and danger; he posted into Norway, and
through that country towards Scotland, where he found the king
at Stirling ; being there, he used means by Bernard Lindsey 6,

4 Pope's excommunication^] Pius V.'s in 1576. "It deposed the queen's
majesty from her royal seat, and tore the crown from her head. It discharged
all her natural subjects from all due obedience. It armed one side of them
against another. It emboldened them to burn, to spoil, to rob, to kill, to
cut one another's throats ; like Pandora's box sent to Epimetheus, full of
hurtful and unwholesome evils." Bp. Jewel.

5 An angry adversary .] William Watson, who was hanged in 1603, with
William Clark and George Brooke, the brother of lord Cobham. The titles of
his books are, 1. Dialogue betwixt a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman, 4to.,
Rhemes, 1601. 2. Decachordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions concerning
Religion and State, 4to., 1602.

6 Bernard Lindsey.'] So read all the editions, as if a cadet of the houses of

VOL. IV. G

82 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

one of the king's bedchamber, to procure him a speedy and
private conference with his majesty, assuring him, "That the
business which he was to negotiate, was of such consequence as
had caused the great duke of Tuscany to enjoin him suddenly to
leave his native country of Italy, to impart it to his king."

This being by Bernard Lindsey made known to the king, the
king after a little wonder (mixed with jealousy) to hear of an
Italian ambassador, or messenger, required his name (which was
said to be Octavio Baldi) and appointed him to be heard privately
at a fixed hour that evening.

When Octavio Baldi came to the presence-chamber door, he
was requested to lay aside his long rapier (which Italian-like he
then wore) and being entered the chamber, he found there with
the king three or four Scotch lords standing distant in several
corners of the chamber ; at the sight of whom he made a stand ;
which the king observing, "bade him be bold, and deliver his
message ; for he would undertake for the secrecy of all that were
present." Then did Octavio Baldi deliver his letters and his
message to the king in Italian; which, when the king had
graciously received, after a little pause, Octavio Baldi steps to
the table and whispers to the king in his own language, that he
was an Englishman, beseeching him for a more private conference
with his majesty, and that he might be concealed during his
stay in that nation ; which was promised, and really performed
by the king during all his abode there, (which was about three
months) all which time was spent with much pleasantness to the
king, and with as much to Octavio Baldi himself, as that country
could afford ; from which he departed as true an Italian 7, as he
came thither.

To the duke of Florence he returned with a fair and grateful
account of his employment, and within some few months after
his return, there came certain news to Florence, that queen
Elizabeth was dead ; and James king of the Scots proclaimed
king of England. The duke knowing travel and business to be
the best schools of wisdom, and that sir Henry Wotton had been
tutored in both, advised him to return presently to England, and

Crawford or Balcarres were meant : the real person was Bernard Lindley,
mentioned by the scandalous chronicler Weldon as one of the Scots who
obtained large grants from James, after his accession to the English throne.
7 As true an Italian.] Meaning that his disguise was not discovered.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 83

there joy the king with his new and better title, and wait there
upon fortune for a better employment.

When king James came into England, he found, amongst
other of the late queen's officers, sir Edward, who was after lord
Wotton, comptroller of the house, of whom he demanded, " If
he knew one Henry Wotton, that had spent much time in foreign
travel 2" the lord replied, he knew him well, and that he was his
brother ; then the king asking where he then was, was answered,
at Venice, or Florence ; but by late letters from thence, he
understood he would suddenly be at Paris. " Send for him,"
said the king, " and when he shall come into England, bid him
repair privately to me." The lord Wotton after a little wonder,
asked the king, " if he knew him ?" to which the king answered,
" You must rest unsatisfied of that, till you bring the gentleman
to me."

Not many months after this discourse, the lord Wotton brought
his brother to attend the king, who took him in his arms, and
bade him welcome by the name of Octavio Baldi, saying, " he
was the most honest, and therefore the best dissembler that ever
he met with:" and said, "Seeing I know you neither want
learning, travel, nor experience, and that I have had so real a
testimony of your faithfulness and abilities to manage an ambas-
sage, I have sent for you to declare my purpose ; which is, to
make use of you in that kind hereafter :" and indeed the king
did so most of those two and twenty years of his reign ; but
before he dismist Octavio Baldi from his present attendance upon
him, he restored him to his old name of Henry Wotton, by which
he then knighted him.

Not long after this, the king having resolved, according to his
motto (Beati pacifici) to have a friendship with his neighbour-
kingdoms of France and Spain 8, and also for divers weighty rea-
sons, to enter into an alliance with the state of Venice, and to
that end to send ambassadors to those several places, did propose
the choice of these employments to sir Henry Wotton ; who
considering the smallness of his own estate (which he never took

8 France and Spain.'] With France Elizabeth had always maintained a close
alliance, but even to the day of her death she held no diplomatic intercourse
with Spain. By James, soon after his accession, sir Charles Cornwallis was sent
to Spain, where he remained for several years. His negotiations are in the
British Museum, and many of them have been printed in Winwood's memo-
rials. Sir Thomas Parry was the ambassador sent by James to France.

84 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

care to augment) and knowing the courts of great princes to be
sumptuous, and necessarily expensive, inclined most to that of
Venice 9, as being a place of more retirement, and best suiting
with his genius, who did ever love to join with business, study,
and a trial of natural experiments ; for both which fruitful Italy,
that darling of nature, and cherisher of all arts, is so justly famed
in all parts of the Christian world.

Sir Henry having after some short time and consideration,
resolved upon Venice, and a large allowance being appointed by
the king for his voyage thither, and settled maintenance during
his stay there, he left England, nobly accompanied through
France to Venice, by gentlemen of the best families and breeding
that this nation afforded. They were too many to name, but
these two, for following reasons may not be omitted ; sir Al-
bertus Morton1 his nephew, who went his secretary; and William
Bedel 2, a man of choice learning, and sanctified wisdom, who went
his chaplain. And though his dear friend doctor Donne (then a
private gentleman) was not one of that number that did personally
accompany him in this voyage, yet the reading of this following
letter sent by him to sir Henry Wotton, the morning before he
left England, may testify he wanted not his friend's best wishes
to attend him.

After those reverend papers, whose soul is

Our good, and great king's loved hand, and feared name :

By which to you he derives much of his,
And how he may, makes you almost the same :

A taper of his torch ; a copy writ

From his original, and a fair beam
Of the same warm and dazzling sun, though it

Must in another sphere his virtue stream :

9 That of Venice.] With the seignory of Venice Elizabeth had held no
intercourse. She neither sent nor received an ambassador throughout her
long reign. Immediately upon her death, the secretary of the republic, Sca-
ramelli, was sent to congratulate James. The Venetian ambassadors in France
were ordered to come over to England for the same purpose, and for more
than a century and a half, with scarcely any intermission, a Venetian resident
was at the court of England.

1 Sir Albertus Morton his nephew.] Sir Albertus Morton was not Wotton's
nephew, but his half-brother. See p. 72.

- William Bedel.] Afterwards bishop of Kilmore, whose life has been
written by bishop Burnet.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 85

After those learned papers which your hand

Hath stored with notes of use and pleasure too ;

From which rich treasury you may command
Fit matter whether you will write or do :

After those loving papers which friends send
With glad grief to your sea-ward steps farewel,

And thicken on you now as prayers ascend

To heaven on troops at a good man's passing-bell :

Admit this honest paper ; and allow

It such an audience as yourself would ask ;
What you would say at Venice, this says now,

And has for nature what you have for task :

To swear much love ; nor to be changed before

Honour alone will to your fortune fit ;
Nor shall I then honour your fortune more,

Than I have done your honour-wanting wit.

But 'tis an easier load (though both oppress)

To want, than govern greatness ; for we are
In that, our own and only business ;

In this, we must for others vices care.

'Tis therefore well, your spirits now are plac'd

In their last furnace, in activity ;
Which fits them : schools, and courts, and wars o'er past

To touch and taste in any best degree.

For me ! (if there be such a thing as I)

Fortune (if there be such a thing as she)
Finds that I bear so well her tyranny,

That she thinks nothing else so fit for me.

But though she part us, to hear my oft prayers

For your increase, God is as near me here :
And to send you what I shall beg, his stairs

In length and ease, are alike every where.

J. DONNE.

Sir Henry Wotton was received by the state of Venice with
much honour and gladness, both for that he delivered his ambas-
sage most elegantly in the Italian language, and came also in
such a juncture of time, as his master's friendship seemed useful
for that republic. The time of his coming thither was about the
year 1604, Leonardo Donato being then duke ; a wise and re-
solved man, and to all purposes such (sir Henry Wotton would
often say it) as the state of Venice could not then have wanted ;
there having been formerly in the time of pope Clement the

86 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

eighth3, some contests about the privileges of churchmen, and
power of the civil magistrate ; of which for the information of
common readers, I shall say a little, because it may give light to
some passages that follow.

About the year 1603, the republic of Venice made several
injunctions against lay-persons giving lands or goods to the
church, without licence from the civil magistrate ; and in that
inhibition they expressed their reasons to be, " For that when
any goods or land once came into the hands of the ecclesiastics,
it was not subject to alienation; by reason whereof (the lay-
people being at their death charitable even to excess) the clergy
grew every day more numerous, and pretended an exemption
from all public service, and taxes, and from all secular judgment :
so that the burden grew thereby too heavy to be borne by the
laity."

Another occasion of difference was, that about this time com-
plaints were justly made by the Venetians against two clergymen,
the abbot of Nervesa, and a canon of Vicenza, for committing
such sins, as I think not fit to name : nor are these mentioned
with an intent to fix a scandal upon any calling ; (for holiness is
not tied to ecclesiastical orders, and Italy is observed to breed
the most virtuous and most vicious men of any nation.) These
two having been long complained of at Rome in the name of the
state of Venice, and no satisfaction being given to the Venetians,
they seized the persons of this abbot and canon, and committed
them to prison.

The justice, or injustice of such or the like power, then used
by the Venetians, had formerly had some calm debates betwixt
the former pope Clement the eighth, and that republic : I say,
calm, for he did not excommunicate them ; considering (as I con-
ceive) that in the late council of Trent it was at last (after many
politique disturbances, and delays, and endeavours to preserve the
pope's present power) in order to a general reformation of those
many errors, which were in time crept into the church, declared
by that council *, " That though discipline, and especially excom-
munication, be one of the chief sinews of church government,
and intended to keep men in obedience to it : for which end, it

8 Clement the eighth.'] Ippolito Aldobrandini, pope from 7th February,
1592, to 5th March, 1605.
4 By that council.] Concil. Trident, sets. xrv. cap. iii.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 87

was declared to be very profitable ; yet, it was also declared and
advised to be used with great sobriety and care : because expe-
rience had informed them, that when it was pronounced unad-
visedly, or rashly, it became more contemned than feared." And,
though this was the advice of that council at the conclusion of it
which was not many years before this quarrel with the Vene-
tians ; yet this prudent, patient pope Clement dying, pope Paul
the fifth 5, who succeeded him (though not immediately 6, yet in
the same year) being a man of a much hotter temper, brought this
difference with the Venetians 7 to a much higher contention : ob-
jecting those late acts of that state to be a diminution of his just
power, and limited a time of twenty-four days for their revoca-
tion ; threatening, if he were not obeyed, to proceed to excommu-
nication of the republic, who still offered to show both reason and
antient custom to warrant their actions. But this pope, contrary
to his predecessor's moderation, required absolute obedience
without disputes.

Thus it continued for about a year ; the pope still threatening
excommunication, and the Venetians still answering him with
fair speeches, and no compliance, till at last, the pope's zeal to
the apostolic see did make him excommunicate the duke, the
whole senate, and all their dominions ; and that done to shut up
all their churches ; charging the whole clergy to forbear all sacred
offices to the Venetians, till their obedience should render them
capable of absolution.

But this act of the pope's did but the more confirm the Vene-
tians in their resolution not to obey him. And to that end, upon
the hearing of the pope's interdict, they presently published by
sound of trumpet, a proclamation to this effect :

" That whosoever hath received from Rome any copy of a papal
interdict, published there, as well against the law of God, as
against the honour of this nation, shall presently render it to the

5 Paul the fifth.} Camillo Borghese, pope from 16th May, 1 605, to 28th
January, 1621.

6 Not immediately.'] After the death of Clement VIII., the cardinal of
Florence, Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, had been elected pope, 1st April,
1605, and he had taken the title of Leo XL, but he died on the 27th of the
same month.

7 Difference with the Venetians.'] A volume might be filled merely with an
account of what has been written on both sides respecting this celebrated
dispute and the consequent interdict.

88 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

council of ten, upon pain of death." And they made it loss of
estate and nobility, but to speak in the behalf of the Jesuits.

Then was Duado * their ambassador called home from Rome,
and the Inquisition presently suspended by order of the state ;
and the flood-gates being thus set open, any man that had a plea-
sant or scoffing wit might safely vent it against the pope, either
by free speaking, or by libels in print ; and both became very
pleasant to the people.

Matters thus heightened, the state advised with father Paul, a
holy and learned frier (the author of the History of the Council
of Trent, whose advice was, " Neither to provoke the pope, nor
lose their own right :" he declaring publicly in print, in the name
of the state, " That the pope was trusted to keep two keys ; one
of prudence and the other of power : and that if they were not
both used together, power alone is not effectual in an excommu-
nication."

And thus these discontents and oppositions continued, till a
report was blown abroad, that the Venetians were all turned pro-
testants : which was believed by many, for that it was observed,
the English ambassador was so often in conference with the
senate, and his chaplain Mr. Bedel more often with father Paul 9,
whom the people did not take to be his friend : and also, for that
the republic of Venice was known to give commission to Gregory
Justiniano *, then their ambassador in England, to make all these
proceedings known to the king of England, and to crave a pro-
mise of his assistance, if need should require : and in the mean-
time they required the king's advice and judgment ; which was
the same that he gave to pope Clement, at his first coming to the
crown of England ; (that pope then moving him to an union with
the Roman church) namely, u To endeavour the calling of a free
council, for the settlement of peace in Christendom : and, that he
doubted not, but that the French king, and divers other princes
would join to assist in so good a work ; and in the mean time,
the sin of this breach, both with his, and the Venetians'1 dominions,
must of necessity lye at the pope's door."

8 Was Duado. .] More correctly Duodo. Pietro Duodo was ambassador in
England with Badoero, in 1603 : there is still extant in the British Museum
an original letter of sir Henry Wotton, in which the circumstances here
alluded to are given.

9 Father Paul.'] Paolo Sarpi.

1 Gregory Justiniano.'] Or Giorgio Giustiniani, ambassador in 1606.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 89

In this contention (which lasted almost two years) the pope
grew still higher, and the Venetians more and more resolved and
careless : still acquainting king James with their proceedings,
which was done by the help of sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Bedel,
and Padre Paulo, whom the Venetians did then call to be one of
their consulters of state, and with his pen to defend their just
cause : which was by him so performed, that the pope saw plainly,
he had weakened his power by exceeding it, and offered the
Venetians absolution upon very easy terms ; which the Venetians
still slighting, did at last obtain, by that which was scarce so
much as a shew of acknowledging it : for, they made an order,
that in that day in which they were absolved, there should be no
public rejoicing, nor any bonfires that night, lest the common
people might judge, that they desired an absolution, or were ab-
solved for committing a fault.

These contests were the occasion of Padre Paulo's knowledge
and interest with king James, for whose sake principally Padre
Paulo compiled that eminent History of the remarkable Council
of Trent ; which history was, as fast as it was written, sent in
several sheets in letters by sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Bedel, and
others, unto king James, and the then bishop of Canterbury, into
England, and there first made public, both in English and in the
universal language 2.

For eight years after sir Henry Wotton's going into Italy, he
stood fair and highly valued in the king's opinion, but at last
became much clouded by an accident, which I shall proceed to
relate.

At his first going ambassador into Italy, as he passed through
Germany, he stayed some days at Augusta 3 ; where having been
in his former travels well known by many of the best note for
learning and ingeniousness (those that are esteemed the virtuosi
of that nation) with whom he passing an evening in merriment,
was requested by Christopher Flecamore to write some sentence
in his albo : (a book of white paper, which for that purpose many
of the German gentry usually * carry about them) and sir Henry
Wotton consenting to the motion, took an occasion from some

" Universal language.'] Latin.

3 Augusta.~\ Augsburg.

1 Usually J\ In the British Museum are several hundred of these albums.

90 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

accidental discourse of the present company, to write a pleasant
definition of an ambassador, in these very words :

" Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendum reipublicae causa."

Which sir Henry Wotton could have been content should have
been thus Englished :

" An ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his
country."

But the word for lie (being the hinge upon which the conceit *
was to turn) was not so exprest in Latin, as would admit (in the
hands of an enemy especially) so fair a construction as sir Henry
thought in English. Yet as it was, it slept quietly among other
sentences in this albo, almost eight years, till by accident it fell
into the hands of Jasper Scioppius, a Romanist, a man of a rest-
less spirit, and a malicious pen : who with books against king
James, prints this as a principle of that religion professed by the
king, and his ambassador sir Henry Wotton, then at Venice:
and in Venice it was presently after written in several glass win-
dows, and spitefully declared to be sir Henry Wotton's.

This coming to the knowledge of king James, he apprehended
it to be such an oversight, such a weakness, or worse, in sir
Henry Wotton, as caused the king to express much wrath
against him : and this caused sir Henry Wotton to write two
apologies, one to Velserus 6 (one of the chiefs of Augusta) in
the universal language, which he caused to be printed, and given,
and scattered in the most remarkable places both of Germany
and Italy, as an antidote against the venomous books of Sciop-
pius ; and another apology to king James : which were both so
ingenious, so clear, and so choicely eloquent, that his majesty
(who was a pure judge of it) could not forbear, at the receipt
thereof, to declare publicly, " That sir Henry Wotton had com-
muted sufficiently for a greater offence."

And now, as broken bones well set become stronger, so sir
Henry Wotton did not only recover, but was much more con-

6 The conceit. ~\ Being a mere pun upon the term lieger, to lie or remain in
a place, applied commonly to a resident or fixed ambassador. The word was
used in monasteries, which had their lieger books, or books which lay open
for entries, and it is still used in every counting-house. It is probably also
the log book of the seamen.

* To Velserus.'] Marc Welser, prefect of Augsburg.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 91

firmed in his majesty's estimation and favour than formerly he
had been.

And as that man of great wit and useful fancy (his friend Dr.
Donne) gave in a will of his (a will of conceits) his reputation to
his friends, and his industry to his foes, because from thence he
received both : so those friends, that in this time of trial la-
boured to excuse this facetious freedom of sir Henry Wotton's,
were to him more dear, and by him more highly valued : and
those acquaintance that urged this as an advantage against him,
caused him by this error to grow both more wise, and (which is
the best fruit error can bring forth) for the future to become
more industriously watchful over his tongue and pen.

I have told you a part of his employment in Italy ; where not-
withstanding the death of his favourer, the duke Leonardo Do-
nato, who had an undissembled affection for him, and the mali-
cious accusation of Scioppius, yet his interest (as though it had
been an intailed love) was still found to live and increase in all
the succeeding dukes, during his employment to that state, which
was almost twenty years ; all which time he studied the disposi-
tions of those dukes, and the other consulters of state ; well
knowing, that he who negociates a continued business, and
neglects the study of the dispositions, usually fails in his proposed
ends : but in this sir Henry Wotton did not fail : for by a fine
sorting of fit presents, curious and not costly entertainments,
always sweetened by various and pleasant discourse ; with which,
and his choice application of stories, and his elegant delivery of
all these, even in their Italian language, he first got, and still
preserved such interest in the state of Venice, that it was ob-
served (such was either his merit, or his modesty) they never
denied him any request.

But all this shews but his abilities, and his fitness for that
employment : it will therefore be needful to tell the reader, what
use he made of the interest which these procured him ; and that
indeed was, rather to oblige others than to enrich himself; he
still endeavouring that the reputation of the English might be
maintained, both in the German empire and in Italy ; where many
gentlemen whom travel had invited into that nation, received
from him cheerful entertainments, advice for their behaviour,
and by his interest shelter, or deliverance from those accidental
storms of adversity which usually attend upon travel.

And because these things may appear to the reader to be but

92 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

generals, I shall acquaint him with two particular examples : one
of his merciful disposition, and one of the nobleness of his mind ;
which shall follow.

There had been many English soldiers brought by commanders
of their own country, to serve the Venetians for pay against the
Turks ; and those English, having by irregularities, or improvi-
dence, brought themselves into several gallies and prisons, sir
Henry Wotton became a petitioner to that state for their lives
and enlargement ; and his request was granted : so that those
(which were many hundreds, and there made the sad examples
of human misery, by hard imprisonment, and unpitied poverty in
a strange nation) were by his means released, relieved, and in a
comfortable condition sent to thank God and him for their lives
and liberty in their own country.

And this 1 have observed as one testimony of the compas-
sionate nature of him, who was (during his stay in those parts)
as a city of refuge for the distressed of this and other nations.

And for that which I offer as a testimony of the nobleness
of his mind, I shall make way to the reader's clearer under-
standing of it, by telling him, that beside several other foreign
employments, sir Henry Wotton was sent thrice ambassador f to
the republic of Venice ; and at his last going thither, he was
employed ambassador to several of the German princes, and more
particularly to the emperor Ferdinando the second ; and that his
employment to him, and those princes, was to incline them to
equitable conditions, for the restauration of the queen of Bo-
hemia 8, and her descendants, to their patrimonial inheritance of
the palatinate.

This was by his eight months constant endeavours and at-
tendance upon the emperor, his court and council, brought to
a probability of a successful conclusion without blood-shed : but
there was at that time two opposite armies in the field ; and as
they were treating, there was a battle fought 9 ; in the managery
whereof, there was so many miserable errors on the one side, (so
sir Henry Wotton expresses it in a dispatch to the king) and

^ Thrice ambassador.] In March, 1604; in 1605 (Harl. MS. 1875, art. 17,
&c.) and 1622 (see Cabala, p. 364).

8 Queen of Bohemia.] Elizabeth of England, daughter of James I., and
wife of the palgrave, or elector palatine Frederic, who had forfeited his domi-
nions by his assumption of the throne of Bohemia.

9 Battle fouyht.] The battle of Prague, November, 1620.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 93

so advantageous events to the emperor, as put an end to all
present hopes of a successful treaty : so that sir Henry, seeing
the face of peace altered by that victory, prepared for a removal
from that court ; and at his departure from the emperor, was so
bold as to remember him, " That the events of every battle move
on the unseen wheels of fortune, which are this moment up, and
down the next : and therefore humbly advised him to use his
victory so soberly, as still to put on thoughts of peace." Which
advice, though it seemed to be spoke with some passion, (his
dear mistress the queen of Bohemia being concerned in it) was
yet taken in good part by the emperor; who replied, " That he
would consider his advice : and though he looked on the king his
master as an abettor of his enemy the Palsgrave ; yet for sir
Henry himself, his behaviour had been such during the manage
of the treaty, that he took him to be a person of much honour
and merit, and did therefore desire him to accept of that jewel,
as a testimony of his good opinion of him ;" which was a jewel of
diamonds of more value than a thousand pounds.

This jewel was received with all outward circumstances and
terms of honour by sir Henry Wotton : but the next morning,
at his departing from Vienna, he at his taking leave of the
countess of Sabrina (an Italian lady, in whose house the emperor
had appointed him to be lodged, and honourably entertained)
acknowledged her merits, and besought her to accept of that
jewel, as a testimony of his gratitude for her civilities ; presenting
her with the same that was given him by the emperor : which
being suddenly discovered, and told to the emperor, was by him
taken for a high affront, and sir Henry Wotton told so by a
messenger. To which he replied, " That though he received it
with thankfulness, yet he found in himself an indisposition to be
the better for any gift that came from an enemy to his royal
mistress the queen of Bohemia;" for so she was pleased he
should always call her.

Many other of his services to his prince, and this nation, might
be insisted upon : as namely, his procurations of privileges and
courtesies with the German princes, and the republic of Venice,
for the English merchants ; and what he did by direction of king
James with the Venetian state, concerning the bishop of Spalato's
return l to the church of Rome. But for the particulars of these

1 The bishop of Spalato's return.'] See M. Ant. de Dominis archbishop of

94 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

and many more that I meant to make known, I want a view of
some papers that might inform me (his late majesty^s letter office
having now suffered* a strange alienation) and indeed I want
time too, for the printer's press stays for what is written : so that
I must haste to bring sir Henry Wotton in an instant from Venice
to London, leaving the reader to make up what is defective in
this place by the small supplement of the inscription under his
arms, which he left at all those houses where he rested, or lodged,
when he returned from his last embassy into England.

" Henricus Wottonius Anglo-Cantianus, Thomae optimi viri
filius natu minimus, a serenissimo Jacobo I. Mag. Britt. rege,
in equestrem titulum adscitus, ejusdemque ter ad rempublicam
Venetam legatus ordinarius, semel ad confoederatarum provin-
ciarum ordines in Juliacensi negotio ; bis ad Carolum Emanuel,
Sabaudise ducem ; semel ad unitos superioris Germanise principes
in Conventu Heilbrunensi ; postremo ad archiducem Leopoldum,
ducem Wittembergensem, civitates imperiales, Argentinam,
Ulmamque, et ipsum Eomanorum imperatorem Ferdinandum
secundum, legatus extraordinarius, tandem hoc didicit,

" Animas fieri sapientiores quiescendo."

To London he came the year before 8 king James died ; who
having for the reward of his foreign service, promised him the
reversion of an office which was fit to be turned into present
money, which he wanted, for a supply of his present necessities,
also granted him the reversion of the master of the rolls place,
if he out-lived charitable sir Julius Caesar, who then possessed it,
and then was grown so old, that he was said to be kept alive
beyond nature's course, by the prayers of those many poor which
he daily relieved.

Spalato, his shif tings in Religion. London, printed by John Bill, A.D. 1624 ;
Heylin's Life of archbishop Laud, p. 107 — 9; Banvick's Life of bishop
Morton, p. 85—8 ; Wood's Annals, vol. ii. p. 328, &c.

A copy of the first tract, as we learn from the Address to the Reader,
" was by his majesty's special commandment sent to sir H. Wotton, his
majesty's ambassador ordinary with the state of Venice, that he might, as
occasion served, inform that state concerning the true carriage of that busi-
ness with the archbishop."

8 Now suffered. ] This Life was first published in the year 1651; a date
which sufficiently accounts for the tone of expression in this passage.

3 Year before.] 1624.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 95

But, these were but in hope ; and his condition required a
present support. For in the beginning of these employments he
sold to his elder brother the lord Wotton, the rent-charge left
by his good father, and (which is worse) was now at his return
indebted to several persons, whom he was not able to satisfy, but
by the king's payment of his arrears due for his foreign employ-
ments. He had brought into England many servants, of which
some were German and Italian artists. This was part of his
condition, who had many times hardly sufficient to supply the
occasions of the day ; (for it may by no means be said of his
providence, as himself said of sir Philip Sidney's wit, That it was
the very measure of congruity) he being always so careless of
money, as though our Saviour's words, Care not for to-morrow,
were to be literally understood.

But it pleased the God of providence, that in this juncture of
time, the provostship of his majesty's college of Eton became
void by the death of Mr. Thomas Murray 4, for which there were
(as the place deserved) many earnest and powerful suiters 5 to the
king. And sir Henry, who had for many years (like Sisyphus)
rolled the restless stone of a state employment, knowing experi-
mentally, that the great blessing of sweet content was not to be
found in multitudes of men or business ; and that a college was
the fittest place to nourish holy thoughts, and to afford rest both
to his body and mind, which his age (being now almost threescore
years) seemed to require, did therefore use his own, and the
interest of all his friends to procure that place. By which means,
and quitting the king of his promised reversionary offices, and by
a piece of honest policy (which I have not time to relate) he got
a grant of it 6 from his majesty.

And this was a fair satisfaction to his mind : but money was
wanting7 to furnish him with those necessaries which attend

4 Mr. Thomas Murray. ~\ Who had succeeded sir Henry Savile as provost.

5 Powerful suiters.~\ Two of these were lord Bacon and sir Wm. Becher.
See Bacon's Works, vol. vi. p. 345, 6. edit. 1803. Sir William Becher asserts,
in a letter to the duke of Buckingham, that he had from the king an express
promise of the place. Amongst the other candidates were sir Albertus
Morton, sir Dudley Carleton, and sir Robert Ayton.

0 A grant of it.'] He was instituted 26th July, 1624.

7 Money was wanting.'] " When he went to the election at Eton, soon after
his being made provost, he was so ill provided, that the fellows of the college
were obliged to furnish his bare walls, and whatever else was wanting." See
Birch's Letters of Lord Chancellor Bacon, p. 338, note.

96 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

removes, and a settlement in such a place ; and, to procure that,
he wrote to his old friend Mr. Nicholas Pey, for his assistance ;
of which Nicholas Pey, I shall here say a little, for the clearing
of some passages that I shall mention hereafter.

He was in his youth a clerk, or in some such way, a servant to
the lord Wotton, sir Henry^s brother ; and by him, when he was
comptroller of the king's houshold, was made a great officer in
his majesty's house. This, and other favours being conferred upon
Mr. Pey (in whom there was a radical honesty) were always
thankfully acknowledged by him, and his gratitude exprest by a
willing and unwearied serviceableness to that family even till his
death. To him sir Henry Wotton wrote, to use all his interest
at court, to procure five hundred pounds of his arrears, (for less
would not settle him in the college) and the want of such a sum
wrinkled Ms face with care (it was his own expression) ; and that
money being procured, he should the next day after find him in
his college, and Invidice remedium writ over his study-door.

This money, being part of his arrears, was by his own, and the
help of honest Nicholas Pey's interest in court, quickly procured
him ; and he as quickly in the college ; the place where indeed
his happiness then seemed to have its beginning : the college
being to his mind as a quiet harbour to a sea-faring man after a
tempestuous voyage ; where, by the bounty of the pious founder *,
his very food and raiment were plentifully provided for him in
kind, and more money than enough ; where he was freed from all
corroding cares, and seated on such a rock, as the waves of
want could not probably shake; where he might sit in a calm9,
and looking down, behold the busy multitude turmoilod and
tossed in a tempestuous sea of trouble and dangers ! And (as
sir William Davenant has happily exprest the like of another
person)

" Laugh at the graver business of the state,
Which speaks men rather wise than fortunate."

Being thus settled according to the desires of his heart, his

8 Where, by the bounty of the pious founder."]

" Where grateful science still adores

Her Henry's holy shade." Gray.

9 In a calm.']

Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spec tare laborem.

Lucretius, ii. 1.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 97

first study was the statutes of the college : by which he conceived
himself bound to enter into holy orders, which he did ; being
made deacon l with all convenient speed : shortly after which
time, as he came in his surplice from the church-service, an old
friend, a person of quality, met him so attired, and joyed him of
his new habit ; to whom sir Henry Wotton replied, " I thank
God and the king, by whose goodness I now am in this condi-
tion ; a condition, which that emperor Charles the fifth seemed
to approve : who, after so many remarkable victories, when his
glory was great in the eyes of all men, freely gave up his crown,
and the many cares that attended it, to Philip his son, making a
holy retreat to a cloisteral life, where he might by devout medita-
tions consult with God (which the rich or busy men seldom do)
and have leisure both to examine the errors of his life past, and
prepare for that great day, wherein all flesh must make an
account of their actions. And after a kind of tempestuous life, I
now have the like advantage from him, that makes the out-goings
of the morning to praise him ; even from my God, whom I daily
magnify for this particular mercy, of an exemption from business,
a quiet mind, and a liberal maintenance, even in this part of my
life, when my age and infirmities seem to sound me a retreat
from the pleasures of this world, and invite me to contemplation,
in which I have ever taken the greatest felicity.""

And now to speak a little of the employment of his time in the
college. After his customary public devotions, his use was to
retire into his study, and there to spend some hours in reading
the Bible, and authors in divinity, closing up his meditations with
private prayer ; this was, for the most part, his employment
in the forenoon. But, when he was once sat to dinner, then
nothing but cheerful thoughts possessed his mind ; and those
still increased by constant company at his table, of such persons
as brought thither additions both of learning and pleasure ; but
some part of most days was usually spent in philosophical con-
clusions. Nor did he forget his innate pleasure of angling 2,

1 Made deacon."] A.D. 1627. Upon this occasion he wrote an interesting
letter to the king, which is preserved in his Remains, p. 327, edit. 1685. His
design was to have received orders at the hands of Williams, bishop of Lin-
coln, visitor of his college ; but in that he was disappointed, by a sudden
command from the king, that Williams should quit London. See Remains,
p. 326.

2 Innate pleasure of angling .] "My next and last example" (of the dear

VOL. IV. H

98 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

which he would usually call, his idle time, not idly spmt ;
saying often, he would rather live five May months, than forty
Decembers.

He was a great lover of his neighbours, and a bountiful
entertainer of them very often at his table, where his meat was
choice, and his discourse better.

He was a constant cherisher of all those youths in that school,
in whom he found either a constant diligence, or a genius that
prompted them to learning, for whose encouragement, he was
(beside many other things of necessity and beauty) at the charge
of setting up in it two rows of pillars, on which he caused to be
choicely drawn, the pictures of divers of the most famous Greek
and Latin historians, poets, and orators : persuading them not to
neglect rhetoric, because almighty God has left mankind affec-
tions to be wrought upon : and he would often say, That none
despised eloquence, but such dull souls as were not capable of it.
He would also often make choice of some observations out of
those historians and poets: and would never leave the school

lovers and great practisers of angling, being at the same time eminent for
learning) " shall be that undervaluer of money, the late provost of Eton
college, sir Henry Wotton, a man with whom I have often fished and con-
versed ; a man whose foreign employments in the service of this nation, and
whose experience, learning, wit, and cheerfulness, made his company to be
esteemed one of the delights of mankind. This man, whose very approba-
tion of angling were sufficient to convince any modest censurer of it, was
also a most dear lover, and a frequent practiser of my art : of which he would
say, ' 'Twas an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent :
for angling was, after tedious study, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits,
a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions,
a procurer of contentedness ; and that it begat habits of peace and patience
in those that professed and practised it. Indeed, my friend, you will find
angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and
a world of other blessings attending it.'

" Sir, this was the saying of that learned man. And I do easily believe
that peace and patience, and a calm content, did cohabit in the chearful heart
of sir Henry Wotton, because I know that when he was beyond seventy
years of age, he made this description of a part of the present pleasure that
possessed him, as he sat quietly in a summer's evening on a bank a fishing.
It is a description of the spring; which, because it glided as soft and swet-tly
from his pen, as that river does at this time by which it was then made, I
shall repeat it to you.

" This day dame Nature seemed in love, Sec. &c.

" These were the thoughts that then possessed the undisturbed mind of sir
Henry Wotton."— Walton's Compleat Angler, p. 32, edit. 1772.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 99

without dropping some choice Greek or Latin apophthegm or
sentence, that might be worthy of a room in the memory of a
growing scholar.

He was pleased constantly to breed up one or more hopeful
youths, which he picked out of the school, and took into his own
domestic care, and to attend him at his meals ; out of whose
discourse and behaviour, he gathered observations for the better
completing of his intended work of education : of which, by his
still striving to make the whole better, he lived to leave but part
to posterity.

He was a great enemy to wrangling disputes of religion, con-
cerning which I shall say a little, both to testify that, and to shew
the readiness of his wit.

Having at his being in Eome made acquaintance with a plea-
sant priest, who invited him one evening to hear their vesper
music at church, the priest seeing sir Henry stand obscurely in a
corner, sends to him by a boy of the quire this question, writ in a
small piece of paper, " Where was your religion to be found
before Luther V To which question sir Henry presently under-
writ, " My religion was to be found then, where your's is not to
be found now, in the written word of God."

The next vesper, sir Henry went purposely to the same church,
and sent one of the quire boys with this question to his honest
pleasant friend, the priest ; " Do you believe all those many thou-
sands of poor Christians were damned that were excommunicated,
because the pope, and the duke of Venice, could not agree about
their temporal power, even those poor Christians that knew not
why they quarrelled? Speak your conscience." To which he
under- writ in French, " Monsieur, excusez moi."

To one that asked him, " Whether a papist may be saved?"
he replied, " You may be saved without knowing that. Look to
yourself."

To another, whose earnestness exceeded his knowledge, and
was still railing against the Papists, he gave this advice, " Pray
sir, forbear till you have studied the points better ; for the wise
Italians have this proverb 3 ; He that understands amiss, concludes
worse : and take heed of thinking, The farther you go from the
church of Rome, the nearer you are to God 4."

3 This proverb .] "Chi mal intende peggio decide."

4 The nearer you are to God.~\ So Bishop Horsley. " Take especial care,
before you aim your shafts at Calvinism, that you know what is Calvinism

H 2

100 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

And to another that spake indiscreet and bitter words against
Arminius, I heard him reply to this purpose :

" In my travel towards Venice, as I past through Germany, I
rested almost a year at Leyden, where I entered into an acquaint-
ance with Arminius (then the professor of divinity in that univer-
sity) a man much talked of in this age, which is made up of
opposition and controversy : and indeed, if I mistake not Armi-
nius in his expressions (as so weak a brain as mine is may easily
do) then I know I differ from him in some points ; yet I profess
my judgment of him to be, that he was a man of most rare learn-
ing, and I knew him to be of a most strict life, and of a most
meek spirit. And that he was so mild, appears by his proposals
to our master Perkins 5 of Cambridge, from whose book, of the
Order and Causes of Salvation (which was first writ in Latin)
Arminius took the occasion of writing some queries to him con-
cerning the consequents of his doctrine ; intending them (it is
said) to come privately to Mr. Perkins"* own hands, and to receive
from him a like private and a like loving answer : but Mr. Per-
kins died before those queries came to him ; and it is thought
Arminius meant them to die with him ; for though he lived long
after, I have heard he forbore to publish them (but since his
death, his sons did not). And it is pity, if God had been so
pleased, that Mr. Perkins did not live to see, consider, and answer
those proposals himself ; for he was also of a most meek spirit,
and of great and sanctified learning. And though since their
deaths, many of high parts and piety have undertaken to clear
the controversy, yet, for the most part, they have rather satisfied
themselves, than convinced the dissenting party. And doubtless,
many middle- witted men, (which yet may mean well) many scholars
that are not in the highest form for learning, (which yet may
preach well) men that are but preachers, and shall never know,
till they come to heaven, where the questions stick betwixt Ar-
minius and the church of England, (if there be any) will yet in

and what is not : that in that mass of doctrine, which it is of late become the
fashion to abuse under the name of Calvinism, you can distinguish with cer-
tainty between that part of it which is nothing better than Calvinism, and
that which belongs to our common Christianity and the general faith of the
reformed churches, lest when you mean only to fall foul of Calvinism, you
should unwarily attack something more sacred and of higher origin." — Charge
at St. Asaph, 1806, p. 26.

5 Master Perkins.] William Perkins.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 101

this world be tampering with, and thereby perplexing the con-
troversy, and do therefore justly fall under the reproof6 of St.
Jude, for being busy-bodies, and for meddling with things they

And here it offers itself (I think not unfitly) to tell the reader,
that a friend of sir Henry Wotton's, being designed for the em-
ployment of an ambassador, came to Eton, and requested from
him some experimental rules for his prudent and safe carriage in
his negociations ; to whom he smilingly gave this for an infallible
aphorism ; " That, to be in safety himself, and serviceable to his
country, he should always, and upon all occasions speak the
truth (it seems a state-paradox) for, says sir Henry Wotton,
you shall never be believed ; and by this means, your truth will
secure yourself, if you shall ever be called to any account ; and it
will also put your adversaries (who will still hunt counter) to a
loss in all their disquisitions and undertakings."

Many more of this nature might be observed, but they must
be laid aside ; for I shall here make a little stop, and invite the

6 Fall under the reproof.'] There were not wanting occasionally a few other
learned men, who, in these turbulent times, had wisdom enough to discourage
the promiscuous agitation of these thorny and perplexed controversies.
Among others who might be cited, we shall be contented to refer to the
example of Dr. Richard Field, author of the Five Books of the Church, who is
said to have been the intimate friend of Richard Hooker ; and whose writings
display no small portion of the meekness of spirit, the depth of thought, and
the learning of that admirable man.

"He did not like" (as his son informs us) "so much disputing about
those high points of predestination and reprobation, which have so much
troubled the church of late years, and in ancient times ; about which the
Dominicans and the Jesuites, the Lutherans and the Calvinists, are so much
divided. He did not like that men should be so busy in determining what
God decrees in heaven, whose counsels are unsearchable, and whose ways are
past finding out.

" Being at Oxford at the act, when doctor Abbot, who was then regius
professor, and doctor of the chair, first began to read upon those points which
are commonly called the Arminian points ; after he had heard him, being
returned unto his lodging, he was very much offended at it, and said unto
doctor Bostock, who was then present with him, You are a young man, and
may live to see great troubles in the church of England, occasioned by these dis-
putes. Oxford hath hitherto been free from these disputes, though Cambridge
hath been much disquieted with them. They are disputes which have troubled
the peace of the church above nine hundred years already, and will not now be
ended. In points of such extreme difficulty he did not think fit to be too
positive in defining any thing ; to turn matters of opinion into matters of
faith." Short Memorials concerning the Life of Doctor Richard Field, written
by his Son, p. 21. Compare Barwick's Life of Bishop Morton, p. 153.

102 SIR HENRY WOTTOX.

reader to look back with me, whilst, according to my promise, I
shall say a little of sir Albertus Morton, and Mr. William Bedel,
whom I formerly mentioned.

I have told you that are my reader, that at sir Henry Wotton's
first going ambassador into Italy, his cousin, sir Albert Morton,
went his secretary : and am next to tell you, that sir Albertus
died secretary of state to our late king ; but cannot, am not able
to express the sorrow that possest sir Henry Wotton at his first
hearing the news that sir Albertus was by death lost to him and
this world ; and yet, the reader may partly guess by these follow-
ing expressions ; the first in a letter to his Nicholas Pey, of which
this that folio weth is a part.

" And my dear Nick, when I had been here almost a fort-
night, in the midst of my great contentment, I received notice of
sir Albertus Morton's departure out of this world, who was
dearer to me, than mine own being in it. What a wound it is
to my heart, you that knew him, and know me, will easily believe :
but, our Creator's will must be done, and unrepiningly received
by his own creatures, who is the Lord of all nature, and of all
fortune, when he taketh to himself now one, and then another,
till that expected day, wherein it shah1 please him to dissolve the
whole, and wrap up even the heaven itself as a scroll of parch-
ment. This is the last philosophy that we must study upon
earth ; let us therefore that yet remain here, as our days and
friends waste, reinforce our love to each other ; which of all vir-
tues, both spiritual and moral, hath the highest privilege, because
death itself cannot end it. And my good Nick," &c.

This is a part of his sorrow thus exprest to his Nick Pey ; the
other part is in this following elegy, of which the reader may
safely conclude, it was too hearty to be dissembled.

TEARS WEPT AT THE GRAVE OF SIR ALBERTl'S MORTON,
BY HENRY WOTTON.

Silence in truth would speak my sorrow best,

For deepest wounds can least their feeling tell ;
Yet let me borrow from mine own unrest,

A time to bid him whom I lov'd farewell.

Oh, my unhappy lines ! you that before

Have serv'd my youth to vent some wanton cries,

And now congeal'd with grief, can scarce implore
Strength to accent, HERE MY ALBERTUS LIES.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 103

This is that sable stone, this is the cave

And womb of earth, that doth his corpse embrace ;

While others sing his praise, let me engrave
These bleeding numbers to adorn the place.

Here will I paint the characters of woe ;

Here will I pay my tribute to the dead ;
And here my faithful tears in showers shall flow

To humanize the flints on which I tread.

Where though I mourn my matchless loss alone,
And none between my weakness judge and me ;

Yet even these pensive walls allow my moan,
Whose doleful echoes to my plaints agree.

But is he gone ! and live I rhyming here,

As if some muse would listen to my lay ?
When all distun'd sit waiting for their dear,

And bathe the banks where he was wont to play.

Dwell then in endless bliss with happy souls,
Discharged from nature's and from fortune's trust,

Whilst on this fluid globe my hour-glass rolls,
And runs the rest of my remaining dust.

H. W.

This concerning his sir Albertus Morton.

And for what I shall say concerning Mr. William Bedel I must
prepare the reader by telling him, that when king James sent sir
Henry Wotton ambassador to the state of Venice, he sent also
an ambassador to the king of France 7, and another to the king of
Spain 8 ; with the ambassador of France went Joseph Hall (late
bishop of Norwich) whose many and useful works speak his great
merit : with the ambassador of Spain went James Wadsworth ;
and with sir Henry Wotton went William Bedel.

These three chaplains to these three ambassadors, were all bred
in one university, all of one f college, all beneficed in one diocese,
and all most dear and entire friends : but in Spain Mr. Wads-
worth met with temptations9, or reasons, such as were so power -

7 To the king of France.] Sir Thomas Parry.

8 To the king of Spain.] Sir Charles Cornwallis.
1 Emmanuel College, in Cambridge.

9 Met with temptations.] We have the following account written by his son.
" At his first arrival " (in Spain) " the Jesuits held with him a subtle dispute
about the antiquity and the universality of the Church of Rome, which they
make their preface to all seducements; his grand opposers being Joseph

104 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

ful, as to persuade him (who of the three, was formerly observed
to be the most averse to that religion that calls itself Catholic)
to disclaim himself a member of the church of England, and de-
clare himself for the church of Rome ; discharging himself of his
attendance on the ambassador, and betaking himself to a monas-
terial life ; in which he lived very regularly, and so died.

When Dr. Hall (the late bishop of Norwich) came into Eng-
land, he wrote to Mr. Wadsworth (it is the first epistle in his
printed decads) to persuade his return, or to shew the reason of
his apostacy. The letter seemed to have in it many sweet ex-
pressions of love ; and yet there was in it some expression that
was so unpleasant to Mr. Wadsworth, that he chose rather to
acquaint his old friend Mr. Bedel with his motives ; by which
means there past betwixt Mr. Bedel and Mr. Wadsworth divers
letters, which be extant in print *, and did well deserve it ; for in
them there seems to be a controversy, not of religion only, but
who should answer each other with most love and meekness:
which I mention the rather, because it too seldom falls out to be
so in a book-war.

Cresswell and Henry Walpole, two the most expert politicians of our nation,
that then maintained the state of the triple crown; whose understanding
nevertheless would not prove captive either to the subtilest arguments, or
most alluring promises. The embassador seeing how wisely he quitted him-
self, sent letters to his majesty informing him how learnedly he was accom-
panied,— Meanwhile the Jesuits perceiving how little they prevailed, used
other illusions stronger than their arguments, even strange apparitions of
miracles : amongst others, the miracle which they pretend to be true to have
happened to the eldest son of the lord Wotton at his death, in the city Valla-
dolid, where a crucifix framed him this articulate sound, Now forsake your
heresy, or else you are damned; whereupon the young lord and my father
became proselytes to their juggling religion, the report whereof not long after
became a load-stone also to the old lord Wotton his father, with many others,
to draw them to popish idolatry. And so my father, leaving the embassador's
house privately, and discarding his wife and children, and fortunes in Eng-
land, was conducted forthwith by the means of father Cresswell to the
university of Salamanca, whereat the next day after his arrival, he was car-
ried to the bishop's, then inquisitor's, house, where he was admitted with no
little joy to their church ; where he prostrating himself on the ground, and
the inquisitor putting, as their custom is, his right foot on his head, said
with a loud voice, Here I crush the head of heresy ; the which ceremony and
others ended, after a month's abode in the said university, he passed with
Cresswell to the court of Madrid." English Spanish Pilgrim, p. 2, 3.

1 Extant in print.] They were printed by (bishop) Burnet, at the close of
his Life of Bishop Bedel, in the year 1685.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 105

There is yet a little more to be said of Mr. Bedel, for the
greatest part of which the reader is referred to this following
letter of sir Henry Wotton's, writ to our late king Charles the
first.

" May it please your most gracious majesty,

" Having been informed that persons have, by the good wishes
of the archbishop of Armagh, been directed hither, with a most
humble petition unto your majesty, that you will be pleased to
make Mr. William Bedel (now resident upon a small benefice in
Suffolk) governor of your college at Dublin, for the good of that
society ; and myself being required to render unto your majesty
some testimony of the said William Bedel, who was long my
chaplain at Venice, in the time of my first employment there ; I
am bound in all conscience and truth (so far as your majesty will
vouchsafe to accept my poor judgment) to affirm of him, that I
think hardly a fitter man for that charge could have been pro-
pounded unto your majesty in your whole kingdom, for singular
erudition and piety, conformity to the rites of the church, and
zeal to advance the cause of God, wherein his travels abroad
were not obscure, in the time of the excommunication of the
Venetians.

For it may please your majesty to know, that this is the
man whom Padre Paulo took, I may say, into his very soul, with
whom he did communicate the inwardest thoughts of his heart,
from whom he professed to have received more knowledge in all
divinity, both scholastical and positive, than from any that he had
ever practised in his days ; of which all the passages were well
known to the king your father, of most blessed memory. And
so with your majesty's good favour, I will end this needless office :
for the general fame of his learning, his life, and Christian tem-
per, and those religious labours which himself hath dedicated to
your majesty, do better describe him than I am able.

" Your majesty's
" Most humble and faithful servant,

" H. WOTTON."

To this letter I shall add this ; that he was (to the great joy of
sir Henry Wotton) made governor of the said college ; and that
g after a fair discharge of his duty and trust there, he was thence

s August, 1627.

106 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

removed to be bishop of Kilmore h. In both which places his life
was so holy as seemed to equal the primitive Christians ; for as
they, so he kept all the ember-weeks, observed (beside his private
devotions) the canonical hours of prayer very strictly, and so he
did all the feasts and fast-days of his mother, the church of Eng-
land ; to which I may add, that his patience and charity were
both such as shewed his affections were set upon things that are
above ; for indeed his whole life brought forth the fruits of the
spirit, there being in him such a remarkable meekness, that as
St. Paul advised his Timothy in the election of a bishop (1 Tim.
iii. 7.) That he have a good report of those that be without ; so had
he ; for those that were without, even those that in point of reli-
gion were of the Romish persuasion, (of which there were very
many in his diocese) did yet (such is the power of visible piety)
ever look upon him with respect and reverence ; and testified it
by concealing and safe protecting him from death in the late hor-
rid rebellion in Ireland, when the fury of the wild Irish knew no
distinction of persons ; and yet there and then he was protected
and cherished by those of a contrary persuasion ; and there and
then he died, not by violence or misusage, but by grief, in a quiet
prison (1629). And with him was lost many of his learned wri-
tings, which were thought worthy of preservation ; and amongst
the rest was lost the Bible, which by many years labour, and con-
ference, and study, he had translated into the Irish tongue, with
an intent to have printed it for public use.

More might be said 2 of Mr. Bedel, who (I told the reader)
was sir Henry Wotton's first chaplain ; and much of his second
chaplain, Isaac Bargrave 3, doctor in divinity, and the late learned
and hospitable dean of Canterbury ; as also of the merit of many
others, that had the happiness to attend sir Henry in his foreign
employments : but the reader may think that in this digression I
have already carried him too far from Eton college, and tln-iv-
fore I shall lead him back as gently and as orderly as I may to that
place, for a further conference concerning sir Henry Wotton.

Sir Henry Wotton had proposed to himself, before he entered
into his collegiate life, to write the Life of Martin Luther; and

* Sept. 3, 1629.

2 More might be said.'] See Life of William Bedel, D.D. bishop of Kilmore,
in Ireland, AD. 1685, written by bishop Burnet.

» Isaac BargraveJ] Of whom there is a life in Todd's Account of the Deans
of Canterbury.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 107

in it, the History of the Reformation, as it was carried on in
Germany : for the doing of which he had many advantages by
his several embassies into those parts, and his interest in the
several princes of the empire, by whose means he had access to
the records of all the Hans Towns, and the knowledge of many
secret passages that fell not under common view ; and in these
he had made a happy progress, as was well known to his worthy
friend doctor Duppa, the late reverend bishop of Salisbury ; but
in the midst of this design, his late majesty king Charles the first,
that knew the value of sir Henry Wotton's pen, did by a persua-
sive loving violence (to which may be added a promise of 5001. a
year) force him to lay Luther aside, and betake himself to write
the History of England, in which he proceeded to write some
short characters of a few kings, as a foundation upon which he
meant to build ; but, for the present, meant to be more large in
the story of Henry the sixth, the founder of that college in which
he then enjoyed all the worldly happiness of his present being ;
but sir Henry died in the midst of this undertaking, and the
footsteps of his labours are not recoverable by a more than com-
mon diligence.

This is some account both of his inclination, and the employ-
ment of his time in the college, where he seemed to have his
youth renewed by a continual conversation with that learned
society, and a daily recourse of other friends of choicest breeding
and parts ; by which that great blessing of a cheerful heart was
still maintained, he being always free, even to the last of his days,
from that peevishness which usually attends age.

And yet his mirth was sometimes damped by the remembrance
of divers old debts, partly contracted in his foreign employments,
for which his just arrears due from the king would have made
satisfaction; but being still delayed with court promises, and
finding some decays of health, he did about two years before his
death, out of a Christian desire that none should be a loser by
him, make his last will ; concerning which a doubt still remains,
namely, whether it discovered more holy wit or conscionable
policy ? But there is no doubt but that his chief design was a
Christian endeavour that his debts might be satisfied.

And that it may remain as such a testimony and a legacy to
those that loved him, I shall here impart it to the reader, as it
was found writ with his own hand.

" In the name of God almighty and all-merciful, I Henry

108 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

Wotton, provost of his majesty's college by Eton, being mindful
of mine own mortality, which the sin of our first parents did
bring upon all flesh, do, by this last will and testament thus dis-
pose of myself and the poor things I shall leave in this world.
My soul I bequeath to the immortal God my maker, father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, my blessed redeemer and mediator, through
his all-sole sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole world,
and efficient for his elect, in the number of whom I am one by
his mere grace, and thereof most unremoveably assured by his
holy Spirit, the true eternal comforter. My body I bequeath to
the earth, if I shall end my transitory days at or near Eton, to
be buried in the chapel of the said college, as the fellows shall
dispose thereof, with whom I have lived (my God knows) in all
loving affection ; or if I shall die near Bocton Malherb, in the
county of Kent, then I wish to be laid in that parish church, as
near as may be to the sepulchre of my good father, expecting a
joyful resurrection with him in the day of Christ.""

After this account of his faith, and this surrender of his soul
to that God that inspired it, and this direction for the disposal of
his body, he proceeded to appoint that his executors should lay
over his grave a marble stone, plain, and not costly : and consi-
dering that time moulders even marble to dust, (for monuments i
themselves must die) therefore did he (waving the common way)
think fit rather to preserve his name (to which the son of Sirac
adviseth all men) by a useful apophthegm, than by a large enume-
ration of his descent or merits (of both which he might justly
have boasted) but he was content to forget them, and did choose
only this prudent, pious sentence, to discover his disposition and
preserve his memory.

It was directed by him to be thus inscribed :

Hie jacet hujus sententiae primus author,

D1SPUTANDI PRURITUS4, ECCLE8IARUM SCABIES.

Nomen alias quaere.
Which may be Englished thus :

Here lies the first author of this sentence,

THE ITCH OF DISPUTATION WILL PROVE THE SCAB OF THB CHLRCH.

Inquire his name elsewhere.

1 " Quandoquidem data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulchris." — Juv. x. 145.
4 Disputandi pruritus.] In a Panegyric addressed to king Charles I. on his

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 109

And if any shall object, as I think some have, that sir
Henry Wotton was not the first author of this sentence ; but
that this, or a sentence like it, was long before his time ; to him
I answer, that Solomon says, Nothing can be spoken, that hath not
been spofcen ; for there is no new thing under the sun. But grant,
that in his various reading, he had met with this, or a like sen-
tence ; yet reason mixt with charity should persuade all readers
to believe, that sir Henry Wotton's mind was then so fixed on
that part of the communion of saints which is above, that an holy
lethargy did surprise his memory. For doubtless, if he had not
believed himself to be the first author of what he said, he was too
prudent first to own, and then expose it to the public view, and
censure of every critic. And questionless, it will be charity in all
readers, to think his mind was then so fixed on heaven, that a
holy zeal did transport him : and that in this sacred ecstasy, his
thoughts were then only of the church triumphant (into which he
daily expected his admission). And that almighty God was then
pleased to make him a prophet, to tell the church militant, and
particularly that part of it in this nation, where the weeds of con-
troversy grow to be daily both more numerous, and more de-
structive to humble piety : and where men have consciences that
boggle at ceremonies, and yet scruple not to speak and act such
sins as the ancient humble Christians believed to be a sin to think :
and where, as our reverend Hooker says, " Former simplicity, and
softness of spirit, is not now to be found, because, zeal hath
drowned charity, and skill meekness :" it will be good to think
that these sad changes have proved this epitaph to be a useful
caution unto us of this nation ; and the sad effects thereof in
Germany have proved it to be a mournful truth.

return from Scotland, A.D. 1633, written in Latin, and translated by a friend,
sir Henry thus expresses himself:

" There were hatched abroad some years ago, or perhaps raked up out of
antiquity, certain controversies about high points of the Creed, which having
likewise flown over to us, (as flames of wit are easily diffused) least hereabout
also both pulpits and pews might run to heat and public disturbance, your
majesty, with most laudable temper, by proclamation suppressed on both
sides all manner of debates. Others may think what pleaseth them ; in my
opinion (if I may have pardon for the phrase) The itch of disputing will prove
the scab of churches. I shall relate what I have chanced more than once to
observe : two, namely, arguing about some subject so eagerly till either of
them, transported by heat of contention, from one thing to another, they both
at length had lost first their charity, and then also the truth." Remains,
p. H7.

110 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

This by way of observation concerning his epitaph : the rest of
his will follows in his own words.

" Further, I the said Henry Wotton, do constitute and ordain
to be joint executors of this my last will and testament, my two
grand-nephews, Albert Morton second son to sir Robert Morton
knight, late deceased, and Thomas Bargrave, eldest son to Dr.
Bargrave, dean of Canterbury, husband to my right virtuous and
only niece '. And I do pray the aforesaid Dr. Bargrave, and Mr.
Nicholas Pey, my most faithful and chosen friends, together witli
Mr. John Harrison one of the fellows of Eton college, best
acquainted with my books and pictures, and other utensils, to be
supervisors of this my last will and testament. And I do pray
the foresaid Dr. Bargrave and Mr. Nicholas Pey, to be solicitors
for such arrearages as shall appear due unto me from his majesty's
exchequer at the time of my death ; and to assist my fore-named
executors in some reasonable snd conscientious satisfaction of my
creditors, and discharge of my legacies now specified ; or, that
shall be hereafter added unto this my testament, by any codicil
or schedule, or left in the hands, or in any memorial with the
aforesaid Mr. John Harrison. — And first, to my most dear sove-
reign and master of incomparable goodness (in whose gracious
opinion I have ever had some portion, as far as the interest of a
plain and honest man) I leave four pictures at large of those dukes
of Venice *, in whose time I was there employed, with their names
on the back-side, which hang in my great ordinary dining-room,
done after the life by Edoardo Fialetto. Likewise a table 7 of the
Venetian college, where ambassadors had their audience, hanuin^
over the mantle of the chimney in the said room, done by the
same hand, which containeth a draught in little, well resembling
the famous duke Leonardo Donato, in a time which needed a
wise and constant man. Item, the picture of a duke of Venice 8
hanging over against the door, done either by Titiano, or some
principal hand long before my time. Most humbly beseeching

5 Niece.'] Elizabeth Dering, daughter of John Dering of Surrenden, hy
Elizabeth Wotton, sir Henry's only sister.

r> Dukes of Venice.'] The four doges of whom Wotton speaks were Marino
(irimani, 1595-1605; Lionardo Donato, 1605-1612; Antonio Memmo, 1612-
1615; Giovanni Bembo, 1615-1618. The portraits are now in the king's
dressing-room at Hampton Court palace.

7 A table.'] This picture, on panel, is now in the second presence chamber
at Hampton Court palace.

8 Duke of Venire.] The fate of this picture is uncertain.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. Ill

his majesty that the said pieces may remain in some corner of
any of his houses, for a poor memorial of his most humble
vassal.

" Item, I leave his said majesty all the papers and negociations
of sir Nicholas Throgmorton knight, during his famous employ-
ment under queen Elizabeth, in Scotland and in France, which
contain divers secrets of state, that perchance his majesty will
think fit to be preserved in his paper-office, after they have been
perused and sorted by Mr. Secretary Windebanck, with whom I
have heretofore, as I remember, conferred about them. They
were committed to my disposal by sir Arthur Throgmorton 9 his
son, to whose worthy memory I cannot better discharge my faith,
than by assigning them to the highest place of trust. Item, I
leave to our most gracious and virtuous queen Mary *, Dioscorides,
with the plants naturally coloured, and the text translated by
Matthiolo 2, in the best language of Tuscany, whence her majesty
is lineally descended 3, for a poor token of my thankful devotion,
for the honour she was once pleased to do my private study with
her presence. I leave to the most hopeful prince, the picture of
the elected and crowned queen of Bohemia, his aunt, of clear and
resplendent virtues through the clouds of her fortune. To my
lord's grace of Canterbury 4 now being, I leave my picture of Divine
Love, rarely copied from one in the king^s galleries, of my pre-
sentation to his majesty ; beseeching him to receive it as a pledge
of my humble reverence to his great wisdom. And to the most
worthy lord bishop of London 5, lord high treasurer of England,
in true admiration of his Christian simplicity, and contempt of
earthly pomp, I leave a picture of Heraclitus bewailing, and De-
mocritus laughing at the world : most humbly beseeching the said
lord archbishop his grace, and the lord bishop of London, of both

9 Sir Arthur Throgmorton.'] Whose eldest daughter and coheir, Mary, was
married to sir Henry Wotton's nephew, Thomas, second and last lord Wotton.

1 Queen Mary.'] Henrietta Maria.

2 Matthiolo.'] Pietro Matthiolo of Sienna, physician to the emperor and to
the archduke Ferdinand, who wrote Discorsi nelli sei libri di Pedacio Dios-
coride Anarzarbeo delta Materia Medicinale. Editions with very beautiful
wood engravings were printed at Venice in folio, in 1568, 1585, 1604. It was
no doubt a copy of one of these that Wotton bequeathed, but it is not in
the Royal library in the British Museum.

3 Descended^] She being daughter of Marie de' Medici.

4 My lord's grace of Canterbury .] William Laud.

5 Bishop of London.] William Juxon, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury.

112 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

whose favours I have tasted in my lifetime, to intercede with our
most gracious sovereign after my death, in the bowels of Jesus
Christ, that out of compassionate memory of my long services
(wherein I more studied the public honour than mine own utility)
some order may be taken out of my arrears due in the exchequer,
for such satisfaction of my creditors, as those whom I have
ordained supervisors of this my last will and testament shall pre-
sent unto their lordships, without their farther trouble : hoping
likewise in his majesty's most indubitable goodness, that he will
keep me from all prejudice, which I may otherwise suffer by any

defect of formality in the demand of my said arrears. To

for a poor addition to his cabinet, I leave as emblems of his
attractive virtues, and nobleness, my great loadstone ; and a
piece of amber of both kinds naturally united, and only differing
in degree of concoction, which is thought somewhat rare. Item,
a piece of christal sexangular (as they grow all) grasping divers
several things within it, which I bought among the Rhsetian
Alps, in the very place where it grew: recommending most
humbly unto his lordship, the reputation of my poor name in
the point of my debts, as I have done to the forenamed spiritual
lords ; and am heartily sorry, that I have no better token of my
humble thankfulness to his honoured person. Item, I leave to
sir Francis Windebanck, one of his majesties principal secretaries
of state (whom I found my great friend in point of necessity) the
Four Seasons of old Bassano, to hang near the eye in his parlour
(being in little form) which I bought at Venice, where I first
entered into his most worthy acquaintance.

" To the above-named Dr. Bargrave e dean of Canterbury. I
leave all my Italian books not disposed in this will. I leave to
him likewise my viol de gamba, which hath been twice with me in
Italy, in which country I first contracted with him an unremove-
able affection. To my other supervisor, Mr. Nicholas Pey, I
leave my chest, or cabinet of instruments and engines of all kinds
of uses : ink the lower box whereof are some fit to be bequeathed
to none but so entire an honest man as he is. I leave him likc-

' Dr. BargraveJ] A picture of sir Henry Wotton, and some other por-
traits, believed to have been in his collection, are now in the possession of
Thomas Bridger, Esq., of Eastry Court, whose lady is a lineal descendant of
Dr. Bargrave.

k In it were Italian locks, picklocks, screws to force open doors, and many
things of worth and rarity that he had gathered in his foreign travel.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 113

wise forty pound for his pains in the solicitation of my arrears,
and am sorry that my ragged estate can reach no further to one
that hath taken such care for me in the same kind, during all
my foreign employments. To the library at Eton college I leave
all my manuscripts not before disposed ; and to each of the fellows
a plain ring of gold, enamelled black, all save the verge, with this
motto within, Amor unit omnia.

" This is my last will and testament, save what shall be added
by a schedule thereunto annexed. Written on the first of
October, in the present year of our redemption 1637. And sub-
scribed by myself, with the testimony of these witnesses.

" HENRY WOTTON."
" Nich. Oudert.
Geo. Lash."

And now, because the mind of man is best satisfied by the
knowledge of events, I think fit to declare, that every one that
was named in his will, did gladly receive their legacies ; by which,
and his most just and passionate desires for the payment of his
debts, they joined in assisting the overseers of his will ; and by
their joint endeavours to the king (than whom none was more
willing) conscionable satisfaction was given for his just debts.

The next thing wherewith I shall acquaint the reader is, that
he went usually once a year, if not oftener, to the beloved Bocton-
hall, where he would say, he found a cure for all cares, by the
chearful company, which he called the living furniture of that
place : and, a restoration of his strength, by the connaturalness
of that which he called his genial air.

He yearly went also to Oxford. But the summer before his
death he changed that for a journey to Winchester-college ; to
which school he was first removed from Bocton. And as he
returned from Winchester, towards Eton-college, he said to a
friend, his companion in that journey; " How useful was that
advice of a holy monk, who persuaded his friend to perform his
customary devotions in a constant place 7} because in that place,
we usually meet with those very thoughts which possessed us at
our last being there ; and I find it thus far experimentally true ;
that my now being in that school, and seeing that very place

7 A constant place. ,] See South's Sermons, vol. i. "God's peculiar regard
for places set apart for Divine worship ;" or Christian Institutes, vol. iii. p. 432.
Also Law's Serious Call, &c. chap. 14.

VOL. IV. I

114 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

where I sate when I was a boy, occasioned me to remember
those very thoughts of my youth which then possessed me;
sweet thoughts indeed, that promised my growing years numerous
pleasures, without mixtures of cares ; and those to be enjoyed,
when time (which I therefore thought slow paced) had changed
my youth into manhood : but age and experience have taught
me, that those were but empty hopes : for I have always found
it true, as my Saviour did foretell, sufficient for the day is the evil
thereof. Nevertheless, I saw there a succession of boys using the
same recreations, and questionless possessed with the same
thoughts that then possessed me. Thus one generation succeeds
another, both in their lives, recreations, hopes, fears, and death."
After his return from Winchester to Eton (which was about
five months before his death) he became much more retired, and
contemplative ; in which time he was often visited by Mr. John
Hales, (learned Mr. John Hales) then a fellow of that college ;

to whom upon an occasion he spake to this purpose " I have

in my passage to my grave met with most of those joys of which a
discursive soul is capable ; and been entertained with more inferior
pleasures than the sons of men are usually made partakers of:
nevertheless, in this voyage I have not always floated on the calm
sea of content ; but, have oft met with cross winds and storms,
and with many troubles of mind and temptations to evil. And,
yet though I have been and am a man compassed about with hu-
man frailties, almighty God hath by his grace prevented me from
making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience ; the thought of
which is now the joy of my heart, and I most humbly praise him
for it : and I humbly acknowledge that it was not myself but he
that hath kept me to this great age ; and let him take the glory
of his great mercy. — And my dear friend, I now see that I draw
near my harbour of death : that harbour, that will secure me
from all the future storms and waves of this world ; and I praise
God I am willing to leave it, and expect a better ; that world,

wherein dwelleth righteousness, and I long for it." These and

the like expressions were then uttered by him at the beginning of
a feverish distemper, at which time he was also troubled with an
asthma, or short spitting ; but after less than twenty fits, by the
help of familiar physic and a spare diet, this fever abated ; yet so
as to leave him much weaker than it found him : and his asthma
seemed also to be overcome in a good degree by his forbearing
tobacco, which as many thoughtful men do. In- had also taken

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 115

somewhat immoderately. — This was his then present condition,
and thus he continued till about the end of October 1639, which
was about a month before his death, at which time he again
fell into a fever, which though he seemed to recover, yet these
still left him so weak, that they and those other common infirmi-
ties that accompany age, and were wont to visit him like civil
friends, and after some short time to leave him, came now, both
oftener and with more violence, and at last took up their constant
habitation with him, still weakening his body and abating his
chearfulness : of both which he grew more sensible, and did the
oftener retire into his study, and there made many papers that
had passed his pen both in the days of his youth, and in the busy

part of his life, useless by a fire made there to that purpose. •

These and several unusual expressions to his servants and friends,
seemed to foretell that the day of his death drew near ; for which
he seemed to those many friends that observed him, to be well
prepared, and to be both patient, and free from all fear ; as seve-
ral of his letters writ on this his last sick-bed may testify : and
thus he continued till about the beginning of December following,
at which time he was seized more violently with a quotidian fever,
in the tenth fit of which fever, his better part, that part of sir
Henry Wotton which could not die, put off mortality, with as
much content and chearfulness as human frailty is capable of;
being then in great tranquillity of mind, and in perfect peace with
God and man.

And thus the circle of sir Henry Wotton's life (that circle
which began at Bocton, and in the circumference thereof, did first
touch at Winchester-school, then at Oxford, and after upon so
many remarkable parts and passages in Christendom,) that circle
of his life, was by death thus closed up and compleated, in the
seventy and second year of his age, at Eton college ; where ac-
cording to his will, he now lies buried, with his motto on a plain
grave-stone over him; dying worthy of his name and family,
worthy of the love and favour of so many princes, and persons of
eminent wisdom and learning, worthy of the trust committed unto
him, for the service of his prince and country.

All readers are requested to believe, that he was worthy of a
more worthy pen, to have preserved his memory, and com-
mended his merits to the imitation of posterity.

Iz. WA.
i 2

NICHOLAS FERRAR.

His state

Is kingly. Thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; —
They also serve who only stand and wait.

MILTON.

ADVERTISEMENT

THE following Life is published, but not without some omissions,
from Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, by P. PecJcard,
D.D. Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge. Cambridge, printed
by J. Archdeacon, 1790. The present edition, it is presumed, is
greatly increased in value, by a large accession of very interesting
papers, transcribed from the Lambeth library, by permission of
his grace the archbishop of Canterbury. The notices which are
included in brackets are borrowed from Dr. Peckard.

PREFACE.

THE editor of the following Memoirs has been long and frequently
solicited to publish the life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, of which it
was known that he once had a manuscript account in his posses-
sion. It now seems necessary to give a short history of this MS.
and the reason why he has hitherto delayed his compliance with
the solicitations that have been made to him.

He married the eldest daughter of Mr. Edward Ferrar, late of
Huntingdon, who by his will left to him his books and papers.
Among the latter was a manuscript life of Nicholas Ferrar,
entitled, " The complete Church of England Man, &c." written
out fair and prepared for the press, from authentic memoirs in
the family, by the Rev. Mr. Francis Peck : a gentleman well
known to the literary world by his publications relative to various
articles of antiquity.

Soon after the death of Mr. Ed. Ferrar, which happened in
1769, the Rev. Mr. Jones, of Sheephall, in the county of Hert-
ford, then on a visit to the editor at Huntingdon, requested the
perusal of this manuscript, which was granted : and the editor
soon] after went for some time with his family to Bath. On his
return to Huntingdon, he was informed of the sudden death of
Mr. Jones, occasioned by a fall from his horse.

Having made all possible enquiry after this MS. in the neigh-
bourhood of Sheephall without effect, the editor called upon a
brother of Mr. Jones, who then lived near St. Clement's church
in the Strand, who undertook to recover and restore it. But he
also was prevented doing any thing by his sudden death, which
happened in a few days after this application.

Since that time the editor has made all the enquiry both public
and private that was in his power, but all to no purpose.

122

PREFACE.

Having now, after near twenty years' fruitless enquiry, given
up all hopes of recovering his property, the editor nevertheless
determines, as far as it is in his power, to gratify the solicitations
of his friends with respect to the life of Mr. Nich. Ferrar. And
having found the original1 MS. from which Mr. Peck composed
his work, entitled, " The complete Church of England Man exem-
plified in the holy life of Mr. N. Ferrar ;" as also some loose and
unconnected papers of Mr. Peck's rough draught, he here humbly
offers to the public the result of his investigation. And although
he has thought it necessary sometimes to change an obsolete
phrase for one more modern, or to leave out some passages that
might now appear of no weight, or to add now and then a few
sentences for the sake of connection, yet in every thing of moment
the present production is faithful to the original.

1 The original.'] This MS., as will be seen below, in the body of this life,
was compiled by Mr. John Ferrar, the elder brother of Nicholas, about the
year 1654.

NICHOLAS FERRAR.

MR. NICHOLAS FERRAR, though not of exalted rank himself,
was of a family highly respectable for that real merit which sur-
passes antiquity of descent or nobility of title, a family illustrious
for virtue.

Gualkeline, or Walkeline de Ferrariis, a Norman of distinction,
came into England with William the Conqueror. To Henry de
Ferrariis, the second of this family, William gave Tutbury and
other castles ; and more than a hundred and eighty lordships.
In process of time the family became very numerous ; founded
several religious houses ; had the honour of peerage ; and different
branches of it were settled in many different counties.

One line was long since established in Yorkshire, from which
was descended Nicholas, the father of that Nicholas to whose
memory these imperfect memoirs are dedicated. He was very
nearly related to that pious and resolute martyr Robert Ferrar,
bishop of St. David's, who sealed the truth of the Protestant
religion with his blood, and with these remarkable words after his
condemnation to the stake, " If you see me stir in the fire, believe
not the doctrine I have taught V

Nicholas Ferrar the father was brought up in the profession of
a merchant adventurer, and traded very extensively to the East
and West Indies, and to all the celebrated seats of commerce.
He lived in high repute in the city, where he joined in cominer-

1 / have taught.'] [Richard Jones, a knight's son, coming to bishop Ferrar
a little before his execution, lamented the painfulness of the death he had to
suffer. To whom the bishop answered, that if he saw him stir in the pains
of his burning, he should then give no credit to his doctrine. And as he
said so he right well performed the same. For so patiently he stood that he
never moved : but even as he stood holding up his stumps, so still he con-
tinued till one Richard Gravel with a staff dashed him upon the head, and so
stroke him down. March 30, 1555. Fox, Acts and Monuments.'}

124 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

cial matters with sir Thomas and sir Hugh Middleton, and Mr.
Bateman. He was a man of liberal hospitality, but governed his
house with great order. He kept a good table, at which he
frequently received persons of the greatest eminence, sir John
Hawkins, sir Francis Drake, sir Walter Raleigh, and others,
with whom he was an adventurer : and in all their expeditions he
was ever in the highest degree attentive to the planting the Chris-
tian religion in the new world. At home also he was a zealous
friend to the established church, and always ready to supply his
prince with what was required of him. He lent 300£. at once
upon a privy seal : a sum at that time not inconsiderable. He
had the honour of being written Esq. by Q. Elizabeth : and the
exemplification of his arms is still in the family.

He married Mary Wodenoth, daughter of Laurence Wode-
noth, esq. of the ancient family 8 of that name, .of Savington hall
in Cheshire, where her ancestors in lineal descent had enjoyed
that lordship near five hundred years, and were allied to the prin-
cipal families of that country.

Mary Wodenoth was surpassed by none in comeliness of body
or excellence of beauty. She was of modest and sober deport-
ment, and of great prudence. Of few words, yet when she spoke,
bishop Lindsel3 was used to say of her, he knew no woman
superior to her in eloquence, true judgment or wisdom, and that
few were equal to her in chanty towards man, or piety towards
God.

This worthy couple lived together many years in harmony and
happiness, perfecting their holiness in the fear of God, and in the
conscientious practice of every duty. They saw descended from
them a numerous, and a virtuous family 4, of whose education they

3 Ancient family.'] An account of the Wodenoths, with their arms and
pedigree, will be found in Ormerod's History of Cheshire, iii. 261, 262.

* Bishop Lindsel.'] Augustine Lindsell, dean of Lichfield, elected bishop of
Peterborough, 22nd December, 1632; translated to Hereford 7th March,
1634; died 6th November, 1634.

4 A virtuous family.'] Nicholas Ferrar, the father, died 1st April, 1620,
leaving issue, " John Farrar, eldest sonne, of the age of 30 yeares ; Nicholas,
second sonne, fellow of Clare Hall, in Cambridge, of the age of 27 yeares ;
Richard, third sonne, merchant of London, of the age of 24 yeares; Susan,
only daughter lyvyng, married to John Collett ', of Bourne, in the county of

1 This John Collett (alias Collet) had issue by the said Susan five sons
and seven daughters ; the eldest of which daughters (by name Mary) was
unmarried in 1684. The rest of them and the two eldest sons married.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 125

took uncommon care. They did not spoil their children by abso-
lutely sparing the rod, but what occasional severity they judged
to be necessary was so softened by tenderness and affection, as
to produce not only the fear of doing amiss, but the love of doing
well.

The little instances of corrective discipline exercised by these
affectionate parents in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
would perhaps excite the derision of the fastidious reader at the
end of the eighteenth ; they are therefore omitted. Nevertheless
they were well calculated to impress the tender mind with a reve-
rential awe for the Supreme Being ; with obedience to parents,
and instructors ; with universal and disinterested benevolence ;
with modesty, with humility, and a proper sense of subordination ;
with an abhorrence of all vice, but particularly of every species of
falsehood.

The children born to these virtuous parents were all constantly
trained in virtue and religion. Their daily practice was to read,
and to speak by memory some portion of the Scriptures, and parts
of the Book of Martyrs : they were also made acquainted with
such passages of history as were suited to their tender years.
They were all instructed in music ; in performing on the organ,
viol, and lute, and in the theory and practice of singing ; in the
learned and modern languages ; in curious needle- works, and all
the accomplishments of that time. The young men, when arrived
at years of discretion, had permission each to choose his profes-
sion, and then no expense was spared to bring him to a distin-
guished excellence in it. For this was an invariable maxim with
the parents, that having laid a firm foundation in religion and
virtue, they would rather give them a good education without
wealth, than wealth without a good education.

The parish church and chancel of St. Bennett Sherehog in
London, Mr. Ferrar repaired and decently seated at his own
expence ; and as there was not any morning preacher there, he

Cambridge, gent. He had also issue by Mary, his said wife, Erasmus and
William, both barresters of the common law, that dyed both without issue.
John Farrar, eldest sonne of the said Mr. Nicholas Farrar, married two
wives : his first wife was Anne, daughter of William Shepard, of Great Rol-
wright, in the county of Oxon, Esq., by whom he had no issue. His second
wife was Bersabe, daughter of Israel Owen, of London, gent., by whom he
had issue Mary, who dyed yonge, and Nicholas of the age of two yeares." —
From the Funeral Certificate in Hearne's Caii Vindicia, ii. 683.

126 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

brought from the country Mr. Francis White, and made hii
their first lecturer. Mr. White was afterwards advanced to th<
see of Ely 5.

When a stranger preached, Mr. Ferrar always invited him
dinner, and if it was discovered that he was in any necessity, he
never departed without a handsome present. In truth they never
were without a clergyman as a companion in their house, or even
on their journeys, as they always accustomed themselves to
morning and evening prayer.

Nicholas Ferrar, the third son of this worthy couple, was born
the 22d and christened the 23d of Feb. 1592, in the parish of
St. Mary Stayning in Mark-lane, London. His godfathers do
not appear. His godmother was a Mrs. Riggs, wife to captain
Riggs, who recommended herself highly to the esteem of q. Eliza-
beth, by an heroic act which she performed upon the sea-shore at
Dover in 1 588, as her story relates at large.

He was a beautiful child of a fair complexion, and light- coloured
hair. At four years of age he was sent to school, being of a
tractable disposition and lively parts. At five he could read per-
fectly, or repeat with propriety and grace a chapter in the Bible,
which the parents made the daily exercise of their children. By
the brightness of his parts, and the uncommon strength of his
memory he attained with great ease and quickness whatsoever he
set himself to learn ; yet was he also remarkably studious ; being
a rare instance of the union of the brightest parts with the most
intense industry. From the early possession of his mind with
ideas of piety and virtue, and a love for historical information,
the Bible in his very early years became to him the book above
all others most dear and estimable ; and next to this in his esteem
was Fox's book of Martyrs, from which he could repeat perfectly
the history of his near kinsman bishop Ferrar. And when in his
riper years he undertook the instruction of the family, he con-
stantly exercised them also in the reading and in the study of
these two books. He was particularly fond of all historical rela-
tions, and when engaged in this sort of reading, the day did not
satisfy him, but he would borrow from the night; insomuch that
his mother would frequently seek him out, and force him to par-
take of some proper recreation. Hence, even in his childhood,

* See of Ely] Francis White, dean of Carlisle, was successively bishop of
Carlisle, in 1626; of Norwich, in 1629; of Ely. in 1631. He died in 1638.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 127

his mind was so furnished with historical anecdotes, that he could
at any time draw off his schoolfellows from their play, who would
eagerly surround him, and with the utmost attention listen to his
little tales, always calculated to inspire them with a love of piety
and goodness, and excite in them a virtuous imitation.

When he was very young he was entered into Latin at London,
at the desire of his master, though others thought it too soon :
but he was so eager and diligent in his application that he soon
surpassed all his companions.

He was of a grave disposition, and very early shewed a great
dislike of every thing that savoured of worldly vanity. In his
apparel he wished to be neat, but refused all that was not simple
and plain. When bands were making for the children, he
earnestly entreated his mother that his might not have any lace
upon them, like those of his brothers, but be made little and
plain, like those of Mr. Wotton a, a for I wish to be a preacher as
he is." Mr. Wotton was a learned divine and reader of divinity
in Gresham college. He was frequently at Mr. Ferraris, and
always examined, and exercised young Nicholas, being wonder-
fully delighted with his ingenuity.

He was good natured and tender hearted to the highest degree ;
so fearful of offending any one, that upon the least apprehension
of having given displeasure, he would suddenly weep in the most
submissive manner, and appear extremely sorry. His temper was
lovely, his countenance pleasing : his constitution was not robust,
but he was active, lively, and chearful. Whatsoever he went
about he did it with great spirit, and with a diligence and discre-
tion above his years.

And now the parents were informed by their friends, and by
Mr. Francis his school-master, that it was time to send him to
some greater school, where he might have a better opportunity to
improve himself in the Latin tongue. It was thereupon resolved
to send him and his brother William to Euborn, near Newbury
in Berkshire, to the house of Mr. Brooks, an old friend, who had
many other pupils, who was a religious and good man, but a strict
disciplinarian.

While preparations were making for this journey, an event

6 Mr. Wotton J\ Anthony Wotton, chosen professor of divinity in Gresham
College, in March, 1596, at its foundation, and lecturer of Allhallows, Bark-
ing : he died in 1626. An account of him and of his works will be found in
Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors.

128 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

took place which made the deepest and most lively impressi(
upon the mind of young Nicholas, and strongly marks his cha-
racter, and the bent of his disposition. He was but six years
age, and being one night unable to sleep, a fit of scepticism
seized his mind, and gave him the greatest perplexity and un<
siness. He doubted u Whether there was a God f and if there
was, " What was the most acceptable mode of serving him f1
In extreme grief he rose at midnight, cold, and frosty, and wenl
down to a grass plat in the garden, where he stood long time sad
and pensive, musing, and thinking seriously upon the great doubt
which thus extremely perplexed him. At length, throwing him-
self on his face upon the ground, and spreading out his hands, h(
cried aloud, " Yes, there is, there must be a God : and he, n<
question, if I duly and earnestly seek it of him, will teach me no<
only how to know, but how to serve him acceptably. He will
with me all my life here, and at the end will hereafter make m(
happy."

These are exalted and wonderful sentiments 7 for a child of si:

7 Wonderful sentimentsJ] It will be proper to subjoin here, from Hearne's
Caii Vindicia, vol. ii. p. 684, 5, the " Account of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar's first
years, from a paper MS. of Dr. (John) Worthington's." Its value is enhanced
by Dr. W. having been well acquainted with the party.

"Mr. Nicholas Ferrar was born about the year 1596, in London, of reli-
gious parents; who taught him in his infancy the first foundations of
Christian religion. He was taught at the age of four or five years to say his
prayers often every day ; to repeat the Church Catechism ; and to read the
Psalter and the New Testament.

" When he was six years old, and by his mother had been taught to read
perfectly throughout the whole Bible, it is worthy of memory and admiration
to hear what he did. Upon a Friday night in summer, having supped, as
the manner was, with bread and beer, and said his prayers and catechism,
his mother sent him up to bed. But this good child, having a mind set
upon God, went not to bed, but into an upper chamber or garret; where,
upon his knees, or sometimes flat upon the ground, he prayed, wept, com-
muned with his own heart, and with his gracious God all the night. Two
things especially in that night's holy exercise were so imprinted in the heart
and mind of the child that they came fresh into his memory every day of his
life. (This he told me more than once, two or three years before his death.)
The one was, the joy and sweetness which he did, in that watching night,
conceive and feel in his heart. The other was the gracious promise which
God made to him, to bless and keep him all his whole life, so that he would
constantly fear God and keep his commandments.

"This invocation and fervent prayer of this child, stirred up in him by
the Spirit and grace of God, was so followed by the same Spirit in an evident

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 129

years old : and this anecdote may influence the reader to give
credit to those sublime ecstasies of devotion which he experienced
and expressed at the close of his life.

His doubts now vanished, his mind became easy, and he
returned to his apartment : but the remembrance of what he felt
upon this occasion made him ever after strongly commiserate all
who laboured under any religious doubt, or despair of mind.
And in the future course of his life he had repeated opportunities
to exert his benevolence to those who experienced a similar
unhappiness.

In the year 1598, he was sent to Euborn school, near Newbury,
in Berkshire, where he made such a rapid progress in Latin,
Greek, and logic, that he soon became the first scholar of his
years. He strengthened his memory by daily exercise : he was
a great proficient in writing and arithmetic, and attained such
excellence in short hand, as to be able to take accurately a ser-
mon or speech on any occasion. He was also well skilled both in
the theory and practice of vocal and instrumental music.

Thus accomplished, in his fourteenth year, his master, Mr.
Brooks, prevailed with his parents to send him to Cambridge,
whither he himself attended him, and admitted him of Clare-hall,
presenting him, with due commendation of his uncommon abilities,
to Mr. Augustine Lindsell, the tutor, and Dr. Wm. Smith 8, then
master of the college.

His parents thought proper, notwithstanding the remonstrance
of some friends against it, to admit him a pensioner for the first
year ; as they conceived it more for his good, to rise by merit
gradually to honour. In this situation, by excellent demeanour,
and diligent application to his studies, he so deported himself in
all things, and to all persons, that he instantly gained the affec-
tions and applause of all who knew him, performing all his exer-
cises with distinguished approbation.

Mr. Lindsell spared not to make full proof of his abilities,

effectual vocation of him, that it resembleth the calling of Samuel, when he
was yet a child ; and Timothy's knowing God from his youth by his mother
Eunice, and his grandmother Lois's godly admonitions and instructions.
"At the age of thirteen, he went to Cambridge, to Clare Hall."
8 Dr. Wm. Smith.'] Or Smyth, fellow of King's College, elected master of
Clare Hall in 15Q8, chaplain to king James and rector of Willingham in 1607.
He died provost of King's in 1615.

VOL. iv. K

130 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

wishing, as he was used to express himself, to see his inside, as
well as his outside. He therefore made many trials of his abili-
ties, which the rest of the fellows thought unreasonable ; saying
"it was a shame to spur a fleet horse, which already outwent the
rider's own desire, and won every race he put him to." When
they urged that he required impossibilities, he would reply, " con-
tent yourselves a little, you shall see what the boy can do, and
that too without much trouble." These proofs of wonderful abi-
lities were continually repeated, and he thus went on from day to
day improving in all good learning. His attention and diligence
was such, that it was observed his chamber might be known by
the candle that was last put out at night, and the first lighted in
the morning. Nor was he less diligent in his attendance at
chapel, than at his studies, so that his piety and learning went on
hand in hand together.

In his second year he became fellow-commoner, and being now
every day more and more the companion of the fellows, he every
day became more and more esteemed by them. In 1610, he took
his degree of bachelor of arts. At this time he was appointed
to make the speech on the king's coronation day (July 25) in the
college hall ; and the same year he was elected fellow of that
society.

If we take a view of him at this period when he became fellow,
we shall find that his natural parts were wonderfully improved,
his memory so enlarged and strengthened, that he had read no-
thing of worth, but he had made it his own, and could always
instantly apply it to the present occasion. He spoke also and
wrote, and argued with such ingenious dexterity that very few
indeed were equal to him. Nevertheless he was still so eager in
the pursuit of farther acquisitions, that industry and genius
seemed to be incorporated in him. Nor was he more attentive
to his own instruction, than to the happiness of all with whom he
was concerned. For he was a constant and indefatigable pro-
moter of peace ; and when any difference had arisen, he had tin1
art so to win upon each side, that he would draw the ooateadiag
parties from their unfriendly resolutions, and reanimate and
blish harmony between them. Mr. Lindsell was used to say of
him, " May God keep him in a right mind ! For if he should
turn schismatic, or heretic, he would make work for all the world.
Such a head, such power of argument ! such a tongue, and su.-h

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 131

a pen ! such a memory withal he hath, with such indefatigable
pains, that, all these joined together, I know not who would be
able to contend with him."

His constitution was of feminine delicacy, and he was very sub-
ject to aguish disorders ; yet he bore them out in a great measure
by his temperance, and by a peculiar courageousness of spirit
which was natural to him. His favourite sister, married to Mr.
Collet, lived at Bourn Bridge, near Cambridge. And as the air
of Cambridge was found not well to agree with him, he made
frequent excursions to Bourn Bridge, where he passed his time
in the pursuit of his studies, and in the instruction of his sister's
children.

But his tutor, Mr. Lindsell, Mr. Ruggle9, and others of the
fellows, having now apprehension of his health, carried him to Dr.
Butler, the celebrated physician l of Cambridge, who had been of
Clare-hall, and was a particular friend of Mr. Lindsell. Dr. But-
ler conceived a great affection for Mr. Ferrar, and exerted all his
skill ; yet still the disorder increased more and more upon him ;
and at length this good physician said, " Why should I give thee
any more prescriptions ? ah1 I can do will not conquer this dis-
temper. Alas ! all I can say is, you must henceforth deal with

9 Mr. Ruggle.~\ [Mr. Ruggle wrote the Latin comedy of Ignoramus, which
was several times acted before king James I. at Cambridge and Royston,
with great applause. At one of which times the king cried out treason,
treason. And being asked what was the matter, said, he believed the author
and the actors together had a design to make him laugh himself to death.
Another time, when the king was seated, and expected the scholars to per-
form, he was surprised with the sound of a horn, and the appearance of a
post-boy, who said that Ignoramus was ready to perform his part, but that
none of the lawyers would lend him a gown to act in. Ah! said the king
(who was deceived, and took the scholar for a real post-boy), this is a plot of
Cukes ! (meaning the Lord Chief Justice Coke.) But if Cuke won't let the
lawyers lend him a gown, by my saul, man, he shall lend him his own. This
speech of the king put the audience into an exceeding merry humour, and
the play went on. But it is suggested that the play of Ignoramus, acted at
Cambridge, 1614, occasioned Mr. Selden's History of Tithes, published 1616,
in order to be even with the clergy. See Lloyd's Memoirs, fol. p. 520. F. P.]

1 Celebrated physician.] William Butler, who died 29th January, 1618.
He declared that prince Henry was poisoned, " from his brain being liver-
coloured and putrefied." Peacham says of him, "our late Master Butler of
Cambridge, that learned and excellent physician, was, like sir Thomas More
and other great scholars, observed to be most careless and slovenly in his
apparel."

K 2

132 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

this disorder when it comes to you, as men do with beggars,
when they have a mind to disuse them from their houses, give
them nothing but let them go as they came. You must through
a spare diet, and great temperance, even all your lite long, seek
to be quit of this unhappy companion : he must be starved away."

For some time after this Mr. Ferrar grew better, but soon
relapsed again, and in the autumn of 1612, he began to grow
very ill. His friends now feared he would not get over the
winter. Dr. Butler said, " I can do no more for him, the last
remedy, or hope I can give you is from the change of air. He
must go in the spring to travel. I doubt not but I can keep him
up this winter, and if travel recover him not, nothing will. Be-
sides, it is high time his mind be taken off from these his in-
cessant studies ; these alone, if he be permitted to go on, will
speedily destroy his constitution. The course I propose may
prolong his life till he is thirty-five years of age ; but longer, in
my judgment, it will not last. In the mean time, he will live to
do great good. And think not that his time spent in travel will
be lost ; no : depend upon it he will improve himself greatly.
Mr. Lindsell, go your way ; think of it : persuade his parents to
it. I can say no more to you. Let him go next spring. I will
take care of him this winter." And so he did most affectionately.

Mr. Ferrar was now almost seven years standing in the uni-
versity, and was to take his master of arts degree at the ensuing
Midsummer, 1613; and he had already performed with great
credit all his previous exercises.

It being made known to the heads of the university that he
was to travel, and to have the opportunity of going with that
noble company which then went with the lady Elizabeth2 to con-
duct her to the palatinate with the palsgrave her husband, it was
propounded that he might have the favour of cap and hood imme-
diately, though before the usual time, so as to be complete master
of arts before his departure, which was readily granted, and im-
mediately his graces were given him. And now many came to
present their most affectionate wishes to him for health and hap-
piness in his travels. And thus he bade Cambridge adieu !

2 Lady Elizabeth.'] Princess-royal of England, daughter of Jaines I., and
wife of Frederic, elector palatine, to whom she was married in February, 1613.
He assumed the crown of Bohemia in 1C 19, but after the battle of Prague,
in November, 1620, he not only lost his crown, but also his hereditary
dominions.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 133

All things being settled with respect to his going abroad, Mr.
Ferrar left the following written farewell to his family, which his
mother found in his study a few days after he was gone.

" Since there is nothing more certain than death, nor more
uncertain than the time when ; I have thought it the first and
chiefest wisdom for a man to prepare himself for that which must
one day come, and always be ready for that which may every
hour happen : especially considering how dangerous any error is
here, which cannot be amended : neither is any one the nearer to
death for having prepared for it. It is then a thing of exceeding
madness and folly to be negligent in so weighty a matter, in re-
spect whereof all other things are trifles. I here confess my own
wretchedness and folly in this, that through the common hope of
youth, I have set death far from me : and persuading myself that
I had a long way to go, have walked more carelessly than I ought.
The good Lord God be merciful unto me.

" Indeed I have a long way to run, if death stood still at the
end of threescore years : but God knows if he be not running
against me, if he be not ready to grasp me, especially considering
the many dangers wherein I am now to hazard myself, in every
one whereof death dwells. If God be merciful to me, and bring
me safe home again, I will all the days of my life serve him in his
tabernacle, and in his holy sanctuary.

" I hope he who hath begun this mind in me will continue it,
and make me to walk so as I may be always ready for him, when
he shall come either in the public judgment of all the world, or
in private judgment to me by death. This is my purpose and
this shall be my labour.

" And you, my most dear parents, if God shall take me from
you, I beseech you be of good comfort, and be not grieved at my
death, which I undoubtedly hope shall be to me the beginning of
eternal happiness. It was God that gave me to you, and if he
take me from you, be not only content but joyful that I am deli-
vered from the vale of misery. This God that hath kept me ever
since I was born, will preserve me to the end, and will give me
grace to live in his faith, to die in his favour, to rest in his peace,
to rise in his power, and to reign in his glory.

" I know, my most dear parents, your tender affections to-
wards your children, and fear your grief if God take me away.
I therefore write and leave this, that you might know your son's

134 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

estate, and assure yourselves that though he be dead to you, yet
he is alive to God.

" I now most humbly beseech you to pardon me in whatsoever
I may have at any time displeased you : and I pray God to bless
and keep you : to give you a happy life here, and everlasting in
the world to come.

" Your most humble and obedient son,

" N. FERRAR."

" Postscript,

" My dearest brothers and sisters ; If I live, you shall find me
a faithful and loving brother unto you all : if I die, I beseech you
by the fear of God, by the duty to your parents, by the bond of
nature, by the love you bear me, that you all agree in perfect love
and amity ; and account every one the other's burthen to be his ;
so may plenty and prosperity dwell among you. So prays your
faithful and loving brother

" N. FEURAR."

" If I die, I desire that the value of ol. of my books may be
given to the college : the rest I leave to my father's and mother's
disposing : yet I desire that in them my worthy tutor Lindsel
and cousin Theophilus may be remembered : and if any of my
sisters' sons prove a scholar, the rest may be given to him.

" This 10th day of April, being Sunday."

His parents' consent, and the college license obtained, and the
favour of the university granted with respect to his degree, Mr.
Ferrar prepared to set out upon his travels : a course of life
undertaken upon Dr. Butler's counsel, for the restoration of his
health, and to take him off from his incessant application to
his studies. He also himself had a desire to see foreign coun-
tries for the further acquisition of knowledge. And as he \u-ll
understood the grounds of the protestant religion, and was con-
vinced of its truth on scriptural authority, as he had read most
of the fathers, and controversial writings between the church of
England and the church of Rome, and as he had a memory so
retentive, that he forgot nothing which he had read, but was able
at all times to bring it forth, and apply it to the present occasion,
being thus armed before-hand against whatever might occur, and

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 135

relying wholly upon the mercy of God to protect him, with the
most virtuous resolutions of heart he set out upon his travels.

His tutor Lindsell solemnly protested that had he not per-
fectly known his wonderful abilities and uncommon virtue, he
should not in these so tender years of his pupil have been a pro-
moter of his travelling in the manner he did, all alone ; but would
have provided some worthy tutor to attend him. He knew that
in all virtue Nicholas Ferrar was an old man, so firmly fixed in
his religious principles, that there was no fear of his being se-
duced by any thing that he should hear or see. He knew that
the stock of learning, wisdom, and religion which he carried out
with him, would be increased at his return.

With these encouragements did Mr. Lindsell appease the fears
and tender anxieties of his parents at parting with him : for they
bade him farewell under the dread of never seeing him again.
And indeed not without reason : for he was then far from being
recovered of his aguish disorder : but Dr. Butler said the sea
would remove it, and they would soon hear that he was freed
from his infirmity.

Sometime before this 3, Dr. Scot 4, the king's sub-almoner, was
made master of Clare-hall, in the place of Dr. Smith, removed to
be provost of Kings. He conceived a high respect and affection
for Nicholas Ferrar, and undertook that he should be introduced
to the lady Elizabeth, to go in her company and retinue ; she
being now ready to depart with the prince palsgrave her husband,
who were to go first to Zealand, then to Holland, and from thence
home to the palatinate. Dr. Scot therefore took Mr. Ferrar to
court, to kiss her royal highness1 hand : not now in the garb of a
scholar, but habited as one of the gentlemen who belonged to
her. As for him he took no delight in these gay garments, but
submitted from a sense of propriety to be thus clad, and to satisfy
his friends more than himself. Dr. Scot also introduced him, and
procured him the knowledge and acquaintance of the whole at-
tendance of the English courtiers who then went with the lady
Elizabeth.

Being now provided with his bills of exchange, he went in the
same ship with the master of the green cloth, who took an espe-
cial liking to him. They arrived happily at Flushing, where the

3 Before this.'] In 1612.

4 Dr. Scot.'] Who was afterwards made dean of Rochester, in July, 1615,
and died in December, 1620.

136 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

royal fleet landed their passengers. And in this voyage Mr.
Ferrar found the benefit of the sea air which, as Dr. Butler told
him it would, cleared him of all the remains of his disorder. At
Middleburgh the lady Elizabeth was highly entertained and
feasted with all her noble attendants ; and Mr. Ferrar as one of
her gentlemen wanted for no marks of due notice and respect.
Here he made strict observation of every thing worth seeing, and
gained a sufficient acquaintance with the language to serve him
for all ordinary affairs and occasions. From thence the lady
Elizabeth passed on from city to city, in all which she was received
with great honour, and came to the Hague: from thence to
Amsterdam, where she was more magnificently entertained than
at any former place. In all these towns Mr. Ferrar visited the
several meeting-houses of the Brownists, Anabaptists, and other
Protestant dissenters, both to observe their manners and teaching,
and to see if all were answerable to his own former reading. At
all which times he noted their errors, and greatly confirmed him-
self in his own opinions. The Jews' synagogue likewise he left
not unseen, and their orders. But that which chiefly attracted
his notice at Amsterdam was their guest, or almshouses, where
young children of both sexes are brought up to learn handicrafts.
Here he got particular information of all their proceedings, and
very liberally rewarded the attendants. He particularly admired
the stateliness and neatness of the Dutch in these public edifices,
and the wonderful good orders and rules by which they are go-
verned. He also visited their churches, heard their sermons, and
attended all their religious rites and ceremonies. He next observed
their magazines for all sorts of stores : their innumerable boats
and ships, and noted the different way of building from ours in
the structure of their war ships. Ours he perceived were stronger
made, but theirs formed with more advantage for speedy sailing.
He was also charmed with their cleanliness and the many good
orders every where observed to that intent. And he observed
that the whole nation kept their houses elegantly neat in all places.
When he came to his lodgings he regularly entered all his obser-
vations in a book which he kept for that purpose.

The princess royal now directed her course towards the pala-
tinate, which was different from the route intended by Mr. Ferrar,
who had resolved to pass through the lower parts of Westphalia,
and so to Bremen, Staad, Hamburgh, Lunenburgh, Lulu-ck.
Leipsic, and so on to the upper parts of Germany. This his deter-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 137

mination he made known to the lady Elizabeths chief attendants,
who warmly pressed him to accompany them to Heidelberg, the
palsgrave^s court, and the chief city of the palatinate. They told
him that her highness had taken such good notice of him herself,
and had heard so much of him from the commendations of others,
that if he sought preferment by his travels, he might now, even
at the first, make a very fair step towards it. There was no
doubt but he might be made her secretary, that she would think
him well worthy of that place, and might recommend him to a
better. He humbly thanked them for their good opinion, but
assured them they were mistaken in his abilities. He was then
introduced to her royal highness, and kissed her hand, who bade
him farewell, and wished him much happiness in his travels.

Mr. Ferrar now set forward on his journey from Amsterdam to
Hamburgh, and on his way thither he travelled for some time
with a person for his guide, who had but one eye. After some
days1 travel they passed by a wood, where was a gibbet and some
bodies hanging in chains. " Now," said the postman, " sir, look
yonder ; those villains there hanging, some years since set upon
my waggon, wherein were an English youth, and a Hamburgh
merchant, then newly come out of Spain. The rogues carried us
into that wood on a cold frosty morning and stripped us : and
they found good gold tied up in the shirts of the gentlemen who
had travelled with me, which they took, then drank up our wine,
and went away laughing. But sometime after, they, still using
the same trade, set upon another waggon, whose passengers made
some resistance, when they shot three of them dead in the waggon,
and then fled. They were afterwards taken, and there hanged as
you see." " Your history is true," said Mr. Ferrar ; " for that
English youth was my brother. He has told me this story him-
self. And when I first saw you, I knew you to be the postman
with whom he travelled, for he described you as having but one
eye."

At length he arrived at Hamburgh, where the factors of the
merchant adventurers were resident, to whom his father and bro-
ther were well known. Here he found fresh bills of exchange,
and letters from his father to Mr. Gore, his old acquaintance, and
then deputy-governor of the company ; who received Mr. Ferrar
with great friendship and respect, and provided a convenient
lodging for him. During his stay here he procured a scholar of
that country to attend him daily at his lodgings, and instruct him

138 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

in the high Dutch5 language, in which he made such a proficiency
as to be of great service in the course of his travels. Here also
in the afternoon he spent some hours in examining the curiosities
in this city, and in the places adjacent. And here he informed
himself by reading the histories in the Dutch language, and by
discourse with men of learning in the place, of the original of this
and the neighbouring cities : of their several sorts of government ;
their religion ; ecclesiastical establishment ; their trades ; their
commerce ; the nature and disposition of the people, and their
particular virtues and vices.

From Hamburg Mr. Ferrar travelled up the country through
many cities, at each of which he staid a sufficient time to see, and
make observations upon all things worthy of notice, which he
regularly entered into his book for that use in short hand.

In this manner he passed up to the university of Leipsic in
Saxony : where, having proper letters of credit, he resolved to
abide for some time, both to perfect himself in the high Dutch
language, and to gain also what other knowledge and learning he
could in that place ; and to acquaint himself with the manner
of ordering all things in that university. He lodged himself
therefore in a principal house of that city, which by a friend's
help he obtained permission to do ; and the people there were very
civil and courteous to him. The English factors shewed him
much respect, and were greatly delighted with his pleasant dispo-
sition and temper. And they were the more taken with him
when they saw that he would not upon any terms drink wine or
any strong drink, and had also observed his great temperance in
all things, and that he was very humble and meek in his behaviour.
Yet still they saw him gallant and rich in apparel. But that
fashion of dress his parents thought was the best for him to make
use of in his travels, that so, according to the mode of the world,
he might have the easier admittance into all places, and all
respectable company.

At Leipsic he made enquiry after all the ablest scholars in
every art and science in that university, who could be procured
for money to teach him ; and he paid them all most liberally, and
far beyond their expectations. From these circumstances he was
thought to be some person of great account. These his several
tutors coming to him at set times, and on several days, and his

ifjh Dutch."} The German language, die dcutschc Sprache.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 139

personal resorting with the utmost diligence to all the exercises
performed in the public schools, made him to be very much
noticed. He gained great reputation for his uncommon abilities,
his diligence, and his sweet deportment ; his extraordinary quick-
ness in attaining whatsoever he set himself to, the elegant Latin
which he spake with the utmost readiness, and his abundant know-
ledge in several sorts of learning. The universal admiration he
obtained was also much heightened by his being so very young.
His acquaintance was desired by all the learned men of that
university : and he being free in all courtesy to enter into discourse
with them, many every day resorted to him. But finding that
this took up too much of his time, he privately retired into lodg-
ings in a village in the neighbourhood, and there enjoyed a better
opportunity to follow the studies he had resolved upon ; his tutors
attending him as they had done before. And here he passed
some time in reading over the best authors who had written on
the German nation, and in acquainting himself with the nature of
the government, laws, and customs.

The connection of the English factors at Leipsic with their
principals at home soon transmitted the fame of Nicholas Ferrar
to England, who was deemed and represented as a person who
had some great intent in his mind, but that it was feared by all
that he could not live to be a man of any considerable years.

As on one hand his parents could not but rejoice on hearing
these accounts, so on the other they could not help fearing that
his extreme application might, though at present he was in per-
fect health, nevertheless decay his strength, and shorten his life.
They therefore exhorted him to curb his too diligent mind, and to
abate of his incessant studies, for that they would allow him what
time and money he would for his expences.

Having now learned what he could at Leipsic, he departed
from thence for Prague, and there he abode a considerable time,
till he was able to converse fluently in the high Dutch language.
From thence he wandered up and down, to every great place here
and there, sometimes backwards, sometimes forward, visiting
Augsburg, Strasburg, Nuremberg, Ulme, Spires, the emperor's
court, and so from one princess court to another, observing every
where their manner of living, and spending their time ; what
magazines of arms they had ; what retinues they kept ; what their
incomes were ; from whence they had their origin ; what had
been their revolutions ; and accurately noting down whatever

140 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

Germany had in any place worth recording. There being also in
several parts of Germany very ingenious handicrafts of various
sorts, in all these he acquired a considerable degree of knowledge.
So that there was scarce any trade, art, skill or science concerning
which he could not discourse to the astonishment even of the
professors themselves in their respective professions. He was
master also of the technical terms of their several mysteries, and
could speak properly to them in their own dialect. He could
express all those things that belong to war, soldiery, and arms,
all that belong to ships, and navigation, and was perfect in all the
mariners^ peculiar phrases, and in all the particularities of every
trade and occupation in common life. And in truth all this with-
out any great care or trouble. For his penetration was so acute,
and his memory so vast and retentive ; that every thing he read,
or heard, or saw, was all his own, and he could instantly apply it
to the occasion that presented itself, as all who knew him found
by daily proof.

From Germany, Nicholas Ferrar bent his course for Italy.
But the plague being at that time in many towns of Germany,
when he came into the Venetian territories, he was obliged to
remain thirty days in one place in a lazaretto, where he was shut
up for public security ; but was allowed a chamber to himself.
Here he had leisure to recollect all those things, which to that
time had passed in his travels ; to review his notes and observa-
tions, which he had before all along put into short hand ; and to
digest them into better order for his future use. Here also he
had time to meditate what he was to do in Italy ; how to order
himself and his future life to the best advantage to attain his
several ends in travel.

Having compleated the thirty days of his confinement, and
being again at liberty to prosecute his journey, it may not be
amiss to relate a remarkable escape he had upon the road betwivn
Prague and Padua. As he rode one day upon some very narrow
and dangerous passages of the Alps, his guide being somewhat
before him, suddenly from the side of a hill came an ass laden
with a great piece of timber. The passage down the hill was
( xtremely narrow, on one side very high and precipitous above
him, and on the other also precipitously steep and fearful, so that
if any man fell, nothing but immediate death could be expected.
The timber did not lie, as at first laid down, lengthwise, but quite
across the ass's back, and reached the whole breadth of the j«a»

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 141

from one side to the other, and the beast came down the hill
apace. The guide, who was advanced a few yards, and had passed
the narrow crevice through which the ass came into the common
road, seeing Mr. Ferrar's situation, cried out in terror. The
man's exclamation caused Mr. Ferrar to look up, who was care-
fully regarding his horsed steps, and was then upon the extreme
brink of the precipice. There was but a moment between him
and certain destruction; when in that moment, just as the beast
came upon him she tripped, and by that motion the timber was
turned the right way as it was at first laid on. Mr. Ferrar then
suddenly stopping his horse upon the very edge of the precipice,
there stood still, till, as it pleased God, the beast went quietly on
with her burthen, and passed him without any harm but a slight
stroke from the timber. After this providential escape, for which
he returned his most devout thanks to God, he proceeded on his
road to Padua, and so on to Venice, without any other disaster.

At Venice Mr. Ferrar found letters of recommendation directed
for sir Dudley Carleton, at that time 6 the English ambassador
there, which he presented to him, who most courteously embraced
him, saying, u I have a long time expected your coming to
Venice ; for I have received several letters from many noble
personages concerning you. And now, sir, assure yourself that
wherein I may in any kind befriend you, I shall most gladly do
it." The ambassador then caused him to dine with him, and
invited him, he said, once for all to do so every day. Mr. Ferrar
frequently repaired to him that he might inform himself from so
eminent a person of those things that might be of service to him
in his future travels.

Having now staid a convenient time at Venice, he returned to
Padua, which before he had only passed through, but now resolved
to settle there for some time ; in order to perfect himself in all
the learning and knowledge to be attained in that university.
Here therefore he procured tutors in those sciences in which he
intended to be farther instructed. And he won their highest
admiration at his ingenious questions and answers, his ready
apprehension, his earnest prosecution, and his wonderful pro-
ficiency, in so many and such various studies, which at the same
time seemed to him no other than so many several recreations.

6 At that time.'] From 1610 to 1615, when he was succeeded by sir Henry
Wotton.

142 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

His acquaintance was courted by all the learned men in the
university, but particularly by the most eminent physicians ; as
he bestowed uncommon diligence in the pursuit of medical know-
ledge. And this he did from a double motive, both because he
held the physic fellowship at Clare Hall, and also on account of
the infirm and precarious state of his own health : in which
respect a proper proficiency in the science of medicine might be
peculiarly serviceable to him. And now his friendship with the
Paduan physicians, and their high esteem and great love for him,
was of singular benefit to him : for he fell very dangerously ill of
a disorder, which in all human probability would have proved
fatal, had it not been for their watchful care, and most tender
attentions.

It has been suggested by Mr. Archdeacon Oleya, that some of
these Paduan physicians, during Mr. Ferrar's illness, endeavored
to seduce him to popery : as also, that upon his recovery from
this illness, he made a vow of perpetual celibacy : and that he
\\ould upon his return to England, as soon as he could conve-
niently, settle his affairs for that purpose, and endeavour to spend
tin- remainder of his life in a religious retirement. But of these
articles I do not find sufficient evidence : yet if the latter be true,
it will account for a very remarkable instance of self-denial, which
will occur in the future part of his life.

While Mr. Ferrar continued thus at Padua, to establish his
health, and pursue his studies, he had an opportunity of exer-
cising his great faculty in quieting a troubled mind. For now an
English gentleman came thither, who by the impious custom of
duelling had killed another, and had fled from his country to
a\nid the puni.-hment which the laws adjudge to murderers. He
was under the deepest melancholy, but concealed the cause of
his uneasiness. At length, however, he acquainted Mr. Ferrar
\\ith his misfortune, declaring his great contrition, and sincere
repentance ; and beseeching him to give him counsel and com-
fort. Mr. Ferrar by his spiritual consolations, his persuasive
Mients, and wonderful power over the human mind, at length
made the unhappy sufferer more easy and composed, and con-
firmed him in the hope of forgiveness. And this event laid the

• [Postscript to Mr. Herbert's Country Parson, F. P.] See Thomas
Baker's account of Oley, given to Hearne in Auu and printed in

Cflfi Vindicuf, vol. ii. p. 690.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 143

foundation of a sincere and most affectionate friendship between
them b.

Mr. Ferrar thus passing his time between Venice and Padua in
a course of learning and virtue, and in the most laudable pursuits,
he was much sought after, and visited by the English who were
then also on their travels; who were delighted with his con-
versation, notwithstanding that his way of life and manner of
thinking were very different from their own : and they would often
ingenuously confess that he was certainly in the right way, and
that they could not but wish they could live as he lived.

These gentlemen on their return to England spoke of him in
the highest terms of applause to their respective families and
connections. The Italian merchants also and the English factors
resident in different parts of Italy, with whom he had transac-
tions on money concerns, all wrote of him to their correspondents
in England, with the warmest commendations, considering him
as one who had some great object in view, and would sometime
appear to the world possessed of very extraordinary talents.
Thus his reputation became general : on the exchange, in the
city, at court, and all over the country he was universally known
and universally admired.

Having now finished his intended studies, having traversed all
Italy, and become intimately acquainted with every place of con-
sequence, being perfect master of the Italian language, both for
writing and discourse, having an accurate knowledge of all their
laws, customs, manners, doctrines, and practices, civil and eccle-
siastic, and having made the best use of every thing he had heard,
read, or seen, and being determined as to his future plan of con-
duct, he resolved at last to pay a visit to imperial Rome. He
knew indeed before he went thither, as much of that celebrated
city, both ancient and modern, as could be learned from history,
and from conversation with many persons of great judgment and
observation, who had lately been there : but he was desirous to
confirm what he had learned by information from others, by his
own observation. But having been well informed that since he
came into Italy, there had been a particular account of him sent
to Rome, of the college of which he was fellow in Cambridge, of
his degrees, and his acquisitions in learning, and particularly
that his person had been described in all points to the college of

b [This unfortunate gentleman is the person who in the original MS. is
frequently referred to as Mr. G ] Gorton ?

144 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

Jesuits there ; the manner also in which he had spent his time in
Italy, with the general conjecture, that he surely had some farther
end in travelling, than other gentlemen ordinarily have : all this
duly considered made him keep his intention very private. For
he foresaw that without great caution some mischief might pro-
bably befal him. Changing his habit therefore for such a dress
as he thought was most proper for his disguise, and safety, he set
forward, concealing the time when, and keeping the place from
whence he came always unknown to all but one trusty friend only,

the unfortunate Mr. G , who, whatever should befal him in

that journey, might give an account of him to his family. He
travelled on foot, and contrived his business so that he came to
Rome on the Monday before Easter ; and during his stay there,
he every day changed his lodgings, coining in late and going out
early: and as to his repast, such as it was, he took that al><>
sometimes at one place, sometimes at another, and sometimes at
none at all. He staid at Rome about ten days, and in that time
he so improved his opportunities as that he satisfied himself in
seeing all that he desired. But the particulars need not be here
recited, as they may be found in many other books upon this
subject.

From Rome he returned to Venice, not acquainting any one
whore he had been. At his return he was welcomed home by
the English gentlemen, and all his other acquaintance ; as was
the custom with them at other times, after his other excursions.
In one of these, he went to see the chapel of Loretto. From
thence he went to Malta, where one of the knights conceiving a
particular friendship for him, at their parting desired his accept-
ance of one of the rich crosses worn by the brethren of that
order, entreating him to keep it for his sake ; and thus exchan^in^
mutual good wishes and benedictions, Mr. Ferrar returned a_
to Venice.

And now intending at length to leave Italy, he went from

Venice to Marseilles, purposing after he had passed sufficient

tiiiM- in that city, for visiting what was remarkable there and in

th' parts adjacent, to take ship there and sail from thence to

in.

Hut at Marseilles he fell dangerously ill. being suddenly sei/<-d
with a violent fever, \\hirli daily grew worse and worse. And
what added to his misfortune, he knew no one in the place, nor
liad h« an\ of lii> lonu.-r aruuaintanre with him. In this dis-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 14.5

tress he sent for the most celebrated physician in the city, and
trusted himself entirely to his care. He was very regular in his
attendance, and was very careful of him. His host also and
hostess where he lodged shewed great tenderness and attention
to him.

The first day he was taken ill he wrote to his much loved
friend whom he had left at Venice, the unfortunate Mr. G., to
whom he had promised to give information of his arrival at Mar-
seilles. In this letter he .acquainted him that he was beginning
to grow ill, and feared his illness would prove both long and dan-
gerous. Nor was he mistaken, for his illness continued thirty-four
days, and his physician was for a long time in absolute despair
of his life. This made his attendants desirous to know who he
was, which Mr. Ferrar industriously concealed. But one day, as
they were looking amongst his things for something he had called
for, carefully wrapped up in a little box, was discovered the rich
cross which was presented to him by his friend the knight of
Malta, at his departure from that island. At sight of this, the
host and hostess, and the physician presently concluded that he
was a knight of that order, who was travelling unknown, and
they earnestly entreated him no longer to conceal himself. Mr.
Ferrar in vain endeavoured to convince them of the mistake,
assuring them that he was only a private gentleman, travelling
for amusement and instruction ; for the more he affirmed this,
the more they were confirmed in their own opinion. His disorder
still continuing excessive, the physician had given him up for lost.
But at the very moment when all hope was gone, a favourable
crisis took place ; and though he was extremely weak and reduced
to the lowest degree, yet he soon appeared to be in a fair way of
recovery.

And now word was brought to him that there was a gentleman
below, just arrived from Venice, who demanded to see him. They
who know what true friendship is, need not to be informed that
this person could be no other than his dear and unfortunate friend
Mr. G. When he came into Mr. Ferrar's room, and beheld his
friend lying on the bed of sickness, so pale, weak, and reduced,
he burst into tears. His friend was equally affected, seeing him
so unexpectedly. They mutually embraced, and a long, and
affectionately expressive silence ensued : for their hearts were so
full, that neither could for some time speak to the other. At
length Mr. Ferrar told him how welcome he was to him, who but

VOL. IV. J,

146 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

yesterday expected never to see him more. Mr. G. replied, that
on rli. receipt of his letter he became so deeply afflicted., that he
could not rest day or night, till he should see him ; that if he
should find him still sick, he might abide with him and take care
of him : that if he should die, he might perform the due honours
of burial ; and that if he should recover, he might rejoice with
him on that happy occasion, and in every respect shew him that
unfeigned friendship which was justly due to his uncommon
virtue.

As a sincere and affectionate friend is perhaps the most effec-
tual medicine that can be administered to the sick, so by the en-
dearing attentions of the benevolent Mr. G. Mr. Ferrar e
day advanced apace in his recovery. And when he was thought
to be out of danger, Mr. G. said he must at last bid him farewell,
and return to Venice. " Yes," said Mr. Ferrar, "you shall now
return to Venice, but I will return with you. For as you have
been so very kind as to come so far to take care of me when I
was ill, and have likewise staid so long with me, it is but justice,
and the least return I can make, to see you safe back;" nor
would he take any refusal ; and so they returned together to
Venice. From this place Mr. Ferrar immediately gave his pa-
rents an account of his cruel sickness, and recovery at Mar-
seilles, in a very affectionate letter bearing date April 1616.

Having staid at Venice till he was perfectly recovered, and his
strength thoroughly recruited, he took his last leave of all his
friends and acquaintance there; but particularly of his dear
friend Mr. G., who at their parting presented him with an ex-
cellent and costly rapier, saying that perhaps it might be of
great use to him in his future travels, and wished him to keep it
as a testimony of his friendship. And now these dear friends
with the warmest affection bade each other adieu ! for in the
gulph of Venice a small English vessel was ready to sail for
Spain, and Mr. Ferrar resolved to take his passage in her, that
might travel through Spain, and see that kingdom, after
\\hich he proposed in like manner to see France, and so return

Tin- >hip in which Mr. Ferrar left Venice, carried only t< n
pieces of prdnance, but was overloaded, though there were no
passengers but himself. They had not been long at sea, before
a large ship, a Turkish pirate, gave them chace, and gained
speedily upon thrm. Ami there bein^ >omi- 'lifference of opinion

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 147

between the officers and mariners, whether they ought to yield,
or fight it out ; they referred their doubts to Mr. Ferrar, who
had stood silent among them attending to their debate. They
said, " This young gentleman has a life to lose, as well as we ;
let us hear what he thinks of the matter." For from his first
coming on board, upon discourse with him, they had taken a
great liking to him, perceiving that he had great skill in maritime
affairs.

Mr. Ferrar being thus applied to in form for his opinion, reso-
lutely told them that they ought to fight it out, and put their trust
in God. That it was better to die valiantly, than be carried into
slavery. That God could easily deliver them, and he hoped would
not suffer them to fall into the hands of their enemy. He then
put them in mind of the many sea engagements achieved by their
countrymen, in which the victory had been gained against superior
numbers. Thus encouraged, his words were so prevalent, that
with all speed they made ready to defend themselves, committing
their cause to the protection of God. And to shew that they
were not deficient in English spirit, they, having the advantage
of the wind, and a fit opportunity, determined to give their enemy
a broadside : when, lo ! just as the master was giving the word
to the gunner to fire, the Turkish ship to their great astonishment
fell off, and steered away from them with all the sail she could
make. They soon perceived that this unexpected movement was
from the discovery of another ship, which they supposed was
thought to be a better booty. The Turk being gone they pro-
ceeded on their voyage, and without any farther difficulty arrived
at their destined port in Spain.

Soon after his arrival, Mr. Ferrar determined to see Madrid,
and the king's court, and whatever else was worth notice in that
part of the country. But having spent some time at Madrid, he
had also spent almost all the money he had brought with him
from Venice. He therefore made an enquiry whether there
were any bills of exchange, or letters for him, directed to some of
the English merchants in that city, but could not hear of any ;
for he had reached Madrid long before his father thought he
could be there. In making this enquiry, he carried the matter
so, as if it was for a gentleman of the name of Ferrar, who, he
expected, would be there about that time : for he was resolved, if
possible, not to discover himself. But it happened that a Mr.

L 2

148 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

Wyche, the son of a merchant 7, a particular friend of Mr. Ferraris
father, was at that time at Madrid. And he being informed that
this young gentleman and stranger made frequent enquiry after
one of the name of Ferrar, kept an observant eye upon him.
And perceiving something very extraordinary in his genteel
deportment, in the wisdom, and the wit of his conversation, and
his great knowledge in languages, he concluded him to be some
person of high fashion, who was desirous to travel unknown : and
thereupon, both himself, and all the English established there,
made him an offer of all the civilities in their power.

But as he was now at a stand how to proceed, and what course
to take in order to pass through Spain, and then through France
home, and being uneasy that no bills of exchange were come for
such a one as he enquired after, he suddenly determined to travel
no farther at present ; but immediately to make the best of his
way to England, and in order to this, to travel on foot as well as
he could to St. Sebastian's, and there take ship for his native
country.

In preparation for this expedition, as he still resolved, if pos-
sible, to keep himself unknown, he privately sold his cloak, and
some jewels which he had by him, to supply his present occasions,
and provide for his future wants in his journey. At quitting
Madrid he took leave of Mr. Wyche, and the other English
merchants, with acknowledgments of their many civilities to him.
At which time Mr. Wyche made him an offer of what money he
might want, which Mr. Ferrar politely declined.

And now he set forward on foot, with the rich rapier in his hand,
presented to him by his dear friend Mr. G., without a cloak, in
his doublet and cassock. And with many a weary step, and very
few accommodations, he pursued his journey, till he found his
feet after a few days' travelling on the hot sands of that country
t" Ix'come quite wearied, and the skin to come off, so that it was
excessively painful to him to proceed. One night his hostess
where he lodged, seeing he was a young foot traveller, and that
he suffered greatly from the torment of his feet, prescribed to
him to bathe and steep his feet for a considerable time in a bowl

7 Son of a merchant.'] Richard Wyche, of an old Cheshire family, was a
merchant of high note in London. He had twelve sons, one of whom, Peter,
(afterwards sir Peter Wyche, for many years ambassador at Constantinople),
is probably the person here mentioned.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 149

of sack which she brought for that purpose. This gave him
immediate ease, and enabled him to proceed comfortably on his
journey the next morning, and by future applications prevented
all future inconveniences of that sort.

His reason for travelling always with his rapier in his hand,
was not only to be instantly on his defence in case of any
sudden attack, but that he might also pass the more readily in
all places as a young gentleman soldier, going towards Flanders
to serve the king of Spain, under Spinola 8. And upon the way
at all fit times, and places, as he travelled, he seemed to be very
inquisitive about Spinola, and what he was doing in Flanders ; so
that all with whom he had any discourse of this sort took him
for an Italian. But at one place where he passed the night, the
governor being informed of a stranger who lodged in the town,
examined him strictly in many particulars. And Mr. Ferrar
made him such wary answers, that he was at a loss what farther
to say to him. At last, casting his eyes upon the rapier, he told
him that costly rapier was unbefitting him, for he knew not how
he came by it, and therefore he would have it from him. Mr.
Ferrar told him he must pardon him in not parting with his
weapon, which a soldier ought to preserve as his life ; adding that
it was given him by a dear and worthy friend, who enjoined him
to keep it, and that he was determined so to do. But this did
not satisfy the governor, who told him that stout as he was he
should deliver the rapier to him before he departed, or he would
make him repent his refusal. Mr. Ferrar replied, that he hoped
there was more justice to be found every where in Spain, than to
take by force an innocent traveller's weapon from him. That he
had not in any thing offended Caesar, or his laws, or the customs
of his country since he was in it, and that he would be cautious
not to do so during the remainder of his stay. That he came
very lately from the king's court, and that he had friends there
who would not suffer him to receive any wrong. From this wise
and resolute answer, his determined behaviour, and a style of
language so far above his outward appearance, the standers-by
concluded him to be some other man than his habit declared, and
advised the governor to meddle no more with him about the

8 Under Spinola.'] The marquis Ambrogio Spinola, the celebrated com-
mander of the Spanish forces in the war which broke out in 1614, caused by
the disputed succession to the duchies of Juliers and Cleves.

150 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

rapier. Who, then addressing himself to Mr. Ferrar, said,
41 Well, I perceive you are a young Italian gentleman, and enquire
after our affairs in Flanders, and after the marquis Spinola your
countryman, to whom I understand you are going. I like well
your weapon, which in truth is most handsome and soldierlike ;"
and so he dismissed him to proceed on his journey.

While Mr. Ferrar travelled thus alone over a great part of
Spain, he walked once half a day without seeing any body, and
was therefore obliged to guess at his way, by the best observation
he could make, to proceed straight forward from the place where
he had lodged the night before. A nd it being now near evening,
he perceived tliat the road he was in led him to a very high hill,
which at length he with no small pains and difficulty ascended :
and being arrived at the top, he there found a round plat of level
ground, of considerable magnitude, encompassed entirely with
rocks of a prodigious height, and extremely steep on every side,
neither could he discern any pathway, except that by which he
had ascended, to lead him out from this rocky enclosure, and
thereby encourage him to go forward.

At the sight of this he was much troubled, thinking he had
wholly mistaken the hill which he had been directed to ascend,
and that he must at last take up his unhoused lodging there that
night. Being thus perplexed, and not knowing what to do, he
devoutly knelt down, and prayed to God to protect and direct
him. Then examining with careful anxiety all parts, to see if he
could find any way to help him forward in his journey, for it was
too late to think of returning, he espied a large black hog come
hastily running out from a narrow crevice or cleft in the rock,
and immediately disappear again. But he with his eyes observed,
and with his feet made all possible haste to follow and see what
was become of the beast. For he conceived hopes that it might
be some tame animal, now in the evening returning to its home,
and consequently that possibly there was some dwelling-house
not far off. Presently he saw the same creature again, now
running at the further end of the level plain down the side oi
hill. And, coming to the spot, he perceived a hollow, covered
passage, cut into the solid rock, and at some distance v.ithin this
hollow, a sort of window or air-hole, to give light and air to this
Mjl.r. -i -ram an passage. Resolving therefore to follow the animal
which h< jilaiiil\ MLW to eater this cavity, after some time, and
very caution found a turning which -

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 151

step more and more dark. Yet stopping a little while, listening,
and still looking and venturing slowly more forward, he discerned,
as he thought, a glimmering of more light at a distance. So he
went on, and found it to be another window or air-hole, cut
like the former through the solid rock to give farther light to the
subterranean passage. Thus proceeding onwards, in the same
manner, and under the same disagreeable circumstances, he at
length plainly perceived that this passage was a way to some sub-
terranean habitation, cut by human labour into the heart of the
rock. Thereupon listening and proceeding with caution, he
fancied that he heard the voices of people talking at no great
distance. Eesolving therefore to go forward again, he found at
length that there was indeed a sort of house in the very substance
of the rock, and that it was a harbour, or place of entertainment
for passengers who travelled that way.

Coming into the room he saluted the host, and the people who
were there ; and sitting down he called for bread and wine, and
then began to discourse with them how hard it was to find the
way to them ; which, they said, to a stranger, must be indeed
extremely difficult, but was not so to those who were acquainted
with the turns and windings of that subterraneous labyrinth. He
then called for more wine to wash and bathe his feet. Which
done, after some communication of ordinary matters, such as
travellers use with their hosts, he made strict observation of the
disposition and manners of the people in the house, and found
great reason not very well to like them ; but now there was no
remedy.

As for the people, they thought him to be a young Italian
soldier, going to the marquis Spinola. For that way his conver-
sation much tended, and shewed that he was well acquainted with
all the military transactions in Flanders with the Hollanders. At
length he told them that he was very weary and very sleepy, and,
if they pleased, would lie down upon a bench, and take some rest.
For that, he pretended, was his custom when he travelled, in
order to inure himself to hardships.

Thereupon they shewed him into another room within the
cavern ; and Mr. Ferrar, not laying his rapier away, but keeping
it close to him, lay down to sleep. But he was scarce laid down,
when two lusty, ruffian-looking fellows and a young woman came
into the room. Mr. Ferrar heard and saw them, but lay still, as
if he was fast asleep. The men then demanded of the people of

NICHOLAS FERRAR.

the house, " Who is this here, who lies sleeping upon the bench 2"
they answered, u We know not ; he is lately come in very weary,
and says he is a young Italian soldier, who is going into Flanders,
to serve under Spinola." And then they entered into some con-
versation in a very low voice, which Mr. Ferrar could not hear.

After this they sat down at a table at the farther end of the
room, and in a bold manner began to call for various things, and
in drinking their wine they discoursed of different matters, and at
length grew very merry. But at last one of the fellows went out,
and after a short time came in again, and then after some slight
and foolish words began to quarrel with the woman. She gave
him as cross words in return, and their other companion taking
her part, from words they came to blows, and began to lay hands
on the woman. Whereupon she crying out, the host came run-
ning in, but instead of being appeased by him, they grew more
and more fierce. All this Mr. Ferrar heard and saw, but
appeared as if he was in a sound sleep, and kept his hand fast
upon his rapier. They called to him for help, but he regarded
not their brawling, still making as if he was dead asleep. There-
fore as he continued to lie still, and seemed to take no notice of
them, their contention ceased, and they all went out of the room
in very friendly terms together.

Mr. Ferrar saw all this was done to provoke him to rise, and
take one part or other, that so they might have quarrelled with
him, and carried into execution some bad design against him. But
he heard no more of them ; and not being able to sleep, he rose
at day-break, and made haste away, giving God thanks for his
escape out of their hands.

After his escape from this subterranean abode, having travelled
five hundred miles in Spain, in the heat of summer, alone, and on
foot, making his observations on the country, its curiosities, and
productions, and on the disposition and manners of the people,
he at length arrived safely at St. Sebastian's. Here he found a
ship ready to sail for England, but waiting for a fair wind. In
this interval he received great civilities from the captain of the
vessel, and from all the English settled at that place. At len.Lfth
the wind came fair, and after a few days1 happy passage he landed
at Dover, \\liere he returned his sincere thanks to God for bring-
ing him in health and safety to his native country.

\\e are now no longer to consider Mr. Ferrar as a young gen-
tlcman travelling for amusement and instruction, displaying every

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 153

where uncommon abilities, illustrious virtue, and indefatigable
industry, exciting the highest admiration, and receiving in every
country universal applause ; but we shall now see him the man of
business, applying, with unwearied attention, the great talents with
which God had blessed him, to important negotiations both of a
private and a public nature.

His return was at a very critical time. For one branch of his
family was in great distress, and stood in need of his care and
wisdom. His brother John Ferrar was likewise entered into
a great public employment, by which he became engaged in
many affairs which required his assistance. For sir Edwyn
Sandys being chosen governor of the Virginia company, Mr.
John Ferrar was made king's counsel for that plantation. He
therefore left the management of his concerns in merchandise to
his friends and partners. And the Virginia courts after this were
kept at the house of Mr. Ferrar the father : who from his singu-
lar affection for that honourable company, himself being one of
the first adventurers of that plantation and the Somers Islands 9,
allowed them the use of his great hall, and other best rooms of
his house to hold their weekly and daily meetings. Many other
things both of public and private concernment, now on foot,
seemed equally to call for the presence and assistance of Mr. N.
Ferrar. For (not to speak of public matters) to all human
appearance, without his advice, diligence, and great wisdom in
managing the private affairs of his family at this critical juncture,
there had been great danger not only of much loss in many
particulars, but even of the overthrow and ruin of his elder
brother.

Immediately after his arrival at Dover Mr. Ferrar rode post to
London ; and finding the door of his fathers house open, he en-
tered with his rich rapier at his side, arrayed only in his cassock
and doublet, and just in the manner as he had travelled from
Madrid to St. Sebastian's.

The meeting between the worthy parents and their beloved son,
whom they had not seen for five years, and whom they had ex-
pected never to have seen again, was mutually affectionate and

9 Somers Islands.'] The Bermudas, called also the Somers Islands, in honour
of sir George Somers, one of the Virginia Company, to whom they belonged.
The family name was corrupted by ignorant chartographers into Summer
Islands, a blunder which the French have made tenfold more absurd by call-
ing them the Isles de VEtt.

154 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

endearing in the highest degree, and may more easily be imagined
than described. This his unexpected and much wished for return
was in the year 1618; he himself being then twenty-six, his
father seventy-two, and his mother sixty-two years of age.

He soon shewed himself upon the Exchange, and in person re-
turned his thanks to those merchants by whose factors he had
received his remittances, and many local civilities. He was now
much noticed both for the beauty of his person, and for his
many eminent qualities: and all his friends soon found that the
accounts they had received of his worth and wisdom from abroad
had not been exaggerated, but that his virtues and his accom-
plishments surpassed all report and all expectation.

In his travels through Holland, Germany, Italy, and Spain,
Mr. Ferrar purchased many rare articles of curiosity, many
scarce and valuable books, and learned treatises in the languages
of those different countries. In collecting which he certainly had
a principal eye to those which treated the subjects of a spiritual
life, devotion, and religious retirement. He bought also a very
great number of prints engraved by the best masters of that
time ; all relative to historical passages of the Old and New Tes-
tament. Indeed he let nothing of this sort that was valuable
escape him. And this great treasure of rarities, books, and
prints, upon his return home, he had the satisfaction to find were
safely arrived there before him.

Very little indeed of this treasure is now remaining. The
Ferrar family being firm in their loyalty to the king, their house
at Gidding was plundered in the civil wars ; and in a wanton de-
vastation, all these things perished, except some of the prints, not
of great value, still in possession of the editor.

It now comes in the order of time to speak of the great hand
which Mr. N. Ferrar had, immediately after his return, in the
management of the affairs of the Virginia company; in which.
by his prudent conduct, he got through many and great diffi-
culties with high credit and reputation. From this relation it
will appear what great power Gondomar f the Spanish ambassador
thru had in England; and how by his extraordinary craft and

1 Gondomar.] Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuna, Conde de Gondomar. It

is needless to say here any thing of his great influence over James. \\ I

have seen (p. 83) that during all the course of Elizabeth's reign, she would

hold no dip'.HiMtir , with Spain. Elizabeth and Philip held each

id's point.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 155

various intrigues he in the end wrought upon a weak prince to
suppress one of the most flourishing companies for commerce in
England. And it may possibly give the reader some satisfaction
to see some of his subtle proceedings here unravelled ; as this
affair is hardly touched by any other author 2.

Soon after Mr. Ferrar's return, sir Edwyn Sandys, who had
heard a high character of him from many who had known him in
Italy, sought his acquaintance ; and being exceedingly taken with
his great abilities, took the first opportunity to make him known
to the earl of Southampton, and the other principal members of
the Virginia company. In a very little time he was made one of
a particular committee in some business of great importance ;
whereby the company having sufficient proof of his extraordinary
abilities, at the next general court it was proposed and agreed
that he should be king^s counsel 3 for the Virginia plantation in
the place of his brother John, who was then made the deputy
governor. And when his name, according to custom, was entered
in the lord chamberlain's book, sir Edwyn Sandys took care to
acquaint that lord with his uncommon worth ; which indeed daily
more and more appeared in every thing he undertook : and as he
wanted no ability, so he spared no diligence in ordering all their
affairs of consequence. And thus he became deeply engaged in
cares of a public nature. Yet his own inclinations at his return
led him rather to think of settling himself again at Cambridge,
to which he was the more induced, as he still held the physic
fellowship in Clare Hall. But this he now saw could not be done.
Besides, his parents, now grown old, requested their beloved son
to remain with them. Therefore all he could obtain in this re-
spect from them, and from his business, was the liberty now and
then to pass a few days with his old acquaintance and friends still
remaining in Cambridge.

At this time, J619, Mr. Henry Briggs, the celebrated mathe-
matician and reader of Geometry at Gresham college, and one of
the Virginia company, being about to leave London, and settle at

2 By any other author.'] [This was said about the year 1654.]

3 King's counsel.'] It is very probable that, in this capacity, Nicholas Ferrar
had more than a share in drawing up the following work, which is very rare,
but of which a copy is preserved in the British Museum. " A Declaration
of the State of the Colony and Affaires in Virginia, with the Names of the Ad-
venturers and Summes adventured in that Action. By His Maiesties Counseil
for Virginia, 22 Junii, 1620." 4to.

156 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

Oxford as Savilian professor there, recommended it to the Mer-
cers' company, who had the gift of that professorship, that they
should by all means offer the place to Mr. Ferrar upon his own
terms, saying, that he was the ablest proficient he knew in that
science. The offer was made accordingly, which he modestly
declined, saying his friend Mr. Briggs was much mistaken in him,
and that his affection and goodness to him had misled his judg-
ment. He therefore prayed them to appoint some more worthy
person ; but that for himself though he declined the intended
honour, he would always be ready to serve the city of London,
and the magnificent foundation of sir Thomas Gresham, to the
utmost of his power.

While sir Edwyn Sandys continued governor, the reputation
of the Virginia company rose very high under his prudent ma-
nagement. But having now served his year, and being by the
general voice intended to have been elected again, by some secret
power at court, all the measures were broken that had been before
taken for that purpose.

It was appointed by the charter of the company that there
should be every year in Easter term a new election of a treasurer
or governor, and a deputy, and that no man should hold either of
those places more than three years. This election was now
intended to be made by ballot, a method introduced by sir Ed-
wyn Sandys, as most likely to secure a free election. A general
court day being appointed, and the day and hour of election being
come, there were assembled near upon twenty great peers of the
land ; near a hundred of the most eminent knights of the king-
dom ; of gallant gentlemen many colonels and captains, and
renowned lawyers near a hundred more ; and of the most worthy
citizens a very respectable assembly. So that the court consisted
of near five hundred persons of several ranks, and quality.
Every thing being prepared, the three persons who were to be
candidates for the place of governor were now to be named by tin-
company. The three persons being agreed upon, the name of
sir Kdwyn Sandys was first set up, and as this was doing, a lord
of the bed-chamber and another courtier stood up, and declared
to the court that it was the king's pleasure not to have sir Edwyn
lys chosen ; and because he would not infringe their right of
election, he would nominate three persons, and permit the com-
pany to choose one of them.

At this unexpected message there was for a considerable time

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 157

a deep silence, every man present standing in amazement at this
violent invasion of their rights, this breach of their charter, and
stretch of tyrannic power. At length some at the lower end of
the hall stood up, and prayed that the courtiers having delivered
their message, and consequently having nothing more to say,
might withdraw, till the company had resolved what to do.

The earl of Southampton (Henry Wriothesley) then stood up
and said, " For my part, gentlemen, I like not this motion : let
the noble gentlemen if they please keep their places, and sit and
hear the opinions of the company, that so they may be both ear
and eye witnesses of our actions, and words, and may themselves
by these means truly inform his majesty of our fair and justifia-
ble way of proceeding in this weighty business : a business of the
highest concernment both in respect of his majesty, and in respect
of the company. In respect of his majesty, whom we know to
be so just a king, that he may understand what privileges he hath
granted us by his letters patent, under the great seal of England :
on the credit and authority of which letters, we have advanced
and adventured one hundred thousand pounds of our own estates :
and in respect of the company, who have gained so hopeful a
country, which they have bought, and compounded for with the
natives, and which when once well peopled by English colonies,
will find full employment for all needy people in this land, who
now begin to swarm in this blessed time of peace under his ma-
jesty's happy reign ; will provide estates likewise for all the
younger brothers, gentlemen of this kingdom ; and also a ready
and lasting supply to this nation of those commodities which in
our present condition we are fain to fetch from foreign nations,
from doubtful friends, yea from heathen princes. These circum-
stances, I say, fairly considered, make this a business of so great
concernment, that it can never be too solemnly, too thoroughly,
or too publicly examined."

Lord Southampton having thus spoken sat down, and after
some silence sir Laurence Hyde, the learned lawyer, next rose
up and said, " May it please this honourable society, I for my
part not only agree to that motion now made by the noble earl
who spoke last, but also desire the company not only to permit,
but even to intreat these worthy messengers of the king to stay
in our court, and I will be thus farther bold to break the ice,
and to give you my opinion that the first step we ought to take
in this serious business now in hand should be to cause the

158 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

patent, as the foundation of all our proceedings, to be here imme-
diately produced, and read, before this honourable assembly, and
these worthy gentlemen the king's messengers. And then both
we and they shall all soon be satisfied in the extent of our pri-
vileges, and in the strength of his majesty's grant, which he hath
made to us under the great seal of England, and under the hand
and honour of a king."

Thereupon, all instantly cried out, uThe patent ! The patent !
God save the king." The patent was then openly and distinctly
read by the secretary.

After which sir Laurence Hyde stood up again and said,
"Gentlemen, I pray you all to observe well the words of the
patent in the point of electing a governor. You see it is thereby
left to your own free choice. This I take it is so very plain and
evident that we shall not need to say any thing more to it. And
no doubt these gentlemen, when we shall have done our duty,
and they depart, will give his majesty a just information of tin-
case, and undeceive him in the unjust misrepresentations which
have been given him in this point."

The rest of the many lawyers who were there concurred in
opinion with sir Laurence Hyde, and the court voted that they
should now immediately proceed to election. When a friend of
sir Edwyn Sandys, sir Robert Phillips, who sat behind him, and
to whom sir Edwyn had whispered, stood up and craved of them
before they proceeded, to hear him a word, or two, and then said.

u I shall consent that we go to an election out of hand, because
it is the business of the day, and if we do it not now, we may
thereby in my opinion forfeit our patent; and also that we in.iv
liy so doing shew our duty to the king, in order to satisfy him in
all that we may : which, as I am instructed by this worthy gen-
tleman your late governor, may be done, if you will out of your
own judgments, at present forbear to set up his name (whom I
perceive you all think and know most worthy to be continued in
that office) and put up two or three names of the persons reomn-
niendrd l.y his majesty. And let these managers tlicm>« l\c>. if
they think fit, nominate which two they please. And in order in
some degree to preserve your own privileges, do you then name a
third person. And then let all these three names be set upon
thr balloting box, and so go to the election in (Jod's nann-. and
li-t hi-, \\ill In- don.-."

Thriviipon with a <n-n<-ral acclamation, not one WMC6 a-^ain-t

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 159

it, the whole court cried out " Southampton ! Southampton !"
At which my lord of Southampton rose up to speak. But they
again cried out, "The time is almost past, we most humbly
beseech your lordship not to interrupt our proceedings."

The king's messengers then said, they must confess that the
company proceeded wisely ; and that if they had the nomination
of two out of three, as sir Robert Phillips proposed, they doubted
not but his majesty would be satisfied. For as sir Edwyn Sandys
had wisely waved his interest, if the king desired no more than
that he might not be chosen, the course proposed to be taken
was likely to please him. And so they proceeded to the ballot ;
when of the two persons nominated by the king's messengers, one
of them had only one ball, and the other but two. The earl of
Southampton had all the rest. Lord Southampton then took
the chair, and they proceeded to the choice of a deputy, when Mr.
John Ferrar was chosen by the same majority ; of that large
company, consisting of near five hundred persons, only three
dissenting. And thus began the year 1620.

The earl of Southampton, now elected governor of the Virginia
company, had a particular friendship with sir Edwyn Sandys, and
took this office conditionally that his friend should continue his
advice and assistance in the business of the company. So that
there were now three very able men engaged, lord Southampton,
sir Edwyn Sandys, and Mr. Nicholas Ferrar. Lord Southampton
celebrated for wisdom, eloquence, and sweet deportment ; sir
Edwyn Sandys for great knowledge, and integrity ; and Nicholas
Ferrar for wonderful abilities, unwearied diligence, and the
strictest virtue.

The latter was now fully employed in drawing up instructions
concerning all the various business respecting the plantation, in
writing all letters of advice to the colony in Virginia, and in
being constantly one in every committee. Which instructions
and letters being always read in the open courts, gained him
universal approbation. The civilians, the common lawyers, the
divines, (of which last dean Williams, afterwards bishop of Lin-
coln4, was one) who attended these courts, when acquainted with
Mr. Ferrar's performances, all spoke of him in highest terms of
commendation. The merchants and tradesmen, when he had

4 Bishop of Lincoln^] John Williams, afterwards lord keeper and archbishop
of York, of whom see more in the Life of Bishop Hall.

160 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

occasion to speak of their matters, even the sea officers, and
mariners, when he gave directions about the victualling and order-
ing the ships or other naval affairs, all were in the highest admi-
ration of his abilities and accurate knowledge of every thing
relating to their respective professions. And now under the
management and direction of lord Southampton, sir Edwyn
Sandys, and Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, the affairs of the Virginia plan-
tation were soon in the most flourishing situation.

At this time there was in London a Mr. Copeland, a minister
in the Somers Islands, who contracted a great intimacy with
Mr. Ferrar. He was a worthy man, and very zealous for the
conversion of the infidel natives of America. He had many con-
ferences with Mr. Ferrar upon this subject, and the best way and
means to effect it ; and he seriously informed sir E. Sandys and
others of the company, that he verily believed Mr. Ferrar was
determined some time to leave the whole world, and settle in
Virginia ; and there employ the extraordinary talents with which
God had blessed him, and spend his life in the conversion of the
natives, or other infidels in that country : adding, " If he should
do so, I will never forsake him, but wait upon him in that glorious
work." This I think is a strong presumptive proof, that notwith-
standing Mr. Ferraris great abilities in different occupations, and
his wonderful proficiency in various acquisitions of science, and
other accomplishments, yet that the peculiar bent, and deter-
mination of his mind was uniformly given to the promotion of the
Christian religion.

At this time (April, 1620) died Mr. Ferrar the father, who
made his son Nicholas his sole executor ; which was a great addi-
tion to the business already lying upon him : but he had abilities
equal to any thing, and to every thing ; with firmness of mind and
integrity equal to his ability. Mr. Ferrar sen. by his will gave
300J. towards erecting a school or college in Virginia for the
better education of such infidel children as should be there con-
verted to the Christian religion. He was buried in the church of
I Jennet Sherhog, April 11, and his old friend Dr. Francis
White, whom he brought from the obscurity of the country into
a more public life, preached his funeral sermon to a crouded
audience; in which he described him as a second Nathaniel.—
"an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile."

Tin- Virginia plantation, now under the government of the earl
• •1* Southampton, became every day oHi^ier reputation, and tin-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 161

affairs of the company in consequence every day of more weighty
importance. So that Mr. Ferrar, both as counsel 5 to the com-
pany, and assistant also to his brother as deputy governor, was
pressed by a double weight of care : as the company would not
permit the deputy to resign till he had executed his office three
years; which he did 1619, under sir Edwyn Sandys, and 1620,
1621, under the earl of Southampton.

But now the increasing fame of this company, and the wise
management of it was carried into Spain, and caused no small
alarm. The politicians there saw, or pretended to see danger in
the course of not many years. Virginia was too near them, both
by sea and land : and they did not know but the people of that
plantation, when once a little settled, might perhaps be looking
over the hills, and at length spy out their rich mines. Gondomar
therefore had it in commission to have a special eye upon the
company, and the managers of their affairs. And he was indeed
a vigilant observer of his instructions. He not only gained an
absolute influence over the king, but many great men about him,
whom he had bought with Spanish money : these were very
powerful, and well known at court by the name of the Spanish
party.

Gondomar and the king had now agreed upon the destruction
of the Virginia company. Notice of their dishonourable designs
was given to lord Southampton and sir Edwyn Sandys, by the
marquis of Hamilton and the earl of Pembroke ; who privately
warned them to look well to themselves, and their proceedings,
for that many stratagems were now in train, and would be pushed
to the utmost to procure the destruction of the plantation, and to
ruin all persons who should be employed in supporting the affairs
of the company.

This opportune advice produced a double care and watchfulness
in the managers, if possible, to prevent the intended mischief.
But it would be endless here to relate the many discouragements,
the dark intrigues, and shameful practices which they now daily
met and encountered. These things require another time and
place. All that need here be said is that the Virginia business
was now no pastime, nor were the managers in any respect per-
mitted to be idle.

In the Easter term, 1622, Mr. John Ferrar, having been con-

6 As counsel.'] See p. 155, note.

VOL. IV. M

162 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

tinued deputy governor three years, Nicholas Ferrar was elected
to succeed him. For lord Southampton plainly told the deputa-
tion from the company, who waited on him to desire he would
consent to be re-elected, that if they did not choose Mr. Nicholas
Ferrar to be the deputy governor, he could not any longer take
the office of governor upon him ; saying that he was the only
person who was able to go through with the business; and to
encounter all those great and potent oppositions, which he knew
either were, or very soon would be raised against the company
and the plantation : and that without Mr. Ferraris assistance all
would fall to ruin. " You all," he continued, " see, and know his
abilities and his integrity as well as I. On condition of his being
deputy, I will be your governor: but he must be the person who
must act both mine and his own part also. Without him I dare
not accept the office : with him, I will do all I can to serve you."

These things being thus settled, the meetings at Mr. Ferrari
house began again to be crouded, as usual; and Gondomar
exerted double diligence, procuring, by Spanish gold, spies, who
informed him of every thing that was done at these meetings ;
and, what added greatly to his influence, the Spanish party at
court carried every thing with a high hand.

Many shameful stratagems were now attempted against the
company, to throw their affairs into confusion, and to dishearten
them on all sides. Particularly their privilege in point of cus-
toms (which was to pay only 5 per cent.) was now questioned,
and 15 per cent, demanded. One Jacobs also, who had procured
a licence for importing Spanish tobacco, was now employed and
supported by the great men in the pay of Gondomar to infriiiLrr
the company's patent : which encreased Mr. Ferraris trouble to
a great degree, and made it necessary for him to resort frequently
to the council table, and to sir Tho. Coventry the king^s attorney
general.

The hardship and the injustice put upon the company in this
last article only was very great, as the profit arising from Virginia
tobacco, was as yet the only return which the planters had to
answer all their trouble, expence, and hazard. For little progress
had l>«'< -n mado in the several plans of improvement, as the conse-
quencM s <>!' tin- fir>t massacre* by the savages, were not yet fully
recov<

• Thffirtt matsacre.] [That massacre was perpetrated on Friday, March 22,
1621, at which time the iavages killed 347 persons. There were then mur-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 163

By Mr. Ferrar's care and industry things seemed, notwith-
standing this violence and injustice, to be getting again in a fair
way towards a lasting settlement. But alas ! the Spanish match7
for the prince was now set on foot, and Gondomar took advantage
of that opportunity to exert his absolute power over the king ;
who meanly suffered himself, in violation of his patent, and the
honour of a king, to be made this crafty minister's instrument to
effect the ruin of the company.

The marquis of Hamilton and the earl of Pembroke solemnly
affirmed to the earl of Southampton, that they heard Gondomar
say to the king, " That it was time for him to look to the
Virginia courts which were kept at the Ferrars1 house, where too
many of his nobility and gentry resorted to accompany the
popular lord Southampton, and the dangerous Sandys. That
though they might have a fair pretence for their meetings, yet he
would find in the end that court would prove a seminary for a
seditious parliament. That they were deep politicians, and had
farther designs than a tobacco plantation. That their proceed-
ings in the issue might cause, if not timely prevented, occasions
of difference between his majesty, and his master the king of
Spain. For he had heard rumours, that once being become
numerous, they intended to step beyond their limits; and for
aught he knew, they might visit his masters mines. Adding,
that he had occasion of late to have a conference with the
managers concerning a ship laden with silver, which was cast
away ; and that he found them subtle men, men of high courage,

dered at Mr. William Ferrar's house these ten persons : Mr. John England,
and John his servant; John Bell, Henry Paterson, and Alice his wife, and
William her son ; Thomas their servant, James Woodshaw, and Mary and
Elizabeth, maid-servants. — Declaration of the present State of Virginia.
London, 1622. 4to. p. 14—37.]

7 Spanish match.'] The infanta Dona Maria had been offered to prince
Charles, by the Spanish minister, the duke of Lerma, in the lifetime of her
father, Philip III., and his views were seconded by Gondomar, the Spanish,
and by Digby, the English ambassador. On the death of Philip, in 1622,
James and Charles wrote to Philip IV. and to the Conde Duque de Olivares,
his favourite; Digby, created earl of Bristol, went to accelerate the negociation;
Gondomar returned to Spain for the same purpose, and a favourable answer
was returned from Philip, who agreed to the marriage of his sister, and pro-
mised to intercede in behalf of Frederic, the elector palatine, the son-in-law
of James. In February, 1623, Charles and Buckingham, attended only by
sir Francis Cottington, Endimion Porter, and sir Richard Graham, proceeded
on their apparently clandestine and pseudo-romantic expedition to Madrid.

M 2

164 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

men who no way regarded either his master or their own."
These lords therefore advised lord Southampton to be upon his
guard ; and hade him and his deputy prepare for the rencounter ;
for that it would certainly come to the push of pike ; and that
they feared, as matters now stood, the company would be dis-
solved, and under some pretence or other their patent taken
away. The creatures of Gondomar also insinuated to the king,
that the matter was too high and great for private men to
manage: that it was therefore proper for the king to take it
into his own hand, and to govern and order it both at home and
abroad according to his own will and pleasure.

After a short time a commission was granted by the king to
some known enemies to the company to disturb and teaze them
by vexatious examinations. And one captain Butler, whom the
company had removed from his office for scandalous mismanage-
ment and injustice, was suborned, and made an instrument to
spread disadvantageous reports of the country itself, as being
unfit to be planted, as being extremely unhealthy, and entirely
unproductive.

Before these commissioners Mr. Ferrar often appeared in
defence of the company, and exerted himself with such firmness
and force of argument, not only face to face to the accusers, but
by such unanswerable deductions in writing, that the commis-
sioners were not able to proceed: all their allegations being
demonstrated by him to be false and frivolous. The matter
therefore was brought from them before the council table. And
then Mr. Ferrar, and the company were forced to attend there
twice or thrice a week for half a year together, in order to weary
them out by a vexatious persecution. But notwithstanding all
these infamous machinations, nothing could be taken hold of to
wrest the patent from the company. They were often indeed
required to lay it down ; but this they refused to do.

At this time, though there were many able men of the company
ready to defend their just cause, yet the lords of the council
insisted that the deputy, being, as they said, the representative
of tin- company, should be the only person to answer their objec-
tions. And this they did on seeing him so young a man, thinking
from that circumstance to gain some advantage over him. But
he answered them all with that singular wisdom and modesty,
that accurate knowledge of affairs, that discretion, firmness and
<-l«M|uciic.-. that the mercenaries of Gondomar were confounded;

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 165

and then by a new and unexpected artifice, and in pretended
admiration of his great abilities, said it was pity but that he
should be taken off from his present business, and employed in
public affairs of more weighty importance.

Accordingly overtures were made, and a negociation entered
upon with lord Southampton and sir Edwyn Sandys, to prevail
with them to persuade Mr. Ferrar to accept the place of clerk
of the council, or (leiger) 8 envoy to the duke of Savoy, which
of the two employments he himself liked best. He modestly
declined the offer, saying his abilities were not sufficient for a
post of such weighty importance. His friends continued to press
him, and he to refuse. At length he told them that he could not
accept of such preferment ; that his thoughts lay quite another
way. But seeing their importunity continue, he in confidence
to his two great friends, and on their promise of secrecy, declared
to them his solemn determination, when he should have discharged
the duties of his present situation, to enter upon a state of religious
retirement.

The council finding that the company were still resolved not
to part with their patent, or with the liberty which they thereby
had to govern their own affairs, now took a more severe and not
less unjust course. They confined lord Southampton to his
house, that he might not come to the Virginia courts, of which
he was the legal governor. But this only made the company
more resolute in their own just defence. They then ordered
sir Edwin Sandys into a similar confinement. But this step in
no degree abated the resolution of the company. Then the lords,
under the influence of Gondomar, strongly pressed the company
to give up their patent. The marquis of Hamilton and the earl
of Pembroke informed lord Southampton and sir Edwyn Sandys
of these proceedings, saying, That Nicholas Ferrar, though now
left as it were alone, was too hard for all his opposers. " But,"
continued they, " your enemies will prevail at last ; for let the
company do what they can, in open defiance of honour, and
justice, it is absolutely determined at all events to take away your
patent."

But Gondomar and his instruments, finding that their violent
measures had not the desired effect upon the company, now
vehemently urged the king to take the plantation into his own

8 Leiger envoy.'] See p. 90, note.

166 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

hands, as a thing befitting a king : and particularly as being a
measure that would be most acceptable to the king of Spain.

Still however the same unjust persecution of the company was
carried on ; and Mr. Ferrar still remained unanswerable in his
defence. When one day the lord treasurer Cranfield 9 in great
heat of passion told him, " that he could prevail with the company
if he would, and they might then obtain all that they desired."

Nicholas Ferrar then being called to the upper end of the
council table, addressed himself with all humility to the lords,
and to lord Cranfield in particular, "beseeching them in the
most earnest manner not to entertain so vain an imagination.
That there were many members of the company much better
qualified than he was to speak upon their affairs. Nevertheless,
that he humbly entreated their lordships to consider seriously
whether, if such a number of the Virginia company as made a
court, or whether, if all those members who lived in or near
London should meet and assemble together, whether even all
these could either in law or equity give up the patent, without
the previous consent of all the rest of the members, to the
number of some thousands now dispersed all over England. And
these too not persons of inferior rank, but persons of the first
condition, of the nobility, and gentry, of the bishops, and clergy,
of the chief citizens, and of the principal companies, and corpora-
tions throughout the whole kingdom. Besides these, all the
planters also in Virginia, who were all included in the grant, and
who all upon the encouragement, and promised protection of the
king, under the great seal of England, and the pledge of his royal
word and honour, adventured their estates, and many of them
even their lives in this the greatest and most honourable under-
taking in which England had ever been engaged. He represented
also the great good which in numberless sources of wealth and
strength, would by means of this corporation, and through the
encouragement of their care, by the blessing of God, shortly
accrue to this nation. And he again and again most earnestly
besought their lordships to take all these things into their most

9 Cranfield.'] Lionel Cranfield, afterwards earl of Middlesex. It is worthy
of remark that his daughter and heiress, Frances, married Richard, sixth earl
• if 1 >orset, the son of that Edward Sackville to whom, for safe custody, were
committed (see p. 179) the copies of the books and papers of the Virginia
Company which he (the lord treasurer Cranfield) laboured so sedulously to
destroy.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 167

serious consideration; and no longer to urge them, not the
twentieth part of the persons interested, to do an action which
was in itself both unjust and unreasonable, and indeed impossible
for them to do. For how could they pretend to give away and
yield up the rights, and interests of other men, without the
consent of the parties interested first obtained. And in the
most solemn manner he adjured their lordships not to make them
the instruments of doing so vile a thing, to which, if they con-
sented, they should render themselves worthy of the severest
punishment. Besides, he said, it is worthy your lordships1 farther
consideration, how far such a precedent may possibly operate,
and how dangerous such an example may be, if only a twentieth
part of any company should presume, or should be permitted to
deliver up the liberties and privileges, the rights, and the pro-
perty of the other nineteen parts, and that without so much as
once calling them together to give their consent. This, he con-
tinued, was what the company now assembled must refuse as a
thing unjust, and not feasible for them to do."

The lord treasurer upon his discoursing thus, being inflamed
with violent passion, often interrupted him, and so did some
others. But the marquis of Hamilton, the earl of Pembroke,
and some other lords of the council said, " Nay, my good lords,
forbear. Let him make an end. We have called him hither to
know what he can say on the company's behalf. Let us there-
fore not interrupt him ; it is but reasonable to hear him out.
Mr. deputy, go on.""

Mr. Ferrar, with the most respectful humility then said,
" Most honourable lords, I was just on the point of concluding.
I will add only this, that as for my own private interest, and the
interest of many here present, and of many others who are absent,
my lords, we all most humbly cast ourselves, and our estates at
his majesty's royal feet : let him do with us and with them, if so
he be determined, what seemeth best unto his good will and plea-
sure. For as to what is really our own, and in us to give, we
submit it all to his majesty's disposal ; and in all other things we
shall endeavour to serve and please him in all that with a con-
science unhurt we may : desiring only this, that with respect to
the rights and property of others, we may be permitted to execute
the trust reposed in us, with fidelity and honour, and to discharge
religiously those duties, which, as they are of the first importance,
ought to have the first influence upon the mind of man.''1

168 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

Then the marquis of Hamilton stood up, and with a loud voice
said, " Mr. deputy, in my opinion, my lords, hath spoken well,
excellently well both for himself, and for the company. And
what, my lords, can we now desire more of him ?" The earl of
Pembroke seconded lord Hamilton, and said, " Surely, my lords,
1 hope the king (if he shall hear all) will be satisfied with what
we have done, but particularly with what we have now heard.
Let us fairly report it to him, and then let his majesty do what
he thinks most proper. We have sat a long time upon this busi-
ness, and at length we may conjecture the result."

Gondomar with his profligate instruments, the king, and the
Spanish party at court, perceiving that Mr. Ferrar (having de-
monstrated all their allegations to be false and groundless) had
rendered all their violence ineffectual, now had recourse to a
different mode of proceeding. They suborned, and procured per-
sons to bring forward a crimination against him ; who came and
exhibited in form a complaint to the council board. The sub-
stance of the accusation was this, That the deputy, during the
times of his appearing before the council, had drawn up and sent
to the governor and plantation of Virginia certain dangerous
instructions, and inflammatory letters of advice, directing them
how they should conduct themselves in standing to their patent,
and exhorting them that they should never give their consent to
let it be delivered up. And therefore that if these letters and
instructions were not countermanded by their lordships, some
very ill consequence might ensue, and the king might thereby
receive much dishonour.

As soon as this pretended complaint was lodged in form, in-
stantly, though it was then very late at night, some pursuivants,
who were kept in readiness for that purpose, were dispatched in
all haste to Mrs. Ferraris house to speak with the deputy, and to
command him without any delay immediately to deliver up to
them, all those books of the Virginia company wherein v
registered the copies of all such letters and instructions as had
been sent to the plantation from the council or company here.

Mr. Ferrar told them that the secretary of the Virginia cmn-
j , and not he, had the keeping of those books. They then
rerpiin <1 him to give them a note to the secretary to deliver them.
But he excused himself, saying, " Surely your commission will be
a better authority for him to do so, than any note which I can
send him. For my own part, if I had the company's evidences

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 169

in my possession, entrusted to my custody, I certainly would not
deliver them up, unless I had their leave, and express order so to
do." When he said this they left him, and went to the secretary,
and forced him to deliver up the books to them.

The next day the deputy, and many lords and gentlemen con-
cerned in the company, were summoned to attend at the council
table. For the accusers of the company had given it out pub-
licly, that now very strange things indeed would be discovered in
these books and instructions, and brought forth to public view.
On this account there was a very numerous attendance, and all
the lords of the council also were particularly summoned to
attend.

When the council was met, the deputy (as heretofore) was
commanded to come to the upper end of the table. Then the
accusers of the company desired of the lords that one of the
clerks of the council might read such and such letters and instruc-
tions written in such and such months. Some of which being-
read, the lords of the council looked upon one another with
evident marks of astonishment ; observing that there was nothing
of that dangerous consequence in those papers, which the accusers
had informed them they would discover ; but on the contrary
much matter of high commendation. " Point out," said one
lord, " where is the fault or error in these letters and instructions ;
for my own part I must say that I cannot see any."

The enemies of the company then prayed their lordships to
hear them all read out ; and then they said it would soon appear
where the faults lay. " Yea, yea," said the lord treasurer with
vehemence, " read on, read on : we shall anon find them." So
they still persisted to read. And in a word, so much patience
had the lords, or rather so much pleasure, that many of them
said they thought their time had been well spent. All these
letters and instructions being in the end thus read out, and no-
thing at all appearing which was any ways disadvantageous to the
company, but on the contrary very much to their credit and
honour : the marquis of Hamilton stood up, and said, " That
there was one letter which he prayed might be read over again,
on which he should desire to make a few observations." Which
being accordingly done, "Well!" said he, " my lords, we have
spent many hours here, in hearing all these letters and instruc-
tions, and yet I could not help requesting to hear this one letter
over again ; because I think that all your lordships must agree

170 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

with me that it is absolutely a master-piece. And indeed they
are all in high degree excellent. Truly, my lords, we have this
day lost no time at all. For I do assure you that if our attend-
ance here were for many days, I for my part would willingly n't
them out to hear so pious, so wise, and indeed politic instructions
as these are. They are papers as admirably well penned as any I
ever heard. And, I believe, if the truth were known, your lord-
ships are all of the same opinion.'1

The earl of Pembroke said, " There is not one thing in them
all, which, as far as I can see, deserves in the least degree to be
excepted against. On the contrary they all deserve the highest
commendation : containing advices far more excellent than I
could have expected to have met with in the letters of a trading
company. For they abound with soundness of good matter, and
profitable instruction with respect both to religion and policy ; and
they possess uncommon elegance of language." Many other lords
concurred in these commendations, and at length one, addressing
himself to Mr. Ferrar, said, u Mr. deputy, I pray you tell us
who penned these letters and instructions, we have some reason
to think it was yourself."

Mr. Ferrar, whose modesty and humility were not inferior to
his other rare accomplishments, replied, " My lord, these arc the
letters and instructions of the company, and the council of the
company. For in all weighty affairs they order several commit-
tees to make each a rough draught of what they judge proper to
be done in these matters : which rough draughts are afterward all
put together, and presented first to the council, and then to t lie-
company to receive all proper alteration, as they shall please.
And thus every thing is drawn up and concluded upon the advice
of many." After due commendation of his modesty as well as
his ability, it was replied to him, " Mr. deputy, that th« •>«•
papers before us are the production of one pen, is very plainly
discernible : they are jewels that all come out of one rich cabim-t.
of which we have undoubted reason to believe that you aiv the
true possessor."

The lords under the influence of Gondomar were now abashed
and silrnt ; only one of them said to the accusers of the company.
• What strange and unaccountable measures are these that you
have taken ! to have called us together, and to make us sit and
hear all these things uhich are entirely opposite to your O\MI
information-, and which meet, as you find, with universal appro-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 171

bation." To which one man of a bold spirit replied, " We shall
still in the end carry our point. These, my good lord, are not the
letters and instructions which we meant. The company have
others no doubt in private, which they secrete, and which if they
could now be found, would quickly silence them. We have lately
heard of things passing in their courts which would surprize you."
On which one of the council rose and said, ;c My lords, such
malevolence and injustice is unequalled : such proceedings are not
to be endured. But unprincipled malice has a face too brazen to
be ashamed of any thing." The lords then rose, and the adver-
saries of the company were much confounded, having now with
all honest and impartial men entirely lost all credit.

The very night after this meeting, one of the clerks of the
council came to Lord Southampton and told him that his deputy
had that day gained a most complete victory, and had extorted
the highest commendations even from the lords of the adverse
party : and it was supposed that proposals would be made to him
to engage in the king's immediate service. u But for all that, my
lord," said he, " depend upon it, such the times are. your patent
is irretrievably gone."

Lord Southampton communicated this information to the lords
and gentlemen interested in the company, saying, " You all
well know that those things which our enemies thought would
have been to their advantage, and our damage, have hitherto all
turned out to our credit and to our honour : nevertheless, all will
not help us. It is determined that our patent shall be taken
away, and the company dissolved. The king, I find, has resolved
to have the management of the plantation in his own hands, to
direct, and govern as he sees best. A thing indeed worthy a
king's care : but, alas ! alas ! this is all but a colourable shew.
For you will find in the end that this worthy company will be
broken, and come to nothing. We must ah1 arm ourselves with
patience."

Mr. Ferrar had now gained the highest reputation with all
ranks of men for the uncommon abilities which he displayed on
every occasion, and the esteem for his great virtues was un-
bounded, but especially with those who were interested in the
affairs of the Virginia company. At this time a citizen of the
first class both for riches and reputation paid him a visit, and
after the warmest expressions of the highest opinion of his extra-
ordinary talents, and integrity, thus continued, "Mr. Ferrar.

172 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

I have an only daughter, who, if paternal affection doth not too
much influence my judgment, is both wise and comely : indeed it
is confessed by all that she is very beautiful. I know her to have
been virtuously educated, to be well accomplished, and to be of
an amiable disposition. If you will be pleased to accept of her as
your wife, I will immediately give you with her ten thousand
pounds." Mr. Ferrar was much surprised, returned his sincere
thanks, but said he was not worthy of so great a treasure. The
citizen however persisted, said he was really in earnest to bring
about the connection : that at present he only made his proposal
with intent to give him an opportunity to consider of it. After
a few days he came again, and asked Mr. Ferrar if he had
advised with his friends concerning his proposal, saying, " They
all know me well." Mr. Ferrar answered that he had not ; "for
you I perceive, sir, are greatly mistaken in me, first in having too
high an opinion of my abilities, and next with respect to my
estate, which you perhaps may conceive to be what it is not. I
think myself infinitely obliged to you for your good will towards
me, and for honouring me so far as to think, what I cannot
think of myself, that I am any way worthy of so inestimable a
treasure as your daughter." " Mr. Ferrar," he replied, " do not
talk thus to me : for I know you perfectly well ; and as for your
estate, I give myself no manner of concern about it. What for-
tune you have I demand not to know. Let it be what it will ; if
you have nothing, I thank God that I have enough to make you
and my daughter happy as to worldly matters. And as to my
own part, I shall think myself the happiest man upon earth to
have you my son-in-law, and my daughter must be equally happy
to have so accomplished, and so virtuous a man for her
husband."

By means of an intimate friend of the father, an interview was
brought about at this friend's house between the young lady and
Mr. Ferrar, where in a select company they passed several hours
together. The father then took a convenient opportunity to a-k
his daughter what she thought of Mr. Ferrar, to which >h<-
answered, " Nothing but good." " Can you then like him for a
hu>haml :" to which with equal ingenuousness and modesty she
replied. "Sir, I shall with pleasure do in this, as well as in all
other things, as you will please to have me : my duty and my
inclination \\ill <j;o together." Matters being so far advanced, the
tat her said to Mr. Ferrar, " Now, sir, you have seen my daugh-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 173

ter, I hope her person and deportment are such as to merit your
approbation. As to your own estate, nothing is desired to be
known. Be that as it may ; I have enough ; I like you, and my
daughter submits herself to my choice. Now let me have your
answer." Mr. Ferrer replied, " The young lady your daughter,
sir, is in every respect not only unexceptionable, but highly to be
admired : she is beautiful, and accomplished, and amiable to the
greatest degree, and far superior to all that I can merit : indeed
I do not, I cannot deserve this great happiness. I return you
my sincerest thanks for your unequalled goodness to me ; and in
the confidence of friendship I will now acquaint you with the
private and fixed determination of my mind. If God will give
me grace to keep a resolution long since formed, I have deter-
mined to lead a single life ; and after having discharged, to the
best of my ability, my duty to the company, and to my family, as
to worldly concerns, I seriously purpose to devote myself to God,
and to go into a religious retirement." Thus ended this affair,
and the father ever after preserved the most affectionate friend-
ship for Mr. Ferrar.

After the unworthy part which the king, influenced by Gondo-
mar, had taken in the persecution of the Virginia company, the
deputy had now indeed a great encrease of trouble in managing
their concerns. But in truth and justice to his friends it must
be said, that lord Southampton, the earl of Dorset, the earl of
Devon, lord Paget, Sir Edwyn Sandys and many others, gave
him all the assistance in their power. But all to no purpose.
For the king, notwithstanding his royal word and honour 1

1 Word and honour."] " It must be admitted that Ferrar was not himself
unscathed in this political contest : his conscience was wounded both as
regarded his God and his king. In taking so active and conspicuous a part
in this transaction, he had opposed the wishes of James, who was known to
be unfriendly to the impeachment. He had yielded to the solicitations of the
directors and proprietors of the company, and in doing so, it seems that some
free speeches of his against the will of his prince, though exceedingly well
meant, and tending to the ends of public justice, were, nevertheless, a source
of long and deep regret to his loyal heart : so much so, that he was heard to
say, stretching out his right hand, * I would I were assured of the pardon
of that sin, though on the condition that this hand were cut off.' " — Brief
Memoirs of Nicholas Ferrar, M.A., chiefly collected from a narrative by the
right rev. Dr. Turner, formerly lord bishop of Ely, and now edited, with addi-
tions, by the Rev. T. M. Macdonough, vicar of Bovinadon, p. 73. 183/. I2mo.

I am inclined to conjecture, that the indignant expressions of a political

174 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

pledged to the contrary, notwithstanding the grant under the
great seal of England, notwithstanding all that should bind
the conscience, and direct the conduct of an honest man, was
now determined with all his force to make the last assault, and
give the death-blow to this as yet, prosperous, and thriving
company.

At this juncture a full testimonial came from the colony,
proving the healthiness of the climate, and the fruitfulness of
the country, against the slanderous informations of that captain
Butler, who had been suborned by Gondomar and his agents to
spread defamatory reports concerning a country of which he knew
nothing, having only been there in his flight from justice, and
having suddenly stolen away from thence to avoid being seized by
authority for his scandalous proceedings.

This testimonial being exhibited at the council board, the lords
in Gondomar's interest became enraged, and resolved upon the
last violence. They therefore now drew up a great number of
charges utterly false and slanderous, against both the company
and the colony, under the invention and direction of Gondomar,
and the lord treasurer Cranfield. These accusations were given
to the latter, and he now undertook either by consent to get, or
by force to wring the patent out of the hands of the company.

\Vith this view on the Thursday before Easter, 1623, a council
was called, and the deputy and others were sent for to attend.
Who being come, the lord treasurer presented those papers of
accusation to the lords, saying that they contained a charge
which the deputy and company must answer by the next Monday.
For that a longer time would not, and should not be allowed
them. Mr. Ferrar taking up the bulky bundle, said he thought
it impossible to assemble the company, and answer so many, and
such strange articles in so short a time as two days ; for Sunday
was not a day for business, and therefore he humbly besought
their lordships to allow him only a week, and he would desire no
more. Upon this the lord treasurer cried out in great wrath,
44 Not an hour longer than till Monday afternoon, and therefore
take up the papers and be gone."

These papers on examination were found to contain a huge
parcel of absolute falsehoods, which the enemies of the company

character, in the text, here and elsewhere, are to be attributed principally, not
to Mr. John Ferrar, but to the modem compiler. Dr. Peckard.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 175

had invented, and drawn out to such an unreasonable length, that
by the shortness of the time allowed (which was preconcerted
with the lord treasurer) it was thought impossible that the agents
for the company should give in any answer ; that then Gondo-
rnar and his party would be triumphant, and able to boast that
the Virginia company either could not, or durst not answer their
accusation.

Mr. Ferrar however dividing the charge into three parts,
giving one to lord Cavendish, another to sir Edwyn Sandys, and
taking the third to himself, and employing six clerks very ready
with the pen to copy fair, continuing at the work without inter-
ruption, night and day, allowing but two hours for sleep, and
refreshment, did actually produce and lay before the council, a
complete answer at the time appointed. The lords were assem-
bled and making themselves merry with the expected embarrass-
ment of the Virginia company. But in a very short time their
merriment was converted into shame and confusion. A clerk was
ordered to read the answer. The reading took up full six hours.
When it was done, all was a considerable time deep silence and
astonishment. The adversaries of the company were all per-
plexed, and confounded, and in shame retired home. They had
however sufficient presence of mind to secrete and convey away
the answer they had required. It never appeared more, and the
company never heard what became of it.

The Spanish match being yet intended, and prosecuted, during
this negociation the king was the absolute slave of Gondomar, to
do without regard to honour or justice whatsoever he should ad-
vise to be done. In consequence of this infatuation, the deputy,
and thirty more of the directors, and principal persons of the
Virginia company were now served with a writ of Quo Warranto,
and commanded to show by what authority they pretended to
exercise a power over the plantation, and to send a governor
thither : and by this process the company now were obliged to
go to law to defend their right.

After many delays the cause came on to be pleaded. The
great plea which the king's attorney general (Coventry) brought
against them was, " That it was in general an unlimited, vast
patent. In particular, the main inconvenience was, that by the
words of the charter, the company had a power given them to
carry away, and transport to Virginia, as many of the king's
loving subjects as were desirous to go thither. And consequently,

176 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

he said, by exercising this liberty, they may in the end carry
away all the king's subjects into a foreign land ; and so leave his
majesty a kingdom here indeed, but no subjects in it. And if
this should be the case, what will then become of him, or of us ?
This is certainly a strange clause, and the patent wherein it is
contained ought to be forfeited."

This weighty argument extorted a smile even from the judges,
and the lawyers concerned to carry on the prosecution. Never-
theless, it was admitted : for the determination was made, previous
to entering upon the merits of the cause, what the decree should
be. The attorney-general then proceeded, and said he had found
a flaw in the company's answer, which if admitted, contained on
the one hand too much, and on the other too little ; and there-
fore, being such a nicety in law, he craved sentence upon it as
insufficient.

Sentence was thereupon given, u That the patent, or charter
of the company of English merchants trading to Virginia and
pretending to exercise a power and authority over his majesty's
good subjects there, should be thenceforth null and void."

The king was at the bottom of this whole proceeding, which
from beginning to end was a despotic violation of honour and of
justice.

The great reputation of Mr. Ferrar being now spread over all
parts of the country by the members of the late dissolved Virginia
company, he was in 1624, elected a member of parliament. As
this in a general consideration was highly proper on account of
his extensive abilities, and known integrity ; so was there a
peculiar propriety in his election at this time ; as there was an
intention now to call to account before the house of parliament,
those persons who had abused the king's ear, and had been
guilty of those violent enormities in the false accusation of the
managers of the Virginia company. For it was well known that
Mr. Ferrar was not only more accurately acquainted with all the
circumstances of that affair than any other person, but had also
abilities and firmness sufficient to carry on the prosecution in a
proper manner.

The prince being now returned from Spain in great discontent.
the Spanish party at court began in some degree to lose their
influence. The parliament met. Mr. Ferrar was appointed one
of several committees: sir Edwyn Sandys, and many other
members of the lat«- Virginia company were also in this j.arlia-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 177

ment. A charge was brought in against the lord treasurer, the
earl of Middlesex, for taking bribes, and divers other exorbi-
tancies committed in the execution of his office ; and also for his
conduct in the Virginia affair, and his violence in taking away
the patent, and dissolving the company.

On this occasion the house appointed the lord William Caven-
dish, sir Edwyn Sandys, and Nicholas Ferrar to draw up the
charge against him and those others, who had been his instru-
ments in that scandalous proceeding. The charge was soon
drawn up, as Mr. Ferrar had all the necessary materials ready in
his hands. The accusation was opened by him in a speech which
lasted two hours, and which gained him universal admiration.
For now he was fully and publicly seen in this exertion of his
great abilities. The lord treasurer was deprived of his office,
and punished by a large fine, and imprisonment.

The iniquity of the Virginia business being fully proved, and
laid before the public, by Mr. Ferrar, and the other managers,
the house resolved to take the whole affair into their serious
consideration, and endeavour to restore the company. But
before they could make any progress they received a message
from the king, " That he both already had, and would also here-
after take the affair of the said late Virginia company into his
own most serious consideration and care : and that by the next
parliament they should all see he would make it one of his master
pieces, as it well deserved to be." And thus was all farther pro-
ceeding in that matter dishonourably stayed. For, as the event
shewed, all these were nothing but fair words without any other
intention than to stop the business. No care was taken of the
plantation, but all was left to go to ruin. The violence and
injustice, and other miseries consequent upon this falsehood, and
repeated breach of honour in the king would supply a large
story : but for divers reasons they are not proper to be here
inserted.

When Mr. Ferrar was first elected deputy governor of the
company, and by his office became accurately acquainted with all
their circumstances, he was soon convinced of the unbounded
influence of Gondomar, of the king^s astonishing infatuation, and
of his total disregard of truth and justice. Such a king as James
was the properest instrument that could be found for such a
workman as Gondomar ; and Mr. Ferrar plainly saw the malice of
the one, and the folly of the other ; and like a wise man provided

VOL. iv. N

178 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

all in his power against future contingencies. He saw that
Gondomar by means of the king would probably ruin the com-
pany ; and that if they should carry this point, they most likely
would cause all the court books, registers, instructions, and all
other writings of the company to be taken away from their
officers: that if opportunity should afterward be offered, they
might never be able to make use of them either for their own
justification, or in refutation of the false accusations of their
enemies. He did not therefore depend upon the present pro-
mising appearance of their affairs : he knew that malice was at
work ; and he had frequently seen a temporary calm precede the
most destructive storm.

Being under apprehensions of this sort, about a year before
the dissolution of the company, he procured an expert clerk
fairly to copy out all the court books, and all other writings
belonging to them, and caused them all to be carefully collated
with the originals, and afterwards attested upon oath by the
examiners to be true copies. The transcribing of which cost
him out of his own pocket above 50£, but this he thought one of
the best services he could do the company.

When the lords of the council therefore (as before related)
seized the originals, Mr. Ferrar had all these attested copies,
as yet unknown to any of the company, safe in his possession.
But now when the lord treasurer had procured sentence in form
against the company, and all their muniments had been taken
from them, Mr. Ferrar informed sir Edwyn Sandys, and -
other of his most intimate friends, what a treasure he had yet
remaining in his hands ; and desired their opinion how ho might
best dispose of them. On hearing this they were equally .sur-
prised and overjoyed, and unanimously desired him to carry them
to their late worthy governor the carl of Southampton. He did
so, and farther told his lordship, that he now left them entirely
to his lordship's care and disposal : that if hereafter there should
be opportunity, he might make use of them in justification of
his own, and the late company's most honourable and upright
proceedings.

Tin- earl of Southampton cordially embracing Mr. Ferrar, said
to him, u You still more and more engage me to love and honour
you. I accept of this your present as of a rich treasure. For
these are evidences that concern my honour. I shall value them
therefore even more than the evidences that mix-em m\ lands ;

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 179

inasmuch as my honour and reputation are to me of more estima-
tion than wealth or life itself. They are also the testimonials of
all our upright dealings in the business of the late company
and the plantation. I cannot therefore express how highly I
think myself obliged to you for this instance of your care and
foresight."

Soon after this interview, lord Southampton was advised not
to keep these books in his own house, lest search should be made
there for them ; but rather to place them in the hands, and
entrust them to the care of some particular friend. Which ad-
vice, as the times then stood, he thought proper to follow. He
therefore delivered them into the custody of sir R. Killegrew,
who kept them safely till he died. He left and recommended
them to the care of sir Edward Sackville, late earl of Dorset, who
died in May, 1652 : and it is hoped that this noble family still
hath them in safe keeping 2.

Mr. Ferrar having seen the dissolution of the Virginia com-
pany3, and no hope left of its revival, took his leave of the Virginia
affairs by now paying the 300£. left by his father for the purpose
of erecting a college there, to the governor and company of the
Somers Islands : binding them in articles to send for three Vir-
ginia children, and bring them up in those islands : and when of
fit age to put them out to some proper business : or else educate
them in learning, and then send them back to the place of
their birth, to convert their countrymen : and that when the
first three were thus disposed of, three other should from
time to time be sent for in succession for the same benevolent
purpose.

And thus ended Mr. Ferraris public life ; in which he displayed

2 In safe keeping.'] It is very probable that they are still in safe keeping at
Knowle, the ancestral residence of the Sackville family, now [1852] belonging
to the countess of Amherst, the heiress of the dukes of Dorset.

3 Dissolution of the Virginia company. ~\ Many facts relating to the history
of this company will be found in the following work : viz., "A Short Collection
of the most remarkable Passages from the Originall to the Dissolution of the
Virginia Company. London, 1651." 4to. It is written by Arthur Woodnoth,
and was given by him to his cousin, William Woodnoth, some years after
whose death it was published, with a dedication by "A. P." to "the Com-
pany of Adventurers for the Sommer, alias the Bermudas Islands." A. P.
calls Arthur Woodnoth, "a true friend and servant to sir John Danvers
(see p. 8) and the Parliament interest.'* The Woodnoths, it will be remem-
bered, were relations of the Ferrars. See p. 124.

N 2

180 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

many proofs of great and extensive abilities, and of uncommon
virtue, particularly of indefatigable diligence, industry, and ac-
tivity, by which he gained universal admiration, and performed
many important services, both to the Virginia company, and all
others with whom he was concerned.

The king having seized the patent and dissolved the Virginia
company, and Mr. Ferrar having seen the attested copies of all
the books and papers belonging to them delivered into safe cus-
tody in the Dorset family, he was now disengaged from public
cares, and determined to carry into execution the plan he had
long set his heart upon, to bid farewel to the busy world, and
spend the remainder of his days in religious retirement, and a
strict course of devotion.

Yet before he could complete his pious purpose it was necessary
for him finally to settle some matters of great consequence, though
of a private nature, which had been entrusted to his care. His
established reputation for inflexible integrity had influenced seve-
ral persons to prevail with him to undertake the executorship of
their wills, and the settlement of their worldly affairs : and in
some of these instances this trust concerned property of great
value, and was involved in circumstances of great difficulty.
Beside these occupations relative to the property of others, the
situation of his brother required his immediate and close atten-
tion. Mr. John Ferrar had been for three years deputy governor
of the Virginia company, and in order to give himself up wholly
to the discharge of that important trust, he had put into the
hands of his partners in mercantile business seven thousand
pounds, and assigned the management of those affairs over to
them. He also advanced six thousand pounds more to them, for
which he was engaged by a personal security. Whether it were
by mismanagement or misfortune does not at present appear, but
about this time the concerns of this partnership were fallen into
the greatest confusion, and involved in the utmost embarrass-
ment. Mr. N. Ferrar nevertheless by his great sagacity and
indefatigable industry, in a shorter time than could be believed,
extricated his brother from all his difficulties, and settled his
affairs in the most honourable manner at the loss of about three
thousand pounds.

His next care was to provide a place fitted for the purpose, and
corresponding with his iduas of religious retirement. His mother
had indeed a very large house in London, in which had been holden

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 181

the meetings of the Virginia company : she had also a consider-
able estate, and a large house in the town of Hertford. But nei-
ther of these places had his approbation, both being too much in
view of the public.

At length he was informed that the lordship of Little Gidding,
in the county of Huntingdon, was to be sold. He immediately
went thither to examine the place and premises, which he found,
with respect to privacy of situation, exactly suited to his wishes.
It was a parish that had been for some time depopulated. Nothing
was left but one extremely large mansion-house, going hastily to
decay, and a small church within thirty or forty paces of the
house, and at that time converted into a barn. Upon his return
to London he purchased the whole lordship, and this purchase
was made in the year 1624.

But now the plague having been some time in London, was in
the year 1 625 spread over most parts of the town, and was disco-
vered to be at the very next door to Mrs. Ferraris house. Mr.
N. Ferrar was therefore very urgent that she and the family
would immediately depart into the country ; but while she lin-
gered, being unwilling to leave him behind, he procured a coach,
and at length prevailed : and that very night, Whitsun-eve, she
with her son John, and the rest of the family, went to her house
at Hertford, and the following week to her daughter Collet's, at
Bourne-bridge, in Cambridgeshire.

Mr. N. Ferrar would have attended his mother, but that he
had not completely settled his brother's affairs. During this
business, Mr. J. Ferrar, leaving his mother at Bourne, went to
Gidding to make some necessary preparation there for the recep-
tion of the family, who were now become very unhappy at the
stay of Mr. N. Ferrar in London, as they had been informed that
the disorder was fatal every week to more than four thousand
persons. As soon as he had finished the business which required
his stay, he, with great joy and gratitude to God, repaired to
Gidding ; from whence he wrote to his mother, entreating her
not to come to him in less than a month, that it might appear
whether he had brought away any infection with him. But her
impatience to see him was so great, that three days after she rode
thither, and their meeting was such as might, at that time, be
expected between a pious parent and a dutiful son, to the highest
degree mutually affectionate ; in its circumstances indeed very
different from the modern meetings of parent and son : for he,

182 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

though twenty-seven years of age, who had been engaged in many
public concerns of great importance, had been a distinguished
member of parliament, and had conducted with effect the prose-
cution of the prime minister of the day, at first approaching his
mother, knelt upon the ground to ask and receive her blessing.
He then besought her to go into the house, rude as it was, and
repose herself. This she refused till she had given thanks to God
in the church, which was very near at hand. But she was exceed-
ingly grieved to find it filled with hay and instruments of hus-
bandry. Immediately all the workmen, many in number, em-
ployed in the repair of the house, were set to cleanse and repair
the church : for she said she would not suffer her eyes to sleep
nor her eyelids to slumber till she had purified the temple of the
Lord. In about a month's time, finding that all danger of
infection was over, she sent for her beloved daughter Collet, and
her husband, and all their numerous family, to come and live with
her at Oidding.

Mrs. Ferrar was now seventy-three years of age, yet was she
possessed of so much vigour, and had so much of the appearance
as well as the reality of health, that all who saw her concluded
her to be not more than forty. Her family now consisted of near
forty persons ; and it being a season of deep humiliation on
account of the mortality then become general all over the king-
dom, it was determined to address themselves to God, as often as
they conveniently could, according to the doctrine and discipline
by law established in the church of England. To this end, Mr.
N. Ferrar obtained permission of his old acquaintance bishop
Williams, to have the service performed in the church, which
was now put into decent repair ; and he procured the minister of
the adjoining parish to read the morning service every day at eight
o'clock, the litany at ten, and the evening service at four. On
the Sunday mornings the whole family went to Steeple (iiddin^,
and in the afternoon the minister of that parish and his parish-
ioners came to the church newly repaired by Mrs. Ferrar.

At Easter, 1626, the plague being then ceased, Mr. N. Ferrar
and his mother, and some others of the family, went to London,
tn dispose of their great house there, to settle their remaining
all'.iirs, and to take a final leave of all their friends. When they
had been some little time in London, he resolved, in order the
better to carry on hi.s religious plan by his own personal as
anre, to become a deacon. This resolution he commnnieated to

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 183

none but his honoured tutor, Dr. Lindsel, who highly applauded
it, and introduced him to Dr. Laud, then bishop of St. David's,
by whom he was ordained deacon on the Trinity Sunday
following.

On his return home he addressed himself to his mother, and
shewed her in a writing signed, a vow which he had made with
great solemnity ; That since God had so often heard his most
humble petitions, and delivered him out of many dangers ; and
in many desperate calamities had extended his mercy to him ; he
would therefore now give himself up continually to serve God to
the utmost of his power, in the office of a deacon : into which
office he had that very morning been regularly ordained. That
he had long ago seen enough of the manners and of the vanities
of the world ; and that he did hold them all in so low esteem,
that he was resolved to spend the remainder of his life in mortifi-
cations, in devotion, and charity, and in a constant preparation
for death.

There is reason to believe that even in his infancy, and before
he set out upon his travels, and after his great escape upon the
Alps, he did privately and solemnly devote himself to God ; and
that after his unexpected recovery from his dangerous illness both
at Padua and Marseilles he repeated these pious resolutions,
adding also a vow of perpetual celibacy. This, if true, may
account for his extraordinary continence (though in the full
prime and vigour of life) in refusing the offer of a young lady of
incomparable beauty and rare accomplishments, of the most
amiable disposition, and of an immense fortune ; who had also
ingenuously confessed that he had won her highest approbation
and esteem. Instances of such firmness of mind and self-denial
seldom occur.

The news of Mr. Ferrar being ordained was soon spread abroad
both in the city and at court, as in both he was universally known
and very highly esteemed. His constant friends the marquis of
Hamilton, lord Pembroke, and Sir Edwin Sandys took this oppor-
tunity of saying to him, That though he had formerly refused all
temporal emoluments, yet now he had taken orders they must
suppose that he had not any objection to spiritual preferment, and
immediately made him an offer of some ecclesiastical benefices of
great value. These he refused with steadiness and humility,
saying that he did not think himself worthy. He added also,
that his fixed determination was to rise no higher in the church

184 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

than the place and office which he now possessed, and which he
had undertaken only with the view to be legally authorised to
give spiritual assistance, according to his abilities, to his family
or others, with whom he might be concerned. That as to tem-
poral affairs, he had now parted with all his worldly estate, and
divided it amongst his family. That he earnestly besought his
honoured friends to accept his sincere thanks for their good opi-
nion of him, for whose prosperity, both in this world and a better,
he would never cease to pray. And now having finished all busi-
ness in London, and taken a solemn and final leave of all their
friends, he and his mother returned to Gidding.

It now comes in course to speak of the established economy
both of the house and the church ; and it is hoped that the reader
will here excuse a circumstantial relation : because on these very
circumstances, misapprehended, and misrepresented, were founded
all the calumnies and persecution which the family afterward
suffered.

Many workmen having been employed near two years, both
the house and church were in tolerable repair, yet with respect
to the church Mrs. Ferrar was not well satisfied. She therefore
new floored and wainscotted it throughout. She provided also
two new suits of furniture for the reading-desk, pulpit, and com-
munion-table : one for the week days, and the other for Sundays
and other festivals. The furniture for week days was of green
cloth, with suitable cushions and carpets. That for festivals was
of rich blue cloth, with cushions of the same, decorated with lace,
and fringe of silver. The pulpit was fixed on the north, and the
reading-desk over against it, on the south side of the church, and
both on the same level*: it being thought improper that a higher
place should be appointed for preaching than that which was
allotted for prayer. A new font was also provided, the leg, laver,
and cover all of brass, handsomely and expensively wrought and
carved ; with a large brass lectern, or pillar and eagle of brass
for the Bible. The font was placed by the pulpit, and the lectern
by the reading-desk.

The half-pace, or elevated floor, on which the communion-tal>le
stood at the end of the chancel, with the stalls on each side, was
covered with blue taffety, and cushions of the finest tapestry and
blue silk. The space behind the communion-table, under the east

4 On the same level.] See Walton's Life of Herbert, in this volume, p. 20.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 185

window, was elegantly wainscotted, and adorned with the Ten
Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles' Creed,
engraved on four beautiful tablets of brass, gilt.

The communion-table itself was furnished with a silver patin,
a silver chalice, and silver candlesticks, with large wax candles in
them. Many other candles of the same sort were set up in every
part of the church, and on all the pillars of the stalls. And these
were not for the purposes of superstition, but for real use ; which
for great part of the year the fixed hours for prayer made neces-
sary both for morning and evening service. Mrs. Ferrar also
taking great delight in church music, built a gallery at the
bottom of the church for the organ. Thus was the church
decently furnished, and ever after kept elegantly neat and clean.

All matters preparatory to order and discipline being arranged
and settled, about the year 1631, Dr. Williams, the bishop of
Lincoln, came privately to Gidding, to pay a visit to his old friend
Mr. N. Ferrar, with whom he had contracted a friendship at the
Virginia board, and for whom he ever held the highest and most
affectionate esteem.

By this visit he had an opportunity to view the church, and
the house, and to examine into their way of serving God, which
had been much spoken against ; to know also the soundness of
the doctrine they maintained : to read the rules which Mr. N.
Ferrar had drawn up for watching, fasting, and praying, for
singing psalms and hymns, for their exercises in readings, and
repetitions ; for their distribution of alms, their care of the sick,
and wounded ; and all other regularities of their institution.
All which the bishop highly approved, and bade them in God's
name to proceed.

In 1633 Mrs. Ferrar came to a resolution5 to restore the

3 Came to a resolution.'] " Their heavenly-mindedness was best discovered
to their diocesan, when two sons of Mrs. Ferrar, the mother and matron of
the houshold, treated with the bishop, to endow the church with the tithes,
which had been impropriated : this was in September 1633, as appears by a
smack of that which fell from the pen of the donor, as followeth :

" * Right reverend father in God,

" ' The expectation of opportunities having some years wheeled
me off from the performance of this business, I now think it necessary to
break through all impediments, and humbly to present to your lordship the
desires and the intentions of my heart : beseeching you on God's behalf to

186 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

glebe lands and tithes to the church, which some fourscore years
before had been taken away, and in lieu thereof only 20/. a year
paid to tin* minister. She had from the first been so resolved,
but had been put off by unexpected delays. She found great
difficulty in making out the glebe lands : but at length by the
industry of Mr. N. Ferrar, she overcame it. She then sent her
sons John and Nicholas with a letter to the bishop informing him
of her determination, and desiring it might be confirmed by his

take them into your fatherly consideration, and to give a speedy accomplish-
ment to them, by the direction of your wisdom, and the assistance of your
authority.'

"The rest is too much to be rehearsed, save a little of her prayer to God in
the end of the papers.

" ' Be graciously pleased, Lord, now to accept from thy handmaid the resti-
tution of that, which hath been unduly heretofore taken from thy ministers.
And as an earnest and pledge of the total resignation of herself and hers to
thy service, vouchsafe to receive to the use of thy church this small portion
of that large estate, which thou hast bestowed on her the unworthiest of thy
servants. Lord, redeem thy right, whereof thou hast been too long disseized
by the world both in the possessions and in the person of thy hand-maid.
And let this outward seizure of earth be accompanied with an inward sur-
prizal of the heart and spirit, into thine own hands : so that the restorer, as
well as that which is restored, may become, and be con6rmed thine inhe-
ritance.*

"The bishop prayed to God that many such customers might come to
him : so commended her free-will offering to God, and confirmed it.

" To make them some amends for their liberality to the church, he devised
now to give them reputation against all detraction. Therefore in the spring
that came after, he gave them warning on what Sunday he would preach in
their church, whither an extreme press of people resorted from all the towns
that heard of it. In his sermon he inserted most what it was to die unto the
world: that the righteous should scarce be saved: that our right eye, and
our right hand, and all our fleshly contentments, must be cut off, that we
may enter into life. All tended to approve the dutiful and severe life of the
Femurs, and of the church that was in their house. After sermon the bishop
took their invitation to dine with them. But they were so strict to keep that
day holy, that they left not a servant at home to provide for the table. Yet
it was handsomely furnished with that which was boiled and baked, that
required no attendance, to stay any one from church to look to it. By this
visit the bishop had the means to see their way of serving God; to know the
soundness of doctrine which they maintained : to read their rules which they
had drawn up for fasts, and vigils, and large distribution of alms : in which
he bad*- them proceed in the name of God, and gave them his blessings at
his departing." — Hacket's Life of Archhishop Williams, part ii. p. 51. See
also Kennett On Impropriations and Augmentation of Vicarages, p. 235 — 7.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 187

authority. This authority from the bishop was farther strength-
ened by a decree in chancery under lord Coventry.

In the spring of 1 634, the bishop to make some acknowledge-
ment of this generosity, gave notice, that he would again pay a
visit to the family and give them a sermon. And it being known
that he was a lover of church music, application was made to
Dr. Towers, dean of Peterborough, who sent his whole choir to
Gidding on the occasion. Divine service was performed through-
out in the cathedral manner with great solemnity. The bishop
preached a sermon adapted to the occasion, and in the afternoon
gave confirmation to all of the neighbourhood who desired it.

Every thing relative to the church being now compleatly
settled, Mr. Ferrar next turned his attention to the disposition
of the mansion. The house being very large, and containing
many apartments, he allotted one great room for their family
devotions, which he called the Oratory, and adjoining to this,
two other convenient rooms, one a night oratory for the men,
the other a night oratory for the women: he also set out a
separate chamber and closet for each of his nephews and nieces ;
three more he reserved for the schoolmasters ; and his own
lodgings were so contrived that he could conveniently see that
every thing was conducted with decency and order. Without
doors he laid out the gardens in a beautiful manner, and formed
them in many fair walks.

Another circumstance that engaged his attention was, that the
parish had for many years been turned into pasture grounds ; that
as there was a very large dovecote, and a great number of pigeons
upon these premises, these pigeons must consequently feed upon
his neighbours' corn ; and this he thought injustice. He there-
fore converted this building into a school-house, which being
larger than was wanted for the young people of the family, per-
mission was given to as many of the neighbouring towns as
desired it, to send their children thither, where they were in-
structed without expence, in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the
principles of the Christian religion.

For this and other purposes, he provided three masters to be
constantly resident in the house with him. The first was to
teach English to strangers, and English and Latin to the chil-
dren of the family : the second, good writing in all its hands,
and arithmetic in all its branches : the third, to instruct them in
the theory and practice of music, in singing, and performing upon

188 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

the organ, viol, and lute. On the last instrument his sister Collet
was a distinguished performer.

For all these things the children had their stated times and
hours. So that though they were always in action, and always
learning something, yet the great variety of things they were
taught prevented all weariness, and made every thing be received
with pleasure. And he was used to say that he who could attain
to the well-timing things, had gained an important point, and
found the surest way to accomplish great designs with ease.

On Thursdays, and Saturdays in the afternoons, the youths were
permitted to recreate themselves with bows and arrows, with
running, leaping, and vaulting, and what other manly exercises
they themselves liked best. With respect to the younger part of
the females, the general mode of education was similar to that of
the boys except where the difference of sex made a different em-
ployment or recreation proper. When the powers of reason and
judgment became in some degree matured, they were all at proper
times taken under the immediate instruction of Mr. Ferrar him-
self, who bestowed several hours every day in that important
employment. According to the capacity of each he gave tin -in
passages of Scripture to get by heart, and particularly the whole
book of psalms. He selected proper portions, of which he gave
a clear explanation, and a judicious comment. But above all
things he was anxiously attentive to daily catechetical lectures,
according to the doctrine of the Church of England. And in
order to make his pious labours extensively beneficial, he invited
the children of all the surrounding parishes, to get the book of
psalms by heart. To encourage them to this performance, i-adi
was presented with a psalter : all were to repair to Gidding every
Sunday morning, and each was to repeat his psalm, till they could
all repeat the whole book. These psalm-children, as they WITC
called, more than a hundred in number, received every Sunday,
according to the proficiency of each, a small pecuniary reward and
a dinner, which was conducted with great regularity. For, win -n
they returned from church, long trestles were placed in the middle
of the great hall, round which the children stood in great order.
Mrs. Ferrar, and her family then came in to see them scrv«-d.
The servants brought in baked puddings and nu-at : whk-h was
tin only repast provided on Sundays for the whole family, that all
might have an opportunity of attending divine service at church,
then set on tin- tir>t di>h herself, to give an example of

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 189

humility. Grace was said, and then the bell rang for the family,
who thereupon repaired to the great dining-room, and stood in order
round the table. Whilst the dinner was serving, they sang a
hymn to the organ : then grace was said by the minister of the
parish, and they sat down. During dinner one of the younger
people, whose turn it was, read a chapter in the Bible, and when
that was finished, another recited some chosen story out of the
book of martyrs, or Mr. Ferrar's short histories. When the
dinner was finished throughout the family, at two o'clock the bell
summoned them to church to evening service, whither they went
in a regular form of procession, Mr. N. Ferrar sometimes leading
his mother, sometimes going last in the train : and having all
returned from church in the same form, thus ended the public
employment of every Sunday.

Immediately after church the family all went into the oratory,
where select portions of the psalms were repeated, and then all
were at liberty till five o'clock : at which hour in summer, and
six in the winter, the bell called them to supper : where all the
ceremonial was repeated exactly the same as at dinner. After
supper they were again at liberty till eight, when the bell sum-
moned them all into the oratory, where they sang a hymn to the
organ, and went to prayers ; when the children asked blessing 7

7 Asked blessing. ,] Compare above, p. 182. This beautiful and pious cus-
tom, no small grace, ornament, and blessing, in the families of our ancestors
(compare vol. ii. pp. 72, 73, of this collection), appears to have received its first
shock, about this period, and during the Cromwellian usurpation ; an interval
in which, as it might easily be shown, a considerable portion of the best of
our old English manners, and many practices, which were themselves part of,
and instruments of piety, were exploded, and lost, by being branded under
the odious name of popery. " The having of god-fathers at baptism, church-
ing of women, prayers at the burial of the dead, children asking their parents'
blessing, &c., which whilom were held innocent were now by very many thrown
aside, as rags of popery. Nay, are not some gone so far already, as to cast
into the same heap, not only the ancient hymn Gloria Patri (for the repeating
whereof alone some have been deprived of all their livelihoods), and the
Apostles' Creed: but even the use of the Lord's Prayer itself?" — Preface to
Sanderson's Sermons, dated July 13, 1657, p. 73, edit. 1689. Yet, it is con-
solatory to find, that there were some happy families, of the most pious and
excellent of the non-conformists, who were not deterred by that malignant,
senseless, and fatal plea, from persevering in this devotion and homage to the
Father of Spirits, so congenial to his temper and example, who commanded
the young children to be brought unto him, who blamed those that would
have kept them from him, who embraced them in his arms, laid his hands
upon them and blessed them. " Immediately after the prayer was ended "

190 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

of their parents, and then all the family retired to their re-
spective apartments ; and thus ended the private observation of
the sabbath.

On the first Sunday of every month they always had a commu-
nion, which was administered by the clergyman of the adjoining
parish ; Mr. N. Ferrar assisting as deacon. All the servants who
then received the communion, when dinner was brought up, re-
mained in the room, and on that day dined at the same table with
Mrs. Ferrar, and the rest of the family.

That I may not be thought to conceal any thing which brought
censure upon them, and led to their persecution, I will here insert
the particular mode of their processions, and other circumstances
which were condemned by some as being superstitious. I shall
not pass any judgment myself on these ceremonials, relating mere
matter of fact, and observing only that where there was error, it
was error on the side of virtue and goodness.

When their early devotions in the oratory were finished they
proceeded to church in the following order :

First, the three school-masters, in black gowns and Monmouth
caps.

Then, Mrs. Ferraris grandsons, clad in the same manner, two
and two.

Then her son Mr. J. Ferrar, and her son-in-law Mr. Collet, in
the same dress.

Then, Mr. N. Ferrar, in surplice, hood, and square cap, some-
times leading his mother.

Then, Mrs. Collet, and all her daughters, two and two.

Then, all the servants, two and two. The dress of all \\a->
uniform,

Then, on Sundays, all the psalm-children, two and two.

As they came into the church, every person made a low obei-
sance, and all took their appointed places. The masters, and
gentlemen in the chancel : the youths knelt on the tipper step of
the half pace : Mrs. Ferrar, her daughters, and all her grand-
fas we are told by the celebrated Matthew Henry, in the life of his father,
Mr. Philip Henry), "his children together, with bended knee, asked blessings
of him and their mother; that is, desired of them to pray to God to bless
them ; which blessing was given with great solemnity and affection ; and if
any of them were absent they were remembered ; The Lord blfss you and
your brother ; or you and your sister that is absent.'1 P. 56, edit. 1699. Com-
pare Christian Institutes, vol. iv. p. 561, 2 ; Sanderson, ami n.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 191

daughters in a fair island-seat. Mr. N. Ferrar at coming in
made a low obeisance ; a few paces farther, a lower ; and at the
half-pace, a lower still : then went into the reading-desk, and
read matins according to the book of common prayer. This ser-
vice over, they returned in the same order, and with the same
solemnity. This ceremonial was regularly observed every Sunday,
and that on every common day was nearly the same. They rose
at four ; at five went to the oratory to prayers ; at six, said the
psalms of the hour, (for every hour had its appointed psalms,)
with some portion of the gospel, till Mr. Ferrar had finished his
Concordance, when a chapter of that work was substituted in
place of the portion of the gospel. Then they sang a short hymn,
repeated some passages of Scripture, and at half past six went to
church to matins. At seven said the psalms of the hour, sang
the short hymn, and went to breakfast. Then the young people
repaired to their respective places of instruction. At ten, to
church to the litany. At eleven to dinner. At which seasons
were regular readings in rotation, from the Scripture, from the
book of martyrs, and from short histories drawn up by Mr. Ferrar,
and adapted to the purpose of moral instruction. Recreation was
permitted till one ; instruction was continued till three. Church
at four, for evensong ; supper at five, or sometimes six. Diver-
sions till eight. Then prayers in the oratory : and afterwards all
retired to their respective apartments. To preserve regularity in
point of time, Mr. Ferrar invented dials in painted glass in every
room ; he had also sundials, elegantly painted with proper mottos,
on every side of the church : and he provided an excellent clock
to a sonorous bell.

The short histories alluded to above were probably composed
on the occasion, and to suit some present purpose. Those which
are still remaining in my possession are put together without any
regularity of series, or any dependance of one upon another, and
are as in the catalogue annexed8.

8 LIVES.

[The life of Monica. Of Dr. Whitaker.

Of Abraham. Of Scaliger.

Of Elizer. Of Mr. Perkins.

Of Lady Paula. Of Dr. Metcalf.

Of Hyldegardis. Of Sir Fran. Drake.

Of Paracelsus. Of Mr. Cambden.

192 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

These lives, characters, and moral essays would, I think, fill

Of Haman. Of Gus. Adolphus.

Of Wolsey. Of the Black Prince.

Of Brandon D. of Suffolk. Of Joan Q. of Naples.

The life of Ld. Burleigh. Of the Witch of Endor.

Of Sir J. Markham. Of Joan of Arc.

Of St. Augustin. Of Caesar Borgia.

Of Bp. Ridley. Of Jehu.

Of L. Jane Grey. Of Andronicus Comnenus.

Of Q. Elizabeth. Of the Duke of Alva.

CHARACTERS.

The good Wife. The good Sea-Captain.

The good Husband. The good Herald.

The good Parent. The true Gentleman.

The good Child. The Favourite.

The good Master. The wise Statesman.

The good Servant. The good Judge.

The good Widow. The good Bishop.

The constant Virgin. The true Nobleman.

The elder Brother. The Court Lady.

The younger Brother. The Embassadour.

The good Advocate. The good General.

The good Physician. The Heir Apparent to the Crown.

The controversial Divines. The King.

The true Church antiquary. The Harlot.

The general Artist. The Witch.

The faithful Minister. The Atheist.

The good Parishioner. The Hypocrite.

The good Patron. The Heretic.

The good Landlord. The rigid Donatist.

The good Mar of a College. The Liar.

The good Schoolmaster. The common Barreter.

The good Merchant. The degenerous Gentleman.

The good Yeoman. The Pazzians Conspiracy *.

The Handicrafts Man. The Tyrant.

The good Soldier.

GENERAL RULES, OR ESSAYS.

CHAP. CHAP.

1. Of Hospitality. 3. Of Self-praising.

2. Of Jesting. ' 4. Of Travelling.

1 Paztiant Conspiracy.] The conspiracy, at the head of which were pope
I IV, and his nephew, Girolamo Riario, which was formed by Francesco
de' Pazzi, to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, in April, 14/8.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 193

two or three volumes in octavo 2. They are but a small part of
the MS. works which Mr. Ferrar left behind him, which, as
appears from some papers still existing, amounted to five volumes
in folio. He was of opinion that instruction merely by precept
might sometimes become dry and wearisome, and therefore was
desirous to enliven his lectures by something that might give
pleasure to the fancy at the same time that it conveyed wisdom
to the heart. But he had great objection to plays, novels, and
romances, and to poems, that were then, and indeed have ever
since been in great esteem- He thought that in many instances
they did not tend to the important point which he had in view.
But he reflected also that our Saviour himself frequently delivered
his discourses in parables ; and therefore that fable, to a certain
degree, might be admitted in moral instruction. With this view
he composed those stories, and essays, which were intended to
enliven their readings, and conversations. Beside these, he drew
up regular discourses upon all the fasts and feasts of the church,
and these also in their order made part of the readings. Every
one of the young people, from the eldest to the youngest, male
and female, was exercised every day in these public readings, and
repetitions : by which the memory was wonderfully strengthened,
and they all attained great excellence in speaking with propriety
and grace.

But now four of Mr. Collet's eldest daughters being grown up
to woman's estate, to perfect them in the practice of good house-

CHAP. CHAP.

5. Of Company. 16. Of Plantations.

6. Of Apparel. 17. Of Contentment.

7. Of Building. 18. Of Books.

8. Of Anger. 19. Of Time-serving.

9. Of expecting Preferment. 20. Of Moderation.

10. Of Memory. 21. Of Gravity.

11. Of Fancy. 22. Of Marriage.

12. Of Natural Fools. 23. Of Fame.

13. Of Recreations. 24. Of the antiquity of Churches, and

14. Of Tombs. the necessity of them.

15. Of Deformities. 25. Of Ministers Maintenance.]

3 In octavo."] The probability however is, that the greater part, if not the
whole of this catalogue, were not original, but extracts : as Dr. Peckard
would have been able to satisfy himself by consulting Fuller's Holy State,
fol., where many of the titles of the chapters exactly correspond with those
in this catalogue.

VOL. iv. o

194 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

wifery, Mr. Ferrar appointed them in rotation to take the whole
charge of the domestic oeconomy. Each had this care for a
month, when her accounts were regularly passed, allowed, and
delivered over to the next in succession. There was also the
same care and regularity required with respect to the surgeon's
chest ; and the due provision of medicines and all things neces-
sary for those who were sick, or hurt by any misfortune. A con-
venient apartment was provided for those of the family who
chanced to be indisposed, called the infirmary, where they might
be attended, and properly taken care of, without disturbance
from any part of the numerous family. A large room was nl-o
set apart for the reception of the medicines, and of those who
were brought in sick, or hurt, and wanted immediate assistance.
The young ladies were required to dress the wounds of those who
were hurt, in order to give them readiness and skill in this
employment, and to habituate them to the virtues of humility
and tenderness of heart 3. The office relative to pharmacy, the
weekly inspection, the prescription, and administration of medi-
cines, Mr. Ferrar reserved to himself, being an excellent physi-
cian : as he had for many years attentively studied the theory,
and practice of medicine, both when physic fellow at Clare-hall,
and under the celebrated professors at Padua. In this way \\ a>
a considerable part of their income disposed of, and thus did Mr.
Ferrar form his nieces to be wise and useful, virtuous, and valu-
able women.

3 Tenderness of heart.'] In the Reliques of ancient English poetry we read
" As to what will be observed in this ballad (Sir Cauline) of the art of healing
being practised by a young princess, it is no more than what is usual in all
the old romances, and was conformable to real manners ; it being a practice
derived from the earliest times among all the Gothic and Celtic nations, for
women even of the highest rank to exercise the art of surgery. In the
northern chronicles we always find the young damsels stanching the wounds
of their lovers, and the wives those of their husbands. And even so late as
the time of queen Elizabeth it is mentioned, among the accomplishments of
the ladies of her court, that the eldest of them are skilfull in surgery."-
Rel. of Ant. Eng. Poetry. Introd. to Sir Cauline, p. 39.

" I could set down the ways and means whereby our ancient ladies of the
court do shun and avoid idleness, while the youngest sort applie to their
lutes, citharnes, prick-song, and all kinds of music : how many of the eldest
sort also are skilfull in surgery, and distillation of waters, &c. I might
easily declare, but I pass over such manner of dealing, lest I should seem to
glavcr, and currie favour with some of them." — Harrison's Descrip. of Eny.
before linllingshtad's Chron. p. 196, col. ii. 1. Jo.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 195

In order to give some variety to this system of education, he
formed the family into a sort of collegiate institution, of which
one was considered as the founder, another guardian, a third as
moderator, and himself as visitor of this little academy. The
seven virgin daughters formed the junior part of this society, were
called The Sisters 4, and assumed the names of, 1st. The Chief.
2d. The Patient. 3d. The Chearful. 4th. The Affectionate.
5th. The Submiss. 6th. The Obedient. 7th. The Moderate.
These all had their respective characters to sustain, and exercises
to perform suited to those characters.

For the Christmas season of the year 1631, he composed twelve
excellent discourses, five suited to the festivals within the twelve
days, and seven to the assumed name and character of the sis-
ters. These were enlivened by hymns and odes composed by Mr.
Ferrar, and set to music by the music master of the family, who
accompanied the voices with the viol, or the lute. That exercise
which was to be performed by the Patient, is alone to be excepted.
There was not any poetry, or music at the opening of this as
of all the rest : the discourse itself was of a very serious turn, it
was much longer than any other, and had not any historical
anecdote, or fable interwoven into the body of it. The con-
trivance here was to exercise that virtue which it was intended to
teach.

Upon the whole, these and many other dialogues, conversa-
tions, histories, fables, and essays, which Nicholas Ferrar penned
for the immediate use of his family, and left behind him in many
large volumes, if ever the world should be so happy as to see
them, will best show what he was, a man every way so complete,
that few ages have brought forth his equal ; whether we con-
sider his vast memory, his deep judgment, his rare contrivance,
or the elegance of stile in the matter, and manner of his com-
positions.

Amongst other articles of instruction and amusement Mr.
Ferrar entertained an ingenious bookbinder who taught the
family, females as well as males, the whole art and skill of book-
binding, gilding, lettering, and what they called pasting-printing,
by the use of the rolling-press. By this assistance he composed

4 The Sisters."] A paper of " Remains of the Maiden- Sisters' Exercises at
Little-Gidding " is given by Thos. Hearne in his Caii Vindicia, vol. ii.
pp. 713 — 94. It consists principally of Discourses and Histories suitable to
the seasons of Lent, Christmas, and Advent.

o 2

196 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

a full harmony, or concordance of the four evangelists, adorned
with many beautiful pictures, which required more than a year
for the composition, and was divided into 150 heads or chapters.
For this purpose he set apart a handsome room near the oratory.
Here he had a large table, two printed copies of the evangelists,
of the same edition, and great store of the best and strongest
white paper. Here he spent more than an hour every day in the
contrivance of this book, and in directing his nieces, who attended
him for that purpose, how they should cut out such and such
particular passages out of the two printed copies of any part of
each evangelist, and then lay them together so as to perfect such
a head or chapter as he had designed. This they did first roughly,
and then with nice knives and scissars so neatly fitted each pas-
sage to the next belonging to it, and afterwards pasted them so
even and smoothly together, upon large sheets of the best white
paper, by the help of the rolling-press, that many curious persons
who saw the work when it was done, were deceived, and thought
that it had been printed in the ordinary way. This was the
mechanical method which he followed in compiling his harmony.
The title of his book * was as foEows :

"The Actions, Doctrines, and other passages touching our
blessed Lord and Saviour J. Christ, as they are related in the
four Evangelists, reduced into one compleat body of history:
wherein that which is severally related by them is digested into
order ; and that which is jointly related by all or any of them is,
first, expressed in their own words, by way of comparison ;
secondly, brought into one narration by way of composition;
thirdly, extracted into one clear context by way of collection ;
yet so as whatsoever was omitted in the context is inserted by
way of supplement in another print, and in such a manner as all
the four evangelists may be easily read severally and distinctly ;
each apart and alone from first to last : and in each page through-
out the book are sundry pictures added, expressing either the
facts themselves, or their types and figures; or other things
Appertaining thereunto. The whole divided into 150 heads."

I cannot help transcribing here a passage from Dr. Priestley's
pn-face to his Harmony of the Evangelists. "If I should be
thought to have succeeded better than the generality of my pre-
decessors, I shall attribute it chiefly to the mechanical

s His book.'] See p. 218.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 197

I made use of in the arrangement of it ; which were as follow. I
procured two printed copies of the gospel, and having cancelled
one side of every sheet, I cut out all the separate histories, &c.
in each gospel, and having a large table appropriated to that use,
I placed all the corresponding parts opposite to each other, and
in such an order as the comparison of them (which when
they were brought so near together was exceedingly easy)
directed.

" In this loose order the whole harmony lay before me a con-
siderable time, in which I kept reviewing it at my leisure, and
changing the places of the several parts of it, till I was as well
satisfied with the arrangement of them, as the nature of the case
would admit. I then fixed the places of all these separate papers,
by pasting them, in the order in which they lay before me, upon
different pieces of pasteboard, carefully numbered and by this
means also divided into sections."

This exact agreement in contrivance between two men of un-
common genius and abilities, with respect both to the plan and
conduct of the work ; men living at a hundred and sixty years
difference of time, men too in learning, penetration, and judgment
perfectly qualified for so arduous an undertaking, affords the
strongest presumptive proof of the excellence of the method,
and at the same time the highest recommendation of it to the
observation and practice of all who are engaged in a similar
course of study.

Several of the harmonies were afterward finished upon the
same plan with some improvements : one of these books was pre-
sented to Mr. Ferrar's most dear and intimate friend, the well
known Mr. Geo. Herbert, who in his letter of thanks for it, calls
it a most inestimable jewel ; another was given to his other sin-
gular friend Dr. Jackson. The fame of this work, the produc-
tion of a man so celebrated as the author had been, soon reached
the ears of the king, who took the first opportunity to make him-
self personally acquainted with it, by obtaining the perusal of it.

Mr. Ferrar about this time wrote several very valuable trea-
tises, and made several translations from authors in different
languages, on subjects which he thought might prove serviceable
to the cause of religion. Among others, having long had a high
opinion of John Valdesso's Hundred and ten Considerations 6, &c.

6 Hundred and ten Considerations.] See note at p. 47.

198 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

a book which he met with in his travels, he now (in 1632) trans-
lated it from the Italian copy into English, and sent it to be exa-
mined and censured by his friend Mr. Herbert, before it was
made public. Which excellent book Mr. Herbert returned with
many marginal notes, and criticisms, as they are now printed
with it ; with an affectionate letter also recommending the publi-
cation.

In May, 1633, his majesty set out upon his journey to Scot-
land, and in his progress he stepped a little out of his road to
view Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, which by the common
people was called the Protestant Nunnery. The family having
notice, met his majesty at the extremity of the parish, at a place
called, from this event, the King's Close : and in the form of
their solemn processions conducted him to their church, which
he viewed with great pleasure. He enquired into, and was in-
formed of the particulars of their public, and domestic oeconomy :
but it does not appear that at this time he made any considerable
stay. The following summer his majesty and the queen passed
two nights at Apethorpe in Northamptonshire, the seat of Mild-
may Fane earl of Westmoreland. From thence he sent one of
his gentlemen to intreat (his majesty's own word) a sight of The
Concordance, which, he had heard, was some time since done at
Gidding ; with assurance that in a few days, when he had per-
used it, he would send it back again. Mr. N. Ferrar was then
in London, and the family made some little demur, not thinking
it worthy to be put into his majesty's hands ; but at length they
delivered it to the messenger. But it was not returned in a few
days, or weeks : some months were elapsed, when the gentleman
brought it back from the king, who was then at London. He
said he had many things to deliver to the family from his master.
First, to yield the king's hearty thanks to them all for the sight
of the book, which passed the report he had heard of it. Then
to signify his approbation of it in all respects. Next to excuse
him in two points. The first for not returning it so soon as he
had promised : the other for that he had in many places of the
-I'in written notes in it with his own hand. And (which I
know will please you) said the gentleman, you will find an insta
"f my master's humility in one of the margins. The place I
i> \\ In TO he had written something with his own hand, and
tin n put it out again, acknowledging that he was mistaken in
that particular. Certainly this was .m act of great humility in

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 199

the king, and worthy to be noted ; and the book itself is much
graced by it.

The gentleman farther told them, that the king took such de-
light in it, that he passed some part of every day in perusing it.
And lastly, he said, to show you how true this is, and that what
I have declared is no court compliment, I am expressly com-
manded by my master, earnestly to request of you, Mr. Nicholas
Ferrar, and of the young ladies, that you would make him one of
these books for his own use, and if you will please to undertake
it, his majesty says you will do him a most acceptable service.

Mr. Nicholas Ferrar and the young ladies returned their most
humble duty, and immediately set about what the king desired.
In about a year's time it was finished ; and it was sent to Lon-
don to be presented to his majesty by Dr. Laud, then made arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Cosins, master of Peterhouse,
whose turn it was to wait that month, being one of the king^s
chaplains. This book was bound entirely by Mary Collet (one of
Mr. Ferrar's nieces) all wrought in gold, in a new and most
elegant fashion.

The king after long and serious looking it over, said, " This is
indeed a most valuable work, and in many respects worthy to be
presented to the greatest prince upon earth. For the matter it
contains is the richest of all treasures. The laborious composure
of it into this excellent form of an harmony ; the judicious con-
trivance of the method, the curious workmanship in so neatly
cutting out and disposing the text, the nice laying of these costly
pictures, and the exquisite art expressed in the binding, are, I
really think, not to be equalled. I must acknowledge myself to
be indeed greatly indebted to the family for this jewel : and what-
ever is in my power, I shall at any time be ready to do for any
of them."

Then after some pause, taking the book 7 into his hands he
said, " And what think you, my lord of Canterbury, and you Dr.
Cosins, if I should ask a second favour of these good people 2
indeed I have another request to make to them, and it is this.
I often read over the lives and actions of the kings of Judah

7 Taking the book.~\ This, and another of these books, both in fine preser-
vation, are still extant in the British Museum (as I am obligingly informed
by John Holmes, Esq., one of the librarians, to whom I am very largely
indebted, in the entire progress of this third edition [1839] through the press),
and is part of the royal collection given by king George II. to the Museum,
at its foundation. See pp. 218, 219.

200 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

and Israel in the books of the Kings, and the Chronicles, and I
frequently meet with difficulties. I should be much obliged if
Mr. Ferrar would make me such a book as may bring all these
matters together into one regular narration, that I may read the
whole in one continued story, and yet at the same time may be
able to see them separate ; or what belongs to one book, and
what to another. I have long ago moved several of my chap-
lains to undertake this business : but it is not done : I suppose it
is attended with too much difficulty. Will you, my lord, apply
for me to Mr. Ferrar V The archbishop wrote to Mr. Ferrar,
acquainting him with the king's desires ; and Mr. Ferrar imme-
diately set himself about the work.

In the course of little more than a year, about Oct. 1636,
Mr. Ferrar and his assistants completed the harmony of the two
books of the Kings and Chronicles, and young Nicholas Ferrar
bound it in purple velvet, most richly gilt. It was sent to the
archbishop and Dr. Cosins, to be by them presented to the king.
His majesty was extremely delighted with it, saying, " it was a
fit mirror for a king's daily inspection. Herein," he said, " I shall
behold God's mercies and judgments : his punishing of evil
princes, and rewarding the good. To these his promises, to
those his threatenings most surely accomplished. I have a
second time gained a great treasure. What I said of the first
book, I may most justly say of this ; and I desire you will let
them know my high esteem both of it and of them." Dr. Cosins
then presented a letter from Mr. Ferrar, which the king declared
he thought the finest composition he ever read. In farther dis-
coursing of these harmonies with the divines, the king determined
that for public benefit they should be printed under his own
immediate command and protection. But the troubles of the
ensuing times prevented this laudable purpose from being car-
ried into execution. The title of this second harmony was as
follows :

" The History of the Israelites from the death of King Saul,
to their carrying away captive into Babylon : collected out of the
books of the Kings, and Chronicles, in the words of the text,
without any alteration of importance by addition to or diminu-
tion from them. Whereby, first, all the actions and
related in any of the books of the Kings and Chronicles, whether
jointly or severally, are reduced into the body of one complete
narration. Secondly, they are digested into an orderly depend-
ance one upon the other. Thirdly, many difficult places are

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 201

cleared, and many seeming differences between the books of
Kings and Chronicles compounded. And this is so contrived, as
notwithstanding the mutual compositions of the books into one
historical collection, yet the form of each of them is preserved
entire, in such a manner as they may be easily read, severally
and distinctly from first to last. Together with several tables.
The first, summarily declaring the several heads or chapters into
which the historical collection is divided. The second, specifiying
what passages are related severally in the aforesaid books, and
what are jointly related by them both : as also in what heads and
chapters in this collection they may be found. The third, shewing
where every chapter of the texts themselves, and every part of
them may be readily found in this historical collection."

Fragments of one copy of this, and some other of the harmo-
nies, with some of the prints belonging to them, and the three
tables specified in the title above, have lately been found among
the old MSS. of the family : but very much disjointed and con-
fused, and considerably hurt by time and other injuries.

These are probably the last works of this sort, executed by
Mr. Ferrar, who died in little more than a year, and was very
weak and infirm a considerable time before his death. But the
connexion between the king and this family did not cease on Mr.
Ferrar's death. For it appears from several papers still in being,
that there was what may be justly called a friendly intercourse
subsisting even till the distressful year 1646. For during this
interval, and after the death of Mr. Ferrar, other harmonies of
other parts of the Scripture were drawn up by Nicholas Ferrar
jun. upon the plan of his uncle, by the particular direction of the
king, for the use of the prince ; and were to him presented in the
years 1639, 1641, and at other times. This extraordinary young
man was particularly favoured by the king, who had undertaken
to send him to Oxford under his own immediate protection ; and
to take upon himself the care and expence of completing his
education. But his ill state of health which ended in an early
death, prevented the execution of this benevolent intention. The
particular memorials 8 of this intercourse were probably lost in
the ensuing distractions.

On the 27th of April, in that fatal year (1646) the king left

8 The particular memorials.'] These memorials, the subject deservedly of
Dr. Peckard's repeated regret, have happily been preserved, and are now
published here from a MS. (No. 251) in the Lambeth Library.

202 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

Oxford. Being unresolved how to dispose of himself, he shifted
about from place to place, with his trusty chaplain, Dr. Hudson,
and at length came to Downham in Norfolk. From thence he
came on May the 2nd very privately and in the night to Gidding.
Mr. Nicholas Ferrar had been dead several years. But the king
having an entire confidence in the family, made himself known to
Mr. John Ferrar, who received his majesty with all possible duty
and respect. But fearing that Gidding, from the known loyalty
of the family, might be a suspected place, for better concealment
he conducted his majesty to a private house at Coppinford, an
obscure village at a small distance from Gidding, and not far
from Stilton. Here the king slept, and went from thence, May
3, to Stamford, where he lodged one night, staid till eleven the
next night, and from thence went, on May 5, to the Scotch army.

Of the king's coming at this time in this state of distress
to Gidding, I collect from various authorities the following
evidence.

In the examination of Dr. Michael Hudson, taken May 16,
1646, before Henry Dawson, esq. deputy mayor of Newcastle
upon Tyne, he deposes that he came from Oxford on Monday
morning about 3 o'clock, April 27 ; and that his majesty, Mr.
Ashburnham, and himself, made use of an old pass, which they
had gotten from an officer in Oxford. That they went first to
Dorchester, then to Henley, Maidenhead, and so on the road
toward London : but he refused to say where the king lodged on
Monday night. That when they turned to go northward, his
majesty lodged Tuesday, Ap. 28, at Whethamstead near to St.
Albans. That from thence his majesty went to a small village
within seven miles from Newmarket, and lodged in a common
inn, Wednesday 29. From thence they went to a place called
Downham, where his majesty lodged, Thursday, 30. From
thence to Coppinford, where his majesty lodged, Friday, May 1.
From thence to Stamford, May 2, where they stayed till midnight.
May 3. Went from thence, Monday, May 4, and came to the
Scotch army, Tuesday, May 5.

This is the substance of the examination of Dr. Hudson con-
(•••ruing the king's journey from Oxford to the Scotch army 9.

• Scotch army.] [Michael Hudson was born in Westmoreland, and edu-
cated in Queen's college, Oxford. In 1630 he was made fellow of that col-
lege. He was afterwards beneficed in Lincolnshire. But when the king set
up his standard he left his benefice and adhered to him. After the battle at

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 203

In the letter from Miles Corbett and Valentine Walton to
Mr. Lenthall the speaker, directed, Haste, Haste, Post Haste,
the account agrees with the examination of Dr. Hudson, with
respect to the king's coming with Hudson to Downham, and
lodging there on Thursday the last day of April, but states that
they cannot learn where they were on Friday night. It after-
wards mentions several particular circumstances, as their being
at a blind alehouse at Crimplesham about eight miles from Lynn,
and the king's being in a parson's habit, and changing his black
coat and cassock for a grey one procured by Mr. Skipwith ; and
that his majesty bought a new hat at Downham. But these
particulars seemed to be delivered more from hearsay accounts,
than regular evidence. The main purport of this letter confirms
the deposition in Dr. Hudson's examination, that the king
certainly was at Downham, on the last of April, or the first of
May : and in fact he was there on both days, coming to that
place on the last of April, and leaving it on the first of May.

Mr. Ferrar's MS. asserts that the king came very privately to
Gidding, May 2. Dr. Hudson says the king slept at Coppinford,

Edge-hill he retired to Oxford, and in February, 1642, was created D.D. and
made chaplain to his majesty. Soon after, he had an important employment
in the army, in the north, under the command of the marquis of Newcastle.
On the 8th of June, 1646, he was discovered at Rochester, brought to Lon-
don, and committed prisoner to London-house. On Nov. 18, he escaped
from his prison, and in January following he was retaken, and committed
close prisoner to the Tower. He escaped also from thence in the beginning
of 1648. On the 6th of June that year, intelligence was brought to the par-
liament that the royalists were in arms in Lincolnshire, under the command
of Dr. Hudson ; and two days after, information came from col. Tho. Waite
that he had suppressed the insurrection of malignants at Stamford, in Lin-
colnshire, and had killed their commander, Dr. Hudson.

The circumstances of his death were attended with peculiar barbarity. He
fled with the chief of his party to Woodcroft-house, near Peterborough. The
house being forced, and most of the royalists taken, Hudson, with some of
the most courageous, went to the battlements, where they defended them-
selves for some time. At length, upon promise of quarter, they yielded ; but
when they had so done, the promise of quarter was broken. Hudson being
thrown over the battlements, caught hold of a spout, or out-stone, and there
hung : but his hands being cut off, he fell into the moat underneath, much
wounded, and desired to come on land to die there. As he approached the
shore, one of his enemies beat his brains out with the butt end of his musket.
See A. Wood, vol. ii. col. 113. See also the interesting papers in Peck's
Desiderata Curiosa, b. ix. vol. ii. p. 347 — 81. On this sir Walter Scott has
founded the story of Dr. Rochecliffe in " Woodstock."

204 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

May 1. These two accounts may easily be reconciled. Dr.
Hudson reckons the night, or time of his majesty"^ lodging and
sleeping, as belonging to the preceding day, on which he came
from Downham or Crimplesham, which was May the first. But
as the king came very privately to Gidding, and in the very dead
of the night ; and as it must necessarily require some time to
provide for his lodging at Coppinford, this would of course break
into the morning of May the 2nd : and Mr. Ferrar might with
equal propriety say that the king came very privately to Gidding,
and that he conducted his majesty to sleep at Coppinford, May 2.
These circumstances must awaken the compassion 10 of every
feeling heart, even amongst those who are disposed to lay the
heaviest load of blame upon the king : since they are mentioned
not as an insinuation that he was free from faults, or as an
extenuation of those with which he might be justly charged : but
as a proof of very affecting distress, and a strong instance of the
instability of worldly greatness. He had his faults ; and who hath
not ? but let it be remembered that there were virtues to set in
the balance against them.

I have been anxious to ascertain this point, from a desire to
make it known beyond all doubt, what was the very last place
where this most unfortunate prince was in the hands of those
whom he might safely trust, and under the protection of an
honest and confidential friend; and that this place was the
residence, and now contains the remains of that worthy person to
whose memory these pages are devoted.

In fitting up the house at Gidding, moral sentences, and short
passages from the Scriptures " had been put up in various places ;
and in the great parlour was an inscription which gave rise to

10 Awaken the compassion.'] The distresses of this unhappy monarch, inde-
pendently of the last bloody scene of the tragedy, excited much commiseration
in the English hearts even of many who never sided amongst his partizans in
the war. We are told in the Life of Mr. Thomas Rosewell, afterwards a
dissenting minister, and who was found guilty of treason in the reign of
Charles II., that "travelling a little from home, he accidentally saw king
Charles the First, in the fields, sitting at dinner under a tree, with some few
persons about him. This made such deep impressions in his young and
tender mind, as disposed him to the greater compassion and loyalty towards
that unhappy monarch." — Trial of Mr. Thomas Rosewell, p. 5.

II Passages from the Scriptures.'] This was according to a practice intro-
duced, both into houses and churches, about the time of the Reformation.

" Christophor. I am loth to go so soone out of this your hall, which

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 205

much speculation and censure. It was nevertheless first approved
of by several judicious divines, and particularly by Mr. Herbert,

feedeth mine eies with so many godly and goodly spectacles. Philemon.
Why is here any thing that you thinke worthy to be looked upon ? Chris-
toph. Every thing is here so pleasaunte and comfortable to the eye of a
Christian man, that he being in this haull may justlye seeme to be in a
delectable paradise, I had almost sayd in another heaven. For here is
nothing dumme : all things speake. Theophile. I pray you what is there
written upon your parclose dore ? Philem. The saying of Christ, I am the
dore ; by me if any man entreth in, he shall be safe, and shall goe in and out,
and shall find pasture. This is done to put me and my householde in
remembrance that Christ is the dore by whome we must enter into the
favour of God. Eusebius. This is Christenly done. What is this, that is
written upon your chimney ? Phil. The saying of the prophete Esay, The
fire of them shall not be quenched. Christ. This is a terrible and hard
saying. Phil. I have paynted this sentence in that place, that as the other
fixed upon the dore maketh me to rejoyse and to put my whole afiyaunce in
Christ, so this in like manner should absterre and feare me and mine from
doying evil whan by lookyng on this text we consider with ourselves the
unquenchable flames of hell fier. — Euseb. What have ye there written
in your window ? Philem. Christes saying in the Gospel of S. John, I am
the light of the world. He that followeth me walketh not in darkness, but
shall have the light of life. Theoph. Your table also, me thinke, speaketh.
Philem. Herein is graven the saying of Christ, Blessed is he that eateth
bread in the kingdom of God. This is to admonish us, that we should
not have all our pleasure in eating, drinking, and banketing after the maner
of Epicures, but rather desier so to live in this world, that after this life we
may be fed in the joyful kingdom of God by enjoying the most glorious
sight of the divine majestie. Euseb. What have ye paynted over youre
table ? Philem. The sayinge of the prophete Esay, yea rather the com-
maundement of God by his prophet, Breake thy bread to the hungry, and
leade in the needy and way-faring into thy house. Euseb. I pray you what is
that your chaires and stoles have carved on them ? Philem. A saying of
Christ in the Revelation of John ; To him that overcometh will I grant to sit
with me in my throne. It is not unknowen to you, I am sure, how com-
fortable a thing it is for a wery body to sit, and to have a restyng place.
Certes it is a thousande times more comfortable to have a place where body
and soule after so many great and daungerous conflicts in this miserable
worlde, may quietly rest. Therefore have I wrytten this texte on my chayres
and stoles, to put me and myne in remembrance, that if we will find rest
after this life, we must seriously not dally, but fighte with Satan our enemy."
The cup, the dishes, the laver, the virginals, the door posts, all had their
respective superscriptions in the house of Philemon, which are recounted in
the progress of the Dialogue. The last instance mentioned, is the following :
" Euseb. I pray you what two great tables have you hanging there openly ?
Phil. This is the table of the Ten Commaundements, which teacheth us what
we ought to do, and what to eschewe. The other is a table also which con-
taineth in it the offices of all degrees and estates. It teacheth us what we

206

NICHOLAS FERRAR.

who advised it to be engraved in brass, and so hung up that it
might be seen of all. But calumny was now gone forth, and
nothing could be done at Gidding that was not subjected to the
severest misrepresentation. The inscription was as follows :

IHS

HE who (by reproof of our errors,
and remonstrance of that which is
more perfect) seeks to make us
better, is welcome as an Angel of
God.

He who any ways goes about to
disturb us in that which is and
ought to be amongst Christians
(tho* it be not usual in the world)
is a burden whilst he stays and
shall bear his judgment whoso-
ever he be.

I HE who (by a cheerful partici-
pation of that which is good) con-
-n-iiu s firms us in the same, is welcome
as a Christian Friend.

But

And

HE who faults us in absence for
that which in presence he made
shew to approve of, doth by a
double guilt of flattery and slan-
der violate the bands both of
friendship and charity.

MARY FERRAR, Widow,
Mother of this Family,

aged fourscore years,

(who bids adieu to all fears and hopes of this world, and only
desires to serve God)
set up this Table.

The extraordinary course of life pursued at Gidding, the strict-

owe to our most noble Prince, to our parentes, and to all superioures. In
this table every man from the highest degree to the lowest may learne his
office and duety. Therefore are these two tables red every day openly in my
house : my wife and children, with all my servaunts beyng called thereunto,
and giving attendance diligently to the reading of the same. If any of my
houshold transgresse any parcel of God's lawe, he is brought streight way to
these tables, and by them is his faulte declared unto hym. This is the order
of my house. Other correccion than this use I none : yet notwithstanding I
thanke my Lord God, all doe theyr duety so well, that I cannot wish it to be
done better." Becon's Christmasse Banket, Works, vol. i. fol. 17, A.D. 1564.
See also fol. 34. In the reign of queen Mary all the texts of Scripture which
had been written on the walls of churches were commanded by authority to
be blotted out and defaced. See Becon's Works, vol. iii. fol. 176. b. and
's Eccles. Memorials, vol. iii. p. 57.

rrar's friend, George Herbert, speaking of the country par-
sonage : " Even the walls are not idle, but something is written or painted
there, which may excite the reader to a thought of piety ; especially the
101st Psalm, which is expressed in a fair table, as being the rule of a family."
A Priest to the Temple, chap. x.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 207

ness of their rules, their prayers, literally without ceasing, their
abstinence, mortifications, nightly watchings, and various other
peculiarities, gave birth to censure in some, and inflamed the
malevolence of others, but excited the wonder and curiosity of
all. So that they were frequently visited l with different views by
persons of all denominations, and of opposite opinions. They
received all who came with courteous civility ; and from those
who were inquisitive they concealed nothing : for in truth there
was not any thing either in their opinions or their practice that
was in the least degree necessary to be concealed. Whether their
conduct was a subject of admiration or of imitation is a distinct
enquiry, which at present there is not any occasion to enter upon.
They were at the time, notwithstanding all the real good they did,
severally slandered and vilified : by some they were abused as
papists ; by others as puritans. Mr. Ferrar himself, though pos-

1 Frequently visited.] "The nearest gentleman in the neighbourhood was a
Roman Catholic : yet he and his lady often visited Gidding, without any
pressing expectations to be paid those respects in the same kind, by a family
so constantly better employed than in returning visits of compliment. Be-
sides, the master of their morals used to warn them all, but especially the
younger people under his care, ' that he is wise and good, and like to con-
tinue so, that keeps himself out of temptation.'

" One day his neighbour brought with him to Gidding, three learned priests
of his own religious communion; one of them a celebrated writer for the
church of Rome ; all of them full of curiosity to sound a man of such depth
of learning, of such an excellent understanding, and of so great piety, as
rumour had attached to the character of Mr. Ferrar. He did not decline
engaging with them ; in which he was upon a vast advantage above ordinary
managers of similar controversies, having in his travels, with his own eyes,
seen their practices, and made it so much his business to compare them with
their pretences. The conference was spun out to a great length j it was sup-
ported on all hands with equal temper, and with such acuteness too, as not to
leave the question where they found it. They traversed every essential point
of difference between protestant and papist, and parted upon such terms as
were proper for men who desired at least to maintain the communion of
charity with each other.

" One of them afterwards related that he had * seen Little Gidding, the
place so much in every body's mouth ;' that ' they found the master of the
house another kind of man than they expected : a deep and solid man, of a
wonderful memory, sharp-witted, and of a flaming eloquence : one who,
besides his various reading, spoke out of experience, with insight into things,
as well as books.9 In conclusion, he was heard to say, that this man, if he
lived to make himself known to the world, would give their church her hands
full to answer him, and trouble them in another manner than Luther had
done."— Brief Memoirs of Nicholas Ferrar (from bishop Turner, &c.) p. 133, 4.

208 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

sessed of uncommon patience, and resignation, yet in anguish of
spirit complained to his friends, that the perpetual obloquy he
endured was a sort of unceasing martyrdom 2.

Hence violent invectives, and inflammatory pamphlets were
published against them. Amongst others, not long after Mr.
Ferraris death, a treatise 3 was addressed to the parliament, en-

2 Unceasing martyrdom.'] " He was so exercised with contradictions, as no
man that lived so private as he desired to do, could possibly be more. I
have heard him say, valuing, not resenting, his own sufferings, in this kind,
that to fry a faggot was not more martyrdom, than continual obliquy. He was
torn asunder as with mad horses, or crushed betwixt the upper and under
milstone of contrary reports; that he was a Papist, and that he was a
Puritan. What is, if this be not, to be sawn asunder as Esay, stoned as
Jeremy, made a drum, or tympanized, as other saints of God were ! And
after his death, when by injunction, which he laid upon his friends when he
lay on his death bed, a great company of comedies, tragedies, love hymns,
heroical poems, &c. were burnt upon his grave, as utter enemies to Chris-
tian principles and practices, (that was his brand) some poor people said,
He was a conjuror." Oley's Life of Mr. George Herbert, prefixed to his
Country Parson.

3 A treatise.] The history of this treatise, which had no little effect at
the time when it first appeared, and which has not been without some in-
fluence in our own times, is curious. Sir Thomas Hetley or Hedley, knight,
a lawyer of some note, who, with Heneage Finch, and others, on the 26th
June, 1623, had been made serjeant-at-law, was desirous of learning some
particulars as to the proceedings of the Ferrars family at Gidding, which was
not very distant from Brampton, where he possessed some property. He
therefore requested his friend and relation, Edward Lenton, (of Gray's Inn
and of Notley, or Noctele Abbey, in Buckinghamshire, near Thame,) to visit
Gidding for that purpose. Some time in the year 1635, Edward Lenton went
there, and wrote a letter to sir T. Hetley, intituled, " Letter to Sir Thomas
Hetley, knt., serjeant-at-lawe, vpon his request, to certifie as I found concerninge
the reputed nunnerie at Giddinge, in Huntingdonshire," giving a very favourable
account of the Ferrars family, and of their proceedings. This was circulated
in manuscript, the temper of the times not being very favourable to its ap-
pearance in print. The author's name was not given, and it appears to have
been purposely concealed. The British Museum possesses several contem-
porary copies, one of which is said to be " by a friend :" another has the
initials " H. S." The Letter was first printed by Thomas Hearne, in his edition
of Peter Langtoft's Chronicle, Oxford, 1725, vol. i. p. cix., "from a MS. lent to
the publisher on July 6th, 1724, by Thomas Ward, of Longbridge, near

ick, esq.," which MS. was signed "H. S.j" and it was again printed
by Hearne, with the author's real name, in his edition of Th. Caii Vindicite
Academic Oxonienxis, Oxford, 1730, vol. ii. p. 702. It will also be found at
the end of the present life, p. 251.

But although Lenton did not venture to print his letter to Hetley, others

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 209

titled, The Arminian Nunnery, or a brief description and relation
of the late erected monastical place, called the Arminian Nunnery
at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire : humbly addressed to the
wise consideration of the present parliament. The foundation is by
a company of Ferrars at Gidding. Printed for Tho. Underhill,
1641.

In which production there is nothing but falshood, or what is
much worse, truth wilfully so mangled and misrepresented as to
answer the vilest ends of falshood. And this sort of malignity
was carried to such a length, that not long before the real tragedy
of king Charles was perpetrated, certain soldiers of the parliament
party resolved to plunder the house at Gidding. The family being
informed of their hasty approach, thought it prudent to fly, and,
as to their persons, endeavour to escape the intended violence.

These military zealots, in the rage of what they called reforma-
tion, ransacked both the church and the house. In doing which
they expressed a particular spite against the organ. This they
broke in pieces, of which they made a large fire, and thereat
roasted several of Mr. Ferrar's sheep, which they had killed in
his grounds. This done they seized all the plate, furniture, and
provision which they could conveniently carry away. And in this
general devastation perished those works of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar,
which merited a better fate.

Certainly no family suffered more from less cause of offence :
for though they were pious and firm members of the church of

were not so scrupulous. A transcript fell into the hands of some zealous, but
unprincipled puritan, who interpolated his own observations, and otherwise
falsified it, and printed it under the title (given above) of " The Arminian Nun-
nery, fyc." 1641, with a rude wood-cut, on the title page, of a nun and a
church. This pamphlet is now very rare, but copies are in the British
Museum and Bodleian libraries, and the former possesses a transcript made
by Humphrey Wanley, from a copy belonging to Dr. Charlcott, master of
University College. It has been reprinted by Hearne, in his edition of "Peter
Langtoffs Chronicle," Oxford, 1725, vol. i. p. cxxv. The modern edition of
Hearne's work also contains it. Being avowedly a falsification of the truth,
it has not been thought proper to reprint it here. This false and abusive
publication naturally excited the attention of John Ferrar, and in reply to his
remonstrances, Edward Lenton sent him a copy of the true Letter, with an
explanation, dated Notley, near Thame, 27th October (1642). The same
causes which prevented the publication of the letter to Hetley, operated to
keep this letter of explanation in MS. It was first printed by Hearne in his
edition of Th. Caii Vindicics Acad. Oxon., 1730., vol. ii. p. 693. It will be
found in the present vol., at p. 251, post.

VOL. IV. p

210 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

England, they behaved themselves quietly, and with Christian
benevolence towards all men of all denominations : and although
they practised austerities which were not exceeded by the severest
orders of the monastic institutions, yet they neither required
them from others, nor in themselves attributed any saving merit
to them ; austerities which mistaken piety thought a duty, but
which, it must be confessed, have not any proper foundation in
the Christian institution.

A short time before the commission of these violences, bishop
Williams paid his last friendly visit at Gidding, and seeing the
inscription in the parlour, said to Mr. John Ferrar, " I would
advise you to take this table down. You see the times grow high
and turbulent, and no one knows where the rage and madness of
the people may end. I am just come from Boston, where I was
used very coarsely. I do not speak as by authority, I only advise
you as a friend, for fear of offence or worse consequences.'1 Then
after sincerely condoling with them on their irreparable misfor-
tune in the death of Nicholas Ferrar, he bade them his final
farewell. But ever after continued their firm friend, and con-
stantly vindicated the family from the many slanders of their false
accusers. — But to return from this digression.

Mrs. Ferrar, towards the close of her life, seems to have been
convinced that the mortifications practised by the family, were
more than were necessary, and she became apprehensive for the
health, and even for the life of her beloved son. She therefore
earnestly entreated him, and with many tears besought him, that
he would relax a little in the severe discipline which he exercised
upon himself. And he, being an example of filial obedience, com-
plied in some degree with her request, during the remainder of
her life : but this was not of long continuance.

In the year 1635, ten years after coming to Gidding, this ex-
cellent woman died, aged eighty-three years. Her character, as
follows, is given by her son Mr. John Ferrar, who collected, and
left the materials for these memoirs. " Though of so great age,
at her dying day, she had no infirmity, and scarce any sign of old
age upon her. Her hearing, sight, and all her senses were very
good. She had never lost a tooth ; she walked very upright, and
with great agility. Nor was she troubled with any pains or
uneasiness of body. While she lived at Gidding she rose, sum-
mer and winter, at five o'clock, and sometimes sooner. In her
person she was of a comely presence, and had a countenance so

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 211

full of gravity that it drew respect from all who beheld her. In
her words she was courteous, in her actions obliging. In her
diet always very temperate ; saying, she did not live to eat and
drink, but ate and drank to live. She was a pattern of piety,
benevolence and charity. And thus she lived and died, esteemed,
revered, and beloved, of all who knew her." Such are the effects
of a life of temperance and virtue.

While his mother was yet living Mr. Ferrar did so far comply
with her request, that he went to bed, or lay down upon it, from
nine in the evening till one in the morning, which was his constant
hour of rising to his devotions. But after her death he never did
either : but wrapping himself in a loose frieze gown, slept on a
bear's skin upon the boards. He also watched either in the
oratory, or in the church three nights in the week.

These nightly watchings having been frequently mentioned, it
may not be improper here to give a short account of the rules
under which they were performed. It was agreed that there
should be a constant double nightwatch, of men at one end of the
house, and of women at the other. That each watch should con-
sist of two or more persons. That the watchings should begin at
nine o'clock at night, and end at one in the morning. That each
watch should in those four hours, carefully and distinctly say over
the whole book of psalms, in the way of Antiphony, one repeat-
ing one verse, and the rest the other. That they should then
pray for the life of the king and his sons. The time of their
watch being ended, they went to Mr. Ferraris door, bade him
good morrow, and left a lighted candle for him. At one he con-
stantly rose, and betook himself to religious meditation, founding
this practice on an acceptation too literal of the passage, At
midnight will I rise and give thanks, and some other passages of
similar import. Several religious persons both in the neighbour-
hood, and from distant places, attended these watchings : and
amongst these the celebrated Mr. Richard Crashaw, fellow of
Peterhouse, who was very intimate in the family, and frequently
came from Cambridge for this purpose, and at his return often
watched in Little St. Mary's church near Peterhouse *.

4 Near Peterhouse.~\ [A most respectable author hath given his sanction, if
not to the severity, at least to a moderate observation of this mode of
psalmody, in his Comment on the 134th Psalm.

" Bless ye the Lord all ye servants of the Lord, who by night stand in the

p 2

212 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

His friends perceiving a visible decay of his strength, remon-
strated against these austerities, fearing bad consequences to his
health ; they told him that he was much too strict in his way of
life ; they advised him to go abroad, to take the air frequently,
and to admit of some innocent amusement. He replied, "that
to rise and go to bed when we please, to take the air and get a
good appetite, to eat heartily, to drink wine, and cheer the spirits,
to hunt, and hawk, to ride abroad, and make visits, to play at
cards and dice, these are what the world terms gallant and plea-
sant things, and recreations fit for a gentleman : but such a life
would be so great a slavery to me, and withal I think it of so
dangerous a tendency, that if I was told I must either live in that
manner, or presently suffer death, the latter would most certainly
be my choice."

There cannot be any doubt but that these austerities gradually
reduced a constitution originally not very strong, and shortened
the life of a most virtuous, and most valuable man.

house of the Lord. Bless him in the chearful and busy hours of the day :
bless him in the solemn and peaceful watches of the night.

" The pious Mr. Nicholas Ferrar exhibited in the last century an instance
of a protestant family, in which a constant course of psalmody was appointed,
and so strictly kept up, that through the whole four and twenty hours of day
and night, there was no portion of time when some of the members were
not employed in performing that most pleasant part of duty and devotion."
Dr. Home.

The high degree of veneration in which Mr. Ferrar held the book of
Psalms appears from the peculiar attention he bestowed upon it ; as hath
been particularly related in the foregoing part of these memoirs. Nor is he
singular in this respect. Dr. Home says, the " Psalms are an epitome of
the Bible, adapted to the purposes of devotion. That for this purpose they
are adorned with figures, and set off with all the graces of poetry, and poetry
itself designed yet farther to be recommended by the charms of music, thus
consecrated to the service of God ; that so, delight may prepare the way for
improvement, and pleasure become the handmaid of wisdom, while every
turbulent passion is calmed by sacred melody, and the evil spirit still dispos-
sessed by the harp of the son of Jesse." " What is there necessary for man to
know," says the pious and judicious Hooker, " which the Psalms are not able
to teach ? They are to beginners, an easy and familiar introduction, a mighty
augmentation of all virtue and knowledge in such as are entered before, and
a strong confirmation to the most perfect among others." Hooker. See
Dr. Home's Pref. to his Commentary.

On such respectable authority, I may safely recommend a proper degree of
attention to the example of Mr. Ferrar, so far as time, and opportunity, and
the peculiar circumstances of situation will admit.]

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 213

About three months before his death, perceiving in himself
some inward faintness, and apprehending that his last hour was
now drawing very near, he broke off abruptly from writing any
farther on a subject which was now under his consideration. This
breaking off is yet to be seen in that unfinished treatise, with his rea-
son for discontinuing it. He then began to write down Contem-
plations on Death in the following words :

" The remembrance of death is very powerful to restrain us
from sinning. For he who shall well consider that the day will
come (and he knoweth not how soon) when he shall be laid on a
sick bed, weak and faint, without ease and almost without
strength, encompassed with melancholy thoughts, and over-
whelmed with anguish ; when on one side, his distemper increasing
upon him, the physician tells him that he is past all hope of life,
and on the other, his friends urge him to dispose of his worldly
goods, and share his wealth among them : that wealth which he
procured with trouble, and preserved with anxiety : that wealth
which he now parts from with sorrow : when again the priest calls
on him to take the preparatory measures for his departure : when
he himself now begins to be assured that here he hath no abiding
city : that this is no longer a world for him : that no more suns
will rise and set upon him : that for him there will be no more
seeing, no more hearing, no more speaking, no more touching, no
more tasting, no more fancying, no more understanding, no more
remembering, no more desiring, no more loving, no more delights
of any sort to be enjoyed by him ; but that death will at one
stroke deprive him of all these things : that he will speedily be
carried out of the house which he had called his own, and is now
become another's : that he will be put into a cold, narrow grave :
that earth will be consigned to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to
dust : let any man duly and daily ponder these things, and how
can it be that he should dare "

Here the strength of this good man failed him, and his essay
is left thus unfinished.

On the second of November he found that his weakness
increased, yet he went to church, and on that day officiated for
the last time. After this, his faintness continued gradually to
increase, but he suffered not the least degree of bodily pain.
He conversed with his family, and earnestly encouraged them to
persevere in the way he had pointed out to them. And addressing
himself particularly to his brother, said, " My dear brother, I

214 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

must now shortly appear before God, and give an account of what
I have taught this family. And here with a safe conscience I
can say, that I have delivered nothing to you but what I thought
agreeable to his word : therefore abide steadily by what I have
taught. Worship God in spirit and in truth. I will use no
more words. One thing however I must add, that you may be
both forewarned, and prepared. Sad times5 are coming on,
very sad times indeed ; you will live to see them." Then grasping
his brother's hand, he said, U0h ! my brother ! I pity you, who
must see these dreadful alterations. And when you shall see
the true worship of God brought to nought, and suppressed,
then look, and fear that desolation is nigh at hand. And in
this great trial may God of his infinite mercy support and deliver
you."

The third day before his death he summoned all his family
round him, and then desired his brother to go and mark out a
place* for his grave according to the particular directions he

6 Sad times.'] " When some farmers near the place where master Ferrar
lived, somewhat before these times, desired longer leases to be made them,
he intimated, that seven years would be long enough. Troublous times were
coming : they might thank God if they enjoyed them so long, in peace."
Oley's Life of Mr. George Herbert. "When these sad times were come,
religion and loyalty were such eye sores, that all the Ferrars fled away, and
dispersed, and took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. All that they had
restored to the church, all that they had bestowed upon sacred comeliness,
all that they had gathered for their own livelihood and for alms, was seized
upon as a lawful prey, taken from superstitious persons." Racket's Life of
Abp. Williams, part 2. p. 53.

6 Mark out a place.'] "Three days before his death, at about eight o'clock
in the morning, he summoned all his family around him, and addressed his
brother John to this effect : * Brother, I would have you go to the church,
and at the west end, at the door where we enter the church, I would have
you measure from the steps seven feet to the westward, and at the end of
those seven feet, there let my grave be made.' His brother stood almost
drowned in tears, as in truth were all the standers-by : indeed never had a
family more cause to bewail a loss. Mr. Ferrar continued : ' Brother, that
first place of the length of seven feet, I leave for your burying-place ; you
are my elder brother : God, I hope, will let you there take-up your resting-
place, till we all rise again in joy/ When his brother returned, saying it was
done as he desired ; ' then go,' he added, ' and remove from my study those
three large hampers full of books, that stand there locked up these many
years. They are comedies, tragedies, heroic poems, and romances : let them
be carried to the place marked out for my grave, and there, upon it, see you
burn them all immediately.' And this he uttered with some vehemence and

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 2J5

then gave. When his brother returned, saying it was done as
he desired, he requested them all in presence of each other to
take out of his study three large hampers full of books, which had
been there locked up many years. " They are comedies, tragedies,
heroic poems, and romances ; let them be immediately burnt
upon the place marked out for my grave : and when you shall
have so done, come back and inform me." When information
was brought him that they were all consumed, he desired that
this act might be considered as the testimony of his disapproba-
tion of all such productions, as tending to corrupt the mind of
man, and improper for the perusal of every good and sincere
Christian.

On the first of December, 1637, he found himself declining
very fast, and desired to receive the sacrament : after which, and
taking a most affectionate farewell of all his family, without a
struggle, or a groan, he expired in a rapturous ecstacy7 of
devotion.

Thus lived, and thus died Nicholas Ferrar, the best of sons, of
brothers, and of friends, on Monday, Dec. 2, 1637, precisely as
the clock struck one : the hour at which for many years he con-
stantly rose to pay his addresses to heaven.

indignation, adding, * Go, brother ; let it be done, let it be done ; and then
come again all of you to me/

" These books had been carefully locked up ever since the family had taken
up their abode at Gidding, in order that no one should make use of them, or
see them. There were many hundreds in several languages, which Mr.
Ferrar had procured at different places in his travels, some of them with
much search and cost.

" His orders were obeyed. The vain things which once had charmed him,
were sacrificed over the spot which was to receive his mortal remains ; and
the smoke and flame of this holocaust, as they flared from the eminence on
which the house and church stood, excited the attention and alarm of the
neighbourhood, and drew together very many persons, who imagined a
destructive fire was happening at Gidding.

" When the people saw what was doing, they went away, and reported
that Mr. Ferrar was dying, and his books burning. Within a few days the
report of this transaction had assumed another feature, and it was currently
asserted in the neighbouring market towns, that he would not die in peace
until he had burned all his books of magic and conjuration.

. . . . " When his brother returned, and assured him that they were all
burnt, he sat up in his bed, and poured out his soul in hearty thanksgivings
to Almighty God."— Brief Memoirs, fyc. (from Bp. Turner), p. 182—6.

7 A rapturous ecstacy. ,] See Brief Memoirs of Nicholas Ferrar (from Bp.
Turner) by the Rev. T. M. Macdonogh, p. 188—91.

216 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

That he was eminently pious towards God, benevolent towards
man, and perfectly sincere in all his dealings: that he was
industrious beyond his strength, and indefatigable in what he
thought his duty : that he was blessed by providence with uncom-
mon abilities ; and by unremitted exertion of his various talents
attained many valuable accomplishments, is very manifest from
the preceding memoirs, and is the least that can be said in his
praise ; and though greatly to his honour, is yet no more than
that degree of excellence which may have been attained by many.
But the spiritual exaltation of mind by which he rose above all
earthly considerations of advantage, and devoted himself entirely
to God, whom in the strictest sense he loved with all his heart,
with all his soul, and with all his strength, being united to the
active virtues of a citizen of the world, gives him a peculiar pre-
eminence even among those who excel in virtue. For though he
practised self-denial to the utmost, and exercised religious seve-
rities upon himself scarce inferior to those of the recluses who
retired to deserts, and shut themselves up in dens and caves of
the earth, yet he did not, like them, by a solitary and morose
retirement, deprive himself of the power continually to do good,
but led a life of active virtue and benevolence. His youth was
spent in an incessant application to learned studies, and the time
of his travel was given to the acquisition of universal wisdom.
On his return home, in conducting the affairs of an important
establishment, he displayed uncommon abilities, integrity and
spirit. As a member of the house of commons he gained dis-
tinguished honour, and was appointed the principal manager to
prosecute, and bring to justice the great man and corrupt
minister of that time. And having thus discharged the duties of
a virtuous citizen, he devoted the rest of his life to the instruction
of youth, to works of Christian charity, and to the worship of
God in a religious retirement, while he was yet in possession of
his health and strength, and in the prime of manhood. That
like the great author, who was his daily and nightly study and
admiration, the royal Psalmist, he might not sacrifice to God,
that which cost him nothing. In one word, he was a rare
example of that excellence in which are blended all the brilliant
cjualitifs of the great man, with all the amiable virtues of the
good.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 217

As a sequel to the preceding memoirs, I will subjoin a short
account of Mr. Nich. Ferrar, jun. as being proper, if not neces-
sary, to clear up some difficulties concerning the works of these
two extraordinary persons, who were blessed with a similarity of
genius, and possessed uncommon accomplishments in learning
and virtue.

Nicholas Ferrar, jun. was the son of John Ferrar, esq. (elder
brother to the sen. Nicholas) and Bathsheba, daughter of Mr.
Israel Owen of London. He was bom in the year 1620. By a
picture of him in the editor's possession, taken when he might
be something more than a year old, he appears to have been a
robust and healthy child. When he became capable of instruc-
tion his uncle took him under his own immediate care, and
finding in him a quickness of parts, and a turn of disposition
congenial to his own, he instructed, and assisted him in the
same course of studies which he himself had pursued in the early
part of his life.

In this he made such a rapid proficiency, as was the asto-
nishment of all who knew him, and, could it not be proved by
sufficient testimony, might occasion a great difficulty of belief.

It cannot be expected that the life of a young man, who scarce
ever went from the sequestered place of his education, and died
when he was but little more than twenty years of age, should
abound with incidents ; but if the term of existence were to be
measured by virtue and knowledge, few would be found who have
lived so long.

This extraordinary youth was dearly beloved of his uncle, who
spared no diligence or expense in his education, providing able
tutors both in the sciences and in languages, and bestowing great
part of his own time in his instruction. He too like his uncle,
with uncommon quickness of parts, and extraordinary strength of
memory, possessed an equal ardour for improvement, and an
indefatigable spirit of application.

He also was the constant attendant of his uncle in his religious
exercises, and particularly in the nightly watches, and acts of
devotion. And it is to be feared that these (may I say ?) too
severe exertions might in some degree tend to shorten the term
of life.

He was but seventeen at the death of his uncle, and he
survived him but four years. He died May 19, 1640, in his
twenty-first year.

218 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

The first work in which young N. Ferrar appears to have
been employed by his uncle was the translation of Mynsinger^s
Devotions ; a volume containing a very large collection of prayers
for all sorts and conditions of men. N. Ferrar, sen. commended
this book of Occasional Devotions as the best he had ever seen
upon the subject, and said that it could not but do much good in
the world. This the nephew performed when he was about four-
teen years of age. His greater works, as they are arranged in
the original MS. stand as follows : and I give them in the very
words of the MS. without correction of some little inaccuracies in
the account, which it is hoped will meet with pardon *.

Sir,

Upon your request, and bound by the great obligation of your
worth, I have thus scribbled out, what here follows; rather
willing to shame myself in this kind, than not to fulfil your
desires. Such as it is, you will please to accept, from,

Sir,
Your much obliged in all love and service,

J. F.

1. FIRST WORK ».

Glory be to God on High.
The actions, doctrines, and other passages touching our blessed Lord and

8 With pardon.'] In the room of what follows in Dr. Peckard's Life, from
the conclusion of this paragraph, (from p. 260 to p. 278) the reader is here
presented with a much more complete, and extremely interesting account,
transcribed, by the permission of his grace the archbishop of Canterbury,
from a MS. (No. 251) in the Lambeth library. These papers appear to have
been written by Mr. John Ferrar, the father of the extraordinary young man
to whom they refer, the eldest brother of Nicholas Ferrar, sen. and the com-
piler of the original MS. from which Dr. Peckard's Memoirs of the elder
Nicholas are taken. They were written probably in the year 1653; but to
whom they are addressed, it does not appear.

* First Work.] A. copy of this work, of which the title, with one or two
trifling variations, agrees with that given above, but dated in 1 635, is in the
British Museum. See above, p. 199, note. It is in old green morocco
binding richly gilt. The present editor has also seen, in the possession of
his friend the Rev. Thomas Dowdier, the representative of the last baronet
of the Cotton family, another copy of this work, dated 1635. Conington,
the seat of the Cottons, is not more than five miles from Little Gidding. Of
the Fenrar volumes given to George Herbert and Dr. Thomas Jackson (see
p. 197) no trace has been found. Mr. Mapletoft's was afterwards in the

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 219

Saviour Jesus Christ, as they are related by the Four Evangelists, reduced
into one complete body of history ; wherein that which is severally related by
them, is digested into order, and that which is jointly related by all, or any of
them, is first expressed in their own words, by way of comparison ; secondly,
brought into one narration, by way of composition ; thirdly, extracted into
one clear context, by way of collection : yet so as whatsoever was omitted in
the context, is inserted by way of supplement in another print, and in such
a manner as all the Four Evangelists may easily be read severally, and dis-
tinctly, each a-part and alone, from first to last 1. Done at Little Gidding,
anno 1630.

In each page throughout the whole book were sundry exquisite pictures
added, expressing either the facts themselves, or other types and figures, or
matters appertaining thereunto, much to the pleasure of the eye, and delight
to the reader.

2. SECOND WoRK2.

The history of the Israelites, from the death of king Saul, to the carrying
away captive into Babylon : collected out of the books of Kings and Chroni-
cles, in the words of the texts themselves, without any alteration of importance
by addition to them, or diminution from them : whereby, first, all the actions
and passages, which are in either of the books of Kings or Chronicles, whe-
ther jointly or severally, are reduced into the body of one complete narration ;
secondly, they are digested into an orderly dependancy one upon the other ;
thirdly, many difficult places are cleared: and many seeming differences
between the books of Kings and Chronicles compounded : and all this so
contrived, as notwithstanding these mutual compositions of the books of
Kings and Chronicles in this historical collection, yet the form of each

possession of Mr. Heming of Hillingdon ; and other copies have been said to
exist in the libraries of the marquis of Salisbury, and St. John's College,
Oxford.

1 First to last.'] From a copy of this Harmony Dr. Peckard produces
(p. 274) the following memorandum :

"This book was presented by my great-grandmother, by my honoured
mother's two sisters (the daughters of John and Susanna Collet), and by
their uncle Nicholas Ferrar, who was my godfather, to my ever honoured
mother, Susanna Mapletoft, the same year in which I was born (1631).
And I desire my son, to whom I do give it, with the Great Concordance,
and other story books, that it may be preserved in the family as long as
may be.

" JOHN MAPLETOFT, Jan. 23, 1715."

2 Second Work.'] A copy of this, dated 1637, is also in the British Museum,
to which it came with the old Royal Library. It is also in old green morocco
binding, ornamented with lines of gold. The British Museum also possesses,
from the same source, a work by the Ferrars family not hitherto described,
it is in two parts, entitled Acta Apostolorum elegantiss. monochromatis delineata.
The Revelation of St. John the Divine. In a large folio volume, in old green
morocco, richly gilt, of a different pattern from either of the preceding.

220 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

of them is preserved intire, in such a manner as they may easily be read
severally and distinctly, from first to last. Also there are three sundry kinds
of tables : theirs/ summarily declaring the several heads and chapters, into
which this historical collection is divided ; the second specifying what passages
are related in the aforesaid books of Kings and Chronicles, and what are
jointly related by them both, as also in what heads and chapters in the col-
lection they may be found ; the third shewing where every chapter of the
texts themselves, and every part of them may be very readily found in this
collection.

N. There is an intention, and preparation making (if the times permit) to
make a second piece in this kind : but to illustrate it in a more pleasant and
profitable way, and manner, than this first work was done. The good Lord
say Amen to it !

3. THIRD WORK.

MONOTE22APON.

The actions, doctrines and other passages touching our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, as they are related by the Four Evangelists; harmonically,
symmetrically, and collaterally placed, in four languages, English, Latin,
French, Italian, reduced into one complete body of history; wherein that
which is severally related by them, is digested into order, and that which is
jointly related by all or any of them, is first extracted into one narration, by
way of composition ; secondly, brought into one clear context, by the way of
collection : to which are, in all the pages of the book, added sundry of the best
pictures that could be gotten, expressing the facts themselves, or their types,
figures, or other matters appertaining thereunto; done at Little Gidding,
anno 1640.

4. FOURTH WORK.

The Gospel of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, according to
the holy Evangelists, in eight several languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin,
French, Spanish, High Dutch, Saxon and Welsh, all interpreted with Latin
or English, word for word, interlineally placed, and at one view to be seen
and read ; so done and contrived for the use and benefit of all such as are
desirous with sureness, ease, speed and pleasure, to attain to the knowledge
of these languages : likewise it may be of very good help to strangers that
may desire to learn the English tongue.

5. FIFTH WORK.

Novum Testamentum Domini et Salvatoris Nostri Jesu Christi viginti
quatuor linguis expressum, vid.

1. Hebraice. 7. Anglo-Saxonice.

2. Greece. 8. Muscovitire.

3. Syriace. 9. Cambro-Britannice.

4. Arabice. 10. Belgice.

5. jEthiopice. 11. Suedice.

6. Latine. 12. Hibernice.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 221

13. Germanice. 19. Gallice.

14. Polonice. 20. Ttalice.

15. Danice. 21. Hispanice.

16. Bohemice. 22. Cantabrice.

17. Hungarice. 23. Lusitanice.

18. Anglice. 24. Sclavonice.

Unaquaeque lingua proprio suo charactere scripta, et omnes Harmonice et
Symmetrice collocate, etiamque Syriaca literis et vocalibus Hebraicis scripta,
cum interlineari Latina interpretatione insuper adjecta.

6. SIXTH WORK.

Sacrosanctum S. Johannis Evangelium in totidem linguis quot sunt
capita, vid.

Caput Caput

1. jEthiopice. 12. Germanice.

2. Greece. 13. Hungarice.

3. Syriace. 14. Gallice.

4. Arabice. 15. Italice.

5. Latine. 16. Hispanice.

6. Saxonice. 17. Suedice.

7. Hebraice. 18. Danice.

8. Anglice. 19. Polonice.

9. Cambro-Britannice. 20. Belgice.

10. Bohemice. 21. Hibernice et Muscovitice.

11. Cantabrice.

Et unaqueeque lingua per interlinearem Latinam interpretationem ad
verbum redditam et positam, explicata.

Some Observations that happened upon these forenamed Works, done
at Gidding, and the acceptation of them by the King and
Prince.

1. Upon the first work.

His sacred majesty, anno 1631, having heard of some rare
contrivements, as he was pleased to term them, of books done at
Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, in an unusual way and manner,
for their own private uses and employments; and that the
younger sort learned them without book, and hourly made repeti-
tion of some part of them, that so both their hands and minds
might be partakers in what was good and useful : it so happened
that being at Apthorpe * at the earl of Westmoreland's house, in

3 At Apthorpe.'] In Northamptonshire.

222 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

his progress, about seven miles off Gidding ; he sent a gentleman
of his court, well loved of him, to Gidding ; who came and de-
clared, that the king his master desired that there might be sent
by him A BOOK, but he knew not the name of it, that was made
at Gidding, and somewhat of it every hour repeated by them.
The tidings were much unexpected, and Nicholas Ferrar at
London. Leave was craved, that the deferring of the sending of
it might be respited one week, and the king might be informed,
that the book was wholly unfitting every way for a king^s eye :
and those that had given him any notice of such a thing had
much misinformed his majesty ; and when he should see it, he
would con them no thanks 4, the book being made only for the
young people in the family. But all excuses could not satisfy
this gentleman. He said if we enforced him to go without it,
he knew he should be again sent for it that night ; and no nays
he would have. So necessity enforced the delivery; and the
gentleman seemed greatly contented ; took the book, saying not
his man, but himself would carry it : he knew it would be an
acceptable service to his master ; and engaged his faith, that at
the king^s departure from Apthorpe, he would bring it again.
But a quarter of a year past. Then came the gentleman again ;
but brought no book ; but after much compliment said, the king
so liked the work itself, and the contrivement of it in all kinds,
that there had not a day passed, but the king, in the midst of all
his progress and sports, spent one hour in the perusing of it :
and that would apparently be seen by the notations he had made
upon the margins of it with his own hand : and that his master
would upon no terms part with it, except he brought him a pro-
mise from the family, that they would make him one for his daily
use, which he should esteem as a rich jewel. Some months
after the gentleman, acquainting the king what he had done in
obedience to his command, brought back the book from London
to Gidding ; saying, that upon the condition that within the space
of twelve months the king might have one made him, he was to
render back that again ; and so with many courtly terms he <]<>-
I .art «'d, with intimation from Nicholas Ferrar, that his majesty^
commands should be obeyed.

4 He would con them no thanks. ,] So, " Frend Hoggarde, / cun you thanke,
that you have learned somewhat at Father Latimer'8 Sermons." — Robert
Crowley's Confutation of the Aunswer to the Ballad, called " The Abuse of the
Blested Sacrament of the Altare." Signat. A 3. b. A.D. 1548.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 223

The book being opened, there was found, as the gentleman
had said, the king's notes in many places in the margin ; which
testified the king's diligent perusal of it. And in one place which
is not to be forgotten, to the eternal memory of his majesty's
superlative humility (no small virtue in a king,) having written
something in one place, he puts it out again very neatly with his
pen. But that, it seems, not contenting him, he vouchsafes to
underwrite, " I confess my error: it was well before" (an example
to all his subjects) "/ was mista&en."

Before the year came about, such diligence and expedition was
used, that a book was presented to his majesty, being bound in
crimson velvet, and richly gilded upon the velvet, a thing not
usual. The king gratiously with a cheerful countenance received
it : and after a curious perusal, after having asked many questions
concerning the work, and the parties that had done it ; said to
the lord's grace of Canterbury, and divers other lords that stood
about him, (doctor Cosin being also there, that was his chaplain
for that month), " Truly my lords, I prize this as a rare and rich
jewel, and worth a king's acceptance. The substance of it is of
the best alloy in the world, and ought to be the only desirable
book. And for the skill, care, cost, used in it, there is no defect,
but a superlative diligence in all about it. I very much thank
them all : and it shall be my Vade mecum. How happy a king
were I, if I had many more such workmen and women in my king-
dom. God's blessing on their hearts, and painful hands ! I know
they will receive no reward for it." Then he gave the book to
the lords to peruse, saying, there are fine pictures in it. The lords
said, they believed the like book was not in the world to be seen.
It was a precious gem, and worthy of his cabinet.

Then said the king to my lord of Canterbury, and to doctor
Cosin, " What think you ? Will not these good people be willing
that I put them to a further trouble ? I find their ability and art
is excellent : and why should I doubt of their condescension to
my desire 2" " Your majesty need not," replied the archbishop ;
and doctor Cosin seconded him. " We know they will fulfill
your commands in all things in their powers." " Well," said the
king, "let me tell you, I often read the books of Kings and
Chronicles, as is befitting a king: but in many things, I find
some seeming contradictions ; and one book saith more, and the
other less, in many circumstances the latter being a supply to the
former. Now I seeing this judicious and well- contrived book

224 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

of the Four Evangelists, I gladly would have these skilful persons
to make me another book that might so be ordered, that I might
read these stories of Kings and Chronicles so interwoven by
them, as if one pen had written the whole books ; and to make it
a complete history altogether : yet so again ordering the matter,
that I may also read them severally and apart, if I would. I
have often spoken to many of my chaplains about this thing ;
but they have excused themselves (from it) as a difficult work,
and (they) not skilful in that way." " Let your majesty rest
contented, and doubt not, but with the best expedition that can
be, the thing shall be done as you intimate. Doctor Cosin shall
acquaint them speedily with your majesty's pleasure."

So intimation was given them at Gidding of this thing : and
they with all care and diligence instantly set about it. And thus
was this second work, (as you see in the insuing title,) begun
and finished in a year's time. And what happened in the pre-
senting and acceptation of it, you shall find by the insuing dis-
course that follows upon it.

THE SECOND WOIIK done at Little Gidding, whereof the title is
as you see, was in the time of twelve months finished ; and the
proceedings that happened thereupon, here insueth.

The king's most excellent majesty having in the interim often
demanded when the book would be done, saying the time seemed
long unto him till he saw it :

It being now sent up to London, my lord of Canterbury under-
standing so much by Dr. Cosin and one Mr. Ramsay, that had
married one of the daughters of the family, he being a minister,
desired it might be brought such a day to court. My lord took
it, and perused it, and to admiration beheld it, saying, u Here is
a master-piece indeed in all kinds, inside and outside, all per-
formed by those judicious heads, and active hands of Little
Gidding. Sure these, and the like words they intend, deserve to
make it alter its name from Parva to Magna. Come, said he,
let us go to the king, who, I am sure, will bid us welcome for
tl»is royal present."1

At their coming into the room where the king was, he seeing

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 225

my lord of Canterbury to have a stately great book in his two
hands, presently rose out of his chair where he was sitting, many
lords then standing round about him : " What," said he, " shall
I now enjoy that rich jewel I have thus long desired 1 Have you
my lord, brought me my book?" " Yea sir," replied the bishop
of Canterbury. " Give it me ; give it me," said the king. " Your
expectations, sir," said he, "are not only performed, but out of
doubt many ways surpassed. For my own part, I wonder at the
work, and all the parts of it." " Let me have it ;" said the king.
So smiling he took it, and carried it to the table.

Then first seriously viewing the outside of the book, being
bound curiously in purple velvet, and that also most artificially
gilt upon the velvet in an extraordinary manner, he said, " My
lords, the outside thus glorious, what think you will be the inside
and matter of it ?" Then untying the stately string, he opening
it read the frontispiece and contents of the book : then turning
to my lord of Canterbury, he said, " You have given me a right
character of the work : truly it passeth what I could have wished :
and what I think none but those heads and hands in my kingdom,
can do the like again." And so he began to view it leaf by leaf,
and turned it all over very diligently, observing the form and con-
trivement of it. Then looking upon his lords, that had their eyes
also fixed upon it, he said, " My lords, this, this is a jewel in all
respects, to be continually worn on a king's breast, and in his
heart." And then he shewed them the fair orderly contrivement
of the joint books of Kings and Chronicles, thus united together
in one history, "as if written," said he, "by one man's pen."
And so, many words passed about it, between the lords and the
king, they extolling it as an excellent piece. " Well," said the
king, " I will not part with this diamond, for all those in rny
Jewel-house. For it is so delightful to me : and I know the vir-
tues of it will pass all the precious stones in the world. It is a
most rare crystall glass, and most useful, and needful, and profit-
able for me and all kings. It shews and represents to the life,
God's exceeding high and rich mercies, to all pious and virtuous
kings, and likewise his severe justice to all ill and bad. What
then more profitable to us all, or more needful? It shall, I
assure you, be my companion in the day time : and the sweetest
perfumed bags that can lie under my head in the night. Truly I
am very much taken with it at all times ; but more, it being thus
comprised in a full pleasant history. My lord of Canterbury, I

VOL. IV. Q

226 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

now perceive that these good people at Gidding can do more
works in this kind, than this. Let them have my hearty thanks
returned. I know they look for none, neither will they receive
any reward. Yet let them know, as occasion shall be, I will not
forget them : and God bless them in their good intentions ! " And
so after some more talk the lords had of Gidding, the king took
up the book, and went away with it in his arms.

Some while after, doctor Cosin gave notice, that the king, the
more he perused both books given him, the more he liked them ;
and had conference with him about the printing of them, that, as
he said, " all his people might have the benefit of them." And
doctor Cosin told the king, it was a kingly motion, and by his
majesty's favour, they should be put out, as at his command, and
the latter as done by his directions.

N. It is to be known, that these works were so done as if they
had been printed the ordinary way ; as most that saw them did
think so. But it was in another kind done; though all was
printed indeed, and not written, as some may conceive at the
reading of the titles of the books.

THE THIRD WORK was occasioned and effected upon a letter
sent to Gidding from a person of honour, that the prince, having
seen the king his father's book, that was first of all presented
him, of the Concordance of the Four Evangelists, &c. would have
fain begged it of the king ; but he told him, he might not part
with that rich jewel, for he daily made use of it ; but if he desired
one, he made no question, but the same heart and hands that
framed his, would fit him also with one for his use; and
hoped he would make good use of it, for it was the book of
books, &c.

Upon the intimation given of the prince's desire, though Mr.
Nicholas Ferrar, senior, was then with God, yet his young
nephew, that bare his name, whom his uncle entirely loved, (not
permitting him to be any where brought up but at Gidding. and
under his own eye) having seen all the former works done in the
house; his beloved kinswomen, that were the handy-work mis-
tresses of the former, were also most willing to lay to their help-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 227

ing assistances; so the young youth, having attained to the
knowledge of many languages (as you shall hear hereafter, being
a study that his wise, judicious uncle, Nicholas Ferrar, had put
him upon, finding him every way fitted naturally for such know-
ledge,) they laying their heads together, thought a concordance
of four several languages would be most useful, and beneficial,
and pleasant to the young prince's disposition ; and so, in the
name of God, after all materials were provided and ready, they
uniting their heads and hands lovingly together, setting apart so
many hours in the fore-noons, and so many in the afternoons, as
their other exercises and occasions permitted, constantly met in
a long fair spacious room, which they named the Concordance
Chamber, wherein were large tables round the sides of the walls,
placed for their better conveniency and contrivement of their
works of this and the like kind ; and therein also were placed
two very large and great presses, which were turned with iron
bars, for the effecting of their designs.

And now we are in the Concordance room (which was all
coloured over with green pleasant colour varnished, for the more
pleasure to their eyes, and a chimney in it for more warmth, as
occasion served,) let me here relate, that each person of the
family, and some other good friends of their kindred, gave each
their sentence, which should be written round the upper part of
the walls of the room ; that so when they entered the chamber,
or at any time looked up from the walls, these sentences pre-
sented themselves to their eyes. — As you entered in at the door
into the room, over your head at that end was written that sen-
tence of Scripture, that their uncle, of blessed memory, did fre-
quently use upon several occasions.

At the upper end was written high upon the wall —

" Glory le to God on High,
Peace on Earth, Good will toward Men"

^Prosper thou, 0 Lord, the work of our hands.
0 prosper thou our handy works"

And under it, (on each side of that upper window,) on the one
side was written :

" Thou art too delicate, 0 brother, if thou desirest to reign
both here with the world, and hereafter to reign with Christ in

228 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

And on the other side of the window ;

" Innocency is never better lodged than at the Sign of Labour"
And then on both sides of the walls there are written,

" Love not sleep, least thou come to poverty.

Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread."

" He that spendeih his time — "

" Seest thou a man diligent in his business, Jte shall stand before
kings."

" The industrious man hath no leisure to sin ; and the idle man
hath no power to avoid sin."

THIS THIRD WORK thus finished, it was upon consultation
thought fitting, that it should not go single and alone, but to stay
awhile till Nicholas Ferrar, junior, had finished and ordered four
other pieces of works, being businesses of many and several lan-
guages, and the titles of them are those four succeeding frontis-
pieces, that follow one after the other, as you have seen : the
Four Evangelists, in such and such languages as is there de-
scribed, written by his own hand, and so composed by his head
and industry.

All these five pieces, that one for the prince, and four for the
king, being all made ready, they were carried up to London ; but
in the way they went by Cambridge, and there were shewed to
some eminent persons, a bishop then present there, and other
learned scholars (and before that time, also to the bishop of
Peterborough, and other doctors that there had sight of them).
All these learned men gave their approbation to the works, and
no small commendation, as well as admiration, that they were so
contrived and ordered, for substance and form, by one of those
tender years.

Nicholas Ferrar coming to London, as he had directions, ad-
dressed himself to my lord of Canterbury, from him to receive
orders how to proceed. Who when he saw the young man, and
was informed of his errand, by those that conducted him to his
presence, the young man kneeling down, craving his blessing, and
kissing his hand, my lord embraced him very lovingly, took him
up, and after some salutes, he desired a sight of the books ; which

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 229

when he had well seen and perused, he very highly commended
them in every particular, and said, " These truly are jewels only
for princes : and your printed one will greatly take the prince, to
whom I perceive you intend it. So will the other four pieces be
no less acceptable to the king himself ; and so all things, the form,
the matter, the writing, will make the king admire them, I know.
And," said he, '" but that my eyes see the things, I should hardly
have given credit to my ears, from any relation made of them by
another. But," said he, "I now find, great is education, when it
meets with answerable ability, and had its directions from so
eminent a man, as that counsellor was, that gave the hints and
rise to all these contrivements before his death." And after
much discourse he gave Nicholas Ferrar leave to depart. And
gave directions that next day in the afternoon, being Maundy
Thursday, Nicholas Ferrar should be in such a room at White
Hall.

The bishop came at the time he had appointed to that room,
where he found Nicholas Ferrar and others waiting his leisure.
And they perceived he came out of another room where the king
then was. " Come," said he, " in God's name, follow me, where
I go ;" and led them into a room, where the king stood by the
fire, with many nobles attending him. When the king saw the
archbishop enter the room, he said, " What, have you brought
with you those rarities and jewels you told me of 2" " Yea, sire,"
replied the bishop, " here is the young gentleman, and his works."
So the bishop taking him by the hand, led him up to the king.
He falling down on his knees, the king gave him his hand to kiss,
bidding him rise up. The box was opened ; and Nicholas Ferrar
first presented to the king that book made for the prince : who
taking it from him, looking well on the outside, which was all
green velvet, stately and richly gilt all over, with great broad
strings, edged with gold lace, and curiously bound, said, " Here
is a fine book for Charles indeed ! I hope it will soon make him
in love with what is within it : for I know it is good." So open-
ing it, and with much pleasure perusing it, he said merrily to the
lords, " What think you of it ? For my part, I like it in all
respects exceeding well ; and find Charles will here have a double
benefit by the well contrivement of it, not only obtain by the
daily reading in it a full information of our blessed Saviour's life,
doctrine, and actions (the chief foundation of Christian religion ;)
but the knowledge of four languages, A couple of better things

230 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

a prince cannot desire ; nor the world recommend unto him. And
lo ! here are also store of rare pictures to delight his eye with."

Then Nicholas Ferrar, the king looking upon him, bowing
himself to the ground, said, " May it please your sacred majesty,
this work was undertaken upon the prince's command. But I
dared not present it to him, till it had your majesty's approbation
and allowance." " Why so ?" said the king ; " It is an excellent
thing for him, and will do him much good." " Sir," said Nicholas
Ferrar, " my learned and religious wise uncle, under whose wings
I was covered, and had my education from my youth, gave me
amongst other rules, this one : that I should never give any thing,
though never so good or fitting, to any person whatever, that had
a superior over him, without his consent and approbation first
obtained : as nothing to a son, to a wife, to a servant : for he
said it was not seemly nor comely so to do. Whereupon, sir, I
have by the favour of my lord of Canterbury's grace, come to
present this piece unto your majesty's view, and to beg your good
leave to carry it to the prince." The king with attention heard
all, and turning him to the lords, said, " You all hear this wise
counsel, and you all see the practice of it. I do assure you, it
doth wonderfully please me. I like the rule well : and it is worthy
of all our practice. And now you see we all have gained by the
sight of this rich jewel a third good thing." Then turning him
to the lord of Canterbury, he said, " Let this young gentleman
have your letters to the prince to-morrow, to Richmond, and let
him carry this present. It is a good day you know, and a good
work would be done upon it." So he gave Nicholas Ferrar the
book : who carrying it to the box, took out of it a very large
paper book, which was the FOURTH WORK, and laid it on the table
before the king. " For whom," said the king, "is this model?"
" For your majesty's eyes, if you please to honour it so much."
" And that I will gladly do," said the king, " and never be weary
of such sights as I know you will offer unto me."

The king having well perused the title page, beginning, " The
Gospel of our Lord and Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, in eight several
languages, &c" said unto the lords, " You all see, that one good
thing produceth another. Her< \\v have more and moiv r;u
from print now to pen. These are fair hands \\vll written, and as
well composed." Then replied the lord of Canterbury, "when
your majesty hath seen all, yon \\iil have more and more cause to
admire." M What !" said tin- kin«j, u is it possible- we shall !><•-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 231

hold yet more rarities ?" "Then," said the bishop to Nicholas
Ferrar, " reach the other piece that is in the box :" and this we
call the FIFTH WORK, the title being Novum Testamentum, &c. in
viginti quatuor linguis, &c. The king opening the book said,
" Better and better. This is the largest and fairest paper that
ever I saw." Then, reading the title page, he said, " What is
this ? What have we here ? The incomparablest book this will
be, as ever eye beheld. My lords, come, look well upon it. This
finished must be the emperor of all books. It is the crown of all
works. It is an admirable master-piece. The world cannot
match it. I believe you are all of my opinion. The lords all
seconded the king, and each spake his mind of it. " I observe
two things amongst others," said the king, " very remarkable, if
not admirable. The first is, how it is possible, that a young man
of twenty-one years of age," (for he had asked the lord of Can-
terbury before, how old Nicholas Ferrar was) " should ever attain
to the understanding and knowledge of more languages, than he
is of years ; and to have the courage to venture upon such an
Atlas work, or Hercules labour. The other is also of high com-
mendation, to see him write so many several languages, so well as
these are, each in its proper character. Sure so few years had
been well spent, some men might think, to have attained only to
the writing thus fairly of these twenty-four languages." All the
lords replied, his majesty had judged right ; and said, except they
had seen as they did, the young gentleman there, and the book
itself, all the world should not have persuaded them to the belief
of it. And so much discourse passed upon the business to and
fro, and many questions demanded and answered, here, too long to
repeat.

" Well," said the king to my lord of Canterbury, " there is
one thing yet that I would be fully satisfied in, and see the proof
and real demonstration of it, over and above what I have yet
seen. I do really believe and know, that these persons here
would not present this unto me, or any thing else, that were not
full of truth. I say, I no way doubt of all I have seen : yet if
I may be resolved in one question, that I shall demand, it will
wonderfully please me. The thing, my lord, is this. Let me, if
it be possible, have more than this affirmation, by word and pen
thus shewed me, that he understands all these several languages,
and can English them, word for word, properly. I know yourself,

232 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

my lord, and many other men in my court, can try and prove him
in many of them ; but where shall I find men to try and pose
him in all the others, that are so unusual and scarce known 2" My
lord of Canterbury, being somewhat at a stand, replied, " Sir,
you need not be so scrupulous, but be confident that he can and
doth understand all of them :" and then looking upon Nicholas
Ferrar, to see what he could say for himself in this kind ; who all
the while stood silent attending the end and upshot of the king's
demands ; then bowing himself to the ground at his majesty's feet,
he spake in this manner and effect. " May it please your sacred
majesty, the difficulty you in your great wisdom have propounded
so judiciously, to have a present proof given you, that I understand
all these several twenty-four languages, and can translate them
into English or Latin, is that which I conceived your majesty
would put me upon, when you should see that which you have
done ; and to that intent I now brought with me, what will and
may fully satisfy your majesty, as it was my part to do, and to
prepare for it in that kind, as you require." " Let us then now
see it," said the king. Now you are to know that this proof-book
Nicholas Ferrar had of purpose concealed it, from my lord of
Canterbury, not shewing it him, when he at first saw the rest of
them. So Nicholas Ferrar presently stepped to the box, it being
covered under papers at the bottom of it, and came and gave it
into the king's hands. The king opening it, and smiling, reading
the title page of it, which was this, Sacrosanctum Sancti Johannis
Evangelium, in totidem Linguis quot sunt Capita, &c. " I now
see I shall be fully contented ;" and so turning the book all over,
leaf by leaf, and perusing it, seeing each chapter interpreted in
each language, word for word with English or Latin, he called
my lord of Canterbury to the table, who all this while stood
somewhat in doubt what this proof would be ; " Lo ! here is an
ample proof and manifestation, wittily contrived ; and I am fully
satisfied in all things. He could never have done this, but that
he is a master of them all. And I am the more glad I raised the
doubt ; but much more that he hath thus undeniably made a full
proof of his rare abilities in every kind. What say you to it, my
lord?" Who replied, it was far beyond what he should IIUM-
thought of ; and was right glad to see it. So many questions
were asked and answered to the king's good liking. Tlu- kin«r
turning to the rest of the lords, who also took the book and \\«T<-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 233

admiring at it, and spake of it in no small way of commendation,
said, " We have spent part of our Maimday Thursday to good
purpose, have we not, my lords, think your1 They all replied
they had seen those good things and rarities, that they never did
before, nor should see the like they believed again for the future.
" It is very rightly said," said the king. So looking upon Nicho-
las Ferrar he willed him, that he should go the next morning to
Richmond, and carry the prince the book made for hiui. " And
after the holiday," said he, " return to my Lord of Canterbury ;
and then you shall know my good approbation of yourself and
all you have done ; and he shall signify to you my will and plea-
sure, what I will have you to do, and where you are to go."

So dismissing him with a cheerful royal look, the king said to
my lord of Canterbury, " Alas ! what pity is it, that this youth
hath not his speech, altogether so ready as his pen, and great
understanding is." For the king had observed, that sometimes
at the first bringing out his words, he would make a small pause ;
but once having begun, he spake readily and roundly, as other
men did. " Sir," said my lord of Canterbury, " I conceive that
small impediment in his tongue hath been very happy for him."
"How can you, my lord, make that good?" " Sir," said he,
" out of doubt, the small defect in that one tongue hath gained,
by the directions of that learned and wise uncle of his, that
directed him to the study of all these languages, (as finding his
great abilities of wit, memory, and industry,) the attaining of
them, and producing these and the like rare works, that you see,
done by him to admiration. So oftentimes God, in his great
wisdom and love, turns those things, we account our prejudice,
to our greatest happiness, if with pleasure and chearfulness we
undergo them, and to his own further glory. So that neither he
nor his parents have cause to grieve at that small defect he hath
in his one tongue, that by it hath gained so many more, that
make him more eminent, than that one could have done. For
certainly, sir, so many other abilities that are united in the young
man, had taken and put him upon some other studies, than this
of languages, if this small imperfection had not accompanied it :
and instead of one mother tongue, he hath gained twenty-four ;
a full recompence I take it to be." " Well," said the king, " you
have somewhat to the purpose, my lord." Then said my lord of
Holland, " He should do well to carry always in his mouth some
small pebble stones, that would (help) him much." " Nay, nay,"

234 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

said the king, " I have tried that 5, but it helps not. I will tell
him the best and surest way is to take good deliberation at first,
and not to be too sudden in speech. And let him also learn to
sing, that will do well." Then said one of the lords to Nicholas
Ferrar, " Do you not learn to sing, and music also ?" He replied
he did. So humble reverence done, Nicholas Ferrar going
away, my lord of Canterbury stepped to Nicholas Ferrar and
told him, he must not fail to come to Lambeth, and call
for his letter in the morning, for bishop Duppa, the prince's
tutor.

This was done next morning ; and so in a coach with four
horses, Nicholas Ferrar went to Richmond, with some other com-
pany of his friends. Coming to Richmond, the bishop's secretary
acquainted his lord, of a letter sent to him by the lord of Canter-
bury. The bishop was then with the prince, who coming from
him, Nicholas Ferrar delivered him the letter. The contents
read, he imbraced Nicholas Ferrar, who kneeled down to crave
his blessing, and kiss his hands. Nicholas Ferrar was called for
to come in to the prince, who gave him his hand to kiss. He
presented the book unto him. The prince hastily opened it, say-
ing, " Here's a gallant outside :" gave it then to the bishop : he
read the title-page and frontis-piece. Then the prince took it,
and turning it all over, leaf by leaf, said, " Better and better."
The courtiers that stood about him, demanded how he liked that
rare piece. " Well, well, very," said he. " It pleaseth me exceed-
ingly ; and I wish daily to read in it." So many questions were
asked and answered. And the little duke of York, having also
seen the book, and fine pictures in it, came to Nicholas Ferrar,
and said unto him, " Will you not make me also such another

5 / have tried that.] The king here alludes to the imperfections of his own
utterance : respecting which an interesting circumstance is recorded by sir
Philip Warwick. He is speaking of a critical season; the three days of
Charles's appearance on his trial before the regicides.

" The king's deportment was very majestic and steady ; and though his
tongue usually hesitated yet it was free at this time ; for he was never dis-
composed in mind." — Memoirs, p. 339.

His elder brother, prince Henry, had suffered under a similar imperfection.

" His speech," says sir Charles Cornwallis, treasurer of his household,
" was slow and somewhat impedimented. . . . Oftentimes he would say of
himself, that he had the most unserviceahle tongue of any man living."— Dis-
course of the most illustrious prince Henry, &c. Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv.
p. 339, 40.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 235

fine book ? I pray you do it." Nicholas Ferrar replied, his grace
should not fail to have one made for him also. But said the
duke, " How long will it be before I have it?" " With all good
speed," said Nicholas Ferrar. " But how long time will that be ?
I pray tell the gentle-women at Gidding, I will heartily thank
them, if they will dispatch it." (For he had heard Nicholas
Ferrar tell the prince, who questioned with him, who bound the
book so finely, and made it so neatly and stately, and had laid on
all the pictures so curiously ; that it was done by the art and
hands of his kins- women at Gidding.) All the courtiers standing
by, heartily laughed to see the duke's earnestness, who would
have no nay ; but a promise speedily to have one made for him 6,
like his brother's. The prince at last went to dinner, expressing
much joy at his book.

The bishop took Nicholas Ferrar by the hand, and with great
demonstration of favour led him into a room, where divers young
lords were, the duke of Buckingham and others, who sitting down
to dinner, the bishop placed Nicholas Ferrar by the table at his
side. The bishop demanded many questions at table concerning
Gidding, to which he received satisfaction ; saying, my lord of
Canterbury's letters had informed him of what had passed before
the king at White Hall ; and of the rare pieces which were
shewed the king, whereof he said he hoped one day to have the
happiness to see them ; and said, " This present given the prince
was very acceptable, and he made no question but the prince would
receive not only much pleasure in it, but great good by it in every
kind."

After dinner ended, and other courtiers come to talk with
Nicholas Ferrar, the bishop departed the room, and not long
after came in again ; took Nicholas Ferrar by the hand, and car-
ried him into a room, where the prince was, the duke, and divers
court ladies looking upon the book. The bishop after a while
told the prince what books were presented to the king his father,
at White Hall. The prince demanded to see them also : but the
bishop said they were left there. " Ah," said he, "I would you
had brought them, that I might also have seen those rare things."
So after many questions demanded and answered, it growing late,
Nicholas Ferrar craved leave to depart; and humbly bowing

6 One made for him.'] In the margin it is added, " The book which was
made and printed for the duke never had opportunity to be presented to his
grace. It is yet still at Gidding."

236 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

himself to the prince, the prince rose up, and came towards him,
and moving his hat, the bishop standing by him, said, u I am
much beholden to you, for the jewel you have given rne, and for
the contrivement of it ; and to the Gidding gentlewomen, that
have taken so much pains about it, to make it so curious a piece."
Then putting his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of
twenty shillings pieces of gold, saying (Nicholas Ferrar stepping
back), " Nay, I do not give you this as any reward in recompence
of your book, for I esteem it every way above much gold ; and
prize it at a far greater rate. Only you shall take this as a pre-
sent testimony of my acceptance of it, and my esteem of you. I
shall study how I may in the future let all know how much I
deem of your worth, and the book :" and so gave him his handful
of gold. And so Nicholas Ferrar departing, divers courtiers
would needs accompany him to his coach, and the bishop down
stairs. And so, with great demonstration of much civility they
parted, the bishop willing his secretary to accompany him to the
coach.

Saturday morning repair was made to the bishop of Canterbury,
to let him know what had passed at Richmond ; for so he had
given order ; who said he much longed to know what entertain-
ment was given to the book, and person. He liked all well that
passed, and said he was right glad, that things went as he hoped ;
and should acquaint the king with all. Then taking Nicholas
Ferrar's father aside, he said, " Let your care now cease for your
hopeful son, or for his future preferment, or estate, or present
maintenance. God hath so inclined the king's heart, and his
liking to your son, and the gifts God hath indued him with ; :md
having been informed of his virtuous, pious education, and singular
industry and Christian deportment, and of his sober inclination,
that he will take him from you into his own protection and car--.
and make him his scholar and servant ; and hath given me order,
that after the holidays being past, I should send him to Oxford ;
and that there he shall be maintained in all things needful for
him at the king's proper charge; and shall not (need) what he
can desire, to further him in the prosecution of these works he
hath begun in matter of lan^ua^es : and what help of books, or
h»-ads, or hands he shall require, he shall not be unfurnished with ;
for the king would have this work of the New Te>tament. in
t \\enty-fnur lan^uaiM'-. t<» be accomplished by his care andas>i>t
ance ; and to have the help of all the learned men that can

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 237

had, to that end. Assure yourself he shall want nothing. In a
word the king is greatly in love with him : and you will, and
have cause to bless and praise God for such a son." So John
Ferrar being ravished with joy, in all humble manner gave thanks
to my lord's grace. And they returning to Nicholas Ferrar, my
lord embraced him, and gave him his benediction. Nicholas
Ferrar kneeling down, took the bishop by the hand, and kissed
it. He took him up in his arms, and laid his hand to his cheek,
and earnestly besought God Almighty to bless him, and increase
all graces in him, and fit him every day more and more for an
instrument of his glory here upon earth, and a saint in heaven ;
" which," said he, " is the only happiness that can be desired,
and ought to be our chief end in all our actions. God bless you !
God bless you ! I have told your father, what is to be done for
you, after the holidays. God will provide for you, better than
your father can: — God bless you! and keep you!" So they
parted from his grace.

But he never saw him more ! for within a few days after 7,
Nicholas Ferrar fell ill : and on Easter day he was desirous,
being next morning (having found himself not well the day
before) to receive the communion at Paul's, whither he went
early in the morning, and communicated ; and returning home,
had little appetite to his dinner, eating little or nothing. He
went yet to a sermon in the afternoon ; but at night grew some-
what worse. And on Monday morning, his father with all care
and diligence went to a learned physician, who came and visited
him, and gave him what he thought fitting ; but he grew worse
and worse. Then was another physician joined to the first.
They consulted, and prescribed things for him, but he mended
not; but with great patience and chearfulness did bear his
sickness, and was very comfortable in it to all that came to visit
him, wholly referring himself to God's good will and pleasure ;
only telling his friends, and the bishop of Peterborough, doctor
Towers, that loved him dearly, and came to visit him twice in
that short time, that he was no way troubled to die, and to go to
heaven, where he knew was only peace and quiet and joys per-
manent, whereas all things in the world were but trouble and
vexation : and death must be the end of all men ; and he that
went soonest to heaven, was the happiest man. The bishop

7 A few days after.'] " Easter-Eve." Margin of the manuscript.

2.38 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

would say, when he went away, and had a long time talked with
him, that Nicholas Ferrar was better prepared to die than he,
and was a true child of God : and could comfort himself in God,
without directions from him, or others : that his pious education
under his pious uncle of blessed memory, his old and dear friend,
was now shewed forth in these his so young years, that they had
taken mighty root downward, and in his soul, and now sprang up
with not only leaves and fair blossoms, but with good and ripe
fruit of heavenly matters. It joyed his heart to see him so dis-
posed to God-ward, and to so willingly leave the world, and the
late testimonies of worth, that he had received from the b<
the land. That sure he was too good longer to stay here. God
would take him to heaven ; and willed his father to prepare for
his departure ; and to take it with all thankfulness to God ;
and not look what himself he might think had here lost on
earth, but to that crown which his good son, by the mercies
of God, and merits of his Saviour, he was persuaded would
soon enjoy in heaven. " He is too good ; he is too good,"
said he, "to live longer in these ill approaching times. For
there is much fear now that the glory of church and state is at
the highest/1 For then tumults began : and the bishop of
Canterbury's house at Lambeth 8, was one night assaulted by a
rabble of lewd people ; which when Nicholas Ferrar was told one
morning, as he lay in his sick bed, " Alas ! alas ! " said he, " God
help his church, and poor England ! I now fear indeed, what
my dear uncle said before he died, is at hand, that evil days were
coming, and happy were they that went to heaven before they
came. Can or will the insolency of such a rabble be unpunished ?
It is high time that supreme authority take care of these growing
evils. God amend all ! Truly, truly, it troubles me/' And wlu-n
at other times some friend would say to him. " Good cousin,
are you not grieved to leave this world ; you are now so young,
and in the flower of your youth and hopes ?" He would cheerfully
answer, " No, truly ; I leave all to God's good will and pleasure,
that is my best father, and knoweth what is best for me. Alas ! I
am too young to be mine own judge, what is best for me, to die

8 At Lambeth.'] In the church-warden's accounts of the parish of Lamlu-th
in this year, 1640, is the following entry :

" May 8th, Paide for trayning when the mutinie was in Lambeth

againest the archbishopp £1 o <>."

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 239

or live ; but let all be, as God's will is. If I live, I desire it may
be to his further glory, and mine own soul's good, and the
comfort and service, that I intend to be to my father, that loves
me so dearly, and in his old age to be his servant. If I die, I
hope my father will submit all to God's will and pleasure, and
rejoice at my happiness in heaven, where by the merits of my
blessed Lord and Saviour, I know I shall go out of this wretched
life." In this manner, and upon the visits of friends, he would
discourse ; and the bishop came to him two days before he
died, and found him most cheerful to die, and to be with God, as
he would say to him ; who gave him absolution, and with many
tears departed, saying to his father, " God give you consolation ;
and prepare yourself to part with your good son. He will, in a
few hours, I think, go to a better world : for he is no way for
this, that I see, by his body and by his soul. Be of good comfort ;
you give him but again to him, that gave him you for a season."
And in two days after, God took him away ; who died praying
and calling upon God, " Lord Jesus receive my soul ! Lord
receive it!" Amen.

This following EPITAPH will more at large inform the reader
concerning Nicholas Ferrar junior, his life and death, briefly thus
expressed by a friend of his, Mr. Mark Frank, once fellow of
Pembroke Hall in Cambridge.

Lector,

quisquis es

f vel sortis humanae "|

quern < vel elusse spei > miseret,

[_ vel ereptse virtutis J
Siste te paulum ad hoc lachrymarum monumentum,

Sepulchrum Nicolai
generosse Ferrarorum families hseredis ;

piissimi illius Nicolai,

quern ipse orbis admiratur

tanquam unicum integree virtutis domicilium,

Charissimi nepotis :
Londini, si patriam quseris, oriundi,
Geddingce Parva, juxta Venantodunum, educati.

Juvenis nimirum
qui, inter privatas illas solitudines,

Stupenda sua indole actus
Ipsum sibi Academiam habuit.

240 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

Qui ad vicesimam tertiam linguara
vix tutorem habuit, vix indiguit,

vix annos petiit ;
Et tamen annorum numerum linguis duabiis

superavit :
tngenio quam annis major.

iGrammatica, Necessitati,
Historia, Otio,
Philosophia, Studio, I f ..
Mathematica, Voluptati, '
Musica, Pietati,
Theologia, Praxi,

Qui

eleganti, admiranda potius industria

in sacris concinnandis Harmon iis

(quibus ne verbum aut superesse

aut deesse Evangelistis ostenditur)

Regi et Aulae cognitus
Et doctrinae simul et religionis specimen dedit.

f Precibua "I
Qui < Jejuniis > crebris,

(

f Precibus "1
li < Jejuniis >
I Vigiliis J

Abstiiientia perpetua

vel a primo decennio Deo inserviit

Familiae suae et exemplum, et solatium pietatis ;

summae erga parentes obedientiae,

singularis erga amicos amicitiae,

eximiae erga omnes humanitatis,

profusae erga pauperes benignitatis,

Verbis, Veste, Vita, sobrius, modestus, humilimus,

C ParentumVota 1

Qui in omnibus \ Amicorum Spem f longe post se reliquit.
*• Omnium Fidem ^

Nee hie stetit ;

dum majora adhuc anhelans

nullum studiis suis statuerat

nisi Universae Naturae terminum.

Sed Natura praepropere terminum posuit

ne deesset tandem velocissimo ingenio

quod evolveret.

Libentissimi hie assensit

ut mens, nondum satiata scientiis

inveniret in Deo quod in terris non potuit.

Inde est

Amicorum dolori, reipublicae literariae damno,
Spei humanse confusioni, gloriae tamen suap

quod hinc abiit
vel ad Doctorum vel Virginum Chorum,

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 241

Anno

Regis Carol! XVI0.
.Etatis s\i3d XXI0.

Christ! MDCXL

Die Maii XIX0.

There was found amongst other papers in his study this follow-
ing; in this manner, that all might be printed in one book
together, at one view to be seen, in two pages of the book, as it
opened, twenty-five on one side, twenty-five on the other.

Novum Domini Nostri Jesu Christ!

Testamentum,

Lingua

1. Hebraica. 26. Anglica.

2. Syriaca. 27. Saxonica.

3. Aj-abica. 28. Italica.

4. Chaldaica. 29. Gallica.

5. ^Ethiopica. 30. Hispanica.

6. Samaritanica. 31. Belgica.

7. Armenica. 32. Gothica.

8. Cophtica. 33. Vandalica.

9. Sclavonica. 34. Estonica.

10. Moscovitica. 35. Prutenica.

11. Grseca. 36. Jazigica.

12. Latina. 37. Illyrica.

13. Carabro-Britannica. 38. Epirotica.

14. Hibernica. 39. Persica.

15. Monica. 40. Georgiana.

16. Hungarica. 41. Turcica.

17. Cantabrica. 42. Tartarica.

18. Cauchica. 43. Jacobitica.

19. Wallaccica. 44. Indica orientali.

20. Rhaetica. 45. Japonica.

21. Islandica. 46. Danica.

22. Swedica. 47. Polonica.

23. Finennica. 48. Bohemica.

24. Livonica. 49. Lusatica.

25. Germanica. 50. Indica Occident, vel Americana.

This by the help of God I intend to effect: and also to translate the
Church Catechism into these languages; so likewise the 117 psalm,
" Praise the Lord all ye heathens : praise him all ye nations," and pre-
sent them to the king, that he may print them, and send them to all
nations, &c.

VOL. IV. Jl

242 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

7. SEVENTH WORK.

The whole law of God, as it is delivered in the five books of Moses,
methodically distributed into three great classes, moral, ceremonial, political.
And each of these again subdivided into several heads as the variety of
matter requires ; wherein each particular subject dispersedly related in the
forenamed books, is reduced to the proper head and place whereunto it
belongeth. Containing in all three hundred thirty-three heads : also every
head of the political law is reduced to that precept of the moral law, to which
it properly belongs ; likewise there are sundry treatises, shewing in what,
and how, divers of the ceremonial laws were shadows and types of the
Messiah that was to come. And also in what Adam, Abel, Noah, Abram,
Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Gideon, Jephtha, Samson, David,
Solomon and his Temple, Elisha, Job, Daniel, Jonah, the pillar fire, the Red
Sea, the rock, and manna, were all figures of our Lord and blessed Saviour
J. Christ.

With an harmony of all the prophets, foretelling the birth, life, and death
of Jesus Christ that was to come ; to confirm the Christian and convince the
Jew : together with a discourse of the twelve stones in Aaron's pectoral, their
several virtues, &c.

As also an harmonical parallel between the types of the O. Testament,
and the four Evangelists' relations concerning our dear Lord and Saviour,
respectively prefigured by the holy prophets, and other sacred writers.
Moreover there are divers treatises showing how, and in what manner, times
and places, the several promises and threatenings, foretold by Moses, did
accordingly befal the Jews : with the fulfilling also of our Saviour's prophecy
in the destruction of their city and temple, and the desolation of the land of
Jewry : with the miseries which the Jews have sustained under many nations,
and in particular here in England, France, Spain, Germany, &c. and their
strange dispositions, and God's judgment on them to this day.

All to testify the truth of the Divine Oracles.

This work is also set forth with abundance of pictures, the better to express
the stories and contents of it.

This precedent work, called the Seventh piece, was also contrived in
Nicholas Ferrar's lifetime, and a draught of it made, though not altogether 9
with the additions and annexations to it : but was after his death contrived
fully, as in the manner before set down : and made for the prince's use, to
be presented to him, by the advice of some judicious and learned friends,
that held it a work worthy of his acceptance, and might be both of pleasure
and contentment, and useful to him in many kinds.

9 Though not altogether.'] " But in his lifetime, he gave one in this kind to
the bishop of Canterbury, containing only the first part of the whole Law of
God. This the bishop sent to the university Library of Oxford, where
there it is to be now seen, bound up, and so done by the hands of the
Virgins of (Jiddinir. in green velvet, fairly bound and gilt." Marginal note
in the MS.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 243

It so happened that in the year 1 642 the troubles in this land
began to grow to height ; and the king and prince were forced
by the disorders at London to repair to York. And the king
lodging with the prince and some other nobility at Huntingdon
one night, 'the next day afternoon it was his gracious pleasure to
come and honour Little Gidding with his royal presence, the
prince attending him, the palsgrave, the duke of Lennox, and
divers other nobles ; and where his majesty staid some hours.

First he went to view the chapel, and was pleased to express
his good liking of it, saying, it was a fine neat thing. " But,"
said he, " where are those images, &c. so much talked of?" An-
swer was made, " Such as his majesty now beheld it, was all that
ever was there seen, or in it." He smiling said to the duke and
palsgrave, " I knew it full well, that never any were in it. But
what will not malice invent ?" One lord said, " It was affirmed
to me, that there was a cross in one of the windows in painted
glass." Answer was made, " Never any, but that, if so they
meant it, that was upon the crown, that there was placed upon
the lion's head, that did, in the west window at the entry into the
church over the door, stand, where the king's arms l were placed
in painted glass, and the lion that supported the arms had on the
crown he wore on his head a little cross, as was ever used in the
king's arms and supporters : and this was all the crosses that
ever were seen in Gidding church ; or any other painted glass or
pictures." The king looking up upon it, said, " What strange
reports are in the world ! " So the prince, palsgrave and duke all
smiled ; and the duke said, " Envy was quick-sighted.'1'' — " Nay,"
said the palsgrave, " can see what is not"

Then the king was pleased to go into the house, and demanded
where the great book was that he had heard was made for
Charles's use. It was soon brought unto him ; and the largeness
and weight of it was such that he that carried it seemed to be
well laden. Which the duke observing, said, " Sir, one of your
strongest guard will but be able to carry this book." It being
laid on the table before the king, it was told him, that though it
were then fairly bound up in purple velvet, that the outside was
not fully finished, as it should be, for the prince's use and better
liking. " Well," said the king, " it is very well done." So he
opened the book, the prince standing at the table's end, and the
palsgrave and duke on each side of the king. The king read the

1 King's arms.'] See note in vol. iii. p. 233.
R 2

244 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

title-page and frontispiece all over very deliberately: and well
viewing the form of it, and how adorned with a stately garnish of
pictures, &c. and the curiousness of the writing of it, said,
" Charles, here is a book that contains excellent things. This
will make you both wise and good." Then he proceeded to turn
it over leaf by leaf, and took exact notice of all in it : and it being
full of pictures of sundry men's cuts, he could tell the palsgrave,
who seemed also to be knowing in that kind 2, that this and this,
and that and that, were of such a man's graving and invention.
The prince all the while greatly eyed all things, and seemed
much to be pleased with the book. The king having spent some
hours in the perusal of it, and demanding many questions,
occasion was, concerning the contrivement of it, having received
answers to all he demanded, at length said, " It was only a
jewel for a prince : and hoped Charles would make good use of
it. And I see and find by what I have myself received for-
merly from this good house, that they go on daily in the prosecu-
tion of these excellent pieces. They are brave employments of
their time." The palsgrave said to the prince, " Sir, your father
the king is master of the goodliest ship in the world ; and I may
now say, you will be master of the gallantest greatest book in the
world. For I never saw such paper before ; and believe there is
no book of this largeness to be seen in Christendom." " The
paper and the book in all conditions," said the king, " I believe
is not to be matched. Here hath also in this book not wanted,
you see, skill, care, nor cost." " It is a most admirable piece,"
replied the duke of Richmond. So the king closing the book,
said, " Charles this is yours." He replied, " But, sir, shall I
not now have it with me?" Reply was made by one of the

" Knowing in that kind.'] " It is a trite observation, that gunpowder was
discovered by a monk, and printing by a soldier. It is an additional honour
to the latter profession to have invented mezzotinto. . . . Born with the taste of
an uncle, whom his sword was not fortunate in defending, prince Rupert was
fond of those sciences which soften and adorn a hero's private hours ; and knew
how to mix them with his minutes of amusement, without dedicating his life to
their pursuit, like us, who, wanting capacity for momentous views, make serious
study of what is only the transitory occupation of a genius. Had the court
of the first Charles been peaceful, how agreeably had the prince's congenial
prosperity flattered and confirmed the inclination of his uncle. How the
muse of arts would have repaid the patronage of the monarch, when for his
first artist she would have presented him with his nephew /"—Horace
Walpole's Catalogue of Engravers, &c. edit. 1786. p. 133-5.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 245

family, " If it please your highness, the book is not on the out-
side so finished as it is intended for you ; but shall be, with all
expedition, done, and you shall have it." " Well," said the king,
" you must content yourself for a while."

The palsgrave, who had left the king discoursing, had stepped
into the other room by, and there seen the poor alms widows
rooms, which were built for them. He then comes to the king,
saying, " Sir, you shall, if you please to go with me, see another
good thing, that will like you well." So the king and prince
followed him, and the duke. So being come into the widows
rooms, which were handsomely wainscotted, and four beds in
them, after the Dutch manner of their alms houses, all along the
walls ; the room being rubbed, and cleanly kept, the king looking
well about him, and upon all things said, " Truly this is worth
the sight. I did not think to have seen a thing in this kind,
that so well pleaseth me. God's blessing be upon the founders
of it ! Time was," speaking to the palsgrave, " that you would
have thought such a lodging not amiss." " Yea, sir," said he,
" and happy I had had it full often." So some questions the
king asked about the widows, &c. and going out of the room
into a long arbour in the garden, the duke following him, he put
his hand into his pocket, and took out of it five pieces in gold
saying to the duke, " Let these be given to the poor widows. It
is all I have, else they should have more ;" (these he had won
the night before of the palsgrave at cards at Huntingdon) " and
will them to pray for me."

While the king was walking, and talking, and commending the
fine and pleasant situation of the house upon a little hill, which
it stood upon, to divers about him, saying, " Gidding is a happy
place in many respects ; I am glad I have seen it." The young
lords had gone into the buttery, and there found apple-pies and
cheese-cakes, and came out with pieces in their hands into the
parlour, to the prince, and merrily said, " Sir, will your highness
taste ; it is a good apple-pye as ever we eat." The prince
laughed heartily at them : so wine was brought. The king came
in, saying, " It grows late : the sun is going down : we must
away." So their horses were brought to the door. The king
mounting, those of the family, men and women, all kneeled down,
and heartily prayed God to bless and defend him from his ene-
mies ; and give him a long and happy reign. He lifting up his
hand to his hat, replied, " Pray, pray for my speedy and safe
return again." So the prince also took horse, and away they went.

246 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

And as the king rode through the grounds, he espied a hare
sitting, and then called to the duke for his piece, which he car-
ried ; and as he sat on horse-back killed the hare ; but not so
dead, but she ran a little way. But the prince, seeing her rise
up, skipped off his horse, and ran after her through two or three
furrows of water, and caught her, and laughing shewed her to the
king. And away they went : but it was late before they got to
Stamford that night.

I had forgot to relate, that the king, a mile before he came at
the house, seeing it stand upon a hill, demanded of sir Capel
Beedells3, who then waited upon him, and sir Richard Stone, the
high sheriff, whom he knighted the evening before, when he came
into Huntingdon, what house that was that stood so pleasantly.
They told him, Little Gidding. " Is that it ? I must go and visit
it. Doth not our way lie beneath it ?" They said, " Aye.1'
Those of the family of Little Gidding, out of their windows,
seeing the king's company afar off, coming that way, they all
went down the hill, to the end of the lordship, and at the bridge
attended the king's coming that way, as most desirous to see him
and to kiss his hands. When the king came near them, he asked
sir Capel who those people were ? He said the Ferrars' and
Colletts' family that dwelt at Gidding. So the king approaching
foremost of all, they went all to meet him ; and kneeling down
prayed God to bless and preserve his majesty, and keep him safe
from all his enemies' malice. The king gave them all, as they
passed by, his hand to kiss. The prince seeing that, came gal-
loping up, and did the like. Some of them went to kiss the
palsgrave's hand, but he refused. But turning to the duke, and
the other young lords, he said, " These ladies will not so soon get
up the hill again. Come, let us take them up behind us." And
so he came to persuade them. But they excused themselves, and
made haste up the hill. The king rode on purpose a foot pace
up the hill, talking with sir Capel and Mr. Hill, and demanding
many questions.

And this is what then happened at the presenting of this book,
which ever since hath been preserved at Gidding, and attends the
happy hour to be delivered into the right owner's hand ; which
God Almighty grant in his due time !

Amen, Amen, Amen.

3 Beedclls.'] Sir Capel Bedell, or Beedells (of Hamerton, in Huntingdon-
shire, t\vo miles from Little Gidding) was created a baronet in 1622. He
died 8. p. in 1663.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 247

Nicholas Ferrar, in a paper found in his study, thus writes
in it : —

" The king of England (he would say) had more several languages spoken
by the subjects of his dominions than any king in Christendom : and there-
fore deserved to have a Bible of many languages, above other princes.

f ' There are twelve spoken in his dominions.

"1. English, spoken in England, and a good part of Scotland: those, I
mean, that lie next to England. It is chiefly compounded of the Saxon,
French, and Latin.

" 2. Scottish, spoken more northerly in Scotland. It retains more of the
old Saxon, and is not mingled with so many French words, as English is.
Bishop Douglas translated Virgil into this dialect.

" 3. Welsh, spoken in Wales.

" 4. Cornish, spoken in Cornwall. It is a dialect of the Welsh, but very
various.

"5. Irish, spoken in Ireland.

"6. Scot- Irish, a dialect of Irish; and is spoken in the Hebrides, islands
lying on the West of Scotland.

" 7. Hethyan. Hethy is an island of the Orcades, in which is spoken a
language, which is a dialect of the Gothish or Norwegian.

" 8. There is in Pembrokeshire in Wales, a country called Little Eng-
land beyond Wales. They use a language compounded of the Dutch and
Welsh.

" 9. In the islands of Guernsey and Jersey they speak a corrupt kind of
French, somewhat like the Walloon, which the Belgee qui non teutonizant
speak.

" 10. In the famous Isle of Man is spoken a language that is compounded
of Welsh, Irish, Norwegian, but most Irish words.

" This island deserves, and the people of it, a perpetual memorial, for
many excellent things in it : which I cannot but thus briefly touch, in regard
that my learned and pious uncle Nicholas Ferrar, of blessed memory, who
had seen many parts of the world, would highly commend it, as a happy
place to live in. For he would say, it were to be wished, and happy it were
for England, that the same manner for law were here used, being a speedy
and right way of justice, the soul of a kingdom, &c. That there were no
beggars found in that island : that the inhabitants were most honest and
religious, loving their pastors, to whom they use much reverence and
respect ; they frequenting duly divine service, without division in the church
or innovation in the commonwealth. They detest the disorders, as well civil
as ecclesiastical, of neighbour nations. And the women of this country, to
their no small commendation, whenever they go out of the doors, gird them-
selves about with that winding-sheet, that they purpose to be buried in, to
shew themselves perpetually mindful of their mortality. O rare example
to all!

"11. The languages spoken by the savages in the Virginian
plantation. I These in the

"12. That other kind also spoken in New England by C New World."
those savages." J

248 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

Also there was another paper that named all the mother tongues, with
their daughters, which as yet I cannot find : but hope I shall ; and then
(will it be) here underneath to be added. Sir, you know I did once shew
it you in his study, with the other works before-mentioned, and these that
follow.

8. EIGHTH WORK ; prepared but not begun. Materials only prepared, and
a model drawn of it.

Glory be to God on High.

The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in twenty-six
languages, with Arabick, Syriac, Greek, all interpreted, word for word, with
Latin ; likewise Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Arabick, Syriac and Greek, all
having their several Latin translations lying opposite to them ; which six
languages are taken out of that most rare and accomplished Bible of the
king of France, lately come forth, and as the French report, at the expence
of very many thousand pounds, and great pains taken in it, and no few years
spent to finish it. All these twenty-six languages are so composed and
ordered, that at one view they may be seen and read, with much ease and
pleasure as well as to use and benefit. The several twenty- six languages are
those that follow :

1. Hebrew. 14. English- Saxon.

2. Syriack. 15. German.

3. Greek. 16. Danish.

4. Arabick. 17. Swedish.

5. Chaldee. 18. Low Dutch.

6. Samaritan. 19. English.

7. ^Ethiopian. 20. Welsh.

8. Sclavonian. 21. Irish.

9. Hungarian. 22. Latin.

10. Cantabrian. 23. Italian.

11. Muscovian. 24. Spanish.

12. Polonian. 25. French.

13. Bohemian. 26. Portugall.

And moreover there are twelve several English translations ; twenty
various Latin translations ; three Italian ; three Spanish ; three French ;
three High Dutch; and three Netherlands. And all these4 also so placed,

4 And all these.] " But these several translations are since resolved to be
omitted, and in the place and stead of them, some other thing of more use
and consequence there placed, and more suitable to this work."

" Since this frontispiece was contrived, and the model of the work framed,
it is by the advice and counsel of second thoughts (determined) that in the
place and stead of the twelve several English translations, the twenty various,
&c. there shall be placed now either a Concordance of the Four Evangelists,
according to that first pattern you have seen and read, being the first work
done at Gidding, and presented to the king, and set forth with pictures ; or
that in that place of the several translations, if no Concordance be there

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 249

ordered, and contrived that the eye may discern them at one time, and
peruse them all with great content : and for the conclusion of the work there
is added at the end of the book, that of doctor Fulke, intitled, " A Defence
of the sincere and true translation of the Holy Scripture in the English
tongue, against the manifold cavils, and insolent slanders of Gregory Martin,
one of the translators of the Rhemish Bible :" and theirs and ours compared
together in two several columns. And the Lord's Prayer is also annexed in
three-score several languages. Laus Deo.

Of this eighth piece the model and form was contrived to be as
you have seen on the foregoing page in that manner. But these
sad times coming on a-main gave an obstruction to the proceed-
ings and attempt, so that it hath lain still till this year 1 65 — .
And now it hath so fallen out 5 that, (to the honour of those
worthy learned men, that have by their great care and diligence
set it on foot,) the printing of the Holy Bible in eight several
languages is designed here in England ; the which work in many
respects is like to pass that Bible both of the king of Spain's,
and the aforenamed king of France's : in which regard it is now
thought fitting to defer this model, and intended work, till that
our Bible be finished. And then by the good blessing of God,
and the help of some of those active hands, that are yet alive,
who were instruments of the other many precedent works, as you
have heard, this may in a good hour be begun, and by the
help of God and good friends brought into light and finished.
So contriving it by that neat way of pasting upon mighty large
paper, provided for the same purpose, without which it cannot be
effected, that these twenty-six or twenty-eight several languages
may be, upon the opening of the book, all seen and read with
much profitableness and no less pleasure. A book it will be that

placed, then doctor Hammond's, that learned man's, Comments lately
printed, shall be placed, and brought into this book, as a necessary and pro-
fitable jewel, to be interwoven into the book, as the model drawn doth justly
declare to the eye. Glory be to God on high : Peace on earth : Good will
amongst men. Amen." Marginal note in the MS.

6 So fallen out J] The printing of the Polyglot, an illustrious monument of
zeal and learning, erected to the glory of their country by bishop Walton,
and other episcopal divines, in times of great distress and persecution, began
in 1653, and was finished in 1657. The first printed proposals respecting it
were issued in the year 1652.

250 NICHOLAS FERRAR.

hath not its parallel or match in the whole world, and may well
become, as many learned men say that have seen the model of it,
the best library in the Christian world, and a jewel not misbe-
seeming the greatest potentate's study. God Almighty give both
means and heads and hands to effect it : to whom must be the
glory, praise and honour ! Amen, Amen, Amen c.

c Here end the extracts from the Lambeth MS. No. 251.

APPENDIX.

MR. JOHN FERRAR, author of the old MS. frequently referred
to, wrote to Ed. Lenton, Esq. of Notley, enquiring whether a
letter from him formerly written to Serjt. Hetley, was not the
groundwork of a libellous pamphlet *, entitled, The Arminian
Nunnery, at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire. Mr. Lenton's
answer and vindication of himself, as follows, is dated Oct. 27,
the year not specified, but it was 1642 :

Sir,

If your messenger had staid but one night longer, I would not
have delayed my answer to your so discrete and respectful a
letter ; which makes me wish we were better acquainted, in
hopes to confirm your good and charitable opinion of me.

Sir, I confess I should much degenerate from my birth (being
a gentleman), my breeding (well known to the world), and the
religion I profess ; if having, upon something a bold visit, been
entertained in your family with kind and civil respects, I should
requite it with such scorn and calumny as this libellous pamphlet
seems to insinuate.

Sir, my conceit of it is, that, in this time of too much liberty
(if not licentiousness) of the press, many ballad-makers and
necessitous persons (it may be, set on work by some printers
themselves, to promote their trade) distil their barren brains to
make provision for their empty bellies, by publishing such novel-
ties and fictions as they think will vent best ; and, when they have
spent their own little wit, borrow of others to eke it out ; and so,
enterlacing some shreds of their own, they patch up a penny
pamphlet, to serve for their morning's draught.

Of this strain I take this book to be. The ground whereof

1 Libellous pamphlet.'] See the note at p. 208.

252 APPENDIX :

(you doubt, but I doubt not) was the letter I writt to Sir Thomas
Hettley (many years since) upon his request, that, in my passage
from him to my lord Montague's, being by your house, I would
see and certify what I could in so short a stay, touching the
various reports divulged in most places of your religious rites and
ceremonies.

To which my true relation (which I am sorry and marvel how
it should light in such hucksters-hands) the pamphleteer, by his
additions and subtractions, interweaving truth with falsehood to
purchase some credit to his untruths, hath drawn conclusions
and accusations of Arminianism and other fopperies, not once
mentioned in my letter ; but, as wisely as that atheist, who,
to prove there was no God, vouched one end of a verse
where David in his psalms saith, There is no God ; and left out
the beginning of the verse, That the fool hath said it in his

By this time, sir, I hope you see I am so far from being the
author, infuser, abettor or countenancer of this fable, that, by it
I take myself to be as much abused, and that there is as much
aspersion cast upon me as upon your family, by a sly and cun-
ning intimation (my letter being his ground-work) to make me
thought (by such as know me not well) to be the author and
divulger of his lies and scandals, which (by God^s mercy) my soul
abhors.

Had he shewed his dislike of some of the ceremonies, &c. (as I
myself did, by way of argument) I should not (nor, I think, you)
so much have kindled at it. But so to add to, subtract, pervert,
and falsify my letter, I think the author (if haply he may be found
out) deserves to be censured as a counterfeiter of false letters
and tokens, and as a contriver and publisher of false news,
according to the law of the land and the statutes in like case
provided.

His ignorance (which yet excuseth not a toto, if a tanto) I
think will be his best plea. For, it should seem, he is no great
clerk. Which I observe even almost at the beginning of his story,
\\ h» -re he tells a tale as of a third person, and in the same clause,
within two or three lines after, ineptly changeth it into the first
person; without any apt transition. A solecism which a in< an
scholar would hardly have fallen into.

To have put the true copy of my letter in print, without my
privity, had been a great inhumanity. But, to pervert it with so

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 253

many falsifications, and laying his inhumanities on me, I think,
none but a licentious libeller, or a beggarly ballad-maker, would
have offered.

I was so conscious to myself of intending no wrong to your
family in my relation, that I thought to have sent your brother
[N. F .] a copy thereof ; and had done it, if want of opportunity
in his lifetime, and his death afterwards, had not prevented me.
And I would now send you a true copy thereof, if you had not
wrote to me, that you had it presently after my writing it. And
sith I have been at your house long since (for it is about seven
years past, as I take it, that I writ the relation) I presume you
would have expostulated the matter with me, if you had taken
any just exception or distaste at it. But therein you might well
perceive, that I endeavoured not to detract any thing from you,
or to conceal even the civility or humility I found, or what I had
heard or believed of your works of charity.

Thus, sir, even the very same day I received your's (for there
needs no long time to answer a matter of fact with matter of
truth ; and being full of indignation to be thus traduced, whereof
I longed instantly to discharge myself) I scribled over this candid
and ingenuous answer. And I am now troubled that you gave
me no direction for the address thereof to you ; which, when haply
you shall receive, I leave to your own discretion, to make what
use thereof you please ; presuming that you will therein have the
like respects to me which herein I have had to you. So leaving
us to the guidance of our good God, I subscribe, as you to me,
your friend and servant,

ED. LENTON.

Notley, near Thame^ Oct. 27.

To the worshipful my worthily esteemed friend
John Ferrar, Esq. at his house in Little
Gidding in Huntingdonshire.

The copy of my letter to sir Thomas Hetley, kt. and ser-
jeant at law, upon his request to certify as I found.

Good Mr. Serjeant5.

I can give you but a short account of my not two hours stay
at the reputed (at least reported) nunnery at Gidding ; and yet

254 APPENDIX :

must leave out three parts of our passages, as fitter for a relation
than a letter.

I came thither after ten ; and found a fair house, fairly seated ;
to which I passed through a fine grove and sweet walks, letticed
and gardened on both sides.

Their livelihood 500J. per annum, as my lord Montague * told
me ; one of his mansion houses being within two or three miles
of them.

A man-servant brought me into a fair spacious parlour.
Whither, soon after, came to me the old gentlewoman"^ second
son [Nicholas Ferrar ;] a batchelor, of a plain presence, but of
able speech and parts. Who, after I had (as well as in such
case I could) deprecated any ill conceit of me, for so unusual
and bold a visit, entertained me very civilly and with much
humility. Yet said, I was the first who ever came to them in
that kind ; though not the first whom they had heard of, who
determined to come. After deprecations and some compliments,
he said, I should see his mother, if I pleased. I shewing my
desire, he went up into a chamber, and presently returned with
these ; namely, his mother, a tall, straight, clear-complexioned,
grave matron, of eighty years of age : his elder brother, married
(but whether a widower, I asked not), a short, black- complexioned
man : his apparel and hair so fashioned as made him shew priest-
like : and his sister, married to one Mr. Colet : by whom she
hath 14 or 15 children : all which are in the house (which I saw
not yet). And of these, and two or three maid-servants, the
family consists.

I saluted the mother and daughter, not like nuns, but as we
use to salute other women. And (after we were all seated
circular- wise, and my deprecations renewed to the other three b)
I desired that, to their favour of entertaining me, they would add
the giving of me a free liberty to speak ingenuously what I con-
ceived of any thing I should see or have heard of, without any
distaste to them.

\Vhich being granted ; I first told them, what I had heard of
the nuns of Gidding. Of two, watching and praying all night.
Of their canonical hours. Of their crosses on the outside and
inside of their chapel. Of an altar there, richly docked with
plate, tapestry, and tapers. Of their adorations and cr« •ninil.-i-

2 Lord Montague'] Edward, first lord Montagu of Bonghton.
/ b Mr. John Ferrar, Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, and Mr. John Collet.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 255

tions at their entering therein. Which, I objected, might savor
of superstition and popery.

Here the younger son, the mouth for them all, cut me off ;
and, to this last, answered first, with a protestation, that he did
as verily believe the pope to be antichrist as any article of his
faith. Wherewith I was satisfied and silenced, touching that
point.

For the nunnery ; he said, That the name of nuns was odious.
But the truth (from whence that untrue report might arise) was,
that two of his nieces had lived, one, thirty ; the other, thirty-
two years, virgins ; and so resolved to continue (as he hoped they
would) the better to give themselves to fasting and prayer : but
had made no vows 3.

For the canonical hours, he said, they usually prayed six times
a day. As I remember, twice a day publicly, in the chapel ; and
four times more, privately, in the house. In the chapel, after
the order of the book of common-prayer : in their house, parti-
cular prayers for a private family.

I said, if they spent so much time in praying, they would
leave little for preaching or for their weekly callings. For the
one I vouched the text, He that turneth away his ear from

3 No vows.~\ "Yet nothing is so sound, but in time it will run into corrup-
tion. For I must not hold it in, that some persons in Little Gidding had run
into excess, and incurred offence, if the bishop had not broken the snare,
which they were preparing for their own feet. For after he had spoken well
of the family in the pulpit, and privately to divers, some of them could not
see when they were well, but aspired to be transcendants above their measure.
For two daughters of the stock came to the bishop, and offered themselves
to be veiled virgins, to take upon them the vow of perpetual chastity, with
the solemnity of the episcopal blessing, and ratification : whom he admo-
nished very fatherly, that they knew not what they went about : that they
had no promise to confirm that grace unto them ; that this readiness, which
they had in the present, should be in their will, without repentance to their
life's end. Let the younger women marry, was the best advice, that they
might not be led into temptation. And that they might not forget what he
taught them, he drew up his judgment in three sheets of paper, and sent it
to them home, that they might dress themselves by that glass, and learn not
to think of human nature, above that which it is, a sea of flowings and
ebbings, and of all manner of inconstancy. The direction of God was in
this counsel ; for one of the gentlewomen afterwards took a liking to a good
husband, and was well bestowed." Backet's Life of Archbishop Williams,
part ii. p. 52.

256 APPENDIX :

hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination c. For the
other, Six days shalt thou labour, &c.

To the one he answered, that a neighbour minister of another
parish caine on Sunday-mornings, and preached ; and sometimes
they went to his parish. To the other, that their calling was to
serve God ; which he took to be the best.

I replied, that for men in health and of active bodies and
parts, it were a tempting of God to quit our callings, and wholly
to betake ourselves to fasting, prayer, and a contemplative life,
which by some is thought little better than a serious kind of idle-
ness : not to term it (as St. Austin terms moral virtues without
Christ) splendida peccata.

He enjoined, that they had found divers perplexities, distrac-
tions, and almost utter ruin, in their callings. But (if others
knew what comfort and content God ministered to them since
their sequestration, and with what incredible improvements of
their livelihood) it might encourage others to [take] the like
course.

I said that such an imitation might be of dangerous conse-
quence. And that if any, in good case before, should fall into
poverty [when entered into it,] few afterwards would follow the
example.

For their night-watchings, and their rising at four of the clock
in the morning (which I thought was [too] much for one of four-
score years, and for children). To the one he said, it was not
[too] much ; since they always went to bed at seven of the clock
in the evening. For the other, he confessed, there were every
night two (alternatim) continued all night in their devotions, who
went not to bed until the rest arose.

For the crosses he made the usual answer, that they were not
ashamed of that badge of the Christian profession which the first
propugners of the faith bare in their banners, and which we, in
our church discipline, retain to this day.

For their chapel ; that it was now near chapel time (for
eleven is the hour in the forenoon), and that I might, if I
pleased, accompany them thither, and so satisfy myself best of
what I had heard concerning that. Which afterwards I willingly
entertained.

c Prov. xxviii. 9.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 257

In the mean time I told them, I perceived all was not true
which I had heard of the place. For I could see no such inscrip -
tion on the frontispiece of the house, containing a kind of invita-
tion of such as were willing to learn of them, or would teach them
better. Which, I said, was some encouragement for me to come
(as one desirous to learn, not teach), and might be some excuse
of my audacity, if they would be pleased so to accept it. But he,
barring me from farther compliments, said, the ground of that
report hung over my head.

We sitting by the chimney, [I saw] in the chimney piece was
a manuscript tableture ; which, after I had read, I craved leave
to beg a copy of (so they would not take me for too bold a
beggar). He forthwith took it down, and commanded it to be
presently transcribed and given to me. I offered the writer
money, for his deserved pains : which was refused. And the
master [N. F.] conjured me not to offer it a second time. And
thereupon [also he] made it his [farther] suit [to me], not to
offer any thing to any in that house, at my parting, or otherwise.
The words of the protestation are as folio weth d.

The matter of this declaration being in such general terms, I
said, I thought it without exception. But I prayed leave to except
a circumstance, namely, the superscription : it being the proper
character of the Jesuits in every book and exhibit of theirs. He
said it was that auspicious name, [Jesus] worthy to be the alpha
and omega of all our doings ; and that we are commanded to
write such things on the posts of our houses and upon our gates.
(Deut. vi. 9.) I told him, I was far from excepting against that
sacred, saving name of Jesus : only I could have wished it written
at length, or any other way, to have differenced it from that
which the papists only use, but no Protestants. And, that the
text he mentioned, was in the Old Testament (where there was
no mention of Jesus, but of Jehovah) to my remembrance. But

We passed from this towards the chapel, being about forty
paces from the house ; yet [were] staid a little (as with a paren-
thesis) by a glass of sack, a sugar-cake, and a fine napkin, brought
by a mannerly maid. Which refreshed my memory to tell them
what my lord bishop of Lincoln [Williams] said of them. Wherein
yet I brake no laws of humanity or hospitality (though spoken at
his table.) For he said nothing but what they wished and were

d "IHS

" He who by reproof," &c. see p, 206 of these Memoirs.

VOL. IV. S

258 APPENDIX :

glad to hear ; [all] being but the relation of the grave and dis-
creet answers (as my lord himself termed them) of the old gentle-
woman to some of his lordship's expostulations.

To that part concerning the young deacon, whom his lordship
had heard of, to come from Cambridge to officiate in their chapel ;
he (innuendo even the younger son, who only was the speaker)
said, that himself was the young deacon intended. That he is
two and forty years old ; was fellow of an house in Cambridge ;
and hath taken the orders of a deacon. — To say nothing of his
having been at Rome (whereof I could have excepted no more
against him than he might against me). For having been so long
in the labour of the chapel, it is now high time we were at the
church —

At the entering thereof he made a low obeysance ; a few paces
farther, a lower ; coming to the half-pace (which was at the east
end, where the tables stood) he bowed to the ground, if not pros-
trated himself : then went up into a fair, large reading place (a
preaching place being of the same proportion, right over against
it). The mother, with all her train (which were her daughter
and daughter's daughters) had a fair island seat.

He placed me above, upon the half-pace, with two fair window-
cushions of green velvet before me. Over against me was such
another seat, so suited ; but no body to sit in it. The daugli
four sons kneeled all the while on the edge of the half-pace ; all
in black gowns. (And they went to church in round Monmouth
caps, as my man said ; for I looked not back) the rest all in
black, save one of the daughter's daughters, who was in a fryer's
grey gown.

We being thus placed, the deacon (for so I must now call him)
with a very loud and distinct voice, began with the Litany, read
divers prayers and collects in the book of Common-prayer, and
Athanasius his creed, and concluded with The Peace of God.

All ended, the mother, with all her company, attended my
coming down. But her son (the deacon) told her, I would stay
awhile to view the chapel. So with all their civil salutation
wards me (which I returned them afar off; for I durst not come
nearer, lest I should have light upon one of the virgins ; not
knowing whether they would have taken a kiss 4 in good part or
no) they departed home.

4 A K«.] Then, and long afterwards, a common salutation. On its use
at an earlier time, see vol. i. p. 533.

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 259

Now (none but the deacon and I left) I observed the chapel, in
general, to be fairly and sweetly adorned with herbs and flowers,
natural in some places, and artificial upon every pillar along both
sides the chapel (such as are in cathedral churches) with tapers
(I mean great virgin- wax-candles) on every pillar.

The half-pace at the upper end (for there was no other division
betwixt the body of the chapel and the east part) was all covered
with tapestry. And, upon that half-pace, stood the communion-
table (not altar- wise, as reported6) with a rich carpet hanging
very large upon the half-pace ; and some plate, as a chalice, and
candlesticks, with wax candles.

By the preaching place stood the font; the leg, laver, and
cover, all of brass, cut and carved. The cover had a cross erected.
The laver was of the bigness of a barber's bason.

And this is all which I had leisure to observe in the chapel ;
save that I asked for the organs? And he told me, they were
not there ; but that they had a pair in their house.

I asked also, what use they made of so many tapers ? He said,
to give them light, when they could not see without them.

Then (having, as I told you before, obtained leave to say what
I listed) I asked him, to whom he made all those courtesies ? He
said, to God. I asked if the papists made any other answer for
their bowing to images and crucifixes? yet we account them
idolaters for so doing. He said, we have no such warrant for the
one. But for the other we have a precept, to do all things with
decency and order ; as he took this to be.

I demanded, then, why he used not the same solemnity in his
service at his house ? And, whether he thought the chapel more
holy than his house? He said, No. But that God was more

e [Formerly the church puritans generally set the communion table either
in the body of the church, or (if in the chancel, yet) with the two ends point-
ing east and west (not north and south). And Williams, now bishop of Lin-
coln (in opposition to archbishop Laud and others, who set it altar-wise)
insisted much upon their standing so. And, in obedience to bishop Williams
(who was his diocesan) no doubt it was, that Mr. Ferrar set his communion
table, after the puritan manner, with the two ends pointing east and west.
Though, I guess, it stood otherwise 'till this year 1635. Be that as it will,
this passage may serve to shew, that bishop Williams was, even then, hatching
his " Holy Table, Name, and Thing" (printed [anonymously'] in 1637) and
setting others to oppose the archbishop's usage. — Though the bishop's own
practice, in his own chapel at Buckden, both before and after, was other-
wise. F. P.]

s 2

260 APPENDIX :

immediately present, while we were worshipping him in the
temple.

I replied, that I thought God was as present at Paul's cross as
at Paul's church ; and at the preaching-place at Whitehall, and
'spital sermons, as elsewhere. For where two or three are
gathered together in his name, God is in the midst of them. And
yet in those places (no not in the body of the church, though
there be a sermon and prayers there) we do not use this threefold
reverence, nor any low bowing, unless in the chancel towards the
east, where an altar, or some crucifix, is? — He answered me
something of the trinary number, which I did not understand,
nor well hear.

This, as all other our discourse, being ended with mildness and
moderation (on his part at least) I said farther, since their devo-
tions (from which they would be loth to be diverted or inter-
rupted, as in the said protestation appears) are more strict and
regular than usual, if in their consciences they were persuaded
that all their formalities and ceremonies were but adiaphora
(things indifferent) I then thought they were as wise as serpents
(in the Scripture sense) in complying so with the church ceremo-
nies, .that they might the safelier hold on their course without
exception. For in this comportment, I thought, authority would
not except against them, unless for exceeding the cathedrals;
who make but one reverence, whereas they make three. He
said, I spake like one who seemed to have had experience in the
world.

It being now near twelve o'clock, we ended our discourse, and
I called for my horses; hoping that thereupon he would have
invited me to stay dinner : not that I care for his or any man's
meat (for you had given me a dinner in too good a breakfast) but
that I might have gained more time to have seen and observed
more of their fashions ; and whether the virgins and younger sort
would have mingled with us? with divers other things, which
such a dinner-time would have best have ministered matter for.
But, instead of making me stay, he helped me in calling for my
horses ; accompanying me even to my stirrup. And so, I not
returning into the house, as we friendly met, we friendly part* <1.

Many more questions I thought on, wlu-n it was too late ; and
yet you see I was not idle for the short time I stayed. I asked
him, of their monthly receiving the sacrament? And, whether
their servants (when they received) were attended by their mas-

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 261

ters and mistresses, and suffered not so much as to lay and take
away their own trenchers, as I had heard ? whereat he smiled, as
at a frivolous fable, and said, the only difference [then] from other
clays was, that the servants (the day they received) sat at the
same table with them.

I heard also that they never roast any meat ; only boil and
bake (but not in paste), that their servants may not be much
hindered from their devotions. And that they have but one
horse amongst them all. But of these I made no mention.

They are extraordinary well reported of by their neighbours,
viz. that they are very liberal to the poor ; at great cost in pre-
paring physic and surgery, for the sick and sore (whom they visit
often), and that some sixty or eighty poor people they task with
catechetical questions : which when they come and make answer
to, they are rewarded with money and their dinner. By means
of which reward of meat and money, the poor catechumens learn
their lessons well ; and so their bodies and souls too are well
fed.

I find them full of humanity and humility. And others speak
as much of their charity : which I also verily believe. And
therefore am far from censuring them : of whom I think much
better than of myself. My opposing of sonie of their opinions
and practices as you see in this my relation (wherein T may have
varied in some circumstances, but nothing from the substance)
was only by way of argument, and for my own better information,
I shall be glad to observe how wiser men will judge of them, or
imitate their course of life.

I intended not a third part of this when I began, as you may
see by my first lines. But one thing drawing on another, I have
now left out little or nothing to my remembrance ; saving what I
thought fitting in good manners, upon my first affront, to make
way for my welcome, and ad captandam benevolentiam ; which is
not worth the repeating, if I could ; and I am something better
at acting such a part, than at relating it : though good at neither.

After this long and tedious relation, J must now make but
short thanks to yourself and my lady for my long and kind wel-
come ; wherein my wife joins with me ; praying your remembering
our loving respects to our kind nieces (hoping the good scholars
at Westminster are well). And so I leave you to the grace of
God ; and am the same, your loving friend,

EDWARD LENTON.

262 APPENDIX :

HAVING been desired by a very worthy and judicious friend to
give a specimen of Mr. Ferraris devotional compositions, I here
add one prayer, which was used regularly the first Sunday in
every month, and one which was drawn up on the particular occa-
sion of the dangerous illness of his dear friend Mr. Geo. Herbert.

The established rule of the family was to receive the sacra-
ment the first Sunday of every month in the parish church, and
on those days in their devotions at home to add a general form of
thanksgiving for dangers escaped, and mercies received ; of which
the following is a copy something shortened.

" We come, 0 Lord, most mighty God, and merciful Father,
to offer unto thy .Divine Majesty, the monthly tribute of that
duty, which indeed we are continually bound to perform, the ten-
der of our most humble and hearty thanks for those inestimable
benefits which we, unworthy sinners, have from time to time in
abundant manner received of thy goodness, and do even unto this
hour enjoy. Yet by our ingratitude and abuse of them, we have
deserved not only the deprivation of these good things, but that
by a rigorous chastisement thou shouldest make us an example of
thine impartial justice. For there is none, O Lord, to whom
thou hast given more abundance or greater variety of the com-
forts of this life. If we should go about to tell them, they are
more in number than the sand ; there are none upon whom thou
hast more freely conferred them : yet ought we to confess that
we are not worthy of the least of thy favours. And as in regard
of our unworthiness, so likewise in respect of the lowliness of our
condition whence thou hast raised us, of the dangers wherewith
we have been environed, of the difficulties wherewith we have
been enthralled, we must needs cry out, Great are the wondrous
works which thou hast done : for on every side we hear the voice
of the beholders, Blessed are the people who are in such a case.
Wonderful indeed hath been thy goodness towards us : while the
wise have been disappointed in their counsels, while the full of
friends have been left desolate, while the men whose hands \
mighty have found nothing, while the strong on every side have
fallen, we, O Lord, have been by thy power raised up, by thine
arm have we been strengthened, guided by thy counsels, and
relieved by the favour of thy mercies. And that we might know
that it was thy doing, by those ways and means which we thought
not of, thou hast brought us into a wealthy place, and to ti
many comforts which we now enjoy. And although we have

NICHOLAS FERRAR. 263

not any way deserved thy favours, yet is thy patience extended
towards us. We must needs acknowledge, 0 Lord, that the
liberality of thy hand is extended even beyond the largeness of
our own hearts. And yet, O Lord, all this is nothing in compa-
rison of that which we may farther enjoy. By how much the
things of heaven do surpass those of the earth, by how much
everlasting happiness is more worth than the transitory and feeble
pleasures of this life, by so much more surpassing are those
graces and favours with which thou hast furnished us for the
knowledge of thy heavenly will, and for the practices of those
duties, of which our conversation in this world, is capable.

u Thou hast given to us a freedom from all other affairs, that
we may without distraction attend thy service. That holy gospel
which came down from heaven, which things the angels desire to
look into, is by thy goodness, continually open to our view : the
sweet music thereof is continually sounding in our ears : hea-
venly songs are by thy mercy put into our mouths, and our
tongues and lips made daily instruments of pouring forth thy
praise. This, Lord, is the work, and this the pleasure of the
angels in heaven : and dost thou vouchsafe to make us partakers
of so high an happiness ? The knowledge of thee, and of thy
Son is everlasting life. Thy service is perfect freedom : how
happy then are we, that thou dost constantly retain us in the
daily exercise thereof!

" With these favours, and mercies, 0 Lord, we ought to ac-
knowledge ourselves most happy : we ought to be joyful in the
midst of adversities, in the depth of affliction, and in the height
of distress. How much more then are we bound to thee for thy
merciful continuance of those blessings which we enjoy ! we are
bound, 0 Lord, but unable to perform this duty as we ought ;
yet since thou hast invited us, we now come to the performance
thereof ; to render to thy divine majesty the most humble and
hearty acknowledgment of our own demerits, and thy infinite
goodness. We beseech thee that thou wilt enlarge our hearts,
and open our mouths, that our prayers may be set forth in thy
sight as incense, and the lifting up of our hands as a sacrifice
unto thee, for the only merits of thy dear Son, in whose name
and mediation we offer up both our prayers and praises, and
together with them ourselves, beseeching thee that they being
sanctified by thy grace, may be every way made acceptable to
thee. Amen."

264 APPENDIX.

On particular occurrences, Mr. Ferrar composed more parti-
cular forms, to be used occasionally, of which the following is an
example.

"On Friday " (date not mentioned) " Mr. Mapletoft brought
us word that Mr. Herbert was said to be past hope of recovery,
which was very grievous news to us, and so much the more so,
being altogether unexpected. We presently therefore made
our public supplication for his health in the words, and manner
following :

" O most mighty God, and merciful Father, we most humbly
beseech thee, if it be thy good pleasure, to continue to us that
singular benefit which thou hast given us in the friendship of thy
servant, our dear brother, who now lieth on the bed of sickness.
Let him abide with us yet awhile, for the furtherance of our
faith. We have indeed deserved by our ingratitude, not only the
loss of him, but whatever other opportunities thou hast given us
for the attainment of our salvation. We do not deserve to be heard
in our supplications ; but thy mercies are above all thy works.
In consideration whereof we prostrate ourselves in all humble
earnestness, beseeching thee, if so it may seem good to thy
Divine Majesty, that thou wilt hear us in this, who hast heard us
in all the rest, and that thou wilt bring him back again from the
gates of death : that thou wilt yet a while spare him, that he
may h've to thy honour and our comfort. Lord, thou hast willed
that our delights should be in the saints on earth, and in such as
excel in virtue : how then should we not be afflicted, and mourn
when thou takest them away from us ! Thou hast made him a
great help, and furtherance of the best things amongst us, how
then can we but esteem the loss of him, a chastisement from thy
displeasure ! O Lord, we beseech thee that it may not be so : we
beseech thee, if it be thy good pleasure, restore unto us our dear
brother, by restoring to him his health : so will we praise and
magnify thy name, and mercy, with a song of tlianksgiving.
Hear us, O Lord, for thy dear Son's sake, Jesus Christ our
Saviour. Amen."

Thus have I complied with the desire of a worthy friend ; ami
in so doing have, I think, given to the public, in these examples,
not only a proof of the piety of Mr. Ferrar, but also of his excel-
lence in devotional composition.

BISHOP HALL.

Let us all adore and bless God's wisest choices, and set vigorously to the
task that lies before us ; improving the present advantages, and supplying in
the abundance of the inward beauty what is wanting to the outward lustre of
a Church ; and we shall not fail to find that the grots and caves lie as open
to the celestial influences as the fairest and most beautified temples. — And it
must be our greatest blame and wretchedness, if what hath now befallen us
be not effectually better for us, than whatever else even piety could have sug-
gested to us to wish or pray for.

DOCTOK HENRY HAMMOND.

ADVERTISEMENT.

IN the year 1660 was published in 4to, a volume intitled, The
Shaking of the Olive Tree : the remaining Works of that incom-
parable prelate Joseph Hall, D.D. late lord Ushop of Norwich. It
contained among other things, Observations of some specialities of
Divine Providence in the Life of Joseph Hall, Ushop of Norwich ;
and his Hard Measure ; both written with his own hand. The
Following Life is composed principally of a republication of those
two tracts. They are printed from the above-mentioned edition
of the year 1660.

BISHOP HALL.

NOT out of a vain affectation of my own glory, which I know
how little it can avail me, when I am gone hence ; but out of
a sincere desire to give glory to my God, (whose wonderful
providence I have noted in all my ways) have I recorded some
remarkable passages of my fore- past life. What I have done
is worthy of nothing, but silence and forgetfulness : but what
God hath done for me, is worthy of everlasting and thankful
memory.

I was born July 1, 1574, at five of the clock in the morning,
in Bristow-Park, within the parish of Ashby de la Zouch, a town
in Leicestershire, of honest and well allowed patronage. My
father was an officer under that truly honourable and religious
Henry, earl of Huntingdon, president of the north, and under him
had the government of that market-town, wherein the chief seat
of that earldom is placed. My mother Winifride, of the house of
the Bambridges *, was a woman of that rare sanctity, that (were it
not for my interest in nature,) I durst say, that neither Aleth,
the mother of that just honour of Clareval 2 ; nor Monica, nor any
other of those pious matrons, antiently famous for devotion, need
to disdain her admittance to comparison. She was continually
exercised with the affliction of a weak body, and oft of a wounded
spirit, the agonies whereof, as she would oft recount with much
passion, professing that the greatest bodily sicknesses were but
flea-bites to those scorpions, so from them all at last she found
an happy and comfortable deliverance, and that not without a

1 Bambridges] Or rather Bainbridge, or Bainbrigge, of Ashby and Lock-
in gton.

2 Just honour of Clareval.'] St. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose mother was
Alethea, daughter of the Count of Montbar.

270 BISHOP HALL.

more than ordinary hand of God. For on a time being in great
distress of conscience, she thought in her dream, there stood by
her a grave personage, in the gown, and other habits of a physi-
cian, who enquiring of her estate, and receiving a sad and queru-
lous answer from her, took her by the hand, and bade her be of
good comfort, for this should be the last fit that ever she should
feel of this kind ; whereto she seemed to answer, that upon that
condition, she could well be content for the time, with that, or
any other torment. Reply was made to her, as she thought, with
a redoubled assurance of that happy issue of this her last trial ;
whereat she began to conceive an unspeakable joy ; which yet
upon her awaking left her more disconsolate, as then conceiting
her happiness imaginary, her misery real ; when the very same
day, she was visited by the reverend, and (in his time) famous
divine, Mr. Anthony Gilby s, under whose ministry she lived ; who,
upon the relation of this her pleasing vision, and the contrary
effects it had in her, began to persuade her, that dream was no
other than divine, and that she had good reason to think that
gracious premonition was sent her from God himself, who, though
ordinarily he keeps the common road of his proceedings, yet
sometimes in the distresses of his servants, he goes unusual ways to
their relief. Hereupon she began to take heart, and by good coun-
sel and her fervent prayers, found that happy prediction verified
to her ; and upon all occasions in the remainder of her life, was
ready to magnify the mercy of her God in so sensible a deliver-
ance. What with the trial of both these hands of God, so had
she profited in the school of Christ, that it was hard for any friend
to come from her discourse no whit holier. How often have I
blessed the memory of those divine passages of experimental divi-
nity, which I have heard from her mouth ! What day did she
pass without a large task of private devotion, whence she would
still come forth with a countenance of undissembled mortification !
Never any lips have read to me such feeling lectures of piety ;
neither have I known any soul, that more accurately prac •;
them, than her own. Temptations, desertions, and spiritual
comforts were her usual theme ; shortly, for I can hardly take

* Anthony Gilby.'] A native of Lincolnshire, vicar of Ashby. He was one
of the most eminent of the early puritans. Peck says that lie lived at Ashby
" as great as a 1 SM Tenner's UHiliotheca, p. 318. Hcylin's Presby-

terians, p. 2f)O. Fuller's Church ///.s/o?-//. ix. TC.

BISHOP HALL. 271

off my pen from so exemplary a subject, her life and death were
saint-like.

My parents had from mine infancy devoted me to this sacred
calling, whereto, by the blessing of God, I have seasonably
attained. For this cause I was trained up in the public school
of the place. After I had spent some years (not altogether indi-
ligently) under the ferule of such masters as the place afforded,
and had near attained to some competent ripeness for the univer-
sity ; my school-master, being a great admirer of one Mr. Pelset4,
who was then lately come from Cambridge, to be the public
preacher of Leicester, (a man very eminent in those times, for
the fame of his learning, but especially for his sacred oratory)
persuaded my father, that if I might have my education under so
excellent and complete a divine, it might be both a nearer, and
easier way to his purposed end, than by an academical institution.
The motion sounded well in my father's ears, and carried fair
probabilities ; neither was it other than fore-compacted betwixt
my school-master and Mr. Pelset ; so as on both sides it was
entertained with great forwardness.

The gentleman, upon essay taken of my fitness for the use of
his studies, undertakes within one seven years, to send me forth,
no less furnished with arts, languages and grounds of theorical
divinity, than the carefullest tutor in the strictest college of either
university. Which that he might assuredly perform, to prevent
the danger of any mutable thoughts in my parents, or myself, he
desired mutual bonds to be drawn betwixt us. The great charge
of my father, (whom it pleased God to bless with twelve children)
made him the more apt to yield to so likely a project for a younger
son. There, and now were all the hopes of my future life upon
blasting. The indentures were preparing, the time was set, my
suits were addressed for the journey. What was the issue I O
God, thy providence made and found it. Thou knowest how sin-
cerely and heartily, in those my young years a, I did cast myself
upon thy hands ; with what faithful resolution, I did in this par-
ticular occasion resign myself over to thy disposition, earnestly
begging of thee in my fervent prayers, to order all things to the
best ; and confidently waiting upon thy will for the event. Cer-

4 Mr. Pelset.] More probably Pelsant, of the Leicestershire family of that
name ; several members of it held preferments in the county.
a Anno yEtatis 15°.

272 BISHOP HALL.

tainly, never did I in all my life more clearly roll myself upon the
Divine Providence, than I did in this business ; and it succeeded
accordingly.

It fell out at this time, that my elder brother having some
occasions to journey unto Cambridge, was kindly entertained
there, by Mr. Nathaniel Gilby 8, fellow of Emanuel college, who,
for that he was born in the same town with me, and had con-
ceived some good opinion of my aptness to learning, inquired dili-
gently concerning me ; and hearing of the diversion of my father's
purposes from the university, importunately dissuaded from that
new course, professing to pity the loss of so good hopes. My
brother, partly moved with his words, and partly won by his own
eyes, to a great love, and reverence of an academical life, return-
ing home, fell upon his knees to my father, and after the report
of Mr. Gilby's words, and his own admiration of the place, earn-
estly besought him, that he would be pleased to alter that so pre-
judicial a resolution, that he would not suffer my hopes to be
drowned in a shallow country-channel ; but that he would revive
his first purposes for Cambridge ; adding in the zeal of his love,
that if the chargeableness of that course were the hinderance, he
did there humbly beseech him, rather to sell some part of that
land, which himself should in course of nature inherit, than to
abridge me of that happy means to perfect my education.

No sooner had he spoken these words than my father no less
passionately condescended ; not without a vehement protestation,
that whatsoever it might cost him, I should (God willing) be sent
to the university. Neither were those words sooner out of his
lips, than there was a messenger from Mr. Pelset knocking at
the door, to call me to that fairer bondage, signifying, that the
next day he expected me, with a full dispatch of all that business.
To whom my father replied, that he came some minutes too late ;
that he had now otherwise determined of me ; and with a re-
spective message of thanks to the master, sent the man home
empty, leaving me full of the tears of joy for so happy a chnn^v.
Indeed I had been but lost, if that project had succeeded ; as it
well appeared in the experience of him who succeeded in that
room, which was by me thus unexpectedly forsaken. — O (;<•<!. h<>\\
\\.is I then taken up with a thankful acknowledgment, and joyful
admiration of thy gracious providence over me !

* Nathaniel Gilby.'] Son of the preceding Anthony Gilby, whom he
succeeded as vicar of Ashby.

BISHOP HALL. 273

And now I lived in the expectation of Cambridge ; whither ere
long I happily came, under Mr. Gilby's tuition, together with my
worthy friend Mr. Hugh Cholmley 6, who, as we had been partners
of one lesson from our cradles, so were we now for many years
partners of one bed. My two first years were necessarily charge-
able, above the proportion of my father's power, whose not very
large cistern, was to feed many pipes besides mine. His weari-
ness of expense was wrought upon by the counsel of some unwise
friends, who persuaded him to fasten me upon that school as
master, whereof I was lately a scholar. Now was I fetched
home with an heavy heart ; and now this second time had mine
hopes been nipped in the blossom, had not God raised me up an
unhoped benefactor, Mr. Edmund Sleigh 7 of Derby (whose pious
memory I have cause ever to love and reverence). Out of no
other relation to me, save that he married my aunt, pitying my
too apparent dejectedness, he voluntarily urged, and solicited my
father for my return to the university, and offered freely to con-
tribute the one half of my maintenance there, till I should attain
to the degree of master of arts, which he no less really and
lovingly performed. The condition was gladly accepted ; thither
was I sent back with joy enough, and ere long, chosen scholar of
that strict and well ordered college.

By that time I had spent six years there, now the third year
of my bachelorship should at once both make an end of my main-
tenance, and in respect of standing, gave me a capacity of fur-
ther preferment in that house, were it not that my country ex-
cluded me, for our statute allowed but one of a shire to be fellow
there, and my tutor being of the same town with me, must there-
fore necessarily hold me out. But, O my God, how strangely
did thy gracious providence bring this business about ! I was now
entertaining motions of remove. A place was offered me in the
island of Guernsey, which I had in speech and chase. It fell out
that the father of my loving chamberfellow, Mr. Cholmley, a
gentleman that had likewise dependance upon the most noble
Henry earl of Huntingdon, having occasion to go to York, unto
that his honourable lord, fell into some mention of me. That
good earl (who well esteemed my fathers service) having belikely

6 Hugh Cholmley.'] Probably of the family of Chomley of Bransby.

7 Edmund SleighJ] Of Derby and Little Ireton, of a good family, which
became extinct at the death, in 1679, of Sir Samuel Sleigh, of Ash and Etvvall
in Derbyshire, and of Gray's Inn, London, knight.

VOL. IV. T

274 BISHOP HALL.

heard some better words of me than I could deserve, made ear-
nest inquiry after me, what were my courses ; what my hopes ;
and hearing of the likelihood of my removal, professed much
dislike of it ; not without some vehemence, demanding why I
was not chosen fellow of that college, wherein by report I
received such approbation. Answer was returned that my coun-
try debarred me ; which being filled with my tutor, whom his
lordship well knew, could not by the statute admit a second.
The earl presently replied, that if that were the hinderance he
would soon take order to remove it ; whereupon his lordship pre-
sently sends for my tutor Mr. Gilby unto York, and with proffer
of large conditions of the chaplainship in his house, and assured
promises of better provisions, drew him to relinquish his place
in the college to a free election. No sooner was his assent signi-
fied, than the days were set for the public (and indeed exquisite)
examination of the competitors. By that time two days of the
three allotted to this trial were past, certain news came to us of
the unexpected death 8 of that incomparably religious and noble
earl of Huntingdon, by whose loss my then disappointed tutor
must necessarily be left to the wide world unprovided for. Upon
notice thereof I presently repaired to the master of the college,
Mr. Dr. Chaderton 9, and besought him to tender that hard con-
dition to which my good tutor must needs be driven if the election
proceeded ; to stay any farther progress in that business ; and to
leave me to my own good hopes wheresoever, whose youth ex-
posed me both to less needs, and more opportunities of provision.
Answer was made me, that the place was pronounced void how-
ever, and therefore that my tutor was divested of all possibility
of remedy ; and must wait upon the providence of God for his
disposing elsewhere, and the election must necessarily proceed
the day following. Then was 1 with a cheerful unanimity chosen
into that society, which if it had any equals, I dare say had none
beyond it, for good order, studious carriage, strict government,
austere piety ; in which I spent six or seven years more with
such contentment, as the rest of my life hath in vain striven t«»

8 Death.] 15Q5.

9 Dr. Chaderton.] Laurence Chaderton was the first master of Emannel
College, having been appointed by the founder. Sir Walter Mildmay. lit
was one of the four divines for the Conference at Hampton Court, and one of
the Translators of the Bible, lit-, with other Cambridge divines, trans
from Chronicles to Canticles inclusive. lie lived till

BISHOP HALL. 275

yield. Now was I called to public disputations often, with no ill
success ; for never durst I appear in any of those exercises of
scholarship, till I had from my knees looked up to heaven for a
blessing, and renewed my actual dependence upon that divine
hand. In this while two years together was I chosen to the
rhetoric lecture in the public schools, where I was encouraged
with a sufficient frequence of auditors ; but finding that well ap-
plauded work somewhat out of my way, not without a secret
blame of myself for so much excursion, I fairly gave up that
task in the midst of those poor acclamations to a worthy succes-
sor Dr. Dod, and betook myself to those serious studies, which
might fit me for that high calling whereunto I was destined,
wherein after I had carefully bestowed myself for a time, I took
the boldness to enter into sacred orders ; the honour whereof
having once attained, I was no niggard of that talent which my
God had entrusted to me, preaching often as occasion was offered,
both in country villages abroad, and at home in the most awful
auditory of the university.

And now I did but wait where and how it would please my
God to employ me. There was at that time a famous school 10
erected at Tiverton in Devon, and endowed with a very large
pension, whose goodly fabric was answerable to the reported
maintenance ; the care whereof, was by the rich and bountiful
founder Mr. Blundel, cast principally upon the then lord chief
justice Popham *. That faithful observer having great interest in
the master of our house, Dr. Chaderton, moved him earnestly
to commend some able, learned, and discrete governor to that
weighty charge, whose action should not need to be so much as
his oversight. It pleased our master out of his good opinion to
tender this condition unto me, assuring me of no small advan-
tages, and no great toil, since it was intended the main load of
the work should lie upon other shoulders. I apprehended the
motion worth the entertaining. In that severe society our times
were stinted, neither was it wise or safe to refuse good offers.
Doctor Chaderton carried me to London, and there presented me
to the lord chief justice with much testimony of approbation.

10 Famous school.'] Founded by Peter Blundell, clothier, a native of the
place, in 1599. An account of the school was privately printed by Benjamin
Incledon, of Pilton, in Devonshire, which was reprinted in 1804 by order of
the feoffees.

1 Popham^] Sir John Popham.

T 2

276 BISHOP HALL.

The judge seemed well apayed with the choice. I promised
acceptance, he the strength of his favour. No sooner had I
parted from the judge, than in the street a messenger presented
me with a letter, from the right virtuous and worthy lady (of
dear and happy memory) the lady Drury 3 of Suffolk, tendering
the rectory of her Halsted 3 then newly void, and very earnestly
desiring me to accept of it. Dr. Chaderton observing in me some
change of countenance, asked me what the matter might be. I
told him the errand, and delivered him the letter beseeching his
advice; which when he had read. u Sir," (quoth I) "methinks
God pulls me by the sleeve, and tells me it is his will I should
rather go to the east than to the west." " Nay " (he answered)
" I should rather think that God would have you go westward,
for that he hath contrived your engagement before the tender of
this letter, which therefore coming too late may receive a fair
and easy answer." To this I besought him to pardon my dis-
sent, adding, that I well knew that divinity was the end whereto
1 was destined by my parents, which I had so constantly pro-
posed to myself, that I never meant other, than to pass through
this western school to it ; but I saw that God who found me
ready to go the farther way about, now called me the nearest and
directest way to that sacred end. The good man could no fur-
ther oppose, but only pleaded the distaste which would hereupon
be justly taken by the lord chief justice, whom I undertook fully
to satisfy ; which I did * with no great difficulty, commending to
his lordship in my room, my old friend and chamber-fellow Mr.
Cholmley, who finding an answerable acceptance disposed himself
to the place ; so as we two, who came together to the university,
now must leave it at once.

Having then fixed my foot at Halsted, I found there a dan-
gerous opposite to the success of my ministry, a witty and bold
atheist, one Mr. Lilly, who by reason of his travails, and abili-
ties of discourse and behaviour, had so deeply insinuated himself
into my patron, sir Robert Drury, that there was small hopes
(during his entireness) for me to work any good upon that noble

2 Lady Drury.'] Anne, eldest daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon, of Red-
grave, the first baronet of England.

8 Halsted.] Now Hawsted : he was instituted December 2, 1601.

4 Which I did.] He resigned on the same day on which he had accepted
the appointment. Sir John Popham, however, did not appoint Cholmley in
his room, but Samuel Butler.

BISHOP HALL. 277

patron of mine ; who by the suggestion of this wicked detractor
was set off from me before he knew me. Hereupon (I confess)
finding the obduredness and hopeless condition of that man, I
bent my prayers against him, beseeching God daily, that he would
be pleased to remove by some means or other, that apparent hin-
derance of my faithful labours ; who gave me an answer accord-
ingly. For this malicious man going hastily up to London, to
exasperate my patron against me, was then and there swept
away by the pestilence, and never returned to do any farther
mischief.

Now the coast was clear before me, and I gained every day of
the good opinion and favourable respects of that honourable gen-
tleman and my worthy neighbours. Being now therefore settled
in that sweet and civil country of Suffolk, near to St. EdmundV
Bury, my first work was to build up my house which was then
extremely ruinous ; which done, the uncouth solitariness of my
life, and the extreme incommodity of that single house-keeping,
drew my thoughts after two years to condescend to the necessity
of a married estate, which God no less strangely provided for me.
For walking from the church on Monday in the Whitsun-week,
with a grave and reverend minister, Mr. Grandidge, I saw a
comely modest gentlewoman standing at the door of that house,
where we were invited to a wedding-dinner, and enquiring of that
worthy friend whether he knew her, " Yes," (quoth he) " I know
her well, and have bespoken her for your wife." When I fur-
ther demanded an account of that answer, he told me, she was
the daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected, Mr.
George Winniff 5 of Bretenham ; that out of an opinion had of the
fitness of that match for me, he had already treated with her
father about it, whom he found very apt to entertain it, advising
me not to neglect the opportunity ; and not concealing the just
praises of the modesty, piety, good disposition, and other virtues
that were lodged in that seemly presence, I listened to the mo-
tion as sent from God ; and at last upon due prosecution happily
prevailed, enjoying the comfortable society of that meet help for
the space of forty-nine years.

I had not passed two years in this estate when my noble friend
sir Edmund Bacon 6, with whom I had much intireness, came to

6 Winniff.~] Or Wenyeve. The bishop's eldest son, Robert, was christened at
Hawsted on December 26, 1605.
6 Sir Edmund Bacon.'] Brother to lady Drury.

278 BISHOP HALL.

me, and earnestly solicited me for my company in a journey by
him projected to the Spa in Ardenna 7, laying before me the safety,
the easiness, the pleasure, and the benefit of that small extrava-
gance, if opportunity were taken at that time, when the earl of
Hertford 8 passed in embassy to the arch-duke Albert of Bruxells.
I soon yielded, as for the reasons by him urged, so especially for
the great desire I had to inform myself ocularly of the state and
practice of the Romish church ; the knowledge whereof might
be of no small use to me in my holy station. Having therefore
taken careful order for the supply of my charge, with the assent
and good allowance of my nearest friends, I entered into this
secret voyage 9.

7 In Ardenna.'] In the forest of Ardennes.

8 Earl of HertfcrdJ] Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford, son of the
Protector duke of Somerset, and celebrated for his marriage with lady
Katharine Grey. The embassy in 1 605 was special, to confirm a peace ; and the
earl, who was generally thought to be master of more ready money than any
nobleman in England, resolved to make a splendid appearance, and to spend
10,000/. besides his allowance.

9 This secret voyage.] See Bishop Hall's Epistles, Decad. i. epist. 5. A
report of some observations in my TYavel.

I give an extract or two from this letter of matters not comprehended in
the text.

" All civil occurrences ; as what fair cities, what strange fashions, enter-
tainments, dangers, delights we found, — are fit for other ears, and winter
evenings : what I noted as a divine, within the sphere of my profession, my
paper shall not spare, in some part, to report.

" Along our way, how many churches saw we demolished ! Nothing left,
but rude heaps, to tell the passenger, there had been both devotion and hos-
tility. O ! the miserable footsteps of war, besides bloodshed, ruin, and deso-
lation ! Fury hath done that there, which covetousness would do with us : —
would do, but shall not : the truth within shall save the walls without. And,
to speak truly, whatever the vulgar exclaim, idolatry pulled down those walls ;
not rage. If there had been no Hollander to raze them, they should have
fallen alone ; rather than hide so much impiety under their guilty roof. —
These are spectacles, not so much of cruelty, as justice : cruelty of man, justice
of God.

" But, — which I wondered at, churches fall, and Jesuits' colleges rise every
where : there is no city, where these are not either rearing, or built. Whence
cometh this ? Is it, for that devotion is not so necessary, as policy ? Those
men, as we say of the fox, fare best, when they are most cursed. None, so
much spited of their own ; none, so hated of all ; none, so opposed by ours :
and yet, these ill weeds grow. Whosoever lives long, shall see them feared
of their own, which now hate them : shall see these seven lean kine devour
all the fat beasts, that feed on the meadows of Tiber. I prophesy, as Pharaoh
dreamed : the event shall justify my confidence. [" At

BISHOP HALL. 279

We waited some days at Harwich for a wind, which we hoped
might waft us over to Dunkirk, where our ambassador had lately
landed ; but at last having spent a day, and half a night at sea,
we were forced for want of favour from the wind, to put in at
Queenborough, from whence coasting over the rich and pleasant
county of Kent, we renewed our shipping at Dover, and soon
landing at Calais, we passed after two days by waggon to the
strong towns of Graveling, and Dunkirk, where I could not but
find much horror in myself to pass under those dark and dreadful
prisons, where so many brave Englishmen had breathed out their
souls in a miserable captivity. From thence we passed through
Winnoxburgh, Ipre, Gaunt, Courtray, to Bruxells, where the

" At Brussells I saw some English women profess themselves vestals ; with
a thousand rites, I know not whether more ridiculous, or magical. Poor
souls ! they could not be fools enough at home. It would have made you to
pity, laugh, disdain, I know not which most, to see by what cunning slights
and fair pretences, that weak sex was fetched into a wilful bondage : and, if
those two can agree, willingly constrained to serve a master, whom they must
and cannot obey : whom they may neither forsake for their vow, nor can
please for their frailty. — What follows hence ? Late sorrow, secret mischief,
misery irremediable. Their forwardness for will-worship shall condemn our
coldness for truth

f ' At Ghent, a city that commands reverence for age, and wonder for great-
ness, we fell upon a Capuchin novice, which wept bitterly, because he was
not allowed to be miserable. His head had now felt the razor ; his back, the
rod : all that laconical discipline pleased him well ; which another, being
condemned to, would justly account a torment. — What hindered, then ? —
Piety to his mother would not permit this, which he thought piety to God :
He could not be a willing beggar, unless his mother must beg unwillingly.
He was the only heir of his father ; the only stay of his mother. The com-
fort of her widowhood depended on this her orphan ; who now, naked, must
enter into the world of the Capuchins, as he came first into this ; leaving his
goods to the division of the fraternity : the least part whereof should have
been hers, whose he wished all. Hence those tears, that repulse. I pitied
his ill-bestowed zeal; and rather wished, than durst teach him, more wisdom.
These men for devout, the Jesuits for learned and pragmatical, have engrossed
all opinions from other orders. — O hypocrisy ! No Capuchin may take, or
touch silver : for these are, you know, the quintessence of Franciscan spirits.
This metal is as very an anathema to these, as the wedge of gold to Achan :
at the offer whereof, he starts back, as Moses from the serpent : yet he car-
ries a boy with him, that takes and carries it ; and never complains of either
metal or measure. I saw, and laughed at it ; and, by this open trick of
hypocrisy, suspected more, more close. How could I choose ? while, com-
monly, the least appears of that which is loathsome in appearance, much more
in nature. — At Namur, on a pleasant and steep hill-top, we found one, that
was termed a married hermit ; approving his wisdom above his fellows, that
could make choice of so cheerful and sociable a solitariness."

280 BISHOP HALL.

ambassador had newly sate down before us. That noble gentle-
man in whose company I travelled, was welcomed with many kind
visitations. Amongst the rest there came to him an English gen-
tleman, who having run himself out of breath in the inns of court,
had forsaken his country, and therewith his religion, and \\a->
turned both bigot and physician, residing now in Bruxells. This
man, after few interchanges of compliment with sir Edmund Bacon,
fell into an hyperbolical predication of the wonderful miracles
done newly * by our lady at Zichem, or Sherpen heavell, that is
Sharp hill ; by Lipsius called Aspricollis ; the credit whereof whun
that worthy knight wittily questioned, he avowed a particular
miracle of cure wrought by her upon himself. I coming into the
room in the midst of this discourse (habited not like a divine,
but in such colour and fashion as might best secure my travel)
and hearing my countryman's zealous and confident relations, at
last asked him this question, " Sir," (quoth I) " Put case this
report of yours be granted for true, I beseech you teach me what
difference there is betwixt these miracles which you say are
wrought by this lady, and those which were wrought by Vespasian,
by some vestals, by charms and spells ; the rather for that I have
noted, in the late published report of these miracles, some patients
prescribed to come upon a Friday, and some to wash in such a
well before their approach; and divers other such charm-like
observations." The gentleman not expecting such a question
from me, answered, " Sir, I do not profess this kind of scholarship,
but we have in the city many famous divines, with whom if it
would please you to confer, you might sooner receive satisfaction."
I asked whom he took for the most eminent divine of that
place : he named to me father Costerus 8, undertaking that he

1 Wonderful miracles done newly. ~] At Sichem, a small town in Brabant,
between Aerschot and Diest, and seated on the Demer, was an old church,
repaired by the archdukes Albert and Isabella, called by .the natives " Scherpen-
heuwel," by the French Notre Dame de Mont-aigu, and in Latin Sacellum Diva
Virginis Aspricollis. In 1G05, the year before his death, Justus Lipsius gave
a long account of the nova beneficia et admiranda operated by the miracle-
working image there preserved, and he dedicated his book to the archduchess
Isabella. At his death he bequeathed to the image his silver pen and his
furred robe, whereupon some one wrote :

" Sensit homo frigere suae miracula Divae,

Crassaque pro calido stragula thure dedit."

2 Costerus."] Franciscus Costerus, Provincial in the Netherlands, afterward^
general of the order at Rome. He was at this time in his 75th year. He
died in 1619.

BISHOP HALL. 281

would be very glad to give me conference, if I would be pleased to
come up to the Jesuits college. I willingly yielded. In the
afternoon the forward gentleman prevented his time to attend
me to the father, (as he styled him,) who (as he said) was
ready to entertain me with a meeting. I went alone up with
him ; the porter shutting the door after me, welcomed me
with a Deo gratias. I had not stayed long in the Jesuits hall,
before Costerus came in to me, who after a friendly salutation,
fell into a formal speech of the unity of that church, out of which
is no salvation, and had proceeded to lose his breath, and labour,
had not I (as civilly as I might) interrupted him with this short
answer ; " Sir, I beseech you mistake me not. My nation tells
you of what religion I am. I come not hither out of any doubt
of my professed belief, or any purpose to change it, but moving a
question to this gentleman, concerning the pretended miracles of
the time, he pleased to refer me to yourself for my answer, which
motion of his I was the more willing to embrace, for the fame
that I have heard of your learning and worth ; and if you can
give me satisfaction herein, I am ready to receive it." Hereupon
we settled to our places, at a table in the end of the hall,
and buckled to a farther discourse. He fell into a poor and
unperfect account of the difference of divine miracles and dia-
bolical ; which I modestly refuted : from thence he slipped into
a cholerick invective against our church, which (as he said)
could not yield one miracle; and when I answered, that in
our church, we had manifest proofs of the ejection of devils by
fasting and prayer, he answered that if it could be proved, that
ever any devil was dispossessed in our church, he would quit his
religion. — Many questions were incidentally traversed by me;
wherein I found no satisfaction given me. The conference was
long and vehement ; in the heat whereof, who should come in
but father Baldwin 3, an English Jesuit, known to me, as by face
(after I came to Brussels) so much more by fame. He sate down
upon a bench at the further end of the table, and heard no small
part of our dissertation, seeming not too well apaid, that a gentle-
man of his nation, (for still I was spoken to in that habit, by the
stile of dominatio vestra) should depart from the Jesuits college

3 Father Baldwin.] William Baldwin, a native of Cornwall, at first professor
of theology at Louvain, and vice-prefect of the English Jesuit mission in the
Netherlands ; afterwards rector of the English seminary at St. Omer. He
died September 28, 1632, aged 69.

282 BISHOP HALL.

no better satisfied. On the next morning therefore he sends the
same English physician to my lodging with a courteous compel-
lation, professing to take it unkindly, that his countryman should
make choice of any other, to confer with, than himself, who
desired both mine acquaintance and full satisfaction. Sir Ed-
mund Bacon, in whose hearing the message was delivered, gave
me secret signs of his utter unwillingness to give way to my fur-
ther conferences, the issue whereof (since we were to pass further,
and beyond the bounds of that protection) might prove dangerous.
I returned a mannerly answer of thanks to father Baldwin ; but
for any further conference, that it were bootless. I could not
hope to convert him, and was resolved he should not alter HK>,
and therefore both of us should rest where we were.

Departing from Brussels we were for Namur, and Liege. In
the way we found the good hand of God, in delivering us from
the danger of free-booters, and of a nightly entrance (amidst a
suspicious convoy) into that bloody city. Thence we came to the
Spadane waters, where I had good leisure to add a second cen-
tury of meditations4 to those 1 had published before my journey.
After we had spent a just time at those medicinal wells, we
returned to Liege, and in our passage up the river Mosa5, I had
a dangerous conflict with a Sorbonist, a prior of the Carmelites,
who took occasion by our kneeling at the receipt of the eucha-
rist, to persuade all the company of our acknowledgment of a
transubstantiation. I satisfied the cavil, shewing upon what
ground * this meet posture obtained with us. The man grew
furious upon his conviction, and his vehement associates began to
join with him, in a right down railing upon our church, and ivli-
gion. I told them they knew where they were : for me, I had
taken notice of the security of their laws, inhibiting any argu-
ment held against their religion established, and therefore stood
only upon my defence, not casting any aspersion upon theirs, but
ready to maintain our own ; which though I performed in as fair
terms as I might, yet the choler of those zealots was so moved
that the paleness of their changed countenances began to threaten

4 Century of Meditations. ,] See " Meditations and Vows," century the third,
dedicated to sir Edmund Bacon. Bp. Hall's Works, vol. i. p. 37, 8. edit.
1634. fol.

* Mosa.'] The Maas.

6 Upon what yround.~] Stc the Rubrics subjoined to the order for Adminis-
tration of the Holy C'oiiiimiinoii, in the Book of Common Pra

BISHOP HALL. 283

some perilous issue, had not sir Edmund Bacon, both by his eye,
and by his tongue, wisely taken me off. I subduced myself
speedily from their presence, to avoid further provocation : the
prior began to bewray some suspicions of my borrowed habit, and
told them, that himself had a green satin suit once prepared for
his travels into England, so as I found it needful for me to lie
close at Namur ; from whence travelling the next day towards
Brussels in the company of two Italian captains, seignior Ascanio
Negro and another whose name I have forgotten : they enquiring
into our nation and religion, wondered to hear that we had any
baptism or churches 7 in England. The congruity of my Latin,
(in respect of their perfect barbarism) drew me and the rest into
their suspicion, so as I might overhear them muttering to each
other, that we were not the men we appeared. Straight the one
of them boldly exprest his conceit, and together with this charge,
began to enquire of our condition. I told them that the gentle-
man he saw before us, was the grandchild of that renowned Bacon,
the great chancellor of England, a man of great birth and quality,
and that myself, and my other companions, travelled in his attend-
ance to the Spa, from the train, and under the privilege of our
late ambassador ; with which just answer I stopped their mouths.
Returning through Brussels we came down to Antwerp, the
paragon of cities ; where my curiosity to see a solemn procession
on St. John Baptist's day might have drawn me into danger
(through my willing unreverence 8) had not the hulk of a tall
Brabanter, behind whom 1 stood in a corner of a street, shadowed

7 Baptism or churches.'] Compare above, Life of Whitgift, vol. iii. pp. 618-
621, and note.

8 Willing unreverence^] When Dr. Edward Pocock, the great oriental
scholar, was on his return from Constantinople, in the year 1640, during
some stay which he made at Genoa, there was (as he would often tell his
friends) " on a certain day, a religious procession, which went through the
streets with all the ceremonial pomp, that is usual on such occasions. And
as he stood in a convenient place, to take a view of it, he was surprised
with the discourse of some persons, at a little distance, who talked in Arabic.
They were a couple of slaves in chains, who being confident that nobody
could understand the language they spake in, expressed their opinions of
what they saw with all manner of freedom. And as they rallied the pageantry
they beheld, with a great deal of wit, so from it they took occasion to ridicule
Christianity itself, and to load it with contempt. So unhappy has the church
of Rome been in her practices on the Christian religion : for whilst to serve
some worldly designs, she hath laboured to engage the minds of the vulgar
sort by empty shows and superstitious solemnities, she hath by those corrupt

284 BISHOP HALL.

me from notice. Thence down the fair river of Scheld, we came
to Flushing, where upon the resolution of our company to stay
some hours, I hasted to Middleburgh to see an ancient college.
That visit lost me my passage ; ere I could return, I might see
our ship under sail for England. The master had with the wind
altered his purpose, and called aboard with such eagerness, that
my company must either away, or undergo the hazard of too
much loss. I looked long after them in vain, and sadly returning
to Middleburgh waited long, for an inconvenient and tempestuous
passage.

After some year and half, it pleased God unexpectedly to con-
trive the change of my station9. My means were but short at
Halsted ; yet such as I often professed, if my then patron would
have added but one ten pounds by year, (which I held to be the
value of my detained due) I should never have removed. One
morning as I lay in my bed, a strong motion was suddenly
glanced into my thoughts of going to London. I rose and
betook me to the way. The ground that appeared of that pur-
pose, was to speak with my patron sir Robert Drury, if by
occasion of the public preachership of St. Edmunds Bury, then
offered me upon good conditions, I might draw him to a willing
yieldance of that parcel of my due maintenance ', which was kept
back from my not over-deserving predecessor. Who hearing my
errand dissuaded me from so ungainful a change, which had it

additions, exposed what is infinitely rational, wise and good, to the laughter
and reproach of infidels." Twell's Life ofPocock, p. 18, prefixed to Pocock's
Theological Works, vol. i. Compare also above,Lt/e ofBilney, vol. ii. p. I7,note.

9 The change of my station.'] See Epistles, Decad. 1. Epist. 9. " I conjecture
he did not much reside here (at Hawsted) ; for during his time there are not
above two years in the register of the same hand. While he did reside, he
preached three times a week. Till within a few years, there was (as I am in-
formed by a gentleman who has seen it) in the parsonage-house, a plate of
lead with his motto, Imum nolo ; Summum nequeo ; Quiesco. Adopted, I
suppose, when he first settled here, and expressive of a mind, not totally
unambitious, yet content : and it is probable, if his situation here had been
comfortable, he would have lived and died in the same obscurity with his
predecessors and successors in this rectory." Cullum's History of Hawsted,
1784, p. 65.

1 My due maintenance.] " Upon his return, he found not that satisfaction
which he expected in this place ; his patron, sir Robert Drury, refusing to
restore to the rectory about ten pounds a year, and insisting, as tradition
reports, upon his acceptance of a modus for the herbage of the park." Cul-
lum's History of Hawsted, p. 65.

BISHOP HALL. 285

been to my sensible advantage, he should have readily given way
unto, but not offering me the expected encouragement of my con-
tinuance ; with him I stayed and preached on the Sunday fol-
lowing. That day sir Robert Drury, meeting with the lord
Denny 2, fell belike into the commendation of my sermon. That
religious and noble lord had long harboured good thoughts con-
cerning me, upon the reading of those poor pamphlets which I
had formerly published: and long wished the opportunity to
know me. To please him in this desire, sir Robert willed me
to go and tender my service to his lordship, which I modestly
and seriously deprecated ; yet upon his earnest charge went to
his lordship's gate, where I was not sorry to hear of his absence.
Being now full of cold and distemper in Drury-lane 3, I was
found out by a friend, in whom I had formerly no great interest,
one Mr. Gurrey 4, tutor to the earl of Essex. He told me how
well my Meditations were accepted at the prince's court (p.
Henry) ; and earnestly advised me to step over to Richmond, and
preach to his highness. I strongly pleaded my indisposition
of body, and my inpreparation for any such work, together with
my bashful fears, and utter unfitness for such a presence. My
averseness doubled his importunity ; in fine, he left me not till
he had my engagement to preach the Sunday following at
Richmond. He made way for me to that awful pulpit, and
encouraged me by the favour of his noble lord the earl of Essex.
I preached : through the favour of my God, that sermon was not
so well given as taken ; in so much as that sweet prince signified
his desire to hear me again the Tuesday following ; which done,
that labour gave more contentment than the former ; so as that
gracious prince, both gave me his hand and commanded me to
his service. My patron seeing me (upon my return to London)
looked after by some great persons, began to wish me at home,
and told me that some or other would be snatching me up. I
answered it was in his power to prevent. Would he be pleased
to make my maintenance but so competent as in right it should
be, I would never stir from him. Instead of condescending, it

" Lord Denny. .] Sir Edward Denny of Waltham, created lord Denny, 27th
October, 1604, and earl of Norwich, 24th October, 1626. He died without
issue, in 1630.

3 Drury-lane'] Where was the town house of the Drury family, which gave
its name to that locality.

1 Mr. Gurrey.'] Thomas Gurrey, M.A., one of the prebendaries of Wolver-
hampton.

286 BISHOP HALL.

pleased him to fall into an expostulation of the rate of com-
petencies, affirming the variableness thereof according to our own
estimation, and our either raising or moderating the causes of
our expences. I showed him the insufficiency of my means :
that I was forced to write books to buy books : shortly, some
harsh and unpleasing answer so disheartened me that I resolved
to embrace the first opportunity of my remove.

Now whilst I was taken up with these anxious thoughts, a
messenger (it was sir Robert Wingfield of Northampton's son)
came to me from the lord Denny, (now earl of Norwich) my
after most honourable patron, entreating me from his lordship to
speak with him. No sooner came I thither, than after a glad
and noble welcome, I was entertained with the earnest offer of
Waltham. The conditions were like the mover of them, free
and bountiful. I received them, as from the munificent hand of
my God ; and returned full of the cheerful acknowledgments of
a gracious providence over me. Too late now did my former
noble patron relent, and offer me those terms which had before
fastened me for ever. I returned home happy in a new master,
and in a new patron ; betwixt whom I divided myself and my
labours, with much comfort and no less acceptation.

In the second year of mine attendance on his highness, when
I came for my dismission from that monthly service, it pleased
the prince to command me a longer stay: and at last mi no
allowed departure, by the mouth of sir Thomas Challonner, his
governor, to tender unto me a motion of more honour and favour
than I was worthy of; which was, that it was his highness1 plea-
sure and purpose, to have me continually resident at the court as
a constant attendant, whilst the rest held on their wonted vicissi-
tudes ; for which purpose his highness would obtain for me such
preferments as should yield me full contentment. I returned my
humblest thanks, and my readiness to sacrifice myself to the ser-
vice of so gracious a master 5, but being conscious to myself of my
unanswerableness to so great expectation, and loth to forsake so
dear and noble a patron, who had placed much of his heart upon
me, I did modestly put it off, and held close to my \Valtham ;
where in a constant course I preached a long time, (as I had done
also at Halstead before) thrice in the week ; yet never durst I
climb into the pulpit, to preach any sermon, whereof I had not
before in my poor and plain fashion, pen n- d < very word in tin-
5 So yracious a master.] Prince Henry died (*«th November, 1612.

BISHOP HALL. 287

same order wherein I hoped to deliver it, although in the expres-
sion I listed not to be a slave to syllables.

In this while my worthy kinsman, Mr. Samuel Burton, arch-
deacon of Glocester, knowing in how good terms I stood at court,
and pitying the miserable condition of his native church of Wol-
verhampton, was very desirous to engage me in so difficult and
noble a service as the redemption of that captivated church. For
which cause he importuned me to move some of my friends, to
solicit the dean of Windsor 6, (who by an ancient annexation 7 is
patron thereof,) for the grant of a particular prebend, when it
should fall vacant in that church. Answer was returned me,
that it was fore promised to one of my fellow chaplains. I sate
down without further expectation. Some year or two after,
hearing that it was become void, and meeting with that fellow
chaplain of mine ; I wished him much joy of the prebend. He
asked me if it were void : I assured him so ; and telling him of
the former answer delivered to me in my ignorance of his engage-
ment, wished him to hasten his possession of it. He delayed not.
When he came to the dean of Windsor, for his promised dis-

(i Dean of Windsor] Most probably Anthony Maxey, who was dean from
1612 to 1618. His predecessor was Giles Thompson, who had been appointed
in 1602.

7 An ancient annexation.] The deanery of Wolverhampton is one of the most
ancient ecclesiastical foundations in England, dating from 996. It was con-
firmed by successive sovereigns. Edward II. granted to many of his free
chapels, amongst which this of Wolverhampton is named, exemption from
all ordinary jurisdiction, with many other privileges. In 1479, Edward IV.
annexed the college, or free chapel, of Wolverhampton to the chapel of Wind-
sor, so that the dean of St. George's, at Windsor, should be dean of the free
chapel of Wolverhampton and prebendary of the first prebend. This grant
was confirmed by act of parliament.

When, in the first year of Edward VI., collegiate churches, free chapels, &c.,
were dissolved, the chapel of St. George, at Windsor, was excepted, but that
of Wolverhampton was seized by the crown. On the 2nd of March, 1553,
shortly before his death, Edward VI. granted it to John Dudley, duke of
Northumberland, who was attainted in the same year, and by queen Mary it
was again annexed to St. George's chapel, at Windsor. This annexation was
confirmed by Elizabeth, and also by James in the eighteenth year of his
reign, when De Dominis was dean. In the eighth of Henry VIII., the
manor and lordship of Wolverhampton were leased by the then dean, John
Harman (or Vessey), to Richard Wrottesley, Esq., and James Leveson, gent.,
at the rent of 38/., and it has ever since been leased at the same rate. In
1801, sir William Pulteney was the lessee, and the lease now belongs to his
heirs. Until the late act for abolishing peculiars, the collegiate church was
subject to no power but that of the sovereign, and, under it, to the perpetual
visitation of the keeper of the great seal.

288 BISHOP HALL.

patch, the dean brought him forth a letter from the prince,
wherein he was desired, and charged to reverse his former engage-
ment (since that other chaplain was otherwise provided for) and
to cast that favour upon me. I was sent for, (who least thought
of it) and received the free collation of that poor dignity. It was
not the value of the place, (which was but nineteen nobles per
annum) that we aimed at, but the freedom of a goodly church,
(consisting of a dean and eight prebendaries competently endowed)
and many thousand souls lamentably swallowed up by wilful
recusants, in a pretended fee-farm8 for ever, — O God, what an
hand hadst thou in the carriage of this work ! when we set foot
in this suit (for another of the prebendaries joined with me) we
knew not wherein to insist, nor where to ground a complaint,
only we knew that a goodly patrimony was by sacrilegious con-
veyance detained from the church. But in the pursuit of it such
marvellous light opened itself unexpectedly to us, in revealing of
a counterfeit zeal, found in the ashes of that burned house of a
false register ; in the manifestation of rasures, and interpolations,
and misdates of unjustifiable evidences, that after many years suit,
the wise and honourable lord chancellor Ellesmere 9 upon a full
hearing, adjudged these two sued-for prebends, clearly to be
returned to the church, untill by common law, they could (if pos-
sibly) be revicted. Our great adversary sir Walter Leveson 10,

8 A pretended fee-farm."] " The farming of benefices was the ordinary prac-
tice in those days," (Henry VIII.) (" see Fox, Acts, &c. vol. iii. p. 167,) and
must not be confounded with fee-farming, which seems to have crept in
shortly afterwards. The latter system is explained to have been a permanent
arrangement, or commutation, and was bitterly inveighed against by Latimer.
This plain-spoken preacher did not scruple to ascribe it to the machinations
of Satan, ' What an unreasonable devil is this ? He provides a great while
beforehand for the time that is to come. He hath brought up now of late
the most monstrous kind of covetousness that ever was heard of. He hath
in vented fee-farming of benefices; and all to decay this office of preaching ;
insomuch that when any man hereafter shall have a benefice, he may go
where he will for any house he shall have to dwell upon, or any glebe land to
keep hospitality withal ; but he must take up a chamber in an ale-house, and
there sit to play at tables all the day. — A goodly curate ! " Sixth Sermon
before king Edward VI. 1549. Cranmer's Rtmaina, ed. Jenkyns, i. 57, note.

9 Lord chancellor Ellesmere.] It may be remarked here, that this judge's
family is now merged in that of the defendant, against whom bishop Hall
makes such strong charges : Lord Ellesmere's very title is now revived in the
person of a lineal descendant of sir Walter Leveson.

10 Sir Walter Leveson.'] In the twelfth year of his reign, James I. granted
the fee of the hundred of Seiston, in Staffordshire, to sir Walter Leveson, knt.

BISHOP HALL. 289

finding it but loss and trouble to struggle for litigious sheaves,
came off to a peaceable composition with me of 40£. per annum
for my part, whereof ten should be to the discharge of my stall
in that church, till the suit should by course of common law be
determined. We agreed upon fair wars. The cause was heard
at the king's bench barr : when a special verdict was given for
us. Upon the death of my partner in the suit, (in whose name
it had now been brought) it was renewed ; a jury empannelled
in the county ; the foreman (who had vowed he would carry it
for sir Walter Leveson howsoever) was before the day, stricken
mad, and so continued ; we proceeded with the same success we
formerly had ; whilst we were thus striving, a word fell from my
adversary, that gave me intimation, that a third dog would per-
haps come in, and take the bone from us both ; which I finding
to drive at a supposed concealment *, happily prevented, for I

The family of Leveson had acquired, at Wolverhampton, great riches by the
wool trade, then called the staple, and the dealers in it merchants. At the
Reformation church lands were sold at a small price, and the title being then
precarious, few persons were willing to become purchasers ; but the family of
Leveson, having money and wishing well to the Reformation, bought many
of these lands, as Trentham, Lillishul, &c. In queen Anne's time, a part of
the estates was sold by another Walter Leveson, to Newport, earl of Bradford,
which part afterwards passed to the Pulteney family. One of the Gowers of
Stittenham, in Yorkshire, married the heiress of the elder branch of the
Levesons, took the name, and seated himself at Trentham ; from him the
property has passed to his descendant, the present duke of Sutherland.

1 A supposed concealment^] "When monasteries were dissolved, and the
lands thereof, and afterwards colleges, chaunteries and fraternities were all
given to the crown, some demesnes here and there pertaining thereunto,
were still privily retained, and possessed by certain private persons, or corpo-
rations, or churches. This caused the queen (Elizabeth] when she under-
stood it, to grant commissions to some persons to search after these conceal-
ments, and to retrieve them to the crown. But it was a world to consider,
what unjust oppressions of the people, and the poor, this occasioned by
some griping men that were concerned therein. For under the pretence of
executing commissions for inquiry to be made for these lands concealed, they,
by colour thereof, and without colour of commission, contrary to all right,
and to the queen's meaning and intent, did intermeddle and challenge lands
of long time possessed by church wardens, and such-like, upon the cha-
ritable gifts of predecessors, to the common benefit of the parishes ....
Further they attempted to make titles to lands, possessions, plate, and goods,
belonging to hospitals, and such-like places, used for maintenance of poor
people ; with many such other unlawful attempts and extortions." Strype's
Annals of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 209. See also Strype's Life of Parker,
p. 368, 69. 405. 489.

VOL. IV. U

290 BISHOP HALL.

presently addressed myself to his majesty, with a petition for the
renewing the charter of that church ; and the full establishment
of the lands, rights, liberties, thereto belonging : which I easily
obtained from those gracious hands. Now sir Walter Leveson,
seeing the patrimony of the church so fast and safely settled : and
misdoubting what issue those his crazy evidences would find at
the common law, began to incline to offers of peace, and at last
drew him so far, as that he yielded to those too many conditions,
not particularly for myself, but for the whole body of all those
prebends which pertained to the church ; first that he would be
content to cast up that fee-farm, which he had of all the patri-
mony of that church, and disclaiming it, receive that which he
held of the said church by lease, from us the several prebendaries,
for term, whether of years, or (which he rather desired) of lives.
Secondly, that he would raise the maintenance of every prebend,
(whereof some were but forty shillings, others three pounds,
others four, &c.) to the yearly value of thirty pounds to each
man, during the said term of his lease : only for a monument of
my labour and success herein, I required that my prebend might
have the addition of ten pounds per annum, above the fellows.
We were busily treating this happy match for that poor church ;
sir Walter Leveson was not only willing but forward ; the then
dean Mr. Antonius de Dominis2, archbishop of Spalata, gave both
way and furtherance to the dispatch ; all had been most happily
ended, had not the scrupulousness of one or two of the number,
deferred so advantageous a conclusion. In the mean while sir
Walter Leveson dies, leaves his young orphan ward to the king ;
all our hopes were now blown up : an office was found of all those
lands ; the very wonted payments were denied, and I called into
the court of wards, in fair likelihood to forego my former hold,
and yielded possession : but there, it was justly awarded by the
lord treasurer, then master of the wards, that the orphan could
have no more, no other right than the father. I was therefore
left in my former state, only upon public complaint of the hard
condition wherein the orphan was left, I suffered myself to be
over-intreated, to abate somewhat of that evicted composition ;
which work having once firmly settled, in a just pity of the mean
provision, if not the destitution of so many thousand souls, and a

2 De Dominis.] See p. 93, ante. He was dean of Windsor from 1618 to
1G22.

BISHOP HALL. 291

desire, and care, to have them comfortably provided for in the
future, I resigned up the said prebend to a worthy preacher,
Mr. Lee, who should constantly reside there, and painfully
instruct that great and long neglected people ; which he hath
hitherto performed with great mutual contentment and happy
success.

Now during this 22 years which I spent 3 at Waltham ; thrice

3 Which I spent.] To this period we may apply an interesting account
given of his manner of spending his time, in a letter to his patron, lord
Denny.

"Every day is a little life; and our whole life is but a day repeated:
whence it is, that old Jacob numbers his life by days ; and Moses desires to
be taught this point of holy arithmetic, ' to number ' not his years, but
' his days.' Those therefore that dare lose a day, are dangerously prodigal ;
those that dare mispend it, desperate. We can teach others by ourselves :
let me tell your lordship how I would pass my days, whether common or
sacred; and that you, or whosoever others, overhearing me, may either
approve my thriftiness, or correct my errors.

" When sleep is rather driven away than leaves me, I would ever awake
with God. My first thoughts are for him : if my heart be early seasoned
with his presence, it will savour of him all day after. While my body is
dressing, not with an effeminate curiosity, nor yet with rude neglect, my
mind addresses itself to her ensuing task, bethinking what is to be done, and
in what order ; and marshalling, as it may, my hours with my work. That
done, after some meditation, I walk up to my masters and companions, — my
books ; and sitting down amongst them, with the best contentment, I dare
not reach forth my hand to salute any of them till I have first looked up to
heaven, and craved favour of him, to whom all my studies are duly referred ;
without whom, I can neither profit nor labour. After this, out of no over
great variety, I cull forth those, which may best fit my occasions : wherein
I am not too scrupulous of age. Sometimes I put myself to school to one
of those ancients, whom the church hath honoured with the name of Fathers;
whose volumes, I confess not to open, without a secret reverence of their
holiness and sanctity : sometimes, to those later doctors, which want nothing
but age to make them classical : always, to God's Book. That day is lost,
whereof some hours are not improved in those divine monuments. Others I
turn over, out of choice ; these out of duty. Ere I can have sat unto weari-
ness, my family, having now overcome all household distractions, invites
me to our common devotions ; not without some short preparation. These
heartily performed, send me up with a more strong and cheerful appetite
to my former work, which I find made easy to me by intermission and
variety. One while mine eyes are busy; another while my hand; and some-
times my mind takes the burthen from them both. One hour is spent
in textual divinity; another in controversy; histories relieve them both.
When the mind is weary of others' labours, it begins to undertake her own.

u 2

292 BISHOP HALL.

was I commanded and employed abroad by his majesty in public
service.

First in the attendance of the right honourable earl of Carlile4,
(then lord viscount Doncaster) who was sent upon a noble
embassy 5, with a gallant retinue into France ; whose entertain-
ment there, the annals of that nation will tell to posterity. In the
midst of that service was I surprized with a miserable distemper
of body ; which ended in a diarrhoea biliosa, not without some
beginnings and further threats of a dissentery : wherewith I was
brought so low, that there seemed small hope of my recovery.

Sometimes it meditates and winds up for future use ; sometimes it lays forth
her conceits into present discourse: sometimes for itself, often for others.
Neither know I whether it works or plays in these thoughts. I am sure
no sport hath more pleasure ; no work more use : only the decay of a weak
body makes me think these delights insensibly laborious. Before my meals
and after, I let myself loose from all thoughts, and would forget that I ever
studied. Company, discourse, recreations, are now seasonable and welcome.
I rise not immediately from my trencher to my book, but after some inter-
mission. After my later meal, my thoughts are slight ; only my memory
may be charged with the task of recalling what was committed to her
custody in the day ; and my heart is busy in examining my hands and mouth,
and all other senses, of that day's behaviour. The evening is come : no
tradesman doth more carefully take in his wares, clear his shop-board, and
shut his windows, than I would shut up my thoughts, and clear my mind.
That student shall live miserably, which, like a camel, lies down under his
burthen. All this done, calling together my family, we end the day with
God. — Such are only common days.

" But God's day calls for another respect. The same sun arises on this day,
and enlightens it : yet because that Sun of Righteousness arose upon it, and
gave a new life unto the world in it, and drew the strength of God's moral
precept into it ; therefore, justly do we sing with the psalmist, This is the day
which the Lord hath made. Now, I forget the world, and in a sort, myself:
and deal, with my wonted thoughts, as great men use, who, at some times of
their privacy, forbid the access of all suitors. Prayer, meditation, reading,
hearing, preaching, singing, good conference, are the businesses of this day ;
which I dare not bestow on any work or pleasure, but heavenly; I hate
superstition on the one side, and looseness on the other : but I find it hard to
offend in too much devotion : easy, in profaneness. The whole week is
sanctified by this day : and according to my care of this, is my blessing on
the rest." Works, vol. vii. p. 254—6.

4 Earl of Carlile.'] James Hay. He was grandson of Hall's patron, the
earl of Norwich, to whose barony of Denny he succeeded in 1630. This
relationship accounts for Lord Carlisle's patronage of Hall.

' A noble embassy.'] To congratulate Louis XIII. on his marriage with
Anne of Austria.

BISHOP HALL. 293

Mr. Peter Moulin 6 (to whom I was beholden for his frequent visi-
tations) being sent by my lord ambassador, to inform him of my
estate, brought him so sad news thereof, as that he was much
afflicted therewith, well supposing his welcome to Waltham could
not but want much of the heart without me. Now the time of
his return drew on, Dr. Moulin kindly offered to remove me,
upon his lordship's departure, to his own house, promising me all
careful attendance. I thanked him, but resolved, if I could but
creep homewards to put myself upon the journey. A litter was
provided, but of so little ease, that Simeon's penitential lodging,
or a malefactor's stocks, had been less penal. I crawled down
from my close chamber into that carriage, In qua mdebaris mi/ii
efferri, tanquam in sandapila, as Mr. Moulin wrote to me after-
ward ; that misery had I endured in all the long passage from
Paris to Dieppe, being left alone to the surly muleteers, had not
the providence of my good God brought me to St. Germains,
upon the very setting out of those coaches, which had stayed
there upon that morning's entertainment of my lord ambassador.
How glad was I that I might change my seat, and my company.
In the way, beyond all expectation, I began to gather some
strength ; whether the fresh air, or the desires of my home
revived me, so much, and so sudden reparation ensued, as was
sensible to myself, and seemed strange to others. Being shipped
at Dieppe the sea used us hardly, and after a night, and a great
part of the day following, sent us back well wind-beaten, to that
bleak haven whence we set forth, forcing us to a more pleasing
land passage, through the coasts of Normandy and Picardy;
towards the end whereof, my former complaint returned upon me,
and landing with me, accompanied me to, and at my long desired
home. In this my absence it pleased his majesty, graciously, to
confer upon me the deanry of Worcester 7, which being promised
to me before my departure, was deeply hazarded whilst I was out
of sight, by the importunity and underhand working of some
great ones. Dr. Field8, the learned and worthy dean of Glocester,
was by his potent friends put into such assurances of it, that I

6 Peter Moulin.'] Pierre du Moulin, the elder.

7 Deanry of Worcester.'] In the year 16 16. Le Neve's Fasti, p. 310.

8 Dr. Field.'] Richard Field, appointed dean of Gloucester in 1609. He
died 21st November, 1616. It is sufficient to name his celebrated work " Of
the Church, four books." Fuller calls him " that learned divine, whose memory
smelleth like a Field the Lord hath blessed." See p. 101, ante.

294 BISHOP HALL.

heard where he took care for the furnishing that ample house.
But God fetched it about for me, in that absence and nescience
of mine ; and that reverend, and better deserving divine, was well
satisfied with greater hopes ; and soon after exchanged this
mortal estate, for an immortal and glorious.

Before I could go down through my continuing weakness, to
take possession of that dignity, his majesty pleased to design me
to his attendance into Scotland 9 ; where the great love, and re-
spect that I found, both from the ministers and people, wrought
me no small envy, from some of our own. Upon a commonly
received supposition, that his majesty would have no further use
of his chaplains, after his remove from Edinborough, (for as
much as the divines of the country, whereof there is great store
and worthy choice, were allotted to every station) I easily ob-
tained, through the solicitation of my ever honoured lord of Car-
lile, to return with him before my fellows. No sooner was I gone,
than suggestions were made to his majesty of my over plausible
demeanour and doctrine to that already prejudicate people, for
which his majesty, after a gracious acknowledgment of my good
service there done, called me upon his return to a favourable and
mild account ; not more freely professing what informations had
been given against me, than his own full satisfaction, with my
sincere and just answer; as whose excellent wisdom well saw
that such winning carriage of mine could be no hinderance to
those his great designs. At the same time his majesty having
secret notice, that a letter was coming to me from Mr. W.
Struther, a reverend and learned divine of Edinborough, con-
cerning the five points *, then proposed, and urged to the church
of Scotland, was pleased to impose upon me an earnest charge,
to give him a full answer in satisfaction to those his modest
doubts ; and at large to declare my judgment concerning those
required observations, which I speedily performed with so great

9 Into Scotland.] See Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud, p. 73—5, 78—9.

1 The Jive points.'] " Afterwards called the five Articles of Perth. The
articles at large are to be found in the histories of those times : but in
short they contained (I) the kneeling at the communion; (2) private com-
munion at sick people's request; (3) private Baptism; (4) confirmation of
children; (5) observation of festivals." Memoirs of the Church of Scotland,
p. 162, A.D. 1717. See also Spotswood's Hist, of the Church of Scotland,
fol. 539. Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 78. The king's design in these mea-
sures was to bring the church of Scotland to a nearer conformity with that of
England.

BISHOP HALL. 295

approbation of his majesty, that it pleased him to command a
transcript thereof, as I was informed, publicly to be read in their
most famous university : the effect whereof his majesty vouch-
safed to signifie afterwards unto some of my best friends, with
allowance beyond my hopes.

It was not long after, that his majesty finding the exigence of
the affairs of the Netherlandish churches to require it, both
advised them to a synodical decision, and by his incomparable
wisdom promoted the work. My unworthiness was named for
one of the assistants of that honourable grave and reverend
meeting, where I failed not of my best service to that woefully
distracted church. By that time I had stayed some two months
there, the unquietness of the nights, in those garrison towns,
working upon the tender disposition of my body, brought me to
such weakness through want of rest, that it began to disable me
from attending the synod, which yet as I might, I forced myself
unto as wishing that my zeal could have discountenanced my
infirmity ; wherein the mean time, it is well worthy of my thank-
ful remembrance, that being in an afflicted and languishing con-
dition, for a fortnight together with that sleepless distemper, yet
it pleased God, the very night before I was to preach the Latin
sermon 2 to the synod to bestow upon me such a comfortable
refreshing of sufficient sleep, as whereby my spirits were revived,
and I was enabled with much vigour and vivacity to perform that
service ; which was no sooner done than my former complaint
renewed upon me, and prevailed against all the remedies that the
counsel of physicians could advise me unto ; so as after long
strife, I was compelled to yield unto a retirement (for the time)
to the Hague, to see if change of place and more careful attend-
ance, which I had in the house of our right honourable ambassa-

2 The Latin sermon.'] See Kale's Golden Remains, p. 381, &c. The best
account of the proceedings of this far-famed synod of Dort may be found
in the letters of the ever-memorable John Hales of Eton College, printed in
his Golden Remains. See particularly the Latin edition of those letters,
published by Mosheim at Hamburgh, A.D. 1724. The Canons of this synod
are inserted in the Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum ; and the Acta were
printed at Leyden 1620 in fol. : see also Limborch's Life of Episcopius,
Fuller's Church Hist, book 10, p. 77—86. Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 79, &c.
Heylin's Hist, of the Presbyterians, p. 401, &c. Hickman's Animadversions
on Dr. Heylin, p. 405 — 22. The magnificent copy of the Acta Synodi Dor-
drechtensis which belonged to James I., bound in crimson velvet, embroidered
in gold, is now preserved in the old Royal Library in the British Museum.

296 BISHOP HALL.

dor, the lord Carleton 3 (now viscount Dorchester) might recover
me. But when notwithstanding all means, my weakness increased
so far, as that there was small likelihood left of so much strength
remaining, as might bring me back into England, it pleased his
gracious majesty by our noble ambassador's solicitation, to call
me off, and to substitute a worthy divine Mr. Dr. Goade * in my
unwillingly forsaken room. Returning by Dort, I sent in my sad
farewel to that grave assembly, who by common vote sent to me
the president of the synod, and the assistants, with a respective
and gracious valediction ; neither did the deputies of my lords
the states neglect (after a very respectful compliment sent from
them to me by Daniel Heinsius) to visit me ; and after a noble
acknowledgment of more good service from me than I durst own,
dismissed me with an honourable retribution, and sent after me a
rich medal of gold, the portraiture of the synod, for a precious
monument of their respects to my poor endeavours, who failed
not whilest I was at the Hague, to impart unto them my poor
advice concerning the proceeding of that synodical meeting.
The difficulties of my return in such weakness were many and
great; wherein, if ever, God manifested his special providence
to me, in over-ruling the cross accidents of that passage, and after
many dangers and despairs, contriving my safe arrival.

After not many years settling at home, it grieved my soul, to
see our own church begin to sicken * of the same disease which
we had endeavoured to cure in our neighbours. Mr. Montague's *
tart and vehement assertions of some positions, near of kin to
the Remonstrants of Netherland, gave occasion of raising no
small broil in the church. Sides were taken, pulpits every where
rang of these opinions ; but parliament took notice of the divi-
sion, and questioned the occasioner. Now as one that desired to

8 Lord Carleton.'] Sir Dudley Carlton, created lord Carlton in 1628; vis-
count Dorchester, 25th July, 1628. He died in 1631.

4 Mr. Dr. Goade.'} Thomas Goad, S.T.P., chantor of St. Paul's in London,
prebendary of Hilton, in the collegiate church of Wolverhampton, and chap-
lain to archbishop Abbot.

* Begin to sicken.'] See Fuller's Church History, book 10, p. 119, &c.
Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 124 — 7. Also bishop Hall's Way of Peace in the

five busy Articles of Arminius. Parliamentary Hist. 6, 7.

* Mr. Montague's.] Richard Mountague, or Montagu, who was not con-
nected with the noble family of that name, was the son of Laurence Mon-
tague, minister of Dorney, in Buckinghamshire : he was bishop successively
of Chichester in 1628, and of Norwich in 1638. He died in 164 1.

BISHOP HALL. 297

do all good offices to our dear and common mother, I set my
thoughts on work, how so dangerous a quarrel might be happily
composed ; and finding that mis-taking was more guilty of this
dissention than mis-believing ; (since it plainly appeared to me,
that Mr. Montague meant to express, not Arminius 7, but bishop
Overall, a more moderate and safe author, however he sped in
delivery of him ;) I wrote a little project of pacification 8, wherein
I desired to rectify the judgment of men, concerning this misap-
prehended controversy, shewing them the true parties in this un-
seasonable plea; and because bishop Overall went a midway,

7 To express, not Arminius^] On this subject Mountague shall best speak for
himself. It would be well if his wise and noble sentiments could make
their due impression upon many shallow controversialists in our own days.

" I disavow the name and title of Arminian. I am no more Arminian
than they are Gomarians ; not so much in all probability. They delight, it
seemeth, to be called after men's names ; for anon they stick not to call
themselves Calvinists ; which title, though more honourable than Gomarian
or Arminian, I am not so fond of, or doting upon, but I can be content to
leave it unto those that affect it, and hold it reputation to be so instiled. I
am not, nor would be accounted willingly Arminian, Calvinist, or Lutheran
(names of division) but a Christian. For my faith was never taught by the
doctrine of men. I was not baptized into the belief, or assumed by grace
into the family of any of these, or of the pope. I will not pin my belief unto
any man's sleeve, carry he his head ever so high ; not unto St. Augustin, or
any ancient father, nedum unto men of lower rank. A Christian I am, and
so glory to be j only denominated of Christ Jesus my Lord and Master, by
whom I never was as yet so wronged, that I would relinquish willingly that
royal title, and exchange it for any of his menial servants. And further yet
I do profess, that I see no reason why any member of the Church of England,
a church every way so transcendant unto that of Leyden and Geneva, should
lowt so low as to denominate himself of any of the most eminent amongst
them ....

"Again for Arminianism, I must and do protest before God and his
angels, idque in verbo sacerdotis, the time is yet to come that ever I read
word in Arminius. The course of my studies was never addressed to modern
epitomizers : but from my first entrance to the study of divinity, I balked
the ordinary and accustomed by-paths of Bastingius's Catechism, Fenner's
Divinity, Bucanus' Common Places, Trelcatius, Polanus, and such-like ; and
betook myself to Scripture the rule of faith, interpreted by antiquity, the
best expositor of faith, and applier of that rule : holding it a point of dis-
cretion, to draw water, as near as I could to the well-head, and to spare
labour in vain, in running further off, to cisterns and lakes. I went to
enquire, when doubt was, of the days of old, as God himself directed me : and
hitherto I have not repented me of it." Mountague's Appello Ctssarem, p. 10.

8 A little project of pacificationJ] The way of Peace in the five busy articles
commonly known by the name of Arminius.

298 BISHOP HALL.

betwixt the two opinions which he held extreme, and must needs
therefore somewhat differ from the commonly-received tenet in
these points, I gathered out of bishop Overall on the one side,
and out of our English divines at Dort on the other, such common
propositions concerning these five busy articles, as wherein both
of them are fully agreed ; all which being put together, seemed
unto me to make up so sufficient a body of accorded truth, that
all other questions moved hereabouts, appeared merely super-
fluous, and every moderate Christian might find where to rest
himself, without hazard of contradiction. These I made bold by
the hands of Dr. Young9 the worthy dean of Winchester, to
present to his excellent majesty, together with a humble motion of
a peaceable silence to be enjoined to both parts, in those other
collateral, and needless disquisitions : which if they might befit
the schools of academical disputants, could not certainly sound
well from the pulpits of popular auditories. Those reconciliatory
papers fell under the eyes of some grave divines on both parts.
Mr. Montague professed that he had seen them, and would
subscribe to them very willingly; others that were contrarily
minded, both English, Scotish, and French divines, profered
their hands to a no less ready subscription ; so as much peace
promised to result out of that weak and poor enterprise, had
not the confused noise of the misconstructions of those who
never saw the work, (crying it down for the very name^s sake)
meeting with the royal edict of a general inhibition, buried it in
a securfe silence. I was scorched a little with this flame which I
desired to quench; yet this could not stay my hand from
thrusting itself into an hotter fire.

Some insolent Komanists (Jesuits especially) in their bold dis-
putations (which in the time of the treaty of the Spanish match ',
and the calm of that relaxation were very frequent,) pressed

• Dr. Young.] John Young, installed 8th July, 16 16.

1 The Spanish match.] " We have little news, either of the great business,
or of any other, though messengers come weekly out of Spain : and I con-
ceive that matters are yet very doubtful. The new chapel for the Infanta
goes on in building, and our London papists report that the angels descend
every niyht and build part of it. Here hath been lately a conference betwcn
one Fisher a jesuite and one Sweete on the one side ; and Dr. Whyte and
Dr. Featly on the other. The question was of the antiquity and succession of
the Church. It is said we shall have it printed." Sir Henry Bourgchier to
Abp. Ussher, then bishop of Meath, dated July U, 1623. Ussher'sLi/e and
Letters, p. 89. See also Wren's Parentalia, p. 27.

BISHOP HALL. 299

nothing so much, as a catalogue of the professors of our religion
to be deduced from the primitive times, and with the peremptory
challenge of the impossibility of this pedigree dazzled the eyes of
the simple ; whilst some of our learned men 2, undertaking to

2 Some of our learned men.'] The question which the priests and Jesuits
continually ingeminated was, " Where was your church before Luther ? "
Of " The learned men," of whose mode of reply to this interrogatory the
bishop, not without solid reason, expresses his disapprobation ; two I appre-
hend, were persons of no less dignity than the English and Irish primates of
that day : the former, Dr. George Abbot, in his book of the Visibility of the
Church, and the latter, Dr. James Ussher, in his De Ecclesiarum Christianarum
successione et statu. Abbot, as Dr. Heylin tells us, could not find any visi-
bility of the Christian church, but by tracing it, as well as he could, from the
Berengarians to the Albigenses, from the Albigenses to the Wickliffists, from
the Wickliffists unto the Hussites, and from the Hussites unto Luther and
Calvin (Life of Laud, p. 53), whereas as bishop Hall observes, "Valdus,
Wickliffe, Luther, did never go about to frame a new church, which was not,
but to cleanse, restore, reforme that church which was."

" Hence may be answered that which Rome brings as her Achilles,
touching the succession and visibility of the Protestants* church and doc-
trine in all ages since Christ : for if theirs (that of Rome) have had such
succession and visibility, it is impossible to say that the Protestants' church
has not had them also ; the former (the church of Rome) only adding more
articles for a Christian to believe, which the latter will not embrace as
needful. . . . ' Protestants ' (says Stapleton, Fortress of Faith, at the end of
Bede's Hist. fol. 47 b.) 'have many things less than papists; they have
taken away many things which papists had; they have added nothing.'
And here, therefore, to my understanding, the Romanists require of us
what lies on their part to prove. For, we, denying, in the succession of
bishops from Cranmer, and Warham, even to Augustine, and so of the
Britons, ever any one to have held the points which we differ in, to have
been points of faith, in that degree of necessity in which they are now
required ; and, for proof, citing not only the Apostles', Nicene, and Athana-
sian Creeds, but even that of Peckham, which we find so to differ from that
late one, set out by Pius IV. — as we cannot but say, it is unjust in them to
press us to a profession in religion further than our ancestors were required ;
so, they on the contrary, affirming all those holy bishops preceding, not only
to have believed those articles which themselves now do, but also that they
did require them of others with the like necessity in which they are now
required, ought certainly to prove what they thus boldly affirm : which when
they have done, truly for my part I shall think fit to yield ; but till they do
it, let them cease from proclaiming us heretics, who hold no other than the
ancient faith at first delivered unto us.

" But this, as a point rather dogmatical for divines, than historical, the
subject I undertook, I shall not here further wade into." Twisden's Histo-
rical Vindication, p. 198.

300 BISHOP HALL.

satisfy so needless and unjust a demand, gave, as I conceived,
great advantage to the adversary. In a just indignation to see
us thus wronged by mis-stating the question betwixt us, as if we,
yielding ourselves of an other church, originally and fundamentally
different, should make good our own erection upon the ruins,
yea, the nullity of theirs, and well considering the infinite and
great inconveniences, that must needs follow upon this defence 3,
I adventured to set my pen on work; desiring to rectify the
opinions of those men, whom an ignorant zeal had transported, to
the prejudice of our holy cause, laying forth the damnable cor-
ruptions of the Roman church, yet making our game of the outward
visibility thereof, and by this means putting them to the probation
of those newly obtruded corruptions which are truly guilty of the
breach betwixt us ; the drift whereof, being not well conceived,
by some spirits *, that were not so wise as fervent, I was suddenly
exposed to the rash censures of many well affected and zealous
protestants, as if I had in a remission to my wonted zeal to the
truth attributed too much to the Roman church, and strengthened
the adversaries hands and weakened our own. This envy I was

3 Upon this defence. ~\ The bishop here alludes to the practices and judg-
ment of Zanchius, Perkins, Whittaker, &c. See The Apologetical Advertise-
ment. Works, vol. ii. p. 49. 55. part 2. fol.

4 By some spirits. .] Sanderson, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, in that part
of the famous Preface to his Sermons, bearing date July 13, 1657, in which
he shews the advantages which the Puritan writers gave to the Romish party,
by the unsoundness of their reasonings, and their extreme intolerance ; and
the much greater progress which popery was making in England towards
the latter end of the commonwealth through their incapacity, than it had ever
done before, remarks that "They promoted the interest of Rome and betrayed
the Protestant Cause, partly by mistaking the question (a very common fault
among them,) but especially through the necessity of some false principle or
other, which having once imbibed, they think themselves bound to maintain.
.... Among those false principles^ it shall suffice for the present to have
named but this one, That the Church with Rome is no true Church. The dis-
advantages of which assertion to our cause in the dispute about the visibility
of the church (besides the falseness and uncharitableness of it) their zeal, or
prejudice rather, will not suffer them to consider. With what out-cries was
bishop Hall, good man, (who little dreamt of any peace with Rome) pursued
by Burton and other hot-spurs, for yielding it a church ! who had made the
same concession over and over again before he was bishop (as Junius, Rey-
nolds, and our best controversy writers generally do,) and no notice taken,
no noise made about it." P. 79, edit. 1689. Or, Christian Institutes, vol. iv.
p. 571.

BISHOP HALL. 301

fain to take off by my speedy " Apologetical Advertisement," and
after that by my " Reconciler 3," seconded with the unanimous
letters of such reverend, learned, sound divines 8, both bishops and
doctors, as whose undoubtable authority, was able to bear down
calumny itself. Which done I did by a seasonable moderation
provide for the peace of the church, in silencing both my defendants
and challengers, in this unkind and ill-raised quarrel.

Immediately before the publishing of this tractate, (which did
not a little aggravate the envy and suspicion) I was by his
majesty raised to the bishopric of Exeter 7, having formerly (with
much humble deprecation) refused the see of Gloucester earnestly
proffered unto me. How beyond all expectation it pleased God
to place me in that western charge ; which (if the duke of
Buckingham's letters, he being then in France 8, had arrived but
some hours sooner) I had been defeated of ; and by what strange
means it pleased God to make up the competency of that pro-
vision, by the unthought of addition of the rectory of St. Breok
within that diocese, if I should fully relate, the circumstances
would force the confession of an extraordinary hand of God in
the disposing of those events.

I entered upon that place, not without much prejudice and
suspicion on some hands ; for some that sate at the stern of the
church, had me in great jealousy for too much favour9 of
Puritanism. I soon had intelligence who were set over me for
espials ; my ways were curiously observed and scanned. How-
ever, I took the resolution to follow those courses which might
most conduce to the peace and happiness of my new and weighty
charge ; finding therefore some factious spirits very busy in that
diocese, I used all fair and gentle means to win them to good
order ; and therein so happily prevailed that (saving two of that
numerous clergy, who continuing in their refractoriness fled away
from censure,) they were all perfectly reclaimed ; so as I had
not one minister professedly opposite to the anciently received
orders (for I was never guilty of urging any new impositions *)

6 My " Reconciler."] See Works, vol. ii. part 2. p. 57 — 99.

6 Sound divines.] B. Morton, B. Davenant, Dr. Prideaux, Dr. Primrose.

7 The bishopric of Exeter] He was elected Nov. 5, and consecrated
Dec. 23, 1627.

8 Then in France] In the expedition to the Isle of Rhe.

9 Too much favour] See Works, vol. i. p. 294. Heylin's Life of Laud,
p. 54.

1 Any new impositions] Here is a reflexion, designed, no doubt, to point

302 BISHOP HALL.

of the church in that large diocese. Thus we went on com-
fortably together, till some persons of note in the clergy, being
guilty of their own negligence and disorderly courses, began to
envy our success ; and finding me ever ready to encourage those
whom I found conscionably forward and painful in their places,
and willingly giving way to orthodox and peaceable lectures in
several parts of my diocese, opened their mouths against me,
both obliquely in the pulpit, and directly at the court ; complain-
ing of my too much indulgence to persons disaffected, and my
too much liberty of frequent lecturings within my charge. The
billows went so high that I was three several times upon my
knee to his majesty, to answer these great criminations ; and
what contestation 1 had with some great lords concerning these
particulars, it would be too long to report ; only this ; under
how dark a cloud I was hereupon, I was so sensible, that I
plainly told the lord archbishop of Canterbury, that rather than I
would be obnoxious to those slanderous tongues of his misin-
formers, I would cast up my rochet. I knew I went right ways,
and would not endure to live under undeserved suspicions. What
messages of caution I had from some of my wary brethren, and
what expostulatory letters I had from above, I need not relate. Sure
I am I had peace, and comfort at home, in the happy sense of that
general unanimity, and loving correspondence of my clergy ; till
in the last year of my presiding there, after the synodical oath 2

against archbishop Laud. It may be but fair then, to see what the arch-
bishop had to say for himself respecting this charge of imposition, when he
had the opportunity of being heard, after being ^axed for it, in parliament,
by one of his bitterest adversaries.

" In the mean time, since I am the man so particularly shot at, I shall
answer for myself according to truth ; — and with truth which I can legally
prove, if need be. I have not commanded or enjoined any one thing, cere-
monial, or other, upon any parochial congregation in England, much less
upon all, to be either practised, or suffered, but that which is directly com-
manded by law. And if any inferior ordinary in the kingdom, or any of my
own officers have given any such command, it is either without my know-
ledge, or against my direction. And it is well known, I have sharply chid
some for this very particular. And if my lord " (lord Say) " would have
acquainted me with any such troubled thoughts of his, I would have given
him, so far as had been in my power, either satisfaction or remedy." Laud's
Answer to Lord Say's Speech. Troubles, fyc. p. 499.

2 The synodical oath.'] The oath contained in the sixth canon of 1640,
called also the etcetera oath, the object of which was to declare an approba-
tion of the doctrine and discipline of the church of England, as containing

BISHOP HALL. 303

was set on foot, (which yet I did never tender to any one
minister of my diocese) by the incitation of some busy inter-
lopers of the neighbour county, some of them began to enter
into an unkind contestation with me, about the election of clerks
of the convocation ; whom they secretly, without ever acquainting
me with their desire or purpose (as driving to that end which we
see now accomplished) would needs nominate and set up in com-
petition to those, whom I had (after the usual form) recommended
to them. That they had a right to free voices in that choice, I
denied not ; only I had reason to take it unkindly, that they
would work underhand without me, and against me ; professing
that if they had before hand made their desires known to me, I
should willingly have gone along with them in their election. It
came to the poll. Those of my nomination carried it. The
parliament began. After some hard tugging there, returning
home upon a recess I was met on the way, and cheerfully
welcomed with some hundreds. In no worse terms, I left that
my once dear diocese : when returning to Westminster, I was
soon called by his majesty (who was then in the north) to a remove
to Norwich 3 : but how I took the Tower in my way ; and how
I have been dealt with since my repair hither, I could be lavish
in the sad report, ever desiring my good God to enlarge my heart
in thankfulness to him, for the sensible experience I have had
of his fatherly hand over me, in the deepest of all my afflictions,
and to strengthen me, for whatsoever other trials he shah1 be
pleased to call me unto ; that being found faithful unto the
death, I may obtain that crown of life, which he hath ordained
for all those that overcome.

all things necessary to salvation, " and an avowal to maintain it against both
papists and puritans. But nothing raised so much noise and clamour as the
oath required by the sixth canon ; exclaimed against both from the pulpit
and the press ; reproached in printed pamphlets, and unprinted scribbles ;
and glad they were to find such an excellent advantage, as the discovering of
an Sfc. in the body of it did unhappily give them." Heylin's Life of Laud,
p. 443. The clause in which this unhappy oversight occurred, (for it was
probably nothing more) stood thus : " Nor will I ever give my consent to
alter the government of this church by archbishops, bishops, deans and
archdeacons, &c. as it stands now established, and as by right it ought to
stand ; nor yet ever to subject it to the usurpations and superstitions of the
see of Rome." Sparrow's Canons, &c. p. 359, A.D. IC75.

3 To a remove to Norwich.'] He was elected, November 15, 1641.

304 BISHOP HALL.

BISHOP HALL'S HARD MEASURE.

NOTHING could be more plain, than that upon the call of this
parliament l, and before, there was a general plot and resolution
of the faction to alter the government of the church especially.
The height and insolency of some church-governors, as was con-
ceived, and the ungrounded imposition of some innovations * upon
the churches both of Scotland and England, gave a fit hint to
the project. In the vacancy therefore before the summons, and
immediately after it, there was great working 3 secretly for the
designation and election as of knights and burgesses, so especially
(beyond all former use) of the clerks of convocation ; when now
the clergy were stirred up to contest with, and oppose their dio-
cesans, for the choice of such men as were most inclined to the
favour of an alteration. The parliament was no sooner set, than
many vehement speeches were made against established church-
government, and enforcement of extirpation both root and branch.
And because it was not fit to set upon all at once, the resolution
was to begin with those bishops which had subscribed to the
canons * then lately published upon the shutting up of the former
parliament ; whom they would first have had accused of treason ;

1 This parliament."] The Long Parliament, according to the name which it
afterwards earned to itself. It began Nov. 3, 16 10.

3 Innovations.'] See Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 443—5, edit. 1671 ; and Hist,
of Nonconformity, p. 345, or Baxter's Life, &c. p. 369.

3 There was great working.] " I was indeed sorry to hear, with what par-
tiality and popular heat elections were carried on in many places ; yet hoping
that the gravity and discretion of other gentlemen would allay and fix the
commons in a due temperament, guiding some men's well-meaning zeal by
such rules of moderation as are best both to preserve and restore the health
of all states and kingdoms, — no man was better pleased with the convening
of this parliament than myself; who knowing best the largeness of my own
heart towards my people's good and just contentment, pleased myself most
in that good and firm understanding, which would hence grow between me
and my people." — Jc6n Easilike ; the Portraiture of his sacred Majesty in his
Solitudes and Sufferings, chap. i.

4 To the canons.'] Viz. of 1640. See Sparrow's Collection of Articles, In-
junctions, Canons, &c. p. 335—74.

BISHOP HALL. 305

but that not appearing feasible, they thought best to indite them s
of very high crimes and offences against the king, the parliament,

5 To indite them.'] On the llth March, 1640-1, the commons resolved
" that for bishops or any other clergyman whatsoever to be in the commission
of the peace, or to have any judicial power in the star-chamber, or in any
civil court, is a hindrance to their spiritual function, prejudicial to the com-
monwealth, and fit to be taken away;" and, on the 1st of May following, a
bill to that effect passed the commons, and was sent up to the lords, where it
was read a first time. On that day, bishop Hall (Exeter) delivered the fol-
lowing admirable speech, which is preserved in his Works, vol. x. p. 70-2,
and in the Parliamentary History.

" My lords,

"This is the strangest bill that I ever heard of, since I was admitted to
sit under this roof: for it strikes at the very fabric and composition of this
house ; at the stile of all laws ; and therefore, were it not that it comes from
such a recommendation, it would not, I suppose, undergo any long consider-
ation : but, coming to us from such hands, it cannot but be worthy of your
best thoughts.

" And, truly, for the main scope of the bill, I shall yield it most willingly,
that ecclesiastical and sacred persons should not ordinarily be taken up with
secular affairs. The minister is called vir Dei, a man of God : he may not
be vir seculi. He may lend himself to them, upon occasion : he may not
give himself over purposely to them. Shortly, he may not 50 attend worldly
things, as that he do neglect divine things. This we gladly yield. Matters
of justice, therefore, are not proper, as an ordinary trade, for our function ;
and, by my consent, shall be, as in a generality, waved and deserted : which,
for my part, I never have meddled with, but in a charitable way ; with no
profit, but some charge to myself, whereof I shall be glad to be eased. Trac-
tentfabriliafabri j as the old word is.

" But if any man shall hence think fit to infer that some spiritual person
may not occasionally be in a special service of his king or country ; and,
when he is so required by his prince, give his advice in the urgent affairs of
the kingdom, which I suppose is the main point driven at; it is such an
inconsequence, as I dare boldly say cannot be made good, either by divinity
or reason ; by the laws either of God or man : whereas the contrary may be
proved and enforced by both.

" As for the grounds of this bill, that the minister's duty is so great, that
it is able to take up the whole man, and the apostle saith, Tu; iKavog ; who is
sufficient for these things ? and that he, who warfares to God should not entangle
himself with this world ; it is a sufficient and just conviction of those, who
would divide themselves betwixt God and the world, and bestow any main
part of their time upon secular affairs : but it hath no operation at all upon
this tenet, which we have in hand • that a man dedicate to God, may not so
much as, when he is required, cast a glance of his eye, or some minutes of
time, or some motives of his tongue, upon the public business of his king
and country. Those that expect this from us, may as well, and upon the
same reason, hold that a minister must have no family at all ; or, if he have

VOL. IV. X

306 BISHOP HALL.

and kingdom, which was prosecuted with great earnestness bysome
prime lawyers in the house of commons, and entertained with like

one, must not care for it : yea, that he must have no body to tend, but be all
tpirit.

" My lords, we are men of the same composition with others ; and our
breeding hath been accordingly. We cannot have lived in the world, without
having seen it, and observed it too : and our long experience and conversa-
tion, both in men and in books, cannot but have put something into us for
the good of others : and now, having a double capacity, qua cites, qua eccle-
siastici, as members of the commonwealth, as ministers and governors of the
church ; we are ready to do our best service in both. One of them is no way
incompatible with the other : yea, the subjects of them both are so united
with the church and commonwealth, that they cannot be severed : yea so, as
that, not the one is in the other, but the one is the other, is both : so as the
services which we do upon these occasions to the commonwealth, are insepa-
rable from our good offices to the church : so that, upon this ground, there is
no reason of our exclusion

" But, I fear it is not on some hands, the tender regard of the full scope
of our calling, that is so much here stood upon, as the conceit of too much
honour, that is done us, in taking up the room of peers, and voting in this
high court : for surely, those that are averse from our votes, yet could be
content, we should have place upon the woolsacks ; and could allow us ears,
but not tongues.

" If this be the matter, I beseech your lordships to consider that this
honour is not done to us, but to our profession ; which whatever we be in our
several persons, cannot easily be capable of too much respect from your lord-
ships. Non tibi, sed Isidi ; as he said of old.

" Neither is this any new grace, that is put upon our calling ; which, if it
were now to begin, might perhaps be justly grudged to our unworthiness :
but it is an ancient right and inheritance, inherent in our station : no less
ancient than these walls, wherein we sit : yea, more : before ever there were
parliaments, in the magna concilia of the kingdom we had our places. And
as for my own predecessors, ever since the Conqueror's time I can shew your
lordships a just catalogue of them, that have sat before me here : and, truly,
though I have just cause to be mean in mine own eyes, yet why, or wherein,
there should be more unworthiness in me than the rest, that I should be
stripped of that privilege which they so long enjoyed, though there were no
law to hold me here, I cannot see or confess.

" What respects of honour have been put upon the prime clergy of old,
both by Pagans, and Jews, and Christians, and what are still both within
Christendom and without, I shall not need to urge : it is enough to say, this
of ours is not merely arbitrary; but stands so firmly established by law and
custom, that I hope it neither will nor can be removed, except you will shake
those foundations, which 1 believe you desire to hold firm and inviolable.

-hortly, then, my lords, the church craves no new honour from you:
and justly hopes you will not be guilty of pulling down the old. As you are
the eldest sons, and next under his majesty, the honourable patrons of the

BISHOP HALL. 307

fervency by some zealous lords in the house of peers ; every of
those particular canons being pressed to the most envious and
dangerous height that was possible : the archbishop of York 6,
aggravating Mr. Maynard's criminations to the utmost, not with-
out some interspersions of his own. The counsel of the accused
bishops gave in such a demurring answer as stopped the mouth
of that heinous indictment.

When this prevailed not, it was contrived to draw petitions
accusatory from many parts of the kingdom against episcopal

church ; so she expects and beseeches you to receive her into your tenderest
care ; so to order her affairs, that you leave her to posterity in no worse case
than you found her.

" It is a true word of Damasus, Ubi mlescit nomen episcopi, omnis status
perturbatur ecclesies. If this be suffered, the misery will be the church's : the
dishonour and blur of the act in future ages will be yours.

" To shut up, therefore, let us be taken off from all ordinary trade of
secular employments : and, if you please, abridge us of intermeddling with
matters of common justice : but leave us possessed of those places and pri-
vileges in parliament, which our predecessors have so long and peaceably
enjoyed."

On the 14th of May the bill was read a second time in the lords, and the
bishops were zealously defended by Robert Pierrepont, viscount Newark (and
earl of Kingston), whose speech is given by Fuller. On the 24th the bill
was in committee, when the bishop of Lincoln (John Williams) spoke at
great length against it, lord Say and Sele in its favour, and lord Newark
again spoke on behalf of the bishops. On the 27th the lords desired a con-
ference with the commons, and on the same day sir Edward Dering brought
into the commons a bill for the utter abolishing of bishops, deans, pre-
bendaries, &c. &c., and the second reading was carried at once by 139 to 108.
On the 3rd and 4th of June further conferences took place between the two
houses, and on the 3rd of July an impeachment was ordered. Accordingly,
on the 3rd of August, sergeant Wylde, M.P. for Worcestershire, presented
articles of impeachment against the following bishops :

Walter Curie, Winchester. Matthew Wren, Ely.

Robert Wright, Coventry and Lick- William Roberts, Bangor.
field. Robert Skinner, Bristol.

Godfrey Goodman, Gloucester. John Warner, Rochester.

JOSEPH HALL, Exeter. John Towers, Peterborough.

John Owen, St. Asaph. Morgan Owen, Llandaff.

William Pierce, Bath and Wells. William Laud, Canterbury.

George Coke, Hereford.

On the 26th of October another conference took place, and on the 10th of
November the impeached bishops put in their plea.

6 Archbishop of York.~\ Meaning John Williams, who, however, at this
time, was only bishop of Lincoln : he was not translated to York till the 4th
of December following.

x 2

308 BISHOP HALL.

government, and the promoters of the petitions were entertained
with great respects ; whereas the many petitions of the opposite
part, though subscribed with many thousand hands, were slighted
and disregarded. Withal, the rabble of London, after their peti-
tions cunningly and upon other pretences procured, were stirred
up to come to the houses personally to crave justice both against
the earl of Strafford first, and then against the archbishop of
Canterbury, and lastly against the whole order of bishops ; which
coming at first unarmed were checked by some well-willers, and
easily persuaded to gird on their rusty swords, and so accoutered
came by thousands 7 to the houses, filling all the outer rooms,
offering foul abuses to the bishops as they passed, crying out, no
bishops, no bishops; and at last, after divers days assembling,
grown to that height of fury, that many of them, whereof sir
Richard Wiseman professed (though to his cost 8) to be captain,
came with resolution of some violent courses, insomuch that many
swords were drawn hereupon at Westminster, and the rout did
not stick openly to profess that they would pull the bishops in
pieces. Messages were sent down to them from the lords. They
still held firm both to the place and their bloody resolutions. It now
grew to be torch-light. One of the lords, the marquis of Hertford 9,
came up to the bishops1 form, told us that we were in great danger,
advised us to take some course for our own safety, and being desired
to tell us what he thought was the best way, counselled us to con-
tinue in the parliament house all that night ; " for " (saith he)
" these people vow they will watch you at your going out and will
search every coach for you with torches, so as you cannot escape."
Hereupon the house of lords was moved for some order for the

7 Came by thousands.'] Compare Ic6n Basilike, chap. iv. Upon the Insolency
of the Tumults.

8 To his co*/.] It was on the 28th December, 1641, that this disturbance
took place. An attempt was made to force the abbey, where the regalia, an
object of plunder, were kept. The servants of the archbishop of York, who
was still for the time dean of Westminster, drew their swords, and defended
the church and its contents. Some mounted the roof, and threw down mis-
siles on the assailants ; the following statement by Baxter is very remark-
able : — " Sir Richard Wiseman leading them [the apprentices and other
rabble assailants] there was some fray about Westminster Abbey between the
cavaliers and them, and sir Richard Wiseman was slain by a stone from off the
abbey walls." — Baxter's Life and Times, p. 27.

9 Marquis of Hertford.] William Seymour, created marquis of Hertford in
1640 (afterwards, in 1CCO, restored as duke of Somerset); who, when young,
had married lady Arabella Stuart; see p. 15, ante.

BISHOP HALL. 309

preventing their mutinous and riotous meetings. Messages were
sent down to the house of commons to this purpose more than
once. Nothing was effected : but for the present (for so much
as all the danger was at the rising of the house) it was earnestly
desired of the lords that some care might be taken of our safety.
The motion was received by some lords with a smile. Some other
lords, as the earl of Manchester *, undertook the protection of the
archbishop of York and his company (whose shelter I went under)
to their lodgings ; the rest, some of them by their long stay,
others by secret and far-fetched passages escaped home.

It was not for us to venture any more to the house without
some better assurance. Upon our resolved forbearance, there-
fore, the archbishop of York sent for us to his lodging at West-
minster ; lays before us the perilous condition we were in : ad-
vises for remedy (except we meant utterly to abandon our right,
and to desert our station in parliament) to petition both his
majesty and the parliament, that since we were legally called by
his majesty's writ to give our attendance in parliament, we might
be secured in the performance of our duty and service against
those dangers that threatened us ; and withal to protest against 3
any such acts as should be made during the time of our forced
absence ; for which he assured us there were many precedents in

1 Earl of Manchester.'] Henry Montagu, first earl of Manchester, Lord
Privy Seal. He died November 7, 1642. His son was the well-known par-
liamentarian general,

2 To protest against.'] The protest was presented on the 30th of December,
1641. It was signed by

John Williams, Archbishop of William Pierce, Bath and Wells.

York. John Coke, Hereford.

Thomas Morton, Durham. Matthew Wren, Ely.

Joseph Hall, Norwich. Robert Skinner, Oxford.

Robert Wright, Coventry and Lich- George Goodwin, Gloucester,
field. John Warner, Peterborough.

John Owen, St. Asaph. Morgan Owen, Llandaff.

At this time five sees were vacant, viz. —

Worcester, by the death of John Thornborough.
Lincoln, by the translation of Williams to York.
Exeter, „ „ Hall to Norwich.

Bristol, „ „ Skinner to Oxford.

Chichester, „ „ Duppa to Sarum.

And on the day of the protest a motion was made that they should not be
filled up.

310 BISHOP HALL.

former parliaments, and which if we did not, we should betray the
trust committed to us by his majesty, and shamefully betray and
abdicate the due right 3 both of ourselves and successors. To this
purpose in our presence he drew up the said petition and protes-
tation, avowing it to be legal, just and agreeable to all former
proceedings ; and being fair written sent it to our several lodgings
for our hands ; which we accordingly subscribed, intending yet to
have had some further consultation concerning the delivering and
whole carriage of it. But ere we could suppose it to be in any
hand but his own, the first news we heard was, that there were
messengers addressed to fetch us into the parliament upon an
accusation of high treason. For whereas this paper was to have
been delivered, first to his majesty's secretary, and after perusal

3 The due right.'] " This is on the hypothesis, that there are three estates,
lords spiritual and temporal, and commons. Two of them sit in one
house, and (together] compose one body; the third sit in one house, and
compose another body. The lords spiritual are excluded : they remonstrate,
and say a force being put upon a part of the body, the acts of the other part
are void. This is good reasoning, on the hypothesis : but the hypothesis is
false. The bishops do not make a third estate, but are part of the general
baronage which composes the house of lords." — Warburton's Remarks on
Neal's Hist, of the Puritans; Works, vol. xii. p. 393, 4.

This, no doubt, is correct, according to the views and language of one
class of constitutional writers : but the authorities are quite as numerous,
and perhaps (to say the least) quite of as much value, which speak of the
king as the head, and of three other distinct estates in parliament, (viz. lords
spiritual, lords temporal, and commons), as constituting the body of the
realm.

Thus Lord Coke, Institutes, vol. iv. cap. 1. "The court of parliament con-
sisteth of the king's majesty, sitting there as in his royal politic capacity, and
of the three estates of the realm : one of which," he adds, " represents all the
commons of the whole realm." Secondly, we may take the title of the form
of prayer in the liturgy, " to be used yearly upon the fifth day of November ;
for the happy deliverance of King James I and the three estates of England."
Thirdly, the conjoint authority in one, of the lord keeper Pickering, and the
lord treasurer Burghley (A.D. 1 593). " Therefore," says the latter, addressing
the house of peers, " as was delivered by the lord keeper, her majesty hath
summarily imparted the same to this assembly, referring the consideration
thereof to the whole three estates, whereof two are in this place." — Cobbett'a
Parl. Hist., vol. i. p. 806. These may suffice as a specimen. It would be
easy to cite a great many more. I will not however omit to mention that the
whole question has been admirably discussed on all its grounds of authority
and reason by bishop Stillingfleet, in his Ecclesiastical Cases, vol. ii. pp. 373
—410.

BISHOP HALL. 311

by him to his majesty, and after from his majesty to the parlia-
ment, and for that purpose to the lord keeper, the lord Littleton *,
who was the speaker of the house of peers ; all these professed
not to have perused it at all, but the said lord keeper, willing enough
to take this advantage of ingratiating himself with the house of
commons and the faction, to which he knew himself sufficiently
obnoxious, finding what use might be made of it by prejudicate
minds, reads the same openly in the house of the lords : and when
he found some of the faction apprehensive enough of misconstruc-
tion, aggravates the matter as highly offensive, and of dangerous
consequence ; and thereupon not without much heat and vehe-
mence, and with an ill preface, it is sent down to the house of
commons ; where it was entertained hainously, Glynne with a full
mouth crying it up for no less than an high treason ; and some
comparing, yea preferring it to the powder plot.

We poor souls (who little thought that we had done any thing
that might deserve a chiding) are now called to our knees at the
bar and charged severally with high treason, being not a little
astonished at the suddenness of this crimination, compared with
the perfect innocence of our own intentions, which were only to
bring us to our due places in parliament with safety and speed
without the least purpose of any man's offence. But now traitors
we are in all the haste, and must be dealt with accordingly. For
on January 5 30, in all the extremity of frost, at eight o'clock in
the dark evening, are we voted to the Tower ; only two of our
number 6 had the favour of the Black Rod by reason of their age ;
which though desired by a noble lord on my behalf, would not be
yielded, wherein I acknowledge, and bless the gracious providence
of God ; for had I been gratified, I had been undone both in
body and purse ; the rooms being strait, and the expence beyond
the reach of my estate. The news of this our crime and impri-

4 Lord Littleton.'] Sir Edward Lyttleton, descended from Thomas Lyttleton,
the youngest son of Sir Thomas Lyttleton, the celebrated judge, and author of
the "Tenures." He was created Lord Lyttleton of Mounslow, February 18,
1640. His title became extinct at his death in 1645. The present lord
Lyttleton (or Lyttelton) is descended from sir William Lyttleton, the eldest
son of the judge.

5 January ] An error, probably of a transcriber, for December : it will have
been seen that the committal took place on December 30, and that bishop
Hall's letter from the Tower is dated January 24.

6 Two of our number.'] Morton, of Durham, and Wright, of Coventry and
Lichfield.

312 BISHOP HALL.

sonment soon flew over the city, and was entertained by our well-
willers with ringing of bells and bonfires ; who now gave us up
(not without great triumph) for lost men, railing on our perfi-
diousness, and adjudging us to what foul deaths they pleased.
And what scurrile and malicious pamphlets were scattered abroad
throughout the kingdom, and in foreign parts, blazoning our in-
famy and exaggerating our treasonable practices ! what insulta-
tions of our adversaries was here !

[A LETTER7 SENT FROM THE TOWER TO A PRIVATE FRIEND;
AND BY HIM THOUGHT FIT TO BE PUBLISHED.

" To my much respected good friend, Mr. H. S.

" Worthy Sir,

" You think it strange, that I should salute you from hence ;
how can you choose, when I do yet still wonder to see myself
here ? My intentions, and this place are such strangers that I
cannot enough marvel how they met. But, howsoever, I do in
all humility kiss the rod wherewith I smart, as well knowing
whose hand it is that wields it. To that infinite justice who can
be innocent? but to my king and country never heart was or
can be more clear ; and I shall beshrew my hand if it shall have
(against my thoughts) justly offended either ; and if either say
so, I reply not ; as having learned not to contest with those that
can command legions.

u In the mean time it is a kind, but cold compliment, that
you pity me ; an affection well placed where a man deserves to
be miserable ; for me I am not conscious of such merit. You
tell me in what fair terms I stood not long since with the world ;
how large room I had in the hearts of the best men : but can
you tell me how I lost it ? Truly I have in the presence of God
narrowly searched my own bosom ; I have unpartially ransacked
this fag-end of my life, and curiously examined every step of my
ways, and I cannot by the most exact scrutiny of my saddest
thoughts, find what it is that I have done to forfeit that good
estimation wherewith you say I was once blessed.

" I can secretly arraign and condemn myself of infinite trans-

1 A letter.'] This letter is now inserted according to its date. In
Mr. Pratt's edition of Bishop Hall it is prefixed to the Hard Measure.

BISHOP HALL. 313

gressions before the tribunal of heaven. Who that dwells in a
house of clay can be pure in his sight, who charged his angels
with folly ? 0 ! God, when I look upon the reckonings betwixt
thee and my soul, and find my shameful arrears, I can be most
vile in my own sight, because I have deserved to be so in thine ;
yet even then, in thy most pure eyes, give me leave the whiles,
not to abdicate my sincerity. Thou knowest my heart desires to
be right with thee, whatever my failings may have been ; and I
know what value thou puttest upon those sincere desires, not-
withstanding all the intermixtures of our miserable infirmities.
These I can penitently bewail to thee ; but in the mean time,
what have I done to men ? Let them not spare to shame me
with the late sinful declinations of my age ; and fetch blushes
(if they can) from a wrinkled face.

" Let mine enemies (for such I perceive I have, and those are
the surest monitors) say what I have offended. For their better
irritation, my conscience bids me boldly to take up the challenge
of good Samuel, ' Behold here I am, witness against me before the
Lord, and before his anointed : Whose oxe have I taken ? or whose
ass have I taken ? or whom have I defrauded ? whom have I
oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind
mine eyes therewith ? and I will restore it to you.''

" Can they say, that I bore up the reins of government too
hard, and exercised my jurisdiction in a rigorous and tyrannical
way, insolently lording it over my charge ? — Malice itself, perhaps,
would, but dare not speak it ; or if it should, the attestation of
so numerous and grave a clergy would choak such impudence.
Let them witness, whether they were not still entertained, with an
equal return of reverence, as if they had been all bishops with
me, or I only a presbyter with them ; according to the old rule
of Egbert archbishop of York, Infra domum, episcopus collegam
se presbyterorum esse cognoscat. Let them say whether aught here
looked like despotical ; or sounded rather of imperious command,
than of brotherly complying ; whether I have not rather from
some beholders undergone the censure of a too humble remissness,
as, perhaps, stooping too low beneath the eminence of episcopal
dignity ; whether I have not suffered as much in some opinions,
for the winning mildness of my administration, as some others for
a rough severity ?

" Can they say (for this aspersion is likewise common) that I
barred the free course of religious exercises, by the suppression of

314 BISHOP HALL.

painful and peaceable preachers ? — If shame will suffer any man
to object it, let me challenge him to instance but in one name.
Nay the contrary is so famously known in the western parts, that
every mouth will herein justify me. What free admission and
encouragement, have I always given to all the sons of peace, that
came with God's message in their mouths? What mis-sug-
gestions have I waved ! What blows have I borne off in the
behalf of some of them, from some gain-sayers ? How have I
often and publicly professed, that as well might we complain of
too many stars in the sky, as too many orthodox preachers in the
church ?

" Can they complain, that I fretted the necks of my clergy,
with the uneasy yoke of new and illegal impositions ? — Let them
whom I have thus hurt blazon my unjust severity, and write their
wrongs in marble ; but if, disliking all novel devices, I have held
close to those ancient rules which limited the audience of our
godly predecessors ; if I have grated upon no man's conscience
by the pressure (no not by the tender) of the late oath 8, or any
unprescribed ceremony ; if I have freely in the committee, ap-
pointed by the honourable house of peers, declared my open
dislike in all innovations, both in doctrine and rites ; — why doth
my innocence suffer ?

" Can they challenge me as a close and backstair friend to
Popery or Arminianism, who have in so many pulpits, and so
many presses, cried down both. — Surely the very paper that I
have spent in the refutation of both these, is enough to stop more
mouths than can be guilty of this calumny.

u Can they check me with a lazy silence in my place, with in-
frequence of preaching ? — Let all the populous auditories where I
have lived witness, whether having furnished all the churches near
me with able preachers, I took not all opportunities of supplying
such courses as I could get in my cathedral, and when my tongue
was silent, let the world say whether my hand were idle.

" Lastly, since no man can offer to upbraid me with too much
pomp, which is wont to be the common eye-sore of our envinl
profession ; can any man pretend to a ground of taxing me (as I
perceive one of late hath most unjustly done) of too much world-
lint .>3 ?

" Surely of all the vices forbidden in the decalogue, there is no
8 The tale oathJ] The etcetera oath. See note above, p. 302.

BISHOP HALL. 315

one which my heart upon due examination can less fasten upon
me than this. He that made it, knows, that he hath put into it
a true disregard (save only for necessary use) of the world, and all
that it can boast of, whether for profit, pleasure, or glory. No,
no ; I know the world too well to doat upon it. Whilst I am in
it, how can I but use it ? but I never care, never yield to enjoy it.
It were too great a shame for a philosopher, a Christian, a divine,
a bishop, to have his thoughts groveling here upon earth ; for
mine, they scorn the employment, and look upon all these sublu-
nary distractions (as upon this man's false censure) with no other
eyes than contempt.

" And now, sir, since I cannot (how secretly faulty soever)
guess at my own public exorbitances, I beseech you, where you
hear my name traduced, learn of my accusers (whose lyncean eyes
would seem to see farther into me than my own) what singular
offence I have committed.

" If, perhaps, my calling be my crime ; it is no other than the
most holy fathers of the church in the primitive and succeeding
ages, ever since the apostles, (many of them also blessed martyrs)
have been guilty of: it is no other than all the holy doctors of the
church in all generations ever since have celebrated, as most
reverend, sacred, inviolable : it is no other than all the whole
Christian world, excepting one small handful of our neighbours
(whose condition denied them 9 the opportunity of this govern-
ment) is known to enjoy without contradiction. — How safe is it
erring in such company !

" If my offence be in my pen, which hath (as it could) under-
taken the defence l of that apostolical institution (though with all
modesty and fair respects to the churches differing from us) I
cannot deprecate a truth : and such I know this to be : which is
since so cleared by better hands 2, that I well hope the better
informed world cannot but sit down convinced ; neither doubt I
but that as metals receive the more lustre with often rubbing, this
truth, the more agitation it undergoes, shall appear every day
more glorious. Only, may the good Spirit of the Almighty speedily

9 Condition denied them.'] See Hooker's Preface, chap. ii. § 4, or Christian
Institutes, vol. iv. p. 369.

1 Undertaken the defence.] viz. in his Episcopacy by divine right, asserted ;
the Humble Remonstrance ; Defence of the Humble Remonstrance ; Answer to
Smectymnus, &c. Works, vol. ix. 8vo.

2 By better hands] Dr. Hammond, archbishop Ussher, &c.

316 BISHOP HALL.

dispel all those dusky prejudices from the minds of men, which
may hinder them from discerning so clear a light !

" Shortly then, knowing nothing by myself, whereby I have
deserved to alienate any good heart from me, I shall resolve to
rest securely upon the acquitting testimony of a good conscience,
and the secret approbation of my gracious God ; who shall one day
cause mine innocence to break forth as the morning light, and shall
give me beauty for bonds ; and for a light and momentaiy afflic-
tion, an eternal weight of glory. — To shut up all, and to surcease
your trouble ; I write not this, as one that would pump for favour
and reputation from the disaffected multitude (for I charge you,
that what passes privately betwixt us, may not fall under common
eyes) but only with this desire and intention, to give you true
grounds, where you shall hear my name mentioned with a cause-
less offence, to yield me a just and charitable vindication. Go
you on still to do the office of a true friend, yea, the duty of a
just man ; in speaking in the cause of the dumb, in righting the
innocent, in rectifying the misguided ; and lastly, the service of a
faithful and Christian patriot, in helping the times with the best
of your prayers ; which is the daily task of your much devoted
and thankful friend,

" Jos. NORVIC."

From the Tower,
Jan. 24, 1641'.]

Being caged * sure enough in the Tower, the faction had now
fair opportunities to work their own designs. They therefore
taking the advantage of our restraint, renew the bill of theirs,
(which had been twice before rejected since the beginning of
this session) for taking away the votes of bishops 5 in parliament,

» 1641.] That is, 1641-2.

4 Being caged.'] On January 17, 1641-2, the twelve bishops had sent in
their answer to the charges against them.

6 The votes of bishops.'] " How oft was the business of the bishops' enjoying
their ancient places and undoubted privileges in the house of peers carried
for them by far the major part of the lords ! Yet, after five repulses, con-
trary to all order and custom, it was by tumultuary instigations obtruded
again, and by a few carried when most of the peers were forced to absent
themselves."— Icdn Basilike, chap. ix. Upon the listing and raising armies
against the king.

BISHOP HALL. 317

and in a very thin house easily passed it : which once conde-
scended unto, Iknownot by what strong importunity 6, his majesty's
assent 7 was drawn from him thereunto. We now, instead of
looking after our wonted honour must bend our thoughts upon
the guarding of our lives, which were with no small eagerness,
pursued by the violent agents of the faction. Their sharpest wits
and greatest lawyers were employed to advance our impeachment
to the height ; but the more they looked into the business, the
less crime could they find to fasten upon us : insomuch as one of
their oracles, being demanded his judgment concerning the fact,
professed to them, they might with as good reason accuse us of
adultery. Yet still there are we fast, only upon petition to the
lords obtaining this favour, that we might have counsel assigned
us ; which after much reluctation, many menaces from the com-
mons, against any man of all the commoners of England that
should dare to be seen to plead in this case against the represen-
tative body of the commons, was granted us. The lords assigned
us five very worthy lawyers, which were nominated to them by us.
What trouble and charge it was to procure those eminent and
much employed counsellors to come to the Tower to us, and to
observe the strict laws of the place, for the time of their ingress,
regress, and stay, it is not hard to judge. After we had lien
some weeks there, however, the house of commons, upon the first
tender of our impeachment had desired we might be brought to
a speedy trial, yet now finding belike how little ground they had
for so high an accusation, they began to slack their pace, and
suffered us rather to languish under the fear of so dreadful
arraignment. In so much as now we are fain to petition the
lords that we might be brought to our trial. The day was set ;
several summons were sent unto us : the lieutenant had his war-
rant to bring us to the bar; our impeachment was severally
read ; we pleaded not guilty, modo et forma, and desired speedy
proceedings, which were accordingly promised, but not too hastily
performed. After long expectation, another day was appointed
for the prosecution of this high charge. The lieutenant brought
us again to the bar ; but with what shoutings and exclamations

6 Strong importunity^] This proceeded from the ill-advised judgment of
some of the king's most confidential friends, and from the queen. — See
Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, b. iv.

7 Assent.'] The king gave his assent to the bill on February 14, 1641-2.

318 BISHOP HALL.

and furious expressions of the enraged multitudes, it is not easy
to apprehend. Being thither brought and severally charged
upon our knees, and having given our negative answers to every
particular, two bishops, London and Winchester8, were called in
as witnesses against us, as in that point, whether they appre-
hended any such case of fears in the tumults assembled, as that we
were in any danger of our lives in coming to the parliament ;
who seemed to incline to a favourable report of the perils threat-
ened, though one of them was convinced out of his own mouth,
from the relations himself had made at the archbishop of York's
lodging. After this Wild and Glyn made fearful declamations at
the bar against us, aggravating all the circumstances of our pre-
tended treason to the highest pitch. Our counsel were all ready
at the bar to plead for us in answer of their clamorous and
envious suggestions ; but it was answered, that it was now too
late, we should have another day, which day to this day never
came 9.

The circumstances of that day's hearing were more grievous to
us than the substance ; for we were all thronged so miserably in
that strait room before the bar, by reason that the whole house
of commons would be there to see the prizes of their champions
played, that we stood the whole afternoon in no small torture ;
sweating and struggling with a merciless multitude, till being
dismissed we were exposed to a new and greater danger. For
now in the dark we must to the Tower, by barge as we came,
and must shoot the bridge l with no small peril. That God,
under whose merciful protection we are, returned us to our
safe custody.

There now we lay some weeks longer, expecting the summons
for our counsel's answer ; but instead thereof our merciful adver-
saries, well finding how sure they would be foiled in that unjust
charge of treason, now under pretences of remitting the height of
rigour, waive their former impeachment of treason against us, and
fall upon an accusation of high misdemeanors in that our protes-

8 London and Winchester.] William Juxon, and Walter Curll.

9 Never came.'] The time began on February 19, 1641-2. See "Pro-
ceedings against the twelve bishops upon an accusation of high treason,"
vol. iv. State Trials, p. 63—82.

1 Shoot the bridgeJ] i. e., pass under London-bridge, with the ebbing tide,
when the fall of water was great. See Life of Wolsey, in vol. i. p. 492.

BISHOP HALL. 319

tation, and will have us prosecuted as guilty of a premunire :
although as we conceive the law hath ever been in the parliamen-
tary proceedings, that if a man were impeached, as of treason
being the highest crime, the accusant must hold him to the proof
of the charge, and may not fall to any meaner impeachment upon
failing of the higher. But in this case of ours it fell out other-
wise; for although the lords had openly promised us, that
nothing should be done against us, till we and our counsel
were heard in our defence, yet the next news we heard was, the
house of commons had drawn up a bill against us, wherein they
declared us to be delinquents of a very high nature, and had
thereupon desired to have it enacted that all our spiritual means
should be taken away : only there should be a yearly allowance
to every bishop for his maintenance, according to a proportion
by them set down ; wherein they were pleased that my share
should come to 400£. per annum. This bill was sent up to
the lords and by them also passed, and there hath ever since
lain.

This being done, after some weeks more, finding the Tower
besides the restraint, chargeable, we petitioned the lords that
we might be admitted to bail ; and have liberty to return to
our homes. The earl of Essex moved, the lords assented, took
our bail, sent to the lieutenant of the Tower for our discharge.
How glad were we to fly out of our cage ! No sooner was I got
to my lodging, than I thought to take a little fresh air, in St.
James's park ; and in my return to my lodging in the Dean's
yard, passing through Westminster-hall, was saluted by divers
of my parliament acquaintance, and welcomed to my liberty.
Whereupon some that looked upon me with an evil eye ran into
the house, and complained that the bishops were let loose ;
which it seems was not well taken by the house of commons,
who presently sent a kind of expostulation to the lords, that they
had dismissed so heinous offenders without their knowledge and
consent. Scarce had I rested me in my lodging when there
comes a messenger to me with the sad news of sending me and
the rest of my brethren the bishops back to the Tower again ;
from whence we came, thither we must go ; and thither I went
with an heavy (but I thank God not impatient) heart. After we
had continued there some six weeks longer, and earnestly peti-
tioned to return to our several charges, we were upon 5000£.
bond dismissed, with a clause of revocation at a short warning,

320 BISHOP HALL.

if occasion should require. Thus having spent the time betwixt
new-year's eve and Whitsuntide in those safe walls, where we
by turns preached every Lord's day to a large auditory of
citizens, we disposed of ourselves to the places of our several
abode.

For myself, addressing myself to Norwich, whither it was his
majesty's pleasure to remove me, I was at the first received with
more respect, than in such times I could have expected. There
I preached the day after my arrival to a numerous and attentive
people ; neither was sparing of my pains in this kind ever since,
till the times growing every day more impatient of a bishop,
threatened my silencing. There, though with some secret mur-
murs of disaffected persons, I enjoyed peace till the ordinance of
sequestration came forth, which was in the latter end of March
following. Then, when I was in hope of receiving the profits of
the foregoing half year, for the maintenance of my family, were
all my rents stopped and diverted, and in the April following came
the sequestrators, viz. Mr. Sotherton, Mr. Tooly, Mr. Rawley,
Mr. Greenewood, &c. to the palace, and told me that by virtue of
an ordinance of parliament they must seize upon the palace, and
all the estate I had, both real and personal ; and accordingly sent
certain men appointed by them (whereof one had been burned in
the hand for the mark of his truth,) to apprize all the goods
that were in the house, which they accordingly executed with all
diligent severity, not leaving so much as a dozen of trenchers, or
my children's pictures out of their curious inventory. Yea they
would have apprized our very wearing clothes, had not alderman
Tooly and sheriff Rawley (to whom I sent to require their judg-
ment concerning the ordinance in this point) declared their
opinion to the contrary.

These goods, both library and houshold stuff of all kinds, were
appointed to be exposed to public sale. Much inquiry there was
when the goods should be brought to the market ; but in the mean
time Mrs. Goodwin, a religious good gentlewoman, whom yet we
had never known or seen, being moved with compassion, very
kindly offered to lay down to the sequestrators that whole sum
which the goods were valued at ; and was pleased to leave thorn
in our hands for our use, till we might be able to repurchase
them ; which she did accordingly, and had the goods formally
delivered to her by Mr. Smith, and Mr. Greenewood, two seques-
trators. As for the books, several stationers looked on them,

BISHOP HALL. 321

but were not forward to buy them ; at last Mr. Cook, a worthy
divine of this diocese, gave bond to the sequestrators, to pay to
them the whole sum whereat they were set, which was afterwards
satisfied out of that poor pittance that was allowed me for my
maintenance. As for my evidences they required them from me.
I denied them, as not holding myself bound to deliver them.
They nailed, and sealed up the door, and took such as they found
with me.

But before this, the first noise that I heard of my trouble was,
that one morning, before my servants were up, there came to my
gates one Wright, a London trooper, attended with others,
requiring entrance, threatening if they were not admitted, to
break open the gates ; whom I found at my first sight struggling
with one of my servants for a pistol, which he had in his hand.
I demanded his business at that unseasonable time ; he told me,
he came to search for arms and ammunition, of which I must be
disarmed. I told him I had only two muskets in the house, and
no other military provision. He not resting upon my word
searched round about the house, looked into the chests and
trunks, examined the vessels in the cellar ; finding no other war-
like furniture, he asked me what horses I had, for his commission
was to take them also. I told him how poorly I was stored, and
that my age would not allow me to travel on foot. In conclusion
he took one horse for the present, and such account of another,
that he did highly expostulate with me afterwards, that I had
otherwise disposed of him.

Now not only my rents present, but the arrearages of the
former years, which I had in favour forborne to some tenants,
being treacherously confessed to the sequestrators, were by them
called for, and taken from me ; neither was there any course at
all taken for my maintenance. I therefore addressed myself to
the committee sitting here at Norwich, and desired them to give
order for some means, out of that large patrimony of the church,
to be allowed me. They all thought it very just, and there being
present sir Thomas Woodhouse 2, and sir John Potts3, parliament
men, it was moved and held fit by them and the rest, that the

2 Sir Thomas Woodhouse.] Of Kemberley, M.P. for Thetford. He was
the second baronet of the name. The present lord Wodehouse is his lineal
descendant.

8 Sir John Potts.'] Of Mannington, M.P. for Norfolk. He was the first
baronet of his family.

VOL. IV. Y

322 BISHOP HALL.

proportion which the votes of the parliament had pitched upon,
viz. 4:001. per annum, should be allowed to me. My lord of Man-
chester, who was then conceived to have great power in matter of
these sequestrations, was moved herewith. He apprehended it
very just and reasonable, and wrote to the committee here to set
out so many of the manors belonging to this bishopric as should
amount to the said sum of 400£. annually ; which was answerably
done under the hands of the whole table. And now I well hoped,
I should yet have a good competency of maintenance out of that
plentiful estate which I might have had : but those hopes were
no sooner conceived than dashed ; for before I could gather up
one quarterns rent, there comes down an order from the commit-
tee for sequestrations above, under the hand of serjeant Wild4 the
chairman, procured by Mr. Miles Corbet 5, to inhibit any such
allowance ; and telling our committee here, that neither they,
nor any other had power to allow me any thing at all : but if my
wife found herself to need a maintenance, upon her suit to the
committee of lords and commons, it might be granted that she
should have a fifth part according to the ordinance, allowed for
the sustentation of herself, and her family. Hereupon she sends
a petition up to that committee, which after a long delay was
admitted to be read, and an order granted for the fifth part. But
still the rents and revenues both of my spiritual and temporal
lands were taken up by the sequestrators both in Norfolk, and
Suffolk, and Essex, and we kept off from either allowance or
account. At last upon much pressing, Beadle the solicitor, and
Rust the collector, brought in an account to the committee, such
as it was ; but so confused and perplexed, and so utterly imper-
fect, that we could never come to know what a fifth part meant :
but they were content that I should eat my books by setting off
the sum engaged for them out of the fifth part. Mean time the
synodals both in Norfolk and Suffolk, and all the spiritual profits
of the diocese were also kept back, only ordinations and institu-
tions continued a while. But after the covenant 6 was appointed
to be taken, and was generally swallowed of both clergy and laity,
my power of ordination was with some strange violence restrained.
For when I was going on in my wonted course (which no law or

* Serjeant Wild.'] John Wild, or Wylde, M.P. for Worcestershire.
6 Miles Corbet.'] M.P. for Yarmouth.

c After the covenant.'] See lord Clarendon's Hist, nf the Rebellion, b. vii.
Fuller, Church History, book x. p. 201—7.

BTSHOP HALL. 323

ordinance had inhibited) certain forward volunteers in the city,
banding together, stir up the mayor and aldermen and sheriffs to
call me to an account for an open violation of their Covenant.
To this purpose divers of them came to my gates at a very unsea-
sonable time, and knocking very vehemently, required to speak
with the bishop ! Messages were sent to them to know their
business. Nothing would satisfy them but the bishop's presence ;
at last I came down to them, and demanded what the matter
was ; they would have the gate opened, and then they would tell
me ; I answered that I would know them better first : if they
had any thing to say to me I was ready to hear them. They
told me they had a writing to me from Mr. Mayor, and some
other of their magistrates. The paper contained both a challenge
of me for breaking the Covenant, in ordaining ministers ; and
withal required me to give in the names of those which were
ordained by me both then and formerly since the Covenant. My
answer was that Mr. Mayor was much abused by those who had
misinformed him, and drawn that paper from him ; that I would
the next day give a full answer to the writing. They moved that
my answer might be by my personal appearance at the Guildhall.
I asked them when they ever heard of a bishop of Norwich ap-
pearing before a mayor. I knew mine own place, and would take
that way of answer which I thought fit ; and so dismissed them,
who had given out that day, that had they known before of mine
ordaining, they would have pulled me and those whom I ordained
out of the chapel by the ears.

Whiles I received nothing, yet something was required of me.
They were not ashamed after they had taken away, and sold all
my goods and personal estate, to come to me for assessments,
and monthly payments for that estate which they had taken, and
took distresses from me upon my most just denial, and vehe-
mently required me to find the wonted arms of my predecessors,
when they had left me nothing. Many insolences and affronts
were in all this time put upon us. One while a whole rabble of
volunteers come to my gates late, when they were locked up, and
called for the porter to give them entrance, which being not
yielded, they threatened to make by force, and had not the said
gates been very strong they had done it. Others of them
clambered over the walls, and would come into mine house ;
their errand (they said) was to search for delinquents. What
they would have done I know not, had not we by a secret way

Y 2

324 BISHOP HALL.

sent to raise the officers for our rescue. Another while the sheriff
Toftes, and alderman Linsey, attended with many zealous fol-
lowers, came into my chapel to look for superstitious pictures,
and relics of idolatry, and sent for me, to let me know they found
those windows full of images, which were very offensive, and must
be demolished ! I told them they were the pictures of some
antient and worthy bishops, as St. Ambrose, Austin, &c. It
was answered me, that they were so many popes; and one
younger man amongst the rest (Townsend as I perceived after-
wards) would take upon him to defend that every diocesan bishop
was pope. I answered him with some scorn, and obtained leave
that I might with the least loss and defacing of the windows, give
order for taking off that offence, which I did by causing the
heads of those pictures to be taken off, since I knew the bodies
could not offend.

There was not that care and moderation used in reforming
the cathedral church bordering upon my palace. It is no other
than tragical to relate the carriage of that furious sacrilege,
whereof our eyes and ears were the sad witnesses, under the
authority and presence of Linsey, Toftes the sheriff, and Greene-
wood. Lord, what work was here, what clattering of glasses,
what beating down of walls, what tearing up of monuments, what
pulling down of seats, what wresting out of irons and brass from
the windows and graves ! what defacing of arms, what demo-
lishing of curious stone- work, that had not any representation in
the world, but only of the cost of the founder, and skill of the
mason ; what tooting and piping upon the destroyed organ pipes,
and what a hideous triumph on the market day before all the
country, when in a kind of sacrilegious and profane procession,
all the organ pipes, vestments, both copes and surplices, together
with the leaden cross 7, which had been newly sawn down from

7 Leaden cross.'] In the church-warden's accounts of the parish of Lam-
beth, fol. 288, A.D. 1642, is the following entry :

" Paid for taking downe the crosse off the steeple ...016"
And in fol. 293, is a further payment of 2*. In a subsequent year we find
how the cross was disposed of; fol. 296, A.D. 1644 :

" Rec. for the crosse that was upon the steeple, and other

ouldeiron 136"

The following extracts are also given from the same book, as further illus-
trative of the proceedings of those times : fol. 293, A.D. 1643 :
" Paide to John Pickerskill for taking downe the railes that

were about the communion table 010"

[Fol.

BISHOP HALL. 325

over the green-yard pulpit, and the service books and singing
books that could be had, were carried to the fire in the public
market place : a lewd wretch walking before the train, in his
cope trailing in the dirt, with a service book in his hand, imitating
in an impious scorn the tune, and usurping the words of the
litany used formerly in the church ! Near the public cross, all
these monuments of idolatry must be sacrificed to the fire, not
without much ostentation of a zealous joy in discharging ordnance
to the cost of some who professed how much they had longed to
see that day. Neither was it any news upon this guild-day to have
the cathedral now open on all sides to be filled with musketeers,
waiting for the mayor's return, drinking and tobacconing as freely
as if it had turned alehouse.

Still yet I remained in my palace though with but a poor
retinue and means ; but the house was held too good for me :
many messages were sent by Mr. Corbet to remove me thence.
The first pretence was, that the committee, who now was at
charge for an house to sit in, might make their daily session there,
being a place both more public, roomy, and chargeless. The
committee after many consultations resolved it convenient to
remove thither, though many overtures and offers were made to
the contrary. Mr. Corbet was impatient of my stay there, and
procures and sends peremptory messages for my present dis-
lodging. We desired to have some time allowed for providing
some other mansion, if we must needs be cast out of this, which
my wife was so willing to hold, that she offered, (if the charge of
the present committee house were the things stood upon) she
would be content to defray the sum of the rent of that house
of her fifth part ; but that might not be yielded : out we must,
and that in three weeks warning, by midsummer-day then
approaching, so as we might have lain in the street for ought I
know, had not the providence of God so ordered it that a
neighbour in the close, one Mr. Gostlin, a widower, was content
to void his house for us.

Fol. 296, A.D. 1644:

"Paid to the carpenters for worke in taking downe the

skreenes betweene the church and the chancel .... 0 13 0
" Paid to Ed. Marshall for two dayes worke in levelling the

chancell 040

Fol. 300, A.D. 1645:
" Paid for a basen to baptize in, and for the frame ... 0 5 0

326 BISHOP HALL.

This hath been my measure ; wherefore, I know not ; Lord, thou
knowest, who only canst remedy, and end, and forgive or avenge
this horribU oppression.

Jos. NORVIC.

Scripsi, May 29, 1647.

SHORTLY after 8, this excellent bishop retired to a little estate,
which he rented at Higham near Norwich ; where, notwith-
standing the narrowness of his circumstances, he distributed a
weekly charity to a certain number of poor widows. In this
retirement he ended his life, September 8, 1656, aged 82 years;
and was buried in the church-yard of that parish, without any
memorial ; observing in his will, " I do not hold God's house a
meet repository for the dead bodies of the greatest saints."

He is universally allowed to have been a man of incomparable
piety, meekness, and modesty, having a thorough knowledge of
the world, and of great wit and learning.

A writer" observes of him that " he may be said to have died
with the pen in his hand. He was commonly called our English
Seneca, for his pure, plain and full stile. Not ill at contro-
versies, more happy at comments, very good in his characters,
better in his sermons, best of all in his meditations"

8 Shortly after.~\ This conclusion is transcribed from the notes to an
edition of this life, &c. prefixed to an edition of bishop Hall's Contemplations,
published AD. 1759, by the Rev. Wra. Dodd.

c England's Worthies, p. 441.

DR. HENRY HAMMOND.

In these things we also have been but too like the sons of Israel ; for when
we sinned as greatly, we also have groaned under as great and sad a calamity.
For we have not only felt the evils of an intestine war, but God hath smitten
us in our spirit, and laid the scene of his judgments especially in religion. —
But I delight not to observe the correspondencies of such sad accidents :
they do but help to vex the offending part, and relieve the afflicted but with
a fantastic and groundless comfort. I will therefore deny leave to my own
affections to ease themselves by complaining of others. I shall only crave
leave, that I may remember Jerusalem, and call to mind the pleasures of the
temple, the order of her services, the beauty of her buildings, the sweetness
of her songs, the decency of her ministrations, the assiduity and oeconomy of
her priests and levites, the daily sacrifice, and that eternal fire of devotion,
that went not out by day nor by night. These were the pleasures of our
peace : and there is a remanent felicity in the very memory of those spiritual
delights, which we then enjoyed as antepasts of heaven, and consignations to
an immortality of joys. And it may be so again, when it shall please God, who
hath the hearts of all princes in his hand, and turneth them as the rivers of
waters ; and when men will consider the invaluable loss that is consequent,
and the danger of sin that is append ant to the destroying of such forms of
discipline and devotion, in which God was purely worshipped, and the church
was edified, and the people instructed to great degrees of piety, knowledge,
and devotion.

BISHOP TAYLOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following account of Dr. Henry Hammond is a republication
of The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. II. Ham-
mond, written by John Fell, D.D. Dean of Christ Church in
Oxford; the second edition; London, 1662; of which the first
edition came out in the year preceding.

DR. HENRY HAMMOND.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND, whose life is now attempted to be
written, was born upon the eighteenth of August in the year
1 605, at Chertsey in Surrey, a place formerly of remark for Julius
Caesar's supposed passing his army there over the Thames, in his
enterprise upon this island; as also for the entertainment of
devotion in its earliest reception by our Saxon ancestors ; and of
later years, for the charity of having given burial to the equally
pious and unfortunate prince king Henry VI.

He was the youngest son of Dr. John Hammond physician to
prince Henry ; and from that great favourer of meriting servants
and their relations, had the honour at the font to receive his
Christian name.

Nor had he an hereditary interest in learning only from his
father ; by his mother's side he was allied both unto it and the
profession of theology, being descended1 from Dr. Alexander
Nowel, the reverend dean of St. Paul's, that great and happy
instrument of the reformation, and eminent light of the English
church.

Being yet in his long coats, (which heretofore were usually
worn beyond the years of infancy 2,) he was sent to Eton school ;
where his pregnancy, having been advantaged by the more than

1 Being descended.] But see Churton's Life of Nowell, pp. 362, 3.

2 The years of infancy. ~] " When about seven years old" (it is related of
Williams, afterward archbishop of York, the antagonist and rival of arch-
bishop Laud, that) " He took a leap, being then in long coats, from the walls
of Conway town to the sea shore, looking that the wind, which was then very
strong, would fill his coats like a sail, and bear him up, as it did with his

play fellows : but he found it otherwise ." Hacket's Life of Williams,

p. 8. This was about the year 1590.

332 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

paternal care and industry of his father (who was an exact critic
in the learned languages, especially the Greek), became the ob-
servation of those that knew him : for in that tenderness of age
he was not only a proficient in Greek and Latin, but had also
some knowledge in the elements of Hebrew: in the latter of
which tongues, it being then rarely heard of even out of grammar
schools, he grew the tutor of those who began to write themselves
men, but thought it no shame to learn of one whose knowledge
seemed rather infused than acquired ; or in whom the learned
languages might be thought to be the mother tongue. His skill
in the Greek was particularly advantaged by the conversation and
kindness of Mr. Allen, one of the fellows of the college, excel-
lently seen in that language, and a great assistance of sir Henry
Savile in his magnificent edition of St. Chrysostom.

His sweetness of carriage is very particularly remembered by
his contemporaries, who observed that he was never engaged
(upon any occasion) into fights or quarrels ; as also that at times
allowed for play, he would steal from his fellows* into places

3 Steal from his fellows] The place, and the engagements of this school-
boy remind us of the narrative given by the pious and amiable Dr. Henry
More of his own early years. " Being bred up, to the almost fourteenth
year of my age, under parents, and a master, that were great Calvinists, but
withal, very pious and good ones ; at that time, by the order of my parents,
persuaded to it by my uncle, I immediately went to Eton school ; not to
learn any new precepts or institutes of religion, but for the perfecting of the
Greek and Latin tongue. But neither there, not yet any where else, could I
ever swallow down that hard doctrine concerning Fate. On the contrary, I
remember that upon those words of Epictetus, "Aye /x? w Zfi), cat <rr >'/
7r£7rpa>/^»»7, Lead me, O Jupiter, and thou Fate, I did, with my eldest brother,
who then, as it happened, had accompanied my uncle thither, very stoutly
and earnestly for my years, dispute against this fate or Calvinistical predesti-
nation, as it is usually called : and that my uncle, when he came to know it,
chid me severely ; adding menaces withal of correction, and a rod for my
immature forwardness in philosophizing concerning such matters. Moreover,
that I had such a deep aversion in my temper to this opinion, and so firm and
unshaken a persuasion of the divine justice and goodness ; that, on a certain
day, in a ground belonging to Eton College, where the boys used to play and
exercise themselves, musing concerning these things with myself, and recalling
to my mind the doctrine of Calvin, I did thus seriously and deliberately con-
clude within myself, namely, If I am one of those that are predestinated unto
hell, where all things are full of nothing but cursing and blasphemy, yet will I
behave myself there patiently and submissively towards God : and if there be
any one thing more than another, that is acceptable to him, that will I set myself
to do, with a sincere heart, and to the utmost of my power. . . . which medita-

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 333

of privacy, there to say his prayers : omens of his future pacific
temper and eminent devotion.

Which softness of temper his schoolmaster Mr. Bush, who
upon his father's account had a tender kindness for him, looked
upon with some jealousy ; for he building upon the general obser-
vation, that gravity and passiveness in children is not from dis-
cretion but phlegm, suspected that his scholar's faculties would
desert his industry, and end only in a laborious well-read non-
proficiency : but the event gave full and speedy defeat to those
well-meant misgivings ; for he so improved, that at thirteen years
old he was thought, and (what is much more rare) was indeed
ripe for the university, and accordingly sent to Magdalen college
in Oxford, where not long after he was chosen demy; and though
he stood low upon the roll, by a very unusual concurrence of pro-
vidential events, happened to be sped : and though, having then
lost his father, he became destitute of the advantage which potent
recommendation might have given, yet his merit voting for him,
as soon as capable he was chosen fellow.

Being to proceed master of arts, he was made reader of the
natural philosophy lecture in the college, and also was employed
in making the funeral oration on the highly meriting president
Dr. Langton.

tion of mine is as firmly fixed in my memory, and the very place where I
stood, as if the thing had been transacted but a day or two ago.

" And as to what concerns the existence of God, though in that ground
mentioned, walking, as my manner was, slowly, and with my head on one side,
and kicking now and then the stones with my feet, I was wont sometimes,
with a sort of musical and melancholick manner, to repeat, or rather humm
to myself those verses of Claudian :

* Ssepe mihi dubiam traxit sententia mentem,
Curarent Superi terras ; an nullus inesset
Rector, et incerto fluerent mortalia casu :'

' Oft hath my anxious mind divided stood,

Whether the gods did mind this lower world ;
Or whether no such Ruler, wise and good,
We had ; and all things here by chance were hurled ;'

yet that exceeding hale and intire sense of God, which nature herself had
planted deeply in me, very easily silenced all such slight and poetical dubita-
tions as these. Yea, even in my just childhood, an inward sense of the
divine presence was so strong upon my mind, that I did then believe, there
could no deed, word or thought be hidden from him." — Life of the learned
and pious Dr. Henry More, by Richard Ward, A.M. London, 1710. 8vo, p. 5.

334 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

Having taken his degree, he presently bought a system of
divinity, with a design to apply himself straightway to that
study : but upon second thoughts he returned for a time to
human learning, and afterwards when he resumed his purpose
for theology, took a quite different course of reading from the
other too much usual *, beginning that science at the upper end,
as conceiving it most reasonable to search for primitive truth in
the primitive writers, and not to suffer his understanding to be
prepossest by the contrived and interested schemes of modern
and withal obnoxious authors.

Anno 1 629, being twenty-four years of age, the statutes of his
house directing, and the canons of the church then regularly per-
mitting it, he entered into holy orders : and upon the same
grounds not long after took the degree of bachelor in divinity,
giving as happy proof of his proficiency in sacred, as before he
had done in secular knowledge.

During the whole time of his abode in the university he gene-
rally spent thirteen hours of the day in study ; by which assiduity
besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, ho

4 Too much usual.'] " To such an absolute authority were the names and
writings of some men advanced by their diligent followers, that not to yield
obedience to their ipse dixits, was a crime unpardonable.

" It is true king James observed the inconvenience, and prescribed a
remedy, sending Instructions to the Universities, bearing date Jan. 18, anno
1616, wherein it was directed amongst other things, that young students in
divinity should be excited to study such books as were most agreeable in doctrine
and discipline to the Church of England ; and to bestow their time in the
Fathers and Councils, Schoolmen, Histories, and Controversies; and not to
insist too long upon Compendiums and Abbreviators, making them the grounds
of their study. And I conceive that from that time forwards the names and
reputations of some leading men of the Foreign Churches, which till then
carried all before them, did begin to lessen; divines growing daily more
willing to free themselves from that servitude and vassalage, to which the
authority of those names had enslaved their judgments. — About those times
it was, that I began my studies in divinity; and thought no course so
proper and expedient for me, as the way commended by king James ....
For though I had a good respect both to the memory of Luther, and the name
of Calvin ; as those whose writings had awakened all these parts of Europe
out of the ignorance and superstition under which they suffered ; yet I
always took them to be men : men as obnoxious unto error, as subject unto
human frailty, and as indulgent too to their own opinions, as any others
whatsoever." Heylin's Sum of Christian Theology, in the address to the
reader. 1673. folio. Compare also above, Life of Bishop Hall, p. 297,
note.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 335

read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant ; and
upon the more considerable wrote, as he passed, scholia and
critical emendations, and drew up indexes for his private use at
the beginning and end of each book : all which remain at this
time, and testify his indefatigable pains to as many as have
perused his library.

In the year 1633, the reverend Dr. Frewen 5, the then president
of his college, now lord arch-bishop of York, gave him the honour
to supply one of his courses at the court ; where the right
honourable the earl of Leicester 6 happened to be an auditor. He
was so deeply affected with the sermon, and took so just a mea-
sure of the merit of the preacher thence, that the rectory of
Penshurst 7 being at that time void, and in his gift, he imme-
diately offered him the presentation : which being accepted, he
was inducted on the 22 of A ugust in the same year ; and thence-
forth from the scholastic retirements of an university life, applied
himself to the more busy entertainments of a rural privacy, and
what some have called the being buried in a living : and being to
leave the house, he thought not fit to take that advantage of his
place, which from sacrilege, or selling of the founder's charity,
was by custom grown to be prudence and good husbandry.

In the discharge of his ministerial function, he satisfied not
himself in diligent and constant preaching only ; (a performance
wherein some of late have fancied all religion to consist) but
much more conceived himself obliged to the offering up the
solemn daily sacrifice of prayer for his people, administering
the sacraments, relieving the poor, keeping hospitality, recon-
ciling of differences amongst neighbours, visiting the sick, cate-
chizing the youth.

As to the first of these, his preaching \ it was not at the ordi-
nary rate of the times 8, an unpremeditated, undigested effusion

5 Frewen.~\ Accepted Frewen, dean of Gloucester, bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry, August 17, 1643 ; archbishop of York, September 22, 1660 ; died,
March 28, 1664.

0 Leicester.'] Robert Sydney, second earl of Leicester.

: Penshurst.'] In Kent : the well-known seat of the Sydneys.

8 Rate of the times.'] Of Hammond's friend the learned Dr. Edward
Pocock, the ornament and pride of his country, especially as an orien-
talist, we are told by his biographer, that as he avoided in his preaching
" The shews and ostentations of learning ; so he would not, by any means,
indulge himself in the practice of those arts, which at that time were very
common, and much admired by ordinary people. Such were distortions of

336 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

of shallow and crude conceptions; but a rational and just dis-
course, that was to teach the priest as well as the lay-hearer.
His method was (which likewise he recommended to his friends)
after every sermon to resolve upon the ensuing subject ; that
being done, to pursue the course of study which he was then in
hand with, reserving the close of the week for the provision for
the next LordVday. Whereby not only a constant progress was
made in science, but materials unawares were gained unto the
immediate future work : for, he said, be the subjects treated of
never so distant, somewhat will infallibly fall in conducible unto
the present purpose.

The offices of prayer he had in his church, not only upon the
Sundays and festivals and their eves, as also Wednesdays and
Fridays, according to the appointment of the rubric : (which
strict duty and administration when it is examined to the bottom
will prove the greatest objection against the liturgy; as that
which, besides its own trouble and austerity, leaves no leisure for
factious and licentious meetings at fairs and markets) but every
day 9 in the week, and twice on Saturdays, and holy-day eves :
for his assistance wherein he kept a curate, and allowed him a
comfortable salary. And at those devotions he took order that
his family should give diligent and exemplary attendance : which
was the easilier performed, it being guided by his mother a
woman of ancient virtue, and one to whom he paid a more than
filial obedience.

As to the administration of the Sacrament, he reduced it to an
imitation, though a distant one, of primitive frequency, to once a
month, and therewith its anciently inseparable appendant, the
offertory : wherein his instruction and happily-insinuating exain-

the countenance and strange gestures, a violent and unnatural way of speak-
ing, and affected words and phrases, which being out of the ordinary way,
were therefore supposed to express somewhat very mysterious, and in a high
degree spiritual . . .

" His care not to amuse his hearers, with things which they could not
understand, gave some of them occasion to entertain very contemptible
thoughts of his learning, and to speak of him accordingly. So that one of
his Oxford friends, as he travelled through Childry, enquiring, for his diver-
sion, of some people, who was their minister, and how they liked him,
received from them this answer, Our parson is one Mr. Pocock, a plain,
honest man ; but Master, said they, he is no Latiner." Trail's Life of Dr.
Edward Pocock, prefixed to Pocock's Theological Works, p. 22.

9 But every dayJ] Compare above, Life of Herbert, vol. iv. p. 38.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 337

pie so far prevailed, that there was thenceforth little need of ever
making any tax for the poor. Nay, (if the report of a sober
person, born and bred up in that parish, be to be believed) in
short time a stock was raised to be always ready for the appren-
ticing of young children, whose parents'* condition made the pro-
vision for them an equal charity to both the child and parent.
And after this there yet remained a surplusage for the assistance
of the neighbour parishes.

For the relief of the poor, besides the forementioned expedient,
wherein others were sharers with him, unto his private charity,
the dedicating the tenth of all receipts, and the alms daily given
at the door, he constantly set apart over and above every week a
certain rate in money : and however rarely his own rent-days
occurred, the indigent had two and fifty quarter-days returning
in his year. Yet farther, another act of charity he had, the
selling corn to his poor neighbours at a rate below the market-
price : which though, as he said, he had reason to do, gaining
thereby the charge of portage, was a great benefit to them, who
besides the abatement of price, and possibly forbearance, saved
thereby a day's work.

He that was thus liberal to the necessitous poor, was no less
hospitable to those of better quality : and as at other times he
frequently invited his neighbours to his table, so more especially
on Sundays ; which seldom past at any time without bringing
some of them his guests : but here beyond the weekly treatments,
the Christmas festival had a peculiar allowance to support it.
He knew well how much the application at the table inforced the
doctrines of the pulpit, and how subservient the endearing of his
person was to the recommending his instructions ; how far upon
these motives our Saviour thought fit to eat with publicans and
sinners ; and how effectual the loaves were to the procuring of
disciples.

In accordance to which his generous freedom in alms and
hospitality, he farther obliged his parishioners in the setting of
their tithes and dues belonging to him ; for though he very well
understood how prone men are to give complaints in payment,
and how little obligation there is on him that lets a bargain to
consider the casual loss, who is sure never to share in a like sur-
plusage of gain ; yet herein he frequently departed from his right
insomuch that having set the tithe of a large meadow, and upon
agreement received part of the money at the beginning of the

VOL. iv. z

338 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

year ; it happening that the profits were afterwards spoiled and
carried away by a flood, he, when the tenant came to make his
last payment, not only refused it, but returned the former sum,
saying to the poor man, " God forbid I should take the tenth
where you have not the nine parts.'1

As by public admonition he most diligently instilled that great
and fundamental doctrine of peace and love, so did he likewise in
his private address and conversation, being never at peace in him-
self, till he had procured it amongst his neighbours; wherein
God so blest him, that he not only attained his purpose of uniting
distant parties unto each other, but, contrary to the usual fate of
reconcilers, gained them to himself: there having been no person
of his function any where better beloved than he when present, or
lamented more when absent, by his flock. Of which tender and
very filial affection, instead of more we may take two instances :
the one, that he being driven away, and his books plundered, one
of his neighbours bought them * in his behalf, and preserved them
for him till the end of the war ; the other, that during his abode
at Penshurst he never had any vexatious law dispute about his
dues, but had his tithes fully paid, and not of the most refuse
parts, but generally the very best.

Though he judged the time of sickness an improper season for
the great work of repentance ; yet he esteemed it a most useful
preparative, the voice of God himself exhorting to it : and there-
fore not only when desired made his visits to all such as stood in
need of those his charities, but prevented their requests by early
and frequent coming to them. And this he was so careful of,
that after his remove from Penshurst, being at Oxford, and
hearing of the sickness of one of his parishioners, he from thence
sent to him those instructions which he judged useful in that
exigent, and which he could not give at nearer distance.

For the institution of youth in the rudiments of piety, his
custom was during the warmer season of the year, to spend an
hour before evening-prayer in catechising, whereat the parents
and older sort were wont to be present, and from whence (as he
with comfort was used to say) they reaped more benefit than
from his sermons. Where it may not be superfluous to observe
that he introduced no new form of catechism *, but adhered to

1 Bought them.'] Compare Life of Bishop Hall, above, p. 320.

2 No new form of catechism.'] The later years of queen Elizabeth, and tbe
reign of king James, and, though in a less degree, that of king Charles, pro-

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 339

that of the church ; rendering it fully intelligible to the meanest
capacities by his explanations. It may be useful withal to advert,

duced a vast multitude of catechisms, written by independent and unautho-
rized individuals, which, for the most part, were composed upon very narrow,
and Calvinistical principles. In reference to some of these Dr. Thomas
Jackson says, " In the mean time, I shall every day bless my Lord God, as
for all others, so in particular for the great blessing bestowed upon me, that
I was in a convenient age, in a happy time and place, presented by my sure-
ties in baptism, to ratify the vow which they made for me, and to receive the
benediction of the bishop of the diocese : being first instructed in the Church's
Catechism, by the curate of the parish, from whose lips (though but a mere
grammar scholar, and one that knew better how to read an Homily, or to
understand Hemingius, or the Latin Postills, than to make a sermon, in
English) I learned more good lessons, than I did from many popular ser-
mons : and to this day remember more, than men of this time of greater
years shall find in many late applauded Catechisms." And a little afterwards :
"Albeit the reverend fathers of our church, and their suffragans, should use
all possible care and diligence for performing of all that is on their parts
required, yet without some better conformity of Catechisms, and reformation
of such as write them, or preach doctrines conformable to them, there is small
hope, that in such plenty of preachers, as now there are, this work of the
Lord should prosper half so well, as it did in those times and in those
dioceses, wherein there were scarce ten able preachers, besides the preben-
daries of the cathedral church, under whose tuition in a manner the rest of
the clergy were .... The writers then in most esteem were Melancthon,
Bullinger, Hemingius (especially in Postills, and other opuscula of his,) or
other writers, who were most conformable to the book of Homilies, which
were weekly read upon severe penalty." Jackson's Works, vol. iii. p. 273.
In like manner Wren, bishop of Ely, in his Answer to the Articles of Impeach-
ment, exhibited against him [see p. 307, ante] in the year 1641, by the house
of commons, for some alleged crimes and misdemeanours, saith, " That he did
direct that the said catechizing should be according to the catechism of the
church of England only, which catechism is by the law of the land in the
rubrics of the service-book proposed as the rule of examination for the bishop
to go by, and is the best form that ever was compiled for laying the founda-
tion and grounds of religion in the hearts and minds of unlearned Christians.
He considered also, that the great variety of catechisms which every man did in
former time thrust out at his pleasure, did distract and corrupt the minds of
the people, more than any thing else, sowing in them the seeds both of error
and faction. And he conceived it an unreasonable thing, that in the church
any catechizing should be publicly practised, but according to the catechism
which the church of England in her liturgy alloweth. The due observation
whereof was so far from suppressing knowledge, or introducing ignorance, that
the defendant is humbly confident it produced the quite contrary effects. For
some godly and laborious ministers (by name, as he remembereth, one Mr.
Crackenthoym [Crackenthorpe ?], then parson of Burton Magna in Suffolk, and
another of his diocese neighbour, with him, men otherwise unknown to this

z 2

340 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

that if in those times catechetical institution were very season-
able it will now be much more ; when principles have been ex-
changed for dreams of words and notions 2 ; if not for a worse
season of profane contempt of Christian truth. But to return ;
besides all this, that there might be no imaginable assistance
wanting, he took care for the providing an able schoolmaster in
the parish, which he continued during the whole time of his
abode.

And as he thus laboured in the spiritual building up of souls,
he was not negligent of the material fabric committed to his
trust : but repaired with a very great expence (the annual charge
of 100£.) his parsonage-house ; till from an incommodious ruin he
had rendered it a fair and pleasant dwelling, with the adherent
conveniences of gardens and orchards.

While he was thus busy on his charge, though he so prodigally
laid out himself upon the interests of his flock, as he might seem
to have nothing left for other purposes ; and his humility recom-
mended above all things privacy and retirement to him : yet
when the uses of the public called him forth, he readily obeyed
the summons, and frequently preached both at St. Paul's Cross,
and the visitations of his brethren the clergy, (a specimen whereof
appears in print,) as also at the cathedral church of Chichester,
where by the unsought-for favour of the reverend father in God,
Brian 4, then lord bishop of that see, since of Winchester, he had
an interest, and had the dignity of arch-deacon : which at the
beginning of the late troubles falling to him \ he managed with
great zeal and prudence ; not only by all the charms of Christian

defendant) came to visit him, and told him, that they blessed God for the good,
which upon half a year's experience they had found therein, professing that their
people had sensibly profited more by this catechizing within that short space,
for the true apprehending and understanding the grounds of religion, than
they had done by their great and constant labours in preaching to them for
some years before." Wren's Parent alia, p. 85.

8 Words and notions."] " 17 Sept. (1655.) On Sunday afternoon, I fre-
quently stay'd at home to catechise and instruct my familie, those exercises
universally ceasing in the parish churches, so as people had no principles,
and grew very ignorant of even the common points of Christianity, all devo-
tion being now placed in hearing sermons and discourses of speculative and
notional things." Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 287. 1818.

4 Brian.']. Brian Duppa, dean of Christ Church; bishop of Chichester,
June 12, 1638; bishop of Salisbury, 1641 ; bishop of Winchester, Sept. 10,
1660; died March 26, 1662.

6 Falling to him.] In the year 1643. Le Neve's Fasti, p. 66.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 341

rhetoric persuading to obedience and union, but by the force of
demonstration charging it as most indispensable duty, and (what
was then not so readily believed) the greatest temporal interest
of the inferior clergy : wherein the eminent importance of the
truths he would inforce so far prevailed over his otherwise insu-
perable modesty, that in a full assembly of the clergy, as he
afterwards confessed, he broke off from what he had preme-
ditated, and out of the abundance of his heart spoke to his
auditory ; and by the blessing of God, to which he attributed it,
found a very signal reception.

In the year 1 639 he proceeded doctor in divinity ; his seniority
in the university and employment in the church and (what per-
chance was a more importunate motive) the desire of eleven of
his friends and contemporaries in the same house, whom not to
accompany might be interpreted an affected pride and singularity,
at least an unkindness, jointly persuading him to it.

His performance in the act, where he answered the doctors,
was to the equal satisfaction and wonder of his hearers; a
country-life usually contracting at the least an unreadiness to
the dexterous management of those exercises, which was an
effect undiscernible in him.

About this time he became a member of the convocation called
with the short parliament in 1 640 ; as after this he was named
to be of the assembly of divines ; his invincible loyalty to his
prince and obedience to his mother the church not being so valid
arguments against his nomination, as the repute of his learning
and virtue were on the other part, to have some title to him.

And now that conformity became a crime, and tumults
improving into hostility and war, such a crime as had chastise-
ments severe enough; though the committee of the country
summoned him before them, and used those their best arguments
of persuasion, threatenings and reproaches, he still went on in
his regular practice, and continued it till the middle of July 1 643.
At which time there being in his neighbourhood about Tunbridge
an attempt in behalf of the king, and his doctrine and example
having had that good influence, as it was supposed, to have made
many more ready to the discharge of their duty ; it being defeated,
the good doctor (the malice of one who designed to succeed in
his living being withal assistant) was forced to secure himself by
retirement ; which he did, withdrawing himself to his old tutor
Dr. Buckner ; to whom he came about the 25th of July, early in

342 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

the morning, in such an habit as that exigence made necessary
for him ; and whither not many days before his old friend and
fellow-pupil Dr. Oliver came upon the same errand. Which
accident, and the necessity to leave his flock, as the doctor after-
wards frequently acknowledged, was that which did most affect
him of any that he felt in his whole life : amidst which, though
he was no valuer of trifles, or any thing that looked like such,
he had so extraordinary a dream, that he could not then despise,
nor ever afterwards forget it.

It was thus. He thought himself and a multitude of others to
have been abroad in a bright and cheerful day, when on a sudden
there seemed a separation to be made, and he with the far less
number to be placed at a distance from the rest ; and then the
clouds gathering, a most tempestuous storm arose, with thun-
dering and lightnings, with spouts of impetuous rain, and violent
gusts of wind, and whatever else might add unto a scene of
horror ; particularly balls of fire that shot themselves among the
ranks of those that stood in the lesser party ; when a gentle whisper
seemed to interrupt those other louder noises, saying, " Be still,
and ye shall receive no harm." Amidst these terrors the doctor
falling to his prayers, soon after the tempest ceased, and that
known cathedral anthem began, Come, Lord Jesus, come away ;
with which he awoke. The correspondent event of all which he
found verified signally in the preservation both of himself and his
friends, in doing of their duties ; the which with much content he
was used to mention. Beside, being himself taken to the quires of
angels at the close of that land hurricane of ours, whereof that
dismal apparition was only a faint emblem, he gave thereby too
literal a completion to his dream, and the unhappy credit of
bordering upon prophecy.

In this retirement the two doctors remained about three
weeks, till an alarm was brought that a strict enquiry was made
for doctor Hammond, and 100?. promised as a reward for him
that should produce him. Which suggestion though they easily
apprehended to have a possibility of being false, yet they con-
cluded a necessary ground for their remove.

Upon this they resolve to be gone ; and Dr. Oliver having an
interest in Winchester, which was then in the king^s quarters,
they chose that as the next place of their retreat. But being on
the way thither, Dr. Oliver, who had sent his servant befor.
make provision for them, was met and saluted with the news that

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 343

doctor Frewen, president of Magdalen college, was made bishop
of Litchfield, and that the college had pitched upon him as suc-
cessor. This unlooked-for accident -(as justly it might) put
doctor Oliver to new counsels ; and since Providence had found
out so seasonable a relief, inclined him not to desert it, but fly
rather to his preferments and advantage, than merely to his
refuge, and so to divert to Oxford. To this Dr. Hammond made
much difficulty to assent, thinking that too public a place, and,
what he more considered, too far from his living, whither (his
desires strongly inclining him) he had hopes (when the present
fury was allayed) to return again ; and to that purpose had
written to such friends of his as were in power, to use their in-
terest for the procuring his security. But his letters meeting a
cold reception, and the company of his friend on one hand, and
the appearance of deserting him on the other hand, charming
him to it, he was at last persuaded ; and encompassing Hamp-
shire, with some difficulty came to Oxford ; where procuring an .
apartment in his old college, he sought that peace in his retire-
ment and study which was no where else to be met withal ;
taking no other diversion than what the giving encouragement
and instruction to ingenious young students yielded him, (a thing
wherein he peculiarly delighted) and the satisfaction which he
received from the conversation of learned men, who, besides the
usual store, in great number at that time for their security
resorted thither.

Among the many eminent persons with whom he here con-
versed, he had particular intimacy with Dr. Potter, provost of
Queen's college, to whom, among other fruits of his studies, he
communicated his Practical Catechism, which for his private use
he had drawn up. The provost, much taken with the design,
and no less with the performance, importuned him to make it
public ; alleging, in that lawless age the great use of supplanting
the empty form of godliness which so prevailed, by substituting
of its real power and sober duties ; of silencing prophaneness,
which then usurped the names of wit and gallantry, by enforcing
the more eligible acts of the Christian's reasonable service ;
which was not any other way so happily to be done as by begin-
ning at the foundation by sound, and yet not trivial, catechetic
institution.

It was not hard to convince Dr. Hammond that it were well
if some such thing were done ; but that his writing would do this

344 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

in any measure, or that he should suffer his name to become
public, it was impossible to persuade him. The utmost he could
be brought to allow of was, that his treatise was not likely to do
harm, but had possibilities of doing (it might be) some good, and
that it would not become him to deny that service to the world ;
especially if his modesty might be secured from pressure by the
concealing of him to be the author. And this doctor Potter,
that he might leave no subterfuge, undertook, and withal the
whole care of, and besides the whole charge of the edition. Upon
these terms, only with this difference, that doctor Hammond
would not suffer the provost to be at the entire charge, but went
an equal share with him, the Practical Catechism saw the light,
and likewise the author remained in his desired obscurity.

But in the mean time the book finding the reception which it
merited8, the good doctor was by the same arguments con-
strained to give way to the publishing of several other tracts
which he had written upon heads that were then most perverted
by popular error, as of Conscience, of Scandal, of Will-worship, of
Resisting the lawful Magistrate, and of the Change of Church
Government ; his name all this while concealed, and so preserved,
till curiosity improving its guesses into confident asseverations,
he was rumoured for the author, and as such published to the
world by the London and Cambridge stationers, who without his
knowledge reprinted those and other of his works.

In the interim a treaty being laboured by his majesty, to com-
pose (if it were possible) the unhappy differences in church and
state, and in order thereunto the duke of Richmond and earl of
Southampton being sent to London, doctor Hammond went along

6 Which it merited.'} " King Charles I. in his last instructions to his
children, recommended this among other eminent books, as a most safe and
sound guide in religion : and his choice has been fully approved by his sub-
jects. We see that while other institutions of Christian religion are in vogue
for a time, and afterwards become antiquated and neglected, this rather grows
than decays in its reputation, being composed with such solid learning, judg-
ment, and piety, as will always endear it to serious persons of every rank and
condition." — Life of Dr. Hammond, prefixed to the Practical Catechism.
" I also remember," (says Whiston, in the Memoirs of his own Life, vol. i.
p. 10) " what my father told me; that after the restoration, almost all pro-
fession of seriousness in religion would have been laughed out of counte-
nance, under pretence of the hypocrisy of the former times, had not two very
excellent and serious books, written by eminent royalists, put some stop to
it : I mean The whole Duty of Man ; and Dr. Hammond's Practical Catechism.'1

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 345

as chaplain to them, where with great zeal and prudence he
laboured to undeceive those seduced persons whom he had oppor-
tunity to converse with : and when the treaty was solemnly ap-
pointed at Uxbridge7, several divines being sent thither in
behalf of the different parties, he, among other excellent men
that adhered to the king, was made choice of to assist in that
employment. And there (not to mention the debates between
the commissioners, which were long since published by an honour-
able hand) doctor Steward and master Henderson were at first
only admitted to dispute ; though at the second meeting the
other divines were called in : which thing was a surprize, and
designed for such, to those of the king's part, who came as chap-
lains and private attendants on the lords, but was before projected
and prepared for by those of the presbyterian way. And in this
conflict it was the lot of doctor Hammond to have master Vines
for his antagonist, who, instead of tendering a scholastic disputa-
tion, read from a paper a long divinity lecture, wherein were
interwoven several little cavils and exceptions, which were meant
for arguments. Doctor Hammond perceiving this, drew forth
his pen and ink, and as the other was reading, took notes of what
was said, and then immediately returned in order an answer to
the several suggestions, which were about forty in number:
which he did with that readiness and sufficiency as at once gave
testimony to his ability, and to the evidence of the truth he
asserted ; which, amidst the disadvantage of extempore against
premeditation, dispelled with ease and perfect clearness all the
sophisms that had been brought against him.

It is not the present work to give an account of that whole
dispute, or character the merits of those worthy persons who
were engaged in it, either in that or the succeeding meetings ;
especially since it was resolved by both parties that the trans-
actions of neither side should be made public. But notwithstand-
ing this, since divers persons addicted to the defence of a side,
without any further consideration of truth or common honesty,
have in this particular wounded the doctor's reputation, I shall
take leave to say, that had the victories in the field, which were
managed by the sword, been like this of the chamber and the
tongue, a very easy act of oblivion must have atoned for them ;
since what never was, without much industry might be secured
from being remembered. The impudent falsity raised upon the
7 At Uxbridge.] See Clarendon's Hist, of the Rebellion, book viii.

346 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

doctor was this, that Mr. Vines utterly silenced him ; insomuch
that he was fain to use this unheard-of stratagem to avoid his
adversary^ demonstration, to swear by God and the holy angels,
that though at present a solution did not occur to him, he could
answer it. Concerning this we have the doctor's own account in
a letter of his, bearing date Jan. 22, ann. 1655, directed to a
friend who had advertised him of this report.

" I have formerly been told within these few years that there
went about a story much to my disparagement, concerning the
dispute at Uxbridge (for there it was, not at Holdenby) with
Mr. Vines ; but what it was I could never hear before : now I do,
I can, I think, truly affirm, that no one part of it hath any degree
of truth, save only that Mr. Vines did dispute against, and I
defend, episcopacy. For as to the argument mentioned, I did
never then, nor at any time of my life, (that I can remember)
ever hear it urged by any. And for my pretended answer, I am
both sure that I never called God and his holy angels to witness
any thing in my life, nor ever swore one voluntary oath that I
know of, (and sure there was then none imposed on me) and that
I was not at that meeting conscious to myself of wanting ability
to express my thoughts, or pressed with any considerable diffi-
culty, or forced by any consideration to wave the answer of any
thing objected. A story of that whole affair I am yet able to tell
you, but I cannot think it necessary. Only this I may add, that
after it I went to Mr. Marshall in my own and brethren's name,
to demand three things : 1. Whether any argument proposed by
them remained unanswered, to which we might yield farther
answer ? 2. Whether they intended to make any report of the
past disputation ; offering, if they would, to join with them in it,
and to perfect a conference by mutual consent, after the manner
of that between Dr. Reynolds and Mr. Hart 8 ? both which being
rejected, the 3d was, to promise each other that nothing should
be afterwards published by either without the consent or know-
ledge of the other party. And that last he promised for himself
and his brethren, and so we parted.11

But while these things were in doing, a canonry in Cli
church in Oxford became vacant, which the king immediately
bestowed 9 on doctor Hammond, though then absent ; whom like-

8 And Mr. Hart.] See above, L\fe of Hooker, vol. iii. ji. 406, note.

9 Immediately bestowed.] This was in the year 1044. Le Neve's Fasti,
p. 234.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 347

wise the university chose their public orator : which preferments,
though collated so freely, and in a time of exigence, he was with
much difficulty wrought upon by his friends to accept, as minding
nothing so much as a return to his old charge at Penshurst.
But the impossibility of a sudden opportunity of going thither
being evident unto him, he at last accepted ; and was soon after
made chaplain in ordinary to his majesty.

But these new employments no way diverted him from his
former tasks ; for, according to his wonted method, he continued
to address remedies to the increasing mischiefs of the times, and
published the tracts of Superstition, Idolatry, Sins of Weakness
and Wilfulness, Death-led Repentance, View of the Directory ; as
also in answer to a Komanist, who, taking advantage of the pub-
lic ruin, hoped to erect thereon trophies to the Capitol, his Vin-
dication of the Lord Falkland, who was not long before fallen in
another kind of war.

But now the king's affairs declining every where, and Oxford
being forced upon articles to surrender to the enemy, where after
the expiration of six months all things were to be left to the lust
and fury of a servile, and therefore insolent, conqueror ; though
he foresaw a second and more fatal siege approaching, a leaguer
of encamped inevitable mischiefs, yet he remitted nothing of his
wonted industry, writing his tracts of Fraternal Correction, and
Power of the Keys, and Apologies by Letter against the pulpit
calumnies of Mr. Cheynel, and the exceptions taken at his Prac-
tical Catechism.

In the mean time his sacred majesty, sold by his Scottish into
the hands of his English subjects, and brought a prisoner to
Holdenby, where, stripped of all his royal attendants, and denied
that common charity which is afforded the worst of malefactors,
the assistance of divines *, though he with importunity desired it,
he being taken from the parliament commissioners into the pos-
session of the army, at last obtained that kindness from them 2,

1 The assistance of divines.] Compare Icon Basilikd, chap. xxiv. Upon their
denying his majesty the attendance of his chaplains.

2 That kindness from them.'] See Baxter's Life and Times, part i. p. 60.
" While the king was at Hampton Court the mutable hypocrites first pre-
tended an extraordinary care of his honour, liberty, safety, and conscience.
They blamed the austerity of the parliament, who had denied him the attendance
of his own chaplains, and of bis friends in whom he took most pleasure.
They gave liberty for his friends and chaplains to come to him : they pre-

348 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

(who were to be cruel at another rate) which was withheld by the
two houses, and was permitted the service of some few of his
chaplains, whom he by name had sent for, and among them of
doctor Hammond.

Accordingly the good doctor attended on his master in the
several removes of Woburn, Caversham, and Hampton Court, as
also thence into the Isle of Wight, where he continued till Christ-
mas 1647; at which time his majesty's attendants were again
put from him, and he amongst the rest.

Sequestered from this his melancholic but most desired employ-
ment, he returned again to Oxford ; where being chosen sub-
dean, an office to which belongs much of the scholastic govern-
ment of the college, and soon after proved to be the whole, (the
dean 3, for the guilt of asserting the rights of his majesty and the
university in his station of vice-chancellor, being made a prisoner,)
he undertook the entire management of all affairs, and discharged
it with great sufficiency and admirable diligence, leaving his
beloved studies to interest himself not only in moderating at divi-
nity disputations, which was then an immediate part of his task,
but in presiding at the more youthful exercises of sophistry,
themes, and declamations ; redeeming still at night these vacui-
ties of the day, scarce ever going to bed till after midnight, some-
times not till three in the morning, and yet certainly rising to
prayers at five.

Nor did his inspection content itself in looking to the general
performances of duty, but descended to an accurate survey of

tended that they would save him from the incivilities of the parliament and
Presbyterians. Whether this were while they tried what terms they could
make with him for themselves, or while they acted any other part : it is cer-
tain that the king's old adherents began to extol the army, and to speak
against the Presbyterians more distastefully than before. When the parlia-
ment offered the king propositions for concord, (which Vane's faction made
as high and unreasonable as they could, that they might come to nothing)
the army forsooth offer him proposals of their own, which the king liked
better : but which of them to treat with he did not know. At last, on the
sudden the judgment of the army changed, and they began to cry for justice
against the king ; and with vile hypocrisy, to publish their repentance, and
to cry God mercy for their kindness to the king, and confess that they were
under a temptation : but in all this, Cromwell and Ireton, and the rest of the
council of war appeared not : the instruments of all this work must be the
common soldiers."

3 The dean.] Dr. Samuel Fell, father of bishop Fell, the author of this Life
of Dr. Hammond. See Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 102.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 349

every one's both practice and ability ; so that this large society
of scholars appeared his private family, he scarce leaving any
single person without some mark or other of both his charity and
care, relieving the necessitous in their several wants of money and
of books, shaming the vicious to sobriety, encouraging the inge-
nuous to diligence, and finding stratagems to ensnare the idle to
a love of study. But above all he endeavoured to prepare his
charge for the reception of the impending persecution, that they
might adorn their profession, and not at the same time suffer for
a cause of righteousness, and as evil-doers.

To this end he both admitted and solemnly invited all sober
persons to his familiarity and converse ; and besides that, received
them to his weekly private office of fasting and humiliation.

But now the long-expected ruin breaking in with its full weight
and torrent, the visitors 4 chafed with their former disappointments
and delays, coming with hunters' stomachs, and design to boot,
for to seize first and then devour the prey, by a new method of
judicature being to kill and then take possession, the excellent
doctor became involved in the general calamity. And whereas
the then usual law of expulsion was immediately to banish into
the wide world by beat of drum enjoining to quit the town within
24 hours, upon pain of being taken and used as spies, and not to
allow the unhappy exiles time for the dispose either of their pri-
vate affairs, or stating the accounts of their respective colleges or
pupils ; the reverend doctor Sheldon 5, now lord bishop of London,
and dean of his majesty's chapel royal, and doctor Hammond,
were submitted to a contrary fate, and by an order from a com-
mittee of parliament were restrained and voted to be prisoners in
that place, from which all else were so severely driven. But such
was the authority and command of exemplary virtue, that the
person designed to succeed in the canonry of Christ church,
though he had accepted of the place at London, and done his
exercise for it at Oxford, acting as public orator in flattering there
the then-pretending chancellor, yet he had not courage to pursue

4 The visitors.'] For a full account of the Oxford Visitation, see Walker's
Sufferings of the Clergy, part i. p. 122 — 44. Wood's Hist, and Antiquities,
&c. vol. ii. p. 501 — 618. 4to. edit. Ayliffe's Antient and present state of the
University of Oxford, vol. i. p. 21 3 — 39.

5 Sheldon.'] Gilbert Sheldon, prebendary of Gloucester; bishop of London,
October 23, 1660; archbishop of Canterbury July 14, 1663; died November
9, 1677.

350 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

his undertaking, but voluntarily relinquished that infamous rob-
bery, and adhered to a less scandalous one in the country. And
then the officer who was commanded to take doctor Sheldon and
him into custody upon their designed removal, colonel Evelin, then
governor of Wallingford-castle, (though a man of as opposite
principles to church and churchmen as any of the adverse party)
wholly declined the employment, solemnly protesting, that if they
came to him they should be entertained as friends, and not as
prisoners.

But these remorses proved but of little effect ; the prebend of
Christ Church being suddenly supplied by a second choice, and
Oxford itself being continued the place of their confinement:
where accordingly the good doctor remained, though he were de-
manded by his majesty to attend him in the Isle of Wight at the
treaty there, which then was again reinforced. The pretence
upon which both he and the reverend doctor Sheldon were refused
was, that they were prisoners ; and probably the gaining that was
the cause why they were so. But notwithstanding the denial of a
personal attendance, the excellent prince required that assistance
which might consist with absence, and at this time sent for a
copy of that sermon which almost a year before he had heard
preached in that place. The which sermon his majesty, and
thereby the public, received with the accession of several others
delivered upon various occasions.

Doctor Hammond having continued about ten weeks in his
restraint in Oxford, where he began to actuate his design of writ-
ing Annotations on the New Testament, (nor was it dispropor-
tionate that those sacred volumes, a great part of which was
written in bonds, should be first commented upon by the very
parallel suffering, and that the work itself should be so dedicated,
and the expositor fitted for his task by being made like the author)
by the interposition of his brother-in-law, sir John Temple, he had
licence granted to be removed to a more acceptable confinement,
to Clapham in Bedfordshire, the house in which his worthy friend
sir Philip Warwick lived. Where soon after his arrival, that
horrid mockery of justice, the rape and violence of all that is
sacred, made more abominable by pretending to right and piety,
the trial of the king, drew on ; and he being in no other capacity
to interpose than by writing, drew up an Address to the general
and council of officers, and transmitted it to them. And when
that unexampled VILLAINY found this excuse, that it was such

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 351

as could be pleaded for, and men in cool blood would dare to own
and justify, he affixed his Reply to the suggestions of Ascham
and Goodwin. And now, although he indulged to his just and
almost infinite griefs, which were transported to the utmost
bounds of sober passion, the affectionate personal respect he bore
unto that glorious victim being added to the detestation due unto
the guilt itself, of which no man was more sensible than he, who
had strange antipathies to all sin, he gave not up himself to an
unactive dull amazement, but with the redoubled use of fasting,
tears, and solemn prayer, he resumed his wonted studies ; and
besides his fitting the Annotations for the press, and his little
tract of the Reasonableness of Christian Beligion, he now composed
his Latin one against Blondel in the behalf of episcopacy. As to
the first of which, (his Annotations,) the manner of its birth and
growth was thus :

Having written in Latin two large volumes in quarto of the
way of interpreting the New Testament, with reference to the
customs of the Jews and of the first heretics in the Christian
church, and of the heathens, especially in the Grecian games, and
above all the importance of the Hellenistical dialect, into which
he had made the exactest search (by which means in a manner he
happened to take in all the difficulties of that sacred book :) he
began to consider that it might be more useful to the English
reader, who was to be his immediate care, to write in our vulgar
language and set every observation in its natural order, according
to the guidance of the text. And having some years before col-
lated several Greek copies of the New Testament, observed the
variation of our English from the original, and made an entire
translation of the whole for his private use ; being thus prepared,
he cast his work into that form in which it now appears. The
reasons of it need not to be here inserted, being set down by his
own pen in his preface to his Annotations.

The tractate against Blondel grew to its last form and constitu-
tion by not unlike degrees, having a very different occasion from
the last performance. The immediate antecedent cause is owned,
and long ago presented to the world in that writing ; the more
remote original is as follows. The late most learned primate of
Armagh having received from David Blondel a letter of exception
against his edition of Ignatius, he communicated it to doctor
Hammond, desiring his sense of several passages therein con-
tained, relating to the Valentinian heresy, episcopal and chor-

352 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

episcopal power, and some emergent difficulties concerning them,
from the canons of several Eastern councils. To all this the
doctor wrote a peculiar answer, promising a fuller account if it
would be useful. Upon the receipt whereof the archbishop being
highly satisfied, returned his thanks, and laid hold of the promise ;
which being accordingly discharged, became the provision (and
gave materials) to a great part of the dissertations. The primate's
letter ran in these words :

" I have read with great delight and content your accurate
Answer to the Objections made against the credit of Ignatius's
Epistles, for which T do most heartily thank you, and am moved
thereby farther to intreat you to publish to the world in Latin
what you have already written in English against this objector,
and that other, who for your pains hath rudely requitted you
with the base appellation of Nebulo for the assertion of epis-
copacy : to the end it may no longer be credited abroad that
these two have so beaten down this calling, that the defence
thereof is now deserted by all men, as by Lud. Capellus is inti-
mated in his thesis of church government, at Sedan lately pub-
lished ; which I leave unto your serious consideration, and all
your godly labours to the blessing of our good God, in whom I
evermore rest,

" Your very loving friend

and brother,

" Eeygate in Surrey* " JA. ARMACHANUS."

July 21, 1649."

Now in this request the archbishop was so concerned, that he
reinforced it by another letter of Aug. 30, and congratulated the
performance by a third of Jan. 14. Both which, though very
worthy to see the public light, are yet forborne, as several of the
like kind from the reverend fathers and bishops of this, and our
sister churches, as also from the most eminent for piety and
learning of our own and the neighbouring nations : which course
is taken not only in accordance to the desires and sentiments of
the excellent doctor, who hated every thing that looked like
ostentation ; but likewise to avoid the very unpleasing choice,
either to take the trouble of recounting all the doctor's cor-
respondencies, or bear the envy of omitting some.

But to return to the present task and that of the good doctor,
which now was to perfect his Commentaries on the New Testa-

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 353

ment, and finish the Dissertations : amidst which cares he met
with another of a more importunate nature, the loss of his dear
mother, which had this unhappy accession, that in her sickness
he could not be permitted, by reason of his being concerned in
the proclamation that banished those that adhered to the king
twenty miles from London, to visit her ; nor while she paid her
latest debt to nature, to pay his earlier one of filial homage and
attendance.

A few months after, the rigour of that restraint with the
declining of the year (a season judged less commodious for enter-
prise) being taken off, he removed into Worcestershire, to West-
wood, the house of the eminently loyal sir John Pakington ; where
being settled and proceeding in the edition of those his labours
which he had begun at Clapham, his majesty coming to Wor-
cester, by his neighbourhood to that place, the good doctor, as he
had the satisfaction personally to attend his sovereign, and the
honour to receive a letter from his own hand of great importance,
for the satisfaction of his loyal subjects concerning his adherence
to the established religion of the church of England, wherein his
royal father lived a saint and died a martyr ; so likewise had he
on the other part the most immediate agonies for his defeat ; to
which was added the calamity which fell upon the family where
he dwelt, from the persecution and danger of the generous master
of it. But it pleased God to give an issue out of both those
difficulties, especially in the miraculous deliverance 6 of his sacred
majesty : a dispensation of so signal an importance, that he
allowed it a solemn recognition in his constant offices during his
whole life, receiving that unusual interposition of Providence as a
pledge from heaven of an arrier of mercies ; to use his own
words, " That God who had thus powerfully rescued him from
Egypt, would not suffer him to perish in the wilderness ; but
though his passage be through the Red Sea, he would at last
bring him into Canaan ; that he should come out of his tribula-
tions as gold out of the fire, purified, but not consumed."

But notwithstanding these reflexions, bottomed upon piety and
reliance upon heaven, the present state of things had a quite
different prospect in common eyes ; and the generality of men
thinking their religion as troublesome a burthen as their loyalty,

6 Miraculous deliverance.'] See True Narrative and Relation of his most
Sacred Majesty's Escape from Worcester, on the 3d Sept. 1651, till his Arrival
at Paris. Harleian Miscellany, fyc.

VOL. iv. A a

354 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

with the same prudence by which they changed their mild and
gracious sovereign for a bloody TYRANT, began to seek a pompous
and imperious church abroad, instead of a pious and afflicted one
at home. To which event the Roman missionaries 7 gave their
liberal contribution, affording their preposterous charity to make
them proselytes who had no mind to be confessors or martyrs.

7 Roman missionaries.'] It seems a fact beyond dispute, that the evils of
these unhappy times were inflamed and aggravated by the machinations of
many Romish incendiaries ; and that especially under the disguise of fanatics
and agitators. In Foxes and Firebrands, or a Specimen of the Danger and
Harmony of Popery and Separation, the following anecdote is related, in which
Dr. Hammond bore a part.

" Mr. John Crooke, sometime bookseller in St. Paul's church-yard, at
the Ship, in London, and since stationer and printer to his most serene
majesty in Dublin, told this story following unto Sir James Ware, knight,
now deceased.

"Anno 1656, the reverend divine Dr. Henry Hammond, being one day in
the next shop to this said John Crooke's, and there reading the works of
St. Ambrose, a red-coat casually came in, and looked over this divine's
shoulder, and there read the Latin as perfect as himself, which caused the
doctor to admire that a red-coat should attain to that learning. Then speak-
ing unto him, he demanded how he came to that science ? The red-coat
replied, * By the Holy Spirit.' The doctor hereupon replied, * I will try
thee further :' and so called for a Greek author, which this red-coat not only
read, but construed. The doctor to try him further called for the Hebrew
Bible; and so for several other books, in which this red-coat was very
expert. At last the doctor, recollecting with himself, called for a Welsh
Bible, and said, ' If thou beest inspired, read me this book, and construe
it.' But the red-coat being at last catched, replied, * I have given thee
satisfaction enough : I will not satisfy thee further ; for thou wilt not believe,
though an angel came from heaven.' The doctor smelling out the deceit,
caused the apprentice to go for a constable ; who being brought to the shop,
the doctor told the constable he had something to say against this red-
coat ; and bade him bring him before Oliver Cromwell, then called the lord
protector. The red-coat being brought to White Hall, and examined, he,
after a rustic manner, thoued and theed Oliver : but being suspected, it was
demanded, where he quartered. It being found out, at the Devil Tavern,
the doctor intreated his chamber might be searched : where they found an
old chest filled partly with his wearing apparel, as also with several papers,
and seditious popish books ; amongst which there being a pair of boots, and
papers stuck in one of them, they found a parchment bull of licence to this
impostor, granted under several names, to assume what function or calling he
pleased. These being brought before Oliver ; for what reasons it is unknown,
yet the red-coat escaped ; bringing several proofs of what great service he
had done : and the greatest affliction which was laid on him, was banishment :
and what proceeded further we know not." Foxes, &c., part ii. p. 101, edit.
1682. See also, in vol. iii. of this work, Life of Jewel, p. 366.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 355

Hereupon the doctor thought it highly seasonable to write his
tract of Schism, and oppose it to that most popular topic whereby
they amused and charmed their fond disciples. And whereas
the love of novelty prevailed in several other instances, as in
controlling the use and authority of the Scripture, defending
incestuous marriages, polygamy, divorce, the anabaptizing of
infants, the schismatical ordination of ministers by mere pres-
byters, and the disuse of the festivals of the church ; he applied
his antidotes to each: by which means he made himself the
common mark of opposition to all parties. For (besides the
assaults from a whole class of antagonists which the Disserta-
tions had engaged against him, and to which he was preparing
his defence,) upon the Romanists' part he was charged by the
Catholic Gentleman and his armour-bearer S. W. ; on the pres-
byterian account by Mr. Gawdry and Mr. Jeanes ; and in the
behalf of the independents and anabaptists by master Owen and
master Tombs : not to mention several others that sought them-
selves a name by being his gainsayers, but failed of their purpose
by bringing only spite and passion into the quarrel, and so were
to be answered only by pity and silence.

Nor did he only stand and keep at bay this multiplied
contest, but (as if this had not been task enough) besides the
intercurrent offices of life, his reception of visits, answering of
letters, his constant preaching and catechising, he found leisure
to write his tract of Fundamentals, his Parcenesis, his Review of
the Annotations ; and amidst all, to be in debt to his importunate
antagonists for nothing but their railing, leaving that the only
thing unanswered. Nay more than so, brought several of them
even under their own hands to recognize their sense of their undue
procedure used by them unto him : which their acknowledgments
yet remain, and are producible upon occasion.

And would to God he had met no other opposition ; for in
entrance on these conflicts that strength of body which before
had faithfully attended his indefatigable mind began to fail him,
and those four torments of disease, which single have been
judged a competent trial of human sufferance, the stone, the
gout, the cholic, and the cramp, (the last of which was to him as
tyrannous as any of the former) became in a manner the con-
stant exercise of his Christian fortitude and patience ; affording
him from this time to the end of his life very rare and short
intervals of vigorous health.

Aa2

356 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

But among all his labours, although polemic discourses were
otherwise most uneasy, as engaging to converse with men in
passion, a thing he naturally abhorred, his Parcenesis, a per-
suasive and practical tract (which now he wrote, and which upon
that account was exceeding agreeable to his desires) cost him
most throes and pangs of birth, as having been penned first in
tears, and then in ink. For however with great serenity he
entertained all other accidents, having habituated himself to his
beloved doctrine of submitting not to the will of God alone, but
to his wisdom, both which he was used to say were perfectly one
thing in that blest agent (and accordingly in the most dismal
appearance of event made this his constant motto, rOltO1? IT D3
Even this for good) ; yet in this instance the tenderness of his
soul seemed to have melted his resolution : the occasion of that
treatise being the interdict8 of Jan. 1655, which disabled the

8 The interdict."] That declaration, so far as it concerned the clergy, was in
these words.

" His highness, by the advice of his council, doth also publish, declare,
and order, that as no person, or persons aforesaid, do, from and after the
first day of January, 1655, keep in their houses or families, as chaplains, or
school-masters, for the education of their children, any sequestered or ejected
minister, fellow of a college, or schoolmaster : nor permit any of their chil-
dren to be taught by such, upon pain of being proceeded against, &c. And
that no person, who for delinquency or scandal, hath been sequestered or
ejected, shall, from and after the first day of January aforesaid, preach in any
public place, or at any private meeting of any other persons than those of
his own family : nor shall administer baptism, or the Lord's supper, or marry
any persons, or use the book of Common Prayer, or the forms of prayer
therein contained, upon pain that every person so offending, in any of the
premises shall be proceeded against as by the said orders is provided and
directed." But the extreme cruelty of this declaration seems to have pre-
vented its being long and generally inforced. See Walker's Sufferings of the
Clergy, part i. p. 1 94. In reference to this interdict the following anecdote
is told in Parr's Life of Archbishop Ussher, p. 75. " According to the desires
of many of the episcopal clergy, he went, and used his utmost endeavours
with Cromwell, for the taking off this restraint, which was at last promised
(though with some difficulty), that they should not be molested, provided
they meddled not with any matters relating to his government. But when
the lord primate went to him a second time, to get this promise ratified, and
put into writing, he found him under his chirurgeon's hands, who was
dressing a great boil which he had on his breast. So Cromwell prayed the
lord primate to sit down a little ; and that, when he was dressed, he would
speak with him. Whilst this was a doing, Cromwell said to the lord primate,
If this core (pointing to the boil) were once out I sh<>nld quickly be well. I"
which the good bishop replied, / dnuht the core lies deeper. There is a core

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 357

loyal suffering clergy from doing any ministerial act ; which he
resented with the highest passion ; not only upon the general
account of God's more immediate displeasure to the nation
legible therein, but (what he had much less reason to do) in
reference to his own particular ; he looking on this dispensation
of Providence as God's pronouncing him unworthy to do him
service, " the reproaching " (to use his own words) " his former
unprofitableness, by casting him out as straw to the dunghill."
Nor should any consideration that terminated on himself have
persuaded him at all to regard that tyrannous injunction, had
not charity to the family where he was, made him content to
admit of an expedient that secured all real duties, whilst he for
some short time forbore that attendance on the altar which was
the very joy of his life.

And now, though his physicians had earnestly forbidden his
accustomed fastings, and his own weaknesses gave forcible suf-
frages to their advice, yet he resumed his rigours, esteeming this
calamity such a one as admitted no exception, which should not
be outlived, but that it became men to be martyrs too, and
deprecate even in death.

While he thus earnestly implored the aids of heaven, and
exhorted unto present duty, he omitted not a third expedient, by
securing a succession to the church, thereby to preserve its future
being. And this he did not only in reference to the superior
order of episcopacy, which it has pleased God now to secure by
another more gracious method of his favour, and even miraculous
goodness ; but also in the inferior attendance on the altar : the
latter of which as it was an enterprise suiting well with his heroic
mind, so was it no way answering his narrow fortunes. The thing
in his design was this. Whereas the ancient stock of clergymen
were by this edict in a manner rendered useless, and the church
was at best like the Roman state in its first beginning, res unius
cetatis populus virorum, a nation of ancient persons hastening to

at the heart that must be taken out, or else it will not be well. Ah ! replied
he, seeming unconcerned, so there is indeed, and sighed. But when the
lord primate began to speak with him concerning the business he came
about, he answered him to this effect ; that he had since better considered it,
having advised with his council about it, and that they thought it not safe
for him to grant liberty of conscience to those sort of men, who are restless
and implacable enemies to him and his government; and so he took his
leave of him, though with good words and outward civility."

358 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

their graves, who must in a few years be wasted ; he projected
by pensions unto hopeful persons in either university, to maintain
a seminary of youth, instituted in piety and learning, upon the
sober principles and old establishment of the Anglican Church.
In which work, though the assistances he presumed on failed in a
great measure, yet somewhat not inconsiderable 9 in this kind by
himself and friends he did achieve, and kept on foot until his
death. In his instructions to them whom he employed in this
affair, he gave in charge " carefully to seek out such as were
piously inclined, and to prefer that qualification before unsancti-
fied good parts ;" adding this as a certain maxim, " that exem-
plary virtue must restore the church."

And whereas that black defeat at Worcester, raising the inso-
lent tyrant here unto that greatness which almost outwent the
impudence of his hopes, made him to be feared by foreign na-
tions almost as much as hated by his own, the loyal sufferers
abroad became subjected to the worst effect of banishment, and
were even there expelled and driven from their flights : so paral-
leling in their exigencies the most immediate objects of that
monster's fury. The excellent doctor, to whose diffusive virtue
the limits of the nation were too straight a circle, thought this
a season to exert his charity : accordingly, though this greatest

9 Not inconsiderable.'] One of the persons upon whom a portion of this
bounty was most deservedly bestowed was Isaac Barrow, afterwards the great
precursor of Sir Isaac Newton, and the pride of the English pulpit ; and another
was the Rev. Clement Ellis, a divine whose writings in practical theology, for
their eminent and fervent piety, for soundness of doctrine, and for a vigorous,
unaffected, and manly style, have been very rarely surpassed ; and deserve to
be much more extensively known, than it is apprehended they now are, or
ever have been.

" He received several donations towards his subsistence at Oxford from
unknown hands ; with anonymous letters to certify, that those sums were in
consideration of his father's sufferings, and to encourage his progress in his
studies. Several such presents and letters he had, both before and after his
being in holy orders, without his knowing from whence they came : but after
the restoration of the church and royal family, he had some reason to believe
that they came from Dr. (Jeremy) Taylor and Dr. Hammond, being part of
those collections of money, put into their hands by charitable and well-
disposed persons, for the support and encouragement of suffering loyalty."
Veneer's Account of the Life and Writings of Clement Ellis, M.A. prefixed
to the work entitled, The Scripture Catechist ; or the whole Religion of a
Christian, 1738, 8vo. See also the Life of Dr. Isaac Barrow, prefixed to his
Theological Works.

DOCTOR HEiNRY HAMMOND. 359

duty were solemnly declared treason, he then continued to send
over several sums for their relief.

Which practice of his, by the surprise of the person entrusted,
being discovered to the tyrant, he was alarmed with the expec-
tation of that usage which was then a certain consequent of such
meritorious acts. But this adventure brought nothing of amaze-
ment or disturbance to the doctor, his most importunate reflec-
tion being only this, that he seemed to have gained an opportu-
nity of saying something very home to that fierce monster con-
cerning his foul deeds, and to discourse the appropriate ways
remaining to alleviate at least, if not to expiate for them ; which
he purposed within himself to press to the highest advantage :
and indeed this was the only issue of that so threatening accident,
God's restraining power interposing here, and exemplifying upon
him what in others he was wont to observe, " that they who least
considered hazard in the doing of their duties fared still best."

And this success as it was indeed, and accordingly he frequently
acknowledged it for, an eminent act of the Divine Providence ; so
we may likewise take it as a signal testimony of the commanding
worth the doctor had, which extorted a reverence to his person
from that worst of men, and rendered him a sanctuary, perhaps
the only one this architect of mischief stood in awe of, and even
his sacrilege preserved inviolate.

Nor did this danger being over, as with others in all likelihood
it would have done, persuade to caution for the future ; but with
the wonted diligence that formerly he used, he immediately pro-
ceeded, and cheerfully went on in the pursuit of his heroic
charity.

Amidst these diversions grew up the labours of this hero, the
issue of his brain, being not only midwifed into the world like
natural births with torment and disease, but written, like Csesar's
Commentaries, in dangers and in war. And now besides the
replies which the importunities of master Owen, master Jeanes,
and master Tombs drew from him, W. S. continuing his loud
clamours and impudent triumph at his own folly, the good doctor
suffered himself to be engaged on that long answer, which proved
the last of that kind he made, excepting that single sheet put out
a few months before his death, as a specimen to what desperate
shifts the patrons of the Roman cause were driven : for though
some of his friends advised him to remit that divinity buffoon to
be answered in his own way by a slighter pen, he by no means

360 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

would admit of the proposal, resolving it unfit that another should
do in his behalf what was indecent for himself to do ; and though
there was no respect to be had of W. S. yet was the sacred cause
to be managed with reverence and awful regard. While this was
in hand the second Review of the Annotations came to light, as
also the Exposition on the Book of Psalms, and soon after the pa-
cific Discourse of God? s Grace and Decrees, ventilated between him
and his dear friend the reverend and most learned Dr. Sanderson,
now lord bishop of Lincoln, occasioned by some letters which
had passed on that subject between the said doctor and the reve-
rend Dr. Pierce. To this immediately succeeded the Latin tract
of Confirmation, in answer to the exceptions of Mr. Daille, which
was then prepared for the press, though detained much longer
upon prudential or rather charitative considerations, a respect to
which was strictly had in ah1 the doctor's writings ; it being his
care not only to publish sober and convincing, but withal season-
able, useful truths.

He was likewise enterprizing a farther Comnwn[ary on the Old
Testament, and began on the Book of Proverbs, and finished a
third part of it : but the completion of this and all other the
great intendments of the equally learned, pious, and indefatigable
author, received here a full period : it pleasing the Divine Provi-
dence to take to himself this high example of all moral and
Christian excellencies in a season when the church and nation
would least have been deprived of his aids towards the cementing
of those breaches which then began to offer at a closure.

It is easily to be presumed the reader will not be disobliged, if
we a while divert from this remaining sadder part of the under-
taken narrative, and entertain him with a survey of the personal
accomplishments of the excellent doctor. The particulars where-
of would not readily have fallen into the thread of history, or at
least had been disjointed there, and under disadvantage; but
will be made to stand in a much fairer light, when represented to
the view by way of character and picture.

And therefore to this prospect we cheerfully invite all eyes in
whose esteem virtue itself is lovely.

. TIOX 'I UK SK( ONI).

Tin. frame of his body was such as suited with the noble use
to which it was designed, the* entertaining a most pun- and active

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 361

soul, but equally to the advantages of strength and comeliness.
His stature was of just height and all proportionate dimensions,
avoiding the extremes of gross and meagre, advantaged by a
graceful carriage, at once most grave, and yet as much obliging.
His face carried dignity and attractives in it, scarce ever clouded
with a frown, or so much as darkened by reservedness. His eye
was quick and sprightful, his complexion clear and florid, so that
(especially in his youth) he had the esteem of a very beauteous
person ; which was lessened only by the colour of his hair :
though if the sentence of other ages and climates be of value,
that reasonably might be vouched as an accession to it.

To this outward structure was joined that strength of consti-
tution, patient of severest toil and hardship ; insomuch that for
the most part of his life, in the fiercest extremity of cold, he took
no other advantage of a fire, than at the greatest distance that
he could, to look upon it. As to diseases (till immoderate study
had wrought a change) he was in a manner only liable to fevers,
which a too constant temperance did in a great measure prevent,
and still assisted to relieve and cure.

Next to his frame of body, if we survey his inward faculties,
we shall find them just unto the promises of his outward shape.
His sight was quick to an unusual degree ; insomuch that if by
chance he saw a knot of men, a flock of sheep, or herd of cattle,
being engaged in discourse, and not at all thinking of it, he would
involuntary cast up their number, which others after long delays
could hardly reckon. His ear was accurate and tuned to his
harmonious soul, so that having never learned to sing by book or
study, he would exactly perform his part of many things to a
harpsicon or theorbo, and frequently did so in his more vigorous
years after the toil and labour of the day, and before the remain-
ing studies of the night. His elocution was free and graceful,
prepared at once to charm and to command his audience : and
when with preaching at his country charge he had in some degree
lost the due manage of his voice, his late sacred majesty, by
taking notice of the change, became his master of music, and
reduced him to his ancient decent modulation ; a kindness which
the doctor very gratefully acknowledged to his dying day, and
reported not only as an instance of the meek and tender conde-
scensions of that gracious prince, but improved to persuade others
by so great an example to that most friendly office of telling per-
sons of their faults, without which very commonly (as here it

362 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

happened) men must be so far from amending their errors, that
it is morally impossible they should ever know them.

As to his more inferior faculties, we must allow the first place
to his invention, his richest, altogether unexhausted treasure,
whose Sowings were with that full torrent, that for several years
after his choice of subject, which generally he had in prospect
beforehand, a little meditation on the Saturday night made up his
sermon : but in the last twelve of his life, finding the recollection
of his thoughts disturb his sleep, he remitted the particular care
of the composition and method of his future discourse to the
Sunday morning, wherein an hour's consideration fitted him to
the office of the day. With the like swiftness he dispatched his
writings, usually composing faster than his amanuensis, though a
very dexterous person, could transcribe after him. His Consi-
derations of present Necessity concerning Episcopacy were drawn
up * after ten of clock at night in a friend's chamber, who pro-
fesses, that sitting by all the while, he remembers not that he
took off pen from paper till he had done; and the very next
morning, it being fully approved by the bishop of Salisbury, he
sent it to the press : to which work he could have no premedita-
tion or second thoughts, he being that very night after supper
employed by the before-mentioned lord bishop of Salisbury, iu>\\
of Winchester 3, on that task. So likewise he began his tract of
Scandal at eleven at night, and finished it before he went to bed.
Nor was this a peculiar or extraordinary thing with him, but
most customary ; five sheets having amidst his other diversions
been sundry times his one day's work ; adding to it so much of
the night as he frequently borrowed from sleep and supper. And
indeed such were his diversions, so many and so importunate,
that notwithstanding this incredible ease of writing, it is hardly
imaginable how he could compass the tithe of what he did. For
he that shall consider his laborious way, immersed in almost infi-
nite quotations, to which the turning over books and consulting
several editions were absolutely needful ; his obligation to read
not only classic authors, but the more recent abortions of the
press, wherein he proved frequently concerned; his perusal of
the writings of his friends and strangers intended to be public ;

1 Were drawn upJ] They consisted of fourteen pages in quarto of close and
small printing.
3 Winchester J] Brian Duppa.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 363

his review of his own works, and correcting them with his own
hand sheet by sheet as they came forth, which he did to all his
latter tracts ; his reception of visits, whether of civility, or for
resolution of conscience, or information in points of difficulty,
which were numerous, and great devourers of his time ; his
agency for men of quality, providing them schoolmasters for their
children, and chaplains in their houses, in which affair he had set
up a kind of office of address ; his general correspondencies by
letter, whereof some cost him ten, others twenty, thirty, forty,
nay sixty sheets of paper, and ever took up two days of the week
entirely to themselves ; the time exhausted by his sicknesses,
which in the later years of his life gave him but short and seldom
truce, and always made it necessary for him not to stir from his
chair or so much as read a letter for two hours after every meal,
failance wherein being certainly revenged by a fit of the gout ;
his not only constant preaching and instructing the family where
he was, and his visiting the sick both there and in the neighbour-
hood ; but amidst all, his sure returns of prayer, so frequent and
so constant as certainly to challenge to themselves a great por-
tion of the day : he, I say, that shall compute and sum up this,
the particulars whereof are nakedly set down without any strain-
ing of the truth or flourish of expression, must be to seek what
point of vacant time remained yet undisposed ; I do not say to
write books, but even to breathe and rest a little in.

After a serious reflection on the premises, and full debate
thereon, the account given by that excellent person who had the
happiness of being the nearest and most constant witness of the
before recited severals, seems the best and chiefly satisfactory
that possibly can be made ; that he gained time for his writing
books by the time he spent in prayer, whilst (a more than ordi-
nary assistance attending his devotions) his closet proved his
library, and he studied most upon his knees.

As to his memory, it was serviceable, but not officious ; faith-
ful to things and business, but unwillingly retaining the contex-
ture and punctualities of words : which defect he frequently
lamented, it being harder with him to get one sermon by heart
than to pen twenty.

His way of speech and faculty of communicating notions was
sufficiently happy, having only this best kind of defect, exuberance
and surplusage of plenty, the tide and torrent of his matter being
not easily confined by periods ; whereby his style, though round

364 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

and comprehensive, was incumbered sometimes by parentheses,
and became difficult to vulgar understandings : but by the use of
writing, and his desire to accommodate himself to all capacities,
he in his latter years had mastered that defect, which was so
slight, that notwithstanding it, he deserved from the most accu-
rate judge and greatest master of English rhetoric which this age
hath given, his late sacred majesty, this character and testimony,
" That he was the most natural orator he ever heard."

His judgment, as in itself the highest faculty, so was it the
most eminent among his natural endowments : for though the
finding out of the similitudes of different things, wherein the
fancy is conversant, is usually a bar to the discerning the dispa-
rities of similar appearances, which is the business of discretion,
and that store of notions which is laid up in memory assists
rather confusion than choice, upon which grounds the greatest
clerks are frequently not the wisest men ; he had, to his sufficient
memory and incomparable invention, a clear and discerning judg-
ment ; and that not only in scholastical affairs and points of
learning, which the arguings, and besides them the designment
of his writings manifest beyond dispute, but in the concerns of
public nature both of church and state, wherein his guess was
usually as near to prophecy as any man's ; as also in the little
mysteries of private manage, by which upon occasion he has un-
ravelled the studied cheats of great artificers in that liberal
science, wherein particularly he vindicated a person of honour
for whom he was entrusted, and assisted frequently his friends in
their domestic intercurrent difficulties.

As to acquired habits and abilities in learning, his writings
having given the world sufficient account of them, there remains
only to observe, that the range and compass of his knowledge
filled the whole circle of the arts, and reached those sevcrals.
which single do exact an entire man unto themselves, and full
age. To be accurate in the grammar and idioms of the tongues,
and then as a rhetorician to make all their graces serve his elo-
quence ; to have traversed ancient, and yet be no stranuvr in
modern writers ; to be studied in philosophy, and familiarly
versed in all the politer classic authors ; to be learned in school-
divinity, and a master in church antiquity. perfect and ready in
the sense of fathers, councils, ecclesiastical historians and lit ur<_
to have devoured so much and yet digested it, is a rarity in nature
and in diligence which has but few examples.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 365

But after all we must take leave to say, and do it upon sober
recollection, that the doctor's learning was the least thing in him :
the scholar was here less eminent then the Christian. His specu-
lative knowledge, that gave light to the most dark and difficult
proposals, became eclipsed by the more dazzling lustre of his
practick. In the catalogue of his virtues, his chastity and tempe-
rance may claim the earliest place, as being the sacrists to the
rest, and in him were therefore only not the greatest of his excel-
lencies, because every thing else was so.

And first, his chaste thoughts, words and carriage so disciplined
his lower faculties, as not only restrained through all the heats of
youth, made more than usually importunate by the full vigour
of a high and sanguine constitution, (which his escape he grate-
fully referred unto the only mercy of almighty God,) but gave a
detestation of all those verbal follies, that have not only the allow-
ance of being harmless mirth, but the repute of wit and gaiety of
humour ; so that the scurrilous jest could sooner obtain his tears
in penance for it, than the approbation of a smile ; and all ap-
proaches to this sin he looked upon not only with an utter disal-
lowance in his will, but a kind of natural abhorrence and antipathy
in his lower outward faculties.

In his first remove to Penshurst he was persuaded by his
friends that the matrimonial state was needful to the bearing off
those houshold cares and other intercurrent troubles which his
condition then brought with it ; and on this ground he gave some
ear to their advices : which he did then more readily, for that
there was a person represented to him, of whose virtue, as well as
other more-usually-desired accomplishments, he had been long
before well satisfied. But being hindered several times by little
unexpected accidents, he finally laid down all his pretensions,
upon a ground of perfect self-denial ; being informed that one of
a fairer fortune and higher quality than his was, or else was like
to be, and consequently one who in common account would prove
the better match, had kindness for her. Having thus resolved,
the charity of his mother, who undertook the manage of his
family, became a seasonable assistant and expedient in this single
state ; till after several years her age making those cares too
great a burthen for her shoulders, he again was induced to resume
his thoughts of marriage. But the national disturbances (that
afterwards brake out in war and ruin) appearing then in ferment,
he was again diverted by recollecting the apostle's advice, (1 Cor.

366 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

vii. 26.) enforced upon his thoughts by the reading of St. Jerom's
epistle to Agereuchia, where after glorious elogies of marriage,
the father concluded in an earnest dehortation from it, upon a
representation of a like face of things ; the Goths then breaking
into Italy, as they before had done into the other near parts of
the Roman empire, and filling all with slaughter, cruelty, and ruin.
Upon which prospect the good doctor casting a serious eye, and
with prophetic sorrows and misgivings fearing a parallel in this
our nation, the second time deposited his conjugal intendments,
and thencefore courted and espoused (what he preserved invio-
late) unto his death, the more eminent perfection of spotless
virgin chastity.

His appetite was good, but the restraint of it was very eminent
and extraordinary ; for his diet was of the plainest meats, and
commonly not only his dishes, but the parts of them were such as
most others would refuse. Sauces he scarce ever tasted of, but
often expressed it his wonder how rational creatures should eat
for any thing but health, since he that did eat or drink that which
might cause a fit of the stone or gout, though a year after, therein
unmanned himself, and acted as a beast. So that his self-denials
were quite contrary to the usual ones ; for considering the time
lost in eating, and the vacancy succeeding it, his meals were the
greatest pressure, and his fasting-day the most sensual part of
his week.

In the time of his full and more vigorous health he seldom did
eat or drink more than once in twenty-four hours, and some fruit
towards night ; and two days in every week, and in Lent and
Ember-week three days, he eat but once in thirty-six. Nor did
he ever with so much regret submit unto any prescript, as whon
his physicians, after his great fever that he had in Oxford,
required him to eat suppers. Which severity of injunction he
soon shook off, and returned to his beloved abstinence, until n-
newed infirmities brought him back unto the penance of more
indulgence to himself.

As he had the greatest indifference to what he eat, so had he
the greatest observation too, especially when it came to be made
point of diet and prescription ; for in this case he was most exact,
never tasting of any prohibited meats, though some of them had
before the advantage of being customary towards their seeming
necessary. And herein his palate was so tractable and subduod
to the dictates of an higher choice, that ho really thought no

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 367

meat pleasant, but in proportion to its wholesomeness : even his
beloved apples he would oft say he would totally abandon, as soon
as they should appear to be no more than barely innocent, and not
of use. And if by chance or inadvertency he had at any time
tasted of an interdicted dish, as soon as he perceived it, he
discovered a dislike both with himself and what he had been
surprized with.

The carving at the table he always made his province, which
he said he did as a diversion to keep him from eating over-much :
but certainly that practice had another more immediate cause, a
natural distributiveness of humour, and a desire to be employed
in the relief of every kind of want of every person. The report,
and much more the sight, of a luxurious feeder would turn his
stomach, so that he was in more danger to be sick with others1
surfeits than his own ; charity seeming a part of his com-
plexion, while he performed a natural spontaneous penance for
his neighbour's vice, as well as a deliberate one in sorrowing
for it.

His temperance in sleep resembled that of his meats, midnight
being the usual time of his going to rest, and four or five, and
very rarely six, the hour of his rising. There was scarce any
thing he resented so much in his infirmities and multiplied dis-
eases as their having abridged him of his night-studies, professing
thereby he lost not only his greatest pleasure, but highest advan-
tage in reference to business. And in his later time of weakness,
when to take benefit of a gentle breathing sweat, which usually
came in the morning, he had been engaged by his physician to
continue in bed till it was over ; and upon complaint of costive-
ness he was on the other side directed to rise somewhat early in
the morning ; this latter injunction he looked upon as a mere
rescue and deliverance, often mentioning it with thanks, as if it
had been an eminent favour done him.

His disposal of himself in the other parts of time was to per-
petual industry and diligence: he not only avoided, but bore a
perfect hate, and seemed to have a forcible antipathy to idleness,
and scarcely recommended any thing in his advices with that con-
cern and vigour, as to be furnished always with somewhat to do.
This he proposed as the best expedient both for innocence and
pleasure ; assuring that no burthen is more heavy or temptation
more dangerous, than to have time lye on one's hand ; the idle
man's brain being not only (as he worded it) the Devil's shop.

368 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

but his kingdom too, a model of and an appendage unto hell, a
place given up to torment and to mischief. Besides those portions
of time which the necessities of nature and of civil life extorted
from him, there was not a minute of the day which he left vacant.
When he walked abroad, which he did not so much to recreate
himself, as to obey the prescripts of his physician, he never failed
to take a book with him, and read all the while: and in his
chamber also he had one lay constantly open, out of which his
servant read to him while he was dressing and undressing ; by
which one piece of husbandry in short space he dispatched several
considerable volumes.

His way was still to cast into paper all his observations, and
direct them to his present purposes ; wherein he had an incre-
dible dexterity, scarce ever reading any thing which he did not
make subservient in one kind or other. He was used to say,
" he could not abide to talk with himself,1'' and therefore was so
diligently provided of that which he called " better company."
In his sicknesses, if they were not so violent to make the recol-
lection of thoughts impossible, he never intermitted study, but
rather re-inforced it then as the most appropriate revulsive and
diversion of pain. The gout by its most frequent and importu-
nate returns exceeded his other maladies ; in which although the
first most furious assaults were sure to beat him from his study,
and for a time confine him to his bed, yet as soon as he had reco-
vered his chair, he resumed his pen too, and plyed it as hard as
though he had ailed nothing.

Next to downright idleness he disliked slow and dilatory under-
takings, thinking it a great folly to spend that time in gazing
upon business which should have served for the doing of it. In
his own practice he never considered longer than till he could
discern whether the thing proposed was fit or not : when that
was seen, he immediately set to work. When he had perfected
one business, he could not endure to have his thoughts lie fallow,
but was presently consulting what next to set about.

But when we reckon up and audit the expences of the doctor's
time, we cannot pass his constant tribute of it paid by him to
heaven in the offices of prayer; which took up so liberal propor-
tions of each day unto itself for the ten last years of his life, ,-m<l
probably the preceding. Besides occasional and supernumerary
addresses, his certain perpetual returns exceeded David's seven
times a day. As MM.M .is he was ready (which was usually early)

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 369

he prayed in his chamber with his servant, in a peculiar form
composed for that purpose. After this he retired to his own more
secret devotions in his closet. Betwixt ten and eleven in the
morning he had a solemn intercession in reference to the national
calamities : to this after a little distance succeeded the morning
office of the church, which he particularly desired to perform in
his own person, and would by no means accept the ease of having
it read by any other. In the afternoon he had another hour of
private prayer, which on Sundays he enlarged, and so religiously
observed, that if any necessary business or charity had diverted
him at the usual time, he repaired his soul at the cost of his body?
and, notwithstanding the injunctions of his physicians, which in
other cases he was careful to obey, spent the supper- time therein.
About five of the clock the solemn private prayers for the nation,
and the evening service of the church returned. At bedtime his
private prayers closed the day : and after all, even the night was
not without its office, the LI. Psalm being his designed midnight
entertainment 3.

In his prayers as his attention was fixed and steady, so was it
inflamed with passionate fervors, insomuch that very frequently
his transport threw him prostrate on the earth ; his tears also
would interrupt his words : the latter happening not only upon
the pungent exigencies of present or impending judgments, but in
the common service of the church : which, notwithstanding his
concealments, being taken notice of by a person of good suffi-
ciency, once a member of his house in Oxford, that became of
late years a proselyte to the new extemporary way, he, among his
other topics whereby he thought to disparage set forms, used in
discourse to urge the heartless coldness of them, and to adorn his
triumph, would make it his solemn wonder how a person of so
good parts as Dr. Hammond was certainly master of, could find
motive for his tears 4 in the confession in the beginning of the

3 Midnight entertainment. ,] Compare above vol. iii. p. 6. n. Life of Bishop
Ridley.

4 Motive for his tears.'] " In the antient forms of the church, and therefore
in ours, which are mostly antient, there is a strength, an energy, a savour, an
unction, I know not what to call it, not to be found in the composition of
modern prayers, not even those (begging the pardon of the composers) which
are premeditated, and drawn up with deliberation ; and much less of others
that are unpremeditated and extemporary. For instance, the Te Deum of
St. Ambrose, which we, you know, have received into our liturgy. For my
own part, I am not yet, after more than the thousandth time of using it, tired

VOL. IV. B b

370 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

liturgy. So much does passion and misguided zeal transport the
most sensible, that this man, otherwise sagacious enough, never
considered how ill an instance he had made ; which shewed it was
the coldness of the votary, and not the prayer, that was in fault,
whenever fervour was deficient at the public office of the church.

The charity and extent of his prayers was as exuberant as the
zeal and fervour : he thought it very unreasonable that our inter-
cessions should not be as universal as our Saviour's redemption
was : and would complain of that thrift and narrowness of mind
to which we are so prone, confining our care either to ourselves
and relatives, or at most to those little angles of the world that
most immediately concerned us, and which on due account bear
very low proportion to the whole. There was no emergent dis-
tress however remote, but it enlarged his Litany ; every year's
harvest and new birth of mischiefs, which for several ones past
constantly fell on the orthodox and loyal party in the nation,
removed itself from the sanguinary edicts of the tyrant, to be
transcribed and expiated by his pathetical office of devotion. In
which calendar and rubric the thirtieth of January was sure to
have a very solemn place, and a peculiar service prepared for it.

Nor did he only take to heart general national concernments,
but even the more private exigencies of the sick and weak had a

with it : and now, when I rehearse it in the church, am otherwise elevated
and affected with the noble simplicity thereof, than, I am fully persuaded, I
ever should be with the most trim, polite, or spirited orations of your popular
and admired ministers, and much less with the natter and coarser ones of
many others. I may also instance in divers other parts of our daily service,
and in the whole of the communion office ; which some of yourselves have
allowed to be admirable, and I will venture to say none can use, though he
had used it before ever so often, with any formality or deadness of spirit,
unless he has a heart so frozen, and utterly estranged from all devotion, as
to be incapable of being wrought up to it by any means whatever." Letter
concerning the popular Pleas of Dissenters, by John White, B.D. p. 45. Lon-
don, 1745, 8vo.

" Till this time " (says one, who was afterwards deservedly famous for
his extemporary effusions, both in prayer and in preaching, the eminent
Richard Baxter, speaking of his younger years) " I was satisfied in the
matter of conformity. Whilst I was young I had never been acquainted
with any that were against it, or that questioned it. I had joined with the
Common Prayer with as hearty fervency as afterwards I did with other
prayers. As long as 1 had no prejudice against it, I had no stop in my
>li votions from any of its imperfections." Baxter's Life and Times, part i.
p. 13.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 371

staple interest in his prayers. Among all which none had so
liberal a part as they that merited them least, yet wanted them
most ; his and (what was usually the same thing) the church's and
God's enemies. He never thought he had assured his forgiveness
of injuries unless he returned good for them ; and though other
opportunities of this best kind of retaliation might fail him, that
of his intercessions never did.

Three persons there were who above all men by unworthy
malice and impotent virulence had highly disobliged him : but he
in recompence of their guilt had a peculiar daily prayer purposely
in their behalf: and though in the openness of his conversation
with his most intimate acquaintance he confessed thus much, yet
he never named the persons, though probably that was the only
thing which he concealed ; it being his method to withhold no-
thing especially of confidence or privacy, from one he owned as
friend.

And having mentioned the name of friend, however incident-
ally, we must not leave it without homage ; friendship being the
next sacred thing unto religion in the apprehensions of our excel-
lent doctor, a virtue of which he was a passionate lover, and with
which he ever seemed to have contracted friendship. The union
of minds thereby produced he judged the utmost point of human
happiness, the very best production that nature has in store, or
grows from earth. So that with compassion he reflected on their
ignorance who were strangers to it, saying that " such must needs
lead a pitiful insipid herb-John-like life."

Upon this ground he used with all industrious art to recom-
mend and propagate friendship unto others ; and where he saw
several persons that he judged capable of being made acquainted
to mutual advantage, he would contrive that league ; and where
himself had kindness unto any so allied, he would still enjoin them
to be kinder to each other than to him ; besides, he still laboured
to make all his friends endeared to each of them : resolving it to
be an error bottomed on the common narrowness of soul which
represented amity like sensual love, to admit no rivals, confined
unto two persons.

When he ever happened to see or be in company with such as had
an intimate and hearty kindness for each other, he would be much
transported in the contemplation of it, and where it was season-
able, would openly acknowledge that his satisfaction.

In the list and number of his friends there chanced to be three

B b 2

372 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

persons, who having in their youth contracted a strict intimacy,
had undertaken the same profession : and accordingly had the
same common studies and designments, and with these the oppor-
tunity through the late troubles to live in view of each other :
whom for that reason he was used with an obliging envy to pro-
nounce " the most happy men the nation had."

Accordingly he professed that for his particular " he had no
such way of enjoying any thing as by reflection from the person
whom he loved ; so that his friend^s being happy was the readiest
way to make him so." Therefore when one eminently near to
him in that relation was careless of health, his most pressing
argument was his complaint of unkindness to him. And this way
of measuring felicities was so natural to him, that it would occur
even in the most trivial instances : when there has been any thing
at the table peculiarly wholesome in relation to his infirmities, if
his friend, who was in a like weak condition, forbare to eat of it
in civility to him, he would with vehemence of grief resent it as
his singular unhappiness after so many professions not to be be-
lieved, " that he had a thousand times rather that his friend
should have that which was conducible to health, than to have it
himself;" and then assumed, "that if this were believed, it were
impossible any one should attempt to express kindness by robbing
him of his greatest pleasure."

The principal thing he contracted for in friendship was a free
use of mutual admonition ; which he confined not to the grosser
guilts which enemies and common fame were likely to observe and
mind men of, but extended it unto prudential failings, indecen-
cies, and even suspicious and barely doubtful actions : nay beyond
that, unto those virtuous ones which might have been improved
and rendered better. He was used to say, " it was a poor design
of friendship to keep the person he admitted to his breast only
from being scandalous, as if the physician should endeavour only to
secure his patient from the plague." And what he thus articled
for, he punctually himself performed, and exacted back again to
be returned unto himself.

And if for any while he observed that no remembrance had
been offered to him, he grew afraid and almost jealous of the
omission, suspecting that the courtier had supplanted the friend,
and therefore earnestly enforced the obligation of being faithful
in this point : and when with much ado somewhat of advertise-
ment was picked up, he received it always as huge kindness ; and

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 373

though the whole ground of it happened to be mistake, yet he
still returned most affectionate thanks.

His good- will when placed on any was so fixed and rooted, that
even supervening vice, to which he had the greatest detestation
imaginable, could not easily remove it, the abhorrency of their
guilts leaving not only a charity but tenderness to their persons ;
and, as he has profest, his concernment rather increased than
lessened by this means, compassion being in that instance added
unto love. There were but two things which (he would say) were
apt to give check to his affections, pride and falseness : where he
saw these predominant, he thought he could never be a friend to
any purpose, because he could never hope to do any good ; yet
even there he would intend his prayers, so much the more by how
much the less he could do besides. But where he saw a mal-
leable honest temper, a Jacob's plain simplicity, nothing could
there discourage him ; and however inadvertency or passion, or
haply some worse ingredient, might frustrate his design, he would
attend the mollia tempora, as he called them, those gentle and
more treatable opportunities which might at last be offered. He
so much abhorred artifice and cunning, that he had prejudice to
all concealments and pretensions. He used to say he hated a
non-causa, and he had a strange sagacity in discovering it. When
any with much circumlocution and contrivance had endeavoured
to shadow their main drift and purpose, he would immediately
look through all those mists, and where it was in any degree
seasonable, would make it appear he did so : his charity of
fraternal correption having only this caution or restraint, the
hearer's interest, of which he judged, that when advice did not do
good, it was hardly separable from doing harm ; and on this
ground sometimes he did desist. But wheresoever he gave an
admonition, he prefaced it always with such demonstrations of
tenderness and good-will, as could not fail to convince of the affec-
tionate kindness with which it was sent, though it could not of
the convenience or necessity to embrace it. And this he gave as
a general rule, and enforced by his example, never to reprove in
anger or the least appearance of it. If the passion were real,
that then was evidently a fault, and the guilty person most unfit
to be a judge : if it were resemblance only, yet even that would
be so like to guilt, as probably to divert the offender from the
consideration of his failance to fasten on his monitor, and make

374 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

him think he was chid not because he was in fault, but because
the other was angry.

Indeed the person who would not be some way moved with his
advices must be strangely insensate and ill-natured. Though his
exhortations had as much evidence and weight as words could
give them, he had over and above a great advantage in his manner
of speaking : his little phrase, " Don't be simple," had more power
to charm a passion than long harangues from others ; and very
many who loved not piety in itself, nor to be troubled with the
news of it, would be well pleased to be invited and advised by
him, and venerated the same matter in his language which they
have derided in another's.

He would say, " he delighted to be loved, not reverenced ;"
thinking that where there was much of the latter, there could not
be enough of the former ; somewhat of restraint and distance
attending on the one, which was not well consistent with the per-
fect freedom requisite to the other. But as he was thus no friend
to ceremonious respect, he was an open enemy to flattery, espe-
cially from a friend, from whom he started to meet the slightest
appearance of that servile kindness. Having upon occasion com-
municated a purpose against which there happened to lie some
objections, they being by a friend of his represented to him, he
immediately was convinced, and assumed other counsels. But in
process of discourse it happened something fell in that brought to
mind a passage of a late sermon of the doctor's, which that per-
son having been affected with, innocently mentioned such appre-
hensions of it, and so passed on to talk of other matters. The
next day the doctor having recollected that probably the approba-
tion given to the passage of the sermon might be an after-design
to allay the plain-dealing which preceded it, expostulated his sur-
mise, protesting " that nothing in the world could more avert his
love and deeply disoblige him, than such unfaithfulness." But
being assured that there was no such art or contrivance meant,
he gladly found, and readily yielded himself to have been mistaken.
— In other cases he was no way inclinable to entertain doubts of
his friends'* kindness : but if any irregularity chanced to inter-
vene, and cause misapprehensions, he gave them not leave to root
and fasten by concealment, but immediately produced his ground
<>l jralnusy ; and exacted the like measure back again, if his own
• •••dings fell at any time under a doubtful or unkind apj-

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 375

ance. This he thought a justice essential to friendship, without
which it could not possibly subsist : for we think not fit to con-
demn the most notorious malefactor before he hath had license to
propose his plea ; and sure it is more strangely barbarous to treat
a friend, or rather friendship itself, with less regard.

To the performances of friendship he hated all mercenary
returns, whereof he was so jealous, as hardly to leave place for
gratitude. " Love," he said, " was built upon the union and
similitude of minds, and not the bribes of gifts and benefits." So
generous was he herein, that he has oft profest, he " admitted
retributions of good turns, yet not so much on any score, as that
his friend might have the pleasure of being kind."

There was a person of quality, a great and long sufferer in the
late times of trial, to whom the doctor had frequently sent sup-
plies, and continued so to do, till there happened at last a change
in the condition of the correspondent, such a one as, if it did not
supersede the need of farther assistance, yet gave promise of an
approaching affluence ; whereupon the doctor feared the adding a
new obligation in this conjuncture of affairs might seem a piece
of design rather than kindness or charity : and though this sug-
gestion was not of force to divert his purpose, it proved sufficient
to suspend it, till by inquiry he found his designed present would
be a relief, and then he thought it an impertinence to consider
what it could be called besides.

But doing good to relatives or being kind unto acquaintance
were low expressions of this virtue we exhibit. Misery and want,
where- ere he met with them, sufficiently endeared the object.
His alms were as exuberant as his love ; and in calamities to the
exigence he never was a stranger, whatever he might be to the
man that suffered.

And here the first preparative was to leave himself no motive
to resist or slight the opportunities of giving ; which he com-
passed by being a steward to himself as well as unto God, and
parting still with the propriety of a set portion of his estate, that
when at any time he relieved the wants of any, he might become
no whit the poorer by his gift, have only the content of giving,
and the ease of being rid of keeping another's money. The rate
and sum of what he thus devoted was the tenth of all his income ;
wherein he was so strictly punctual, that commonly the first thing
he did was to compute and separate the poor man's share. To
this he added every week five shillings, which had been his lowest

376 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

proportion in the heat of the war in Oxford, when he lived upon
his Penshurst stock, and had no visible means or almost possibi-
lity of supply. Over and above this he completed the devotions
of his weekly fast by joining alms thereto, and adding twenty
shillings to the poor man's heap.

These were his debts to charity, the established fixed revenue
of the indigent ; in the dispensation of which he was so religiously
careful, that if at any time he happened to be in doubt whether
he had set apart his charitable proportions, he always past sen-
tence against himself, resolving it much better to run the hazard
of having paid the same debt twice, than to incur the possibility
of not having done it once. But beyond these he had his free-
will offerings, and those proportioned more by the occasion of
giving, than the surplusage he had to give. His poor man's bag
had so many mouths, and those so often opened, that it frequently
became quite empty ; but its being so never diverted him from
relieving any that appeared in need ; for in such seasons he chose
to give in more liberal proportions than at others.

In the time of the war at Oxford, to pass by other lesser
reliefs, and many great ones, which his industrious concealment
lias preserved from all notice of the most diligent enquiry, though
he were then at a very low ebb, he furnished an indigent friend
with sixty pound, which never was repaid him: as also upon
another score he parted with twenty pound, and another consider-
able sum besides that : and to one in distress about the same
time and on the same occasion an hundred pound.

Instead of hiding his face from the poor, it was his practice
still to seek for theirs. Those persons whom he trusted with
(his greatest secret and greatest business) his charity, seldom
had recourse to him, but he would make enquiry for new pension-
ers: and though he had in several parts of the nation those
whom he employed to find out indigent persons, and dispose his
largess to them, and though the tyranny that then prevailed
made every day store of such ; his covetous bounty still grasped
for more. Besides his ordinary provision for the neighbouring
poor, and those that came to look him out in his retirement,
(which were not few ; for that the liberal man dwells always in
the road) his catalogue had an especial place for sequestered
divines, their wives and orphans; for young students in the
universities, and also those divines that were abroad in banish-
ment : where over and above his frequent occasional reliefs to

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 377

the last of these, the exiled clergy, besides what he procured
from others, he sent constantly over year by year a very con-
siderable sum, such a one as men of far greater revenues do not
use upon any occasion to put into the corban, and give away,
much less as a troublesome excrescence every year prune off, and
cast from their estates.

Now if we enquire into the stock and fountain that was to feed
all these disbursements, it was at his flight from Penshurst
barely three hundred pounds ; which, at the sale of a lease left
him for his portion from his father, and the assistance of his
prebend in Christ-church, after all his lavish charities during
those years, was near upon a thousand. The taking of use
though he judged lawful, yet never approved by practice, but
lent still gratis both to friends and strangers. The only other
way he had of income was the buying of leases for years, and the
printing of his books ; from the latter of which when there is
defaulked the many whole editions he had nothing for, the charge
he was at in the sending of his copies before he printed them
unto his friends for their animadversions and advices, his sending
them sheet by sheet when printed, and surveying the revises, and
the great numbers he gave away to his acquaintance, it will
appear that the remainder was but a slight matter. As for
private contributions or assistance of that kind, he had never
any : for though there were many who would gladly have made
those oblations, yet he industriously prevented them by publicly
avowing that he needed not. In which refusal he was so peremp-
tory, that when being in Oxford made prisoner at the sign of the
Bear, thence to be sent immediately to Wallingford castle, a
gentleman, perfectly a stranger to him, and coming by chance to
the inn, and hearing of his condition, having fifty pieces by him,
would needs have presented them to him; though the doctor
had before him the barbarous usage of his brethren, clapped on
ship-board under hatches, the like to which he might probably
enough meet with ; and though this extraordinary occurrence
seemed to carry with it somewhat of providential designment ;
yet he wholly refused the offer; as afterwards he did a far
greater sum from a person of honour that courted him with it.
Only one twenty pound he was surprised by, and thought fit to
accept, which after some dispute with himself he did upon these
two grounds : first, that he might not gratify the pride, from
whence he was used to say men's reluctancies to receive benefits

378 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

proceeded ; and secondly, that he might not give the gentleman
the discomfiture of seeing he had made an unseasonable offer.

But with all this disproportioned expence unto revenue (a thing
which after a very deliberate and strict enquiry remains riddle
still, and an event next door to miracle) the doctor daily improved
in his estate, and grew in spight of all his liberality rich, being
worth at the time of his death about 1500£, which yet we are not
to marvel should be strange to us, since it was so to the doctor
himself, who often professed to wonder at it, and thereupon would
apply this axiom, " that half is more than the whole," his mean
revenue by being scattered in the worst of times growing upon
him, when others that had great ones, by griping made them less,
and grew stark beggars.

As the doctor was thus charitable, so was he genteel and libe-
ral ; his openness of hand in secular occasions was proportionable
to that in sacred. When any one had sent him a slight present
of apples or the like, his reward would usually much exceed the
value ; and he would be so well pleased to have such an occasion
of giving to a servant, saying, " Alas, poor soul, I warrant he is
glad of this little matter," that this seemed a part of the sender's
courtesy. Thus if there happened any other occasion of giving,
or of gratifying, or advancing public works, (for instance the
great Bible 5, upon which he was out 501. ; and reimbursed him-
self only by selling two. copies,) he would be sure to do it at a
free and highly ingenuous rate. So that he was sparing only to
himself, and that upon no other principle, but thereby to be
liberal to those he loved better than himself, the necessitous and
poor. A pregnant instance whereof may be, that the doctor
upon occasion calculating his expences on himself, found them to
be not above five pound in the year.

Besides this, he had a further impediment to riches, an easiness
which alone has wasted other men's estates; he commonly mak-
ing those he dealt with their own arbitrators, and if they seriously
professed they could go no higher, he descended to their terms.
saying commonly, that " this trash was not worth much ado."
And beyond this he was so careless after bargains, that he never
received script of paper of any to whom he lent, nor bond of any
for performance of covenants, till very lately from two persons,
when he found it necessary to use that method with them. 1 1«

5 The great Bible.] Bishop Walton's Polyglot.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 379

was used to say, " that if he thought men knaves he would not
deal with them ; and if indeed they were so, it was not all his
circumspection that could prevent a cheat : on the other side,
if they were honest, they needed no such caution." And pos-
sibly, if we consider the whole matter, there was not such impru-
dence in the manage as at first appears : for bonds would have
signified little to him, who in the best times would scarce have
put them in suit ; but would certainly have starved before he
would have made an application to those judicatories which of
late prevailed, and usurped the protection as well as the posses-
sion of men's rights, and were injurious not only in their oppres-
sions but reliefs.

In those black days, being charged with the debt of about fifty
or sixty pounds, formerly by him paid, being offered a release if
he would take his oath of payment, he thought the condition too
unequal, and was resolved to double his payment rather than per-
form it : but a farther enquiry having cleared the account, he
incurred not that penalty.

To a friend of his who, by the falseness of a correspondent
whom he trusted, was reduced to some extremity, and enquired
what course he took to escape such usage, the doctor wrote as
follows :

u To your doubt concerning myself, I thank God I am able to
answer you, that I never suffered in my life for want of hand or
seal, but think I have fared much better than they that have
always been careful to secure themselves by these cautions. I
remember I was wont to reproach an honest fellow-prebend of
mine, that whensoever a siege was near, always sent away what
he most valued to some other garrison or friend, and seldom ever
met with any again, the solicitude was still their ruin : whereas I
venturing myself and my cabinet in the same bottom, never lost
any thing of this kind. And the like I have practised in this
other instance. Whom I trusted to be my friend, all I had was
in his power, and by God's blessing I was never deceived in my
trust.1'

And here amidst all these unlikelihoods and seeming impossi-
bilities, riches thrust themslves upon him, and would take no
refusal ; it pleasing God, since he had exemplified the advices of
his Practical Catechism to the duties of alms and charitable dis-
tributions, in him also to make good and signally exemplify the
assurance he there and elsewhere made in the behalf of almighty

380 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

God upon such performance, — the giving affluence of temporal
wealth. Nor was he the single instance of this truth ; as he had
proselytes to the speculative verity, he had partisans also of the
effect and real issue of it. About four years since a person of
good estate, and without charge of children, coming to visit the
doctor, among other discourse happened to speak of the late dean
of Worcester, Dr. Potter (whose memory, for his remarkable
charity and all other excellencies befitting his profession and dig-
nity in the church, is precious) : this gentleman there related,
that formerly enquiring of the dean how it was possible for one
that had so great a charge of children, was so hospitable in his
entertainment, and profuse in liberality, not only to subsist, but
to grow rich, he answered, that several years before he happened
to be present at a sermon at St. PauFs Cross, where the preacher
recommending the duty of alms and plentiful giving, assured his
auditory that that was the certainest way to compass riches. He
moved therewith, thenceforward resolved diligently to follow the
counsel and expect the issue ; which was such as now created so
much wonder. — It fortuned that at that time when this was tell-
ing, the doctor's Aeurepat $povr?&c were newly come out, and
therewith this sermon of the Poor man's tithing. He therefore
willing to improve the opportunity, confessed that he himself was
that preacher which doctor Potter referred to, and that there
was the very sermon : which immediately giving to this visitant,
he desired almighty God it might have the like effect on him ;
and so after a short civility dismissed him.

As to the way and very manner of his charity, even that was
a part of his donation and largess. One great care of his was
to dispose of his reliefs so as to be most seasonable; to which
purpose he had his spies and agents still employed to give
him punctual notice of the occurrents in their several stations.
His next endeavour was to dispense them so as to be most en-
dearing. To persons that had been of quality he consulted to
relieve their modesty as well as needs, taking order they should
rather find than receive alms ; and knowing well they were pro-
vided for, should not yet be able to guess by what means they
were so. To those who were assisted immediately from his hand,
he over and above bestowed the charities of his familiar and
hearty kindness : in the expressiveness of which he was not only
assisted by his habitual humility, or positive opinion, upon which
he was used to say, "that it was a most unreasonable and

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 381

unchristian thing to despise any one for his poverty :" but much
more by the pleasure and transport which the very act of giving
transfused into him : which whosoever noted, stood in need of no
other proof of the truth of his usual affirmation, " That it was
one of the greatest sensualities in the world to give." Upon
which consideration he often took occasion to magnify the
exceeding indulgence of God, that had annexed future rewards
to that which was so amply its own recompence.

Another circumstance in the doctor's liberality not to be
passed over, was his choice of what he gave ; his care that it
should not be of things vile and refuse, but of the very best he
had. — It happened that a servant in the family being troubled
with the gout, the doctor gave order that he should have some
of the plaister which he used in the like extremity ; but the store
of that being almost spent, the person intrusted in this office
gave of another sort, which was of somewhat less reputation.
Which practice the doctor within a while coming to know, was
extremely troubled at it, and complained of that unseasonable
kindness unto him, which disregarded the pressing interests and
wants of another person, and thereby gave him a disquiet parallel
to that which a fit of the gout would have done.

But besides this of giving, the alms of lending had an eminent
place in the practice as well as judgment of the doctor. — When
he saw a man honest and industrious, he would trust him with a
sum, and let him pay it again at such times and in such propor-
tions as he found himself able : withal when he did so, he would
add his counsel too, examine the person's condition, and contrive
with him how the present sum might be most advantageously dis-
posed ; still closing the discourse with prayer for God's blessing,
and after that dismissing him with infinite affability and kindness.
In which performance as he was exuberant to all, so most espe-
cially to such as were of an inferior degree ; giving this for a rule
to those of his friends that were of estate and quality, to " treat
their poor neighbours with such a cheerfulness, that they may be
glad to have met with them." And as upon the grounds of his
most genteel and obliging humanity he never suffered any body to
wait that came to speak with him, though upon a mere visit, but
broke off his beloved studies, upon which his intention was so
great, that he extremely grudged to be interrupted by any bodily
concernment of his own, and so would often intermit his pre-
scribed walks and suppers in pursuance of it : so with a more

382 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

exceeding alacrity he came down when it was told him that a
poor body would speak with him. Such of all others he loved
not to delay ; and so much he desired that others should do the
same, that when a lady of the house, diverted either by the
attractives of his discourse, or some other occasion, delayed the
clients of her charity in alms, or that other most commendable
one in surgery, he in his friendly way would chide her out of the
room.

As poverty thus recommended to the doctor's care and kind-
ness, in an especial manner it did so when piety was added to it :
upon which score a mean person in the neighbourhood, one
Houseman, a weaver by trade, but by weakness disabled much to
follow that or any other employment, was extremely his favourite.
Him he used with a most affectionate freedom, gave him several
of his books, and examined his progress in them ; invited him,
nay importuned him, still to come to him for whatever he needed,
and at his death left him ten pounds as a legacy. A little before
which fatal time, he and the lady P.6 being walking, Houseman
happened to come by, to whom after the doctor had talked a
while in his usual friendly manner, he let him pass ; yet soon after
called him with these words, " Houseman, if it should please
God that I should be taken from this place, let me make a bar-
gain between my lady and you, that you be sure to come to her
with the same freedom you would to me for any thing you want :"
and so with a most tender kindness gave his benediction. Then
turning to the lady, he said, " Will you not think it strange I
should be more affected for parting from Houseman than from
you ? " His treating the poor man when he came to visit him in
his sickness was parallel hereto in all respects.

Such another acquaintance he had at Penshurst, one Sexton,
whom he likewise remembered in his will, and to whom he was
used to send his more practical books, and to write extreme kind
letters, particularly enquiring of the condition of himself and
children ; and when he heard he had a boy fit to put out to
school, allowed him a pension to that purpose : and also with

6 The Lady P.] Dorothy, fifth and youngest daughter of Thomas, first
lord Coventry, lord keeper of the great seal, wife of sir John Pakington, bart.,
of \Vestwood (see p. 403) to whom lord Coventry had been guardian. This
excellent lady is believed by many writers to have been the author of The
Whole Duty of Man. She died on the 13th May, 1679.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 383

great contentment received from him his hearty, though scarce
legible, returns.

Nor will this treatment from the doctor seem any thing strange
to them that shall consider how low a rate he put upon those
usual distinctives, birth or riches ; and withal how high a value
on the souls of men : for them he had so unmanageable a passion,
that it often broke out into words of this effect, which had with
them still in the delivery an extraordinary vehemence, " O what
a glorious thing, how rich a prize for the expense of a man^s
whole life were it to be the instrument of rescuing any one soul ! "
Accordingly in the pursuit of this design he not only wasted
himself in perpetual toil of study, but most diligently attended
the offices of his calling, reading daily the prayers of the church,
preaching constantly every Sunday, and that many times when he
was in so ill a condition of health, that all besides himself thought
it impossible, at least very unfit, for him to do it. His subjects
were such as had greatest influence on practice, which he pressed
with most affectionate tenderness, making tears part of his ora-
tory. And if he observed his documents to have failed of the
desired effect, it was matter of great sadness to him : where
instead of accusing the parties concerned, he charged himself
that his performances were incompetent to the designed end, and
would solicitously enquire what he might do to speak more plainly
or more movingly ; whether his extemporary wording might not
be a defect, and the like ? Besides this, he liberally dispensed all
other spiritual aids.

From the time that the children of the family became capable
of it till his death, he made it a part of his daily business to
instruct them, allotting the interval betwixt prayers and dinner
to that work, observing diligently the little deviations of their
manners, and applying remedies unto them. In like sort, that he
might ensnare the servants also to their benefit, on Sundays in
the afternoon he catechised the children in his chamber, giving
liberty nay invitation, to as many as would to come and hear,
hoping they happily might admit the truths obliquely levelled,
which bashfulness persuaded not to enquire for, lest they thereby
should own the fault of former inadvertence. Besides he publicly
declared himself ready and desirous to assist any person single ;
and to that purpose having particularly invited such to come at
their leisurable hours, when any did so, he used all arts of en-
couragement and obliging condescension ; insomuch that having

384 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

once got the scullion in his chamber upon that errand, he would
not give him the uneasiness of standing, but made him sit down
by his side : though in other cases, amidst his infinite humility,
he knew well how to assert the dignity of his place and function
from the approaches of contempt. Upon this ground of ardent
love to souls, a very disconsolate and almost desponding person
happening some years since to come to him, there to unload the
burthen of his mind, he kept him privately in his chamber for
several days with a paternal kindness, answering every scruple
which that unhappy temper of mind too readily suggested, and
with unwearied patience attending for those little arguments
which in him were much more easily silenced than satisfied. This
practice continued, till he at last discovered his impressions had
in good proportion advanced to the desired effect, which pro-
ceeded carefully in this method, that duty still preceded promise,
and strict endeavour only founded comfort.

On the same motive of this highest charity, when some years
since a young man, (who by the encouragement of an uncle, for-
merly the head of an house in Oxford, had been bred up to
learning, but by his ejectment at the visitation was diverted from
that course to a country-life, and being so, to engage him therein
was also married and had children ;) amidst his toilsome avoca-
tions continued to employ his vacant hours in study, and happen-
ing on some of the doctor's writings, was so affected with them,
as to leave his wife and family and employment, to seek out the
doctor himself, whom being accordingly addressed unto, the ex-
cellent doctor met this unknown romantic undertaker with his
accustomed kindness, and most readily received this votary and
proselyte to learning into his care and pupilage for several years,
affording him all kind of assistance both in studies and temporal
support, till he at last arrived at good proficiency in knowledge,
and is at present a very useful person in the church.

Nor could this zeal to the eternal interest of souls be super-
seded by any sight of danger however imminent. The last y»-ar.
one in the neighbourhood mortally sick of the small-pox desiring
the doctor to come to him, as soon as he heard of it, though the
disease did then prove more than usually fatal, and the doctors
age and complexion threatened it particularly so to him ; and
though one might discern in his countenance vigorous apprehen-
sions of the danger, he presently suppressed his fears, staying
only so long as to be satisfied whether the party was so sensible

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 385

that a visit might possibly be of use, and being informed thereof,
cheerfully went ; telling the person that happened to be present,
whose dreads in his behalf were not so easily deposited, that " he
should be as much in God's hands in the sick man's chamber as
in his own :" and not contented with going once, appointed the
next day to have returned again ; which he had done, had not
the patient's death absolved him of his promise.

So likewise when at another time a gentleman of no very laud-
able life had in his sickness desired to speak with the doctor,
which message through the negligence of the person employed
was not delivered till he that sent it was in the last agonies of
death ; the doctor was very much affected at it, passionately com-
plaining of "the brutishness of those that had so little sense of a
soul in that sad state :" and pouring out his most fervent prayers
in his behalf, requested farther "that by this example others,
and in particular the companions of that unhappy person's vice,
might learn how improper a season the time of sickness, and how
unfit a place the death-bed is for that one great important work
of penitence, which was intended by Almighty God the one com-
mensurate work of the whole life."

But though to advance the spiritual concerns of all that could
in any kind become receptive of the good he meant them was his
unlimited designment and endeavour, yet to nourish and advance
the early virtue of young persons was his more chosen study.
When he saw such a one, he would contrive and seek out ways
to insinuate and endear himself, lay hold of every opportunity to
represent the beauty, pleasure and advantage of a pious life ; and
on the other side to express the toil, the danger and the mischief
of brutal sensuality. Withal he would be still performing cour-
tesies, thereby to oblige of very gratitude to him, obedience and
duty unto God.

Where to pass by the many instances that he gave of this his
charity, it will not be amiss to insist on one as a specimen of the
rest, which was thus. — It happened during the doctor's abode in
Oxford in the war, that a young man of excellent faculties and very
promising hopes in that place, by his love to music was engaged
in the company of such who had that one good quality alone to
recommend their other ill ones. The doctor finding this, though
otherwise a stranger to the person, gave him in exchange his
own ; and taking him as it were into his own bosom, directed
him to books, and read them with him, particularly a great part

VOL. iv. c c

386 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

of Homer, at a night dispatching usually a book, and if it proved
holiday, then two ; where his comical expression was, when one
Iliad was done, to say, " Come, because it is holiday, let us be
jovial and take the other Iliad," reflecting on the mode of the
former debauches, whose word it was, " It is holiday, let us take
the other pint."

And as the doctor laboured in the rescue of single persons, he
had an eye therein to multitudes ; for wherever he had planted
the seeds of piety, he presently cast about to extend and pro-
pagate them thereby to others : engaging all his converts not to
be ashamed of being reputed innocent, or to be thought to have
a kindness for religion ; but to own the seducing men to God
with as much confidence at least as others use when they are
factors for the devil : and instead of lying on the guard and the
defensive part, he gave in charge to chuse the other of the
assailant. And this method he commended not only as the
greatest service unto God and to our neighbour, but as the
greatest security to ourselves ; it being like the not expecting of
a threatened war at home, but carrying it abroad into the enei
country. And nothing in the Christian's warfare he judged so
dangerous as a truce, and the cessation of hostility. Withal,
parly and holding intelligence with guilt in the most trivial
things, he pronounced as treason to ourselves, as well as unto
God : "for while," saith he, " we fight with sin, in the fiercest
shock of opposition we shall be safe ; for no attempts can hurt
us till we treat with the assailants : temptations of all sorts
having that good quality of the devil in them, to fly when they
are resisted." Besides, whereas young people are used to varnish
over their non-performance and forbearance of good actions by a
pretence unto humility and bashful modesty, saying, they are
ashamed to do this or that, as being not able to do it well, he
assured them, " This was arrant pride and nothing else."

Upon these grounds his motto of instruction to young persons
was, Principiis obsta, and Hoc age to withstand the overtures
of ill, and be intent and serious in good ; to which he joined a
third advice, " To be furnished with a friend." Accordingly at
a solemn leave-taking of one of his disciples, he thus discour
" I have heard say of a man who upon his death-bed being to
take his farewell of his son, and considering what course of life
to recommend that might secure his innocence, at last enjoined
him to spend his time in making of VITSOS, and in dressing a

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 387

garden ; the old man thinking no temptation could creep into
either of these employments. But I instead of these expedients
will recommend these other, the doing all the good you can to
every person, and the having of a friend ; whereby your life shall
not only be rendered innocent, but withal extremely happy."

Now after all these excellencies, it would be reason to expect
that the doctor, conscious of his merit, should have looked,
if not on others with contempt, yet on himself with some com-
placency and fair regard ; but it was far otherwise. There was
no enemy of his, however drunk with passion, that had so mean
an esteem either of him or of his parts as he had both of the
one and other. As at his first appearing in public he was clearly
overreached and cheated in the owning of his books ; so when
he found it duty to go on in that his toilsome trade of writing,
he was wont seriously to profess himself astonished at their
reception into the world, especially, as he withal was pleased to
add, since others failed herein, whose performances were infinitely
beyond any thing which he was able to do.

From this opinion of his mediocrity at best, and the resolution
of not making any thing in religion public before it had under-
gone all tests, in point not only of truth but prudence, proceeded
his constant practice of subjecting all his writings to the censure
and correction of his friends, engaging them at that time to lay
aside all their kindness, or rather to evidence their love by being
rigidly censorious. There is scarce any book he wrote that had
not first travelled on this errand of being severely dealt with, to
several parts of the nation before it saw the light; nay so
scrupulous was the doctor herein, that he has frequently, upon
suggestion of something to be changed, returned his papers the
second time unto his censor, to see if the alteration was exactly
to his mind, and generally was never so well pleased as when his
packets returned with large accessions of objections and adver-
tisements. And in this point he was so strangely adviseable, that
he would advert unto the judgement of the meanest person, usually
saying, that there was no one that was honest to him by whom he
could not profit ; withal, that he was to expect readers of several
sorts, and if one illiterate man was stumbled, it was likely others
of his form would be so too, whose interest, when he writ to all,
was not to be passed over. Besides, those less-discerning obser-
vators, if they should do nothing else, he said could serve to
draw teeth ; that is, admonish if ought were said with passion

cc 2

388 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

or sharpness, a thing the doctor was infinitely jealous of in his
writings. Many years since he having sent one of his tracts
unto an eminent person in this church, to whom he bore a very
high and merited regard, to be looked over by him, he sending it
back without any amendment, but with a profuse compliment of
liking every thing; the good doctor was much affected with the
disappointment, only comforted himself herein, that he had reaped
this benefit, to have learned never to send his papers to that
hand again ; which resolution to his dying day he kept.

Nor was this caution before the publishing of his books suffi-
cient, but was continued after it, the doctor importuning still his
friends to send him their objections, if in any point they were not
satisfied; which he with great indifference considered in his
reviews and subsequent editions ; however took more kindly the
most impertinent exception, than those advertisements of a dif-
ferent kind which brought encomiums and lavish praises, which
he heard with as great distaste as others do the most viruleht
reproaches.

A farther proof of this low esteem the doctor had of himself
(if such were possible) would be meekness to those that slighted
him and disparaged his abilities ; this being the surest indication
that our humility is in earnest, when we are content to hear ill
language not only from ourselves but from our enemies : which
with how much indifference this inimitable person did, it is
neither easy fully to describe, nor to persuade to just belief.
The short is, as he was never angry with his pertinacious dis-
senters for not being of his mind in points of speculation ; no
more was he in the least with his scornful opposites for thc-ir
being of it in their little value of his person. And though lie
had as well as other men, seeds of incitation in his natural temper,
and more than others temptation to it in his daily and almost
intolerable injuries ; yet such was the habitual mastery he had
gained over himself, that the strictest considerers of his actions,
have not in ten years' perpetual conversation, seen his passion
betray him to an indecent speech.

Nor was his sufferance of other kinds less exemplary than tlmt
he evidenced in the reception of calumny and foul reproach :
for though " pain were that to which " he was used to say, " he
was of all things most a coward," yet being under it he shewed
an eminent constancy and perfect resignation.

At the approach of sickness his first consideration was, what

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 389

failing had provoked the present chastisement, and to that pur-
pose he made his earnest prayer to God (and enjoined his friends
to do the like) to convince him of it ; nor only so, but tear and
rend away, though by the greatest violence and sharpest dis-
cipline, whatever was displeasing in his eyes, and grant not only
patience, but fruitfulness under the rod. Then by repeated acts
of submission would he deliver himself up into God's hands to do
with him as seemed him good ; amidst the sharpest pains meekly
invoking him, and saying, " God's holy will be done." And
even then when on the wrack of torture, would he be observing
every circumstance of allay : when it was the gout he would give
thanks it was not the stone or cramp ; when it was the stone, he
then would say it was not so sharp as others felt, accusing his
impatience that it appeared so bad to him as it did. And then
when some degree of health was given, he exerted all his strength
in a return of grateful recognition to the Author of it, which he
performed with a vivacious sense and chearful piety, frequently
reflecting on the psalmist's phrase, that it was a joyful thing to
be thankful. Which his transport whoever should attentively ob-
serve, would easily apprehend how possible it was for the infinite
fruitions of another world to be made up by the perpetual act of
grateful recognition, in giving lauds and singing praises unto God.

Upon this score he was a most diligent observer of every
blessing he received, and had them still in readiness to confront
unto those pressures he at any time lay under. In the inter-
missions of his importunate maladies he would with full acknow-
ledgement mention the great indulgence, that he who had in his
constitution the cause of so much pain still dwelling with him,
should yet by God's immediate interposing be rescued from the
effect.

To facilitate yet more this his serenity and calm of mind, he
laid this rule before him, which proved of great use, " Never to
trouble himself with the foresight of future events," being resolved
of our Saviour's maxim, that sufficient to the day is the evil
thereof: and that it were the greatest folly in the world to per-
plex one's self7 with that which perchance will never come to
pass ; but if it should, then God who sent it will dispose it to
the best ; most certainly to his glory, which should satisfy us in

7 To perplex one's self.'] See bishop Butler's Sermon xiv. On the Love of
God ; or Christian Institutes, vol. i. p. 633, 4.

390 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

our respects to him ; and, unless it be our fault, as certainly to
our good, which, if we be not strangely unreasonable, must
satisfy in reverence unto ourselves and private interests. Besides
all this, in the very dispensation, God will not fail to give such
allays which (like the cool gales under the line) will make the
greatest heats of sufferance very supportable. In such occasions
he usually subjoined Epictetus's dilemma, "Either the thing
before us is in our power, or it is not : if it be, let us apply the
remedy, and there will be no motive for complaint ; if it be not,
the grief is utterly impertinent, since it can do no good." As
also from the same author he annexed this consideration, " That
every thing has two handles ; if the one prove hot, and not to
be touched, we may take the other that is more temperate :" and
in every occurrent he would be sure to find some cool handle that
he might lay hold of.

And to enforce all this, he made a constant recourse to the
experience of God^s dealing with him in preceding accidents, which
however dreadful at a distance, at a nearer view lost much of
their terror. And for others that he saw perplexed about the
manage of their difficult affairs, he was wont to ask them, " When
they would begin to trust God, or permit him to govern the
world T1 Besides, unto himself and friends he was wont solemnly
to give this mandate, Quod sis esse velis, nihilque malis, in his
English, to rather nothing ; not only to be content or acquiesce,
but be resolved the present state to be the very best that could
be wished or fancied.

And thus all private concernments he passed over with a per-
fect indifference ; the world and its appendages hanging so loose
about him that he never took notice when any part dropt off, or
sate uneasily. Herein indeed he was concerned and rendered
thoughtful, if somewhat intervened that had a possibility of duty
appendent to it ; in which case he would be solicitous to discern
where the obligation lay : but presently rescued himself from that
disquiet by his addresses unto God in prayer and fasting, which
his certain refuge in this as well as other exigents ; and if
the thing in question were of moment, he called in the devotions
of his friends. Besides this case, he owned to have some kind of
little discomposure in the choice of things perfectly indifferent;
for whi-re there was nothing to determine him, the balance by
lumping even became tremulous, and by a propensity t<> cither
side inclined to neither, making useless offers, but promoving

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 391

nothing : which condition of mind he was wont to call the delibe-
ration of Buridan's ass1.

Upon which grounds, of all other things, he most disliked the
being left to make a choice ; and hugely applauded the state of
subjection to a superior, where an obsequious diligence was the
main ingredient of duty : as also he did the state of subjection
unto pressure, as a privilege and blessing. And though he prayed
as much and withal as heartily as any person for the return of
the nation from captivity, he always first premised the being-
made receptive of such mercy by the intervention of repentance.
He would often both publicly and privately assert solemnly,
" That prosperous iniquity would not be deliverance, but the most
formidable judgment ; that the nation during its pressures was
under the discipline of God, given up to Satan by a kind of eccle-
siastic censure ; and should the Almighty dismiss us from his
hands, and put us into our own, give us up to ourselves, with a
why should you be smitten any more ? this were of all inflictions
the most dreadful.11 Though with admirable equanimity he could
run over the black annals of this unhappy nation while its calami-
ties were reckoned up, he could scarce hear the slightest mention
of its incorrigible guilt without dissolving into tears ; especially
when he happened to advert unto the impudence of that hypo-
crisy which reconciled godliness and villany, and made it possible
for men to be saints and devils both together : whereby religion
grew ruinous to itself, and besides the scandal of such enormities
committed in the face of the sun, with such pretence to zeal and
holiness, our faith became instructed to confute and baffle duty,
the creed and the commandments, belief and practice being
brought into the lists, and represented as incompatible ; while

8 Buridan's ass.~\ Buridan was a Frenchman, an eminent metaphysician,
logician, and commentator on Aristotle, who lived in the fourteenth century.
His celebrated sophism has become almost proverbial. He supposed an ass,
alike hungry and thirsty, situated between a bundle of hay on one side, and
a bucket of water on the other, and equally tempted by both. " Now, what
will the ass do ?" asked Buridan : if answered, " He will remain motionless,"
he concluded, " then he will die of hunger and thirst." If any opponent
replied, " An ass, though stupid, will not be stupid enough to die so:" —
" then," concluded Buridan, " he will turn to one side rather than the other,
and therefore he exercises free will." This sophism puzzled all the logicians
of his time, and became famous in the schools. Some of the early pro-
testants wrongly imagined, from Buridan's argument, that he was a fore-
runner of the reformed church. The point is much older than Buridan.

392 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

the flames intended for the sacred lamps, the establishment of
doctrinals and speculative divinity, burnt up the altar and the
temple, consumed not only charity, but good nature too, and un-
taught the common documents of honest heathenism.

And while this public soul in the contemplation of the mis-
chief which our sins both were themselves and in their issues,
great in their provocation and fatal in their plagues, indulged unto
his pious and generous griefs, yet even then considering judg-
ment not to be more just than useful to the sufferers, he found
out means from that unlikely topic to speak comforts to himself
and others.

In that last crisis of our gasping hopes, the defeat of the
Cheshire forces 9, which promised all the misery consequent to
the sway of a senate gorged in blood, and yet still thirsting for
more, and of a veteran army composed of desperate fanatics, en-
gaged in equal guilts among themselves, and equal hate against
the other, and therewithal against the religion liberty and being
of the nation ; he thus addresses himself to the desponding sor-
rows of a friend.

" Sir, Sept. 2.

" I have received your last, and acknowledge the great fitness
of it to the present opportunities under which God hath pleased
to place us. If we look about us, there was never any louder
call to lamentation and bitter mourning ; and the sharpest accents
of these are visibly due to those continued provocations which
appear to have wrought all our woe : yet is there not wanting
some gleam of light, if we shall yet by God's grace be qualified
to make use of it. It is the supreme privilege of Christianity to
convert the saddest evils into the most medicinal advantages, the
valley of Achor into the door of hope, the blackest tempest into
the most perfect tu&'a : and it is certain you have an excellent
opportunity now before you to improve and receive benefit by ;
and you will not despise that affection which attempts to tell you
somewhat of it. It is plainly this ; that all kind of prosperity
(even that which we most think we can justify the most impor-
tunate pursuance of, the flourishing of a church and monarchy)
is treacherous and dangerous, and might very probably tend to

* Defeat of the Cheshire forces.'] Under sir George Booth, by the parlia-
ment army under the command of general Lambert. Clarendon's Hist, of
the Rebellion, book xvi. vol. iii. p. 527. edit. 1704.

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 393

our great ills ; and nothing is so entirely safe and wholesome as
to be continued under God's disciplines. Those that are not bet-
tered by such methods, would certainly be intoxicated and de-
stroyed by the pleasant er draughts ; and those that would ever
serve God sincerely in affluence, have infinitely greater advan-
tages and opportunities for it in the adverse fortune. Therefore
let us now all adore and bless God's wisest choices, and set vigo-
rously to the task that lies before us, improving the present ad-
vantages, and supplying in the abundance of the inward beauty
what is wanting to the outward lustre of a church ; and we shall
not fail to find that the grots and caves lie as open to the celestial
influences as the fairest and most beautified temples. We are
ordinarily very willing to be rich, and flatter ourselves that our
aims are no other than to be enabled by much wealth to do much
good ; and some live to see themselves confuted, want hearts
when wealth comes in greatest abundance : so those that never
come to make the experiment, have yet reason to judge that God
saw it fit not to lead them into temptation, lest if they had been
proved they should have been found faithless. And the same
judgment are we now obliged to pass for ourselves, and by what
God appears to have chosen for us, to resolve what he sees to be
absolutely best for us ; and it must be our greatest blame and
wretchedness, if what hath now befallen us be not effectually
better for us, than whatever else even piety could have suggested
to us to wish or pray for. And then, I pray, judge candidly
whether any thing be in any degree sober or tolerable in any of
us, beside the one great necessary wisdom as well as duty of
resignation, and making God's choices ours also.

if I have been these three weeks under restraint by the gout and
other pains, and am not yet on my legs, yet blessed be God have
all causes of thanksgiving, none of repining. And I shall with
confidence pray and hope that the great multitudes of persons
and families that are now under far sharper exercises, will find as
much greater allays and sweetnesses, and the black cloud (as oft
it hath done) vanish undiscernably."

And when this most unlikely prophecy became fulfilled, when
that black cloud he spoke of, contrary to all human expectation,
broke not in tempest, but the fairest sunshine that ever smiled on
this our land, when our despairs and resolute despondencies be-
came unravelled by a miracle of mercy, which after-ages will be
as far from giving credit to in its endearing, most improbable

394 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

circumstances, as this of ours (pardon the harshness of a true
comparison) is from esteeming at its merited rate ; our excellent
patriot, and best of men, seeing the dawnings of this welcome
day, paid down at once his greatest thanks and heartiest depre-
cations as a tribute to it, passionately fearing, what he had more
passionately wished for, suspecting his own hopes, and weeping
over his fruitions.

As to his sacred majesty, he looked on his return with pity
and compassion, as bringing him to that uneasy, if not insuper-
able, task of ruling and reforming a licentious people ; to that
most irksome sufferance of being worried with the importunities
of covetous and ambitious men, the restless care of meeting the
designs of mutinous and discontented spirits ; resolving, his most
wished return could only be a blessing to his people, but unto him
could not be so, but only on the score, by having opportunities
through glorious self-denials to do good. And for all other per-
sons, he said, " that having seriously considered what sort of men
would be better for the change, he could not think of any. As
for the church it was certain, persecution was generally the hap-
piest means of propagating that ; she then grew fastest when
pruned most : then of the best complexion and most healthy
when fainting through loss of blood. As to the laity ^ in all
their several stations and estates, they had so much perverted
the healthful dispensations of judgment, that it was most impro-
bable they should make any tolerable use of mercy. And lastly,
in reference to himself, he resolved (though sure on weaker
grounds) affliction most conducible." During the current of that
tyranny which for so many years we all groaned under, he kept a
constant equable serenity and unthoughtfulness in outward acci-
dents : but the approaching change gave him somewhat of pen-
sive recollection, insomuch that discoursing of occurrents, he
broke forth into these words, " I must confess I never saw that
time in all my life wherein I could so cheerfully say my nunc di-
mittis as now. Indeed I do dread prosperity, I do really dread it.
For the little good I am now able to do, I can do it with delibe-
ration and advice : but if it please God I should live and be called
to any higher office in the church, I must then do many things in
a hurry, and shall have not time to consult with others, and I
sufficiently apprehend the danger of relying on my own judgment/1
Which \\nnls IK- spake with the greatest concernment <»f cm
melting passion as is imaginable. Accordingly it pleased almighty

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 395

God so to deal with him ; and having granted to his servant the
satisfaction of a full return and gracious answer to his prayer in
the then e very-day expected reception of his sacred majesty, not
to deny his other great request of not sharing any temporary
advantage from it : but as his merits were far beyond those tran-
sitory ensnaring retributions, to remove him from them to those
solid and unmixed rewards, which could be nothing else than
such, and would be such for ever.

But this sad part of our relation requiring to itself a fresh
unwearied sorrow, and the saint-like manner of this excellent per-
son's passage from the world being as exemplary and conducing
to the uses of survivors as the notice of his life ; we shall allow
it a distinct apartment, and once again break off the thread of
our discourse, to resume it in its proper unentangled clue.

SECTION THE THIRD.

AT the opening of the year 1660, when every thing visibly
tended to the reduction of his sacred majesty, and all persons
in their several stations began to make way and prepare for it,
the good doctor was by the fathers of the church desired to
repair to London, there to assist in the great work of the com-
posure of breaches in the church : which summons as he resolved
unfit either to dispute or disobey, so could he not without much
violence to his inclinations submit unto. But finding it his duty,
he diverted all the uneasiness of antipathy and aversation into a
deliberate preparation of himself for this new theatre of affairs
on which he was to enter. Where his first care was to fortify
his mind against the usual temptations of business, place, and
power. And to this purpose, besides his earnest prayers to God
for his assistance, and disposal of him entirely to his glory, and
a diligent survey of all his inclinations, and therein those which
were his more open and less defensible parts, he farther called in
and solemnly adjured that friend of his with whom he had then
the nearest opportunity of commerce, to study and examine the
last ten years of his life, and with the justice due to a Christian
friendship to observe the failances of all kinds, and shew them to
him: which being accordingly attempted, the product, after a
diligent inquest, only proving the representation of such defects,
which might have past for virtue in another person ; his next

396 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

prospect was abroad, what several ways he might do good unto
the public : and knowing that the diocese of Worcester was by
the favour of his majesty designed his charge, he thought of
several opportunities of charity unto that place, and among others
particularly cast in his mind for the repair of the cathedral
church, and laid the foundation of a considerable advance unto
that work. Which early care is here mentioned as an instance
of his inflamed desire of doing good, and singular zeal to the
house of God, and the restoring of a decent worship in a like
decent place : for otherwise it was far from his custom to look
forward into future events, but still to attend and follow after
Providence, and let every day bear its own evil. And now, con-
sidering that the nation was under its great crisis and most hope-
ful method of its cure, which yet if palliate and imperfect, would
only make way to more fatal sickness, he fell to his devotions on
that behalf, and made those two excellent prayers *, which were

1 Two excellent prayers.'] See Works, vol. i. p. 727. The following is sub-
mitted as a specimen, from the former of them.

" O blessed Lord, who in thine infinite mercy didst vouchsafe to plant a
glorious church among us, and now in thy just judgment hast permitted our
sins and follies to root it up, Be pleased at last to resume thoughts of peace
towards us, that we may do the like to one another. Lord, look down from
heaven, the habitation of thy holiness, and behold the ruins of a desolated
church, and compassionate to see her in the dust. Behold her, O Lord, not
only broken, but crumbled, divided into so many sects and factions, that she
no longer represents the Ark of the God of Israel, where the covenant and
the manna were conserved, but the Ark of Noah, filled with all various sorts
of unclean beasts : and to complete our misery and guilt, the spirit of divi-
sion hath insinuated itself as well into our affections as our judgments : that
badge of discipleship which thou recommendedst to us is cast off, and all
the contrary wrath and bitterness, anger and clamour, called in to maintain
and widen our breaches. O Lord, how long shall we thus violate and defame
that Gospel of peace that we profess ! How long shall we thus madly defeat
ourselves, and lose that Christianity which we pretend to strive for ! O thou
which makest men to be of one mind in an house, be pleased so to unite us,
that we may be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same
judgment. And now that in civil affairs there seems some aptness to a com-
posure, O let not our spiritual differences be more unreconcileable. Lord,
let not the roughest winds blow out of the sanctuary : let not those which
should be thy ambassadors for peace still sound a trumpet for war : but do
thou reveal thyself to all our Elijahs in that still small voice which may teach
them to echo thee in the like meek treatings with others. Lord, let no un-
seasonable stiffness of those that are in the right, no perverse obstinacy of
those that are in the wrong, hinder the closing of our wounds ; but let the
one instruct in meekness, and be thou pleased to give the other repentance

DOCTOR HENTRY HAMMOND. 397

published immediately after his death, as they had been made
immediately before his sickness, and were almost the very last
thing he wrote.

Being in this state of mind, fully prepared for that new course
of life, which had nothing to recommend it to his taste but its
unpleasantness, (the best allective unto him) he expected hourly
the peremptory mandate which was to call him forth of his beloved
retirements.

But in the instant a more importunate, though infinitely more
welcome, summons engaged him on his last journey : for on the
4th of April he was seized with a sharp fit of the stone, with
those symptons that are usual in such cases ; which yet upon
the voidance of a stone ceased for that time. However on the
8th of the same month it returned again with greater violence :
and though after two days the pain decreased, the suppression of
urine yet continued, with frequent vomitings, and a distention of
the whole body, and likewise shortness of breath, upon any little
motion. When, as if he had by some instinct a certain know-
ledge of the issue of his sickness, he almost at its first approach
conceived himself in hazard : and whereas at other times, when
he saw his friends about him fearful, he was used to reply cheer-
fully, " that he was not dying yet ;" now in the whole current of
his disease he never said any thing to avert suspicion, but
addressed himself unto its cure, telling his friends with whom he
was, " that he would leave them in God's hands, who could sup-
ply abundantly all the assistance they could either expect or
desire from him, and who would so provide, that they should not
find his removal any loss." And when he observed one of them
with some earnestness pray for his health and continuance, he
with tender passion replied, " I observe your zeal spends itself all
in that one petition for my recovery ; in the interim you have no
care of me in my greatest interest, which is, that I may be per-
fectly fitted for my change when God shall call rne : I pray let

to the acknowledgement of the truth. To this end, do thou, O Lord, mollify
all exasperated minds, take off all animosities and prejudices, contempt and
heart burnings, and by uniting their hearts prepare for the reconciling their
opinions. And that nothing may intercept the clear sight of thy truth,
Lord, let all private and secular designs be totally deposited, that gain may
no longer be the measure of our godliness, but the one great and common
concernment of truth and peace may be unanimously and vigorously pur-
sued," &c.

398 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

some of your fervour be employed that way." And being prest
to make it his own request to God to be continued longer in the
world, to the service of the church, he immediately began a solemn
prayer, which contained first a very humble and melting acknow-
ledgment of sin, and a most earnest intercession for mercy and
forgiveness through the merits of his Saviour : next resigning
himself entirely into his Maker's hands, he begged that if the
divine wisdom intended him for death, he might have a due pre-
paration for it ; but if his life might be in any degree useful to
the church, even to one single soul, he then besought almighty
God to continue him, and by his grace enable him to employ that
life he so vouchsafed, industriously and successfully. After tins
he did with great affection intercede for this church and nation,
and with particular vigour and enforcement prayed for sincere
performance of Christian duty now so much decayed, to the equal
supplanting and scandal of that holy calling ; that those who pro-
fessed that faith might live according to the rules of it, and to
the form of godliness superadd the power. This with some repe-
titions and more tears he pursued, and at last closed all in a
prayer for the several concerns of the family where he was. With
this he frequently blessed God for so far indulging to his infir-
mity, as to make his disease so painless to him ; withal to
send it to him before he took his journey, whereas it might
have taken him in the way or at his inn, with far greater disad-
vantages.

Nor did he in this exigence desist from the exercise of his
accustomed candour and sweetness, whereby he was used to
entertain the addresses of the greatest strangers. For two scho-
lars coming at this time to see him, when, they having sent up
their names, it appeared they were such as he had no acquaint-
ance with, though they that were about the doctor, considering
his illness, proposed that a civil excuse might be made, and the
visitants be so dismissed : he resisted the advice with the grea
earnestness, saying, " I will by no means have them sent away,
for I know not how much they may be concerned in the errand
they come about ;" and gave order they should be brought up :
and when upon trial it appeared that a compliment was tin- whole
a flair, yet the good doctor seemed much satisfied that he had not
disappointed that unseasonable kindness.

Likewise his own necessities, however pressing, diverted not
his concernments for those of others. It so happened that a

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 399

neighbour lady languishing under a long weakness, he took care
that the church-office for the sick should be daily said in her
behalf : and though at the beginning of the doctor's illness the
chaplain made no other variation, than to change the singular
into the plural, yet when his danger increased, he then thought
fit to pray peculiarly for him : which the good doctor would by
no means admit, but said, " 0 no, poor soul, let not me be the
cause of excluding her;'1 and accordingly had those prayers con-
tinued in the more comprehensive latitude. And indeed those
offices which had a public character upon them he peculiarly
valued. For as to the forms of devotion appropriate to his extre-
mity he took care they should not exclude the public ones, but
still gave these a constant place : and when in his sharp agonies
his friends betook themselves to their extemporary ejaculations,
he composed those irregularities by saying, " Let us call on God
in the voice of his church."

And in seasons of this kind whereas the making of a will is
generally an uneasy task, as being at once a double parting with
the world ; to him it was in all respects agreeable and welcome.
For having bequeathed several legacies to his relatives and
friends, and left the remainder of his estate to the disposal of his
intimate and approved friend Doctor Henchman 2, now lord bishop
of Salisbury, as if recovered from the worst part of his disease,
the necessity of reflecting upon secular affairs, he became
strangely cheerful, and overlooked the encroaching importunate
tyranny of sickness.

On the 20th of A pril,l>eing Good- Friday, he solemnly received
the sacrament ; and again on the 22d of April, which then was
Easter-day. At which time when the number of communicants
was too great to have place in his bed-chamber, and the whole
office was over-long for him to go through with, it was ordered
that the service being performed in the usual apartment, a com-
petent number should afterwards come up and communicate with
him : which though he allowed as most fitting, yet he did so with
grief and trouble, breaking out into this passionate complaint,
" Alas ! must I be excommunicated ! " To be absent from any
part of public worship he thus deeply resented : so far was he
from their opinion (and they would be thought godly too) who in

2 Doctor Henchman.~\ Humphrey Henchman, bishop of Salisbury, October
4, 1660; of London, September 15, 1663. He died in October, 1675.

400 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

their most healthful leisureable days make this not their penance,
but election and choice.

Amidst his weakness and indisposition of all parts, in the act
of celebration his devotion not only was not faint or sick, but
most intent and vigorous : yet was it equalled by his infinite
humility, which discovered itself as in his deportment, so particu-
larly in that his pathetical ejaculation, which brake forth at the
hearing of those words of .the apostle, Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners ; unto which he rejoined, in an accent that
neither intended a compliment to God nor men, to either of which
he was not under a temptation, " Of whom I am the chief."

The exuberance of this humility appeared in all other occasions
of instance : particularly about this time a letter being sent unto
him, in which, among many expressions of great value, there \\a^
added an intimation. " That there was now hope the days were
come when his desert should be considered, and himself employed
in the government as well as the instruction of the church ;" at
this he was hugely discomposed, and expressed a grief and anguish
beyond that his sickness in any period, however sharp, had ex-
torted from him.

But now through the long suppression of urine the blood grown
thin and serous, withal made eager and tumultuous by the mix-
ture of heterogenous parts, the excellent doctor fell into a vio-
lent bleeding at the nose ; at which the by-standers being in
astonishment, he cheerfully admonished them " to lay aside impa-
tience in his behalf, and to wait God's leisure, whose seasons were
still the best :" withal he thankfully acknowledged God's mercy
in the dispensation, alleging, " that to bleed to death was one of
the most desirable passages out of this world."

And truly he very justly made this observation ; for it pleased
the Divine Providence strangely to balance the symptoms of the
doctor's disease to his advantage : for the sharp pains of the stone
were allayed by that heaviness of sense which the recuilment of
serous moisture into the habit of the body and insertions of tlio
nerves occasioned; and when that oppression ciul;inir<Ti-(l a
lethargic or apopletic torpour, he was retained from that by the
flux of blood. Which several accidents interchangeably
ceeded one the other, insomuch that in this whole time of sick-
ness he neither had long violence of torment, nor diminution of
his intellectual faculties. And here thi> violent li:uinnrrh;igG of
which we now speak being of itself even miraculously stopj>« •<].

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 401

when all applications were ineffectual, a drowsiness succeeding,
which happened at the time of prayers, though he perfectly
attended, and returned to every response amidst his importunate
infirmity, he very sadly resented it, saying, " Alas ! this is all the
return I shall make to this mercy, to sleep at prayers."

When he was in pain he often prayed for patience, and while he
did so, evidenced that his prayer was heard ; for he exercised not
only that, but thankfulness too, in his greatest extremity crying
out, " Blessed be God, blessed be God."

Nor did he, according to the usual method, inflict his sick-
ness upon those about him, by peevishness disquieting his attend-
ants ; but was pleased with every thing that was done, and liked
every thing that was brought, condescending to all proposals, and
obeying with all readiness every advice of his physicians. Nor
was it any wonder he should so return unto the endeavours of his
friends, who had tender kindness for his enemies, even the most
inveterate and bloody. When the defeat of Lambert and his
party, the last effort of gasping treason in this nation before its
blest return unto obedience, was told him, his only triumph was
that of his charity, saying with tears in his eyes, " Poor souls !
I beseech God forgive them." So habitual was pity and compas-
sion to his soul, that all representations concentred there. Virtue
had still his prayers, because he loved it; and vice enjoyed them
too, because it wanted them.

In his own greatest desolations he'administered reliefs to those
about him, mixing advices with his prayers, and twisting the ten-
derness of a friend to that of the Christian. He then dispensed
his best of legacies, his blessings ; most passionately exhorting
the young growing hopes of the family, whose first innocence and
bashful shame of doing ill he above all things laboured to have
preserved, "to be just to the advantage of their education, and
maintain inviolate their first baptismal vows :" then he more
generally commended unto all the great advantage of mutual
friendly admonitions. On which occasion when the good lady
asked him what more special thing he would recommend unto her
for her whole life, he briefly replied, "uniform obedience:"
whereby (if we may take a comment from himself at other times)
he meant not only a sincere reception of duty as such, because
commanded, and not because it is this or that, pleasant or honour-
able, or perchance cheap or easy duty ; but withal the very con-
dition of obeying, the lot of not being to choose for one^s self, the

VOL. iv. D d

402 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

being determined in all proposals by human or divine command,
and where those were left at large, by the guidance of God's
providence, or the assistance of a friend.

But amidst these most Christian divertisements, these happiest
anodynes of sickness, the 25th of April fatally drew on, wherein
his flux of blood breaking forth again with greater violence than
it had done before, was not to be stopped by outward applica-
tions, nor the revulsives of any kind, not of its own, the opening
of a vein, first in the arm, and after in the foot ; till at last tho
fountain being exhausted, the torrent ceased its course, and
indeed that vital one which its regular motion kept on foot : for
the good doctor leaving off to bleed about three of the clock in
the afternoon, became very weak and dis-spirited, and cold in the
extreme parts, had strength only continued to persevere in his
devotions, which he did unto the last moment of his life, a few
minutes before his death breathing out those words which best
became his Christian life, u Lord, make haste/'

And so upon that very day on which the parliament convened,
which laid the foundation of our release and liberty, and brought
at once this nation's return from its captivity, and its gracious
sovereign prince, this great champion of religion and pattern of
all virtue, as if reserved for masteries and combats of exigence
and hazard, for persecution and sufferings, was taken hence, and
by his loss represt the overflowing and extravagance of those
joys that waited the reception of his sacred majesty.

It will be below the greatness of the person as well as of tin's
loss, to celebrate his death in womanish complaints, or indeed by
any verbal applications ; his worth is not to be described by any
words besides his own, nor can any thing beseem his memory but
what is sacred and eternal as those writings are. May his just
fame from them and from his virtue be precious to succeeding
times, grow up and flourish still : and when characters engraven
in brass shall disappear, as if they had been writ in water ; when
elogies committed to the trust of marble shall be illegible as
whispered accents ; when pyramids dissolved in dust shall want
themselves a monument to evidence that they were once so much
M- ruin ; let that remain a known and classic history describing
him in his full portraiture among the best of subjects, of friends,
of scholars, and of men.

The dead body being opened (which licre is mentioned, for
that the reader cannot want the curiosity to desire to know every

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 403

thing that concerned this great person) the principal and vital
parts appeared sound ; only the right kidney, or rather its re-
mainder, which exceeded not the bigness of an egg, was hard and
knotty, and in its cavity besides several little ones, was a large
stone of the figure of an almond, though much bigger, whose
lesser end was fallen into the urethra, and as a stopple closed it
up ; so that it is probable that kidney had for divers years been
in a manner useless. The other kidney was swoln beyond the
natural proportion, otherwise not much decayed ; but within the
urethra four fingers1 breadth a round white stone was lodged,
which was so fastened in the part, that the physician with his
probe could not stir it, and was fain at last to cut it out : and so
exactly it stopped the passage, that upon the dissection the water
before enclosed gushed forth in great abundance : from whence it
appeared perfectly impossible for art to have ennobled itself in
the preservation of this great person ; as it was also manifest
that nothing but the consequences of his indefatigable study took
him from us, in the perfection and maturity, the 55th year of his
life.

On the morrow in the evening, the 26th day of the same
month, he was, according to his desire, without ostentation or
pomp, though with all becoming decency, buried 3 at the neigh-
bour-church of Hampton, with the whole office and usual rites of
the church of England, several of the gentry and clergy of the
county, and affectionate multitudes of persons of less quality
attending on his obsequies, the clergy with ambition offering
themselves to bear him on their shoulders ; which accordingly
they did, and laid that sacred burthen in the burial-place of the
generous family which with such friendship had entertained him
when alive : where now he rests in peace, and full assurance of a
glorious resurrection.

Having thus given a faithful, though imperfect, draught of this
excellent person, whose virtues are so far from imitation by prac-
tice, that they exercise and strain the comprehension of words ;
and having shewed how much he has merited of this nation in its

3 Buried.] We are told by our author, bishop Fell, in his account of the
eminent loyalist Dr. Richard Allestree, that in his return from a visit
to his relations in Shropshire, designing to visit his worthy friend, Dr.
Hammond, at Westwood near Worcester, he met at the gate, the body of
that great man carrying to his burial. Preface to Dr. Allestree's Sermons,
fol. 1684.

Dd 2

404 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

most pressing exigents, both by his writings and by his example,
and perchance above both these by his unwearied intercession
in devotion ; it may possibly be neither useless nor unacceptable
to offer a request unto the reader in his behalf, and shew him an
expedient whereby he may pay his debt of gratitude, and eminently
oblige this holy saint though now with God.

It is this, to add unto his account in the day of retribution by
taking benefit by his performances : and as he being dead yet
speaks, so let him persuade likewise ; —

That the covetous reader would now at his request put off his
sordid vice, and take courage to be liberal, assured by his
example, that if in the worst of times profuseness could make
rich, charity shall never bring to beggary :

That the proud opinionated person on the same terms would
in civility to him descend from his fond heights, instructed here
that lowly meekness shall compass great respects, and instead of
hate or flattery be waited on with love and veneration :

That the debauched or idle would leave upon this score his
lewd unwarrantable joys, convinced that strict and rugged virtue
made an age of sun-shine, a life of constant smiles, amidst the
dreadfullest tempests ; taught the gout, the stone, the cramp,
the cholic, to be treatable companions, and made it eligible to live
in bad times and die in flourishing :

That the angry man, who calls passion at least justice, possibly
zeal and duty, would for his sake assume a different temper,
believe that arguments may be answered by saying reason,
calumnies by saying no, and railings by saying nothing :

The coward and disloyal, that durst not own in words, much
less by service and relief, his prince, that complimented his apos-
tasy and treason by the soft terms of changing an interest, will
from hence learn that the surest way to safety is to have but one
interest, and that espoused so firmly as never to be changed ;
since such a constancy was that which a Cromwell durst not
persecute :

That the employed in business would from hence dismiss their
fears of regular piety, their suspicion that devotion would hinder
all dispatch and manage of affairs ; since it appeared, his constant
office (like the prayer of Joshua, which made the sun stand still)
seemed to have rendered unto him each day as long as two :

That the ambitious person, especially the ecclesiastic, would
think employment and high place a stewardship, that renders

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 405

debtors both to God and man, a residence at once of constant
labour and attendance too ; a precipice that equally exposes
both to envy and to ruin : and consequently to be that which
should become our greatest fear and terror, but at no hand our
choice : since it was that which this heroic constancy was not
ashamed to own a dread of, and whose appearance did render
death itself relief and rescue :

Lastly, that the narrow self-designing person, who understands
no kindness but advantage ; the sensual, that knows no love but
lust ; the intemperate, that owns no companion but drink ; may
all at once from him reform their brutish errors : since he has
made it evident, that a friend does fully satisfy these distant and
importunate desires, being as the most innocent and certainly
ingenuous entertainment, so besides that the highest mirth, the
greatest interest, and surest pleasure in the world.

They that had the happiness of a personal acquaintance with
this best of men, this saint, who seems in our decays of ancient
virtue lent us by special providence even for this end and purpose,
that we might not disbelieve the faith of history delivering the
excellency of primitive Christians, know with what thirst and
eagerness of soul he sought the spiritual advantage of any single
man how mean soever, with what enjoyment he beheld the reco-
very of any such from an ill course and habit. And whatever
apprehensions other men may have, they will be easily induced to
think, that if blessed spirits have commerce with earth, (as surely
we have reason to believe it somewhat more than possible,) they,
I say, will resolve it a connatural and highly-agreeable accession
unto his fruitions, that when there is joy in the presence of the
angels of God for a sinner that repents, he may be an immediate
accessory to that blessed triumph, and be concerned beyond the
rate of a bare spectator.

Persuasions to piety now-a-days are usually in scorn called
preaching : but it is to be hoped that this, how contemptible an
office soever it be grown, will be no indecency in this instance ;
that it will not be absurd if his history, who deservedly was
reckoned among the best of preachers, whose life was the best of
sermons, should bear a correspondence to its subject, and pro-
fessedly close with an application : that it adjures all persons to
be what they promised God Almighty they would be in their bap-
tismal vows, what they see the glorious saints and martyrs and
confessors, and in particular this holy man has been before them ;

406 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

be what is most honourable, most easy and advantageous to be at
present; and, in a word, to render themselves such as they
desire to be upon their death-beds, before they leave the world,
and then would be for ever.

Which blest atchievement as it was the great design of the
excellent doctor's both words and writings, his thoughts and
actions, is also (besides the payment of a debt to friendship and
to virtue) the only aim of this imperfect, but yet affectionate and
well-meant, account : and may almighty God by the assistance of
his grace give all of these this their most earnestly-desired effect
and issue !

By the generous piety of the right reverend father in God Hum-
phrey lord bishop of Sarum, there is now erected to the sacred
memory of this great person in the parish-church of Hampton,
the place of his interment, a fair monument of white marble
bearing this inscription.

HENRICUS HAMMONDUS.

Ad cujus nomen assurgit
Quicquid est gentia literatae,

(Dignum nomen
Quod auro, non atramento,

Nee in marmore perituro, sed adamante potius exaretur)
Musagetes celeberrimus, vir plane summus,

Theologus omnium consummatissimus,
Eruditae pietatis decus simul et exemplar ;

Sacri codicis interpres
Facile omnium oculatissimus,

Errorum malleus
Post homines natos felicissimus,

Veritatis hyperaspistes

Supra-quam-dici-potest nervosus ;

In cujus script is

Elucescunt

Ingenii gra vitas et acumen,

Judicii sublimitas et 'jUpi/3ttn,

ntentiaruin'Oy/coc et A«v<Jri/c,

Docendi methodus utilissima,

Nusquam dormitans diligentia.

Hammondus (inquam) 6 iraw,
In ipsa mortis vicinia positus,
Immortalitati quasi contiguus,

DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND. 407

Exuvias mortis venerandas

(Praeter quas nihil mortals habuit)

Sub obscuro hoc marmore

Latere voluit,

vn. Cal. Maias,

Ann. ^Etat. LV.

MDCLX.

The marble tablet would receive no more in charge : but ours
indulging greater liberty, I shall set down the whole elogie, as it
grew upon the affectionate pen of the reverend doctor T. Pierce,
who was employed to draw it up.

Sed latere qui voluit, ipsas latebras illustrat ;

Et pagum alias obscurum

Invitus cogit inclarescere.

Nullibi Mvrjuoawov illi potest deesse,

Qui, nisi d^io/xvj/jttovevrov,
Nihil aut dixit aut fecit unquam.

'Av£pt yevvaiy •naaa yrj Ta<pog.

Animi dotibus ita annos anteverterat,

Ut in ipsa linguae infantia rpiyXwrrof,

Eaque setate Magister Artium,

Qua vix alii tyrones, esset.

Tarn sagaci fuit industria,

Ut horas etiam subsecivas utilius perderet

Quam pleriq; mortalium serias suas collocarunt.

Nemo rectius de se meruit,

Nemo sensit demissius ;

Nihil eo aut excelsius erat, aut humilius.

Scriptis suis factisque

Sibi uni non placuit,

Qui tarn calamo quam vita

Humano generi complacuerat.

Ita labores pro Dei sponsa, ipsoq; Deo exantlavit,

Ut ccelum ipsum ipsius humeris incubuisse videretur.

IlapaXXjfXiav omnem supergressus
Romanenses vicit, profligavit Genevates,

De utrisque triumpharunt

ET VERITAS et HAMMONDUS :

Utrisque merito triumphaturis,

Ab Hammondo victis, et Veritate.

Qualis ille inter amicos censendus erit,

Qui demereri sibi adversos vel hostes potuit ?

Omnes haereses incendiarias

Atramento suo deleri maluit,

Quam ipsorum aut sanguine extingui,

Aut dispendio animae expiari.

408 DOCTOR HENRY HAMMOND.

Coeli indigena
Eo divitias prsemittebat,

Ut ubi cor jam erat,
Ibi etiam thesaurus esset :

In hoc uno avarus,

Quod prolixe benevolus prodiga manu erogavit,

^Eternitatem in foenore lucraturus.

Quicquid habuit, voluit habere,

Etiam invalids valetudinis.

Ita habuit in deliciis non magis facere quam sufferre
Totam Dei voluntatem, ut frui etiam videretur

Vel morbi taedio.
Summam animi yaXrjvijv testatam fecit

Hilaris irons et exporrecta :

Nusquam alias in filiis hominum

Gratior ex pulchro veniebat corpore virtus.

Omne jam tulerat punctum,

Omnium plausus,

Cum mors, quasi suum adjiciens calculum,
Funesta lithiasi terris abstulit

Cceli avidum,
Maturum coelo.

Abi, viator,

Pauca sufficiat delibasse :

Reliqua serae posteritati narranda restant,

Quibus pro merito enarrandis

Una aetas non sufficit.

BISHOP SANDERSON.

These confusions kept increasing, under different forms, each more ridi-
culous or more horrid than the other, till this miserable nation, now become
the scorn and opprobrium of the whole earth, at length grew tired, rather
than ashamed, of its repeated follies. In this temper they hastily recalled
the heir of the monarchy : and as the cause of all these miseries had been
their insisting on unreasonable conditions from the crown, they did like men
driven out of one extreme, who never take breath till they have plunged
themselves into another, they strove to atone for their unjust demands upon
the virtuous father, by the most lavish concessions to his flagitious son : who
succeeded to the inheritance with all those advantages of an undefined prero-
gative, which an ambitious prince could wish for the foundation of an arbi-
trary system : A sad presage to the friends of liberty, that their generous
labours were not yet at an end ! Indeed, within less than half a century, the
old family projects, taken up again by the two last princes of this line,
revived the public quarrel. But it was conducted under happier auspices,
not by the assistance of SECTARIES, but by the NATIONAL CHURCH; and
concluded in the final establishment of a free constitution.

BISHOP WARBURTON.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Life of Bishop Sanderson, written by Isaac Walton in the
eighty-fifth year of his age, is here printed intire from the third
impression, prefixed to his Sermons, and bearing date 1686. It
was first published in a somewhat less correct state, in the year
1678, and was then accompanied by some short Tracts, written
by Sanderson, and by a Sermon of Richard Hooker's, found in
the study of bishop Andrews ; circumstances which it is proper
to mention, for the purpose of explaining some passages in the
following Preface.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND AND HONOURABLE

GEORGE, LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,

PRELATE OF THE GARTER,
AND ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL.

MY LORD,

IF! should undertake to enumerate the many favours and advan-
tages I have had by my very long acquaintance with your lord-
ship, I should enter upon an employment, that might prove as
tedious, as the collecting of the materials for this poor monument,
which I have erected, and do dedicate to the memory of your
beloved friend Dr. Sanderson. But, though I will not venture to
do that ; yet, I do remember with pleasure and remonstrate with
gratitude, that your lordship made me known to him, Mr. Cliil-
lingworth, and Dr. Hammond ; men, whose merits ought never
to be forgotten.

My friendship with the first was begun almost forty years past,
when I was as far from a thought, as a desire to out-live him ;
and farther from an intention to write his life : but the wise Dis-
poser of all men's lives and actions hath prolonged the first, and
now permitted the last ; which is here dedicated to your lordship
(and as it ought to be) with all humility, and a desire that it
remain, as a public testimony of my gratitude.

My lord,
Your most affectionate old friend,

And most humble servant,

IZAAC WAI/I «'\

PREFACE.

I DARE neither think, nor assure the reader, that I have com-
mitted no mistakes in this relation of the life of Dr. SANDERSON ;
but am sure, there is none that are either wilful, or very material.
I confess it was worthy the employment of some person of more
learning and greater abilities than I can pretend to ; and I have
not a little wondered that none have yet been so grateful to him
and posterity, as to undertake it. For as it may be noted, that
our Saviour had a care, that for Mary Magdalen^s kindness to him,
her name should never be forgotten: so I conceive, the great
satisfaction many scholars have already had, and the unborn world
is like to have, by his exact, clear and useful learning ; and might
have by a true narrative of his matchless meekness, his calm for-
titude and the innocence of his whole life ; doth justly challenge
the like from this present age ; that posterity may not be igno-
rant of them : and it is to me a wonder, that it has been already
fifteen years neglected. But, in saying this, my meaning is not
to upbraid others (I am far from that) but excuse myself, or beg
pardon for daring to attempt it.

This being premised I desire to tell the reader, that in this rela-
tion I have been so bold, as to paraphrase and say, what I think
he (whom I had the happiness to know well) would have said upon
the same occasions ; and if I have been too bold in doing so, and
cannot now beg pardon of him that loved me ; yet, I do of my
reader, from whom I desire the same favour.

And, though my age might have procured me a writ of ease,
and that secured me from all further trouble in this kind ;
yet I met with such persuasions to undertake it, and so many
willing informers since, and from them and others, such helps and
encouragements to proceed, that when I found myself faint and
weary of the burthen with which I have loaden myself, and some-
time ready to lay it down ; yet time and new strength hath at

414 PREFACE.

last brought it to be what it now is, and is here presented to the
reader, and with it this desire ; that he will take notice that Dr.
Sanderson did in his will or last sickness advertise that after his
death nothing of his might be printed ; because that might be said
to be his which indeed was not ; and also, for that he might have
changed his opinion since he first writ it, as it is thought he
has since he writ his Pax Ecclesice. And though these reasons
ought to be regarded, yet regarded so, as he resolves in his case
of conscience concerning rash vows, that there may appear very
good second reasons, why we may forbear to perform them. How-
ever, for his said reasons, they ought to be read as we do Apo-
cryphal Scripture ; to explain, but not oblige us to so firm a
belief of what is here presented as his.

And I have this to say more ; that as in my queries for writing
Dr. SANDERSON'S Life, I met with these little tracts annexed;
so in my former queries for my information to write the life of
venerable Mr. Hooker, I met with a sermon, which I also believe
was really his, and here is presented as his to the reader. It is
affirmed (and I have met with reason to believe it) that there be
some artists, that do certainly know an original picture from a
copy ; and in what age of the world, and by whom drawn : and
if so, then I hope it may be as safely affirmed, that what is here
presented for theirs, is so like their temper of mind, their other
writings, the times when, and the occasions upon which they
were writ, that all readers may safely conclude, they could be
writ by none but venerable Mr. Hooker, and the humble and
learned Dr. Sanderson.

And lastly, the trouble being now past, I look back and am glad
that I have collected these memoirs of this humble man, which lay
scattered, and have contracted them into a narrower com]-,
and if I have by the pleasant toil of so doing, either pleased or
profited any man, I have attained what I designed when I first
undertook it : but I seriously wish, both for the reader's, and Dr.
Sanderson's sake, that posterity had known his great learning and
virtue by a better pen; by such a pen, as could have made his
lite as immortal as his learning and merits ought to be.

I. \V.

BISHOP SANDERSON.

DOCTOR ROBERT SANDERSON, the late learned bishop of Lin-
coln, whose life I intend to write with all truth and equal plain-
ness, was born the nineteenth day of September, in the year1
of our redemption, 1587. The place of his birth was Rotherham
in the county of York, a town of good note, and the more, for
that Thomas Rotherham, sometime archbishop of that see, was
born in it ; a man, whose great wisdom and bounty, and sanctity
of life, gave a denomination to it, or hath made it the more memo-
rable ; as indeed it ought also to be, for being the birth-place of
our Robert Sanderson. And, the reader will be of my belief, if
this humble relation of his life can hold any proportion with his
great sanctity, his useful learning, and his many other extraordi-
nary endowments.

He was the second and youngest son of Robert Sanderson of
Gilthwait-hall in the said parish and county, esq. by Elizabeth one
of the daughters of Richard Carr of Buterthwate-hall, in the
parish of Ecclesfield in the said county of York, gentleman.

This Robert Sanderson the father, was descended from a numer-
ous, ancient and honourable family of his own name : for the
search of which truth, I refer my reader, that inclines to it, to
Dr. Thoroton's history of the Antiquities of Nottinghamshire,
and other records ; not thinking it necessary here to engage him
into a search for bare titles, which are noted to have in them
nothing of reality : for, titles not acquired, but derived only, do
but shew us who of our ancestors have, and how they have

1 In the year.~\ Baptised the next day. "1587. Sept. 20, Rob'tus Saun-
d'son, fil. Rob'ti Saund'son." Wood's Athena, vol. iii. p. 630. Bliss's edit.

416 BISHOP SANDERSON.

atchieved that honour which their descendants claim, and may not
be worthy to enjoy. For if those titles descend to persons that
degenerate into vice, and break off the continued line of learning,
or valour, or that virtue that acquired them, they destroy the very
foundation upon which that honour was built ; and all the rubbish
of their degenerousness ought to fall heavy on such dishonourable
heads ; ought to fall so heavy, as to degrade them of their titles,
and blast their memories with reproach and shame.

But this Robert Sanderson lived worthy of his name and family;
of which one testimony may be, that Gilbert, called the great and
glorious earl of Shrewsbury, thought him not unworthy to be
joined with him as a god-father to Gilbert Sheldon, the late lord
archbishop of Canterbury ; to whose merits and memory posterity
(the clergy especially) ought to pay a reverence.

But I return to my intended relation of Robert the son, who
(like Josiah that good king) began in his youth to make the laws
of God, and obedience to his parents, the rules of his life ; seeming
even then, to dedicate himself and all his studies, to piety and
virtue.

And, as he was inclined to this by that native goodness, with
which the wise Disposer of all hearts had endowed his ; so this
calm, this quiet and happy temper of mind (his being mild and
averse to oppositions) made the whole course of his life easy and
grateful both to himself and others. And this blessed temper was
maintained and improved by his prudent father's good example ;
as also, by his frequent conversing with him, and scattering short
and virtuous apophthegms with little pleasant stories, and making
useful applications of them, by which his son was in his infancy
taught to abhor vanity and vice as monsters, and to discern the
loveliness of wisdom and virtue ; and by these means and God's
concurring grace, his knowledge was so augmented, and his native
goodness so confirmed, that all became so habitual, as it was
not easy to determine whether nature or education were his
teachers.

And here let me tell the reader, that these early beginnings of
virtue were by God's assisting grace blest with what St. Paul
seemed to beg for his Philippians; namely, that he that had
begun a good work in them, would finish it. (Phil. i. 6.) And
Almighty God did : for his whole life was so regular and innocent,
that he might have said at his death (and with truth and comfort)
what the same St. Paul said after to the same Philippians,

BISHOP SANDERSON. 417

he advised them to walk as they had him for an example. (Chap,
iii. 17.)

And this goodness, of which I have spoken, seemed to increase
as his years did ; and with his goodness his learning, the founda-
tion of which was laid in the grammar school of Rotheram (that
being one of those three that were founded and liberally endowed
by the said great and good bishop of that name). And in this
time of his being a scholar there, he was observed to use an
unwearied diligence to attain learning, and to have a seriousness
beyond his age 2, and with it a more than common modesty ;
and to be of so calm and obliging behaviour, that the master and
whole number of scholars loved him as one man.

And in this love and amity he continued at that school, till
about the thirteenth year of his age ; at which time his father
designed to improve his grammar learning by removing him from
Eotheram to one of the more noted schools of Eton or West-
minster : and after a year's stay there, then to remove him thence
to Oxford. But, as he went with him, he called on an old friend,
a minister of noted learning, and told him his intentions ; and
he, after many questions with his son, received such answers
from him, that he assured his father, his son was so perfect a
grammarian, that he had laid a good foundation to build any or
all the arts upon; and therefore advised him to shorten his
journey, and leave him at Oxford. And his father did so.

His father left him there to the sole care and manage of Dr.
Kilbie, who was then rector of Lincoln college : and he, after
some time and trial of his manners and learning, thought fit to
enter him of that college, and not long after to matriculate him
in the university, which he did the first of July 1603 : but he
was not chosen fellow till the third of May 1606; at which
time he had taken his degree of batchelor of arts ; at the taking
of which degree, his tutor told the rector, that his pupil Sander-

2 Beyond his age.'] " For myself," (he tells us in the preface to his Ser-
mons, dated 1657,) " I had a desire I may truly say, almost from my very
childhood, to understand as much as was possible for me, the bottom of our
religion ; and particularly as it stood in relation both to the Papist, and (as
they were then styled) Puritans ; to inform myself rightly, wherein consisted
the true differences between them and the church of England, together with
the grounds of those differences: for I could even then observe (which
was no hard matter to do), that the most of mankind took up their religion
upon trust, as custom or education framed them, rather than choice."
P. 76, edit. 1689.

VOL. iv. E e

418 BISHOP SANDERSON.

son had a metaphysical brain, and a matchless memory : and
that he thought he had improved, or made the last so by an art
of his own invention. And all the future employments of his
life proved that his tutor was not mistaken.

I must here stop my reader, and tell him, that this Dr. Kilbie
was a man of so great learning and wisdom, and so excellent a
critic in the Hebrew tongue, that he was made professor of it in
this university ; and was also so perfect a Grecian, that he was
by king James appointed to be one of the translators of the
bible : and that this doctor and Mr. Sanderson had frequent dis-
courses, and loved as father and son. The doctor was to ride a
journey into Derbyshire, and took Mr. Sanderson to bear him
company : and they resting on a Sunday with the doctor's friend,
and going together to that parish church where they then were,
found the young preacher to have no more discretion, than to
waste a great part of the hour allotted for his sermon in excep-
tions against the late translation 3 of several words (not expecting
such a hearer as Dr. Kilbie) and shewed three reasons why a
particular word should have been otherwise translated. When
evening prayer was ended, the preacher was invited to the
doctor's friend's house ; where, after some other conference,
the doctor told him, " He might have preached more useful
doctrine, and not have filled his auditors1 ears with needless
exceptions against the late translation ; and for that word, for
which he offered to that poor congregation three reasons, why it-
ought to have been translated as he said ; he and others had
considered all them, and found thirteen more considerable reasons
why it was translated as now printed:" and told him, "If hi>
friend, then attending him, should prove guilty of such indis-
cretion, he should forfeit his favour." To which Mr. Sanderson
said, " He hoped he should not." And the preacher was so
ingenuous as to say, " He would not justify himself." And so
1 return to Oxford.

In the year 1608 (July the llth,) Mr. Sanderson was com-
pleated master of arts. I am not ignorant, that for the attaining
these dignities the time was shorter than was then. <>r is now
required ; but either his birth, or the well performance of some

1 Late translation."] Meaning the authorized version then just made, and
of which Dr. Kilbie was one of the authors. He was one of the seven ( )\fnr<l
divines appointed to translate the four greater prophets, with the Lamenta-
tions and the twelve lesser prophets.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 419

extraordinary exercise, or some other merit, made him so : and
the reader is requested to believe that it was the last ; and
requested to believe also, that if I be mistaken in the time, the
college records have mis-informed me : but I hope they have
not.

In that year of 1608, he was (November the 7th,) by his college
chosen reader of logic in the house ; which he performed so well,
that he was chosen again the sixth of November 1609. In the
year 1613, he was chosen sub-rector of the college, and the like
for the year 1614; and chosen again to the same dignity and
trust for the year 1616.

In all which time and employments, his abilities and behaviour
were such, as procured him both love and reverence from the
whole society ; there being no exception against him for any
faults, but a sorrow for the infirmities of his being too timorous
and bashful, both which were, God knows, so connatural, as
they never left him. And I know not whether his lovers ought
to wish they had ; for they proved so like the radical moisture in
man's body, that they preserved the life of virtue in his soul,
which by God's assisting grace never left him, till this life put on
immortality. Of which happy infirmities (if they may be so
called) more hereafter.

In the year 1614, he stood to be elected one of the proctors
for the university. And it was not to satisfy any ambition of his
own, but to comply with the desire of the rector, and whole society
of which he was a member, who had not had a proctor chosen
out of their college for the space of sixty years (namely not from
the year 1554, unto his standing) ; and they persuaded him, that
if he would but stand for proctor, his merits were so generally
known, and he so well beloved, that it was but appearing, and
he would infallibly carry it against any opposers : and told him,
" That he would by that means recover a right or reputation
that was seemingly dead to his college." By these and other
like persuasions he yielded up his own reason to theirs, and
appeared to stand for proctor. But that election was carried on
by so sudden and secret and by so powerful a faction, that he
mist it. Which when he understood, he professed seriously to
his friends, " That if he were troubled at the disappointment, it
was for their, and not for his own sake : for he was far from any
desire of such an employment, as must be managed with charge

E e 2

420 BISHOP SANDERSON.

and trouble, and was too usually rewarded with hard censures, or
hatred, or both."

In the year following he was earnestly persuaded by Dr. Kilbie
and others, to renew the logic lectures which he had read for
some years past in his college ; and that done, to methodize and
print them, for the ease and public good of posterity.

And though he had an averseness to appear publicly in print,
yet after many serious solicitations and some second thoughts of
his own, he laid aside his modesty, and promised he would ; and
he did so in that year 1615. And the book proved, as his
friends seemed to prophecy, that is, of great and general use,
whether we respect the art or the author. For logic may be
said to be an art of right reasoning ; an art that undeceives men,
who take falsehood for truth ; and enables men to pass a true
judgment and detect those fallacies which in some men^s under-
standings usurp the place of right reason. And how great a
master our author was in this art, may easily appear from that
clearness of method, argument, and demonstration, which is so
conspicuous in all his other writings. And that he who hail
attained to so great a dexterity in the use of reason himself, was
best qualified to prescribe rules and directions for the instruction
of others. And I am the more satisfied of the excellency and
usefulness of this his first public undertaking, by hearing, that
most tutors in both universities teach Dr. Sanderson's logic to
their pupils, as a foundation upon which they are to build their
future studies in philosophy. And for a further confirmation of my
belief the reader may note, that since this his book of logic \\a<
first printed, there has not been less than ten thousand sold :
and that it is like to continue both to discover truth and to clear
and confirm the reason of the unborn world.

It will easily be believed that his former standing for a
proctors place, and being disappointed, must prove much dis-
pleasing to a man of his great wisdom and modesty, and create
in him an averseness to run a second hazard of his credit and
content; and yet, he was assured by Dr. Kill>ie, and the fellmvs
of his own college, and most of those that had opposed him in
the former election, that his book of logic had purchased for him
such a belief of his learning and prudence, and his behaviour at
the former election had got for him so great and
love, that all his former opposers ivjM-ntrd \\hat tin \ had done;

BISHOP SANDERSON. 421

and therefore persuaded him to venture to stand a second time.
And upon these and other like encouragements, he did again
(but not without an inward unwillingness,) yield up his own
reason to theirs, and promised to stand. And he did so ; and
was the tenth of April, 1616, chosen senior proctor for the year
following, Mr. Charles Crook of Christ-Church being then chosen
the junior.

In this year of his being proctor there happened many memo-
rable accidents, part of which I will relate. Namely, Dr. Robert
Abbot, master of Baliol college, and regius professor of divinity
(who being elected or consecrated bishop of Sarum some months
before) was solemnly conducted out of Oxford towards his dio-
cese, by the heads of all houses, and the other chiefs of all the
university. And it may be noted that Dr. Prideaux succeeded
him in the professorship, in which he continued till the year 1 642,
(being then elected bishop of Worcester) at which time our now
proctor Mr. Sanderson, succeeded him in the regius professor-
ship.

And in this year Dr. Arthur Lake (then warden of New Col-
lege) was advanced to the bishopric of Bath and Wells : a man
of whom I take myself bound in justice to say, that he made the
great trust committed to him, the chief care and whole business
of his life. And one testimony of this truth may be, that he sate
usually with his chancellor in his consistory, and at least advised, if
not assisted in most sentences for the punishing of such offenders
as deserved church censures. And it may be noted, that after a
sentence for penance was pronounced, he did very rarely or never,
allow of any commutation for the offence, but did usually see the
sentence for penance executed ; and then, as usually preached a
sermon of mortification and repentance, and did so apply them to
the offenders, that then stood before him, as begot in them, then,
a devout contrition, and at least resolutions to amend their lives ;
and having done that, he would take them (though never so poor)
to dinner with him, and use them friendly, and dismiss them with
his blessing, and persuasions to a virtuous life, and beg them for
their own sakes to believe him. And his humility, and charity, and
all other Christian excellencies were all like this. Of all which
the reader may inform himself in his life, truly writ and printed
before his exceUent sermons.

And in this year also, the very prudent and very wise lord
Elsmere, who was so very long lord chancellor of England, and

422 BISHOP SANDERSON.

then of Oxford, resigning up the last, the right honourable, and
magnificent, William Herbert earl of Pembroke, was chosen to
succeed him.

And in this year, our late king Charles the first (then prince of
Wales) came honourably attended to Oxford ; and having deli-
berately visited the university, the schools, colleges, and libraries,
he and his attendants were entertained with ceremonies and feast-
ing suitable to their dignity and merits.

And in this year king James sent letters * to the university for
the regulating their studies : especially of the young divines ;
advising they should not rely on modern sums and systems, but
study the fathers and councils, and the more primitive learning.
And this advice was occasioned by the indiscreet inferences made
by very many preachers out of Mr. Calvin's doctrine concerning
predestination, universal redemption, the irresistibility of God's
grace, and of some other knotty points depending upon these ;
points which many think were not, but by interpreters were forced
to be Mr. Calvin's meaning ; of the truth or falsehood of which T
pretend not to have an ability to judge ; my meaning in this rela-
tion being only to acquaint the reader with the occasion of the
king's letter.

It may be observed, that the various accidents of this year did
afford our proctor large and laudable matter to dilate and discourse
upon ; and, that though his office seemed, according to statute and
custom, to require him to do so at his leaving it ; yet he chose
rather to pass them over with some very short observations, and
present the governors, and his other hearers, with rules to keep
up discipline and order in the university ; which at that time was
either by defective statutes, or want of the due execution of those
that were good, grown to be extremely irregular. And in this
year also, the magisterial part of the proctor required more dili-
gence, and was more difficult to be managed than formerly, by
reason of a multiplicity of new statutes, which begot much con-
fusion ; some of which statutes were then and not till then, and
others suddenly after, put into an useful execution. And though
these statutes were not then made so perfectly useful, as they
were designed, till archbishop Laud's time (who assisted in the
forming and promoting them) yet, our present proctor madetlu-in
as effectual as discretion and diligence could do. Of \\liicli one

4 Sent letters.'] See above, the Life of Donne, vol. iii. i>p. 661-2; and Life
r>f Hammond, p. 334, note.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 423

example may seem worthy the noting, namely, that if in his night-
walk he met with irregular scholars absent from their colleges at
university hours, or disordered by drink, or in scandalous com-
pany, he did not use his power of punishing to an extremity ; but
did usually take their names, and a promise to appear before him
unsent for next morning : and when they did, convinced them
with such obligingness, and reason added to it, that they parted
from him with such resolutions as the man after God's own heart
was possessed with, when he said to God, There is mercy with
thee, and therefore thou shalt be feared. (Psal. cxxx.) And by
this, and a like behaviour to all men, he was so happy as to lay
down this dangerous employment, as but very few, if any have
done, even without an enemy.

After his proctor's speech was ended, and he retired with a
friend into a convenient privacy ; he looked upon his friend with
a more than common cheerfulness, and spake to him to this pur-
pose. " I look back upon my late employment with some content
to myself, and a great thankfulness to Almighty God, that he
hath made me of a temper not apt to provoke the meanest of
mankind, but rather to pass by infirmities, if noted ; and in this
employment I have had (God knows) many occasions to do both.
And when I consider how many of a contrary temper, are by
sudden and small occasions transported, and hurried by anger to
commit such errors, as they in that passion could not foresee,
and will in their more calm and deliberate thoughts upbraid, and
require repentance ; and consider, that though repentance secures
us from the punishment of any sin, yet how much more comfort-
able it is to be innocent, than need pardon ; and consider, that
errors against men, though pardoned both by God and them, do
yet leave such anxious and upbraiding impressions in the memory,
as abate of the offender's content : when I consider all this, and
that God hath of his goodness given me a temper, that he hath
prevented me from running into such enormities, I remember my
temper with joy and thankfulness. And though I cannot say
with David (I wish I could) that therefore Ms praise shall always
be in my mouth (Psalm cxxx.) ; yet I hope, that by his grace, and
that grace seconded by my endeavours, it shall never be blotted
out of my memory ; and I now beseech Almighty God that it
never may."

And here I must look back> and mention one passage more in
his proctorship, which is; that Gilbert Sheldon, the late lord

424 BISHOP SANDERSON.

archbishop of Canterbury, was this year sent to Trinity college in
that university ; and not long after his entrance there, a letter
was sent after him from his god-father (the father of our proctor)
to let his son know it, and commend his god-son to his acquaint-
ance, and to a more than common care of his behaviour ; which
proved a pleasing injunction to our proctor, who was so gladly
obedient to his father's desire, that he some few days after sent
his servitor to intreat Mr. Sheldon to his chamber next morning.
But it seems Mr. Sheldon having (like a young man as he was)
run into some such irregularity as made him conscious he had
transgressed his statutes, did therefore apprehend the proctor's in-
vitation as an introduction to punishment ; the fear of which made
his bed restless that night ; but at their meeting the next morn-
ing, that fear vanished immediately by the proctor's chearful coun-
tenance, and the freedom of their discourse of friends. And let
me tell my reader, that this first meeting proved the beginning of
as spiritual a friendship as human nature is capable of: of a
friendship free from all self-ends : and it continued to be so, till
death forced a separation of it on earth ; but it is now reunited in
heaven.

And now, having given this account of his behaviour, and the
considerable accidents in his proctorship, I proceed to tell my
reader, that this busy employment being ended, he preached his
sermon for his degree of bachelor in divinity, in an elegant Latin,
and as remarkable for the method and matter, as hath been
preached in that university since that day. And having well per-
formed his other exercises for that degree, he took it the nine and
twentieth of May following, having been ordained deacon and
priest in the year 1611, by John King, then Bishop of London,
who had not long before been dean of Christ-church, and then
knew him so well, that he owned it at his ordination, and became
his most affectionate friend. And in this year, being about the
29th of his age, he took from the university a license to preach.

In the year 1618, he was by sir Nicholas Sanderson, lord vis-
count Castleton, presented to the rectory of Wibberton, not far
from Boston in the county of Lincoln, a living of very good value ;
but it lay in so low and wet a part of that country, as was incon-
sistent with his health. And health being (next to a good con-
science) the greatest of God's blessings in this life, and requiring
therefore of every man a care and diligence to preserve it ; and
he, apprehending a danger of losing it, if he continued at Wib-

BISHOP SANDERSON. 425

berton a second winter, did therefore resign it back into the hands
of his worthy kinsman and patron, about one year after his dona-
tion of it to him.

And about this time of his resignation he was presented to the
rectory of Boothby Pannel in the same county of Lincoln ; a
town which has been made famous, and must continue to be
famous, because Dr. Sanderson, the humble and learned Dr.
Sanderson, was more than forty years parson of Boothby Pannel,
and from thence dated all or most of his matchless writings.

To this living (which was of less value, but a purer air than
Wibberton) he was presented by Thomas Harrington of the same
county and parish, esq. ; a gentleman of a very ancient family,
and of great use and esteem in his country during his whole life.
And in this Boothby Pannel the meek and charitable Dr. Sander-
son and his patron lived with an endearing, mutual, and comfort-
able friendship, till the death of the last put a period to it.

About the time that he was made parson of Boothby Pannel,
he resigned his fellowship of Lincoln college unto the then rector
and fellows ; and his resignation is recorded in these words.

" Ego Robertus Sanderson per, &c.

" I Robert Sanderson, fellow of the college of St. Mary's and
All-Saints, commonly called Lincoln college, in the university of
Oxford, do freely and willingly resign into the hands of the rector
and fellows, all the right and title that I have in the said college,
wishing to them and their successors, all peace, and piety, and
happiness, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost. Amen.

" ROBERT SANDERSON."

"May 6, 1619."

And not long after this resignation, he was by the then bishop
of York, (or the king, sede vacante) made prebend of the colle-
giate church of Southwell 5 in that diocese ; and shortly after of
Lincoln by the bishop of that see.

And being now resolved to set down his rest in a quiet privacy
at Boothby Pannel, and looking back with some sadness upon his
removal from his general and cheerful acquaintance left in Oxford,
and the peculiar pleasures of a university life, he could not but

5 Southwell.'] See Life ofWolsey, vol. i. p. 625, note.

426 BISHOP SANDERSON.

think the want of society would render this of a country parson
still more uncomfortable, by reason of that want of conversation ;
and therefore he did put on some faint purposes to marry. For
he had considered that though marriage be cumbered with more
worldly care than a single life ; yet a complying and prudent wife
changes those very cares into so mutual joys, as makes them
become like the sufferings of St. Paul, which he would not have
wanted, (Colos. i. 24,) because they occasioned Ms rejoicing in
tlwm. And he having well considered this, and observed the
secret unutterable joys that children beget in parents, and the
mutual pleasures and contented trouble of their daily care and
constant endeavours to bring up those little images of themselves,
so as to make them as happy as all those cares and endeavours can
make them : he, having considered all this, the hopes of such
happiness turned his faint purpose into a positive resolution to
marry. And he was so happy as to obtain Anne, the daughter
of Henry Nelson, bachelor in divinity, then rector of Haugham
in the county of Lincoln (a man of noted worth and learning).
And the Giver of all good things was so good to him, as to give
him such a wife as was suitable to his own desires : a wife, that
made his life happy by being always content when he was cheerful ;
that was always cheerful when he was content ; that divided her
joys with him, and abated of his sorrow, by bearing a part
of that burthen ; a wife, that demonstrated her affection by a
cheerful obedience to all his desires, during the whole course of
his life ; and at his death too ; for she out-lived him.

And in this Boothby Pannel he either found or made his
parishioners peaceable, and complying with him in the constant,
decent, and regular service of God. And thus his parish, his
patron and he lived together in a religious love, and a contented
quietness : he not troubling their thoughts by preaching high and
useless notions, but such, and only such plain truths as were
necessary to be known, believed, and practised in order to the
honour of God and their own salvation. And their assent to
what he taught was testified by such a conformity to his doctrine,
as declared they believed and loved him. For it may be noted
he would often say. "That without the last, the most e\ident
truths (heard as from an enemy, or an evil liver) either are not.
(or are at least the less) effectual ; and usually rather hai •«
than corn-hire the hearer."

And this excellent man did not think \\\> duty discharged by

BISHOP SANDERSON. 427

only reading the Church-prayers, catechizing, preaching, and
administring the sacraments seasonably ; but thought (if the law,
or the canons may seem to injoin no more, yet) that God would
require more than the defective laws of man's making, can or do
enjoin ; even the performance of that inward law, which Almighty
God hath imprinted in the conscience of all good Christians, and
inclines those whom he loves to perform. He considering this,
did therefore become a law to himself, practising not only what
the law enjoins, but what his conscience told him was his duty,
in reconciling differences, and preventing law-suits, both in his
parish and in the neighbourhood. To which may be added his
often visiting sick and disconsolate families, persuading them to
patience, and raising them from dejection by his advice and
cheerful discourse, and by adding his own alms, if there were
any so poor as to need it ; considering how acceptable it is to
Almighty God, when we do as we are advised by St. Paul,
(Gal. vi. 2,) help to bear one another's burthen, either of sorrow or
want : and what a comfort it will be, when the Searcher of all
hearts shall call us to a strict account as well for that evil we have
done, as the good we have omitted, to remember we have com-
forted and been helpful to a dejected or distressed family.

And that his practice was to do good the following narrative
may be one example. He met with a poor dejected neighbour
that complained he had taken a meadow, the rent of which was
91. a year ; and when the hay was made ready to be carried into
his barn, several days constant rain had so raised the water, that
a sudden flood carried all away, and his rich landlord would abate
him no rent ; and that unless he had half abated, he and seven
children were utterly undone. It may be noted, that in this age
there are a sort of people so unlike the God of mercy, so void of
the bowels of pity, that they love only themselves and children ;
love them so, as not to be concerned, whether the rest of man-
kind waste their days in sorrow or shame ; people that are curst
with riches, and a mistake that nothing but riches can make
them and theirs happy. But it was not so with Dr. Sanderson ;
for he was concerned, and spoke comfortably to the poor dejected
man ; bade him go home and pray ; and not load himself with
sorrow, for he would go to his landlord next morning, and if his
landlord would not abate what he desired, he and a friend would
pay it for him.

428 BISHOP SANDERSON.

To the landlord he went next day ; and in a conference the
doctor presented to him the sad condition of his poor dejected
tenant ; telling him how much God is pleased when men compas-
sionate the poor : and told him, that though God loves sacrifice,
yet he loves mercy so much better, that he is best pleased when
he is called the God of mercy : and told him the riches he was
possessed of were given him by that God of mercy, who would
not be pleased, if he that had so much given, yea, and forgiven
him too, should prove like the rich steward in the Gospel, that
took his fellow servant by the throat to make him pay the utmost
farthing. This he told him. And told him, that the law of this
nation (by which law he claims his rent) does not undertake to
make men honest or merciful (that was too nice an undertaking) ;
but does what it can to restrain men from being dishonest or
unmerciful; and yet that our law was defective in both: and
that taking any rent from his poor tenant, for what God suffered
him not to enjoy, though the law allowed him to do so, yet if he
did so, he was too like that rich steward which he had mentioned
to him ; and told him, that riches so gotten, and added to his
great estate, would, as Job says, prove like gravel in his teeth ;
would in time so corrode his conscience, or become so nauseous
when he lay upon his death-bed, that he would then labour to
vomit it up, and not be able ; and therefore advised him (being
very rich,) to make friends of his unrighteous mammon, before that
evil day come upon him : but however, neither for his own sake,
nor for God's sake, to take any rent of his poor dejected sad
tenant, for that were to gain a temporal, and lose his eternal
happiness. These and other such reasons were urged with so
grave and so compassionate an earnestness, that the landlord
forgave his tenant the whole rent.

The reader will easily believe that Dr. Sanderson, who \vas
himself so meek and merciful, did suddenly and gladly carry this
comfortable news to the dejected tenant ; and will believe also,
that at the telling of it there was a mutual rejoicing. It was
one of Job's boasts, that he had seen none perish for want of
cloathing : and that he had often made the Iwart of the widow to
rejoice. (Job xxxi.) And doubtless Dr. Sanderson might have
made the same religious boast of this, and very many like occa-
sions: but since he did not, I rejoice that I have this just
occasion to do it for him; and that I can tell the reader.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 429

I might tire myself and him in telling how like the whole
course of Dr. Sanderson's life was to this which I have now
related.

Thus he went on in an obscure and quiet privacy, doing
good daily both by word and by deed, as often as any occasion
offered itself; yet not so obscurely, but that his very great
learning, prudence and piety were much noted and valued by the
bishop of his diocese, and by most of the nobility and gentry of
that country. By the first of which he was often summoned to
preach many visitation sermons, and by the latter at many assizes.
Which sermons, though they were much esteemed by them that
procured and were fit to judge them ; yet they were the less
valued, because he read them, which he was forced to do ; for
though he had an extraordinary memory (even the art of it) yet
he was punished with such an innate, invincible fear and bashful-
ness, that his memory was wholly useless, as to the repetition of
his sermons, so as he had writ them ; which gave occasion to say,
when some of them were first printed and exposed to censure,
(which was in the year 1632) " That the best sermons that were
ever read, were never preached."

In this contented obscurity he continued, till the learned and
pious archbishop Laud, who knew him well in Oxford (for he
was his contemporary there) told the king (it was the knowing
and conscientious king Charles the I.) that there was one Mr.
Sanderson, an obscure country minister, that was of such sin-
cerity, and so excellent in all casuistical learning, that he desired
his majesty would take so much notice of him as to make him
his chaplain. The king granted it most willingly, and gave the
bishop charge to hasten it, for he longed to discourse with a man
that had dedicated his studies to that useful part of learning.
The bishop forgot not the king's desire, and Mr. Sanderson was
made his chaplain in ordinary in November following (1631).
And when the king and he became better known to each other,
then, as it is said, that after many hard questions put to the
prophet Daniel, king Darius found (Dan. vi.) an excellent spirit in
him ; so it was with Mr. Sanderson and our excellent king ; who
having put many cases of conscience to him, received from Mr.
Sanderson such deliberate, safe, and clear solutions, as gave him
so great content, in conversing with him, (which he did several
times in private,) that at the end of his month's attendance the
king told him ; " He should long for the next November ; for he

430 BISHOP SANDERSON.

resolved to have a more inward acquaintance with him, when
that month and he returned." And when the month and he did
return, the good king was never absent from his sermons, and
would usually say, " I carry my ears to hear other preachers, but
I carry my conscience to hear Mr. Sanderson, and to act accord-
ingly." And this ought not to be concealed from posterity, that
the king thought what he spake : for he took him to be his ad-
viser in that quiet part of his life ; and he proved to be his com-
forter in those days of his affliction, when he was under such a
restraint as he apprehended himself to be in danger of death or
deposing. Of which more hereafter.

In the first parliament of this good king (which was 1625) he
was chosen to be a clerk of the convocation for the diocese of
Lincoln, which I here mention, because about that time did arise
many disputes about predestination, and the many critical points
that depend upon, or are interwoven in it ; occasioned, as
said, by a disquisition of new principles of Mr. Calvin's (though
others say they were long before his time). But of these Dr.
Sanderson then drew up for his own satisfaction " such a scheme

6 His own satisfaction.'] We possess from the bishop's own pen, in a
letter to the rev. Dr. Pierce, a narrative of the change which took place
in his sentiments at this period ; and of the commencement and foundation
of his theological studies about eighteen years before, too important to be
omitted here.

" When I began to set myself to the study of divinity as my proper busi-
ness, which was after I had the degree of Master of Arts, being then nearly
twenty one years of age, the first thing I thought fit for me to do, was to
consider well of the articles of the church of England, which I had formerly
read over, twice or thrice, and whereunto I had subscribed. And because I
had then met with some puritanical pamphlets written against the liturgy and
ceremonies, although most of the arguments therein were such as needed no
great skill to give satisfactory answers unto, yet for my fuller satisfaction (the
question being de rebus agendis, and so the more suitable to my proper incli-
nation) I read over, with great diligence and no less delight, that excellent
piece of learned Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. And I have great cause to
bless God for it, that so I did, not only for that it much both cleared and
settled my judgment for ever after in many very weighty points (as of
Scandal, Christian Liberty, Obligation of Laws, Obedience, &c.) but that it
also proved (by his good providence) a good preparative to me (that I say
not antidote) for the reading of Calvin's Institutions with more caution, than
perhaps otherwise I should have done. For that book was commended to
me, as it was generally to all young scholars in those times, as the best and
perfectest system of divinity, and fittest to be laid as a ground-work in the
study of that profession. And indeed, being so prepared as is said, my

BISHOP SANDERSON. 431

(he called it Pax Ecclesice) as then gave himself, and hath since
given others such satisfaction, that it still remains to be of great

expectation was not at all deceived in the reading of those institutions. I
found, so far as I was then able to judge, the method exact, the expressions
clear, the stile grave and unaffected ; his doctrine for the most part conform
to St. Augustin's ; in a word, the whole work very elaborate, and useful to
the churches of God in a good measure ; and might have been, I verily
believe, much more useful, if the honour of his name had not given so much
reputation to his very errors. I must acknowledge myself to have reaped
great benefit by the reading thereof. But as for the questions of Election,
Reprobation, Effectual Grace, Perseverance, &c. I took as little notice of
the two first, as of any other thing contained in the book ; both because I
was always afraid to pry much into those secrets, and because I could not
certainly inform myself from his own writings, whether he were a Supra-
lapsarian, as most speak him, and he seemeth often to incline much that
way, or a Sub-lapsarian, as sundry passages in the book seem to import.
But giving myself mostly still to the study of moral divinity, and taking
most other things upon trust, as they were in a manner generally taught,
both in the schools and pulpits in both universities, I did for many years
together acquiesce, without troubling myself any further about them, in the
more commonly received opinions concerning both these two, and the other
points depending thereupon : yet in the Sub-lapsarian way ever, which
seemed to me of the two the more moderate, rational and agreeable to the
goodness and justice of God : for the rigid Supra-lapsarian doctrine could
never find any entertainment in my thoughts, from first to last.

" But in 1625 a parliament being called, wherein I was chosen one of the
clerks of the convocation for the diocese of Lincoln, during the continuance
of that parliament, which was about four months, as I remember, there was
some expectation that those Arminian points, the only questions almost in
agitation at that time, should have been debated by the clergy in the con-
vocation. Which occasioned me, as it did sundry others, being then at some
leisure, to endeavour by study and conference to inform myself, as tho-
roughly and exactly in the state of those controversies, as I could have
opportunity, and my wit could serve me for it. In order whereunto, I made it
my first business to take a survey of the several different opinions concerning
the ordering of God's decrees, as to the salvation or damnation of men : not
as they are supposed to be really in mente divind, (for all his decrees are
eternal, and therefore coeternal, and therefore no priority or posteriority
among them,) but quoad nostrum intelligendi modum, because we cannot
conceive or speak of the things of God, but in a way suitable to our own
finite condition and understanding; even as God himself hath been pleased
to reveal himself to us in the Holy Scriptures by the like suitable conde-
scensions and accommodations. Which opinions, the better to represent
their differences to the eye uno quasi intuitu, for their more easy conveying to
the understanding by that means, and the avoiding of confusion and tedious
discoursings, I reduced into five schemes or tables, much after the manner
as I had used to draw pedigrees, (a thing which I think you know I have

432 BISHOP SANDERSON.

estimation. He was also chosen clerk of all the convocations
during that good king's reign. Which I here tell my reader,
because I shall hereafter have occasion to mention that convoca-
tion in 1640, that unhappy long parliament and some debates of
the predestinarian points, as they have been since charitably
handled betwixt him, the learned Dr. Hammond, and Dr. Pierce,
the now reverend dean of Salisbury. And here the reader may
note, that in letters writ to the said dean, Dr. Sanderson seems
to have altered his judgment in some points, since he writ his
scheme called Pax Ecclesice ; which he seems to say also in his
last will, besides other reasons to think so.

In the year 1636, his majesty then in his progress took a fair
occasion to visit Oxford, and to take an entertainment for two
days for himself and his honourable attendants, which the reader
ought to believe was suitable to their dignities : but, this is men-
tioned, because at the king's coming thither, May 3, Sanderson
did then attend him ; and was then (the 31 of August) created
doctor of divinity ; which honour had an addition to it, by having

very much fancied, as to me of all others the most delightful recreation) ; of
which scheme, some special friends to whom I shewed them, desired copies :
who, as it seemeth, valuing them more than I did, (for divers men have
copies of them, as I hear, but I do not know that I have any such myself)
communicated them farther, and so they are come into many hands. These
are they which doctor Reynolds, in his Epistle prefixed to master Barlee's
Correptory Correction, had taken notice of. Having all these schemes before
my eyes at once, so as I might with ease compare them one with another,
and having considered of the conveniences and inconveniences of each, as
well as I could, I soon discerned a necessity of quitting the Sub-lapsarian
way, of which I had a better liking before, as well as the Supra-lapsarian,
which I could never fancy." Dr. Hammond's Pacific Discourse of God's
Grace and Decrees, A.D. 1660. Hammond's Works, vol. i. p. 669. It may
be worth observing that this collection of schemes or tables must not be con-
founded with the tract published by Isaac Walton under the title Pax
Ecclesia, which Walton attributes to the year 1625. In that tract it is plain,
that he still retains the Sub-lupsarian opinion : and there are other reasons to
prove that the tracts are not the same. In truth, the Pax Ecclesite can hardly
be considered as the work of Dr. Sanderson at all. For Dr. Hammond thus
speaks of it in his Preface to the Pacific Discourse above cited. " It sei-nu ••!
not improper at this time, to offer to public view the present sentiments of
the judicious Dr. Sanderson, the regius professor of the university of ( ).\-
ford, and the rather, because some manuscript tables of his former thoughts,
and some passages from his sermons, long since preached, and now repub-
lished, have been made use of to gain authority to those doctrines which he
is now far from owning."

BISHOP SANDERSON. 433

many of the nobility of this nation then made doctors and mas-
ters of arts with him : some of whose names shall be recorded
and live with his (and none shall out-live it). First Dr. Curie
and Dr. Wren, who were then bishops of Winton and of Nor-
wich (and had formerly taken their degrees in Cambridge) were
with him created doctors of divinity in his university. So was
Meric the son of the learned Isaac Casaubon : and prince Ru-
pert (who still lives) ; the then duke of Lenox ; earl of Hertford ;
earl of Essex ; of Berkshire ; and very many others of noble birth
(too many to be named) were then created masters of arts.

Some years before this unhappy long parliament, this nation
being then happy and in peace, (though inwardly sick of being
well,) namely in the year 1639, a discontented party of the Scotch
church were zealously restless for another reformation of their
kirk government ; and to that end created a new Covenant, for
the general taking of which they pretended to petition the king
for his assent, and that he would enjoin the taking of it by all of
that nation : but this petition was not to be presented to him by
a committee of eight or ten men of their fraternity, but by so
many thousands, and they so armed, as seemed to force an assent
to what they seemed but to request ; so that though forbidden by
the king, yet they entered England, and in their heat of zeal took
and plundered New-Castle, where the king was forced to meet
them with an army ; but upon a treaty and some concessions, he
sent them back (though not so rich as they intended, yet) for
that time without any blood-shed. — But oh ! this peace and this
covenant were but the fore-runners of war, and the many mise-
ries that followed. For in the year following there were so many
chosen into the long parliament, that were of a conjunct council
with these very zealous, and as factious reformers, as begot such
a confusion by the several desires and designs in many of the
members of that parliament (all did never consent) and at last in
the very common people of this nation, that they were so lost by
contrary designs, fears, and confusions, as to believe the Scots
and their covenant would restore them to that former tranquillity
which they had lost. And to that end, the presbyterian party of
this nation did again, in the year 1643, invite the Scotch cove-
nanters back into England : and hither they came marching with
it gloriously upon their pikes, and in their hats with this motto,
For the Crown and Covenant of both Kingdoms. This I saw and
suffered by it. But when I look back upon the ruin of families,
VOL. iv. F f

434 BISHOP SANDERSON.

the blood-shed, the decay of common honesty, and how the
former piety and plain dealing of this now sinful nation is turned
into cruelty and cunning ! when I consider this, I praise God
that he prevented me from being of that party which helped to
bring in this covenant, and those sad confusions that have fol-
lowed it. And I have been the bolder to say this of myself, be-
cause in a sad discourse with Dr. Sanderson, I heard him make
the like grateful acknowledgment.

This digression is intended for the better information of the
reader in what will follow concerning Dr. Sanderson. And first,
that the covenanters of this nation, and their party in parliament,
made many exceptions against the common prayer and ceremonies
of the church, and seemed restless for another reformation. And
though their desires seemed not reasonable to the king and the
learned Dr. Laud, then archbishop of Canterbury, and many
others ; yet to quiet their consciences, and prevent future confu-
sion, they did in the year 1641, desire Dr. Sanderson to call t\\<>
more of the convocation to advise with him, and that he would
then draw up some such safe alterations as he thought fit in the
service-book, and abate some of the ceremonies that were least
material, for satisfying their consciences ; and to this end7 he and

7 And to this endJ] I do not know that there is any particular account
remaining of what was consulted and prepared on this interesting occasion.
I incline to think however, that there is a reference to the undertaking in a
sermon of Sanderson's Ad Clerum, preached at Grantham, Oct. 8, 1641, on
Matt. xv. 9. § 30.

"The last use should be an humble supplication to those that have in
their hands the ordering of the great affairs of church and state, that tlu\v
would, in their goodness and wisdom, make some speedy and effectual pro-
vision, to repress the exorbitant licentiousness of these times in printing and
preaching every man what he lists, to the great dishonour of God, scandal of
the reformed religion, fomenting of superstition and error, and disturbance
of the peace, both of church and commonwealth ; lest, if way be still given
thereunto, those evil spirits that this late connivance hath raised, grow so
fierce within a while, that it will trouble all the power and wisdom of the
kingdom, to conjure them handsomely down again. But certainly, since we
find by late experience, what wildness in some of the lay people, what petu-
lancy in some of the inferior clergy, what insolency in some both of the
laity and clergy, our land is grown unto, since the reins of the ecclesiastical
government have lain a little slack : — we cannot but see, what need we have
to desire and pray, that the ecclesiastical government and power may be
timely settled in some such moderate and effectual way ; as that it may not be
either too much abased by them that are to exercise it, or too much desj
by those that must live under it. In the mean time, so long as things hang

BISHOP SANDERSON. 435

two others did meet together privately twice a week at the dean
of Westminster's house, for the space of five months or more.
But not long after that time, when Dr. Sanderson had made the
reformation ready for a view, the church and state were both
fallen into such a confusion, that Dr. Sanderson's model for
reformation became then useless. Nevertheless the repute of his
moderation and wisdom was such, that he was in the year 1642,
proposed by both houses of parliament to the king then in Oxford,
to be one of their trustees for the settling of church affairs, and
was allowed of by the king to be so ; but that treaty came to
nothing.

In the year 1 643, the two houses of parliament took upon them
to make an ordinance, and call an Assembly of Divines, to debate
and settle church controversies, of which many that were elected
were very unfit to judge : in which Dr. Sanderson was also named
by the parliament, but did not appear ; I suppose for the same
reason that many other worthy and learned men did forbear, the
summons wanting the king's authority.

And here I must look back and tell the reader, that in the
year 1642, he was (July 21) named by a more undoubted autho-
rity to a more noble employment, which was to be professor regius
of divinity in Oxford ; but though knowledge be said to puff up,
yet his modesty and too mean an opinion of his great abilities,
and some other real or pretended reasons (expressed in his speech 8,

thus loose and unsettled, I know not better how to represent unto you the
present face of the times in some respects, than in the words of the prophet
Jeremy, The prophets prophesy lies, and the priests get power into their hands
by their means, and my people love to have it so : And what will ye do in the
end thereof? (Jer. v. 31)." p. 96, edit. 1686.

8 Expressed in his speech.^ There is so much of nature, and other interest-
ing, beautiful and excellent qualities in the account which he gives here, in
his inaugural oration, that though the extract is long, I cannot refuse myself
the satisfaction of producing it. The quotation begins with the opening of
the oration :

" Postquam mihi, integro jam quadriennio et quod excurrit, quicquid est
hoc professorii sive muneris delegatum, sive oneris impositum esse sensi ;
dici vix potest, auditores, quam horruerim totus, quam variae adversantesque
sibi cogitationes mox animum alternatim incesserint meum. Obversabantur
imprimis ante oculos quamplurima, quse virum longe viribus prsestabiliorem
audentioremque quam ego me aut esse puto, aut haberi velim, a suscipiendo
tarn arduo munere prorsus absterrerent. Provincia cum omni tempore
difficilis, turn illis, nisi pejora insecuta essent, pessimis temporibus, post tot
enatas novas, veteres renatas hsereses, multo difficilior : vires, cum vel maxime

rf 2

436 BISHOP SANDERSON.

when he first appeared in the chair, and since printed) kept him
from entering into it till October 1646.

vigerent, admodum exiguae, et tune accrescentibus annis fractae plurimum
imminutaeque ; meraoria fragilis et infula ; impediti oris, in hac etiam balbes-
cente senectute, infantia; vel ipsius Latin! sermonis post quinque turn su-
perque lustromm absentiam insolentia : perorandi, praelegendi, disputandi,
determinandi, caeteraque quae hujusce sunt muneris praestandi (quae fortassis
ab his exigi fas est, qui assidui sunt in hac palaestra) faciiltas si qua olim inerat,
quum in his studiis aliquantulum versaremur, et quantilla turn ilia ! exoleta
jam prorsus et plane nulla. Denique ut minutiora ilia praeteream, longinquae
migrationis cum famulatu et supellectile qua libraria qua domestica, taedium,
reliquaque ab re familiar! incommoda : vel is unus, quern et fateri pudet, pudor
plusquam subrusticus, et (quam facile patior amicos amoris quodam errore
modestiam interpretari) invirilis quaedam verecundia. Insuperabilis ilia qui-
dem, ut quam natura insevit, firmavit educatio, fovit hactenus, atque etiam-
num fovet, tenuitatis propriae conscientia ; sed qua tamen vix aliud comperi
quidquam a prima pueritia ad hunc usque diem aut rationibus meis aut
existimationi magis adversarium. Retundit haec assidue generosiores quos-
que animi impetus ; eximium quid ausuri conatus frangit : memoriam pessime
labefactat, sermonis vim aut praeripit aut sistit ; ut, quod mihi visus sum
quandoque mente concepisse haucl prorsus incommode aut abs re, hoc aut non
ausim proloqui statua taciturnior ; aut si tentem, sic timide, sic gelide, sic
id faciam haesitans, ut aliquando praestaret non tentasse ; dicam verbo, et
quod res est; una haec timiditas et (si dabitis vocabulo veniam) haec infiducia
mei, ut de munere hoc detrectando serio cogitarim, atque etiam aliud earn in
rem tentarim, plus efficit quam caetera ilia, quantumvis gravia, quae hactenus
commemini universa.

" Occurrebant, dum isthaec cogito, ex adverse pauca quaedam, nee asper-
nanda, quae labantem animum nonnihil erigerent, cunctantemque subinde
velut subjectis stimulis in hanc arenam propellerent. Optimi Regis judicium :
crebri amicomm hortatus : vester multonim (ut illi submonebant, et ego haud
inexpertus humanitatem vestram facile credebam) in me proni affectus.
Pepulerunt ista fateor (ut par erat) animum meum ; quin et commoverunt ;
sed hactenus, ut tamen si raeo unius arbitratu res statuenda foret, nee longa
nee difficilis futura esset deliberatio. Quid enim ? Patererne ego me letate
jam declivi, defectis viribus, memoria lubrica, balbum et pertimidum senem,
ex suavissimo quo perfruebar otio et umbra, in apricum et in pulverem,
iniquissimo tempore, post viginti-quinque annorum missionem, quasi postli-
minio et invitum rapi ? et quae me poterant satis expurgasse cicutae si lubens
consensissem ? Quis non omnem mihi Anticyram dcstinatam creder
abnuissem, et quoad verecunde licuit, restitissem ?

" Krgo ne perduci poteras, inquietis, ut conditioni tarn iniquae acquiesceres
tandem, sanus utrisque auribus atque oculis ? Poteram, ut videtis, et JHT-
ductus sum : ita sunt et res humanae, sic et consilia incerta : sanusne an secus
ubi facti rationem edidero vosmet judicate : certe non ego hac in re vel in-
genio meo obsecutus sum, vel etiam judicio ; cui ut optatius fuit ita visum
est salutarius in tenebris latitarc securum quam cum labore et periculo pro-

BISHOP SANDERSON. 437

He did for about a yearns time continue to read his matchless
lectures, which were first de Juramento, a point very seraphical,
and as difficult, and at that time very dangerous to be handled as
it ought to be. But this learned man, as he was eminently fur-
nished with abilities to satisfy the consciences of men upon that
important subject ; so he wanted not courage to assert the true
obligation of it, and of oaths in a degenerate age, when men
had made perjury a main part of, or at least very useful to their
religion. How much the learned world stands obliged to him
for these and his following lectures de Conscientia, I shall not
attempt to declare, as being very sensible that the best pens
fall short in the commendation of them : so that I shall only add
that they continue to this day, and will do for ever, as a complete
standard for the resolution of the most material doubts in that

dire in scenam. Imo vero egi cum amicis, qui apud serenissimam regiam
majestatem videbantur aliquid posse ; idque non una vice, coram et per literas
semel atque iterum obtestatus sum per omnem amicitiam, regis animum per-
tentarent fieri ne posset sine ipsius offensione, ut de hac cathedra aliter sta-
tueretur, nee ego tarn importunum onus tarn imparibus humeris sustinere
cogerer. Pertentant : renunciant fieri non posse ; perstare in sententia regem,
quod ante jussisset et id ratum esse velle ; non utique obniterer porro
frustra, sed onus quod excutere non possem, qua possem animi alacritate
subirem et perferrem. Haec admonitus, officii conscientia, cujus voluntati
obtemperare debui, ejus auctoritati cessi : Maxime cum altius insurgerem (nam
quse hactenus dicta sunt ad human as tantum rationes pertinent) et ut decuit
hominem et Christianum et Theologum, summam Dei Opt. Max. providentiam,
singula quas in terris aguntur vel minutissima qusequse, prout ipsi collibitum
est, et suaviter et fortiter moderantis, diligentius cogitarem : scilicet est cor
regis in manu domini, sicut derivationes aquarum et pro beneplacito suo
convertit ipsum. Haec ego quo saepius et attentius cum animo reputavi meo,
eo mihi propius conjunctam cum regia voluntate divinam etiam vocationem
visus sum contueri. Si quidem nihil aliud est, quantum ego quidem adhuc
intelligere potui, ordinaria Dei ad aliquod munus vocatio, quam ab his penes
quos est plena et legitima de ejusmodi rebus statuendi potestas, personae
ipsorum judicio non inidoneae, nulla intercedente prava ambitione, dolo, ma-
lisve artibus, designatio. Pervicit itaque omnia impedimenta, omnia objecta-
menta diluit, duplex ilia parendi necessitas, voluntati regiae, divinae vocationi.
Quo mihi paratiorem apud omnes bonos, apud omnes aequos rerum aestima-
tores excusationem fore confido, si (quod indubie futurum prospicio) in obe-
undo hoc tarn illustri, tarn arduo munere, nee votis meis, nee vestrae expecta-
tion! satisfacerem. Dabo tamen operam officio utcunque ut satisfaciam meo ;
et sane, ut aliquid saltern de me fidenter dicam, spero me aliqua ex parte
satisfacturum : illud si concedatis, quod omnino concedi debet et est veris-
simum, non satisfecisse officio, qui se ingessit, ni fecerit, quod debuit : satis-
fecisse, qui admotus est, si fecerit quod potuit "

438 BISHOP SANDERSON.

part of casuistical divinity. And therefore I proceed to tell the
reader, that about the time of his reading those lectures (the
king being then prisoner in the Isle of Wight) that part of the
parliament then at Westminster sent the Covenant, the Negative
Oath, and I know not what more to Oxford, to be taken by the
doctor of the chair, and all heads of houses : and ah1 the other
inferior scholars of what degree soever, were also to take these
oaths by a fixed day : for those that did not were to abandon
their colleges and the university too, within twenty-four hours
after the beating of a drum ; and if they remained longer, they
were to be proceeded against as spies.

Dr. Laud the archbishop of Canterbury, the earl of Strafford
and many others, had been formerly murdered, but the king yet
was not ; and the university had yet some faint hopes that in a
treaty then in being betwixt him and them that confined him, or
pretended to be suddenly, there might be such an agreement
made, that the dissenters in the university might both preserve
their consciences, and the poor subsistence which they then
enjoyed by their colleges.

And being possessed of this mistaken hope, that the men in
present power were not yet grown so merciless, as not to allow
manifest reason for their not submitting to the enjoined oaths,
the university appointed the delegates to meet, consider, and
draw up a manifesto to them, why they could not take those oaths
but by violation of their consciences. And of these dele^
Dr. Sheldon (late archbishop of Canterbury), Dr. Hammond, Dr.
Sanderson, Dr. Morley (now bishop of Winchester), and that
most honest, very learned, and as judicious civil lawyer, Dr.
Zouch, were a part : the rest I cannot now name ; but the whole
number of the delegates requested Dr. Zouch to draw up tin law
part, and give it to Dr. Sanderson, and he was requested to
methodize and add what referred to reason and conscience, and
put it into form. He yielded to their desires, and did so. And
then after they had been read in a full convocation, and allowed
of, they were printed in Latin 9, that the parliaments proceedings
and the university sufferings might be manifested to all nations ;

9 Printed in Latin.'] The English copy, under the title, " Reasons of the
present judgment of the University of Oxford, concerning the Solemn League
iind Covenant, the Negative Oath, and the Ordinances concerning Discipline
and Worship; appmvnl by general consent in a full Convocation. June 1st,
I " 17, "may be found, along with other tracts of Sanderson, in the first

BISHOP SANDERSON. 439

and the imposers of these oaths might repent, or answer them :
but they were past the first ; and for the latter, I might swear
they neither can, nor ever will. And these reasons were also sud-
denly turned into English by Dr. Sanderson, that all those of these
three kingdoms might the better judge of the cause of the loyal
party's sufferings.

About this time the Independents (who were then grown to
be the most powerful part of the army) had taken the king from
a close to a more large imprisonment, and by their own pretences
to liberty of conscience, were obliged to allow somewhat like that
to the king, who had in the year 1646, sent for Dr. Sanderson,
Dr. Hammond, Dr. Sheldon (the late archbishop of Canterbury)
and Dr. Morley (the now bishop of Winchester) to attend him,
in order to advise with them, how far he might with a good con-
science comply with the proposals of the parliament for a peace in
church and state ; but these having been then denied by the
presbyterian parliament, were now by their own rules allowed
him * by those Independents now in present power. And with
some of those divines, Dr. Sanderson also gave his attendance on
his majesty in the Isle of Wight ; preached there before him, and
had in that attendance many, both public and private conferences
with him, to his majesty's great satisfaction. At which time he
desired Dr. Sanderson, being the parliament had then proposed
to him the abolishing of episcopal government in the church, as
inconsistent with monarchy, and selling theirs and the cathedral
church-land to pay those soldiers that they had raised to fight
against him, that he would consider of it, and declare his judg-
ment. He undertook to do so, and did it ; but it might not be
printed 2 till our king's happy restoration, and then it was. And
at Dr. Sanderson's then taking his leave of his majesty in this his
last attendance on him, the king requested him to betake himself
to the writing cases of conscience for the good of posterity. To
which his answer was, " That he was now grown old, and unfit

edition of this life, published in 1678 ; and also in Somers's Tracts, vol. iv.
p. 606 — 26. For the Latin copy, see Sanderson's Lectures De Juramenti
Obligations, at the end. See also Wood's Annals of the Univ. of Oxford,
vol. ii. part ii. p. 507. It is an extremely valuable and interesting treatise.

1 Allowed him.~\ See Life of Dr. Hammond in this vol. p. 347, note.

2 Might not be printed^] " Episcopacy, as established by law in England, not
prejudicial to regal power, written in the time of the long parliament by the
special command of the late king, 1661."

440 BISHOP SANDERSON.

to write cases of conscience." But the king was so bold with
him as to say, "It was the simplest answer he ever heard from
Dr. Sanderson ; for no young man was fit to be made a judge, or
write cases of conscience." And let me here take occasion to tell
the reader this truth, very fit to be, but not commonly known ;
that in one of these conferences this conscientious king was told
by a faithful and private intelligencer, " That if he assented not
to the parliament's proposals, the treaty betwixt him and them
would break immediately, and his life would then be in danger ;
he was sure he knew it." To which his answer was, " I have
done what I can to bring my conscience to a compliance with
their proposals, and cannot ; and I will not lose my conscience to
save my life ;" and within a very short time after, he told Dr.
Sanderson and Dr. Morley, or one of them that then waited with
him, " That the remembrance of two errors did much afflict him,
which were, his assent to the earl of Straffbrd's death, and the
abolishing episcopacy in Scotland * ; and that if God ever restored
him to be in a peaceable possession of his crown, he would demon-
strate his repentance by a public confession and voluntary penance"
(I think barefoot) " from the Tower of London, or Whitehall, to
St. Paul's church, and desire the people to intercede with God
for his pardon." I am sure one of them that told it me, lives

3 In Scotland.] " He never refused to take to himself the shame of those
acts wherein he had transgressed, that he might give glory to his God. After
the army had forced him from Holmby, [or Holdenby, near Northampton]
and in their several removes had brought him to Latimers, an house of the
earl of Devonshire, [near Chesham, in Buckinghamshire] on August 1st, [1 G47]
being Sunday, in the morning, before sermon, he led forth with him into the
garden the rev. Dr. Sheldon, who then attended on him, and whom he was
pleased to use as his confessor, and drawing out of his pocket a paper, com-
manded him to read it, transcribe it, and so deliver it to him again. This
paper contained several vows, which he had obliged his soul unto, for the
glory of his Maker, the advance of true piety, and emoluments of the church.
And among them this was one ; that ' he would do public penance for the
injustice he had suffered to be done to the earl of Strafford ; and his consent
to those injuries that were done to the church of England,' (though at that
time he had yielded to no more than the taking away of the high commission,
and the bishops' power to vote in parliament,) * and to the church of Scot-
land :' and he adjured the doctor, that ' if ever he saw him in a condition
to observe that, or any other of those vows, he should solicitously mind him
of the obligations, as he dreaded the guilt of the breach should lie upon his
own soul." — The Royal Martyr ; or the Life and Death of King Charles /.,
by Dr. Richard Perrinchief, p. 181, 2, edit. 1727.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 441

still, and will witness it. — And it ought to be observed, that Dr.
Sanderson's lectures de Juramento were so approved and valued
by the king, that in this time of his imprisonment and solitude,
he translated them into exact English, desiring Dr. Juxon (then
bishop of London,) Dr. Hammond, and sir Thomas Herbert
(who then attended him in his restraint) to compare them with
the original. The last still lives, and has declared it, with some
other of that king's excellencies, in a letter 4 under his own hand,
which was lately shewed me by sir William Dugdale, king at
arms. The translation was designed to be put into the king's
library at St. James's 5, but I doubt, not now to be found there.
I thought the honour of the author and the translator to be both
so much concerned in this relation, that it ought not to be con-
cealed from the reader, and it is therefore here inserted.

I now return to Dr. Sanderson in the chair in Oxford, where
they that complied not in taking the covenant, negative oath, and
parliament ordinance for church discipline and worship, were under
a sad and daily apprehension of expulsion ; for the visitors 6 were
daily expected, and both city and university full of soldiers, and a
party of presbyterian divines, that were as greedy and ready to
possess, as the ignorant and ill-natured visitors were to eject the
dissenters out of their colleges and livelihoods. But notwith-
standing, Dr. Sanderson did still continue to read his lecture, and
did to the very faces of those presbyterian divines and soldiers,
read with so much reason, and with a calm fortitude make such
applications, as if they were not, they ought to have been ashamed,
and begged pardon of God and him, and forborne to do what fol-
lowed. But these thriving sinners were hardened ; and as the
visitors expelled the orthodox, they without scruple or shame
possessed themselves immediately of their colleges ; so that with
the rest, Dr. Sanderson was (in June 1648) forced to pack up
and be gone, and thank God he was not imprisoned as Dr. Shel-
don, Dr. Hammond, and others then were.

I must now again look back to Oxford, and tell my reader,
that the year before this expulsion, when the university had

4 In a letter.'] See Memoirs of the two last years of the reign of king Charles
/., p. 63, edit. 1813.

5 King's library at St. James's.] Meaning the old Royal Library, which
has been mentioned before (see p. 1 99, note) as being in the British Museum.
In Bernard's Catalogue it is called " Bibliotheca Jacobaa."

6 The visitors.'] Compare above, Life of Hammond, p. 349.

442 BISHOP SANDERSON.

denied this subscription, and apprehended the danger of that
visitation which followed, they sent Dr. Morley, then canon of
Christ-church (now lord bishop of Winchester), and others, to
petition the parliament for re-calling the injunction, or a mitiga-
tion of it, or to accept of their reasons why they could not take
the oaths enjoined them ; and the petition was by parliament
referred to a committee to hear and report the reasons to the
house, and a day set for hearing them. This done, Dr. Morley
and the rest went to inform and fee counsel, to plead their cause
on the day appointed : but there had been so many committed
for pleading, that none durst be so bold as to undertake it cor-
dially ; for at this time the privileges of that part of the parlia-
ment then sitting were become a noli me tangere ; as sacred and
useful to them, as traditions ever were, or are now to the church
of Borne ; their number must never be known, and therefore not
without danger to be meddled with. For which reason Dr. Mor-
ley was forced, for want of counsel, to plead the university^ rea-
sons for not compliance with the parliament's injunctions ; and
though this was done with great reason, and a boldness equal to
the justice of his cause, yet the effect of it was, but that he and
the rest appearing with him were so fortunate, as to return to
Oxford without commitment. This was some few days before
the visitors and more soldiers were sent down to drive the dis-
senters out of the university. And one that was at this time of
Dr. Morley "s pleading, a powerful man in the parliament, and of
that committee, observing Dr. Morley's behaviour and reason,
and enquiring of him, and hearing a good report of his principles
in religion, and of his morals, was therefore willing to afford him
a peculiar favour ; and that he might express it, sent for mo that
relate this story, and knew Dr. Morley well, and told me, 4k lie
had such a love for Dr. Morley, that knowing he would not take
the oaths, and must therefore be ejected his college, and leave
Oxford ; he desired I would therefore write to him to ride out of
Oxford when the visitors came into it, and not return till they
left it, and he should be sure then to return in safety ; and that
by so doing he should without taking any oath or other molesta-
tion, enjoy his canon's place in the college." I did receive thi*
intended kindness with a sudden gladness, because I was sure the
party had a power to do what he professed, and as sure he meant
to perform it, and did therefore write the doctor word ; t«» which
his answer was, " That 1 must not fail to return my friend"" (who

BISHOP SANDERSON. 443

still lives) "his humble and undissembled thanks, though he could
not accept of his intended kindness ; for when Dr. Fell " (then
the dean), " Dr. Gardner, Dr. Paine, Dr. Hammond, Dr. Sander-
son, and all the rest of the college, were turned out, except Dr.
Wall, he should take it to be, if not a sin, yet a shame to be left
behind with him only." Dr. Wall I knew, and will speak nothing
of him, for he is dead.

It may be easily imagined, with what a joyful willingness these
self-loving reformers took possession of all vacant preferments,
and with what reluctance others parted with their beloved colleges
and subsistence : but their consciences were dearer than both,
and out they went ; the reformers possessing them without shame
or scruple ; where I will leave these scruple-mongers, and proceed
to make an account of the then present affairs of London, to be
the next employment of my reader's patience.

And in London all the bishop's houses were turned to be
prisons, and they filled with divines that would not take the cove-
nant, or forbear reading common-prayer, or that were accused for
some faults like these. For it may be noted, that about this
time the parliament sent out a proclamation to encourage all lay-
men that had occasion to complain of their ministers, for being
troublesome or scandalous, or that conformed not to orders of
parliament, to make their complaint to a select committee for that
purpose ; and the minister, though one hundred miles from Lon-
don, was to appear there and give satisfaction, or be sequestered ;
(and you may be sure no parish could want a covetous, or mali-
cious, or cross-grained complainant :) by which means all prisons
in London, and in many other places, became the sad habitations
of conforming divines.

And about this time the bishop of Canterbury having been by
an unknown law condemned to die 7, and the execution suspended
for some days, many citizens fearing time and cool thoughts might
procure his pardon, became so maliciously impudent as to shut up
their shops, "professing not to open them till justice was executed."
This malice and madness is scarce credible, but I saw it.

The bishops had been about this time voted out 8 of the house of
parliament, and some upon that occasion sent to the Tower, which
made many covenanters rejoice, and most of them to believe

7 To die.'] He was beheaded January 10, 1644-5.

8 Voted out.] See Life of Hall, p. 305.

444 BISHOP SANDERSON.

Mr. Brightman (who probably was a well-meaning man) to be
inspired when he writ his Comment on the Apocalypse ; a short
abridgment of which was now printed, cried up and down the
streets and called Mr. Brightman's Revelation of the Revelation.
and both bought up and believed by all the covenanters. And
though he was grossly mistaken in other things, yet, because he
had there made the churches of Geneva and Scotland, (which had
no bishops) to be Philadelphia in the Apocalypse, that angel that
God loved; and the power of prelacy to be Antichrist, the evil
angel, which the house of commons had now so spued up, as never
to recover their dignity9: therefore did those covenanters rejoice,
approve, and applaud Mr. Brightman, for discovering and fore-
telling the bishops1 downfall ; so that they both railed at them,
and at the same time rejoiced to buy good penny-worths of all
their land, which their friends of the house of commons did afford
both to themselves and them, as a reward for their zeal and dili-
gent assistance to pull them down.

And the bishops' power being now vacated, the common people
were made so happy, as that every parish might choose their own
minister, and tell him when he did, and when he did not preach
true doctrine : and by this and the like means several churches
had several teachers, that prayed and preached for and against
one another ; and engaged their hearers to contend furiously for
truths which they understood not ; some of which I shall mention
in what will follow.

I have heard of two men that in their discourse undertook to
give a character of a third person ; and one concluded he was a
very honest man, for he was beholden to him ; and the other that
he was not, for he was not beholden to him. And something like
this was in the designs both of the covenanters and independents
(the last of which were now grown both as numerous and as power-
ful as the former) : for though they differed much in many prin-
ciples, and preached against each other, one making it a sign of

9 Recover their dignity.'] " The Puritans have a strange kind of logic. A
seat in the civil legislature for the bishops the Puritans deemed an abuse.
They are now deprived of their seat, which, in the sense of the Puritans, was
bringing them nearer to the primitive standard. Yet this blessing (for such it
was, if it brought them nearer to the practice of the purest times), must be
reckoned by these very Puritans, the hand of God in judgment for their sins."
Warburton's Remarks on Neat's Hist, of the Puritans; Works, vol. xii.
p. 395.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 445

being in the state of grace, if we were but zealous for the cove-
nant ; and the other not ; for we ought to buy and sell by a
measure, and to allow the same liberty of conscience to others,
which we by Scripture claim to ourselves ; and therefore not to
force any to swear the covenant contrary to their consciences, and
probably lose both their livings and liberties too. But though
these differed thus in their conclusions, yet they both agreed in
their practice to preach down common prayer, and get into the
best sequestered livings; and whatever became of the true owners,
their wives and children, yet to continue in them without the
least scruple of conscience.

They also made other strange observations of election, reproba-
tion, and free-will, and the other points dependant upon these ;
such as the wisest of the common people were not fit to judge of :
I am sure I am not, though I must mention some of them histo-
rically in a more proper place, when I have brought my reader
with me to Dr. Sanderson at Boothby Pannel.

And in the way thither I must tell him, that a very covenanter
and a Scot too, that came into England with this unhappy cove-
nant, was got into a good sequestered living by the help of a
presbyterian parish, which had got the true owner out. And this
Scotch presbyterian being well settled in this good living, began
to reform the church-yard, by cutting down a large ewe tree, and
some other trees that were an ornament to the place, and very
often a shelter to the parishioners : and they excepting against
him for so doing, were by him answered, " That the trees were
his, and it was lawful for every man to use his own as he, and not
as others thought fit." I have heard (but do not affirm it) that
no action lies against him that is so wicked as to steal the wind-
ing-sheet from off a dead body after it is buried ; and have heard
the reason to be, because none were supposed to be so void of
humanity; and, that such a law would vilify that nation that
would but suppose so vile a man to be born in it : I speak this
because I would not suppose any man to do what this covenanter
did : and whether there were any law against him I know not,
but pity the parish the less, for turning out their legal minister.

We have now overtaken Dr. Sanderson at Boothby Pannel,
where he hoped to have enjoyed himself, though in a poor, yet in
a quiet and desired privacy ; but it proved otherwise. For all
corners of the nation were filled with covenanters, confusion, com-
mittee-men and soldiers, defacing monuments, breaking painted

446 BISHOP SANDERSON.

glass windows, and serving each other to their several ends, of
revenge, or power, or profit; and these committee-men and
soldiers were most of them so possessed with this covenant, that
they became like those that were infected with that dreadful
plague of Athens ; the plague of which plague was, that they by
it became maliciously restless to get into company, and to joy (so
the historian a saith) when they had infected others, even those of
their most beloved or nearest friends or relations ; and so though
there might be some of these covenanters that were beguiled, and
meant well ; yet such were the generality of them, and the temper
of the times, that you may be sure Dr. Sanderson, who though
quiet and harmless, yet was an eminent dissenter from them,
could therefore not live peaceably ; nor did he. For the soldiers
would appear, and visibly oppose and disturb him in the church
when he read prayers, some of them pretending to advise him
how God was to be served more acceptably ; which he not approv-
ing, but continuing to observe order and decent behaviour in read-
ing the church service, they forced his book from him, and tore
it !, expecting extemporary prayers.

At this time he was advised by a parliament-man of power and
note, that loved and valued him much, not to be strict in reading
all the common prayer, but to make some little variation, especially

• Thucydides.

1 Tore it.] " And yet this excellent book hath had the fate to be cut in
pieces with a pen-knife, and thrown into the fire ; but it is not consumed.
At first it was sown in tears, and is now watered with tears : yet never was
any holy thing drowned and extinguished with tears. It began with the
martyrdom of the compilers ; and the church hath been vexed ever since by
angry spirits, and she was forced to defend it with much trouble and un-
quietness. But it is to be hoped, that all these storms are sent but to in-
crease the zeal and confidence of the pious sons of the church of England.
Indeed the greatest danger that ever the Common Prayer book had, was the
indifferency and indevotion of them that used it but as a common blessing :
and they who thought it fit for the meanest of the clergy to read prayers, and
for themselves only to preach, though they might innocently intend it, yet
did not in that action consult the honour of our liturgy, except where charity
or necessity did interpose. But when excellent things go away, and thrn
look back upon us, as our blessed Saviour did upon St. Peter, we are more
moved than by the nearer embraces of a full and actual possession. I pray
God it may prove so in our case, and that we may not be too willing to be
discouraged ; at least that we may not cease to love and to desire what is not
publicly permitted to our practice and profession." Bp. Taylor's Preface to
his Apology for authorized and set forms of Liturgy, at the end.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 447

if the soldiers came to watch him ; for if he did, it might not be
in the power of him and his other friends to secure him from
taking the covenant, or sequestration : for which reasons he did
vary somewhat 2 from the strict rules of the rubrick. I will set

2 Did vary somewhat."] In a long letter, subjoined to the first edition of
this life, under the title of Bishop Sanderson's Judgment concerning Submis-
sion to Usurpers, a full account is given of his manner of performing the
whole public service of the church : which was in every respect studiously
conformed, as much as the times would bear, to the English liturgy : and the
letter is further exceedingly valuable as containing a vindication of the extent
to which he submitted, as a point of conscience to the usurping powers, with-
out abandoning his ministerial duties, and without persisting, to his own
destruction, in the usage of the entire liturgy, then forbidden, as we have
seen, under the severest penalties. A similar practice was very generally
followed by the loyal clergy. Mr. Bull, afterwards the celebrated bishop of
St. David's, occasionally resorted to another expedient. " He was sent for to
baptize the child of a dissenter in his parish ; upon which occasion he made
use of the office of baptism, as prescribed by the church of England, which
he had got entirely by heart j and he went through it with so much readiness
and freedom, and yet with so much gravity and devotion, and gave that life
and spirit to all that he delivered, that the whole audience was extremely
affected with his performance : and notwithstanding that he used the sign of
the cross, yet, they were so ignorant of the offices of the church, that they
did not thereby discover that it was the Common Prayer. But after that he
had concluded that holy action, the father of the child returned him a great
many thanks, intimating at the same time, with how much greater edification
they prayed, who entirely depended upon the Spirit of God for his assist-
ance in their extempore effusions, than those did who tied themselves up to
premeditated forms ; and that if he had not made the sign of the cross, that
badge of popery, as he called it, no body could have formed the least objec-
tion against his excellent prayers. Upon which Mr. Bull, hoping to recover
him from his ill-grounded prejudices, shewed him the office of baptism in the
liturgy, wherein was contained every prayer which he had offered up to God
on that occasion ; which, with farther arguments that he then urged, so
effectually wrought upon the good man and his whole family, that they always
after that time frequented the parish church, and never more absented them-
selves from Mr. Bull's communion. From whence we may reasonably con-
clude, that as a mistaken zeal may throw contempt upon what justly deserves
to be admired ; so also, that gravity, seriousness, and devotion, in reading
the prayers are necessary to secure that respect to the liturgy which its own
excellency requireth from us." Life of Bishop Bull, by Robert Nelson, Esq.,
p. 39, edit. 2.

" I have observed," says Dr. Nicholas Bernard, in his Clam Trabales, p. 59*
(A.D. 1661.) "that some who had so great a prejudice to the liturgy, as to
run out of the church, when it was offered to be read out of the book, when
I used the very same form in several administrations by heart, without the
book, — baptism, communion, matrimony, burial, and the like, they have

448 BISHOP SANDERSON.

down the very words of confession which he used, as I have it
under his own hand ; and tell the reader that all his other varia-
tions were as little and very much like to this.

His Confession.

" 0 Almighty God and merciful Father, we thy unworthy ser-
vants do with shame and sorrow confess, that we have all our life
long gone astray out of thy ways like lost sheep ; and that by
following too much the vain devices and desires of our own hearts
we have grievously offended against thy holy laws, both in thought,
word, and deed ; we have many times left undone those good
duties, which we might and ought to have done ; and we have
many times done those evils, when we might have avoided them,
which we ought not to have done. We confess, O Lord, that
there is no health at all, nor help in any creature to relieve us ;
but all our hope is in thy mercy ; whose justice we have by our
sins so far provoked : have mercy therefore upon us, 0 Lord,
have mercy upon us miserable offenders : spare us, good God, who
confess our faults, that we perish not ; but according to thy gracious
promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord, restore
us upon our true repentance into thy grace and favour. And
grant, 0 most merciful Father, for his sake, that we henceforth
study to serve and please thee by leading a godly, righteous, and a
sober life, to the glory of thy holy name, and the eternal comfort
of our own souls, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

In these and other provocations of tearing his service-book, a
neighbour came on a Sunday, after the evening service was ended,
to visit and condole with him for the affront offered by the soldi'. TS.
To whom he spake with a composed patience, and said ; " God
hath restored me to my desired privacy, with my wife and children,
where I hoped to have met with quietness, and it proves not so ;
but I will labour to be pleased, because God, on whom I depend,
sees it is not fit for me to be quiet. I praise him that lie hath
liy liis grace prevented me from making shipwreck of a good con-
science to maintain me in a place b of great reputation and profit :

highly commended it, as conceiving they had been my own present concep-
tions."

b Doctor of the chair.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 449

and though my condition be such, that I need the last, yet I sub-
mit : for God did not send me into this world to do my own, but
suffer his will ; and I will obey it." Thus by a sublime depending
on his wise and powerful, and pitiful Creator, he did cheerfully
submit to what God had appointed ; still justifying the truth of
that doctrine and the reason of that discipline which he had
preached.

About this time that excellent book of the king's Meditations
in Ms Solitude was printed, and made public ; and Dr. Sanderson
was such a lover of the author, and so desirous that not this
nation only, but the whole world should see the character of him
in that book, and something of the cause for which he and many
others then suffered, that he designed to turn it into Latin ; but
when he had done half of it most excellently, his friend Dr. Earle
prevented him, by appearing to have done it, and printed the
whole very well before him.

And about this time his dear and most intimate friend, the
learned Dr. Hammond, came to enjoy a quiet conversation and
rest with him for some days at Boothby Pannel, and did so. And
having formerly persuaded him to trust his excellent memory,
and not read, but try to speak a sermon as he had writ it ; Dr.
Sanderson became so compliant as to promise he would. And
to that end they two went early the Sunday following to a neigh-
bour minister, and requested to exchange a sermon ; and they
did so. And at Dr. Sanderson's going into the pulpit, he gave
his sermon (which was a very short one) into the hands of Dr.
Hammond, intending to preach it as it was writ ; but before he
had preached a third part, Dr. Hammond (looking on his sermon
as written) observed him to be out, and so lost as to the matter,
especially the method, that he also became afraid for him : for it
was discernible to many of that plain auditory. But when he
had ended this short sermon, as they two walked homeward, Dr.
Sanderson said with much earnestness, " Good doctor, give me
my sermon, and know, that neither you, nor any man living, shall
ever persuade me to preach again without my books." To which
the reply was, " Good doctor, be not angry ; for if ever I persuade
you to preach again without book, I will give you leave to burn
all the books that I am master of."

Part of the occasion of Dr. Hammond's visit was at this time,
to discourse Dr. Sanderson about some opinions, in which if they
did not then, they had doubtless differed formerly ; it was about

VOL. iv. G g

450 BISHOP SANDERSON.

those knotty points, which are by the learned called the quinquar-
ticular controversy; of which I shall proceed, not to give any
judgment (I pretend not to that) but some short historical
account which shall follow.

There had been, since the unhappy covenant was brought, and
so generally taken in England, a liberty given or taken by many
preachers (those of London especially) to preach and be too posi-
tive in the points of universal redemption, predestination, and
those other depending upon these. Some of which preached
" That all men were, before they came into this world, so pre-
destinated to salvation or damnation, that it was not in their
power to sin so, as to lose the first, nor by their most diligent
endeavour to avoid the latter." Others, " That it was not so ;
because then God could not be said to grieve for the death of a
sinner, when he himself had made him so by an inevitable decree,
before he had so much as a being in this world ;" affirming there-
fore, " that man had some power left him to do the will of God,
because he was advised to work out his salvation with fear and
trembling ;" maintaining, " that it is most certain every man can
do what he can to be saved ; and as certain that he that docs
what he can to be saved, shall never be damned :" and yet many
that affirmed this to be a truth, would yet confess, " That that
grace, which is but a persuasive offer, and left to us to receive or
refuse, is not that grace which shall bring men to heaven."
Which truths, or untruths, or both, be they which they will, did
upon these or the like occasions come to be searched into, and
charitably debated betwixt Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Hammond, and
Dr. Pierce (the now reverend dean of Salisbury) of which I shall
proceed to give some account, but briefly.

In the year 1648, the 52 London ministers (then a fraternity
of Sion college in that city) had in a printed declaration asp*
Dr. Hammond most heinously, for that he had in his Prac'
Catechism affirmed, " That our Saviour died for the sins of all
mankind." To justify which truth, he presently makes a cha-
ritable reply (as it is now printed in his works). After which
there were many letters passed betwixt the said Dr. Hammond,
Dr. Sanderson, and Dr. Pierce, concerning God's grace and
decrees. Dr. Sanderson was with much unwillingness drawn into
this debate, for he declared it would prove uneasy to him. who in
his judgment of God's decrees differed with Dr. Hammond (whom
he reverenced and loved dearly) and would not therefor*

BISHOP SANDERSON. 451

himself in a controversy, of which he could never hope to see an
end : nevertheless they did all enter into a charitable disquisition
of these said points in several letters, to the full satisfaction of
the learned ; those betwixt Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Hammond
being now printed in his works ; and for what past betwixt him
and the learned Dr. Pierce, I refer my reader to a letter sent to
me and annexed to the end of this relation.

I think the judgment of Dr. Sanderson was by these debates
altered from what it was at his entrance into them ; for in the
year 1632, when his excellent sermons were first printed in
quarto, the reader may on the margent find some accusation of
Arminius for false doctrine ; and find, that upon a review and
reprinting those sermons in folio in the year 1657, that accusa-
tion of Arminius is omitted. And the change of his judgment
seems more fully to appear in his said letter to Dr. Pierce. And
let me now tell the reader, which may seem to be perplexed with
these several affirmations of God's decrees before mentioned, that
Dr. Hammond, in a postscript to the last letter of his to Dr.
Sanderson, says, " God can reconcile his own contradictions,
and therefore advises all men, as the apostle does, to study mor-
tification, and be wise to sobriety." And let me add further,
that if these 52 ministers of Sion college were the occasion of the
debates in these letters, they have, I think, been the occasion of
giving an end to the quinquarticular controversy ; for none have
since undertaken to say more ; but seem to be so wise, as to be
content to be ignorant of the rest, till they come to that place,
where the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open. And let me
here tell the reader also, that if the rest of mankind would, as
Dr. Sanderson, not conceal their alteration of judgment3, but

3 Their alteration of judgment."] Another very eminent contemporary,
whose sentiments concerning the Calvinistical points appear to have under-
gone, at a much later period of his life, a change very similar to that which
took place in those of his friend Dr. Sanderson, was the truly pious and
primitive archbishop Usher : who had often exerted herself as an earnest
and public advocate and propagator of those notions, which he latterly
disclaimed.

" To your queries " (says Dr. Hammond in a letter to Mr. Peter Stani-
nough, dated June 12, 1657) " all that I have to return is, first, that that
bishop did for many years acknowledge universal redemption, but that with
a distinction of non ex cequo pro omnibus. — Secondly, that a little before his
leaving London (I was told it by some that heard him about this time two
years) at St. Peter's Paul-wharf, as also in several other places, he preached

Gg2

452 BISHOP SANDERSON.

confess it to the honour of God and themselves ; then, our nation
would become freer from pertinacious disputes, and fuller of
recantations.

a sermon, which himself called a soul-saving sermon, on Rom. viii. 30. part
of the verse, whom he called them he justified, in which he earnestly pressed
the sincerity of God's universal call to every one of all sinners to whom the
Gospel was preached : pressing throughout all his sermon the universal free
invitation of all by God. Apocal. xxii. 17, Whosoever will, let him take the
water of life freely ; Isaiah Iv. 1, 7, Ho! every one that thirst eth, come ye
to the waters. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts ,• and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him ;
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon : adding, that without this made
good, all preaching to convert sinners, as yet in their sins from the evil of their
ways, would want a firm foundation.

" Thirdly, that a learned divine going after this to him, and taking rise
from these words of his, that God intended truly that all whom he called by the
word to repent and believe, might certainly if they would, and God truly would
they should, come and repent, Sfc. to ask, Can they all will? Doth God, with
his word, give internal grace to all that are called by it, that they may repent ,
fyc. if they will ; and that they certainly can will? He answered, Yes, they
all can will. And that so many wm not, 'tis because^ as I then taught, they
resist God's grace; alledging, Acts vii. 51, Ye stiff-necked and uncircum-
cised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost : as your
fathers did, so do ye. This and much more he then declared ; and in fine
concluded in these words, Bishop Overal was in the right, and I am of his
mind.

" Fourthly. A learned doctor that was frequently with the bishop, wrote
Mr. Pierce word (as he wrote me, on my asking him the same question
which you do me) that that bishop told him lately before his death that he
wholly disliked the Genevan form of doctrine in this matter. This is all that
hath come within my reach of your first question." See Nineteen Letters of
the rev. Henry Hammond, D. D. now first published from the originals by
Francis Peck, M.A. London, 1739, 8vo. p. 17.

The testimonies and certificates of Dr. Brian Walton, Mr. Peter Gunning,
and Mr. Herbert Thorndike, of which the above extract is the sum, are pub-
lished in full length by Dr. Thomas Pierce ; in an Appendix to the Self-
revenger exemplified in Mr. William Barlee; London, 1658, 4to. p. 155 — 7.
See also Baxter's Lifef (Silvester's) part 2, p. 206, § 61, and Smith's Vita
Usserii, p. 113, 114. A.D. 1707, 4to. A similar change of sentiment is re-
corded of themselves by the above-mentioned Dr. Thomas Pierce, by Dr.
Thomas Jackson, Dr. Daniel Whitby, and many others.

But especially, the reader will be gratified by the grave, solemn, and
pious narrative to that effect related by Dr. Christopher Potter, dean of
Windsor, in a letter to Mr. Vicars, republished at Cambridge in the year
1719, in a very valuable Collection of Tracts concerning Predestination and
Providence. Having been taxed by his friend with the desertion of his
former principles, and the charge being coupled with an insinuation, that

BISHOP SANDERSON. 453

I am not willing to lead my reader to Dr. Hammond and Dr.
Sanderson where we left them together at Boothby Pannel, till I

this change was brought about by court-influence, and put on to please
abp. Laud, &c., " It appears," (says he) " by the whole tenour of your
letter, that you are affected with a strong suspicion, that I am turned Armi-
nian ; and you further guess at the motive, that some sprinkling of court
holy-water, like an exorcism hath enchanted and conjured me into this new
shape. How loth am I to understand your meaning ! And how fain would
I put a fair interpretation upon those foul passages, if they were capable !
What man ! not an Arminian only, but hired into that faith by carnal hopes !
one that can value his soul at so poor a rate, as to sell it to the times, or
weigh or sway his conscience with money ! My good friend, how did you
thus forget me, and yourself? and the strict charge of our Master, Judge
not ? Well ; you have my pardon : and God Almighty confirm it unto you
with his ! But to prevent you error and sin in this kind hereafter, I desire
you to believe that I neither am, nor ever will be Arminian. I am resolved
to stand fast in that liberty, which my Lord hath so dearly bought for me.
In divine truths, my conscience cannot serve men, or any other master
besides him who hath his chair in Heaven. I love Calvin very well : and I
must tell you, I cannot hate Arminius. And for my part, I am verily per-
suaded that these two are now where they agree well, in the kingdom of
Heaven ; whilst some of their passionate disciples are so eagerly brawling

here on earth. But because you are my friend, I will yet farther

reveal myself unto you. I have laboured long and diligently in these con-
troversies, and I will tell you with what mind and method, and with what
success.

" For some years in my youth, when I was most ignorant, I was most con-
fident : before I knew the true state, or any grounds of those questions, I
could peremptorily resolve them all. And upon every occasion, in the very
pulpit, I was girding and railing upon these new heretics, the Arminians,
and I could not find words enough to decipher the folly and absurdity of
their doctrine : especially I abhorred them as venomous enemies of the pre-
cious grace of God, whereof I ever was, and ever will be most jealous and
tender, as I am most obliged, holding all I am, or have, or hope for, by that
glorious grace. Yet all this while, I took all this that I talked upon trust,
and knew not what they (the Arminians) said or thought, but by relation
from others, and from their enemies. And because my conscience in secret
would often tell me, that railing would not carry it in matters of religion,
without reason and divine authority; that I might now solidly maintain
God's truth, as it becomes a minister, out of God's word, and clearly vindi-
cate it from wicked exceptions ; and that I might not only revile and scratch
the adversary, but beat, and wound him, and fight it out, fortibus armis, non
solum fulgentibus, I betook myself seriously and earnestly to peruse the
writings of both parties; and to observe and balance the Scriptures pro-
duced for both parties. But my aim in this inquiry was not to inform
myself whether I held the truth, (for therein I was extremely confident,
presuming it was with US, and reading the opposers with prejudice and

454 BISHOP SANDERSON.

have looked back to the long parliament, the society of cove-
nanters in Sion college, and those others scattered up and down

detestation,) but the better to fortify our tenets against their cavils and
subtilties.

"In the mean while, knowing that all light and illumination in divine
mysteries, descends from above from the Father and Fountain of all light,
without whose influence and instruction all our studies are most vain and
•frivolous ; I resolved constantly and daily to solicit my gracious God, with
most ardent supplications, as I shall still continue, that he would be pleased
to keep his poor servant in his true faith and fear ; that he would preserve
me from all false and dangerous errors, how specious or plausible soever ;
that he would fill my heart with true holiness and humility j empty it of all
pride, vain-glory, curiosity, ambition, and all other carnal conceits and affec-
tions, which usually blind and pervert the judgment ; that he would give me
the grace to renounce and deny my foolish reason in those holy studies,
and teach me absolutely to captivate my thoughts to the obedience of his
heavenly word ; finally, that he would not permit me to speak or think any
thing, but what were consonant to his Scriptures, honourable and glorious to
his majesty.

" I dare never look upon my books, till I have first looked up to heaven
with these prayers. Thus I begin, thus I continue, and thus conclude my
studies. In my search, my first and last resolution was, and is, to believe
only what the Lord tells me in his book : and because all men are liars, and
the most of men factious, to mark not what they say, but what they prove.
Though I must confess, I much favoured my own side, and read what was
written against it with exceeding indignation ; especially when I was pinched,
and found many objections to which I could find no answers. Yet in spite
of my judgment, my conscience stood as it could : and still multiplying my
prayers, and recurring to my oracle, I repelled such thoughts as temptations.
—Well ; in this perplexity I went on ; and first observed the judgments of
this age, since the reformation. And here I found in the very harmony of
the confessions some little discord in these opinions, but generally, and
the most part of our reformed churches favouring the remonstrants : and
among particular writers, many here differing in judgments, though nearly
linked in affection, and all of them eminent for learning and piety ; and
being all busied against the common adversary, the church of Rome, these
little differences amongst themselves were wisely neglected and concealed.
At length, some of our own gave occasion, I fear, to these intestine and
woeful wars, letting fall some speeches very scandalous, and which cannot be
maintained. This first put the Lutheran churches in a fresh alarm against
us, and imbittered their hatred : and now, that which was but a question, is
made a quarrel ; that which before was fairly and sweetly debated between
private doctors, is now become an appeal to contention between whole
reformed churches, they in one army, we in the other. But still the most
wise and holy in both parties desired a peace, and ceased not to cry
with tears, Sir*, ye are brethren, why do ye $trive? and with all their

BISHOP SANDERSON. 455

in London, and given some account of their proceedings and
usage of the late learned Dr. Laud, then archbishop of Canter-
bury, whose life seemed to be sacrificed to appease the popular
fury of that present time. And though I will forbear to mention
the injustice of his death, and the barbarous usage of him, both
at his trial and before it ; yet my desire is, that what follows may

power laboured that both the armies might be joined under the Prince of
Peace.

"But whilst these laboured for peace, there never wanted some eager
spirits, that made all ready for war ; and whose nails were still itching till
they were in the wounds of the church ; for they could not believe they had
any zeal, unless they were furious ; nor any faith, unless they wanted all
charity. And by the wicked diligence of these Boutefeus, that small spark,
which at first a little moderation might have quenched, hath now set us all in
a woeful fire, worthy to be lamented with tears of blood.

— " But now you long to hear, what is the issue of all my study and
inquiry ; what my resolution. Why, you may easily conjecture. Finding
upon this serious search, that all doubts are not clearly decided by Scripture ;
that in the ancient church, after the age of St. Augustine, who was presently
contradicted by many catholics, as you may see in the epistles of Prosper
and Fulgentius to him upon that very occasion, they have ever been friendly
debated, and never determined in any council ; that in our age, whole
churches are here divided, either from one another, as the Lutherans from
us; or amongst themselves, as the Romanists, among whom the Domi-
nican family is wholly for the contra-remonstrants ; that in all these several
churches, some particular doctors vary in these opinions : out of all this I
collect, for my part, that these points are no necessary catholic verities, not
essential to the faith, but merely matters of opinion, problematical, of inferior
moment, wherein a man may err, or be ignorant without danger to his soul ;
yet so still, that the glory of God's justice, mercy, truth, sincerity, and divine
grace be not any ways blemished, nor any good ascribed to man's corrupt
will, or any evil to God's decree of Providence ; wherein I can assure you I
do not depart from my ancient judgment, but do well remember what I
affirmed in my questions at the act, and have confirmed it, I suppose, in my
Sermon. So you see, I am still where I was. If I can clearly discover any
error or corruption in myself, or any other, I should hate it with all my
might : but, pity, support, and love all that love the Lord Jesus, though
they err in doubtful points ; but never break charity, unless with him that
obstinately errs in fundamentals, or is wilfully factious. And with this
moderation I dare with confidence and comfort enough appear before my
Lord at the last day, when I fear what will become of him that loves not
his brother, that divine precept of love being so often ingeminated ; why
may I not, when the Lord himself hath assured me by his Beati Pacifici ?
You tell me of a dean that should say, Maledicti Pacifici ; but you and he
shall give me leave in this contradiction, rather to believe my Saviour."
Tracts, p. 230, &c.

456 BISHOP SANDERSON.

be noted, because it does now, or may hereafter concern us ; that
is, to note, that in his last sad sermon on the scaffold at his death,
he did (as our blessed Saviour advised his disciples, ) pray for those
that persecuted and despitefully used him. And not only pardoned
those enemies ; but dispassionately begged of Almighty God that
he would also pardon them ; and besought all the present be-
holders of this sad sight, that they would pardon and pray for
him. But though he did all this, yet, he seemed to accuse the
magistrates of the city, for not suppressing a sort of people whose
malicious and furious zeal had so far transported them, and vio-
lated all modesty, that though they could not know whether he
were justly or unjustly condemned, were yet suffered to go visibly
up and down to gather hands to a petition, that the parliament
would hasten his execution. And he having declared how unjustly
he thought himself to be condemned, and accused for endeavour-
ing to bring in popery (for that was one of the accusations for
which he died) he declared with sadness, " That the several sects
and divisions then in England " (which he had laboured to pre-
vent) " were now like to bring the pope a far greater harvest,
than he could ever have expected without them." And said,
" these sects and divisions introduce prophaneness under the cloak
of an imaginary religion ;" and, " that we have lost the substance
of religion by changing it into opinion ;" and, " that by these
means the church of England, which all the Jesuits1 machina-
tions could not ruin, was fallen into apparent danger by those
(covenanters) which were his accusers." To this purpose he
spoke at his death : for which, and more to the same purpose,
the reader may view his last sad sermon on the scaffold. And it
is here mentioned, because his dear friend Dr. Sanderson seems
to demonstrate the same fear of popery in his two large and
remarkable prefaces4 before his two volumes of sermons; ami
seems also with much sorrow to say the same again in his last
will, made when he was and apprehended himself to be very near
his death. And these covenanters ought to take notice of it ;
and to remember, that by the late wicked war begun by them,
Dr. Sanderson was ejected out of the professor's chair in Oxford ;
and that if he had continued in it (for he lived fourteen years ai
both tin- learned of this and other nations had been made happy
by many ivmarkalile cases of conscience, so rationally stated, and

4 Remarkable preface*.] See Christian Institutes, vol. iv. p. 532 — 43, and
p. 544—86.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 457

so briefly, so clearly, and so convincingly determined, that poste-
rity might have joyed and boasted, that Dr. Sanderson was born
in this nation, for the ease and benefit of all the learned that
shall be born after him : but, this benefit is so like time past,
that they are both irrecoverably lost.

I should now return to Boothby Pannel, where we left Dr.
Hammond and Dr. Sanderson together, but neither can now be
found there : for, the first was in his journey to London, and the
second seized upon the day after his friend's departure, and car-
ried prisoner to Lincoln, then a garrison of the parliament's.
For the pretended reason of which commitment, I shall give this
following account.

There was one Mr. Clarke, (the minister of Alington, a town
not many miles from Boothby Pannel,) who was an active man
for the parliament and covenant ; and one that, when Belvoire
Castle (then a garrison for the parliament) was taken by a party
of the king's soldiers, was taken in it, and made a prisoner of
war in Newark (then a garrison of the king's) ; a man so active
and useful for his party that they became so much concerned
for his enlargement, that the committee of Lincoln sent a troop
of horse to seize and bring Dr. Sanderson a prisoner to that gar-
rison ; and they did so. And there he had the happiness to
meet with many that knew him so well as to reverence and treat
him kindly ; but told him, " He must continue their prisoner,
till he should purchase his own enlargement by procuring an
exchange for Mr. Clarke, then prisoner in the king's garrison of
Newark." There were many reasons given by the doctor of the
injustice of his imprisonment, and the inequality of the exchange,
but all were uneffectual ; for done it must be, or he continue a
prisoner. And in time done it was upon the following conditions :

First, That Dr. Sanderson and Mr. Clarke being exchanged,
should live undisturbed at their own parishes ; and if either were
injured by the soldiers of the contrary party, the other having
notice of it, should procure him a redress, by having satisfaction
made for his loss, or for any other injury ; or if not, he to be
used in the same kind by the other party. Nevertheless, Dr.
Sanderson could neither live safe nor quietly, being several times
plundered, and once wounded in three places; but he, appre-
hending the remedy might turn to a more intolerable burthen by
impatience or complaining, forbore both ; and possessed his soul
in a contented quietness, without the least repining. But though

458 BISHOP SANDERSON.

he could not enjoy the safety he expected by this exchange, yet
by His providence that can bring good out of evil, it turned so
much to his advantage, that whereas his living had been seques-
tered from the year 1 644, and continued to be so till this time of
his imprisonment, he, by the articles of war in this exchange for
Mr. Clarke, procured his sequestration to be recalled, and by
that means enjoyed a poor but more contented subsistence for
himself, his wife and children, till the happy restoration of our
king and church.

In this time of his poor, but contented privacy of life, his
casuistical learning, peaceful moderation and sincerity, became so
remarkable, that there were many that applied themselves to him
for resolution in perplexed cases of conscience ; some known to
him, and many not ; some requiring satisfaction by conference,
others by letters ; so many, that his life became almost as rest-
less as their minds ; yet, as St. Paul accounted himself a debtor
to all men, so he, for he denied none. And if it be a truth which
holy Mr. Herbert says, " That all worldly joys seem less, when
compared with shewing mercy, or doing kindnesses ;" then doubt-
less this Barnabas, this son of consolation, Dr. Sanderson, might
have boasted for relieving so many restless and wounded con-
sciences ; which, as Solomon says, are a burden that none can
bear, though their fortitude may sustain their other calamities :
and if words cannot express the joy of a conscience relieu-»l
from such restless agonies, then Dr. Sanderson might rejoice,
that so many were by him so clearly and conscientiously satisfied ;
and would often praise God for that ability, and as often for the
occasion ; and, that God had inclined his heart to do it, to the
meanest of any of those poor, but precious souls, for which his
Saviour vouchsafed to be crucified.

Some of those very many cases that were resolved by letters,
have been preserved and printed for the benefit of posterity ; as
namely,

1. Of the sabbath.

2. Marrying with a recusant.

3. Of unlawful love.

4. Of a military life.

5. Of scandal.

6. Of a bond taken in the king's name.

7. Of the engagement.

8. Of a rash vow.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 459

But many more remain in private hands, of which one is of
simony ; and I wish the world might see it, that it might unde-
ceive so many mistaken patrons, who think they have discharged
that great and dangerous trust, both to God and man, if they
take no money for a living, though it may be parted with for other
ends less justifiable, which I forbear to name.

And in this time of his retirement, when the common people
were amazed and grown restless and giddy by the many false-
hoods, and misapplications of truths frequently vented in sermons,
when they wrested the Scripture by challenging God to be of
their party 5, and called upon him in their prayers to patronize
their sacrilege and zealous frenzies ; in this time, he did so com-
passionate the generality of this misled nation, that though the
times threatened such an undertaking with danger ; yet he then
hazarded his safety by writing the large and bold preface now
extant before his last twenty sermons (first printed in the dan-
gerous year 1 655) : in which there was such strength of reason,
with so powerful and clear convincing applications made to the
nonconformists, as being read by one of those dissenting bre-
thren, who was possessed of a good sequestered living, and with
it such a spirit of covetousness and contradiction, as being neither
able to defend his error, nor yield to truth manifested, (his con-
science having slept long and quietly in that living) was yet at
the reading of it so awakened, (for there is a divine power in
reason) that after a conflict with the reason he had met, and the
damage he was to sustain if he consented to it (and being still
unwilling to be so convinced, as to lose by being over-reasoned)
he went in haste to the bookseller of whom it was bought, threat-
ened him and told him in anger, " he had sold a book in which
there was false divinity ; and that the preface had upbraided the
parliament, and many godly ministers of that party for unjust
dealing." To which his reply was, (it was Tim. Garthwaite)

5 To be of their party, ,] " A puritan gossip met a church-woman, her
neighbour, one morning in the streets of Exeter. ' Heark you, neighbour,'
says the first, * do you hear the news ? Merchant such-an-one is a bankrupt,
and merchant such-an-one, the churchman, loses ten thousand pounds by
the break : there is God's judgment for you : the merchant was ever a great
scoffer at the conventicle.5 — * And is this all you have heard ?' said the other.
< Yes/ — ' Why then you have heard but half the news. Mercer such-an-one
of your religion has lost fifteen hundred pounds by this break.5 — ' I must
confess,' replied the first, ' a severe trial.' " — Warburton's Remarks on Neal's
Hist, of the Puritans ; Works, vol. xii. p. 395.

460 BISHOP SANDERSON.

" That it was not his trade to judge of true or false divinity,
but to print and sell books ; and yet if he, or any friend of his
would write an answer to it, and own it by setting his name to it,
he would print the answer, and promote the selling of it."

About the time of his printing this excellent preface, I met
him accidentally in London in sad-coloured cloaths, and God
knows, far from being costly. The place of our meeting was
near to Little Britain, where he had been to buy a book, which
he then had in his hand. We had no inclination to part pre-
sently ; and therefore turned to stand in a corner under a pent-
house (for it began to rain) and immediately the wind rose, and
the rain increased so much, that both became so inconvenient, as
to force us into a cleanly house, where we had bread, cheese, ale,
and a fire for our ready money. This rain and wind were so ob-
liging to me, as to force our stay there for at least an hour, to
my great content and advantage ; for in that time he made to me
many useful observations of the present times with much clear-
ness and conscientious freedom. I shall relate a part of them, in
hope they may also turn to the advantage of my reader.

He seemed to lament that the parliament had taken upon them
to abolish our Liturgy, to the grief and scandal of so many devout
and learned men, and the disgrace of those many martyrs, who
had sealed the truth and necessary use of it with their blood ; and
that no minister was now thought godly that did not decry it ;
and, at least, pretend to make better prayers extempore : and that
they, and only they that could do so, prayed by the spirit, and
were godly ; though in their sermons they disputed, and evidently
contradicted each other in their prayers. And as he did dislike
this, so he did most highly commend the Common Prayer of the
church, saying, "The Holy Ghost seemed to assist the com-
posers : and, that the effect of a constant use of it would be, to
i licit and form the soul into holy thoughts and desires : and beget
habits of devotion/' This he said : and "that the Collects \\viv
the most passionate, proper, and most elegant comprehensiv
pressions that any language ever afforded ; and that there wa- in
them such piety, and that, so interwoven with instructions, that
they taught us to know the power, the wisdom, the majesty, and
mercy of God, and much of our duty both to him and our n
bour; and that a congregation behaving themselves reverently,
ami putting up to God these joint and known desirr* tor pardon
of sins, and their praise for mcrcie> n -erm-d. eould n<>t hut !><•

BISHOP SANDERSON. 461

more pleasing to God, than those raw unpremeditated expres-
sions which many understood not, and to which many of the
hearers could not say Amen."

And he then commended to me the frequent use of the Psalter
or Psalms of David ; speaking to this purpose, " That they were
the treasury of Christian comfort, fitted for all persons and all
necessities ; able to raise the soul from dejection by the frequent
mention of God's mercies to repentant sinners ; able to stir up
holy desires ; to increase joy ; to moderate sorrow ; to nourish
hope, and teach us patience, by waiting God's leisure for what we
beg ; able to beget a trust in the mercy, power and providence
of our Creator ; and to cause a resignation of ourselves to his
will ; and then (and not till then) to believe ourselves happy."
This he said the Liturgy and Psalms taught us ; and that by
the frequent use of the last they would not only prove to be our
souls1 comfort, but would become so habitual, as to transform
them into the image of his soul that composed them. After this
manner 6 he expressed himself, and his sorrow, concerning the
Liturgy and Psalms ; and seemed to lament that this, which was
the devotion of the more primitive times, should in common
pulpits be turned into needless debates about free-will, election
and reprobation, of which, and many like questions, we may be
safely ignorant, because Almighty God intends not to lead us to
heaven by hard questions, but by meekness and charity, and a
frequent practice of devotion.

And he seemed to lament very much, that by the means of
irregular and indiscreet preaching, the generality of the nation
were possessed with such dangerous mistakes, as to think,
" They might be religious first, and then just and merciful ; that
they might sell their consciences, and yet have something left that
was worth keeping ; that they might be sure they were elected,
though their lives were visibly scandalous ; that to be cunning was
to be wise, that to be rich was to be happy, though it is evidently
false ; that to speak evil of government, and to be busy in things
they understood not, was no sin." These, and the like mistakes,
he lamented much, and besought God to remove them, and
restore us to that humility, sincerity, and single-heartedness,

6 After this manner.'] Compare to the same effect the beautiful passages in
Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, book v. sect. 37, 9; and bishop Home's
Preface to his Commentary on the Book of Psalms, near the end. See above,
Life of Ferrar, vol. iv. p. 211, note.

462 BISHOP SANDERSON.

with which this nation was blest, before the unhappy Covenant
was brought amongst us, and every man preached and prayed
what seemed best in his own eyes. And he then said to me,
" That the way to restore this nation to a more meek and
Christian temper, was to have the body of divinity (or so much of
it as was needful to be known by the common people) to be put
into 52 homilies 7, or sermons, of such a length as not to exceed

7 Fifty-two homilies.'] At a subsequent period, a similar wish was, among
other noble designs for the advancement of piety, entertained by the excel-
lent archbishop Tillotson. The scheme, it is unnecessary to say, has never
been executed. Bishop Burnet, in the year 1713, published seven sermons
as a specimen of this undertaking ; in the preface to which he has detailed
at considerable length the model which was intended to be pursued. The
design appears so commendable, and so capable of being converted, even in
private hands, to salutary purposes, that, it is presumed, its insertion in this
place will not be thought an unsuitable incumbrance.

"About three and twenty years ago, archbishop Tillotson, being then dean
of St. Paul's, but designed for that high dignity, to which he was afterwards
advanced, entered into a long conversation with bishop Patrick, then fjishop of
Chichester, and myself, concerning a design he had formed of a new book
of Homilies ; not that he intended to lay aside the book of Homilies already
established, but to add a new one to that we have had now for above an
hundred and fifty years.

" He thought that was not full enough : and that it was, according to the
state of things at the time in which it was composed, fitted chiefly to settle
people's minds right with relation to the reformation, and in opposition to
popery.

" He thought that such a work had been of great use to the nation ; but
that another book of Homilies, that should contain a full and plain account
both of the doctrinal and practical parts of the Christian religion ; such as
should give a clear explanation of every thing relating to our holy faith, or
to the conduct of our lives, was necessary, chiefly for the instruction of
the clergy ; and it might be also a family book for the general use of the
whole nation.

" He proposed that it should consist of threescore and two Homilies ;
two and fifty for all the Sundays of the year, and ten for (if I remember
right) the following holidays. For Christmas; 2d, for the Circumcision;
3d, for Epiphany ; 4th, for Christ's presentment in the Temple ; 5th, for the
Annunciation ; 6th, for Good Friday ; 7th, for the Ascension ; 8th, for the
Monday and Tuesday in Easter -week ; 9th, for the Monday and Tuesday in
\\hitsun-week; and the 10th for Ash Wednesday.

"He designed the book should begin at Advent, in this order. The first
should give a view of the Mosaical dispensation : the second was to explain
the prophecies concerning the Messias, during the first temple : the third
was to explain the prophecies in the captivity in Daniel, and the others
during the second temple : the fourth was to shew what were the defects in

BISHOP SANDERSON. 463

a third or fourth part of an hour's reading ; and these needful
points to be made so clear and plain, that those of a mean capacity

that dispensation, and what was necessary to establish a better covenant,
upon better promises ; with a particular view of the nature of the priesthood,
it being Ordination Sunday.

" Then from Christmas all to Ash- Wednesday in a series of several ser-
mons, the circumstances of the doctrine, the parables, and the miracles of
Christ were to be copiously opened, with these particulars : on the feast of
the Circumcision, baptism was to be explained, as come instead of it : on
Epiphany, the calling of the Gentiles, with the progress that the Christian
religion made, and the destruction of Jerusalem, with the persecutions that
followed, were to be opened. On the presentment in the Temple, the
compliance with the authorised rituals of religion, even though the body of a
church was much corrupted, both with false doctrines and superstitious
practices, was to be made out ; but with the necessary limitations of such a
degree of corruption, as should make a separation from the body not only
lawful, but necessary. On the feast of Annunciation, the hymns of the
Blessed Virgin, of Zachary, and Simeon, as being parts of the daily worship,
were to be paraphrased, and explained ; on Ash- Wednesday and the three
first Sundays in Lent, the whole doctrine of repentance was to be fully
enlarged on; restitution, and the reparation of injuries were to be much
pressed : then the guilt of sin, with the just punishments due for it, both in
this life, and in the next, were to be set forth, to prepare men for a just sense
of the mercies of God in Christ. On the Sunday before Easter, the institu-
tion of the Lord's Supper, and every thing relating to it were to be rightly
stated. On Good Friday, the sufferings and death of Christ were to be
fully set forth. On Easter day, the resurrection was the proper subject;
both the evidence of it, and the effects of it were to be enlarged on. For
Monday and Tuesday in that week, the doctrine of the resurrection, of the
judgment to come, and of the blessedness of the saints in heaven, were to be
opened.

" In the six Sundays to Whitsuntide, the doctrine of Justification was to
be explained; and some expressions in the first book, that seemed to carry
Justification by Faith only, to a height that wanted some mitigation, were to
be well examined ; and all that St. Paul had writ on that head, both to the
Romans, and the Galatians, was to be explained, and reconciled to what
St. James wrote on the same subject. Next Sanctification was to be right
stated ; Faith and Hope were to be explained. The mission of the Apostles,
and of their successors, the bishops and pastors of the church, with their
authority and its limits were to be asserted. Christ's Ascension, and his
kingdom, as the Messias, was next to be proved, and explained. The great
effusion of the Holy Ghost on Whitsunday was next to be dwelt on ; upon
which the authority of the New Testament is to be proved, in opposition to
tradition ; and the authenticalness of the Scriptures, as they are now in our
hands, was to be made out. For the Monday and Tuesday in Whitsun
week the necessity of inward assistances was to be shewn, and to be guarded
against the danger of enthusiasm. On Trinity Sunday, that great article of

464 BISHOP SANDERSON.

might know what was necessary to be believed, and what God
requires to be done ; and then some plain applications of trial

the Christian religion, of the unity of the God-head, and that Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost were one God, was to be proved, and settled; with an
exhortation to all in Holy Orders, to remember their vows, and to live and
labour suitably to their profession.

" In the Sundays after Trinity, the sum of the Ten Commandments, and
every one of the ten, with the duties relating to it, were to be fully opened ;
in particular, Humility, Meekness, and Contentment, with a freedom from
Envy and Covetousness, were to be well set out. After this, some Sermons
were to be added concerning Prayer, with a particular enlargement on all
the parts of the Lord's Prayer : and the year was to end in some sermons,
charging home on the people the care of their souls, and their duty to
Almighty God, the Creator of all things, and the Governor of the world, and
the Saviour of all that believe.

" This is the substance of that scheme, that in a long conversation was
thus digested ; and which the archbishop said that he would communicate
to others, to be corrected, or improved, as they should advise. In order to
this, bishop Patrick undertook to examine carefully the Gospels and Epistles
for the whole year, to see how they agreed with this scheme, and to gather
what other portions out of the Gospels and Epistles he could choose, that
should agree better with all the parts of it, and to prepare Collects proper
for them : and from some discourse with him afterwards, I conclude that
he had made a good progress in it ; whether he finished it, or not, I cannot
tell.

" At that time, the king and queen set out proclamations against profane
swearing, breach of sabbath, lewdness, and drunkenness ; so the archbishop
put it upon me to draw, for an essay, Homilies on these subjects. He said
he would take a large share of the work to himself : the like bishop Patrick
also was willing to undertake ; and he knew several persons who had con-
sidered some matters relating to the scheme very critically, to whom he
would assign such parts of it, as they would be both very willing and able
to execute well. He also told me, that he had proposed the design to the
present reverend and most learned bishop of Worcester'* (Dr. Lloyd)
"who highly approved of it, but would take no other share in it, than
the revising the several compositions that were given in towards the finishing
the work. He said he would read them carefully, and make such re-
marks and corrections as should occur to him, with his utmost care and
exactness.

" But soon after this, we found a spirit of opposition and contradiction
grew so strong, and it was so much animated and supported, that we saw it
was to no purpose to struggle against it at that time. Therefore this, with
many other good designs, were reserved to a better opportunity, and no
further progress was made in it. So since these two worthy prelates are
dead, I thought it was fit for me to give this account of it to the world, that
it may not be quite lost ; and to offer it with the following essay that was
intended to be a part of it."

BISHOP SANDERSON. 465

and conviction : and these to be read every Sunday of the year,
as infallibly as the blood circulates the body at a set time ; and
then as certainly began again, and continued the year following."

And he explained the reason of this his desire, by saying to
me, " All grammar scholars, that are often shifted, from one to
another school, learn neither so much, nor their little so truly, as
those that are constant to one good master : because, by the
several rules of teaching in those several schools they learn less,
and become more and more confused ; and at last, so puzzled
and perplexed, that their learning proves useless both to them-
selves and others. And so do the irnmethodical, useless, needless
notions that are delivered in many sermons, make the hearers ;
but a clear and constant rule of teaching us what we are to
know and do, and what not, and that taught us by an approved
authority, might probably bring the nation to a more conscientious
practice of what we know, and ought to do." Thus did this
prudent man explain the reason of this his desire : and oh ! that
he had undertaken what he advised : for then in all probability it
would have proved so useful, that the present age would have
been blest by it ; and, posterity would have blest him for it.

And at this happy time of my enjoying his company and his
discourse, he expressed a sorrow by saying to me, " 0 that I
had gone chaplain to that excellently accomplished gentleman,
your friend, sir Henry Wotton ! which was once intended, when
he first went ambassador to the state of Venice 8 : for by that
employment I had been forced into a necessity of conversing, not
only with him, but with several men of several nations ; and
might thereby have kept myself from my unmanly bashfulness,
which has proved very troublesome, and not less inconvenient to
me ; and which I now fear is become so habitual as never to
leave me : and besides, by that means I might also have known,
or at least have had the satisfaction of seeing one of the late
miracles of mankind, for general learning, prudence and modesty,
sir Henry Wo toon's dear friend, Padre Paulo 9, who, the author
of his life says, was born with a bashfulness as invincible as I
have found my own to be : a man whose fame must never die,
till virtue and learning shall become so useless as not to be
regarded."

This was a part of the benefit I then had by that hour's con-
versation : and I gladly remember and mention it, as an argu-
8 Venice.'] See p. 84. 9 Padre Paulo.~\ Sarpi.

VOL. IV. H h

466 BISHOP SANDERSON.

ment of my happiness, and his great humility and condescen-
sion.— I had also a like advantage by another happy conference
with him, which I am desirous to impart in this place to the
reader.

He lamented much, that in those times of confusion, in many
parishes, where the maintenance was not great, there was no
minister to officiate; and that many of the best sequestered
livings were possessed with such rigid covenanters as denied the
sacrament to their parishioners, unless upon such conditions,
and in such a manner as they could not with a good conscience
take it. This he mentioned with much sorrow, saying, "The
blessed sacrament did, even by way of preparation for it, give
occasion to all conscientious receivers to examine the performance
of their vows, since they received that last seal for the pardon of
their sins past ; and also to examine and research their hearts,
and make penitent reflections on their failings ; and that done to
bewail them seriously, and then make new vows or resolutions
to obey all God's commands better, and beg his grace to perform
them. And that this being faithfully done, then the sacrament
repairs the decays of grace, helps us to conquer infirmities, gives
us grace to beg God's grace, and then gives us what we beg ;
makes us still hunger and thirst after his righteousness, which we
then receive, and being assisted with our own endeavours, will
still so dwell in us, as to become our sanctification in this life,
and our comfort on our last sick-beds." The want of this
blessed benefit he lamented much, and pitied their condition that
desired, but could not obtain it.

I hope I shall not disoblige my reader, if I here enlarge into
a further character of his person and temper. As first, that he
was moderately tall ; his behaviour had in it much of a plain
comeliness, and very little (yet enough) of ceremony or court-
ship; his looks and motion manifested an endearing affability
and mildness, and yet he had with these a calm, and so matchless
a fortitude, as secured him from complying with any of those
many parliament injunctions, that interfered with a doubtful
conscience. His learning was methodical and exact ; his wisdom
useful ; his integrity visible ; and his whole life so unspotted, so
like the primitive Christians, that all ought to be preserved as
copies for posterity to write after ; the clergy especially ; who
with impure hands ought not to offer sacrifice to that God, whose
pure eyes abhor iniquity ; and especially in them

BISHOP SANDERSON. 467

There was in his sermons no improper rhetoric, nor such per-
plexed divisions, as may be said to be like too much light, that so
dazzles the eyes that the sight becomes less perfect. But in them
there was no want of useful matter, nor waste of words ; and yet
such clear distinctions as dispelled all confused notions, and made
his hearers depart both wiser, and more confirmed in virtuous
resolutions.

His memory was so matchless and firm, as it was only over-
come by his bashfulness : for he alone or to a friend, could repeat
all the Odes of Horace, all Tully's Offices, and much of Juvenal
and Persius without book ; and would say, " The repetition of
one of the Odes of Horace to himself," (which he did often) " was
to him such music, as a lesson on the viol was to others, when
they played it voluntarily to themselves or friends." And though
he was blest with a clearer judgment than other men, yet he was
so distrustful of it, that he did usually over-consider of conse-
quences, and would so delay and reconsider what to determine,
that though none ever determined better, yet, when the bell
tolled for him to appear and read his Divinity Lectures in Oxford,
and all the scholars attended to hear him, he had not then, or
not till then, resolved and writ what he meant to determine ; so
that that appeared to be a truth, which his old dear friend Dr.
Sheldon would often say of him, namely, " That his judgment was
so much superior to his fancy, that whatsoever this suggested,
that disliked and controuled ; still considering, and reconsidering,
till his time was so wasted, that he was forced to write, not (pro-
bably) what was best, but what he thought last." And yet
what he did then read, appeared to all hearers to be so useful,
clear, and satisfactory, as none ever determined with greater
applause.

These tiring and perplexing thoughts begot in him some averse-
ness to enter into the toil of considering and determining all
casuistical points ; because during that time they neither gave
rest to his body or mind. But though he would not suffer his
mind to be always loaden with these knotty points and distinc-
tions, yet the study of old records, genealogies, and heraldry,
were a recreation, and so pleasing, that he would say they gave a
pleasant rest to his mind. Of the last of which I have seen two
remarkable volumes ; and the reader needs neither to doubt their
truth or exactness.

And this holy humble man had so conquered all repining and

Hh2

468 BISHOP SANDERSON.

ambitious thoughts, and with them all other unruly passions, that,
if the accidents of the day proved to his danger or damage, yet
he both began and ended it with an even and undisturbed quiet-
ness : always praising God that he had not withdrawn food and
raiment from him and his poor family, nor suffered him in the
times of trial to violate his conscience for his safety, or to support
himself or them in a more splendid or plentiful condition; ami
that he therefore resolved with David, That his praise sJiould be
always in his mouth.

I have taken a content in giving my reader this character of
his person, his temper, and some of the accidents of his life jta^t ;
and much more might be added of all : but I will with sorrow
look forward to the sad days, in which so many good men, clergy-
men especially, were sufferers; namely, about the year 1658, at
which time Dr. Sanderson was in a very pitiful condition as to his
estate : and in that time Mr. Robert Boyle ', (a gentleman of a
very noble birth, and more eminent for his liberality, learning and
virtue, and of whom I would say much more, but that he still
lives) having casually met with, and read his lectures de Jura-
mento, to his great satisfaction, and being informed of Dr. San-
derson's great innocence and sincerity, and that he and his family
were brought into a low condition by his not complying with the
parliament's injunctions, sent him by his dear friend Dr. Barlow,
(the now learned bishop of Lincoln), 50£. and with it a request
and promise. The request was, " That he would review the lec-
tures de Conscientia, which he had read when he was doctor of the
chair in Oxford, and print them for the good of posterity ;" (and
this Dr. Sanderson did in the year 1659). And the promise was,
" That he would pay him that, or if he desired it, a greater sum
yearly, during his life to enable him to pay an amanuensis, to ease
him from the trouble of writing what he should conceive or dic-
tate." For the more particular account of which, I refer my
reader to a letter writ to me by the said Dr. Barlow, which I have
annexed to the end of this relation.

Towards the beginning of the year 1 660, when the many mixed
sects, and their creators, and merciless protectors, had led, or
driven each other into a whirlpool of confusion both in church
and state : when amazement and fear had seized most of them by
foreseeing, they must now not only vomit up the church's, and

1 Boyle."] The celebrated Hon. Robert Boyle.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 469

the king's land, but their accusing consciences did also give them
an inward and fearful intelligence, that the God of opposition,
disobedience, and confusion, which they had so long and so dili-
gently feared, was now ready to reward them with such wages as
he always pays to witches for their obeying him : when these
wretches (that had said to themselves, " We shall see no sorrow")
were come to foresee an end of their cruel reign, by our king's
return, and such sufferers as Dr. Sanderson (and with him many
of the oppressed clergy and others) could foresee the cloud of
their afflictions would be dispersed by it ; then the 29th of May
following, the king was by our good God restored to us, and we
to our known laws and liberties, and then a general joy and peace
seemed to breathe through the three nations ; the suffering and
sequestered clergy (who had, like the children of Israel, sat long
lamenting their sad condition, and hanged their neglected harps
on the willows that grow by the rivers of Babylon) were after
many thoughtful days, and restless nights, now freed from their
sequestration, restored to their revenues, and to a liberty to
adore, praise, and pray to almighty God publicly in such order
as their consciences and oaths had formerly obliged them. And
the reader will easily believe that Dr. Sanderson and his dejected
family rejoiced to see this happy day, and be of this number.

At this time of the conformable clergy's deliverance from the
presbyterian severities, the doctor said to a friend, " I look back
on this strange and happy turn of the late times with amazement
and thankfulness ; and cannot but think the Presbyterians ought
to read their own errors, by considering that by their own rules
the Independents have punished, and supplanted them as they
did the conformable clergy, who are now (so many as still live)
restored to their lawful right ; and as the prophet David hath
taught me, so I say with a thankful heart, Verily, there is a God
thatjudgeth the earth : and a reward for the righteous"

It ought to be considered (which I have often heard or read)
that in the primitive times, men of learning, prudence, and virtue
were usually sought for, and solicited to accept of episcopal
government, and often refused it. For, they conscientiously con-
sidered that the office of a bishop was not made up of ease and
state, but of labour and care : that they were trusted to be of God's
almoners of the church's revenue, and double their care for the
church's good, and the poor ; to live strictly themselves, and use
all diligence to see that their family, officers and clergy, became

470 BISHOP SANDERSON.

examples of innocence and piety to others ; and that the account
of that stewardship must at the last dreadful day be made" to the
Searcher of all hearts : and for these reasons they were in the
primitive times timorous to undertake it. It may not be said
that Dr. Sanderson was accomplished with these, and all the
other requisites required in a bishop, so as to be able to answer
them exactly ; but it may be affirmed, as a good preparation, that
he had at the age of seventy-three years (for he was so old at the
king's return) fewer faults to be pardoned by God or man, than
are apparent in others in these days, in which (God knows) we
fall so short of that visible sanctity and zeal to God's glory, which
was apparent in the days of primitive Christianity. This is men-
tioned by way of preparation to what I shall say more of Dr. San-
derson ; as namely, that at the king's return Dr. Sheldon, the
late prudent archbishop of Canterbury (than whom none knew,
valued, or loved Dr. Sanderson more or better) was by his
majesty made a chief trustee to commend to him fit men to
supply the then vacant bishoprics. And Dr. Sheldon knew none
fitter than Dr. Sanderson, and therefore humbly desired the king
that he would nominate him : and that done, he did as humbly
desire Dr. Sanderson that he would " for God's and the church's
sake take that charge and care upon him." Dr. Sanderson had,
if not an unwillingness, certainly no forwardness to undertake it,
and would often say, " He had not led himself, but his friend
would now lead him into a temptation, which he had daily prayed
against ; and besought God, if he did undertake it, so to assist
him with his grace, that the example of his life, his cares and
endeavours might promote his glory, and help forward the salva-
tion of others."

This I have mentioned as a happy preparation to his bishopric,
and am next to tell that he was consecrated bishop of Lincoln at
Westminster the 28th of October, 1660.

There was about this time a Christian care taken, that those
whose consciences were (as they said) tender, and could not com-
ply with the service and ceremonies of the church, might have a
satisfaction given by a friendly debate betwixt a select number of
them, and some like number of those that had been sufferers for
the church service and ceremonies, and now restored to liberty ;
of which last some were then preferred to power and dignity in
the church. And of these bishop Sanderson was one, and then
chosen to be a moderator in that debate, and he performed his

BISHOP SANDERSON. 471

trust with much mildness, patience, and reason ; but all proved
ineffectual. For there be some prepossessions like jealousies,
which though causeless, yet cannot be removed by reasons as
apparent as demonstration can make any truth. The place
appointed for this debate was the Savoy a in the Strand : and the
points debated were, I think, many (and I think many of them
needless) ; some affirmed to be truth and reason, some denied to be
either ; and these debates being at first in words, proved to be so
loose and perplexed as satisfied neither party. For sometime
that which had been affirmed was immediately forgot, or mis-
taken, or denied, and so no satisfaction given to either party.
And that the debate might become more satisfactory and useful,
it was therefore resolved that the day following, the desires and
reasons of the non-conformists should be given in writing, and
they in writing receive answers from the conforming party. And
though I neither now can, nor need to mention all the points
debated, nor the names of the dissenting brethren ; yet I am sure
Mr. Richard Baxter was one, and I am sure also one of the points
debated was " Concerning a command of lawful superiors, what
was sufficient towards its being a lawful command?" — This fol-
lowing proposition was brought by the conforming party :

" That command which commands an act in itself lawful, and
no other act or circumstance unlawful, is not sinful.""

Mr. Baxter denied it for two reasons, which he gave in with
his own hand in writing thus : one was, " Because that may be a
smper accidens, which is not so in itself; and may be unlawfully
commanded, though that accident be not in the command.'" An-
other was, " That it may be commanded under an unjust
penalty."

Again, this proposition being brought by the conformists,
" That command which commandeth an act in itself lawful, and
no other act whereby any unjust penalty is enjoined, nor any
circumstance whence per accidens any sin is consequent which
the commander ought to provide against, is not sinful."

Mr. Baxter denied it for this reason then given in with his own
hand in writing, thus ; " Because the first act commanded may

2 The Savoy, ,] For a large account of the Savoy conference, see Baxter's
Life, p. 303, &c. ; also Collier's Ecclesiast. History, vol. ii. p. 876—86 ; and
History of Non-conformity as it was argued by commissioners on both sides, in
1661. p. 149—338. edit. 1704. 8vo.

472 BISHOP SANDERSON.

be per accidens unlawful, and be commanded by an unjust penalty,
though no other act or circumstance commanded be such."

Again this proposition being brought by the conformists,
" That command which commandeth an act in itself lawful, and
no other act whereby any unjust penalty is enjoined, nor any
circumstance whence directly or per accidens any sin is conse-
quent, which the commander ought to provide against, hath in it
all things requisite to the lawfulness of a command, and particu-
larly cannot be guilty of commanding an act per accidens un-
lawful nor of commanding an act under an unjust penalty."
Mr. Baxter denied it upon the same reasons.

PETER GUNNING.

JOHN PEARSON.

These were then two of the disputants, still live, and will attest
this ; one being now lord bishop of Ely, and the other of Chester.
And the last of them told me very lately, that one of the dis-
senters (which I could, but forbear to name) appeared to Dr.
Sanderson to be so bold, so troublesome, and so illogical in the
dispute, as forced patient s Dr. Sanderson (who was then bishop
of Lincoln, and a moderator with other bishops) to say with an
unusual earnestness, "That he had never met with a man of
more pertinacious confidence, and less abilities in all his con-
versation."

But, though this debate at the Savoy was ended without any
great satisfaction to either party, yet both parties knew the de-
sires and understood the abilities of the other much better than
before it : and the late distressed clergy, that were now restored
to their former rights and power, were so charitable, as at their
next meeting in convocation, to contrive to give the dissenting
party satisfaction by alteration, explanation, and addition to some
part both of the rubric and Common Prayer ; as also by adding
some new necessary collects, with a particular collect of thanks-
giving. How many of these new collects were worded by 1 )r.
Sanderson, I cannot say ; but am sure the whole convocation
valued him so much, that he never undertook to speak to any
point in question, but he was heard with great willingness and
attention ; and when any point in question was determined, the

3 Patient, .] Baxter, speaking of Sanderson at this period, says, that he was
" a very worthy man, but for that great peevishness, which injuries, partiality,
temperature and age had caused in him." — Life, &c. p. 357. See also p. 3C3.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 473

convocation did usually desire him to word their intentions, and,
as usually, approve and thank him.

At this convocation the Common-Prayer was made more com-
plete, by adding three new necessary offices ; which were, A Form
of Humiliation for the Murder of King Charles the Martyr ; a
Thanksgiving for the Restoration of Ms Son our King ; and for
the Baptizing of Persons of riper Age. I cannot say Dr. Sander-
son did form or word them all, but doubtless more than any
single man of the convocation ; and he did also, by desire of the
convocation, alter and add to the forms of prayers to be used at
sea (now taken into the service-book). And it may be noted,
that William *, the now most reverend archbishop of Canterbury,
was in these employments diligently useful ; especially in helping
to rectify the calendar and rubric. And lastly it may be noted,
that for the satisfying all the dissenting brethren and others, the
convocation's reasons for the alterations and additions to the
liturgy, were by them desired to be drawn up by Dr. Sanderson ;
which being done by him, and approved by them, was appointed
to be printed before the liturgy, and may now be known by this
title — The Preface ; and begins thus — It hath been the wisdom of
the church.

I shall now follow Dr. Sanderson to his bishopric, and declare
a part of his behaviour in that busy and weighty employment.
And first, that it was with such condescension and obligingness
to the meanest of his clergy, as to know and be known to most
of them. And indeed he practised the like to all men of what
degree soever, especially to his old neighbours or parishioners of
Boothby Pannel ; for there was all joy at his table when they
came to visit him : then they prayed for him, and he for them,
with an unfeigned affection.

I think it will not be denied but that the care and toil required
of a bishop, may justly challenge the riches and revenue with
which their predecessors had lawfully endowed them ; and yet he
sought not that so much, as doing good with it both to the
present age and posterity ; and he made this appear by what
follows.

The bishop's chief house at Buckden, in the county of Hun-
tington, the usual residence of his predecessors (for it stands
about the midst of his diocese), having been at his consecration

* William.'] Sancroft.

474 BISHOP SANDERSON.

a great part of it demolished, and what was left standing under a
visible decay, was by him undertaken to be repaired ; and it was
performed with great speed, care, and charge. And to this may
be added, that the king having by an injunction * commended to
the care of the bishops, deans, and prebends of all cathedral
churches, " the repair of them, their houses, and an augmenta-
tion of the revenue of small vicarages ;" he, when he was repair-
ing Buckden, did also augment the last, as fast as fines were paid
for renewing leases ; so fast, that a friend taking notice of his
bounty, was so bold as to advise him to remember, " he was
under his first fruits, and that he was old, and had a wife and
children that were yet but meanly provided for, especially if his
dignity were considered.'1 To whom he made a mild and thank-
ful answer, saying, " It would not become a Christian bishop to
suffer those houses built by his predecessors to be ruined for want
of repair ; and less justifiable to suffer any of those poor vicars
that were called to so high a calling as to sacrifice at God's altar,
to eat the bread of sorrow constantly, when he had a power by a
small augmentation to turn it into the bread of cheerfulness : and
wished that as this was, so it were also in his power to make all
mankind happy, for he desired nothing more. And for his wife
and children, he hoped to leave them a competence ; and in the
hands of a God, that would provide for all that kept innocence,
and trusted in his providence and protection, which he had always
found enough to make and keep him happy."

There was in his diocese a minister of almost his age, that had
been of Lincoln college when he left it, who visited him often, and
always welcome, because he was a man of innocence and open-
heartedness. This minister asked the bishop what books he
studied most, when he laid the foundation of his great and clear
learning \ To which his answer was, that he declined reading
many books ; but what he did read were well chosen, and read
so often that he became very familiar with them ; and told him
they were chiefly three, Aristotle's Rhetoric, Aquinas's Secunda
Becundce, and Tully, but chiefly his Offices, which he had not read
over less than twenty times, and could at this age repeat without
book. And told him also, the learned civilian doctor Zouch (\vlm
died lately) had writ Elementa Jurisprudentice, which was a book

' By an injunction.] See Kennett's Case of Impropriotions and Augmenta-
tion of Vicarages, 251 — 8. The king's letter was issued Aug. 7, 1 660.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 475

that he thought he could also say without book ; and that no
wise man could read it too often, or love, or commend it too
much ; and he told him the study of these had been his toil ;
but for himself, he always had a natural love to genealogies and
heraldry ; and that when his thoughts were harassed with any
perplexed studies, he left off, and turned to them as a recreation ;
and that his very recreation had made him so perfect in them,
that he could in a very short time give an account of the descent,
arms, and antiquity of any family of the nobility or gentry of this
nation.

Before I give an account of his last sickness, I desire to tell
the reader that he was of a healthful constitution, cheerful and
mild, of an even temper, very moderate in his diet, and had had
little sickness, till some few years before his death ; but was then
every winter punished with a diarrhoea, which left him not till
warm weather returned and removed it : and this distemper did,
as he grew older, seize him oftener, and continue longer with him.
But though it weakened him, yet it made him rather indisposed
than sick, and did no way disable him from studying (indeed too
much). In this decay of his strength, but not of his memory or
reason (for this distemper works not upon the understanding), he
made his last will, of which I shall give some account for con-
firmation of what hath been said, and what I think convenient to
be known, before I declare his death and burial.

He did in his last will give an account of his faith and persua-
sion in point of religion and church-government, in these very
words :

" I Robert Sanderson, doctor of divinity, an unworthy minister
of Jesus Christ, and by the providence of God bishop of Lin-
coln, being by the long continuance of an habitual distemper
brought to a great bodily weakness and faintness of spirits, but
(by the great mercy of God) without any bodily pain otherwise,
or decay of understanding, do make this my will and testament
(written all with my own hand) revoking all former wills by me
heretofore made, if any such shall be found. First, I commend
my soul into the hands of Almighty God, as of a faithful Creator,
which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept, looking upon
it, not as it is in itself (infinitely polluted with sin) but as it is
redeemed and purged with the precious blood of his only beloved
Son, and my most sweet saviour Jesus Christ ; in confidence of
whose merits and mediation alone it is, that I cast myself upon

476 BISHOP SANDERSON.

the mercy of God for the pardon of my sins, and the hopes of
eternal life. And here I do profess, that as I have lived, so I
desire and (by the grace of God) resolve to die in the communion
of the catholic church of Christ, and a true son of the church of
England ; which, as it stands by law established, to be both in
doctrine and worship agreeable to the word of God, and in the
most, and most material points of both, conformable to the faith
and practice of the godly churches of Christ in the primitive and
purer times, I do firmly believe : led so to do, not so much from
the force of custom and education (to which the greatest part
of mankind owe their particular different persuasions in point of
religion,) as upon the clear evidence of truth and reason, after
a serious and unpartial examination of the grounds, as well
of popery as puritanism, according to that measure of under-
standing, and those opportunities which God hath afforded me :
and herein I am abundantly satisfied, that the schism which the
papists on the one hand, and the superstition which the puritan
on the other hand, lay to our charge, are very justly chargeable
upon themselves respectively8. Wherefore I humbly beseech
Almighty God, the Father of mercies, to preserve the church by
his power and providence, in peace, truth, and godliness, evermore
to the world's end : which doubtless he will do, if the wickedness
and security of a sinful people (and particularly those sins that
are so rife, and seem daily to increase among us, of unthankful-
ness, riot, and sacrilege) do not tempt his patience to the con-
trary. And I also farther humbly beseech him, that it would
please him to give unto our gracious sovereign, the reverend
bishops, and the parliament, timely to consider the great danger
that visibly threatens his church in point of religion by the late
great increase of popery, and in point of revenue by sacrilegious
inclosures ; and to provide such wholesome and effectual remedies
as may prevent the same before it be too late."

And for a further manifestation of his humble thoughts and
desires, they may appear to the reader, by another part of lii.s
will which follows :

" As for my corruptible body, I bequeath it to the earth win -nr<>
it was taken, to be decently buried in the parish church of Huck-
den, towards the upper end of the chancel, upon the second, or
(at the farthest) the third day after my dm-usi- ; :md that with

6 Themselves respectively.} See Christian Institutes, vol. iv. p. 313, 14.
546. 573—5. 658, 9.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 477

as little noise, pomp, and charge as may be, without the invitation
of any person how near soever related unto me, other than the
inhabitants of Bnckden ; without the unnecessary expence of
escutcheons, gloves, ribbons, &c. and without any blacks to be
hung any where in or about the house or church, other than a
pulpit- cloth, a hearse-cloth, and a mourning gown for the preacher ;
whereof the former, (after my body shall be interred) to be given
to the preacher of the funeral sermon, and the latter to the curate
of the parish for the time being. And my will further is, that
the funeral sermon be preached by my own houshold chaplain,
containing some wholesome discourse concerning mortality, the
resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment ; and that he shall
have for his pains %L upon condition, that he speak nothing at all
concerning any person either good or ill, other than I myself
shall direct ; only signifying to the auditory that it was my ex-
press will to have it so. And it is my will, that no costly monu-
ment be erected for my memory, but only a fair flat marble stone
to be laid over me, with this inscription in legible roman charac-
ters,— Depositum Robert* Sanderson nuper Lincolniensis episcopi,
qui obiit anno Domini MDCLXII. et cetatis suce septuagesimo
sexto. Hie requiescit in spe beatce resurrectionis. This manner of
burial, although I cannot but foresee it will prove unsatisfactory
to sundry my nearest friends and relations, and be apt to be
censured by others, as an evidence of my too much parsimony
and narrowness of mind, as being altogether unusual, and not
according to the mode of these times ; yet it is agreeable to the
sense of my heart, and I do very much desire my will may be
carefully observed herein, hoping it may become exemplary to
some or other : at least howsoever testifying at my death (what
I have so often and earnestly professed in my life time) my utter
dislike of the flatteries commonly used in funeral sermons, and of
the vast expences otherwise laid out in funeral solemnities and
entertainments, with very little benefit to any, which (if be-
stowed in pious and charitable works) might redound to the
public or private benefit of many persons." This is a part of
his will.

I am next to tell, that he died the 29th of January 1662, and
that his body was buried in Buckden the third day after his death ;
and for the manner, that it was as far from ostentation as he de-
sired it ; and all the rest of his will was as punctually performed.
And when I have (to his just praise) told this truth, That he

478 BISHOP SANDERSON.

died far from being rich, I shall return back to visit, and give a
further account of him on his sick bed.

His last will (of which I have mentioned a part) was made
about three weeks before his death, about which time, finding his
strength to decay, by reason of his constant infirmity and a con-
sumptive cough added to it, he retired to his chamber, expressing
a desire to enjoy his last thoughts by himself in private, without
disturbance or care, especially of what might concern this world.
Thus as his natural life decayed, his spiritual life seemed to be
more strong, and his faith more confirmed : still labouring to
attain that holiness and purity, without which none shall see God.
And that not any of his clergy (which are more numerous than
any other bishop^s of this nation) might suffer by his retirement,
he did by commission empower his chaplain, Mr. Pullin, with
episcopal power, to give institutions to all livings or church-pre-
ferments, during this his disability to do it himself. In this time
of his retirement, which was wholly spent in devotion, he longed
for his dissolution ; and when some that loved him prayed for
his recovery, if he at any time found any amendment, he seemed
to be displeased, by saying, " His friends said their prayers back-
ward for him : and that it was not his desire to live a useless life,
and by filling up a place, keep another out of it, that might do
God and his church more service." He would often with much
joy and thankfulness mention, " That during his being a house-
keeper (which was more than forty years) there had not been one
buried out of his family, and that he was now like to be the first."
He would also mention with thankfulness, " That till he was three-
score years of age, he had never spent five shillings in law, nor
(upon himself) so much in wine : and rejoiced much that he had
so lived as never to cause an hour's sorrow to his good father ;
and that he hoped that he should die without an enemy."

He in this retirement had the church prayers read in his cham-
ber twice every day : and at nine at night some prayers read to
him and a part of his family out of the Whole Duty of Man. As
he was remarkably punctual and regular in all his studies and
actions, so he used himself to be for his meals : and his dinner
being appointed to be constantly ready at the ending of prayers,
and he expecting and calling for it, was answered " It would be
ready in a quarter of an hour." To which his reply was with
some earnestness, " A quarter of an hour ? is a quarter of an
hour nothing to a man that probably has not many hours to

BISHOP SANDERSON. 479

live 2" And though he did live many hours after this, yet he lived
not many days ; for the day after (which was three days before
his death) he was become so weak and weary either of motion or
sitting, that he was content, or forced to keep his bed. In which
I desire he may rest, till I have given some short account of his
behaviour there, and immediately before it.

The day before he took his bed (which was three days before
his death) he, that he might receive a new assurance for the
pardon of his sins past, and be strengthened in his way to the
New Jerusalem, took the blessed sacrament of the body and
blood of his, and our blessed Jesus, from the hands of his chap-
lain Mr. Pullin, accompanied with his wife, children, and a friend,
in as awful, humble, and ardent a manner, as outward reverence
could express. After the praise and thanksgiving for this bless-
ing was ended, he spake to this purpose ; "I have now to the
great joy of my soul tasted of the all-saving sacrifice of my
Saviour's death and passion ; and with it, received a spiritual
assurance that my sins past are pardoned, and my God at peace
with me : and that I shall never have a will, or power to do any
thing that may separate my soul from the love of my dear Sa-
viour. Lord confirm this belief in me ; and make me still to
remember that it was thou 0 God that tookest me out of my
mother's womb, and hast been the powerful protector of me to
this present moment of my life : thou hast neither forsaken me
now I am become grey-headed, nor suffered me to forsake thee in
the late days of temptation, and sacrifice my conscience for the
preservation of my liberty or estate. It was not of myself but
by grace that I have stood, when others have fallen under my
trials : and these mercies 1 now remember with joy and thank-
fulness ; and my hope and desire is that I might die remembering
this, and praising thee my merciful God." The frequent repeti-
tion of the psalms of David hath been noted to be a great part of
the devotion of the primitive Christians : the psalms having in
them, not only prayers and holy instructions, but such commemo-
rations of God's mercies, as may preserve, comfort, and confirm
our dependance on the power, and providence, and mercy of our
Creator. And this is mentioned in order to telling, that as the
holy psalmist said, that his eyes should prevent loth the dawning of
the day and the night watches, by meditating on God's word ; so it
was Dr. Sanderson's constant practice every morning to entertain
his first waking thoughts with a repetition of those very psalms,
that the church hath appointed to be constantly read in the daily

480 BISHOP SANDERSON.

morning service ; and having at night laid him in his bed, he as
constantly closed his eyes with a repetition of those appointed for
the service of the evening ; remembering and repeating the very
psalms appointed for every day ; and as the month had formerly
ended and began again, so did this exercise of his devotion. And
if the first fruits of his waking thoughts were of the world, or
what concerned it, he would arraign and condemn himself for it.
Thus he began that work on earth which is now the employment
of Dr. Hammond and him in heaven.

After his taking his bed, and about a day before his death, he
desired his chaplain, Mr. Pullin, to give him absolution : and at
his performing that office, he pulled off his cap, that Mr. Pullin
might lay his hand upon his bare head. After this desire of his
was satisfied, his body seemed to be at more ease, and his mind
more cheerful ; and he said often, " Lord, forsake me not now my
strength faileth me, but continue thy mercy, and let my mouth be
ever filled with thy praise.11 He continued the remaining ni^ht
and day very patient, and thankful for any of the little offices that
were performed for his ease and refreshment : and during that
time, did often say to himself the 103d psalm, (a psalm that is
composed of praise and consolations, fitted for a dying soul,) and
say also to himself very often these words, "My heart is fixed, 0
God, my heart is fixed where true joy is to be found" And now his
thoughts seemed to be wholly of death, for which he was so pre-
pared, that that King of Terrors could not surprise him as a thief
in the night ; for he had often said, " he was prepared, and longed
for it.11 And as this desire seemed to come from heaven, so it
left him not, till his soul ascended to that region of blessed spirits,
whose employments are to join in consort with his, and sing praise
and glory to that God, who hath brought him and them to that
place, into which sin and sorrow cannot enter.

Thus this pattern of meekness and primitive innocence chaiiL
this for a better life : — it is now too late to wish that mine may
be like his (for, I am in the eighty-fifth year of my age; and,
God knows it hath not) : but, I most humbly beseech Almighty
God that my death may ; and I do as earnestly beg, that if any
reader shall receive any satisfaction from this very plain, and as
true relation, he will be so charitable, as to say Amen.

I. W.

•• Bl«'»<'d is that man in whose sj.jrit there is no guile.*' Psal.
\x\ii. 2.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 481

DR. PIEECE, DEAN OF SALISBURY, HIS LETTER TO MR. WALTON.

Good Mr. Walton,

AT my return to this place, I made a yet stricter search after
the letters long ago sent me from our most excellent Dr. Sander-
son before the happy restoration of the king and church of Eng-
land to their several rights ; in one of which letters more espe-
cially, he was pleased to give me a narrative both of the rise and
the progress, and reasons also, as well of his younger, as of his last
and riper judgment, touching the famous points controverted be-
tween the Calvinians and the Arminians, as they are commonly
(though unjustly and unskilfully) miscalled on either side.

The whole letter I allude to, does consist of several sheets,
whereof a good part has been made public long ago by the most
learned, most judicious, most pious Dr. Hammond (to whom I.
sent it both for his private, and for the public satisfaction, if he
thought fit) in his excellent book, entituled a Pacific Discourse of
GocFs Grace and Decrees, in full accordance with Dr. Sanderson :
to which discourse I refer you for an account of Dr. Sanderson,
and the history of his thoughts in his own hand-writing, wherein
I sent it to Westwood, as I received it from Boothby Pannel.
And although the whole book (printed in the year 1660, and
reprinted since with his other tracts in folio) is very worthy of
your perusal ; yet for the work you are about, you shall not have
need to read more at present, than from the 8th to the 23rd page,
and as far as the end of section 33. There you will find in what
year the excellent man, whose life you write, became a master of
arts. How his first reading of learned Hooker had been occa-
sioned by some puritanical pamphlets ; and how good a prepara-
tive he found it for his reading of Calvin's Institutions, the honour
of whose name (at that time especially) gave such credit to his
errors. How he erred with Mr. Calvin (whilst he took things
upon trust) in the sublapsarian way. How being chosen to be a
clerk of the convocation for the diocese of Lincoln, 1625, he
reduced the Quinquarticular Controversy into five schemes or
tables ; and thereupon discerned a necessity of quitting the sublap-
sarian way (of which he had before a better liking) as well as the
supralapsarian, which he could never fancy. There you will meet
with his two weighty reasons against them both ; and find his
happy change of judgment to have been ever since the year 1 625f

VOL. IV. I i

482 BISHOP SANDERSON.

even thirty-four years before the world either knew, or (at least)
took notice of it. And more particularly his reasons for rejecting
Dr. Twiss (or the way he walks in) although his acute, and very
learned and ancient friend.

c I now proceed to let you know from Dr. Sandersons own hand,
which was never printed (and which you can hardly know from
any, unless from his son, or from myself) That when that parlia-
ment was broken up, and the convocation therewith dissolved, a
gentleman of his acquaintance, by occasion of some discourse
about these points, told him of a book, not long before published
at Paris (A.D. 1623,) by a d Spanish bishop, who had undertaken
to clear the differences in the great controversy De Concordla
Gratice et Liberi Arbitrii. And because his friend perceived he
was greedily desirous to see the book, he sent him one of them
containing the four first books of twelve which he intended then
to publish. " When I had read" (says Dr. Sanderson, in the
following words, of the same letter) " his epistle dedicatory to the
pope (Greg. 15,) he spake so highly of his oicn invention, that I
then began rather to suspect him for a mountebank, than to hope I
should find satisfaction from his performances. I found much con-
fidence, and great pomp of words, but little matter as to the maiii
knot of the business, other than had been said an hundred times before,
to wit, of the co-existence of all things past, present, and future in
mente divina realiter ab seterno, which is the subject of his whole
third book ; only he interpreteth the word realiter so, as to import
not only prsesentialitatem objectivam (as others held before
but propriam et actualem existentiam. Yet confesseth it is
to make this intelligible. In his fourth book he endeavours to d> •
a two-fold manner of Gotfs working ad extra ; the one sub online
Prsedestinationis, of which eternity is the proper measure ; the other
sub ordine Gratiae, whereof time is the measure. And that God
worketh fortiter in the one (though not irresistibiliter) as well as
suaviter in the other, wherein the free-will hath his proper working
also. From the result of his whole performance I was confirmed in
this opinion, that we must acknowledge the work of both (grace and
free-will) in the conversion of a sinner. And so likewise in all other
events, the consistency of the infallibility of GocT 8 foreknowledge at

« Sir, I pray note, That all that follows in the Italian character, are Dr.
Sanderson's own words, excellently worthy, but no where else extant ; and
commend him as much as any thing you can say of him. T. P.

d Francisco de Arriba.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 483

least (though not with any absolute, but conditional predestination)
with the liberty of mans will, and the contingency of inferior causes
and effects. These, I say, we must acknowledge for the on : but for
the TO TTWC, / thought it bootless for me to think of comprehending it.
And so came the two Acta Synodalia Dordrectana to stand in my
study, only to fill up a room to this day.

" And yet see the restless curiosity of man. Not many years after,
to wit, A.D. 1632, out cometh Dr. Twiss^s Vindicise Gratise, a large
volume purposely writ against Arminius. And then notwithstand-
ing my former resolution, I must needs be meddling again. The
respect I bore to his person and great learning, and the long acquaint-
ance I had had with him in Oxford, drew me to the reading of that
whole book. But from the reading of it (for I read it through to a
syllable) I went away with many and great dissatisfactions. Sundry
things in that book I took notice of, which brought me into a greater
dislike of his opinion than I had before. But especially these three:
First, that he bottometh very much of his discourse upon a very
erroneous principle, which yet he seemeth to be so deeply in love with,
that he hath repeated it (I verily believe) some hundreds of times in
that work : to wit this, that whatsoever is first in the intention, is last
in execution, and e converse. Which is an error of that magni-
tude, that I cannot but wonder, how a person of such acuteness and
subtilty of wit could possibly be deceived with.it. All logicians know,
there is no such universal maxim as he buildeth upon. The true
maxim is but this, Finis qui primus est in intentione, est ultimus
in executione. In the order of final causes, and the means used for
that end, the rule holdeth perpetually : but in other things, it holdeth
not at all, or but by chance; or not as a rule, and necessarily.
Secondly, that, foreseeing such consequences would naturally and
necessarily follow from his opinion, as would offend the ear of a sober
Christian at the very first sound, he would yet rather choose not only
to admit the said harsh consequences, but professedly endeavour also
to maintain them, and plead hard for them in large digressions, than
to recede in the least from that opinion which he had undertaken to
defend. Thirdly, that seeing (out of the sharpness of his wit) a
necessity of forsaking the ordinary sublapsarian way, and the supra-
lapsarian too, as it had diversely been declared by all that had gone
before him (for the shunning of those rocks, which either of those ways
must unavoidably cast him upon} he was forced to seek out an un-
trodden path, and to frame out of his own brain a new way (like a
spider's web wrought out of her own bowels) hoping by that device to

484 BISHOP SANDERSON.

salve all absurdities which could be objected ; to wit, by making the
glory of God (as it is indeed the chief est,) so the only end of all oilier
his decrees, and then making all those other decrees to be but one entire
co-ordinate medium conducing to that one end, and so tJte whole
subordinate to it, but not any one part thereof subordinate to any
other of the same. • Dr. Twiss should have done well to have been
more sparing in imputing the studium partium to others, wherewith
his own eyes (though of eminent perspicacity) were so strangely blind-
folded, that he could not discern, how this his new device, and his
old dearly beloved principle (like the Cadmean Sparti) do mutually
destroy the one the other.

" This relation of my passed thoughts havinq spun out to afar

J */ JL *7 */ L J

greater length than I intended, I shall give a shorter account of what
Ihey now are concerning these points."

For which account I refer you to tho following parts of Dr.
Hammond's book aforesaid, where you may find them already
printed. And for another account at large of bishop Sanderson's
last judgment concerning God's concurrence or non-concurrence
with the actions of men, and the positive entity of sins of com-
mission, I refer you to his letters already printed by his consent,
in my large appendix to my Impartial inquiry into the nature of
sin. Sect. 68, p. 193, as far as p. 200.

Sir, I have rather made it my choice to transcribe all above out
of the letters of Dr. Sanderson which lie before me, than venture
the loss of my originals by post or carrier, which, though not often,
yet sometimes fail. Make use of as much, or as little as you please,
of what I send you from himself (because from his own letters to
me) in the penning of his life, as your own prudence shall direct
you ; using my name for your warranty in the account given of
him, as much or as little as you please too. You have a per-
formance of my promise, and an obedience to your desires, from

Your affectionate
humble servant,

North-Tidworth, THO. PIER.

March 5, 167 .

TIIK BISHOP OF LINCOLN 8 LETTER.

My worthy friend Mr. Walton,

I AM heartily glad, that you have undertaken to \\rite the life
of that excellent person, and (both for learning and piety) eminent

BISHOP SANDERSON. 485

prelate, Dr. Sanderson, late bishop of Lincoln ; because I know
your ability to know, and integrity to write truth : and sure I am
that the life and actions of that pious and learned prelate will
afford you matter enough for his commendation, and the imitation
of posterity. In order to the carrying on your intended good work,
you desire my assistance, that I would communicate to you such
particular passages of his life, as were certainly known to me. I
confess I had the happiness to be particularly known to him for
about the space of twenty years, and (in Oxon) to enjoy his con-
versation, and his learned and pious instructions while he was
regius professor of divinity there. Afterwards, when (in the time
of our late unhappy confusions) he left Oxon, and was retired into
the country, I had the benefit of his letters ; wherein (with great
candour and kindness) he answered those doubts I proposed,
and gave me that satisfaction, which I neither had, nor expected
from some others of greater confidence, but less judgment and
humility.

Having in a letter named two or three books writ (ex professo)
against the being of any original sin ; and that Adam (by his
fall) transmitted some calamity only, but no crime to his pos-
terity ; the good old man was exceedingly troubled, and bewailed
the misery of those licentious times, and seemed to wonder (save
that the times were such) that any should write, or be permitted
to publish any error so contradictory to truth, and the doctrine
of the church of England, established (as he truly said) by clear
evidence of Scripture, and the just and supreme power of this
nation, both sacred and civil. I name not 7 the books, nor their

7 I name not.'] It is probable that part, at least, of the writings here referred
to, are certain chapters of Jeremy Taylor's Doctrine and Practice of Repent-
ance, and his Deus Justificatus, a vindication of the glory of the divine attri-
butes in the question of original sin.

" Dr. White Rennet, bishop of Peterborough, had in his possession the
copies of two letters transcribed from the originals that were in the hands of
bishop Barlow. 1. Superscribed 'for Mr. Thomas Barlow, at the library in
Oxon,' and subscribed ' your very loving friend and servant, Robert Sander-
son,' dated 'Botheby Pagnell, Sept. 28, 1656,' importuning Dr. Barlow, 'to
undertake the managing that dispute in the question of great importance,
upon the ancient landmarks by Dr. Jeremy Taylor, so unhappily (and so
unseasonably too) endeavoured to be removed, in the doctrine of original
sin.' 2. Another letter of Dr. Sanderson to Dr. Barlow, at Queen's College^
dated ' Botheby Pagnell, Sept. 17, 1657,' expressing himself, 'that Dr. Taylor
is so peremptory and pertinacious of his errors, as not to hearken to the sober

486 BISHOP SANDERSON.

authors, which are not unknown to learned men (and I wish
they had never been known) because both the doctrine, and the
unadvised abettors of it are (and shall be) to me apocryphal.

Another little story I must not pass in silence, being an argu-
ment of Dr. Sanderson's piety, great ability and judgment as a
casuist. Discoursing with an e honourable person (whose piety I
value more than his nobility and learning, though both be great)
about a case of conscience concerning oaths and vows, their
nature and obligation ; in which (for some particular reasons) he
then desired more fully to be informed ; I commended to him
Dr. Sanderson's book De Juramento : which having read (with
great satisfaction) he asked me, if I thought the doctor could be
induced to write cases of conscience, if he might have an hono-
rary pension allowed him, to furnish him with books for that
purpose ? I told him I believed he would : and (in a letter to
the doctor) told him what great satisfaction that honourable
person (and many more) had reaped by reading his book De
Juramento : and asked him, whether he would be pleased (for the
benefit of the church) to write some tract of cases of conscience ?
He replied, that he was glad that any had received any benefit
by his books ; and added further, that if any future tract of his
could bring such benefit to any, as we seemed to say his former
had done, he would willingly (though without any pension) set
about that work. Having received this answer, that honourable
person (before mentioned) did (by my hands) return fifty pounds
to the good doctor (whose condition then, as most good men's
at that time were, was but low) and he presently revised, finished,
and published that excellent book De Conscientia. A book little
in bulk ; but not so if we consider the benefit an intelligent
reader may receive by it. For there are so many general propo-
sitions concerning conscience, the nature and obligation of it ex-
plained and proved with such firm consequence and evidence of
reason, that he who reads, remembers, and can (with prudence)
pertinently apply them Hie et nunc to particular cases, may (by
their light and help) rationally resolve a thousand particular
doubts and scruples of conscience. Here you may see the
charity of that honourable person in promoting, and the piety

advices of his grave, reverend, and learned friends, amidst the distractions of
these times.' See Rennet's Register, p. 633." — From Dr. Zouch's edition of
Walton's Lives, p. 442. 2nd edit.
r Robt. Boyle, 1>.|.

BISHOP SANDERSON. 487

and industry of the good doctor in performing that excellent
work.

And here I shall add the judgment of that learned and pious
prelate concerning a passage very pertinent to our present pur-
pose. When he was in Oxon, and read his public lectures in the
schools as regius professor of divinity, and by the truth of his
positions, and evidences of his proofs, gave great content and
satisfaction to all his hearers, especially in his clear resolutions of
all difficult cases which occurred in the explication of the subject
matter of his lectures ; a person of quality (yet alive) privately
asked him, what course a young divine should take in his studies
to enable him to be a good casuist ? His answer was, that a
convenient understanding of the learned languages (at least of
Hebrew, Greek, and Latin) and a sufficient knowledge of arts and
sciences presupposed, there were two things in human literature,
a comprehension of which would be of very great use, to enable
a man to be a rational and able casuist, which otherwise was very
difficult, if not impossible : 1 . A convenient knowledge of moral
philosophy ; especially that part of it which treats of the nature
of human actions : to know, quid sit actus humanus (spontaneus,
inmtus, mixtus) ? unde habent lonitatem et malitiam moralem ? an
ex genere et objecto, vel ex circumstantiis ? How the variety of
circumstances varies the goodness or evil of human actions?
How far knowledge and ignorance may aggravate or excuse,
increase or diminish the goodness or evil of our actions ? For
every case of conscience being only this — Is this action good or
bad ? May I do it, or may I not ? He who (in these) knows
not how and whence human actions become morally good and
evil, never can (in hypothesi) rationally and certainly determine,
whether this or that particular action be so. 2. The second
thing, which (he said) would be a great help and advantage to a
casuist, was a convenient knowledge of the nature and obligation
of laws in general : to know what a law is ; what a natural and a
positive law ; what is required to the latio, dispensatio, derogatio,
vet abrogatio legis ; what promulgation is antecedently required to
the obligation of any positive law ; what ignorance takes off the
obligation of a law, or does excuse, diminish, or aggravate the
transgression : for every case of conscience being only this — Is
this lawful for me, or is it not ? and the law the only rule and
measure, by which I must judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness
of any action ; it evidently follows, that he, who (in these) knows

488 BISHOP SANDERSON.

not the nature and obligation of laws, never can be a good casuist,
or rationally assure himself (or others) of the lawfulness or unlaw-
fulness of actions in particular. This was the judgment and good
counsel of that learned and pious prelate ; and having (by long
experience) found the truth and benefit of it, I conceive, I could
not without ingratitude to him, and want of charity to others,
conceal it. — Pray pardon this rude, and (I fear) impertinent
scribble, which (if nothing else) may signify thus much, that I
am willing to obey your desires, and am indeed

Your affectionate friend,

THOMAS LINCOLN.
London, May 10, 1678.

RICHARD BAXTER.

I am much more sensible of the evil of schism, and of the separating
humour, and of gathering parties, and making several sects in the church,
than I was heretofore. For the effects have shewn us more of the mischiefs.

RICHARD BAXTER.

ADVERTISEMENT.

RICHARD BAXTER was born November 12, 1615, at High-Ercall,
a village near Shrewsbury, in Shropshire ; and died in London,
December 8, 1691. When he was about the age of fourteen
years, very deep religious impressions were made upon his mind,
in the perusal of a work of Parson's the Jesuite, translated and
corrected by Edmund Bunny, and intitled Parson's Resolution.
For several years afterwards, he sustained a long and severe con-
flict, partly with the maladies of a weak and sickly constitution
of body, and partly from the questionings of a trembling, per-
plexed and doubtful conscience ; during which interval he care-
fully read over all the practical treatises in divinity which he
could meet with, in search of quiet and satisfaction of mind. He
did not receive the advantages of an academical education.
About the usual age, he entered into the ministry, being ordained
by Dr. Thornborough, bishop of Worcester, and preached his
first sermon at Dudley. After continuing in that town for nine
months, he removed to Bridgnorth ; and from thence, in the
year 1640, to Kidderminster. There he spent two years, before
the civil wars (in which he sided with the parliament,) and about
fourteen years after, in a most laborious and zealous discharge of
the duties of his calling. When Cromwell was made protector,
though much courted by him, he refused to comply with, and to
countenance his measures : and likewise, after the restoration, he
would not submit to the required terms of conformity to the
church of England. Hence, during a great part of the reigns
of Charles II. and James II. he suffered many hardships for
non-conformity.

Among his voluminous and valuable writings he left behind
him a very interesting Narrative of the most memorable Passages
of his Life and Times (London, 1696, fol.) from the conclusion
of the first part of which work, the following review and censure
of his own character is taken.

RICHARD BAXTER.

BECAUSE it is soul-experiments which those that urge me to this
kind of writing, do expect that I should especially communicate
to others, and I have said little of God's dealing with my soul
since the time of my younger years, I shall only give the reader
so much satisfaction as to acquaint him truly what change God
hath made upon my mind and heart since those unriper times,
and wherein I now differ in judgment and disposition from
myself. And for any more particular account of occurrences,
and God's operations on me, I think it somewhat unsavory to
recite them ; seeing God's dealings are muchwhat the same with
all his servants in the main, and the points wherein he varieth
are usually so small, that I think not such fit to be repeated :
nor have I any thing extraordinary to glory in, which is not
common to the rest of my brethren, who have the same spirit,
and are servants of the same Lord. And the true reason why I
do adventure so far upon the censure of the world, as to tell
them wherein the case is altered with me, is that I may take off
young unexperienced Christians from being over confident in
their first apprehensions, or over valuing their first degrees of
grace, or too much applauding and following unfurnished, unex-
perienced men ; but may somewhat be directed what mind and
course of life to prefer by the judgment of one that hath tried
both before them.

The temper of my mind hath somewhat altered with the
temper of my lody. When I was young, I was more vigorous,
affectionate, and fervent in preaching, conference and prayer,
than (ordinarily) I can be now ; my stile was more extemp orate
and lax, but by the advantage of affection, and a very familiar
moving voice and utterance, my preaching then did more affect

494 RICHARD BAXTER.

the auditory, than many of the last years before I gave over
preaching; but yet what I delivered was much more raw, and
had more passages that would not bear the trial of accurate
judgments ; and my discourses had both less substance and less
judgment than of late.

My understanding was then quicker, and could easilier manage
any thing that was newly presented to it upon a sudden ; but it
is since better furnished, and acquainted with the ways of truth
and error, and with a multitude of particular mistakes of the
world, which then I was the more in danger of because I had
only the faculty of knowing them, but did not actually know
them. I was then like a man of a quick understanding that was
to travel a way which he never went before, or to cast up an
account which he never laboured in before, or to play on an instru-
ment of music which he never saw before : and I am now like
one of somewhat a slower understanding (by that prcematura
senectus which weakness and excessive bleedings brought me to)
who is travelling a way which he hath often gone, and is casting
up an account which he hath often cast up, and hath ready at
hand, and that is playing on an instrument which he hath often
played on : so that I can very confidently say, that my judgment
is much sounder and firmer now than it was then ; for though I
am not now as competent judge of the actings of my own under-
standing then, yet I can judge of the effects :' and when I peruke
the writings which I wrote in my younger years, I can find the
footsteps of my unfurnished mind, and of my emptyness and
insufficiency: so that the man that followed my judgment then.
was likelier to have been misled by me, than he that should
follow it now.

And yet, that I may not say worse than it deserveth of my
former measure of understanding, I shall truly tell you what
change I find now, in the perusal of my own writings. Th«»>»'
points which then I thoroughly studied, my judgment is the same
of now, as it was then ; and therefore in the substance of my
religion, and in those controversies which I then searcht into,
with some extraordinary diligence, I find not my mind disposed
to a change ; but in divers points that I studied slightly and by
the halves, and in many things which I took upon trust from
others, I have found since that my apprelu -nsions were either
erroneous, or very lame. And those things which I was orthodox
in, I had either insufficient reasons for, or a mixture ..f »

RICHARD BAXTER. 495

sound and some insufficient ones, or else an insufficient apprehension
of those reasons ; so that I scarcely knew what I seemed to know.
And though in my writings I have found little in substance which
my present judgment differeth from, yet in my Aphorisms and
Saints Rest (which were my first writings) I find some raw unmeet
expressions ; and one common infirmity I perceive, that I put off
matters with some kind of confidence, as if I had done some-
thing new or more than ordinary in them, when upon my more
mature reviews, I find that I said not half that which the subject
did require : as exempli gratia, in the doctrine of the covenants,
and of justification, but especially about the divine authority of
the Scripture in the second part of the Saints Rest; where I
have not said half that should have been said ; and the reason
was, because that I had not read any of the fuller sort of books
that are written on those subjects, nor conversed with those that
knew more than myself, and so all those things were either new
or great to me, which were common and small perhaps to others :
and because they all came in by the way of my own study of the
naked matter, and not from books, they were apt to affect my
mind the more, and to seem greater than they were. And this
token of my weakness accompanied those my younger studies,
that I was very apt to start up controversies in the way of my
practical writings, and also more desirous to acquaint the world
with all that I took to be the truth, and to assault those books
by name which I thought did tend to deceive them, and did
contain unsound and dangerous doctrine. And the reason of all
this was, that I was then in the vigour of my youthful appre-
hensions ; and the new appearance of any sacred truth, it was
more apt to affect me, and be highlier valued, than afterward,
when commonness had dulled my delight ; and I did not suffi-
ciently discern then how much in most of our controversies is
verbal, and upon mutual mistakes. And withal I knew not how
impatient divines were of being contradicted, nor how it would
stir up all their powers to defend what they have once said, and to
rise up against the truth which is thus thrust upon them, as the
mortal enemy of their honour : and I knew not how hardly men's
minds are changed from their former apprehensions, be the evidence
never so plain. And I have perceived, that nothing so much
hindereth the reception of the truth, as urging it on men with
too harsh importunity, and falling too heavily on their errors :
for hereby you engage their honour in the business, and they

496 RICHARD BAXTER.

defend their errors as themselves, and stir up all their wit and
ability to oppose you. In controversies it is fierce opposition
which is the bellows to kindle a resisting zeal ; when if they be
neglected, and their opinions lie a while despised, they usually
cool and conie again to themselves (though I know that this
holdeth not when the greediness and increase of his followers,
doth animate a sectary, even though he have no opposition).
Men are so loth to be drenched with the truth, that I am no
more for going that way to work ; and to confess the truth, I
am lately much prone to the contrary extreme, to be too indif-
ferent what men hold, and to keep my judgment to myself, and
never to mention any thing wherein I differ from another, or
any thing which I think I know more than he ; or at least, if
he receive it not presently, to silence it, and leave him to his
own opinion. And I find this effect is mixed according to its
causes, which are some good, and some bad. The bad causes
are, 1. An impatience of men's weakness and mistaking fro ward-
ness and self-conceitedness. 2. An abatement of my sensible
esteem of truths, through the long abode of them on my mind :
though my judgment value them, yet it is hard to be equally
affected with old and .common things, as with new and rare ones.
The better causes are, 1. That I am much more sensible than
ever of the necessity of living upon the principles of religion,
which we are all agreed in, and uniting these ; and how much
mischief men that over-value their own opinions have done by their
controversies in the church ; how some have destroyed charity,
and some caused schisms by them, and most have hindered god-
liness in themselves and others, and used them to divert men
from the serious prosecuting of a holy life ; and as sir Francis
Bacon saith, (in his Essay of Peace) that it is one great benefit
of church-peace and concord, that writing controversies is turned
into books of practical devotion for increase of piety and virtue.
2. And I find that it is much more for most men's good and
edification, to converse with them only in that way of godliness
which all are agreed in, and not by touching upon differences
to stir up their corruptions ; and to tell them of little more of
your knowledge, than what you find them willing to receive from
you as meer learners; and therefore to stay till they crave infor-
mation of you (as Musculus did with the Anabaptists; \\lx -n
he visited them in prison, and conversed kindly and lovingly with
them, and showed them all the love he could, and never talked to

RICHARD BAXTER. 497

them of their opinions, till at last they who were wont to call
him a deceiver and false prophet, did intreat him to instruct
them, and received his instructions). We misstate men's dis-
eases when we think there needeth nothing to cure their errors,
but only to bring them the evidence of truth : alas ! there are
many distempers of mind to be removed, before men are apt to
receive that evidence. And therefore that church is happy
where order is kept up, and the abilities of the ministers com-
mand a reverend submission from the hearers ; and where all
are in Christ's school in the distinct ranks of teachers and
learners: for in a learning way men are ready to receive the
truth, but in a disputing way they come armed against it with
prejudice and animosity.

And I must say farther, that what I last mentioned on the
by, is one of the notablest changes of my mind. In my youth I
was quickly past my fundamentals, and was running up into a
multitude of controversies, and greatly delighted with meta-
physical and scholastic writings (though I must needs say, my
preaching was still on the necessary points) : but the older I
grew the smaller stress I laid upon these controversies and
curiosities, (though still my intellect abhorreth confusion,) as
finding far greater uncertainties in them, than I at first discerned,
and finding less usefulness comparatively, even where there is the
greatest certainty. And now it is the fundamental doctrines of
the catechism, which I highliest value, and daily think of, and
find most useful to myself and others. The Creed, the Lord's
Prayer, the Ten Commandments, do find me now the most
acceptable and plentiful matter for all my meditations : they are
to me as my daily bread and drink : and as I can speak and write
of them over and over again, so I had rather read or hear of
them, than of any of the school niceties, which once so much
pleased me. And thus I observed it was with old bishop Usher,
and with many other men : and I conjecture that this effect also
is mixed of good and bad according to its causes.

The bad cause may perhaps be some natural infirmity and
decay : and as trees in the spring shoot up into branches, leaves
and blossoms ; but in the autumn the life draws down into the
root ; so possibly, my nature, conscious of its infirmity and decay,
may find itself insufficient for numerous particles, and assurgency
to the attempting of difficult things ; and so my mind may retire
to the root of Christian principles ; and also I have often been

VOL. iv. K k

498 RICHARD BAXTER.

afraid, lest ill rooting at first, and many temptations afterwards,
have made it more necessary for me than many others to retire
to the root, and secure my fundamentals. But upon much obser-
vation I am afraid lest most others are in no better a case ; and
that at the first they take it for a granted thing, that Christ is
the Saviour of the world, and that the soul is immortal, and that
there is a heaven and a hell, &c. while they are studying abundance
of scholastic superstructures, and at last will find cause to study
more soundly their religion itself, as well as I have done.

The better causes are these : 1. I value all things according
to their use and ends ; and I find in the daily practice and expe-
rience of my soul, that the knowledge of God and Christ, and the
holy Spirit, and the truth of Scripture, and the life to come, and
of a holy life, is of more use to me than all the most curious spe-
culations. 2. I know that every man must grow (as trees do)
downwards and upwards both at once ; and that the roots increase
as the bulk and branches do. 3. Being nearer death and another
world, I am the more regardful of those things which my ever-
lasting life or death depend on. 4. Having most to do with
ignorant, miserable people, I am commanded by my charity and
reason, to treat with them of that which their salvation lieth on ;
and not to dispute with them of formalities and niceties, when
the question is presently to be determined, whether they shall
dwell for ever in heaven or in hell. In a word, my meditations
must be most upon the matters of my practice and my interest :
and as the love of God, and the seeking of everlasting life is the
matter of my practice and my interest, so must it be of my medi-
tation. That is the best doctrine and study which maketh im-n
better, and tendeth to make them happy. I abhor the folly of
those unlearned persons, who revile or despise learning because
they know not what it is : and I take not any piece of true learn-
ing to be useless ; and yet my soul approveth of the resolution of
holy Paul, who determined to know nothing among his hearers,
(that is, comparatively to value and make ostentation of no other
wisdom) but (the knowledge of) a crucified Christ : to know God
in Christ is life eternal. As the stock of the tree affordetli tini-
h( T to build houses and cities, when the small though higher
multifarious branches are but to make a crow's nest, or a M
so the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, of heaven and holi-
. doth build up the soul to endless blessedness, and afford* tli
it solid peace and comfort; when a multitude of school nie<

RICHARD BAXTER. 499

serve but for vain j anglings and hurtful diversions and conten-
tions : and yet I would not dissuade my reader from the perusal
of Aquinas, Scotus, Ockam, Arminiensis, Durandus, or any such
writer ; for much good may be gotten from them : but I would
persuade him to study and live upon the essential doctrines of
Christianity and godliness, incomparably above them all. And
that he may know that my testimony is somewhat regardable, I
presume to say, that in this I as much gainsay my natural inclina-
tion to subtilty and accurateness in knowing, as he is like to do
by his, if he obey my counsel. And I think if he lived among
infidels and enemies of Christ, he would find that to make good
the doctrine of faith, and of life eternal, were not only his noblest
and most useful study : but also that which would require the
height of all his parts, and the utmost of his diligence, to manage
it skilfully to the satisfaction of himself and others.

I add therefore that this is another thing which I am changed
in ; that whereas in my younger days I never was tempted to
doubt of the truth of Scripture or Christianity, but all my doubts
and fears were exercised at home, about my own sincerity and
interest in Christ, and this was it which I called unbelief; since
then my sorest assaults have been on the other side, and such they
were, that had I been void of internal experience, and the adhe-
sion of love, and the special help of God, and had not discerned
more reason for my religion than I did when I was younger, I
had certainly apostatized to infidelity (though for atheism or
ungodliness, my reason seeth no stronger arguments, than may be
brought to prove that there is no earth, or air, or sun). I am
now therefore much more apprehensive than heretofore, of the
necessity of well-grounding men in their religion, and especially of
the witness of the indwelling Spirit : for I more sensibly perceive
that the Spirit is the great witness of Christ and Christianity to
the world. And though the folly of fanatics tempted me long to
over-look the strength of this testimony of the Spirit, while they
placed it in a certain internal affection, or enthusiastic inspira-
tion ; yet now I see that the Holy Ghost in another manner is
the witness of Christ and his agent in the world. The Spirit in
the prophets was his first witness ; and the Spirit by miracles
was the second ; and the Spirit by renovation, sanctification, illu-
mination and consolation, assimilating the soul to Christ and
heaven, is the continued witness to all true believers : and if any
man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his, (Rom.

500 RICHARD BAXTER.

8. 9.) Even as the rational soul in the child is the inherent wit-
ness or evidence, that he is the child of rational parents. And
therefore ungodly persons have a great disadvantage in their
resisting temptations to unbelief, and it is no wonder if Christ be
a stumbling block to the Jews, and to the Gentiles foolishness.
There is many a one that hideth his temptations to infidelity,
because he thinketh it a shame to open them, and because it may
generate doubts in others; but I doubt the imperfections of
most men^s care of their salvation, and of their diligence and
resolution in a holy life, doth come from the imperfection of their
belief of Christianity and the life to come. For my part I must
profess, that when my belief of things eternal and of the Scripture
is most clear and firm, all goeth accordingly in my soul, and all
temptations to sinful compliances, worldliness, or flesh-pleasing,
do signify worse to me, than an invitation to the stocks or Bed-
lam. And no petition seemeth more necessary to me than, Lord,
increase our faith: I believe, kelp thou my unbelief.

Among truths certain in themselves, all are not equally certain
unto me ; and even of the mysteries of the gospel, I must needs
say with Mr. Richard Hooker, Eccl. Polity ', that whatever men
may pretend, the subjective certainty cannot go beyond the
objective evidence : for it is caused thereby as the print on the
wax is caused by that on the seal. Therefore I do more of late
than ever discern a necessity of a methodical procedure in main-
taining the doctrine of Christianity, and of beginning at natural
verities, as presupposed fundamentally to supernatural (though
God may when he please reveal all at once, and even natural
truths by supernatural revelation) : and it is a marvellous great
help to my faith, to find it built on so sure a foundation, and so
consonant to the law of nature. I am not so foolish as to pre-
tend my certainty to be greater than it is, merely because it is a
dishonour to be less certain ; nor will I by shame be kept from
confessing those infirmities, which those have as much as I, who
hypocritically reproach me with them. My certainty that I am
a man, is before my certainty that there is a God, for quod /
notum est magis notum: my certainty that there is a <;<>.!. i-
irn -liter than my certainty that he requireth love and holiness of
his creature : my certainty of this is greater than my certainty of

1 Eccl. Polity. ~\ Not there : but in his Sermon on Habak. i. 4, and his
Answers to Traverses Supplication, § 9 and 10. Compare vol. iii. p. 504, 5,
of this collection.

RICHARD BAXTER. 501

the life of reward and punishment hereafter : my certainty of
that, is greater than my certainty of the endless duration of it,
and of the immortality of individuate souls : my certainty of the
Deity is greater than my certainty of the Christian faith : my
certainty of the Christian faith in its essentials, is greater than
my certainty of the perfection and infallibility of all the holy
Scriptures ; my certainty of that is greater than my certainty of
the meaning of many particular texts, and so of the truth of many
particular doctrines, or of the canonicalness of some certain books.
So that as you see by what gradations my understanding doth
proceed, so also my certainty differeth as the evidences differ.
And they that have attained to greater perfection, and a higher
degree of certainty than I, should pity me and produce their
evidence to help me. And they that will begin all their certainty
with that of the truth of the Scripture, as the principium cogno-
scendL may meet me at the same end ; but they must give me
leave to undertake to prove to a heathen or infidel, the being of a
God ; and the necessity of holiness, and the certainty of a reward
or punishment, even while he yet denieth the truth of Scripture,
and in order to his believing it to be true.

In my younger years my trouble for sin was most about my
actual failings in thought, word or action, (except hardness of
heart, of which more anon). But now I am much more troubled
for inward defects, and omission or want of the vital duties or
graces in the soul. My daily trouble is so much for my ignorance
of God, and weakness of belief, and want of greater love to God
and strangeness to him, and to the life to come, and for want of
a greater willingness to die, and longing to be with God in heaven,
as that I take not some immoralities, though very great, to be in
themselves so great and odious sins, if they could be found as
separate from these. Had I all the riches of the world, how
gladly should I give them, for a fuller knowledge, belief, and love
of God and everlasting glory ! these wants are the greatest bur-
den of my life, which oft maketh my life itself a burden. And I
cannot find any hope of reaching so high in these, while I am in
the flesh, as I once hoped before this time to have attained :
which maketh me the wearier of this sinful world, which is
honoured with so little of the knowledge of God.

Heretofore I placed much of my religion in tenderness of heart,
and grieving for sin, and penitential tears ; and less of it, in the
love of God, and studying his love and goodness, and in his joyful

502 RICHARD BAXTER.

praises, than now I do. Then I was little sensible of the great-
ness and excellency of love and praise ; though I coldly spake the
same words in its commendations as now I do : and now I am less
troubled for want of grief and tears (though I more value humi-
lity, and refuse not needful humiliation) : but my conscience now
looketh at love and delight in God, and praising him, as the top
of all my religious duties, for which it is that I value and use the
rest.

My judgment is much more for frequent and serious medita-
tion on the heavenly blessedness, than it was heretofore in my
younger days. I then thought that a sermon of the attributes of
God, and the joys of heaven were not the most excellent; and
was wont to say, " Every body knoweth this, that God is great
and good, and that heaven is a blessed place ; I had rather hear
how I may attain it." And nothing pleased me so well as the
doctrine of regeneration, and the marks of sincerity ; which was
because it was suitable to me in that state : but now I had rather
read, hear, or meditate, on God and heaven, than on any other
subject : for I perceive that is the object that altereth and elevat-
eth the mind ; which will be such as that is, which it most fre-
quently feedeth on : and that it is not only useful to our comfort,
to be much in heaven 2 in our believing thoughts : but that it
must animate all our other duties, and fortify us against every
temptation and sin ; and that the love of the end is it that is the
poise or spring, which setteth every wheel a going, and must put
us on to all the means : and that a man is no more a Christian
indeed than he is heavenly.

I was once wont to meditate most on my own heart, and to
dwell all at home, and look little higher : I was still poring either
on my sins or wants, or examining my sincerity ; but now, though
I am greatly convinced of the need of heart-acquaintance and
employment, yet I see more need of a higher work ; and tli.at I
should look oftener upon Christ, and God, and heaven, than upon
my own heart. At home I can find distempers to trouble me,
and some evidences of my peace : but it is above that I inu-t
find matter of delight and joy, and love and peace itself. There-
fore I would have one thought at home upon myself and sins, ;m<l
many thoughts above upon the high and amiable and l)iatit\ in-
objects.

Much in heaven.] See vol. iii. p. 531. Hooker's Death-bed Meditation*.

RICHARD BAXTER. 503

Heretofore I knew much less than now ; and yet was not half
so much acquainted with my ignorance. I had a great delight in
the daily new discoveries which I made, and of the light which
shined in upon me (like a man that cometh into a country where
he never was before ;) but I little knew either how imperfectly I
understood those very points, whose discovery so much delighted
me, nor how much might be said against them ; nor how many
things I was yet a stranger to : but now I find far greater dark-
ness upon all things, and perceive how very little it is that we
know in comparison of that which we are ignorant of, and have
far meaner thoughts of my own understanding, though I must
needs know that it is better furnished than it was then.

Accordingly I had then a far higher opinion of learned persons
and books, than I have now ; for what I wanted myself I thought
every reverend divine had attained, and was familiarly acquainted
with : and what books I understood not by reason of the strange-
ness of the terms or matter, I the more admired, and thought
that others understood their worth. But now experience hath
constrained me against my will to know, that reverend learned
men are imperfect, and know but little as well as I ; especially
those that think themselves the wisest: and the better I am
acquainted with them, the more I perceive that we are all yet in
the dark : and the more I am acquainted with holy men, that
are all for heaven, and pretend not much to subtilties, the more
I value and honour them. And when I have studied hard to
understand some abstruse admired book, (as De Scientia Dei, De
Providentia circa malum, de Decretis, de Prcedeterminatione, de
Libertate Creatures, &c.) I have but attained the knowledge of
human imperfection, and to see that the author is but a man as
well as I.

And at first I took more upon my author's credit, than now I
can do : and when an author was highly commended to me by
others, or pleased me in some part, I was ready to entertain the
whole ; whereas now I take and leave in the same author, and
dissent in some things from him that I like best, as well as from
others.

At first I was greatly inclined to go with the highest in con-
troversies, on one side or other ; as with Dr. Twisse, and Mr.
Rutherford, and Spanhemius de Providentia et gratia, &c. But
now I can so easily see what to say against both extremes that I
am much more inclinable to reconciling principles. And whereas

504 RICHARD BAXTER.

then I thought that conciliators were but ignorant men, that
were willing to please all, and would pretend to reconcile the world
by principles which they did not understand themselves ; I have
since perceived, that if the amiableness of peace and concord had
no hand in the business, yet greater light and stronger judgment
usually is with the reconcilers, than with either of the contending
parties (as with Davenant, Hall, Usher, Lud. Crocius, Bergius,
Strangius, Camero, &c.) But on both accounts their writings
are most acceptable (though I know that moderation may be a
pretext of errors).

At first the stile of authors took as much with me as the argu-
ment, and made the arguments seem more forcible ; but now I
judge not of truth at all by any such ornaments or accidents, but
by its naked evidence.

I now see more good and more evil in all men than heretofore
I did. I see that good men are not so good, as I once thought
they were, but have more imperfections: and that nearer ap-
proach and fuller trial doth make the best appear more weak and
faulty, than their admirers at a distance think. And I find that
few are so bad, as either malicious enemies, or censorious sepa-
rating professors do imagine. In some indeed I find that human
nature is corrupted into a greater likeness to devils, than I once
thought any on earth had been. But even in the wicked usually
there is more for grace to make advantage of, and more to testify
for God and holiness, than I once believed there had been.

I less admire gifts of utterance and bare profession of religion
than I once did ; and have much more charity for many, who by
the want of gifts, do make an obscurer profession than they. I
once thought that almost all that could pray movingly and
fluently, and talk well of religion, had been saints. But expe-
rience hath opened to me, what odious crimes may consist with
high profession ; and I have met with divers obscure persons, not
noted for any extraordinary profession, or forwardness in religion,
but only to live a quiet blameless life, whom I have after found
to have long lived, as far as I could discern, a truly godly and
sanctified life : only their prayers and duties were by accident
kept secret from other men's observation. Yet he that upon this
pretence would confound the godly and the ungodly, may as \\v\\
go about to lay heaven and hell together.

I am not so narrow in my special love as heretofore : boin.Lr
less censorious, and taking more than I did for saints, it must

RICHARD BAXTER. 505

needs follow that I love more as saints than I did before. I
think it not lawful to put that man off with bare church commu-
nion, and such common love which I must allow the wicked, who
professeth himself a true Christian, by such a profession as I
cannot disprove.

I am not too narrow in my principles of church communion, as
once I was. I more plainly perceive the difference between the
church as congregate or visible, and as regenerate or mystical ;
and between sincerity and profession ; and that a credible pro-
fession is proof sufficient of a man's title to church admission :
and that the profession is credible in foro ecclesice, which is not
disproved. I am not for narrowing the church more than Christ
himself alloweth us ; nor for robbing him of any of his flock. I
am more sensible how much it is the will of Christ that every
man be the chooser or refuser of his own felicity, and that it lieth
most on his own hands, whether he will have communion with the
church or not ; and that if he be an hypocrite it is himself that
will bear the loss.

Yet am I more apprehensive than ever of the great use and
need of ecclesiastical discipline, and what a sin it is in the pastors
of the church to make no distinction, but by bare names and
sacraments, and to force all the utmeet against their own wills,
to church communion and sacraments (though the ignorant and
erroneous may sometime be forced to hear instruction) : and what
a great dishonour to Christ it is, when the church shall be as
vicious as Pagan and Mahometan assemblies, and shall differ
from them only in ceremony and name.

I am much more sensible of the evil of schism, and of the
separating humour, and of gathering parties, and making several
sects in the church, than I was heretofore. For the effects have
shewed us more of the mischiefs.

I am much more sensible how prone many young professors
are to spiritual pride and self-conceitedness, and unruliness and
division, and so to prove the grief of their teachers, and fire-
brands in the church ; and how much of a ministers work lieth
in preventing this, and humbling and confirming such young
unexperienced professors, and keeping them in order in their
progress in religion.

Yet am I more sensible of the sin and mischief of using men
cruelly in matters of religion, and of pretending men's good, and
the order of the church, for acts of inhumanity or uncharitable-

506 RICHARD BAXTER.

ness. Such know not their own infirmity, nor yet the nature of
pastoral government, which ought to be paternal and by love ;
nor do they know the way to win a soul, nor to maintain the
churches peace.

My soul is much more afflicted with the thoughts of the miser-
able world, and more drawn out in desire of their conversion
than heretofore. I was wont to look but little farther than
England in my prayers, as not considering the state of the rest
of the world : or if I prayed for the conversion of the Jews, that
was almost all. But now as I better understand the case of the
world, and the method of the Lord^s prayer, so there is nothing
in the world that lieth so heavy upon my heart, as the thought
of the miserable nations of the earth. It is the most astonishing
part of all God's providence to me that he so far forsaketh al-
most all the world, and confineth his special favour to so few :
that so small a part of the world hath the profession of Christian-
ity, in comparison of heathens, Mahometans, and other infields !
And that among professed Christians there are so few that are
saved from gross delusions, and have but any competent know-
ledge : and that among those there are so few that are seriously
religious, and truly set their hearts on heaven. I cannot be
affected so much with the calamities of my own relations, or the
land of my nativity, as with the case of the heathen, Mahometan,
and ignorant nations of the earth. No part of my prayers are
so deeply serious, as that for the conversion of the infidel and
ungodly world, that God's name may be sanctified, and his king-
dom come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven : nor
was I ever before so sensible what a plague the division of lan-
guages was which hindereth our speaking to them for their con-
version ; nor what a great sin tyranny is, which keepeth out the
gospel from most of the nations of the world. Could we but go
among Tartarians, Turks, and heathens, and speak their lan-
guage, I should be but little troubled for the silencing of eiu!i
hundred ministers at once in England, nor for all the rest that
were cast out here, and in Scotland and Ireland ; there being no
employment in the world so desirable in my eyes, as to labour for
the winning of such miserable souls; which maketh me greatly
honour Mr. John Eliot*, the apostle of the Indians in >
England, and whoever else have laboured in such work.

a John Eliot.] Of whose labours there remains a singular testim.
viz. a version of the Bible into one of the North American Indian cli;

RICHARD BAXTER. 507

Yet am I not so much inclined to pass a peremptory sentence
of damnation upon all that never heard of Christ ; having some
more reason than I knew of before to think that God's dealing
with such is much unknown to us ! And that the ungodly here
among us Christians are in a far worse case than they.

My censures of the papists do much differ from what they were
at first. I then thought that their errors in the doctrines of
faith were their most dangerous mistakes, as in the points of
merit, justification by works, assurance of salvation, the nature
of faith, &c. But now I am assured that their mis-expressions,
and mis-understanding us, with our mistakings of them, and
inconvenient expressing our own opinions, hath made the differ-
ences in these points to appear much greater than they are ; and
that in some of them it is next to none at all. But the great
and unreconcilable differences lie in their church tyranny and
usurpations, and in their great corruptions and abasement of
God's worship, together with their befriending of ignorance and
vice. At first I thought that Mr. Perkins well proved that a
Papist cannot go beyond a reprobate 4 ; but now I doubt not but
that God hath many sanctified ones among them, who have
received the true doctrine of Christianity so practically, that
their contradictory errors prevail not against them, to hinder
their love of God, and their salvation : but that their errors are
like a conquerable dose of poison which nature doth overcome.
And I can never believe that a man may not be saved by that
religion, which doth but bring him to the true love of God, anil
to a heavenly mind and life : nor that God will ever cast a soul
into hell that truly loveth him. Also at first it would disgrace
any doctrine with me, if I did but hear it called popery and anti-
christian : but I have long learned to be more impartial, and to
dislike men for bad doctrine, rather than the doctrines for the
men ; and to know that Satan can use even the names of popery
and antichrist, against a truth.

I am deeplier afflicted for the disagreements of Christians than
I was when I was a younger Christian. Except the case of the
infidel world, nothing is so sad and grievous to my thoughts, as
the case of the divided churches. And therefore I am more
deeply sensible of the sinfulness of those prelates and pastors of

now extinct. Two editions of it were printed at Cambridge (New England)
in 1663 and 1680.

4 A reprobate.'] Compare above, vol. iii. p. 508, &c. Life of Hooker.

508 RICHARD BAXTER.

the churches, who are the principal cause of these divisions. O
how many millions of souls are kept by them in ignorance, and
ungodliness, and deluded by faction, as if it were true religion !
How is the conversion of infidels hindered by them ! and Christ
and religion heinously dishonoured ! The contentions between the
Greek church and the Roman, the Papists and the Protestants,
the Lutherans and the Calvinists, have wofully hindered the
kingdom of Christ.

I have spent much of my studies about the terms of Christian
concord 5, and have over and over considered of the several ways,
which several sorts of reconcilers have devised. I have thought
of the Papists1 way, who think there will be no union, but by
coming over wholly to their church ; and I have found that it is
neither possible nor desirable. I have thought and thought again
of the way of the moderating Papists, Cassander, Grotius, Bald-
win, &c. and of those that would have all reduced to the state of
the times of Gregory the first, before the division of the Greek
and Latin churches, that the pope might have his primacy, and
govern all the church by the canons of the councils, with a salvo
to the rights of kings and patriarchs and prelates ; and that the
doctrines and worship which then were received might prevail.
And for my own part, if I lived in such a state of the church,
I would live peaceably, as glad of unity, though lamenting the
corruption and tyranny : but I am fully assured that none of
these are the true desirable terms of unity, nor such as are <
like to procure an universal concord : and I am as sure that the
true means and terms of concord are obvious and easy to an
impartial willing mind. And that these three things alone would
easily heal and unite all the churches.

1. That all Christian princes and governors take all the co-
ercive power about religion into their own hands, (though if pre-
lates and their courts must be used as their officers in exercising
that coercive power, so be it :) and that they make a difference
between the approved and the tolerated churches ; and that they
keep the peace between these churches, and settle their several
privileges by a law.

2. That the churches be accounted tolerable, who profess all
that is in the creed, Lord's prayer, and decalogue in particular.
and generally all that they shall find to be revealed in the \\<>nl

5 Christian concord.] See The true and only tony of Concord of all the
Christian churches; opened by Richard Baxter. 1680. 8vo.

RICHARD BAXTER. 509

of God, and hold communion in teaching, prayer, praises, and
the two sacraments, not obstinately preaching any heresy con-
trary to the particular articles which they profess, nor seditiously
disturbing the public peace : and that such heretical preaching,
and such seditious unpeaceableness, or notorious wickedness of
life, do forfeit their toleration.

3. And that those that are further orthodox in those particu-
lars, which rulers think fit to impose upon their subjects, have
their public maintenance and greater encouragement. Yea, and
this much is become necessary, but upon supposition that men
will still be so self-conceited and uncharitable, as not to forbear
their unnecessary impositions. Otherwise there would be found
but very few who are tolerable, that are not also in their measure
to be approved, maintained, and encouraged. And if the primi-
tive simplicity in doctrine, government, and worship, might serve
turn, for the terms of the church's union and communion, all
would be well without any more ado ; supposing that where
Christian magistrates are, they keep the peace, and repress the
offenders, and exercise all the coercive government. And here-
tics who will subscribe to the Christian faith, must not be pu-
nished because they will subscribe to no more, but because they
are proved to preach or promote heresy, contrary to the faith
which they profess.

I am farther than ever I was from expecting great matters of
unity, splendour, or prosperity to the church on earth, or that
saints should dream of a kingdom of this world, or flatter them-
selves with the hopes of a golden age, or reigning over the un-
godly (till there be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness). And on the contrary I am more apprehensive
that sufferings must be the church's most ordinary lot, and
Christians indeed must be self-denying cross-bearers, even where
there are none but formal nominal Christians to be the cross-
makers : and though ordinarily God would have vicissitudes of
summer and winter, day and night, that the church may grow
extensively in the summer of prosperity, and intensively and
radicately in the winter of adversity : yet usually their night is
longer than their day, and that day itself hath its storms and
tempests. For the prognostics are evident in their causes.
1 . The church will be still imperfect and sinful, and will have
those diseases which need this bitter remedy. 2. Rich men will
be the rulers of the world : and rich men will be generally so far

510 RICHARD BAXTER.

from true godliness, that they must come to heaven as by human
impossibilities, as a camel through a needle's eye. 3. The un-
godly will ever have an enmity against the image of God, and he
that is born of the flesh will persecute him that was born after
the spirit, and brotherhood will not keep a Cain from killing an
Abel, who offereth a more acceptable sacrifice than himself : and
the guilty will still hate the light, and make a prey to their pride
and malice of a conscionable reprover. 4. The pastors will be
still troubling the church with their pride and avarice and con-
tentions ; and the worst will be seeking to be the greatest, and
they that seek it are likeliest to attain it. 5. He that is highest
will be still imposing his conceits upon those under him, and
lording it over God's heritage, and with Diotrephes casting out
the brethren, and ruling them by constraint, and not as volun-
teers. 6. Those that are truly judicious will still comparatively
be few ; and consequently the troublers and dividers will be the
multitude ; and a judicious peace-maker and reconciler will be
neglected, slighted, or hated by both extremes. 7. The tenor of
the gospel predictions, precepts, promises, and threatenings, are
fitted to a people in a suffering state. 8. And the graces of (iod
in a believer are mostly suited to a state of suffering. 9. Chris-
tians must imitate Christ, and suffer with him before they rei^-n
with him : and his kingdom was not of this world. 10. The
observation of God's dealing hitherto with the church in every
age confirmeth me : and his befooling them that have dreamed
of glorious times. It was such dreams that transported the
Munster Anabaptists and the followers of David George in the
low countries, and Campanella, and the Ittuminati among the
Papists, and our English Anabaptists and other fanatics 1.
both in the army and the city and country. When they think
the golden age is come, they shew their dreams in their extrava-
gant actions ; and as our fifth monarchy men, they are presently
upon some unquiet rebellious attempt, to set up Christ in his
kingdom whether he will or not. I remember how Abraham
Scultetus in curricula Vitce suce confesseth the common vanity of
himself and other protestants in Germany, who seeing the princes
in England, France, Bohemia and many other countries, to be
all at once both great and wise, and friends to reformation, did
presently expect the golden age : but within one year either dent h.
or ruins of war, or back-slidings, had exposed all their expecta-
tions to scorn, and laid them lower than before.

RICHARD BAXTER. 511

I do not lay so great a stress upon the external modes and
forms of worship, as many young professors do. I have sus-
pected myself, as perhaps the reader may do, that this is from a
cooling and declining from my former zeal (though the truth is
I never much complied with men of that mind) : but I find that
judgment and charity are the causes of it, as far as I am able to
discover. I cannot be so narrow in my principles of church-com-
munion as many are, that are so much for liturgy, or so much
against it, so much for ceremonies or so much against them, that
they can hold communion with no church that is not of their
mind and way. If I were among the Greeks, the Lutherans, the
Independents, yea, the Anabaptists (that own no heresy, nor set
themselves against charity and peace) I would hold sometimes
occasional communion with them as Christians (if they will give
me leave, without forcing me to any sinful subscription or ac-
tion) : though my most usual communion should be with that
society, which I thought most agreeable to the word of God, if I
were free to choose. I cannot be of their opinion that think God
will not accept him that prayeth by the common prayer book,
and that such forms are a self-invented worship which God
rejecteth : nor yet can I be of their mind that say the like of
extemporary prayers.

I am much less regardful of the approbation of man, and set
much lighter by contempt or applause, than I did long ago. I
am oft suspicious that this is not only from the increase of self-
denial and humility ; but partly from my being glutted and sur-
feited with human applause : and all worldly things appear most
vain and unsatisfactory when we have tried them most. But
though I feel that this hath some hand in the effect, yet as far as
I can perceive, the knowledge of man's nothingness, and God's
transcendent greatness, with whom it is that I have most to do,
and the sense of the brevity of human things, and the nearness of
eternity, are the principal causes of this effect ; which some have
imputed to self-conceitedness and morosity.

I am more and more pleased with a solitary life ; and though
in a way of self-denial I could submit to the most public life, for
the service of God, when he required it, and would not be un-
profitable that I might be private ; yet I must confess, it is much
more pleasing to myself, to be retired from the world, and to have
very little to do with men, and to converse with God and con-
science and good books ; of which I have spoken my heart in my
Divine Life, part iii.

512 RICHARD BAXTER.

Though I was never much tempted to the sin of covetousness,
yet my fear of dying was wont to tell me, that I was not suffi-
ciently loosened from this world. But I find that it is compara-
tively very easy to me to be loose from this world, but hard to live
by faith above. To despise earth is easy to me ; but not so easy
to be acquainted and conversant in heaven. I have nothing in
this world which I could not easily let go ; but to get satisfying
apprehensions of the other world is the great and grievous diffi-
culty.

I am much more apprehensive than long ago, of the odiousness
and danger of the sin of pride ; scarce any sin appeareth more
odious to me. Having daily more acquaintance with the lament-
able naughtiness and frailty of man and of the mischiefs of that
sin, and especially in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical, I think
so far as any man is proud he is kin to the devil, and utterly a
stranger to God and to himself. It is a wonder that it should be
a possible sin, to men that still carry about with them, in soul
and body, such humbling matter of remedy as we all do.

I more than ever lament the unhappiness of the nobility, gentry
and great ones of the world, who live in such temptation to sen-
suality, curiosity and wasting of their time about a multitude of
little things ; and whose lives are too often the transcript of the
sins of Sodom ; pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness,
and want of compassion to the poor. And I more value the life
of the poor labouring man ; but especially of him that hath noither
poverty nor riches.

I am much more sensible than heretofore, of the breadth, and
length, and depth of the radical, universal, odious sin of selfish-
ness, and therefore have written so much against it : and of the
excellency and necessity of self-denial, and of a public mind, and
of loving our neighbour as ourselves.

I am more and more sensible that most controversies have more
need of right stating than of debating ; and if my skill be inert
in any thing it is in that, in narrowing controversies by explication,
and separating the real from the verbal, and proving to many con-
tenders, that they differ less than they think they do.

I am more solicitous than I have been about my duty to God,
and less solicitous about his dealings with me ; as being assured
that he will do all things well ; and his acknowledging the goodness
of all the declarations of his holiness, even in the puni.slniK>nt of
man ; and as knowing that there is no rest but in the will and
goodness of God.

RICHARD BAXTER. 513

Though my works were never such as could be any tempta-
tion to me to dream of obliging God by proper merit, in com-
mutative justice ; yet one of the most ready, constant, undoubted
evidences of my uprightness and interest in his covenant, is
the consciousness of my living as devoted to him : and I the
easilier believe the pardon of my failings through my Redeemer,
while I know that I serve no other master, and that I know
no other end, or trade, or business ; but that I am employed
in his work, and make it the business of my life, and live to
him in the world, notwithstanding my infirmities. And this bent
and business of my life, with my longing desires after perfec-
tion in the knowledge and belief and love of God, and in a holy
and heavenly mind and life, are the two standing, constant,
discernible evidences, which most put me out of doubt of my sin-
cerity. And I find that constant action and duty is it that
keepeth the first always in the sight ; and constant wants and
weaknesses, and coming short of my desires, do make those
desires still the more troublesome, and so the more easily still
perceived.

Though my habitual judgment and resolution and scope of life
be still the same, yet I find a great mutability as to actual appre-
hensions, and degrees of grace ; and consequently find that so
mutable a thing as the mind of man, would never keep itself if
God were not its keeper. When I have been seriously musing
upon the reasons of Christianity, with the concurrent evidences
methodically placed in their just advantages before my eyes, I am
so clear in my belief of the Christian verities, that Satan hath
little room for a temptation. But sometimes when he hath on a
sudden set some temptation before me, when the foresaid evidences
have been out of the way, or less upon my thoughts, he hath by
such surprises amazed me, and weakened my faith in the present
act. So also as to the love of God, and trusting in him, some-
times when the motives are clearly apprehended, the duty is more
easy and delightful : and at other times, I am merely passive and
dull, if not guilty of actual despondency and distrust.

I am much more cautelous in my belief of history than hereto-
fore : not that I run into their extreme that will believe nothing
because they cannot believe all things. But I am abundantly
satisfied by the experience of this age, that there is no believing
two sorts of men, ungodly men and partial men : though an
honest heathen of no religion may be believed, where enmity

VOL. iv. L 1

514 RICHARD BAXTER.

against religion biasseth him not, yet a debauched Christian, be-
sides his enmity to the power and practice of his own religion, is
seldom without some farther bias of interest or faction ; espe-
cially when these concur, and a man is both ungodly and ambitious,
espousing an interest contrary to a holy heavenly life, and also
factious, embodying himself with a sect or party suited to his
spirit and designs, there is no believing his word or oath. If you
read any man partially bitter against others as differing from him
in opinion, or as cross to his greatness, interest or designs, take
heed how you believe any more, than the historical evidence dis-
tinct from his word compelleth you to believe. The prodigious
lies which have been published in this age in matters of fact, with
unblushing confidence, even where thousands or multitudes of eye
and ear- witnesses knew all to be false, doth call men to take heed
what history they believe, especially where power and violence
affordeth that privilege to the reporter, that no man dare answer
him or detect his fraud, or if they do their4writings are all sup-
prest. As long as men have liberty to examine and contradict
one another, one may partly conjecture by comparing their words
on which side the truth is like to lie. But when great men write
history, or flatterers by their appointment, which no man dare con-
tradict, believe it but as you are constrained. Yet in these cases
I can freely believe history : 1 . If the person shew that he is
acquainted with what he saith. 2. And if he shew you the
evidences of honesty and conscience, and the fear of God (which
may be much perceived in the spirit of a writing). 3. And if he
appear to be impartial and charitable, and a lover of goodness and
of mankind ; and not possessed with malignity, or personal ill will
and malice, nor carried away by faction or personal interest.
Conscionable men dare not lie ; but faction and interest abate
men's tenderness of conscience. And a charitable and impartial
heathen may speak truth in a love to truth, and hatred of a lie ;
but ambitious malice and false religion will not stick to serve
themselves on any thing. It is easy to trace the footsteps of vera-
city in the intelligence, impartiality, and ingenuity of a Thuanus.
a Guicciardini, a Paulus Venetus *, though papists ; and of So-
crates and Sozomen, though accused by the factious of favouring
the Novatians; and many Protestants, in a Melancthon, a Bu-
choltzer, and many more ; and among physicians in such as O
Platerus, &c. But it is as easy to see the footsteps of partiality
" Paulus Venetus.] Paolo Sarpi of Venice.

RICHARD BAXTER. 515

and faction and design, in a Genebrard, a Baronius, and a multi-
tude of their companions ; and to see reason of suspicion in many
more. Therefore I confess 1 give but halting credit to most
histories that are written, not only against the Albigenses and
Waldenses, but against most of the ancient heretics, who have
left us none of their own writings, in which they speak for them-
selves ; and I heartily lament that the historical writings of the
ancient schismatics, and heretics (as they were called) perished,
and that partiality suffered them not to survive, that we might
have had more light in the church affairs of those times, and been
better able to judge between the fathers and them. And as I am
prone to think that few of them were so bad as their adversaries
made them, so I am apt to think that such as the Novatians, and
Luciferians, and Indians, &c. whom their adversaries commend,
were very good men, and more godly than most catholics, however
mistaken in some one point. Sure 1 am, that as the lies of the
papists, of Luther, Zwinglius, Calvin, and Beza, are visibly mali-
cious and impudent, by the common plenary contradicting evidence,
and yet the multitude of their seduced ones believe them all in
despight of truth and charity ; so in this age there have been
such things written against parties and persons whom the writers
design to make odious, so notoriously false as you would think
that the sense of their honour at least should have made it impos-
sible for such men to write. My own eyes have read such words
and actions asserted with most vehement iterated unblushing
confidence, which abundance of ear- witnesses, even of their own
parties must needs know to have been altogether false : and there-
fore having myself now written this history of myself, notwith-
standing my protestation that I have not in any thing wilfully
gone against the truth, I expect no more credit from the reader,
than the self-evidencing light of the matter, with concurrent
rational advantages from persons, and things, and other witnesses,
shall constrain him to ; if he be a person that is unacquainted
with the author himself, and the other evidences of his veracity and
credibility. And I have purposely omitted almost all the descrip-
tions of any persons that ever opposed me, or that ever I or my
brethren suffered by, because T know that the appearance of interest
and partiality might give a fair excuse to the reader's incredulity
(although indeed the true description of persons is much of the
very life of history, and especially of the history of the age which
I have lived in ; yet to avoid the suspicion of partiality I have

L 1 2

516 RICHARD BAXTER.

left it out) : except only when I speak of the Cromwellians and
sectaries, where I am the more free, because none suspecteth my
interest to have engaged me against them ; but (with the rest of
iny brethren) I have opposed them in the obedience of my con-
science, when by pleasing them I could have had almost any thing
that they could have given me, and when before-hand I expected
that the present governors should silence me, and deprive me of
maintenance, house and home, as they have done by me and many
hundreds more. Therefore I supposed that my descriptions and
censures of those persons which would have enriched and honoured
me, and of their actions against that party which hath silenced,
impoverished and accused me, and which before hand I expected
should do so, are beyond the suspicion of envy, self-interest or
partiality: if not, I there also am content that the reader exercise
his liberty, and believe no worse even of these men, than the
evidence of fact constraineth him.

Thus much of the alterations of my soul, since my younger
years, I thought best to give the reader, instead of all those
experiences and actual motions and affections, which I suppose
him rather to have expected an account of. And having
transcribed thus much of a life which God hath read, and con-
science hath read, and must further read, I humbly lament it,
and beg pardon of it, as sinful and too unequal and unprofitable :
and I warn the reader to amend that in his own, which he
findeth to have been amiss in mine ; confessing also that much
hath been amiss which I have not here particularly mentioned,
and that I have not lived according to the abundant mercies of
the Lord. But what I have recorded, hath been especially to per-
form my vows, and declare his praise to all generations, who hath
filled up my days with his unvaluable favours, and bound me to
bless his name for ever: and also to prevent the defective per-
formance of this task, by some overvaluing brethren, who I know
intended it, and were unfitter to do it than myself: and for such
reasons as Junius, Scultetus, Thuanus, and many others have
done the like before me. The principal of which are these three :
1. As travellers and seamen use to do after great adventures and
deliverances, I hereby satisfy my conscience, in praising the
blessed author of all those undeserved mercies which have filled
up my life. 2. Foreseeing by the attempts of bishop Morley, what
prelatists and papists are like to say of me, when they have none
to contradict them, and how possible it is that those that in

RICHARD BAXTER. 517

knew me may believe them, though they have lost their hopes
with all the rest, I take it to be my duty to be so faithful to
that stock of reputation which God hath intrusted me with,
as to defend it at the rate of opening the truth. Such as have
made the world believe that Luther consulted with the devil, that
Calvin was a stigmatized Sodomite, that Beza turned Papist, &c.
to blast their labours, I know are very like to say any thing by
me, which their interest or malice tell them will any way advan-
tage their cause, to make my writings unprofitable when I am
dead. 3. That young Christians may be warned by the mistakes
and failings of my unriper times, to learn in patience, and live in
watchfulness, and not be fierce and proudly confident in their
first conceptions ; and to reverence ripe experienced age, and
to take heed of taking such for their chief guides as have nothing
but immature and unexperienced judgments, with fervent affec-
tions, and free and confident expressions ; but to learn of them
that have with holiness, study, time and trial, looked about them
as well on one side as the other, and attained to clearness and
impartiality in their judgments.

But having mentioned the changes which I think were for the
better, I must add, that as I confessed many of my sins before,
so since I have been guilty of many, which because materially they
seemed small, have had the less resistance, and yet on the
review do trouble more than if they had been greater, done in
ignorance. It can be no small thing formally which is committed
against knowledge and conscience and deliberation, whatever
excuse it have. To have sinned while I preached and wrote
against sin, and had such abundant and great obligations from
God, and made so many promises against it, doth lay me very
low : not so much in fear of hell, as in great displeasure against
myself, and such self-abhorrence as would cause revenge upon
myself, were it not forbidden. When God forgiveth me I cannot
forgive myself; especially for any rash words or deeds, by which
I have seemed injurious, and less tender and kind, than 1 should
have been to my near and dear relations, whose love abundantly
obliged me. When such are dead, though we never differed in
points of interest, on any great matter, every sour or cross pro-
voking word which I gave them, maketh me almost unrecon-
cileable to myself; and tells me how repentance brought some of
old, to pray to the dead whom they had wronged, in the hurry
of their passion, to forgive them.

518 RICHARD BAXTER.

And though I before told the change of my judgment against
provoking writings, I have had more will than skill since to
avoid such. I must mention it by way of penitent confession,
that I am too much inclined to such words in controversial
writings, which are too keen, and apt to provoke the person
whom I write against. Sometimes I suspect that age soureth
my spirits, and sometimes I am apt to think that it is long
thinking and speaking of such things that maketh me weary,
and less patient with others that understand them not ; and
sometimes I am ready to think that it is out of a hatred of the
flattering humour which now prevaileth so in the world, that
few persons are able to hear the truth : and I am sure that I
can not only hear myself such language as I use to others, but
that I expect it. I think all these are partly causes ; but I am
sure the principal cause is a long custom of studying how to speak
and write in the keenest manner to the common, ignorant, and
ungodly people, without which keenness to them, no sermon, nor
book does much good ; which hath so habituated me to it, that
I am still falling into the same with others; forgetting that
many ministers, and professors of strictness do desire the greatest
roughness to the vulgar, and to their adversaries, and the greatest
lenity, and smoothness, and comfort, if not honour, to themselves.
And I have a strong natural inclination to speak of every subject
just as it is, and to call a spade, a spade, and verba rebus aptare,
so as that the thing spoken of may be fulliest known by the
words, which methinks is part of our speaking truly. But I
unfeignedly confess that it is faulty, because imprudent : (for
that is not a good means which doth harm, because it is not
fitted to the end ;) and because whilst the readers think me
angry, though I feel no passion at such times in myself, it is
scandalous, and a hindrance to the usefulness of what I write :
and especially because, though I feel no anger, yet, which is
worse, I know that there is some want of honour and love or
tenderness to others, or else I should not be apt to use such
words as open their weakness and offend them : and therefore I
repent of it, and wish all over sharp passages were expunged from
my writings, and desire forgiveness of God and man. And yet I
must say that I am oft afraid of the contrary extreme, lest win -n
I -peak against great and dangerous errors and sins, though of
persons otherwise honest, I should encourage mm to them, by
speaking too easily of them, as Eli did to his sons, and lest I

RICHARD BAXTER. 519

should so favour the person, as may befriend the sin, and wrong
the church. And I must say as the New England synodists in
their defence against Mr. Davenport, page 2, pref. " We heartily
desire that as much as may be, all expressions and reflexions
may be foreborn, that tend to break the bond of love. Indeed
such is our infirmity, that the naked discovery of the fallacy or
invalidity of another^ allegations or arguings is apt to provoke.
This in disputes is unavoidable."

And therefore I am less for a disputing way than ever ;
believing that it tempteth men to bend their wits, to defend
their errors, and oppose the truth, and hindereth usually their
information. And ike servant of the Lord must not strive, but le
gentle to all men, &c. therefore I am most in judgment for a learning
or a teaching way of converse. In all companies I will be glad,
either to hear those speak that can teach me, or to be heard of
those that have need to learn.

And that which I named before on the bye, is grown one of
my great diseases ; I have lost much of that zeal which I had,
to propagate any truths to others, save the mere fundamentals.
When I perceive people or ministers, which is too common, to
think they know what indeed they do not, and to dispute those
things which they never thoroughly studied, or expect I should
debate the case with them, as if an hour's talk would serve
instead of an acute understanding, and seven years1 study, I
have no zeal to make them of my opinion, but an impatience of
continuing discourse with them on such subjects, and am apt to
be silent, or turn to something else : which, (though there be
some reason for it) I feel cometh from a want of zeal for the
truth, and from an impatient temper of mind. I am ready to
think that people should quickly understand all in a few words,
and if they cannot, lazily to despair of them, and leave them to
themselves. And I the more know that it is sinful in me, because
it is partly so in other things ; even about the faults of my
servants or other inferiors, if three or four times'* warning do
no good on them, I am much tempted to despair of them, and
turn them away, and leave them to themselves.

I mention all these distempers, that my faults may be a warn-
ing to others to take heed, as they call on myself for repentance
and watchfulness. — O Lord, for the merits and sacrifice and
intercession of Christ, be merciful to me a sinner, and forgive my
known and unknown sins !

SIR MATTHEW HALE.

So natural is the union of religion with justice, that we may boldly deem
there is neither, where both are not. For how should they be unfeignedly
just, whom religion doth not cause to be such, or they religious, which are
not found such by the proof of their just actions ? If they, which employ
their labour and travail about the public administration of justice, follow it
only as a trade, with unquenchable and unscionable thirst of gain, being
not in heart persuaded that justice is God's own work, and themselves his
agents in this business ; the sentence of right God's own verdict, and them-
selves his priests to deliver it, — formalities of justice do but serve to smother
right, and that, which was necessarily ordained for the common good, is
through shameful abuse made the cause of common misery.

HOOKER.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Account is reprinted intire, from The Life and
Death of Sir Matthew Hale, Knt. sometime Lord Chief Justice of
His Majesties Court of King's Bench ; written ly Gilbert Burnett,
D.D. London, 1682. I have purposely forborne to insert at
large the additional Notes to the Life and Death, &c. by Richard
Baxter, in a Letter to Mr. Edward Stephens; as being, I think,
but of small value ; and have contented myself with two or three
extracts, in the way of notes.

PREFACE.

No part of history is more instructive and delighting, than the
lives of great and worthy men. The shortness of them invites
many readers ; and there are such little, and yet remarkable pas-
sages in them, too inconsiderable to be put in a general history
of the age in which they lived, that all people are very desirous
to know them. This makes Plutarch1 s Lives be more generally
read, than any of all the books which the ancient Greeks or
Romans writ.

But the lives of heroes and princes are commonly filled with
the account of the great things done by them, which do rather
belong to a general, than a particular history ; and do rather
amuse the readers fancy with a splendid shew of greatness, than
offer him what is really so useful to himself. And indeed the
lives of princes are either writ with so much flattery, by those
who intended to merit by it at their own hands, or others con-
cerned in them : or with so much spite, by those who being ill
used by them, have revenged themselves on their memory, that
there is not much to be built on them : and though the ill nature
of many makes what is satirically writ to be generally more read
and believed, than when the flattery is visible and coarse ; yet
certainly resentment may make the writer corrupt the truth of
history, as much as interest. And since all men have their blind
sides, and commit errors, he that will industriously lay these toge-
ther, leaving out, or but slightly touching what should be set
against them, to balance them, may make a very good man ap-
pear in bad colours. So, upon the whole matter, there is not
that reason to expect either much truth, or great instruction,
from what is written concerning heroes or princes ; for few have
been able to imitate the patterns Suetonius set the world, in
writing the lives of the Eoman Emperors, with the same freedom

526 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

that they had led them. — But the lives of private men, though
they seldom entertain the reader with such a variety of passages
as the other do ; yet certainly they offer him things that are more
imitable, and do present wisdom and virtue to him, not only in
a fair idea, which is often looked on as a piece of the invention or
fancy of the writer, but in such plain and familiar instances, as do
both direct him better, and persuade him more ; and there are
not such temptations to bias those who write them, so that we
may generally depend more on the truth of such relations as are
given in them.

In the age in which we live, religion and virtue have been pro-
posed and defended with such advantages, with that great force of
reason, and those persuasions, that they can hardly be matched
in former times : yet after all this, there are but few much
wrought on by them ; which perhaps flows from this, among
other reasons, that there are not so many excellent patterns set
out, as might both in a shorter, and more effectual manner recom-
mend that to the world, which discourses do but coldly ; the wit
and stile of the writer being more considered than the argument
which they handle ; and therefore the proposing virtue and reli-
gion in such a model, may perhaps operate more than the per-
spective of it can do. And for the history of learning, nothing
does so preserve and improve it, as the writing the lives of those
who have been eminent in it.

There is no book the ancients have left us, which might have
informed us more than Diogenes Laertius" Lives of the Philoso-
phers, if he had had the art of writing equal to that great subject
which he undertook ; for if he had given the world such an ac-
count of them, as Gassendus has done of Peiresk, how great a
stock of knowledge might we have had, which, by his unskilful-
ness, is in a great measure lost ; since we must now depend only
on him, because we have no other, or better author, that has
written on that argument !

For many ages there were no lives writ but by monks ; through
whose writings there runs such an incurable humour of telling
incredible and inimitable passages, that little in them can be be-
lieved or proposed as a pattern. Sulpitius Severus and Jerome
shewed too much credulity in the lives they writ, and raised M.-u-
tin and Hilarion beyond what can be reasonably believed : .
them, Socrates, Theodoret, Sozomen, and Palladius, took a \
sure to tell uncouth stories of the monks of Thebais and Nitria ;

PREFACE. 527

and those who came after them1, scorned to fall short of them, but
raised their saints above those of former ages ; so that one would
have thought that indecent way of writing could rise no higher :
and this humour infected even those who had otherwise a good
sense of things, and a just apprehension of mankind, as may ap-
pear in Matthew Paris ; who, though he was a writer of great
judgment and fidelity, yet he has corrupted his history with much
of that alloy. But when emulation and envy rose among the
several orders, or houses, then they improved in that art of
making romances, instead of writing lives, to that pitch, that the
world became generally much scandalized with them. The Fran-
ciscans and Dominicans tried who could say the most extravagant
things of the founders, or other saints of their orders ; and the
Benedictines, who thought themselves possessed of the belief of
the world, as well as of its wealth, endeavoured all that was pos-
sible still to keep up the dignity of their order, by outlying the
others all they could ; and whereas here or there, a miracle, a
vision, or trance, might have occurred in the lives of former saints,
now every page was full of those wonderful things.

Nor has the humour of writing in such a manner, been quite
laid down in this age, though more awakened, and better en-
lightened ; as appears in the life of Philip Nerius 2, and a great
many more : and the Jesuits at Antwerp, are now taking care to
load the world with a vast and voluminous collection of all those
lives that has already swelled into eleven volumes in folio, in a
small print ; and yet being digested according to the calendar,

1 After them.'] For the names and authors who are thus mentioned by
Burnet, I need only to refer my readers to Cave's Historia Literaria, and to
similar works. I may also here mention a small volume which the student
will find very useful : An Introduction to the Critical Study of Ecclesiastical
History, by F. G. Bowling, M.A , Rector of St. Mary's, Gloucester. London,
Rivingtons, 1838. To many it will supply the place of more bulky and
expensive works.

2 Philip Nerius.~\ Filippo Neri was an Italian of a noble family at Florence,
and founder of the congregation of the Oratory, of which he was also the
first general. He died in 1595, and after his death was canonised in due form
as a saint. His life has been written at great length by Antonio Gallonio,
and is founded upon the judicial examinations of the two hundred and fifty-
three witnesses, who testified to the holiness of his life and the miracles
which he wrought. Of all the more extraordinary facts Gallonio gravely
says the witnesses were living when he wrote. It has been printed separately,
and also in the Ada Sanctorum for May.

528 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

they have yet but ended the month of April s. — The life of Mon-
sieur Renty is writ in another manner, where there are so many
excellent passages, that he is justly to be reckoned amongst the
greatest patterns that France has afforded in this age.

But while some have nourished infidelity, and a scorn of all

3 Month of April.'] Burnet here alludes to the great work known as the
Ada Sanctorum, a work which was projected as early as 1603 by Rosweyd,
a Belgian Jesuit, and of which the first volume was published in 1643
by Bollandus, under whose name it is often cited : it was continued by
Henschenius, Papebrochius, and others ; volumes appearing at intervals until
the year 1794, when its progress was stopped by the French revolution, the
last volume then published being the fifty-third, which contains the saints of
the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth of October.

When Burnet wrote, a small portion only, as we perceive, had been pub-
lished, and yet its vastness seems somewhat to alarm him. When the
learned and industrious Cave compiled his Hisloria Literaria, twenty
volumes had appeared, and he was frightened at the task of examining
them : after mentioning several collected biographies, he says, " Qui omni-
bus palmam longe prseripuerint, Bollandiani, qui incredibili labore, nee
mediocri doctrinse apparatu 20 ingentia volumina jam evulgarunt, et tamen
paulo plusquam primum semestre absolverunt. Vastum hoc et plane stu-
pendum opus parcius attigi, partim quod non ubique ad manum esset,
partim quod uKtavbc airtpavroc (ut dementis Romani verbo utar) videbatur :
et quis tarn profundo, tarn immenso mari se temere committeret ? quis tot
voluminibus recensendis incumberet, quibus legendis (modo ad umbilicum
perducantur) vix unius hominis vita sufficeret ? nee parum deterrebant
plena, quibus undique scatent, fabularum et nugarum plaustra, ut operosa
istius modi recensio forsan ab emunctae naris viris censeretur stultus labor
ineptiarum. Interim negari nequit, plures in his scriptoribus, nee contem-
nendas, sui prsesertim temporis historias occurrere, quse vix aliunde peti
possunt ; ut in ipso Ennio stercore aurum quandoque reperire licet, si quis
taedium istud devoraverit." This is an extreme opinion. The collection
undoubtedly contains a great deal of valuable matter, and, whatever be its
merits or demerits, its completion may now [1839] be looked for. Four
Belgian Jesuits, J. B. Boone, J. Vandermoere, Prosper Coppens, and J. Van
Hecke, have undertaken this gigantic task, for such it is, their proposals
containing a list of some hundreds of saints who are registered in the
Romish kalendar between Oct. 15 and Dec. 31, and whose lives are to be
given.

Since the above was written, two out of the four named Jesuits are dead,
and their places are supplied by father Bossue and others of the College of
St. Michael, at Brussels. But the work has been commenced. In 1845 ap-
peared vol. vii. of the month of October, in two parts, the first containing
the saints of the 15th of October, the second the saints of the 16th. It i>
in progress, and some idea of its vast extent may be gathered from the fact
that the lives of more than two thousand saints remain to complete the year,
and that fifty more volumes in folio may be expected to complete the work.

PREFACE. 529

sacred things, by writing of those good men in such a strain, as
makes not only what is so related to be disbelieved, but creates a
distrust of the authentical writings of our most holy faith ; others
have fallen into another extreme in writing lives too jejunely,
swelling them up with trifling accounts of the childhood and
education, and the domestic or private affairs of those persons
of whom they write, in which the world is little concerned. By
these they become so flat, that few care to read them ; for cer-
tainly those transactions are only fit to be delivered to posterity,
that may carry with them some useful piece of knowledge to
aftertiines.

I have now an argument before me, which will afford indeed
only a short history, but will contain in it as great a character,
as perhaps can be given of any in this age ; since there are few
instances of more knowledge, and greater virtues meeting in one
person. I am upon one account (beside many more) unfit to
undertake it, because I was not at all known to him, so I can say
nothing from my own observation : but upon second thoughts, I
do not know whether this may not qualify me to write more
impartially, though perhaps more defectively ; for the knowledge
of extraordinary persons does most commonly bias those, who
were much wrought on by the tenderness of their friendship for
them, to raise their stile a little too high when they write con-
cerning them. I confess I knew him as much as the looking
often upon him could amount to. The last year of his being in
London, he came always on Sundays (when he could go abroad)
to the chapel of the Eolls 4, where I then preached. In my life I
never saw so much gravity tempered with that sweetness, and set
off with so much vivacity as appeared in his looks and behaviour,
which disposed me to a veneration for him, which I never had for
any, with whom I was not acquainted. I was seeking an oppor-
tunity of being admitted to his conversation ; but I understood,
that between a great want of health and a multiplicity of busi-
ness, which his employment brought upon him, he was master of
so little of his time, that I stood in doubt whether I might pre-
sume to rob him of any of it ; and so he left the town, before I
could resolve on desiring to be known to him.

My ignorance of the law of England, made me also unfit to
write of a man, a great part of whose character, as to his learn-

4 The Rolls.'] In Chancery-lane,
VOL. iv. M m

530 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

ing, is to be taken from his skill in the common law, and his
performance in that. But I shall leave that to those of the same
robe : since if I engage much in it, I must needs commit many
errors, writing of a subject that is foreign to me.

The occasion of my undertaking this, was given me first by
the earnest desires of some that have great power over me ; who
having been much obliged by him, and holding his memory in
high estimation, thought I might do it some right by writing
his life. I was then engaged in the history of the Reformation ;
so I promised that, as soon as that was over, I should make the
best use 1 could of such informations and memorials as should be
brought me.

This I have now performed in the best manner I could, and
have brought into method all the parcels of his life, or the
branches of his character, which I could either gather from the
informations that were brought me, or from those that were fami-
liarly acquainted with him, or from his writings. I have not
applied any of the false colours, with which art, or some forced
eloquence might furnish me, in writing concerning him ; but have
endeavoured to set him out in the same simplicity in which he
lived. I have said little of his domestic concerns, since though
in these he was a great example, yet it signifies nothing to the
world, to know any particular exercises, that might be given to
his patience ; and therefore I shall draw a veil over all these, and
shall avoid saying any thing of him, but what may afford the
reader some profitable instruction. I am under no temptations
of saying any thing, but what I am persuaded is exactly true ;
for where there is so much excellent truth to be told, it were an
inexcusable fault to corrupt that, or prejudice the reader against
it by the mixture of falsehoods with it.

In short ; as he was a great example while he lived, so I wish
the setting him thus out to posterity, in his own true and native
colours, may have its due influence on all persons ; but more par-
ticularly on those of that profession, whom it more immediately
concerns, whether on the bench, or at the bar.

SIR MATTHEW HALE.

MATTHEW HALE, was born at Alderly in Glocestershire, the
first of November, 1609. His grandfather was Robert Hale, an
eminent clothier in Wotton-under-edge, in that county, where he
and his ancestors had lived for many descents ; and they had
given several parcels of land for the use of the poor, which are
enjoyed by them to this day. This Robert acquired an estate of
ten thousand pounds, which he divided almost equally amongst
his five sons ; besides the portions he gave his daughters, from
whom a numerous posterity has sprung. His second son was
Robert Hale, a barrister of Lincoln's-Inn ; he married Joan, the
daughter of Matthew Poyntz, of Alderly, esq. who was descended
from that noble family of the Poyntzes of Acton. Of this mar-
riage there was no other issue but this one son. His grandfather
by his mother was his godfather, and gave him his own name at
his baptism. His father was a man of that strictness of con-
science, that he gave over the practice of the law, because he could
not understand the reason of giving colour in pleadings, which as
he thought was to tell a lie l ; and that, with some other things
commonly practised, seemed to him contrary to that exactness of
truth and justice which became a Christian, so that he withdrew
himself from the Inns of Court to live on his estate in the coun-
try. Of this I was informed by an ancient gentleman, that lived
in a friendship with his son for fifty years, and he heard judge
Jones, that was Mr. Hale's contemporary, declare this in the
King's Bench. But as the care he had to save his soul, made
him abandon a profession in which he might have raised his
family much higher, so his charity to his poor neighbours made

1 To tell a lie.'] See Life of sir Thomas More above, vol. ii. p. 56, n.

M m 2

532 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

him not only deal his alms largely among them while he lived, but
at his death he left (out of his small estate which was 100£. a
year) 20£. a year to the poor of Wotton, which his son confirmed
to them with some addition, and with this regulation, that it
should be distributed among such poor house-keepers, as did not
receive the alms of the parish ; for to give it to those, was only,
as he used to say, to save so much money to the rich, who by
law were bound to relieve the poor of the parish.

Thus he was descended rather from a good, than a noble
family ; and yet what was wanting in the insignificant titles of
high birth, and noble blood, was more than made up in the true
worth of his ancestors. But he was soon deprived of the happi-
ness of his father's care and instruction ; for as he lost his mother
before he was three years old, so his father died before he was
five : so early was he cast on the providence of God. But that
unhappiness was in a great measure made up to him : for after
some opposition made by Mr. Thomas Poyntz, his uncle by his
mother, he was committed to the care of Anthony Kingscot, of
Kingscot, esq. who was his next kinsman, after his uncles, by his
mother.

Great care was taken of his education ; and his guardian
intended to breed him to be a divine; and being inclined to
the way of those then called Puritans, put him to some schools
that were taught by those of that party, and in the 17th year of
his age, sent him to Magdalen Hall in Oxford, where Obadiah
Sedgwick was his tutor. He was an extraordinary proficient at
school, and for some time at Oxford. But the stage players
coming thither, he was so much corrupted by seeing many pla\ s.
that he almost wholly forsook his studies. By this, he not only
lost much time, but found that his head came to be thereby filial
with such vain images of things 2, that they were at best unprofit-
able, if not hurtful to him ; and being afterwards sensible of the

2 Vain images of things.'] I borrow here a valuable and interesting note
from bishop Jebb.

" A similar fact is related of the celebrated Brindley, the civil engineer.
He was once prevailed upon to go to a play. Never before having been pre-
sent at such an entertainment, it had a powerful effect ; and he complained,
that, for several days, it so deranged his ideas, as to render him quite unfit
for business. He determined, therefore, that he would never, on any account,
visit the theatre again. (Bioyraphia Britannica.)

" We learn from the interesting memoir of Felix Neff (1832), that, even in
childhood, his chosen recreations were those long rambles which he was

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 533

mischief of this, he resolved upon his coming to London, (where
he knew the opportunities of such sights would be more fre-
quent and inviting) never to see a play again ; to which he con-
stantly adhered 3.

allowed to take, in the splendid mountain scenery of his native Switzerland.
No amusement which the town of Geneva could afford, was, in his view,
comparable with his own quiet, but invigorating pursuits, in the pure air of a
delightful country, by the side of the stream, the torrent, or the lake.
When twelve years old, a companion asked him to go along with him, to
some favourite theatrical exhibition : on declining, he was asked, ' Do you
think you will not be entertained ?' — ' Perhaps/ was the reply, sage beyond
his years, * Perhaps, I should be entertained too much'

"A curious diversion, and consequent unsettlement, of mind, with the
means employed for its counteraction, are instructively recorded by Mr. Boyle,
in the sketch of his own early life.

" Here [at Eton], to divert his melancholy [owing to an aguish indispo-
sition] they made him read the adventures of Amadis de Gaule, and other
fabulous entertaining stories; which much more prejudiced him, by un-
settling his thoughts, than they would have advantaged him, had they
affected his recovery : for, meeting in him with a restless fancy, then made
more susceptible of any impressions, by an unemployed pensiveness, they
accustomed his thoughts to such a habitude of roving, that he has scarce
ever been their master since.

" Long time after, he did, in a considerable measure, fix his volatile fancy,
and restrain his thoughts, by the use of those expedients he thought likeliest
to fetter, or, at least, to curb, the roving wildness of his wandering thoughts.
Amongst all which, the most effectual way he found to be, the extraction of
the square and cube roots, and especially those more laborious operations of
algebra, which both accustom, and necessitate, the mind to attention, by so
entirely exacting the whole man, that the smallest distraction, or heedless-
ness, constrains us to renew our trouble, and re-begin the operation'' Life of
the Hon. Robert Boyle, by Birch. Works, vol. i. p. xvii. edit. 1772.

" It cannot be reasonably doubted, that this remedy was suggested to the
philosopher, by the sagacious counsel of his great predecessor : —

" ' If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics : for,
in demonstration, if a man's wit be carried away never so little, he must
begin again.'" Lord Bacon's Essays, 50. p. 168. Burnet's Lives, fyc.
p. 15, 6. n.

3 He constantly adhered.] " He told me, that he took up a resolution
which he punctually observed ever since, that he would never more see a
play, having spent all his money on them at Oxford, and having experienced
that it was so great an alienation of mind from his studies, by the recurring
of the speeches and actions into his thoughts, as well as the loss of time
when he saw them. He said that he had often disputes (on the subject)
with Mr. Selden, who was his great friend, and used to say, he found great
refreshment by it : but my lord told him he had so much knowledge of the
inconvenience of them, that he would not see one for 100?. But, he said, he

534 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

The corruption of a young man's mind in one particular gene-
rally draws on a great many more after it ; so he being now
taken off from following his studies, and from the gravity of his
deportment, that was formerly eminent in him, far beyond his
years, set himself to many of the vanities incident to youth, but
still preserved his purity, and a great probity of mind. He loved
fine clothes, and delighted much in company : and being of a
strong robust body, he was a great master at all those exercises
that required much strength. He also learned to fence, and han-
dle his weapons, in which he became so expert, that he worsted
many of the masters of those arts : but as he was exercising of
himself in them, an instance appeared, that showed a good judg-
ment, and gave some hopes of better things. One of his masters
told him he could teach him no more, for he was now better at
his own trade than himself was. This Mr. Hale looked on as
flattery ; so to make the master discover himself, he promised
him the house he lived in, for he was his tenant, if he could hit
him a blow on the head : and bade him do his best, for he would
be as good as his word : so after a little engagement, his master
being really superior to him, hit him on the head, and he per-
formed his promise ; for he gave him the house freely ; and was
not unwilling at that rate to learn so early to distinguish flattery
from plain and simple truth.

He now was so taken up with martial matters, that instead of
going on in his design of being a scholar, or a divine, he resolved
to be a soldier : and his tutor Sedgwick going into the Low Coun-
tries, chaplain to the renowned lord Vere, he resolved to go along
with him, and to trail a pike in the prince of Orange's army ; but
a happy stop was put to this resolution, which might have proved
so fatal to himself, and have deprived the age of the great exam-
was not of Mr. Prynne's judgment (which I minded him of) ; for he did not
think it unlawful, but very fit for gentlemen sometimes, but not for stu-
dents." Seward's Anecdotes of some distinguished Persons, vol. xviii. p. 417.
From a MS. in the possession of Bennet Langton, esq. (the friend of Dr.
Johnson), written by Mr. B.'s great grandfather, who studied the law under
the direction of sir Matthew Hale.

It is hardly necessary to mention, that the allusion in the last sentence of
the extract, is to Prynne's Histrio-mastix, the Players' Scourge, or Actors
Tragedy, by William Prynne, 1633, 4to.

There are not a few of his zealous admirers, to whom probably it will
appear an extraordinary circumstance, that the great and the grave Selden
should have been a strenuous advocate for stage plays.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 535

pie he gave, and the useful services he afterwards did his country.
He was engaged in a suit of law with sir William Whitmore,
who laid claim to some part of his estate ; and his guardian being
a man of a retired temper, and not made for business, he was
forced to leave the university, after he had been three years in it,
and go to London to solicit his own business. Being recom-
mended to Serjeant Grlanvil for his councellor, he observing in him
a clear apprehension of things, and a solid judgment, and a great
fitness for the study of the law, took pains upon him to persuade
him to forsake his thoughts of being a soldier, and to apply him-
self to the study of the law 4 ; and this had so good an effect on
him, that on the 8th of November, 1629, when he was past the
20th year of his age, he was admitted into Lincoln's Inn ; and
being then deeply sensible how much time he had lost, and that
idle and vain things had overrun and almost corrupted his mind,
he resolved to redeem the time he had lost, and followed his
studies with a diligence that could scarce be believed, if the signal
effects of it did not gain it credit. He studied for many years at
the rate of sixteen hours 5 a day. He threw aside all fine clothes 6,

4 The study of the law.~] " He told me that his father did order in his will,
that he should follow the law ; that he came from the university with some
aversion for lawyers, and thought them a barbarous sort of people, unfit for
any thing but their own trade ; but having occasion to speak about business
with serjeant Glanvil, he found him of such prudence and candour, that
from that time he altered his apprehensions, and betook himself to the study
of the law ; and oft told serjeant Glanvil that he was the cause of his appli-
cation to the law." Seward's Anecdotes, <^c. vol. iv. p. 416. From Langton's
MS. as above.

5 Sixteen hours.'] " My respected friend, Mr. Langton, has shewn me, in
the hand- writing of his grandfather, a curious account of a conversation he
had with lord chief justice Hale, in which that great man tells him, f that for
two years after he came to the inn of court, he studied sixteen hours a day :
however (his lordship added) that by this intense application he almost
brought himself to his grave, though he were of a strong constitution, and
after reduced himself to eight hours : but that he would not advise any body
to so much : that he thought six hours a day, with attention and constancy,
was sufficient.' " Boswell's Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, vol. iv. p. 334. The
conversation is printed, at large, in Seward's Anecdotes, and in Moral, fyc.
Works of Sir Matthew Hale, edited by the Rev. T. Thirlwall, vol. i. p. 151.
A.D. 1805.

6 Fine clothes.'] " His habit," (says his friend Richard Baxter, referring to
his later years) " was so coarse and plain, that I who am thought guilty of
a culpable neglect therein, have been bold to desire him to lay by some
things which seemed too homely." Preface to a Letter to Mr. Edward

536 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

and betook himself to a plain fashion, which he continued to use
in many points to his dying day.

But since the honour of reclaiming him from the idleness of his
former course of life, is due to the memory of that eminent lawyer
Serjeant Glanvil, and since my design in writing is to propose a
pattern of heroick virtue to the world, I shall mention one pas-
sage of the Serjeant which ought never to be forgotten. His
father had a fair estate, which he intended to settle on his elder
brother ; but he being a vicious young man, and there appearing
no hopes of his recovery, he settled it on him, that was his second
son. Upon his death, his eldest son finding that what he had
before looked on as the threatenings of an angry father, was now
but too certain, became melancholy, and that by degrees wrought
so great a change on him, that what his father could not prevail
in while he lived, was now effected by the severity of his last will ;
so that it was now too late for him to change in hopes of any
estate that was gone from him. But his brother observing the
reality of the change, resolved within himself what to do. So he
called him with many of his friends together to a feast, and after
other dishes had been served up to the dinner, he ordered one
that was covered to be set before his brother, and desired him to
uncover it ; which he doing, the company was surprised to find
it full of writings. So he told them that he was now to do, what
he was sure his father would have done, if he had lived to see that
happy change, which they now all saw in his brother : and there-
fore he freely restored to him the whole estate. This is so great
an instance of a generous and just disposition, that I hope the
reader will easily pardon this digression ; and that the rather,
since that worthy Serjeant was so instrumental in the happy chance
that followed in the course of Mr. Kale's life.

Yet he did not at first break off from keeping too much com-
pany with some vain people, till a sad accident drove him from it.
For he with some other young students, being invited to be merry
out of town, one of the company called for so much wine, that
notwithstanding all that Mr. Hale could do to prevent it, he w«-ut
on in his excess till he fell down as dead before them, so that all
that were present were not a little affrighted at it, who did what
they could to bring him to himself again. This did particularly

Stephens. See Moral, ffc. Works of Sir Matthew Hale, vol. i. p. 89. A.D.
1805. 8vo.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 537

affect Mr. Hale, who thereupon went into another room, and
shutting the door, fell on his knees, and prayed earnestly to God,
both for his friend, that he might be restored to life again, and
that himself might be forgiven for giving such countenance to so
much excess : and he vowed to God, that he would never again
keep company in that manner, nor drink a health while he lived.
His friend recovered and he most religiously observed his vow,
till his dying day. And though he was afterwards pressed to
drink healths a, particularly the king's, which was set up by too
many as a distinguishing mark of loyalty, and drew many into
great excess after his majesty's happy restoration ; but he
would never dispense with his vow, though he was sometimes
roughly treated for this, which some hot and indiscreet men called
obstinacy.

This wrought an entire change on him. Now he forsook all
vain company, and divided himself between the duties of religion,
and the studies of his profession. In the former he was so regu-
lar, that for six and thirty years time, he never once failed going
to church on the Lord's day 7. This observation he made when
an ague first interrupted that constant course, and he reflected on
it, as an acknowledgment of God's great goodness to him, in so
long a continuance of his health.

a Drink healths] See Burnet's Hist, of his Own Time, vol. i. p. 127, A.D.
1660, edit. 1809. 8vo.

7 On the Lord's day.~\ " He told me once, how God brought him to a fixed
honour and observation of the Lord's day : that when he was young, being
in the West, the sickness or death of some relation at London, made some
matter of estate to become his concernment, which required his hastening to
London, from the West, and he was commanded to travel on the Lord's
day : but I cannot well remember how many cross accidents befel him in
his journey: one horse fell lame, another died, and much more; which
struck him with such a sense of divine rebuke as he never forgot." Richard
Baxter's Letter to Mr. Stephens, p. 104. Moral, fyc. Works of Sir Matthew
Hale, vol. i.

The judge has imparted the following important and consolatory testi-
mony, respecting his own experience of the interposition of divine agency.
"This secret direction of Almighty God is principally seen in matters relating
to the good of the soul ; yet it may also be found in the concerns of this life ;
which a good man, that fears God, and begs his direction, shall very often,
if not at all times, find.

" I can call my own experience to witness, that even in the external actions
of my whole life, I was never disappointed of the best guidance and direction,
when I have, in humility and sincerity, implored the secret direction and
guidance of the divine wisdom."

538 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

He took a strict account of his time, of which the reader will
best judge, by the scheme he drew for a diary, which I shall
insert copied from the original, but I am not certain when he made
it. It is set down in the same simplicity in which he writ it for
his own private use.

MORNING.

I. To lift up the heart to God in thankfulness for renewing my life.

II. To renew my covenant with God in Christ. 1. By renewed acts of faith
receiving Christ, and rejoicing in the height of that relation. 2. Resolution
of being one of his people doing him allegiance.

III. Adoration and prayer.

IV. Setting a watch over my own infirmities and passions, over the snares
laid in our way. Perimus licitis 8.

DAY EMPLOYMENT.

There must be in employment, two kinds :

I. Our ordinary calling, to serve God in it. It is a service to Christ though
never so mean. Colos. 3. Here faithfulness, diligence, cheerfulness.
Not to overlay myself with more business than I can bear.

II. Our spiritual employments. Mingle somewhat of God's immediate ser-
vice in every day.

REFRESHMENTS.

I. Meat and drink, moderation seasoned with somewhat of God.

II. Recreations. 1. Not our business. 2. Suitable. No games, if given to
covetousness or passion.

IF ALONE.

I. Beware of wandering vain lustful thoughts : fly from thyself rather than
entertain these.

II. Let thy solitary thoughts be profitable; view the evidences of thy salva-
tion, the state of thy soul, the coming of Christ, thy own mortality ; it will
make thee humble and watchful.

COMPANY.

Do good to them. Use God's name reverently. Beware of leaving an ill
impression of ill example. Receive good from them, if more knowing.

EVENING.

Cast up the accompts of the day. If aught amiss, beg pardon. Gather
resolution of more vigilance. If well, bless the mercy and grace of God
that hath supported thee.

8 Perimus licitis.] " I have still chosen, to forbear what might be probably
lawful, rather than to do that, which might be possibly unlawful : because, I
could not err in the former; I might, in the latter. If things wen
putable, whether they might be done, I rather chose to forbear ; because the
lawfulness of my forbearance was unquestionable." Hale's Moral Works, $c.
vol. ii. p. 262.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 539

These notes have an imperfection in the wording of them,
which shews they were only intended for his privacies. No
wonder a man who set such rules to himself, became quickly very
eminent and remarkable.

Noy, the attorney-general, being then one of the greatest men
of the profession, took early notice of him, and called often for
him and directed him in his study, and grew to have such friend-
ship for him, that he came to be called young Noy.

He passing from the extreme of vanity in his apparel, to that
of neglecting himself too much, was once taken when there was
a press for the king's service, as a fit person for it ; for he was a
strong and well-built man : but some that knew him coming by,
and giving notice who he was, the press-men let him go. This
made him return to more decency in his clothes, but never to
any superfluity or vanity in them.

Once as he was buying some cloth for a new suit, the draper,
with whom he differed about the price, told him he should have it
for nothing, if he would promise him an hundred pound when he
came to be lord chief justice of England ; to which he answered,
that he could not with a good conscience wear any man's cloth,
unless he paid for it ; so he satisfied the draper, and carried away
the cloth. Yet the same draper lived to see him advanced to
that same dignity.

While he was thus improving himself in the study of the law,
he not only kept the hours of the hall constantly in term time,
but seldom put himself out of commons in vacation time, and
continued then to follow his studies with an unwearied diligence ;
and not being satisfied with the books writ about it, or to take
things upon trust, was very diligent in searching all records.
Then did he make divers collections out of the books he had
read, and mixing them with his own observations, digested them
into a common place book ; which he did with so much industry
and judgment, that an eminent judge of the King's Bench, bor-
rowed it of him when he was lord chief baron. He unwillingly
lent it, because it had been writ by him before he was called to
the bar, and had never been thoroughly revised by him since that
time, only what alterations had been made in the law by subse-
quent statutes, and judgments, were added by him as they had
happened : but the judge having perused it said, that though it
was composed by him so early, he did not think any lawyer in
England could do it better, except he himself would again set
about it.

540 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

He was soon found out by that great and learned antiquary
Mr. Selden, who though much superior to him in years, yet came
to have such a liking of him, and of Mr. Vaughan, who was after-
wards lord chief justice of the Common Pleas, that as he con-
tinued in a close friendship with them while he lived, so he left
them at his death, two of his four executors.

It was this acquaintance that first set Mr. Hale on a more
enlarged pursuit of learning, which he had before confined to his
own profession ; but becoming as great a master in it, as ever
any was, very soon, he who could never let any of his time go
away unprofitably, found leisure to attain to as great a variety of
knowledge, in as comprehensive a manner as most men have done
in any age.

He set himself much to the study of the Roman law, and
though he liked the way of judicature in England by juries much
better than that of the civil law, where so much was trusted to
the judge ; yet he often said, that the true grounds and reasons
of law were so well delivered in the Digests 9, that a man could
never understand law as a science so well as by seeking it there ;
and therefore lamented much that it was so little studied in
England.

He looked on readiness in arithmetic as a thing which might
be useful to him in his own employment, and acquired it to such
a degree, that he would often on the sudden, and afterwards on
the bench, resolve very hard questions, which had puzzled the
best accomptants about town. He rested not here, but studied
the algebra both speciosa and numerosa, and went through all
the other mathematical sciences, and made a great collection of
very excellent instruments, sparing no cost to have them as exact
as art could make them. He was also very conversant in phi-
losophical learning, and in all the curious experiments and rare
discoveries of this age : and had the new books written on those
subjects sent from all parts, which he both read and examined so
critically, that if the principles and hypotheses which he took first
up, did any way prepossess him, yet those who have differed n
from him, have acknowledged, that in what he has writ concerning
the Torricellian experiment, and of the rarefaction and conden-
sation of the air, he shews as great an exactness, and as much
subtilty in the reasoning he builds on them, as these principles
to which he adhered could bear. But indeed it will seem s( .

9 Digests.] The Digesta or Pandecta of Justinian.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 541

credible, that a man so much employed, and of so severe a tem-
per of mind, could find leisure to read, observe and write so much
of these subjects as he did. He called them his diversions ; for
he often said, when he was weary with the study of the law, or
divinity, he used to recreate himself with philosophy or the mathe-
matics. To these he added great skill in physic, anatomy and
chirurgery : and he used to say, " no man could be absolutely a
master in any profession, without having some skill in other
sciences ;" for besides the satisfaction he had in the knowledge
of these things, he made use of them often in his employments.
In some examinations he would put such questions to physicians
or chirurgeons, that they have professed the college of physicians
could not do it more exactly ; by which he discovered great judg-
ment, as well as much knowledge in these things. And in his
sickness he used to argue with his doctors about his distempers,
and the methods they took with them, like one of their own pro-
fession ; which one of them told me he understood, as far as spe-
culation without practice could carry him,

To this he added great searches into ancient history, and par-
ticularly into the roughest and least delightful part of it, chrono-
logy. He was well acquainted with the ancient Greek philoso-
phers ; but want of occasion to use it, wore out his knowledge of
the Greek tongue ; and though he never studied the Hebrew
tongue, yet by his great conversation with Selden, he understood
the most curious things in the rabbinical learning.

But above all these he seemed to have made the study of divi-
nity the chief of all others ; to which he not only directed every
thing else, but also arrived at that pitch in it, that those who
have read what he has written on these subjects, will think they
must have had most of his time and thoughts.

It may seem extravagant, and almost incredible, that one man,
in no great compass of years, should have acquired such a variety
of knowledge : and that in sciences, that require much leisure
and application. But as his parts were quick, and his apprehen-
sions lively, his memory great, and his judgments strong ; so his
industry was almost indefatigable. He rose always betimes in
the morning ; was never idle ; scarce ever held any discourse
about news, except with some few in whom he confided entirely.
He entered into no correspondence by letters, except about
necessary business, or matters of learning, and spent very little
time in eating or drinking ; for as he never went to public feasts,

542 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

so he gave no entertainments but to the poor ; for he followed
our Saviour's directions (of feasting none but these) literally : and
in eating and drinking, he observed not only great plainness and
moderation, but lived so philosophically, that he always ended his
meal with an appetite 10 ; so that he lost little time at it, (that
being the only portion which he grudged himself) and was dis-
posed to any exercise of his mind to which he thought fit to apply
himself, immediately after he had dined. By these means he gained
much time, that is otherwise unprofitably wasted.

He had also an admirable equality in the temper of his mind,
which disposed him for whatever studies he thought fit to turn
himself to ; and some very uneasy things which he lay under for
many years, did rather engage him to, than distract him from his
studies.

When he was called to the bar, and began to make a figure in
the world, the late unhappy wars broke out, in which it was no
easy thing for a man to preserve his integrity, and to live securely
free from great danger and trouble. He had read the life of
Pomponius Atticus, writ by Nepos; and having observed, that
he had passed through a time of as much distraction, as ever was
in any age or state, from the wars of Marius and Sylla, to the
beginning of Augustus's reign, without the least blemish on his
reputation, and free from any considerable danger, being held in
great esteem by all parties, and courted and favoured by them ;
he set him as a pattern to himself: and observing, that besides
those virtues which are necessary to all men, and at all times,
there were two things that chiefly preserved Atticus ; the MM
was his engaging in no faction, and meddling in no public busi-
ness ; the other was his constant favouring and relieving those
that were lowest, which was ascribed by such as prevailed to the
generosity of his temper, and procured him much kindness from
those on whom he had exercised his bounty, when it came to
their turn to govern : he resolved to guide himself by those rules
as much as was possible for him to do.

He not only avoided all public employment, but the very talk-
ing of news, and was always both favourable and charitable to
those who were depressed, and was sure never to provoke any in

10 With an appetite.'] " This, sir," said an eminent physician to the present
writer, " is the true rule of temperance and health." Bishop Jebb, Burnet's
Lives, <$-c. p. 31, n.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 543

particular, by censuring or reflecting on their actions ; for many
that have conversed much with him, have told me they never heard
him once speak ill of any person.

He was employed in his practice by all the king's party. He
was assigned council to the earl of Strafford, and archbishop Laud,
and afterwards to the blessed king himself, when brought to the
infamous pageantry of a mock trial, and offered to plead for him
with all the courage that so glorious a cause ought to have inspired
him with ; but was not suffered to appear, because the king re-
fusing, as he had good reason, to submit to the court, it was pre-
tended none could be admitted to speak for him. He was also
council for the duke of Hamilton, the earl of Holland, and the
lord Capel. His plea for the former of these, I have published in
the memoirs of that duke's life. Afterwards also being council
for the lord Craven, he pleaded with that force of argument, that
the then attorney-general threatened him for appearing against
the government : to whom he answered, " he was pleading in
defence of those laws, which they declared they would maintain
and preserve : and he was doing his duty to his client, so that he
was not to be daunted with threatenings."

Upon all these occasions he had discharged himself with so
much learning, fidelity, and courage, that he came to be generally
employed for all that party. Nor was he satisfied to appear for
their just defence in the way of his profession, but he also relieved
them often in their necessities ; which he did in a way that was
no less prudent than charitable, considering the dangers of that
time : for he did often deposit considerable sums in the hands of
a worthy gentleman of the king's party, who knew their necessities
well, and was to distribute his charity according to his own dis-
cretion, without either letting them know from whence it came,
or giving himself any account to whom he had given it.

Cromwell seeing him possessed of so much practice, and he
being one of the eminentest men of the law, who was not at all
afraid of doing his duty in those critical times ; resolved to take
him off from it, and raise him to the bench.

Mr. Hale saw well enough the snare laid for him ; and though
he did not much consider the prejudice it would be to himself, to
exchange the easy and safer profits he had by his practice, for a
judge's place in the common-pleas, which he was required to
accept of, yet he did deliberate more on the lawfulness of taking
a commission from usurpers ; but having considered well of this,

544 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

he came to be of opinion, " that it being absolutely necessary, to
have justice and property kept up at all times, it was no sin to
take a commission from usurpers, if he made no declaration of
his acknowledging their authority;" which he never did. He
was much urged to accept of it by some eminent men of his own
profession, who were of the king's party ; as sir Orlando Bridge-
man, and sir Geoffery Palmer ; and was also satisfied concerning
the lawfulness of it *, by the resolution of some famous divines,
in particular Dr. Sheldon and Dr. Henchman, who were after-
wards promoted to the sees of Canterbury and London.

To these were added the importunities of all his friends, who
thought that in a time of so much danger and oppression, it might
be no small security to the nation, to have a man of his integrity
and abilities on the bench. And the usurpers themselves held
him in that estimation, that they were glad to have him give a
countenance to their courts, and by promoting one that was known
to have different principles from them, affected the reputation of
honouring and trusting men of eminent virtues, of what persua-
sion soever they might be, in relation to public matters.

But he had greater scruples concerning the proceeding against
felons, and putting offenders to death, by that commission, since
he thought, the sword of justice belonging only by right to the
lawful prince, it seemed not warrantable to proceed to a capital
sentence by an authority derived from usurpers ; yet at first he
made distinction between common and ordinary felonies, and
offences against the state : for the last, he would never meddle in
them ; for he thought these might be often legal and warrantable
actions, and that the putting men to death on that account
murder ; but for the ordinary felonies, he at first was of opinion,
that it was as necessary, even in times of usurpation, to execute
justice in those cases, as in matters of property. But after the
king was murdered, he laid by all his collections of the pleas of

1 The lawfulness of it.'] So we are informed by a very intelligent contem-
porary writer ; " the judges, debating what to do, unanimously agreed to
act : because there was a necessity that justice should be administered to the
people, and the laws kept in force. They did not think it fit to demur and
delay till the names of king and parliament should be put in their commis-
sion. They knew they were not essential to justice, or necessary, or so much
as conducing to the administration thereof, as the case then was." Politica
sacra et civilis, by George Lawson, rector of More in the county of Salop.
1689. 3d edit. p. 386.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 545

the crown ; and that they might not fall into ill hands, he hid them
behind the wainscotting of his study, for he said " there was no
more occasion to use them, till the king should be again restored
to his right ;" and so, upon his majesty's restoration, he took
them out, and went on in his design to perfect that great work.

Yet for some time, after he was made a judge, when he went
the circuit, he did sit on the crown-side, and judged criminals.
But having considered farther of it, he came to think that it was
at least better not to do it ; and so after the second or third
circuit, he refused to sit any more on the crown-side, and told
plainly the reason ; for in matters of blood, he was always to
choose the safer side. And indeed he had so carried himself in
some trials, that they were not unwilling he should withdraw from
meddling farther in them ; of which I shall give some instances.

Not long after he was made a judge, which was in the year
1653, when he went the circuit, a trial was brought before him at
Lincoln, concerning the murder of one of the townsmen, who had
been of the king's party, and was killed by a soldier of the garri-
son there. He was in the fields with a fowling-piece on his
shoulder ; which the soldier seeing, he came to him, and said, " it
was contrary to an order which the protector had made, that none
who had ~been of the king's party should carry arms ;" and so he
would have forced it from him. But as the other did not regard
the order, so being stronger than the soldier, he threw him down,
and having beat him, he left him. The soldier went into the
town, and told one of his fellow-soldiers how he had been used,
and got him to go with him, and lie in wait for the man, that he
might be revenged on him. They both watched his coming to
town, and one of them went to him to demand his gun ; which he
refusing, the soldier struck at him ; and as they were struggling,
the other came behind, and ran his sword into his body ; of which
he presently died. It was in the time of the assizes, so they were
both tried. Against the one there was no evidence of forethought
felony, so he was only found guilty of manslaughter, and burnt on
the hand ; but the other was found guilty of murder. And though
colonel Whaley, that commanded the garrison, came into the
court, and urged, " that the man was killed only for disobeying
the protector's order," and " that the soldier was but doing his
duty ;" yet the judge regarded both his reasons and threatenings
very little ; and therefore he not only gave sentence against him,
but ordered the execution to be so suddenly done, that it might

VOL. iv. N n

546 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

not be possible to procure a reprieve ; which he believed would
have been obtained, if there had been time enough granted for it.

Another occasion was given him, of shewing both his justice
and courage, when he was in another circuit. He understood
that the protector had ordered a jury to be returned for a trial, in
which he was more than ordinarily concerned. Upon this inform-
ation, he examined the sheriff about it, who knew nothing of it,
for he said he referred all such things to the under-sheriff; and
having next asked the under-sheriff concerning it, he found the
jury had been returned by order from Cromwell : upon which he
shewed the statute, that all juries ought to be returned by the
sheriff, or his lawful officer ; and this not being done according to
law, he dismissed the jury, and would not try the cause : upon
which the protector was highly displeased with him, and at his
return from the circuit, he told him in anger, " he was not fit to
be a judge ;" to which all the answer he made was " that it was
very true."

Another thing met him in the circuit, upon which he resolved
to have proceeded severely. Some anabaptists had rushed into a
church, and had disturbed a congregation, while they were receiv-
ing the sacrament, not without some violence. At this he was
highly offended, for he said " it was intolerable for men, who pre-
tended so highly to liberty of conscience, to go and disturb others ;
especially those who had the encouragement of the law on their
side." But these were so supported by some great magistrates
and officers, that a stop was put to his proceedings ; upon which
he declared, he would " meddle no more with the trials on the
crown-side."

When Penruddock's trial was brought on, there was a special
messenger sent to him, requiring him to assist at it. It was in
vacation time, and he was at his country-house at Alderly. He
plainly refused to go, and said, " the four terms, and two circuits,
were enough, and the little interval that was between, was little
enough for their private affairs ;" and so he excused himself. He
thought it was not necessary to speak more clearly ; but if he
had been urged to it, he would not have been afraid of doing it.

He was at that time chosen a parliament-man (for there be-in ^
tin n no house of lords, judges might have been chosen to sit in
the house of commons), and he went to it, on design to obstruct
the mad and wicked projects then on foot, by two parties, that
had very different principles and ends.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 547

On the one hand, some that were perhaps more sincere, yet
were really brain-sick, designed they knew not what, being re-
solved to pull down a standing ministry, the law and property of
England, and all the ancient rules of this government, and set up
in its room an indigested enthusiastical scheme, which they called
the kingdom of Christ, or of his saints; many of them being
really in expectation, thafc one day or another Christ would come
down, and sit among them, and at least they thought to begin
the glorious thousand years mentioned in the Revelation.

Others at the same time, taking advantages from the fears and
apprehensions, that all the sober men of the nation were in, lest
they should fall under the tyranny of a distracted sort of people,
who to all their other ill principles, added great cruelty, which
they had copied from those at Munster in the former age, intended
to improve that opportunity to raise their own fortunes and fami-
lies. Amidst these, judge Hale steered a middle course ; for as
he would engage for neither side, so he, with a great many more
worthy men, came to parliaments, more out of a design to hinder
mischief, than to do much good ; wisely foreseeing that the incli-
nations for the royal family were daily growing so much, that in
time the disorders then in agitation, would ferment to that happy
resolution, in which they determined in May, 1660: and there-
fore all that could be then done, was to oppose the ill designs of
both parties, the enthusiasts as well as the usurpers. Among the
other extravagant motions made in this parliament, one was to
destroy all the records in the Tower, and to settle the nation on a
new foundation : so he took this province to himself, to shew the
madness of this proposition, the injustice of it, and the mischiefs
that would follow on it; and did it with such clearness, and
strength of reason, as not only satisfied all sober persons (for it
may be supposed that was soon done) but stopped even the mouths
of the frantic people themselves.

Thus he continued administering justice till the protector died :
but then he both refused the mournings that were sent to him
and his servants for the funeral, and likewise to accept of the new
commission that was offered him by Richard ; and when the rest
of the judges urged it upon him, and employed others to press
him to accept of it, he rejected all their importunities, and said,
" He could act no longer under such authority."

He lived a private man till the parliament met that called home
the king, to which he was returned knight of the shire from the

K n 2

548 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

county of Gloucester. It appeared at that time how much he
was beloved and esteemed in his neighbourhood ; for though
another, who stood in competition with him, had spent near a
thousand pounds to procure voices, a great sum to be employed
that way in those days, and he had been at no cost ; and was so
far from soliciting it, that he had stood out long against those
who pressed him to appear, and he did not promise to appear
till three days before the election, yet he was preferred. He was
brought thither almost by violence, by the lord (now earl of)
Berkeley, who bore all the charge of the entertainments on the
day of his election, which was considerable, and had engaged all
his friends and interest for him. And whereas by the writ, the
knight of a shire must be miles gladio cinctus, and he had no
sword, that noble lord girt him with his own sword during the
election ; but he was soon weary of it, for the embroidery of the
belt did not suite well with the plainness of his clothes : and indeed
the election did not hold long ; for as soon as ever he came into
the field, he was chosen by much the greater number, though the
poll continued for three or four days.

In that parliament he bore his share in the happy period then
put to the confusions that threatened the utter ruin of the nation,
which, contrary to the expectations of the most sanguine, settled
in so serene and quiet a manner, that they who had formerly built
so much on their success, calling it an answer from heaven to their
solemn appeals to the providence of God, were now not a little
confounded, to see all this turned against themselves, in an in-
stance much more extraordinary than any of those were, upon
which they had built so much. His great prudence and excellent
temper led him to think, that the sooner an act of indemnity were
passed, and the fuller it were of graces and favours, it would sooner
settle the nation, and quiet the minds of the people; and tl
fore he applied himself with a particular care to the framing and
carrying it on : in which it was visible he had no concern ol 'his
own, but merely his love of the public that set him on to it.

Soon after this, when the courts in Westminster Hall cam
be settled, he was made lord chief baron; and when the earl of
Clarendon (then lord chancellor) delivered him his commission, in
the speech he made, according to the custom on such occasions,
he expressed his esteem of him in a very singular manner, telling
him, among other things, " That if the king could have found out
an honester and fitter man for that employment, he would not

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 549

have advanced him to it;" and "that he had therefore preferred
him, because he knew none that deserved it so well." It is ordi-
nary for persons so promoted to be knighted, but he desired to
avoid having that honour done him, and therefore for a consider-
able time declined all opportunities of waiting on the king ; which
the lord chancellor observing, sent for him upon business one day,
when the king was at his house, and told his majesty there
was his modest chief baron ; upon which he was unexpectedly
knighted.

He continued eleven years in that place, managing the court,
and all proceedings in it, with singular justice. It was observed
by the whole nation, how much he raised the reputation and prac-
tice of it : and those who held places, and offices in it> can all
declare, not only the impartiality of his justice, for that is but a
common virtue, but his generosity, his vast diligence, and his
great exactness in trials. This gave occasion to the only com-
plaint that ever was made of him, that he did not dispatch matters
quick enough ; but the great care he used, to put suits to a final
end, as it made him slower in deciding them, so it had this good
effect, that causes tried before him, were seldom, if ever tried again.

Nor did his administration of justice lie only in that court. He
was one of the principal judges that sat in Clifford Vinn, about
settling the differences between landlord and tenant, after the
dreadful fire of London. He being the first that offered his ser-
vice to the city, for accommodating all the differences that might
have arisen about the re-building of it, in which he behaved him-
self to the satisfaction of all persons concerned; so that the
sudden and quiet building of the city, which is justly to be reckoned
one of the wonders of the age, is in no small measure due to the
great care, which he and sir Orlando Bridgeman (then lord chief
justice of the common-pleas, afterwards lord keeper of the great
seal of England) used, and to the judgment they shewed in that
affair : since without the rules then laid down, there might have
otherwise followed such an endless train of vexatious suits, as
might have been little less chargeable than the fire itself had been.
But without detracting from the labours of the other judges, it
must be acknowledged that he was the most instrumental in that
great work ; for he first, by way of scheme, contrived the rules,
upon which he and the rest proceeded afterwards ; in which his
readiness at arithmetic, and his skill in architecture, were of great
use to him.

550 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

But it will not seem strange that a judge behaved himself as he
did, who at the entry into his employment, set such excellent rules
to himself, which will appear in the following paper, copied from
the original under his own hand.

Things necessary to be continually had in remembrance.

I. That in the administration of justice, I am entrusted for God, the king,
and country ; and therefore,

II. That it be done, 1. Uprightly, 2. Deliberately, 3. Resolutely.

III. That I rest not upon my own understanding or strength, but implore
and rest upon the direction and strength of God.

IV. That in the execution of justice, I carefully lay aside my own passions,
and not give way to them, however provoked.

V. That I be wholly intent upon the business I am about, remitting all other
cares and thoughts, as unseasonable, and interruptions.

VI. That I suffer not myself to be prepossessed with any judgment at all,
till the whole business and both parties be heard.

VII. That I never engage myself in the beginning of any cause, but reserve
myself unprejudiced till the whole be heard.

VIII. That in business capital, though my nature prompt me to pity ; yet to
consider that there is also a pity due to the country.

IX. That I be not too rigid in matters purely conscientious, where all the
harm is diversity of judgment.

X. That I be not biassed with compassion to the poor, or favour to the rich,
in point of justice.

XL That popular, or court-applause, or distaste, have no influence into any
thing I do in point of distribution of justice.

XII. Not to be solicitous what men will say or think, so long as I keep my-
self exactly according to the rules of justice.

XIII. If in criminals it be a measuring cast, to incline to mercy and acquittal.

XIV. In criminals that consist merely in words, when no more harm ensues,
moderation is no injustice.

XV. In criminals of blood, if the fact be evident, severity is justice.

XVI. To abhor all private solicitations of what kind soever, and by whom
soever, in matters depending.

XVII. To charge my servants, 1 . Not to interpose in any business whatsoever.
2. Not to take more than their known fees. 3. Not to give any undue
precedence to causes. 4. Not to recommend counsel.

XVIII. To be short and sparing at meals, that I may be the fitter for
business.

He would never receive private addresses or recommendations
from the greatest persons in any matter, in which justice was
concerned. One of the first peers of England went once to
his chamber, and told him, "That having a suit in law to 1>
tried before him, he was then to acquaint him with it, that h<

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 55i

might the better understand it, when it should come to be heard
in court." Upon which the lord chief baron interrupted him,
and said, " He did not deal fairly to come to his chamber about
such affairs, for he never received any information of causes but
in open court, where both parties were to be heard alike ;" so he
would not suffer him to go on. Whereupon his grace (for he
was a duke) went away not a little dissatisfied, and complained of
it to the king, as a rudeness that was not to be endured. But
his majesty bid him content himself that he was no worse used,
and said, he verily believed he would have used himself no better,
if he had gone to solicit him in any of his own causes.

Another passage fell out in one of his circuits, which was
somewhat censured as an affectation of an unreasonable strict-
ness ; but it flowed from his exactness to the rules he had set
himself. A gentleman had sent him a buck for his table, that
had a trial at the assizes ; so when he heard his name, he asked
if he was not the same person that had sent him venison ? and
finding he was the same, he told him, he could not suffer the
trial to go on, till he had paid him for his buck : to which the
gentleman answered, that he never sold his venison, and that he
had done nothing to him, which he did not do to every judge
that had gone that circuit, which was confirmed by several
gentlemen then present : but all would not do, for the lord chief
baron had learned from Solomon, that a gift perverteth the ways
of judgment ; and therefore he would not suffer the trial to go
on, till he had paid for the present ; upon which the gentleman
withdrew the record. And at Salisbury, the dean and chapter
having, according to the custom, presented him with six sugar-
loaves in his circuit, he made his servants pay for the sugar
before he would try their cause.

It was not so easy for him to throw off the importunities of
the poor, for whom his compassion wrought more powerfully than
his regard to wealth and greatness ; yet when justice was con-
cerned, even that did not turn him out of the way. There was
one that had been put out of a place for some ill behaviour, who
urged the lord chief baron to set his hand to a certificate, to
restore him to it, or provide him with another : but he told him
plainly his fault was such, that he could not do it ; the other
pressed him vehemently, and fell down on his knees, and begged
it of him with many tears ; but finding that could not prevail,
he said, he should be utterly ruined if he did it not ; and he

552 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

should curse him for it every day. But that having no effect,
then he fell out into all the reproachful words, that passion and
despair could inspire him with ; to which all the answer the lord
chief baron made, was, that he could very well bear all his
reproaches ; but he could not for all that set his hand to his
certificate. He saw he was poor, so he gave him a large charity,
and sent him away.

But now he was to go on after his pattern, Pomponius Atticus,
still to favour and relieve them that were lowest. So, besides
great charities to the nonconformists, who were then, as he
thought, too hardly used ; he took great care to cover them all
he could, from the severities some designed against them, and
discouraged2 those who were inclined to stretch the laws too
much against them. He lamented the differences that were
raised in this church very much, and according to the impar-
tiality of his justice, he blamed some things on both sides, which
I shall set down with the same freedom that he spake them.
He thought many of the nonconformists had merited highly 3 in
the business of the king's restoration, and at least deserved that
the terms of conformity should not have been made stricter,
than they were before the war. There was not then that dreadful
prospect of popery, that has appeared since. But that which
afflicted him most, was, that he saw the heats and contentions
which followed upon those different parties and interests, did
take people off from the indispensable things of religion, and

2 And discouraged. ~\ "When I went out of the house," (says Richard
Baxter, in the letter to Mr. Stephens, above referred to) " in which he suc-
ceeded me, I went into a greater over against the church door. The town
having great need of help for their souls, I preached, between the public ser-
mons, in my house, taking the people with me to the church (to common
prayer and sermon) morning and evening, The judge told me, that he
thought my course did the church much service; and would carry it so
respectfully to me at my door, that all the people might perceive his appro-
bation. But Dr. Reeves" (the rector of the parish, which was Acton)
" could not bear it, but complained against me : and the bishop of London
caused one Mr. Rosse, of Brainford, and Mr. Philips, two justices of the
peace, to send their warrants to apprehend me. I told the judge of the war-
rant, but asked him no counsel, nor he gave me none ; but with tears showed
his sorrow (the only time that ever I saw him weep). So I was sent to the
common gaol for six months, by these two justices." Moral, tyc. Works of
Sir Mat. Hale, vol. i. p. 105.

8 Merited highly.'] See Baxter's Narrative of his L\fe and Times, part i.
p. 105, 214, &c.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 553

slackened the zeal of (otherwise) good men for the substance of
it, so much being spent about external and indifferent things.
It also gave advantages to atheists, to treat the most sacred
points of our holy faith as ridiculous, when they saw the pro-
fessors of it contend so fiercely, and with such bitterness, about
lesser matters. He was much offended at all those books * that
were written, to expose the contrary sect to the scorn and con-
tempt of the age, in a wanton and petulant style. He thought
such writers wounded the Christian religion through the sides
of those who differed from them ; while a sort of lewd people,
who having assumed to themselves the title of the wits (though
but a very few of them have a right to it) took up from both
hands what they had said to make one another shew ridiculous,
and from thence persuaded the world to laugh at both, and at all
religion for their sakes. And therefore he often wished there
might be some law, to make all scurrility or bitterness in dis-
putes about religion punishable. But as he lamented the pro-
ceeding too rigorously against the nonconformists, so he declared
himself always of the side of the church of England ; and said
those of the separation were good men, but they had narrow souls,
who would break the peace of the church, about such inconsider-
able matters, as the points in difference were.

He scarce ever meddled in state intrigues ; yet upon a pro-
position that was set on foot by the lord keeper Bridgeman, for
a comprehension 5 of the more moderate dissenters, and a limited
indulgence towards such as could not be brought within the
comprehension, he dispensed with his maxim, of avoiding to
engage in matters of state. There were several meetings upon
that occasion. The divine of the church of England, that appeared
most considerably for it, was Dr. Wilkins, afterwards promoted
to the bishopric of Chester, a man of as great a mind, as true a
judgment, as eminent virtues, and of as good a soul, as any I
ever knew. He being determined as well by his excellent temper,

4 All those books ] " He had a great distaste " (Baxter assures us) "of the
books called A Friendly Debate, &c." (the work, and of great value, of
Patrick, afterwards bishop of Ely) " and Ecclesiastical Polity," (written by
Mr. Samuel Parker, then chaplain to archbishop Sheldon, and who after-
wards became a papist, and was made bishop of Oxford, &c. by James II.)
Letter to Mr. Stephens, in Hale's Moral, 6fc. Works, vol. i. p. 111.

5 For a comprehension.'] Compare Baxter's Life and Times, part 2. p. 433,
&c. Part 3. p. 24, &c. p. 100. p. 157, &c. Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 42,
&c. 52, &c. and 193, &c.

554 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

as by his foresight and prudence, by which he early perceived the
great prejudices that religion received, and the vast dangers the
reformation was like to fall under by those divisions ; set about
that project with the magnanimity that was indeed peculiar
to himself; for though he was much censured by many of his
own side, and seconded by very few, yet he pushed it as far as
he could. After several conferences with two of the eminentest
of the presbyterian divines, heads were agreed on, some abate-
ments were to be made, and explanations were to be accepted of.
The particulars of that project being thus concerted, they were
brought to the lord chief baron, who put them in form of a bill,
to be presented to the next sessions of parliament.

But two parties appeared vigorously against this design ; the
one was of some zealous clergymen, who thought it below the
dignity of the church to alter laws, and change settlements, for
the sake of some whom they esteemed schismatics. They also
believed, it was better to keep them out of the church, than
bring them into it, since a faction upon that would arise in the
church, which they thought might be more dangerous than the
schism itself was. Besides they said if some things were now
to be changed in compliance with the humour of a party as soon
as that was done, another party might demand other concessions,
and there might be as good reasons invented for these as for
those. Many such concessions might also shake those of our
own communion and tempt them to forsake us, and go over to
the church of Rome, pretending that we changed so often, that
they were thereby inclined to be of a church that was constant
and true to herself. These were the reasons brought and chiefly
insisted on against all comprehension ; and they wrought upon
the greater part of the house of commons, so that they passed a
vote against the receiving of any bill for that effect.

There were others that opposed it upon very different ends :
they designed to shelter the papists from the execution of the
law and saw clearly that nothing could bring in popery so well
as a toleration. But to tolerate popery bare-faced, would ha\v
startled the nation too much ; so it was necessary to hinder all
the propositions for union, since the keeping up the differ*
was the best colour they could find for getting the toleration to
pass, only as a slackening the laws against dissenters, u
numbers and wealth made it adviseable to have some regard t«>
them ; and under this pretence popery might have crept in more

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 555

covered, and less regarded. So these counsels being more
acceptable to some concealed papists then in great power, as has
since appeared but too evidently, the whole project for compre-
hension was let fall, and those who had set it on foot, came to be
looked on with an ill eye, as secret favourers of the dissenters,
underminers of the church, and every thing else that jealousy and
distaste could cast on them.

But upon this occasion the lord chief baron, and Dr. Wilkins,
came to contract a firm and familiar friendship ; and the lord
chief baron having much business, and little time to spare, did to
enjoy the other the more, what he had scarce ever done before,
he went sometimes to dine with him. And though he lived in
great friendship with some other eminent clergymen, as Dr.
Ward, bishop of Salisbury ; Dr. Barlow, bishop of Lincoln ; Dr.
Barrow, late master of Trinity college ; Dr. Tillotson, dean of
Canterbury ; and Dr. Stillingfleet, dean of St. Paul's, (men so
well known, and so much esteemed, that as it was no wonder the
lord chief baron valued their conversation highly, so those of
them that are yet alive will think it no lessening of the character
they are so deservedly in, that they are reckoned among judge
Hale's friends) yet there was an intimacy and freedom in his con-
verse with bishop Wilkins, that was singular to him alone. He
had during the late wars, lived in a long and entire friendship
with the apostolical primate of Ireland, bishop Usher ; their
curious searches into antiquity, and the sympathy of both their
tempers led them to a great agreement almost in every thing.
He held also great conversation with Mr. Baxter, who was his
neighbour at Acton, on whom he looked as a person of great
devotion and piety, and of a very subtile and quick apprehension :
their conversation lay most in metaphysical and abstracted ideas
and schemes.

He looked with great sorrow on the impiety and atheism of the
age, and so he set himself to oppose it, not only by the shining
example of his own life, but by engaging in a cause, that indeed
could hardly fall into better hands : and as he could not find a
subject more worthy of himself, so there were few in the age that
understood it so well, and could manage it more skilfully. The
occasion that first led him to write about it was this. He was
a strict observer of the Lord's day, in which, besides his con-
stancy in the public worship of God, he used to call all his family
together, and repeat to them the heads of the sermons, with some

556 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

additions of his own, which he fitted for their capacities and cir-
cumstances ; and that being done, he had a custom of shutting
himself up for two or three hours, which he either spent in his
secret devotions, or on such profitable meditations as did then
occur to his thoughts : he writ them with the same simplicity that
he formed them in his mind, without any art, or so much as a
thought to let them be published : he never corrected them, but
laid them by, when he had finished them, having intended only to
fix and preserve his own reflections in them ; so that he used no
sort of care to polish them, or make the first draught perfecter
than when they fell from his pen. These fell into the hands of a
worthy person, and he judging, as well he might, that the com-
municating them to the world might be a publick service, printed
two volumes of them in octavo a little before the authors death.
containing his

CONTEMPLATIONS.

I. Of our latter end.
II. Of wisdom and the fear of God.

III. Of the knowledge of Christ crucified.

IV. The victory of faith over the world.
V. Of humility.

VI. Jacob's vow.
VII. Of contentation.

VIII. Of afflictions.

IX. A good method to entertain unstable and troublesome times.
X. Changes and troubles : a poem.
XI. Of the redemption of time.
XII. The great audit.

XIII. Directions touching keeping the Lord's day : in a letter to his children.

XIV. Poems written upon Christmas day.

In the second volume.

I. An enquiry touching happiness.
II. Of the chief end of man.

III. Upon Eccles. 12. 1. Remember thy Creator.

IV. Upon the 51 Psalm, v. 10. Create a clean heart in me : with a poem.
V. The folly and mischief of sin.

VI. Of self-denial.

VII. Motives to watchfulness, in reference to the good and evil angels.
VIII. Of moderation of the affections.

IX. Of worldly hope and expectation.

\ I 'pon 13 Heb. 14. We have here no continuing city.
XI. Of contentedness and patience.
XII. Of moderation of anger.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 557

XIII. A preparative against afflictions.

XIV. Of submission, prayer, and thanksgiving.
XV. Of prayer and thanksgiving, on Psal. 116. 12.

XVI. Meditations on the Lord's Prayer, with a paraphrase upon it.

In them there appears a generous and true spirit of religion,
mixed with most serious and fervent devotion ; and perhaps with
the more advantage, that the stile wants some correction, which
shews they were the genuine production of an excellent mind,
entertaining itself in secret with such contemplations. The stile
is clear and masculine, in a due temper between flatness and
affectation, in which he expresses his thoughts both easily and
decently.

In writing these discourses, having run over most of the sub-
jects that his own circumstances led him chiefly to consider, he
began to be in some pain to choose new arguments ; and there-
fore resolved to fix on a theme that should hold him longer.

He was soon determined in his choice, by the immoral and irre-
ligious principles and practices that had so long vexed his righ-
teous soul, and therefore began a great design against atheism,
the first part of which is only printed, of the Origination of Man-
kind 6, designed to prove the creation of the world, and the truth
of the Mosaical history.

The second part was of the nature of the soul, and of a future
state.

The third part was concerning the attributes of God, both from
the abstracted ideas of him, and the light of nature ; the evi-
dence of Providence ; the notions of morality, and the voice of
conscience.

And the fourth part was concerning the truth and authority of
the Scriptures, with answers to the objections against them. On
writing these, he spent seven years. He wrote them with so
much consideration, that one who perused the original under his
own hand, which was the first draught of it, told me, he did not
remember of any considerable alteration ; perhaps not of twenty
words in the whole work.

The way of his writing them, only on the evenings of the

6 Origination of mankind."] A copy of the second part of this work, still
unpublished, intitled " Liber secundus de homine: de hominis secunda origina-
tions sive generations," is amongst the manuscripts in the British Museum.
It is written partly in English, partly in Latin.

558 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

LordVday, when he was in town, and not much oftener when he
was in the country, made, that they are not so contracted, as it is
very likely he would have writ them, if he had been more at
leisure to have brought his thoughts into a narrower compass,
and fewer words.

But making some allowance for the largeness of the stile, that
volume that is printed, is generally acknowledged to be one of the
perfectest pieces, both of learning and reasoning, that has been
writ on that subject : and he who read a great part of the other
volumes, told me, they were all of a piece with the first.

When he had finished this work he sent it by an unknown
hand to bishop Wilkins, to desire his judgment of it ; but he
that brought it, would give no other account of the author, but
that he was not a clergyman. The bishop, and his worthy friend
Dr. Tillotson, read a great deal of it with much pleasure, but
could not imagine who could be the author ; and how a man that
was master of so much reason, and so great a variety of know-
ledge, should be so unknown to them, that they could not find
him out, by those characters, which are so little common. At
last Dr. Tillotson guessed it must be the lord chief baron ; to
which the other presently agreed, wondering he had been so long
in finding it out. So they went immediately to him, and the
bishop thanking him for the entertainment he had received from
his works, he blushed extremely, not without some displeasure,
apprehending that the person he had trusted had discovered him.
But the bishop soon cleared that, and told him, he had discovered
himself ; for the learning of that book was so various, that none
but he could be the author of it. And that bishop having a
freedom in delivering his opinion of things and persons, which
perhaps few ever managed, both with so much plainness and pru-
dence, told him, there was nothing could be better said on t!
arguments, if he could bring it into a less compass ; but if he li.id
not leisure for that, he thought it much better to have it come
out, though a little too large, than that the world should be de-
prived of the good which it must needs do. But our judge had
never the opportunities of revising it ; so, a little before his
death, he sent the first part of it to the press.

In the beginning of it, he gives an essay of his excellent way of
methodizing things; in which he was so great a master, that
whatever he undertook, he would presently cast into so perfect a
scheme, that he could never afterwards correct it. lie runs out

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 559

copiously upon the argument of the impossibility of an eternal
succession of time, to shew that time and eternity are inconsistent
one with another ; and that therefore all duration that was past,
and defined by time, could not be from eternity ; and he shews
the difference between successive eternity already past, and one
to come ; so that though the latter is possible, the former is not
so ; for all the parts of the former have actually been ; and there-
fore being defined by time, cannot be eternal ; whereas the other
are still future to all eternity ; so that this reasoning cannot be
turned to prove the possibility of eternal successions that have
been, as well as eternal successions that shall be. This he fol-
lows with a strength I never met with in any that managed it
before him.

He brings next all those moral arguments, to prove, that the
world had a beginning, agreeing to the account Moses gives of
it ; as that no history rises higher, than near the time of the
deluge ; and that the first foundation of kingdoms, the invention
of arts, the beginnings of all religions, the gradual plantation of
the world, and increase of mankind, and the consent of nations
do agree with it. In managing these, as he shews profound skill
both in historical and philosophical learning : so he gives a noble
discovery of his great candour and probity, that he would not
impose on the reader with a false shew of reasoning by argu-
ments, that he knew had flaws in them; and therefore upon
every one of these, he adds such allays, as in a great measure
lessened and took off their force, with as much exactness of judg-
ment, and strictness of censure, as if he had been set to plead
for the other side : and indeed sums up the whole evidence for
religion, as impartially as ever he did in a trial for life or death to
the jury ; which how equally and judicially he always did, the
whole nation well knows.

After that, he examines the ancient opinions of the philoso-
phers, and enlarges with a great variety of curious reflections
in answering that only argument, that has any appearance of
strength for the casual production of man, from the origination
of insects out of putrified matter, as is commonly supposed ; and
he concluded the book, shewing how rational and philosophical
the account which Moses gives of it is. There is in it all a saga-
city and quickness of thought, mixed with great and curious
learning, that I confess I never met together in any other book
on that subject. Among other conjectures, one he gives con-

560 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

cerning the deluge, is, that " he did not think the face of the
earth, and the waters, were altogether the same before the uni-
versal deluge, and after : but possibly the face of the earth was
more even than now it is : the seas possibly more dilated and ex-
tended, and not so deep as now." And a little after, " possibly
the seas have undermined much of the appearing continent of
earth." This I the rather take notice of, because it hath been,
since his death, made out in a most ingenious, and most elegantly
written book, by Mr. Burnet, of Chrises college, in Cambridge!
who has given such an essay towards the proving the possibility
of an universal deluge : and from thence has collected, with great
sagacity, what paradise was before it, as has not been offered by
any philosopher before him.

While the judge was thus employing his time, the lord chid'
justice Keyling dying, he was on the 18th of May, 1671, pro-
moted to be lord chief justice of England. He had made the
pleas of the crown one of his chief studies, and by much search,
and long observation, had composed that great work concerning
them, formerly mentioned ; he that holds the high office of justi-
ciary in that court, being the chief trustee and assertor of the
liberties of his country. All people applauded this choice, and
thought their liberties could not be better deposited, than in the
hands of one, that as he understood them well, so he had all the
justice and courage that so sacred a trust required. One thing
was much observed and commended in him, that when there was
a great inequality in the ability and learning of the counsellors
that were to plead one against another; he thought it became
him, as the judge, to supply that ; so he would enforce what the
weaker counsel managed but indifferently, and not suffer the more
learned to carry the business by the advantage they had over the
others, in their quickness and skill in law, and readiness in plead-
ing till all things were cleared, in which the merits and strci
of the ill-defended cause lay. He was not satisfied barely to
his judgment in causes ; out did, especially in all intricate «
give such an account of the reasons that prevailed with him, that
the counsel did not only acquiesce in his authority, but wer
convinced by his reasons, that I have heard many profess tli
brought them often to change their opinions; so that his giving
of judgment was really a learned lecture upon that point of law :
and which was yet more, the parties themselves, though int
does too commonly corrupt the judgment, were generally >at i

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 561

with the justice of his decisions, even when they were made
against them. His impartial justice, and great diligence, drew
the chief practice after him, into whatsoever court he came.
Since, though the courts of the Common Pleas, the Exchequer,
and the King^s Bench, are appointed for the trial of causes of
different natures, yet it is easy to bring most causes into any of
them, as the counsel or attornies please ; so, as he had drawn the
business much after him, both into the Common Pleas, and the
Exchequer, it now followed him into the King's Bench; and
many causes that were depending in the Exchequer, and not de-
termined, were let fall there, and brought again before him in the
court, to which he was now removed. And here did he spend
the rest of his public life and employment.

But about four years and a half after this advancement, he who
had hitherto enjoyed a firm and vigorous health, to which his
great temperance, and the equality of his mind, did not a little
conduce, was on a sudden brought very low by an inflammation
in his midriff, which in two days time broke the constitution of
his health to such a degree, that he never recovered it. He
became so asthmatical, that with great difficulty he could fetch
his breath, that determined in a dropsy, of which he afterwards
died. He understood physic so well, that considering his age, he
concluded his distemper must carry him off in a little time, and
therefore he resolved to have some of the last months of his life
reserved to himself, that being freed of all worldly cares, he might
be preparing for his change. He was also so much disabled in
his body, that he could hardly, though supported by his servants,
walk through Westminster Hall, or endure the toil of business.
He had been a long time wearied with the distractions that his
employment had brought on him, and his profession was become
ungrateful to him. He loved to apply himself wholly to better
purposes, as will appear by a paper that he writ on this subject,
which I shall here insert.

" First, If I consider the business of my profession, whether as an advo-
cate, or as a judge, it is true, I do acknowledge by the institution of almighty
God, and the dispensation of his providence, I am bound to industry and
fidelity in it : and as it is an act of obedience unto his will, it carries with it
some things of religious duty, and I may and do take comfort in it, and ex-
pect a reward of my obedience to him, and the good that I do to mankind
therein, from the bounty and beneficence, and promise of almighty God j
and it is true also, that without such employments, civil societies cannot be
supported, and great good redounds to mankind from them j and in these
VOL. IV. O O

562 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

respects, the conscience of my own industry, fidelity, and integrity in them,
is a great comfort and satisfaction to me. But yet this I must say concerning
these employments, considered simply in themselves, that they are very full
of cares, anxieties, and perturbations.

" Secondly, That though they are beneficial to others, yet they are of the
least benefit to him that is employed in them.

" Thirdly, That they do necessarily involve the party, whose office it is, in
great dangers, difficulties, and calumnies.

" Fourthly, That they only serve for the meridian of this life, which is
short and uncertain.

" Fifthly, That though it be my duty, faithfully to serve in them, while I
am called to them, and till I am duly called from them, yet they are great
consumers of that little time we have here ; which, as it seems to me, might
be better spent in a pious contemplative life, and a due provision for eternity.
I do not know a better temporal employment than Martha had, in testifying
her love and duty to our Saviour, by making provision for him ; yet our Lord
tells her, That though she was troubled about many things, there was only one
thing necessary, and Mary had chosen the better part."

By this the reader will see, that he continued in his station
upon no other consideration, but that being set in it by the pro-
vidence of God, he judged he could not abandon that post which
was assigned him without preferring his own private inclination
to the choice God had made for him ; but now that same provi-
dence having by this great distemper disengaged him from the
obligation of holding a place, which he was no longer able to dis-
charge, he resolved to resign it. This was no sooner surmised
abroad, than it drew upon him the importunities of all his friends,
and the clamour of the whole town to divert him from it ; but all
was to no purpose ; there was but one argument that could move
him, which was, " That he was obliged to continue in the employ-
ment God had put him in for the good of the public/'1 But to
this he had such an answer, that even those who were most con-
cerned in his withdrawing, could not but see, that the rea-
inducing him to it, were but too strong. So he made applications
to his majesty for his writ of ease, which the king was very un-
willing to grant him, and offered to let him hold his place still.
he doing what business he could in his chamber; but he said, ho
could not with a good conscience continue in it, since he was no
longer able to discharge the duty belonging to it.

But yet such was the general satisfaction which all the kingdom
received by his excellent administration of justice, th.-it the kin-_r.
though he could not well deny his request, yet he deferred the
granting of it as long as was possible: nor could the lord chnn-

SIR MA1THEW HALE. 563

cellor be prevailed with to move the king to hasten his discharge
though the chief justice often pressed him to it.

At last having wearied himself, and all his friends, with his
importunate desires ; and growing sensibly weaker in body, he
did upon the 21st day of February, 28 Car. 2. anno dom. 1675, 6,
go before a iriaster of the chancery, with a little parchment deed,
drawn by himself and written all with his own hand, and there
sealed and delivered it, and acknowledged it to be enrolled ; and
afterwards he brought the original deed to the lord chancellor,
and did formally surrender his office in these words :

" Omnibus Christ! fidelibus ad quos prsesens scriptura pervenerit, Mat-
thseus Hale, miles, capitalis justiciarius domini regis ad placita coram ipso
rege tenenda assignatus, salutem in Domino sempiternam. Noveritis me
prsefatum Matthaeum Hale, militem, jam senem factum, et variis corporis
mei senilis morbis et infirmitatibus dire laborantem, et adhuc detentum, hac
charta mea resignare et sursum reddere serenissimo domino nostro Carolo
secundo Dei gratia Angliae, Scotiae, Franciae et Hiberniae, regi, fidei defen-
sori, &c. predictum officium capitalis justiciarii ad placita coram ipso rege
tenenda, humillime petens quod hoc scriptum irrotaletur de recordo. In
cujus rei testimoniurn huic chartae mese resignationis sigillum meum apposui.
Dat. vicesimo primo die Februarii anno regni diet. dom. regis nunc vicesimo
octavo."

He made this instrument, as he told the lord chancellor, for
two ends ; the one was to shew the world his own free concurrence
to his removal : another was to obviate an objection heretofore
made, that a chief justice, being placed by writ, was not removable
at pleasure', as judges, by patent were ; which opinion, as he said,
was once held by his predecessor the lord chief justice Keyling ;
and though he himself were always of another opinion, yet he
thought it reasonable to prevent such a scruple.

He had the day before surrendered to the king in person, who
parted from him with great grace, wishing him most heartily the
return of his health ; and assuring him, " That he would still
look upon him as one of his judges, and have recourse to his
advice when his health would permit : and in the mean time
would continue his pension during his life."

The good man thought this bounty too great, and an ill pre-
cedent for the king ; and therefore wrote a letter to the lord
treasurer, earnestly desiring, that his pension might be only
during pleasure 7; but the king would grant it for life, and make
it payable quarterly.

7 Only during pleasure.'] And yet, may we not say, in the words of bishop

O o 2

564 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

And yet, for a whole month together, he would not suffer his
servant to sue out his patent for his pension ; and when the first
payment was received, he ordered a great part of it to charitable
uses ; and said, he intended most of it should be so employed as
long as it was paid him.

At last he happened to die upon the quarter-day, which was
Christmas day ; and though this might have given some occasion
to a dispute, whether the pension for that quarter were recover-
able, yet the king was pleased to decide that matter against him-
self, and ordered the pension to be paid to his executors.

As soon as he was discharged from his great place, he returned
home with as much cheerfulness, as his want of health could
admit of, being now eased of a burthen he had been of late
groaning under, and so made more capable of enjoying that which
he had much wished for, according to his elegant translation of,
or rather paraphrase upon, those excellent lines in Seneca^s
Thyestes, act 2.

" Stet quicunque volet potens,
Aulae culmine lubrico ;
Me dulcis saturet quies.
Obscuro positus loco,
Leni perfruar otio :
Nullis nota Quiritibus,
jEtas per taciturn fluat.
Sic cum transierint mei
Nullo cum strepitu dies,
Plebeius moriar senex.
Illi mors gravis incubat,
Qui notus nimis omnibus,
Ignotus moritur sibi 8."

" Let him that will ascend the tottering seat
Of courtly grandeur, and become as great
As are his mounting wishes : As for me,
Let sweet repose and rest my portion be.
Give me some mean obscure recess ; a sphere
Out of the road of business, or the fear

Jebb, which he applies to another passage in this life, " No improvement of
later times is comparable to that legislative act, which gave judges their seat
FOR LIFE?" Burnet's Lives, fyc. p. 104. n.

8 Ignotus moritur sibi.'} " Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to
themselves ; and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time
to attend to their health either of body or mind : Illi mors gravis incubat,
qui, notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi." Bacon's Essays, xi. quoted
by bishop Jebb, Burnet's Lives, fyc. p. 72.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 565

Of falling lower : where I sweetly may
Myself and dear retirement still enjoy.
Let not my life or name be known unto
The grandees of the time, tost to and fro
By censures or applause ; but let my age
Slide gently by, not overthwart the stage
Of public action, unheard, unseen,
And unconcern' d, as if I ne'er had been.
And thus, while I shall pass my silent days
In shady privacy, free from the noise
And bustles of the bad world, then shall I
A good old innocent plebeian die.
Death is a mere surprise, a very snare
To him, that makes it his life's greatest care
To be a public pageant, known to all,
But unacquainted with himself doth fall."

Having now attained to that privacy, which he had no less
seriously than piously wished for, he called all his servants that
had belonged to his office together, and told them, he had now
laid down his place, and so their employments were determined ;
upon that he advised them to see for themselves, and gave to some
of them very considerable presents, and to every one of them a
token, and so dismissed all those that were not his domestics.
He was discharged the 15th of February, 1675-6, and lived till
the Christmas following ; but all the while was in so ill a state of
health that there was no hopes of his recovery. He continued
still to retire often, both for his devotions and studies ; and as
long as he could go, went constantly to his closet ; and when his
infirmities increased on him, so that he was not able to go thither
himself, he made his servants carry him thither in a chair. At
last, as the winter came on, he saw, with great joy, his deliverance
approaching ; for besides his being weary of the world, and his
longings for the blessedness of another state, his pains increased
so on him, that no patience inferior to his could have borne them
without a great uneasiness of mind ; yet he expressed to the last
such submission to the will of God, and so equal a temper under
them, that it was visible then what mighty effects his philosophy
and Christianity had on him, in supporting him under such a
heavy load.

He could not lie down in bed above a year before his death, by
reason of the asthma ; but sat, rather than lay in it.

He was attended on in his sickness, by a pious and worthy
divine, Mr. Evan Griffith, minister of the parish ; and it was

566 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

observed, that in all the extremities of his pain, whenever he
prayed by him, he forbore all complaints or groans, but with his
hands and eyes lifted up, was fixed in his devotion. Not long
before his death, the minister told him, " there was to be sacra-
ment next Sunday at church, but he believed he could not come
and partake with the rest ; therefore he would give it to him in
his own house :" but he answered, " no ; his heavenly Father had
prepared a feast for him, and he would go to his Father's house
to partake of it.'1 So he made himself be carried thither in his
chair, where he received the sacrament on his knees, with great
devotion ; which it may be supposed was the greater, because he
apprehended it was to be his last, and so took it as his viaticum,
and provision for his journey. He had some secret unaccount-
able presages of his death ; for he said, " that if he did not die
on such a day," (which fell to be the 25th of November) " he
believed he should live a month longer ;" and he died that very
day month. He continued to enjoy the free use of his reason and
sense to the last moment, which he had often and earnestly prayed
for, during his sickness : and when his voice was so sunk, that
he could not be heard, they perceived by the almost constant
lifting up of his eyes and hands, that he was still aspiring
towards that blessed state, of which he was now speedily to be
possessed.

He had for many years a particular devotion for Christmas-
day ; and after he had received the sacrament, and been in the
performance of the public worship of that day, he commonly wrote
a copy of verses on the honour of his Saviour, as a fit expression
of the joy he felt in his soul at the return of that glorious anni-
versary. There are seventeen of those copies printed, which he
writ on seventeen several Christmas-days, by which the world has
a taste of his poetical genius ; in which, if he had thought it
worth his time to have excelled, he might have been eminent as
well as in other things ; but he writ them rather to entertain him-
self than to merit the laurel.

I shall here add one which has not yet been printed, and it
is not unlikely it was the last he writ ; it is a paraphrase on
Simeon's Song, I take it from his blotted copy, not at all
finished ; so the reader is to make allowance for any imperfect inn
he may find in it.

Blessed Creator, who before the birth
Of time, or ere the pillars of the earth

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 567

Were fix'd or form'd, didst lay that great design

Of man's redemption, and didst define

In thine eternal counsels all the scene

Of that stupendous business, and when

It should appear; and though the very day

Of its Epiphany, concealed lay

Within thy mind, yet thou wert pleased to show

Some glimpses of it, unto men below,

In visions, types, and prophesies, as we

Things at a distance in perspective see :

But thou wert pleas'd to let thy servant know

That that blest hour, that seem'd to move so slow

Through former ages, should at last attain

Its time, ere my few sands, that yet remain

Are spent; and that these aged eyes

Should see the day when Jacob's star should rise.

And now thou hast fulfill'd it, blessed Lord,

Dismiss me now, according to thy word ;

And let my aged body now return

To rest, and dust, and drop into an urn.

For I have liv'd enough, mine eyes have seen

Thy much-desired salvation, that hath been

So long, so dearly-wish'd, the joy, the hope

Of all the ancient patriarchs, the scope

Of all the prophesies, and mysteries,

Of all the types unveil'd, the histories

Of Jewish church unriddled, and the bright

And orient sun arisen to give light

To Gentiles, and the joy of Israel,

The world's Redeemer, blest Emanuel.

Let this sight close mine eyes ; 'tis loss to see,

After this vision, any sight but Thee.

Thus he used to sing on the former Christmas- days, but now
he was to be admitted to bear his part in the new songs above ;
so that day, which he had spent in so much spiritual joy, proved
to be indeed the day of his jubilee and deliverance ; for between
two and three in the afternoon, he breathed out his righteous and
pious soul. His end was peace; he had no strugglings, nor
seemed to be in any pangs in his last moments. He was buried
on the 4th of January, Mr. Griffith preaching the funeral ser-
mon. His text was the 57th of Isaiah, ver. 1 : — The righteous
perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart ; and merciful men are
taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from
the evil to come. Which how fitly it was applicable upon this
occasion ; all that consider the course of his life, will easily con-

568 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

elude. He was interred 9 in the church-yard of Alderley, among
his ancestors : he did not much approve of burying in churches,
and used to say, "The churches were for the living, and the
church-yards for the dead." His monument was like himself,
decent and plain. The tomb-stone was black marble, and the
sides were black and white marble ; upon which he himself had
ordered this bare and humble inscription to be made :

HIC INHUMATUR CORPUS

MATTHJEI HALE, MILITIS ;

ROBERTI HALE, ET JOANNA,

UXORIS EJUS, FILII UNICI ;

NATI IN HAC PAROCHIA DE

ALDERLY, PRIMO DIE NOVEMBRIS,

ANNO DOM. 1609.

DENATI VERO IBIDEM VICESIMO
QU1NTO DIE DECEMBRIS,

ANNO DOM. 1676.
.ETATIS StLE, LXVI1.

Having thus given an account of the most remarkable things
of his life, I am now to present the reader with such a character
of him, as the laying his several virtues together will amount to :
in which I know how difficult a task I undertake ; for to write
defectively of him, were to injure him, and lessen the memory of
one to whom I intend to do all the right that is in my power. On
the other hand, there is so much here to be commended and pro-
posed for the imitation of others, that I am afraid some may
imagine, I am rather making a picture of him, from an abstracted
idea of great virtues and perfections, than setting him out as he
truly was. But there is great encouragement in this, that I write
concerning a man so fresh in all people's remembrance, that is so
lately dead, and was so much and so well known, that I shall have
many vouchers, who will be ready to justify me in all that I am
to relate, and to add a great deal to what I can say.

It has appeared in the account of his various learning, how
great his capacities were, and how much they were improved by
constant study. He rose always early in the morning ; he loved
to walk much abroad ; not only for his health, but he thought it

9 Was interred.] " He went into the common church-yard, and there
chose his grave, and died a few days after." Baxter's Narrative of his Life
and Times, part 3, p. 181.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 569

opened his mind, and enlarged his thoughts to have the creation
of God before his eyes. When he set himself to any study, he
used to cast his design in a scheme, which he did with a great
exactness of method ; he took nothing on trust, but pursued his
enquiries as far as they could go ; and as he was humble enough
to confess his ignorance, and submit to mysteries which he could
not comprehend ; so he was not easily imposed on, by any shews
of reason or the bugbears of vulgar opinions. He brought all his
knowledge as much to scientifical principles, as he possibly could ;
which made him neglect the study of tongues, for the bent of his
mind lay another way. Discoursing once of this to some, they
said, " They looked on the common law, as a study that could
not be brought into a scheme, nor formed into a rational science,
by reason of the indigestedness of it, and the multiplicity of the
cases in it, which rendered it very hard to be understood, or
reduced into a method:" but he said, "He was not of their
mind ;" and so quickly after, he drew with his own hand, a
scheme of the whole order and parts of it, in a large sheet of
paper, to the great satisfaction of those to whom he sent it.
Upon this hint, some pressed him to compile a body of the Eng-
lish law : it could hardly ever be done by a man who knew it
better, and would with more judgment and industry have put it
into method : but he said, " As it was a great and noble design,
which would be of vast advantage to the nation ; so it was too
much for a private man to undertake. It was not to be entered
upon, but by the command of a prince, and with the com-
municated endeavours of some of the most eminent of the pro-
fession."

He had great vivacity in his fancy, as may appear by his
inclination to poetry, and the lively illustrations, and many tender
strains in his contemplations ; but he looked on eloquence and
wit, as things to be used very chastely, in serious matters, which
should come under a severer inquiry : therefore he was both,
when at the bar, and on the bench, a great enemy to all eloquence
or rhetoric in pleading. He said, " If the judge, or jury, had a
right understanding, it signified nothing, but a waste of time, and
loss of words ; and if they were weak, and easily wrought on, it
was a more decent way of corrupting them, by bribing their
fancies, and biassing their affections;" and wondered much at
that affectation of the French lawyers, in imitating the Roman
orators in their pleadings : for the oratory of the Romans was

570 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

occasioned by their popular government, and the factions of the
city ; so that those who intended to excell in the pleading of
causes, were trained up in the schools of the rhetors, till they
became ready and expert in that luscious way of discourse. It
is true, the composures of such a man as Tully was, who mixed
an extraordinary quickness, an exact judgment, and a just deco-
rum with his skill in rhetoric, do still entertain the readers of
them with great pleasure: but at the same time, it must be
acknowledged, that there is not that chastity of stile, that close-
ness of reasoning, nor that justness of figures in his orations, that
is in his other writings ; so that a great deal was said by him,
rather because he knew it would be acceptable to his auditors,
than that it was approved of by himself; and all who read them,
will acknowledge, they are better pleased with them as essays of
wit and stile, than as pleadings, by which such a judge as ours
was, would not be much wrought on. And if there are such
grounds to censure the performances of the greatest master in
eloquence, we may easily infer what nauseous discourses the other
orators made ; since in oratory, as well as in poetry, none can do
indifferently. So our judge wondered to find the French, that
live under a monarchy, so fond of imitating that which was an ill
effect of the popular government of Rome. He therefore pleaded
himself always in few words, and home to the point: and when
he was a judge, he held those that pleaded before him, to the
main hinge of the business, and cut them short when they made
excursions about circumstances of no moment, by which he saved
much time, and made the chief difficulties be well stated and
cleared.

There was another custom among the Romans, which he as
much admired, as he despised their rhetoric, which was, that the
juris- consults were the men of the highest quality, who were bred
to be capable of the chief employment in the state, and became
the great masters of their law. These gave their opinions of all
cases that were put to them freely, judging it below them to take
any present for it ; and indeed they were the only true la\\
among them, whose resolutions were of that authority, that they
made one classis of those materials, out of which Trebonian c
piled the digests under Justinian ; for the orators, or cans!-
that pleaded causes, knew little of the law, and only em pi
tlxir mercenary tongues, to work on the affections of the pe
and senate, or the pretors : even in most of Tully 's oration- '

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 571

is little of law ; and that little which they might sprinkle in their
declamations, they had not from their own knowledge, but the
resolution of some juris-consult ; according to that famous story
of Servius Sulpitius, who was a celebrated orator, and being to
receive the resolution of one of those that were learned in the
law, was so ignorant, that he could not understand it ; upon which
the juris-consult reproached him, and said, " It was a shame for
him that was a nobleman, a senator, and a pleader of causes, to
be thus ignorant of law." This touched him so sensibly, that he
set about the study of it, and became one of the most eminent
juris- consults that ever were at Rome. Our judge thought it
might become the greatness of a prince, to encourage such a sort
of men, and of studies ; in which, none in the age he lived in was
equal to the great Selden, who was truly in our English law, what
the old Roman juris-consults were in theirs.

But where a decent eloquence was allowable, judge Hale knew
how to have excelled as much as any, either in illustrating his
reasonings, by proper and well pursued similies, or by such tender
expressions, as might work most on the affections ; so that the
present lord chancellor has often said of him, since his death,
" That he was the greatest orator he had known ;" for though
his words came not fluently from him, yet when they were out,
they were the most significant, and expressive, that the matter
could bear *. Of this sort there are many in his Contemplations
made to quicken his own devotion, which have a life in them
becoming him that used them, and a softness fit to melt even the
harshest tempers, accommodated to the gravity of the subject,
and apt to excite warm thoughts in the readers ; that as they
shew his excellent temper that brought them out, and applied
them to himself; so they are of great use to all, who would both
inform and quicken their minds. Of his illustrations of things
by proper similies, I shall give a large instance out of his book
of the Origination of Mankind, designed to expose the several
different hypotheses the philosophers fell on, concerning the eter-

1 The matter could bear.'] His demeanor and speaking as a judge, is thus
described by one, no way partial to his merits.

" He became the cushion exceedingly well. His manner of hearing was
patient, his directions pertinent, and his discourses copious ; and, although
he hesitated often, fluent. His stop for a word, by the produce, always paid
for the delay: and on some occasions, he would utter sentences heroic."
Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, by the Hon. Roger North, vol. i. p. 114.
edit. 1808.

572 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

nity and original of the universe, and to prefer the account given
by Moses, to all their conjectures ; in which, if my taste does
not misguide me, the reader will find a rare and very agreeable
mixture, both of fine wit, and solid learning and judgment 3.

" That which may illustrate my meaning, in this preference of
the revealed light of the holy Scriptures, touching this matter,
above the essays of a philosophical imagination, may be this.
Suppose that Greece being unacquainted with the curiosity of
mechanical engines, though known in some remote region of the
world ; and that an excellent artist had secretly brought and
deposited in some field, or forest, some excellent watch, or clock,
which had been so formed, that the original of its motion were
hidden, and involved in some close contrived piece of mechanism ;
that this watch was so framed, that the motion thereof might
have lasted a year, or some such time, as might give a reasonable
period for their philosophical descanting concerning it ; and that
in the plain table there had been not only the description and
indication of hours, but the configurations and indications of the
various phases of the moon, the motion and place of the sun in
the ecliptic, and divers other curious indications of celestial mo-
tions ; and that the scholars of the several schools of Epicurus,
of Aristotle, of Plato, and the rest of those philosophical sects,
had casually in their walk, found this admirable automaton :
what kind of work would there have been made by every sect,
in giving an account of this phenomenon ! — We should have had
the Epicurean sect, have told the by-standers, according to their
preconceived hypothesis, 'that this was nothing else but an
accidental concretion of atoms, that, happily fallen together, had
made up the index, the wheels, and the balance ; and that being
happily fallen into this posture, they were put into motion/
Then the Cartesian falls in with him, as to the main of their sup-
position ; but tells him, l that he doth not sufficiently explicate
how the engine is put into motion ; and therefore to furnish this
motion, there is a certain materia subtilis that pervades this
engine, and the moveable parts, consisting of certain globular
atoms, apt for motion ; they are thereby, and by the mobility of
the globular atoms, put into motion.' A third, finding fault with
the two former, 'because those motions are so regular, and do

3 Learning and judgment. ,] " The attentive reader cannot fail to observe,
that Dr. Paley was largely indebted to this striking passage, in his Natural
Theology." Bishop Jebb in Burnet's Lives, $c. p. 86.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 573

express the various phenomena of the distribution of time, and
the heavenly motions : therefore it seems to him, that this engine
and motion also, so analogical to the motions of the heavens, was
wrought by some admirable conjunction of the heavenly bodies,
which formed this instrument and its motions, in such an admi-
rable correspondency to its own existence.1 A fourth, disliking
the suppositions of the three former, tells the rest, c that he hath
a more plain and evident solution of the phenomenon, namely, the
universal soul of the world, or spirit of nature, that formed so
many sorts of insects with so many organs, faculties, and such
congruity of their whole composition, and such curious and various
motions, as we may observe in them, hath formed and set into
motion this admirable automatum, and regulated and ordered it,
with all these congruities we see in it.1 Then steps in an Aris-
totelian ; and being dissatisfied with all the former solutions, tells
them, ' Gentlemen, you are all mistaken ; your solutions are
inexplicable and unsatisfactory ; you have taken up certain pre-
carious hypotheses ; and being prepossessed with these creatures
of your own fancies, and in love with them, right or wrong, you
form all your conceptions of things according to those fancied and
preconceived imaginations. The short of the business is, this
machina is eternal, and so are all the motions of it ; and inas-
much as a circular motion hath no beginning or end, this motion
that you see both in the wheels and index, and the successive
indications of the celestial motions, is eternal, and without begin-
ning. And this is a ready and expedite way of solving the phe-
nomena, without so much ado as you have made about it.'

" And whilst all the masters were thus contriving the solution
of the phenomenon, in the hearing of the artist that made it ;
and when they had all spent their philosophizing upon it, the
artist that made this engine, and all this while listened to their
admirable fancies, tells them, ' Gentlemen, you have discovered
very much excellency of invention, touching this piece of work
that is before you ; but you are all miserably mistaken ; for it
was I that made this watch, and brought it hither, and I will
shew you how I made it. First, I wrought the spring, and the
fusee, and the wheels, and the balance, and the case and table ;
I fitted them one to another, and placed these several axes that
are to direct the motions, of the index to discover the hour of the
day, of the figure that discovers the phases of the moon, and the
other various motions that you see ; and then I put it together,

574 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

and wound up the spring, which hath given all these motions,
that you see in this curious piece of work ; and that you may be
sure, I tell you true, I will tell you the whole order and progress
of my making, disposing and ordering of this piece of work ; the
several materials of it ; the manner of the forming of every indi-
vidual part of it, and how long I was about it.' This plain and
evident disco very renders all these excogitated hypotheses of those
philosophical enthusiasts vain and ridiculous, without any great
help of rhetorical flourishes, or logical confutations. And much
of the same nature is that disparity of the hypotheses of the
learned philosophers, in relation to the origination of the world
and man, after a great deal of dust raised, and fanciful explica-
tions, and unintelligible hypotheses. The plain, but divine nar-
rative by the hand of Moses, full of sense, and congruity, and
clearness, and reasonableness in itself, does at the same moment
give us a true and clear discovery of this great mystery, and ren-
ders all the essays of the generality of the heathen philosophers
to be vain, in-evident, and indeed inexplicable theories, the crea-
tures of phantasy and imagination, and nothing else.**

As for his virtues, they have appeared so conspicuous in all the
several transactions, and turns of his life, that it may seem need-
less to add any more of them, than has been already related ; luit
there are many particular instances which I knew not how to fit
to the several years of his life, which will give us a clearer and
better view of him.

He was a devout Christian, a sincere Protestant, and a ti MIC
son of the church of England ; moderate towards dissenters, and
just even to those from whom he differed most ; which appi aivd
signally in the care he took, in a case of the quakers; when -in
he was very cautious in declaring their marriages void, and so
bastarding their children; but he considered marriage and MU--
cession as a right of nature, from which none ought to be 1 tarred.
what mistake soever they might be under, in the points of rev<
religion.

And therefore in a trial that was before him, when a qual«-r
was sued for some debts owing by his wife before he married In r.
and the quakers counsel pretended " that it was no marriage that
had passed between them, since it was not solemnized according
to the rules of the church of England," he declared, that he
not willing on his own opinion to make their children ha>tanl>.
and <r,'ivc directions to the jury to find it special, \\liicli thev did-

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 575

It was a reflection on the whole party 3, that one of them, to
avoid an inconvenience he had fallen in, thought to have preserved
himself by a defence, that if this judge had absolutely determined,
must have made their whole issue bastards, and incapable of suc-
cession ; and for all their pretended friendship to one another, if
this judge had not been more their friend, than one of those they
so called, their posterity had been little beholden to them. But
he governed himself indeed by the law of the Gospel, of doing to
others, what he would have others do to him ; and therefore because
he would have thought it a hardship not without a cruelty, if
amongst papists all marriages were nulled which had not been
made with all the ceremonies in the Roman ritual ; so he apply-
ing this to the case of the sectaries, thought all marriages made
according to the several persuasions of men, ought to have their
effects in law.

He used constantly to worship God in his family, performing
it always himself if there was no clergyman present : but as to
his private exercises in devotion, he took that extraordinary care
to keep what he did secret 4, that this part of his character must
be defective except it be acknowledged that his humility in
covering it, commends him much more than the highest expres-
sions of devotion could have done.

From the first time that the impressions of religion settled
deeply in his mind he used great caution to conceal it ; not only
in obedience to the rules given by our Saviour, of fasting, praying,
and giving alms in secret, but from a particular distrust he had
of himself ; for he said he was afraid he should at some time or
other, do some enormous thing, which if he were looked on as a

3 On the whole party. ,] " This reflection is neither creditable to Burnet
himself, nor at all warrantable from the general conduct of the quakers.
The bishop was a good logician : and ought to have recollected that, ' Ar-
gumentum non valet, a particulari, ad universalem.' " Bp. Jebb, in Burnet's
Lives, Sfc. p. 91. n.

4 What he did secret.'] " I had but one fear or suspicion concerning him,
which since, I am assured, was groundless. I was afraid lest he had been
too little for the practical part of religion, as to the working of the soul
towards God, in prayer, meditation, &c. because he seldom spake to me of
such subjects, nor of practical books, or sermons ; but was still speaking of
philosophy, or of spirits, souls, the future state, and the nature of God.
But, at last, T understood, that his averseness to hypocrisy made him pur-
posely conceal the most of such of his practical thoughts and works ; as the
world now findeth by his Contemplations, and other writings." Baxter's
Letter to Stephens.

576 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

very religious man, might cast a reproach on the profession of it,
and give great advantages to impious men to blaspheme the
name of God. But a tree is known by its fruits ; and he lived
not only free of blemishes, or scandal, but shined in all the parts
of his conversation. And perhaps the distrust he was in of
himself, contributed not a little to the purity of his life ; for he
being thereby obliged to be more watchful over himself, and to
depend more on the aids of the spirit of God, no wonder if that
humble temper produced those excellent effects in him.

He had a soul enlarged and raised above that mean appetite of
loving money, which is generally the root of all evil. He did not
take the profits that he might have had by his practice ; for in
common cases, when those who came to ask his counsel gave him
a piece, he used to give back the half, and so made ten shillings
his fee in ordinary matters, that did not require much time or
study. If he saw a cause was unjust, he, for a great while.
would not meddle further in it, but to give his advice that it
was so : if the parties, after that, would go on, they were to seek
another counsellor, for he would assist none in acts of injustice :
if he found the cause doubtful, or weak in point of law, he always
advised his clients to agree their business: yet afterwards In-
abated much of the scrupulosity he had about causes that ap-
peared at first view unjust, upon this occasion : There were two
causes brought to him, which by the ignorance of the party, or
their attorney, were so ill represented to him that they seemed
to be very bad; but he enquiring more narrowly into them,
found they were really very good and just: so after this he
slackened much5 of his former strictness, of refusing to meddle
in causes upon the ill circumstances that appeared in tin 'in
at first.

In his pleading he abhorred those too common faults of mi--
reciting evidences, quoting precedents, or books falsely, or
asserting things confidently ; by which ignorant juries, or u
judges, are too often wrought on. He pleaded with the same
sincerity that he used in the other parts of his life, and used to

• He slackened much.] Compare above, p. 531. "Judge Hale would tell
me that bishop Usher was much prejudiced against lawyers, because the
worst causes find their advocates ; but that he and Mr. Selden had r<m-
vinced him of the reasons of it, to his satisfaction." Baxter's Letter to
Mr. Stephens. See Hale's Moral, fyc. Works, vol. i. p. 106. See Index, art.
Barristers.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 577

say, " it was as great a dishonour as a man was capable of, that
for a little money he was to be hired to say or do otherwise
than as he thought." All this he ascribed to the unmea-
surable desire of heaping up wealth, which corrupted the souls
of some that seemed to be otherwise born and made for great
things.

When he was a practitioner, differences were often referred to
him which he settled ; but would accept of no reward for his
pains, though offered by both parties together, after the agree-
ment was made ; for he said, " in those cases he was made a
judge, and a judge ought to take no money." If they told
him, "he lost much of his time in considering their business,
and so ought to be acknowledged for it," his answer was, (as
one that heard it told me,) " can I spend my time better than
to make people friends ? must I have no time allowed me to do
good in ?"

He was naturally a quick man, yet by much practice on him-
self, he subdued that to such a degree, that he would never run
suddenly into any conclusion concerning any matter of impor-
tance. Festina lente was his beloved motto, which he ordered to
be engraven on the head of his staff: and was often heard say,
" that he had observed many witty men run into great errors,
because they did not give themselves time to think; but the
heat of imagination making some notions appear in good colours
to them, they without staying till that cooled, were violently led
by the impulses it made on them ; whereas calm and slow men
who pass for dull in the common estimation, could search after
truth, and find it out, as with more deliberation, so with greater
certainty."

He laid aside the tenth penny of all he got for the poor, and
took great care to be well informed of proper objects for his
charities ; and after he was a judge, many of the perquisites of
his place, as his dividend of the rule and box-money, were sent by
him to the jails, to discharge poor prisoners, who never knew
from whose hands their relief came. It is also a custom for the
marshal of the king's bench to present the judges of that court
with a piece of plate for a new-yearVgift, that for the chief
justice being larger than the rest ; this he intended to have
refused, but the other judges told him it belonged to his office,
and the refusing it would be a prejudice to his successors, so he
was persuaded to take it, but he sent word to the marshal, that

VOL. iv. P p

578 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

instead of plate, he should bring him the value of it in money ;
and when he received it, he immediately sent it to the prisons,
for the relief and discharge of the poor there. He usually invited
his poor neighbours to dine with him, and made them sit at table
with himself : and if any of them were sick, so that they could
not come he would send meat warm to them from his table : and
he did not only relieve the poor in his own parish, but sent sup-
plies to the neighbouring parishes, as there was occasion for it :
and he treated them all with the tenderness and familiarity that
became one who considered they were of the same nature with
himself, and were reduced to no other necessities but such as he
himself might be brought to. But for common beggars, if any of
these came to him as he was in his walks, when he lived in the
country, he would ask such as were capable of working, " why
they went about so idly?" If they answered, "it was because
they could find no work," he often sent them to some field, to
gather all the stones in it, and lay them on a heap, and then
would pay them liberally for their pains : this being done, he
used to send his carts, and caused them to be carried to such
places of the highway as needed mending.

But when he was in town, he dealt his charities very liberally,
even among the street-beggars ; and when some told him, " that
he thereby encouraged idleness, and that most of these were
notorious cheats," he used to answer, " that he believed most of
them were such ; but among them there were some that were
great objects of charity, and pressed with grievous necessities ;
and that he had rather give his alms to twenty, who might be
perhaps rogues, than that one of the other sort should perish for
want of that small relief which he gave them."

He loved building much, which he affected chiefly, because it
employed many poor people : but one thing was observed in all
his buildings, that the changes he made in his houses, were
always from magnificence to usefulness, for he avoided every
thing that looked like pomp, or vanity, even in the walls of his
houses. He had good judgment in architecture, and an excellent
faculty in contriving well.

He was a gentle landlord to all his tenants, and was ever ready
upon any reasonable complaints, to make abatements ; for he
was merciful as well as righteous. One instance of this was, of a
widow that lived in London, and had a small estate near hi>
house in the country, from which her rents were ill returned to

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 579

her, and at a cost which she could not well bear : so she bemoaned
herself to him ; and he, according to his readiness to assist all
poor people, told her, " he would order his steward to take up
her rents, and the returning them should cost her nothing." But
after that, when there was a falling of rents in that country, so
that it was necessary to make abatements to the tenant, yet he
would have it to lie on himself, and made the widow be paid her
rent as formerly.

Another remarkable instance of his justice and goodness was,
that when he found ill money had been put into his hands, he
would never suffer it to be vented again ; for he thought it was
no excuse for him to put false money in other peopled hands,
because some had put it in his. A great heap of this he had
gathered together, for many had so far abused his goodness, as
to mix base money among the fees that were given him. It is
like he intended to have destroyed it, but some thieves who had
observed it, broke into his chamber and stole it, thinking they
had got a prize, which he used to tell with some pleasure, ima-
gining how they found themselves deceived, when they perceived
what sort of booty they had fallen on 6.

After he was made a judge, he would needs pay more for every
purchase he made than it was worth. If it had been but a horse
he was to buy, he would have outbid the price : and when some
represented to him, that he made ill bargains, he said, it became
judges to pay more for what they bought than the true value,
that so those with whom they dealt might not think they had
any right to their favour, by having sold such things to them at
an easy rate : and said it was suitable to the reputation which
a judge ought to preserve, to make such bargains, that the
world might see they were not too well used upon some secret
account.

In sum, his estate did shew how little he had minded the
raising a great fortune ; for from a hundred pound a year, he
raised it not quite to nine hundred, and of this a very consider-
able part came in by his share of Mr. Selden's estate ; yet this,

6 They had fallen onJ] " This," (says bishop Jebb, in the notes to his
edition of Burnet's Lives, Characters, fyc. 1833. 8vo. p. 98.) " which
Burnet mentions as a 'remarkable instance' of integrity, even in such a
person as sir Matthew Hale, is now regarded as the ordinary habit of
any one that pretends to the rank, or name of a gentleman" (or a
Christian).

580 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

considering his great practice while a counsellor, and his con-
stant, frugal, and modest way of living, was but a small for-
tune 7. In the share that fell to him by Mr. Selden's will, one
memorable thing was done by him, with the other executors, by
which they both shewed their regard to their dead friend, and
their love of the public. His library was valued at some thou-
sands of pounds, and was believed to be one of the most curious
collections in Europe : so they resolved to keep this intire, for
the honour of Selden's memory, and gave it to the university of
Oxford, where a noble room was added to the former library for
its reception, and all due respects have been since shewed by that
great and learned body to those their worthy benefactors, who
not only parted so generously with this great treasure, but were
a little put to it how to oblige them, without crossing the will of
their dead friend. Mr. Selden had once intended to give his
library to that university, and had left it so by his will ; but
having occasion for a manuscript, which belonged to their library,
they asked of him a bond of a thousand pound for its restitution ;
this he took so ill at their hands, that he struck out that part of
his will by which he had given them his library, and with some
passion declared " they should never have it." The executors
stuck at this a little, but having considered better of it, came to
this resolution ; that they were to be the executors of Mr. Sel-
den's will, and not of his passion ; so they made good what he
had intended in cold blood, and passed over what his passion had
suggested to him.

The parting with so many excellent books would have been as
uneasy to our judge, as any thing of that nature could be, if a
pious regard to his friend's memory had not prevailed over him ;
for he valued books and manuscripts above all things in the
world. He himself had made a great and rare collection of
manuscripts belonging to the law of England ; he was forty years
in gathering it : he himself said it cost him about fifteen hundred
pounds, and calls it in his will, " a treasure worth having and
keeping, and not fit for every man's view." These all he left to
Lincoln's- Inn, and for the information of those who are curious

7 But a small fortune.'] " I wondered, when he told me how small his
estate was, after such ways of getting as were before him : but as he had
little, and desired little, so he was content with little ; and suited his dwelling,
table, and retinue thereto." Baxter's Letter to Mr. Stephens.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 581

to search into such things, there shall be a catalogue of them
added at the end of this book.

By all these instances it does appear, how much he was raised
above the world, or the love of it. But having thus mastered
things without him, his next study was to overcome his own incli-
nations. He was, as he said himself, naturally passionate ; I add,
as he said himself, for that appeared by no other evidence, save that
sometimes his colour would rise a little ; but he so governed
himself, that they who lived long about him, have told me they
never saw him disordered with anger, though he met with some
trials, that the nature of man is as little able to bear, as any
whatsoever. There was one who did him a great injury, which
it is not necessary to mention, who coming afterwards to him for
his advice in the settlement of his estate, he gave it very frankly
to him, but would accept of no fee for it, and thereby shewed
both that he could forgive as a Christian, and that he had the
soul of a gentleman in him, not to take money of one that had
wronged him so heinously. And when he was asked by one,
"how he could use a man so kindly, that had wronged him so
much ;" his answer was, " he thanked Grod he had learned to
forget injuries." And besides the great temper he expressed in
all his public employments, in his family he was a very gentle
master. He was tender of all his servants : he never turned any
away, except they were so faulty, that there was no hope of re-
claiming them. When any of them had been long out of the way,
or had neglected any part of their duty, he would not see them
at their first coming home, and sometimes not till the next day,
lest when his displeasure was quick upon him, he might have
chid them indecently ; and when he did reprove them, he did it
with that sweetness and gravity, that it appeared he was more
concerned for their having done a fault, than for the offence
given by it to himself. But if they became immoral or unruly,
then he turned them away, for he said, "he that by his place
ought to punish disorders in other people, must by no means
suffer them in his own house." He advanced his servants accord-
ing to the time they had been about him, and would never give
occasion to envy amongst them, by raising the younger clerks
above those who had been longer with him. He treated them
all with great affection, rather as a friend, than a master, giving
them often good advice and instruction. He made those who
had good places under him, give some of their profits to the

582 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

other servants, who had nothing but their wages. When he made
his will, he left legacies to every one of them ; but he expressed
a more particular kindness for one of them, Robert Gibbon, of
the Middle Temple, Esq. in whom he had that confidence, that
he left him one of his executors. I the rather mention him,
because of his noble gratitude to his worthy benefactor and
master : for he has been so careful to preserve his memory, that
as he set those on me, at whose desire I undertook to write his
life, so he has procured for me a great part of those memorials
and informations, out of which I have composed it.

The judge was of a most tender and compassionate nature.
This did eminently appear in his trying and giving sentence upon
criminals, in which he was strictly careful, that not a circum-
stance should be neglected, which might any way clear the fact.
He behaved himself with that regard to the prisoners, which
became both the gravity of a judge, and the pity that was due to
men, whose lives lay at stake, so that nothing of jearing or unrea-
sonable severity fell from him. He also examined the witnesses
in the softest manner, taking care that they should be put under
no confusion, which might disorder their memory : and he summed
all the evidence so equally when he charged the jury, that the
criminals themselves never complained of him. When it came to
him to give sentence, he did it with that composedness and
decency, and his speeches to the prisoners directing them to
prepare for death, were so weighty, so free of ah1 affectation, and
so serious and devout, that many loved to go to the trials when
he sate judge, to be edified by his speeches, and behaviour in
them, and used to say, " they heard very few such sermons."

But though the pronouncing the sentence of death was the
piece of his employment that went most against the grain with
him ; yet in that he could never be mollified to any tenderness
which hindered justice. When he was once pressed to recom-
mend some (whom he had condemned) to his majesty's mercy
and pardon ; he answered, " he could not think they deserved a
pardon, whom he himself adjudged to die :" so that all he would
do in that kind was to give the king a true account of the cir-
cumstances of the fact, after which his majesty was to consider
whether he would interpose his mercy, or let justice take pin

His mercifulness extended even to his beasts; for when the
horses that he had kept long grew old, he would not suffer
them to be sold, or much wrought, but ordered his men to turn

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 583

them loose on his grounds, and put them only to easy work,
such as going to market and the like : he used old dogs also with
the same care. His shepherd having one that was become blind
with age, he intended to have killed or lost him, but the judge
coming to hear of it, made one of his servants bring him home,
and fed him till he died. And he was scarce ever seen more angry
than with one of his servants for neglecting a bird that he kept,
so that it died for want of food.

He was a great encourager of all young persons that he
saw followed their books diligently, to whom he used to give
directions concerning the method of their study, with a humanity
and sweetness, that wrought much on all that came near him :
and in a smiling pleasant way, he would admonish them, if he
saw any thing amiss in them : particularly if they went too fine
in their clothes, he would tell them, " it did not become their
profession." He was not pleased to see students wear long
perriwigs, or attorneys go with swords ; so that such young men
as would not be persuaded to part with those vanities, when they
went to him laid them aside, and went as plain as they could,
to avoid the reproof which they knew they might otherwise
expect.

He was very free and communicate in his discourse, which he
most commonly fixed on some good and useful subject, and loved
for an hour or two at night to be visited by some of his friends.
He neither said nor did any thing with affectation, but used a
simplicity, that was both natural to himself, and very easy to
others : and though he never studied the modes of civility, or
court breeding, yet he knew not what it was to be rude or harsh
with any, except he were impertinently addressed to in matters
of justice ; then he would raise his voice a little, and so shake off
those importunities.

In his furniture, and the service of his table, and way of living,
he liked the old plainness so well, that as he would set up none of
the new fashions, so he rather affected a coarseness in the use of
the old ones : which was more the effect of his philosophy than
disposition, for he loved fine things too much at first. He was
always of an equal temper, rather cheerful than merry. Many
wondered to see the evenness of his deportment, in some very
sad passages of his life.

Having lost one of his sons, the manner of whose death had
some grievous circumstances in it, one coming to see him and

584 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

condole, he said to him, " those were the effects of living long ;
such must look to see many sad and unacceptable things ;" and
having said that, he went to other discourses, with his ordinary
freedom of mind ; for though he had a temper so tender, that
sad things were apt enough to make deep impressions upon him,
yet the regard he had to the wisdom and providence of God, and
the just estimate he made of external things, did to admiration
maintain the tranquillity of his mind, and he gave no occasion, by
idleness, to melancholy to corrupt his spirit, but by the perpetual
bent of his thoughts, he knew well how to divert them from being
oppressed with the excesses of sorrow.

He had a generous and noble idea of God in his mind, and this
he found did above all other considerations preserve his quiet.
And indeed that was so well established in him, that no accidents,
how sudden soever, were observed to discompose him : of which
an eminent man of that profession gave me this instance. In the
year 1666, an opinion did run through the nation, that the end
of the world 8 would come that year. This, whether set on by
astrologers, or advanced by those who thought it might have some
relation to the number of the beast in the Revelation, or promoted
by men of ill design, to disturb the public peace, had spread
mightily among the people ; and judge Hale going that year the
western circuit, it happened, that as he was on the bench at the
assizes, a most terrible storm fell out very unexpectedly, accom-
panied with such flashes of lightning, and claps of thunder, that
the like will hardly fall out in an age ; upon which a whisper or
a rumour ran through the crowd, that now was the world to end,
and the day of judgment to begin, and at this there followed a
general consternation in the whole assembly, and all men forgot
the business they were met about, and betook themselves to their
prayers : this, added to the horror raised by the storm, looked
very dismally ; in so much that my author, a man of no ordinary

8 End of the world.] In Wren's Parentalia, p. 146, is inserted, what is
called "a prophetic observation, copied from the dean's own hand," (Dr.
Christopher Wren, dean of Windsor,) " in a small note-book of his, written,
as it should seem, in the year 1623. He died in 1658, viz. eight years before
the fire of London." — Latinae literse numerales nullae sunt praeter has septem
nobis adhuc in usu quotidiano,

M DC LXVI.

" Note. That all the numeral letters in the Latin tongue can make up but
1666 ; so that when the odd 666 are completed in the years of Christ, it may
bode some ominous matter, and perhaps the last end."

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 585

resolution, and firmness of mind, confessed it made a great impres-
sion on himself. But he told me, that he did observe the judge
was not a whit affected, and was going on with the business of the
court in his ordinary manner ; from which he made this conclu-
sion, that his thoughts were so well fixed, that he believed if the
world had been really to end, it would have given him no consi-
derable disturbance.

But I shall now conclude all that I shall say concerning him,
with what one of the greatest men of the profession of the law
sent me as an abstract of the character he had made of him, upon
long observation, and much converse with him. It was sent me,
that from thence, with the other materials, I might make such a
representation of him to the world, as he indeed deserved ; but I
resolved not to shred it out in parcels, but to set it down entirely
as it was sent me, hoping that as the reader will be much delighted
with it, so the noble person that sent it, will not be offended with
me for keeping it entire, and setting it in the best light I could.
It begins abruptly, being designed to supply the defects of others,
from whom I had earlier and more copious informations.

" He would never be brought to discourse of public matters in
private conversation ; but in questions of law, when any young
lawyer put a case to him, he was very communicative ; especially
while he was at the bar : but when he came to the bench, he
grew more reserved, and would never suffer his opinion in any
case to be known, till he was obliged to declare it judicially ; and
he concealed his opinion in great cases so carefully, that the rest
of the judges in the same court could never perceive it : his reason
was, because every judge ought to give sentence according to his
own persuasion and conscience, and not to be swayed by any
respect or deference to another man's opinion : and by this means
it happened sometimes, that when all the barons of the exchequer
had delivered their opinions, and agreed in their reasons and
arguments, yet he coming to speak last, and differing in judgment
from them, hath expressed himself with so much weight and soli-
dity, that the barons have immediately retracted their votes, and
concurred with him. He hath sat as a judge in all the courts of
law, and in two of them as chief; but still wherever he sat, all
business of consequence followed him, and no man was content to
sit down by the judgment of any other court, till the case was
brought before him, to see whether he were of the same mind :
and his opinion being once known, men did readily acquiesce in it ;

586 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

and it was very rarely seen, that any man attempted to bring it
about again, and he that did so, did it upon great disadvantages,
and was always looked upon as a very contentious person ; so that
what Cicero says of Brutus, did very often happen to him, Etiam
quos contra statuit cequos placatosque dimisit.

" Nor did men reverence his judgment and opinion in courts of
law only, but his authority was as great in courts of equity, and
the same respect and submission was paid him there too. And
this appeared not only in his own court of equity in the Exchequer
chamber, but in the Chancery too ; for thither he was often called
to advise and assist the lord chancellor, or lord keeper for the
time being ; and if the cause were of difficult examination, or in-
tricated and entangled with variety of settlements, no man ever
shewed a more clear and discerning judgment : if it were of great
value, and great persons interested in it, no man shewed gr<
courage and integrity in laying aside all respect of persons. When
he came to deliver his opinion, he always put his discourse into
such a method, that one part of it gave light to the other ; and
where the proceedings of Chancery might prove inconvenient to
the subject, he never spared to observe and reprove them. And
from his observations and discourses the Chancery hath taken
occasion to establish many of those rules, by which it governs
itself at this day.

" He did look upon equity as a part of the common law, and
one of the grounds of it ; and therefore, as near as he could, he
did always reduce it to certain rules and principles, that men mi^lit
study it as a science, and not think the administration of it had
any thing arbitrary in it. Thus eminent was this man in every
station, and into what court soever he was called, he quickly mad.
it appear that he deserved the chief seat there.

" As great a lawyer as he was, he would never suffer the strict-
ness of law to prevail against conscience; as great a chancellor
as he was, he would make use of all the niceties and subtil tic* in
law, when it tended to support right and equity. But nothing
was more admirable in him, than his patience : he did not affect
the reputation of quickness and dispatch, by a hasty and captious
hearing of the counsel : he would bear with the meanest, and -j
every man his full scope, thinking it much better to lose tinn1 than
patience. In summing up of an evidence to a jury, he would
always require the bar to interrupt him if he did mistake, and to
put him in mind of it, if he did forget the least circum>tai

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 587

some judges have been disturbed at this as a rudeness, which he
always looked upon as a* service and respect done to him.

" His whole life was nothing else but a continual course of
labour and industry ; and when he could borrow any time from
the public service, it was wholly employed either in philosophical
or divine meditations, and even that was a public service too as it
hath proved ; for they have occasioned his writing of such trea-
tises, as are become the choicest entertainment of wise and good
men, and the world hath reason to wish that more of them were
printed. He that considers the active part of his life, and with
what unwearied diligence and application of mind he dispatched
all men's business which came under his care, will wonder how he
could find any time for contemplation : he that considers again
the various studies he passed through, and the many collections
and observations he hath made, may as justly wonder how he could
find any time for action : but no man can wonder at the exem-
plary piety and innocence of such a life so spent as this was,
wherein as he was careful to avoid every idle word, so it is mani-
fest he never spent an idle day. They who came far short of this
great man, will be apt enough to think that this is a panegyric,
which indeed is a history, and but a little part of that history
which was with great truth to be related of him. Men who de-
spair of attaining such perfection, are not willing to believe that
any man else did ever arrive at such a height.

" He was the greatest lawyer of the age, and might have had
what practice he pleased, but though he did most conscientiously
affect the labours of his profession, yet, at the same time, he de-
spised the gain of it ; and of those profits which he would allow
himself to receive, he always set apart a tenth penny for the poor,
which he ever dispensed with that secrecy, that they who were
relieved, seldom or never knew their benefactor. He took more
pains to avoid the honours and preferments of the gown, than
others do to compass them. His modesty was beyond all exam-
ple ; for where some men who never attained to half his know-
ledge, have been puffed up with a high conceit of themselves, and
have affected all occasions of raising their own esteem by depre-
ciating other men ; he on the contrary was the most obliging
man that ever practised : if a young gentleman happened to be
retained to argue a point in law, where he was on the contrary
side, he would very often mend the objections when he came to
repeat them, and always commended the gentleman if there were

588 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

room for it ; and one good word of his was of more advantage to
a young man, than all the favour of the court could be.1'

Having thus far pursued his history and character, in the pub-
lic and exemplary parts of his life, without interrupting the thread
of the relation, with what was private and domestic, I shall con-
clude with a short account of these.

He was twice married. His first wife was Anne, daughter of
sir Henry Moor, of Faly, in Berkshire, grandchild to sir Fr.
Moor, Serjeant at law ; by her he had ten children ; the four first
died young, the other six lived to be all married, and he outlived
them ah1, except his eldest daughter, and his youngest son, who
are yet alive.

His eldest son Robert, married Frances, the daughter of sir
Francis Chock, of Avington, in Berkshire; and they both dying
in a little time one after another, left five children, two sons,
Matthew and Gabriel, and three daughters, Anne, Mary, and
Frances ; and by the judge's advice, they both made him their
executor ; so he took his grand-children into his own care, and
among them he left his estate.

His second son Matthew, married Anne, the daughter of Mr.
Matt. Simmond, of Hilsley, in Glocestershire, who died soon
after, and left one son behind him, named Matthew.

His third son Thomas married Rebekah, the daughter of
Christian le Brune, a Dutch merchant, and died without issue.

His fourth son Edward, married Mary, the daughter of Ed-
mund Goodyere, esq. of Hey thorp, in Oxfordshire, and still li
he has two sons, and three daughters.

His eldest daughter Mary, was married to Edward Alderly, of
Innishannon in the county of Cork, in Ireland, who dying, left
her with two sons, and three daughters; she is since marri<
Edward Stephens, son to Edward Stephens, esq. of Cherington.
in Glocestershire. His youngest daughter Elizabeth, was mar-
ried to Edward Webb, esq. barrister at law; she died, leaving
two children, a son and a daughter.

His second wife was Anne, the daughter of Mr. Joseph Bishop.
of Faly, in Berkshire, by whom he had no children. He n
her a great character in his will, as a most dutiful, faithful, and
loving wife, and therefore trusted "the breeding of his grand-

9 And therefore trusted.'] " Many censured him for choosing his last
below his quality: but the good man more regarded his own daily con

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 589

children to her care, and left her one of his executors, to whom
he joined sir Robert Jenkinson and Mr. Gibbon. So much may
suffice of those descended from him.

In after-times, it is not to be doubted but it will be reckoned
no small honor to derive from him : and this has made me more
particular in reckoning up his issue. — I shall next give an ac-
count of the issues of his mind, his books, that are either printed,
or remain in manuscript. — For the last of these, by his will he
has forbid the printing of any of them after his death, except
such as he should give order for in his life : but he seems to have
changed his mind afterwards, and to have left it to the discretion
of his executors, which of them might be printed ; for though he
does not express that, yet he ordered by a codicil, " that if any
book of his writing, as well touching the common law, as other
subjects, should be printed ; then what should be given for the
consideration of the copy, should be divided into ten shares, of
which he appointed seven to go among his servants !, and three
to those who had copied them out, and were to look after the
impression." The reason, as I have understood it, that made
him so unwilling to have any of his works printed after his death,
was, that he apprehended in the licensing them, (which was ne-
cessary before any book could be lawfully printed, by a law then
in force, but since his death determined) some things might have
been struck out, or altered, which he had observed not without
some indignation, had been done to a part of the Eeports of one
whom he had much esteemed.

This in matters of law, he said, might prove to be of such
mischievous consequence, that he thereupon resolved none of his
writings should be at the mercy of licensers ; and therefore, be-
cause he was not sure that they should be published without ex-
purgations or interpolations, he forbid the printing any of them,

than men's thoughts and talk. As far as I could discern, he chose one
very suitable to his ends ; one of his own judgment and temper, pru-
dent, and loving, and fit to please him; and that would not draw on him
the trouble of much acquaintance and relations." Baxter's Letter to Mr.
Stephens.

1 Among his servants.'] " It showed his mean estate as to riches, that,
in his will, he is put to distribute the profits of a book or two when printed,
among his friends and servants. Alas ! we that are great losers by printing,
know that it must be a small gain, that must thus accrue to them." Baxter's
Letter to Mr. Stephens.

590 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

in which he afterwards made some alteration, at least he gave
occasion by his codicil, to infer, that he altered his mind.

This I have the more fully explained, that his last will may
be no way misunderstood, and that his worthy executors, and his
hopeful grand-children, may not conclude themselves to be under
an indispensable obligation, of depriving the public of his excellent
writings.

A Catalogue of all his Books that are printed, and are to be sold by William
Shrowsbery, at the sign of the Bible, in Duke-lane.

1 . The Primitive Origination of Mankind, considered and examined accord-

ing to the Light of Nature. Fol.

2. Contemplations, Moral and Divine. Part I. Octavo.

3. Contemplations, Moral and Divine. Part II.

4. Difficiles Nugte, or Observations touching the Torricellian Experiment, and

the various Solutions of the same, especially touching the Weight and
Elasticity of the Air. Octavo.

5. An Essay touching the Gravitation, or Non-Gravitation of Fluid Bodies,

and the Reasons thereof. Octavo.

6. Observations touching the Principles of Natural Motions, and especially

touching Rarefaction and Condensation ; together with a Reply to cer-
tain Remarks, touching the Gravitation of Fluids. Octavo.

7. The Life and Death of Pomponius Atticus, written by his Contemporary

and Acquaintance, Cornelius Nepos, translated out of his Fragments ;
together with Observations, political and moral, thereupon. Octavo.

8. Pleas of the Crown, or a Methodical Summary of the Principal Matters

relating to that Subject. Octavo.

Manuscripts of his not yet published.

1. Concerning the Secondary Origination of Mankind2. Fol.

2. Concerning Religion, 5 vols. in fol. viz.

1. De Deo, Vox Metaphysica, Pars I. and II.

2. Pars III. Vox Naturae, Providentiae, Ethicae, Conscientiae.

3. Liber sextus, Septimus, octavus.

4 Pars IX. Concerning the Holy Scriptures, their Evidence and

Authority.
5. Concerning the Truth of the Holy Scripture, and the Evidences

thereof.

3. Of Policy in Matters of Religion. Fol.

4. De Anima, to Mr. B. Fol.

3 Origination of mankind.'] See note at p. 557.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 591

5. De Anima, Transactions between him and Mr. B. Fol.

6. Tentamina, de Ortu, Natura et Immortalitate Animse. Fol.

7. Magnetismus Magneticus. Fol.

8. Magnetismus Physicus. Fol.

9. Magnetismus Divinus.

10. De Generatione Animalium et Vegetabilium. Fol. Lat.

11. Of the Law of Nature. Fol.

12. A Letter of Advice3 to his Grand-children. Quarto.

13. Placita Coronse. 7 vols. fol.

14. Preparatory Notes concerning the Rights of the Crown. Fol.

15. Incepta de Juribus Coronse. Fol.

16. De Prerogativa Regis. Fol.

17. Preparatory Notes touching Parliamentary Proceedings. 2 vols. quarto.

18. Of the Jurisdiction of the House of Lords. Quarto.

19. Of the Jurisdiction of the Admiralty.

20. Touching Ports and Customs. Fol.

21. Of the Right of the Sea, and the Arms thereof, and Custom. Fol.

22. Concerning the Advancement of Trade. Quarto.

23. Of Sheriffs' Accounts. Fol.

24. Copies of Evidences. Fol.

25. Mr. Selden's Discourses. Octavo.

26. Excerpta ex Schedis Seldenianis.

27. Journal of the 18 and 21 Jacobi Regis. Quarto.

28. Great Common-place Book of Reports or Cases in the Law, in Law

French. Fol.

In Bundles.

On Quod tibi fieri, &c. Matt. vii. 12.

Touching Punishments, in relation to the Socinian Controversy.

Policies of the Church of Rome.

Concerning the Laws of England.

Of the Amendment of the Laws of England.

Touching Provision for the Poor.

Upon Mr. Hobbs's Manuscript.

Concerning the Time of the Abolition of the Jewish Laws.

In Quarto.

Quod sit Deus.

Of the State and Condition of the Soul and Body after Death.

Notes concerning Matters of Law.

3 Letter of Advice.'] This has been printed since Burnet wrote, and probably
others have appeared : but it is better to give the list in Burnet's words.

592 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

To these I shall add the Catalogue of the Manuscripts, which he left to the
Honourable Society of Lincoln* s-Inn, with that part of his Will that concerns
them.

" Item, As a testimony of my honour and respect to the Society of Lin-
coln's-Inn, where I had the greatest part of my education ; I give and
bequeath to that honourable society the several manuscript books, contained
in a schedule annexed to my will : they are a treasure worth having and
keeping, which I have been near forty years in gathering, with very great
industry and expense. My desire is, that they be kept safe, and all together,
in remembrance of me. They were fit be bound in leather, and chained,
and kept in Archives. I desire they may not be lent out, or disposed of :
only if I happen hereafter to have any of my posterity of that society, that
desires to transcribe any book, and give very good caution to restore it again
in a prefixed time, such as the benchers of that society in council shall
approve of; then, and not otherwise, only one book at one time may be lent
out to them by the society ; so that there be no more but one book of those
books abroad out of the library at one time. They are a treasure that are
not fit for every man's view ; nor is every man capable of making use of
them : only I would have nothing of these books printed, but entirely pre-
served together, for the use of the industrious learned members of that
society."

A Catalogue of the Books given by him to Lincoln' s-Inn, according to the
Schedule 4 annexed to his Will.

Placita de tempore Regis Johannis. 1 vol. stitched.

Placita coram Rege E. 1 . 2 vols.

Placita coram Rege E. 2. 1 vol.

Placita coram Rege E. 3. 3 vols.

Placita coram Rege R. 2. 1 vol.

Placita coram Rege H. 4. H. 5. 1 vol.

Placita de Banco, E. 1. ab anno 1. ad annum 21. 1 vol.

Transcripts of many Pleas, coram Rege et de Banco E. 1. 1 vol.

The Pleas in the Exchequer, stiled Communia, From 1 E. 3 to 46 E. 5. 3 vols.

Close Rolls of King John, verbatim of the most material things. 1 vol.

The principal matters in the Close and Patent Rolls, of H. 3. Transcribed,

verbatim, from 9 H. 3. to 56 H. 3. 5 vols. Vellum, marked K. L.
The principal matters in the close and patent Rolls, E. 1 . with several copies

and abstracts of Records. 1 vol. marked F.
A long book of abstracts of Records, by me.
Close and Patent Rolls, from 1 to 10 E. 3. and other Records of the Time of

H. 3. 1 vol. marked W.

4 The Schedule.'] A somewhat fuller catalogue of the MSS. in Lincoln's-
Inn Library, compiled by Philip Stubbs, is published in Bernard's Catalogi
librorum manuscriptorum Anglue et Hibernice, A. D. 1697, but it is very i1
rect. A better catalogue, compiled by Mr. Joseph Hunter, wi)l be found in
the Report of the Commissioners of Public Records, presented to \Villiam IV.
in 1837, p. 352.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 593

Close Rolls of 15 E. 3. with other Records. 1 vol. marked N.

Close Rolls from 17 to 38 E. 3. 2 vols.

Close and Patent Rolls, from 40 E. 3. to 50 E. 3. 1 vol. marked B.

Close Rolls of E. 2. with other Records. 1 vol. R.

Close and Patent Rolls, and Charter Rolls in the time of King John, for the
Clergy. 1 vol.

A great volume of Records of several natures, G.

The Leagues of the Kings of England, tempore E. I.E. 2. E. 3. 1 vol.

A Book of ancient Leagues and Military Provisions. 1 vol.

The Reports of Iters of Derby, Nottingham and Bedford, transcribed. 1 vol.

Itinera Forest, de Pickering et Lancaster, transcript, ex originali. 1 vol.

An ancient Reading, very large, upon Charta de Forestae, and of the Forest
Laws.

The Transcript of the Iter Forestae de Dean. 1 vol.

Quo Warranto and Liberties of the County of Gloucester, with the Pleas of
the Chace of Kingswood. 1 vol.

Transcript of the Black Book of the Admiralty, Laws of the Army, Impo-
sitions and several Honours. 1 vol.

Records of Patents, Inquisitions, &c. of the county of Leicester. 1 vol.

Muster and Military Provisions of all sorts, extracted from the Records. 1 vol.

Gervasius Tilburiensis, or the Black Book of the Exchequer. 1 vol.

The King's Title to the Pre-emption of Tin. A thin vol.

Calender of the Records in the Tower. A small vol.

A Miscellany of divers Records, Orders, and other things of various Natures,
marked E. 1 vol.

Another of the like nature, in leather cover. 1 vol.

A Book of divers Records and things relating to the Chancery. 1 vol.

Titles of Honour and Pedigrees, especially touching Clifford. 1 vol.

History of the Marches of Wales, collected by me. 1 vol.

Certain Collections touching Titles of Honour. 1 vol.

Copies of several Records touching Premunire. 1 vol.

Extract of Commissions, tempore H. 7« H. 8. R. and the Proceedings in the
Court Military, between Ray and Ramsay. 1 vol.

Petitions in Parliament, tempore E. 1. E. 2. E. 3. H. 4. 3 vols.

Summons of Parliament, from 49 H. 3. to 22 E. 4. 3 vols.

The Parliament Rolls, from the beginning of E 1. to the End of R. 3. In
19 vols. viz. One of E. 1. One of E. 2. with the Ordinations; Two of
E. 3. Three of R. 2. Two of H. 4. Two of H. 5. Four of H. 6. Three of
E. 4. One of R. 3. all transcribed at large.

Mr. Elsing's book touching Proceedings in Parliament. 1 vol.

Noy's Collection touching the King's Supplies. 1 vol. stitched.

A Book of various Collections out of Records and the Register of Canter-
bury, and Claymes at the Coronation of R. 2. 1 vol.

Transcript of Bishop Ussher's Notes, principally concerning Chronology.
3 large vols.

A Transcript out of Dooms-Day Book, of Glocestershire and Hertford-
shire, and of some Pipe-Rolls, and old Accompts of the Customs.
1 vol.

VOL. iv. Q q

594 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

Extracts and Collections out of Records, touching Titles of Honour. 1 vol.
Extracts of Pleas, Patents, and Close Rolls, tempore H. 3. E. 1. E. 2. E. 3.

and some old Antiquities of England. 1 vol.
Collections and Memorials of many Records and Antiquities. 1 vol.

Seldeni.

Calender of Charters and Records in the Tower, touching Gloucester-
shire.
Collection of Notes and Records of various natures, marked M. 1 vol.

Seldeni.

Transcript of the Iters of London, Kent, Cornwall. 1 vol.
Extracts out of the Leiger-Books of Battell, Evesham, Winton, &c. 1 vol.

Seldeni.

Copies of the principal Records in the Red- Book in the Exchequer. 1 vol.
Extracts of Records and Treatises, relating to Sea-Affairs. I vol.
Records touching Customs, Ports, Partition of the Lands of Gil. De

Clare, &c.

Extract of Pleas in the Time of R. 1. King John, E. 1, &c. 1 vol.
Cartae Antiquae in the Tower, transcribed, in 2 vols.
Chronological remembrances, extracted out of the Notes of Bishop Ussher.

1 vol. stitched.

Inquisitiones de Legibus Walliae. 1 vol.
Collections, or Records, touching Knighthood.
Titles of Honour. Seldeni. 1 vol.
Mathematics and Fortifications. 1 vol.
Processus Curiae Militaris. 1 vol.
A Book of Honour, stitched. 1 vol.
Extracts out of the Registry of Canterbury.
Copies of several Records, touching Proceedings in the Military-Court.

1 vol.
Abstracts of Summons and Rolls of Parliament, out of the Book of Dunelm,

and some Records, alphabetically digested. 1 vol.
Abstracts of divers Records in the Office of First Fruits. 1 vol. stitched.
Mathematical and Astrological Calculations. 1 vol.
A Book of Divinity.
Two large Repositories of Records, marked A. and B.

(All those above are in Folio.)

The Proceedings of the Forests of Windsor, Dean, and Essex. In Quarto,

1 vol.

(Those that follow, are most of them in Vellum, or Parchment.)

Two Books of old Statutes, one ending H. 7. the other 2 H. 5. with the sums.

2 vols.

Five last Years E. 2. 1 vol.

Reports tempore E. 2. 1 vol.

The Year-Book of R. 2. and some others. 1 vol.

An old Chronicle, from the Creation, to E. 3. 1 vol.

A Mathematical Book, especially of Optiques. 1 vol.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. r>95

A Dutch Book of Geometry and Fortification.

Marci Beneventani Geometrica. 1 vol.

Reports, tempore E. 1. under titles. 1 vol.

An Old Register, and some Pleas. 1 vol.

Bernardi Breidenbach Peregrinatio. 1 vol.

Iter Cantii and London, and some Reports, tempore E. 2. 1 vol.

Reports, tempore E. 1. & E. 2. 1 vol.

Leiger-Book Abbatiae De Bello.

Tsidori Opera.

Liber altercationis et Christianas Philosophise, contra Paganos.

Historia Petri Manducatoris.

Horicii Astronomica.

Historia Ecclesiee Dunelmensis.

Holandi Chymica.

De Alchymiae Scriptoribus.

The Black Book of the New Law collected by me, and digested into

alphabetical Titles, written with my own Hand which is the Original

Copy.

MATTHEW HALE.

CONCLUSION.

THUS lived and died sir Matthew Hale, the renowned lord chief
justice of England. He had one of the blessings of virtue in the
highest measure of any of the age, that does not always follow it,
which was, that he was universally much valued and admired by
men of all sides and persuasions : for as none could hate him but
for his justice and virtues, so the great estimation he was gene-
rally in, made, that few durst undertake to defend so ingrateful
a paradox, as any thing said to lessen him would have appeared
to be. His name is scarce ever mentioned since his death, with-
out particular accents of singular respect. His opinion in points
of law generally passes as an uncontrollable authority, and is often
pleaded in all the courts of justice : and all that knew him well,
do still speak of him as one of the perfectest patterns of religion
and virtue they ever saw.

The commendations given him by all sorts of people, are such,
that I can hardly come under the censures of this age, for any
thing I have said concerning him ; yet if this book lives to after-
times, it will be looked on perhaps as a picture, drawn more
according to fancy and invention, than after the life : if it were
not that those who knew him well, establishing its credit in the

uq 2

596 SIR MATTHEW HALE.

present age, will make it pass down to the next with a clearer
authority.

I shall pursue his praise no further in my own words, but shall
add what the present lord chancellor of England 5 said concern-
ing him, when he delivered the commission to the lord chief jus-
tice Rainsford, who succeeded him in that office, which he began
in this manner :

" The vacancy of the seat of the chief justice of this court, and
that by a way and means so unusual, as the resignation of him,
that lately held it ; and this too proceeding from so deplorable a
cause, as the infirmity of that body, which began to forsake the
ablest mind that ever presided here, hath filled the kingdom with
lamentations, and given the king many and pensive thoughts, how
to supply that vacancy again." And a little after, speaking to
his successor, he said, " the very labours of the place, and that
weight and fatigue of business which attends it, are no small dis-
couragements ; for what shoulders may not justly fear that bur-
then which made him stoop that went before you ? Yet, I con-
fess, you have a greater discouragement than the mere burthen
of your place, and that is the unimitable example of your last
predecessor : onerosum est succedere bono principi, was the saying
of him in the panegyric : and you will find it so too. that are to
succeed such a chief justice, of so indefatigable an industry, so
invincible a patience, so exemplary an integrity, and so magna-
nimous a contempt of worldly things, without which no man can
be truly great ; and to all this a man that was so absolute a
master of the science of the law, and even of the most abstruse
and hidden parts of it, that one may truly say of his knowledge
in the law, what St. Austin said of St. Hierome's knowledge in
divinity, Quod Hieronimus nescivit, nullus mortalium unquam
scivit. And therefore the king would not suffer himself to part
with so great a man, till he had placed upon him all the marks of
bounty and esteem, which his retired and weak condition \\a>
capable of."

To this high character, in which the expressions, as they
become the eloquence of him who pronounced them, so they do
agree exactly to the subject, without the abatements that
often to be made for rhetoric, I shall add that part of the lord
chief justice's answer, in which he speaks of his predecessor.

ft Lord chancellor of England.] Sir Heneage Finch.

SIR MATTHEW HALE. 597

" A person in whom his eminent virtues, and deep learn-
ing, have long managed a contest for the superiority, which is not
decided to this day ; nor will it ever be determined, I suppose,
which shall get the upper hand. A person that has sat in this
court these many years, of whose actions there I have been an
eye and ear- witness, that by the greatness of his learning always
charmed his auditors to reverence and attention : a person of
whom I think I may boldly say, that as former times cannot
shew any superior to him, so I am confident succeeding and
future time will never shew any equal. These considerations,
heightened by what I have heard from your lordship concerning
him, made me anxious and doubtful, and put me to a stand, how
I should succeed so able, so good, and so great a man. It doth
very much trouble me, that I, who in comparison of him, am but
like a candle lighted in the sun-shine, or like a glow-worm at
mid-day, should succeed so great a person, that is and will be so
eminently famous to all posterity: and I must ever wear this
motto in my breast to comfort me, and in my actions to excuse
me :

* Sequitur, quamvis non passibus sequis/ "

Thus were panegyrics made upon him while yet alive, in that
same court of justice which he had so worthily governed. As
he was honoured while he lived, so he was much lamented when
he died : and this will still be acknowledged as a just inscription
for his memory, though his modesty forbid any such to be put on
his tombstone :

THAT HE WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST PATTERNS THIS AGE
HAS AFFORDED, WHETHER IN HIS PRIVATE DEPORTMENT AS A
CHRISTIAN, OR IN HIS PUBLIC EMPLOYMENTS, EITHER AT THE

BAR OR ON THE BENCH.

EARL OF ROCHESTER.

It must be confessed, that the credit of religion hath much suffered, in the
age we live in, through the vain pretences of many to it, who have only
acted a part in it for the sake of some private interests of their own. And
it is the usual logic of Atheists, Crimine ab uno, disce omnes, if there be any
hypocrites, all who make shew of religion are such ; on which account, the
Hypocrisy of one age makes way for the Atheism of the next.

BISHOF STILLINGFLEET.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Narrative is reprinted intire from Some Passages
of the Life and Death of the Right Hon. John Earl of Rochester,
who died the 26th of July, 1680 : written ly his own direction on
his death-led, by Gilbert Burnet, D.D. London, 1680; a volume,
which Doctor Johnson has declared in his Lives of the Poets,
that " the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher
for its arguments, and the saint for its piety."

PREFACE.

THE celebrating the praises of the dead, is an argument so worn
out by long and frequent use, and now becomes so nauseous, by
the flattery that usually attends it, that it is no wonder if funeral
orations, or panegyrics, are more considered for the elegancy of
style, and fineness of wit, than for the authority they carry with
them as to the truth of matters of fact. And yet I am not hereby
deterred from meddling with this kind of argument, nor from
handling it with all the plainness I can ; delivering only what I
myself heard and saw, without any borrowed ornament. I do
easily foresee how many will be engaged, for the support of their
impious maxims, and immoral practices, to disparage what I am
to write. Others will censure it, because it comes from one of my
profession, too many supposing us to be induced to frame such
discourses, for carrying on what they are pleased to call our trade.
Some will think I dress it up too artificially, and others, that I
present it too plain and naked.

But being resolved to govern myself by the exact rules of truth,
I shall be less concerned in the censures I may fall under. It may
seem liable to great exception, that I should disclose so many
things, that were discovered to me, if not under the seal of con-
fession, yet under the confidence of friendship ; but this noble
lord himself not only released me from all obligation of this kind,
when I waited on him in his last sickness, a few days before he
died, but gave it me in charge not to spare him in any thing
which I thought might be of use to the living ; and was not ill
pleased to be laid open, as well in the worst, as in the best and
last part of his life ; being so sincere in his repentance, that he
was not unwilling to take shame to himself, by suffering his faults
to be exposed for the benefit of others.

604 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

I write with one great disadvantage, that I cannot reach his
chief design, without mentioning some of his faults : but I have
touched them as tenderly as the occasion would bear : and I am
sure with much more softness than he desired, or would have con-
sented unto, had I told him how I intended to manage this part.
I have related nothing with personal reflections on any others,
concerned with him ; wishing rather that they themselves reflect-
ing on the sense he had of his former disorders, may be thereby
led to forsake their own, than that they should be any ways re-
proached by what I write : and therefore though he used very few
reserves with me, as to his course of life, yet since others had a
share in most parts of it, I shall relate nothing but what more
immediately concerned himself: and shall say no more of his
faults, than is necessary to illustrate his repentance.

The occasion that led me into so particular a knowledge of him,
was an intimation given me by a gentleman of his acquaintance,
of his desire to see me. This was some time in October, 1679,
when he was slowly recovering out of a great disease. He had
understood that I often attended on one well known to him, that
died the summer before. He was also then entertaining himself,
in that low state of his health, with the first part of the History of
the Reformation, then newly come out, with which he seemed not
ill pleased ; and we had accidentally met in two or three places
some time before. These were the motives that led him to call
for my company. After I had waited on him once or twice, he
grew into that freedom with me, as to open to me all his thoughts,
both of religion and morality ; and to give me a full view of his
past life ; and seemed not uneasy at my frequent visits. So till
he went from London, which was in the beginning of April, I
waited on him often. As soon as I heard how ill he was, and how
much he was touched with the sense of his former life, I writ to
him, and received from him an answer, that without my know-
ledge, was printed since his death ; from a copy which one of his
servants conveyed to the press. In it there is so undeserved a
value put on me, that it had been very indecent for me to have
published it ; yet that must be attributed to his civility and way
of breeding : and indeed he was particularly known to so few of
the clergy, that the good opinion he had of me, is to be imputed
only to his unacquaintance with others.

My end of writing is so to discharge the last commands this
lord left on me, as that it may be effectual to awaken those who

PREFACE. 605

run on to all the excesses of riot ; and that in the midst of those
heats, which their lusts and passions raise in them, they may be a
little wrought on by so great an instance, of one who had run
round the whole circle of luxury ; and as Solomon says of himself,
Whatsoever Ms eyes desired, he kept it not from them ; and withheld
his heart from no joy. But when he looked back on all that on which
he had wasted his time and strength, he esteemed it vanity and
vexation of spirit. Though he had both as much natural wit, and
as much acquired by learning, and both as much improved with
thinking and study, as perhaps any libertine of the age ; yet when
he reflected on all his former courses, even before his mind was
illuminated with better thoughts, he counted them madness and
folly. But when the powers of religion came to operate on him,
then he added a detestation to the contempt he formerly had of
them, suitable to what became a sincere penitent ; and expressed
himself in so clear and calm a manner, so sensible of his failings
towards his Maker and his Redeemer, that as it wrought not a
little on those that were about him, so, I hope the making it
public may have a more general influence, chiefly on those on
whom his former conversation might have had ill effects.

I have endeavoured to give his character as fully as I could take
it : for I who saw him only in one light, in a sedate and quiet
temper, when he was under a great decay of strength and loss of
spirits, cannot give this picture with that life and advantage that
others may, who knew him when his parts were more bright and
lively : yet the composure he was then in, may perhaps be sup-
posed to balance any abatement of his usual vigour which the
declination of his health brought him under. I have written this
discourse with as much care, and have considered it as narrowly
as I could. I am sure I have said nothing but truth ; I have
done it slowly, and often used my second thoughts 1 in it, not being
so much concerned in the censures which might fall on myself, as
cautious that nothing should pass, that might obstruct my only

1 Second thoughts.~\ The book was probably revised also by his friend
Tillotson, when Dean of Canterbury. " The Dean appears to have revised
and improved that book, since it concludes almost in the exact words of his
letter to Mr. Nelson, of the 2d of August, ' that God took pity on the earl,
and seeing the sincerity of his repentance, would try and venture him no
more in circumstances of temptation, perhaps too hard for human frailty.' "
Birch's Life of Abp. Tillotson, p. 73.

606 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

design of writing, which is the doing what I can towards the re-
forming a loose and lewd age. And if such a signal instance
concurring with all the evidence that we have for our most holy
faith, has no effect on those who are running the same course, it
is much to be feared they are given up to a reprobate sense.

EARL OF ROCHESTER.

JOHN WILMOT, earl of Rochester, was born in April anno Dom.
1648. His father l was Henry, earl of Rochester, but best known
by the title of the lord Wilmot, who bore so great a part in all the
late wars, that mention is often made of him in the history ; and
had the chief share in the honour of the preservation of his majesty
that now reigns, after Worcester fight, and the conveying him
from place to place, till he happily escaped into France : but
dying before the king's return, he left his son little other inherit-
ance 2, but the honour and title derived to him, with the pretensions
such eminent services gave him to the king's favour. These were
carefully managed by the great prudence and discretion of his
mother 3, a daughter of that noble and ancient family of the St.

1 His father.'] Henry, second viscount Wilmot of Athlone in Ireland, son of
Charles the first viscount, by Mary, daughter of sir Henry Colley, widow of
Gerald Moore, viscount Drogheda. He was created lord Wilmot of Adder-
bury in Oxfordshire, by Charles I. 29th June, 1C43; and by Charles II. 13th
Dec. 1652, he was made earl of Rochester. He died in 165Q.

3 Inheritance, ,] The estate at Adderbury, from which the English barony
of Wilmot was derived, near Banbury in Oxfordshire, certainly descended to
the subject of this memoir.

3 His mother.'] Anne, daughter of sir John St. John, bart. (by Anne,
daughter of sir Thomas Leighton) : at lord Rochester's birth she was forty-
seven years of age. She was the widow of sir Francis Henry Lee, of Quaren-
don and Ditchley, bart. son of sir Henry Lee, the first baronet, by Eleanor,
daughter of sir Richard Wortley of Wortley (afterwards fourth wife of Edward,
second earl of Manchester, the Parliamentarian general). By sir F. H. Lee
she had had two sons : i. Sir Henry Lee, third baronet, who married Anne, a
daughter of sir John Danvers of Cornbury, the regicide, (see Life of Herbert,
p. 8,) and whose daughter and heir married James Bertie, first earl of Abing-
don. ii. Sir Francis Henry Lee, fourth baronet, who married lady Eliza-
beth Pope, heiress of Thomas, earl of Downe (afterwards third wife of Robert
Bertie, third earl of Lindsey), and whose son, sir Edward Henry Lee, the fifth
baronet, married lady Charlotte Fitzroy, a natural daughter of Charles II. (by

608 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

Johns, of Wiltshire ; so that his education was carried on in all
things suitably to his quality.

When he was at school he was an extraordinary proficient at
his book : and those shining parts which have since appeared with
so much lustre, began then to shew themselves. He acquired the
Latin to such perfection, that to his dying day he retained a great
relish of the fineness and beauty of that tongue, and was exactly
versed in the incomparable authors that writ about Augustuses
time, whom he read often with that peculiar delight which the
greatest wits have ever found in those studies.

When he went to the university the general joy which over-ran
the whole nation upon his majesty's restoration, but was not regu-
lated with that sobriety and temperance, that became a serious
gratitude to God for so great a blessing, produced some of its ill
effects on him. He began to love these disorders too much. His
tutor was that eminent and pious divine, Dr. [Walter] Blandford,
afterwards promoted to the sees of Oxford and Worcester ; and
under his inspection he was committed to the more immediate
care of Mr. Phineas Berry [or Bury], a fellow of Wadham college,
a very learned and good-natured man ; whom he afterwards ever
used with much respect, and rewarded him as became a great
man. But the humour of that time wrought so much on him,
that he broke off the course of his studies ; to which no means
could ever effectually recall him; till when he was in Italy, his
governor, Dr. Balfour, a learned and worthy man, now a celebrated
physician in Scotland, his native country, drew him to read such
books as were most likely to bring him back to love learning and
study : and he often acknowledged to me, in particular three days
before his death, how much he was obliged to love and honour this
his governor, to whom he thought he owed more than to all the
world, next after his parents, for his great fidelity and care of him,

the Duchess of Cleveland) and sister of the first Duke of Grafton. Sir
Edward Henry Lee was created earl of Lichfield in 16/4, and after the death
of his uncle lord Rochester (the subject of this memoir) he was appointed
comptroller of Woodstock Park, an office which had previously been held
by his other uncle, sir Henry Lee. This statement serves to shew with how
much caution fiction, purporting to be historical, should be read. The sir
Henry Lee whom, in his novel of " Woodstock," sir Walter Scott represents
as a staunch loyalist, an old man (a revivification of the sir Henry Lee of
Elizabeth's time), was in fact a young man, — was married to the daughter of
a regicide, — and was half brother of the earl of Rochester, whose very person
is represented in the novel, as unknown to the Lee family.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 609

while he was under his trust. But no part of it affected him more
sensibly, than that he engaged him by many tricks (so he expressed
it) to delight in books and reading ; so that ever after he took
occasion in the intervals of those woeful extravagancies that con-
sumed most of his time, to read much : and though the time was
generally but indifferently employed, for the choice of the subjects
of his studies was not always good, yet the habitual love of know-
ledge, together with these fits of study, had much awakened his
understanding, and prepared him for better things, when his mind
should be so far changed as to relish them.

He came from his travels in the eighteenth year of his age, and
appeared at court 4 with as great advantages as most ever had.
He was a graceful and well-shaped person, tall and well made, if
not a little too slender. He was exactly well bred, and what by
a modest behaviour natural to him, what by a civility become
almost as natural, his conversation was easy and obliging. He
had a strange vivacity of thought, and vigour of expression : his
wit had a subtilty and sublimity both, that were scarce imitable.
His style was clear and strong : when he used figures they were
very lively, and yet far enough out of the common road. He had
made himself master of the ancient and modern wit, and of the
modern French and Italian, as well as the English. He loved to
talk and write of speculative matters, and did it with so fine a
thread, that even they who hated the subjects that his fancy ran
upon, yet could not but be charmed with his way of treating of
them. Boileau among the French, and Cowley among the Eng-
lish wits, were those he admired most. Sometimes other men's
thoughts mixed with his composures, but that flowed rather from
the impressions they made on him when he read them, by which
they came to return upon him as his own thoughts, than that he

4 At court.'] It ought to be remembered that at this time, whilst lord
Rochester was a mere youth in the eighteenth year of his age, Charles II.,
whose pernicious example he followed, was of the mature age of thirty-five,
an age to which Rochester never attained. The duke of Buckingham was
still older, having passed his thirty-seventh year. From them the stripling
earl imbibed much evil. " He was naturally modest," says Burnet, elsewhere,
" till the court corrupted him." How guilty soever may have been his life,
he has been unfairly treated. Many have believed Hamilton's fictions to be
history. Fielding uses his name as a by -word. At the time when sir Walter
Scott speaks of him as a " gay young nobleman," lord Rochester was not
four years old. It is to be wished that his penitence were as well known
as his sinful life has been widely blazoned.

VOL. iv. R r

610 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

servilely copied from any : for few men ever had a bolder flight
of fancy, more steadily governed by judgment, than he had. No
wonder a young man so made, and so improved, was very accept-
able in a court.

Soon after his coming thither he laid hold on the first occasion
that offered to shew his readiness 5 to hazard his live in the defence
and service of his country. In winter 1665, he went with the
earl of Sandwich to sea, when he was sent to lie for the Dutch
East- India fleet ; and was in the Revenge, commanded by sir
Thomas Tiddiman, when the attack was made on the port of
Bergen, in Norway, the Dutch ships having got into that port.
It was as desperate 6 an attempt as ever was made. During the
whole action, the earl of Rochester shewed as brave and as reso-

5 His readiness.'] Other reasons probably actuated him. He was, out-
wardly at least, in disgrace at court. In May 1665, when scarcely passed seven-
teen years of age, an age now considered early for entrance into college, lord
Rochester was not only " very acceptable in a court," but had carried off by
force the lady who afterwards became his wife : may we not suppose that
he was prompted to this act? Pepys says (28th May 1665) — "to my lady
Sandwich's, where, to my shame, I had not been a great while. Here
upon my telling her a story of my lord Rochester's running away on
Friday night last with Mrs. Mallet, the great beauty and fortune of the north
(south ?}, who had supped at Whitehall with Mrs. Stewart, and was going
home to her lodgings with her grandfather, my lord Haley, by coach : and
was at Charing Cross, seized on by both horse and footmen, and forcibly
taken from him, and put into a coach with six horses, and two women pro-
vided to receive her, and carried away. Upon immediate pursuit, my lord
Rochester, for whom the king had spoke to the lady often, but with no success,
was taken at Uxbridge : but the lady is not yet heard of, the king mighty
angry, and the lord sent to the Tower. Hereupon my lady did confess to
me as a great secret, her being concerned in this story : for if this match
breaks between my lord Rochester and her, then, by the consent of all friends,
my lord Hinchingbrooke stands fair, and is invited. She is worth, and will
be at her mother's death, who keeps but a little from her, 2500/. per annum.
Pray God give a good success to it ! But my poor lady, who is afraid of the
sickness [the plague, then raging in London], and resolved to be gone into the
country, is forced to stay in town a day or two, or three, about it, to see the
event of it." Diary, vol. iii. p. 18. Lady Sandwich, whose anxiety for this
match with the heiress overcame her fears of the plague, did not live to see
her grandson Edward, the third earl of Sandwich (son of "my lord Hinch-
ingbrooke" mentioned by Pepys), married to lord Rochester's daughter by
that lady.

* As desperate.'] Lord Sandwich described the port to Pepys as " being a
place just wide enough, and not so much hardly, for ships to go through to
it, the yard-armes sticking in the very rocks." — Pepys' Dinri/, iii. 89.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 611

lute a courage as was possible. A person of honour told me he
heard the lord Clifford, who was in the same ship, often magnify
his courage 7 at that time very highly. Nor did the rigours of the

7 Magnify his courage.] Lord Rochester has left an account of this action
in a letter addressed to his mother : it is now first printed, from the auto-
graph :

" From the coast of Norway, amongst the
rocks, aboard the Revenge.

August 3rd.
"MADAM

" I hope it will not be hard for your ladyship to believe that it hath been
want of opportunity, and not neglect in me, the not writing to your ladyship
all this while. I know nobody hath more reason to shew and express their
duty to you than I have, and certainly I will never be so imprudent as to
omit the occasions of doing it. There have many things past since I writ
last to your ladyship : we had many reports of De Ruyter and the East- India
fleet, but none true till towards the 26th of the last month ; we had certain
intelligence then of thirty sail in Bergen, in Norway, a haven belonging to
the king of Denmark ; but the port was found to be so little that it was im-
possible for the great ships to get in, so that my lord Sandwich ordered twenty
sail of fourth and fifth rate frigates to go in and take them : they were
commanded by sir Thomas Teddeman, one of the vice-admirals : it was not
fit for me to see any occasion of service to the king without offering myself,
so I desired and obtained leave of my lord Sandwich to go with them, and
accordingly, the 30th of this month, we set sail at six o'clock at night, and the
next day we made the haven Cruchfort (on this side of the town 15 leagues,)
not without much hazard of shipwreck, for (besides the danger of rocks, which
according to the seamens judgment, was greater than ever was seen by any of
them), we found the harbour where twenty ships were to anchor not big
enough for seven, so that in a moment we were all together, one upon
another, ready to dash in pieces, having nothing but bare rocks to save our-
selves in case we had been lost, but it was God's great mercy we got clear ;
and, only for that, we had no human probability of safety : there we lay all
night, and by twelve o'clock next day got off and sailed to Bergen, full of
hopes and expectations, having already shared amongst us the rich lading of
the East-India merchants, some for diamonds, some for spices, others for
rich silks, and I for shirts and gold, which I had most need of; but reckoning
without our host we were fain to reckon twice, however we came bravely into
the harbour, in the midst of the town and castles, and there anchored close
by the Dutchmen. We had immediately a message from the governor, full
of civility and offers of service, which was returned by us, Mr. Montague
being the messenger: that night we had 7 or 10 more, which signified
nothing but mere empty delays. It grew dark, and we were fain to lie still
until morning : all the night the Dutch carried above 200 pieces of cannon
into the Danish castles and forts, and we were by morn drawn into a very fair
half-moon, ready for both town and ships : we received several messages, from
break of day until four o'clock, much like those of the over-night, intending

R r 2

612 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

season, the hardness of the voyage, and the extreme danger he
had been in, deter him from running the like on the very next
occasion : for, the summer following, he went to sea again, with-
out communicating his design to his nearest relations. He went
aboard the ship commanded by sir Edward Spragge, the day
before the great sea fight 8 of that year. Almost all the volunteers
that were in the same ship were killed. Mr. Middleton (brother
to sir Hugh Middleton) was shot in his arms. During the action,
sir Edward Spragge not being satisfied with the behaviour of one
of the captains, could not easily find a person that would cheer-
fully venture through so much danger, to carry his commands to
that captain. This lord offered himself to the service ; and wont
in a little boat, through all the shot, and delivered his message,
and returned back to sir Edward : which was much commended
by all that saw it. He thought it necessary to begin his life 9

nothing but delay that they might fortify themselves the more, which being
perceived, we delayed no more, but, just upon the stroke of five, we let fly our
fighting colours, and immediately fired upon the ships, who answered us im-
mediately, and were seconded by the castles and forts of the town : upon
which we shot at all, and in a short time beat, from one of their greatest forts,
some three or four thousand men that were placed with small shot upon us.

But the castles were not to be for, besides the strength of their walls,

they had so many of the Dutch guns (with their own) which played in the
hulls and decks of our ships, that in three hours time we lost some 500 men, six
captains, our cables were cut, and we were driven out by the wind, which was
so directly against us that we could not use our fireships, which otherwise
had infallibly done our business : so we came off, having beat the town all
to pieces without losing one ship. We now lie off a little, still expecting a
wind, that we may send in fireships to make an end of the rest. Mr.
Montague and Thorn. Windham's brother were both killed, with one shot,
just by me ; but God Almighty was pleased to preserve me from any kind of
hurt. Madam I have been tedious, but beg your Ladyship's pardon, who am

" Your most obedient
"ROCHESTER."

" I have been as good a husband as I could, but, in spite of my teeth, have
been fain to borrow money."

8 Great sea fight.] The action was fought, between Dunkirk, Ostend, and
Southwold Bay, on the first and second of June 1666. The English were
commanded by the Duke of Albemarle, the Dutch by De Ruyter.

9 To begin his life.'] Lord Rochester was as yet unmarried. He did not
obtain the hand of the lady, whom he had " run away with," until the end of
1666, or the beginning of 1667. This great heiress was Elizabeth, daughter
of John Malet of Enmore in Somersetshire, by Unton, daughter of sir Francis
Hawley of Buckland, in the same county, who had been created in 1646 an
Irish peer, by the title of lord Hawley of Donamore. Count Anthony Ha-

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 613

with these demonstrations of his courage in an element and way
of fighting, which is acknowledged to be the greatest trial of
clear and undaunted valour.

He had so intirely laid down the intemperance that was grow-
ing on him before his travels, that at his return he hated nothing
more. But falling into company that loved these excesses, he
was, though not without difficulty, and by many steps, brought
back to it again. And the natural heat of his fancy, being in-
flamed by wine, made him so extravagantly pleasant, that many,
to be more diverted by that humour, studied to engage him
deeper and deeper in intemperance ; which at length did so en-
tirely subdue him, that, as he told me, for five years together he
was continually drunk : not all the while under the visible effect
of it, but his blood was so inflamed, that he was not in all that
time cool enough to be perfectly master of himself. This led him
to say and do many wild and unaccountable things. By this, he
said, he had broke the firm constitution of his health, that seemed
so strong, that nothing was too hard for it ; and he had suffered
so much in his reputation, that he almost despaired to recover it.
There were two principles in his natural temper, that being
heightened by that heat, carried him to great excesses : a violent
love of pleasure, and a disposition to extravagant mirth. The
one involved him in great sensuality : the other led him to many
odd adventures and frolics, in which he was oft in hazard of his
life : the one being the same irregular appetite in his mind, that
the other was in his body, which made him think nothing divert-
ing that was not extravagant. And though in cold blood he was
a generous and good-natured man, yet he would go far in his
heats, after any thing that might turn to a jest or matter of diver-
sion. He said to me he never improved his interest at court,
to do a premeditate mischief to other persons. Yet he laid out
his wit very freely in libels and satires, in which he had a peculiar
talent of mixing his wit with his malice, and fitting both with
such apt words, that men were tempted to be pleased with them.
From thence his composures came to be easily known ; for few
had such a way of tempering these together as he had ; so that
when any thing extraordinary that way came out, as a child is

milton calls her " une triste heritiere," words which, flowing from his peri,
may be considered praise, as signifying that she took no part in the profli-
gate gaieties of Charles's court. A portrait, purporting to be that of Lady
Rochester, has been engraved under the title given to her by Hamilton,
but it is known to be not genuine.

614 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

fathered sometimes by its resemblance, so was it kid at his door
as its parent and author.

These exercises in the course of his life were not always equally
pleasant to him. He had often sad intervals and severe reflec-
tions on them : and though then he had not these awakened in
him from any deep principle of religion, yet the horror that
nature raised in him, especially in some sicknesses *, made him
too easy to receive some ill principles, which others endeavoured
to possess him with ; so that he was too soon brought to set him-
self to secure, and fortify his mind against that, by dispossessing
it all he could of the belief or apprehensions of religion. The
licentiousness of his temper, with the briskness of his wit, dis-
posed him to love the conversation of those who divided their
time between lewd actions and irregular mirth ; and so he came
to bend his wit, and direct his studies and endeavours, to support
and strengthen these ill principles both in himself and others2.

1 In some sicknesses.~\ It was in one of these, that he thus concludes a
letter to one of his nearest friends, the hon. Henry Savile, eldest son of the
first lord Halifax. The autograph is in the British Museum.

" But it is a miraculous thing (as the wise have it) when a man, half in the
grave, cannot leave off playing the fool and the buffoon. But so it falls out
to my comfort. For at this moment I am in a damned relapse, brought by
a fever, the stone, and some ten diseases more, which have deprived me of
the power of crawling, which I happily enjoyed some days ago : and now, I
fear, I must fall : that it may be fulfilled which was long since written for
instruction, in a good old ballad :

' But he who lives not wise and sober,
Falls with the leaf still in October.'

About which time, in all probability, there may be a period added to the
ridiculous being of your humble servant, " ROCHESTER."

Familiar letters written by the Right Hon. John, late earl of Rochester and
several other persons of honour, A. D. 1697. p. 13. — Unhappy man! Let the
reader be consoled and instructed in contrasting with the above an extract
from the letter of another individual, written in destitution and imprisonment,
to one of his nearest friends, — " I am now ready to be offered, and the time
of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight : I have finished my
course ; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that
day." (2 Tim. iv. 6, &c.)

2 In himself and others.'] " As he " (Dr. Assheton) " had his convincing little
books ready upon all occasions, so he told me, particularly, where he fell in
accidentally with daring heretics, atheists, &c., he gave them undeniable con-
futations, though their bold assertions might strike his modesty dumb, as
their hellish blasphemies make good men tremblingly silent : like tlu

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 615

An accident fell out after this, which confirmed him more
in these courses. When he went to sea in 1665, there hap-
pened to be in the same ship with him Mr. Montague 3 and ano-
ther gentleman 4 of quality. These two, the former especially,
seemed persuaded that they should never return into England.
Mr. Montague said, " he was sure of it :" the other was not so
positive. The earl of Rochester, and the last of these, entered
into a formal engagement, not without ceremonies of religion,
that if either of them died, he should appear, and give the other
notice of the future state if there was any. But Mr. Montague
would not enter into the bond. When the day came that they
thought to have taken the Dutch fleet in the port of Bergen,
Mr. Montague, though he had such a strong presage in his mind
of his approaching death, yet he generously staid all the while in
the place of greatest danger. The other gentleman signalized
his courage in a most undaunted manner, till near the end of the
action ; when he fell on a sudden into such a trembling that he

pious and learned bishop Stillingfleet, his friend, of whom he told me this
passage very remarkable :

" That he once met the mad earl of Rochester ; who had afterwards won-
derful grace and time for repentance, a miracle not to be expected by all
wilful presumptuous sinners : he met him at the doctor's patron's table, sir
Walter St. John's, [maternal uncle to lord Rochester ,] whom he ever honoured.
There did the vicious, witty earl, so boldly assault that great divine, as to
confound and silence him with atheistical rant, and made him withdraw
sorrowful and weeping, — So timorous and compasionate are modest, humble
Christians; as so, happily, was that earl humbled himself at last." — The
Christian indeed • or, the exemplary Life of Wm. Assheton, D.D. Rector of
Beckenham, Kent, by Thomas Watts, A.M. p. 180. 8vo.

3 Mr. Montague.'] Edward, eldest son of Edward lord Montague of
Boughton, and brother of Ralph first duke of Montague. He had been
master of the horse to Katharine of Braganza, queen of Charles II., but was
dismissed in May 1664. He took the command of a ship under his cousin
the earl of Sandwich, and, as Denham says,

" by court disaster,
Dwindled into the wooden horse's master."

4 Another gentleman.'] "Thorn. Windham's brother," (see lord Rochester's
letter, p. 612, n.) Which brother this was is uncertain. John, eldest son of sir
John Wyndham of Orchard in Somersetshire, of Silferton in Devonshire, and
of Felbrigge in Norfolk, married Catharine, daughter of Robert Hopton, of
Witham in Somersetshire, and sister and co-heir of Ralph lord Hopton, the
royalist general. He died in 1649, and was father of sir Wm. Wyndham, bart.,
of Thomas Wyndham of Witham, and of three other sons that died unmarried.
One of his daughters, Florence, was wife of sir John Malet, knt., a relation of
lord Rochester's wife.

616 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

could scarce stand : and Mr. Montague going to him to hold him
up, as they were in each others arms, a cannon-ball killed him
outright, and carried away Mr. Montague's belly, so that he died
within an hour after. The earl of Rochester told me that these
presages they had in their minds made some impression on him
that there were separated beings : and that the soul, either by a
natural sagacity, or some secret notice communicated to it, had a
sort of divination : but that gentleman's never appearing was a
great snare to him, during the rest of his life. Though when he
told me this, he could not but acknowledge, it was an unreason-
able thing for him, to think that beings in another state were not
under such laws and limits, that they could not command their
own motions, but as the supreme power should order them : and
that one who had so corrupted the natural principles of truth as
he had, had no reason to expect that such an extraordinary thing
should be done for his conviction.

He told me of another odd presage that one had of his ap-
proaching death in the lady Warre 5, his mother-in-law's house.
The chaplain had dreamt that such a day he should die ; but
being by all the family put out of the belief of it, he had almost
forgot it : till the evening before, at supper, there being thirteen
at table 6, according to a fond conceit that one of these must soon
die, one of the young ladies pointed to him, that he was to die.
He, remembering his dream, fell into some disorder: and the
lady Warre reproving him for his superstition, he said, " he was
confident he was to die before morning ;" but he being in perfect
health, it was not much minded. It was Saturday night, and he
was to preach next day. He went to his chamber and sat up
late, as appeared by the candle, and he had been preparing his
notes for his sermon ; but was found dead in his bed the ;
morning.

These things, he said, made him inclined to believe, the soul
was a substance distinct from matter : and this often returned
into his thoughts. But that which perfected his persuasion about
it, was, that in the sickness which brought him so near death.
before I first knew him, when his spirits were so low and spent,
that he could not move nor stir, and he did not think to live an

5 The lady Warre, his mother-in-law.'] After the death of her first husband
(John Malet), lady Rochester's mother married sir Francis Warre, knt., of
Hestercombe, M.P. for Somersetshire, who died in 1669-

6 Thirteen at table.] A superstitious feeling, still very common. It took its
origin from the number present at the Last Supper of Our Lord.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 617

hour ; he said, his reason and judgment were so clear and strong 7,
that, from thence, he was fully persuaded, that death was not the
spending or dissolution of the soul ; but only the separation of it
from matter. He had in that sickness great remorses for his
past life, but he afterwards told me, they were rather general and
dark horrors, than any convictions of sinning against God. He
was sorry he had lived so as to waste his strength so soon ; or
that he had brought such an ill name upon himself; and had an
agony in his mind about it, which he knew not well how to ex-
press : but at such times, though he complied with his friends in
suffering divines to be sent for, he said, he had no great mind to
it : and that it was but a piece of his breeding, to desire them to
pray by him, in which he joined little himself.

As to the Supreme Being, he had always some impression of
one : and professed often to me, that he had never known an
entire atheist, who fully believed there was no God. Yet when
he explained his notion of this Being, it amounted to no more
than a vast power, that had none of the attributes of goodness or
justice, we ascribe to the Deity. These were his thoughts about
religion, as himself told me.

For morality, he freely owned to me, that though he talked of
it, as a fine thing, yet this was only because he thought it a
decent way of speaking ; and that as they went always in cloaths,
though in their frolics they would have chosen sometimes to
have gone naked, if they had not feared the people ; so though
some of them found it necessary for human life to talk of
morality, yet he confessed they cared not for it, further than
the reputation of it was necessary for their credit, and affairs ;
of which he gave me many instances ; as their professing and
swearing friendship, where they hated mortally ; their oaths and
imprecations in their addresses to women, which they intended
never to make good ; the pleasure they took in defaming innocent

7 Clear and strong.'] "There are instances of mortal diseases, in which
persons, the moment before death, appear to be in the highest vigour of life.
They discover apprehension, memory, reason, — all entire ; with the utmost
force of affection; sense of a character, of shame, and honour; and the
highest mental enjoyments and sufferings even to the last gasp : and these
surely prove even greater vigour of life, than bodily strength does. Now,
what pretence is there for thinking, that a progressive disease, when arrived
to such a degree, I mean that degree which is mortal, will destroy those
powers, which were not impaired, which were not affected by it, during its
whole progress quite up to that degree ?"— Butler's Analogy, part i. chap. i.

618 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

persons ; and spreading false reports of some, perhaps in revenge,
because they could not engage them to comply with their ill
designs. The delight they had in making people quarrel ; their
unjust usage of their creditors, and putting them off by any
deceitful promise they could invent, that might deliver them
from present importunity. So that in detestation of these courses
he would often break forth into such hard expressions concerning
himself, as would be indecent for another to repeat.

Such had been his principles and practices in a course of many
years, which had almost quite extinguished the natural pro-
pensities in him to justice and virtue. He would often go into
the country, and be for some months wholly employed in study,
or the sallies of his wit; which he came to direct chiefly to
satire. And this he often defended to me ; by saying there were
some people that could not be kept in order, or admonished but
in this way. I replied, that it might be granted that a grave
way of satire was sometimes no improfitable way of reproof.
Yet they who used it only out of spite, and mixed lies with truth,
sparing nothing that might adorn their poems, or gratify their
revenge, could not excuse that way of reproach, by which the
innocent often suffer: since the most malicious things, if wittily
expressed, might stick to and blemish the best men in the world ;
and the malice of a libel could hardly consist with the charity of
an admonition. To this he answered, a man could not write
with life, unless he were heated by revenge : for to make a satire
without resentments, upon the cold notions of philosophy, was as
if a man would in cold blood, cut men's throats who had never
offended him: and he said, the lies in these libels came often in
as ornaments that could not be spared without spoiling the beauty
of the poem.

For his other studies, they were divided between the comical ami
witty writings of the ancients and moderns, the Roman authors,
and books of physic, which the ill state of health he was fallen
into, made more necessary to himself, and which qualified him
for an odd adventure, which I shall but just mention. ]5i in^
under an unlucky accident, which obliged him to keep out of the
way, he disguised himself, so that his nearest friends could not
have known him, and set up in Tower-street for an Italian
mountebank, where he practised physic for some weeks not with-
out success. In his latter years, he read books of history more.
He took pleasure to disguise himself, as a, porter, or as a

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 619

sometimes to follow some mean amours, which, for the variety of
them, he affected : at other times, merely for diversion, he would
go about in odd shapes, in which he acted his part so naturally,
that even those who were in the secret, and saw him in these
shapes, could perceive nothing by which he might be discovered.

I have now made the description of his former life, and prin-
ciples, as fully as I thought necessary, to answer my end in
writing ; and yet with those reserves, that I hope I have given
no just cause of offence to any. I have said nothing but what I
had from his own mouth, and have avoided the mentioning of the
more particular passages of his life, of which he told me not a
few : but since others were concerned in them, whose good only
I design, I will say nothing that may either provoke or blemish
them. It is their reformation, and not their disgrace, I desire.
This tender consideration of others has made me suppress many
remarkable and useful things, he told me: but, finding that,
though I should name none, yet I must at least relate such cir-
cumstances, as would give too great occasion for the reader to
conjecture concerning the persons intended, right or wrong, either
of which were inconvenient enough, I have chosen to pass them
quite over. But I hope those that know how much they were
engaged with him in his ill courses, will be somewhat touched
with this tenderness I express towards them ; and be thereby
the rather induced to reflect on their ways, and to consider
without prejudice or passion what sense this noble lord had of
their case, when he came at last seriously to reflect upon Ms
own.

I now turn to those parts of this narrative, wherein I myself
bore some share, and which I am to deliver upon the observa-
tions I made, after a long and free conversation with him for
some months. I was not long in his company, when he told me,
he should treat me with more freedom than he had ever used to
men of my profession. He would conceal none of his principles
from me, but lay his thoughts open without any disguise ; nor
would he do it to maintain debate, or shew his wit, but plainly
tell me what stuck with him ; and he protested to me, that he
was not so engaged to his old maxims, as to resolve not to
change, but that if he could be convinced, he would choose
rather to be of another mind. He said, he would impartially
weigh what I should lay before him, and tell me freely when it
did convince, and when it did not. He expressed this disposition

620 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

of mind to me in a manner so frank, that I could not but believe
him, and be much taken with his way of discourse : so we
entered into almost all the parts of natural and revealed religion,
and of morality. He seemed pleased, and in a great measure
satisfied, with what I said upon many of these heads : and though
our freest conversation was when we were alone, yet upon several
occasions, other persons were witnesses to it. I understood
from many hands that my company was not distasteful to him,
and that the subjects about which we talked most were not
unacceptable: and he expressed himself often not ill pleased
with many things I said to him, and particularly when I visited
him in his last sickness, so that I hope it may not be altogether
unprofitable to publish the substance of those matters about
which we argued so freely, with our reasoning upon them : and
perhaps what had some effects on him, may be not altogether
ineffectual upon others. I followed him with such arguments as
I saw were most likely to prevail with him : and my not urging
other reasons, proceeded not from any distrust I had of their force,
but from the necessity of using those that were most proper for
him. He was then in a low state of health, and seemed to be
slowly recovering of a great disease. He was in the milk-diet 8,
and apt to fall into hectical fits8; any accident weakened him ;
so that he thought he could not live long ; and when he went
from London, he said, he believed he should never come to town
more. Yet during his being in town he was so well, that he
went often abroad, and had great vivacity of spirit. So that he
was under no such decay, as either darkened or weakened his
understanding; nor was he anyway troubled with the spleen,
or vapours, or under the power of melancholy. What he uas
then, compared to what he had been formerly, I could not so
well judge, who had seen him but twice before. Others have
told me they perceived no difference in his parts. This I inent i<»n
more particularly, that it may not be thought that melaiR-ln.lv.
or the want of spirits, made him more inclined to receive any
impressions : for indeed I never discovered any such thing in him.

Having thus opened the way to the heads of our discourse. 1
shall next mention them. The three chief things we talked about.
were morality -, natural religion, and revealed religion, Chi
in particular.

8 Milk diet . . . hectical fits.'] See the second letter of the dowager lady
Rochester, p. 668, post.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 621

For morality he confessed, he saw the necessity of it, both for
the government of the world, and for the preservation of health,
life and friendship : and was very much ashamed of his former
practices, rather because he had made himself a beast, and
brought pain and sickness on his body, and had suffered much
in his reputation, than from any deep sense of a Supreme Being,
or another state : but so far this went with him, that he resolved
firmly to change the course of his life ; which he thought he
should effect by the study of philosophy, and had not a few no
less solid than pleasant notions concerning the folly and madness
of vice : but he confessed he had no remorse for his past actions,
as offences against God, but only as injuries to himself and to
mankind.

Upon this subject, I shewed him the defects of philosophy, for
reforming the world : that it was a matter of speculation, which
but few either had the leisure, or the capacity to enquire into.
But the principle that must reform mankind, must be obvious
to every man's understanding. That philosophy in matters of
morality, beyond the great lines of our duty, had no very certain
fixed rule, but in the lesser offices and instances of our duty went
much by the fancies of men and customs of nations, and con-
sequently could not have authority enough to bear down the
propensities of nature, appetite or passion : for which I instanced
in these two points ; the one was, about that maxim of the Stoics,
to extirpate all sort of passion and concern for any thing. That,
take it by one hand, seemed desirable, because if it could be
accomplished, it would make all the accidents of life easy ; but I
think it cannot, because nature after all our striving against it,
will still return to itself; yet, on the other hand, it dissolved the
bond of nature and friendship, and slackened industry, which will
move but dully, without an inward heat : and if it delivered a
man from many troubles, it deprived him of the chief pleasures of
life, which rise from friendship. — The other was ^concerning the
restraint of pleasure, how far that was to go. Upon this he
told me the two maxims of his morality then were, that he should
do nothing to the hurt of any other, or that might prejudice his
own health : and he thought that all pleasure, when it did not
interfere with these, was to be indulged, as the gratification of
our natural appetites. It seemed unreasonable to imagine these
were put into a man only to be restrained, or curbed to such a
narrowness. This he applied to the free use of wine and women.

622 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

To this I answered, that if appetites being natural, was an argu-
ment for the indulging them, then the revengeful might as well
allege it for murder, and the covetous for stealing ; whose appe-
tites are no less keen on those objects ; and yet it is acknowledged
that these appetites ought to be curbed. If the difference is urged
from the injury that another person receives, the injury is as
great, if a man's wife is defiled, or his daughter corrupted : and it
is impossible for a man to let his appetites loose to vagrant lusts,
and not to transgress in these particulars : so there was no curing
the disorders, that must arise from thence, but by regulating
these appetites. And why should we not as well think that God
intended our brutish and sensual appetites should be governed by
our reason, as that the fierceness of beasts should be managed
and tamed *, by the wisdom, and for the use of man ? so that it is
no real absurdity to grant that appetites were put into men, on
purpose to exercise their reason in the restraint and government
of them : which to be able to do, ministers a higher and more
lasting pleasure to a man, than to give them their full scope and
range. And if other rules of philosophy be observed, such as the
avoiding those objects that stir passion, nothing raises higher
passions than ungoverned lust; nothing darkens the under-
standing, and depresses a man's mind more; nor is any tiling-
managed with more frequent returns of other immoralities, such
as oaths and imprecations, which are only intended to compass
what is desired. The expence that is necessary to maintain T
irregularities makes a man false in his other dealings.

All this he freely confessed was true.

Upon which I urged, that if it was reasonable for a man to
regulate his appetite in things which he knew were hurtful to
him; was it not as reasonable for God to prescribe a regulating
of those appetites, whose unrestrained course did produce such
mischievous effects ! That it could not be denied, but <!<>i.
others what we would Jiave others do unto us, was a just rule.
Those men then that knew how extreme sensible they thems-
would be of the dishonour of their families in the case of th«-ir
wives or daughters, must needs condemn themselves, for <1
that which they could not bear from another. And if the j
of mankind, and the entire satisfaction of our whole life, ought to
be one of the chief measures of our actions, then let all the \\
judge, whether a man that confines his appetite, and lives con-
1 And tamed.'] James iii. 7.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 623

tented at home, is not much happier, than those that let their
desires run after forbidden objects. The thing being granted to
be better in itself, then the question falls between the restraint
of appetite in some instances, and the freedom of a man's
thoughts, the soundness of his health, his application to affairs,
with the easiness of his whole life, whether the one is not to be
done before the other ? As to the difficulty of such a restraint,
though it is not easy to be done when a man allows himself many
liberties, in which it is not possible to stop ; yet those who avoid
the occasions that may kindle these impure flames, and keep
themselves well employed, find the victory and dominion over
them no such impossible, or hard matter, as may seem at first
view. So that though the philosophy and morality of this point
were plain ; yet there is not strength enough in that principle to
subdue nature, and appetite. Upon this I urged, that morality
could not be a strong thing, unless a man were determined by a
law within himself ; for if he only measured himself by decency,
or the laws of the land, this would teach him only to use such
caution in his ill practices, that they should not break out too
visibly ; but would never carry him to an inward and universal
probity : that virtue was of so complicated a nature, that unless
a man came entirely within its discipline, he could not adhere
stedfastly to any one precept : for vices are often made necessary
supports to one another. That this cannot be done, either
steadily, or with any satisfaction, unless the mind does inwardly
comply with, and delight in the dictates of virtue ; and that could
not be effected, except a man's nature were internally regenerated,
and changed by a higher principle : till that came about corrupt
nature would be strong, and philosophy but feeble: especially
when it struggled with such appetites or passions as were much
kindled, or deeply rooted in the constitution of one's body.
This, he said, sounded to him like enthusiam, or canting : he
had no notion of it, and so could not understand it. He com-
prehended the dictates of reason and philosophy, in which as the
mind became much conversant, there would soon follow, as he
believed, a greater easiness in obeying its precepts. I told him
on the other hand, that all his speculations of philosophy would
not serve him in any stead, to the reforming of his nature and
life, till he applied himself to God for inward assistances. It was
certain, that the impressions made in his reason governed him, as
they were lively presented to him ; but these are so apt to slip

624 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

out of our memory, and we so apt to turn our thoughts from
them, and at some times the contrary impressions are so strong,
that let a man set up a reasoning in his mind against them, he
finds that celebrated saying of the poet 2 :

Video meliora, proboque :

Deteriora sequor.

1 see what is better, and approve it ;

But follow what is worse,

to be all that philosophy will amount to. Whereas those who
upon such occasions apply themselves to God, by earnest prayer,
feel a disengagement from such impressions, and themselves
endued with a power to resist them. So that those bonds which
formerly held them, fall off.

This he said must be the effect of a heat in nature : it was
only the strong diversion of the thoughts, that gave the seeming
victory, and he did not doubt but if one could turn to a problem in
Euclid, or to write a copy of verses, it would have the same effect.

To this I answered, that if such methods did only divert the
thoughts, there might be some force in what he said : but if they
not only drove out such inclinations, but begat impressions con-
trary to them, and brought men into a new disposition and habit
of mind ; then he must confess there was somewhat more than a
diversion, in these changes, which were brought on our minds by
true devotion. I added, that reason and experience were the
things that determined our persuasions : that as experience
without reason may be thought the delusion of our fancy, so
reason without experience had not so convincing an operation :
but these two meeting together, must needs give a man all the
satisfaction he can desire. He could not say, it was unrea-
sonable to believe that the Supreme Being might make s«»nu-
thoughts stir in our minds with more or less force, as 1 1 « •
pleased : especially the force of these motions being, for the most
part according to the impression that was made on our brains :
which, that power, that directed the whole frame of nature, could
make grow deeper as it pleased. It was also reasonable to sup-
pose God a being of such goodness that he would give his a>
ance to such as desired it. For though he might upon &
greater occasions in an extraordinary manner turn some people's
minds ; yet since he had endued man with a faculty of reason, it

* The poet.'] Ovid. Metamorph. vii. 15.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 625

is fit that men should employ that, as far as they could ; and beg
his assistance: which certainly they can do. All this seemed
reasonable, and at least probable. Now good men who felt upon
their frequent applications to God in prayer, a freedom from those
ill impressions, that formerly subdued them ; an inward love to
virtue and true goodness ; an easiness and delight in all the parts
of holiness, which was fed and cherished in them by a seriousness
in prayer, and did languish as that went off; had as real a per-
ception of an inward strength in their minds, that did rise and
fall with true devotion, as they perceived the strength of their
bodies increased or abated, according as they had or wanted good
nourishment.

After many discourses upon this subject he still continued to
think all was the effect of fancy. He said, that he understood
nothing of it, but acknowledged that he thought they were very
happy whose fancies were under the power of such impressions ;
since they had somewhat on which their thoughts rested and cen-
tered. But when I saw him in his last sickness, he then told me,
he had another sense of what we had talked concerning prayer
and inward assistances.

This subject led us to discourse of God, and of the notion of
religion in general. He believed there was a Supreme Being.
He could not think the world was made by chance, and the
regular course of nature seemed to demonstrate the eternal power
of its author. This, he said, he could never shake off; but when
he came to explain his notion of the Deity, he said, he looked on
it as a vast power that wrought every thing by the necessity of
its nature ; and thought that God had none of those affections of
love or hatred, which breed perturbation in us, and by conse-
quence he could not see that there was to be either reward or
punishment. He thought our conceptions of God were so low,
that we had better not think much of him : and to love God
seemed to him a presumptuous thing, and the heat of fanciful
men. Therefore he believed there should be no other religious
worship, but a general celebration of that Being, in some short
hymn : all the other parts of worship he esteemed the inventions
of priests, to make the world believe they had a secret of incensing
and appeasing God as they pleased. In a word, he was neither
persuaded that there was a special providence about human affairs,
nor that prayers were of much use, since that was to look on God
as a weak being, that would be overcome with importunities.

VOL. iv. s s

626 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

And for the state after death, though he thought the soul did not
dissolve at death ; yet he doubted much of rewards or punish-
ments. The one he thought too high for us to attain, by our
slight services ; and the other was too extreme to be inflicted for
sin 8. This was the substance of his speculations about God and
religion.

I told him his notion of God was so low, that the Supreme
Being seemed to be nothing but nature. For if that Being had
no freedom, nor choice of its own actions, nor operated by wisdom
or goodness, all those reasons which led him to acknowledge a
God, were contrary to this conceit ; for if the order of the uni-
verse persuaded him to think there was a God, he must at the
same time conceive him to be both wise and good, as well as
powerful, since these all appeared equally in the creation ; though
his wisdom and goodness had ways of exerting themselves, that
were far beyond our notions or measures. If God was wise and
good, he would naturally love, and be pleased with those that
resembled him in these perfections, and dislike those that were
opposite to him. Every rational being naturally loves itself, and
is delighted in others like itself, and is averse from what is not so.
Truth is a rational nature*^ acting in conformity to itself in all
things ; and goodness is an inclination to promote the happiness
of other beings : so truth and goodness were the essential perfec-
tions of every reasonable being, and certainly most eminently in
the Deity. Nor does his mercy or love raise passion or pertur-
bation in him ; for we feel that to be a weakness in ourselves,
which indeed only flows from our want of power, or skill to <!<>
what we wish or desire. It is also reasonable to believe (iml
would assist the endeavour of the good, with some helps suitable
to their nature. And that it could not be imagined, that those
who imitated him, should not be especially favoured by him : and
therefore since this did not appear in this state, it was most
sonable to think it should be in another, where the rewards shall
be an admission to a more perfect state of conformity to <
with the felicity that follows it; and the punishments should !•••
a total exclusion from him, with all the horror and darkness

3 To be inflicted for sinJ] " King Charles II. said once to myself, he was no
atheist; but he could not think God would make a man miserable, o;
taking a little pleasure out of the way." — Burnet's Hist, of his Own Time,
vol. i. p. 93.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 627

must follow that. These seemed to be the natural results of such
several courses of life, as well as the effects of divine justice,
rewarding or punishing. For since he believed the soul had a
distinct subsistence, separated from the body ; upon its dissolu-
tion there was no reason to think it passed into a state of utter
oblivion of what it had been in formerly ; but that as the reflec-
tions on the good or evil it had done, must raise joy or horror in
it ; so those good or evil dispositions accompanying the departed
souls, they must either rise up to a higher perfection, or sink to
a more depraved and miserable state. In this life, variety of
affairs and objects do much cool and divert our minds ; and are,
on the one hand, often great temptations to the good, and give
the bad some ease in their trouble ; but in a state wherein the
soul shall be separated from sensible things, and employed in a
more quick and sublime way of operation, this must very much
exalt the joys and improvements of the good, and as much
heighten the horror and rage of the wicked. So that it seemed
a vain thing to pretend to believe a Supreme Being, that is wise
and good, as well as great, and not to think a discrimination will
be made between the good and bad, which it is manifest, is not
fully done in this life.

As for the government of the world, if we believe the Supreme
Power made it, there is no reason to think he does not govern it :
far all that we can fancy against it, is the distraction which that
infinite variety of second causes, and the care of their concern-
ments, must give to the first, if it inspects them all. But as
among men those of weaker capacities are wholly taken up with
some one thing, whereas those with more enlarged powers can,
without distraction, have many things within their care, as the
eye can at one view receive a great variety of objects, in that
narrow compass, without confusion ; so if we conceive the divine
understanding to be as far above ours, as his power of creating and
framing the whole universe is above our limited activity : we will
no more think the government of the world a distraction to him :
and if we have once overcome this prejudice, we shall be ready to
acknowledge a providence directing all affairs ; a care well be-
coming the great Creator.

As for worshipping him, if we imagine our worship is a thing
that adds to his happiness, or gives him such a fond pleasure as
weak people have to hear themselves commended ; or that our
repeated addresses do overcome him through our mere importu-

s s 2

628 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

nity we have certainly veiy unworthy thoughts of him. The true
ends of worship come within another consideration, which is this ;
a man is never entirely reformed, till a new principle governs his
thoughts. Nothing makes that principle so strong, as deep and
frequent meditations of God; whose nature, though it be far
above our comprehension, yet his goodness and wisdom are such
perfections as fall within our imagination : and he that thinks
often of God, and considers him as governing the world, and as
ever observing all his actions, will feel a very sensible effect of
such meditations, as they grow more lively and frequent with him ;
so the end of religious worship, either public or private, is to
make the apprehensions of God have a deeper root and a stronger
influence on us. The frequent returns of these are necessary :
lest if we allow of too long intervals between them, these impres-
sions may grow feebler, and other suggestions may come in their
room. And the returns of prayer are not to be considered as
favours extorted by mere importunity, but as rewards conferred
on men so well disposed, and prepared for them : according to the
promises that God has made, for answering our prayers : thereby
to engage and nourish a devout temper in us, which is the chief
root of all true holiness and virtue.

It is true, we cannot have suitable notions of the divine essence ;
as indeed we have no just idea of any essence whatsoever : since
we commonly consider all things, either by their outward figure,
or by their effects : and from thence make inferences what their
nature must be. So though we cannot frame any perfect ima^'-
in our minds of the divinity ; yet we may, from the disco v<
God has made of himself, form such conceptions of him, as may
possess our minds with great reverence for him, and beget in us
such a love of those perfections as to engage us to imitate them.
For when we say we love God ; the meaning is, we love that
being that is holy, just, good, wise, and infinitely perfect : and
loving these attributes in that object, will certainly carry u
desire them in ourselves. For whatever we love in another, we
naturally, according to the degree of our love, endeavour to re-
semble it. In sum, the loving and worshipping God, though tlu \
are just and reasonable returns and expressions of the sens<
have of his goodness to us; yet they are exacted of us not only
as a tribute to God, but as a mean to beget in us a conformity
to his nature, which is the chief end of pure and undefiled reli-
gion.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 629

If some men have at several times found out inventions to
corrupt this, and cheat the world, it is nothing but what occurs
in every sort of employment, to which men betake themselves.
Mountebanks corrupt physic ; petty- foggers have entangled the
matters of property ; and all professions have been vitiated by the
knaveries of a number of their calling.

With all these discourses he was not equally satisfied. He
seemed convinced that the impressions of God being much in
men's minds, would be a powerful means to reform the world :
and did not seem determined against providence. But for the
next state, he thought it more likely that the soul began anew,
and that her sense of what she had done in this body, lying in the
figures that are made in the brain, as soon as she dislodged, all
these perished, and that the soul went into some other state to
begin a new course.

But I said on this head, that this was at best a conjecture,
raised in him by his fancy ; for he could give no reason to prove it
true : nor was all the remembrance our souls had of past things
seated in some material figures lodged in the brain : though it
could not be denied but a great deal of it lay in the brain. That
we have many abstracted notions and ideas of immaterial things,
which depend not on bodily figures. Some sins, such as falsehood
and ill nature, were seated in the mind, as lust and appetite were
in the body : and as the whole body was the receptacle of the
soul, and the eyes and ears were the organs of seeing and hearing,
so was the brain the seat of memory : yet the power and faculty
of memory, as well as of seeing and hearing, lay in the mind : and
so it was no unconceivable thing that either the soul, by its own
strength, or by the means of some subtler organs, which might
be fitted for it in another state, should still remember as well as
think. But indeed we know so little of the nature of our souls,
that it is a vain thing for us to raise an hypothesis out of the con-
jectures we have about it, or to reject one, because of some diffi-
culties that occur to us : since it is as hard to understand how we
remember things now, as how we shall do it in another state ;
only we are sure we do it now ; and so we shall be then, when
we do it.

When I pressed him with the secret joys that a good man felt,
particularly as he drew near death, and the horrors of ill men,
especially at that time ; he was willing to ascribe it to the impres-
sions they had from their education.

630 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

But he often confessed, that whether the business of religion
was true or not, he thought those who had the persuasions of it,
and lived so, that they had quiet in their consciences, and believed
God governed the world, and acquiesced in his providence, and
had the hope of an endless blessedness in another state, — the
happiest men in the world : and said, he would give all that he
was master of, to be under those persuasions, and to have the
supports and joys that must needs flow from them.

I told him the main root of all corruptions in men^s principles
was their ill life ; which, as it darkened their minds, and disabled
them from discerning better things ; so it made it necessary for
them to seek out such opinions as might give them ease from those
clamours, that would otherwise have been raised within them.

He did not deny but that after the doing of some things, he
felt great and severe challenges within himself: but he said, he
felt not these after some others which I would perhaps call far
greater sins, than those that affected him more sensibly.

This, I said, might flow from the disorders he had cast himself
into, which had corrupted his judgment, and vitiated his taste of
things : and by his long continuance in, and frequent repeating of
some immoralities, he had made them so familiar to him, that
they were become as it were natural : and then it was no wonder
if he had not so exact a sense of what was good or evil ; as a
feverish man cannot judge of tastes.

He did acknowledge the whole system of religion, if believed,
was a greater foundation of quiet than any other thing whatso-
ever : for all the quiet he had in his mind, was, that he could not
think so good a being as the Deity would make him miserable.

I asked if, when by the ill course of his life he had brought so
many diseases on his body, he could blame God for it; or ex-
pect that he should deliver him from them by a miracle.

He confessed there was no reason for that.

I then urged, that if sin should cast the mind by a natural
effect into endless horrors and agonies, which being seated in a
being not subject to death, must last for ever, unless some mira-
culous power interposed, could he accuse God for that which
the effect of his own choice and ill life ?

He said they were happy that believed ; for it was not in e\
man's power.

And upon this we discoursed long about revealed religion.

He said, he did not understand that business of inspiration. 1 1 • •

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 631

believed the penmen of the Scriptures hadheats and honesty, and so
writ ; but could not comprehend how G od should reveal his secrets
to mankind. Why was not man made a creature more disposed
for religion, and better illuminated ? He could not apprehend
how there should be any corruption in the nature of man, or a
lapse derived from Adam. God's communicating his mind to one
man, was the putting it in his power to cheat the world. For
prophesies and miracles, the world had been always full of strange
stories : for the boldness and cunning of contrivers meeting with
the simplicity and credulity of the people, things were easily re-
ceived ; and being once received, passed down without contradic-
tion. The incoherences of style in the Scriptures, the odd tran-
sitions, the seeming contradictions, chiefly about the order of
time, the cruelties enjoined the Israelites in destroying the Ca-
naanites, circumcision, and many other rites of the Jewish worship,
seemed to him unsuitable to the divine nature : and the first three
chapters of Genesis, he thought, could not be true, unless they
were parables.

This was the substance of what he excepted to revealed religion
in general ; and to the Old Testament in particular.

I answered to all this, that believing a thing upon the testi-
mony of another, in other matters where there was no reason to
suspect the testimony, chiefly where it was confirmed by other
circumstances, was not only a reasonable thing, but it was the
hinge on which all the government and justice in the world de-
pended ; since all courts of justice proceed upon the evidence
given by witnesses ; for the use of writings is but a thing more
lately brought into the world. So then if the credibility of the
thing, the innocence and disinterestedness of the witnesses, the
number of them, and the publickest confirmations that could pos-
sibly be given, do concur to persuade us of any matter of fact, it
is a vain thing to say, because it is possible for so many men to
agree in a lie, that therefore these have done it. In all other
things a man gives his assent when the credibility is strong on
the one side, and there appears nothing on the other side to ba-
lance it. So such numbers agreeing in their testimony to these
miracles ; for instance, of our Saviour's calling Lazarus out of
the grave, the fourth day after he was buried, and his own rising
again, after he was certainly dead ; if there had been never so
many impostures in the world, no man can with any reasonable
colour pretend this was one. We find both by the Jewish and

632 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

Roman writers that lived in that time, that our Saviour was cru-
cified : and that all his disciples and followers believed certainly
that he rose again. They believed this upon the testimony of
the apostles, and of many hundreds who saw it, and died con-
firming it. They went about to persuade the world of it, with
great zeal, though they knew they were to get nothing by it, but
reproach and sufferings : and, by many wonders which they
wrought, they confirmed their testimony. Now to avoid all this,
by saying it is possible this might be a contrivance, and to give no
presumption to make it so much as probable, that it was so, is in
plain English to say, we are resolved, let tlie evidence le what it will,
we will not believe it.

He said, if a man says he cannot believe, what help is there ?
for he was not master of his own belief, and believing was at
highest but a probable opinion.

To this I answered that if a man will let a wanton conceit pos-
sess his fancy against these things, and never consider the evi-
dence for religion on the other hand, but reject it upon a slight view
of it, he ought not to say he cannot, but he will not believe : and
while a man lives an ill course of life, he is not fitly qualified to
examine the matter aright. Let him grow calm and virtuous,
and upon due application examine things fairly, and then let him
pronounce according to his conscience, if, to take it at its lowest,
the reasons on the one hand are not much stronger than they are
on the other. For I found he was so possessed with the general
conceit, that a mixture of knaves and fools had made all extraor-
dinary things be easily believed, that it carried him away to deter-
mine the matter, without so much as looking on the historical
evidence for the truth of Christianity, which he had not inquired
into, but had bent all his wit and study to the support of the
other side. As for that, that believing is at best but an opinion ;
if the evidence be but probable, it is so : but if it be such that it
cannot be questioned, it grows as certain as knowledge: for \\<
are no less certain that there is a great town called Constanti-
nople, the seat of the Ottoman empire, than that there is another
called London. We as little doubt that queen Elizabeth once
reigned, as that king Charles now reigns in England. So that
believing may be as certain, and as little subject to doubting, as
seeing or knowing.

Tin iv arr tw<> sorts of believing divine matters ; the on<
wrought in us by our comparing all the evidences of matter of

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 633

fact, for the confirmation of revealed religion, with the prophecies
in the scripture ; where things were punctually predicted, some
ages before their completion ; not in dark and doubtful words,
uttered like oracles, which might bend to any event, but in plain
terms ; as the foretelling that Cyrus by name should send the
Jews back from the captivity, after the fixed period of seventy
years ; the history of the Syrian and Egyptian kings so punc-
tually foretold by Daniel ; and the prediction of the destruction
of Jerusalem, with many circumstances relating to it, made by
our Saviour ; joining these to the excellent rule and design of the
scripture in matters of morality, it is at least as reasonable to
believe this as any thing else in the world. Yet such a believing
as this, is only a general persuasion in the mind, which has not
that effect, till a man, applying himself to the directions set down
in the Scriptures (which upon such evidence cannot be denied, to
be as reasonable, as for a man to follow the prescriptions of a
learned physician, and when the rules are both good and easy, to
submit to them for the recovering of his health), and by following
these, finds a power entering within him, that frees him from the
slavery of his appetites and passions, that exalts his mind above
the accidents of life, and spreads an inward purity in his heart,
from which a serene and calm joy arises within him : and good
men by the efficacy these methods have upon them, and from the
returns of their prayers, and other endeavours, grow assured that
these things are true, and answerable to the promises they find
registered in Scripture.

All this, he said, might be fancy.

But to this I answered, that as it were unreasonable to tell a
man that is abroad, and knows he is awake, that perhaps he is in
a dream, and in his bed, and only thinks he is abroad, or that as
some go about in their sleep, so he may be asleep still : so good
and religious men know, though others may be abused by their
fancies, that they are under no such deception ; and find they are
neither hot nor enthusiastical, but under the power of calm and
clear principles.

All this he said he did not understand, and that it was to assert
or beg the thing in question, which he could not comprehend.

As for the possibility of revelation, it was a vain thing to deny
it. For as God gives us the sense of seeing material objects by
our eyes, and opened in some a capacity of apprehending high and
sublime things, of which other men seemed utterly incapable ; so

634 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

it was a weak assertion that God cannot awaken a power in some
men's minds, to apprehend and know some things, in such a man-
ner that others are not capable of it. This is not half so incre-
dible to us as sight is to a blind man, who yet may be convinced
there is a strange power of seeing that governs men, of which he
finds himself deprived. As for the capacity put into such men's
hands to deceive the world, we are at the same time to consider
that besides the probity of their tempers, it cannot be thought
but God can so forcibly bind up a man in some things that it
should not be in his power to deliver them otherwise than as lie
gives him in commission : besides the confirmations of miracles
are a divine credential to warrant such persons in what they deli-
ver to the world : which cannot be imagined can be joined to a
lie, since this were to put the omnipotence of God to attest that
which no honest man will do.

For the business of the fall of man, and other things of
which we cannot perhaps give ourselves a perfect account ; wo
who cannot fathom the secrets of the counsel of God, do u-ry
unreasonably take on us to reject an excellent system of good
and holy rules, because we cannot satisfy ourselves about sonic
difficulties in them. Common experience tells us, there is a
great disorder in our natures, which is not easily rectified : all
philosophers were sensible of it, and every man that designs to
govern himself by reason, feels the struggle between it and
nature : so that it is plain, there is a lapse of the high po\u is
of the soul.

But why, said he, could not this be rectified by some plain
rules given ; but men must come and shew a trick to persuade
the world they speak to them in the name of God I

I answered, that religion being a design to recover and 8
mankind, was to be so opened as to awaken and work upon all
sorts of people : and generally men of a simplicity of mind were
those that were the fittest objects for God to shew his favour to ;
therefore it was necessary that messengers sent from In
should appear with such alarming evidences, as might awaken tlii
world, and prepare them by some astonishing signs, to listen to
the doctrine they were to deliver. Philosophy, that was only a
matter of fine speculation, had few votaries : and as there was no
authority in it to bind the world to believe its dictates, so they
worn only received by some of nobler and refined natures, \slio
could apply themselves to and delight in such notions. But true

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 635

religion was to be built on a foundation, that should carry more
weight on it, and to have such convictions, as might not only
reach those who were already disposed to receive them, but rouse
up such as without great and sensible excitation would have other-
wise slept on in their ill courses.

Upon this and some such occasions, I told him, I saw the ill
use he made of his wit, by which he slurred the gravest things
with a slight dash of his fancy : and the pleasure he found in such
wanton expressions, as calling the doing of miracles, the shelving
of a trick, did really keep him from examining them with that
care which such things required.

For the Old Testament, we are so remote from that time, we
have so little knowledge of the language in which it was writ,
have so imperfect an account of the history of those ages, know
nothing of their customs, forms of speech, and the several periods
they might have by which they reckoned their time, that it is
rather a wonder we should understand so much of it, than that
many passages in it should be so dark to us. The chief use it
has to us Christians, is, that, from writings which the Jews ac-
knowledge to be divinely inspired, it is manifest the Messias was
promised before the destruction of their temple: which being
done long ago ; and these prophecies agreeing to our Saviour, and
to no other, here is a great confirmation given to the Gospel.
But, though many things in these books could not be understood
by us, who live above three thousand years after the chief of them
were written, it is no such extraordinary matter.

For that of the destruction of the Canaanites by the Israelites,
it is to be considered, that if God had sent a plague among them
all, that could not have been found fault with. If then God had
a right to take away their lives, without injustice or cruelty, he
had a right to appoint others to do it, as well as to execute it by
a more immediate way: and the taking away people by the
sword, is a much gentler way of dying, than to be smitten with a
plague or a famine. And for the children that were innocent of
their fathers' faults, God could in another state make that up to
them. So all the difficulty is, why were the Israelites com-
manded to execute a thing of such barbarity ? But this will not
seem so hard, if we consider that this was to be no precedent for
future times : since they did not do it but upon special warrant
and commission from heaven, evidenced to all the world by such
mighty miracles as did plainly shew, that they were particularly

636 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

designed by God to be the executioners of his justice. And God
by employing them in so severe a service, intended to possess
them with great horror of idolatry, which was punished in so
extreme a manner.

For the rites of their religion, we can ill judge of them,
except we perfectly understood the idolatries round about them ;
to which we find they were much inclined : so they were to be
bent by other rites to an extreme aversion from them : and yet
by the pomp of many of their ceremonies and sacrifices, great
indulgences were given to a people naturally fond of a visible
splendor in religious worship. In all which, if we cannot descend
to such satisfactory answers in every particular, as a curious man
would desire, it is no wonder. The long interval of time, and
other accidents, have worn out those things which were necessary
to give us a clearer light into the meaning of them. And for
the story of the creation, how far some things in it may be para-
bolical, and how far historical, has been much disputed : there is
nothing in it that may not be historically true. For if it be
acknowledged that spirits can form voices in the air, for which
we have as good authority as for any thing in history ; then it is
no wonder that Eve being so lately created, might be deceived,
and think a serpent spake to her when the evil spirit framed the
voice.

But in all these things I told him he was in the wrong way,
when he examined the business of religion, by some dark parts
of Scripture : therefore I desired him to consider the whole con-
texture of the Christian religion, the rules it gives, and the
methods it prescribes. Nothing can conduce more to the peace,
order and happiness of the world, than to be governed by its
rules. Nothing is more for the interest of every man in par-
ticular. The rules of sobriety, temperance, and moderation, \
the best preservers of life, and which was perhaps more, of health.
Humility, contempt of the vanities of the world, and the J>
well employed, raises a man's mind to a freedom from the follies
and temptations that haunted the greatest part. Nothing
so generous and great as to supply the necessities of the poor,
and to forgive injuries. Nothing raised and maintained a n
reputation so much, as to be exactly just, and merciful, kind,
charitable, and compassionate. Nothing opened the powers of a
man's soul so much as a calm temper, a serene mind, free of
and disorder. Nothing made societies. lhmilie>. and

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 637

neighbourhoods so happy, as when these rules which the gospel
prescribes, took place, of doing as we would have others do to us,
and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

The Christian worship was also plain and simple ; suitable to
so pure a doctrine. The ceremonies of it were few and signi-
ficant ; as the admission to it by a washing with water, and the
memorial of our Saviour's death in bread and wine. The motives
in it to persuade to this purity, were strong. That God sees us,
and will judge us for all our actions ; that we shall be for ever
happy or miserable, as we pass our lives here. The example of
our Saviour's life, and the great expressions of his love in dying
for us, are mighty engagements to obey and imitate him. The
plain way of expression used by our Saviour and his apostles, shews
there was no artifice, where there was so much simplicity used :
there were no secrets kept only among the priests, but every
thing was open to all Christians. The rewards of holiness are
not entirely put over to another state, but good men are specially
blest with peace in their consciences, great joy in the confidence
they have of the love of God, and of seeing him for ever ; and
often a signal course of blessings follows them in their whole lives.
But if at other times calamities fell on them, these were so much
mitigated by the patience they were taught, and the inward assist-
ances with which they were furnished, that even those crosses
were converted to blessings.

I desired he would lay all these things together, and see what
he could except to them, to make him think this was a con-
trivance. Interest appears in all human contrivances. Our
Saviour plainly had none. He avoided applause ; withdrew him-
self from the offers of a crown : he submitted to poverty and
reproach, and much contradiction in his life, and to a most
ignominious and painful death. His apostles had none neither :
they did not pretend either to power or wealth ; but delivered a
doctrine that must needs condemn them, if they ever made such
use of it. They declared their commission fully, without reserves
till other times : they recorded their own weakness : some of
them wrought with their own hands; and when they received
the charities of their converts, it was not so much to supply
their own necessities, as to distribute to others. They knew they
were to suffer much for giving their testimonies to what they had
seen and heard : in which, so many, in a thing so visible as Christ's
resurrection and ascension, and the effusion of the Holy Ghost,

638 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

which he had promised, could not be deceived : and they gave
such public confirmations of it, by the wonders they themselves
wrought, that great multitudes were converted to a doctrine,
which, besides the opposition it gave to lust and passion, was
borne down and persecuted for three hundred years : and yet its
force was such, that it not only weathered out all those storms,
but even grew and spread vastly under them. Pliny, about
threescore years after, found their numbers great and their lives
innocent : and even Lucian, amidst all his raillery, gives a high
testimony to their charity and contempt of life, and the other
virtues of the Christians ; which is likewise more than once done
by malice itself, Julian the apostate.

If a man will lay all this in one balance, and compare with it
the few exceptions brought to it, he will soon find how strong
the one, and how slight the other are. Therefore it was an
improper way, to begin at some cavils about some passages in
the New Testament, or the Old, and from thence to prepo
one's mind against the whole. The right method had been first
to consider the whole matter, and from so general a view to
descend to more particular enquiries: whereas they suffered
their minds to be forestalled with prejudices, so that they never
examined the matter impartially.

To the greatest part of this he seemed to assent ; only he
excepted to the belief of mysteries in the Christian religion,
which he thought no man could do, since it is not in a man's
power to believe that which he cannot comprehend ; and of which
he can have no notion. The believing mysteries, he said, made-
way for all the jugglings of priests ; for they, getting the p<
under them in that point, set out to them what they plea
and giving it a hard name, and calling it a mystery, the pi
were tamed, and easily believed it. The restraining a man from
the use of women, except one in the way of marriage, and deny-
ing the remedy of divorce, he thought unreasonable iinjmsi
on the freedom of mankind: and the business of the cler-v. and
their maintenance, with the belief of some authority and j>
conveyed in their orders, looked, as he thought, like a pier
contrivance. "And why," said he, "must a man tell n
cannot be saved, unless I believe things against my reason, an<l
then that I must pay him for telling me of them 2"

These were all the exceptions which at any time I heard from
him to Christianity. To which I made these answers.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 639

For mysteries, it is plain there is in every thing somewhat that
is unaccountable. How animals or men are formed in their
mothers1 bellies; how seeds grow in the earth; how the soul
dwells in the body, and acts and moves it ; how we retain the
figures of so many words or things in our memories, and how we
draw them out so easily and orderly in our thoughts or dis-
courses; how sight and hearing were so quick and distinct;
how we move, and how bodies were compounded and united ;
these things, if we follow them into all the difficulties that we
may raise about them, will appear every whit as unaccountable as
any mystery of religion : and a blind or deaf man would judge
sight or hearing as incredible as any mystery may be judged by
us: for our reason is not equal to them. In the same rank,
different degrees of age or capacity raise some far above others :
so that children cannot fathom the learning, nor weak persons
the counsels of more illuminated minds : therefore it was no
wonder if we could not understand the divine essence. We
cannot imagine how two such different natures as a soul and a
body should so unite together, and be mutually affected with one
another's concerns ; and how the soul has one principle of reason,
by which it acts intellectually, and another of life, by which it
joins to the body and acts vitally; two principles so widely
differing both in their nature and operation, and yet united in
one and the same person. There might be as many hard argu-
ments brought against the possibility of these things, which yet
every one knows to be true, from speculative notions, as against
the mysteries mentioned in the Scriptures.

As that of the Trinity ; that in one essence there are three
different principles of operation, which, for want of terms fit to
express them by, we call persons, and are called in Scripture the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; and that the second of these did
unite himself in a most intimate manner with the human nature
of Jesus Christ; and that the sufferings he underwent, were
accepted of God as a sacrifice for our sins, who thereupon con-
ferred on him a power of granting eternal life to all that submit
to the terms on which he offers it ; and that the matter of which
our bodies once consisted, which may be as justly called the
bodies we laid down at our deaths, as these can be said to be
the bodies which we formerly lived in, being refined and made
more spiritual, shall be reunited to our souls, and become a fit
instrument for them in a more perfect estate : and that God

640 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

inwardly bends and moves our wills, by such impressions, as he
can make on our bodies and minds : these, which are the chief
mysteries of our religion, are neither so unreasonable, that any
other objection lies against them, but this, that they agree not
with our common notions, nor so unaccountable that somewhat
like them cannot be assigned in other things, which are believed
really to be, although the manner of them cannot be appre-
hended : so this ought not to be any just objection to the sub-
mission of our reason to what we cannot so well conceive,
provided our belief of it be well grounded. There have been too
many niceties brought indeed, rather to darken than explain
these : they have been defended by weak arguments, and illus-
trated by similies not always so very apt and pertinent : and new
subtilties have been added, which have rather perplexed than
cleared- them. All this cannot be denied; the opposition of
heretics anciently, occasioned too much curiosity among the
Fathers; which the school-men have wonderfully advanced of late
times : but if mysteries were received, rather in the simplicity in
which they are delivered in the Scriptures, than according to the
descantings of fanciful men upon them, they would not appear
much more incredible, than some of the common objects of sense
and perception. And it is a needless fear, that if some myst'
are acknowledged, which are plainly mentioned in the New T«
ment, it will then be in the power of the priests to add more at
their pleasure. For it is an absurd inference from our heinic
bound to assent to some truths about the divine essence, of
which the manner is not understood, to argue that therefore in
an object presented duly to our senses, such as bread and \vim-.
we should be bound to believe against their testimony, that it is
not what our senses perceive it to be, but the whole flesh and
blood of Christ; an entire body being in every crumb and drop
of it. It is not indeed in a man's power to believe thus against
his sense and reason, where the object is proportioned to them.
and fitly applied, and the organs are under no indisposition or
disorder. It is certain that no mystery is to be admitted, but
upon very clear and express authorities from Scripture, which
could not reasonably be understood in any other sense. And
though a man cannot form an explicit notion of a inyst«T\.
in general he may believe a thing to be, though he cannot
himself a particular account of the way of it: or rather though
he cannot answer some objections which lie against it.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. (J4-1

know we believe many such in human matters, which are more
within our reach : and it is very unreasonable to say, we may not
do it in divine things, which are much more above our appre-
hensions.

For the severe restraint of the use of women, it is hard to
deny that privilege to Jesus Christ as a law-giver, to lay such
restraints as all inferior legislators do ; who, when they find the
liberties their subjects take, prove hurtful to them, set such limits,
and make such regulations as they judge necessary and expedient.
It cannot be said but the restraint of appetite is necessary in some
instances : and if it is necessary in these, perhaps other restraints
are no less necessary, to fortify and secure them. For if it be
acknowledged that men have a property in their wives and daugh-
ters, so that to defile the one, or corrupt the other, is an unjust
and injurious thing; it is certain, that except a man carefully
governs his appetite, he will break through these restraints : and
therefore our Saviour knowing that nothing could so effectually
deliver the world from the mischief of unrestrained appetite, as
such a confinement, might very reasonably enjoin it. And in all
such cases we are to balance the inconveniences on both hands,
and where we find they are heaviest, we are to acknowledge the
equity of the law. On the one hand there is no prejudice, but
the restraint of appetite. On the other, are the mischiefs of being
given up to pleasure, of running inordinately into it, of breaking
the quiet of our own family at home, and of others abroad ; the
engaging into much passion, the doing many false and impious
things to compass what is desired, the waste of men's estates,
time, and health. Now let any man judge, whether the prejudices
on this side, are not greater than that single one of the other
side, of being denied some pleasure ?

For polygamy, it is but reasonable, since women are equally
concerned in the laws of marriage, that they should be considered
as well as men ; but in a state of polygamy they are under great
misery and jealousy, and are indeed barbarously used. Man being
also of a sociable nature, friendship and converse were among the
primitive intendments of marriage ; in which as far as the man
may excel the wife in greatness of mind, and height of knowledge,
the wife someway makes that up with her affection and tender
care : so that from both happily mixed, there arises a harmony,
which is to virtuous minds one of the greatest joys of life. But
all this is gone in a state of polygamy, which occasions perpetual

VOL. IV. T t

642 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

jarrings and jealousies : and the variety does but engage men to
a freer range of pleasure, which is not to be put in the balance
with the far greater mischiefs that must follow the other course.
So that it is plain, our Saviour considered the nature of man,
what it could bear, and what was fit for it, when he so restrained
us in these our liberties.

And for divorce, a power to break that bond would too much
encourage married persons in the little quarrellings that may rise
between them, if it were in their power to depart one from another.
For when they know that cannot be, and that they must live and
die together, it does naturally incline them to lay down their
resentments, and to endeavour to live as well together as they
can. So the law of the Gospel being a law of love, designed to
engage Christians to mutual love ; it was fit that all such provi-
sions should be made, as might advance and maintain it ; and all
such liberties be taken away, as are apt to enkindle or foment
strife. This might fall in some instances to be uneasy and hard
enough ; but laws consider what falls out most commonly, and
cannot provide for all particular cases. The best laws are in
some instances very great grievances. But the advantages being
balanced with the inconveniences, measures are to be taken
accordingly.

Upon this whole matter I said, that pleasure stood in opposi-
tion to other considerations of great weight, and so the decision
was easy. And since our Saviour offers us so great rewards, it is
but reasonable he have a privilege of loading these promises with
such conditions, as are not in themselves grateful to our natural
inclinations : for all that propose high rewards, have thereby a
right to exact difficult performances.

To this he said, we are sure the terms are difficult, but are not
so sure of the rewards.

Upon this I told him, that we have the same assurance of the
rewards, that we have of the other parts of Christian religion.
We have the promises of God made to us by Christ, confirmed
by many miracles : we have the earnest of these, in the quiet and
peace which follows a good conscience : and in the resurrection of
him from the dead, who hath promised to raise us up : — so that
the reward is sufficiently assured to us. And there is nore.i
it should be given to us, before the conditions are performed, on
which the promises are made. It is but reasonable that we should
trust God and do our duty, in hopes of that eternal life, which

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 643

God, who cannot lie, hath promised. The difficulties are not so
great, as those which sometimes the commonest concerns of life
bring upon us. The learning some trades or scienes, the govern-
ing our health and affairs, bring us often under as great straights.
So that it ought to be no just prejudice, that there are some
things in religion that are uneasy, since this is rather the effect of
our corrupt natures, which are further depraved by vicious habits,
and can hardly turn to any new course of life, without some pain ;
than of the dictates of Christianity, which are in themselves just
and reasonable, and will be easy to us when renewed, and in a
good measure restored to our primitive integrity.

As for the exceptions he had to the maintenance of the clergy,
and the authority to which they pretended ; if they stretched their
designs too far, the Gospel did plainly reprove them for it : so
that it was very suitable to that church which was so grossly
faulty this way, to take the Scriptures out of the hands of the
people, since they do so manifestly disclaim all such practices.
The priests of the true Christian religion have no secrets among
them, which the world must not know ; but are only an order
of men dedicated to God, to attend on sacred things, who
ought to be holy in a more peculiar manner, since they are to
handle the things of God. It was necessary that such persons
should have a due esteem paid them, and a fit maintenance ap-
pointed for them ; that so they might be preserved from the con-
tempt that follows poverty, and the distractions which the providing
against it might otherwise involve them in. And as in the order
of the world it was necessary for the support of magistracy and
government and for preserving its esteem, that some state be
used (though it is a happiness when great men have philosophical
minds, to despise the pageantry of it,) so the plentiful supply of
the clergy, if well used and applied by them, will certainly turn to
the advantage of religion. And if some men, either through am-
bition or covetousness, used indirect means, or servile compliances,
to aspire to such dignities, and being possessed of them, applied
their wealth either to luxury or vain pomp, or made great fortunes
out of it for their families ; these were personal failings in which
the doctrine of Christ was not concerned.

He upon that told me plainly there was nothing that gave him,
and many others, a more secret encouragement in their ill ways,
than that those who pretended to believe, lived so that they could
not be thought to be in earnest, when they said it. For he was

T t2

64-4 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

sure religion was either a mere contrivance, or the most important
thing that could be : so that if he once believed, he would set
himself in great earnest to live suitably to it. The aspirings that
he had observed at court, of some of the clergy, with the servile
ways they took to attain to preferment, and the animosities among
those of several parties, about trifles, made him often think they
suspected the things were not true, which in their sermons and
discourses they so earnestly recommended. Of this he had
gathered many instances. I knew some of them were mistakes
and calumnies ; yet I could not deny but something of them might
be too true : and I publish this the more freely, to put all that
pretend to religion, chiefly those that are dedicated to holy func-
tions, in mind of the great obligation that lies on them to live
suitably to their profession : since otherwise a great deal of the
irreligion and atheism that is among us, may too justly be charged
on them : for wicked men are delighted out of measure, when they
discover ill things in them ; and conclude from thence not only
that they are hypocrites, but that religion itself is a cheat.

But I said to him upon this head, that though no good man
could continue in the practice of any known sin, yet such might,
by the violence or surprise of temptation, to which they are
liable as much as others, be of a sudden overcome to do an ill
thing to their great grief all their life after. And then it \vn> ,1
very unjust inference, upon some few failings, to conclude that
such men do not believe themselves. But how bad soever many
are, it cannot be denied but there are also many both of the
clergy and laity, who give great and real demonstrations of the
power religion has over them ; in their contempt of the world, the
strictness of their lives, their readiness to forgive injuries, to
relieve the poor, and to do good on all occasions : and yet even
these may have their failings, either in such things wherein their
constitutions are weak, or their temptations strong and sudden :
and in all such cases we are to judge of men, rather by the course
of their lives than by the errors, that they, through infirmity or
surprise, may have slipped into.

These were the chief heads we discoursed on ; and as far as T can
remember, I have faithfully repeated the substance of our argu-
ments. I have not concealed the strongest things he said to me ;
but though I have not enlarged on all the excursions of his wit in
setting them off, yet I have given them their full strength, as In-
expressed them ; and, as far as I could recollect, have used his own

EARL OF ROCHESTER. G45

words : so that I am afraid some may censure me for setting down
these things so largely, which impious men may make an ill use
of, and gather together to encourage and defend themselves in
their vices. But if they will compare them with the answers
made to them, and the sense that so great and refined a wit had
of them afterwards, I hope they may, through the blessing of
God, be not altogether ineffectual.

The issue of all our discourses was this : — he told me, he saw
vice and impiety were as contrary to human society, as wild beasts
let loose would be ; and therefore he firmly resolved to change
the whole method of his life ; to become strictly just and true, to
be chaste and temperate, to forbear swearing and irreligious dis-
course, to worship and pray to his Maker : and that though he
was not arrived at a full persuasion of Christianity, he would
never employ his wit more to run it down, or to corrupt others.
Of which I have since a further assurance, from a person of
quality, who conversed much with him, the last year of his
life ; to whom he would often say, " that he was happy, if he did
believe ; and that he would never endeavour to draw him from it."

To all this I answered, that a virtuous life would be very un-
easy to him, unless vicious inclinations were removed : it would
otherwise be a perpetual constraint. Nor could it be effected
without an inward principle to change him : and that was only to
be had by applying himself to Grod for it in frequent and earnest
prayers : and I was sure if his mind were once cleared of these
disorders, and cured of those distempers, which vice brought on
it, so great an understanding would soon see through all those
flights of wit, that do feed atheism and irreligion ; which have a
false glittering in them, that dazzles some weak-sighted minds,
who have not capacity enough to penetrate further than the sur-
faces of things ; and so they stick in these toils, which the strength
of his mind would soon break through, if it were once freed from
those things that depressed and darkened it.

At this pass 4 he was when he went from London, about the be-

4 At this pass.'] It was probably at this time that he wrote the following
letter to the countess, now first printed from the original.

"DEERE WIFE,

" I recover so slowly and relapse so continually, that I am almost weary
of myself. If I had the least strength I would come to Adderbury but in the
condition I am, Kensington and back is a voyage I can hardly support ; I
hope you excuse my sending you no money, for till I am well enough to fetch

646 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

ginning of April 5. He had not been long in the country when he
thought he was so well, that being to go to his estate in Somer-
setshire *, he rode thither post. This heat and violent motion did
so inflame an ulcer, that was in his bladder, that it raised a very
great pain in those parts : yea he with much difficulty came
back by coach to the lodge at Woodstock Park 7. He was then

it they will not give me a farthing, and if I had not pawned my plate, I
believe I must have starved in my sickness. Well, God bless you and the
children whatever becomes of

" Your humble servant,

" ROCHESTER."

" If Mrs. Calford be gone, pray enclose this letter with the first you send."
8 Beginning of April.] 1680.

6 Estate in Somersetshire.'] Enmore, which lord Rochester possessed in
right of his wife [see p. 6 12], and upon the rents of which, as it is evident
from frequent expressions in his letters to her, they chiefly depended. In
one letter he says he reserves the revenue from Enmore for her and for her
children. Lord Rochester left one son Charles, the third earl, who died in
1681, and three daughters: 1. Anne, who married, first, Henry Bayntun of
Spye Park, and, secondly, Francis Greville, son of lord Brooke, from whom
the present earl of Warwick descends; 2. Elizabeth, married to Edward
Montagu, third earl of Sandwich [see p. 610]: 3. Malet, married to John
Vaughan, lord Lisburne, ancestor of the present earl of Lisburne. The
Vaughan family still use the names of Wilmot and Malet. Sir Edward
Bayntun Rolt, bart., who died in 1800, descended from the eldest daughter,
sold Enmore in the latter part of the last century.

7 Woodstock Park.'] Of which lord Rochester was then comptroller. The
following narrative, which will in some degree supply the deficiencies in this
part of the relation, is transcribed from the sermon which is referred to below
in the text, as having been preached at the earl's funeral, by Robert Par-
sons, M.A. chaplain to the right hon. Anne countess of Rochester:

" Upon my first visit to him (May 26, just at his return from his journey
out of the west) he most gladly received me, shewed me extraordinary respects
upon the score of mine office, thanked God who had in mercy and good pro-
vidence sent me to him who so much needed my prayers and counsels, and
acknowledged how unworthily heretofore he had treated that order of men,
reproaching them that they were proud, and prophesied only for rewards ;
but now he had learned how to value them ; that he esteemed them the
servants of the most high God, who were to shew to him the way to ever-
lasting life :

"At the same time I found him labouring under strange trouble and con-
flicts of mind, his spirit wounded, and his conscience full of terrors. Upon
his journey, he told me, he had been arguing with greater vigour against
God and religion than ever he had done in his life-time before, and that he
was resolved to run them down with all the arguments and spite in the
world ; but, like the great convert, St, Paul, he found it hard to kick against

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 647

wounded both in body and mind. He understood physic and his
own constitution and distemper so well, that he concluded he

the pricks ; for God, at that time, had so struck his heart by his immediate
hand, that presently he argued as strongly for God and virtue as before he
had done against it ; that God strangely opened his heart, creating in his
mind most awful and tremendous thoughts and ideas of the Divine Majesty,
with a delightful contemplation of the divine nature and attributes, and of
the loveliness of religion and virtue. ' I never/ said he, * was advanced thus
far towards happiness in my life before ; though, upon the commission of
some sins extraordinary, I have had some checks and warnings considerable
from within but still struggled with them, and so wore them off again. The
most observable that I remember was this : one day, at an atheistical meeting
at a person of quality's, I undertook to manage the cause, and was the prin-
cipal disputant against God and piety, and for my performances received the
applause of the whole company ; upon which my mind was terribly struck,
and I immediately replied thus to myself: — Good God ! that a man that walks
upright, that sees the wonderful works of God, and has the use of his senses and
reason, should use them to the defying of his Creator ! but, though this was a
good beginning towards my conversion, to find my conscience touched for
my sins, yet it went off again ; nay, all my life long, I had a secret value and
reverence for an honest man, and loved morality in others ; but I had formed
an odd scheme of religion to myself which would solve all that God or con-
science might force upon me ; yet I was not ever well reconciled to the busi-
ness of Christianity, nor had that reverence for the Gospel of Christ as I
ought to have.' Which estate of mind continued till the fifty-third chapter
of Isaiah was read to him, (wherein there is a lively description of the suffer-
ings of our Saviour, and the benefits thereof,) and some other portions of
Scripture ; by the power and efficacy of which word, assisted by his Holy
Spirit, God so wrought upon his heart, that he declared that the mysteries of
the passion appeared as clear and plain to him as ever any thing did that was
represented in a glass : so that that joy and admiration, which possessed his
soul upon the reading of God's word to him, was remarkable to all about
him ; and he had so much delight in his testimonies, that, in my absence, he
begged his mother and lady to read the same to him frequently, and was
unsatisfied (notwithstanding his great pain and weakness) till he had learned
the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah without book.

" At the same time, discoursing of his manner of life from his youth up,
and which all men knew was too much devoted to the service of sin, and that
the lusts of the flesh, of the eye, and the pride of life, had captivated him ; he
was very large and particular in his acknowledgments about it, more ready to
accuse himself than I or any one else can be ; publicly crying out, * O blessed
God, can such a horrid creature as I am be accepted by thee, who has denied
thy being, and contemned thy power ? ' Asking often, < Can there be mercy
and pardon for me ? Will God own such a wretch as I ?' and in the middle
of his sickness said, ' Shall the unspeakable joys of heaven be conferred on
me ? O mighty Saviour ! never, but through thine infinite love and satis-
faction ! O never, but by the purchase of thy blood ! adding, that with all

648 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

could hardly recover : for the ulcer broke, and vast quantities of
purulent matter passed with his urine. But now the hand of God

abhorrency he did reflect upon his former life ; that sincerely, and from his
heart, he did repent of all that folly and madness which he had committed.

" Indeed, he had a true and lively sense of God's great mercy to him, in
striking his hard heart, and laying his conscience open, which hitherto was
deaf to all God's calls and methods : saying, if that God who died for great
as well as less sinners, did not speedily apply his infinite merits to his poor
soul, his wound was such as no man could conceive or bear ; crying out, that
he was the vilest wretch and dog that the sun shined upon or the earth bore ;
that he now saw his error, in not living up to that reason which God endued
him with, and which he unworthily vilified and contemned ; wished he had
been a starving leper crawling in a ditch, that he had been a link-boy or a
beggar, or for his whole life confined to a dungeon, rather than thus to have
sinned against God.

" How remarkable was his faith, in a hearty embracing and devout con-
fession of all the articles of our Christian religion, and all the divine mysteries
of the Gospel ; saying, that that absurd and foolish philosophy, which the
world so much admired, propagated by the late Mr. Hobbes and others, had
undone him and many more of the best parts in the nation ; who, without
God's great mercy to them, may never, I believe, attain to such a repentance.

" I must not omit to mention his faithful adherence to, and casting himself
entirely upon, the mercies of Jesus Christ, and the free grace of God, declared
to repenting sinners through him ; with a thankful remembrance of his life,
death, and resurrection ; begging God to strengthen his faith, and often cry-
ing out, ' Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief :'

*' His mighty love and esteem of the holy Scriptures, his resolutions to
read them frequently and meditate upon them, if God should spare him,
having already tasted the good word ; for, it having spoken to his heart, he
acknowledged all the seeming absurdities and contradictions thereof, fancied
by men of corrupt and reprobate judgments, were vanished, and the excel-
lency and beauty appeared, being come to receive the truth in the love of it :

" His extraordinary fervent devotions, in his frequent prayers of his own,
most excellent and correct ; amongst the rest, for the king, in such a manner
as became a dutiful subject and a truly grateful servant ; for the church and
nation ; for some particular relations, and then for all men ; his calling fre-
quently upon me at all hours to pray with him or read the Scriptures to him ;
and, toward the end of his sickness, he would heartily desire God to pardon
his infirmities, if he should not be so wakeful and intent through the whole
duty as he wished to be ; and that, though the flesh was weak, yet the spirit
was willing, and he hoped God would accept that :

" His continual invocation of God's grace and Holy Spirit, to sustain him,
to keep him from all evil thoughts, from all temptations and diabolical sug-
gestions, and every thing which might be prejudicial to that religious temper
of mind which God had now so happily endued him withal ; crying out, one
night especially, how terribly the tempter did assault him, by casting upon
him lewd and wicked imaginations ! ' but I thank God,' said he, ' I abhor

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 649

touched him ; and as he told me, it was not only a general dark
melancholy over his mind, such as he had formerly felt ; but a

them all ; by the power of his grace, which I am sure is sufficient for me, I
have overcome them ; it is the malice of the devil, because I am rescued from
him ; and the goodness of God, that frees me from all my spiritual enemies :'

" His great joy at his lady's conversion from Popery to the church of
England, (being, as he termed it, a faction supported only by fraud and
cruelty,) which was by her done with deliberation and mature judgment ;
the dark mists of which have for some months before been breaking away,
but now cleared by her receiving the blessed Sacrament with her dying hus-
band, at the receiving of which no man could express more joy and devotion
than he did ; and, having handled the word of life, and seen the salvation of
God, in the preparation of his mind, he was now ready to depart in peace :

" His hearty concern for the pious education of his children, wishing that
his son might never be a wit, that is, (as he himself explained it,) one of those
wretched creatures who pride themselves in abusing God and religion, denying
his being or his providence ; but that he might become an honest and reli-
gious man, which could only be the support and blessing of his family; com-
plaining what a vicious and naughty world they were brought into, and that
no fortunes or honours were comparable to the love and favour of God to
them, in whose name he blessed them, prayed for them, and committed them
to his protection :

" His strict charge to those persons, in whose custody his papers were, to
burn all his profane and lewd writings, as being only fit to promote vice and
immorality, by which he had so highly offended God, and shamed and blas-
phemed that holy religion into which he had been baptized : and all his
obscene and filthy pictures, which were so notoriously scandalous :

" His readiness to make restitution, to the utmost of his power, to all per-
sons whom he had injured ; and, for those whom he could not make a com-
pensation to, he prayed for God's and their pardons. His remarkable justice
in taking all possible care for the payment of his debts, which before he
confessed he had not so fairly and effectually done :

" His readiness to forgive all injuries done against him ; some more par-
ticularly mentioned, which were great and provoking ; nay, annexing thereto
all the assurance of a future friendship, and hoping he should be as freely
forgiven at the hand of God.

" How tender and concerned was he for his servants about him in his
extremities, (manifested by the beneficence of his will to them,) pitying their
troubles in watching with him and attending him, treating them with can-
dour and kindness, as if they had been his intimates !

" How hearty were his endeavours to be serviceable to those about him,
exhorting them to the fear and love of God, and to make a good use of
his forbearance and long-suffering to sinners, which should lead them to
repentance ! And here I must not pass by his pious and most passionate
exclamation to a gentleman of some character, who came to visit him upon
his death-bed; *O remember that you contemn God no more! he is an
avenging God, and will visit you for your sins ; he will, in mercy, I hope,

650 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

most penetrating cutting sorrow. So that though in his body he
suffered extreme pain, for some weeks, yet the agonies of his mind

touch your conscience, sooner or later, as he has done mine. You and I
have been friends and sinners together a great while, therefore I am the more
free with you. We have been all mistaken in our conceits and opinions, our
persuasions have been false and groundless ; therefore God grant you re-
pentance.' And seeing him the next day again, he said to him, * Perhaps
you were disobliged by my plainness to you yesterday ; I spake the words of
truth and soberness to you, and ' (striking his hand upon his breast, said,)
* I hope God will touch your heart.'

" Likewise his commands to me, to preach abroad, and to let all men
know (if they knew it not already) how severely God had disciplined him for
his sins by his afflicting hand; that his sufferings were most just though he
had laid ten thousand times more upon him ; how he had laid one stripe
upon another because of his grievous provocations, till he had brought him
home to himself; that, in his former visitations he had not that blessed
effect he was now sensible of. He had formerly some loose thoughts and
slight resolutions of reforming, and designed to be better, because even the
present consequences of sin were still pestering him, and were so trouble-
some and inconvenient to him : but that now he had other sentiments of
things, and acted upon other principles :

" His willingness to die, if it pleased God, resigning himself always to the
divine disposal ; but, if God should spare him yet a longer time here, he
hoped to bring glory to the name of God in the whole course of his life, and
particularly by his endeavours to convince others, and to assure them of the
danger of their condition, if they continued impenitent, and how graciously
God had dealt with him :

" His great sense of his obligations to those excellent men, the right
reverend my lord bishop of Oxford [John Fell], and Dr. Marshal, for their
charitable and frequent visits to him, and prayers with him ; and Dr. Burnet,
who came on purpose from London to see him, who were all very serviceable
to his repentance :

" His extraordinary duty and reverence to his mother, with all the grateful
respects to her imaginable, and kindness to his good lady, beyond expression,
(which may well enhance such a loss to them,) and to his children, obliging
them, with all the endearments that a good husband or a tender father could
bestow.

" To conclude these remarks, I shall only read to you his dying remon-
strance, sufficiently attested and signed by his own hand, as his truest sense,
(which I hope may be useful for that good end he designed it,) in manner
and form following :

" ' For the benefit of all those whom I may have drawn into sin by my
example and encouragement, I leave to the world this my last declaration,
which I deliver in the presence of the great God, who knows the secrets of
all hearts, and before whom I am now appearing to be judged :

" * That from the bottom of my soul, I detest and abhor the whole course
of my former wicked life; that I think I can never sufficiently admire the

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 651

sometimes swallowed up the sense of what he felt in his body.
He told me, and gave it me in charge, to tell it to one for whom
he was much concerned, that though there were nothing to come
after this life, yet all the pleasures he had ever known in sin, were

goodness of God, who has given me a true sense of my pernicious opinions
and vile practices, by which I have hitherto lived without hope and without
God in the world ; have been an open enemy to Jesus Christ, doing the
utmost despite to the Holy Spirit of Grace. And that the greatest testimony
of my charity to such is, to warn them, in the name of God, and, as they
regard the welfare of their immortal souls, no more to deny his being, or his
providence, or despise his goodness ; no more to make a mock of sin, or con-
temn the pure and excellent religion of my ever blessed Redeemer, through
whose merits alone, I, one of the greatest sinners, do yet hope for mercy and
forgiveness. Amen.

" ' J. ROCHESTER/
" ' Declared and signed
in the presence of

"'ANNE ROCHESTER.
" ' ROBERT PARSONS.
" ' June 19, 1680.'

" And now I cannot but mention, with joy and admiration, that steady
temper of mind which he enjoyed through the whole course of his sickness
and repentance ; which must proceed, not from a hurry and perturbation of
mind or body, arising from the fear of death or dread of hell only, but from
an ingenuous love to God, and an uniform regard to virtue, (suitable to that
solemn declaration of his, ' I would not commit the least sin to gain a
kingdom/) and with all possible symptoms of a lasting perseverance in it, if
God should have restored him. To which may be added, his comfortable
persuasions of God's accepting him to his mercy, saying, three or four days
before his death, ' I shall die, but oh, what unspeakable glories do I see !
what joys, beyond thought or expression, am I sensible of! I am assured of
God's mercy to me through Jesus Christ. Oh how I long to die, and be
with my Saviour ! '

"The time of his sickness and repentance was just nine weeks; in all
which time he was so much master of his reason, and had so clear an under-
standing, (saving thirty hours, about the middle of it, in which he was deli-
rious,) that he had never dictated or spoke more composed in his life : and
therefore, if any shall continue to say his piety was the eflPect of madness or
vapours, let me tell them, it is highly disingenuous, and that the assertion is
as silly as it is wicked. And, moreover, that the force of what 1 have deli-
vered may be not evaded by wicked men, who are resolved to harden their
hearts, maugre all convictions, by saying, this was done in a corner; I
appeal, for the truth thereof, to all sorts of persons who, in considerable
numbers, visited and attended him, and more particularly to those eminent
physicians who were near him, and conversant with him in the whole course
of his tedious sickness ; and who, if any, are competent judges of a phrensy
or delirium."

652 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

not worth that torture he had felt in his mind. He considered
he had not only neglected and dishonoured, but had openly defied
his Maker, and had drawn many others into the like impieties :
so that he looked on himself as one that was in great danger of
being damned. He then set himself wholly to turn to God
unfeignedly, and to do all that was possible in that little re-
mainder of his life which was before him, to redeem those great
portions of it, that he had formerly so ill employed. The minister
that attended constantly on him, was that good and worthy man
Mr. Parsons, his mother's chaplain, who hath since his death
preached according to the directions he received from him, his
funeral sermon : in which there are so many remarkable pass;i
that I shall refer my reader to them, and will repeat none of them
here, that I may not thereby lessen his desire to edify himself by
that excellent discourse, which has given so great and so general
a satisfaction to all good and judicious readers. I shall speak
cursorily of every thing, but that which I had immediately from
himself.

He was visited every week of his sickness by his diocesan, that
truly primitive prelate, the lord bishop of Oxford ; who though
he lived six miles from him, yet looked on this as so important a
piece of his pastoral care, that he went often to him ; and treated
him with that decent plainness and freedom which is so natural
to him ; and took care also that he might not on terms more easy
than safe, be at peace with himself. Dr. Marshal, the learned
and worthy rector of Lincoln college in Oxford, being the minis-
ter of the parish, was also frequently with him : and by these
helps he was so directed and supported, that he might not on the
one hand satisfy himself with too superficial a repentance, nor on
the other hand be out of measure oppressed with a sorrow with-
out hope.

As soon as I heard he was ill, but yet in such a condition that
I might write to him, I wrote a letter to the best purpose I could.
He ordered one that was then with him, to assure me it was \< ry
welcome to him : but not satisfied with that, he sent nit
answer, which, as the countess of Rochester, his mother, told in- ,
he dictated every word, and then signed it. I was once unwilling
to have published it, because of a compliment in it to my>« If. t;ir
above my merit, and not very well suiting with his condition.
But the sense he expresses in it of the change then wrought on
him hath upon second thoughts jn vailed with me to publish it.
leaving out what concerns myself.

EARL OF ROCHESTER.

Woodstock Park,
June 25, 1680, Oxfordshire.
My most honoured Dr. Burnet,

My spirits and body decay so equally together, that I shall
write you a letter as weak as I am in person. I begin to value
churchmen above all men in the world, &c. If God be yet
pleased to spare me longer in this world, I hope in your conver-
sation to be exalted to that degree of piety, that the world may
see how much I abhor what I so long loved, and how much I
glory in repentance, and in God's service. Bestow your prayers
upon me, that God would spare me (if it be his good will) to shew
a true repentance and amendment of life for the time to come :
or else if the Lord pleaseth to put an end to my worldly being
now, that he would mercifully accept of my death-bed repentance,
and perform that promise that he hath been pleased to make, that
at what time soever a sinner doth repent, he would receive him. Put
up these prayers, most dear doctor, to almighty God for your most
obedient and languishing servant,

ROCHESTER.

He told me when I saw him, that he hoped I would come to
him upon that general insinuation of the desire he had of my
company : and he was loth to write more plainly, not knowing
whether I could easily spare so much time. I told him, that on
the other hand, I looked on it as a presumption to come so far,
when he was in such excellent hands ; and though perhaps the
freedom formerly between us, might have excused it with those
to whom it was known ; yet it might have the appearance of so
much vanity, to such as were strangers to it; so that till I
received his letter, I did not think it convenient to come to him.
And then not hearing that there was any danger of a sudden
change, I delayed going to him till the 20th of July. At my
coming to his house an accident fell out not worth mentioning,
but that some have made a story of it. His servant being a
Frenchman 9, carried up my name wrong, so that he mistook it for
another, who had sent to him, that he would undertake his cure ;
and he being resolved not to meddle with him, did not care to see
him. This mistake lasted some hours, with which I was the

9 A Frenchman.'] Named Blancourt or Blancort, whose name occurs several
times in his letters.

654 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

better contented, because he was not then in such a condition,
that my being about him could have been of any use to him ; for
that night was like to have been his last. He had a convulsion
fit, and raved ; but opiates being given him, after some hours
rest, his raving left him so entirely, that it never again returned
to him.

I cannot easily express the transport he was in, when he awoke
and saw me by him. He brake out in the tenderest expressions
concerning my kindness in coming so far to see such an one, using
terms of great abhorrence concerning himself, which I forbear to
relate. He told me, as his strength served him at several
snatches, (for he was then so low, that he could not hold up dis-
course long at once,) what sense he had of his past life; what
sad apprehension for having so offended his Maker, and disho-
noured his Redeemer : what horrors he had gone through, and
how much his mind was turned to call on God, and on his cruci-
fied Saviour : so that he hoped he should obtain mercy, for he
believed he had sincerely repented ; and had now a calm in his
mind after that storm that he had been in for some weeks. He
had strong apprehensions and persuasions of his admittance to
heaven : of which he spake once not without some extraordinary
emotion. It was indeed the only time that he spake with any
great warmth to me : for his spirits were then low, and so far
spent, that though those about him told me, he had expressed
formerly great fervour in his devotions ; yet nature was so much
sunk, that these were in a great measure fallen off. But he made
me pray often with him ; and spoke of his conversion to God as
a thing now grown up in him to a settled and calm serenity.

He was very anxious to know my opinion of a death-bed
repentance. I told him, that before I gave any resolution in that,
it would be convenient that I should be acquainted more parti-
cularly with the circumstances and progress of his repentance.

Upon this he satisfied me in many particulars. He said, he
was now persuaded both of the truth of Christianity, and of the
power of inward grace, of which he gave me this strange account.
He said, Mr. Parsons, in order to his conviction, read to him
the 53d chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah, and compared that
with the history of our Saviour's passion, that he might there see
a prophecy concerning it, written many ages before it was done ;
which the Jews that blasphemed Jesus Christ still kept in their
hands as a book divinely inspired. He said to me, " that as he

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 655

heard it read, he felt an inward force upon him, which did so
enlighten his mind, and convince him, that he could resist it no
longer : for the words had an authority which did shoot like rays
or beams in his mind ; so that he was not only convinced by the
reasonings he had about it, which satisfied his understanding,
but by a power which did so effectually constrain him, that he
did ever after as firmly believe in his Saviour, as if he had seen
him in the clouds." He had made it be read so often to him,
that he had got it by heart ; and went through a great part of it
in discourse with me, with a sort of heavenly pleasure, giving me
his reflections on it. Some few I remember : Who hath, believed
our report ? (ver. 1.) Here, he said, was foretold the opposition
the Gospel was to meet with from such wretches as he was. He
hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no
beauty that we should desire him (ver. 2). On this he said, the
meanness of his appearance and person has made vain and foolish
people disparage him, because he came not in such a fool's coat
as they delight in. What he said on the other parts I do not
well remember : and indeed I was so affected with what he said
then to me, that the general transport I was under during the
whole discourse, made me less capable to remember these parti-
culars as I wish I had done.

He told me, that he had thereupon received the sacrament
with great satisfaction, and that was increased by the pleasure he
had in his lady's receiving it with him ; who had been for some
years misled in the communion of the church of Home, and he
himself had been not a little instrumental in procuring it, as he
freely acknowledged. So that it was one of the joyfullest things
that befel him in his sickness, that he had seen that mischief
removed, in which he had so great a hand ; and during his whole
sickness, he expressed so much tenderness and true kindness to
his lady, that as it easily defaced the remembrance of every thing
wherein he had been in fault formerly, so it drew from her the
most passionate care and concern for him that was possible:
which indeed deserves a higher character than is decent to give
of a person yet alive. But I shall confine my discourse to the
dead.

He told me, he had overcome all his resentments to all the
world ; so that he bore ill will to no person, nor hated any upon
personal accounts. He had given a true state of his debts, and had
ordered to pay them all, as far as his estate that was not settled

656 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

could go ; and was confident that if all that was owing to him
were paid to his executors, his creditors would be all satisfied.
He said, he found his mind now possessed with another sense of
things, than ever he had formerly. He did not repine under all
his pain ; and in one of the sharpest fits he was under while I
was with him, he said, he did willingly submit ; and looking up
to heaven, said, " God's holy will be done. I bless him for all he
does to me." He professed he was contented either to die or
live, as should please God. And though it was a foolish thing for
a man to pretend to choose, whether he would die or live, yet he
wished rather to die. He knew he could never be so well, that
life should be comfortable to him. He was confident he should
be happy if he died, but he feared if he lived he might relapse.
" And then," said he to me, " in what a condition shall I be, if I
relapse after all this? But," he said, "he trusted in the grace
and goodness of God, and was resolved to avoid all those temp-
tations, that course of life, and company, that was likely to
insnare him : and he desired to live on no other account, but that
he might by the change of his manners, some way take off the
high scandal his former behaviour had given." All these things
at several times I had from him, besides some messages which
very well became a dying penitent to some of his former friends,
and a charge to publish any thing concerning him, that might be
a mean to reclaim others ; praying God, that as his life had done
much hurt, so his death might do some good.

Having understood all these things from him, and being pres>- <1
to give him my opinion plainly about his eternal state ; I told
him that though the promises of the Gospel did all depend upon
a real change of heart and life, as the indispensable condition
upon which they were made ; and that it was scarce possible to
know certainly whether our hearts are changed, unless it appeared
in our lives ; and the repentance of most dying men, being like
the bowlings of condemned prisoners for pardon, which fl"
from no sense of their crimes, but from the horror of approaching
death ; there was little reason to encourage any to hope murh
from such sorrowing : yet certainly if the mind of a sinner, even
on a death-bed, be truly renewed and turned to God, so great is
his mercy, that he will receive him, even in that extremity.

He said, he was sure his mind was entirely turned, and though
horror had given him his first awaking, yet that was now grown
up into a settled faith and conversion.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 657

There is but one prejudice lies against all this, to defeat the
good ends of Divine Providence by it upon others, as well as on
himself; and that is, that it was a part of his disease, and that
the lowness of his spirits made such an alteration in him, that he
was not what he had formerly been : and this some have carried
so far as to say that he died mad 10. These reports are raised by
those who are unwilling that the last thoughts or words of a per-
son, every way so extraordinary, should have any effect either on
themselves or others : and it is to be feared that some may have
so far seared their consciences, and exceeded the common mea-
sures of sin and infidelity, that neither this testimony, nor one
coming from the dead, \vould signify much towards their convic-
tion. That this lord was either mad or stupid, is a thing so
notoriously untrue, that it is the greatest impudence for any that
were about him to report it ; and a very unreasonable credulity
in others to believe it. All the while I was with him, after he
had slept out the disorders of the fit he was in the first night, he
was not only without ravings, but had a clearness in his thoughts,
in his memory, in his reflections on things and persons, far beyond
what I ever saw in a person so low in his strength. He was not
able to hold out long in discourse, for his spirits failed : but once
for half an hour, and often for a quarter of an hour, after he
awakened he had a vivacity in his discourse that was extraordi-
nary and in all things like himself. He called often for his chil-
dren, his son, the now earl of Rochester *, and his three daughters,

10 Died mad.'] See below, the third and fourth letters of the dowager
countess of Rochester.

1 His son, the now earl of Rochester.'] The two following letters to this son,
who survived his father only one year, are now first printed from the originals.

" Charles, I take it very kindly that you write to me (though seldom) and
wish heartily you would behave yourself so as that I might shew how much
I love you without being ashamed : obedience to your grandmother and
those who instruct you in good things is the way to make you happy here
and for ever: avoid idleness, scorn lying, and God will bless you, for which

I pray

" ROCHESTER."

" I hope Charles when you receive this, and know that I have sent this
gentleman to be your tutor, you will be very glad to see I take such care of
you, and be very grateful, which is best shewn in being obedient and diligent.
You are now grown big enough to be a man, if you can be wise enough ; and
the way to be truly wise is to serve God : learne your book, and observe the
instructions of your parents first, and next your tutor, to whom I have en-
tirely resigned you for this seven yeare; and according as you employ that

VOL. IV. U U

658 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

and spake to them with a sense and feeling that cannot be ex-
pressed in writing. He called me once to look on them all, and
said, " See how good God has been to me, in giving me so many
blessings ; and I have carried myself to him like an ungracious
and unthankful dog." He once talked a great deal to me of
public affairs and of many persons and things, with the same
clearness of thought and expression, that he had ever done before.
So that by no sign, but his weakness of body, and giving over
discourse so soon, could I perceive a difference between what his
parts formerly were, and what they were then.

And that wherein the presence of his mind appeared most,
was in the total change of an ill habit grown so much upon him,
that he could hardly govern himself, when he was any \
heated, three minutes without falling into it : I mean swearing,
He had acknowledged to me the former winter, that he abhorred
it as a base and indecent thing, and had set himself much to
break it off: but he confessed that he was so overpowered by
that ill custom, that he could not speak with any warmth, with-
out repeated oaths, which upon any sort of provocation came
almost naturally from him. But in his last remorses this did so
sensibly affect him, that by a resolute and constant watchfulness
the habit of it was perfectly mastered ; so that upon the returns
of pain, which were very severe and frequent upon him, the last
day I was with him ; or upon such displeasures as people sick or
in pain are apt to take of a sudden at those about them ; on
all these occasions he never swore an oath all the while I
there.

Once he was offended with the delay of one that he thought
made not haste enough with somewhat he called for, and said in
a little heat, " that damned fellow." Soon after I told him, I
was glad to find his style so reformed, and that he had so entire!}
overcome that ill habit of swearing ; only that word of calling
any damned, which had returned upon him, was not de<
His answer was, "Oh that language of fiends, which was so
familiar to me, hangs yet about me. Sure none has deserved

time, you are to be happy or unhappy for ever; but I have so good an opinion
of you, that I am glad to think you will never deceive me. Dear cl
learn your book and be obedient, and you will see what a father I will
you. You shall want no pleasure while you are good, and that you m:i
so are my constant prayers

" For my lord Wilraot."

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 659

more to be damned than I have done." And after he had
humbly asked God pardon for it, he desired me to call the person
to him, that he might ask him forgiveness : but I told him that
was needless, for he had said it of one that did not hear it, and
so could not be offended by it.

In this disposition of mind did he continue all the while I was
with him, four days together : he was then brought so low that
all hope of recovery was gone. Much purulent matter came
from him with his urine, which he passed always with some pain,
but one day with inexpressible torment : yet he bore it decently,
without breaking out into repinings, or impatient complaints.
He imagined he had a stone in his passage, but it being searched,
none was found. The whole substance of his body was drained
by the ulcer, and nothing was left but skin and bone, and by
lying much on his back, the parts there began to mortify. But
he had been formerly so low, that he seemed as much past all
hopes of life as now ; which made him one morning, after a full
and sweet night's rest, procured by laudanum, given him without
his knowledge, to fancy it was an effort of nature, and to begin
to entertain some hopes of recovery : for he said, he felt himself
perfectly well, and that he had nothing ailing him, but an extreme
weakness, which might go off in time : and then he entertained
me with the scheme he had laid down for the rest of his life, how
retired, how strict, and how studious he intended to be. But
this was soon over, for he quickly felt that it was only the effect
of a good sleep, and that he was still in a very desperate state.

I thought to have left him on Friday, but not without some
passion, he desired me to stay that day. There appeared no
symptom of present death ; and a worthy physician then with
him, told me, that though he was so low that an accident might
carry him away on a sudden ; yet without that, he thought he
might live yet some weeks. So on Saturday, at four o'clock in
the morning, I left him, being the 24th of July. But I durst
not take leave of him ; for he had expressed so great an unwil-
lingness to part with me the day before, that if I had not
presently yielded to one day's stay, it was likely to have given
him some trouble ; therefore I thought it better to leave him
without any formality. Some hours after he asked for me, and
when it was told him, I was gone, he seemed to be troubled, and
said, " Has my friend left me ? then I shall die shortly." After
that he spake but once or twice till he died. He lay much silent :

u u 2

660 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

once they heard him praying very devoutly. And on Monday,
about two o^clock in the morning, he died, without any convulsion,
or so much as a groan. (July 26, 1680.)

THUS he lived, and thus he died, in the three and thirtieth
year of his age. Nature had fitted him for great things, and his
knowledge and observation qualified him to have been one of the
most extraordinary men, not only of his nation, but of the age
he lived in : and I do verily believe, that if God had thought n't
to have continued him longer in the world, he had been the
wonder and delight of all that knew him. But the infinitely
wise God knew better what was fit for him, and what the age
deserved. For men who have so cast off all sense of God and
religion, deserve not so signal a blessing, as the example and
conviction which the rest of his life might have given them.
And I am apt to think that the divine goodness took pity on
him ; and seeing the sincerity of his repentance, would try and
venture him no more in circumstances of temptation, perhaps too
hard for human frailty. Now he is at rest ; and I am very
confident enjoys the fruits of his late, but sincere repentance.
But such as live, and still go on in their sins and impieties, and
will not be awakened neither by this, nor the other alarms that
are about their ears, are, it seems, given up by God to a judicial
hardness and impenitency.

Here is a public instance of one who lived of their sidi\
but could not die of it. And though none of all our libertines
understood better than he, the secret mysteries of sin ; had more
studied every thing that could support a man in it ; and had
more resisted all external means of conviction than he had d<
yet when the hand of God inwardly touched him, he could no
longer kick against those pricks, but humbled himself under
mighty hand ; and as he used often to say in his prayers, he
had so often denied him found then no other shelter but his nu /
and compassions.

I have written this account with all the tenderness and caution
I could use; and in whatsoever I may have failed, I hav
strict in the truth of what I have related, remembering tli,
Job, will ye lie for God? Religion has strength ami t \i«l
enough in itself, and needs no support from lies, and made stor
I do not pretend to have given the formal words that h« >ai<l.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 661

though I have done that where I could remember them. But I
have written this with the same sincerity, that I would have
done, had I known I had been to die immediately after I had
finished it. I did not take notes of our discourses last winter
after we parted ; so I may perhaps in the setting out of my
answers to him, have enlarged on several things both more fully
and more regularly, than I could say them in such free dis-
courses as we had. I am not so sure of all I set down as said
by me, as I am of all said by him to me. But yet the substance
of the greatest part, even of that, is the same.

It remains that I humbly and earnestly beseech all that shall
take this book in their hands, that they will consider it entirely :
and not wrest some parts to an ill intention. God, the searcher
of hearts, knows with what fidelity I have writ it. But if any
will drink up only the poison that may be in it, without taking
also the antidote here given to those ill principles ; or consider-
ing the sense that this great person had of them, when he
reflected seriously on them ; and will rather confirm themselves
in their ill ways, by the scruples and objections which I set
down, than be edified by the other parts of it ; as I will look on
it as a great infelicity, that I should have said any thing that
may strengthen them in their impieties, so the sincerity of my
intentions will, I doubt not, excuse me at His hands, to Whom I
offer up this small service.

I have now performed, in the best manner I could, what was
left on me by this noble lord, and have done with the part of an
historian. I shall in the next place say somewhat as a divine.
So extraordinary a text does almost force a sermon, though it is
plain enough itself, and speaks with so loud a voice, that those
who are not awakened by it, will perhaps consider nothing that
I can say. If our libertines will become so far sober as to
examine their former course of life, with that disengagement and
impartiality, which they must acknowledge a wise man ought to
use in things of greatest consequence, and balance the account of
what they have got by their debaucheries, with the mischiefs they
have brought on themselves and others by them, they will soon
see what a mad bargain they have made. Some diversion, mirth,
and pleasure is all they can promise themselves ; but to obtain
this, how many evils are they to suffer 2 How have many wasted
their strength, brought many diseases on their bodies, and pre-
cipitated their age in the pursuit of those things ? and as they

662 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

bring old age early on themselves, so it becomes a miserable
state of life to the greatest part of them ; gouts, stranguries, and
other infirmities, being severe reckonings for their past follies ;
not to mention the more loathsome diseases, with their no less
loathsome and troublesome cures, which they must often go
through, who deliver themselves up to forbidden pleasures.
Many are disfigured beside with the marks of their intemperance
and lewdness, and which is yet sadder, an infection is derived
oftentimes on their innocent, but unhappy issue, who being
descended from so vitiated an original, suffer for their excesses.
Their fortunes are profusely wasted, both by their neglect of
their affairs, (they being so buried in vice, that they cannot
employ either their time or spirits, so much exhausted by intem-
perance, to consider them ;) and by that prodigal expence which
their lusts put them upon. They suffer no less in their credit,
the chief mean to recover an entangled estate ; for that irregular
expence forceth them to so many mean shifts, makes them so
often false to all their promises and resolutions, that they must
needs feel how much they have lost that which a gentleman, and
men of ingenuous tempers do sometimes prefer even to life
itself, their honour and reputation. Nor do they suffer less in
the nobler powers of their minds, which, by a long course of such
dissolute practices, come to sink and degenerate so far, that not
a few, whose first blossoms gave the most promising hopes, have
so withered, as to become incapable of great and generous under-
takings, and to be disabled to every thing, but to wallow like
swine in the filth of sensuality, their spirits being dissipated, and
their minds so numbed, as to be wholly unfit for business, and
even indisposed to think.

That this dear price should be paid for a little wild mirth, or
gross and corporeal pleasure, is a thing of such unparalleled folly,
that if there were not too many such instances before us, it might
seem incredible. To all this we must add the horrors that their
ill actions raise in them, and the hard shifts they are put to to
stave off these, either by being perpetually drunk or mad, or by
an habitual disuse of thinking and reflecting on their act!
(and if these arts will not perfectly quiet them) by taking m
tuary in such atheistical principles as may at least mitigate the
sowerness of their thoughts, though they cannot absolutely .*•
their minds.

If the state of mankind and human societies are con

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 663

what mischiefs can be equal to those which follow these coin-
Such persons are a plague wherever they come ; they can neither
be trusted nor beloved, having cast off both truth and goodness,
which procure confidence and attract love. They corrupt some
by their ill practices, and do irreparable injuries to the rest ; they
run great hazards, and put themselves to much trouble, and all
this to do what is in their power to make damnation as sure to
themselves as possibly they can. What influence this has on the
whole nation is but too visible ; how the bonds of nature, wed-
lock, and all other relations, are quite broken. Virtue is thought
an antique piece of formality, and religion the effect of cowardice
or knavery. These are the men that would reform the world, by
bringing it under a new system of intellectual and moral princi-
ples ; but bate them a few bold and lewd jests, what have they
ever done, or designed to do, to make them be remembered, ex-
cept it be with detestation ? They are the scorn of the present
age, and their names must rot in the next. Here they have
before them an instance of one who was deeply corrupted with
the contagion which he first derived from others, but unhappily
heightened it much himself. He was a master indeed, and not a
bare trifler with wit, as some of these are who repeat, and that
but scurvily, what they may have heard from him or some others,
and with impudence and laughter will face the world down, as if
they were to teach it wisdom ; who, God knows, cannot follow
one thought a step further than as they have conned it ; and,
take from them their borrowed wit and their mimical humour,
and they will presently appear what they indeed are, the least and
lowest of men.

If they will, or if they can think a little, I wish they would
consider that by their own principles, they cannot be sure that
religion is only a contrivance; all they pretend to is only to
weaken some arguments that are brought for it : but they have
not brow enough to say, they can prove that their own principles
are true. So that at most they bring their cause no higher, than
that it is possible religion may not be true. But still it is possible
it may be true, and they have no shame left that will deny that it
is also probable it may be true ; and if so, then what madmen are
they who run so great a hazard for nothing ? By their own con-
fession it may be there is a God, a judgment, and a life to come ;
and if so, then he that believes these things, and lives according
to them, as he enjoys a long course of health and quiet of mind,

664 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

an innocent relish of many true pleasures, and the serenities
which virtue raises in him, with the good will and friendship
which it procures him from others ; so when he dies, if these
things prove mistakes, he does not out-live his error, nor shall it
afterwards raise trouble or disquiet in him if he then ceases to
be : but if these things be true, he shall be infinitely happy in
that state, where his present small services shall be so exces-
sively rewarded. The libertines on the other side, as they know
they must die, so the thoughts of death must be always melan-
choly to them ; they can have no pleasant view of that which
yet they know cannot be very far from them. The least painful
idea they can have of it is, that it is an extinction and ceasing to
be, but they are not sure even of that. Some secret whispers
within make them, whether they will or not, tremble at the ap-
prehensions of another state ; neither their tinsel wit, nor super-
ficial learning, nor their impotent assaults upon the weak side as
they think of religion, nor the boldest notions of impiety, will
hold them up then. Of all which I now present so lively an
instance, as perhaps history can scarce parallel.

Here were parts so exalted by nature, and improved by study,
and yet so corrupted and bebased by irreligion and vice, that he
who was made to be one of the glories of his age was become a
proverb, and if his repentance had not interposed, would have
been one of the greatest reproaches of it. He knew well the
small strength of that weak cause, and at first despised, but
afterwards abhorred it. He felt the mischiefs, and saw the mad-
ness of it ; and therefore, though he lived to the scandal of many,
he died as much to the edification of all those who saw him ;
and because they were but a small number, he desired that he
might even when dead, yet speak. He was willing nothing should
be concealed that might cast reproach on himself and on sin, and
offer up glory to God and religion. So that though he lived a
heinous sinner, yet he died a most exemplary penitent.

It would be a vain and ridiculous inference for any from hence
to draw arguments about the abstruse secrets of predestination ;
and to conclude that if they are of the number of the elect, tiny
may live as they will, and that Divine Grace will, at some tum-
or other, violently constrain them, and irresistibly work upon
them. But as St. Paul was called to that eminent service for
which he was appointed, in so stupendous a manner, as i-
warrrant for others to expect such a vocation ; so if upon some

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 665

signal occasions such conversions fall out, which, how far they
are short of miracles, I shall not determine, it is not only a vain
but a pernicious imagination, for any to go on in their ill ways,
upon a fond conceit, and expectation that the like will befal them :
for whatsoever God's extraordinary dealings with some may be,
we are sure his common way of working is by offering these
things to our rational faculties, which, by the assistances of his
grace, if we improve them all we can, shall be certainly effectual
for our reformation ; and if we neglect or abuse these, we put
ourselves beyond the common methods of God's mercy, and have
no reason to expect that wonders should be wrought for our con-
viction ; which though they sometimes happen, that they may
give an effectual alarm for the awaking of others, yet it would
destroy the whole design of religion, if men should depend upon,
or look for such an extraordinary and forcible operation of God's
grace.

And I hope that those who have had some sharp reflections on
their past life, so as to be resolved to forsake their ill courses,
will not take the least encouragement to themselves in that des-
perate and unreasonable resolution of putting off their repentance
till they can sin no longer, from the hopes I have expressed of
this lord's obtaining mercy at the last ; and from thence presume
that they also shall be received, when they turn to God on their
death-beds. For what mercy soever God may shew to such as
really were never inwardly touched before that time ; yet there is
no reason to think that those who have dealt so disingenuously
with God and their own souls, as designedly to put off their
turning to him, upon such considerations, should be then accepted
with him. They may die suddenly, or by a disease that may so
disorder their understandings, that they shall not be in any capa-
city of reflecting on their past lives. The inward conversion of
our minds is not so in our power, that it can be effected without
Divine Grace assisting. And there is no reason for those who
have neglected these assistances all their lives to expect them in
so extraordinary manner at their death. Nor can one, especially
in a sickness, that is quick and critical, be able to do those things
that are often indispensably necessary to make his repentance
complete ; and even in a longer disease, in which there are larger
opportunities for these things, yet there is great reason to doubt
of a repentance begun and kept up merely by terror, and not
from any ingenuous principle. In which, though I will not take

666 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

on me to limit the mercies of God, which are boundless ; yet this
must be confessed, that to delay repentance, with such a design,
is to put the greatest concernment we have upon the most dan-
gerous and desperate issue that is possible.

But they that will still go on in their sins, and be so partial to
them, as to use all endeavours to strengthen themselves in their
evil course, even by these very things which the providence of
God sets before them, for the casting down of these strong holds
of sin ; what is to be said to such ? it is to be feared, that if they
obstinately persist, they will by degrees come within that curse,
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : and he that is filthy, let
him be filthy still. But if our gospel is hid, it is hid to them that
are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of
them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

"FIVE LETTERS8 OF ANN, COUNTESS DOWAGEE OF ROCHESTER,
WROTE WHEN EIGHTY YEARS OLD, TO HER SISTER-IN-LAW.
LADY ST. JOHN, GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF HER SON^S BEHAVIOUR
DURING HIS SICKNESS, COPIED FROM THE ORIGINALS IN Till.
HANDS OF MRS. MEREDITH3, GRAND-DAUGHTER TO LADY BT,

LETTER I.

Sweet Sister, [June, 1680.]

It has pleased God to lay his afflictive hand upon my poor
son, in visiting of him with a sore sickness ; and whether for life

2 Five letters.] We have seen (p. 605) that Burnet's work was probably
revised by his friend Tillotson. The archbishop's biographer, Dr. Birch,
says, " The credit of the doctor's book, and the sincerity of the earl's re-
pentance, would be fully established, if they wanted any additional evidence,
by the publication of FIVE LETTERS, still extant, by his mother, Anne,
countess dowager of Rochester, and sister of sir Walter St. John of Batter-
sea, bart., to that gentleman's lady, Johanna, daughter of the lord chief
justice St. John [and grandmother of lord Bolingbroke]. These letters were
written during her son's last illness ; and show him to have been, during the
course of it, fully possessed of his understanding. One particular in them
deserves to be mentioned here ; that, when one of the earl's physicians,
thinking to please him, told him that the king drank his health some days
before, he looked earnestly upon him, and said never a word, but turnc

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 667

or death, we cannot guess : but he is reducM to great weakness,
in the outward man. But, in the midst of punishment, HE lm^
remembered mercy, and strengthened him in the inward man, to
the comfort of me, his poor mother. For never all the former
sicknesses he has had, did, in the least measure, work so much
upon him, to the knowledge and acknowledgment of God, and to
repentance of his former life, and the sense how he has gone
astray, as this doth.

I am not able to write you a long letter : I can only say this,
that, tho' he lies under as much misery, almost, as human man
can bear, yet he bears his sufferings with so much patience, and
resignation to God's will, that, I confess, I take more comfort
in him, under this visitation, than ever I did in all my life before ;
and tho' the Lord has been pleased not to work this work upon
him till the last hour, yet, I have great reason to believe, he will
find mercy, thro' the merits and satisfaction of Christ, on whom
he throws himself, for the favour of God.

0 sister, I am sure, had you heard the heavenly prayers he
has made since this sickness ; the extraordinary things he has
said, to the wonder of all that has heard him, you would wonder,
and think that God alone must teach him ; for no man could put
into him such things as he says. He has, I must tell you too,
converted his wife4 to be a protestant again. Pray, pray for his
perseverance, dear sister ; and pardon me, that I can say no
more, but to rest madam,

Your affectionate servant,

ANN ROCHESTER.

1 did not receive the letter Mr. Foot says you sent by the
post.

To the Lady St. John, at her house,
at Battersea.

face from him."— Life of Tillotson, p. 73. Dr. Birch had evidently seen and
used the transcript (headed as above) which had been made by his friend,
Dr. John Ward, professor of rhetoric in Gresham College. Dr. Ward be-
queathed his MSS., in Nov. 1757, to the British Museum, and from them
the letters are noW printed. Bishop Jebb has printed them, in his edition of
Burnet's Lives and Characters, from a transcript made by Mrs. Chapone.

3 Mrs. Meredith.'] Johanna, daughter of Thomas Cholmondeley of Vale
Royal, by Anne, daughter of sir Walter St. John. She married Amos Mere-
dith, eldest son of sir William Meredith, bart., of Ashley. Her husband
died in May, 1744, in his father's life time.

4 Converted his wife.] See p. 256.

668 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

LETTER II.

My dear Sister, [June, 1680.]

Mr. Blankort 5 did not deliver me your letter, till this Monday
morning; and just now, I am going to Adderbury', where
have not been these five weeks ; but intend to return to my soi
again in a day. The account I can give you of him, is much
my last : he continues weak ; but is sometimes better than he is
others. The greatest comfort he enjoys, is his sleep ; and that
he does much. He has a kind of a hectick fever r upon him,
the doctors call it ; which is not at all times ; for, sometimes, his
temper is good outwardly, but, the doctor says, he is hot ii
wardly ; yet I cannot think it, because he is seldom dry. He
drinks asses1 milk 7, and it digests well with him ; and soi
other spoon-meats ; but he takes no broaths made with m<
for fear of heat. He spits mightily, within these two days;
which some say is good for him : but I find all evacuations
weaken him. I confess, I cannot discern amendment in him
yet; but, as long as life is, we have hopes. I thank God,
his sense continues very well, and when his strength will give
him leave, expresses himself with great devotion, both upon
account of his former ill life, with great humility he lays
himself low, before the throne of Grace, begging favour and
pardon from God, upon the account of the merits of Christ
alone ; acknowledging himself the greatest of sinners. Truly,
sister, I think I may say, without partiality, that he has been
never heard say, when he speaks of religion, an unsensible word,
nor of any thing else ; but one night, of which I writ you word,
he was disordered in his head ; but then, he said no hurt ; only
some little ribble- rabble, which had no hurt in it. But it was
observed by his wife and I particularly that, whenever he spoke
of God that night, he spoke well and with great sense ; which
we wondered at. Since that night, he has never had a minute
of disorder in his head ; that was amost a fortnight ago.

This last night, if you had heard him pray, I am sure, you would
not have took his words for the words of a madman ; but such
as came from a better spirit than the mind of mere man. Hut
let the wicked of the world say what they please of him, the re-

5 Mr. Blankort.'] Lord Rochester's French servant, see p. 653.
8 Adderbury.] About ten miles north of Woodstock, near Banbury, where
lord Rochester's countess usually lived. See p. 607.
7 Hectick fever . . . asses' milk.'] See p. 602.

EARL OF ROCHESTER.

proaches of them are an honour to him : and I take comfort,
that the devil rages against my son ; it shows his power over him
is subdued in him, and that he has no share in him. Many
messages and compliments his old acquaintance send him : but
he is so far from receiving of them, that still his answer is, . . l Let
me see none of them, and I would to God, I had never conversed
with some of them.' One of his physicians, thinking to please
him, told him the king drank his health the other day ; he lookM
earnestly upon him, and said never a word, but turn'd his face
from him. I thank God, his thoughts are wholly taken off from
the world, and, I hope, whether he lives or dies, will ever be so.
But they are fine people at Windsor, God forgive them ! Sure
there never was so great a malice performed, as to intitle my
poor son to a lampoon8, at this time, when, for ought they know,

8 Lampoon.'] It is scarcely to be wondered at that " men of the world "
and libertines, such as Buckingham and others of lord Rochester's former
profligate tutors and companions, the " fine people at Windsor," should, in
this manner, and even at this time., try to avenge themselves for his satires
on them, aggravated as their ill feelings probably were by what they heard of
his repentance for his sins, and of his abhorrence of those who were associated
with him in them. The publication, immediately after lord Rochester's
death, of Dr. Burnet's account of his penitence, cast shame upon the sur-
vivors, who profited not by the example and the warning which it held forth.

Lord Rochester had confessed to Burnet, as we have seen, the composition
of many libels and satires, " in which he had a peculiar talent," and, before
better thoughts were, by God's grace, infused into his mind, he had attempted
to excuse and even to justify them ; but in all the plenitude of his confession
he had avowed the writing nothing worse. One very important fact towards
a due estimation of his character, is that he had scarcely printed one ; the
circulation of these satires was chiefly confined to those about the court, and
the evil was therefore in a manner circumscribed, and known only to those
who were perhaps too bad to be made worse. On his death-bed lord Rochester
gave " strict charge to those in whose custody his papers were, to burn all his
profane and lewd writings, as being only fit to promote vice and immorality,
by which he had so highly offended God, and shamed and blasphemed that
holy religion into which he had been baptized." There is no reason to think
that this request was neglected or disobeyed : on the contrary his mother is
known to have destroyed them. But if, as Burnet says, it was the case during
lord Rochester's life, " when any thing extraordinary in the way of satire came
out, as a child is fathered sometimes by its resemblance, so it was laid at his
doors as its parent and author," can we wonder that after his death his name
was made use of to cover the infamy of others, those others, once his false
friends, now his worst enemies, who were led to avenge themselves by blas-
pheming his memory ? It is certain, and we use the words advisedly, that lord
Rochester is not the author, nor to be held responsible for all, if any, of this

670 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

he lies upon his death-bed, My comfort is, that he will partake
of that joy, unspeakable and full of glory, in the highest Heavens,
that you wish him, I hope. Last night, the very expression you
have made, in your good wishes for his soul, he made to God, in
the conclusion of his prayer, last night, . . ' That he might enjoy
that unspeakable bliss, of a place in heaven, (tho1 he were but a
door-keeper fl,) to sing to the Lord with the heavenly host.1

I do believe, if any has reported, that he should speak ridi-
culous, it has been the popish physician ; who, one day, listened
at the door, whilst my son was conversing with a divine : but my
son spoke so low that he could hear but half words ; and so he
might take it for nonsense, because he had a mind so to do.
But, I thank (rod, my son lays hold on the merits of his Saviour,
Jesus Christ, for all his comfort from God : in whose arms, I

kind that may have been published as his after his death. This is capable of
proof. Yet how unfairly has he been treated, and upon what insufficient
grounds besides ! To a vile travesty of Burnet's work, purporting to be
inscribed to the duchess of Mazarin, one of Charles' mistresses, St. Evremond's
name has been forged. Count Anthony Hamilton's too well known romance,
wherein not one word of truth is to be found, save the mere names of the
persons mentioned in it, and written to place money in the pocket of the
worthless French coxcomb who is the subject of it, and who, at the age of
eighty, was base enough to hawk it about for sale, was not written till twenty
years after Rochester's death, nor printed till 1713, more than thirty years
after his death, and nearly half a century after the time it speaks of! The
author represents lord Rochester as the practised and guilty hero of many
adventures, placing them all before his marriage, yet he was married before he
was nineteen years old ! On this work Horace Walpole has stamped his tinsel
approbation, which has been received by the blind herd of common readers ;
and he has also given, as far as he could, currency to a belief in the forgeries
to which we have alluded, by calling lord Rochester "a man whom the M
were fond to inspire, but ashamed to avow." Yet lord Rochester wrote
scarcely any thing worse than did Horace Walpole himself, whose friends un-
asked did for him, what Rochester requested might be done with penitence
and tears. Dr. Johnson appears to have partly believed the charge, and he
has thereupon condemned lord Rochester; but, however unjust in this respect
he may inadvertently have been, he has done good service by the strong, yet
judicious praise which he has given to Burnet's work — praise which has
caused it to be read by thousands, it is to be hoped, with benefit, who might
otherwise have been deterred by the very name of Rochester. It is a very sig-
nificant fact, that during the last hundred years no peer of England has borne
or taken the title of Rochester; Rochester is the only city in England of
which that can be said.

9 A door-keeper.'] Ps. Ixxiv. 10.

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 671

trust, he will be receiv'd, whene'ere he goes out of this world ;
which is the greatest comfort she has, who is

Madam,
Your affectionate Sister,

ANN ROCHESTER.

My daughter Eo. and my son, remember their service to you
and my brother, to whom I present my affections.

For the lady St. John's at sir Walter St John's
house at Battersay, These.

LETTER III.

June 19. [1680.]

I must, dear sister, give you an account of the first hopes of
comfort I have of my son Rochester ; who, tho' he is very weak,
yet these two days has produced strange alterations in him. He
sleeps very well, is but little feverish, his great tortures of pain
almost abated, gathers some strength, tho' but little yet. But
God is infinitely merciful, upon all accounts, both to his soul and
body. 'Tis my great hopes he will persevere in the way God has
put him in for his soul's happiness.

I cannot omit one passage lately : Mr. Fanshaw 10, his great
friend, has been here to see him ; and as he was standing by my
son's bed-side, he look'd earnestly upon him, and said, ' Fanshaw !
think of a God, let me advise you ; and repent you of your former
life, and amend your ways. Believe what I say to you ; there is
a God, and a powerful God, and he is a terrible God to unrepenting
sinners ! the time draws near, that he will come to judgment,
with great terrour to the wicked ; therefore, delay not your repent-
ance : his displeasure will thunder against you, if you do believe
me, do not defer the time. You and I have been long acquainted,
done ill together. I love the man ; and speak to him out of
conscience, for the good of his soul.' Fanshaw stood, and said
never a word to him, but stole away out of the room. When my
son saw him go, ' Is a gone ? ' says he, ' poor wretch ! I fear his

10 Mr. Fanshaw^} Most probably Charles, afterwards fourth viscount Fan-
shawe, of Ireland, of whom Pepys, in his Diary, February 23, 16G8, thus
speaks : " A fellow at court, a brother of my lord Fanshawe's, (a witty, but
rascally fellow, without a penny in his purse) that was asking him what
places there were in the navy fit for him, and Brisbane tells me in mirth, he
told him the clerke of the acts, and I wish he had it, so I were well and
quietly rid of it." He died in 1710.

672 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

heart is hardened/ After that, Fanshaw said to some in the
house, that my son should be kept out of melancholy fancies.
This was told my son again : upon which says he, 4 1 know why
he said that ; it was because I gave him my advice ; but I could
say no less to him than I did, let him take it as he pleases/

Dear sister, my hope is great, and God is good, on whom I
depend for good, both for his soul and body. I believe, I have
tired you with my discourse. I have nothing more at present,
but to assure you

I am, Madam,
Your faithful friend and servant,

A. Ro.

You must not let Mr. Fanshaw know what I have told you.
Before I sealed this, I received your*s, and two waters for my son
Ro. ; he and his lady give you thanks, and present their service
to you. I thank God, my son continues, at all times, very devout,
ever since God struck him with a sense of his sins. He is very
tender and fearful, but it does not carry him to despair. He is
sensible the satisfaction of Christ is his support ; and relies wholly
upon Chrises merits, for his salvation. This day has not been so
good a day with him, as yesterday ; he has had some faint fits.

[direction torn off.]

LETTER IV.

June 26. [1 680.]

I am sure, dear sister, "'tis your desire to hear sometime how
my poor weak son does ; he gives us little hopes of his life, his
weakness increasing so much. But as his outward man decays,
I thank God, his inward increases and strengthens ; for he is
very pious, and devout, and willing to resign himself into tin-
arms of his Saviour, when God pleases to take him.

I hear Mr. Fanshaw reports * my son is mad ; but, I thank

1 Mr. Fanshaw reports."] The following statement is now first printed from
the original.

" When Wilmot, lord Rochester, lay on his deathbed, Mr. — Fanshaw
came to visit him, with an intention to stay about a week with him. Mr.
Fanshaw sitting by the bedside, perceived his lordship praying to God through
Jesus Christ, and acquainted Dr. Radcliffe (who attended my lord R. in this
illness and was then in the house) with what he had heard, and told him
that my lord was certainly delirious, for to his knowledge (he said) li-
ttered neither in God nor Jesus Christ. The doctor (who had often heard
him pray in the same manner) proposed to Mr. F. to go up to his lor< .

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 673

God, he is far from that. I confess for a night, and part of a
day, for want of rest, his head was a little disordered ; but it was
long since Mr. Fanshaw saw him. When he reprov'd him for
his sinful life, he was as well in his head, as ever he was in his
life ; and so he is now, I thank God. I am sure, if you heard
him pray, you wou'd think God had inspired him with true
wisdom indeed ; and that neither folly nor madness comes near
him. I wish that wretch Fanshaw had so great a sense of sin,
as my poor child has ; that so he might be brought to repent-
ance, before it is too late : but he is an ungrateful man to such
a friend.

Dear sister, pray for us ; and believe me to be,

Madam,
Your faithful friend & servant,

A. ROCHESTER.

My son and my daughter present their service to you ; and
we all thank you for your waters.

[The direction torn off.]

to be further satisfied touching this affair. When they came to his room, the
doctor told my lord what Mr. F. said, upon which his lordship addressed
himself to Mr. F. to this effect : * Sir, it is true you and I have been very
lewd and profane together, and then I was of the opinion you mention : but
now I am quite of another mind, and happy am I that I am so. I am very
sensible how insensible I was whilst of another opinion. Sir, you may
assure yourself that there is a Judge of future state ;' and so entered into a
very handsome discourse concerning the last judgment, future state, &c., and
concluded with a serious and pathetic exhortation to Mr. F. to enter into
another course of life, adding that he (Mr. F.) knew him to be his friend,
that he never was more so than at this time : and sir (said he), to use a scrip-
tural expression, I am not mad, but speak the words of truth and soberness.
Upon this Mr. F. trembled, and went immediately a foot to Woodstock, and
there hired a horse to Oxford, and thence took coach to London. At the
same time, Dr. Shorter (who also attended my lord in this illness) and Dr.
Radcliffe walking together in the park, and discoursing touching his lord-
ship's condition, which they agreed to be past remedy, Dr. Shorter, fetching
a very deep sigh, ' Well, I can do him no good, but he has done me a great
deal.' When Dr. Radcliffe came to reside in London, he made enquiry about
Dr. Shorter, and understood he was, before that time, a libertine in principles,
but after that professed the Roman Catholick religion. I heard Dr. Rad-
cliffe give this account at my lord Oxford's table (then speaker of the house
of commons, June 16, 1702). Present (besides Mr. Speaker) lord Wey-
mouth, Mr. Bromley of Warwickshire, Mr. William Harvey, Mr. Pendarvis,
Mr. Henry St. John, and I wrote it down immediately.

" WM. THOMAS."

VOL. IV. X X

674 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

LETTEE V.

July the 2d [1680.]

I did, dear madam, receive your's dated the 28th of June ;
full of kindness, and full of Christianity, in your good wishes and
kindness to my poor sick son ; who, I thank God, is yet alive :
but, whether it will please God to restore him again out of his
bed of sickness, none but HIMSELF knows. He is full of mercy
and good upon all accounts ; and my prayers are, that, whether
my poor son lives or dies, the Lord may be glorified in all. His
conversion is mercy enough for us : tho"* we enjoy him not in this
world, the comfortable hopes, that he will be a saint in Heaven,
is beyond my expression.

I cannot tell you that there is much sign of a recovery of my
son, tho"* his fever has left him : little heats he has still ; which,
we imagine, proceeds from his ulcer. But that as I like worst
in him, is, he gathers no strength at all ; but his flesh wastes
much, and we fear a consumption, tho"* his lungs are very good.
He sleeps much ; his head, for the most part, is very well. He
was this day taken up, and set up in a chair, for an hour ; and
was not very faint, when he went to bed. He does not care to
talk much, but when he does, speaks, for the most part, well.
His expressions are so suddenly spoken, that many of them are
lost, and cannot be taken ; yet, I believe, some of what he has
said will be remembred.

1 told my son, that I heard Mr. Fanshaw said, that he hopM
he wou'd recover, and leave those principles he now professed.
He answered, 4 Wretch ! I wish I had conversed all my life-time
with link-boys, rather than with him, and that crew ; such, I mean,
as Fanshaw is. Indeed, I wouM not live, to return to what I
was2, for all the world/ I desire the continuance of your

2 To return to what I was.'] We have a parallel to the temptations to which
Rochester was subjected from his former wicked companions, in a picture,
the scene of which is laid in humble life.

" When the clattering of their nail-shod feet was over, I went close to the
bed-side, and said, ' Richard, you must be careful about these men. I
strongly suspect that they came here, upon learning that you were so much
better, in order to tell you, that they expected soon to see you amongst them
again. Was this so ? * 'It was, sir/ he answered. * Ah ! Richard,
Richard,' I went on ; ' you will be in great danger, if you recover enough
to go abroad. Will these people attend to what I have been pressing upon
them?' ' Only, I fear, for a little while,' was his reply. 'And I fear so
too,' I said ; ' so that you must beware of them to the very utmost of

EARL OF ROCHESTER. 675

prayers, and all the good people who has been kind, in remem-
bring my son in their prayers. I told him, that you pray'd for
him heartily. He said, . . ' Pray thank my good aunt ; and
remember my service to her, and my uncle."* My daughter re-
members her service to you. Dear sister, whatever becomes of
me, through my afflictions, I am sincerely

Madam,
Your faithful friend, and affectionate servant,

A. ROCHESTER.
For the Lady St. John at Batersay.

Leave this to be sent with safety, at Mr. Dryden's 8
in Kings Street, at the sign of the pestle and
mortar, Westminster, London.

The following letter, the original of which is amongst the
Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, shows that
besides the helps mentioned by bishop Burnet, in p. 635, that the
earl acknowledged himself under special obligations to Dr.
Thomas Pierce, afterwards dean of Salisbury.

" THE EARL OF ROCHESTER TO DR. THOMAS PIERCE, OF
MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXON.

" My indisposition renders my intellectuals almost as feeble
as my person ; but, considering the candour and extream charity

power, if you wish to remain in the favour of God, and in the faith of
Christ, and in the hope of being saved. — And I must remind you of one
thing which is very terrible; that they who fall back into their former
courses, after having been once rescued from them, become ten times more
the children of the devil than before. — God grant that this may not be your
case. And now I will kneel down and pray with you :' which having done,
I rose and hastened away."

The above is from Death-bed Scenes and Pastoral Conversations, vol. i.
chap. vi. p. 228, one of the most instructive and valuable works in pastoral
theology ever written ; and which I venture to recommend strongly to my
readers, especially to the younger clergy. The work purports to be by John
Warton, D.D., but the real author is the late William Wood, B.D., student
of Christ Church, vicar of Fulham, and prebendary of Canterbury.

3 At Mr. Dryden's.~] " Erasmus Dryden, the poet's immediate younger
brother, was in trade, and resided in King-street, Westminster. He suc-
ceeded to the family title and estate, upon the death of sir John Dryden,
and died at the seat of Canons- Ashby, November 3, 1718."— Scott's Life of
Dryden, p. 25.

x x 2

676 EARL OF ROCHESTER.

your natural mildness hath always shewed me, I am assured at
once both of a favorable construction of my present lines, which
can but faintly express the sorrowful character of an humble and
afflicted mind, and also those great comforts, your inexhaustible
goodness, learning, and piety plenteously affords to the droop-
ing spirits of poor sinners ; so that I may truly say, holy man,
to you I owe what consolation I enjoy, in urging God^s mercyes
against despair ; and holding me up under the weight of those
high and mountainous sins my wicked and ungovernable life hath
heaped upon me.

" If God shall be pleased to spare me a little longer here, I
have unalterably resolved to become a new man, so as to wash
out the stains of my lewd courses with my tears, and weep over
the profane and unhallowed abominations of my former doings ;
that the world may see how I loth sin and abhor the very re-
membrance of those tainted and unclean joys, I once delighted
in ; these being, as the apostle tells us, the things whereof I am
now ashamed. Or, if it be his great pleasure now to put a period
to my days, that he will accept of my last gasp ; that the smoak
of my death-bed offering may not be unsavoury to his nostrils,
and drive me, like Cain, from before his presence. Pray for me,
dear doctor ; and all you that forget not God, pray for me fer-
vently. Take heaven by force, and lett me enter in with you, as
it were in disguise ; for I dare not appear before the dread Ma-
jesty of that Holy One I have so often offended.

" Warn all my friends and companions to a true and sincere
repentance, to-day, while it is called to-day : before the evil day
come, and they be no more. Let them know that sin is like the
angeles book in the Kevelations; it is sweet to the mouth, and
bitter in the belly. Lett them know that God will not be mockrd :
that he is an holy God, and will be served in holiness and purity ;
that he requires the whole man, and the early man. Bid them
make haste, for the night cometh when no man can work. Oh !
that they were wise, that they would consider this, and not with
me, with wretched me, delay it untill their latter end. I'r.iy.
dear sir, continually pray for your poor friend,

"ROCHESTI !-.

" Ranger's Lodge in Woodstock Park,
July, 1680."

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

Had not the danger of losing the established religion and laws animated
some of the last age with a zeal which despised all other dangers ; instead of
living under a well-constituted government, mild and regular beyond the
example of any age or kingdom, we should either have been subject to an
arbitrary and illegal dominion at home, or, which is more probable, have long
ago submitted, with all the nations round us, to those powerful enemies, who
for a century past have been attempting to enslave the world. — And what
other human blessings can be compared with that, which is the security and
preservation of them all, the liberty of laws ? What other except that, which
secures to us, more than human blessings, the liberty of religion ? AVhat
praise, and esteem, and veneration, are due to those, who obtained them for us !

DOCTOR W. S. POWELL

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following narrative is abridged from The Life of the Most
Reverend Father in God, John Tillotson, archbishop of Canterbury,
compiled from the Minutes of the Rev. Mr. Young, late dean of

Salisbury, by F. H , M.A. London, 1717. 8vo.— The editor

regrets that the memoir is not more worthy of the excellent man
whom it describes.

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

JOHN TILLOTSON was the son of Robert Tillotson, of Sowerby,
in the county of York, a clothier, by Mary the daughter of Tho-
mas Dobson, of Sowerby, gentleman, in the parish of Halifax :
he was there born either the latter end of September, or the
beginning of October, in the year one thousand six hundred and
thirty.

His first education and impressions were among those who
were then called Puritans, but of the best sort : yet even before
his mind was opened to clearer thoughts, he felt somewhat within
him, that disposed him to larger notions, and a better temper.
The books which were put into the hands of the youth of that
time, were generally heavy; he could scarce bear them, even
before he knew better things. He happily fell on Chillingworth's
book, which gave his mind the ply that it held ever after, and put
him on a true scent. He was soon freed from his first prejudices,
or rather, he was never mastered by them : yet he still stuck to
the strictness of life to which he was bred, and retained a just
value and a due tenderness for the men of that persuasion ; and
by the strength of his reason, together with the clearness of his
principles, he brought over more serious men from their scruples
to the communion of the church, and fixed more in it, than any
man I ever knew a.

After he had with a quick proficiency gone through the
grammar-schools, and arrived to an uncommon knowledge in the
learned languages, he was on April 23, 1647, admitted pensioner
of Clare-hall, in Cambridge, under the tuition of Mr. David
Clarkson. He commenced bachelor of arts at Midsummer,

[a See his Funeral Sermon.]

682 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

1650, and was elected fellow before Christmas that year. In
1654 he took the degree of master of arts, and in 1666 went out
doctor in divinity.

In the years 1661 and 2 he was curate to Dr. Hacket, vicar
of Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, as abundance of the parishioners
living there did well remember ; particularly Mr. Mott the parish-
clerk and school-master, who gave the following account of him,
viz. " That sir Thomas Dacres gave him his board, who then
lived at the great house near the church ; that he behaved him-
self there exceeding well, and did a great many good things ;
among the rest, by his mild and gentle behaviour, and persua-
sive eloquence, he prevailed with an old Oliverian soldier, who set
up for an Anabaptist preacher there, and preached in a red coat,
and was much followed in that place, to desist from that en-
croachment upon the parish minister, and the usurpation of the
priest's office, and to betake himself to some honest employ-
ment. Some years after he and Dr. Stillingfleet hired the
great house before-mentioned, and lived there together in summer-
time."

It has been confidently reported, that he never had a cure of
souls ; but in Batteley's edition of Somner's Antiquities of Can-
terbury, part 3, p. 124, it appears that he was presented by sir
Thomas Barnadiston to the rectory of Ketton, alias Keddington,
in the county of Suffolk ; his mandate of induction is there set
down verbatim, as it is entered in the register of the archdeacon
of Sudbury. He did not continue there a full year, but removed
again to London, and procured Keddington to be bestowed upon
his curate : " a benefice " (says the bishop of Sarum in his funeral
sermon) " being offered him in the country, he once intended to
have left this great scene, and gone to that retirement, where he
spent almost a year ; but he was happily recalled by that honour-
able society " ( Lincoln Vinn) "for whom he always retained just
impressions of gratitude. And though in the intervals of terms
he could have given a large part of the year to his parish, yet so
strict he was to the pastoral care in the point of residence, that
he parted with it even when his incomes here could scarce sup-
port him."

In the year 1664 he was chosen preacher to Lincoln Vinn.
where he continued some years, and was wonderfully admiml
and loved by that honourable and learned society, for his eloquent

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 683

The same year he was chosen Tuesday-lecturer of St. Law-
rence's church, in London. Here it was that he preached those
incomparable sermons, concerning the divinity and incarnation of
our blessed Saviour, in vindication of himself from the calumny
of Socinianism, with which his enemies charged him. " When
the party" (says the late learned bishop of Sarumb) "had given
credit to a most impudent calumny that was raised by the papists
against the late primate, of his being a Socinian, his book against
those errors had for some time made even the party itself ashamed
to support that any longer ; at last an ignorant and malicious
writer c was found out to maintain that charge still, which had
made too great a noise to be easily parted with. But I am
heartily glad to see justice done to the name of so great a man,
by one d who has answered that libel in so full and so convincing
a manner. He has concealed no part of their objections ; and
by setting down all those parts of the archbishop's sermons,
upon which these men have studied to fix their malice, not only
in some short periods, which malicious men have made a noise
with, but in all that went before and after, he gives so fair as well
as true a representation of that great prelate's sense, that I am
confident no ill impressions will stick with any who will be so just
as to consider the whole matter, the vindication as well as the
calumnies, with sincere and equitable minds."

The author of the Life of Mr. Thomas Firmin, who was a
grand Socinian himself, has so fully cleared the archbishop from
that imputation, and proved that he lived and died of a contrary
opinion, that I hope it will not be unacceptable to the reader to
insert the place at large. " Now also he (Mr. Firmin) grew into
intimacy with Dr. Whichcot, Dr. Worthington, Dr. Wilkins,
Mr. Tillotson. Dr. Wilkins was afterwards bishop of Chester,
Mr. Tillotson (for he was not yet made doctor) archbishop of
Canterbury : but in their dignity, and to the very last, Mr. Fir-
min had the same place and degree in their esteem and friend-
ship, that at any time formerly he had. While Dr. Tillotson
preached the Tuesday's lecture at St. Lawrence's so much fre-

[b Reflections upon a pamphlet, entitled, "Some Discourses upon Dr.
Burnet and Dr. Tillotson," &c.]

[c A book, entitled, " Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrine
of the Trinity."]

[" Dr. Williams's " Vindication of the Sermons of his grace John, arch-
bishop of Canterbury," &c.]

684 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

quented by all the divines of the town, and by a great many per-
sons of quality and distinction ; when the doctor was obliged to
be at Canterbury, where he was dean, or was out of town, either
for diversion or health, he generally left it to Mr. Firmin to pro-
vide preachers for his lecture, and Mr. Firmin never failed to
supply his place with some very eminent preacher ; so that there
never was any complaint on the account of Dr. Tillotson's ab-
sence. And this Mr. Firmin could easily do ; for now there was
hardly a divine of note (whether in London, or in the country,
that frequented London) but Mr. Firmin was come acquainted
with him. Which thing helped him much to serve the interests
of many hopeful young preachers and scholars, candidates for
lectures, schools, cures, or rectories ; for whom he would solicit
with as much affection and diligence, as other men do for their
sons, or near relations. Her late majesty (queen Mary) of most
happy memory, having heard much of Mr. Firming usefulness in
all public designs, especially those of charity ; and that he was
heterodox in the articles of the Trinity, the divinity of our
Saviour, and the satisfaction ; she spoke to archbishop Tillot-
son, and earnestly recommended it to him to set Mr. Firmin
right in those weighty and necessary points. The archbishop
answered, that he had often endeavoured it ; but Mr. Firmin
having so early and long imbibed the Socinian doctrine, was not
now capable of a contrary impression. However his grace pub-
lished his sermons (formerly preached at St. Lawrence's) concern-
ing those questions, and sent Mr. Firmin one of the first copies
from the press. Mr. Firmin, not convinced by his graced rea-
sonings, or his arguments from holy Scripture, caused a respectful
answer (although some have stretched one expression too far)
entitled, Considerations on the explications and defences of the doc-
trine of the Trinity, to be drawn up and published, himself giving
his grace a copy of it. I must not omit to do the archbishop
right against those who pretend, that the archbishop, notwith-
standing those sermons, was in his heart an Unitarian. For Mr.
Firmin himself told me, shortly after the archbishop had pub-
lished those sermons, that going to Lambeth, and the archbishop
happening to dine in private, he sent for Mr. Firmin to him, and
said to this effect, that the calumnies of the people had obliged him
to publish his sermons, some time since preached at St. Lawm ,
against the tenets of Socinus : that he had sincerely prcaclu ••
he then thought, and continued still to think of those p<>i

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 685

that however no body's false imputations should provoke him to
give ill language to persons who dissented conscientiously, and
for weighty reasons ; that he knew well this was the case *of the
Socinians, for whose learning and dexterity he should always
have a respect, as well as for their sincerity and exemplariness.
Afterwards, when Mr. Firmin gave him a copy of the Considera-
tions, after he had read it, he only said, my lord of Sarum shall
humble their writers. Nor did he afterwards at any time express
the least coldness on the account of the answer made to him,
but used Mr. Firmin as formerly, enquiring as his custom was,
how does my son Giles? so he called Mr. Firmin's son by his
second wife."

In his funeral sermon we have the following account of his
preaching this lecture. " I need not tell you," says the eloquent
preacher, " how many years, and with what labour and success
he divided himself between that society " (Lincoln's Inn) " and
this place. I am confident you have profited so much by it, that
you will remember it long ; and that you do reckon it as a great
item of the account you must all one day give, that you were so
long blessed with his ministry. The numerous assembly that this
lecture brought together, even from the remotest parts of this
wide city ; the great concourse of clergymen, who came hither to
form their minds ; the happy union that thereby the clergy of this
great body grew into, and the blessed effects this had, are things
which it is to be hoped an age will not wear out of men's minds.
Some great charity, some public service, or good design, was the
work of most of those days. Every One saw him considered as
the head of this learned and eminent body ; and he was the only
person that made no reflections on it himself. He was still so
affable and humble, so modest, and so ready to serve the youngest
and meanest in it, that such as saw all that, must needs feel the
impressions of it go deep, and stick long with him."

In 1669, he was made canon of Christ Church, in Canterbury,
and prebend of St. Paul's in 1675 : he was also preferred to the
deanery of Canterbury in 1672 ; and in 1689, he was made clerk
of the closet to king William the third ; and upon the promotion
of Dr. Stillingfleet from the deanery of St. Paul's to the bishop-
rick of Worcester, he succeeded him in the same year.

In 1 674, king Charles the second, who had an apprehension
and judgment (when he applied to business) equal to the greatest
of his predecessors, did clearly perceive it to be the sense of his

686 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

council, and the voice of his people, that he should support the
established church, with a strict hand upon the papists, and with
a moderate restraint of the dissenters, chiefly because their divi-
sion gave advantage to the other enemy. On this principle of
wisdom, his majesty commanded his own inclination, and during
the long recess of parliament, to quiet the minds of his people,
he published this declaration for enforcing a late order made in
council.

The King's Declaration.

CHARLES B.

The administration of justice, according to the settled and
known laws of our kingdom, we take to be the most reasonable
and proper method for attaining and preserving the peace and
safety both of church and state. As therefore we find it neces-
sary that the laws should be put in execution with more care and
diligence than of late they have been, so also we think it expe-
dient, that the orders we have already given for that purpose,
should be made public in such a manner that all men may find
themselves obliged to take notice of the same, and to give a due
obedience thereunto. For which reason we have thought fit to
declare, and do hereby publish and declare our royal will and
pleasure, that our order made in council on Wednesday, the
third day of this instant, February, and since printed and pub-
lished, be exactly observed by all and every person and persons to
whom it shall or may appertain : and more particularly we require
and command, that the convictions of popish recusants be every
where encouraged, quickened, and made effectual : and that all
convictions, as soon as they shall be perfected, be forthwith cer-
tified into the Exchequer, and that speedy process do issue upon
all such convictions as are or shall be certified : and that care be
taken, that no persons of quality, who shall be suspected t<> In-
popish recusants, be omitted to be presented : and that no delay
be used, nor any practice suffered, which may hinder or obstruct
the completing of such convictions as are now preparing. And
we do strictly charge and command, that no mass be said in any
part of this kingdom, the chapels of our dearest consort the
queen, and the chapels of foreign ministers, only excepted. And
to prevent all extraordinary resort to those chapels, by such wln>
are not menial servants to the queen, or to foreign minister-
declare, that every such offender shall incur the forfeiture of one

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 687

hundred marks, provided by the statute made in the twenty-third
year of queen Elizabeth, whereof one-third part shall be given to
the informer for his farther reward and encouragement. And we
require all officers and ministers of justice to cause diligent search
to be made in all other places where they shall hear or suspect
that mass is said, and to cause all offenders in this kind to be
apprehended and proceeded with according to law. And we fore-
warn all our subjects, that they presume not to send any person
to be educated abroad in any popish college or seminary ; and we
command all parents or guardians of any person or persons, now
remaining in any such college or seminary, that they cause the
said person or persons speedily to return home, as they will
answer the contrary afc their peril. Moreover, we require all
persons born in any of our dominions, and out of prison, who
have taken orders by any authority derived from the church or
see of Rome (except Mr. John Huddleston l) to depart the king-
dom before the twenty-fifth day of March next, according to the
tenor of our late proclamation; and also to depart the court
within the fourteen days appointed by our late order in council.
And we forbid all papists, or reputed papists, to come into our
palaces at Whitehall or St. James's, or into any other place
where our court shall be, contrary to our late prohibition, upon
pain of imprisonment in the Tower, if he be a peer of the realm ;
or in some other prison if he be of lesser quality. And lastly,
we appoint, that care be taken for the suppression of conventicles,
hereby declaring that all our licences were long since recalled,
and that no conventicle hath any authority, allowance, or encou-
ragement from us. And our pleasure is, that these our com-
mands be published and proclaimed in the usual manner.

Given at our court at Whitehall this 12th day of
February, in the 27th year of our reign. [1675.]

This declaration referred to an order in council made on the
third day of February, wherein the king, upon advising with
several of his bishops, agreed upon six orders and resolutions then
taken for the more effectual conviction of popish recusants, and
the suppression of conventicles : of which the last was this :
" And his majesty doth farther order and appoint, that effectual

[! Huddleston.'] A Benedictine monk, who had been instrumental to the
preservation of the king, after his defeat at Worcester.]

688 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

care be taken for the suppression of conventicles : and whereas
divers pretend licences from his majesty, and would support them-
selves by that pretence, his majesty declares, that all his licences
were long since recalled ; and that no conventicle hath any autho-
rity, allowance, or encouragement from his majesty." — The non-
conformists on this occasion thus partially expressed themselves.
His majesty called the bishops up to London, to give him advice
what was to be done for the securing of religion, &c. and they,
after divers consultations with the ministers of state, advised him
to recall his licences, and put the laws against the nonconformists
in execution ; and this was done by a declaration and proclama-
tion, declaring the licences long since void, and requiring the
execution of the laws against papists and conventicles. No sooner
was the proclamation published, but special informers were set on
work to promote the execution. A little before the licences were
recalled, Mr. Baxter openly declared in his pulpit, " that it was
not in opposition to the public churches that he kept up a meet-
ing, but to help the people in their necessity, who were many more
than the parish church could hold." Hereupon it was confidently
reported that he was conforming . Another session of par-
liament approaching, bishop Morley and bishop Ward were in
appearance very sensible of popery, and therefore very forward for
abatements, and taking in the nonconformists, and moved it to
many. At length Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Stillingfleet desired a
meeting with Dr. Manton, Dr. Bates, Mr. Pool, and Mr. Baxtn-.
in order to consider of an accommodation 2, and said they had the
encouragement of several lords, both spiritual and temporal.
Mr. Baxter at first met the two doctors alone, and they considered
and canvassed various draughts, and at length fixed on one in
which they agreed. This being communicated to the noncon-
formists, was agreeable ; but when they communicated it to the
bishops, there was an end of the treaty. A great many things
could not be obtained, upon which Mr. Baxter sent to Dr. Tillot-
son, to know whether he might have leave to speak of it, in ordrr
to the promoting concord, and to signify how far they were a<jn
that their names might be some advantage to the work, and lie-
thereupon returned him the following letter, dated April 11,
1675.

* An accommodation.] For an account of an earlier attempt of the same
kind, in the years 1667-8, see Life of Sir Matthew Hale, p. 553 of this
volume.

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 689

Sir,

I took the first opportunity after you were with us, to speak to
the bishop of Salisbury, who promised to keep the matter private,
and only to acquaint the bishop of Chichester with it in order to
a meeting; but upon some general discourse I plainly perceived
several things could not be obtained. However, he promised to
appoint a time of meeting, but I have not heard from him since.
I am unwilling my name should be used in this matter, not but
that I do most heartily desire an accommodation, and shall always
endeavour it ; but I am sure it will be a prejudice to me, and
signify nothing to the effecting of the thing, which, as circum-
stances are, cannot pass in either house without the concurrence
of a considerable part of the bishops, and the countenance of his
majesty, which at present I see little reason to expect.

I am,
Your affectionate brother and servant,

J. TILLOTSON.

The terms agreed on were much of the same nature with those
delivered the year before by Mr. Baxter to the earl of Orrery ; the
chief of which were these,

" That no covenant, promise, or oath, should be required to
ordination, institution, or induction, but the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy. The subscribing to the doctrine and sacraments
of the church of England, as expressed in the thirty-nine articles,
and a general declaration against rebellion and sedition. That
till the nonconformists could be better provided for by vacancies,
they should have liberty to be school-masters, or assistants to in-
cumbents, or to preach lectures in their churches ; either such
lectures as were already endowed with maintenance, or such as
the people should be willing to maintain ; and that in the mean
time their meeting-places that were convenient should be conti-
nued in use as chapels. That liberty be allowed for neighbours
joining together in praying to God and praising him, and repeating
sermons, in their private houses without molestation. That for
the Liturgy, &c. none be obliged to read the apocryphal lessons :
that it be enough if an incumbent once in a quarter or half year,
read the greatest part of the service for that time ; and that it be
at other times done by his curate or assistant. That lecturers be
not obliged to read the service ; or at most, that it be enough, if

VOL, iv. Y y

690 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

once in half a year they read the greatest part of what is appointed
for that time. That parents have liberty to dedicate their own
children to God in baptism, without being obliged to find god*
fathers and godmothers. That the use of the sign of the cross
be left to the minister's inclination and discretion. That ministers
be not forced to baptize a child, whose parents are denied the com-
munion of the church, unless some serious Christian undertake
for its education, according to the Christian covenant. That
none be forced to receive the sacrament while unfit or averse.
That ministers be not forced to deliver the sacrament to any
unbaptized persons ; or to such as will not own their baptismal
covenant, and publicly profess their adherence to it ; or to such
as are guilty of scandalous immoralities, till they have professed
repentance. That ministers be not forced to publish an excom-
munication, or absolution, against their consciences, upon the
decree of a lay-chancellor, &c. or harassed by attending their
courts, to bring witnesses against those to whom they have re-
fused the sacrament upon the aforesaid reasons. That it be left
to the discretion of ministers, whom they will absolve in sickness,
and to whom they will give the sacrament, and over whom they
at their interment will use those few words which import the
justification and salvation of the deceased : and that the sick and
dying have the liberty of choosing what ministers they will to
attend and assist them without restraint. That no ministers be
forced to deny the sacrament to such as think it unlawful to take
it kneeling. That the use of the surplice be left indifferent. A ml
that people who live under an ignorant or scandalous minister,
have liberty to join with those with whom they can better profit.
in any neighbouring church in the same diocese, paying the in-
cumbent his dues. That no ordained ministers be put upon
renouncing their ordination, but upon proof of their fitness for the
ministry, receive by word, or a written instrument, a legal autho-
rity to exercise their ministry in any congregation in his maj(
dominions, where they shall be lawfully called. That no excom-
municate person, as such, be imprisoned or ruined. And tliat.
after all, Christian lenity be used to all conscientious dissent
and that the tolerable be tolerated, under laws of peace and sal
Upon the whole he added, that if the sacraments were but 1< It
free to be administered, and received by none but volunteers ; and
liberty granted to ministers to preach in those churches \\h. i«
the Common Prayer was read by others: and the subsoij '

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

contained nothing that a conscientious man might need to scruple :
he thought it might take in all, even the independents as well as
presbyter ians."

Mr. Baxter gave the earl of Orrery these proposals ; but he,
after some time, returned them with bishop Morle/s strictures
and animadversions upon them, and they came to nothing.

In the year 1 680, the house of commons finding no other way
to keep popery out of the nation, than by excluding the duke of
York from the succession to the crown, they brought in a bill to
disable him. On November the llth, it passed the commons ; on
the 15th, it was carried up to the lords by the lord Russel, and
there at the second reading it was thrown out by a majority of
thirty voices, of which eight were bishops. Upon this the clergy
in and about the city of London presented an address of thanks
to the king for not agreeing to the bill of exclusion, which Dr.
Tillotson refused to sign.

In the year 1681 died the reverend and pious Mr. Gouge, of
whom Dr. Tillotson in his funeral sermon gives this excellent
character, viz. " that he was of a disposition ready to embrace
and oblige all men ; allowing others to differ from him, even in
opinions that were very dear to him ; and provided men did but
fear God, and work righteousness, he loved them heartily, how
distant soever from him in judgment about things less necessary :
in all which he is very worthy to be a pattern for men of all per-
suasions whatsoever." Mr. Gouge was a person of uncommon
piety and charity, and an indefatigable diligence in doing good.
That which gives occasion to mention him here, is, that he pro-
cured the Church Catechism, the Practice of Piety, and that best of
books, the Whole Duty of Man, besides several other pious and
useful treatises, to be translated into the Welch tongue, and great
numbers of them to be printed, and sent down to the chief towns
in Wales, to be sold at easy rates to those that were able to buy
them, and to be freely given to those that were not. But that
which was the greatest work of all, and amounted indeed to a
mighty charge, he procured a new and very fair impression of the
Bible and Liturgy of the church of England in the Welch tongue
(the former impression being dispersed, and hardly twenty of them
to be had in all London) to the number of eight thousand: one
thousand whereof were freely given to the poor, and the rest sent
to the principal cities and towns in Wales, to be sold to the rich
at very reasonable and low rates, viz. at four shillings a piece, well

Y y 2

692 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

bound and clasped ; which was much cheaper than any English
Bible was ever sold that was of so fair a print and paper. To-
wards the carrying on this charitable work, large and bountiful
contributions (chiefly by his industry and prudent application)
were obtained from charitable persons of all ranks and conditions,
from the nobility and gentry of Wales and the neighbouring
countries, and several of that quality in and about London : from
divers of the right reverend bishops, and of the clergy ; amongst
the rest, Dr. Tillotson (then dean of St. PauPs) was a great
promoter of this good and charitable undertaking, and contributed
towards it fifty pounds. And indeed it was a work of that charge,
that it was not likely to have been done any other way ; and for
which this age, and perhaps the next, will have great cause to
thank God on his behalf.

In the year 1682, he laid a farther obligation upon the public,
by giving them a volume of excellent sermons, consisting of fifteen
in number, from bishop Wilkins's papers, to which he prefixed
the following preface :

" I easily foresee, that in this censorious and inquisitive age,
two questions will be asked concerning the publishing of these
sermons, why no sooner ? or why at all ? since so many come
abroad every day, that the age is almost oppressed with them.
To the first I answer, because I was not at leisure before to
review them, and to get them transcribed out of a hand not legible
enough for the press. To the other, because though there be many
sermons, yet not many such ; whether we consider in them the
usefulness and weight of the matters treated of; or the suitable
manner of handling them, in a stile of so much clearness, and
closeness, and strength, as was fitted (as he himself was wont to
wish) to the capacity of the weakest, and the conviction of tin-
strongest ; or the solid and well poized judgment of the author
in points of difficulty; or lastly, the admirable candour and
moderation of his temper in matters of difference and dispute.

"And I purposely mention his moderation, and likewise advni-
ture to commend him for it ; notwithstanding that this virtue, so
much esteemed and magnified by wise men in all ages, hath of
late been declaimed against with so much zeal and fierceness, and
yet with that good grace and confidence, as if it were not only no
virtue, but even the sum and abridgment of all vices. I say, not-
withstanding all this, I am still of the old opinion, that modera-
tion is a virtue, and one of the peculiar ornaments and n<lvnm,

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

of the excellent constitution of our church, and must at last be
the temper of her members, especially the clergy, if ever we
seriously intend the firm establishment of this church, and do not
industriously design by cherishing heats and divisions among our-
selves, to let in popery at these breaches.

" As to the author himself, I cannot forbear, out of a generous
indignation to see the ashes of so worthy a man trampled upon,
to take notice of a very slight, arid, I think, unjust character
given of him in a late book, entituled, Historia et Antiquitates
Universitatis Oxoniensis ; whether by the author of that book, or
by some other hand, is variously reported, and I am not curious
to know. The former part of the character is chiefly made up
of invidious reflections upon his carriage, and the circumstances
of his condition in the late times ; in all which, because I did not
then know him, I leave him to be vindicated or censured by those
who were witnesses of his whole behaviour and temper in that
time. The latter part of it consists of flat and ill-favoured com-
mendations ; as, that he was philosophies et -mathematicce addictis-
simus, a great well- wilier to philosophy and the mathematics ; the
exact character of an empirick and an almanack maker, when
these two excellencies happen to be in conjunction : and then,
that to the study of divinity he added, eloquentiam in concionando
non contemnendam, an eloquence in preaching not to be despised :
which though it be but a very cold and slender commendation
both of his divinity and his eloquence, yet I must own something
of kindness in it, because there is in good earnest a sort of elo-
quence in preaching that is to be despised. To finish the kind-
ness, and that nothing might be omitted that might any ways
cast an odium upon him, as he is placed next before Mr. Hobbes,
so I cannot but observe in comparing their characters, that there
is apparently far less of envy and detraction in that of Mr.
Hobbes, than in this of the reverend bishop ; for which I can
imagine no other reason but this, that Mr. Hobbes was then
alive to speak for himself, but the dead bite not.

" Upon the whole, it hath often been no small matter of won-
der to me, whence it should come to pass that so great a man,
and so great a lover of mankind, who had the inclination, the
skill, and the opportunity to oblige so very many, and was so
highly valued and reverenced by all that knew him ; should yet
have the hard fate to fall under the heavy displeasure and censure
of those who knew him not : and that he who never did any

694 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

thing to make himself one personal enemy, should have the ill
fortune to have so many. I think I may truly say, that there
are or have been, very few in this age or nation, so well known,
and so greatly esteemed and favoured, first by a judicious prince,
and then by so many persons of high rank and quality and of
singular worth and eminency in all the learned professions, as
our author was.

" And this surely cannot be denied him, it is so well known
to many worthy persons yet living, and hath been so often ac-
knowledged even by his enemies, that in the late times of con-
fusion, almost all that was preserved and kept up of ingenuity
and learning, of good order and government in the university of
Oxford, was chiefly owing to his prudent conduct and encourage-
ment. Which consideration alone, had there been no other,
might have prevailed with some there to have treated his memory
with at least common kindness and respect. Not to do this to
the dead, and in a character of him that was intended to live to
posterity, seems very hard ; and yet I shall only make this soft
reflection upon it, that there is no readier way for any man to
bring his own worth into question, than by endeavouring to de-
tract from the universally acknowledged worth of other men.

" Having said this out of justice as well as friendship to the
author, and by way of necessary vindication of him, from the
envy endeavoured to be raised against him by some in this pre-
sent age, I leave these discourses of his to justify themselves and
him to posterity.

"J. TILLOTSON."

In 1 683, my lord Russel was beheaded for treason, as was pre-
tended ; but in reality, for his vigorous opposition to popery and
arbitrary government. During his imprisonment, he was fre-
quently visited by those two learned divines, Dr. Burnet late
bishop of Sarum, and our most excellent primate. When that
lord was under condemnation, he writ him the following lc
which will fairly clear him from a false representation made of
him as no friend to that doctrine of the church of England, pas-
sive obedience.

" My Lord,

" I was heartily glad to see your lordship this morning in that
calm and devout temper at the receiving the blessed sacrain*

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

but peace of mind, unless it be well grounded, will avail little :
and because transient discourse many times hath little effect for
want of time to weigh and consider it : therefore in tender com-
passion of your lordship's case, and from all the good-will that
one man can bear to another, I do humbly offer to your lordship's
deliberate thoughts these following considerations concerning the
points of resistance, if our religion and rights should be invaded,
as your lordship puts the case ; concerning which I understand
by Dr. Burnet that your lordship had once received satisfaction,
and am sorry to find a change.

" First, that the Christian religion doth plainly forbid the
resistance of authority.

" Secondly, that though our religion be established by law
(which your lordship urges as a difference between our case and
that of the primitive Christians) yet in the same law which esta-
blishes our religion it is declared, that it is not lawful upon any
pretence whatsoever to take up arms, &c. Besides that, there is a
particular law declaring the power of the militia to be solely in
the king. And that ties the hands of subjects, though the law of
nature, and the general rules of Scripture had left us at liberty ;
which I believe they do not ; because the government and peace
of human society could not well subsist upon those terms.

" Thirdly, your lordship's opinion is contrary to the declared
doctrine of all protestant churches ; and though some particular
persons have taught otherwise, yet they have been contradicted
herein, and condemned for it by the generality of protestants.
And I beg your lordship to consider, how it will agree with an
avowed asserting of the protestant religion, to go contrary to the
general doctrine of protestants.

" My end in this is to convince your lordship, that you are in
a very great and dangerous mistake ; and being so convinced,
that which before was a sin of ignorance, will appear of a much
more heinous nature, as in truth it is, and call for a very particu-
lar and deep repentance ; which if your lordship sincerely exercise
upon the sight of your error, by a penitent acknowledgement of it
to God and men, you will not only obtain forgiveness of God, but
prevent a mighty scandal to the reformed religion. I am very
loth to give your lordship any disquiet in the distress you are in,
which I commiserate from my heart, but am much more con-
cerned that you do not leave the world in a delusion and false
peace, to the hindrance of your eternal happiness. I heartily

696 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

pray for you, and beseech your lordship to believe that I am \vith
the greatest sincerity and compassion in the world,

My lord,
Your lordship's most faithful

and afflicted servant,
"July 20, 1683. " J. TILLOTSON."

And in his last prayer with his lordship on the scaffold, he thus
concludes, " Grant, Lord, that all we who survive, by this and
other instances of thy providence, may learn our duty to God and
the king." What could a man have said more in behalf of any
doctrine of the church of England ? And though he did comply
with the revolution, yet it is most certain that he never changed
his opinion in this point, although his enemies charge him with
" e apostacy from his once avowed principle and doctrine of the
church of England, the once venerable doctrine of non-resistance
and passive obedience: in which our church hath taught her
children how they should behave themselves towards men, and
approve themselves towards God, if she and they should come to
be persecuted for the trial of their faith, as the purest churches
and best Christians have been in former ages."

I cannot make a better reply to this accusation, than in the
words of the late learned bishop of Sarum, in his answer to the
foresaid pamphlet, which does undeniably prove that here was no
change of principles, nor departing from former opinions.

"As I have" (says his lordship) "expressly and publicly
owned a reserve for resistance in case of a total subversion ; so
I must add, that to my knowledge, other divines still understood
that doctrine of non-resistance with this reserve ; though tlu-y
did not think it necessary to mention it. If a man were to
exhort married persons to their duty, he might use that gem-nil
expression of St. Paul, that the husband is the head of t/te
even as Christ is the head of the church : and that as the church
is subject unto Christ, so wives ought to be subject to their own
husbands in every thing: he might say all this, without an
exception; and yet in the case of intolerable cruelty, the \\if-'
may see to her own preservation ; but desertion or adultery sets
her more at liberty. In the same manner, when we exhort

[« See a pamphlet, entituled, " Some Discourses upon Dr. Burnet arid
Dr. Tillotson," &c. p. 35.]

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 697

children to obey their parents in all things ; we do not suppose
the case of their parents going about to kill them, nor argue
what they may do in such a case. Extraordinary cases ought
not to be supposed, when we give the directions that belong to
the ordinary course of life ; and therefore divines might preach
submission in very large and full expressions, who yet might
believe, that a total subversion was a case of another nature,
which might warrant more violent remedies. This I am sure
was our late primate's opinion. This was that which we laid
before that great, but innocent victim, that was sacrificed to the
rage of a party, I mean the lord Russell, who was condemned for
treasonable words, though there was not one witness that swore
one word against him : it being only deposed, that treasonable
words were said in his hearing ; to which, as was sworn, he was
consenting, though no words of his were expressed, that imported
any such consent. The true case of that whole matter was
stated thus ; a visible design was carried on to bring in popery
and arbitrary government. In order to that, quo warrantors
were brought against several cities and boroughs, which would
have changed the constitution of the house of commons ; and
sheriffs unduly elected were put on the city of London, on design,
as it was believed, to pack juries. These things were thought
just grounds of resistance ; the late primate and myself were of
another opinion. We knew, or at least had reason to believe
we knew, the secret of the king's religion who then reigned ; and
did not doubt of the bad designs that were then on foot, and of
the illegal actings of that time ; yet we still thought that remote
fears and consequences, together with illegal practices, did not
justify resistance ; but that the laws both of the gospel and of
the land, did bind us in that case to submission. That lord
upon this, said, he did not see a difference between a legal
and a Turkish constitution, upon this hypothesis : and when we
told him, that a total subversion changed the case, he answered,
then it would be too late to resist, In all that affair the late
primate had the same opinion, and no other than that he had to
the last. Some particular considerations restrained him from
writing about it ; but he did not decline to explain this, as oft
as there was occasion given for it.

" Upon the whole matter, there are two questions in the point
of resistance: the one is, whether subjects may resist merely
upon the account of religion, or not, either to force a general

698 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

reformation, or to secure themselves from persecution 2 the other
is concerning the constitution of states and kingdoms ; and of
this in particular, how far they have retained or lost their
liberties ? the one is a point of divinity, the other is a point of
law and history. As to the first, I do not know one of all the
divines that have sworn to the present government, who are not
still of the same opinion that they were formerly of, and that do
not still judge resistance on the account of religion to be unlawful.
Nor does it any way reflect on them, if they should have changed
their opinion in the other point, which falls not so prop* rly
within their studies. They might have been misled by chimerical
notions of imperial and political laws ; they might have thought
that the zeal with which some had promised to stand it out
against a popish king, threatening they would tell him to his
face (at least owning that it was their duty to do it) that he
was an idolater, a bread- worshipper, a goddess-worshipper f,
with a great many other fine names, that they said they would
give him. They might, I say, have thought, that we were safe
under the conduct of men, who were so bold when there was no
danger ; but were much tamer and more cautious as the danger
came nearer them. Thus many might go into wrong notions of
our government, and think we had no liberties left us, but what
were at the discretion of our princes. It is no derogation from
the learning and studies of divines to own, that though the}
still of their former opinion in that which is theological, and that
was only incumbent on them to know ; yet in matters of law
and policy, they might have been led into mistakes. This
answers all that pompous objection, with which so much noi
made, and upon which so many ill words have been fastened*
A great many have not at all changed their opinion, even in this
second point ; and others do see that they were mistaken in tln-ir
opinion concerning our constitution, and the nature of laws and
legal security ; and the right that arises out of these, in the <
of a total subversion."

He has been also represented as no lover of the liturgy of tin-
church of England. Dr. Calamy tells the following ston
himg: "Dr. Tillotson frankly owning in a sermon, that
Dissenters had some plausible objections against the Common

[f Jovian, p. 96.]

[« Calamy's Abridgment of Mr. Baxter's History, &c. p. 22C.]

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

Prayer, archbishop Sancroft sending for him to reprimand him.
he stood to what he had asserted. The archbishop asked him
which parts of the Common Prayer he meant ; and he mentioned
the Burial Office ; upon which that archbishop owned to him
that he was so little satisfied with that office himself, that for
that very reason he had never taken a cure of souls." And
because the truth of this story has been called in question, Dr.
Calamy says, that he had it under the hand of Mr. Stancliffe,
who wrote that passage in the margin of his abridgement, and
afterwards was so kind as to send him the book for his own use.
I shall not contest the truth of this story, let it be true or false,
this worthy prelate^s zeal and affection for the church of England
will sufficiently appear by the great numbers he brought over to
her communion.

This year (1683) he published the works of the learned Dr.
Isaac Barrow, master of Trinity college, in Cambridge. And
the year following he published the works of his intimate friend,
the excellent Mr. Hezekiah Burton.

Now let us view this good man in a scene of friendship. In
the year 1687, his intimate acquaintance, Mr. Nicholas Hunt, of
Canterbury, lay dangerously ill of a cancer, and when Dr.
Tillotson was informed that he was past recovery, he sent him
the following excellent letter of consolation, to comfort and
support him under the pressure of his lingering indisposition :

"Edmonton, January 16^, 1687-8.
" Sir,

" I am sorry to understand by Mr. Janeway's letter to my
son, that your distemper grows upon you ; and that you seem to
decline so fast. I am very sensible how much easier it is to
give advice against trouble in the case of another, than to take
it in our own.

" It hath pleased God to exercise me of late with a very sore
trial, in the loss of my dear and only child, in which I do per-
fectly submit to his good pleasure, firmly believing that he always
does that which is best ; and yet, though reason be satisfied, our
passion is not so soon appeased ; and when nature has received
a wound, time must be allowed for the healing of it. Since that,
God hath thought fit to give me a nearer summons, and a closer
warning of my own mortality, in the danger of an apoplexy:
which yet, I thank God for it, hath occasioned no very melancholy

700 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

reflections ; but this perhaps is more owing to natural temper,
than philosophy and wise considerations.

" Your case, I know, is very different, who are of a temper
naturally melancholy, and under a distemper apt to increase it ;
for both which great allowances ought to be made. And yet,
methinks, both reason and religion do offer us considerations of
that solidity and strength, as may very well support our spirits
under all frailties and infirmities of the flesh ; such as these :

" That God is perfect love and goodness ; that we are not
only his creatures, but his children, and are as dear to him as to
ourselves ; that he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children
of men; and that all evils of afflictions which befal us, are
intended for the cure and prevention of greater evils of sin and
punishment ; and therefore we ought not only to submit to them
with patience, as being deserved by us, but to receive them with
thankfulness, as being designed by him to do us that good, and
to bring us to that sense of him and ourselves which nothing else
perhaps would have done : that the sufferings of this present
life are but short and light, compared with those extreme and
endless miseries which we have deserved ; and with that exceed-
ing and eternal weight of glory which we hope for in the other
world ; that if we be careful to make the best preparations for
death and eternity, whatever brings us nearer our end, brings us
nearer to our happiness ; and how rugged soever the way be, the
comfort is, that it leads us to our Father's house, where we shall
want nothing we can wish for. Now we labour under a dangerous
distemper, which threatens our life, what would we not be con-
tented to bear, in order to a perfect recovery, could we but be
assured of it 2 and should we not be willing to endure much more,
in order to happiness, and that eternal life which God that
cannot lie hath promised ? Nature, I know, is fond of life, and
apt to be still lingering after a longer continuance here ; and yet
a long life, with the usual burthens and infirmities of it, is
seldom desirable ; it is but the same things over again, or worse.
So many more nights and days, summers and winters, a rep<-ti-
tion of the same pleasures, but with less pleasure and relish
every day; a return of the same, and greater pains and trouble.
but with less strength and patience to bear them. These and
the like considerations I use to entertain myself withal, not only
with contentment but comfort; though with great inequality of
temper at several times, and with much mixture of human frail

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 701

which will always stick to us, while we are in this world. How-
ever, by these kinds of thoughts death seems more familiar to us,
and we shall be able by degrees to bring our minds close up to
it, without starting at it. The greatest tenderness I find in
myself is with regard to some near relations ; especially the dear
and constant companion of my life, which I confess doth very
sensibly touch me: but then I consider, and so, I hope, will
they also, that this separation will be but a very little while;
and that though I shall leave them in a bad world, yet under the
care and protection of a good God, who can be more and better
to them than all other relations, and will certainly be so to those
that love him, and hope in his mercy.

" I shall not need to advise you what to do, and what use to
make of this time of your visitation. I have reason to believe,
that you have been careful in the time of your health to prepare
for the evil day, and have been conversant in those books which
give the best directions to this purpose ; and have not, as too
many do, put off the great work of your life to the end of it.
And then you have nothing to do, but as well as you can, under
your present weakness and pains, to renew your repentance for
all the errors and miscarriages of your life ; and earnestly to beg
God^s pardon and forgiveness of them, for his sake who is the
propitiation for our sins : to comfort yourself in the goodness and
the promises of God, and the hopes of that happiness you are
ready to enter into ; and in the mean time to exercise faith and
patience for a little while ; and be of good courage, since you see
land ; the storm which you are in will soon be over, and then it
will be as if it had never been ; or rather the remembrance of it
will be pleasant.

" I do not use to write such long letters, but I do heartily com-
passionate your case, and should be glad if I could suggest any
thing that might help to mitigate your trouble, and make the
sharp and rugged way through which you are to pass into a better
world, a little more smooth and easy.

" I pray God to fit us both for that great change which we
must once undergo ; and if we be but in any good measure fit for
it, sooner or later, makes no great difference.

" I commend you to the Father of all mercies, and the God of
all consolation; beseeching him to increase your faith and patience,
and to stand by you in your last and great conflict ; that when
you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you may fear

702 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

no evil ; and when your heart fails, and your strength fails, you
may find him the strength of your heart, and your portion for
ever.

" Farewell, my good friend, and whilst we are here, let us pray
for one another, that we may have a joyful meeting in another
world. So I rest, sir,

" Your truly affectionate friend and servant,

" J. TILLOTSON."

Mr. Hunt received this letter with great joy, and during his
long sickness behaved himself with a truly Christian fortitude ;
shortly after, it pleased God to remove him from this painful life
to that of bliss and immortality.

The revolution found Dr. Tillotson dean of Canterbury and
residentiary of St. PauPs, both eminent stations in the church,
though inferior to his merit ; yet was the possessor humble enough
to think them too considerable for one person. However he
made the best use of them, their revenues serving only to enlarge
his capacity of doing good, and giving him an occasion to scatter
the seeds of virtue in more different soils, by which some at least
might fall upon good ground, and multiply exceedingly. One,
who knew him perhaps as well as any man, assures us, that he
neither slackened his labours, nor advanced his fortunes by his
preferments. He did not content himself with such a residence
as answered the statute ; that was barely doing his duty, and only
the avoidance of scandal, a pitch of virtue too low for one who
had so just a notion of piety, and so lively a sense of the force of
example. He gave as much of his time and labours to his cathe-
dral, as was consistent with his obligation to attendance on the
court. Neither when he was there, by the necessity of his duty
(for he was the king^s chaplain) did he make that use of a court
soil as is usual, but contented himself with deserving, not soliciting
greater preferments.

Tn the year 1689, it was soon discovered what interest this
great man might have made, if his temper would have allo\\r<l
him, in the court of king William and queen Mary, who wei
fond and desirous of having him near them, to advise then
well in the public, as their own private religious concerns, that
they gave him the place of clerk of the closet, on purpose to
oblige him to a more frequent resort to court. These prii
who h-il so happily preserved our endangered religion, sought <mt

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 70S

for the best means, and fittest instruments to secure and establish
it against any future relapse ; and as soon, therefore, as the civil
liberties were a little settled, the ecclesiastical came next under
their consideration. The powerful interest of the papists in the
late reign, had laid the poor nonconformists under the penalty of
several severe laws, which were accounted no small dishonour to
the protestant name. But now these being suspended by an act
of toleration, and a Christian liberty indulged to dissenters ; some
who were not contented with this favourable act alone, strove to
back it with another, which was calculated to take them all into
the bosom of the church of England. This scheme was well known
by the name of the comprehension, of which some were very fond,
and others wholly averse to it ; both parties thinking themselves
in the right, and actuated by the true spirit of Christianity, fell
into very indecent and unchristian treatment of each other ; the
common, but fatal effects of attempts in alterations of religion.
However, a bill was brought in and passed in the house of peers,
but when it came to the commons they desired his majesty to
summon a convocation, and lay the matter before them. And
here the patrons and sticklers for church power, would do well to
consider the service Dr. Tillotson did their cause upon this occa-
sion, and retract some, at least, of the severe calumnies they have
loaded his memory with, as one who was no friend to his own
order, and bent upon abridging it of its undoubted privileges.
What notice we take of the fact, as it is related by Dr. Nichols,
shall not only be historical, but, if possible, such as may wipe off
these aspersions ; such remarks having a fair connection to the
life of the person which we are relating. First, then, take the
account of Dr. Nichols h : " Whilst this bill was passing, Dr.
Tillotson, a person of excellent judgment, and then clerk of the
closet to the king, declared his opinion against it. And as he had
a great interest in the king's affections, so he made use of it in
bringing him over to his opinion in this matter. He laid before
him how frequently we had been reflected on by the papists, that
our reformation was founded chiefly upon parliamentary authority ;
that we should not give them a handle for any such objection for
the future : that the affairs of the church did chiefly belong to
synodical authority, and if they were passed by the venerable

[h Vide a Defence of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of Eng-
land. 12mo. p. 116, 17.]

704 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

members of the convocation, they would not only be more accept-
able to the body of the clergy, but would be more religiously
observed by the laity. Adding, moreover, that lest affairs of
this nature, consisting of such a multitude of particulars, might
too slowly go on in so numerous a body, the best way would be,
as had formerly been done, to commissionate several of the most
eminent of the clergy to consider of some methods how to heal
the wounds of the church, and to establish a perpetual peace
among us : what they should agree upon, to be considered over
again by the more consummate wisdom of a convocation : and
what these should consent to, should be established first by the
synodical, and afterwards by the parliamentary authority."

This was certainly very reasonable advice, and of no small
moment to the church, as it took off the objection of a parlia-
mentary religion, an objection which the papists have urged with
all their force of argument and wit. I shall not consider whether
the Eoman catholics'* way of reasoning is just, it being sufficient
to say, that they imputed it as an high scandal to the church of
England, to owe its settlement to such a hand ; and therefore the
mitigation of that scandal was wresting an arrow out of the quiver
of the enemy, or at least rendering it incapable of wounding when
it was thrown. Beside, that this prudent course which Dr. Til-
lotson advised, seemed the most probable of any to take effect, as
not irritating the spirits of men by lessening their authority on
either side, the ecclesiastical and civil powers being both pre-
served in their rights, and exercising their distinct provinces by
this method which he prescribed. How much controversy and
contention do we here see vanish into nothing ! only by putting
business in the proper channel it should flow in, which a less cool
head might have easily confounded, and got a reputation too for
doing either party so considerable a service, as engaging them in
a quarrel. But I believe I need not urge the wise management
of this worthy person any farther, as an argument of his respect
to the church, or his tender regard to her authority. Dr. < 'u-
lamyi, and sure the words of an enemy may be useful, says,
that it was a very bad piece of advice, and would insinuate to his
readers, as if the adviser himself repented it afterwards. But
till he can find a better reason for it, than his bare conject
we ought to believe, that the man who was honest enough to g

[l Vide his Abridgment of Mr. Baxter's Life, p. 446.]

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 70.-,

such good counsel, had before considered the matter so well, as to
take care that it should never give him any other uneasiness, than
what arose from its want of success.

The king, in compliance to this advice, summoned a convoca-
tion ; and issued out another commission to thirty divines to pre-
pare matters to be laid before the convocation, in this affair of the
comprehension. It may not be improper, considering the great
share Dr. Tillotson had in this business, to insert the commission
in this place, which is as follows :

" Whereas the particular forms of divine worship, and the
rites and ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being things
in their own nature indifferent and alterable, and so acknow-
ledged, it is but reasonable, that upon weighty and important
considerations, according to the various exigencies of times and
occasions, such changes and alterations should be made therein,
as to those that are in place and authority, should from time to
time seem either necessary or expedient.

" And whereas the Book of Canons is fit to be reviewed, and
made more suitable to the state of the church : and whereas
there are defects and abuses in the ecclesiastical courts and juris-
dictions ; and particularly, there is not sufficient provision made
for the removing of scandalous ministers, and for the reforming of
manners either in ministers or people ; and whereas it is most fit
that there should be a strict method prescribed for the examina-
tion of such persons as desire to be admitted into holy orders,
both as to their learning and manners.

" We therefore, out of our pious and princely care for the
good order, and edification, and unity of the church of England,
committed to our charge and care ; and for the reconciling, as
much as is possible, of all differences among our good subjects ;
and to take away all occasion of the like for the future, have
thought fit to authorize and impower you, &c. and any nine of
you, whereof three to be bishops, to meet from time to time, as
often as shall be needful, and to prepare such alterations of the
liturgy and canons, and such proposals for the reformation of
ecclesiastical courts, and to consider of such other matters as
in your judgments may most conduce to the ends above men-
tioned."

Ten of the commissioners were then bishops, viz. Dr. Lam-
VOL. iv. z z

706 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

plugh, archbishop of York, Dr. Compton, Dr. Mew, Dr. Lloyd,
Dr. Sprat, Dr. Smith, sir Jonathan Trelawny, Dr. Burnet, Dr.
Humfreys, and Dr. Stratford, who were the bishops of London,
Winchester, St. Asaph, Rochester, Carlisle, Exeter, Salisbury,
Bangor, and Chester. Twenty other dignitaries were added to
them; as Dr. Stillingfleet, Dr. Patrick, Dr. Tillotson, Dr. Mag-
got, Dr. Sharp, Dr. Kidder, Dr. Aldrich, Dr. Jane, Dr. Hall,
Dr. Beaumont, Dr. Montague, Dr. Goodman, Dr. Beveridge,
Dr. Battely, Dr. Alston, Dr. Tennison, Dr. Scott, Dr. Fowler,
Dr. Grove, and Dr. Williams.

Dr. Nichols k thus proceeds : " The reverend persons do now
forthwith apply themselves to the business which was laid before
them, and begin their work with a review of the Common-Prayer
Book. And first of all the calendar comes under examination,
from whence the apocryphal lessons are expunged, and chapters
out of the canonical books are substituted to be read in their
room. The creed, which is called AthanasiusX because it is
found fault with by some persons by reason of the damnatory
sentences, is permitted to be changed for the Apostles1 creed at
the discretion of the minister. The collects throughout the
whole course of the year are revised, most of them being made
anew, and rendered more suitable to the epistles and gospels of
the day : and this with so much elegance and purity of stile, with
so much pious force and ardour, as nothing could tend more to
excite devotion in the minds of the hearers, and to raise up their
souls to God. They were first drawn up by Dr. Simon Patrick,
who had an excellent talent this way ; Dr. Gilbert Burnet added
a further life, and force, and spirit to them; after this they
underwent the exquisite judgment of Dr. Stillingfleet ; the last
and finishing stroke being given to them by Dr. Tillotson, who
polished over whatever was left rough in the compositions, with
his smooth language and flowingness of his easy eloquence. They
likewise agreed upon a new translation of the Psalms to be read
in the daily service of the church, more agreeable to the original
than the present is; which province was assigned to Dr. Kiddrr.
a person excellently well versed in the oriental tongues. Sonic
few expressions and words, which lying scattered about tin
liturgy, are found fault with by its adversaries, were collected by
Dr. Tennison ; such clear expressions being substituted in their
stead, as were not liable to be excepted against by the n
[k Vide Nichols's Defence, p. 118, et seq.]

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 707

i

captious. There are some few other things proposed, but which
were entirely to be referred to the synod. First of all, that the
cross in baptism should be in the election of the parents either to
have it signed in the children's foreheads, or omitted. Secondly,
if any nonconformist minister should return to the church, he
was not, as the custom is now, to undergo a new ordination ; but
to be admitted into the church by a conditional ordination, like
as we are wont to do in the baptism of those persons, of whom it
is uncertain whether they are baptized or no ; the bishop's hands
being imposed on them, as was the custom among the ancients \
in receiving those clergy in the church who had been ordained
by heretics. Which was the method used by archbishop
Bramhall m, primate of Ireland, when he gave ordination to any,
who had received presbyterian orders in the times of the late
confusion.

" The convocation soon after assembled, all the clergy either
avowedly or in their minds highly approving or condemning what
had been done by the commissioners with relation to the altera-
tions. The greater part of the clergy of the convocation being
displeased with those who had declared for the alterations, were
very earnest to make Dr. Jane the regius professor of Oxford,
prolocutor of the convocation. The rest being persons of very
great esteem in the church, gave their votes for Dr. Tillotson ;
but being over-powered by numbers, their attempt in that affair
was but in vain.

" After this the king ordering the convocation to attend him,
he declares his mind to them to this purpose: he gives them
earnest assurances of his favour; and tells them how much it
was his desire, that all his subjects should live peaceably and
lovingly one with another, and unite in one manner of worship :
that to this end he had appointed commissioners to prepare, and
lay before the convocation such things as they thought fit should
be altered: that he heartily wished a good agreement among
them, and that the points in dispute might be handled with
that mild and charitable temper which becomes ministers of the
Gospel.

" But many of the convocation men had entertained an opinion

[l "Dionys. Alexand. apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 7. cap. 2. Con. Nic. 1.
Can. 8. Just, sive Author Resp. ad Orthodox. Resp. 18. Theod. Hist. Eccl.
lib. i. cap. 8."]

[m Vide Bishop Bramhall's Life, before his Works.]

z z 2

708 ARCHBISHOP TTLLOTSON.

which was never to be eradicated out of their minds, that by this
device of alterations, a design was laid to undermine the church :
that episcopacy being already abolished in Scotland, there were
now attempts made against the same in England. That they
were afraid many of the commissioners for the alterations were
embarked in the same unwarrantable project, or imposed upon by
the fallacies of designing men. That the dissenters, although
out of the church, were already very formidable enemies to it,
but if let into the church they would overturn its constitution.
That the church was sufficiently protected by the act of uni-
formity, which if once repealed, they knew not what the then
present parliament, which they thought shewed too much friend-
ship to the dissenters, might establish in lieu thereof. That they
had rather have what was present and safe, than what was future
and uncertain.

" The other party pleaded thus : that the unhappy contentions
between the nonconformists and us had too long raged : that now
both of us being tired with quarrelling, wished for peace : that
unless the convocation did offer some terms of accommodation,
the bishops would not be able to justify themselves, in making
good what they had in the late reign so religiously promised.
That it was understood by all who so highly approved their propo-
sitions, that they made this offer of reconciliation with the dis-
senters, in the name of all the members of our church, and there-
fore it would be an unworthy thing to promise that, in the time
of our adversity, which in our prosperity we should refuse to make
good. That the king being now earnestly bent upon this design.
would use all his interest to promote it; but if we should pro-
voke him by making him undergo a repulse in this attempt, he
would not so easily be brought again to comply with it, when we
ourselves should desire it : that the king had ordered nothing to
be laid before the parliament, but what should be before agn « <1
to by the convocation : that if the parliament should design any
thing unkind to the church, they might establish it by a secular
law for all that the convocation could do to hinder it. And lastly,
though the nonconformists should obstinately refuse to come into
the church upon the concessions which were made for their sakes,
yet nothing was laid before the convocation but what would ti-ud
to the greater honour of the church: that by these alteration-
the constitution of the church would be bettered, and all pret <
of separation would be taken aw.iy.

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 7<)i)

u Disputes on both sides were carried on with great eagcrn.
and at last the synod is dissolved, without concluding any tiling.
But no misfortune so sensibly afflicted the church, as this dis.sc.Mi-
tion between the clergy. For hitherto our clergy had lived with
great concord among themselves, not to be divided by any arts
of their adversaries. For in the late times, under their most
afflicted condition, when they were turned out of, or sequestered
from, their livings, by reason of their good correspondence with
one another, they bore their afflictions the more easily. And
afterwards, when their condition was bettered, no envy, which is
wont to dissolve the friendship of others, was able to interrupt
their amity : but now, when all of them, perhaps, in their several
ways, were desirous to promote the good of the church, they
unfortunately accused each other for carrying on designs for its
ruin." Thus far Dr. Nichols.

In the year 1 69 1 , after a long and patient expectation on the
side of the government, that the nonjuring bishops would comply
to take the oaths, which they at last absolutely refused, it was
resolved to deprive them, and fill up the vacant sees. Among
these, archbishop Bancroft was one, whom no overtures nor con-
descensions on the part of some great reconcilers, could bring to
acquiesce in the conduct of the Revolution, and take the oaths
to the king and queen. It is not to our purpose to examine into
the reasons of his refusal ; a great and good man he surely was,
though without any disrespect to his memory, we may say, far
inferior to his successor Dr. Tillotson. He it was who was
pitched upon in these difficult times to sit at the head, and steer
the church. His natural modesty made him earnestly at first
withstand the royal favour, though he was at last prevailed upon
to accept of it ; and certainly a fitter person in every man^s opi-
nion, but his own, could not be found. It will not be improper
to set down the words of a great historian, which give us both
the motives of his refusal, and acceptance of that high dignity.
" He withstood it not," (says the bishop of Salisbury n,) " from
any feeble or fearful considerations relating to himself: he was
not afraid of a party, nor concerned in such censures and calum-
nies as might be thrown upon him : he was not unwilling to sacri-
fice the quiet of his life, which he apprehended might soon
decline and sink under so great a load. The pomp of greatness.

[" In his Funeral Sermon.]

710 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

the attendance upon courts, and a high station, were indeed very
contrary to his genius: but though these were grounds good
enough to make him unwilling to rise higher in the world, yet
none of them seemed strong enough to fix him to an obstinate
refusal. That which went the deepest in his own mind, and
which he laid out the most earnestly before their majesties, was,
that those groundless prejudices with which his enemies had
loaded him, had been so industriously propagated, while they were
neglected by himself, that he believed that he, who (as his humi-
lity made him think) could at no time do any great service, was
less capable of it now than ever. But their majesties persisting
in their intentions, he thought it was the voice and call of God
to him, and so he submitted : yet with a heaviness of mind that
no man knew better than myself. But as he engaged in it, he
formed two settled resolutions, from which he never departed.
The one was, that whensoever the state of their majesties affairs
was such, that he could hope to be dismissed from that post, he
would become a most importunate suitor to be delivered from it.
The other was, that if the infirmities of age should have so over-
taken him that he could not go through the fatigue and labours
of it, then he would humbly offer it up to their majesties : and he
charged some of his most particular friends to use all freedom
with him in this matter, if they should observe it, before it were
perceived by himself.11 Thus the bishop of Salisbury ; and for
my own part, I think it unfair to suspect an account given from
one who had so many opportunities of a right information from a
personal knowledge, and intimate acquaintance with this great
man. This kind of holy force, if we may so call it, had been
used in the primitive times to many of the fathers ; nor was his
carriage less humble, or his conduct less glorious than theirs, in
the short scene which he acted on this stage. Consonant to this,
see that most excellent form of prayer ° which he composed on this
occasion : and the preparation thereto, for that great trust with
which he was about to be invested, take in his own words, viz.

" May 30, 1691. The day before my consecration to the arch-
bishopric, which was on Whit-Sunday, at St. Mary-le-Bow,
when, on Whit-Sunday eve I retired to Edmonton, to spend that
day in fasting and prayer, to implore the blessing of Almighty
God upon that action, and the assistance of his grace and Holy

[° See the 14th volume of his Posthumous Works, p. 204 et seq.]

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 711

Spirit to be vouchsafed to his sinful and unworthy servant, whom
his wise providence, and the importunate desire of their majes-
ties, king William and queen Mary, the best of princes, (whom
God in great mercy to a most sinful and perverse people hath by
a most signal providence set upon the throne of these kingdoms,
and sent (I trust) to be our deliverers and benefactors for many
generations yet to come) have called to the government and con-
duct of this miserably distracted church in a very difficult and
dangerous time.

" I began with a short prayer to Almighty God to prepare my
hgart for the duty of this day, and to assist me in the discharge
of it, in such a manner as might be acceptable in his sight, through
Jesus Christ my blessed Saviour and Redeemer.

" I proceeded next to a thanksgiving to Almighty God for his
mercy and goodness to me in the conduct of my whole life, from
my first entrance into the world, to this day.

" Next, I made an humble and penitent confession of my sins,

and earnest supplication for the pardon and forgiveness of them.

" Next a prayer for God's blessing upon me, and his holy Spirit

to be conferred upon me, in the solemn dedication of me the day

following to this high and holy office.

" Then I read the prayers in the consecration office. I con-
cluded with a prayer for the king and queen, and a short ejacu-
lation."

This his behaviour, was, I think, truly primitive, and a sure
presage of that peace and tranquillity the church would enjoy
under so good a pastor. But no sooner was he possessed of this
eminent station, than that restless party who had opposed all his
former kind offices relating to the comprehension, began to mur-
mur, and express their resentments at his promotion ; but such
men gave him no uneasiness. " He being " (says Dr. Nichols p)
" a man of an extraordinary piety, and a great lover of peace ;
and for fear that any reflection should be cast upon our religion,
upon account of the disagreement of the most considerable men
of the church, upon the controversy concerning alterations, he
did omit letting the convocation sit for a considerable time.
Neither was there any man, at that time, that was displeased at
this long recess of that body. They that were for alterations did
hope, that after a considerable intermission, all men's passions
would be so asswaged, that they would consent together in the

[P Vide Defence, &c., p. 124, &c.]

712 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

same opinion. And those of the other party were not displeased,
that those matters which they had not a liking to, were not again
importunately urged upon them; especially when the occasion
was taken away, of being obliged to reject what was proposed to
them by their prince, and that they were not necessitated to incur
the displeasure of their present archbishop.1' Thus (says the
bishop of Salisbury) he went on, while his enemies were still
endeavouring to bear down a reputation, which gave him, as they
thought, too great an authority.

In the year 1693, his grace published four incomparable ser-
mons concerning the divinity and incarnation of our blessed
Saviour. " The true reason whereof,'1 (the reader is told in a
short advertisement before them) " was not that which is com-
monly alleged for printing books, the importunity of friends ; but
the importunate clamours and calumnies of others, whom the
author heartily prays God to forgive, and to give them better
minds : and to grant that the ensuing discourses, the publication
whereof was in so great a degree necessary, may by his blessing
prove in some measure useful."

But among the inconveniences which he expected in the due
discharge of this difficult office, he found one advantage, which
was his retirement from that multitude of labours, which either
his necessary business, or his friendships poured in upon him.
This left him at leisure to bend his thoughts towards the good of
the whole church, sometimes himself proposing useful designs
for it, sometimes encouraging those of others, and always praying
for its prosperity. To this end he, who lived but for the good of
others, began to choose out some more of his excellent sermons,
such as he thought were the best calculated for the universal pro-
motion of virtue and piety. These he especially directed for incul-
cating the principles of early religion, family duties, and the
education of children ; considerations of the most extensive and
necessary influence on the minds and lives of mankind. See how
the good bishop speaks of them in the tenderness of a fatherly
and primitive spirit, in the following preface, which certainly
breathes the soul of that incomparable man.

" Being, I hope, for the remainder of my life, released from
that irksome and unpleasant work of controversy and wrangling
about religion, I shah1 now turn my thoughts to something more
agreeable to my temper, and of a more direct and immediate
tendency to the promoting of tru< religion, to the happiness of
human society, and the reformation of the world.

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 713

" I have no intention to reflect upon any that stand up in de-
fence of the truth, and contend earnestly for it, endeavouring in
the spirit of meekness to reclaim those that are in error. For I
doubt not but a very good man may upon several occasions be
almost unavoidably engaged in controversies of religion ; and if
he have a head clear and cool enough, so as to be master of his
own notions and temper in that hot kind of service, he may
therein do considerable advantage to the truth : though a man
that hath once drawn blood in controversy, as Mr. Mede expresseth
it, is seldom known ever perfectly to recover his own good temper
afterwards.

" For this reason a good man should not be very willing, when
Ms Lord comes, to be found so doing, and as it were beating Ms
fellow-servants : and all controversy, as it is usually managed, is
little better. A good man would be loth to be taken out
of the world reeking hot from a sharp contention with a perverse
adversary ; and not a little out of countenance, to find himself in
this temper translated into the calm and peaceable regions of the
blessed, where nothing but perfect charity and good-will reign for
ever.

" I know not whether St. Paul, who had been taken up into
the third heavens, did by that question of his, Where is the disputer
of this world ? intend to insinuate, that this wrangling work hath
place only in this world, and upon this earth, where only there is a
dust to be raised ; but will have no place in the other. But whether
St. Paul intended this or not, the thing itself I think is true, that
in the other world all things will be clear and past dispute : to be
sure, among the blessed, and probably also among the miserable,
unless fierce and furious contentions, with great heat without
light, about things of no moment and concernment to them, should
be designed for a part of their torment.

" As to the following sermons, I am sensible that the style of
them is more loose and full of words, than is agreeable to just and
exact discourses : but so I think the style of popular sermons
ought to be. And therefore I have not been very careful to mend
this matter ; chusing rather that they should appear in that native
simplicity in which, so many years ago, they were first framed,
than dressed up with too much care and art. As they are, I hope
the candid and ingenuous readers will take them in good part.

" And I do heartily wish that ah1 that are concerned in the
respective duties, treated on in the following sermons, would be

714 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

persuaded so to lay them to heart, as to put them effectually in
practice : that how much soever the reformation of this corrupt
and degenerate age in which we live is almost utterly to be
despaired of, we may yet have a more comfortable prospect of
future times, by seeing the foundation of a better world begun to
be laid in the careful and conscientious discharge of the duties
here mentioned : that by this means the generations to come may
know God, and the children yet unborn may fear the Lord.

" I have great reason to be sensible how fast the infirmities of
age are coming upon me, and therefore must work the works of
Him, whose providence hath placed me in the station wherein I
am, whilst it is day, because the night cometh, when no man can
work.

" I knew very well, before I entered upon this great and weighty
charge, my own manifold defects, and how unequal my best abilities
were for the due discharge of it ; but I did not feel this so sensibly
as I now do every day more and more. And therefore that I might
make some small amends for greater failings, I knew not how
better to place the broken hours I had to spare from almost per-
petual business of one kind or other, than in preparing something
for the public that might be of use to recover the decayed piety
and virtue of the present age ; in which iniquity doth so much
abound, and the love of God and religion is grown so cold.

" To this end I have chosen to publish these plain sermons, and
to recommend them to the serious perusal and faithful practice
both of the pastors and people committed to my charge ; earnestly
beseeching Almighty God, that by his blessing they may prove
effectual to that good end for which they are sincerely designed."

I need not relate the good effects of these, or any other of his
grace's excellent compositions, they were visible in that eager
thirst the world had after them ; and if well watering the flock be
one great duty in the shepherd, never did any pastor perform it
better. Yet in the midst of these good works he could not escape
the envy and malice of men ; and it were easy to gather a plen-
tiful bundle of their invectives, if we thought such an entertainment
fit to be transmitted to posterity. But they are dead, some in
their authors, some in their malignant pens, and all in the memory
of good men. It will be enough to touch upon them generally,
in the words of one q we have often been obliged to quote. — " 1 1 < »w

[« The bishop of Salisbury.]

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 715

false soever these calumnies were generally known to be, the con-
fidence with which they were averred, joined with the envy that
accompanies a high station, had a greater operation than could
have been imagined ; considering how long he had lived on so
public a scene, and how well he was known. It seemed a new
and unusual thing, that a man who in a course of above thirty
years had done so much good, so many services to so many per-
sons, without ever once doing an ill office, or a hard thing to any
one person, who had a sweetness and gentleness in him, that
seemed rather to lean to excess, should yet meet with so much
unkindness and injustice. But the returns of impudence and
malice which were made to the Son of God himself, and to his
apostles, taught him to bear all this with submission to the will of
God ; praying for those who despitefully used him, and upon all
occasions doing them good for evil. Nor had this any other effect
on him, either to change his temper or his maxims, though per-
haps it might sink too much into him, with relation to his health.
He was so exactly true in all his representations of things or per-
sons that he laid before their majesties, that he neither raised
the character of his friends, nor sunk that of those who deserved
not so well of him (I love not to say enemies), but offered every
thing to them with that sincerity that did so well become him, that
truth and candour was almost perceptible in every thing he said
or did. His looks and whole manner seemed to take away all
suspicion concerning him. For he thought nothing in this world
was worth much art, or great management. With all these things
he struggled, till at last they overcame him, or rather he overcame
them, and escaped from them." For on the 1 7th day of Novem-
ber, in the year 1694, he was seized with a sudden illness, which
proved fatal to him, and mournful to all the friends of true piety.
The first attacks came upon him while he was in that employment
in which he delighted most, at church, and in the worship of God.
He bore them with his usual neglect of himself : and though his
countenance shewed he was ill, he would neither interrupt nor
break off from those sacred exercises, nor make haste to look after
his health. Ah ! the unhappy neglect of a life that deserved
so well to be carefully preserved ! The fit came on slowly, but
seemed to be fatal. All symptoms were melancholy. It soon
turned to a dead palsy. The oppression was so great, that it
became very uneasy for him to speak, but it appeared that his

716 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

understanding was still clear, though others could not have the
advantage of it: he only said, that he had no burden on his con-
science. All remedies proved ineffectual. He expressed no con-
cern to live, nor fear to die, but patiently bore his burthen, till it
sunk him on the fifth day, and in the sixty-fifth year of his age.
Thus he lived and thus he died. He was buried on the 30th of
the same month, in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry, the bishop
of Salisbury preaching his funeral sermon, taking for his text St.
PauPs Epistle to Tim. chap. iv. ver. 1. I have fought the good
fight, I haw finished my course, I have kept the faith. In his dis-
course, though from the natural talents of the preacher, which
were very great, and the intimacy of their friendship, of which
none had a greater share, one might reasonably expect justice to
the memory of the deceased ; yet was it such a subject that even
bishop Burnet could not himself reach in all its views, and describe
with an adequate eloquence. He has said indeed a great deal,
and his enemies have thought a great deal too much.

Speaking of his early candour and moderation towards those
persons who differed from him, " he did not," says his lordship,
" treat them with contempt and hatred ; and he disliked all
levities and railings upon those subjects. This gave him great
advantages in dealing with them, and he still persisted in it, how
much soever it was either disliked or suspected by angry men.
As he got into a true method of study, so he entered into friend-
ships with some great men, which contributed not a little to the
perfecting his own mind. There was then a set of as extra-
ordinary persons in the university where he was formed, as
perhaps any age has produced ; they had clear thoughts, and a
vast compass ; great minds and noble tempers. But that whirh
gave him his last finishing, was his close and long friendship with
bishop Wilkins. He went into all the best things that were in
that great man, but so, that he perfected every one of tin -in :
for though bishop Wilkins was the more universal man, yet he
was the greater divine : if the one had more flame, the other \\.is
more correct. Both acted with great plainness, and were raised
above regarding vulgar censures. But if bishop Wilkins had a
talent so peculiar to himself, that perhaps never man could
admonish and reprove with such weight and authority, and in a
way so obliging as he did ; so no man knew better than this his
great friend, the art of gaining upon men's hearts, and of making

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 717

themselves find out that which might be amiss in them, though
the gentleness and modesty of his temper had not so well fitted
him for the rough work of reproving.

" Having dedicated himself to the service of the church, and
being sensible of the great good that might be done by a plain
and edifying way of preaching, he was very little disposed to
follow the patterns then set him, or indeed those of former times.
And so he set a pattern to himself, and such an one it was, that
it is hoped it will be long and much followed. He began with
a deep and close study of the Scriptures, upon which he spent
four or five years, till he had arrived at a true understanding of
them. He studied next all the ancient philosophers and books
of morality. Among the fathers, St. Basil and St. Chrysostom
were those he chiefly read. Upon these preparations he set
himself to compose the greatest variety 3 of sermons, and on the
best subjects, that perhaps any one man has ever yet done. His
joining with bishop Wilkins in pursuing the scheme of an
universal character*, led him to consider exactly the truth of
language and stile, in which no man was happier and knew better
the art of preserving the majesty of things under a simplicity of
words ; tempering these so equally together, that neither did his
thoughts sink, nor his stile swell : keeping always the due mean
between a low flatness and the dresses of false rhetoric. To-
gether with the pomp of words he did also cut off all superfluities
and needless enlargements ; he said what was just necessary to
give clear ideas of things, and no more : he laid aside all long and
affected periods : his sentences were short and clear ; and the
whole thread was of a piece, plain and distinct. No affectations
of learning, no squeezing of texts, no superficial strains, no false
thoughts, nor bold flights ; all was solid and yet lively, and grave
as well as fine : so that few ever heard him, but they found some
new thought occurred ; something that either they had not con-
sidered before, or at least so distinctly, and with so clear a view
as he gave them.

3 The greatest variety.'] " A peraon well acquainted with Dr. Tillotson, has
often related in my hearing, that Dr. T. told him, he had written in his time
a thousand sermons." From some MS. notes, written apparently hy a well-
informed person, in a copy of Dr. Birch's Life of Tillotson, in the possession
of the editor.

4 An universal character.'] See " An Essay towards a Real Character and a
Philosophical Language, by John Wilkins, D.D. Dean of Ripon, and F.R.S.
1668." fol.

718 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

" Whether he explained points of divinity, matters of contro-
versy, or the rules of morality, on which he dwelt most copiously,
there was something peculiar in him on them all, that conquered
the minds, as well as it commanded the attention of his hearers ;
who felt all the while that they were learning somewhat, and were
never tired by him ; for he cut off both the luxuriances of stile,
and the length of sermons ; and he concluded them with some
thoughts of such gravity and use, that he generally dismissed his
hearers with somewhat that stuck to them. He read his sermons5
with so due a pronunciation, in so sedate and solemn a manner,
that they were not the feebler, but rather the perfecter, even by
that way, which often lessens the grace, as much as it adds to
the exactness of such discourses.

" He saw, with a deep regret, the fatal corruption of this age,
while the hypocrisies and extravagancies of former times, and the
liberties and looseness of the present, disposed many to atheism
and impiety. He therefore went far into this matter : and as he
had considered all the ancient and modern apologies for the
Christian religion, with an exactness that became the importance
of the subject, so he set the whole strength of his thoughts and
studies to withstand the progress that this was making. In
order to that he laboured particularly to bring every thing out of
the clearest principles, and to make all people feel the reason-
ableness of the truths, as well as of the precepts of the Christian

6 He read his sermons."] Dr. Birch has said, in his Life of Tillotson, that
" he was never capable of committing his sermons to memory, or preaching
extempore, according to the custom of the earlier part of his time," p. 22.
But in relation to the former of those two points, the manuscript annotator,
whom I have before cited, declares ; " What Dr. Maynard, his immediate
successor in Lincoln's Inn, has told me, is a flat contradiction to this. The
doctor, finding the archbishop one day in his study, with some papers before
him, his grace told the doctor, that he was looking over his sermons, with u
design to print some of them : ' For,' said his grace, ' when a man has a
little reputation for preaching, they will be printing them, when he is dead.'
The doctor telling him he was glad his grace had preserved his sermons,
because he thought his grace had preached from short notes only ; the
archbishop replied, 'he had always written every word, before he prc
it ; but used to get it by heart, till he found it heated his head, a day or two
before ; and after that, he was forced to leave it off.'

" The same Dr. Maynard also told me, that Dr. Wake, at the same time
preacher at Gray's Inn, one day told him, he was resolved to preach no
longer without book ; ' for every body has now left it off, even I >r.
Tillotson.' "

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 719

religion. When he saw that popery was at the root of this, and
that the design seemed to be laid, to make us first atheists, that
we might be the more easily made papists, and that many did
not stick to own, that we could have no certainty for the Christian
faith, unless we believed the infallibility of the church ; this gave
him a deep and just indignation. It was such a betraying of the
cause of God, rather than not to gain their own, that in this the
foundation was laid of his great zeal against popery. This drew
his studies for some years much that way. He looked on the
whole complex of popery as such a corruption of the whole design
of Christianity, that he thought it was incumbent on him, to set
himself against it, with the zeal and courage which became that
cause, and was necessary for those times. He thought the
idolatry and superstition of the church of Rome did enervate
true piety and morality ; and that their cruelty was such a con-
tradiction to the meekness of Christ, and to that love and charity
which he made the character and distinction of his disciples and
followers, that he resolved to sacrifice every thing, except a good
conscience, in a cause for which he had resolved, if it should
come to extremities, to become a sacrifice himself.

" His enemies soon saw how much he stood in their way, and
were not wanting in the arts of calumny, to disable him from
opposing them with that great success which his writings and
sermons had on the nation. His life was too pure in all the parts
of it, to give them a pretence to attempt on that. So regular a
piety, such an unblemished probity, and so extensive and tender
a charity, together with his great and constant labours, both in
private and public, set him above reproach. That honourable
society r which treated him always with so particular a respect,
and so generous a kindness, and this great city, not only the
neighbourhood of this place, which was so long happy in him,
but the whole extent of it, knew him too well, and esteemed him
too much, for those his enemies to adventure on the common arts
of defaming : subtle methods were to be used, since his virtue was
too exemplary to be soiled in the ordinary way.

" His endeavouring to make out every thing in religion from
clear and plain principles, and with a fulness of demonstrative
proof, was laid hold on to make him pass for one that could
believe nothing that lay beyond the compass of human reason :

[r Lincoln's-inn.]

720 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

and his tender method of treating with dissenters, his endeavours
to extinguish that fire, and to unite us among ourselves, against
those who understood their own interest well, and pursued it
closely, inflaming our differences, and engaging us into violent
animosities, while they shifted sides, and still gained ground,
whether in the methods of toleration, or of a strict execution of
penal laws, as it might serve their ends ; those calm and wise
designs of his, I say, were represented as a want of zeal in the
cause of the church, and an inclination towards those who de-
parted from it. But how unhappily successful soever they might
be, in infusing those jealousies of him, into some warm and
unwary men, he still went on in his own way. He would neither
depart from his moderation, nor take pains to cover himself from
so false an imputation. He thought the openness of his temper,
the course of his life, his sincerity, and the visible effects of his
labours, which had contributed so much to turn the greatest part
of this vast city to a hearty love of the church, and a firm
adhering to the communion of it, in which no man was ever
more eminently distinguished than he was : he thought, I say,
that constant zeal with which he had always served such as came
to labour in this great city, and by which he had been so singu-
larly useful to them ; he thought the great change that had been
made in bringing men's minds off from many wild opinions, to
sober and steady principles, and that in so prudent a manner,
that things were done without inen^s perceiving it, or being either
startled or fretted by the peevishness which is raised and kept up
by contradiction or disputing, in which, without derogating from
other men's labours, no man had a larger share than himself;
upon all these reasons, I say, he thought that his conduct needed
no apology, but that it was above it.

After the restoration of the church, anger upon those heads
was both more in fashion, and seemed more excusable; men
coming then out of the injustice and violence by which they had
been so long ill used, and were so much provoked ; yet neither
that, nor the narrowness of his fortune, while he needed support-,
and saw what was the shortest way to arrive at them, could mak*-
him change his strain.

" His life was not only free from blemishes, which is but a low
size of commendation ; it shined in all the parts of it. In his
domestic relations, in his friendships, in the whole common
business, he was always a pattern, easy and humble, frank and

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 721

open, tender-hearted and bountiful, kind and obliging, in the
greatest as well as the smallest matters. A decent but grave
cheerfulness made his conversation as lively and agreeable, as it
was useful and instructing : he was ever in good humour, always
the same, both accessible and affable : he heard every thing
patiently : was neither apt to mistake nor to suspect : his own
great candour disposing him to put the best constructions, and to
judge the most favourably of all persons and things. He passed
over many injuries, and was ever ready to forgive the greatest,
and to do all good offices even to those who had used him
very ill. He was never imperious nor assuming : and though he
had a superior judgment to most men, yet he never dictated to
others. Few men had observed human nature more carefully,
could judge better, and make larger allowances for the frailties of
mankind than he did. He lived in a due neglect of his person,
and contempt of pleasure, but never affected pompous severities.
He despised wealth, but as it furnished him for charity, in which
he was both liberal and judicious.

" Thus his course in the private virtues and capacities of a
Christian was of a sublime pitch : his temper had made him inca-
pable of the practices either of craft or violence.

" In his function, he was a constant preacher, and diligent in
all the other parts of his duty : for though he had no care of souls
upon him, yet few that had, laboured so painfully as he did ; in
visiting the sick, in comforting the afflicted, and in settling such
as were either shaken in their opinions, or troubled in mind. He
had a great compass in learning : what he knew, he had so per-
fectly digested, that he was truly the master of it. But the
largeness of his genius, and the correctness of his judgment,
carried him much farther, than the leisure that he had enjoyed
for study, seemed to furnish him : for he could go a great way
upon general hints. Thus he lived, thus he ran, and thus he
finished his course.

" He kept the faith. If fidelity is meant by this, no man made
promises more unwillingly, but observed them more religiously
than he did. The sacred vows of his function were conscien-
tiously pursued by him : he reckoned himself dedicated to the
service of God, and to the doing of good. In this he lived ; and
seemed to live to no other end. But if by keeping the faith, be to
be understood the preserving and handing down the sacred trust
of the Christian doctrine, this he maintained pure and undefiled.

VOL. IV. 3 A

722 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

Even in his younger days, when he had a great liveliness of
thought, and fineness of imagination, he avoided the disturbing
the peace of the church with particular opinions, or an angry
opposition about more indifferent, or doubtful matters. He lived
indeed in great friendship with men that differed from him. He
thought the surest way to bring them off from their mistakes,
was by gaining upon their hearts and affections : and in an age of
such great dissolution as this is, he judged that the best way to
put a stop to growing impiety, was first to establish the principles
of natural religion, and from that to advance to the proof of the
Christian religion, and of the Scriptures: which being once
solidly done, would soon settle all other things. Therefore he
was in great doubt, whether the surest way to persuade the
world to the belief of the sublime truths that are contained in
the Scriptures, concerning God, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, and concerning the person of Christ, was to enter
much into the discussing of those mysteries. He feared that an
indiscreet dwelling and descanting upon those things, might do
more hurt than good. He thought the maintaining these doc-
trines as they are proposed in the Scriptures, without entering
too much into explanations or controversies, would be the most
effectual way to preserve the reverence that was due to them, and
to fix them in men's belief. But when he was desired by some,
and provoked by others, and saw just occasions moving him to it,
he asserted those great mysteries with that strength and clear-
ness, that was his peculiar talent. He thought the less men's
consciences were entangled, and the less the communion of the
church was clogged with disputable opinions or practices, the
world would be the happier, consciences the freer, and the church
the quieter. He made the Scriptures the measure of his faith,
and the chief subject of all his meditations.

" He indeed judged that the great design of Christianity was
the reforming men's natures, and governing their actions, the
restraining their appetites and passions, the softening their tem-
pers, and sweetening their humours, the composing their affec-
tions, and the raising their minds above the interests and follies
of this present world, to the hope and pursuit of endless blessed-
ness : and he considered the whole Christian doctrine as a system
of principles, all tending to this. He looked on men^s contending
about lesser matters, or about subtleties relating to those that
are greater, as one of the chief practices of the powers of dark-

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 723

ness, to defeat the true ends for which the Son of God came into
the world ; and that they did lead men into much dry and angry
work, who while they were hot in the making parties, and settling
opinions, became so much the slacker in those great duties, which
were chiefly designed by the Christian doctrine.

" I have now viewed him in this light, in which St. Paul does
here view himself, and have considered how much of that cha-
racter belonged to him. I have reason to believe that he went
over these things often in his own thoughts, with the same pros-
pect that St. Paul had : for though he seemed not to apprehend
that death was so near him, as it proved to be, yet he thought it
was not far from him. He spoke often of it as that which he was
longing for, and which he would welcome with joy."

We see that this is but a summary view of this great man,
and such a one as carries with it all the marks of truth, candour,
and sincerity. If we should add the character which others, less
suspected by some of partiality than the foregoing author, give,
we shall find that they exceed what his friend had said. Dean
Sherlock, speaking of the great and noble designs queen Mary 8
had formed to promote true religion, and the service of the
church of England, could not help upon this occasion giving a
just encomium upon the archbishop in the following manner : " I
have" (says he) "reason to say this from those frequent intima-
tions I have had from our late admirable primate, who had great
designs himself to serve the Christian religion, and the church of
England, in its truest interests ; and had inspired their majes-
ties and particularly the queen, who had more leisure for such
thoughts, with the same great and pious designs. It may be no
churchman ever had, and I am sure, not more deservedly, a
greater interest in his prince's favour 6 ; and the great use he
made of it was to do public service to religion, and whatever some
men might suspect, to the church of England, though it may be
not perfectly in their way ; and the greatest fault I knew he had.
was that some envious and ambitious men could not bear his

[• See his Sermon preached at the Temple on the Queen's death.]
6 His prince's favour.] " When Mr. Chadwick, the archbishop's son-in-law,
presented a volume of his father's sermons to the king, his majesty said to
him, < I have read all your father's works, and I will read this. He was
the best man that ever I knew, and the best friend that ever I had.' Which
words the king always repeated upon every like occasion." MS. notes,
before cited.

3 A2

724 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

greatness, which he himself never courted, nay, which he indus-
triously avoided. Before this, all England knew, and owned his
worth : and had it been put to the poll, there had been vast odds
on his side, that he would have been voted into the see of Can-
terbury ; for no man had ever a clearer and brighter reason, a
truer judgment, or more easy and happy expression, nor a more
inflexible fearless honesty. He was a true and hearty friend
wherever he professed to be so ; though he had many enemies at
last, he took care to make none ; he was obliging to all men ;
and though he could not easily part with a friend, he could easily
forgive an enemy. But I cannot give you the character of this
great man now ; what I have already said, I confess, is an excur-
sion, which I hope you will pardon, to the passion of an old
friend; and learn from two great examples, that neither the
greatest innocence, virtue, or merit, can defend either crowned or
mitred heads from the lash of spiteful and envenomed tongues."
Thus far dean Sherlock. — Another friend says of him ; " When
he was importuned to use his interest with great men for his
friends, upon any vacancies of preferment in their gift, he would
sometimes desire to be excused from it, telling them that he had
often paid dear for such favours, since he had been forced in
return, and upon their request, to give livings to others, which
were of double or treble value to those he had obtained from
them, and yet this could not be avoided ; and therefore he in-
treated those who had expectations from him, patiently to wait
till preferments fell, which were in his own gift, and disposal."

Not to add the many panegyrics upon him from printed books,
I cannot pass by one from a manuscript diary of a late learned
and pious divine, because there is a particular in it which must
arise from a personal knowledge of bishop Tillotson. — "He
taught7," says he, "by his sermons, more ministers to preach
well, and more people to live well, than any other man since the
apostles' days ; he was the ornament of the last century, and the
glory of his function; in the pulpit another Chrysostom, and
in the episcopal chair a second Cranmer. He was so exceeding
charitable, that while in a private station, he always laid aside
two-tenths of his income for charitable uses."

Of his grace's writings, one volume in folio, consisting of fifty-

i He taught.'] See Life of the Rev. Mr. William Burkit, M.A. Vicar and
Lecturer of Dcdham, by Nath. Parkhurst, M.A. London, 1704. 8vo. p. 32.

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 725

two sermons, and the Rule of Faith, were published in his life-
time, and corrected by his own hand. Those which came abroad
after his death from his chaplain Dr. Barker, make two volumes
in folio, the value of which, if we may judge from the price of
the copy, being two thousand five hundred guineas, is not inferior
to the former. This, indeed, was the only legacy he left to his
family, his extensive charity consuming his yearly revenues as
constantly as they came into his hands. If charity be the charac-
teristic of a true disciple, surely he who exhausted all he had in
the noblest manner, and trusted in Providence for the future sup-
port of his own family, deserves that name more truly, than any
in these late corrupted ages can pretend to. But the God, whom
he served in the strictness of the letter of the commandment, suf-
fered not them to want ; the royal bounty exerting itself to his
widow, as I find in the two following grants, taken from the ori-
ginal records in the office of the Bolls in Chancery-lane ; viz.

Anno 7° Guliel. Tertii.

" The king (May 2) granteth unto Elizabeth Tillotson, widow,
and relict of John, late archbishop of Canterbury, an annuity of
400£. during the term of her natural life."

Anno 10° Guliel. Tertii.

"The king (August 18th) granteth unto Elizabeth Tillotson,
relict of archbishop Tillotson, 200£. per annum, as an addition to
her annuity of 400?. per annum, granted to her by letters patent,
dated May 2, 1695."

As to the family of the archbishop, all that we can learn of
them is, that his lady was the daughter 8 of Dr. French, whose
widow bishop Wilkins married : that he himself mentions the loss
of his only daughter, in his letter to Mr. Hunt ; and that she was
married to James Chadwick, esq. to whom bishop Williams dedi-
cates his Vindication of his grace's sermons from the charge of
Socinianism.

8 Was the daughter.'] "I have often heard it pleasantly related, that
when Dr. Wilkins proposed Dr. Tillotson to his daughter, upon her de-
siring to be excused, her father said to her, * Betty, you shall have him,
for he is the best polemical divine this day in England.'" MS. notes,
before cited.

726 ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

Thus much could we collect of this great man, which though
but imperfect, the bishop of Salisbury, who supplied us with some
memoirs, and promising us many more, dying while this work was
in hand ; but if any one can give us any further notices of any
thing that relates to him, we shall hereafter insert them with all
due acknowledgment and gratitude.

INDEX.

A.

ABJURATION, for heresy, i. 225, n. Wick-

liffe ; 345, 6, Thorpe ; 389, n. Cobham ;

392, 3, do. ; nature and meaning of, 424,

Supplementary Extracts; Bilney's, ii. 23,

Bilney, and n. ; his repentance for, 29 —

32, Bilney.
Absolution, by a priest, i. 339 — 41, Thorpe ;

received by Hooker, iii. 531 ; by Sander-
son, iv. 480.
Accidents without subject, in the Eucharist,

i. 186, Wickliffe, ' and n. ; 299, 300,

Thorpe.
Ada Sanctorum, account of; See Bol-

landus.
Admonition, mutual duty of, iv. 372,

Hammond.
Adrian, Pope, his ambitious designs, i. 29,

30, Inett.
Alban, St., Wolsey's two interviews with

Henry VIII., i. 580, n. Wolsey.
Albigenses, the, i. 183—6, Inett.
Alesius, Alexander, ii. 250 — 60, Cromwell;

606, Latimer.
Alexander III. pope; his election; schism

thence occasioned; i. 29, 30, Inett; his

treatment of the emperor Frederic, 47, 8,

Inett; 70—3, do.
Alms, gathering of, by condemned persons,

going to execution, ii. 40, Bilney, and n.

, free ; See Eleemosynam.

Altar, and Lord's table, ii. 349, n. Rogers ;

605, Latimer ; 654, do. ; Williams and

Laud, iv. 259, n. Ferrar.
Altars, portable, ii. 226, 7, Cromwell,

and n.
Anabaptists, the ; Ridley opposed them, ii.

629, Latimer; their excesses, iv. 510, 11,

Baxter; disturb the Church service, 546,

Hale.

Anglican Church ; See Church Anglican.
Angling, love of, iv. 97, 8, Wotton, and n.
Anne of Bohemia, wife of K. Richard II.

i. 255, 6, AVickliffe.
Antichrist, whether the Pope is, i. 407,

Supplem. Extracts.

Antiquity, value of in religion, iii. 17, Rid-
ley. See also, Fathers.
, spurious veneration for, how to be

encountered, i. 3 — 7> Inett.
Apology for the Church of England, bishop

Jewel's, occasion of, iii. 321, Jewel ;
value of, 354—6, do.; Peter Martyr's
letter respecting, 374.

Appeals to Rome, controversy respecting, i.
40, Inett, and n. ; 54—8, do. ; 138, 9, do. ;
142, do. ; 365, 6, Cobham, and n.

Armada, Spanish, activity of the Puritans at
that crisis ; iii. 595, 6, Whitgift.

Arminius and the Arminians, incidents
respecting; iv. 100, 1, Wotton; Mon-
tague, Overall, &c. 296—8, Hall ; altera-
tion in judgment of Sanderson, Usher,
Pierce, Potter, &c. 451 — 5, Sanderson,
and n.

Arms, heraldic lions described, i. 598, 9, n.
Wolsey.

Arthur, Thomas, converted by Bilney, ii. 3,
Bilney : examination and interrogatories,
6—14, do.

Articles of the Church of England, enco-
mium on; iii. 91, Ridley; 96, do.

Art. VI. On the sufficiency of the Holy
Scriptures, iii. 44. Ridley.

XIV. Of works of supererogation, ii.

28, Bilney; 521, Latimer.

XIX. Of the Church ; i. 63, n. Inett ;

285, n. Thorpe ; ii. 603, 4, Latimer ; iii.
:;'>• n. Ridley.

XX. Of the authority of the Church,

i. 270, Thorpe, and n. ; 344, do. and n. ;
ii. 349, 50, n. Rogers ; 645, 6, Latimer ;
iii. 41, Ridley, and n. ; 44, do.

XXI. The authority of general coun-
cils ; iii. 43, Ridley ; 46, do.

XXIII. Of ministering in the con-
gregation, ii. 41, Bilney.

XXIV. Of speaking in the congrega-
tion in such a tongue as the people under-
standeth, i. 149, Bentley, and n. See also
Service divine, in a unknown tongue.

XXV. Of the sacraments, ii. 56,

Latimer.

XXVI. Of the unworthiness of minis-
ters, that hinders not the effect of the
sacraments, i. 215, n. Wickliffe; ii. 35,
Bilney; 514, 15, Latimer.

XXVIII. Of the Lord's Supper, ii.

563, Latimer. See also Eucharist, the.

XXXI. Of the one oblation of Christ,

ii. 566, Latimer. See also Sacrifice of the
Mass.

XXXII. Of the marriage of priests

728

INDEX.

ii. 317, 18, Rogers, and n. See also Mar-
riages of Priests, &c.
Art. XXXVII. Of the civil magistrates ;

royal supremacy, ii. 309, n. Rogers; lawful

to wear weapons and to serve in the wars,

i. 456, 7, Colet, and n.
XXXIX. Of a Christian man's oath.

i. 330, Thorpe, n. See also Oaths, whether

lawful, &c.
Articles of 1536, account of, ii. 260, 1, n.

Cromwell. See Institution of a Christian

Man.
1 the six, act of, account of, ii. 267,

Cromwell, and n. ; Cranmer' s opposition

to, iii. 168—71, Cranmer ; 189, do.
the Lambeth, account of, iii. 598, 9,

n. Whitgift.
. ... five of Perth, account of, iv. 294, and

n. Hall.

objected against Wickliffe, i. 203—8,

Wickliffe, and n. ; 214—16, do. and n. ;
against Thorpe, i. 281, 2, Thorpe; against
lord Cobham, i. 356, 7, Cobham ; 381—7,
do. ; against dean Colet, i. 450—7, Colet ;
against Wolsey,i. 595, Wolsey ; against lord
Cromwell, ii. 287, 8, Cromwell; against
John Rogers, ii. 328, Rogers; against
bishop Hooper, ii. 379, Hooper; 384, 5, n.
do. ; against Rowland Taylor, ii. 416—18,
Taylor; 421, 2, do. ; against bishop Lati-
mer, ii. 479, Latimer ; 525, 6, do. ; 552,
do. ; 635, 6, do. ; against Cranmer, iii.
237—9 ; against Jewel, iii. 338.

Arundel,archbishop,his constitutions, i.256,
Wickliffe, and n. ; 273—3, Thorpe, and
n. ; 283 — 5, do. and n.

Ashton, John, a Wickliffite, account of, i.
236, Wickliffe; 280, Thorpe.

Assembly of divines at Westminster, iv.
341, Hammond; Sanderson nominated a
member, does not attend, 421, Sanderson.

Atheism and atheists, iii. 490, Hooker;
548-^50, do. ; Mr. Lilly, iv. 276, 7, Hall ;
617, Rochester; 625 — 9, do.

Atterbury, bishop, quoted in n. ; i. 428, Sup-
plem. Extracts; character of Luther;
scurrility of sir Thomas More, ii. 74,
More.

Augustin, St., archbishop of Canterbury, i.
18, 19, Inett, and n.

Augustine, St., Util. Creed, quoted in iii.
15, in Ridley cont. Pet. ii. 21, n. do.

Authority of the Church, nature and inci-
dents of; Arundel's constitutions, i.
272—4, Thorpe; 280, 1, do. and n. ;
289, 90, do. and n. ; 291, 2, do. and n. ;
298, do. and n. ; 344, do. and n. ; 371, 2,
Cobham, and n. ; 376, do. ; 382, 3, do. ;
394, 5, do. and n.; ii. 312, 13, Rogers;
634, Latimer; 644, 5, do.; 656, 7, do.
and n. ; iii. 24, 5, Ridley; 99, 100, n.
Ridley. See also Art. XX.

Avon, river, controversy concerning the,
decided, iii. 578, n. Whitgift.

A ylmer, bishop, quoted in n. ; rise of Luther,
i. 428, Supplem. Extracts.

B.

BACON, Lord, quoted in n. ; Gondomar, i.
303, 4, Thorpe; the Puritans despise
the early Reformers, iii. 411, Gilpin;
mathematics, iv. 533, Hale; the great
strangers to themselves, 564, do.

Bainham, John, Latimer's visit to, in New-
gate, iii. 33-A Ridley.

Bale, John, his character, i. 353, Cobham.

Bancroft's, archbishop, books against the
Puritans, iii. 546, Hooker; 590, Whit-
gift; 596, do. quoted in n. ; the Fa-
thers slighted by the Puritans, iii. 411,
Gilpin.

Baptism, doctrine, and incidents of; the
element of Water, and the Holy Ghost,
ii. 638, Latimer; 639, do.; signs exhi-
bitive, n. 648, do. ; in the vulgar tongue,
iii. 52, 3, Ridley; transubstantiation of
the water, in, ii. 638, Latimer, and n. ;
termed volowing, iii. 52, n. Ridley.

Barlowe, bishop Wm., quoted in n. ; Re-
formers' wish to have lay persons present
at their examinations, i. 275, Thorpe;
Master Parson, 392, Cobham ; Wolsey's
precedent in dissolving monasteries, ii.
231, Cromwell.

Barnes, Dr. Robert, quoted in n. God's
image, i. 385, Cobham ; Wolsey's three
bishoprics, 480, 1, Wolsey.

Barristers, whether they may plead in
what they deem unjust causes, ii. 56, 7,
More, and n. ; iv. 531, Hale; 576, do.
and n.

Barrow, Henry, and the Barrowists, iii.
546, 7, Hooker, and n. ; 596, 7, Whitgift ;
598, do.

, Dr. Isaac, iv. 358, n. Hammond.

quoted in n. The pope

and emperor, the two great lights, i. 8,
Inett.

Battle, trial by, i. 364, n. Cobham.

Baxter, Richard, review of his own cha-
racter, &c. iv. 489—519; Savoy Confe-
rence, 471,2, Sanderson; meetings with
Tillotson, &c. for a comprehension,
688—91, Tillotson; his Saints' Rest, 495,
Baxter.

Bayonne, bishop of, and Montmorency, i.
563—5, Wolsey.

Becket, Thomas, not a Becket, i. 31, n. ;
Becket and K. Henry II., i. 29—58,
Inett; Becket's shrine, offerings at, i.
368, n. Cobham.

Becon, Thomas, quoted in n. ; the greater and
lesser curse, i. 219, Wickliffe; texts of
Scripture in houses and churches, iv.
204—6, Ferrar.

Bedell, bishop, chaplain at Venice to sir
H. Wotton, iv. 88, 9, Wotton; 103—6,
do.

Belayse (Belusis), Sir W., iii. 379, n.
Gilpin.

Bell, book, and candle, i. 219, n., Wick-
liffe.

Bells, baptizing of, iii. 339, 4(1, Ji-wrl.

Benefices, patrons of; See Patrons.

INDEX.

729

Benefices, reservation of, i. 135, 6, Inett,
and n. ; 145, 6, do. and n. ; 170, Wick-
liffe, and n. ; 193, do. and n. ; in the
hands of foreigners, and non-residents, i.
135, 6, Inett, and n. ; 191—4, Wickliffe,
and n. ; 483, Wolsey, and n.

, impropriations of; See Impro-

priations.

Bennett and Collett, ii. 389, Hooper,
and n.

Bentley, Dr. Richard, doctrinal corruptions
of popery, i. 147—63.

Berengarius, his true doctrine of the
Eucharist, iii. 16, Ridley ; 18, do.

Bergen, naval attack on, Rochester's letter
concerning, iv. 611, 12, n. Rochester.

Bertram's book on the Eucharist, ii. 583, 4,
Latimer, and n. ; 588, do. ; 668, do. and
n. ; iii. 18, 19, Ridley, and n.

Beza, Theodore, and H. Saravia, iii. 523, 4,
Hooker; Beza and Whitgift, 606, 7,
Whitgift.

Bible, in English (ancient), Anne, wife of
K. Richard II. i. 255, 6, Wickliffe ; ii.
196, Tindall, and n.

, Wickliffe's translation of, i. 256—8,

Wickliffe ; act against (1414), 397, Cob-
ham.

, Tindall's, ii. 196—9, Tindall, and

n. ; 203—7, do. and n. ; 299, n. Crom-
well.

, Coverdale's, ii. 199, n., Tindall;

297, 8, Cromwell.

, Cranmer's, ii. 298, Cromwell.

, Mathews's, ii. 299, Cromwell.

, king James's, iv. 418, Sanderson.

, Protestant, Ward's errata of the, iii.

383, n., Gilpin.

, Erasmus's translation of the New Tes-
tament ; See Erasmus.

Bilney, Thomas, Life, ii. 1 — 42 ; Bilney and
Latimer, 3, do.

Bishops' book, the ; See Necessary Doctrine.

Bishops and bishoprics, appointment, pa-
tronage, &c. of, i. 119—27, Inett, and
n. ; 133, do.; 134. 5, do.; kings do not
make, but only place, i. 64, 5, Inett ;
124—6, n. do.

, elections of, by deans and chapters ;

See Capitular Elections.

, their investiture, i. 33 — 5, Inett,

and n. ; 134, 5, do.

, their votes in parliament taken

away, iv. 316, 17, Hall.

, Cranmer's, Bonner's, &c. commis-
sions for, from K. Henry VIII. ii. 296, 7,
Cromwell, and n. ; 379, 80, n. Hooper.

, impeachment of, in 1640, 1, iv.

307, n. Hall.

-, bill to deprive them of judicial and

civil functions, Hall's speech thereon, iv.
305—7, n. Hall ; progress of the bill, 307,
do. protestors against, 309, do.
Blackstone, sir Wm., quoted in n. ; Pro-
visors, statute of, i. 145, Inett; heresy,
punishable with burning, by common law
of England, 222, n. Wickliffe; heresy,
what, 225, 6, n. do. ; heretics, burning of,
ii. 331, n. Rogers.

Blessing of children, by their parents, ii. 73,
More, and n. ; iv. 182, Ferrar; 189, 90,
do. and n.

Blood of Hailes ; See Hailes.

Blunt, Rev. I. J., his history of the Re-
formation, commended, i. 34, n. Inett.

Boleyn , Anne, i . 498—500, Wolsey ; T indal 1's
Obedience of a Christian, lady Anne, and
Mr. Zouch, ii. 199—201, Tindall, and n.
Anne, Henry Vlllth's passion for,

i. 500, n. Wolsey.

Bollandus's Ada Sanctorum, account of, iv.
528, n. Hale.

Bonner, bishop ; Wolsey's cross falls on his
head, i. 636, Wolsey; made bishop of
London, ii. 295, Cromwell ; Bonner's mo-
ther and Ridley, iii. 6—8, Ridley; Bon-
ner and Cranmer, 253, 4, Cranmer; his
injunctions, quoted in n. ii. 191, Tindall.

Books, dearness, scarcity, &c. of, i. 409 — 11,
Supplementary Extracts, and n. ; Refor-
mers', seizure, &c. of, i. 418, 19, Supple-
mentary Extracts, and n. ; by order of
Wolsey, 663, Wolsey; Wickliffe's, 227,
8, Wickliffe, and n. ; 253, n. do. ; Arun-
del's constitution against, 256, do., and n. ;
356, Cobham.

Boston, town of, their pardons, ii. 223 — 9,
Cromwell.

Boyle, Hon. Robert, and Sanderson, iv. 468,
Sanderson ; 486, 7, do.

Bradford, John, the martyr, ii. 420, 421,
Taylor ; Free-will-men, Bradford, and
Ridley, iii. 65—7, Ridley, and n. ; his
restitution, after hearing Latimer preach,
ii. 543, n. Latimer.

Bridges (Bruges), Thomas of, some account
of, iii. 15, n. Ridley.

Bristowe's motives to the Catholic faith,
quoted in n. ; the primitive ages much
more devout than the modern, and how?
i. 153, Bentley; Papists, when leave off
frequenting the Protestant service, iii.
325 — 7, Jewel ; Golden Legend, miracles,
&c. 426, 7, Gilpin.

British Church ; See Church, British.

Broughton, Hugh, iii. 434, 5, Gilpin.

Browne, Robert, and the Brownists, iii.

546 50, Hooker, and n. ; 598, Whitgift ;

returns to the Church of England, 599,
600, do. and n.

Bryan, le county, notice of, i. 526, n. Wolsey.

, (papal,) origin of the term, i. 553, n.

Wolsey.

of P. Pius V. against Q. Elizabeth, iii.

324—8, Jewel, and n.

Bull, bishop, his variations introduced in
using the Liturgy, iv. 446 — 8, Sanderson,
and n.

Bulleine, sir Thos., his dignities, i. 498, n.
Wolsey.

Burghley, lord ; See Cecil.

Buridan's ass, iv. 391, Hammond, and n.

Burke, quoted in n. ; investiture of bishops,
i. 33, 4, Inett.

Burnet, bishop, quoted in n. More, sir
Thomas, had little learning, ii. 92, 3, More ;
determined cruelties of Q. Mary's govern-
ment, 418—20, Taylor; iii. 310, Moun-

730

INDEX.

Uiin ; Bui-net's, &c. scheme for a new
book of Homilies, iv. 462 — 4, Sanderson.
Butlers and Boleyns, disputes between these
families, i. 50, n. Wolsey.

C.

CALVIN, John, and Calvinism ; Calvin, and
the Interim, iii. 23, 4, Ridley ; troubles
at Frankfort, 84, n. do. ; vast influence
of, iii. 411, n. Gilpin ; iv. 422, Sanderson ;
God's will, antecedent and consequent,
iii. 472, 3, Hooker, and n. ; Calvinism,
doctrinal and disciplinarian, 521 , n. do. ;
Hooker taxed with hostility to Calvin,
520 — 3, n. do. ; Luther and Calvin are
but men, iv. 334, n. Hammond ; the five
points, 422, Sanderson ; Hooker, Calvin,
and Sanderson; sublapsarian and supra-
lapsarian way, 481, do. ; Calvin's Insti-
tutes, 430, I, do. See also Predestina-
rian Controversy.

Camden, quoted in n. Sir Thomas More,
anecdotes of, ii. 112, More.

Campaigne, cardinal, his duplicity, i. 554, n.
Wolsey.

Canaanites, destruction of the, iv. 631, Ro-
chester; 635, 6, do.

Canon Law, general account of, i. 128 — 30,
n. Inett; obligation of, on the realm of
England, 394, Cobham ; opposed to and
elevated above the Scriptures, ii. 193,
Tindall, and n. ; and law of England,
contradictory, iii. 218 — 26, Cranmer ; 221,
2, do.

Canons, secular, i. 119, 20, n. Inett.

Cap, ceremony of putting off the, on receiv-
ing letters, i. 303, 4. Thorpe, and n. ; at
passing sentence on criminals, 387, Cob-
ham, and n. ; in veneration of the ele-
ments in the Eucharist, ii. 321, 2, Ro-
gers, and n.

Capitular elections, i. 36, Inett, and n. ;
100—3, do. ; 118—24, do., and n.

Card Sermon, Latimer' s ; See Sermons.

Cardinals, mischief done by, wherever they
come, i. 570, Wolsey, and n.

Carleton, bishop, his life of Gilpin, iii. 375
—440.

Cartwright, Thomas, and subscription to
the 39 Articles, iii. 357, 8, Jewel ; Cart-
wright and Gilpin, 410, Gilpin ; Cart-
wright and Whitgift, 498 — 501, Hooker;
general account of, 567—74, Whitgift;
inclines to return to the Church of Eng-
land, 597, 8, Whitgift ; 599—601, ditto,
and n.

Casaubon, Isaac, quoted in n., de Libertate
Ecclesiastica, i. 49, Inett.

Catechizing, importance, usefulness. &c. of.
Usher's method, i. 438, 9, n. Colet ; iii.
53, Ridley ; K. James's directions for,
661, 2, Donne, and n. ; diligence in, iv.
38, 9, Herbert; 41, do.; 338-^40, Ham-
mond, and n. ; 497, Baxter ; neglect of,
during the usurpation, iv. 340, n. Ham-
mond.

Catechism of K. Edward VI., iii. 194, a.
Cranmer.

, Cranmer's Short Instruction, ii.

422, n. Taylor.

, Hammond's Practical, iv. 343, 4,

Hammond.

" Catholic, the," title of, iii. 216, n. Cran-
mer.

Cecil, lord Burghley, letter of rebuke to,
from Cranmer, iii. 160, n. Cranmer.

Celibacy, vows of, iv. 255, Ferrar, and
n.

Challenges to the Papists, Jewel's, iii. 350, 1,
Jewel ; Montague's, 351, 2, n. do. ; Bar-
low's, 352, n. do.

Chastity, vow of, iv. 255, n. Ferrar.

Chastillion, lord, aids the Lutherans, iii. 42,
n. Ridley.

Charles I., K., his Icon Basilike, iv. 449,
Sanderson; at Little Gidding, 1633, iv.
198, 9, Ferrar; in 1646, 202 — 4, do. ; in
1642, 243—6, do. ; K. Charles and the
Ferrar Harmonies, 1631, 221—39, do.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, and John Gower, in-
fluence of in the Reformation, i. 414—16,
Supplementary Extracts.

, quoted in n. ; pilgrims to Canter-
bury, i. 311, 12, Thorpe.

Cheke, sir John, quoted in n. ; hard case
of the married clergy under Q. Mary, ii.
317, Rogers ; apostasy lamentable of both
houses of parliament under Q. Mary, iii.
115— 17, n. Ridley.

Cholmley, sir Roger, notice of, iii. 23, 4, n.
Ridley.

Christ's real presence in the Eucharist ; See
Presence, real.

Christmas-day, debates respecting its ob-
servance, iv. 37, 8, Herbert, and n. ; its
observance by sir Matthew Hale, 566, 7,
Hale.

Christopherson, bishop, quoted in n. ; divine
service in an unknown tongue, i. 149, 50,
Bentley; Thou, Lord, hast deceived us,
288, 9. Thorpe ; Christ's cross, 386, Cob-
ham ; babbling sir Johns, 392, do. ; The
Lord, our Lord, ii. 83, More; ministers,
not priests, ii. 599, 600, Latimer ; portraits
of K. Edward VI., iii. 13, 14, Ridley ;
insubordination of Protestant children,
servants, &c. 562—4, n. Whitgift; the
king's arms in churches, 233, Cranmer;
prayer in an unknown tongue, better than
in a known, 94 — 6, Ridley.

Church, the, nature and incidents of, i.
268—71, Thorpe ; militant and triumph-
ant, 292, 3, do. ; threefold division of,
361—3, Cobham, and n. ; 377, 8, do. ;
marks of, iii. 36, Ridley, and n. ; pros-
perity, no mark of, ii. 333, 4, Rogers ;
339—47, do.; visible and invisible, i.
269, 70, n. Thorpe ; iii. 38, Ridley ; visi-
bility and perpetuity of; Usher, Abbot,
&c. iv. 299— 301, Hall, and n.; infallibility
alleged, i. 155, Bentley; 269, 70, Thorpe,
and n.; ii. 603, 4, Latimer; iii. 33—7,
Ridley ; unity of, ii. 555, Latimer.

Church and state, one body, i. 244, Wick-
liffc.

INDEX.

731

Churches, national, i. 59—76, Inett ; 122 3

n. do.; 133, do. ; 137, do.
Church, a parliamentary, i. 21, Inett; iv.

678, 9, Tillotson.
, to believe the, and to believe in the,

i. 376, 7, Cobham, and n.

establishments, uses, &c. of, i. 60,

Inett ; 62—9, do. ; 122—4, n. do.'

, the, its independence, limits, &c. of,

i. 64—79, Inett.

music, organs, &c. i. 313 — 16, Thorpe,

and n. ; Donne, at St. Paul's, iii. 666,
Donne; cathedral, &c. music, iv. 12, 13,
Herbert ; 40, do.

property, conditional, i. 207, 8, Wick-

liffe, and n.

, designs against; spoliation,

&c. of, i. 160, 1, Bentley; 601—603,
Wolsey ; Ridley's resistance to, iii. 83, 4,
Ridley, and n. ; Cranmer's and Ridley's,
n. 147, 8, Cranmer; 158—161, Cranmer,
and n. ; Solvat Ecdesia, 370, 1, Jewel,
and n. ; 389—91, Gilpin, and n. ; Whit-
gift, E. of Leicester, and Q. Elizabeth, 393
— 7, Hooker, and n. See al so Monasteries,
dissolution of.

concealments, iv. 289, 90, Hall, and

n. See also Sacrilege.
, restitution of, iv. 185 — 7, Fer-

rar, and n. See also Impropriations First-
fruits.
Church, the British ; no dependence on

Rome, i. 4, 5, Inett ; 18, 19, do. and n. ;

132, do.
Church, the Anglican, i. 4—28, Inett; 132

—46, do.
, the Gallican, i. 9, Inett; 11, 12,

do; iii. 130, Cranmer.

- of England, its moderation, iv. 693, 4,

Tillotson.

- of Rome, appeals to ; See Appeals.
, whether a true Church, iii.

510, Hooker ; 515, do. ; iv. 300, n. Hall.
-, its alleged infallibility, i.

155, Bentley; 269, 70, Thorpe, and n. ;
ii. 603, 4, Latimer, and n.
, its usurped power may

lawfully be cast off, i. 24, 5, Inett, and n. ;
iii. 219 — 21, Cranmer, and n.

schisms in, i. 29, Inett,

and n.; 123, 'do.; 209— ll,' Wickliffe.'

and n. See also Popery.
Civil Law ; See Law, Civil.
Clarendon, statutes of, i. 51, 2, Inett,

and n.
Clergy, exemption of, from civil jurisdiction,

i. 36—58, Inett, and n.; 59—76, do.,

and n. ; 142, 3, do. ; Venice and Father

Paul, iv. 87, 8, Wotton.
, maintenance of, iv. 643, 4, Ro-
chester.
, pomp, luxury, &c. of, i. 491, 2,

Wolsey, and n. ; 493, do., and n. ; ii.

3, 4, Bilney, and n.
, of noble families, expediency of, iv.

19, Herbert, and n.
, not to preach without licence of the

bishop, i. 283—92, Thorpe, and n.
, unlawful commands of, whether to

be obeyed, i. 288—90, Thorpe, and n •
333, do., and n.; iii. 112, n. Ridley.

Clergy, under popery, are but half the king's
subjects, ii. 233, Cromwell, and n.

, ignorance of, i. 173, Wick-
liffe, and n. ; ii. 191, 2, Tindall, and n. ;
iii. 95, 6, n. Ridley; 153, 4, Cranmer,
andn.

marriages ; See Marriapes of Priests.

, pecuniary exactions from, by the

popes, i. 135, 6, Inett, and n. ; 143, 4
do.; 192— 4, n. Wickliffe.

Clinton, lady, the " fair Geraldine " of lord
Surrey, iii. 12, n. Ridley.

Cobham, lord, Life, &c. of, i. 351—402.

Coke, lord chief justice, quoted in n. ;
the three estates, iv. 310, n. Hall.

Cole, Dr. Henry, sermon at Cranmer's
martyrdom, iii. 271 — 4.

Colet, dean, Life, &c. of, i. 433 — 57. Ex-
tract from his Convocation Sermon, 451
—455, do.

Collects in the Church service, beauty, &c.
of, iv. 460, Sanderson.

Combat, trial by, i. 364, n. Cobham.

Commandment, the second, omission of in
popish catechisms, &c. ii. 17, n. Bilney.

Committee for scandalous ministers, iv.
443, Sanderson.

Common-place books ; Ridley's, ii. 578,
Latimer, and n. ; Jewel's, iii. 362, Jewel ;
Donne's, 689, Donne.

Communion in both kinds ; See Cup in the
Eucharist.

Communion, monthly, iv. 336, 7? Ham-
mond.

Compostella, St. James at, pilgrimage to, i.
175, Wickliffe.

Comprehension of dissenters, projects for, i.
162, Bentley ; lord keeper Bridgman's,
iv. 553, 4, Hale, and n. ; Tillotson,
Stillingfleet, Baxter, &c. in 1675, 687—91,
Tillotson; in 1689, 696—710, do.

Concealments of church -lands, iv. 289, 90,
Hall, and n.

Concomitancy in the Eucharist, ii. 214, Tin-
dall, and n. ; 577, Latimer ; 633, 4, do. ;
iii. 168, Cranmer ; 247, do ,- 398, 9, Gil-
pin, and n.

Concubinary priests; See Marriages of
Priests.

Confession, private, to a priest, i. 338 — 41,
Thorpe; 369, Cobham; 371, do.; 449,
Colet, and n. ; Bilney and Latimer, ii.
30, Bilney; often deferred for many
years, 264, n. Cromwell; Latimer was
Bilney's confessor, 499, Latimer; how
far approved of in the Church of England,
iii. 73, 4, Ridley, and n. ; abuses of, ii.
224, 5, Cromwell, and n.

Confessions of faith ; Wickliffe's, i. 239—41,
Wickliffe; Thorpe's, 265—71, Thorpe;
lord Cobham's, 360—4, Cobham.

Constance, Council of, i. 248—50, Wick-
liffe ; John Huss, &c. 406, 7, Supplem.
Extracts.

Constantino's dotation, venom to the Church,
i. 249, Cobham, and n.

Controversialists, Protestant, adduce their

732

INDEX.

adversaries' arguments at full length, ii.
103, 4, More.

Conventicles, proceedings for suppression
of, iv. 685—8, Tillotson.

Convocation and Parliament, conjoint duties
of, in ecclesiastical affairs, iv. 677, 8, Til-
lotson.

of 1536, its proceedings, ii. 249—61,

Cromwell.

of 1689, iv. 679—83, Tillotson.

Cosin's, Dr., Conspiracy for a pretended Re-
formation, account of, iii. 591, Whitgift.

Cotton's Abridgment of Records, quoted in
n. ; papal exactions from the clergy, i.
192-14, n. Wickliffe.

Councils, general, the clergy convened to,
by emperors, kings, &c. i. 19, 20, Inett;
20, 1, do.; nature and incidents of, iii.
43- — 8, Ridley ; may err, and have erred,
46 — 8, do. ; whether they are above the
Pope, ii. 516, 17, Latimer; 250, Crom-
well ; have been discontinued since the
Reformation, ii. 663, n. Latimer.

Council of Tours, i. 30, Inett ; 32, do.

Clarendon, i. 51, 2, Inett ; 57. do.

Avignon, i. 77, Inett.

, 4th Lateran, i. 111—16, Inett.

of Trent, iii. 414, Gilpin ; 102, n.

Ridley. See also Faith, rule of.

Covenant, solemn league and, iv. 308, Hall ;
433, Sanderson ; Oxford reasons against,
438, 9, do. and n.

Coverdale's Martyrs' Letters; See Martyrs,
Letters of.

Cowl, St. Francis's, burial in ; See Fran-
cis, St.

Cranmer, archbishop, Life, &c. iii. 129 —
281 ; speech in convocation, 1537, ii.
252, 3, Cromwell; noble resistances to
K. Henry VIII. ii. 285, 6, n. Cromwell ;
his poverty, iii. 160, and n. Cranmer;
his opposition to the act of six Articles,
iii. 168 — 71, Cranmer; his pre-eminent
services in the Reformation, 195 — 7, do.
and n. ; whether ever a Lutheran in the
doctrine of consubstantiation, 234, 5,
Cranmer, and n. ; enlightened by Ridley
in the doctrine of the Eucharist, 192, 3,
Cranmer, and n. ; his book on the
Eucharist, 20, Ridley, and n. ; his and
Ridley's, &c. disputations at Oxford, ii.
548—616, Latimer.

1 , quoted in n. ; reading

the Bible in churches, during the Church
service, iii. 564, Whitgift.

Cranmer's, George, letter to Hooker, iii.
540—3, Hooker.

Cromwell, lord, Life, &c. ii. 219—302;
Wolsey's servant, i. 588—93, Wolsey;
606—10, do. ; 614—16, do. ; ii. 286, 7,
Cromwell, and n.

, Oliver, declaration of restraint,

&c. against the episcopal clergy (1655),
iv. 356, 7, Hammond, and n. ; Baxter and
Cromwell, 491, Baxter; Cromwell and
sir Matthew Hale, 543—46, Hale.

Cross of Christ, reliques, worship, &c. of, i.
176— 8, Wickliffe ; 383— 6, Cobham, and
n. ; 588, Wolsey.

Cross, St. Paul's, sermons at; Shunammitu's
house, &c. ; iii. 471, 2, Hooker, and n.

Croydon, Whitgift's hospital at, iii. 497, 8,
Hooker; 623, Whitgift.

Crusade, nature and incidents of, i. 78, Inett,
and n. ; against England, 87 — 91, do. ; K.
John, 105, do. ; 151—3, Bentley ; 176—9,
Wickliffe ; 383, 4, n. Cobham.

Cup in the Eucharist, denial of to the laity,
i. 159, Bentley; ii. 563, Latimer ; 633,4,
do.; iii. 93, n. Ridley; 225, Cranmer;
246—8, do.

Curse, the greater and the less, i. 218—21,
Wickliffe, and n. ; 318, Thorpe, and n.

DANCE of Death, i. 473, n. Wolsey.
Danvers, sir John, a Parliamentarian, some

account of, iv. 8, n. Herbert.
Day, bishop, case of, ii. 349, n. Rogers.
, methods of passing the ; bishop Hall's,

iv. 291, 2, n. Hall ; sir Matthew Kale's,

538, 9, Hale.

Dead, prayer for the ; See Prayer.
Deadly feuds, iii. 89, Ridley; 407, n.

Gilpin ; 578, Whitgift.
Death, presages of, iv. 615, 16, Rochester.
Death-bed Scenes and Pastoral Conversa-
tions, commended, iv. 674, n. Rochester.
Decretals, the publication, &c. of. i. 128—

30, n. Inett.
Defender of the faith, king's title, ii. 478,

Latimer, and n. ; iii. 216, Cranmer, and n.
, Leo X.'s bull to

Henry VIII. preserved in the British

Museum, iii. 2l6, n. Cranmer.
Degrading from ecclesiastical orders, forms

of, ii. 38, Bilney ; 40, do, and n. ; 389,

90, Hooper; 430, Taylor, and n.; 665—

8, Latimer; iii. 253 — 5, Cranmer; 261,

do.
Devotions, private, fixed place for, iv. 113,

Wotton, and n.

Digest, Irish ; See Frisk Digest.
Dinner, hour of, i. 631, Wolsey, and n.
Diplomatic intercourse with France and

Spain, iv. n. Wotton; with Venice, 84,

do.

Dirge, a corruption ofdirige, ii. 66, n. More.
Discipline of the body, with a whip, &c. ii.

67, More, and n. ; 222, do.
Disciplinarian controversy, iii. 410 — 12,

Gilpin; 485-91, Hooker, and n. See

also Puritanism.
Dispensing power, the pope's claim of, iii.

140, Cranmer; 216, do. and n.; 248, do.

and n.
Dissenters, comprehension of, projects for;

See Comprehension.
Divinity studies, method of, prescribed by

K. James, iii. 661, 2, Donne, and n. ;

iv. 334, Hammond, and n. ; 422, San-
derson.
Divorce, doctrine, lawfulness, &c. of, ii.

459, Hooper, and n. ; iv. 642, Rochester.
of K. Henry VIII. i. 551—572,

INDEX.

733

Wolsey; ii. 122—33, More; iii. 134—
41, Cranmer.

Doctors of the Church, the four great, i. 255,
Wickliffe, and n. ; ii. 455, Latimer.

Dominion, whether founded in grace, i. 204,
n. Wickliffe.

Dominis, Marc. Ant. de, archbishop of Spa-
lato, iv. 93, 4, Wotton, and n.

Donne, Dr. John, Life, &c. iii. 631—83.

Dorset, marquess, some account of, i. 466,
n. Wolsey.

Dort, synod of, iv. 295, 6, Hall, and n.

Dowling's Introduction to the Study of Ec-
clesiastical History, commended, iv. 527,
n. Hale.

Dream of sir Thomas More's mother, ii.
49, More ; of Dr. Nicholas Wotton, iv.
74, 5, Wotton ; of bishop Hall's mother,
270, Hall ; Dr. Hammond's, 342, Ham-
mond ; dream, or vision, of Dr. Donne,
iii. 648 — 51, Donne.

Duty, Whole, of Man ; See Man.

E.

EDUCATION in great houses of young per-
sons of rank, i. 484, n. Wolsey.

Edward VI., K., to be obeyed in his mino-
rity, iii. 13, 14, Ridley, and n. ; founds the
royal hospitals, 109, 10, do. and n. ; be-
queaths the succession to lady Jane Gray,
198, Cranmer, and n. ; description of, at
his accession, 200, n. do.

Eleemosynam, in liberam et puram, i. 317,
n. Thorpe ; 319, do. and n. ; 328, 9, n. do.

Elizabeth, Q., proceedings in religion at
her accession, iii. 346 — 9, Jewel; her
death, 611, 12, Whitgift.

, Jewel's description of her ex-
communication, iv. 81, n. Wotton.

Ellis, the Rev. Clement, iv. 358, n. Ham-
mond.

Elopement, the earl of Rochester's with
Mrs. Mallet, iv. 610, n. Rochester; his
marriage with her, iv. 612, 13, n. do.

Ember weeks, what? i. 299, n. Thorpe;
observance of, iii. 526, Hooker; iv. 38,
Herbert.

England, monarchy of; See Monarchy.

, under Q. Mary and K. Edward

VI., compared, iii. 90 — 7.

. , custom in, of saluting females, i.

533, Wolsey, and n.

Enmore, Somerset, some account of, iv.
646, n. Rochester.

Episcopacy, bishop Hall's defence of, iv.
315, 16, Hall; petitions for and against,
307, 8. do. ; bishops' votes in parliament,
defended in a speech by bishop Hall,
305 7, Hall, n. ; episcopacy not preju-
dicial to regal authority, 440, Sanderson ;
K. Charles the First's grief and repentance
for abolition of in Scotland, 426, do.

Erasmus, his translation of the New Testa-
ment, effects of, ii. 26, Bilney ; 229, 30,
Cromwell ; Jewel studies Erasmus's
writings, iii. 334, Jewel, and n.; Gilpin

very conversant in Erasmus's writings,
382, Gilpin.

Erastianism, i. 120, n. Inett.

Estates in England, the three, iv. 310, n.
Hall.

Eucharist, the, doctrine and incidents of;
statements by Ridley of the grand points
in that controversy, ii. 549—51, n. Lati-
mer; by Hooker, i. 295 — 7, Thorpe; acci-
dents without subject, i. 186, Wickliffe,
and n. ; Oxford decree for transubstantia-
tion, i. 211, 12, Wickliffe, and n. ; does
material bread remain after consecration ?
i. 186, Wickliffe, and n. ; 293—301,
Thorpe, and n. ; 369, Cobham ; 371, do. ;
374 — 6, do. ; outward worship, in refer-
ence to, ii. 321. 2, Rogers, and n. ; re-
serve respecting propounding the true doc-
trine of, i. 229, Wickliffe, and n. ; 294, 5,
Thorpe, and n. ; ii. 203, Tindall ; 214—18,
do. ; vast importance of this controversy,
ii. 583, 4, Latimer, and n.; iii. 65, 6,
Ridley, and n. See also Lord's Supper,
Communions, monthly, Concomitancy,
Transubstantiation, Presence, the real.

Euston, (Easton Neston), near Towcester,
historical associations of, i. 578, n.
Wolsey.

Evelyn's Memoirs, quoted in n. ; catechizing,
neglect of, iv. 340, n. Hammond.

Excommunication, the greater and less, i.
218—21, Wickliffe, and n. ; 318, Thorpe,
and n. ; iv. 86, 7, Wotton.

Exiles under Q. Mary, at Frankfort, iii.
78, 9, Ridley, and n. ; 341—3, Jewel ; at
Zurich, 344, do.

Extemporary prayer ; See Prayer.

preaching ; See Preaching.

Eye, lecture on the, sir H. Wotton's, iv.
73, 4, Wotton.

F.

FAGGOT, bearing of, branding with a, &c.

i. 423, 4, Supplem. Extracts.
Faith, rule of, in the council of Trent, iii.

102, n. Ridley; 385—7, Gilpin, and n. ;

388, 9, do. ; 423, do.

5 implicit, i. 142, Thorpe, and n.

, justification by ; See Justification.

Fall of man, iv. 631, Rochester; 634,

do.

Fanshaw, Mr., the earl of Rochester's death-
bed advice to, iv. 671, 2, Rochester.
falsely reports that the earl of

Rochester is mad, iv. 672, 3, do.
Fate, doctrine of; Dr. Henry More, iv.

332, 3, n. Hammond.
Fathers, the, authority of, esteem for, &c. i.

270, n. Thorpe ; iii. 397, 8, Gilpin ; vary

in many points one among another, ii.

256, Cromwell ; 605, Latimer ; none, but

have erred in some things, iii. 23, Ridley;

84, 5, n. do.; slighted by the Puritans,

411, n. Gilpin.
Fee-farming, iv. 288, 9, n. Hall.

734

INDEX.

Females, custom in England of saluting, i.
533, Wolsey, and n.

Fermor, interesting account of, iii. 262, n.

Ferrar, Nicholas, his Life, &c. iv. 117—264;
character, &c. iv. 43, 7, Herbert.

, jun. iv. 217 — 42. Ferrar.

Festival, Golden Legend, &c. read in
churches, &c. to the neglect of the
Scriptures, iii. 426, 7, Gilpin, and n.

, quoted in n. Lent, i. 175, 6,

Wickliffe ; rowning, 348, Thorpe ; lights,
burning of, before images, ii. 18, 19,
Bilney.

Feuds, deadly ; See Deadly Feuds.

Field, Dr. Richard, iii. 449, Hooker; the
five points, iv. 101, n. Wotton.

Fiend, the, loosing of; See Satan.

Firmin, Mr. Thomas, account of, iv. 683 — 5,
Tillotson.

First-fruits ; Gilpin hopes the crown will
relinquish them, iii. 390, 1, n. Gilpin;
480, Hooker, and n.

Fish, Simon, his supplication of the beggars,
ii. 91, More; 201, 2, Tindall.

Fisher, bishop, his opinion that reformation
is necessary, i. 426, n. SuppLem. Ex-
tracts ; his character, sufferings, &c. ii.
147—9, More, and n.

Fitzwilliam, sir William, i. 618, 19, Wol-
sey ; his noblemindedness, i. 618, n.
Wolsey.

Five Points, the ; See Quinquarticular Con-
troversy.

Fox, bishop of Hereford, ii. 256, 7, Crom-
well, and n.

Fox, John, the martyrologist, extracts from ;
See Wickliffe, Thorpe, Lord Cobham,
Supplementary Extracts, Bilney, Tindall,
Cromwell, Rogers, Hooper, Taylor, Lati-
mer, Ridley, Cranmer, Mountain.

, his PuritAn partialities, ii. 363, 4, n.

Hooper ; 367—70, do, and n.

, his Latin edition, i. 179, n. Wickliffe ;

239, 40, n. do. ; 282, n. Thorpe ; ii. 3, 4,
n. Bilney; 210, n. Tindall.

, the Ferrar family's esteem for, iv.

125, 6, Ferrar.

Franc almoinage ; See Eleemosynam.

Francis I., Wolsey's decision against, i.
488, n. Wolsey.

Francis's, St., cowl, interment in, ii. 15, 16,
Biluey, and n. ; 36, do. ; 502, Latimer.

Frankfort, Geneva, &c. troubles at, under Q.
Mary, iii. 84, 5, Ridley, and n. ; iii. 345, 6,
Jewel.

Fraternity, letters of, i. 216, Wickliffe; ii.
15, n. Bilney; 229, Cromwell, and n.

Frederic, the emperor, treatment of by P.
Alexander III. i. 47, 8, Inett ; 70—3," do.

Free-will-men, Harry Hart, &c. iii. 65, 6,
Ridley, and n.

Frescobald, Francis, ii. 272—8, Cromwell.

Friars, mendicant orders ; general character
of, i. 181, 2, Wickliffe, and n. ; buy up
books, 409, 10, n. Supplem. Extracts;
come into England, A.D. 1220, ii. 245,
Cromwell ; younjj; Gilpin disgusted by
one, iii. 381, 2, Gilpin. See also Monas-
teries, Monks, Religious Orders.

Frith, John, a very extraordinary person, ii.
214- — 16, Tindall, and n.; grounds on which
he was content to suffer martyrdom, iii.
100, 1, n. Ridley.

Fuller, Dr. Thomas, quoted in n. Gloria
Patri, use of, discouraged, iv. 36, Her-
bert.

fi.

GALLICAN Church ; See Church, Gallican.

Gandune, John of, i. 199, Wickliffe,
and n.

Gardiner, bishop; bis name, Dr. Stevens, i.
557, Wolsey, and n. ; influence of, on K.
Henry VIII. iii. 165—7, Cranmer; writes
against Cranmer, on the Eucharist, 193, 4,
do. ; protests against the charge of cruelty,
ii. 412, Taylor, and n. ; declares his judg-
ment to be against any further burning of
the reformers, 428, 9, n. do. ; personal
description of, iii. 289, n. Mountain ; dis-
claims being of a proselyting spirit, 337,
n. Jewel ; his death, &c. iii. 127, 8, Ridley.

, quoted in n. ; Monasteries, and

"faith only," ii. 248, 9, n. Cromwell;
Wolsey's mistrust of, i. 578, n. Wolsey ;
his reply to Cranmer, iii. 26, n. Ridley.

Gelasius, De duabus Naturis quoted, iii. 19,
n. Ridley.

Ghost, Holy, mass of the, iii. 42, Ridley,
and n.

Gilpin, Bernard, life, &c. of, iii. 374—440.

, George, iii. 393, Gilpin ; 412, do.

Gloria Patri, usage of, discouraged during
the usurpation, iv. 36, n. Herbert; 189,
n. Ferrar.

God's marks, in the sweating sickness, ii.
117, More, and n.

Golden Legend, the, read in churches, &c.
to the neglect of the Scriptures, iii. 426, 7,
Gilpin, and n.

, quoted in n. ; Lent, 5. 176,

Wickliffe ; St. Longius, the blind knight,
268, Thorpe.

Gouge, Rev. Thomas, his pious and charita-
ble works, iv. 691, 2, Tillotson.

Gower, John, influence of, on the Reforma-
tion, i. 414 — 16, Supplem. Extracts.

Grace, rood of, ii. 282, Cromwell.

Grafton, manor of, its various

i. 574, n. Wolsey.
Wolsey's reception at, i. 580, n.

Wolsey.

Grammar Schools ; See Schools.
Greek tongue, study of, opposed by the

Papists, iii. 333, n. Jewel ; Latimer says,

not understood by him, ii. 598, 9, Latimer,

and n.

Gregory, Pope, the great, i. 11, Inett.
, Pope (Hildebrand) ; his ambitious

designs, i. 6, Inett; 17, do.; 20, 1, do.,

and n.
Gunpowder, bags of, given occasionally to

the martyrs, ii. 401, 2, Hooper, and n. ;

442, 3, Taylor ; iii. 124, Ridley.
Treason, Nov. 5, i. 158, Bcntloy.

INDEX.

735

H.

HACKET, and Copinger, iii. 486, Hooker,
and n. : 545—8, do. and n. ; iii. 591, 2,
Whitgift.

Hailes, blood of, i. 425, Supplem. Extracts,
and n. ; ii. 282, 3, Cromwell, and n. ; ii.
487, 8, Latimer.

Hair, shirts of, for bodily discipline, ii. 67,
More, and n.

Hale, sir Matthew, Life, &c. iv. 521—97.

Hales, sir Jarnes, recants ; his compunction
and death, ii. 615, Latimer, and n.

Hall, bishop, Life, &c. iv. 265—326, goes to
France, in an embassy from England, iv.
103, 4. See also Episcopacy.

Hammond, Dr. Henry, Life,&c.iv.327— 408;
his Practical Catechism, great value of, iv.
344, Hammond, and n. ; his sentiments
concerning universal redemption, 449 — 55,
Sanderson, and n.

Hampton Court Conference, iii. 626, Whit-
gift, and n. ; iv. 14, Herbert.

Harding, Dr. John, against Jewel, iii. 356,
Jewel; Council of Trent, his account of,
414, Gilpin.

Harmonies of the Holy Scriptures, iv. 218
— £0, Ferrar.

, the Ferrar, preserved in the

Brit. Mus., iv. 218, 19, n. Ferrar.

Hart, Harry, and the Free-will-men ; See
Free-will-men.

Hawkins, sir John, quoted in n. ; church
music, i. 315, Thorpe.

Healths, drinking of, iv. 537, Hale, and n.

Hendon, manor of, i. 616, 17, n. Wolsey.

Henry II., K., and Becket, i. 39—58,
Inett.

Henry VIII., K., his accession, character, &c.
i. 4/3, 4, Wolsey, and n. ; the divorce
from Q. Catherine, 551 — 72. See also
Divorce ofK. Henry VIII. His eminent
services in the Reformation, iii. ]95 — 7,
n. Cranmer.

. , his useless expenditure in

France, i. 516, n. Wolsey.

Henry, prince of Wales, and bishop Hall,
iv. 286, 7, Hall.

Heraldry, Sanderson's study of, iv. 467,
Sanderson ; 475, do.

, importance of, formerly, i. 599, n.
Wolsey.

Herbert, George, his Life, &c. iv. 1 — 64 ;
his Temple, iii. 668, Donne; Ferrar' s
prayer for him, iv. 264.

Heresy, nature, and incidents of, i. 225, 6,
n. Wickliffe; ii. 331, n. Rogers; iii. 15,
Ridley ; 243, 4, Cranmer ; 223, do.

, abjuration of; See Abjuration.

, laws against ; stat. 5 Richard II.

i. 222, 3, Wickliffe; constitutions of,
Arundel, statutes of K. Henry V. &c.
i. 272—4, Thorpe, and n. ; 397, 8, Cob-
ham, and n. ; Chicheley's constitutions,
399, 400, Cobham, and n. ; revival of,
under Q. Mary, i. 226, n. Wickliffe;
ii. 323, 4, Rogers, and n. ; ii. 616, 17,
Latimer; iii. 23, 4, Ridley, and n.

Heretics, first statute for burning, i. 222
Wickliffe, and n. ; Sawtray, Win., the
first martyr, 254, Wickliffe, and n.

- , bones, burning of, i. 249, Wickliffe,
and n.

- , prayer for, forbidden ; i. 401, Cob-
ham ; ii. 351, Rogers, and n. ; 400, 1,
Hooper, and n.

- , not to be conversed with, or to ad-
dress the people, ii. 347, Rogers ; 398,
Hooper, and n. ; 419, 20, n. Taylor ; 663,
Latimer, and n. ; 667, 8, do. ; 671, do.

- , the clergy cannot burn them, but
they must be turned over to the secular
power, ii. 330, 1, Rogers, and n.

Herford, Nicholas, i. 227, Wickliffe ; 236—

39, do.

Hermit, Peter the, i. 87, Inett.
Herod's oath ; See Oath.
High Commission Court, iii. 614— 16, Whit-

gift.

Hildebrand, pope ; See Gregory VII.
Hoggard, Miles, a cruel persecutor, ii. 352,

n. Rogers ; 676, n. Latimer.
Holidays, celebration of, its excellent uses,

iv. 37, 8, Herbert, and n.
Holmes, John, esq., the editor's great obli-

gations to, Advertisement, vi ; iv. 199,

n. Ferrar.
Holy Ghost, sin against, ii. 30, 1, Bilney,

and n.
-- , in baptism, ii. 638, n. Latimer;

639, do.
-- , mass of the, iii. 42, Ridley,

and n.
Holy Land, the, pilgrimages, &c. to ; See

Crusade.
Homilies, Saxon, respecting the Eucharist,

i. 5, n. Inett.

- of the Church of England ; cha-
racter of, iii. 90, Ridley; authors of, 194,5,
and n. Cranmer.

, projected new book of (Tillotson

and Burnet), iv. 462 — 5, Sanderson,
and n.

Hooker, Richard, Life, &c. iii. 441—^53;
his Ecclesiastical Polity, letter to Whitgift
when writing it, iii. 516, 17, Hooker; when
published, 518, do.; 6th, 7th, and 8th
books, 534—40, do. ; Keble's edition of
his works, iii. 523, n. do.

- and bishop Sanderson, iv. 430, n.
Sanderson; "Christian letter" to, account
of, iii. 521—3, n. Hooker.

, quoted in n. Christian kings have
jurisdiction in causes ecclesiastical, i. 60, 1,
Inett; do not make, only place bishops, 64,
5, do. ; patrons of bishoprics, 123 — 6, do. ;
parochial patronage, 126, do. ; private judg-
ment, 291, 2, Thorpe; different judgments
respecting the nature of Christ's presence
in the Eucharist, 295 — 7, do. ; instru-
mental music, 314, do.

Hooper, bishop, Life, &c. ii. 355—404.

-- , quoted in n. ; the king cannot sur-
render the rights of his crown, i. 23, 4,
Inett.

Horace, odes of, Sanderson's delight in, iv.
467, Sanderson.

736

INDEX.

Hospitals, the royal, founded by K. Edward
VL, iii. 109, 10, Ridley, and n.

Hubberdin, a popish preacher, ii. 481, 2,
Latimer; 489—91, do.

Hudson, Dr. Michael, and K. Charles I. iv.
202—4, Ferrar, and n.

Humfrey, Dr. Lawrence, his Life of Jewel,
iii. 319, 20, Jewel.

Hunsden, Henry VIII.'s palace at, iii. 11,
n. Ridley.

Hunt, Mr. Nicholas, letter to, from arch-
bishop Tillotson. iv. 699—702, Tillotson.

Huss, John, i. 253, Wickliffe; 427, Supple-
mentary Extracts.

I & J.

JAMES L, K. ; his accession, iii. 612, 13,
Whitgift; will maintain in church matters
the policy of the late queen, 625 — 7, do. ;
Gondomar's influence over, iv. 161, Fer-
rar ; his directions for studies, preaching,
&c. iii. 661, 2, Donne, and n. ; iv. 334,
Hammond, and n. ; 422, Sanderson ; his
death, iv. 18, Herbert.

James, Dr. Thomas, quoted in n., Wickliffe,
encomium on, i. 169, Wickliffe ; charge
against Jewel, of a false citation, answered,
iii. 359, 60, Jewel.

Idolatry, discountenanced by papists in the
schools, but encouraged in ordinary prac-
tice, i. 302, n. Thorpe ; iii. 396, Gilpin ;
415, do.

Jenkyns, Rev. Professor, his edition of
Cranmer commended, iii. 144, n. Cranmer.
, quoted in n. ; services of Henry
VIII. in the Reformation, seldom duly
appreciated, 195 — 7, n. Cranmer ; papal
usurpations, 220, do. ; whether Cranmer
ever held the doctrine of consubstan-
tiation, 234, 5, do. ; sentences against
Cranmer, &c. invalid, ii. 616, 17, n. La-
timer.

Jesuits, the, i. 157, Bentley; iii. 438, 9,
Gilpin.

Jewel, bishop, Life, &c. iii. 315—74; pa-
tronizes young Hooker, 461 — 4, Hooker.

Jews and Turks, their conversion, obstacles
to, ii. 17, n. Bilney.

Ignoramus, comedy of, iv. 131, n. Ferrar.

Ignorance, popery sustained by, 408, 9, Sup-
plementary Extracts.

of religion, in the people generally,

i. 171—4, Wickliffe; 310, Thorpe, and
n.; ii. 13, Bilney.

. in the clergy; See Clergy, igno-

rance of.

Image, miracle-working, at Sichem, in Bra-
bant, iv. 281, n. Halt

Images, worship of, i. 3Q1 — 8, Thorpe, and
n. ; an obstacle to the conversion of Jews,
&c. ii. 17, n. Bilney ; discouraged by pa-
pists in the schools, but encouraged in
vulgar practice, i. 302, n. Thorpe ; iii.
396, 7, Gilpin ; 415, do.

, burning of lightsbefore, signification,

&c. of, ii. 18, 19, Bilney, and n.

Images, laymen's books, i. 302, Thorpe ;
305, do.; 367, 8, Cobham, and n. ; ii.
482, Latimer.

Impropriations of benefices, mischiefs, &c.
of, i. 151, Bentley ; iii. 372, Jewel, and
n. ; 402, Gilpin, and n. ; 425, n. do.

Independents, their courtesies to K. Charles
I. iv. 347, 8, Hammond, and n. ; 439,
Sanderson ; have supplanted the Presby-
terians, 469, do. See also Presbyterians.

Indifferent things, nature, &c. of, iii. 33,
Ridley, and n. ; 99, 100, n. do.

Indulgences, papal, i. 157, Bentley; 216,
Wickliffe, n. ; 369, n. Cobham ; 526, 7,
Wolsey, and n. ; 618, do.; ii. 12—15,
Bilney; the Boston pardons, 223—9,
Cromwell ; extended to many thousand
years, iii. 428, Gilpin.

Inett, Dr. John, quoted in n. ; capitular
elections, i. 35, Inett; bishops, appoint-
ment, &c. of, 119—24, do.

Infallibility, disclaimed by the Church of
England, i. 284, 5, Thorpe, and n.

, claimed by the church of Rome,

iii. 100, n. Ridley. See also Art. XIX.

Innocent, Pope, III. character and ambitious
designs, i. 6, Inett ; 77, do.

Innovations, in religion, alleged, under K.
Charles I. iv. 288, 9, Hall, and n. ; 293,
do. ; 295, 6, do. and n.

Inquisition, the, i. 160, Bentley.

Institution of a Christian man, ii. 260, 1, n.
Cromwell ; iii. 47, Ridley.

, quoted in n. ; usurped authority

of the bishops of Rome may be renounced,
i. 24, 5, Inett.

Interdict, papal, nature and incidents of,
under K. Henry II., i. 50, Inett ; under
K. John, 80, 1, do. ; released, after having
continued above six years, 103, do. ; at
Venice, iv. 86 — 9, Wotton ; privilege
against, ii. 228, Cromwell.

Investiture of bishops ; See Bishops.

John, K., and Pope Innocent III. i. 22 — 4,
Inett, and n. ; 81, 2, do. ; his surrender
to the pope an illegal act, i. 22—5, Inett,
and n. ; 91, do.; 99, do.; 194, 5, n.
Wickliffe.

Jokin, John (Giovanni Groacchino), notice
of, i. 510, 11, n. Wolsey.

, letters of to Francis I. in behalf of
Wolsey, i. 610, 11, Wolsey.

Ireland, pretended grant of to K. Henry II.
by Pope Adrian, i. 29, 30, Inett, and n. ;
54, do. ; 91, do.

Irish digest of evidence, quoted in n. ; Thou,
O God, hast deceived us, i. 289, Thorpe ;
general councils discontinued since the
Reformation, ii. 663, Latimer.

Isaiah, chap. 53, iv. 647, n. Rochester;
654, 5, do.

Islands, Christian, claimed by the Pope as
part of his regalia, i. 29, 30, Inett, and n.

Italians, &c. preferments in England con-
ferred on, by the popes ; See Benefices.

Judges, their patents during life, iv. 563, 4,
n. Hale.

Judgment, private; See Private Judg-
ment.

INDEX.

737

Jurisdiction, spiritual, nature and kinds of,
i. 126, n. Inett.

Justification by faith, i. 429, 30, Supple-
mentary Extracts, and n. ; Hooker aud
Travers, iii. 506, 7, Hooker.

KATHARINE, queen, her suspicions of Henry
VIII., i. 506, n. Wolsey.

, her divorce, i. 551, n. Wolsey.

Kenn, bishop; examined in religion, when
he gave alms, ii. 375, n. Hooper; tra-
velled with his shroud, iii. 679, n. Donne.

K. Henry VIII. See Henry VIII. K.

K. Edward VI. See Edward VI. K.

K. James I. See James I. K.

K. Charles I. See Charles I. K.

K. Charles II. ; his restoration, iv. 394, 5,
Hammond ; his declaration (1674) against
popish recusants, and dissenting conven-
ticles, iv. 687, 8, Tillotson. See also
Restoration.

K. William III., iv. 702, 3, Tillotson ;
723, do.

King's arms, set up in churches, in place of
the rood, iii. 233, Cranmer, and n.

scholar, ii. 253, 4, Cromwell, and n.

supremacy ; See Supremacy.

Knights, ancient style of addressing, i. 46,
n. Wolsey.

LAKE, bishop, his character, iv. 421, San-
derson.

Lambeth, churchwardens' accounts, iv. 324,
5, n. Hall ; 228, n. Ferrar.

" Lanthem" explained, i. 521, n. Wolsey.

Lateran Council, fourth ; See Council.

Latimer, bishop, Life, 6cc. ii. 445 — 680.

's sermons, &c. quoted in n ; Bilney's

contrition, ii. 30, 1 , Bilney ; thirty apples
in a dish, 33, do. ; blood of Hailes, 282, 3,
n. Cromwell; his father, 447, 8, Latimer;
a merry monk, 448, do. ; his wax candle,
462, 3, do. ; riches, danger of, 469, 70, do.;
the major pars often not the melior, 474,
do. ; his first lesson at court, 479, do. ;
sermon before the convocation, 542, 3,
do. ; his Card Sermon, 521, 2, do. ;
cases of restitution, 543, 4, do. ; at Lam-
beth Palace, 545, 6, do.; obedience to
princes, 595, 6, do. ; term, " the Lord's
Supper," 598, do. ; kings, though they be
children, are kings notwithstanding, iii. 12,
13, n. Ridley; private confession to a priest,
74, do.; Till all agree, I will stand neuter,
112, do.; chantry priests put into cures,
to save their pensions, iii. 154, Cranmer;
chaplains for prisons, &c. 289, do. ; exhi-
bitions to poor scholars, 336, 7, do. ; the
devil, a busy bishop, 392, Jewel; mid-
wives need to be instructed in religion,
416, Cilpin; our fathers, living and dying

VOL. IV.

in Popish superstition, 505, 6, Hooker;
want of discipline and subordination after
the Reformation, iii. 564, Whitgift.
Latin Service ; See Service in an unknown

Latin Vulgate, enjoined by the council of
Trent, i. 148—51, Bentley.

Latria and doulia, iii. 397, Gilpin, and n.

Laud, archbishop, omen avertat Deus, i.
636, 7, n. Wolsey; Laud and Strafford,
ii. 673, n. Latimer; Laud and the Fer-
rars, iv. 223 — 39; unjust and barbarous
usage of, 454 — 6, Sanderson ; his defence
against the charge of urging illegal imposi-
tions, 301, 2, n. Hall.

Law, canon, general description of, i. 128 —
30, n. Inett ; contrary to the law of Eng-
land, iii. 218, 19, Cranmer, and n. ;
221, 2, do. and n. ; contrary to the Scrip-
ture, iii. 217, Cranmer ; better be without
God's law, than the Pope's, ii. 193, Tin-
dall, and n.

, civil, value, &c. of; not enough studied

in England, iv. 540, Hale ; 570, 1 , do.

Lawson, Rev. George, quoted in n. ; the
judges agree to act under Cromwell, iv.
544, Hale.

Legates, different kinds of, and their uses
to the papacy, i. 137, 8, Inett.

Legend, Golden ; See Golden Legend.

Lent, stress laid on its observance, i. 175 — 8,
Whitgift, and n. ; Frebarn's wife, and
bishop Stokesley, ii. 261 — 66, Cromwell.

Letter from the earl of Rochester to the
countess, iv. 645, 6, n. Rochester.

Letters, two, of the earl of Rochester, now
first printed, iv. 657, 8, n. Rochester.

, five, of Ann, countess of Rochester,

respecting her son, iv. 666 — 75, Ro-
chester ; they evidence the earl's sincere
repentance, iv. 666, 7, n. do.

Letters, revival of, i. 426 — 8, Supplem. Ex-
tracts.

Lever's, Thomas, sermon at Paul's Cross,
quoted in n. ; university fare, studies, &c.
ii. 82, More.

Leveson, the family of, great purchasers of
church-lands, iv. 288, 9.

Lewis, Rev. John, quoted in n ; Satan,
loosing of, i. 186, Wickliffe ; parliament,
complaints of, against papal usurpations,
192—4, do; name Lollards, 230, 1, do. ;
Wickliffe's death, 241, 2, do. ; progress of
Wicklifte's opinions, 250, do. ; 253, do. ;
Arundel's, &o. constitutions against heresy,
272, 3, Thorpe; Chicheley's do. 399,
400, do. ; letters of fraternity, 216, Wick-
liffe ; pilgrimages, controversy respecting,
312, Thorpe.

Libertas ecclesiastica, i. 49, 50, Inett, and n.

Life ; conduct of, rules for, sir Matthew
Hale's, iv, 538, Hale ; 550, do. ; 561, 2,
do. ; bishop Hall's, iv. 291, 2, n. Hall.

Litany, petition in " from the tyranny of the
bishop of Rome," withdrawn, and why,
iii. 348, Jewel, n. ; ii. 418, Taylor, and n.

Liturgy of the Church of England; enco-
miums on, ii. 423, Taylor, and n. ; Rid-
ley's, iii. 89— 91, Ridley ; White's, Bax-

3 B

738

INDEX.

ter, &c. iv. 369, 70, Hammond, and n. ;
Sanderson's, 4GO, 1, Sanderson.

Liturgy, the two books of K. Edward, ii.
597, Latimer, and n. ; compiled, &c.
through means of Cranmer, iii. 194, 5, n.
Cranmer; translated into Latin by Ale-
sius, ii. 606, n. Latimer; declared against
by Knox, &c. at Frankfort, iii. 14, 15, n.
Ridley.

, passages offensive to Papists ex-
punged under Q. Elizabeth, ii. 417, 18, n.
Taylor ; iii. 348, n. Jewel.

, frequented by Papists, till Pope's

bull in 1569, iii. 324—8, Jewel, and n.

Herbert's explanation of, iv. 33 —

40, Herbert.
, outrages against, Sanderson's prac-
tice in the usage of, iv. 446, Sanderson,
and n.

-, alterations in, at the Restoration,

iv. 470, 1, Sanderson; proposed revisal
of, in 1689, 704-£, Tillotson.

Lloyd's State Worthies, quoted in n. ; More's
apophthegms, ii. 108, More ; Cromwell's
do. 294, 5, n. Cromwell.

Lollards, name of, i. 230, 1, Wickliffe, and
n. ; their russet gowns, i. 185, do. and n. ;
325, Thorpe, and n. ; increase, rapid, in
their numbers, i. 250, 1, Wickliffe, and n.

Lord's Prayer, frequent occurrence of in the
Liturgy, iv. 35, n. Herbert.

Lord's Supper, name of, vindicated, ii. 598,
Latimer ; Puritans deter from attendance
at, iv. 466, Sanderson ; benefits of, ibid.

' , a passage from De ccena

Domini respecting the, quoted, iii. 23, n.
Ridley.

Lovell, sir Thomas, some account of, i.
469, n. Wolsey.

Luther, Martin, general account of, i. 424 —
31, Supplem. Extracts ; character of, by
bishop Atterbury, 428, n. do. ; Gilpin had
not read, and why, iii. 397, 8, Gilpin;
Luther and Calvin were only men, iv. 334,
n. Hammond.

— , Protestant religion where before, i.

416 — 18, Supplem. Extracts, and n. ; ii.
605, Latimer ; iv. 99, Wotton ; the ques-
tion, how not to be answered, 299, Hall,
and n. ; Popery is the new religion, ii. 633,
Latimer, and n.

Lutheran doctrine respecting the Eucharist,
ii.214,n. Tindall; 601, Latimer; Melanc-
thon, iii. 20, Ridley ; whether ever main-
tained by Cranuier, iii. 234, Cranmer,
and n.

Lynwood's Provinciale, ii. 192, Tindall, and
n.

Lyttleton, sir Edward, notice of, iv. 311,
n. Hall.

M.

MAONA CHARTA, K. John sends to Rome
to be absolved from his oath to, i. 109,
Inett; Kngland not indebted to Popery
for, i. 100, do. and n.

Maitland, Dr., quoted, concerning the lan-

guage and manners of the age, ii. 75, 6, n.

Maitland, Dr., his character of Thomas
Cromwell, ii. 229, 30, n. Cromwell

Majority of votes, nature, &c. of, iii. 44,
Ridley, and n.

Man, the Isle of, iv. 247, Ferrar.

, Whole Duty of, its great value, &c. iv.

344, n. Hammond ; 478, Sanderson ; 691,
Tillotson.

Marprelate, Martin, scurrility, &c. iii. 486 —
8, Hooker, and n. See also Pamphlets,
Puritan.

Marriage of Priests, i. 158, Bentley ; 448,
Colet: its lawfulness, ii. 317, 18, Rogers,
and n.; 378, Hooper; 421, Taylor;
424—6, do.; hardships inflicted ori the
deprived clergy, ii. 317, n. Rogers ; priests
and their concubines, relation between,
before the Reformation, 332, 3, Rogers,
and n. ; 336, 7, do. and n. See also Art.
XXXII.

of the regular, in distinction to the

secular clergy, ii. 305, Rogers, and n. ;
336, 7, do. and n. ; 338, do. and n.

, anonymous defence of, quoted in n. ;

all Christian islands, fiefs of the See of
Rome, i. 29, 30. Inett ; divine service in
a known tongue, 149, Bentley ; the earl
of Shrewsbury and the French ambassa-
dor, 522 — 4, n. Wolsey ; priests and their
concubines, ii. 333, Rogers; marriage of
priests, 336, 7, do. ; physical calamities
under Q. Mary, 345, 6, do.

Marriages of Quakers, not to be declared
void, though not solemnized according to
the Book of Common Prayer, iv. 574, 5,
Hale.

Martyr, Peter ; his learning, &c., iii. 202, 3,
Cranmer; professor of divinity at Oxford,
iii. 334, 5, Jewel; invites Jewel to Ntras-
burgh, 343, do. ; Gilpin engaged to dis-
pute against him, 384, Gilpin.

Martyrs, letters of, quoted in n. ; exhorta-
tion to suffer the worst, ii. 392, 3, Hooper ;
Laurence Saunders, his wife and child,
393, 4, do. ; Dr. Weston, and Laurence
Saunders, iii. 39, 40, n. Ridley; plea- and
excuses for apostasy, 56, 7, do. ; rejoicing
in tribulation, Glover's, 61, do. ; Ridley's
moderation respecting the prcdcstinarian
controversy, 73, do. ; all agree, that divine
service ought to be in the English tongue,
76, do. ; pen and ink, not permitted to
those in prison, 84, do. ; Cranmer's account
of his consent to lady Jane Grey's succes-
sion, 198, 9, n. Cranmer ; Q. Mary's oaths,
at her coronation, self-contradictory, 218,
19, do.; Cranmer to Q. Mary, against the
Pope's Supremacy, 221, 2, n. do. See
also Heretics, Reformers.

Martyrs, pen and ink, use of, denied to those
in prison, iii. 80, Ridley, and n.

-, prayer for, forbidden ; See Heretics,
-, their speaking to the people, for-

bidden ; See Heretics.

-, pardons brought to, and exhibited

at their burning ; Sec Pardons.
, grounds on which they were con-

INDEX.

739

tent to suffer, iii. 97—102, Ridley,
and n.

Martyrs, did not ambitiously court mar-
tyrdom, iii. 33 — 5, Ridley, and n.

, gunpowder supplied to ; See Gun-
powder.

, their shirt, ii. 677, n. Latimer.

. , Scriptures, chapters of, used hy;

See Scriptures.

, clergy's pretended intercessions for

lenity towards, ii. 330, 1, Rogers.

-, their kissing the stake, &c. ii. 442,

Taylor, and n.

-, effects produced by their executions

on the spectators, ii. 400, 1, Hooper, and
n. ; 440—2, Taylor, and n.

, sentence of condemnation, forms of;

lord Cobham's, i. 387 — 9, Cobham ;
Rogers's, ii. 328—31, Rogers.
Mary, Virgin ; See Virgin Mary.
Mary, Q., calamities physical , under, ii. 345,
6, Rogers, and n. ; iii. 277, Cranmer, and
n.; description of, in her youth, iii. 11,
Ridley, and n. ; Ridley's interview with,
iii. 10 — 13, Ridley; determined cruel-
ties of her government, ii. 418 — 20, n.
Taylor; iii. 310, n. Mountain; alleged
pleas and excuses for apostasy under, iii.
32, 3, n. Ridley ; 56, 7, do.; Ill, 12, do.
and n. ; 115 — 17, do. and n.
Mass, sacrifice of; See Sacrifice of the Mass.
Matthiolo's Discorsi, &c. i. Ill, n. Wotton.
Maximilian, treaty between, and Henry

VII., i. 469, n. Wolsey.
Mediation, Christ's; advocation and invoca-
tion of saints, iii. 431, 2, Gilpin.
Melvin, Andrew, a zealous puritan, iv. 14,

Herbert.

Memory, retentive, instances of, iii. 362,
Jewel, and n. ; Ridley's, ii. 578, Latimer,
and n. ; iii. 4, n. Ridley ; Sanderson's, iv.
467, Sanderson.

Merits, doctrine of, ii. 451, 2, Latimer.
Michael, St., establishment of the order of,

i. 543, n. Wolsey.
Midwives, their need to be instructed in

religion, iii. 416, Gilpin, and n.
Millenary, the second, i. 186, 7, Wickliffe ;

300, Thorpe, and n. ; 307, n. do.
Millennium, reign of the saints, iv. 547,

Hale.
Minion, curious illustrations of the term, i.

538, n. Wolsey.
Minister, priest, &c. names of, ii. 599, 600,

Latimer, and n.

Miracles, by the illusion of Satan, i. 307,
Thorpe, and n. ; pretended, popish, ii. 50,
More, and n. ; images with wires, &c.
281—4, Cromwell; at Zichem, iv. 279,
80, Hale. See also Hailes, blood of.
Mirror of our Lady, quoted in n.; talkers
at divine service, i. 348, Thorpe; K.
Robert of France assists at divine service
in a cope, ii. 68, n. More.
Moderation of the English Church, iv. 692,
3, Tillotson.

of the English Reformers; Frith,

&c. ii. 216, Tindall ; Ridley, iii. 73, n.
Ridley.

3

Monarchy of England, usurpations on its
prerogatives by the popes, i. 59 — 76, Inett,
and n. ; 146, do. and n.

Monachism, and monks, history, &c. of, i.
139, 40, Inett ; 74, 5, do. ; 151, Bentley ;
172, 3, Wickliffe, and n. ; 181, 2, do. and
n. ; ii. 240 — 7> Cromwell ; impropria-
tions engrossed by, iii. 425, Gilpin, and n. ;
concealments, iv. 289, 90, Hale, and n. ;
ill consequences of exempting them from
the jurisdiction of the ordinary, i. 74 — 6,
Inett, and n. ; 139, do.

Monasteries; precedent for their dissolution,
set by Wolsey, i. 555, 6, Wolsey, and n. ;
Supplication of Beggars, ii. 91, More;
Cromwell's employment by Wolsey, in
dissolution of, ii. 230, 1, Cromwell, and
n. ; accusations against, of immoralities,
&c. 238 — 40, do. and n. ; arguments for
and against their dissolution, 238, 9, do.
and n. ; opposed by Cranmer, iii. 147, 8,
Cranmer, and n. ; the courtiers rewarded
by, 158 — 61, do. and n. ; the reformers
confined to, for penance ; i. 422, Supplem.
Extracts.

Montague, bishop Richard, no Arminian, iv.
297, n. Hall.

Moor, the, at Rickmansworth, its various
possessors, i. 574, n. Wolsey.

Morality, earl of Rochester's sentiments re-
specting, iv. 617 — 25, Rochester.

More, sir Thomas, Life, &c. ii. 43—185.

quoted in n. ; Rome, tribute to by K.

John, illegal, i. 23, Inett ; his censure of
Thorpe's examination, 262, Thorpe; king's
supremacy, &c. 266, do. ; Wolsey's elo-
quence, 476, 7, Wolsey ; alleged pomp,
luxury, &c. of the clergy denied, ii. 4,
Bilney ; setting up of lights before images,
19, do.; pope's supremacy, originally not
maintained by More, 167, 8, More.

, Dr. Henry, meditations in Eton play-
fields, iv. 332, n. Hammond.

Morice, Cranmer's secretary, ii. 267 — 71,
Cromwell, and n.

Mortmain, statutes of, i. 145, n. Inett.

Morton, bishop, character of, iii. 642 — 5,
Donne.

Mountain, Thomas, his troubles, iii. 283—
314.

Monmouth, Humphrey, account of, ii. 196,
Tindall, and n.

Music, Church ; See Church Music.

Mysteries in religion, iv. 638 — 41, Ro-
chester ; 722, Tillotson.

N.

NAG'S Head Tavern, fable of bishops' con-
secration at, iii. 383, n. Gilpin.

Nanphant, sir John, some account of, i. 468,
and n. Wolsey.

Nash, Tom, &c. iii. 502, Hooker, and n.

Necessary doctrine, or bishops' book, Gar-
diner "its first father, or chief gatherer,"
iii. 47, Ridley.

Neville, sir Edward, his execution for high
treason, i. 497, n. Wolsey.

B 2

740

INDEX.

Nerius, Philip, iv. 527, n. Hale.

New year's gifts to kings, &c. ; Latimer' s to
K. Henry VIII. ii. 620, Latimer.

Non-jurors, the, iv. 709—11, Tillotson.

Non -residence, by Italians, &c. i. 191—4,
WicklifFe, and n. ; Gilpin refuses a dis-
pensation for, iii. 391 — 3, Gilpin.

Non-resistance ; See Resistance, Obedience,
Passive, &c.

Nowell, dean, quoted in n. ; friars, their
various names, orders, vestures, &c. i.
174, 5, Wickliffe ; ignorance of the
clergy, ii. 192, Tindall ; apostasy of Gar-
diner, Bonner, &c., respecting the royal
supremacy, 309 — 11, Rogers; Scriptures
disparaged by the papists, 314 — 16, do. ;
gunpowder supplied to the martyrs, 401,
2, Hooper; popery is the new religion,
633, Latimer ; papists, their scheme in
resigning their bishoprics, &c. iii. 487, 8,
Hooker.

Nun of Canterbury, her imposture, ii. 133,
4, More, and n. ; 283, Cromwell, and n.

O.

OATHS, whether lawful, i. 281, Thorpe;
329—37, do. ; forms of taking, 332, n.
do. ; ii. 365, n. Hooper ; do not admit of
being dispensed with, iii. 248, Cranmer,
and n. ; K. John sends to Rome to be
absolved from his oath to Magnet Charta,
i. 109, Inett. *

Oath of kings to the Pope, i. 91, 2, Inett,
and n.

of the bishops and clergy to the Pope,

ii. 233, 4, Cromwell, and n.

, the coronation, to maintain the church,

iii. 494, 5, Hooker; Q. Mary's self-con-
tradictory, 219, Cranmer.

, of allegiance, and supremacy, ii. 415,

16, Taylor, and n. ; iii. 652, Donne.

, the etcetera, iv. 302, 3, Hall, and n. ;

314, do.

, Herod's, ii. 415, Taylor, and n. ; iii.

230, Cranmer.

, profane, prevalence of, before the

Reformation, i. 283, Thorpe; 331, 2,
n. do.

Obedience to magistrates, doctrine of; must
obey God, rather than man, ii. 595, Lati-
mer ; iii. 53 — 75 Ridley, and n. See also
Resistance.

, passive, Tillotson's letter to lord

William Russell, iv. 694—6, Tillotson.

Old Testament, objections against its history,
&c. answered, iv. 631 — 38, Rochester.

Ordination, presbyterian ; Travers's, iii. 476,
Hooker ; 477, do. ; 480, do. and n. See
also Re-ordination.

Origans, use of, in churches, i. 314, n.
Thorpe; offence taken at, in Q. Eliza-
beth's chapel, iii. 488, 9, n. Hooker;
destroyed at Little Gidding, iv. 209, Fer-
rar; at Norwich, 324, Hail.

Origen, on Matt, quoted, iii. 1.'), n, Ridley.

Outlawry and excommunication, analogy
between, i. 400, n. Cobham.

Overall, bishop, his opinions on the five
points, iv. 297, 8, Hall.

-, quoted in n. Decretals, account of,

i. 128 — 30, Inett.
Oxford fare, ii. 82, More, and n.
university statutes, revisal of, Laud's,

iv. 422, 3, Sanderson.
, reasons against the covenant, iv.

438, 9, Sanderson, and n.

PADUA,Marsilius of, i. 199, Wickliffe, and n.
Paley, Dr. William, quoted in n. ; transub-

stantiation, i. 430, Supplem. Extracts.
Palls from Rome, of bishops, &c. i. 133,

Inett.

Palmer, Julius, a convert to the Reforma-
tion, iii. 125, 6, Ridley.
Papists, salvability of, iii. 502—8, Hooker ;

510, 11, do. ; iv. 99, Wotton, 507, Baxter.
are only half the king's subjects, ii.

233—5, Cromwell, and n.
, when left off to attend the church

service, iii. 324 — 8, Jewel, and n.
, under disguise of puritans, iii. 3(56,

Jewel, and n. ; iv. 354, Hammond, and n.
Pardons, popish ; See Indulgences.
Parker, archbishop, quoted in u. ; Saxon

homilies, i. 5, Inett.

Parkhurst, bishop, iii. 332, Jewel ; 334, do.
Parliament, acts of, whether may be disputed

against by private persons, ii. 320, Rogers ;

326, do.; 333— 9, do.
Parliamentary History of England, quoted

in n. ; abdication of K. John, i. 22, 3,

Inett.
Parson, the Country, Herbert's, iv. 31, 2,

Herbert, and n.
Parsons, Rev. Robert, his funeral sermon on

the earl of Rochester, iv. 646—51, Ro-
chester.
Partum reginae, (Q. Mary,) thanks given for,

iii. 85, n. Ridley.

Passion Sunday, i. 355, Cobham, and n.
Patriarchs, their jurisdiction, origin, &c. of,

i. 12—7, Inett ; ii. 628, 9, Latimer.
Patrons of benefices ; abuse of their trust,

avarice, &c. of, iii. 149, Cranmer, and n. ;

390, 1, n. Gilpin; 400, do.; 586, 7,

Whitgift.
Patronage of bishoprics ; See Bishops.

of parishes, i. 126, 7, n. Inett.

Paul, Sir George, his Life of Whitgift, iii.

555—629.
Paul, Father, Sarpi ; advice to the Venetians

against the Pope, iv. 88, 9, Wotton ; en-
comium on, 465, Sanderson.
Pecock, bishop, quoted in n. ; clergy, all

commands of, to be obeyed, i. 288, Thorpe.
Penance, sacrament of, i. 367, Cobham ;

369, do.
Penance for heresy; imposed by bishop

Longland, i. 422, Supplement Ext

ii. 23, n. Bilney ; 263, 4, Cromwell,

and n.
Penry, John, iii. 58.0, Whitgift ; 595, 6, do.

INDEX.

741

Percy, Henry Algernon, some account of,
i. 500, n. Wolsey ; his unhappy marriage
with Mary Talbot, i. 535, n. Wolsey.

Perth, five articles of, iv. 294, Hall.

Peter the hermit, i. 87, Inett.

Peter-pence, i. 136, Inett, and n. ; 244,
Wickliffe, and n.

Pilgrimages; whether lawful, &c. i. 308—
16, Thorpe, and n. ; to St. James at Com-
postella, &c. i. 175, Wickliffe, and n. ; to
Canterbury, 368, 9, Cobham, and n. ; 371,
do. ; 383, do. ; ii. 483, Latimer.

Pilgrim, true, a description of, i. 308, 9,
Thorpe.

Plague, sweating sickness, &c. i. 444, 5,
Colet, and n. ; ii. 116, 17, More.

Plays, stage ; See Stage Plays.

Pococke, Dr. Edward, no Latiner, iv. 335, 6,
n. Hammond.

Pole, cardinal, his arrival in England (1554),
reconciles the realm, ii. 307, 8, Rogers.

Polygamy, iv. 641, 2, Rochester.

Polyglott, bishop Walton's, iv. 249, Ferrar,
and n.

Ponet, bishop, quoted in n. ; calamities of
England, under Q. Mary, ii. 345, Rogers ;
scarcity, &c. iii. 277, Cranmer.

Pope of Rome, his authority, nature, inci-
dents, &c. of; supremacy, vicar of Christ,
i. 371, Cobham ; 382, 3, do. ; ecclesiastical
jurisdiction in England, alleged to be de-
rived from, 393, 4, do. ; renunciation of,
and establishment of the royal supremacy,
568— 70, Wolsey, and n.; ii.131,2, More;
statute of premunire, sir Thomas More,
135, 6, do. ; 152, do. ;.ii. 308— 11, Rogers;
112 — 18, Ridley ; his usurped power may
be resumed, i. 22—5, Inett, and n. ; iii.
219 — 22, Cranmer, and n. ; Pasce oves
meas, ii. 167 — 70, More, and n. ; the king
but half a king in his own kingdom, ii.
233—35, Cromwell; iii. 219—21, Cran-
mer; oath of kings to, i. 91, 2, Inett, and
n. ; oath of bishops and clergy to, ii. 233, 4,
Cromwell, and n. ; Parliament under Q.
Mary will not restore the pope's supre-
macy unless the lands, &c. of the monas-
teries may be retained, 247, n. Cromwell ;
has no more authority in England than
any other bishop ; true meaning of the
royal supremacy, 308 — 11, Rogers, n. ;
pretended lord of the world, ii. 501, 2,
Latimer ; 622, 3, do. ; 625—9, do. ; has
no jurisdiction in the realm of England,
iii. 218 — 20, Cranmer; his laws contrary
to those of England, 221 — 9, Cranmer,
and n. ; and to the Scriptures, 224, do. ;
225, do. ; 241, do. ; Scriptures and doc-
tors, testimonies of, for his supremacy,
245, do.; the papal supremacy, held as
an article of faith, iii. 24, 5, Ridley ; kissing
the pope's toe, iii. 139, 40, Cranmer; his
claim to a dispensing power, iii. 223, 4,
Cranmer; 248, do. and n. See also
Appeals to Home; Art. XXXVII.,
Bishops' Investiture, Usurpations Papal.

, whether antichrist, i. 358,

Cobham ; 383, do. ; ii. 193, Tindall ; 320,
Rogers ; 328, do. ; ii. 628, Latimer ; iii.

112, 13, Ridley; iii. 223—5, Cranmer-
iii. 387, 8, Gilpin, and n.

Popedom, the schisms in, i. 29, 30, Inett
and n. ; 123, do.; 209-11, AVickliffe,
and n.

Popery, the new religion, ii. 633, Latimer,
and n.

, main points of, ii. 583, 4, Latimer,

and n. ; iii. 56, 7, Ridley, and n. ; iv.
507, Baxter.

, doctrinal corruptions of, i. 147 — 63,

Bentley.

, usurpations of, in church and state,

i. 59—76, Inett, and n. ; 132—46, do.
and n.

, unwilling to reform itself, ii. 50,

More ; iii. 95, 6, n. Ridley ; 102, n. do. ;
376, Gilpin ; 438, 9, do.

, promoted by puritan violence, iii.

488, n. Hooker ; iv. n. 300, Hall.

Potter, Dr. Christopher, quoted in n. ; dis-
claims the charge of Arminianism, iv.
452 — 5, n. Sanderson.

Poverty of Christ, and his apostles ; evan-
gelical poverty; i. 319— 23,Thorpe,and n.;
russet gowns, 325, do. and n. ; 327, n. do.

Prayer, the earl of Rochester's sincerity in,
iv. 668, 9.

Prayer, in an unknown tongue ; See Service,

, Divine, Art. XXIV.

for the dead, iii. 431, Gilpin.

, special, by the monks, &c. i. 216, n.

Wickliffe.

, extemporary, and the Book of Com-
mon Prayer, iv. 369, 70, and n. Hammond ;
460, 1, Sanderson.

Preachers and preaching, K. James's direc-
tions respecting, iii. 661, 2, Donne, and
n. ; iv. 334, n. Hammond ; 422, Sanderson.

, scarcity of, under K. Edward VI.

Q. Elizabeth, &c. iii. 400, 1, Gilpin ; 402,
n. do; preaching, extemporary, iii. 365,
n. ; Jewel ; iv. 335, 6, Hammond, and
n. ; 718, Tillotson, and n.

, historical particulars respecting;
seldom on the Scriptures ; Lent sermons,
&c. i. 437 — 41, Colet, and n.; Latimer
too much exceeds in length, ii. 489, 90,
Latimer ; frequent length of sermons,
593, 4, do. and n. ; whether Jewel preached
extempore, iii. 365, Jewel ; Whitgift's, iii.
608, 9, Whitgift ; during the usurpation ;
Pococke no Latiner, iv. 335, 6, Hammond,
and n. ; Sanderson from timidity reads
his sermons, iv. 429, Sanderson ; at Ham-
mond's request, Sanderson preaches with-
out book, 449, do.

Predestinarian controversy, the five points,
&c. Ridley, Bradford, Harry Hart, &c.
iii. 65, 6, Ridley's wise moderation re-
specting 73, n. do. ; predestination is not
absolute, but conditional, iii. 511, Hooker;
"Christian Letter" to Hooker, 523, n.
do. ; Perkins and Arminius, iv. 100, 1,
Wotton ; rise of this controversy in Eng-
land, 297, 8, Hall, and n. ; Henry More
in the Eton play-fields, 332, 3, n. Ham-
mond ; K. James's letters concerning
theological studies, 422, and n., Sanderson ;

742

INDEX.

Sanderson's change in sentiments re-
specting, 430 — 2, n. do. ; Hammond,
Sanderson, Usher, Dr. Christopher Potter,
&c. 450 — 5, do. ; not proper subjects for
the pulpit, 461, do. ; Sanderson's Pax
Ecclesiae, 481—4, do. See also Preacher.

Premunire, Provisors, Mortmain, &c. Sta-
tutes of, i. 145, Inett, and n. ; 595, G, Wol-
sey, 620, do.; the clergy fall under, ii.
235, 6, Cromwell, and n. ; 215, Tindall ;
iii. 221, 2, Cranmer; 227, do.

Presbyterians and Independents, iv. 347, 8,
Hammond ; the former supplanted by the
latter, 469, Sanderson.

Presence, the real, in the eucharist, in what
sense maintained by the Church of Eng-
land, ii. 578, 9, Latimer; 638—40, do.
See Eucharist.

Priest, confession, private, to ; See Confession.

Priest and minister, names of, ii. 599, 600,
Latimer, and n.

Priests' Marriages ; See Marriages.

Printing, influence of, in the Reformation,
i. 405 — 13, Supplem. Extracts, and n. ;
427, do.

Prisons, &c., chaplains desirable for, iii.
289, n. Mountain.

Private judgment, i. 291, 2, Thorpe, and n. ;
ii. 319, 20, Rogers, and n. ; 349, 50, do.
and n. ; 366, 7, Hooper, and n. ; 449, 50,
Latimer, and n.

Privy chamber, gentlemen of the, their
duties, &c. i. 641, 2, n. Wolsey.

Procession and perambulation days, iii. 526,
7, Hooker, and n.

Prophesyings, exercise of, iii. 582, Whit-
gift.

Prosperity no mark of the true church, ii.
333, 4, Rogers ; 339—47, do. ; ii. 467—
79, Latimer.

Protestant religion, where before Luther ;
See Lutlier.

Protestant, name of, i. 417, n. Supplem.
Extracts ; known true men, 420, do. ; a
term of reproach, " call me Protestant,
who list," ii. 637, Latimer, and n.

Protestants, pleas and excuses for their
apostasy under Q. Mary, iii. 32, 3, Rid-
ley; 56, 7, do.; Ill, 12, and n. ; 115—
17, n. do.

Provision of benefices ; See Benefices, reser-
vation of.

Psalms, the book of, its beauty, &c. iv. 461,
Sanderson, and n. ; 479, 80, do. ; recited
in a night entire, by the Ferrar family,
211, Ferrar.

, the seven penitential, ii. 66, More,
and n.

, the fifteen gradual, ii. 66, More,

and n.

Purgatory, doctrine of; its origin, i. 155, 6,
Bentley ; whether any, 361, Cobham, and
n. ; proofs of, ii. 21*7, Tindall, and n. ;
arguments against, 484 — 7, Latimer; not
to be obtruded as a necessary article of
faith, iii. 431, Gilpin.

Purification of women, ii. 461, Latimer.
Puritan controversy, Puritans, &c. ; Rogers
refuses the cap, &c. ii. 349, 50, Rogers, and

n. ; Cranmer and Ridley against Hooper,
363, 4, Hooper, and n. ; Origin and pro-
gress of the controversy, 366 — 76, do. and
n. ; Ridley's conduct at his degrading,
666, Latimer, and n. ; Frankfort trou-
bles, iii. 84, 5, n. Ridley; iii. 345, 6,
n. Jewel; Cartwright, &c. 357, do.;
Jewel no favourer of, 366, n. do.; they
slight the authority of the Fathers, iii.
411, Gilpin, and n.; character of those
times, 480—5, Hooker, and n. ; diffi-
culties which the queen and bishops had
to encounter, 486 — 9, n. Hooker ; George
Cranmer's letter to Hooker, 540—53,
Hooker ; dean Hutton's account of, and
arguments against, 541 — 4, n. do. ; Cart-
wright, general account of, 567 — 74. Whit-
gift ; Whitgift's difficulties from this con-
troversy, 583 — 7, do. ; state of, at the
accession of K. James I. 624 — 7, do. ;
Popery promoted by their violence, iii.
480, n. Hooker ; iv. 300, n. Hall ; they
symbolize with papists, iii. 573, Hooker,
and n.

Puritans, their pamphlets, libels, &c. scur-
rility, &c. of; iii. 486, 7, Hooker, and n. ;
Tom Nash, &c. 502, do. and n. ; 545,
do. ; 572, Whitgift; 589, 90, do. and n. ;
their special activity at the crisis of the
Spanish armada in 1588, 595, 6, do.

Purvey, John, i. 277—9, Thorpe.

, a MS. of, latelv printed by

Rev. J. Forshall, i. 278, n. Thorpe.

Q.

QUEEN MARY, see Mary, Queen.
Quinquarticular controversy, see Predesti-
narian controversy.

R.

RATIFICATION of a treaty of peace between
Henry VIII., Francis I., and the emperor,
description of, i. 541, Wolsey.

Rebellion in the North, iii. 409, 10, Gilpin.

Recantation (pretended) of Wickliffe, i. 21 1 ,
12, Wickliffe ; of lord Cobham, 392—6,
Cobham, n. ; of Bilney, ii. 34—6 ; of
Hooper, 385—8, Hooper, and n. ; of others,
iii. 62, 3, Cranmer ; Cranmer's recanta-
tion, 263—81, do.

Recusant, name of, iii. 327, 8, n. Jewel.

Redemption, universal, Usher, &c. iv. 450
—5, and n. Sanderson. See also Predes-
tinarian controversy.

Redman, Dr. John, and Latimer, ii. 462 — 4,
Latimer ; and Gilpin, iii. 413, 14, Gilpin ;
his judgment in favour of priests' mar-
riages, ii. 336, 7, Rogers.

Reformation, necessity of, i. 167— #0, Wick-
liffe, and n. ; bishop Fisher's wishes for,
426, Supplem. Extracts; abuses in, 160—
3, Bentley ; promised by the papists, but
not performed, ii. 300, 1, Cromwell ; iii.

INDEX.

743

417, 18, Gilpin, and n. ; origin and pro-
gress of, i. 167—86, Wickliffe, and n. ;
monasteries, dissolution'of, i. 555, 6, Wol-
sey, and n. ; royal supremacy, 568 — 70, do.
and n. ; Bertram on Eucharist, ii. 583, 4,
Latimer, and n. ; main points of contro-
versy in the English Reformation, ii. 583,
4, Latimer, and n. ; iii. 65, 6, Ridley,
and n. ; i. 429, 30, Supplem. Extracts ;
reproached as given to repeated innova-
tions, ii. 605, Latimer, and n.

Reformers, meetings of, in the woods and
fields, &c. for reading, &c. i. 418, 19, Sup-
plem. Extracts ; punished for hiding their
marks, hrands, &c. 423, 4, do. ; com-
mitted for penance to monasteries, 422,
do. ; pleas and excuses for apostasy under
Q. Mary, iii. 32, 3, n. Ridley, 56, 7, do. :
111, 12, do. and n. ; 115—17, n. do. See
also Heretics, Martyrs, Faggots.

Religion, corrupted state of, before the Re-
formation, i. 170—80, Wickliffe, and n.

, natural, iv. 625 — 31, Rochester.

, revealed, iv. 631—44, Rochester.

, parliamentary, i. 21, Inett ; iv.

695, Tillotson.

Religious orders ; See Friars, Monasteries,
Monachism.

Renee, madame, proposed marriage be-
tween, and Henry VIII. i. 536, n.
Wolsey.

Re-ordination of non-conformist ministers,
iv. 707, Tillotson.

Repentance, death-bed, iv. 654 — 6, Ro-
chester.

, the earl of Rochester's, falsely at-
tributed to delirium, iv. 672, 3, Rochester.

Repington, bishop, i. 227—36, Wickliffe ;
277, Thorpe.

Reservation of benefices; See Benefices.

Resignation, duty of, iv. 388—90, Ham-
mond, and n. ; 393, do.

Resistance, doctrine of; obey God, rather
than man, ii. 595, Latimer, and n. ; iii.
53—7, Ridley, and n. ; 294, Mountain,
and n. ; Tillotson's letter to lord William
Russell, iv. 694—6.

Restitution, instances of, ii. 543, 4, Latimer,
and n.

Restoration of K. Charles II. iv. 394, 5,
Hammond ; 395, 6, do.; 402, do. ; 464, 5,
Sanderson ; iv. 547, 8, Hale ; 555, 6,
do. ; dissipation which followed, 608, 9,
Rochester.

Revolution in 1688, iv. 702, Tillotson.

Reynolds, Dr. John, his conference with
Hart ; the two brothers, John and Wil-
liam Reynolds, interchangeably convert
one another, iii. 466, n. Hooker.

, and his brother Wil-
liam, curious results of a religious contest
between them, iii. 466, n. Hooker.

Ridley, bishop, Life, &c. iii. 1—128 ; his dis-
putation at Oxford, April 1557, ii. 548 —
58, Latimer; 567 — 90, do.; Examination,
&c. at Oxford, Sept. 1555, 620—41, do. ;
650—9, do ; his moderation, iii. 65, 6,
Ridley ; 73, n. do.

Rochester, earl of, Life, &c. iv. 599—676;

extract from Parsons' funeral sermon on,
646—51, n. do.

Rochester, John, earl of, his father's de-
scent, iv. 607, n. Rochester; account of
Anne, his mother, iv. 606, 7, do.

-, corrupted at court, iv. 609, n.

Rochester.

, his family, iv. 646, n. Rochester.

Rogers, John, Life, &c. ii. 303—^3.
Rome, church of; See Church of Home,

Popery.
Rood, and rood-loft, iii. 233, Cranmer,

and n.

Rood of grace, ii. 282, n. Cromwell.
Roper, Margaret, ii. 115 — 19, More; 146

57, do.; 171— 5, do.

, William, ii. 119—21, More.

Russell, lord William, and Tillotson, iv. 694

—6, Tillotson.

, sir John, a plot to seize him dis-
covered by Thomas Cromwell, ii. 232, n.

Cromwell.
Rye, the manor of, i, 617, n. Wolsey.

S.

SACRAMENT, a ; nature, definition, and inci-
dents of, ii. 257—9, Cromwell ; 563—7,
Latimer ; seven sacraments, 252, 3, Crom-
well ; the name, of general application,
iii. 430, Gilpin, and n. ; are signs exhi-
bitive, ii. 648, Latimer ; not bare figures,
iii. 21, Ridley.

Sacrifice of the mass, ii. 552, Latimer ; 566,
7, do.; 584—9, do.; 591—3, do.; See
also Art. XXXI.

, bloody and unbloody, ii. 588,

Latimer ; 640, do. and n.

Saints, prayer to, i, 151, 2, Bentley ; ii.
18, Bilney, and n. ; 482, Latimer ; iii.
431, 2, Gilpin.

, reign of, on earth, iv. 547, Hale.

Salisbury use, i. 315, 16, n. Thorpe.

Suactuaries, use and abuse of, i. 397, Cob-
ham, and n.

Sanderson, bishop, Life, &c. iv. 409—88.

Sandys, archbishop, iii. 403, 4, Gilpin ; 419,
20, do. ; sends his son Edwin a pupil to
Hooker, 467, 8, Hooker.

, sir Edwin, quoted in n. ; Lent, in

Italy, i. 177, 8, Wickliffe ; Romish com-
petition against, and counteraction of,
Protestantism, 411—13, Supplem. Ex-
tracts; popery, an obstacle to the con-
version of Jews, &c. ii. 17, Bilney ;
Papal news, falsely spread, 386, 7, Hooper.

Saravia, Dr. Hadrian, a friend of Hooker,
iii. 523, 4, Hooker ; 531, 2, do.

Satan, loosing of, i. 186, 7, Wickliffe, and
n. ; 300, Thorpe, and n.

Satires, &c. the earl of Rochester's talent in
composing, iv. 669, 70, n. Rochester;
many falsely attributed to him, do.

Savoy conference, iv. 470—2, Sanderson,
and n.

Sawtrey, William, often said to be the first
that was burnt for heresy, in England, i.
254, n. Wickliffe ; 274, Thorpe.

744

INDEX.

Scala cceli, ii. 228, Cromwell, and n.
Latimer. and n.

485,6,

Schism, nature, &c. of, iii. 30, 1, Ridley;
35—7, do. ; 223, Cranmer ; 238, 9, do. ;
charge of, against the Church of Eng-
land, groundless, i. 7, Inett, and n. ; iii.
130, Cranmer ; 316, Jewel ; 442, Hooker.
Schisms in the church of Rome ; See Church

of Rome.
Scholar, the king's, ii. 254, Cromwell, and

n. ; iii. 178, n. Cranmer.
Schoolmen, their prevalence, authority, &c.
i. 171, Wickliffe; 437, Colet, and n. ; ii.
52, n. More ; 448, 9, Latimer, and n. ;
464—6, n. do.

Schools, grammar ; St. Paul's, i. 442 — 4,
Colet; iii. 402, Gilpin ; whether the sons
of gentlemen only are to be admitted, iii.
459, 60, Hooker.

Scriptures, Holy, neglect of, i. 171, Wick-
liffe ; lectures on, set up in cathedrals,
universities, &c. 437, Colet, and n. ; ii. 52;
More, and n. ; 349, Rogers ; 448, 9,
Latimer, and n. ; 598, n. do. ; iii. 1 32,
Cranmer.

, sufficiency of, as a rule of faith,

ii. 255, 6, Cromwell.

, disparaged by papists, &c. ; in

comparison with the canon law, ii. 193,
Tindall, and n. ; 259, Cromwell, and
n. ; in comparison of the rule of the reli-
gious orders, 246, n. Cromwell ; a dead
letter, a nose of wax, &c. 314—16, Ro-
gers, and n. ; traditions made equal to, iii.
385, 6, Gilpin.

, chapters, &c. for domestic use,

iii. 6, Ridley, and n. ; iv. 204—6, Ferrar,
and n. ; 369*, Hammond, and n. ; 479. 80,
Sanderson.

, chapters used by the martyrs, ii.

41,Bilney; 351, 2, Rogers, and n. ; iii.
50, 1, n. Ridley.

, avidity with which they were

received, when first translated, &c. ii.
203, 4, n. Tindall; 297, n. Cromwell; iii.
564, n. Whitgift.

Selden's, John, library given to the uni-
versity of Oxford, iv. 580, 1, Hale.
Sequestration of divines, ordinance for, iv.

320—3, Hall.

Service, divine, daily in churches, iv. 40,
Herbert ; 336, Hammond.

, in an unknown tongue, i.

149, Bentley, and n. ; 165. n. Thorpe; ii.
313, Rogers, and n. ; iii. 76, Ridley, and
n.; 94 — 6, do. and n.; 246, Cranmer. See
also Art. XXI V.
Singing men, cardinal Wolsey's, i. 485, n.

Wolsey.

Sins, the seven deadly, i. 309, n. Thorpe.
Sir, (dominus,) usage of, i. 397, », n.

Cobham.
Sir John, sir John Lack-latin, &c., names

of reproach, i. 392, Cobham, and n.
Smith, Dr. Richard, recants under K. Ed-
ward VI. ii. 567, 8, Latimer, and n.; 674,
do.; iii. 120, Ridley.

Socinianism, charge of, against Tillotson, iv.
683—5, Tillotson.

Southey's Book of the Church, referred to,
and commended, i. 34, n. Inett.

., quoted in n. England not

indebted to popery for Magna Charta, i.
110, Inett.

Southwell cum Scrooby, soke or liberty of,
described, i. 615, n. Wolsey.

Spain, Ferrar's travels in, iv. 147 — 52,
Ferrar.

Spalato, archbishop of, his shiftings in reli-
gion, iv. 93, 4, Wotton, and n.

Spanish match, the, iv. 298, 9, Hall,
and n.

, Dona Maria offered to prince

Charles, iv. 163, n. Ferrar.
Stafford, George, the reformer, Latimer's

violent zeal against, ii. 452, 3, Latimer,

and n.
Stage plays, acted in the universities, ii. 51,

More, and n. ; injurious effects of seeing,

iv. 532—4, Hale, and n.
Staveley's History of Churches, quoted in n.

the greater curse, form of, i. 219 — 21,

Wickliffe.
Stevens, Dr., (bishop Gardiner,) i. 557,

Wolsey, and n.
Stewart, Arabella, James I.'s jealousy of

her, iv. 15, n. Herbert.
Still ingfleet, bishop, and Wilmot, earl of

Rochester, anecdote of, iv. 614, 15, n.

Rochester.

Subscription to the 39 Articles, nature, his-
tory, &c. of, iii. 357, Jewel : 420, Gilpin ;

421, do. and n. ; 584—7, Whitgift.
Sufferers under Q. Mary, distribution and

classification of, iii. 78, 9, Ridley, and n.
Suffolk, duchess of, some account of the,

ii. 29, n. Bilney.
Superaltare, what, ii. 282, Cromwell, and

n. ; 490, Taylor, and n.
Supremacy, regal and papal; See Pope of

Rome, authority, fyc. of.
Supplementary Extracts, i. 403—32.
Swearing, lawfulness, &c. of; See Oaths.
, profane, prevalence of, before the

Reformation, i. 330—3, Thorpe, and n. ;

sinful habit of, iv. 658, 9, Rochester.
Sweating sickness, the, i. 444, 5, Colet, and

n. ; ii. 116, 17, More, and n.
Synods, diocesan and provincial, i. 133,

'Inett; 138, 9, do. ; 453, 4, n. Colet.

T.

TAYLOR, Dr. Rowland, Life, &c. ii.

405—43.
Tempest, sir Richard, notice of, i. 629, n.

Wolsey.
Tertullian adv. Marc, quoted, iii. 19, n.

Ridley.
Texts of Scripture, in churches, houses, &c.

^'•rijitures.
Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, i. 30,

Iiirtt.
Thirlby, bishop, character, \r. of, iii. 252, 3,

Cranmrr.
Thomas, William, his endeavour to obtain

INDEX.

745

the grant of a prebend at St. Paul's, iii.
77, n. Ridley.

Thomas, William, quoted in n. ; castle of
St. Angelo, i. 408, Supplem. Extracts;
papal and regal supremacy, 568 — 70, Wol-
sey; trial, execution, &c. of More and
Fisher, ii. 147, 8, More; monasteries,
visitation, dissolution, &c. of, 242, 3,
Cromwell ; blood of Hailes, 283, do. ;
Pope's procession to St. Peter's, on Christ-
mas day, 321, Rogers; description of the
princess Mary, afterwards queen, iii. 11,
Ridley ; description of Edward VI. at his
accession, 200, n. do.
Tillotson, archbishop, Life, &c. iv. 677—

726.

Tindall, William, Life, &c. ii. 187—218;
his obedience of a Christian Man, 199 —
201, do. and n.

, quoted in n. ; the cardinal's hat, i.
482, Wolsey ; Englishmen's want of skill
in diplomacy, 518, do. ; Scriptures, neg-
lect of in the universities, ii. 448 — 51,
Latimer ; the blood of Christ, its po-
tency, 463, do. ; a good intent ; a good
zeal, beware of, 477, do.; pope's indul-
gences grounded on purgatory, 486, do. ;
baptism, termed volowing, iii. 52, Ridley;
clergy, their ignorance, 96, n. do. ; I will
believe as my fathers did, and as my
priest teaches, 112, n. do. ; monks of Sion,
and nuns of Shene, 290, n. Mountain;
confession private, often delayed for many
years, ii. 264, Cromwell.
Tironius, rule of, iii. 39, n. Ridley.
Tithes, right to, Wickliffe's, Thorpe's, &c.
opinions respecting, i. 316 — 27, Thorpe,
and n.

are pure alms; See Eleemosynam.

Todd, Dr. J. H., his publication of Wick-

liflVs MS. i. 168, n. Wickliffe.
Ton stall, bishop, iii. 389—93, Gilpin ; 395,

do. ; 421, do.

Tower, discrepancies concerning the time
of Cranmer, Latirner, and Ridley leaving
the, iii. 9, n. Ridley.

Traditions, unwritten, their authority, &c.
ii. 259, Cromwell, and n. ; made equal
to Scripture, by the council of Trent, iii.
385, 6, n. Gilpin.

Transubstantiation, doctrine, &c. of, i. 158,
Bentley ; accidents without subject, i.
186, Wickliffe, and n. ; Oxford ' decree
for (1380), 211, 12, do. and n. ; does ma-
terial bread remain after consecration ?
i. 185, Wickliffe, and n.; 293—301,
Thorpe, and n. ; 369, Cobham ; 371, do.;
374 — 6, do. ; putting off the cap, in wor-
ship of the elements, ii. 321, 2, Rogers,
and n. ; novelty of, i. 212, n. Wickliffe;
300, 1, Thorpe, and n. ; iii. 395, 6, Gil-
pin ; 429, do.

Travel, foreign; More, &c. in France, to
learn the language, &c. ii. 52, 3, More ;
Ferrar's, iv. 44, 5, Herbert; 132—53,
Ferrar; sir Henry Wotton's, 77, 8,
Wotton.

Travers, Walter, and Hooker, competitors
for the mastership of the Temple, iii.

VOL. IV.

476 — 80, Hooker; their controversies,
501—17, do.

Trent, council of, its new rule of faith, ren-
ders reconciliation impossible, iii. 102, n.
Ridley ; 385—7, Gilpin, and n. ; 388, 9,
do. ; 423, do. ; Father Paul's history of,
iv. 89, Wotton.

Trentals, i. 216, n. Wickliffe.

Trinity, the Holy, iv. 639—41, Rochester;
721, 2, Tillotson ; pictures, images, &c. of,
i. 303, Thorpe ; 308, do. and n.

Twisden, sir Roger, new edition of his Vin-
dication, recommended, i. 155, Bentley.
, quoted in n. ; British Church, its in-

dependence of Rome, i. 18, Inett ; ap-
pointment of bishops, 35, 6, do. ; exemp-
tion of monasteries from ordinary juris-
diction, ill effects of, 74, 5, do. ; spiritual
jurisdiction, nature and kinds of, 126, do. ;
legates, different kinds of, and their uses
to the papacy, 137, 8, do. ; transubstun-
tiation, a very modern tenet, i. 212, Wick-
liffe ; the punishment for heresy, by the
common law of England, was death by
fire, 222, do. ; Peter-pence, 244, do. ; the
Pope gives what he can neither keep nor
sell, 154, Bentley; laws and oath against
Lollardy, 273, 4, Thorpe ; heretics, burn-
ing of, ii. 330, 1 , Rogers ; papal infallibi-
lity, origin of the doctrine, 603, 4, Lati-
mer ; succession and visibility of the
Church, iv. 299, Hall.
Tytler, quoted on the characters of queen
Mary and queen Elizabeth, iii. 12, n.
Ridley ; his account of the interim, iii.
31, 2, do.

U & V.

VALDESSO, JOHN, iv. 47, 8, Herbert; 197,8,

Ferrar.
Vaidcsso, notice of his " Considerations," iv.

47, n. Herbert.
Valois, Margaret de, account of, i. 528, n.

Wolsey.

Udall, John, iii. 589, Whitgift; 594, 5, do.
Venom poured on the Church ; Constan-
tino's dotation, i. 379, 80, Cobham, and n.
Vicarages, poverty of, iii. 372, Jewel, and n. ;

400, 1, Gilpin; Whitgift to Q. Elizabeth,

496, Hooker.
Vice-gerent, and Vicar-general, ii. 236,

Cromwell.
Virgin Mary, worship of, ii. 481, Latimer;

482, do. ; iii. 416, 17, Gilpin, and n.
Virginia Company, the, Arthur Woodnorth's

" Remarkable Passages" concerning, iv.

179, n. Ferrar.
Virtues, the seven principal, i. 30.0, n.

Thorpe.

Vision, Dr. Donne's, iii. 648—50, Donne.
Visitation, the royal, at the beginning of <J-

Elizabeth's reign, iii. 349, Jewel; 4l!». -Jo.

Gilpin.
of the university of Oxford. Iv.

349, 50, Hammond, and n. ; 441—3, San

derson.

3c

746

INDEX.

Unity and universality in religion, value of,
iii. 36, 7, Ridley.

Universities, visitation of, under Q. Mary,
iii. 565, Whitgift; in the great rebellion,
iv. 349, 50, Hammond, and n. ; 441—3,
Sanderson.

• , their diet, study, &c. under K.

Henry VIII. &c. ii. 82, 3, More, and n.

, common prayer may be used in,

in Latin, ii. 314, n. Rogers.

, decay of, at the Reformation,

iii. 153, 4, Cranmer, and n. ; 336, 7, n.
Jewel; 390, n. Gil pin.

, exhibitions to poor scholars,

iii. 336, 7, Jewel, and n.

, K. James's directions to, for

their studies, preaching, &c. iii. 661, 2,
Donne, and n. ; iv. 334, Hammond, and
n. ; 422, Sanderson.

Volowing, baptism so termed, iii. 52, n.
Ridley.

Vow of chastity, iv. 255, n. Ferrar.

Usher, archbishop, his directions for preach-
ing, i. 438, 9, n. Colet ; alteration in
judgment, respecting Calvinistic predes-
tination, &c. iv. 451, 2, n. Sanderson.

Usurpers, submission to, iv. 543 — 5, Hale.

W.

WADSWORTH, Rev. James, a convert to
popery, iv. 103, 4, Wotton, and n.

Walpole, Horace, his unjust estimate of
the earl of Rochester's character, iv. 670,
n. Rochester.

Walsingham, our Lady of,i. 306, n. Thorpe ;
385, n. Cobham ; ii. 83, n. More.

Walton, bishop, his Polyglott, iv. 378, Ham-
mond.

War, whether lawful to Christians, i. 456, 7,
Colet, and n.

Wharton, Henry, quoted in n. ; "Becket,"
not "a Becket," i. 31, Inett; Wickliffe's
works, 168, Wickliffe; mendicant orders,
character of, 181, do. ; character of Wick-
liffe, 242, 3, do. ; character of John Bale,
353, Thorpe; archbishop Sudbury, 369,
Cobham ; sermons in Lent, 438, Colet ;
monasteries, sundry particulars respecting,
ii. 238—40, Cromwell ; priests and their
concubines, 332, 3, Rogers ; different
treatment of the married clergy, according
as they were regulars, or seculars, 338, n.'
do. ; non-conformity of Hooper, 368, 9,
Hooper ; Golden Legend, iii. 426, Gilpin.

Whip, discipline of, Henry II. said to have
submitted to, i. 58, Inett.

Whitgift,arch bishop, Life, &c. iii. 555—629 ;
character, &c. of, iii. 491—501, Hooker;
vincit qui patitur, 540, do. ; 575, Whit-
gift.

Whole Duty of Man ; See Man.

Wickliffe, John, Life, &c. i. 165—258 ; en-
comium ou, 169, n. Wickliffe ; encomium
on him, and on his followers, their life,
teaching, &c. 279, 80, Thorpe; 378, 9,

Cobham ; his doctrines in Bohemia, 251
—3, Wickliffe, and n. ; 663, Wolsey; his
sentiments respecting the eucharist, 211,
12, Wickliffe, and n. ; respecting the royal
authority in causes ecclesiastical, 194 — 7,
do. and n. ; 211, 12, do.; progress of his
doctrines, 250 — 3, do. and n.

Wickliffe, quoted in n. ; certain opinions of,
explained and vindicated, i. 194—6, Wick-
liffe; 204—8, do.; 214, 15, do.; the
greater curse, and the less, 218, 19 ; re-
spect for the Fathers, 270, Thorpe; church
music, Salisbury use, 315, 16, do. ; evan-
gelical poverty, 321, do.; tithes, oaths,
&c. 329—32, do. ; false teaching of the
clergy, not to be followed, 333, do. ; sanc-
tuaries, 397, Cobham ; friars' rule, pre-
ferred above the Scriptures, ii. 245, 6,
Cromwell.

Wilkins, bishop, his character, &c. iv. 553
—5, Hale ; 558, do. ; 692—4, Tillotson ;
716, 17, do.

Will, last, and testament ; Donne's, iii.
672, 3, Donne ; Herbert's, iv. 52 ; Wot-
ton's, 107, 8; Hammond's, 399; San-
derson's, 475 — 7.

Williams, archbishop, his visits to the Fer-
rar family; 1631, iv. 185, 6, Ferrar;
1634, 187, do. ; 210, do. ; 255, do. ; 257, 8,
do.

; tables and altars;

Holy table, name, and thing, iv. 259, n.
Ferrar.

, draws up a protest against

the acts of the Long Parliament, iv. 309
—11, Hall.

Wolsey, cardinal, Life, &c. i. 459—672;
dates of his career, i. 464, n. Wolsey ;
Wolsey and Bilney, ii. 3 — 5, Bilney, and
n. ; Wolsey and House of Commons,
More, speaker, 63, 4, More ; his ambition,
123 — 6, do. ; his measures against the
writings of the Reformers, i. 663, n. Wol-
sey; 198—201, n. Tindall ; Latimer and
Wolsey, ii. 464- — 6; praiseworthy conduct
after his fall, i. 622, Wolsey; his prece-
dent in suppressing religious houses, 608,
9, do. ; ii. 231, 2, Cromwell, and n. ; whe-
ther he poisoned himself, i. 657, Wolsey,
and n. ; ii. 129, More, and n. ; cha-
racter of, by lord Herbert, i. 670 — 3, n.
Wolsey ; by David Lloyd, 672, n. do.

— , and the popedom, i. 510,

Wolsey.

, his secret treaties with

Francis I. i. 510, 11, Wolsey.

, betrayed by some of his

dependants, i. 649, n. Wolsey.

Wolverhampton, account of the deanery of,
iv. 287, n. Hall.

Woodnot, Arthur, the friend of George Her-
bert, iv. 21, Herbert ; 26, 7, do. ; 30, do. ;
50—2, do.

World, origin, not eternal, iv. 571 — 4,
Hale.

Worship of God, duty of, iv. 627, 8, Ro-
chester.

, Christian, iv. 637, Rochester.

Wotton, sir Henry, Life, &c. iv. 65—115,

INDEX.

747

the Wotton family, 67—72, Wotton ; Dr.
Nicholas Wotton, 70, 1, do.
Wyndharn family and connexions, iv. 615,
n. Rochester.

Y.

YEAR, dates of the beginning of, ii. 491, 2,
n. Latimer; iv. 37, n. Herbert.

Year, new, gifts, ii. 620, Latimer.

Z.

ZEAL, a good, beware of, ii. 477, Latimer,
and n.

Zouch's Elementa Jurispmdentiae, com-
mended, iv. 474, 5, Sanderson.

GLOSSARIAL INDEX.

Ale-brew, ii. 38.
Algorisme, ii. 174.
Annoyle, i. 665.
Apaid, i. 339.
Appealer, i. 272.
Arbenois, i. 526.

Barm, i. 235.

Bennett and Collett, ii. 389.

Blow, i. 267.

Bodkin, i. 584.

Braide, i. 607.

Brute, i. 549.

Bug, ii. 488.

Burgion, ii. 51.

Buxom, i. 269.

Carfax, ii. 612.
Chambers, i. 495.
Cheat-bread, i. 548.
Common, i. 267.
Con, iv. 222.
Conclude, i. 266.
Crazed, iii. 69.
Cullace, i. 662.

Diffuse, ii. 456.
Ding, i. 267.
Dirige, ii. 66.

Easell, ii. 177.
Entailing, i. 611.

Ententife, i. 299.

Farst, ii. 76.
File, i. 267.
Fine force, i. 479.

Gree, i. 69.

Harlot, i. 279.
Housled, i. 139.

Javell, ii. 176.
Jouresse, i. 282.

Karfox, ii. 612.

Laske, i. 652.
Launce-knights, i. 520.
Leful and lawful, i. 289.
Lewd, i. 173.
Lightly, i. 208.
Lollards, i. 230.

Maumetrie, i. 368.
Maundy, ii. 563 *.
Mumchance, i. 496.

Nild, i. 366.
Or, i. 276.

Paned, i. 494.
Perchers, i. 547.

Pild, i. 380.

Pill, i. 362.

Portesse, &c. i. 316; ii. 191.

Portigue, ii. 118.

Postills, ii. 515.

Prest, i. 615.

Preface, i. 547-

Rew, iii. 245.
Rowned, i. 347.

Saye, i. 652.
Shalme, i. 538.
Sir John, i. 392.
Sooth-fast, i. 265.
Sophemes, i. 180.
Sovereign and subject, i. 286.
Sowter, ii. 259.
Stradiates, i. 526.
Summoner, i. 272.

Tappet, i. 636.
Temerous, i. 463.
Trepanning, iii. 528.

Visnamy, i. 494.
Volowing, iii. 52.

Unneth, i. 188.
Utas,i. 224.

Waster, ii. 442.
Worshipful, i. 301.

* " The Thursday before Easter, called Maundy Thursday," (says Wheatly, Illus-
tration of the Common Prayer, p. 207, edit. 1794,) "from the commandment which
our Saviour gave his apostles to commemorate the sacrament of his supper, which he
this day instituted ; or, as others think, from that new commandment, which he gave
them to love one another, after he had washed their feet, in token of the love he
bare to them." But Spelman and others derive the word from the French, maund, a
basket, because on that day it was the custom to give alms to those poor men, whose
feet the king washed, in imitation of our Saviour's lesson of humility. Sec Junius's
Etymoloyicum.

THE END.

GILBERT & UIVINQTON, I'rinters, bi. John's Square, London.