PRINCETON. N. J.
^ Part of the
t ADDISON ALEXANDER LIBRARY, « ||j which was jireaented by ||
BX 5133 T Al ' C 3 T^Ts 4 4 v . 1 Cattermole, Richard, 1795?- 1858.
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THE
LITERATURE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
THE
LITERATURE
OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
INDICATED IN
SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF EMINENT DIYINES:
WITH MEMOIRS OF THEIR LIVES,
AND
HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE TIMES IN WHICH THEY LIVED.
THE
Rev. RICHARD CATTERMOLE, B.D.
HV THE IIECEPTION OF TnUTH IN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, WE BECAME WHAT WE ARE; ONLY BY THE RETENTION OF IT IN THE SAME SPIRIT, CAN WE REMAIN WHAT WE ARE. THE FRIEND.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME THE FIRST.
LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND.
M.DCCC.XLIV.
rilK RIGHT HO-NOLKABLE
THE EARL OF RIPON,
PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF CONTROL FOR THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA,
&c. &c. &c.
PRESIDKNT OF THK ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITKIUTURK ;
WHO A:^ A STATKSMAX APPKECIA1F,S THE VITAL KENEFITS TO THE NATION", AS A SCHOLAR ADMIRES THE INCOMPA RARLE LEARiMNfi, AXD AS A CHRISTIAN REGARDS WITH VENERATION THE PRIMITIVE PUOIV, OF THE
(iCijurci) of lEnglanU;
THESE RECORDS
OF SOME AMONG HER DISTINGUISHED CLERGY, AND EXAMPLES OF HER EARLIER LITERATURE,
ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED
BY HIS FAITHFUL SERVANT,
RICHARD CATTERMOLE,
PREFACE.
Among the most satisfactor}' proofs tliat the vitality and self-regenerative power of our national character still survive, is the fact, that for some years past a dis- position has been manifested to return to the study of those imperishable works of our early divines, which were largely instrumental in the hands of Providence towards its formation, and still, our great poets not excepted, present the best literary evidence of its seri- ousness, depth, and vigour.
The object proposed in the following pages is, at once to stimulate and to guide this reviving interest in and just appreciation of the writings of the most eminent theologians of the Church of England. With this view, after pointing out as in a map the histo- rical circumstances and positions of the several great men who are brought forward, the author has endea- voured to exhibit in biographical narratives their per- sonal claims to regard, and to give in selections from their works some evidence of their title as authors to the studious consideration of posterity.
Such being the design of these volumes, it would be impertinent to anticipate the reader's judgment by attempting here to delineate the general character of the leading divines of the Anglican Church. But, as
viii
PREFACE.
the majority of those writers of whom an account is given belong to the seventeenth century, a period con- sidered by many to be one of ignorance and blind intolerance : it may, nevertheless, be proper to premise an observation or two with reference to this opinion as bearing on the present case.
The student of history and of human nature ought to keep in mind, as a cautionary truth which proficiency in his pursuits will not fail to confirm, that to every period belong its peculiar vices and errors ; and that no man, at all events no class of men, can be wholly exempt in any period from the characteristic defects of the time. Admirable as were the preeminent churchmen of that century, they are not to be held up as faultless. They must have been more than human, had there not clung to them, in such an age, some share of ignorance and mistake. That their views of physical and even of psy-. chological science, were in several particulars erroneous, no one will deny : as for example, in retaining, as many did to the close of the century, the Ptolemaic system of astronomy; in their allusions to chemistry and geology, sciences then almost unknown; in their imperfect notions of the English Constitution ; in their reluctant abandon- ment of belief in witchcraft, &c. As, however, neither ages nor individuals can be justly obnoxious to contempt for not knowing what it was not permitted them, in the order of Providence, to know ; so it might be fairly contended, that these defects were for the most part innocuous — some of them, with reference to existing circumstances, even beneficial. That remarkable century was a period of clearing-np — a twilight of transition, in which ancient errors were, on the one side, beheld receding by degrees into the gloom of the past ; while
rUEFACE.
on the other. Truth was seen to shine forth, if not more distinctly, yet assuredly not with less grandeur and impressiveness, from the contrast. The mistakes of powerful minds so situated were often wholesome and manly mistakes ; such as left uninjured — nay, such as cherished beneath their shade, humility, veneration, faith, and pious earnestness.
It is then admitted, that the brightest intellects of the seventeenth century had their imperfections. But, did no clouds, though perhaps from other quarters of the intellectual horizon, impair likewise the splendour of the eighteenth ? In examining the records of this latter age, do we find no barrenness in its philosophy, no presumption in its judgments, no rationalism in its religious speculations? Or, rather, can we not easily discover ignorance more offensive, if less gross ; super- stitions more grovelling, if less cruel ? We, at least, who are too far removed to be liable to injury from the errors of the remoter period, may be allowed to look with greater indulgence on them, than on those of more recent times. Surrounded with numerous and powerful correctives, in the advanced state of science, and the increasing refinements of taste, we are in no danger of imbibing either the mistakes, or the coarseness, of the seventeenth century from what alone survives of that great age, unmodified, its immortal Literature. Well for us, were we equally free from the evil influences of the last !
In carrying into execution, however imperfectly, the plan of his work, the author has regarded himself as engaged in an office somewhat between that of a mere indicator — a finger to point the way, and that of a critical guide ; at the same time endeavouring, by the
X
PREFACE.
union of these characters, also to unite among his readers, both the young- (whether designed for the sacred profession, or not) and those intelligent persons of more advanced years who have not hitherto been led to enrich their minds from the ^reat ori<rinal depositaries of Theological learning existing in our Literature. Avoiding the impertinence of declama- tory eulogium, he has endeavoured, by means of facts which of themselves sufficiently testify to the character of the Churchmen and Chukch Literature OF England, to draw the reader into a delightful region of intellectual and moral exercise. The men, he has exhibited, as far as his space allowed, in their lives and mental habits : the works, by placing in the reader's hand portions rather characteristic than trans- cending the general quality of the respective authors, and of sufficient extent to be at once fair tests of the writers' powers, and valuable moreover for their own sake.
To affect the strict duties of editorship with regard to these selections, seemed scarcely to be required in such a work. Far from being brought forward with a notion of superseding the originals, the purpose of these outlines and excerpta is, by a reverential and affec- tionate, but it is hoped not overweening or undiscern- ing estimate of their general merits, to encourage the growing taste for the original and complete works. To deprecate the identification of the office here assumed with the labours of an editor, is the more necessary, inasmuch as from some few of the selections, (<?. g. from Andrewes on Ceremonies, from Hammond's Parcenesis, and perhaps elsewhere, in one or two places,) the selector has taken the liberty to strike out a few quotations
PREFACE.
XI
calculated to weary the modern reader; but, as he believes, without lessening the weight of the arguments, or injuring the characteristic features of the style.
Neither the original nor the selected paragraphs are brought forward with any express reference to those con- troversies, the passage of which across our ecclesiastical atmosphere is now so grievously disturbing its equi- librium. Nevertheless, it will not escape the reflective reader's observation, that the pages before him supply not a few powerful lessons applicable to all who engage in those turbulent disputes. He will find the learning and wisdom, the genius and the piety of our most erudite and judicious theologians, uniformly directing their steps in the free but direct middle path of the Reformed Church of England. He will find them equally shun- ning either extreme ; yielding neither to patristical dogmatism, nor to ultra-protestant suspicion ; neither fascinated by the meretricious charms of popery, nor driven, by abhorrence of its mere name, beyond the verge of genuine catholicity. In the calm and impartial, the mild but orthodox tone of the selections, he will be supplied with a clue through the labyrinth of perplexing- opinions, all alike vaunted by their adherents; and with numerous examples both of steadfastness in defence of the truth, and of patient forbearance equally towards its adversaries and its false friends.
E R R A T A.
Volume I. Page 3!), line 38, for " l(i-25," read " l(il2."
— 48, heading, fur " Historical Sketch," read "Dr. Field."
— 17''>, line 23, /or "did not survive the civil war," re/id "did not survive li
the civil war."
— 291, insert at the top of the paye, the title, "Selections from Bishoj) Hall"
Occasional Meditations."
— 320, line 8 from bottom, for "to refund," read "to make an otter o
refunding."
C O N T E N T S THE FIRST VOLUME.
FPiOM THE REFORMATION TO THE TIME OF HOOKER.
A.D. 1535—1572.
rAGF.
HISTORICAL SKETCH 1
Bishop Jewel's Challenge 2
.\vch bishop ^^'hitgift's Address to Queen Elizabeth 13
HOOKER. A.D. 1580— 1600 15
The Happiness of Alankind in God and the Law of God, 2.5
Benefits of a Written Revelation 81
God's Laws may be mutable 3.3
CLOSE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN— REIGN OF JAMES THE FIRST.
A.D. ifiOO— Ifil'J. HISTORICAL SKETCH ,'{8
Dr. FIELD. A.D. 1600— l6l6 m
Preface to "A View of the Controversies in Religion, which in these last times have caused the lamentable Divisions of the
Christian World." -jO
Of the Freedom of the Will
BISHOP ANDREWES. A.D. I6i6_i626 70
A learned Discourse of Ceremonies ri'tained and used in Cliris-
ti;in ( 'hurclirs 7.5
XIV
CONTENTS.
PERIOD OF JAMES THE FIRST. A.D. 16"03— 1625.
PAGE
HISTORICAL SKETCH 91
BISHOP MORTON. A.D. 160O— 1659 97
Bishop Morton's Profession of Faith 106
On the Conjunction of the Church and Commonwealth 109
Dr. DONNE. A.D. 16'00— 1631 118
Sermon on " St. Paul at Malta." 127
Dr. JACKSON. A.D. I6OO— 164.0 146
The Sacred Origin and right Use of Poetry, with the manner
of its corrujAtion by later Poets 153
Loving God, the way truly to know liim 160
JOSEPH MEDE A.D. 16OO— 1638 I68
The Reverence of God's House 178
PERIOD OF CHARLES THE FIRST. A.D. 1625—1649. HISTORICAL SKETCH 187
BISHOP DAVENANT. A.D. 16OO— 1641 I93
Mr. Hoard's Statement respecting " The Absolute Decree," with
Bishop Davenant's Answer 198
Concerning the Abuse of the doctrine of Election and Reproba- tion 206
ARCHBISHOP LAUD. A.D. l625— 1644 218
Laud's Sermon on the Scaffold 223
Sum of Proofs, that Scripture is the Word of God 228
CONTENTS. XV
PA OK
ARCHBISHOP USSHER. A.D. iCOO— 1()56' 234
Instructions to those newly achnitted to Holy Orders 256
The Satisfaction of Christ on the Cross 264
Materials and Principle of Unity in the Catholic Church 268
BISHOP HALL. A.D. l600— 1656 278
From his Occasional Meditations 291
ANTHONY FARINDON. A.D. 16"30— 1658 320
On Prejudice in Religion 321
JOHN PLAIFERE. A.D. l652 334
Doctrine of Predestination 336
CHILLINGWORTH. A.D. 1630—1644 343
Scripture a surer Guide than the Church 355
The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy demonstrated 360
JOHN HALES. A.D. 1612—1656 365
Of Dealing with Erring Brethren 371
JOHN SMITH. A.D. 1644— 1652 389
The tine Method of attaining to Divine Knowledge 396
Dr. HAMMOND. A.D. 162.5— 1660 405
The Authority of Learning and Learned Men in Matters of
Religion 418
A Parsenesis, or seasonable Exhortatory to all true Sons of the
Church of England 426
THOMAS FULLER. A.D. l640— l66l 439
Character of the Good Bishop, exemplified in the Lives of
St. Augustine and Bishop Ridley 447
The Life of St. Augustine 452
The Life of Bishop Ridley 454
xvi CONTENTS.
PAOK
BISHOP WALTON. A.D. ifi40— Kifil ., 46o
The original 'I'exts of Suripture free from gross Corruptions,
but not from Variations 465
Dr. I'OCOCKE. A.D. ]630—]656 47.')
Commentary on Malachi iv. o 482
HISTORICAL SKETCH:
FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE TIME OF HOOKER.
A. D. 1535—1572.
The same providential effort, by which, early in the six- teenth century, the Church of England was enabled to regain her long-lost freedom, likewise opened before her learned ministers the path to high achievements in Literature. That any of them should be found, at such a time, to enter on this path with the requisite ardour, and pursue it to its close, was not to be expected. It is the business of a reforming age to prepare the ground, and diffuse the elements of thought and research ; but the hands employed in this work are seldom the same which reap the harvest. Erasmus, the great literary name of that period, though no one more clearly saw or more distinctly pointed out the necessity of the Reformation, yet shrank, when it arrived, from its fierce struggles and popular clamour, as of wholly " dissonant mood " from the tastes and habits of his own life. On the other hand, the re- forming clergy were too intimately involved in its progress, to find leisure for employing their pens in any department of composition, except the most necessary and urgent branches of religious controversy. Tyndale ranks among the pure and racy writers of English, and the business-like style of Cran- mer appears sufficiently correct and expressive, if we regard the purposes for which he wrote ; but neither of these excellent men, nor even the venerable Latimer, their more popular fel- low-martyr, can be cited as possessing any very higli claim to literary distinction.
With Elizabeth''s reign commenced a more settled and favourable state of things. A generation of churchmen conse- quently now arose, who, while in possession of a greater fund of general learning than their predecessors, had carried their researches farther into the particular subject of ecclesiastical antiquity. Parker, Elizabeth's first archbishop of Canterbury,
VOL. I. 1
2
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
[A.D.
was a ripe scholar, a liberal and enlightened patron. Besides his undertakings of a more exclusively controversial character, we are indebted to this prelate for that valuable revision of our English Scriptures, the Bishops' Bible, of 1568; for editions of some of the early English chroniclers ; and for the compilation of the work De Antiquitate BritanyiiccR Ecclesice, containing the lives of the occupants of his see, from its foundation. His contempoi'ary, Jewel, bishop of Salisbury, with equal learning united a more flowing style and richer eloquence. Jewel was, indeed, the most accom- plished scholar who had yet appeared in the Reformed Church of England. But the uncertain state of opinion still continued to claim the labours of such men, as chiefly due to the depart- ment of polemics. The most considerable of his productions scarcely admitted the exercise of any higher quality than controversial skill. He undertook to demonstrate, and did in fact, substantially demonstrate, against a distinguished Romish champion, that popery is of modern invention — the first distinct traces of the peculiar doctrines and usages of Rome ascending no higher than the sixth century ; while, of the greater part of them the origin dates from epochs far more recent, in what — in this respect, justly — we denominate " the dark ages." The celebrated Apology, from its form and object, was less unfavourable to the genial exercise of literary power, and is consequently among the most perfect produc- tions of that age : but it was written in the Latin language, and has not, perhaps, been adequately translated. Some passages in this great writer's Commentary on the Epistles to the Thessalonians, may be pointed out as fine examples of theological style; but a more eloquent specimen appears in the peroration of his famous Challenge Sermon, preached at St. Paul's Cross in the year 1560.
jewel's challenge.
Here the matter itself that I have now in hand, putteth me in remembrance of certain things that I uttered unto you, to the same purpose, at my last being in this place. I remember I laid out then, here before you, a number of things that are now in controversy, whereunto our adversaries will not yield. And I said, perhaps boldly, as it miglit tlien seem to some men, but I myself, and the learned of our adversaries themselves do well know, sincerely and truly, That
15G0.] BISHOP JEWEL'S CHALLENGE.
3
none ot" tliem, that tliis day stand against us, are able, or shall ever be able to prove against us, any one of all those points, either by the Scriptures, or by example of the primitive church, or by the old doctors, or by the ancient general councils.
Since that time it hath been reported in places, that I speak then more than I was able to justify and make good. Howbeit, these reports were only made in corners, and therefore ought the less to trouble me. But if my sayings had been so weak, and might so easily have been reproved, I marvel that the parties never yet came to the light, to take the advantage. For my promise was, and that openly, here before you all, that if any man were able to prove the contrary, I would yield and subscribe to him ; and he should depart with the victory. Loath I am to trouble you with rehearsal of such things as I have spoken afore ; and yet because the case so requireth, I shall desire you that have already heard me, to bear the more with me in this behalf. Better it were to trouble your ears with twice hearing of one thing than to betray the truth of God.
Tlie words that I then spake, as near as I can call them to mind, were these : If any learned man of all our adversaries, or if all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring any one sufficient sen- tence out of any old catholic doctor or father, or out of any old general council, or out of the holy scriptures of God, or any one ex- ample of the primitive church, whereby it may be clearly and plainly proved that there was any private mass in the whole world at that time, for the space of six hundred years after Christ ; or that there was then any communion ministered unto the people under one kind, or that the people had their common prayers then in a strange tongue, that they understood not ; or that the bishop of Rome was then called an universal bishop, or the head of the universal Church ; or that the people was then taught to believe that Christ's body is really, substantially, corporally, carnally, or naturally, in the sacra- ment, or that his body is, or may be, in a thousand places, or more, at one time ; or that the priest did then hold up the sacrament over his head ; or that the people did then fall down and worship it with godly honour ; or that the sacrament was then, or now ought to be, hanged up under a canopy ; or that in the sacrament after the words of consecration there remaineth only the accidents and shews without the substance of bread and wine ; or that the priest then divided tlie sacrament in three parts, and afterward received himself all alone ; or that whosoever had said the sacrament is a figure, a pledge, a token, or a remembrance of Christ's body, had therefore been judged for an heretic ; or that it was lawful then to have thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten, or five masses said in one church,
1—2
4
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
[A.D.
in one day ; or that images were then set up in the churches, to the intent the people might worship them ; or that the lay people was then forbidden to read the word of God in their own tongue : — if any man alive were able to prove any of these articles, by any one clear or plain clause or sentence, either of the scriptures, or of the old doctors, or of any old general council, or by any e.\- ample of the primitive church ; I promised then that I would give over and subscribe unto him.
These words are the very like, I remember, I spake here openly before you all. And these be the things that some men say, I have spoken and cannot justify. But I for my part will not only not call in any thing that I then said, (being well assured of the truth therein) but also will lay more matter to the same ; that if they that seek occasion, have any thing to the contrary, they may have the larger scope to reply against me.
Wherefore, besides all that I have said already, I will say further, and yet nothing so much as might be said. If any one of all our adversaries be able clearly and plainly to prove, by such authority of the scriptures, the old doctors, and councils, as I said before, that it was then lawful for the priest to pronounce the words of consecration closely and in silence to himself ; or that the priest had then authority to offer up Christ unto his Father; or to communicate and receive the sacrament for another, as they do ; or to apply the virtue of Christ's death, and passion, to any man by the mean of the mass ; or that it was then thought a sound doctrine, to teach the people, that the mass, ex opere operato, that is, even for that it is said and done, is able to remove any part of our sin ; or that then any Christian man called the sacrament his Lord and God ; or that the people was then taught to believe that the body of Christ remaineth ■in the sacrament as long as the accidents of the bread remain there without corruption ; or that a mouse, or any other beast, or worm, may eat the body of Christ (for so some of our adversaries have said and taught) ; or, that when Christ said, Hoc est corpus meum, this word, hoc pointeth not the bread, but individvum vagum, as some of them say ; or that the accidents, or forms, or shows, of bread and wine, be the sacraments of Christ's body and blood, and not rather the very bread and wine itself ; or that the sacrament is a sign or token of the body of Christ that lieth hidden underneath it ; or that ignorance is the mother and cause of true devotion and obe- dience ; — these be the highest mysteries, and greatest keys of their religion, and without them their doctrine can never be maintained and stand upright ; — if any one of all our adversaries be able to avouch any one of all these articles, by any such sufficient authority of scrip-
1560.]
BISHOP JEWEL'S CHALLENGE.
5
tures, doctors, or councils, as I have required, as I said before, so say I now again, I am content to yield unto him, and to subscribe. But I am well assured, that they shall never be able truly to allege one sentence. And because I know it, therefore I speak it, lest ye haply should be deceived.
All this notwithstanding ye have heard men in times past allege unto you councils, doctors, antiquities, successions, and long con- tinuance of time, to the contrary. And an easy matter it was to do, specially before them that lack either leisure, or judgment, to ex- amine their proofs. On a time Mitliridates, the king of Pontus, laid siege to Cizicum, a town joined in friendship to the city of Rome, which thing the Romans hearing, sent out a gentleman of theirs, named Lucullus, to raise the siege. After that LucuUus was within the sight of the town, and shewed himself with his company upon the side of an hill, thence to give courage to the citizens within, that were besieged, Mitliridates, to cast them into despair, and to cause them the rather to yield to him, made it to be noised, and bare them in hand, that all that new company of soldiers was his, sent for purposely by him, against the city. All that notwithstand- ing, the citizens witliin kept the walls, and yielded not. Lucullus came on, raised the siege, vanquished Mitliridates, and slew his men. Even so, good people, is there now a siege laid to your walls ; an army of doctors and councils shew themselves upon the hill, the adversary that would have you yield, beareth you in hand that they are their soldiers and stand on their side. But keep your hold : the doctors and old Catholic fathers in the points that I have spoken of are yours ; ye shall see the siege raised, ye shall see your adver- saries discomfited, and put to flight. The Pelagians were able to allege St. Augustine, as for themselves ; yet when the matter came to proof, he was against them. Helvidius was able to allege Ter- tuUian, as making for himself ; but in trial he was against him. Eutychcs alleged Julius Romanus for himself ; yet indeed was Julius most against him. The same Eutyclies alleged for himself Athanasius and Cyprian ; but in conclusion they stood both against him. Nes- torius alleged the council of Nice, yet was the same council found against him. Even so they that have advanced themselves of doc- tors and councils, and continuance of time in any of these points, when they shall be called to trial to shew their proofs, they shall open their hands and find nothing. I speak not this of arrogancy, (thou, Lord, knowest it best, that knowest all things) : but forasmuch as it is God's cause and the truth of God, I should do God injury if I should conceal it. But to return again to our matter.
In the time of Peter and James, neither was there any man that ever heard the name of Masses, (for Missa was never named until four
6
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
[A.D.
hundred years after Christ, — and yet then was it no private mass nei- ther, but a communion), nor yet were the pieces and parts of the mass, as we in our time have seen them, set together. And what mass could that be, that as yet had neither its own name nor its parts? But foras- much as they affirm so constantly that St. James said mass at Jerusalem, and whatsoever it were that he said, will needs have it called by the name of a mass ; let us compare their mass and St. James's mass both together. St. James said his mass in the common tongue, as the people might understand him : they say their mass in a strange Latin tongue, that the people should not know what they mean. St. James spake out the words of consecration distinctly and plainly : they, in their mass, suppress the same words and keep them close. St. James in his mass ministered the communion unto the people : they in their mass receive themselves all alone. St. James in his mass ministered the sacrament unto the people under both kinds : they in their mass ministered the sacrament unto the people in one kind only. St. James in his mass preached and set forth the death of Christ : they in their mass have only a number of dumb gestures and ceremonies, which they themselves understand not, and make no manner of mention of Christ's death. St. James's mass was full of knowledge : their mass is full of ignorance. St. James's mass was full of consolation : their mass is full of superstition. When St. James said mass, the people resorted to receive the sacrament : when they say mass, the people resorteth to look upon only, and to behold the sacrament. And to conclude, St. James in his mass had Christ's institution : they in their mass have well near nothing else but man's invention.
Such difference ye may see between Saint James's mass and theirs. O that St. Paul were now alive and saw the behaviour and order of the priest at their mass I Think ye that he would take it and account it for the Lord's Supper? When he had espied but one fault in the holy Communion amongst the Corinthians, straightway he rebuked them, and called them back to Christ's institution : " This," saith he, "I received of the Lord, and the same I gave over unto you."
But if he saw the disorder that we have seen, would he not be moved as much against us now as he was sometime against the Co- rinthians? Would he not pull us back to the institution of Christ as he did them ? Would he not say unto us, Did I ever teach you to minister the holy Communion in a strange language ? Did I ever teach you to receive the communion privately to yourselves alone, and so to disdain and to despise your brethren? Did I ever teach you to minister the communion to the people in one kind ? Did I ever teach you to say mass, or to receive the sacrament, for the people ? Did I ever teach you the idle follies of your canon ? Did I ever teach you to offer up the Son of God unto the Father? Did I ever
1560.]
BISHOP JEWEL'S CHALLENGE.
7
teach you any other propitiatory sacrifice for sin, than that of Christ once offered upon the cross ? Did I ever teach you to minister the Lord's Supper wherein the people should nothing else but look upon and behold your doings, without any kind of knowledge or comfort? Did I ever teach you to lift the sacrament over your head ? Did I ever teach the people to fall down thereunto, and to worship they know not what ? Be these the things that I delivered you ? Be these the things that I received of the Lord ? This would St. Paul say unto us, if he were now alive. Thus would he reprove us, and call us to the standard and original of the first appointing of the holy sacrament.
Our own inventions and fantasies, wherewith we had filled the mass, were so many and so gross, that they quite covered and shadowed the death of Christ, and the holy mysteries of our salvation. There- fore we could not truly say. These things Paul delivered unto us, or, these things Paul received of the Lord.
Wherefore, forasmuch as we see there have been great and evi- dent abuses and errors in the mass, so plain and so manifest, that no man that hath reason, and will consider them, can deny it, let us follow the council of St. Paul: let us return to the ordinance of Clirist, unto tlie true standard that cannot fail us. As it is not in the power of man to appoint sacraments, so is it not in the power of man to alter or change sacraments. God will not be worshipped after our fantasies, and therefore so oftentimes he chargetli us in the scriptures, Non facictis quod borium videtur in oculis vestris — 'Ye shall not do that thing that seemeth good to you in your own sight : Ye shall not turn neither to the left hand nor to the right ; but what thing so ever I bid you do, that only shall ye do. Your thoughts be not my thoughts, neither be your ways my ways, for as far as heaven is from the earth, or the east from the west, so far off be your thoughts from my thoughts, and your ways from my ways, saith the Lord.' It is a dangerous thing for a mortal man to control or find fault with the wisdom of the immortal God.
TertuUian, an old father of the Church, sheweth us the wilfulness of man's heart, after it hath once enterprized to presume a little against God's truth and ordinance : Preeter scrijduras facnint, nt post audacius contra scripturas faciant : First, saith he, they attempt somewhat beside the scriptures, to the intent, that afterward they may gather courage and boldness to do contrary to the scriptures. At the end they proceed as far as the Scribes and Pharisees, that for maintenance of their own traditions despised and brake the commandments of God. For redress therein, there is no better way than to follow St. Paul's council here, and to have recourse to God's holy word. O that our adversaries, and all they that stand in defence of the mass this day,
8
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
[A. D.
would content tliemselves to be judged by this rule ! O that in all the controversies that lie between us and them, they would remit the judgment unto God's word ! so should we soon agree and join together: so should we deliver nothing unto the people but that we have received at God's hand.
And if there be any here that have had, or yet have, any good opinion of the mass, I beseech you for God's sake, even as ye tender your ovm salvation, suffer not yourselves wilfully to be led away ; run not blindly to your own confusion ; think with yourselves, it was not for nought that so many of your brethren rather suffered themselves to die, and to abide all manner of extremity and cruelty, than they would be partakers of that thing that you reckon to be holy. Let their death, let their ashes, let their blood, that was so abundantly shed before your eyes, somewhat prevail with you, and move you. Be not ruled by your wilful affections : ye have a good zeal and mind towards God ; have it according unto the knowledge of God. The Jews had a zeal of God, and yet they crucified the Son of God. Search the scrip- tures ; there shall ye find everlasting life. There shall ye learn to judge yourselves, and your own doings, that ye be not judged of the Lord. If ever it happen to you to be present again at the mass, think but thus with yourselves : What make I here, what profit have I of my doings ? I hear nothing ; I understand nothing ; I am taught nothing ; I receive nothing. Christ bad me take ; I take notliing : Christ bad me eat ; I eat nothing : Christ bad me drink ; I drink no- thing: Is this the institution of Christ? Is this the Lord's Supper? Is this the right use of the holy mysteries? Is this it that Paul de- livered unto me ? Is this it that Paul received of the Lord ? Let us say but this unto ourselves ; and, no doubt, God of his mercy will open our hearts ; we shall see our errors, and content ourselves to be ordered by the wisdom of God : to do that God will have us to do ; to believe that God will have us to believe : to worship that God will have us worship. So shall we have comfort of the holy mysteries ; so shall we receive the fruits of Clirist's death ; so shall we be partakers of Christ's body and blood ; so shall Christ truly dwell in us, and we in him ; so shall all errors be taken from us ; so shall we join all together in God's truth ; so shall we all be able with one heart and one spirit, to know and to glorify the only, the true, and living God, and his only begotten Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
But now arose a fresh antagonist and another form of controversy. Having successfully justified, against Romanism, the rejection of its peculiarities, as the incrustations of time, the growth of accident, or the contrivances of an interested
15()0.]
CONTINENTAL REFORMERS.
9
priesthood ; a no less arduous labour devolved upon the learn- ed Anglican clergy, in the defence of the structure which remained, against those ultra reformers, who would not be satisfied with its fair proportions, as long as any par- ticle existed, but especially any marked by peculiar come- liness, that had in former periods been stained by the con- tact, or even by the neighbourhood, of popish corruption. The origin is not obscure of that schism in the national Church, in consequence of which, a considerable division of our fellow countrymen (including, it is readily admitted, many pious christians, and most exemplary citizens,) under the successive general denominations of Puritans, Nonconform- ists, and Dissenters, have held themselves aloof, in religious respects, from the main body of the people. Ere the Reform- ation was half complete, its progress was rudely interrupted by the death of Edward, and the accession of his unrelenting sister. Of those who had taken a prominent share in the purifying and renovation of the Church, as far as the blessed work had yet advanced, many were called upon to consum- mate their labours at the stake ; others evaded the search of persecution in secret hiding-places of their native country ; the remainder sought a refuge in foreign lands. Germany and Switzerland, the countries which received into their bosom these victims of persecution, had embraced the principles of the Reformation, even earlier than England, but under less favourable auspices. Deserted by the hierarchy, the laity and inferior clergy fought the battle of intellectual freedom with courage and perseverance, but without discipline ; and, even where most successful, won no more than a maimed victory. While they secured the free use of the Bible, the first object of their generous efforts, they were generally obliged to relinquish the cathoHc frame and constitution of the Church. Long intimacy with those pious foreigners, re- sentment towards their common persecutors, and the necessary disuse, at least in part, of their own apostolical observances, combined to win over by degrees most of the exiles to the opinions and customs of their hospitable entertainers. They too would have a frame-work of ecclesiastical polity, for every particle of which they could allege scriptural authority. Sampson, dean of Christ Church ; Humphrey, president of Magdalen College, Oxford ; Foxe, the learned martyrologist ; Grindal, bishop of London, subsequently the mild and liberal
10
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
successor of Parker ; even Jewel himself, with numerous others, had returned home at the death of Mary, deeply tinc- tured with these views. They found Elizabeth, seconded by Parker already seated in the primacy, determined to follow out the design of Edward and Cranmer, by completing the Reformation upon the model of the pure ages of catholic antiquity. Up to this time, the objections of the exiles were chiefly directed against the surplice, the square cap, and other clerical vestments, desecrated, in their esteem, by having been used in popish times. Several of these divines, among whom Jewel and Grindal may be named as chief, after some hesitation were content to submit their private scruples to the general good, and adopted the habits. Some others, as "Father Foxe," though unconvinced, retained their opinions in silence. Others again, at the head of whom appeared Sampson and Humphrey, zealously persevering in the course they had adopted, surrounded it with popularity by their eloquence ; and, presently, stood forth the leaders of a party, inflexible in proportion to their growing influence and power, whose genuine descendants, after a struggle of eighty years, over- threw the ancient church and monarchy of England.
Dislike of the canonical habits had, perhaps, from the first, though in some cases unconsciously, been fortified by other and more substantial motives to nonconformity. And some such were, before long, avowed. Concessions that might have satisfied the original objectors, would plainly have been regard- ed with contempt by those who soon succeeded. Various parts of the ritual were successively found to present insurmountable objects of off'ence ; until it became obvious, that Puritanism was to be appeased by nothing less than a total departure from the religious polity and customs which the nation had received down from primitive times, and had cherished as, in spirit, apostolical. The energy of a vigorous government was roused. Elizabeth resolved to enforce conformity: many pulpits were silenced by this unhappy quai-rel, at a time when the people were perishing for want of the bread of life ; many of the most zealous in the scanty number of tolerably efficient clergymen were suspended, or wholly deprived of their livings ; till at length, severe, though unavailing laws were enacted to arrest, if possible, the progress of a separation, (for such it had now become,) which menaced the existence of the Church.
1572.]
" ADMONITION TO PARLIAMENT.'
11
To describe the measures pursued by the government towards this conscientious but mistaken party, is, however, not the purpose of the present sketch ; but rather to notice, in a brief and cursory manner, the steps adopted, at the suggestion of reason and charitable persuasion, to bring them over to a more complying temper.
The first great literary champion of nonconformity was Thomas Cartwright. This learned and eloquent person was a fellow of Trinity College, and Margaret professor of divinity, at Cambridge. By his violent advocacy of the Discipline, as the Puritan system began now to be called, and by a resolute defence of every irregularity which his party had adopted, he raised such a flame in his college and university, that, through the exertions of Whitgift, then master of Trinity, he was deprived of his preferments, and forced to retire to the con- tinent. By this time the cause of religious, had found an ally in that of civil, liberty ; and Puritanism had strenuous supporters, not only in the House of Commons, in which a lively perception of the secular benefits to flow from the Reformation was already apparent, but even in the privy council, where the earl of Leicester courted popular esteem, by proclaiming himself its patron. To consolidate this "union of the Puritans and patriots in the legislature," was the design of a pamphlet, put forth in 1572, under the title of An Admonition to Parliament. This production de- nounces, in what even our own times would consider language of intolerable rudeness and audacity, the existing ecclesiastical government ; and loudly demands the substi- tution, in its place, of "a platform" of synodical discipline. An answer by Whitgift, prepared under the eye of Arch- bishop Parker, appeared towards the close of the year. Cartwright, emboldened by the success of his principles, now returned. He replied to Whitgift ; who rejoined, in a De- fence of the Answer to the Admonition; which, as it comprises the Admonition itself, Whitgift's reply, Cartwright's answer to him, and, finally, his rejoinder, presents a complete view of this famous controversy. The partizans on each side claimed the victory for their champion ; but, on which part soever the advantage of the argument lay, the result was, to crown the popularity of Cartwright ; to confirm his followers in their presumption ; and to drive him once more into vo- luntary exile ; on returning from which, after the lapse of
12
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
several years, he was arrested and detained for a season in custody.
In the mean time, Whitgift, now advanced in years, had resigned the weapons of controversy to other hands, — to Ban- croft, to Bilson, to Cosins — and had been called to serve the Church in a higher capacity, as Grindal's successor at Canterbury. He proved an able and upright primate ; and, though inflexible in maintaining the rights of the Church, and promoting conformity, he was not wanting in allowance to the scruples of conscientious dissenters. His conduct, when in authority, towards his old antagonist Cartwright, was such as to soften that stern foe to prelacy ; and their contrasted asperities of opinion being subdued by the sobering influence of age and preferment, (for Cartwright had been pensioned by Leicester, and promoted to the mastership of an hospital at Warwick,) they passed their declining years in mutual friendly intercourse.
In a notice, however slight, of the acts and character of Whitgift, it would be unjust to pass by in silence his generous exertions, in which he had not the government only, but the queen in person, against him, to restrain the farther alienation of the lands and revenues of the Church. This abuse, by which no one profited, except a few unprincipled courtiers, after being carried to an infamous length in the reign of Henry VIII., impressed one of the darkest blots which dis- figure the rule of his illustrious protestant daughter. A remonstrance on this point, addressed to the queen by Whitgift, raav here be introduced, as not the least worthy remaining evidence of the archbishop's zeal and abilities, and one which should not in fairness be overlooked by those writers who delight in citing this prelate for nothing else but the unworthy adulation in which, when enfeebled in mind and body, he permitted his joy to run over, on discovering, in the conference at Hampton Court, the extent of King James's theological acquirements, and his favourable disposition to- wards the Church. Leicester was among those nobles who had largely profited by the spoliation of the bishoprics. On this, and perhaps on some other accounts, an unfriendly feeling existed between him and Whitgift, which once dis- played itself in an open collision, in the queen's presence. Both quitted the apartment in tlispleasure ; but the prelate, desiring to justify his warmth to his royal mistress, suddenly
1572.]
ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT.
13
returned, and, finding her majesty alone, addressed hor in language to the following purport : —
" I beseech your Majesty," he said, " to hear me with patience, and to behave that yours and tlie Cliurch's safety are dearer to me than my life, but my conscience dearer than both. And therefore give me leave to do my duty, and tell you, that princes are deputed nursing-fathers of the Churcli, and owe it a protection ; and tlierefore God forbid that you should be so much as passive in her ruin, when you may prevent it ; or that I should behold it without horror and de- testation, or should forbear to tell your Majesty of the sin and danger, of sacrilege. And, though you and myself are bom in an age of frailties, when the primitive piety and care of the Church's lands and immunities are much decayed ; yet, madam, let me beg that you will but first consider, and then you will beheve there are such sins as profaneness and sacrilege : and that if there were not, they could not have names in Holy Writ ; and particularly in the New Testament. And I beseech you to consider, that thougli our Saviour said, ' He judged no man ;' and to testify it, would not judge nor divide the inheritance betwixt the two brethren, nor would judge the woman taken in adultery ; yet in this point of the Church's rights he was so zealous, that he made himself both the accuser, and the judge, and the executioner too, to punish these sins. Witness, in that he him- self made the whip to drive the profaners out of the Temple, over- threw the tables of the money-changers, and drove tliem out of it. And consider, that it was St. Paul that said to those Christians of his time that were offended with idolatry, ' Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege V supposing, I think, sacrilege to be the greater sin. Tliis may occasion your Majesty to consider, that there is such a sin as sacrilege ; and to incline you to prevent the curse that will follow it. I beseech you also to consider, that Con- stantino, the first christian emperor, and Helena his mother, that king Edgar, and Edward the Confessor, and indeed many others of your predecessors, and many private christians, have also given to God and to his Church much land, and many immunities, which they might have given to those of their own famihes, and did not, but gave them as an absolute right and sacrifice to God. And with these immu- nities and lands, they have entailed a curse upon the alienators of them ; God prevent your majesty from being liable to that curse !
" And to make you, that are trusted with their preservation, the better to understand the danger of it, I beseech you, forget not that besides these curses, the Church's land and power have been also en- deavoured to be preserved, as far as human reason and the law of this nation liavc been able to preserve them, by an immediate and
14
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
most sacred obligation on tlie consciences ot" the princes of this reahn. For they that consult Magna Charta shall find, that as all your pre- decessors were, at their coronation, so you also were sworn before all the nobility and bishops then present, and in the presence of God, and in his stead to him that anointed you, ' to maintain the church- lands, and the rights belonging to it ; ' and this you yourself have tes- tified openly at the holy altar, by laying your hands on the Bible then lying upon it. And not only Magna Charta, but many modern statutes have denounced a curse upon those tliat break Magna Charta. And now what account can be given for the breach of this oath at the last gTeat day, either by your majesty or by me, if it be wilfully or but negligently violated, I know not.
" And therefore, good madam, let not this lord's exceptions against the failings of some few clergymen prevail with you to punish posterity for the errors of the present age : let particular men suffer for their particular errors, but let God and his Church have their right. And though I pretend not to prophesy, yet I beg posterity to take notice of what is already become visible in many families, that church-land, added to an ancient inheritance, hath proved like a moth fretting a garment, and secretly consumed both ; or like the eagle that stole a coal from the altar, and thereby set her nest on fire, which con- sumed both her young eagles, and herself that stole it. And, though I shall forbear to speak reproachfully of your majesty's father, yet I beg you to take notice, that a part of the Church's rights, added to the vast treasure left him by his father, hath been conceived to bring an unavoidable consumption upon both, notwithstanding all his dili- gence to preserve them.
" And consider that after the violation of those laws, to which he had sworn in Magna Charta, God did so far deny him his restrain- ing grace, that he fell into greater sins than I am willing to men- tion. Madam, religion is the foundation and cement of human societies ; and when they that serve at God's altar shall be exposed to poverty, then religion itself will be exposed to scorn, and be- come contemptible ; as you may already observe in too many poor vicarages in this nation. And therefore, as you are by a late act or acts of Parliament entrusted with a great power to preserve or waste the Church's lands ; yet dispose of them for Jesus' sake as the donors intended : let neither falsehood nor flattery beguile you to do otherwise ; and put a stop, I beseech you, to the approaching ruin of God's Church, as you expect comfort at the last great day ; for kings must be judged. Pardon this affectionate plainness, my most dear sovereign, and let me beg to be still continued in your favour, and the Lord still continue you in his."
I.)8().]
HOOKER.
A. D. 1580 — 1600.
The state of England, in regard to the all-absorbing topic of religion, continued nearly such as we have seen, — the advocates of the presbyterian Platform pressing on, in obstinate confidence of ultimate success; the queen's govern- ment being able to maintain the integrity of the Church, amidst the wreck of its peace, only by severities which no one more lamented than the members of the government themselves; when a champion made his appearance in the field, trained to use, with unexampled ease and effect, the arms of reason and erudition.
Richard Hookeb is among those numerous ornaments of the Anglican Church, who have owed little of their fame to ancestry, and little of their advancement to patrimonial aid. It was to their mutual honour, that, in the year 1567, Hooker, being then about fifteen years of age, was placed by Jewel, at the bishop's own cost, in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he had himself been educated. Here, under an excellent tutor. Dr. John Reynolds, those promising qualities, moral as well as intellectual, which had obtained for the youth that honourable patronage, found scope for developement. Four years afterwards. Jewel died ; but not before he had opened a path for the preferment of Hooker. At his recom- mendation, Sandys, archbishop of York, sent his eldest son, afterwards Sir Edwin Sandys, to Oxford, to be placed with Hooker, although nearly his equal in age, as his pupil. Hooker's second pupil was George Cranmer, grand nephew of the archbishop. Thus surrounded by congenial associations and connections, commanding the warm attachment of his pupils and contemporaries, and about this time admitted a scholar on the foundation of his college, " which was then noted for an eminent library, strict students, and remarkable scholars," he enjoyed the perfection of a college life. In 1577 he took his master's degree, was made a fellow in the
16
HOOKER.
[A. D.
same year, and soon after entered into holy orders. Among his other attainments, his proficiency in oriental learning was sufficient to enable him to officiate as deputy professor of Hebrew. An important incident of Hooker's life, in which his worldly wisdom was not displayed to advantage, abruptly sever- ed him from this genial soil ; he contracted an unfortunate marriage, and was compelled in consequence to exchange the agreeable society and fair prospects he enjoyed at Oxford, for the poverty and dullness of a mean country parsonage, and the companionship of a wife whose incapacity to appreciate his singular merits was by no means compensated by undiscri- minating reverence. The well-remembered picture of this great man's matrimonial infelicity, which his biographer, Walton, has drawn, becomes not unpleasing when viewed as the pro- vidential means of his introduction to that worthier, though not less troubled sphere, in which germinated the idea of the first great theological work, of a highly literary character, in our language. Sandys and Cranmer, iiis pupils at Oxford, coming, when he had been some months in his retirement, to pay him an unexpected visit, were so struck by the contrast of the rude discomforts apparent in his present position with those qualities which they revered in their tutor, that an urgent application to the archbishop for some better preferment for him, was the immediate consequence.
It happened, that about this time, the mastership of the Temple became void, by the death of Richard Alvey : to this situation, therefore, Archbishop Sandys earnestly re- commended the incumbent of Drayton. Hooker, who instinct- ively felt that his strength was adapted rather to meditative than active life, would have modestly declined the oppor- tunity of advancement ; yet he allowed his reluctance to be overcome; and in March 1585, the thirty -fourth year of his age, received his appointment to the vacant office.
His dread of the disquietudes incident in those turbulent times to a prominent situation in the Church, was instantly realized. He found at the Temple, in the occupation of his pulpit as afternoon lecturer, one Walter Travers. Travers was of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he formed the acquaintance and imbibed the principles of Cartwright. A residence at Geneva thoroughly confirmed him in his adoption of those principles ; and in his very way home, he received the indelible stamp of hostility to the constitution of the
15S6.]
HOOKER.
17
Anolican cliiircli, in accepting ordination from the hands of Cartwrioht and the otlier members of the presbytery of the English congregation at Antwerp. There he remained some time, in the capacity of Cartwright's assistant, and returned to England, preceded by a reputation among his party which procured his introduction as domestic chaplain and tutor into the family of Lord Burghley. Traverses attainments were indeed considerable, and he was able to set them off to the best advantage, in his writings by a facile pen, and in the pulpit by ready eloquence and a captivating manner. His was the second great name on the file of eminent Puritans — the first, indeed, in literary celebrity ; the Book of Discipline, the consistorian liturgy, from which the Directory established in the following century by the long parliament was extracted, and which he had published several years previously, being a monument of scholarship creditable to that party. The interest of Burghley procured for him the lectureship of the Temple, where his discourses produced so strong an impression, espe- cially on the younger members of the congregation, that, upon the death of Alvey, great efforts were made to gratify his desire to secure the mastership for himself.
Thus every thing was prepared for the annoyance of the new master. Supported by the prejudices of a majority of his congregation, Travers resisted Hooker's authority, and systematically impugned his doctrines : " the forenoon ser- mon spoke Canterbury, and the afternoon Geneva." To maintain a contest of this kind was no less offensive to Hooker's nice sense of respect for the true uses of the pulpit, than unsuited to his temper and physical qualifications. He was as much inferior to his opponent in the resources of popular eloquence, as he was undoubtedly that able person's superior in learning, dignity of style, and blended manliness and grace of diction. His voice was neither powerful nor melodious : action, even of the eye, was wanting to his oratory. With the exception, however, of his habit of fixing this organ on one object, to prevent the embarrassment to which his modesty exposed him, Hooker's style of preaching, though differing from ideal models, and avoiding the vehemence of foreign as well as dissenting pulpits, would appear, from the description left of it by Walton, to have been sufficiently consistent with the sober character of our church and nation. "His discourses," says that affectionate biographer, "were
VOL. I. 2
18
HOOKER.
[A.D.
neither long nor earnest [vehement], but uttered with a grave zeal and an humble voice ; insomuch that he seemed to study as he spake : the design of his sermons was to shew reasons for what he spake ; and with these reasons such a kind of rhetoric, as did rather convince and persuade than frighten men into piety."
This state of dissension had continued in the Temple about a year, when Archbishop Whitgift found it neces- sary to put an end to the scandal by silencing the lecturer. Travers immediately appealed to the privy council, (where his cause had many friends,) in a Supplication^ which clearly shews the intemperance of his proceedings, and his contempt for existing ordinances. Copies of this paper being exten- sively circulated, called forth, in self-defence, Hooker, — the most friendly, but weightiest of opponents. His Answer to the Supplication, addressed to Whitgift, is among the most eloquent and instructive productions to which contro- versy has given birth ; in temper, style, and views, fore- shadowing the Ecclesiastical Polity. The chief errors (marks of a " sour leaven," as he called them) which Travers charged Hooker with preaching, related to predestination, the assurance of faith, and the possibility of salvation to Romanists. On the first point, what gave offence to the lecturer and his partizans appears to have been no more than a very moderate relaxation of the iron bonds of Calvinistic fatalism. But he seems to have been greatly shocked by an expression which fell from Hooker in a private conference relative to this doctrine. Travers had demanded the mas- ter's authorities for his opinion. To which Hooker, willing to shorten the dispute, and perhaps, with some little appear- ance of wonder at so easy a demand being gravely urged, replied that "his best authority was reason;" meaning, as he explained himself, not his individual understanding, but " Divine reason — reason proper to that science whereby the truths of God are known." With regard to the second alleged error. That the assurance of sense is greater than that of faith; he answered, that what he had taught was, that the things of faith, as laid open in scripture are indeed surer than the evi- dence of the senses, but not so vividly beheld — not perceived hy us to be so clear. Else, he asked, why doth God so often prove his promises to us by arguments drawn from our sensible experience ? For we must be surer of the proof than of the
ir>9o.]
HOOKER.
19
thiiiff proved; otherwise it is no proof. In the charitable opinions advanced by him under the third head, many ])ar- ticulars were comprised. But the substance of his defence is in the position that the Romanists admit, with us, that the sole meritorious cause of salvation is the merits of Christ; the only difference being as to the mode of applying those merits. " Surely," (exclaims Hooker) I must confess, that if it be an error to think that God may be merciful to save men even when they err, my greatest comfort is my error : were it not for the love I bear to this error, I would never wish to speak or to live." The following conclusion of the answer, conceived in the same spirit, who might not rejoice to have written
" I take no joy in striving, — I liave not been trained up in it. Sith there can come nothing of contention but the mutual waste of the parties contending, till a common enemy dance in tlie ashes of them both, I do wish heartily that the grave advice which Con- stantine gave for reuniting of his clergy, so many times u\}on so small occasions in so lamentable sort divided, or rather the strict command- ment of Christ unto his, that they siiould not be divided at all, may at the length, if it be his blessed will, prevail so far, at tlie least in this corner of the christian world, to the burying and quite forgetting of strife, together with the causes which have either bred it or brought it up ; that things of small moment never disjoin them, whom one God, one Lord, one Faith, one Spirit, one Baptism, bands of so great force, have linked ; that a respective eye towards things wherewith we should not be disquieted make us not, as through infirmities the very patri- archs themselves sometimes were, full gorged, unable to speak peace- ably to their own brother ; finally that no strife may ever be heard of again, but this, who shall hate strife most, also shall pursue peace and unity with swiftest paces."
The archbishop, as moderator, delivered his judgment on the controverted points with impartiality, but with charac- teristic caution. He, nevertheless, adhered to his original determination respecting the prohibition of Travers, being supported in it by the queen ; and the contest closed with the removal of the lecturer to the provostship of the new University of Dublin, and a more general appreciation, among the templars, of the merits of their distinguished master. That the great monument of sound learning with which Hooker enriched the literature of England in its herculean youth, took its beginning from the reflections and inquiries to which these painful but instructive disputes gave rise, ap-
2—2
20
HOOKER.
[A. U.
pears evident from the following beautiful letter, in which he solicits Whitgift, now his patron, for a removal from the Temple to a more quiet residence.
" My Lord,
" Wlicn I lost the freedom of my cell, which was my college, yet I found some degree of it in my quiet country parson- age ; but I am weary of the noise and oppositions of this place ; and indeed God and nature did not intend me for contentions, but for study and quietness. My lord, my particular contests with Mr. Tra- vers here have proved the more unpleasant to me, because I believe him to be a good man ; and that belief has occasioned me to ex- amine mine own conscience concerning his opinions ; and, to satisfv' that, I have consulted the scripture and other laws, both human and divine, whether the conscience of him and others of his judgment ought to be so far complied with as to alter our frame of church government, our manner of God's worship, our praising and praying to him, and our established ceremonies, as often as his and others' tender consciences shall require us. And in this examination I have not only satisfied myself, but have begun a treatise in which I in- tend a justification of the laws of our ecclesiastical poUty : in which design God and his holy angels shall at the last great day bear me that witness which my conscience now does, that my meaning is not to provoke any, but rather to satisfy all tender consciences ; and I shall never be able to do this, but where I may study and pray for God's blessing upon my endeavours, and keep myself in peace and privacy, and behold God's blesxingx spring out of my mother earth, and eat my own bread without oppositions ; and therefore, if your grace can judge me worthy of such a favour, let me beg it, that I may perfect what I have begun."
This was one of many instances proving the fact, that the labours by means of which men of genius have left a rich intellectual inheritance to after-times, have mostly been min- gled with the throes of some " great agony" in their private lives. Yet is there nothing in this noble work to remind the reader of the animosities of polemic strife : its tone speaks, throughout, the mild earnestness of superior reason, seeking to benefit by enlightening and convincing.
The archbishop was enabled to gratify the wish of Hooker by presenting him to the rectory of Boscombe, in Wiltshire. In this retirement, he completed the first four books of the Ecclesiastical Polity, before the end of 1592 ; and in 1594 they were published, in folio, with the elaborate and con-
1600.]
HOOKER.
21
ciliatory preface, " To them that seek, (as they term it) the reformation of the laws and orders ecclesiastical in the Church of England." The able editor of the last and best edition of Hooker's works accounts, in some degree, for the lapse of time between the completion and the publication of these books, by supposing that they were, in the interval, perused in manuscript by Whitgift, and probably by Burghley.
In the preface, the author assigns eight books for the completion of his plan. The fifth, exceeding in bulk the preceding four, was published by itself in 1599- In the mean time. Hooker had vacated Boscombe, for the valuable living of Bishop's Bourne, near Canterbury. Here, in l600, after little more than a year's residence, he expired ; his feeble frame being exhausted with study, while he had not yet com- pleted his "iyth year.
The fame of Hooker is of the most enviable descrip- tion ; that of a meek and charitable christian, a writer of the highest order, and a consummate scholar. Such as the stream had begun to flow in his lifetime, such (upon the whole, perhaps, widening and deepening, but steady and unruffled,) it flows onward still ; and, while our language lasts, will ever flow. "The venerable, the judicious Hooker!" The latter epithet, inseparable now from his name, is the pledge of his literary immortality ; because its impress on the minds of his countrymen is the enduring growth of generations. The study of his works is, doubtless, indeed, less extensive than their fame; but, such has been the case with the productions of all great writers ; there are, however, indications of a time ap- proaching, when people will become weary of repeating the judgments of others on our ancient monuments of learning, instead of qualifying themselves to judge by first enjoying them. Amid the pure rays which surround this venerated name, it is of little moment, that the curious eye discovers some points that sparkle more than others, — that a pope' expressed his astonishment at the ripening of such fruits of learning and reflection in this gloomy and heretical region ; or that a king- solemnly commended the study of them to his suc- cessor.
The literary glory of Elizabeth's reign rests principally on three names — those of Shakespeare, Bacon, and Hooker ;
Clement VIII.
2 Charles I.
22
HOOKER.
[A. D.
of whom the last, considered with reference to literature, as distinguished from science, is perhaps entitled to the second place. The style of Hooker is richer, more uniformly sus- tained, more homogeneous, than Bacon's ; more nearly the best English of all periods. His vast learning is more thoroughly fused, and more effectively taken up by the force of his own genius. He seldom quotes authorities — a wonder in that age, when the style of controversy had diffused itself through all literature ; yet the spirit of antiquity breathes along his sentences. Majestic, but not unfamiliar ; calmly pouring forth the light of reason, but often touched with that imaginative colouring which, in men of genius, is the natural utterance of reason ; if he be in any respect deficient, it is in that lucid succinctness which modern readers require in the conduct of an argument, and in that perfect consistency which in a work of the variety and magnitude of the Eccle- siastical Polity was scarcely attainable.
Throughout this masterly treatise the author keeps two principles in view, namely, the eternal obligation of natural, and (whether enacted by divine or human authority) the muta- bility of positive laws; "for," he asserts, "it is not the author which maketh, but the matter wherein they are made, that causeth laws to be thus distinguished." These two principles, it was stated, in the advertisement appended by himself to the volume containing the first four books, he had, in those books treated in a more general manner, as applicable to the questions at issue between the Puritans and the Church ; reserving the treatment of particulars for those which were to follow. The first book commences with those fundamental principles, which are equally necessary to be considered, on whichever side we approach the subject. " He enquired into the nature and foundation of law itself as the rule of oper- ation to all created beings, yielding thereto obedience by unconscious necessity, or sensitive appetite, or reasonable choice ; reviewing especially those laws that regulate human agency, as they arise out of moral relations common to our species, or the institutions of political societies, or the inter- community of independent nations ; and having thoroughly established the fundamental distinction between laws natural and positive, eternal and temporary, immutable and variable, he came with all this strength of moral philosophy to dis- criminate by the same criterion the various rules and precept?
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contained in the Scriptures. It was a kind of maxim among the Puritans, that Scripture was so much the exclusive rule of human actions, that whatever, in matters at least concerning religion, could not be proved to have its authority, was un- lawful. Hooker devoted the whole second book of his work to the refutation of this principle. He proceeded afterwards to attack its application more particularly to the episcopal scheme of church government, and to the various ceremonies or usages which those sectaries treated as either absolutely superstitious, or at least as impositions without authority. It was maintained by this great writer, not only that ritual observances are variable according to the discretion of ecclesi- astical rulers, but that no certain form of polity is set down in Scripture as generally indispensable for a christian church. Far, however, from conceding to his antagonists the fact which they assumed, he contended for episcopacy as an apo- stolical institution, and always preferable, when circumstances would allow its preservation, to the more democratical model of the Calvinistic congregations \"
The history of the last three books of the Ecclesiastical Polity presents a literary problem, of which the solution is yet to be found. They are all posthumous, and inferior in style to the former; a discrepancy which is commonly ascribed to their never having received the final touches of the author's hand. Mr. Coleridge, indeed, insinuates that the doubts which have been thi-own on their genuineness originated in the unwil- lingness of Hooker's high-church friends to acknowledge them, on account of the liberality of the sentiments they inculcate, especially in regard to civil government. On the other hand, if we believe the testimony of Walton, which the laborious researches of the last editor seem to confirm, the sixth, seventh and eighth books were left by their author complete for publication, but were destroyed, through the stupidity or connivance of his wife, shortly after his decease. Rough draughts of them, however, remaining in the possession of Archbishop Whitgift, that prelate confided the papers to the care of one of Hooker's intimate friends. Dr. Spenser, president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford ; who took some steps towards preparing then) for the press. By him they were bequeathed to Dr. John King, bishop of London ;
' Hallani, Conslilulioitnl /lis/nrj/.
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from whose son, Henry King, bishop of Chichester, they were claimed by Archbishop Abbot for the library of Lambeth palace ; where they remained till that collection was seized by orders of the long parliament.
The sixth and eighth books (or, according to this account, the fragments which pass for them) were published in l657. The original design required that the first of these should treat of lay elders ; but what we now have of it, though undoubtedly the work of Hooker, relates chiefly to primitive and Romish penance. The seventh book first made its ap- pearance in the edition of Hooker^s works published in 1662 by Dr. Gauden, famous for his connection with the Icon Basilike ; but by what means that person obtained possession of the MS. is not known.
Five of Hooker's sermons are printed. The first three — On perpetuity of Faith in the Elect, On Justification, and On Pride, are portions of a series on the book of Habakkuk, and are among the most valuable expositions of doctrine which, in this form, we possess : the preservation of these three discourses was probably owing to some of those pas- sages being contained in them, against which Travers ex- cepted. Mr. Keble suggests doubts as to the genuineness of the two on St. Jude.
Some other fragments have been recently brought to light. In the year 1599) a tract was published, probably by Dr. An- drew Willet, entitled, A Christian Letter of certain English Protestants, speaking the sentiments of the doctrinal Puritans, and attacking Hooker with great severity, as having, by differing from the views of the extreme Calvinists, renounced those doctrines to which he had subscribed. This production was answered, after Hooker's death, by his friend Dr. Covel ; and some observations upon it by himself, having been pre- served, are printed in the last edition of his works' .
' Editions of Hoolier's Works. — First five Books by Dr. Spenser, 1604 ; reprint- ed 1617, 1622, 1633, under the care of Dr. Spenser, or of H. Jackson, whom he em- ployed. Oauden's edition, 1662, of which reprints appeared, 1666, 1667, 1682, with Walton's life substituted for Oauden's. Strype's, 1705, with his revision of M^al-
ton's life : from this the editions of the last century were chiefly printed. The first edition in 8vo. was published in 1792, by bishop Randolph ; an improved edition in two vols. 8vo. edited by the Rev. W. Dobson, appeared in 1825; lastly, a com- plete and admirable one, 1836 — 8, by Professor Keble.
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PORTIONS OF THE WORKS OF HOOKER,
THE HAPPINESS OF MANKIND IN GOD AND THE LAW OF GOD.
All things (God only excepted,) besides the nature whicli they have in themselves, receive externally some perfection from other things, as hath been showed. Insomuch as there is in the whole world no one thing great or small, but either in respect of know- ledge or of use, it may unto our perfection add somewhat. And whatsoever sucli perfection there is which our nature may acquire, the same we properly term our good, our sovereign good or bless- edness; that wherein the highest degree of all our perfection con sisteth, that which being once attained unto, there can rest nothing farther to be desired ; and therefore with it our souls are fully content and satisfied, in that they have, they rejoice, and thirst for no more. Wherefore of good things desired, some are such, that for them- selves we covet them not, but only because they serve as instruments unto that for which we are to seek : of this sort are riches. Another kind there is, which although we desire for itself, as health, and vir- tue, and knowledge ; nevertheless they are not the last mark whereat we aim, but have their farther end whereunto they are referred ; so as in them we are not satisfied, as having attained the utmost we may, but our desires do still proceed. These things are linked, and as it were chained, one to another. We labour to eat, and we eat to live, and we live to do good, and the good which we do, is as seed sown with reference unto a fiiture harvest : but we must come at length to some pause. For if every thing were to be desired for some other, without any stint, there could be no certain end proposed unto our actions, we should go on we know not vvhitlier : yea, whatsoever we do were in vain, or rather nothing at all were possible to be done. For as to take away the first efficient of our being were to annihilate utterly our persons ; so we cannot remove the last final cause of our working, but we shall cause wliatsoever we work to cease. Therefore something there must be desired for itself simply, and for no other : that is, simply for itself desirable, unto the nature whereof it is opposite and repugnant to be desired with relation to any other. The ox and the ass desire their food, neither propose they unto themselves any end wherefore ; so that of them this is desired for itself But why ? By reason of their imperfection, which cannot otherwise desire it ; whereas that which is desired simply for itself, the excellency thereof is such as permitteth it not in any sort to be referred unto a fartlier end. Now that which man doth desire with reference to a farther end, the same he desireth in such measure as is unto tiiat end convenient ; but what he covcteth as
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good in itself, towards tliat his desire is ever infinite. So that unless the last good of all, whicli is desired altogether for itself, be also infinite, we do evil in making it our end ; even as they who placed their felicity in wealth, or honour, or pleasure, or any thing here attained, because in desiring any thing as our final perfection, which is not so, we do amiss. Nothing may be infinitely desired, but that good which indeed is infinite : for the better, the more desirable ; that therefore is most desirable wherein there is infinity of goodness : so that if anything desirable may be infinite, that must needs be the highest of all things that are desired. No good is infinite but only God ; therefore he is our felicity and bliss. Moreover, desire tendeth unto union with that it desiretli : if then in him we be blessed, it is by force of participation and conjunction with him. Again, it is not the possession of any good thing can make them happy which have it, unless they enjoy the things wherewith tliey are possessed. Then are we happy therefore, when fidly we enjoy God as an object wherein the powers of our souls are satisfied even with everlasting delight. So that although we be men, yet by being unto God united, we hve as it were the life of God. Happiness therefore is that estate whereby we attain, so far as possibly may be attained, the full possession of that which simply for itself is to be desired ; and containeth in it after an eminent sort, the contentation of our desires, the highest degree of all our perfection. Of such perfection capable we are not in this life : for while we are in the world, we are subject unto sundry imper- fections, grief of body, defects of mind ; yea, the best things we do are painful, and the exercise of them grievous, being continued without intermission. So as in those very actions whereby we are especially perfected in this life, we are not able to persist; forced we are with very weariness, and that often, to interrupt them : which tediousness cannot fall into those operations that are in the state of bliss, when our union with God is complete. Complete union with him must be according unto every power and faculty of our minds, apt to receive so glorious an object. Capable we are of God, both by understanding and will : by understanding, as he is that sovereign truth which com- prehends the rich treasures of all wisdom : by will, as he is that sea of goodness, whereof whoso tasteth shall thirst no more. As the will doth now work upon that object by desire, which is as it were a motion towards the end as yet unobtained ; so likewise upon the same hereafter received, it shall work also by love. Jppetitus inhianlis sit amor frnejilif! (saith St. Augustine) — the longing disposition of them that thirst is changed into tlie sweet affection of them that taste and are replenished. Whereas we now love the thing that is good, but good especially in respect of benefit unto us ; we shall then love the
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thing tliat is good only, or principally, for the goodness of beauty in itself ; the soul being in this sort as it is active, perfected by love of that infinite good, shall, as it is receptive, be also perfected with those supernatural passions of joy, peace, and delight : all this endless and everlasting. Wliich perpetuity, in regard whereof our blessedness is termed " a crown which withereth not," doth neither depend on the nature of the thing itself, nor proceed from any natural necessity that our souls should so exercise themselves for ever in beholding and loving God, but from the will of God, which doth both freely perfect our nature in so high a degree, and continue it so perfected. Under man no creature in the world is capable of felicity and bliss : first, because their chiefest perfection consistetli in that which is best for them, but not in that which is simply best, as ours doth. Secondly, because whatsoever external perfection tliey tend unto, it is not better than themselves, as ours is. How just occasion have we therefore, even in this respect, with the prophet to admire the goodness of God I Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst exalt him above the works of thy hands, so far as to make thyself the inheritance of his rest, and the substance of his felicity ? Now, if men had not naturally tlus desire to be happy, how were it possible that all men should have it All men have. Therefore this desire in man is natural. It is not in our power not to do the same ; how should it then be in our power to do it coldly or remissly ? So that our desire being natural, is also in that degree of earnestness whereunto nothing can be added. And is it probable that God should frame the hearts of all men so de- sirous of that which no man may obtain? It is an axiom of nature, that natural desire cannot utterly be frustrate. This desire of ours being natural should be frustrate, if that which may satisfy the same were a thing impossible for man to aspire unto. Man doth seek a triple per- fection ; first, a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and orna- ments thereof ; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with ; lastly, a spiritual and divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them. Tliey who make the first of these three the scope of their whole life, are said by the apostle to have no god but only their belly, to be earthly-minded men. Unto the second, they bend themselves who seek especially to excel in all such knowledge and virtue as doth most commend men. To this branch belongeth the law of moral and civil perfection. That there is somewhat higher than either of these two, no other proof doth need than the very process of man's desire, wliicli being natural should be frustrate, if there were not some farther thing wherein it might rest
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at the length contented, which in the former it cannot do. For man doth not seem to rest satisfied, either with fruition of that where- with his life is preserved, or with performance of such actions as ad- vance him most deservedly in estimation ; hut doth farther covet, yea, oftentimes manifestly pursue with great sedulity and earnestness, that which cannot stand him in any stead for vital use ; that which ex- ceedeth the reach of sense ; yea, somewhat above capacity of reason, somewhat divine and heavenly, which with hidden exultation it rather surmiseth than conceiveth ; somewhat it seeketh, and what that is directly it knoweth not ; yet very intentive desire thereof doth so incite it, that all other known delights and pleasures are laid aside, they give place to the search of this but only suspected desire. If the soul of man did serve only to give him being in this life, then things appertaining unto this life would content him, as we see they do other creatures ; which creatures enjoying what they live by, seek no farther, but in this contentation do shew a kind of acknowledgment that there is no higher good which doth any way belong unto them. With us it is otherwise. For although the beauties, riches, honours, sciences, virtues, and perfections of all men living, were in the present pos- session of one ; yet somewhat beyond, and above all this, there would still be sought and earnestly thirsted for. So that nature, even in this life, doth plainly claim and call for a more divine perfection than either of these two tliat have been mentioned. This last and highest state of perfection whereof we speak, is received of men in the nature of reward. Rewards do always presuppose such duties performed as are rewardable. Our natural means therefore unto blessAlness, are our works ; nor is it possible that nature should ever find any other way to salvation than only this. But examine the works whicli we do, and since the first foundation of the world what one can say, My ways are pure? Seeing then all flesh is guilty of that for which God h<ath threatened eternally to punish, what possibility is there this way to be saved ? There resteth therefore either no way unto sal- vation, or if any, then surely a way which is supernatural, a way which could never have entered into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or imagine, if God himself had not revealed it extra- ordinarily. For which cause, we term it tlie mystery, or secret way of salvation. And therefore St. Ambrose in this matter appealeth justly from man to God : Cceli mysterium doceat me Dens qui coiididit, non homo qui xeipsum ignoravit — Let God himself that made me, let not man that knows not himself, be my instructor concerning the mystical way to heaven. " AV hen men of excellent wit (saitli Lactan- tius) had wholly betaken themselves unto study, after fare^vell bidden imto all kind, as well oi' private as jiublic action, they spared no la-
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buur tliat niiglit be spent in tlie searcli of truth ; iiolding it a tiling ut' nuicli more price to seek and to find out the reason of all all'airs, as well divine as human, than to stick fast in the toil of piling up riches, and gathering together heaps of honours. Hovvbeit, they did both fail of their purpose, and got not so much as to quit tiieir charges ; because truth, which is the secret of the most high Cod, whose proper handy-work all things are, cannot be compassed with that wit, and those senses, which are our own. For God and man should be very near neighbours, if man's cogitations were able to take a survey of the counsels and appointments of that majesty everlasting. Which being utterly impossible, that the eye of man by itself should look into the bosom of Divine reason ; God did not suffer him, being desirous of tlie light of wisdom, to stray any longer up and down, and with bootless expense of travail to wander in darkness that had no passage to get out by. His eyes at the length God did open, and bestow upon him the knowledge of the truth, by way of donative, to tlie end that man might both be clearly convicted of folly, and being tlirough error out of the way, liave the path that leadeth unto immortality laid plain before him." Thus far Lactantius Firmianus, to shew, that God himself is the teacher of the truth, whereby is made known the supernatural way of salvation, and law for them to live in, that shall be saved. In the natural path of everlasting life, the first beginning is that ability of doing good, which God in the day of man's creation endued him with ; from hence obedience unto the will of his Creator, absolute righteousness and integrity in all his actions ; and last of all, the justice of God rewarding the worthi- ness of his deserts with the crown of eternal glory. Had Adam con- tinued in his first estate, this had been the way of life unto liim and all his posterity. Whereas I confess notwithstanding, with the wittiest of the school-divines, that if we speak of strict justice, God could no way have been bound to requite man's labour in so large and ample a manner as human felicity doth import ; inasmuch as the dignity of this exceedeth so far the other's value. But be it that God of his great liberality had determined, in lieu of man's endeavours, to bestow the same, by the rule of that justice which best beseem- eth him, namely the justice of one that requireth nothing mincingly, but all with pressed, and heaped, and even over-enlarged measure ; yet could it never hereupon necessarily be gathered, that such justice should add to the nature of that reward, the property of everlasting continuance ; sith possession of bliss, though it should be but for a moment, were an abundant retribution. But we are not now to enter into this consideration, how gracious and bountiful our good God might still appear in so rewarding the sons of men, albeit they should
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exactly perfomi wliatsoever duty their nature bindetli them unto. How- soever God did propose this reward, we that were to be rewarded must have done that which is required at our hands ; we failing in the one, it were in nature an impossibility that the other should be looked for. The light of nature is never able to find out any way of ob- taining the reward of bliss, but by performing exactly the duties and works of righteousness. From salvation therefore and life, all flesh being excluded this way, behold how the wisdom of God hath revealed a way, mystical and supernatural ; a way directing unto the same end of life by a course which groundeth itself upon the guiltiness of sin, and through sin, desert of condemnation and death. For in this way, the first thing is the tender compassion of God respecting us drowned and swallowed up in misery ; the next is redemption out of the same by the precious death and merit of a mighty Saviour, which hatii wit- nessed of himself saying, " I am the way," the way that leadeth us from misery into bliss. This supernatural way had God in himself prepared before all worlds. The way of supernatural duty which to us he hath prescribed, our Saviour in the Gospel of St. John doth note, terming it by an excellency, the work of God : " This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent." Not that God doth require nothing unto happiness at the hands of men, saving only a naked be- lief (for hope and charity we may not exclude) ; but that without belief all other things are as nothing, and it is the ground of those other divine virtues. Concerning faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ ; concerning hope, the higliest object whereof is that everlasting goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead ; con- cerning charity, the final object whereof is that incomprehensible beauty, which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the living God : concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the intuitive vision of God in the world to come ; the second beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far removed, and as yet but only heard of, endeth with a real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express ; the third beginning here with a weak inclina- tion of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless union ; the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men concerning that faith, hope, and charity, without which there can be no salvation ; was there ever any mention made, saving only in that law which God himself hath from heaven revealed ? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than hath been supenia- turally received from the mouth of the eternal God. Laws therefore
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concerning those tilings are supernatural, both in respect of the man- ner of delivering them, wliich is divine ; and also in regard of the things delivered, vvliich are such as have not in nature any cause from vvhicli they flow, but were by tlie voluntary appointment of God ordained, besides the course of nature, to rectify nature's obliquity withal.
Eccles. Pol. B. I. sec. 11.
BEXEFITS OF A WRITTEN K K VE I. AT lOX.
In the first age of the world God gave laws unto our fathers, and by reason of tlie number of their days their memories served instead of books ; whereof tlie manifold imperfections and defects being known to God, he mercifully relieved the same, by often putting them in mind of that whereof it behoved them to be specially mindful. In wliich respect, we see how many times one thing hath been iterated unto sundry, even of the best and wisest amongst them. After that the lives of men were shortened, means more durable to preserve tlie laws of God from oblivion and corruption grew in use, not without precise dictation from God himself. First therefore, of Moses it is said, that lie " wrote all the words of God;" not by his own private motion and device; for God taketh this act to liimself, " I have written." Farther- more, were not the prophets following commanded also to do the like ? Unto the holy evangelist St. John, how often express charge is given, " Scribe write these things ! " Concerning the rest of our Lord's dis- ciples, the words of St. Augustin are, Quicqitid ille de sjiis factis et dictis nos legere voiuit, hoc scribevdi/m illis tanquam mis manibus impe.ravit. Now although we do not deny it to be a matter merely accidental unto the law of God to be written ; although writing be not that which addeth authority and strength thereunto; finally, though his laws do require at our hands the same obedience, howsoever they be delivered ; his providence, notwithstanding, which hath made principal choice of this way to deliver them, who seetli not what cause we have to admire and magnify ? The singular benefit that hath grown unto the world by receiving the laws of God, even by his own appointment committed unto writing, we are not able to esteem as the value thereof deserveth. When the question therefore is, whether we be now to seek for any revealed law of God other where than only in tlie sacred Scripture ; whether we do now stand bound in the sight of God, to yield to traditions urged by the church of Rome the same obedience and reverence we do to his written law, honour- ing equally and adoring both as divine 1 Our answer is. No. They that so earnestly plead for the authority of tradition, as if nothing were more safely conveyed than that which spreadeth itself by report
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and descendetli by relation of former generations unto tlie ages tliat succeed, are not all of tliem (surely a miracle it were if they sliould be) so simple, as thus to persuade themselves; howsoever, if the simple were so persuaded, they could be content perhaps very well to enjoy tlie benefit, as they account it, of that common error. What hazard the truth is in when it passeth through the hands of report, how maimed and deformed it becometh, they are not, they cannot possibly be ignorant. Let them that are of this mind, consider but only that little of things divine, which the lieathen have in such sort received. How miserable had the state of the Church of God been long ere this, if, wanting the sacred Scripture, we had no record of his laws but only the memory of man receiving the same by report and re- lation from his predecessors ! By Scripture, it hath in the wisdom of God seemed meet to deliver unto the world much, but personally expedient to be practised of certain men ; many deep and profound points of doctrine, as being the main original ground wliereupon the precepts of duty depend ; many prophecies, the clear performance whereof might confirm the world in belief of things unseen ; many histories to serve as looking-glasses to behold the mercy, the truth, the righteousness, of God towards all that faithfully serve, obey, and honour him ; yea, many entire meditations of piety, to be as patterns and precedents in cases of like nature ; many things needful for expli- cation, many for application unto particular occasions, such as the providence of God from time to time hath taken, to have the several books of his holy ordinance written. Be it tlien, that together with the principal necessary laws of God there are sundry other things written, whereof we might haply be ignorant and yet be saved ; what, shall we hereupon think them needless? shall we esteem them as riotous branches, wherewith we sometimes behold most pleasant vines overgrown ? Surely, no more than we judge our hands or our eyes superfluous, or what part soever ; which if our bodies did want, we might, notwithstanding any such defect, retain still the complete being of men. As therefore a complete man is neither destitute of any part necessary, and hath some parts whereof, though the want could not deprive him of his essence, yet to liave them standeth him in singular stead in respect of the special uses for which they serve ; in like sort, all those writings which contain in them the law of God, all those venerable books of Scripture, all those sacred tomes and volumes of holy writ, they are with such absolute perfection framed, that in them there neither wanteth any thing, the lack whereof might deprive us of life, nor any thing in such wise aboundeth, that as being superfluous, unfruitful, and altogether needless, we should think it no loss or danger at all, if we did want it.
Ecck.i. Pol. B. I. sec. 13.
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god's laws may be mutabi>e. This question about the changing of laws concerneth only such laws as are positive, and do make that now good or evil, by being com- manded or forbidden, which otherwise of itself were not simply the one or the other. Unto such laws it is expressly sometimes added, how long they are to continue in force. If this be nowhere expressed, then have we no light to direct our judgments concerning the change- ableness or immutability of them, but by considering the nature and quality of such laws. The nature of every law must be judged of by the end for which it was made, and by the aptness of things therein prescribed unto the same end. It may so fall out, that the reasons why some laws of God were given, is neither opened, nor possible to be gathered by the wit of man. As why God should forbid Adam that one tree, there was no way for Adam ever to have certainly under- stood. And at Adam's ignorance of this point Satan took advantage, urging the more securely a false cause, because the tree was unto Adam unknown. Why the Jews were forbidden to plough their ground with an ox or an ass, why to clothe themselves with mingled attire of wool and linen, it was both unto them, and to us it remaineth, obscure. Such laws, perhaps, cannot be abrogated saving only by whom they were made ; because the intent being known unto none but the Author, he alone can judge how long it is requisite they should endure. But if the reason why things were instituted may be known, and being known do appear manifestly to be of perpetual necessity, then are those things also perpetual, unless they cease to be effectual unto that purpose for which they were at the first instituted. Because when a thing doth cease to be available unto the end which gave it being, the continuance of it must then of necessity appear superfluous. And of this we cannot be ignorant, how sometimes that hath done great good, which afterward, when time hath changed the ancient course of things, doth grow to be either very hurtful, or not so greatly profitable and necessary. If therefore the end for which a law pro- videth be perpetually necessary, and the way whereby it provideth perpetually also most apt, no doubt but that every such law ought for ever to remain unchangeable. Whether God be the author of laws, by authorizing that power of men whereby they are made, or by delivering them made immediately from himself by word only, or in writing also, or howsoever ; notwithstanding the authority of their Maker, the mutability of that end for which they are made, maketh them also changeable. The law of ceremonies came from God. Moses had commandment to commit it unto the sacred records of Scripture, where it continueth unto this very day and hour, in force still as the Jew surmiseth, because God himself was author of it ; and for us to abolish what he hath established, were presumption most intolerable. VOL. I. 3
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HOOKER.
[A. D.
But (that which they in the blindness of their obdurate hearts are not able to discern) sith the end for which that law was ordained is now fulfilled, past and gone ; how should it but cease any longer to be, which hath no longer any cause of being in force as before? " That which necessity of some special time doth cause to be en- joined, bindeth no longer than during that time, but doth afterward become free." Which thing is also plain, even by that law which the apostles, assembled at the council of Jerusalem, did from thence deliver unto the Church of Christ ; the preface whereof to authorize it was, " To the Holy Ghost, and to us, it hath seemed good." Which style they did not use as matching themselves in power with the Holy Ghost, but as testifying the Holy Ghost to be the author, and themselves but only utterers, of that decree. This law therefore, to have proceeded from God as the author thereof, no faithful man will deny. It was of God, not only because God gave tliem the power whereby they might make laws, but for that it proceeded even from the holy motion and suggestion of that secret Divine Spirit, whose sentence tliey did but only pronounce. Notwithstanding, as the law of ceremonies delivered unto the Jews, so this very law which the Gen- tiles received from the mouth of the Holy Ghost, is in like respect abrogated by decease of the end for which it was given. But such as do not stick at this point, such as grant that what hath been in- stituted upon any special cause needeth not to be observed, that cause ceasing, do notwithstanding herein fail ; they judge the laws of God only by the author and main end for which they were made, so that for us to change that wliich he hath stablished, they hold it execrable pride and presumption, if so be the end and purpose for which God by that mean provideth be permanent. And upon this they ground those ample disputes concerning orders and offices, which being by him appointed for the government of his church, if it be necessary always that the Church of Christ be governed, then doth the end for which God provided remain still ; and therefore in those means which be by law did establish as being fittest unto that end, for us to alter anything is to lift up ourselves against God, and as it were to counter- mand him. Wherein they mark not, that laws are instruments to rule by, and that instruments are not only to be framed according unto that general end for which they are provided ; but even according unto that very particular, which riseth out of the matter whereon they have to work. The end wherefore laws were made may be permanent, and those laws nevertheless require some alteration, if there be any unfitness in the means which they prescribe as tending unto that end and purpose. As for example, a law that to bridle theft doth punish thieves with a quadruple restitution, hath an end which will continue as long as the world itself continueth. Theft will be always, and will always need to
KiOO.]
HOOKER.
35
be bridled. But that tlie mean which tiiis law provideth for that end, namely, the punishment of quadruple restitution, that this will be always sufficient to bridle and restrain that kind of enormity, no man can warrant. Insufficiency of laws doth sometimes come by want of judge- ment in the makers ; which cause cannot fall into any law termed pro- perly and immediately Divine, as it may and doth into human laws often : but that which hath been once made sufficient, may wax other- wise by alteration of time and place : that punishment which hath been sometime forcible to bridle sin, may grow afterward too weak and feeble.
In a word, we plainly perceive, by the difference of those three laws which the Jews received at the hands of God, the moral, ceremonial, and judicial, that if the end for which, and the matter according whereunto, God maketh his laws, continue always one and the same, his laws also do the like, for which cause the moral law cannot be altered. Secondly, that whether the matter, whereon laws are made, continue or continue not, if their end have once ceased, they cease also to be of force ; as in the law ceremonial it fareth. Finally, that albeit the end continue, as in that law of theft specified, and in a great part of those ancient judicials it doth ; yet foras- much as there is not in all respects the same subject or matter re- maining for which they were first instituted, even this is sufficient cause of change : and therefore laws (though both ordained of God himself, and the end for which they were ordained continuing) ; may notwithstanding cease, if by alteration of persons or times they be found insufficient to attain unto that end. In whicli respect why may we not presume that God doth even call for such change or alteration as the very condition of things themselves doth make necessary ? They which do therefore plead the authority of the law- maker as an argument wherefore it should not be lawful to change that which he hath instituted, and will have this the cause why all the ordinances of our Saviour are immutable ; they which urge the wisdom of God as a proof, that whatsoever laws he hath made, they ought to stand, unless himself fi^om heaven proclaim them dis- annulled, because it is not in man to correct the ordinance of God ; may know, if it please them to take notice thereof, that we are far from presuming to think that men can better any thing which God hath done, even as we are from thinking that men should presume to undo some things of men which God doth knovv they cannot better. God never ordained any thing that could be bettered : yet many things he hath that have been changed, and tliat for the better. That which succeedeth as better now when change is requisite, had been worst when that which now is changed was instituted. Other- wise God had not then left this to choose that, neither would now reject that to choose this, were it not for some new-grown occasion,
3—2
36
HOOKER.
[A.D.
making tliat which liath been better, worse. In this case tlierefore, men do not presume to change God's ordinance, but they yield there- unto, requiring itself to be changed. Against this it is objected, that to abrogate or innovate the gospel of Christ, if men or angels should attempt, it were most heinous and cursed sacrilege. And the gospel (as they say) containeth not only doctrine instructing men how they should believe, but also precepts concerning the regiment of the Church. Discipline therefore is a part of the gospel, and God being the author of the whole gospel, as well of discipline as of doctrine, it cannot be but that both of them have a common cause. So that as we are to believe for ever the articles of evangelical doctrine, so the precepts of discipline we are in like sort bound for ever to observe. Touching points of doctrine ; as for example, the Unity of God, the Trinity of persons, salvation by Christ, the resur- rection of the body, life everlasting, the judgment to come, and such like, they have been since the first hour that there was a Church in the world, and till the last, they must be believed : but as for matters of regiment, they are for the most part of another nature. To make new articles of faith and doctrine, no man thinketh it lawful ; new laws of government, what commonwealth or church is there, which maketh not either at one time or another ? The rule of faith (saith Tertullian) is but one, and that alone immoveable, and impossible to be framed or cast anew. The law of outward order and polity not so. There is no reason in the world where- fore we should esteem it as necessary always to do, as always to believe, the same things ; seeing every man knoweth that the matter of faith is constant, the matter contrariwise of action daily changeable, especially the matter of action belonging unto church polity. Neither can I find that men of soundest judgment have any otherwise taught, than that articles of belief, and things which all men must of necessity do, to the end they may be saved, are either expressly set down in Scripture, or else plainly thereby to be gathered. But touching things which belong to discipline and outward polity, the Church hath authority to make canons, laws, and decrees, even as we read that in the apostles' times it did. Which kind of laws (forasmuch as they are not in themselves necessary to salvation) may, after they are made, be also changed, as the difference of times or places shall require. Yea, it is not denied, I am sure, by themselves, that certain things in discipline are of that nature, as they may be varied by times, places, persons, and other the like circumstances. Whereupon I demand, are those changeable points of discipline commanded in the word of God, or no ? If they be not commanded, and yet may be received in the Church, how can their former position stand, con- demning all things in the Church which in the word are not com-
1660.]
HOOKER,
37
manded ? If they be commanded, and yet may suffer change ; how can this latter stand, affirming all things immutable which are commanded of God ? Their distinction touching matters of substance and of circumstance, though true, will not serve. For be they great things, or be they small, if God have commanded them in the gospel, and his commanding them in the gospel do make them unchangeable, there is no reason we should more change the one, than we may the other. If the authority of the maker do prove unchangeableness in the laws which God hath made, then must all laws which he hath made, be necessarily for ever permanent, though they be but of circumstance only, and not of substance. I therefore conclude, that neither God's being author of laws for government of his Church, nor his committing them unto Scripture, is any reason sufficient, wherefore all Churches should for ever be bound to keep them without change. But of one thing we are here to give * them warning by the way : for whereas in this discourse we have oftentimes professed, that many parts of discipline or church polity are delivered in Scripture, they may perhaps imagine that we are driven to confess their discipline to be delivered in Scripture ; and that having no other means to avoid it, we are fain to argue for the changeableness of laws ordained even by God liimself, as if otherwise theirs of necessity should take place, and that under which we live, be abandoned. There is^ no remedy therefore, but to abate this error in them, and directly to let them know, that if they fall into any such a conceit, they do but a little flatter their own cause. As for us, we think in no respect so highly of it. Our persuasion is, that no age ever had knowledge of it, but only ours ; that they which defend it, devised it ; that neither Christ nor his apostles at any time taught it, but the contrary. If therefore we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us, and the strongest against them, were to hold even as they do, that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular form of church polity, which God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all Churches, to all times. But with any such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those tilings seem the truest, which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like, nor mean to follow. Wherefore that which we take to be generally true concerning the mutability of laws, the same we have plainly delivered, as being persuaded of nothing more than we are of this : That whether it be in matter of speculation or of practice, no untruth can possibly avail the patron and defender long ; and that things most truly, are likewise most beliovefully spoken. — Ecdes. Pol. B. iii. sec. 10.
* Tlie Puritans.
[A. D.
HISTORICAL SKETCH:
CLOSE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN. REIGN OF JAMES 1.
A.D. 1600—1625.
In the concluding years of Elizabeth's life, religious fac- tion, without losing any portion of its vitality, or inherent strength, relapsed into comparative silence. To this fact several causes contributed ; in particular, the controversial writings of Bancroft, whose Survey of the Pretended Holy Discipline shortly preceded the Ecclesiastical Polity, and of Bilson, whose work on the perpetual government of the Church was nearly contemporary with that great era in our literature ; but, above all, the immortal production of Hooker himself. The effect of the first publication of the Ecclesiastical Polity, and the actual state of men's minds with respect to the con- troversies of the period, are described in the well-known letter of George Cranmer, printed in the Appendix to Walton's Life of Hooker. " It may be remembered," writes Cranmer, " that at first the greatest part of the learned in the land were either eagerly affected, or favourably inclined that way. The books then written for the most part savoured of the disciplinary style ; it sounded everywhere in pulpits, and in common phrase of men's speech : the contrary part began to fear they had taken a wrong course ; many which impugned the discipline, yet so impugned it, not as not being the better form of govern- ment, but as not being so convenient for our state."
After paying a just tribute to the exertions of Whitgift, (with allusion, in particular, to his patronage and employment of Hooker) as " the man, who in defiance of the one part, and [for the en] courage [ment] of the other, stood in the gap, and gave others respite to prepare themselves to the defence, which by the eagerness and violence of their adversaries had other- wise been prevented," he thus continues : " Now of late years
16U0.]
CLOSE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN.
39
the heat of men towards the discipline is greatly decayed ; their judgments begin to sway on the other side; learned men have weighed and found it light ; wise men conceive some fear, lest it prove not only not the best kind of government, but the very bane and destruction of all government. The cause of this change in men's opinions may be drawn from the general nature of error disguised and clothed with the name of truth, which did mightily and violently possess men at first, but after- wards, the weakness thereof being by time discovered, it lost that reputation which before it had gained."
But, besides this cause of change in opinion regarding the Puritan scheme, which, he justly observes, "is proper to the learned, or to such as by them have been instructed ;" and another, which he farther proceeds to point out, as more generally obvious, in the experienced tendency of dissent to promote schism in the Church, and disorder in the common- wealth ; some further reasons, originating with the Puritan party themselves, contributed largely to that deceptive quiet which marked the period now under consideration. We have seen, that Cartwright, sobered by years, subdued by the kind- ness of his ancient opponent Whitgift, or instructed by suffering and reflection, withdrew from the contest : not long afterwards, he died, lamenting the mischiefs he had occasioned. Travers, we have likewise seen, retired to Ireland. Brown, the first per- son to carry out the principle of nonconformity to its legitimate consequence, separation from the communion of the Church, had been reclaimed within its pale; while Barrow, Greenwood, Penry, and other enthusiasts, only guilty of asserting the same views in a higher strain, fell victims to the severity of Elizabeth's statutes. The advanced age of the queen was a farther sedative to turbulent minds. A change in the person of the sovereign, at an early period, was plainly inevitable ; and each discontented party indulged hopes of its favourable influence on their own circumstances. It had become pretty clear, that among the probable competitors for the succession, the pretensions of the king of Scotland would prevail. The disciplinarians, there- fore, rested on the reasonable expectation, that a sovereign bred up in the bosom of presbyterianism would prove friendly to their designs: the papists cherished a kindred though a fainter notion, that the secret inclinations of the son of Mary Queen of Scots, when delivered from the stringent thraldom of the consistory, would revive the family allegiance to Rome.
40
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
[A. D.
Added to the hopes and fears by which men's minds were thus held in suspense, there was likewise a feeling of awe with reference to the character and present circumstances of the great person about to pass from the throne, and from life. If the temper of the illustrious daughter of Henry VIII. did not always secure the love of her people, at least her personal abilities, and the lengthened prosperity of her reign, failed not to engage their profound respect. Within the shadow that Death cast before him, while advancing to strike one so long feared and venerated, the murmurs of discontent, and even the groans of the captive for conscience, were, for a season, hushed. Through the protracted space of forty-four years the same steady hand had swayed the sceptre : a small minority alone of the people could rememember it in any other grasp. With Elizabeth, the idea of sovereign authority had become habitually and solemnly connected in the national mind : as if, therefore, by common consent, regard to party interests was suspended on all sides, in expectance of the blow by which that connexion was now to be for ever separated.
Though the Puritan party were early in the field as candidates for the favour of the new monarch, they never- theless had the mortification to find their objects forestalled, as well by James's personal inclination, as by the superior influence and activity of the conformist clergy, who were stimulated to exertion by some not unreasonable misgivings. Addresses for farther reformation, and relief from the griev- ances which pressed upon nonconformity, were poured in. The most remarkable of these, the famous "millenary petition," subsci'ibed by between seven and eight hundred ministers, and presented to the king while on the way to his capital, contained a prayer that the cause of the petitioners might be heard in a public conference of learned persons. This reasonable request was readily granted ; and delegates from both sides were ordered, by royal summons, to meet at the palace of Hampton Court, in January l604.
The divines (four in number, being two from each university, headed by the learned Dr. John Reynolds, presi- dent of Corpus Christi College,) who at this memorable assembly represented the disciplinarians, on being admitted to the royal presence, found James already surrounded by the friends and champions of the establishment ; by Whitgift, the aged primate, Bancroft bishop of London, Bilson of
IGOL]
IIAMPTON-COURT CONFERENCE.
41
Winchester, with six other prelates; by five deans, among whom Andrewes of Westminster, and Overall of St. Paul's, are the leading names ; with these were associated Field, at that time canon of Windsor, and another divine. The incidents of this famous discussion are still matter of dispute. Its most prominent features are the acknowledged eagerness, and un- deniable skill, with which the royal moderator demonstrated his fitness to wield his newly-acquired prerogative of ec- clesiastic supremacy. Nor was this display of a degree of theological acquirement unparalleled in so high a station, at least in modern times, unaccompanied by judgment and good temper. James even evinced sufficient impartiality to appear in favourable contrast with some of his clergymen. In ex- tenuation, however, of certain harsh observations from some of that party, it should be remembered, that freedom of con- science was not yet regarded by any party as the unques- tionable right of any other. The conference, it is well known, terminated unsatisfactorily for the petitioning side; the king peremptorily announcing to his Puritan subjects, that he in- tended to insist on conformity. Nevertheless, the meeting was not fruitless. Of some particulars, pointed out as grievances, regarding the liturgy and discipline of the Church, they ob- tained redress ; while the nation — including perhaps them- selves— perceived with surprise how inconsiderable the scruples they had to allege really were, when fairlv brought forward to the light. But the most substantial benefit which followed, was the renewing, or rather the final review, of our vernacular translation of the Holy Scriptures : this truly venerably, though not entirely perfect work, was completed in the year 1611, in consequence of a i-esolution taken at the Hampton- Court conference.
Puritanism, though it felt itself for a season discoun- tenanced, was far from being subdued. In comparative silence it strengthened its alliance with that vast and grow- ing party in the state, who had determined to extort from the reluctant monarch an acknowledgment, a confirmation, and, sooner or later, an extension, of those principles of popular liberty which had already begun to be developed in the constitution of England. Their clerical opponents, meantime, too easily gave themselves up to a sense of secure superiority. The school of erudite divines formed by Eliza- beth's illustrious bishop of Sarum, Jewel, — to which belonged
42
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
[A.D.
Hooker, Bilson, Bancroft, Field, and, at a later period, Ussher, Laud, and a host more of glorious scholars, — indulged an exclusive devotion to the pursuits of the college and the library, scarcely consistent with the true purposes of a national Church. A direction too strictly ecclesiastical may be given to the studies of churchmen ; nor, essentially important to the Church's welfare as learning unquestionably is, — has any thing besides so much tended to foster dissent, as that disregard, which the successful cultivators of literature are apt to acquire, for the simple hearts and rude intellects of the unlettered portion of mankind. The discovery of James's passionate attachment to episcopacy, and his exces- sive admiration of ecclesiastical learning, unhappily made courtiers of the hierarchy; and confirmed and extended the existing disposition to the study of the fathers and church- annalists, in preference to the vital application of religious knowledge in the exercise of the pastoral functions. That ill this latter point, however, resides the great strength of clerical influence, was no secret to their opponents. While the bishops flattered their sovereign, by mingling with him in polemical dispute, the zealous Puritan minister was deeply rooting his principles in the popular esteem, by enforcing them, through the length and breadth of the land, in union with earnest piety, parental concern for the dearest interests of his flock, and habits of personal kindness, disinterested- ness, and self-denial. Every successful intellectual workman acquires, by exertion, some fondness for his task ; but none more decidedly than the historical explorer. The style of those writers and preachers, who from their perfect ac- quaintance with, and high admiration of, the fathers of the church, and their times, have lately acquired the title of patristic divines, shows plainly that their deference for the ages nearest to the apostolic era approached to idolatry. The excess of this deference has even debased the style of several among our greatest theological writers. No statement, whether trivial or important, is advanced without the support of an array of venerable names ; and the writer's strength, however gigantic, is oppressed, and his exertions rendered ungraceful and sometimes ineffective, by the cumbrous wealth of which he has robbed antiquity. Taste may lament this perversion, even in our own day ; but the greater practical mischiefs which followed, when the hierarchy insisted on the revival
1612.]
KING JAMES'S DIVINES.
43
of every ancient usage and ceremonial, merely on the ground of its antiquity, without sufficient regard to change of times and circumstances, it would be yet more lamentable to see renewed. Those mischiefs will rise to our view hereafter; at present, the reader's attention will be directed to some of the most illustrious ornaments and most powerful defenders of our Church, whose writings, essentially of the highest value, are marred, (at least, in modern estimation,) and some of them, extremely so, by that habit of intemperate citation, and excessive deference to authority, to which allusion has been made.
[A. D.
Dr. field.
A.D. 1600—1616.
From the list of learned churchmen, including nearly all the eminent controversialists, and some of the most admired preachers of the time, who were assembled at the conference at Hampton Court, we first select for biographical notice Dr. Richard Field. The personal friend and direct literary successor of Hooker, not only in the kindred subject of his chief work, but in several of his mental qualities and ac- quirements, this divine well and advantageously exemplifies the literary character of the Church of England, in that remarkable period of her history, the earlier portion of the reign of king James the First.
Richard Field, "in his lifetime," writes Wood\ "a principal maintainer of jrotestancy, a powerful preacher, a profound schoolman," was born October 156l, at Hemsted, in the county of Hertford, in an ancient family long settled on their estate in that parish. His father, discovering in him indications of unusual ability, determined to bring him up as a scholar, and he became a commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford ; where, long after he had left the univer- sity, when freshmen arrived in that college, they were com- monly encouraged to exertion in learning by being shewn " which was Dr. Field's chamber, and which was Dr. Field's study." Field was reputed the best disputant of his time in the university. He was fond of disputing in the schools " for his recreation ;" and on such occasions collected a large audience. He also read the divinity lecture in his college ; and in the discharge of that duty displayed so profound an acquaintance with scholastic theology, united with so much judgment, and so pleasing a style of elocution, that men of
Athen. Ox. \'ol. i.
KiOl.]
Dr. field.
high character, including professors and heads of houses, attended from all parts of the university to hear him.
In 1595, Field was chosen preacher at Lincoln's Inn. After he had filled this office for some time with great satisfaction to the benchers, one of them, Mr. Kingsmill, presented him with the living of Boroughclear, near New- bury, where he himself resided. To this spot, to the friends he there met with, and to the freedom which his retirement thither afforded for the pious and learned pursuits he de- lighted in, he seems strongly to have attached himself ; for he declined preferment of more value, which would have obliged him to resign Boroughclear, and passed a great part of his future life in that retreat. In 1598, he was named by Queen Elizabeth one of her chaplains in ordinary, and soon afterwards was presented by her with a prebend at Windsor. In this more genial residence he now passed the winter of every year, enjoying and amply repaying the advantages he found in the society of several learned neighbours, — in par- ticular of Sir Henry Savile, the learned provost of Eton, for- merly Elizabeth's preceptor in Greek, and Sir Henry Nevile, who had been her ambassador in France. Here also he was more accessible to scholars in general ; of whom several, on many occasions, eagerly sought his advice. Whether his friend and master, Hooker, ever paid him a visit at Windsor, does not appear. King James, on his accession, likewise nominated him on the list of the royal chaplains ; and, as we have seen already, he was summoned to attend the conference at Hamp- ton Court, in January, l604.
When, in the year following, James was entertained at Oxford, Field's reputation occasioned his being sent for from Hampshire to assist in the divinity act before his majesty ; and the disputation between him and Dr. Aglionby, on the question, An sancti et angeli cognoscant cogitationes cor- dium ? — "Whether the saints and angels in heaven are cog-ni- zant of men's thoughts on earth," — is reported to have been the best ever heard in those venerable schools.
But this ripe scholar had now been, for some time, en- gaged on a labour of no ephemeral brilliancy, or merely traditionary reputation : this was his great work, Of the Church, which issued from the press in the year 1606.
From this time the king evinced a disposition to acknow- ledge, by more substantial marks of favour, those excellencies
46
Dr. field.
[A.D.
of his chaplain, of which he was really no indifferent judge. He nominated him to the deanery of Gloucester in 16IO; in the same year, appointed him to a fellowship in the college pro- posed to be incorporated at Chelsea ; and even dropped an in- timation that he designed him for a bishoprick. He was often required to preach at court on special occasions, besides his ordinary attendance. James's remark at the close of the first sermon he heard from him, is, in the poverty of its wit, as well as in the just appreciation it indicates of his chaplain's merits, characteristic of his majesty. "Is his name Field demanded the King : " This is a Field for God to dwell in." By no possibility, indeed, could a man appear in the world with such a name in the 17th century unassailed by a shower of puns : accordingly, Fuller commemorates him as " that learned divine whose memory smelleth like a Field the Lord hath blessed."
But, before an opportunity occurred for the destined ele- vation of Field to the episcopal order, a fit of apoplexy ter- minated his peaceful and honourable career: he died Nov. 25, 1616, and was buried in the nave of St. George's Chapel, where a slab of black marble bears an inscription to his me- mory. The learning of this divine was probably equal to that of any among his contemporaries ; his intellect subtle and penetrating; his memory admirably tenacious. These felicitous qualities he devoted to the best objects. Though an unrivalled disputer, he entered the arena of controversy with a view to promote peace. His enquiries were directed to those points which learning and judgment are competent to decide ; but he studiously shunned the abysmal doctrines of predestination and reprobation, at that time frequently discussed with intense eagerness.
" On points of such extreme difSculty," observes his biographer, " he did not think fit to be too positive in defining any thing, to turn matters of opinion into matters of faith. He was one who laboured to heal the breaches of Christendom, and was very ready to embrace truth wherever he found it. He did not like those who are so much afraid of Romish errors, that they run into contrary extremes. His desires, his prayers, his endeavours, were for peace ; to make up the breaches of the Church : not to widen dififerences, but to compose them."
With this design, he had, not long before his death, begun a work which he proposed to entitle, A View of the Contro-
Kilo.]
Dr. field.
47
versies in Religion, which in these last times have caused the lamentable divisions in the Christian world. Of this work nothing is extant beyond a part of the preface. As exhibit- ing, however, with admirable distinctness, the beginnings of error and dissension in the Church ; and as, at the same time, presenting a favourable specimen of the style of the period, it is laid before the reader in the subjoined extracts.
Though it be apparent that the lamp of Field was lighted at the blaze of Hooker, and that the five books Of the Church might never have been written but for the appearance of the Ecclesiastical Polity ; we, nevertheless, find in the first of these works neither an imitation of the manner, nor an invasion of the subject, of his illustrious friend. The great charm of Hooker consists in his adaptation of the general spirit of ancient philosophy, and of his own rich native eloquence, to a topic apparently little susceptible of either — the inde- feasible right of the Church, in every age, to frame her polity in subservience to her own great purposes on earth. The aim of Field is to vindicate the antiquity and catholicity of protestantism, in contradistinction from the spurious claims of popery ; and on this subject he brings to bear only one kind of learning, though in consummate perfection, viz. the ecclesiastical ; using the vehicle of a clear manly style, un- adorned with the colours of the imagination. The general design of the work is thus stated by himself in his dedication to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bancroft.
" It is easy to prove that all the things wherein they [the Roman Catholics] dissent from us are nothing else but novelties and uncer- tainties ; that the greatest part of the Christian world hath been divided from them for certain hundreds of years ; that none of the most famous and greatest churches ever knew or admitted any of their heresies ; and that the things they now publish as articles of faith to be believed by all that will be saved, are so far from being catholic, that they are not the doctrines of that Church wherein they and we sometimes lived together in communion, but the opinions only of some men in that Church, adulterating the doctrine of heavenly truth, bring- ing in and defending superstitious abuses disliked by others, and serving as vile instruments to advance the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome. Wherefore, for the discovery of the vanity of their insolent boastings, for the confirming of the weak, the satisfying of tliem that are doubtful, and that all men may know that we have not departed
48
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
from the ancient faith, or forsaken tlie fellowship of the Catholic Church, but that we have forsaken a part to hold communion with the whole (led so to do hy the most prevailing reasons that evef^er- suaded men, and the greatest authority on earth), I resolved to com- municate to others what I had long since in private for mine own satisfaction observed, touching the nature of the Church, the notes whereby it may be known, and the privileges that pertain to it."
This purpose was originally carried out in " four books," in the following method :
Book I. Of the Church, its constitiient elements, and the discipline by which, as a visible society, it is preserved.
Book II. Of the distinctive notes, or marks, of the Church.
Book III. The demonstration of the true Church, by those notes. (Chap. 12 of this book, On the principles of the Reformation, is peculiarly valuable.)
Book I V. Of the privileges of the Church, as applicable to articles of faith, to discipline, ^c.
In the year 1610, followed Book V. Concerning the several degrees, orders, ^c., of persons to whom the govern- ment of the Church is committed: this book might be en- titled an historical demonstration of the nature of church- government, from the apostolic times. An Appendix was also added, containing a defence of such parts of the former books as had either been excepted against, or wrested to the maintenance of Romish errors. From the Reformation, downwards to the present hour, it has been the lot of every judicious defender of the Church of England, to stand ex- posed to obloquy from men of extreme views — to be charged, on the one side with encouraging schism ; or on the other, with favouring popery. This great monument of Anglo- catholic theology, however, was never, in the main, answered, although objected against in some incidental particulars. Such confidence, indeed, did the great learning of the author enable him to cherish in the certainty of his principles, that when, before he had proceeded far in his labours, one of his friends dissuaded him from pursuing the thorny path of controversy, alleging that he would never afterwards be allowed to live quietly, but be continually troubled with answers and replies, " I will so write," said he, " that they shall have no mind to answer me" — "as," observes his son, Nathaniel, the writer of his life, " he did."
1612.]
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Finally, in the complete edition, by Nathaniel Field, fol. Oxford 1()28, appeared an Appendix to Book III. — a most valuable treatise, though left unfinished at the author's death. In this treatise he proves, that the western or Latin church was, and continued throughout, a true protestant church ; and that the maintainers of Romish errors were no more than a faction in that church, at the time of the appearance of Lu- ther. This is, in fact, the grand unanswerable point of Field's argument, — that the Church was always essentially what we now call Protestant'; although some individuals or parties in the Church were enslaved to popery. Of the truly English volume of divinity now under review, there is no part more likely than this appendix to repay, by re- sults of usefulness, those editorial labours which we cannot believe will be much longer withheld from the enlightened pages of Dr. Field. The reader is presented, in the sub- joined extracts, with the 10th chapter of this Appendix, in which is demonstrated the unvaried protestancy of the Church, in regard to the doctrine of free-will.
Dr. Field likewise published a sermon, preached before the king at Whitehall, on Jude, ver. 3, 4to. Lond. l604.
PREFACE TO " A VIEW OF THE CONTROVERSIES IN RELIGION, WHICH IN THESE LAST TIMES HAVE CAUSED THE LAMENTABLE DIVISIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN WORLD."
Among all the confusions and diversities of nations, languages, and people, which have been in ages past, and presently are under heaven, none have been found so barbarous, though in other things little differing from the wild and savage condition of brute beasts, but they have ever acknowledged something, which they supposed to be God. Notwithstanding, as nothing is more certain, uniform, and gene- rally found in the minds of men, than a desire of feUcity, which is a happy, joyful, and good condition or state of life, and yet nothing so uncertain and doubtful as wherein this world's happiness may be
' Field was the first of the reformed Clergy who had profoundly studied, and thoroughly understood, the nature and constitution of the Church. How faint and uncertain were Whitgift's notions on this subject, may be gathered from
VOL. I.
his cautious determination of the case between Travers and Hooker : nor had Hooker himself looked so earnestly into it as this author; at least he has not set the subject in so clear a light.
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found ; so it is come to pass, through the ignorance, impiety, and sinful corruption of man's depraved nature, tliat though no man can open his eyes, and behold the glorious, stately, and goodly fabric and frame of the world, but he must needs know and acknowledge the eternity, wisdom, and power of Him that made it, and that all honour, reverence, and adoration is due to Him, whose dwelling is the heaven of heavens ; yet innumerable are the rites, customs, and opi- nions of religion ; all which, notwithstanding, may be reduced to three principal heads, to wit, Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity; for the bar- barous and impure faction of Mahomet's disciples is mingled of all these.
Paganism doth signify that estate and condition of men, which having no divine revelation and infallible instruction from above, at- tained to no other knowledge and worship of God, than the obscure light of nature could afford, and such uncertain, doubtful, and depraved tradition as they received of their forsaken forefathers. These were the posterity of Cham and Japhet, who when they knew God by tlie instruction of Noah their father, and so many happy experiments of his power and goodness, not regarding to glorify him as God, became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was filled full of darkness ; they were given up to a reprobate sense, destitute of all heavenly guidance and direction, and left to the doubtful and dangerous wanderings of nature's darkness.
Judaism doth signify that estate and condition of men which were especially chosen out of Adam's corrupted race and cursed posterity, to be a chosen and holy nation, to whom God gave his laws [and] testimonies, and of whom He should come in whom all the nations of the world should be blessed. These were the posterity of Shem, of whom Noah prophetically uttered these most sacred words, "Blessed be the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. God persuade Japhet that he may dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant." Whereupon the apostle, demanding "What is the prerogative of the Jew ? " answereth again " Much every way ; for to them were committed the oracles of God." But when Christ the Saviour of the world came amongst them, being the expectation of the fathers, and the glory of Israel, and was refused, their cities were thrown down, their people carried into captivity, and dispersed ; wherein they have continued by the space of 1,500 years and more. So was their im- precation fulfilled, " His blood be upon us and upon our children," and Christ became the light of the Gentiles, who before sat in darkness and in the shadow of death ; for the word of the kingdom was carried into all parts of the world.
From whence ariseth the third sort of people, who condemning the superstition of the Gentiles or Pagans, which worship they know
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not what, and the increduUty of tlie Jews, which refused Him in whom all th(; promises of God made to tlieir fathers were yea, and amen, do believe and profess that there is no other name whereby men may be saved but the name of Jesus, and that, that Jesus of Nazareth, whom the Jews desired to be crucified, is the Christ, the Son of the living God. The blessed company of those men, in whose mouths this confession is found, is called the Christian Church, which being begun at Jerusalem, was dispersed into all the world; the care and government whereof did rest in the apostles and their associates during their abode liere on earth, and after was commended to pastors and bishops, who should sit in the apostles' chairs, and instruct all succeed- ing ages in the apostolic doctrine. This Church, because it is not tied to any certain place, nor limited to any definite continuance of some few ages, but must continue till the end and consummation of the world ; in which there is but one God, one Christ, one Spirit wherewith all are sealed ; one baptism, one faith, one hope of immortality and life eternal, is rightly called Catholic. This happy fellowship of right believers and catholic Christians hath been subject to three sorts of grievous evils.
The first, of bloody persecutions under the heathen emperors for certain hundreds of years.
The second, of wasting heresies, which mightily prevailed and disquieted her peace, when the rage of the persecutors did cease, by reason whereof, altars were raised against altars, bishops against bishops, the people drawn from the obedience of their lawful and ordinary pastors or guides, to hearken unto novelties of fancy and error. This trial was more dangerous than the former; for whereas persecution maketh martyrs, the spread of heresy and false doctrine bringeth forth apostates, and cursed forsakers of the truth. This evil the true and Catliolic Church laboured to remedy by general councils, and other courses of provident care and circumspection, ever pre- serving the unity of doctrine, and all necessary and essential rites, ceremonies, observations, and complements of piety and religion. For if any did preach contrary to that which had been delivered unto them, and brought in erepoithaa-KaXiav, they which remained sound admonished, reproved, and if that did not serve, cast out of their com- munion, such as wilfully maintained those novelties that had been erroneously and rashly devised. From whence it came to pass, that whereas at the first, the name of Christians begun at Antioch, served to discern a right believer from all others, when there were none but Christ's true disciples, and unbelieving Jews and gentiles; after- wards, when among Christians some began innovations, it was neces- sary for differencing those that held the doctrine anciently received,
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from those that corrupted the doctrine or violated the rules of the discipline of the Church, to call these Heretics and Schismatics, the rest Catholics.
The third, to wit, careless security, hypocrisy, ambition, pride, emulation, and divisions, together with ignorance, abusing and miscon- struing the received doctrine and practice of religion, began when both the former seemed to cease, or at least not so furiously to rage as before, growing in the most famous, flourishing, and renowned parts of the Christian and Catholic Church. So that now there ap- peared a disunion and separation, not as before between runagates and the Cliurch, but between the most famous churches of the world. And all christian people, which lived under the patriarchs of Alex- andria, Antiochia, Constantinople, and innumerable far removed parts of the world, refusing to hold communion any longer with the Church of Rome, and those that took part with her, pretending that with- out their consent she had added something to the spnbols and forms of faith formerly received and set down by common consent, as bounds of christian verity, and over proudly demeaned herself, not carrying herself as their sister and companion, but as a lady and mistress ; her laws, canons, and practices in many parts of christian religion they disliked, refused, and condemned. Neither were the favourers of the Church of Rome behind in condemning them. So that the happy intercourse of all christian duties, which sometimes was seen be- tween these parts of the Church, was stopped.
And yet, as if this misery had not been enough, behold the hand of God is not yet pulled in, but his arm is stretched out still, to punish the impiety of sinful men. For behold, the eastern churches of the world are subjected to the tyranny of Mahometans, and other miscreants ; and in the west church, separated from the rest, barbarism prevailed ; all good learning did mightily decay ; the schools of divines were fraught with vain, idle, and curious speculations, inter- mingUng philosophical fancies without choice or judgment ; the court of Rome became an earthly monarchy, confounding all laws, states and government ; the prelates of the Church were negligent and ignorant ; the people untaught and fuU of superstition ; the doctrine of the Church filled with uncertainties, contrarieties, and contradictions innumerable ; the loose, wanton, and stately manner of living of the clergy greatly disliked, scorned and disdained ; and an overthrow of the ecclesiastical state was thought inevitably to hang over their heads ; a reformation greatly wished for of all that feared God. The bishop of Rome, though pretending a kind of reformation, yet in matters most material remained stiff and would not relent, though many of the greatest prelates and cardinals of the church laboured to
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persuade him unto it, assuring him that they would rather cause the flame to break forth more violently. Notwithstanding, he proceeded iiardly to entreat those that discovered his abuses, and utterly refused to remove and take away such tilings as all the world did see to be amiss. Whereupon there grew a resolution in the minds of mighty princes, prelates and states, that seeing their account must be to God in the last day, and not to the bishop of Rome, they, their kingdoms, people, and provinces would serve the Lord, according to that wliich the word of God, and approved practice of former and better times of the Churcli, should lead them unto. Wliereupon fol- lowed an apparent breach and professed separation. But as all human courses (human I call those wiiere man's infirmity intermeddleth, though they proceed from God, and be guided by divine direction) are full of imperfection ; and all mutations, even they that are most advisedly waded in, are not without danger ; so it fell out in this change of things in the state of the Church. The evils that ac- companied it were, especially, three.
First, sacrilegious bereaving and spoiUng of the Church of her necessary endowments, occasioned by the former abuse most intoler- able, and the increase of them immoderate and excessive ; where- upon many provisions were formerly made to stay and stop the course of men's devotions in enriching the Church, for that there grew a disproportion in the state of allowance and maintenance of the several sorts of men in each country and commonwealth.
The second evil was, in that after men once began to reform and correct that which seemed to be amiss in the doctrine of the Church, many uncertainties, novelties, and philosophical fancies were mingled, with the same, whilst the books of Aristotle were more studied by divines than the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments, with the learned commentaries of the ancient fathers, and other holy monu- ments of reverend antiquity ; certain rash and giddy spirits, not putting a diff'erence between things most different, and having no regard to the received and ancient verities and practices of the Church, pretending to redress latter errors and abuses, removed the ancient bounds set by the holy fathers, both for doctrine and practice, and contemning many things of infallible truth, and evident utility in the course of the Church's discipline and policy, fell into old heresies long since con- demned in the prime of the Church by the flower of Christendom.
The third evil was an infinite multiplying of controversies, to the amazing of all that read them, as if nothing were certain, and as if a new church and religion were now planted in the world.
Touching the first of these evils, which is the sacrilegious impo- verishing of the Church ; the mighty men of the world having taken
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into their possessions the habitations of God, and carried into their own treasuries the vessels of gold, and ornaments which served for the more reverent and stately furniture of the service of God, and the honourable entertainment of those that attend his holy things, it is more easy to take the prey out of the teeth of a lion, and to take Leviathan with a hook, than to cause restitution to be made of things which have been taken away ; I shall therefore speak no more of this particular, but proceed to the next.
The second evil, which was the inconsiderate calling in question, or denying and impugning the settled resolutions of God's Church, and consequently the running into many dangerous errors, and old condemned heresies, was in part prevented, or at least in some sort stopped and hindered, by putting forth the confessions of faith, where- unto subscription being required, giddy-spirited men have either been restrained, or cast out of the society of men more staid and advised.
For the remedy of the last, and not the least of these evils, which is, multiplying of questions and endless disputes in matters of faith and religion, to the disquieting the minds of those that are not firm and stablished in the truth ; that both men's minds may be settled, and no truth suppressed or rejected, for faction or study of parts, I have endeavoured to lay in open view before the eyes of all those that desire satisfaction, and love the truth, the controversies that have and do busy the minds of men hotly, and [are] with great contention debated between the reformed churches of Europe, those that embrace the Tri- dentine canons, and the rest whose apologies and confessions are extant published to the whole world. Both these are reformed, but in diverse degrees and sorts, for the Romish faction hath also altered many things in matter of ceremony, government, fasting-days, holy- days, marriage, church-service, and restraining the doubtful disputes of doctrine, and therefore may be challenged for newness of religion as well as the rest, the difference being only in the number of things altered, not in the kinds of them.
The matters of difference between these will better appear, if first we reduce to certain heads all that pertaineth unto christian religion ; and then make it evident and clear to all such as love the truth, and are not contentious, what by common consent in every of these is undoubtedy received, and what remaineth as yet unresolved upon.
Surely whatsoever cometh within the compass of our Christianity, and pertaineth to religion, concemeth either those certain books and monuments, wherein is contained the heavenly truth revealed to the sons of men, for the supply of nature's defects, and shining as a light in the midst of our darkness, directing us towards the attainment of eternal life ; or else tiie glorious majesty of God, of whom are all things
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and we in him ; or the creation of all things of nothing, especially of men and angels ; or the person, nature, and office of Christ the Re- deemer; or the restoration which is wrought by grace; or the Church, which is the multitude of those that are redeemed out of the world ; or the holy sacraments, which are as bands of this heavenly society, marks of profession, notes of difference, seals of the covenants, and conduits of heavenly grace ; or lastly, the ceremonies, observations, solemnities, and outward complements of religion. Unto these eight principal heads may be reduced whatsoever appertaineth to the reli- gion and profession of Christians.
Touching the first, it is by all agreed upon that all men by nature are strangers from tlie life of God, having their cogitations darkened in such sort that of themselves they cannot lift up their eyes to beliold the brightness of that divine light, in the beholding whereof consisteth all their happiness ; and that God, pitying this miserable estate of man, hath provided remedies against this evil, amongst which, that most excellent light of Christian Wisdom, revealed in the sacred books of the divine oracles is incomparable and peerless, as where- upon all other do depend, the bright beams of which heavenly light do shew unto us the ready way to eternal happiness, amidst the sundry turnings and dangerous wanderings of this life. And lest either the strangeness of the language wherein these holy books were written, or the deepness of the mysteries, or the multiplicity of hidden senses contained in them, should any way hinder us from the clear view and perfect beholding of that heavenly brightness ; God hath called and assembled into his Church out of all the nations of the world, and out of all people that dwell under the arch of heaven, men abounding in all secular learning and knowledge, and filled with the understanding of holy things, which might turn these scriptures and books of God into the tongues of every nation, and might unseal this book so fast clasped and sealed, and manifest and open the mys- teries therein contained, not only by lively voice, but by writings to be carried down unto all posterities. Good God ! what treasure hath all the world comparable unto the treasure of those sacred books of God, and the writings, meditations, and happy marvels of the renowned worthies of the christian world ? From hence, as from the pleasant and fruitful fields watered with the silver dew of Hermon, the people of God are nourished with all saving food. Hence the thirst of languishing souls is restinguished, as from the most pure fountains of living water, and the everlasting rivers of Paradise. Hence the want of needy souls is supplied, as out of the best and richest store- house of the world. Hence the soldiers of Christ are armed, as out of the best armoury, that they may be able to overthrow the
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madness of infidels, and the fury of heretics. From hence, as out of tlie school of all heavenly virtues, all the life, manners, and duties of men are framed and fashioned aright ; the unlearned are taught, the learned are exercised; they that are fallen are holpen, that they may be able to rise again ; they that stand are preserved from the danger of falling. In a word, there is nothing honest, nothing profit- able, pleasant, great, or rare and excellent, tending either to instruc- tion, godliness of life, or the attaining of endless happiness, but here it may be found.
Whereupon it hath pleased God in every age to stir up the spirits of the worthy guides and leaders of his Church, with great labour and travel unto the farthest parts of the world, by conference, and all the means they could devise, to find out what books of divine instruction the holy men of God, led by the direction of the pro- mised Spirit, had left unto posterity, in what languages the several copies and editions of the same, together with such other writings of other ancient fathers and masters of our christian faith, as had made report of the same, and delivered the hidden senses thereof, as having heard them speak which were the authors of them, or at least their scholars and disciples. These reverend monuments, when they had gathered together with great expense and cost, they laid them up in libraries for the direction of posterity in churches and monasteries.
Concerning these books, these things offer themselves to our con- sideration: 1st, Whence we are assured of the truth of them. 2dly, Which they are that are of infallible truth and certainty. 3dly, The fulness and sufficiency of them, or their want and imperfection. 4thly, The easiness or difficulty in finding out the sense of them, and how we may without danger attain unto it. 5thly, In what tongues they were written, and the several original editions now extant. 6thly, Into what tongues chiefly they have been anciently turned, what translations the Church specially allowed, and of the lawfulness of turning them into vulgar tongues, and reading the same privately or pubUcly unto laymen.
Touching the first of these things, to wit, how we may be assured of the truth of these divine books. 1st, It is agreed upon by all, that it pertaineth to the Church to discern what books are worthy accepta- tion, as containing matter of heavenly truth, instruction, consolation, and what to be refused. 2dly, That the Churcli that now is for her direction followeth the constant, uniform, and resolved tradition of those great masters of our Christianity, which lived in the former ages of the Church. 3dly, That no man ordinarily can find out the truth of the Scriptures of God, and the divine oracles without the guidance and direction of the Church, that now presently is deriving
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lier knowledge from the ages that were before, and the guides of the Church, which in former times taught and instructed the people of God. 4thly, That there is a persuasion of the truth of these things, wrought in the minds of men by the only consideration of human respects, of continuance, consent, universality, of wisdom, gravity, and constancy most stedfast and unmoveable of those that received, believed, and delivered to posterity these records of their faith and reUgion. 5thly, That this persuasion is not properly faith, which is a divine light infused into the soul, but an human persuasion, not unlike that which is found in men of other sects and factions in the world, who are induced, by the authority and reputation of their fathers and elders, to believe those things which they deliver unto them. 6thly, That though the faith of Christians believe nothing, and can beheve no divine verity, unless it be proposed by the Church ordinarily ; "for how shall they believe unless they hear? and how shall they hear without a preacher ? and how shall they preach unless they be sent ? " and though the reverent opinion conceived of the wisdom, gravity, and faithfulness of the guides of the Church, induce a man to attend and enquire into the things which are proposed to be received and be- lieved ; yet the authority of the Church is not, nor cannot be, the general and first ground and reason of our belief or faith, or of be- lieving all that a Christian is bound to believe, but it must inniti solidd rerum ipsarum veritate; because that there is such a Church, that is, a multitude chosen out from the world, which God doth teach and lead into all truth, is one of the things to be believed, and is among the precious verities the Scriptures do contain, neither is the first and highest in the order of things proposed to the appre- hension of faith, but doth depend on, and is deduced from, more high and immediate principles concerning God, the creation, fall, and the joyful and happy deliverance which is by Christ.
Wherefore as in human sciences many things concur, and are required as things precedent and preparing the way, or conditions directing and guiding the mind, that it may yield assent to the things that are taught and delivered, without which the hearer conceiveth nothing at all; of which sort is the sensible knowledge of things object to the outward senses, the explication used by the teacher, and his persuasions to induce, who doth not barely propose his principles, rules, and axioms, but declareth them by examples evident to sense, or by effects well known unto us ; but the formal and precise reason of settling the persuasion, and making the mind yield her consent to the thing proposed, is the light of nature, which maketh them evidently to appear to be as indeed they are ; — so, in like manner, to propose the things that are to be believed, and use whatever explication
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or means that can be devised, to induce the minds of men to believe tlie truth of the things proposed unto them, are concurrents, with- out which hardly any man yieldeth assent to the sacred verities. But that which settleth the mind, and expresseth the persuasion, is the divine light of faith, whereby though the matters of faith be not made so evident as things of natural apprehension by the light of nature, yet the mind is more potently drami to yield to them than to the other. Thus prius sentitur quam discitur, as experience sheweth.
Memorials of the Life of Dr. Field.
OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL.
Cardinal Contarentts hath written a most divine and excellent discourse touclung free-will ; wherein he sheweth the nature of free- will, and how the freedom of will is preserved or lost. In this dis- course, first, he sheweth what it is to be free ; and then, secondly, what that is which we call free-will. What it is to be free, he sheweth in this sort. As he is a servant that is not at his own dispose to do what he will, but is to do what another will have him to do ; so he is said to be free who is at his own dispose, so as to do nothing presently because another will have him, but what seemeth good unto himself, and he hath a liking to do. The more therefore that any thing is moved by and of itself, the more free it is. So that in natural things we shall find, that accordingly as they are moved by any thing within or without themselves in their motions, they come nearer to liberty, or are farther from it : so that a stone is in a sort free when it goeth downward, because it is carried by something within: but it sufFereth \dolence, and is moved by somethmg from without, when it ascendeth : yet doth it not move itself, when it goeth downward, but is moved by an impression of that weight, which it put not into itself, but the Author of nature, and moveth but one way; so that it is far from freedom and liberty even in this motion also. Li\dng things move themselves ; and not one way only, as the former, but every way ; as we see plants and trees, wherein the first and lowest degree of life is discerned, move themselves down- wards, upwards, on the right hand and on the left; yet discern they not whither, neither do they move themselves out of any discerning, and so are far from liberty. Brute beasts are moved by themselves in a more excellent sort ; for having discerned such things as are fitting to their nature and condition, there is raised in them a desire of the same ; so that they may ver\' projierly and trulv be said to move
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themselves, because they raise in themselves the desire that moveth them: yet is there no freedom or liberty in them.
For there is no liberty, truly so called, but where there is an apprcliension, not of tilings of some certain kind only, but of all things generally, of the whole variety of things, of the proportion which they have within themselves, and of the different degrees of goodness found in them; and answerable hereunto a desire of good in general and a greater or less desire of each good, according as it appeareth to be more or less good, and so a preferring of one before another, and a choosing of what it thinketh best. So that reason is the root of all liberty : for in that reason discerneth good in general, the will in general desireth it ; in that it sheweth tliere is a good, wherein there is all good and no defect, the will, if it have any action about the same, cannot but accept it ; in that it sheweth that one thing is better than another, the will preferreth or less esteemeth it ; in that it sheweth some reasons of good and some defects and evils, the will chooseth, or refuseth : when reason finally resolveth a thing now and in this particular to be best, the will inclineth to it.
This generality of knowledge is not found in any thing below the condition of man : other living creatures have an apprehension of some certain things only; they have no knowledge of good in general, but of certain good things only, nor no desire of good in general, in the extent of it, but of such particular good things as are fitted to them. These therefore have neither free and illimited apprehension nor desire of good; but limited, restrained, and shut up within a certain compass : so that they are like to a man shut up in a prison, who though he may move himself and walk up and down, yet cannot go beyond a certain limitation and bounds, set unto him. But man was made to have an apprehension of all tilings, to discern the nature of each, and the different degrees of goodness found in them ; and accordingly to desire good in general, to desire each thing more or less, as it appeareth more or less good, never to rest satisfied till he come to an infinite good; to desire the same for itself, as originally good, and as the last end, because above or be- yond it there is nothing to be desired ; and to desire nothing but in reference unto it, seeing nothing is good but by partaking of it.
And hence it is easy to see, how the liberty of our will is pre- served, and how and in what sort it is lost. For seeing the desire of the chief good and last end is the original of all particular de- sires ; if God be proposed unto us as our last end, and chief good, in whom, from whom, and for whom, all things are ; then our will, without restraint, and without all going aside, and intangling, or intricating itself, shall freely love whatsoever is good, and each thing
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more or less, according as it comes nearer to God, and nothing but that which is pleasing to him : thus is our liberty preserved and continued. But if we depart from God, and make any other thing our chief good, and last end ; then we seek that which is infinite within the compass of that which is finite, and so languish, never finding that we seek, because we seek it where it is not to be found, and besides bring ourselves into a strait, so as to regard nothing, though never so good, farther than in reference to this finite thing, which we esteem as if it were infinite : neither do we set up any other thing unto ourselves to be our chief good, but ourselves. For, as Picus Mirandula noteth, the ground of the love of friendship is unity : now, first, God is more near to every [one] of us than we are to ourselves ; then are we nearer to ourselves than any other thing ; and in the third place there is a nearness and conjunction between other things and us. So that in the state of nature instituted, we loved God first, and before, and more than ourselves, and ourselves no otherwise but in and for him ; but falling from that love, we must of necessity decline to love ourselves better than any thing else, and seek our own great- ness, our own glory, and the things that are pleasing to us, more than any thing else. And because the soul, unmindful of her own worth and dignity, hath demersed herself into the body and senses, and is degenerated into the nature and condition of the body, she seeking nothing more than bodily pleasures as fitting to her, and declineth nothing more as contrary to her than the things that grieve and afflict the outward man.
This is the fountain of all the evils that are found in our nature ; this putteth us into horrible confusion. For having raised ourselves into the throne of God by pride, and fancied unto ourselves peerless and incomparable greatness, we are no less grieved at the good of other men than if it were our evil ; nay, indeed it is become our evil ; for how can our excellence be pearls, and incomparable, if any other excel or equal us, or have anything wherein he is not subordinate to us? Thus do we run into envy, and all other evils, and endlessly disquiet and afflict ourselves. And, secondly, we are hereby deprived of our former liberty : for neither do we know all the variety of good things, as we did, our knowledge being from sense, nor their differ- ent degrees, that so we might have power to desire them, and to prefer each before other, according to the worth of it ; neither can we desire any good but as serving our tiun ; so that what doth not so we cannot esteem.
Touching the will of man, since the . fall, it is resolved by all divines that it hath lost the freedom it formerly had from sin and misery; but some understand this in one sort, and some in another.
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For some affirm, tliat men have so far forth lost their liberty from sin by Adam's fall, that they cannot but sin in whatsoever moral act they do; which thing I shewed to have been believed by the Church wherein our fathers lived and died. But they of the Church of Rome at this day dislike this opinion, for they suppose, tliat though our will be not free from sin, so as collectively to decline each sin, and that though in the state wherein presently we are we cannot but sin, at one time or other, in one tiling or other ; yet we may decline each particular sin divisibly, and do the true works of moral virtue. Much contending there is and hath been touching free-will ; where- fore for the clearing of this point two things are to be noted ; first from what, and secondly wherein this liberty may be thought to be.
The things from which the will may be thought to be free are five. First, The authority of a superior commander, and the duty of obedience. Secondly, The inspection, care, government, direction and ordering of a superior. Thirdly, necessity, and that either from some external cause enforcing, or from nature inwardly deter- mined, and absolutely moving one way. Fourthly, Sin, and the dominion of it. Fifthly, Misery. Of the five kinds of liberty, the two first agree only to God, so that in the highest degree to aC-re^ov- triov, that is, freedom of will, is proper to God only ; and in this sense Calvin and Luther rightly deny that the will of any creature is or ever was free. The tliird kind of liberty is opposite not only to coaction, but natural necessity also. In opposition to co- action, the understanding is free ; for howsoever a man may be forced to think and believe contrary to his inclination, that is, such things aa he would not have to be true ; yet the understanding cannot assent to any thing contrary to her own inclination; for the understanding is inclined to think so of things as they are, and as they may be made to appear unto her to be, whether pleasing to nature or not ; but the understanding is not free from necessity.
But the will in her action is free, not only in opposition to coaction, but to natural necessity also. Natural necessity consisteth herein, that when all things required to enable an agent to pro- duce the proper effect thereof are present, it hath no power not to bring forth such effect, but is put into action by them. So the fire having fit fuel in due sort put unto it, and being blown upon, cannot but bum. The liberty of the will therefore appeareth herein, that though all those things be present that are pre-required to enable it to bring forth the proper action of it, yet it hath power not to bring it forth, and it is still indifferent and indeterminate, till it determine and incline itself. God indeed worketh tlie will to determine itself;
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[A. D.
neither is it possible that lie should so work it, and it should not determine itself accordingly; yet doth not God's working upon the will take from it the power of dissenting, and doing the contrary ; but so inclineth it, that having liberty to do otherwise, yet it will actually determine so.
Here Luther and Calvin are charged with the denial of this liberty of the will, and many strange absurdities are attributed to them. For first, Luther is said to have affirmed that the will of man is merely passive ; that it produceth not any act, but receiveth into it such acts as God alone, without any concurrence of it, worketh and produceth in it. But all this is nothing but a mere calumnia- tion ; for Luther knoweth right well that men produce such actions as are externally good and evil, willing and out of choice ; and con- fesseth that we do the good things that God commandeth us, when we are made partakers of his grace, but that God worketh us to do them. We beheve, we fear, we love ; but it is God that worketh us to believe, fear, and love. Certum est nos facer e cum facimus, saith S. Augustine, sed Deus facit ut faciamus — it is most certain that we do those things we are said to do, but it is God that maketh us to do them ; not only by persuading, inviting, and inwardly draw- ing us by moral inducements, but by a real and true efficiency. So that, according to Luther's opinion, we move not but as moved ; nor are active, but as having first been passive ; nor turn ourselves, but as first wrought upon, and made to turn ; yet do we truly move ourselves, and truly, freely, and cheerfully choose that which is good, and turn ourselves from that which is evil to that which is good. Divines say, that facere ut velimus, and facere ipsum velle, differ very much : that is, they say it is one thing to make us to will, and another to produce the act of wilUng. God worketh both, but in a different sort, the first sine nobis facientibus nos velle : secundum autem operatur, nobiscum simul tempore consentientibus et co- operantibus ; that is, God worketh the first of these alone ; we make not ourselves to will: the second he produceth together with us, willing that he would have us, and producing that we do. So that in the former consideration we are merely passive, in the latter active : which neither Luther nor any of his followers ever denied. Calvin, they say, confesseth, that the will concurreth actively to the act which God produceth; but without any freedom at all, unless we speak of that freedom which is from coaction. It is true indeed that Calvin denieth us to be free from necessity, but he speaketh of the necessity of sinning ; but he never denied us to be free from natural necessity, that is, from being put into action, so as natural agents are, that is, without all choice and liking of that we incline
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to do. It is evident that Calvin confesseth the will of man to be free to do evil ; and he denieth it not to be free to perform acts civilly good, or morally good ex genere et objecto ; yea, he thinketh tliat the will freely and out of clioice willeth whatsoever it willeth : as in the state of aversion it freely willeth that it should not ; so when God converteth it, he turneth the course of the actions and de- sire of it, and maketh it freely and out of choice to turn to good.
That men have lost the freedom from sin, and put themselves into a necessity of sinning. Saint Augustine sheweth. " Libero arbitrio male utens homo, et se perdidit et ipsum : sicut enim qui se occidit, utique vivendo se occidit, sed se occidendo non vivit, nec seipsum potest resuscitare cum occiderit, victore peccato, amissum est et libe- rum arbitrium ; a quo enim quis devictus est, huic et servus addictus. Quae sententia cum vera sit, quahs quaeso potest servi addicti esse libertas, nisi quando eum peccare delectat? Liberaliter enim servit, qui sui domini voluntatem libenter facit. Ac per hoc ad peccandum liber est, qui peccati servus est ; unde ad juste faciendum liber non erit, nisi a peccato liberatus, esse justitiae cceperit servus. Ipsa est vera libertas propter recte facti laetitiam, simul et pia servitus propter praecepti obedientiam. Sed ista libertas ad bene faciendum, unde erit homini addicto et vendito, nisi redimat ille cujus ilia vox est, ' Si vos Alius liberaverit, vere liberi eritis.' " [Man making an evil use of his free will, lost both himself and it. For as he who kills himself, kills himself while living, but by killing himself ceases to live, neither is able to restore himself to life after he is slain ; so when sin gains the victory, free will is lost ; for by whomsoever any one is overcome, his slave he is made. Which being a truth, what liberty I would ask, can be that of the bond-slave of sin, unless when he is pleased to sin ? For he freely serves wlio willingly does the will of his master. Wherefore he is free to sin who is the slave of sin ; and consequently will not be free to do well, unless, being freed from sin, he have begun to be the servant of righteousness. This is true liberty with respect to the pleasure of well doing, and at the same time a holy servitude as regards obe- dience to the law. But whence can a man sold and enslaved to sin have this freedom to do well, unless redeemed by him who hath said, ' If the Son hath made you free, then are ye free indeed' ?']
Here we see necessity of sinning, and freedom from natural neces- sity, do stand together in the corrupted nature of man*: " Nescio quo pravo et miro modo ipsa sibi voluntas peccato quidem in deterius mutata, necessitatem facit ; nec necessitas cum voluntaria sit, ex-
' Enchirid. cap. 30.
* Bernard, in Cant. Ser. 81.
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cusare valeat voluntatem ; nec voluntas, cum sit illecta, excludere necessitatem," &c. [The will being, by some strange and perverse means, turned to evil, occasions a necessity : neither can necessity, since it is voluntary, excuse the will, nor can the will, when seduced, exclude necessity, &c.]
It is true, that natural men may do things that are good ex genere et objecto, and perform such external actions as serve to entertain this present life ; but to do any thing morally good, not only ex genere et objecto, but ex fine et circumstantiis, there is no power left in cor- rupted nature. It is excellent to this purpose that we read in Saint Augustine M "Per velle malum, recte perdidit posse bonum, qui per posse bonum, potuit vincere velle malum, &c." [By choosing evil he justly lost the power to do good, who by the power of doing good, was able to conquer his evil will, &c.]
Thomas Bradwardine in his sum against the Pelagians of his time, clearly resolveth, that the will of man, since the fall, hath no power to bring forth any good action, that may be morally good, ex fine et circumstantiis. And Alvarez, though he think that all the actions of infidels are not sin, yet saith, that none of them is truly an act of virtue, no not in respect to the last natural end. Cassander saith, that the article of the Augustan confession touching original sin, agreeth with the doctrine of the Church, when it teacheth that the will of man hath some kind of liberty to bring forth a kind of civil justice, and to make choice in things subject to reason ; but that without the Spirit of God it hath no power to do anything that may be just before God, or any thing spiritually just. And all orthodox divines agree against the Pelagians, that it is the work of grace that we are made just of unjust, truly, and before God ; that this grace createth not a new will, nor constraineth it against the liking of it, but correcteth the de- pravation of it, and turneth it from willing ill, to will well ; drawing it with a kind of inward motion, that it may become wilhng of unwill- ing, and willingly consent to the divine calling.
The Pelagians, the enemies of God's grace, being urged with those texts of Scripture, wherein mention is made of grace, sought to avoid the evidence of them, affirming that by grace, the powers, faculties, and perfection of nature, freely given by God the Creator at the begin- ning, are understood; when this would not serve the turn, they understood by grace the remission of sins past, and imagined that if that were remitted wherein we have formerly offended, out of that good that is in nature we might hereafter so bethink ourselves, as to do good and decline evil. Thirdly, when this shift failed likewise, they
' Hypognost. lib. i, &e.
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began to say, that men happily will not bethink tiiemselves of" that duty they are bound to do, or will not presently and certainly discern what they are to do, without some instruction or illumination, but that if they have the help of instruction and illumination, they may easily out of the strength of nature decline evil, and do that they discern to be good. When tliey were driven from this device also, they betook themselves unto another; to wit, that the help of grace is necessary to make us more easily, more constantly, and universally to do good, than in the present state of nature we can ; and to make U3 so to do good, as to attain eternal happiness in heaven. And this is, and was the opinion of many in the Roman church, both anciently, and in our time. For many taught, that men in the present state of nature as now it is, since Adam's fall, may decline each particular sin, do works truly virtuous and good, fulfil the several precepts of God's law, according to the substance of the work commanded, though not according to the intention of the lawgiver ; that they may love God above all, as the author and end of nature. So that to these purposes there was no necessity of the gift of grace, but that grace is added to make us more easily, constantly, and universally to do good, and to merit heaven. And therefore Stapleton confessetli, that many wrote unadvisedly, as well amongst the school-men heretofore, as in our time, in the beginnings of the differences in religion, but that now men are become wiser. 1 would to God it were so, but it will be found, that howsoever they are in a sort ashamed of that they do, yet they persist to do as others did before them ; for they teach still that men may decline each particular sin, do the true works of moral virtue, do things the law requireth, according to the substance of the things commanded, though not so as to merit heaven, or never to break any of them. Bellarmine indeed denieth, that we can love God above all in any sort, without the help of grace. But Cardinal Cajetan saith, that though we cannot so love God above all, as to do nothing but that which may be referred to God as the last end, yet so as to do many good things in reference to him as the end. And Bellarmine, if he deny not his own principles, must say so ; for first he defendeth, that man may do a work morally good without grace, and do it to obey God the author of nature. And elsewhere he proveth, that man can not perpetually do well in the state of nature without grace, because it is so turned away from God to the creature by Adam's sin, and specially to himself, that actually, or habitually, or in propension, he placeth his last end in the creature, and not in God ; and so cannot but offend, if he be not watchful against this propen- sion. Whence it followeth, that seeing a man must place his chief good in God, if he do good, and that naturally he can do good, he can vol.. I. 5
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naturally place the same in God. That which he somewhere hath, that it is enough to intend the next end expHcite, and that it will of itself be directed to God the last end, seeing every good end moveth virtvte Jinis ultimi, is idle ; for it moveth not but virtule Jinis ultimi amati : nam Jinis non morel nifti amatux, ergo amat Jinein ultimnm.
So that many formerly, and almost all presently in the church of Rome, are more than Semipelagians, not acknowledging the necessity of grace to make us decline evil, and do good, but to do so constantly, universally, and so as to merit heaven. But Augustine, Prosper, Fulgentius, Gregory, Beda, Bernard, Anselm, Hugo, many worthy divines mentioned by the Master of Sentences, yea, the Master liim- self, Grostete, Bradwardine, Ariminesis, the Catholic divine that Stapleton speaketh of, those that Andradius noteth, Alvarez, and other agree with us, that there is no power left in nature to avoid sin, and to do any one good action, that may be truly an action of virtue; and therefore they say, grace must change us, and make us become new men.
Cardinal Contarenus noteth, that tlie philosophers perceiving a great inclination to evil to be found in the nature of mankind, thinking it might be altered and put right by inuring them to good actions, gave many good precepts and directions, but to no purpose : for tliis evil being in the very first spring of human actions, that is, the last end chiefly desired, which they sought not in God, but in the creature, no help of nature or art was able to remedy it; as those diseases of the body are incurable, which have infected the fountain of life, the radical humidity. God only, therefore, who searcheth the secret and most retired turnings of our soul and spirit, by the inward motion of his Holy Spirit, changeth the propension and inclination of our will, and turneth it unto himself. And in another place, he hath these words : " We must observe that at this pre- sent, the Church of God by the craft of the devil, is divided into two sects, which, rather doing their own business than that of Christ, and seeking their own glory more than the honour of God and the profit of their neighbours, by stiif and pertinacious defence of contrary opinions, bring them that are not wary and wise to a fearful downfall. For some, vaunting themselves to be professors of the Catholic religion, and enemies to the Lutherans, while they go about too much to main- tain the liberty of man's will, out of too much desire of opposing the Lutherans, oppose tliemselves against tlie greatest lights of the Christian Church, and the first and principal teachers of Catholic verity, de- clining more than they should unto the heresy of Pelagius. Others, when they have been a little conversant in the writings of St.
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Augustine, though they have neitlier that modesty of mind nor love towards God tliat he had, out of the pulpit propose intricate things, and sucli as are indeed mere paradoxes, to the people." So that, touching the weakness of nature, and the necessity of grace, we have tlie consent of all the best and worthiest in the Church, wherein our fathers lived and died.
The next thing to be considered is, the power of free-will in disposing itself to the receipt of grace. Durandus is of opinion, that a man by the power of free-will, may dispose and fit himself for the receipt of grace, by such a kind of disposition, to which grace is to be given by pact, and divine ordinance, not of debt. Amongst the latter divines there are that think, that as one sin is permitted that it may be a punishment of another, so God in respect of alms, and other moral good works done by a man in the state of sin, useth the more speedily and effectually to help the sinner, that he may rise from sin ; and that God infallibly and as according to a certain law, giveth the helps of preventing grace to them that do what they can out of the strength of nature : and this is the merit of congruence, they are wont to speak of in the Roman scliools.
But, as I noted before, Gregorius Ariminensis resolutely rejects the conceit of merit of congruence. Stapleton saith it is exploded out of the Church. And Alvarez, that St. Augustine and Prosper,
whom Aquinas and the Thomists follow, reject the same And so
those words are to be understood, " If any one open the door I will enter in" (Rev. iii.) ; and Isai. xxx. "The Lord expecteth that he may have mercy on you:" for he expecteth not our consent, as coming out of the power of nature, or as if any such consent were a dis- position to grace, but that consent he causeth in us.
Yet must we not think that God moveth us, and then expecteth to see whether we will consent : "Si quis ut a peccato purgemur voluntatem nostram Deum expectare contendit, non autem ut etiam purgari vehmus per Sancti Spiritus infusionem, et operationem in nos, fieri confitetur: resistit ipsi Spiritui Sancto, per Solomonem dicenti, Praeparatur voluntas a Domino, et Apostolo salubriter prasdicanti, Deus est qui operatur in nobis et velle et perficere pro bona volun- tate." Concil. Arausic. Can. iv. [If any one contends that God expects us of ourselves to will that we may be purified from sin, and does not confess that it likewise is through the infusion and opera- tion of the Holy Spirit that we seek to be purified ; he resists both the Holy Spirit himself, who says by Solomon that " the preparation of the heart is from the Lord," and also the Apostle, who preaches this saving doctrine, " It is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure."] So that God doth not stir and move
5 — 2
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the will, and so stay to see whether it will consent or not, but worketh, moveth, and inclineth us to consent.
The good use of grace proceedeth, not from the mere liberty of our will, but from God working by the effectual help of pre-operat- ing grace, and causing a man freely to consent and co-operate. If not, God were not the total cause, which as the first root bringeth forth all that which discerneth [distinguishes] the righteous from the sinner. " Quis te discemit ?" Our consent, and effect of predestina- tion. The will doth not first begin her determination and consent. The influx of free-will into a good action, or the good use of grace exciting, is supernatural : as being about a supernatural object, there- fore it must proceed from a supernatural cause. God is a cause, and the first cause : in that a cause, he hath reference to the effect ; in that the first, to the second : when therefore by liis helping grace he worketh together with us to will and perform, his operation hath a double respect ; first, to our will, wliich it effectually moveth to work this ; and secondly, to our act of willing, which it produceth together with our will : for our will hath no operation but in one respect only, that is, of the act it bringeth forth ; but it hath no influence upon itself, antecedently to the production of the act. So then God is the first determiner of our will : for if the created will originally begin her own determination, it will follow that it is the first free, the first root, and the first cause of its own determination : which must not be granted : for seeing a created thing that is free, is free by participation, it must of necessity be reduced to a first free, as to a former cause ; otherwise duo prima principia. So that God by his effectual grace, not only morally, but truly eflSciently, moveth and inclineth the will to the love and liking of what he will, in such sort that it cannot but turn, nor cannot dissent in sensu composito, though it may in sensu diviso. The meaning of this is, that the effectual motion of God's grace, and an actual dissenting, resisting, or not yielding, cannot stand together ; but the efficacy of God's grace, and a power of dissenting, do stand together. For the efficacy of grace doth not take away the power, but so directeth the will, as infallibly in such liberty to bring forth that he pleaseth. Est simultas potentice ad opposita, non autem potentia simullatis ad opposita simul habenda : there is in some created things at the same time, a possibility of having or doing things opposite, as to sit or walk ; but there is no possibility of having these together. So there is in free-will moved by effectual grace a power to do, or not to do, in sensu diviso, because the efliicacy of grace and power of dissenting may stand togetlier ; but not in se7im composito, that is, that the motion of grace and actual dis-
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senting should stand together. This is the opinion of Alvarez and many otlier opposing the Jesuits ; neither had Calvin or Luther any other apprehension of these things. So that the necessity, efficacy, power, and working of God's grace, is rightly delivered by sundry in the Roman church even till this day. It is not to be marvelled therefore if it be said, that the Church wherein our Fathers lived and died, believed and taught as we now do.
Of the Church. Appendix to Book iii. Chap. x.
[A. D.
BISHOP ANDREWES,
A. D. 1616—1626.
Lancelot Andrewes ("whom," writes his great con- temporary, Bacon, " among the men of our times, I hold in special reverence,") was the son of a citizen of London ; where he was born in the year 1555. As we might readily infer, from the subsequent extent and perfection of his scholarship, Andrewes's boyhood was noted for the love of study. The school, which, after his having acquired the first rudiments in the vicinity of his home in Tower Street, had the honour to rear this prodigy of learning, was Merchant Taylors' ^ From that seminary he proceeded to Cambridge; and being entered at Pembroke Hall, Archdeacon Watts, who had recently founded the Greek scholarships there, immediately conferred on him one of those exhibitions. In a short time he obtained a fellowship in his college, and was appointed catechetical lecturer. He early acquired an uncommon reputation in casuistic divinity. An extensive acquaintance with modern languages he easily secured by appropriating his leisure to that purpose, while visiting his paternal home, — his annual relaxation at Easter^.
Having taken orders, Andrewes quitted the university, and resided as chaplain in the family of the earl of Hun- tingdon, then president of the north. While in that situ- ation, he grew famous for his success in those public dis- putes with the popish recusants, which in the times of Eliza- beth and James were so frequent. He next came under the notice of Sir Francis Walsingham, by whom he was presented with his first benefice, the parsonage of Alton, in Hamp- shire. He was likewise, at this time, nominated one of the queen's chaplains. Preferment was now rapidly showered on him. He obtained, through the patronage of the same
' Mulcaster was his master, a noted man in his day. ' It was his custom to perform the
journey/ between Cambridge and Lon- don,' on foot.
1616.]
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71
statesman, the vicarage of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, with a prebend in St. PauFs^; was chosen master of his college; in l6'01, was advanced by the queen to the deanery of West- minster, after having already enjoyed, for some years, a prebendal stall in that church ; "and all this,'' his biographer assures us, " without ambition or suit of his own, God turning the hearts of his friends to promote him for his great worth." This was the highest preferment reached by him in the reign of Elizabeth ; but his reputation was, at this period, equal, at least, to that of his most celebrated contem- poraries among the clergy.
After the accession of James, the bishoprics of Ely and Salisbury were both refused by this very learned divine, when offered to hira, according to a shameless practice, too com- mon in those times, on the condition of a partial surrender of their revenues. Nolo episcopari, he replied, quia nolo alienare — I refuse to be a bishop, on the terms of defrauding the Church. Yet he subsequently filled, in succession, the sees of Chichester, Ely, and Winchester. James made him almoner, dean of the chapel royal, and a privy counsellor ; all of which offices he continued to hold after the king's death, and as long as he himself lived. In discharging the duties of the last of them, he thought it became him never to interfere with secular affairs ; but on questions relating to the Church, he delivered his sentiments in the council with powerful effect. Throughout the reign of the first Stuart he enjoyed the greatest influence, at court, of any churchman ; until, in the later years of his life, the eager step of Laud, better suited to such paths, began sometimes to press before him. What there was of dignity in that strangely constituted court was indeed chiefly owing to Andrewes ; " his gravity," says Fuller, " in a manner awing King James, who refrained from that mirth and liberty in the presence of this prelate, which other- wise he assumed to himself." It is one of the most creditable stegs in James's character, that he nevertheless liked the venerable bishop's company, and took him with him on his
^ It was that called the Confessioner's or Confessor's prebend. During Andrewes's occupancy of this preferment, "his man- ner was, especially in Lent time, to walk duly at certain hours in one of the aisles of the church ; that if any came to him
for spiritual advice and comfort, as some did, though not many, he might impart it to them." — 15ut even this rational con- tinuation of an abused office gave offence to the puritanic spirit of the times.
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journeys ; in particular, he accompanied the king when he visited Scotland.
Andrewes, though frugal with respect to personal indul- gences, was a munificent prelate, and lived hospitably. In every one of his preferments he became a benefactor, by building at his own cost, by endowments, and other modes of augmenting the incomes of his successors. He founded two fellowships in Pembroke Hall, and dispersed his bounty unsparingly among the needy scholars of both universities ; never visiting either, after he was made a bishop, without leaving £50. or £lOO. to be so disbursed.
Among foreigners, Casaubon, Cluverius, Grotius, Erpe- nius, are all mentioned as recipients of his bounty : the last, we are told, he tempted with the offer of a very large stipend out of his own purse, to establish himself in England, as a teacher of the oriental languages. The pensions and an- nuities allowed by this bishop to the poor of many parishes, to prisoners, and other necessitous persons, were numberless, and distributed, for the most part, through such channels that the individuals relieved knew not who was their benefactor. After his elevation, he sought out men of merit, and gave, or procured for them, preferment, unsolicited. To his patronage the illustrious Joseph Mede was indebted for a fellowship at Christ^s College ; at his solicitation Morton also obtained one of his most desirable promotions'. The rule, however, which he laid down, and which some other prelates are said to have since adopted, not to give preferment to any clergy- man who sought it, seems questionable if applied univer- sally.
Bishop Andrewes was an incomparable preacher, in the style most admired in his own times : Elizabeth and James are said both to have preferred him in the pulpit to all their other chaplains. With respect to his prodigious learning, the voice of contemporary praise was loud and general ; and (with the exception, perhaps, of Ussher''s) his fame retains more of its pristine freshness, than that of any other great scholar of his day. He is reported to have been critically master of at least fifteen languages, including so correct an acquaintance with the principal tongues of the East, as entitles him to a
' Fuller, and the Icrirned John Hoys, were likewise iiulcbted for iidvancement to Bishop Andrewes.
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place among the greatest, as well as the earliest, oriental scholars of England. De cujus alta doctrina, in omni genere disciplinarum, writes Casaubon, quicquid duvero minus erit, — concerning whose profound familiarity with every branch of learning, whatever I may say will fall short of the truth. In him, continues the same competent judge, were combined with great erudition, " a greater memory, a still more excellent judgment, and a degree of industry superior to either." Among Milton's Latin poems is an elegy, In obitum Prcesulis Wintoniensis, — on the death of the bishop of Winchester : this was the generous effusion of a youth of seventeen ; but, even at a later and sterner period of his career, the beginning of the long parliament, amid the fury of his fierce attacks on the church and churchmen, the learned poet could afford a compliment for Andrewes".
But the serene and humble piety of this "peerless prelate," did not permit him to be elated with that admiration of which he was the object. Meekness was among his most prominent qualities. On his elevation to the bench, he caused to be engraved round the seal of the see of Chichester the motto, Qiiis ad hcec idoneus? — who is sufficient for these things.'' and, while the world was ringing with his panegyrics, he called himself not merely inutilis servus, but inutile pondus. His life was a life of prayer ; a great part of five hours was every day spent by him in devotional exercises. This propor- tion was increased, as he perceived the time of his dissolution to be approaching. Prayer became then his continual em- ployment ; and when, in his last sickness, he could no longer pray audibly, the lifting up of his hands and eyes attested that he had not yet ceased to pray. Thus (Sept. 25, 1626,) died Bishop Andrewes : " of whom,"" observes Bishop Buck- eridge, in his funeral sermon, " what can I say less, than that he was in his knowledge and learning most eminent, and in his life most holy and devout .'' his carriage was so happy, no man could ever discommend him; and no man's words were ever able to disgrace him : they that spake truth of him, could not but speak well of him ; and if they spake falsely of him, his life and manners did refute them." In his epitaph, his character is thus summed up : —
' Reason of Church Government. Book i. c. 3.
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" Indefessa opera in studiis ; summa sapientia in rebus ; assidua pietate in Deum ; profusa largitione in egenos ; rara amoenitate in suos ; spectata probitate in omnes, seternum admirandus :" — ^^For un- wearied application to study ; for the highest wisdom in his public conduct ; for constant piety towards God ; for enlarged liberality to the poor; for care, kinchiess, and pleasantness, towards friends and dependants ; for tried goodness towards all persons, he was worthy of perpetual honour.]
The following are the principal works of Andrewes: —
1. Determinatio Theologica de Jurejurando eocigendo — A Determination concerning Oaths. English and Latin, 1593.
2. Tortura Torti ; sive ad Matthcei Torti Lihrum Re- sponsio, (Sj'C. — 1609. After the discovery of the powder-plot, the king's Roman Catholic subjects were required to take the oath of allegiance. The see of Rome interfered to prevent their compliance ; on this the king wrote An Apology for the oath, which was answered by Cardinal Bellarmine, under the name of Matthew Tortus, his almoner. The duty of defending him from this attack was devolved by James upon his favourite chaplain : hence the quaint title of this treatise.
3. Responsio ad Apologiam Cardinalis Bellarmini quam edidit contra Prcefationem monitoriam Jacobi Regis, ]6lO.
4. Ninety-six Sermons upon the Fasts, Festivals, or on the more important Doctrines of Christianity, 1628. These discourses were carefully collected, and publi^ed, with a dedication to King Charles, by Laud, then bishop of London, and Buckeridge, bishop of Ely. The funeral sermon upon Andrewes, preached by the bishop of Ely, is also comprised in the same volume.
5. Opuscula qucBdam posthuma, 1629. — This volume (which, also, is dedicated to the King), consists of Latin sermons, letters and other pieces collected and published by the same learned editors.
6. Preces privates qtiotidiance. — A translation of this work, by Dean Stanhope, was published in l630; but the original Greek first made its appearance, at Oxford, in 1675. For some time before the saintly prelate's death, the manu- script was scarcely ever out of his hands: "it was found worn in pieces by his fingers, and wet with his tears."
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7. Exposition of the Ten Commandments, with nineteen Sermons concerning Prayer, Sfc. l642.
8. Manual of Devotion for visiting the Sick, l648.
The name of Andrewes, (at that time Dean of Westmin- ster) appears at the head of the committee of divines engaged in the translation of the Scriptures, who met at Westminster: he had a share in the version of the Pentateuch and historical books.
It has been already noticed, that the peculiar characteristic of the learned writers, more especially the theologians of the seventeenth century, — a cumbrous redundancy of quotation, — deforms, in an equal proportion with those of any of his con- temporaries, the works of Bishop Andrewes. Such a tendency was not unnatural, in the first period, after the rich stores of ancient erudition had been laid open to the world, when the learned class had found leisure and encouragement to riot in their inherited opulence. But it is a fault more easily dis- covered than imitated, by a superficial, though refined and therefore fastidious, posterity.
FROM THE WORKS OF BISHOP ANDREWES.
A LEARNED DISCOURSE OF CEREMONIES RETAINED AND USED IN CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.
Surely as darkness was before light (for the evening and the morning saith the text, made the first day ;) and as out of chaos, that rudis indigestaque moles, were made all the clear firmaments, even ccelum crystallinum ; so evident it is that Paganism covered all the face of the world, except the little land of Jewry, afore Christianity was admitted ; and, after the admission of Christian reHgion in the western part of the world by the Christian emperors, the northern people together with the empires almost every where abolished Chris- tian religion : but yet, as Augustinus Curio notes, at length every one of these northern and heathen nations embraced Christian reli- gion, saving only the Saracens. My conceit and purpose to shew you is, that of the ecclesiastical government and policy observed in the British and English ancient Pagans, as formerly having their common- wealth in frame, and beautified with our common laws, they being converted unto Christianity, many of the paganish ceremonies and usages, not contrary to the Scripture, were still retained in their
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Cliristian policy. By means whereof tranquillity and peace was ob- served, and the alteration in the state less dangerous or sensible ; for as in general Arnobius is true, writing, Nothing was innovated for Christian religion, in rerum 7iatura ; and as the heathen oracle of Apollo Pythius answereth, the Athenians asking him what religion was principally to be embraced, namely. That which was by descent delivered as a custom of their ancestors ; so, in particular, well writeth Dionysius Halycarnasseus, The least ceremonial points of the divine worship, a nation, unless necessity compel them, will hardly alter. He instanceth it in the Egyptians, the Moors, the Gauls, the Scy- tliians, the Indians. Nay, Sir Thomas Smith in his Commonwealth expresseth, that our ancestors being heathens when they agreed to receive Christian religion, that which was established before, and concerned external policy, they held and kept still with that which was brought of new by their Christian apostles and doctors.
I will first prove that this kind of birth can be no disgrace to our ecclesiastical ceremonies.
Secondly, I will insinuate three observations to be remembered out of the particular proposition proved.
Thirdly, I will point at some of the superfluous and wicked popish ceremonies drawn irom the heathens.
Fourthly and lastly, I will instance in many ecclesiastical ceremo- nies of the heathens, which are or may be used in ours or in any other Christian state.
I. In the first place, allowing much of our ecclesiastical discipline used in the time of our primitive Church was borrowed from the heathen, yet that it can be no disparagement unto it, must needs be granted ; for otherwise to imagine is the direct opinion of the heretic Manichaei, whose error in this point is solemnly refuted by St. Austin, writing against Faustus, and by St. Jerome, writing against Vigilantius. By the judicial law of Moses, expressed in Deut. xxi. " If a strange woman be taken in battle, if her beauty please thee, her nails and hair being pared and shaven, and her garment of captivity being taken away, thou mayest lawfully take her to wife." By the moral of this law, severally write Isidore and Peter Blessensis, the ceremonies of the Gentiles, the deformities thereof being taken away, may lawfully be used among the Christians. Isidore, then expounding Deut. xvi. "Thou slialt not plant trees near unto the altar," his meaning is, one must not imitate the devotion, nor the ceremonies of the Gentiles : for the Israelites even by the direction of God made holy vessels, and placed them in the temple of God, of the gold and silver they robbed the Egyptians of. And it is vulgarly known, that the sayings of tlie lieathen poets are used by the Holy Ghost in the
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New Testament. Again, we may see in Acts xvii. liow St. Paul himself, when he beheld at Athens the very altar of superstition (which was dedicated unto an unknown God, and unto which bloody sacrifices were slain, by as much dexterity and wisdom as that time would permit) did make use thereof, and seem to transpose it to the worship of the true God. And, which is more, it is expressed by St. Paul, It is lawful for a Christian, so it be without scandal, to eat those things which are consecrated unto idols. Honestly then wTites Mr. Hooker, " That which hath been ordained impiously at the first, may wear out by tract of time ; as the names of our heatlien months and days used throughout all Christendom without any scandal." And if the Spaniards well may glory of their Alphonsus king of Arragon, qui per cloacam i/igresms subter muros, won Naples, and from thence expelled Rene duke of Anjou; reasonably then out of former rags of the Gentiles, the glorious and fair garment of Christianity in our times may be woven. And, as Epliriam Syrus, a father that hved in St. Bazil's time wTiteth, If the money be taken out of the purse, yet the purse is not to be cast away ; so although the sacrifice and service of the Gentiles be taken away, the outward ceremonies may remain. To conclude, this pedigree of our ceremonies staineth not our Christian policy ; for that all the good orders of the heathens came by tradition, or reading, or seeing the ceremonies that God com- manded among the Jews in the land of Promise ; as it appeareth by Josephus against Apion, that the sect of the Pythagorean philo- sophers translated much of the Jews' laws into their own sect : and as, by Eusebius, Austin, Tlieodoret, Justin Martyr, and others, Plato copied much out of Moses' writings, for Moses' writings were long afore the empire of the Persians ; so verily if it were for this place, it may be exemphfied, that the succeeding ceremonies of the hea- then were derived from the Jews' ceremonies ; and no man can justly deny, but that we may use the ceremonies of the Jews, non ex vi sed ex analogid Mosaicm legis. You may observe out of Josephus, in the latter time of the Jews' government, that Herod their first king brought much of the Roman heathenish discipUne into their policy, and in this respect that many of our Christian ceremonies were formerly heathen, and afore that used in the com- monwealth of Jewry, wherein God was the lawgiver : they resemble the seventeen vessels which the heathen king Cyrus gave unto the Jews at the building of the temple of Jerusalem, after the captivity of Babylon, among which, as Esdras writes, there were vials of gold 29, of silver 2410 ; for these were in the last use sacred, being formerly heathen and profane, but most anciently holy and sancti- fied.
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II. The first of the three observations that I am to insinuate upon the particular to be proved, is tlie ampleness of the common law, admitting no canon law but as parcel and incorporated into the general laws and policy of this land ; seeing most of our eccle- siastical law was before there was any popish canon law observed by the inhabitants, as the civil ordinance of the magistrate in the ages most remote ; but, of these hereafter in particular.
Secondly note, if much of the Christian policy and discipline was in practice when the state of this land was heathen, tlie lay Catholics are much mistaken where they write, We have all our feasts and ceremonies from Austin the monk. And let them not play Suffenus's part in delivering, There is not the least ceremony or cir- cumstance which hath been added to the solemnization or majesty of God's service, but the year is known when, and the pope by whom it was ordained ; but these forget what their father Bellarmine confesseth, that all Christian ceremonies were not invented by the pope.
Thirdly, this will sufficiently convict the opinion of them wliom Nazianzen ingeniously calls new Pharisees, to be but ceremonious, that will not conform themselves to any ceremonies used in the time of popery ; seeing we must and ought to obey the ecclesiastical discipline established by the laws of the land, for coming to church, for having prayers or preaching, or music in our churches, or such like, although (as shall be proved) these ceremonies and customs were used in the time of pagans, and at their sacrifices. Genebrard, by whom it is verified that much learning and railing may be accidents in one subject, writes, that in the year 1560 arose in England a new sect of Puritans ; so called, because they will not pray in the churches that were the Catholics', nor wear a surplice : sure I am that many that wear the liveries of this name are otherwise minded. And I learn out of Dubrarius, that the Taborites of Prague held, that the clergy should not be doctors of divinity, or quote the fathers in their sermons, or wear any other than their ordinary garments : but yet for them all, 0 qiiam honestd voluntate miseri errant! It is confessed, ceremonies of themselves are things indifferent, as being neither expressly commanded or forbidden by the word of God ; and although among the Jews their kings would not permit liberties in ceremonies to the subject. Christian kings may : but yet when they are enacted in a Christian state, and made the laws of the land, they must be obeyed of necessity as unto a thing not indifferent. For well write the canonists : " An act indifferent when it is commanded is a necessary act, otherwise idle is the command." And it appeareth by Josephus, that the Athenians made a severe
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law against those that spake against the outward ceremonies es- tablished by law or custom : this also may appear out of Livy, and out of Dion, " Who knoweth not that the king, tlie Ciesar of the country must obey the law of the land ? " What a presumption is it then for a private man to exempt and privilege liimself from obeying the laws of the land ! Truly writes a learned common-lawyer, "The laws of men, not contrary to the law of God, ought to be kept, even of the clergy in the law of the soul." And Mutius notes, that Charles the Great, in Saxony, gave equal authority to his magistrates to put to death those which contemned and derided the ceremonies ecclesiastical, as those which sacrificed to heathen gods. For as Lodovicus Sotomajor well writes, in his comment upon the Canticles, " Godliness being as the soul, yet ceremonies are as the body, of Christian religion."
III. But I am to point at some of the superfluous and wicked ceremonies of the papists borrowed from the heathens. Of so large and near affinity is the divine worship of the heathens, and of papists, that Lodovicus Vives confesseth there cannot any difference be shewn unless the papists have changed the names and titles. So that, with Chemnitius, to the followers of the see of Rome we may object what Faustus did to the Christians : "Ye turn idols into martyrs and saints, whom ye worship with correspondent vows." And I can hardly imagine how plentifully tiie tears of Petrus Chrysologus and Silvanus would run, if they were alive and viewed the antichristian see ; for that, in their times, some of the superfluous heathen ceremonies began to abound in the Christian churches : whereupon they complained, although the gentiles' Circensia were celebrated in the honour of Christ. Yet the Church being out of that crarlle, the particular usage of the gentiles in this kind was not to be imitated. I commend therefore the intent of that emperor, who for reverence of the sign caused (as Sozomen reporteth) a furca to be erected loco crucis, instead of a cross. And generally, that the heathen thought their ceremonies would drive away the Christians, Abbas Urspergensis a German, and Didacus Covarcuvias a Spaniard, writ, that Helena, a Briton, and mother of Constantine, the first Christian emperor bom in this island, going to Jerusalem, found in the place where Christ was crucified the idol of Venus placed. But, to instance; the popish purgatory, in scope and being, agreeth with the heathen purgatory mentioned in Plato and Virgil. The papistical manner of consecrating churches and church-yards fully imitateth the cere- monies of the pagans, when they consecrated their temples and temple-courts or yards, described by Alexander of Alexandre. In Spain, according to Gregorius Lopus, at the beginning of the con-
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secration of a church, tliev must make three crosses in the last part thereof. Their sprinkling of holy water is mentioned in the sixth satire of Juvenal ; and Sozomen calleth it a heathenish cere- mony. In particular, that it was always used at the sanctifying of the Capitol, appeareth by Alexander of Alexandro. Their having of nuns and women for societies or colleges, was used amongst the heathen, as I gather out of Plutarch. And that the whole swarm of friars or monks was first fledged amongst the heathen at large, appeareth by learned Hospinian. The papists' placing of images in their temples, and every image to have his several priest ; their priests to have shaven crowns, to be unmarried, to have frankincense- offerings, fasts and feasts; to have candles in them, and to carry them up and down, in every respect is heathenish. And to do no wrong, the placing of lights in churches is not altogether an heathenish ceremony, although it appear by Seneca the gentiles had it ; for the ancient fathers used a kind of light in the primitive church. But their burning of tapers in their churches at noon-day, is altogether a pagan custom, as Rhenanus well observes in his comment upon Tertullian. And I take it, their burning of torches at funerals is merely a superfluous ceremony of the gentiles, as appeareth by Virgil and his commenter Servius, writing upon the funeral of Pallans : Liicet via loiigo ordine fiammarum, et late diseriminat agros. The papists' kissing of their hands, as a kind of worship in their churches, agreeth in intent with the heathenish custom, although Prudentius and Optatus make mention of kissing of hands in the primitive church. Lucian calls the worshipping by laying the finger to the mouth to be the sacrifice of poor men, as having nothing else to offer.
The learned chief justice of France, Brissonius, whom one calls Varro Galliae, particularly writeth why the papists purposely imitate the heathens, in turning on the left hand at their right sacrifice. Mr. Perkins noteth out of Rufiinus that Constantine caused the sign of the cross to be erected in pillars and houses. Likewise Julius Pacius notes, that the whole body of the canon law or ecclesiastical discipline imitateth the feature and structure of the body of the civil laws, generally being heathen ; for the common law-book called De- cretum answereth to the Pandects, the Decretal to the Codex: for as in the Codex there are the imperial, so in the decretals there are the pontificial, constitutions. And as the answers of wise men, that is lawyers, are reported in the Digest, so the sentences of the authors are registered in their Decretum: all this 1 condemn not as an idle correspondency. But to leave this point of our divines, I spare to prove out of Calvin their prayer for the dead as an idle imitation
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of the heathen ; that their worshipping the relics of their saints and martyrs is mere gentilism, the ancient bait of Satan.
IV. Thus, according to my main design, I have instanced in many ecclesiastical ceremonies of the heathen, which are or may be lawfully used in ours or any other Christian state. For the general, in the civil law-book called Digests, which contains the writings of the old lawyers which were heathens, you may read many precepts, superstitious rather than religious, of their heathen sacrifices and clmrch discipline ; and yet when the emperors of Rome began after to be Christians, you may perceive by the civil law-books called Codex, how in many points the emperors retain them. But further to exemplify this is a matter fruitless, which I stand not here upon.
But more particularly, the ceremonies on this behalf to be recited, I shall refer unto the heathen churches — the heathen flamen or ministers— the heathen people.
That the heathens, afore the Christians, had their temples to resort unto, where they were to worship their Panim gods, no man will deny ; though Diogenes in his cynic mood held temples unneces- sary, by affinning the whole world was the godly and holy temple of the gods, where he would pray. And this was also the opinion of Zeno, and also of our ancestors the Saxons, as appeareth by Abbas Urspergensis. The Scythians, according to Herodotus, erected temples or churches to none of the gods, but only unto Mars. But although Clemens Alexandrinus note, that in the beginning, superstition was the parent of all pagan temples, they being formerly (saith he) the sepulchres for men ; yet Isidore well notes out of Tranquillus, that when the heathen people began to be civil, their temples were built, and altered, fairer both within and without. Moreover the very name of the heathen assemblies among the Athenians, and the cities of Asia, was Ecclesia, which retaineth the name of the churches among the Christians at this day. Onuphrius Panvinus writeth, the church (ecclesia) signifieth a congregation ; and it is called Basilicon, or Temple, after the manner of the gentiles ; and as we have bells in our churches, so had the pagans in theirs. According to Suetonius, the emperor Octavius Augustus was the first who in the highest place of the temple of Jupiter Capitoline hanged bells. That at the ringing of their bells, the heathens were wont to meet at their assemblies, as at baths, and otherwise, is plain from Martial ; who writeth, Redde pilam ; sonat cbs thermarum : ludere pergis ? For the fabrick of the temples ; whether the Christian temples were square, and the heathens' all round, with Dr. Humphrey, I leave it to be inquired of the curious ; only I note out of Socrates, the ancient and apostolical churches of the Christians in Antiochia, in Syria, were built round ; VOL. I. 6
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and out of Giraldus, that the temple of Vesta was like unto a ball; the temple of the Sun and Bacchus is round, &c. As we have no images in our temples, so likewise was it used of many heathens : among tlie Romans, tlieir holy and ancient king Numa by a law banished images or idols out of their temples. Tacitus reports the Germans likewise would not represent the gods by images ; and Strabo and Herodotus shew how the Persians for their gods neither made altars nor images ; and Eusebius writes, the people called Caes by a special law forbad the worshipping of images.
The gentiles having their temples and churches for their poetical gods, Christianity being received by consent of the emperors and civil magistrates, it is to be seen whether those Ethnic churches were all demolished, and new ones built of the Christians. That many of the heathen churches were utterly ruined, many historians and fathers witness ; among others, St Jerome, writing against Jovinian, telleth of the destruction of the famous temples of Jupiter Capitoline, and in his comment upon the Galatians his words are these, Vaciia ido- lorum templa quatiimtur. And in the Theodosian code you may see a particular rescript made by the emperor Theodosius the younger, that the Panim temples in the East should be plucked down, they being fit to be the dens of devils or unclean spirits. And their sub- version of the idol's temple is the reason, that, by the canon and common law, Jus asdificationis is a special cause that giveth the patronage or advowson of the church unto a lay patron. But yet, without controversy, when kingdoms and states turned from idolatry or paganism to Christianity, and that in short time (so powerful was the holy Ghost), many of the heathen temples were not over- thrown ; but of necessity, after some ceremonies accomplished, were used for Christian prayers and assemblies. By means whereof the alteration in the state was not so great, the temporal world, with De- mocritus, being not to be new made ex atomis; and men sooner and easilier embraced public Christian religion. And this is the rea- son that by the common law of England a man may be said to be patron of a Christian church, although he never built it, if he only endow the church with revenues. The emperor Honorius, about the year 400, made a law restraining the heat of the Christians against the walls and stones of the gentiles' temples. Tlie words of the rescript are. As we forbid their sacrifices, so we will the ornament of their public works be kept. And tlie first Christian emperor, Constantine, made a law against them which pluck down the tombs and monu- ments of the superstitious lieathens. And as those laws methink in foreign countries gave some warrant for retaining heathen cere- monies, so in our country of England it is notorious, bv the epistles
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of pope Gregory himself (who sent Austin the monk), that altliough Pope Gregory in his epistle to the king of England writ, that ancient pagan temples in England might wholly be destroyed ; yet afterwards the same pope, better advising that somewhat was to be yielded unto them that were weak in the faith, as the apostles did, he writeth a peculiar epistle to Miletus, one of the first apostles or bishops of the Englishmen, and expressly writeth that the temples of the idols in England be not destroyed, but that they be hallowed and sanctified, and turned into oratories for Christians ; and as in general for other countries this appeareth by Theodoret, so now it is a work of some difficulty to shew you in particular what Christian church at this day standing was anciently the temple of such an heathen god. In Rome by ample authority it is plain, — as by Beda in his several books, by Ado, by Paulus Diaconus, and others, — that the pantheon, the temple for all the heathen gods, was given by Phocas the emperor, about the fifth year of his reign, to Pope Boniface the Fourth ; and by the said pope dedicated to the honour of our Lady and all martyrs. It is evident by Beda that we had a pantheon in England ; it stood in a town in Yorkshire, now called Godmanham. This temple among om* ances- tors the pagan Saxons was called Godmandingham, and was totally burnt by the people of Northumberland, when, at the preaching of Paulinus, king Edwin of an idolater became a Christian. Pope Gre- gory writeth in his Dialogues that Pope Benedict translateth the church of Apollo into the oratory of St. Martin's ; and Cardinal Bel- larmine sheweth that at tins day the church of St. Cosmo and Damians in Rome was the heathen temples of Castor and Pollux ; and Ado writeth, in the year 425 Pope Sixtus turned the temple of the god Bacchus in Rome into the church of our Lady. But for England, many learned men have reason to conjecture St. Paul's church in London to have been the heathen temple of Diana ; for that the adjacent and skirt-buildings unto the church are called the chambers of Diana ; as also that in Edward the First's time (as our chroniclers report) in Paul's churchyard were digged up an innumerable number of oxen-heads, which the learned know were anciently the sacrifices unto Diana. So, certain I am that St. Peter's church, now called Westminster Abbey, was anciently the temple of Apollo ; for so it appeareth by one of the charters of king Edgar made to Westminster Abbey, and this is also recited in Sulcardus, an author that lived near William the Conqueror's time.
To proceed : as lawfully the civil and supreme magistrates gave the temples of the heathens to the Christians, as well St. Austin notes in one epistle that the Christian emperors did pass over to the true catholics the churches and revenues which were given by
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Donatists to error and schism ; yet before the heatlien temples were consecrated and purged, the Christians would not use any Christian service in tliem. Now, how tlie Christian bishops did hallow and sanctify the heathen churches, may be seen out of Marinus Scotus Rhegino, and Sigisbert, in the year 607, by Ado, and others ; when they speak of the dedication of the pantheon by Boniface the Fourth.
In this second place I am to produce some of the ceremonies or policies observed among the heathen flamen, or ministers, which are likewise in practice at this day among the Christian provinces. That the heathens had their ministers or priests, nothing is more plain. And the priests of our ancestors the British, heathens and the Goths, were the Druids, as at large write Ceesar and Tacitus ; and the names of our bishops, episcopm and pontifex, were used among the heathen ; for, that he was called episcopus, that is, overseer of others, and looked unto the poor, and had care of their diet, is plain by the words of Arcadius the civil lawyer, in the Digests; and as Onuphrius and others note, according to Cicero, in his epistles, where he writes, ' Pompey would have him to be bishop of the cities of Asia :' and it appeareth by the body of the common law, the ofBce of the primate came from the heathen. Now for pontife.\, it is confessed by every one that the Christians took that name from the heathen ministers, and so Sozomen deriveth it. Rhenanus and others note the word diocese and the jurisdiction in this kind came from the heathen. Now, as among the Christian ministers, worthily and of necessity, there are degrees of the clergy, and one subordinate to another, so likewise was it when our ancestors were pagans ; for they had their pontifex and pontifex maximus, their flamens and archflamens, as is plain by Gratian's Rhapsody. And as every par- ticular god had his flamen, liis minister ; so, as Gallius notes, the flamen dialis, Jupiter's priest, was the chiefest among the rest. Bede writes, Coyfy was the chiefest heathen priest in the kingdom of king Edwin. One of our country chroniclers, Ptolemeus Lucentius, that lived almost 400 years ago, and wrote the lives of the popes of Rome, writes, on the life of Pope Eleutherius, how the three proto- flamens were converted into so many archbishops ; tells you how many flamens and archflamens there were among the Britons, and into what bishopricks and arclibishopricks they were afterwards trans- lated. And the heathen priests had some under them which were not priests, and were yet to serve in the temples ; they were called camilli, as appeareth by Plutarch and Dionysius ; and these are in the nature of our deacons. The correspondent power of our clergy to that of the heathen, would best appear by opening of the nature of the heathen pontifices. To omit Livy, Plutarcli, Alciat, Alexander
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ab Alexaiulio &c., Perkins, in liis comment upon tlic rules of the common law, writeth, the heathens assigned a peculiar jurisdiction to their pontifices ; namely, to look into the public and private ceremonies of their religion ; to defend and interpret their holy mysteries ; to deliver with wliat altars, to which gods, with what sacrifices, upon what days, at which temples, prayers and offerings sliould be ; to see that every one resorted to church, and no new ceremonies to be admitted, that vows be performed, funerals decently bestowed, oaths and faith fulfilled, holy days proclaimed, the gods pleased. And Wolphangus Lazius particularly noteth out of heatlien authors, that some, the chief of their clergy and pontifices, were to be skilful, especially in their common or ecclesiastical law ; to judge of marriages, of sanctuaries, to consecrate churches, and places of burial. That our clergy hath in like manner most of their particu- lars, every man must acknowledge. Thucydides notes, it is a matter of necessity to have holy days. That the Christians begin their day from midnight, saith Censorinus, it is common with the Gentiles ; and that our clergy foretell and declare the holy days to the people, the like was done by the pontifices of Rome, witnesseth Plutarch in Numa. Yea, that the holy days in the gentiles' calendar lose only their name, having upon the same day Christian festivities appointed (for the apostles made no laws concerning holy days,) is known from Theodoret ; who writeth, that the heathen holy days of Jupiter, Mars, and the rest of the heathen gods, were ordained among the Christians holy days, for Peter, Paul, and other saints. Gregorius Nissenus, in the life of Gregory, for his great actions sur- named Thaumaturgus, reporteth, that it was this Gregory that first made particular conversion of the heathen into Christian holy days. And as among the Christians the day of the martyr's or saint's death, is the holy day — Dies martyrii. Dies natalis — so was it among the heathens : for, according to Plutarch in Camillo, the Romans observe Romulus's death-day for his holy day. Moreover, as among the Christians, before a man can be admitted into the ministry there is enquiry made by the superior clergy of his ability and worthiness, and certain times and solemnities observed at the ordinance of the minister ; so likewise was it amongst the infidels our ancestors. For as some of the recited authors mention, the heathen pontifices were to be skilful in their profession and clergy- discipline. So further it appeareth by Alexander ab Alexandro, that if a man were a cripple, or lame in any part of his body, he could not be a pontifex : there- fore Marcus Sergius being lame, he was not suffered to be a pontifex. So Dionysius Halicarnasseus observes, Metellus being a priest, and losing his eyes, he was put out of his priesthood. So Gellius notes.
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their vestals were rejected if tliey wanted wit or beauty. Nay, as amongst our clergy imposition of hands is almost essential to the office of a minister, so you may see how Livy, treating of the ordina- tion of Numa to be pontifex, delivered, " upon Numa's head hands were laid ab augure sacerdote :" as at the making or electing of a Christian minister no simony is to be used, so is it plain by Dionysius Hali- camasseus no reward was to be given for the making of heathen priests ; and as the minister under the gospel may be deposed or resign, so that the heathen may be degraded, I have already shewed : that he might resign is shewed you by Cicero in Brutus, where augures might resign their sacerdotium ; and Livy writes, their vestals after they were thirty years old might give over their order. As long as our ministers continue of the clergy, we know they have many privileges above the laity. So likewise that the heathen ministers had, is plentifully to be proved out of Aristotle, out of Ceesar, out of Plutarch in Camillo. Not unpoliticly therefore doth cardinal Ba- ronius, perceiving the argument of the scriptures to prove the pope's supremacy are but straws, at large maintain the superiorities and pre- eminences of the bishop of Rome to be due unto him ; insomuch as at the conversion of the emperor of Rome from paganism unto Christianity, the privileges of the heathen pontifex maximus were at last transferred by the emperor unto the pope of Rome. Again, look into the manner of the government and behaviour of the heathen- ish priests or sacrificers in their profane churches, and you shall see their good orders are not refused by the Christian clergy. For you may learn by Valerius and Philostratus, that it is common to the Christians with the gentiles to use a white garment upon their bodies in their charges, because the Egyptians brought no kind of woollen garment into the temple. Giraldus, in his Syntagma, notes that they were called Linigeri: more particularly the priests of the heathen Egyptian god Isis wore linen surplices, as witnesseth Nico- laus Leonicenus and Apuleius in his Golden Ass. Alexander ab Alexandre reports, the priests of Arabia were clad in linen garments, having mitres on their heads ; and, generally, that other heathen priests did so, may appear by Virgil, who writeth, fontemque ignemque ferebant vestiti lino.
Again, as the Christian ministers are not to suffer profane or ex- communicate persons to come into our chm^ches or sacraments, so likewise would not the heathen clergy. For as it in general appear- eth by Theodoret and Sozomen, that the gentiles would not admit Christians to their service unless they renounced their religion, and appeased their demons, dwoTpoTrayov^, the drivers away of evil, which also Julian commanded ; so Athcnseus notes, Demophron would not
1626.]
BISHOP ANDREWES.
87
admit Orestes ad Chorofestum, because he was an unsanctified per- son ; and so in particular at their Eleusine and other sacrifices the heathen priests cried, eVa? eVa?, oVti? aXrjTpo';, which words were used by Callimachus in his hymn, and by Lucian : these words exclude especially three sorts of persons, Atheists, Christians, and Epicures. Vives notes out of Servius the words of Virgil's verse, Procnl o jjrocul este prophani, were taken from the heathen pontifices ; which is also further evident out of Alexander ab Alexandre, who writeth. When the people came to sacrifice the pontifex or flamen asked them Tk Tijoe ; the people answered, ttoAXoi kui dyado), many and good men. Suetonius's saying to this purpose is famihar concerning Nero : the crier using in the temples at sacrificing times to cry, that wicked and ungodly persons must not presume to offer sacrifice. Moreover, as we use to preach in our churches, so the very heathen priest, enlightened only by natural reason, made moral exhortations unto the people. For Diodorus Siculus, writing that, among the Egyptians, when the king did offer sacrifice, the priests, out of holy books, after they had prayed for the health and prosperity of the king and state, dehvered the counsels and actions of excellent men, by which the king was warned to use his authority, and command godly and justly, according to the example of others ; "He did fur- ther entreat," saith Diodorus, "of their piety towards their God and religion." And for that purpose I gather out of Valerius Maximus, that the people which were to approach the heathenish altar were com- manded by the priests to lay aside out of their mind all former hatred and malice, or else not to approach. Likewise the heathen priests had music in their temples in the time of service ; wherefore Suetonius notes it as a wonder in Tiberius Caesar for offering sacrifice unto the gods without music.
Further, as the Cliristians use in their churches particular psalms, hymns, and prayers, for set and festival days, Giraldus also sheweth in some part, that upon chief and special days the heathen had their particular verses, prayers, and hymns ; but, more particularly Julius Pollux, writing -rrepi dpwv eOviKwv, namely, the special psalms, if I mav so speak, and to what gods they were due. And as for the bounding of the meers ' of parishes, our clergy on their rogation-week go on procession ; so likewise did the heathen : their perambulations for this purpose were called ambarvalia. And it appeareth by Livy that the hea- then clergy might not be present at the sentence of death ; and at this day that this is and hath been the custom of our clergy is full apparent.
To conclude this i)articular with the nature of the coercive power
' [ Rovindaries. ]
88
BISHOP ANDREWES.
[A. D.
used by the heathen priests. Julius Caesar at large delivereth of the heathen clergy of this island, and of France, namely, the Druids. If any private or public person would not stand to their decrees and orders, they used to forbid him their sacrifices ; " which," saith Caesar, " among them is a most grievous punishment ; for the party so inter- dicted is not only accounted a detested person, and men are to shun his company, but neither shall he be capable of any honour, or shall sue for his own right." Hence, by good probability, came the excom- munication used by the British clergy anciently, and continued by our English clergy at this day, seeing the punishment and effect thereof is so lively described as if Caesar had been an author of our age.
In the last place I am to speak of the religious ceremonies of the Ethnics people in their churches, that they are answerable to ours. It is evident by TertuUian, Clement, Apuleius, and Servius upon Virgil, that the heathens in their churches at the time of their ser- vice, praying or sitting, looked in the east, but the Jews in their churches, as appeareth by St. Jerome, praying, looked into the west ; and yet we follow the gentiles' custom, and build churches to that purpose as the heathens did. For Vitruvius, the heathen architect, commandeth that the face of the temples be built in the west, that they which pray may have their faces looking in the east. St. Bazil's opinion then, that it was an apostolical tradition of the Christians to pray looking into the east, is not absolutely current ; nor, I fancy, the reason of our praying into the east set down in the particular describer of the city of Jerusalem : the Christians in Europe (saith he) at their prayers looking into the east, behold the country where Christ was conversant on earth, and in so beholding may behold the face of Christ upon the cross looking upon them. Yea, the heathens in their prayers not only looked as the Christians, and pray- ing held up their hands towards heaven, as Livy sheweth Camillus praying, and Virgil's tendens ad sidera palmas intimateth, but also in some points prayed as we do.
To omit their joint order and decency of prayer out of Plutarch ; Jamblicus the scholar of Porphyry, as in general he writeth of the force of prayer, so in particular he concludes, all their sacrifices and religion are better joined and perfected by vows and prayers ; yea, the wisest of heathens, as Marsilius Ficinus notes upon Plato's Alcibiades, prayed devoutly and in s\)mt—^agrantia anivii. And Alexander ab Alexandre writes, the heathen man which prayed first did confess himself a sinner; and notes, that in their prayers they thanked tlie gods for benefits received, and desired aversions of evils. Yea, the heathens used to pray in their churches for the afflicted in body and mind, as the Christians do. For it appeareth by
1626.]
BISHOP ANDREWES.
89
Lucian if any were hurt, he would sacrifice to the gods to be re- lieved ; and from Pkitarcli, not only sacrifices were used among the heathen for tiie health of Pomj)ey, but also cities celebrated holy days in their temples for receiving great benefits of their gods, as tlie health of Pompey ; and the prayer of Arianus the scholar of Epictetus, as Lucian notes, when he would call upon tlie gods, was in these words, Kvpie fAery'o-ov, Lord, have mercy: and as I read Arrian's book called Peripliis, a phrase of his is, " But now, (God willing:) " and that Si Beun roluerit, ought to be the prayer of Christians, appeareth by James iii.
Again, as the Christian magistrates, afore they used to consult of the greatest affairs, use to resort to divine service ; so that this was an express law to be observed by the Roman senators, is noted by Suetonius in Augusto. Nay, that before every small exercise of recreation, their uncliristian men would call unto their gods, I learn out of Hesychius ; who saith, that when they went to play at dice they would call upon their god Mercury. And if we have not seasonable weather we use particular devotion : to this purpose you may gather out of Dionysius Halicarnasseus, that the Gentiles pro- claimed and kept solemn feasts for tlie pacifying of their Panim gods.
And to omit Wolfangus Lucius' discovery of Lent to have been practised among the heathen, I shall conclude this particular with the duty of heathen people observed towards their priests in relieving of them, and paying them titlies, as parishioners do to their pastors. But much of this which I, or any other, can write in this kind, is already quoted in some of the canonists' writing ; so covetous men are in advancing their own particular. As the ancient elect people of God, afore the law given in mount Sinai, paid tithes to their priests ; as (Gen. xiv.) Abraham paid tithes to the greater priest Melchisedek ; so the very heathen priests have, by the consent of tlieir people or parishioners, always a relief, yea, and that with a tenth part of their revenues. Therefore for the firstfruits, Pliny writeth, the Romans were not wont to taste of their fruits or vines afore the heathen priests had sacrificed with them ; and Porphyry con- fesseth, that from all antiquity the firstfruits of the earth were dedi- cated unto their gods. In particular, Euripides the tragedian saith, that Diana had the firstfruits of every thing that the earth could yield. And Suidas, in verbo, writeth, " The travellers in the highway did use to offer unto the idol of Mercury, that guidetli them in their ways, the firstfruits of the earth." And Herodotus discourseth of the image of Delphos, which was made for receiving of the primilias lerrcB of the Grecians who overcame Xerxes. Natalis Comes sheweth, out of Aristo|ihane:; and Euripides, the several firslfruils whicli were
90
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[A.D.
due to their several gods. But in express terms the tenth of their substance was offered unto the heathen gods, and consequently unto the heathen priests : for so it appeareth by Lio Camillus, they gave the tentli of their corn unto Apollo and the Ephesian Diana. But above all other gods they were given to Hercules ; for not only, accord- ing to Plutarch, many men offered the tenth of their substance unto Hercules ; but, according to Cicero, in his Natura Deorum, tithes were due unto Hercules. Nay, so commonly was the tenth part offered unto Hercules, that Hercules' part, and the tenth part, were all one in signification ; for Plautus writes, Mihi dtt rex Herculeanam partem. Lastly, Dionysius Halicarnasseus noteth, that Jupiter and Apollo sent barrenness upon the face of the earth, because men intermitted and neglected the paying of their tithes : hence then it is more than colour- able that the heathen Britons our ancestors, afore the time of Julius Caesar, paid tithes to their priests and Druids ; whether the tenth part or the eighth, I have not to define, as holding with a canon lawyer in his treatise, tithes and maintenance are due by the law of God and man, but not quota pars, namely, the tenth part, unless in places accustomed to pay it.
Thus having chalked out the paths the Christians tread in, — having been formerly beaten by the gentiles, but first made, as I told you, by the Jews, in whose steps the gentiles tread, although awry ; — by this, my instant and last place, we may perceive, that even since the time of the Gospel, and that Clmstianity was admitted into the world, the heathens in some things also began to imitate the Chris- tians : but it was diabolicd instigatione, as the ordinary phrase in indictments is. A touch of this given by Erasmus. Tertullian in his time complaineth of the devils in heathens, imitating Christian baptism : Tinget et ipse, saith Tertullian, fideles suos. And after his time you may perceive Sozomen, but especially Gregory Nazianzen, in his oration against Julian the emperor, thought it the best way to extirpate Christianity, that the heathen in all points of service and adoration should correspond with the Christian service : but it could not be effected, say they, because the Christians by faith, inwardly and in spirit, worshipped God. Arnobius notes, because the Christians' God was not visible, the heathens call the Christians atheists.
Out of this precedent discourse the travelling bee, that is, the lionest subject of this realm, with me, will reason thus : If our fore- fathers, which were enlightened only by natural reason, would have so good orders in their temples at their worshipping of false and superstitious gods ; what great care should Christians have for enjoin- ing and observing of comely and godly ordinances in the worship- ])ing nf the true and everlasting God !
I{)0,).]
PERIOD OF JAMES 1.
A.D. 1603—1625.
To Whitgift succeeded, in the primacy, Bancroft bishop of London. This prelate really exercised towards the anti- episcopalians all that rigour of which his predecessor is sometimes accused. And although, by ejecting the most im- practicable nonconformist ministers from their preferments, and by other severities, he in some degree silenced the opponents of the establishment, yet the calm so procured was delusive : the overstrained chords of ecclesiastical authority, when, at Bancroft's decease, in the year 1610, they were imprudently relaxed by the hands of Abbot, who followed, could not again bear to be restored even to a moderate tension. Two great monuments of the ecclesiastical labours of Bancroft's primacy remain, — the Canons, and the present authorised English Scriptures. The publication of King James's Bible did not, indeed, take place till the beginning of the primacy of Abbot ; on the other hand, the design has its date, as we have seen, from the conference at Hampton Court ; the credit, never- theless, of effecting that pious work, to which our literature and national character are so deeply indebted, belongs to the presidency of Bancroft.
The atrocious attempt, known in English history as the Gunpowder Treason, was followed by salutary consequences. The indignation it excited confirmed the national mind in that wholesome abhorrence of the treacherous and cruel spirit of popery, which compassion for the sufferings of the Ro- manists, in Elizabeth's reign, had begun to soften. Among the causes which precipitated the ruin of the Stuarts, were James's contempt of that national aversion to Romanism ; a sentiment which he displayed in his eager pursuit of an alliance with Spain, by means of the prince's marriage ; — the actual formation of a similar alliance by his unfortunate .son
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HISTORICAL SKETCH.
[A.D.
with another popish country ; — and, lastly, the countenance consequently given to a faith for ever hateful to the English.
Our Church is neither Calvinistic nor Arminian, but I Apostolical. Her Reformation had been effected, and her formularies were sent forth, before either of those watch-words of religious faction was, or could be, known. The temper as- cribed to the excellent Dr. Field, in a passage already quoted, viz. that on such points as the doctrines of predestination and reprobation " he did not think fit to be too positive in defining any thing, to turn matters of opinion into matters of faith," — was the temper, in general, of her orthodox children. By degrees, however, in proportion as the views of discipline, imported from abroad, found more numerous abettors, in that proportion, and by the same ever-increasing party, an undue prominence was naturally assigned to the predestinarian theory with which they were connected. Doctrinal Puritanism followed disciplinarian ; and was identical with those principles, which, with more or less of correctness and of definite meaning, later times have coupled with the name of Calvin. It had even extended farther; for many clergymen, while they regai-ded the institutes of the great Genevan divine as an authoritative exposition of credenda, at the same time dutifully conformed to the discipline of the Anglican Church. But this drowsy acquiescence in Calvin's orthodoxy was rudely interrupted, just as its influence seemed threatening to become nearly universal. It was one effect of the enquiry, which a few theological scholars had begun, into the opinions of the fathers, to check this influence, and turn the current another way. A conflict suddenly began, on this point, at Cambridge — always more inclined to favour the Calvinian theory than '-^ the sister university. Peter Baro, a learned Frenchman, Mar- garet Professor of Divinity there, took much lower ground on this question than his equally learned contemporary Whit- aker, its decided advocate, and a divine of high authority and repute. The two professors were publicly at variance ; and the reverend heads of the university were shocked to find that the fashion of questioning the absolute decrees and the certainty of faith, was spreading among the juniors. They appealed to Archbishop Whitgift, before whom the matter was discussed in the palace at Lambeth ; and the issue of this conference was a series of nine propositions, hence known as the Lambetli Articles," affirming, in language of
1618.]
SYNOD OF DORT.
93
little moderation, the peculiar views of Calvin. Had these propositions been engrafted by authority on the Thirty-nine Articles, according to the wishes of their promoters, and as was formerly proposed by the learned Dr. John Reynolds, at the Hampton-Court conference, a mark of pernicious par- tizanship would have been thereby set upon our formularies, and the pulpits and preferments of the Church of Eng- land would have been closed against all but the friends of that harsh and questionable theology. But no such sanction has been extended to them.
The disposition to return to a more moderate view of these profoundly abstruse doctrines, was perhaps confirmed some years afterwards by the occurrence, in the United Pro- vinces, of a similar demonstration, though with a different result. There the disputes between the Arminians or Re- monstrants (as they were there called) and the Calvinists, or contra-Remonstrants, rose to such a height as to disturb the peace of society, and render the public settlement of the disputed points indispensable. For this purpose the Synod of Dort was convened, in November, 16I8 ; and the governments of all states in which protestantism was tolerated being invited to send delegates, five divines, of whom Hall and Davenant were two, with Carleton, bishop of LlandaflF at their head, were dispatched by James to do credit to the assembly. Political motives must have mainly determined the king to this step ; for it was clearly foreseen that the victory was to be given to the contra-Remonstrants ; and James, if he cared seriously for the subject in dispute, or warmly sided with either party, was certainly not then a Calvinist. The ex- cellent persons deputed on this delicate service were treated with peculiar honour, and were enabled, by their united dis- cretion and ability, to further the objects of the meeting, with- out betraying the principles or wounding the constitution of the Church. On the famous " five points" of difference between the parties, viz. election, redemption by Christ's death, original sin, conversion by grace, and final persever- ance, which formed the chief topics of discussion, they fol- lowed a middle way ; maintaining generally the certainty of salvation to the elect, with the possibility of it to all who are within reach of the gospel : this both Davenant and Hall considered to be the sense of our Articles. In the end, the Remonstrant divines were driven from the synod, and such of
94
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
l^. D.
them as refused to submit to its decrees, within a limited time, were banished the country. These harsh decisions, and the cruel persecutions of the Arminian party which followed, can- not in any degree be charged on the English divines, who had previously departed, with honour, from the assembly and the states.
The lesson to be gathered from the results of the con- ference at Dort, is supposed to have been by no means lost upon observant minds in England. Yet it is reasonable to doubt, whether any national benefit followed from the delega- tion of English divines, sufficient to compensate the indecorum of seating a bishop in an assembly, over which a presbyter presided, and of their assisting in the suppression of that party towards which the opinions of the most eminent clergy of their own church, with those of the king himself, were rapidly approximating. Be this as it may, a strong line, marked on either side with the distinct names of " Calvinist" and "Arminian," was henceforth to divide, each into two parties, the clergy and people of England. The Calvinists belonged, mostly, to that party in the state, which, re- garding the progressive as the first principle in the con- stitution, contended for popular freedom, for the limitation of prerogative, and the security of individual rights ; the Arminians, being the court party, clung, on the contrary, to the opposite principle of permanence or conservatism, and popularly incurred the odium due to supporters of arbitrary power. In the harangues to which the people delighted to listen, whether from the Puritan pulpits or the patriot benches of the commons house of parliament, as well as in the bold and vigorous pamphlets with which the press now began to teem, the term " Arminian" was habitually employed, in company with, or as an equivalent for, a papist and a favourer of tyranny. What rendered these dissensions the more lament- able was, that, on both sides, the imputation was frequently unjust, and the two parties might have met on a common ground of orthodoxy. Montague, who, about the close of king James's reign, was so severely called in question, for drawing the distinction which it has been endeavoured here to point out, between the opinions of Calvin and the doctrines of our Church, thus nobly defends himself from what was in those days the dangerous as well as odious charge of Arminianism.
1625.]
DEATH OF KING JAMES I.
95
" I disavow," writes he, " in liis Appello Ca-sarem, the name and title of Arminian. — I am not, nor would be accounted willingly, Ar- minian, Calvinist, or Lutheran (names of division), but a Christian. For my fivith was never taught by the doctrines of men. I was not baptized into the belief, or assumed by grace into the family of any of these. I will not pin my belief unto any man's sleeve, carry he his head ever so high ; not unto St. Augustine, or any ancient father, nedum unto men of lower rank. A Christian I am, and so glory to be ; only denominated of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Master, by whom I never was as yet so wTonged, that I would relinquish willingly that royal title, and exchange it for any of his menial servants. And farther 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 him- self of any the most eminent amongst them. — Again, for Armini- anism, I must and do protest before God and his angels, idque in verbo sacerdotis, the time is yet to come that I ever 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, and betook myself to scripture, the rule of faith, interpreted by antiquity, the best ex- positor 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 farther off to cisterns. 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."
It was for sentiments such as these, that this learned clergyman was brought up for censure before the house of commons, as " guilty of superstitious innovations, and an ill instrument between the king and parliament," and therefore voted unfit for any church preferment'.
Such was the temper of the period when King James died, and Charles I. ascended a throne outwardly secure, but really hollow, tottering, and endangered by nothing so much as by its union with a Church devoted to destruction, equally by the rage of her enemies and the infatuation of her friends.
Montague was afterwards promoted to a bishoprick, and is said by Neal to have behaved with great and illegal rigour
' The same pure and wise sentiments were discovered by Hall at Dort : — " What," asks that lover of peace, " have we to do with the titles of Re- monstrants and contra-Remonstrants, of
Calvinists and Arminians ? We are Christians : let us be like-minded — io-o- yj/uxot. We are one body : let us be of one mind ! "
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HISTORICAL SKETCH.
CA.D.
towards the Puritans. Such was certainly not the conduct of all who occupied that station in those difficult times. Morton, Hall, and Ussher are acknowledged, even by noncon- formist writers, to have exhibited, in the episcopal office, a mildness of temper, and a considerateness of demeanour, not inferior to their distinguished learning and abilities. These admirable churchmen will each have a place in the present division of our series ; the first in order, though the survivor of the others, being that model of an English prelate, the blameless, mild, and liberal Bishop Morton.
1603.]
BISHOP MORTON.
A.D. 1600—1659.
Thomas Mokton, born at York, in the year 1564, was one of a family of nineteen, the children of a reputable mercer in that city. The family was descended from the same stock as that which, in the reign of King Henry VII. pro- duced the archbishop and cardinal of the same name; Bishop Morton, however, " would not receive, nor so much as look upon, a very fair and large descent of his pedigree, when it was presented unto him, though he liberally rewarded the person that presented it." He was brought up at St. John's College, Cambridge, under the celebrated Dr. Whit- taker; became a scholar on that foundation in 1584, a fellow in 1592, and remained in residence at the university imtil he had taken the degree of B.D. in 1598. He was then presented to the rectory of Long Marston, near York ; — a spot which he survived to see covered with a terrible noto- riety. An incident occurred, during his occupation of the living of Marston, which is celebrated as an honourable, though probably not unparalleled, instance of " heroical cha- rity" in a clergyman. In the year l602, while the plague was ravaging that part of the country, Morton paid regular visits to the pest-house at York, thronged as it was with victims of that frightful disease. His chief object was to ad- minister religious consolation to the inmates; but, in order to make his appearance among them more acceptable, he usually took with him a supply of provisions. On these occasions, he would not allow a servant to attend him, but saddled and unsaddled his horse himself, and, farther to secure his family from infection, had a door made in his house to communicate directly with his own private apartment.
In l603, Morton went as chaplain with Lord Evers, ambassador to the emperor and the king of Denmark ; and VOL. I. 7
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BISHOP MORTON.
[A. D.
this opportunity he zealously employed in opening an acquaint- ance with the learned in the northern countries of Europe.
By Elizabeth's death he was suddenly recalled home, where, from this time preferment followed him rapidlv. A stall in York Cathedral was given to him by Archbishop Matthew, and he was presented by the king to the deanery of Gloucester. Thence he removed, after three years, to that of Winchester; being succeeded in Gloucester by Field, and at Winchester succeeding to Abbot, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury.
It was soon after his being appointed to Gloucester, that he gave a proof of his personal disinterestedness, and his anxiety to serve the cause of religion, by offering to resign Long Marston to Donne, as an inducement to that remarkable scholar to take holy orders : in this object he did not imme- diately succeed ; but his persuasions ultimately prevailed over the scruples of his gifted friend.
The year 1616 saw Morton raised to the see of Chester, — a diocese vexed, like most others, in those times, with the restlessness of both Romish recusants and Puritan noncon- formists. The scruples of the Puritans were chiefly directed against the use of the surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, and the ring in marriage. Having ineffectually sought to satisfy them on these points in a personal con- ference, the bishop made a further appeal to that party, by publishing his treatise in Defence of the three Innocent Ceremonies. AVith a view, on the other hand, to check the intrigues of the Romanists, he was, shortly afterwards, in- strumental to a measure of more questionable character.
It was the policy of that faction to withdraw the people from the established service, by encouraging all those sports and recreations, which had formerly been allowed on Sundays. In endeavouring to check this abuse, the bishop had, on first coming into the diocese, incurred some degree of unpopularity. It chanced, at this juncture, that King James passed through the northern counties on his way from Scotland, in no good humour with the severities of ecclesiastical discipline. To his majesty the aggrieved party appealed ; and with so much success, that on the following Sunday the congregations within the churches were disturbed at their devotions by the "rude merriment" of pipers and dancers in their vicinity. This was not to be endured. The bishop immediately con- sented to a compromise, by drawing up, at the command
1632.]
BISHOP MORTON.
99
of the king, a paper of restrictions, on condition of observing which, that part of the population whose laborious callings forbad them all recreation during six days of the week, were permitted to exercise themselves at certain games, on Sundays after divine service. Such was the origin of that famous Declaration concerning lawful sports, the republica- tion of which, twenty years later, raised so much obloquy against Charles the First and Archbishop Laud. That so much freedom might be apt to degenerate into licentiousness, is sufficiently obvious; yet piety, policy and prejudice, exag- gerated the actual ill consequences ; for, in effect, the peo- ple disregarded the order, and refused to be merry by royal permission.
Morton was translated, in lfil8, to the see of Lichfield and Coventry; and, finally, received the mitre of Durham, in l632. A worthier or more efficient master of the wealth and power of the palatine see could hardly have been selected. In the administration of those no less than sovereign rights which were then attached to Durham, Bishop Morton conducted himself with extraordinary prudence, liberality, and moderation ; for which last quality, in every sense of the term, he is said by his biographer to have been eminently remarkable. " His palatine prerogative he exercised with the utmost mildness: for wreck he never demanded more than an acknowledgment, sufficient to pre- serve the rights of his successors : in deodands and forfeitures, of which several important instances occurred during his ponti- ficate, he never claimed above one fourth, and, in every case of peculiar distress, he remitted the whole forfeiture. In the still more important privilege of wardship, he conducted him- self with the most exemplary kindness and forbearance, con- sidering himself bound to act as a parent and guardian both to the person and estate of the minors. Fines on the renewals of leases (one chief source of the ecclesiastical revenues) he never settled himself, but referred them to the arbitration of four in- different and neighbouring gentlemen ; and with the view of preventing the possibility of misrepresentation or imposition, either from his steward or servants, as often as he quitted his diocese he left a commission with the high sheriff, and some other gentry, to determine all differences which might arise in his absence betwixt himself and his tenants'." He was never
' Purtees'.s History of Diirhrnn.
100
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plaintiff in any lawsuit but once ; and then let the action drop immediately when he perceived that the lawyers had drawn up a statement of his case stronger than the facts seemed to him to warrant. A great object of his benevolent care, for which he had already laboured while bishop of Lich- field, was the augmentation of the numerous poor livings in his diocese. " Lastly," we are assured by his biographer, Dr. Barwick, " he enriched no relative, and never purchased one foot of land, nor other temporal possession, in all his long life, notwithstanding his plentiful income ; but as his revenues increased, so were they expended in hospitable, charitable, and other Christian uses."
Nor was this bishop less vigilant or laborious in the dis- charge of such duties as were more strictly episcopal. He him- self examined all candidates for holy orders, that he might be fully satisfied respecting the learning and piety of those whom he ordained ; and bestowed the benefices in his gift on those clergymen only of whose worthiness he had had personal proof. He zealously enforced among his clergy the important duty of catechizing, and largely distributed to the poor and ignorant of his diocese that best of tracts, the Church Cate- chism. His acuteness and dexterity in disputing with the Romanists were celebrated in his lifetime ; and (as Laud afterwards vainly did before his accusers,) he could have adduced a long list of converts whom he had brought into the fold of the Church, most of them persons of rank and education. He was a diligent preacher, and indeed so " apt to teach," that he made every place where he came a school of learning and virtue. In short, during the whole time that he was a bishop, a period of nearly forty-four years, " there was hardly a day, nor scarcely an hour in that day, whereof some good account may not be given."
Nor were the personal habits and disposition of Bishop Morton less suited to his place and character. While he exercised a noble and generous hospitality, his abstemiousness in his own person was that of an anchorite. He would often abridge, and sometimes wholly forego, the one meal a day, which constituted, almost throughout his life, his ordinary diet. Wine he seldom tasted, until, in his extreme old age, he with difficulty consented to a more frequent observance of St. Paul's advice, to " take a little for his often infirmities." Nothing less than the same imperious reasons, — the burden
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of more than eighty years, with the growing infirmities of that advanced stage of life, — could induce him to quit the straw mattrass and single quilt, up to that period " his usual lodging," for the luxury of a feather-bed. His study- gown, a coarse black hair rug, might not have misbecome an anchorite. His ordinary apparel was of the utmost plainness consistent with his station ; and whenever he had new clothes, he gave the old away. He never would lay aside his clerical costume, even when it was hazardous to appear in it in public. " He was often up at his devo- tion and study before four o'clock, even after he had lived above fourscore years ; and yet very seldom went to bed till after ten, and then had always a servant to read some book to him, till such time as sleep did surprise him ; and so had he always when he travelled in his coach, that his journey might not be too great a hinderance to his study. His fast- ings, his prayers, his alms, and other exercises of godliness, were both frequent and affectionate. Exceeding great was his fervour in prayer ; whereunto he seldom answered with a single Amen ; and at which duty he never kneeled upon a cushion, nor ever prayed but upon his knees till he was con- fined to his death-bed; and even then would never lie with his cap on his head, if he either prayed himself or any other prayed by him, while he had strength to pull it off with his own hands." His personal moderation and self-denial were wholly unconnected with meanness or selfish parsimony. When King Charles went into the north against the Scots, Morton entertained his majesty and the officers of his army at the cost of ^£'1500. per day — a large sum in those times, and in so cheap a part of the country. Donne, whom an impru- dent marriage had thrown into distress, and whose merits the bishop knew, was for years liberally supplied by him with money, both before and after his ordination. His reputation, and correspondence with learned men on the continent of Eu- rope, procured him many visits from poor scholars, both foreign and native, whom he never failed to entertain hospitably and dismiss with a present of money, to bestow (as he delicately suggested) in the purchase of good books, to keep them in remembrance of their visit. At Bishop's Auckland he en- dowed a free school ; " and it was very rare if he had not some plants in the garden, as well as in the nursery of learning and piety, which he watered at his own charge." In these
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words the writer of his life alludes to his having maintained some young men of remarkable promise in his own college at Cambridge ; to which place he was otherwise also a liberal benefactor.
Such was the prelate, who, at the commencement of the tumults in the first year of the long parliament, was in danger of being torn in pieces by the populace, excited and set on by "the patriots." " Pull him out of his coach," cried some ; others said, "Nay, he is a good man;" "But for all that," vo- ciferated a third party, " he is a bishop." " And I have often," records Barwick, " heard him say, he believed he should not have escaped alive, if a leading man among that rabble had not cried out, ' Let him go and hang himself which he was wont to compare to the words of the angel « uttered by Balaam's ass." In that parliament also, to quote the narrative of Fuller', "the displeasure of the house of commons fell heavy upon him ; partly for subscribing the bishops' protestation for their votes in parliament ; partly for refusing to resign the seal of his bishopric, and baptizing a child of John earl of Rutland with the sign of the cross ; two faults which, compounded together, in the judgment of honest and wise men, amounted to a high innocence!'''
Being at that time seventy-six. Bishop Morton was one of those three among the protesting prelates, who, in consideration of their great age and infirmities, were committed to the care of the usher of the black rod, instead of being sent to the Tower with their brethren, — an indulgence more costly than he could, even then, afford. It was not until three years later, that the house proceeded against him on the two other charges mentioned by Fuller. He was hardly liberated from custody, when the passing of the bill for the abolition of the episcopal order deprived him of every source of income from his see. He nevertheless returned to his house in London, and continued to reside there without molestation ; either sheltered by that obscurity which poverty and years can throw over men the most illustrious of their time, or pro- tected by the involuntary respect which his character and inoffensive life inspired. The commons even voted him an annual allowance of £800, a much larger income than was assigned to any of his mitred brethren. But there the
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generosity of that assembly stopped. No fund was charged with the payment ; and, but for the interference of the elder Vane, Morton, who had fed so many at his board, must have become wholly dependent on such friends as even in those evil days could feel for an octogenarian divine, already upwards of thirty years a bishop, and more venerable for piety, probity, and learning, than for years and station. Through Vane's ex- ertions he obtained £1000. from Goldsmith's Hall, (the public treasury of the period,) in part of the parliamentary grant. With this sum he paid his debts, and purchased an annuity of .£200. on which he subsisted till his death.
But the good bishop was not to go down to the grave without farther annoyance. The soldiers who were sent to garrison Durham House, where hitherto he had been permitted to remain, expelled him from it in his eighty-fourth year. He then, at the earnest solicitation of the earl and countess of Rutland, became a temporary inmate at their mansion in the Strand. Growing, however, impatient of being burdensome, and thinking the air of the country might better suit his de- clining years, he left that noble family, and resided, for a time, in Hertfordshire, and afterwards in Bedfordshire. His last re- move, on this side the grave, was to the seat of the Yelvertons. The commencement of his acquaintance with that family is characteristic and affecting. Circumstances determined Mor- ton to return to London. Thither, therefore, he was travel- ling, with about £60. (the whole of his remaining property) in his pocket, when he was overtaken by Sir Christopher Yelver- ton, who entered into conversation with the venerable old man, and asked him who he was. Morton, though himself unknown, knew Sir Christopher, who, like so many others, had sought safety and popularity by complying with the times, and replied, " I am that old man, the bishop of Durham, notwithstanding all your votes." After further discourse. Sir Christopher asked him whither be was going. " To London," he made answer, "to live a little while, and then to die." In the end, such a mutual regard grew between them, that the good bishop yielded to the earnest importunity of the baronet, to accom- pany him home to his house, at Easton Mauduit, in North- amptonshire. Here, surrounded with " all the tender re- spect and care from the whole family which a father could expect from his children," he employed himself in giving some finishing touches to the education of Sir Christopher's eldest
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son, afterwards the accomplished Sir Henry Yelverton. His death took place some few months after his domestication in this family, in September l659, when he was in the 95th year of his age.
The published writings of this estimable prelate are numerous, and chiefly controversial. They appear calculated rather to command respect for his sound judgment and accu- rate learning, than to charm by the glow of eloquence, or to move by any expression of powerful feeling. They are as follows : —
Apologia Catholica. Part 1, 4to. l605. Part 2. 4to. 1605. Before the publication of the second part of this laborious work, the occurrence of the Gunpowder Plot called forth his next production.
An Exact Discovery of Romish Doctrine, in the case of Conspiracy and Rebellion, Sfc. l605. This being an- swered by an anonymous Roman Catholic, the bishop re- plied, in
A full Satisfaction concerning a double Romish Iniquity. l606; the design of which was farther to expose the disloyalty and equivocation of the Jesuits. One Persons, a member of that society, celebrated in the controversies of the period, now interposed in a tract entitled, A Treatise of Mitigation : with this writer Morton continued the controversy in two other pamphlets.
The Catholic Appeal for Protestants, ^c. fol. 1609.
Answer to Theophilus Miggens. 1609.
A Defence of the Innocency of the Three Ceremonies of the Church of England, ^c. 4to. 1619. See page 98.
Causa Regia. 4to. 162O. This work, like Bishop An- drewes's Tortura Torti, was written by command of King James, as an answer to Bellarmine's book, De Officio Principis Christiani.
The Grand Imposture of the Church of Rome, ^c. 4to. 1628. (2nd edition). In this treatise, which is dedicated to King Charles, the author proves the negative of the po- sition. That the Roman Church is the Holy and Apostolic Church, &c. out of which there is no salvation.
Of the Institution of the Sacrament, c^c. {by some called) the Mass, &f. fol. l635. This was the second and an en- larged edition, previously to the publication of which appeared
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some strictures on the former, to which the author replied in a pamphlet.
Antidotum, Adversus Ecclesice Romance de Merito ex Co?idigno venerium. 4to. l637-
Replica, sive Refutatio Confutationis C. R. 4to. l638. A defence of his Catholic Apology, against the attack of an anonymous author, supposed to be the bishop of Chalce- don.
Let Every Soul be Subject, SfC. Rom. xiii. 1. A sermon preached before the king at Newcastle, May 5, 1639-
De Eucharistia Controversies Decisio. 4to. 1640. This is his work on the Mass, re-written.
A Sermon on the Resurrection, preached at the Spital in London. 8vo. l641.
The Presentment of a Schismatic. A sermon on 1 Corinth, xi. l6. preached at St. Paul's. 4to. l642.
Confessions and Proofs of Protestant Divines, <SfC. 4to. 1644. This tract appeared, with some others, in a volume published at Oxford, by Archbishop Ussher.
EzekieVs Wheels, <^c. 1653. The subject of this book, the last which Bishop Morton lived to publish, is his medi- tations on God's Providence, — "a very fit subject," justly remarks Dean Barwick, " for his declining years, in these sad times."
In addition to the above, eleven treatises, besides sermons, are enumerated by Dr. Barwick, as left in MS. at the bishop's death, — most of them in the custody of that faithful chaplain and biographer.
The pages which follow constitute a part of Bishop Mor- ton's last will. They contain the profession of his faith, his approbation of the discipline of the Church, and a vindication of his innocence from a malicious statement advanced by the popish party shortly before his death, in which he was said to have publicly attested the truth of the well-known fiction, invented to discredit the reformed Church of England, that the consecration of Parker to the see of Canterbury, in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, took place at the Nag's Head Inn, Cheapside. Dr. Barwick styles this composition a ser- mon : " it is indeed," in the doctor's opinion, " the most Bolemn and elaborate sermon he ever made."
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BISHOP morton"'s profession of faith, &c.
In tlie first ages of the CliiU'cli it was a very excellent custom, that whensoever any was consecrated bishop of any patriarchal or chief see, he should by an encyclical epistle give an account of his faith to his brethren of the same order and dignity, for the better strengthening of that catholic communion, which the bishops and churches then had, and still should preserve among themselves. And this (by the way) was an homage as well paid as received by the bishops of Rome in those times ; which is a sufficient evidence of a co-ordination, but could never have consisted with their now chal- lenged monarchy in the church.
And though the reason be different, the design is no less necessary, in this last and worst age of the Church, for all bishops whomsoever to leave some testimony of their faith to the world, when it shall please God to take them out of it ; that so neither their names may be traduced after their death, nor any weak brother misled by father- ing any false opinions upon them, whereof they were no way guilty.
And this I think will be as necessary for me to perform as any other of my order in some respects, though not so necessary in some other ; which is the cause botli wliy I leave this short account of myself to the world, and why it is no larger.
For though I have sufficiently declared myself to the world, both by my life and labours to be a true, orthodox, and sincere Christian and Protestant, according to the doctrine and discipline of the primitive Church, professed also and practised in the Church of England, (seeing I have been a writer above fifty years, and have passed through all the orders of the church, deacon, priest, and bishop, and have been rector of three churches, prebendary in one, dean of two, and bishop of three dioceses successively), yet 1 cannot think myself secure from the malignancy of false and virulent tongues and pens after my death, more than I have been in my life ; and the rather because I have [sustained the office of a bishop so many years in the Church (which some perverse people make criminal in itself) and have by my vvTitings discliarged a good conscience in asserting the truth against the opposites on both sides ; for which the father of Hes will not be wanting to stir up enemies against me.
1 do therefore here solemnly profess, in the presence of Almighty God, that by his grace preventing and assisting me, I have always lived, and purpose to die in the true catholic faith, wherein I was baptized ; firmly believing all the canonical scripture of the Old and New Testament, and fully assenting to every article of all those three creeds (commonly called the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene or Con- stantinopolitan Creed, and the Athanasian Creed) which in the ancient
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Church were accounted the adequate rules of faith, and have accord- ingly been received as such by the Church of England.
As for councils, that are free and general, consisting of competent persons lawfully summoned, and proceeding according to the word of God (such as were the four first, viz. those of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and ChaJcedon) I do reverence them as the supreme tribunals of the Church of Christ upon earth, for judging of heresies, and com- posing differences in the Church. And as I utterly condemn all heresies that have been condemned by any of them, so I heartily wish that all the present differences in tlie Church of God might be de- termined by such a free general council as any of those four already mentioned.
The composers of those ancient differences in the Church were bishops, (as it cannot be denied), concerning which order I profess to believe, that it was instituted by the apostles who were infalhbly inspired by the Holy Ghost, and approved by Christ in the Revelation of St. John ; and consequently to be of divine institution. And I had never sustained the burden of that office above forty years in the Church, if this had not been always my judgment concerning bishops. I pray God restore them again to those ,poor afflicted parts of his Church, where either the office or the exercise of it is wantinsr !
That the bishop of Rome hath any more power over bishops than other primates and patriarchs have in their several sees respectively, is a thing which I have often and largely disproved in my writings. All that the ancient Church did allow him was a priority of order, but no supremacy of monarchical power. And I heartily wish that this, and all other differences now on foot between us and the Church of Rome, might be decided by the doctrine and practice of the church for the first five hundred years after Christ.
If I had not believed, upon sufficient evidence, that the succession of bishops in the Church of England had been legally derived from the apostles, I had never entered into that high caUing, much less continued in it thus long. And therefore I must here expressly vindicate myself from a most notorious untruth, which is cast upon me by a late Romish writer, that I should pubUckly, in the house of peers, the beginning of the last parliament, assent to that abominable fiction which some Romanists have devised concerning the conse- crating of Matthew Parker at the Nag's Head tavern, to be archbishop of Canterbury ; for I do here solemnly profess, I have always believed that fable to proceed from the father of lies, as the public records still extant do evidently testify. Nor do I remember that ever I heard it mentioned, in that or any other parliament that ever I sat in.
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As for our brethren the Protestants of foreign reformed churches, the most learned and judicious of themselves have bewailed their misery for want of bishops. And therefore God forbid that I should be so uncharitable as to censure them for no churches, for that which is their infelicity, not their fault. But as for our perverse Protestants at home, I cannot say the same of them, seeing they impiously reject that which the others piously desire. And therefore I cannot flatter those in this Church who have received their ordination only from mere presbyters, so far as to think them lawfully ordained. St. Jerome himself reserved to the bishop the power of ordination.
Seeing therefore I have been (as I hear) so far misunderstood by some among us, as to be thought to approve of their ordination by mere presbyters, because I once said, it might be valid in case of necessity ; I do here profess my meaning to be that I never thought there was any such necessity in the Church of England as to warrant it, where (blessed be God for it !) there be so many bishops still surviving : and therefore I desire them not to mistake my meaning in that saying.
Wheresoever there is a formed church, there must of necessity be some set form of God's worship ; otherwise it will quickly fall in pieces, as woeful experience hath taught us. And of all forms of God's worship in the whole Church of Christ, none in my judgment did ever exceed the Liturgy of the Church of England, both for decency, edification, and devotion, in all the several 'offices of it. If the as- semblers themselves, that first laid it aside, could have found any faults in it, their modesty was not so great, (if we may judge of it by their other actions,) as to have concealed them from the world.
Having thus far prevented the uncharitableness of others against myself, I do here from my heart protest my unfeigned charity to all the world ; and more particularly both towards those Papists and perverse Protestants whom I have so much endeavoured to undeceive both by my sermons, conferences, and writings. It was only their errors whereat I was offended : I have always loved and pitied their persons, and prayed and laboured for the right informing of their minds, and the eternal salvation of their souls. But yet my common charity to them must not supersede my more particular love and obligation which I have to those truly humble and meek souls in the Church of England (and more especially in my own diocese of Durham) wlio still stand firm upon the fomidation of a sound faith, and continue obedient to the doctrine of God's word and discipline of his Church, without wavering either to the right hand or to the left. And my earnest exliortation to them is, that they would still continue their former affections, (notwithstanding all temptations to tiie con-
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trary,) both to the doctrine, discipline, government, and form of worship, of this poor afflicted Cliurch ; whicli if I did not believe to be the securest way for the salvation of their souls, I had not ventured my own upon the same bottom.
This is the only legacy I now can, and the best I ever could leave them, beside my prayers ; wherein I commend them all to the blessing of Almighty God, and to the glory of his saving grace in Christ Jesus. Life of Bishop Morton.
ON THE CONJUNCTION OF THE CHURCH AND COMMONWEALTH.
In setting up a public church in any place, it cometh to pass that the church and commonwealth are joined together; the which in a private state of a church have nothing to do the one with the other. For there the church either lurketh in secret, if she have not the favour of the civil ruler, or at the least dwelleth in a private house if she have a toleration. But now, wlienas any people generally to- gether with their magistrates do profess the faith, the church may be compared to Esther, who was taken from her private state, wherein she lived, and being brought forth into open and public place, was married to the king ; so is the conjunction of the church and the com- monwealth. Wherein we have these points to consider, first, what is the bond of this conjunction ; secondly, the manner of it ; thirdly, whether state is the superior; fourthly, how they meddle with each other ; and lastly, the commodities and discommodities which either the church or tlie commonwealth reapeth by this means, or the changes and alterations which happen to either of them. For the first, the bond of this conjunction is the civil power, which is the very fountain and head from the which botli these estates do flow, and by the which it is brought to pass, that there is a public church in any place : for howsoever a great multitude of people may be converted only by the ministry of the word, yet we do not see that all generally do profess the faith, but only whether the power of the magistrate joined to the word doth make the gospel to be publickly received, in that it maketh all that are members of the civil body to be members of the church also. Hence it is that as soon as the civil power ceaseth to maintain religion, there public churches fall to the ground ; the bond being broken whereby they were tied to the commonwealth. So we read Judg. ii. 7, 19, that the people of Israel served God as long as Joshua, the elders, or their judges lived, but as soon as they died they fell away to idolatry. Likewise in the first time of the gospel, there were no public churches for divers hundred years, and all for want of this bond of Christian rulers ; but as soon as the
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Roman emperors did embrace tlie gospel, tlien were public churches set up in many places.
In the second place, we are to see what manner of conjunction this is, to wit, whether that the church and commonwealth thus joined together, make one body or state ruled by one and the same head, or else are still two diverse bodies, absolute and perfect each in itself, without the otiier, and ordered by the own proper head in all matters belonging unto it. For answer hereof, it hath been thought that in this conjunction there are two bodies not only diverse, but even clean opposite, and contrary the one to the other in every respect, that they are ordered by two diverse supreme heads, and that all the functions of these bodies are of so contrary natures, that they cannot lawfully meet together in the same subject. This opinion, which seemeth not to be agreeable to the truth, hath risen of a reverend, religious, yea, as it proved at length, a superstitious opinion of the ecclesiastical estate, with too base and vile an opinion of the civil state, the which hath seemed so profane and unholy, as it could not in any respect be joined with the other, without defiling and profaning it. But the word of God teacheth us that the civil power is a holy ordi- nance of God, instituted by God chiefly for this end, to intermeddle with ecclesiastical matters, and not only to suffer and tolerate religion, as it doth in a private church, but also to set up and maintain it, yea, wholly to effect it (although by the means and ministry of others) in all places whither the said power doth stretch itself. As for the distinction of the civil and ecclesiastical state, although it may be used to put a difference betwixt civil and ecclesiastical matters, yet if thereby we mean in a pubUc church there is added to the civil state another full and perfect body, endued with full authority to begin and effect all matters belonging to itself, and not relying upon the other, but only using the help of it against outward violence, as when two distinct nations do join themselves in league together for their greater safety, then we think far otherwise of these things, than the word of God doth permit ; according to the which the political body together with a public church are but one body, moved and ordered by one and the same head. For as when any people being barbarous, rude, inexpert in feats of war, and altogether destitute of human knowledge and all good literature, become civil, courteous, warlike, wise, and learned, there are not so many new estates or bodies added to the common- wealth, but only the first state of it is made so many ways better ; so it is whenas a people of pagans and infidels become the wor- shippers of the true God. For there is not a new body or state, but only the quality of religion is added to the civil body, or rather idolatry is changed into the true worship of God. The which doth
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no more make a distinct body than idolatry doth in a heathenisii com- monwealtli. As for the people, they can be no more said to be another body because they are religious, than for that they are a learned and warlike people ; but for the ministers and rulers of the church, it may seem necessary to be granted, that they do either make a distinct or perfect body, or that the ministry is a member of the civil body. Whereunto we answer, that the ministry is not a body in itself, neither is it the head of the body of the church, but only is a member of the body of the commonwealth, distinguished from the rest in nature, use, and object, and excelling the other by a divine holiness, which it hath more than any other part or function of this body. The truth hereof is to be laid open by declaring, first, that this whole state, con- sisting of a political body and of a public church, hath but one head whereby the whole body is ordered, and every member of it moved in their several functions. And secondly, the offices of these two states may agree together in the same subject. The head is the civil power ; whereof we speak rather tlian of the civil magistrate, for that in many places the power is not wholly in the hands of the magistrate, but divided among the senate, the nobility, and the people. But here we speak of the whole power, the which we call the head of this body, by a usual metaphor taken from the natural bodies, wherein we see that the whole motion cometh from the head, without the which none of the members can move itself, or do any function. Thus all men do grant that the civil power is the head of this body, in regard of civil and worldly alfairs, but that it may be so called in respect of the church and of ecclesiastical matters, many do doubt, or flatly deny without any doubting; thinking that neither the civil power doth stretch itself to church-affairs, neither if it do in some respect, that it ought therefore, or may lawfully be called the head of the church. As touching this point, we are to consider, how both the function, and also the name of a head, agreeth to the civil power : for the first in the building, in the church, it pleaseth God to use the help and the ministry of men ; and that two divers ways, accord- ing to the two divers kinds of building his church, whereof the one is inward, secret, and spiritual, whenas by the ministry of the word, and the sacraments, the church is edified in knowledge, love, obe- dience, and in all manner of spiritual graces. In this part of the building Christ is the first and chief mover, yea the head of his church, unto which he giveth spiritual graces fit for this purpose : Ephes. iv. 11, " He gave some to be apostles, some evangelists, some pastors and doctors, for the gathering of his saints, and for the building of the body of Christ." Thus Christ only is the head of the whole visible church, for no creature can either appoint ecclesiastical
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functions or give spiritual graces, either to the ministers or to the people. But whenas tlie church cometh to be built in any particular place, there must be added another part of this building, more outward, apparent, and sensible than the other, to wit, whenas the spiritual building, together with the ministry of the word, which is the means of it, is not only received when it is offered, but also diligently sought after when it is wanting, and carefully preserved after that it is gotten. Tl)is kind of building also is to be performed by the ministry of man, but yet it doth not come from the same head or foun- tain. For that spiritual building cometh from Christ, as he is lord and king of his church, but this cometh from God the Father, the maker and preserver of mankind, who in great mercy and wisdom hath not left men in utter confusion, but hath given unto them the means of having a church and his true worship. This means is his own power and authority communicated to certain men for the good of the rest ; to whom he hath given this charge, that they do, as by all other means, so chiefly by building his church in those places which are within the compass of their authority, procure the good of men; so that all whosoever have the rule of any place, whether it be kingdom or country, province or city, town or family, are bound by the word of God, and namely by the general laws of magistracy, to build the church in the said place : the wliicli thing if they do neglect (as most of all the magistrates in the world in all ages have done), then they do sin against God no less than the minister being lawfully called to that fimction, who doth neglect the inward and spiritual edifving of the church. This the prophet foretold, saying that kings and queens should be nurse-fathers and niu-se-mothers to the church. Not that they should be the ministers of the word and of the spiritual nourishment unto them, but only that they should build after this outward manner. This second kind of building is in order and natiu-e the first, yea that which moveth the external action of the spiritual building, and prepareth the way for the ministry of the word, by the means whereof a church cannot be set up in any place, whether country, city, or family, till that the power, whereby the said place is ruled, do either procure or at the least suffer it. For the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, neither doth it take away the general ordinance of magistracy and order, whereby God ruleth the world, but is in respect of outward action subject unto it, and to be established and maintained by it ; for as God himself was the head and first mover in the building of the church, when at the first he sent his apostles immediately by his own authority to do it ; so also it is his will that they who do supply his place, and are after a sort gods on earth, should afterward be the first agents
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in this work. For we are not to think that rulers (by the which name we call all that have authority, whether in countries, towns, or private houses,) have the charge only of the bodies of their subjects committed unto them, but rather that their cliief care ought to be to provide for tlieir souls the true worship of God, wherein the last end and chief happiness of man consisteth, and whereunto all tem- poral benefits are to be referred : as the apostle writeth, 1 Tim. ii. 2, the md of a quiet and peaceable life procured by magistrates is the chief worship of God. For this cause civil rulers are called by God in the scripture the pastors or feeders of the people, not as if they were to feed their bodies only as shepherds do flocks of sheep, but chiefly in regard of their souls, as we may see evidently 1 Chron. xvii. 6 : " Which way soever I walked with Israel, have I spoken of building a church or temple to any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to feed my people?" In the which place we may see at whose hands God looketh for the building of his church. But it may be here asked, what if this civil power do not move in this work, whether that there should be no church or ministry of the word in that place ? or rather, if that the king, prime magistrate, or master of the family, be negligent in his duty, if not then the subject, son, or servant, in a private house, may lawfully take his work in hand, or yet the ministers of the word may begin and go on in their work, yea although they be neither set on work nor yet tolerated, but even flatly forbidden and peremptorily hindered by the said power ? For otherwise it might come to pass, by the obstinacy of rulers being enemies to the gospel, that there should be no church either public or private in any part of the world ; whereas it is the will of God tliat his church and true worship should be established in all places. And therefore it may seem that in this case the counsel and practice of the apostles is to be followed, who being forbidden by the rulers to preach the gospel, answered that it is better to obey God than man. The answer is, that as touching ordinary callings, a church cannot be built in any place by resisting the authority of the said place. For no man may, against the will of any man, rush into his house to instruct his family, or into a city to abolish idolatry, and to set up publickly the true worship of God : because howsoever every one ought to endeavour to build the church, yet we ought to keep ourselves within the compass of our own callings, and not to take upon us by violence the performance of other men's duties. For none are crowned either with due praise, or with happy success of their labours, but they who strive lawfully, howsoever it pleaseth God sometimes to accept and prosper the endeavours of those who labour in advancing liis
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worship and glory more in fervent zeal than imperfect knowledge, and so go farther in this behalf than the strictest rule in the word of God doth require or permit. As the apostles, they have an extra- ordinary calling and dispensation immediately from God himself, needfiil for the first publishing of the gospel, tlie which they were to obey, yea though it were contrary to his revealed will. But ordi- nary ministers have no callings but from men, and must square their actions according to the written word. And yet we are not to think that it is in the power of man, or of any creature to forbid the service of God ; for although all the rulers in the world should make that edict of Darius, that none should pray unto God, yet we ought not to obey it, as we see in the example of Daniel (Dan. vii. 10) ; but we speak of building a church in any place, the which work is never so generally hindered, but that God inclineth the hearts of some to set it forward. And whenas no public magistrate doth build the church, yet private men give it entertainment in their houses. As touching other particulars wherein this civil power med- dleth with the church, we are to consider them hereafter, only we are here to note down how this power may be called the head of the church, to wit, for that it is the first mover in the building of it. In the which respect not only kings and princes, but even private men wlio set up and maintain the church within their houses, may in regard of their own families be so called, and yet we do not by this means give that to man which is proper to Christ ; for first, Clurist is the head of the catholic church, but man of some particular church only ; secondly, Christ is the head not only to the whole churcli, but also to the several members of it, to whom he giveth motion by the bestowing on them the graces of his Spirit either permanent or temporary: but man is the head only in respect of the builders, namely, of the teachers and rulers of the church, and in respect of the whole body of the people, as they give themselves to be made a church. And lastly, Christ is the head of the internal and spiritual working, but man of the external building. Christ giveth gifts fit for the ministry, which make an inward calling, but man giveth the outward calling ; Christ hath appointed the offices of the ministry generally in the whole visible church, but man procureth the execution of the said offices in this or that particular place, by this or that person. So that whatsoever civil power it be, whether of princes in kingdoms, or of the people or senate in commonwealths, or of pri- vate men in their families, that buildeth the church, it may very fitly be called the head in that work. As we may see. Num. i. 15, and vii. 2, that in regard of civil affairs, tlie princes of the families, tribes, and of the people of Israel, are called the heads of them, because,
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they did first move in all public actions, and yet the person of the civil ruler, whether of the king, of senators, or of any other particular, is to be counted a member of the church as other men are. Thus we see that the church together with the civil state make not two, but one body under the same head.
Now we are to see how these two states may also agree in subject, that is, be ordered by the same persons ; for this false distinction of the body of the church from the body of the commonwealth, as it hath sprung from a false opinion of two distinct supreme heads, so it hath been confirmed by a false difference, which hath been put betwixt civil and ecclesiastical persons ; as if the having of any function in the one state, did quite cut a man off from meddling with the other, and that by reason of the contrary states, and of the functions be- longing unto them. But according to the word of God these civil and ecclesiastical callings do not so fight, but that they may meet together in one man without jarring. For it is not unlawful for one who beareth some public function, or is in any degree or place of lionour in the commonwealth, to meddle with the ordering of the church, if he have gifts from God, and a lawful calling from men, or yet from him who is already an ecclesiastical person, to have, retain, or take upon him any civil calling. The truth of this doctrine may be plainly seen in the scripture, which sheweth that both civil and ecclesiastical callings may lawfully concur in the same person ; when the state of the church doth so require. For if we do consider the church before the law, we shall find that the firstborn of the family was to the rest both a magistrate and minister ; so that although the examples of the church being in her infancy and imperfect estate, ought not wholly to be applied to the church in the time of the gospel, yet we may hereby know that there is no such contrariety in the natures of these callings, but that they may be in the same person. Likewise we read, that in the time of the law many who were appointed by God to his service did bear civil caUings. Tims did Samuel, Eli, and the rest of the priests and elders, who were unto the people as judges and lawyers, and did govern them even in the civil affairs. Lastly, if it be objected that those functions ought to be laid upon divers men, forasmuch as one man cannot be able to attend upon many callings, we answer, confessing this to be true that for the better discharging of these caUings they ought ordinarily to be committed to divers men, yet that it is no more unlawful for one man to have a civil and an ecclesiastical calling, than to have two civil callings. By that which hath been said of this second point, we may easily gather the resolution of the third question, to wit, that in this con- junction the church hath not the upper hand, neither can command
8—2
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and overrule, but is subject to the civil power as to her superior, by whose leave she came into the commonwealth, and by the which she is maintained, upholden, yea in great part ordered, as hereafter wdll appear. Yea further, we may know in part by the same con- clusion what to think of the fourth point, to wit, how these states do meddle the one with the other, and namely that the civil power doth many ways intermeddle with the church, even as the head doth with the body ; for it doth not only suffer or procure the building of it, but also effect it, not only plant it, but also establish and main- tain, yea, repair it being fallen, purge it being corrupt, and order it by ecclesiastical laws, as the process of this treatise will declare in particular. As for the church, it doth not meddle with the civil state or government of the commonwealth, but ought to leave it wholly to the civil magistrate.
Lastly, we are to consider what changes, commodities, or dis- commodities do arise either to the church or to the commonwealth by this conjunction of them in one body. And first, that former kind of civil government, whether it were the rule of one, of a few, or of many, whether the authority were absolute, or great, or con- ditional, moderate, and limited, which was in use amongst any people before they did believe, is not by this means altered, but remaineth in full force as before. For a public church may stand with any form of government, and be subject unto it without making any alteration. Yet it cutteth off whatsoever is in the civil state, in the laws, customs, or offices of it, unlawful and repugnant to the word of God : for the church cannot possibly agree and be joined with that which doth not agree with the word. Other change it maketh none, save only that the civil state becometh by this means more happy, sure, myd firm, yea more glorious and flourishing : for besides the secret blessing, which God doth many ways pour upon those countries the which do honour him by professing the name of his Son Clirist, and so do give not only a poor harbour but even public and solemn entertainment to his church, as he did bless the house of Obed- Edom, 2 Sam. vi. 11, for that the ark remained there for a season, there are evident and necessary reasons why it should so be. For there is no human laws, no fear of punishment, or hope of reward whatsoever, that can bind men so sure to the performance both of faithful and loyal obedience to their rulers, as also of all duties to their neighbom-s, as doth religion and the fear of God in the hearts of men. And although it be not to be hoped, especially in these public churches, that the hearts of all men generally should be truly possessed with the fear of God, yet the word of God being preached, leaveth even in the consciences of hypocrites a fear of committing
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heinous crimes, the which for the most part civil laws do forbid : yea, in the church the ministry of the word reproveth and also correcteth the least faults which are incident to the life of man, whereby it Cometh to pass that theft, murder, and all other such gross crimes, are not once named. Lastly, there is notliing so honourable and glorious for any people as to have the true religion established amongst them ; and nothing more shameful and ignominious, by the general consent of all men, than for any people to be blockish in divine matters, and not able to discern which is the right worship of the true God. Now let us see what the church gaineth by this bargain and covenant made with the civil state. First by this means she becometh safe from outward dangers and from the violence of ma licious persecutors, by whom private churches are continually troubled, and often quite overthrown, being neither willing to resist by force of arms their own magistrates, labouring to deface the true worship of God, neither, for the most part, able to withstand foreign invasions ; and therefore they may fitly be compared to a vineyard wliich wanteth a hedge or fence, so that all wild beasts of the forest do enter in and root it up ; but a public church is guarded by the civil power against all dangers not only outward, but also inward, arising of the stubborn wilfulness of those who will not submit themselves to the orders of the church. Hence it is, that those civil states which are well ordered, are far more fit harbours for the church, than confused commonwealths are. For whenas men are not tauglit to yield obedience to civil government, which forbidding only heinous offences is more gentle and remiss, how shall they bear the yoke of ecclesiastical government which looketh more narrowly into the lives of men, and is far more strait and sure ? So that a people subdued to civil obedience are as horses broken, and wild beasts tamed ; and may more easily be brought into the form of a church. We do confess that the power of the word of God preached is of sufficient force and power to make the most lawless and barbarous men good Christians, and as tame as lambs, and that without the help of this civil power, as we see in private churches ; yet for the preservation of the outward order of these public churches, this means is of great force. Lastly, the increase of number which cometh by this means is to be counted no small commodity, being simply considered, howsoever usually it bringeth with it confusion and imperfect state, and sundry such discommo- dities.
Treatise " Of the Church."
Du. DONNE.
A.D. 1600—1631.
The connexion between Morton and Donne, of patron and adviser on the one hand, and, in some degree of depend- ent, on the other, with the share which the bishop took in the most important step in the life of the illustrious preacher, have been referred to in the last sketch. The characters of the men, as well as their respective circumstances (the re- sult, in a great measure, of their characters), were widely different ; to which difference we may, in all probability, ascribe respectively the longevity of the one and the compara- tively early death of the other. Nevertheless the emetKeia, as Barwick calls it — the mild and equable temper — of Morton, did not, we have seen, disqualify him from appreciating at their just value the more forcible, passionate, and contrasted qualities of his witty and profound contemporai'y.
John Donne was born, in 1573, in London, of Roman Catholic parents, respectably descended on both sides ; his father, a merchant, having sprung from an ancient Welsh family, and his mother belonging to the line of the celebrated Sir Thomas More. Having already given remarkable indica- tions of ability, particularly in the acquirement of languages, he was sent to Oxford, at (even for those times) the early age of eleven years. At Hertford College (then Hart Hall) he remained till he was fourteen years old, when he was transferred to Trinity College, Cambridge. At seven- teen, intending to make the law his profession, Donne was entered of Lincoln's Inn ; but before his admission, death had deprived him of his father. His surviving parent ap- pears to have been more warmly attached than her husband to their common religion ; for directions were now given to his instructors and associates to reclaim him to the Romish community, from which he had been weaned to Protestant opinions ; and, at eighteen years of age, the ardent yet serious youth found himself a christian, indeed, but in all minor points without a religion. This was not a state long to be endured by a mind like Donne's. At nineteen, with prayer and an
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incenuous desire to embrace the truth, on which side soever he misht find it, he entered on a serious examination of the grounds and differences of the faith and discipline of the two Churches. The result, after a course of study which rendered him conspicuously learned in that controversy, was, a con- firmation of his early impressions in favour of the Church of England.
He now added to his accomplishments the advantages of foreign travel. Several years he passed abroad; at first chiefly in Italy, and afterwards (circumstances occurring to prevent a design he had formed to proceed to the Holy Land) in Spain.
On his return to England, Donne received an employment not unsuited to his abilities, as secretary to the lord keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord EUesmere. But the prospect thus opened before him, was quickly clouded by the occurrence of an incident rather indicative of the youthful poet's ardent feelings, — for a poet he truly was, — than of his prudence. A niece of Lady Egerton, the daughter of Sir George More, lieutenant of the Tower, resided in Sir Thomas Egerton's family. Between this lady and Donne a secret marriage took place. Sir George, in the first heat of his dis- pleasure, caused both Donne, and the friends who had per- formed or witnessed the ceremony, to be imprisoned, and at the same time extorted from the lord keeper his secretary's dismissal ; an act of vengeance which he afterwards vainly endeavoured to reverse.
The small fortune, which Donne inherited from his father, had sufficed for " chargeable travels, books, and dear-bought experience," but very little remained for the support of a family, the ever-increasing cares of which quickly gathered round the imprudent pair. It was when Donne was beginning to feel severely the pressure of his circumstances, that the offer, already mentioned, was made him by Dr. Morton. He sent to Donne, and entreated to borrow an hour of his time. " Mr. Donne," he then said, " the occasion of my sending for you is to propose to you what I have often revolved in my own thoughts since I last saw you ; which nevertheless I will not declare but upon this condition, that you return me not a present answer, but forbear three days, and bestow some part of that time in fasting and prayer ; and after a serious consideration of what I shall propose, then re- turn with your answer. Deny not, Mr. Donne, for it is the
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effect of a true love, which I would gladly pay as a debt due for yours to me."
Donne having promised compliance with this request, which conveys so pleasing a notion of the high devotional spirit of that age, the generous Morton thus continued : — " Mr. Donne, I know your education and abilities; I know your expectation of a state-employment ; I know your fitness for it ; but I know too the many delays and contingencies that attend court pro- mises ; and let me tell you, that my love begot by our long friendship, and your merits, both prompted me to such an inquisition into your present temporal estate as makes me no stranger to your necessities; which I know to be such as your generous spirit could not bear, if it were not supported with a pious patience. You know I have formerly urged you to wave your expectations at court, and enter into holy orders ; which I now again entreat you to embrace, with this reason added to my former request : — the king hath yesterday made me dean of Gloucester, and I am also possessed of a benefice, the profits of which are equal to my deanery. I will quit my benefice, and estate you in it (which the patron is willing I shall do) if God incline your heart to embrace this motion. Remember, Mr. Donne, no man's education or parts make him too good for this employment, which is to be an ambas- sador for the glory of God, that God who by a vile death opened the gates of glory to mankind. Make me no present answer, but remember your promise, and return to me the third day with your resolution."
At the end of the three days Donne returned with his answer. It was a refusal, grounded on an apprehension of his unfitness for the sacred calling, on account of the recent levities of his youth, and his secular education ; but expressed with much modesty and gratitude, and the utmost reverence for the profession he declined.
Donne's residence, at this period and for some subsequent years, was in the mansion of Sir Francis Woolley, his wife's cousin, of Pirford in Surrey. In this hospitable retreat he continued his studies, in particular, the study of the law, with an avidity which he himself afterwards condemned, as " the worst voluptuousness, an immoderate desire of human learning." But the friendly baronet died, though not till he had effected a reconciliation between Sir George More and his daughter and son-in-law ; and the family being broken up, Donne was
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thrown almost exclusively upon his own resources. For some time he fixed his family at Mitcham, residing himself chiefly in London, for the advantage of being near the court. His affairs, however, notwithstanding the delusive friendship of many individuals, high in rank and celebrated in the world, fell into a deplorable condition ; his health gave way, and his spirits sank to the lowest depth of depression. Some of his letters written at this time, as the editors of his well-known biography observe, "exhibit most affectingly a gloomy picture of family distress." " I write from the fireside in my parlour," he tells his correspondent, "and in the noise of three game- some children, and by the side of her, whom because I have transplanted into a wretched fortune, I must labour to disguise that from her by all such honest devices as giving her my company and discourse." — Again: "The reason why I did not send an answer to your last week's letter was, because it then found me under too great a sadness, and at present it is thus with me." He then describes his wife and children as all suffering from illness, and thus continues : *' And these meet with a fortune so ill provided for physic, and such relief, that if God should ease us with burials, I know not how to perform even that ; but I flatter myself with this hope, that I am dying too, for I cannot waste faster than by such griefs."
From the misery of domestic want he was in some degree relieved, by accepting the generous proposal of Sir Robert Drury, the patron of many persons of learning and genius, to reside, with his family, in his mansion in London. Sir Robert, likewise, to divert Donne's melancholy, took him with him to Paris. There an incident occurred, which the biogra- pher of a later age would have buried in silence, but which Walton relates with a degree of gravity characteristic of the persons and the time. Donne and his wife had parted with affectionate regret, expressed on her side by " forebodings of ill in his absence;" on his by a "valediction" in verse, which, though censured by Johnson for absurd ingenuity, well de- notes, in the quaint manner of its author, his struggles to repress a concentrated tenderness. Left alone in an apartment in Sir Robert's hotel at Paris, immediately after quitting a convivial party, the busy heart and brain of Donne, suddenly dispos- sessed of the images and feelings of the present, filled to over- flowing with the absent and the past : " twice he saw his dear wife pass by him through the room, with her hair hanging
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about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms." His confi- dence in the reality of this vision so impressed his friendly host, Sir Robert, that he dispatched a messenger to London for news. The man returned with this account, — that he found Mrs. Donne very sad, and sick in her bed ; and that after a long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered of a dead child; and, it is added, it appeared that this event had taken place " the same day, and about the very hour, that Mr. Donne affirmed he saw her pass by him in his chamber." She re- covered, however ; and these painful occurrences in the family were followed by the dawn of brighter fortunes.
King James, who sought the company of all men of learn- ing, frequently conversed with Donne. On one of these occa- sions, at the time when the subscription to the oaths of supre- macy and allegiance employed the tongues of most men, and the pens of several, Donne delivered his opinions on the sub- ject, in a manner so satisfactory to his Majesty, that he received the royal command to put them in writing ; the result was the '■^Pseudo-Martyr,'''' printed in I610. James now urged him, as Morton had done before, to receive ordina- tion. He expressed his desire still rather for some secular employment ; but the king, who knew in what direction the talents of Donne pointed, would do nothing for him except in the Church. Donne yielded to his majesty's wishes; but before he took orders passed nearly three years in familiar- izing himself with textual divinity, and in other preparatory studies. He received ordination in ]6l6; and from that time gave himself up with extraordinary zeal to his profession, for ever silencing his rough-toned but earnest lyre, in which he had hitherto found delight, and resolving to confine his desultory though profound reading within the limits of practi- cal utility. James immediately made him one of his chaplains, and, being shortly after to be entertained at Cambridge, took him thither among his attendants, and caused the degree of D.D. to be conferred upon him.
The crown of Donne's domestic trials soon afterwards came upon him, in the death of his wife, "leaving him a man of a narrow unsettled estate, and (having buried five) the careful father of seven children then living." Perhaps the favourite passage of the numerous admirers of Walton's Lives, is that in which he describes, with true pathos, the feelings of the bereaved husband. " His very soul was elemented of nothing
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but sadness ; now grief took so full a possession of his heart, as to leave no place for joy : if it did, it was a joy to be alone, where, like ' a pelican in the wilderness,' he might bemoan himself, without witness or, restraint, and pour forth his passions like Job in the days of his affliction, ' Oh, that I might have the desire of my heart ! Oh, that God would grant the thing I longed for ! For then, as the grave is become her house, so 1 would hasten to make it mine also, that we two might there make our beds together in the dark.' Thus he began the day, and ended the night, — ended the restless night, and began the weary day in lamentations. And thus he continued, till a consideration of his new engagements to God, and St. Paul's ' Woe is me if I preach not the go- spel,' dispersed those sad clouds that had then benighted his hopes, and now forced him to behold the light."
Prosperity at length smiled on Donne, but the world had now lost for him all its attractions. In the very first year after his ordination, an incredible number of livings are said to have been offered to him ; all of them being in the country, however, he declined them all ; for Donne's attach- ment to London was scarcely less ardent than Johnson's. He accepted the office of preacher at Lincoln's Inn ; but left it in the spring of 1619, by command of the king, to accom- pany Lord Hay in his embassy to the king's son-in-law, the Prince Palatine. At the end of fourteen months he returned, in improved health ; and in November, 1621, being then in his 50th year, reached his highest preferment, the deanery of St. Paul's. The vicarage of St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, the advowson of which had been long before presented to him by the earl of Dorset, soon afterwards fell vacant by the death of the incumbent: he had also some other preferments; and was, consequently, now in the enjoyment of an ample income. In the parliament of the above year, he was chosen prolocutor to the convocation.
Three years afterwards, having with difficulty survived an attack of illness, he published his gratitude in his book of Devotions, he, composed on his sick bed, and dedicated to Prince Charles. But his weak frame had been irreparably shaken; and in August, l630, sickness returned upon him with fatal effect. His disorder was a fever, which brought on con- sumption. Finding death approach, he took leave of his friends in a manner which savoured of that serious ingenuity
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which characterized his mental efforts : he caused the figure of our Saviour, represented as crucified upon an anchor, to be engraved on blood-stones and set in gold, for seal-rings, which he presented as memorials to his surviving benefactors and friends — Sir Henry Wotton, Bishop Hall, Bishop Duppa, Bishop Henry King, George Herbert, he.
For nearly twenty years. Dr. Donne had never omitted his personal attendance to preach in his turn at court. A premature report, therefore, in the winter of 1630-31, that he was dead, called forth loud expressions of regret, and determined him, ill as he was, to come up to London, once more to gratify his friends and himself by appearing in the pulpit. He took his text from the 68th Psalm: "Unto God the Lord belong the issues of life and death." " Many of his hearers," observes Walton, " remarking his emaciated form and faint sepulchral voice, thought the text prophetically chosen, and that he had preached his own funeral sermon." After performing this duty, he returned to his house, had his picture drawn in his shroud, and kept it by his bedside while he lived. He was not merely willing, but earnestly desirous, to depart : " I were miserable," was one of his last expressions, "if I might not die." Before he expired he closed his own eyes with his hands, and "disposed" himself *' into such a posture as required not the least alteration of those that came to shroud him." His death occurred March 31, 1631,
Wisdom is justified of all genuine sons; and if a few solitary readers have been carried away with an excessive admiration of the brilliant dean of St. PauFs, is it an adequate excuse for others who depreciate his great powers, that the literary faults of his age, finding in him a soil of prodigious richness, grew up and flourished together with his excellencies His subtilty and ingenuity are certainly extreme, and the discursive affluence of his thoughts unchecked by the niceness of modern taste ; but he is strictly logical and profoundly learn- ed; always earnestly, if sometimes fancifully, pious; very often pathetically eloquent. On Donne's first appearance in the pulpit at Whitehall, we are told, " though much was expected from him, both by his majesty and others, yet he was so happy as to satisfy and exceed their expectations; preaching so as shewed his own heart was possessed with those very thoughts and joys that he laboured to distil into others : a preacher in earnest, weeping sometimes for his auditory, sometimes with
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them ; carrying some to heaven in holy raptures, and enticing others by a sacred art and persuasiveness to amend their lives : here picturing a vice so as to make it ugly to those that practised it, and a virtue so as to make it to be beloved even by those that loved it not ; and all this with a most particular grace and an inexpressible comeliness.''
In the diligent acquisition of knowledge, he was scarcely inferior to any one, even in that age of indefatigable scholar- ship. " In the most unsettled days of his youth, his bed was not able to detain him beyond the hour of four in the morn- ing : — he left the resultance of fourteen hundred authors, most of them abridged and analyzed with his own hand." But the exercise of judgment and taste is not less requisite in the selection of books to be read, than in the production of those we design to be read by others ; and it may be doubted, whether the enormous treasures of rugged erudition which attested the laboriousness of students in those times, were found of sufficient worth, when made, to compensate the exhausted powers and early death of so many men in the first ranks of intellect. Posterity has reason to regret that inde- fatigable industry which sank a Jewel or a Hooker to a pre- mature grave, beneath a self-imposed burden, collected in great part from the tomes of schoolmen and controversialists — men of faculties immeasurably inferior to their own.
The warmth and benevolence of Dr. Donne's heart are apparent in the legacies bequeathed by him in his will. But he did not wait for death to manifest the largeness of his charity. His visits to the sorrowful and necessitous, to the sick and imprisoned, were frequent, and marked no less by cheer- fulness than by liberality. " Besides what he gave with his own hand, he usually sent some discreet person to distribute his charity to all the prisons in London, at the chief festivals of the year, especially at Christmas and Easter. To any re- duced in fortune among his personal friends, he was liberal to the utmost of his means, and to poor scholars, both of his own and foreign nations, he was a continual giver." His Christian charity was not less conspicuously seen in that important di- vision of the pastoral duties, the reconcilement of differences among families and friends; in which his reputation for judg- ment and impartiality commonly enabled him to be successful.
To this imperfect notice of one of the most remarkable of English clergymen, the following extracts from Walton's
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summary of the character of Dr. Donne supply a close which, though familiar to so many readers, can hardly be omitted :
" He was," says that amiable biographer, "of a stature moderately tall, of a straight and equally-proportioned body. His aspect was cheerful, and such as gave a silent testimony of a clear knowing soul, and of a conscience at peace with itself :..,his melting eye shewed that he had a soft heart, full of compassion — His fancy was inimitably high, equalled only by his great wit :...the melancholy and pleasant temper were in him so contempered, that each gave advantage to the other,
and made his company one of the delights of mankind He
was by nature passionate, but more apt to reluct at the excesses of it : a great lover of the offices of humanity ; and of so merciful a spirit, that he never beheld the miseries of man- kind without pity and relief. He was earnest and unwearied in the search of knowledge ; with which his vigorous soul is now satisfied, and employed in a continual praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body."
Principal works of Dr. Donne : —
The Pseudo-Martyr ; shewing that Roman Catholics in this kingdom may and ought to take the oath of allegiance, Uo. 1610.
Ignatius his Conclave, Sfc. by way of satyr. 12mo. 1611.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. l2mo. l624.
Poems, with elegies on the Author^ death, 4to. 1633.
Paradoxes and Problems, Sj-c. l2mo. l633.
Biathanatos : a Declaration of that Paradox, or Thesis, that self-homicide is not so naturally a sin, that it may never be otherwise. 4to. l644. This performance was pub- lished by the author's son. The otherwise dangerous tendency of the book is said, by a living critic, to find an effectual anti- dote in its dulness. " No man," says this caustic censor, " would be induced from a perusal of Biathanatos to commit suicide — unless threatened with a second volume."
Letter's to several Persons of honour, fol. l651.
Those writings of Donne"'s, however, by which he is, and will ever be, the best, most honourably, and most beneficially known, are his noble sermons; viz.
LXXX. Sermons. Folio. 1640.
L. Sermons ; the second volume. Folio. 1649.
XXVI. Sermons; the third volume. Folio. 1661.
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A complete edition of Dr. Donne's works, in six volumes 8vo. appeared in 183,9. This valuable publication we owe to the zeal and exertions of the Rev. Henry Alford, M.A., en- couraged by the earnest recommendation of Mr. Coleridge; to whose suggestions, as well as to his performances, the graver and more thoughtful literature of England is deeply indebted.
The composition to which the reader will now be intro- duced is printed as the 48th discourse in the first of the ori- ginal volumes. It is by no means chosen for an adequate example of the author's abilities, as a theologian or as an orator ; but it is a curious, characteristic, and interesting production, extremely ingenious, as his discourses usually are, in its view and treatment of the subject, and illuminated by many of those rays of learning caught from uncommon sources, which no preacher has better understood than Donne how to collect into a focus, and turn their united splendour upon the minds of his audience.
ST. PAUL AT MALTA.
Acts xxvi. G. — " They changed their minds, and said that he was a god."
The scene vvliere this canonization, this super-canonization, (for, it was not of a saint, but of a god) was transacted, was the isle of Malta ; tlie person canonized, and proclaimed for a god, was St. Paul, at that time by shipwreck cast upon that island. And having for some years heretofore continued that custom in this place, at this time of the year, when the Church celebrates the conversion of St. Paul, (as it doth this day) to handle some part of his story, pursuing that custom now, I chose that part wliich is wound up and knit in this text, " Then they changed their minds, and said. He is a god." St. Paul found himself in danger of being oppressed in judgment, and thereby was put to a necessity of appealing to Cijesar. By virtue of that appeal being sent to Rome, by sea, he was surprised with such storms as threatened inevitable ruin ; but the angel of God stood by him, and assured him, that none of those two hundred and seventy- six persons, which were in the ship with him, should perish. Accord- ing to this assurance, though the ship perished, all the passengers were saved, and recovered this land Malta. Where being courteously received by the inhabitants, though otherwise barbarians, St. Paul doing so much for himself and for his company as to gather a bundle of sticks to mend the fire, there flew a viper from the heat, and fasten- ed on his hand. " They thereupon said among themselves, No doubt
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this man is a murderer, whom, though he have escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. But when he shaked off the viper into the fire, and received no harm, and they had looked that he should have swollen, and fallen down dead suddenly, after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him ; then (and then enters our text) " they changed their minds, and said, He is a god." Almighty God had bred up St. Paul so ; so he had catechised him all the way, with vicissitudes, and revolutions from extreme to extreme. He had taught him how to want and how to abound ; how to bear honour and dishonour. He pennitted an angel of Satan to buffet him, (so he gave him some sense of hell.) He gave him a rapture, an ecstasy, and in that, an appropinquation, an approximation to himself, and to some possession of heaven in this life. So God proceeded with him here in Malta too. He passed him in their minds from extreme to extreme. A viper seizes him, and they condemn him for a murderer ; he shakes off the viper, and they change their minds, and say, He is a God.
The first words of our text carry us necessarily so far back as to see from what they changed ; and their periods are easily seen : their terminus d quo, and their terminus ad quern, were these ; first, that he was a murderer, then that he was a god. An error in moraUty ; they censure deeply upon light evidence : an error in divinity ; they transfer the name and estimation of a god upon an unknown man. Place both the errors in divinity ; (so you may justly do) and then there is an error in charity, a hasty and incon- siderate condemning ; and an error in faith, a superstitious creating of an imaginary god. Now, upon these two general considerations will this exercise consist: first, that it is natural logic, an argumentation naturally imprinted in man, to argue, and conclude thus, great calami- ties are inflicted, therefore God is greatly provoked. These men of Malta were but natural men, but barbarians, (as S. Luke calls them) and yet they argue, and conclude so : Here is a judgment executed, therefore here is evidence that God is displeased. And so far they kept within the limits of humanity and piety too. But when they descended hastily and inconsiderately to particular and personal appli- cations,— This judgment upon this man is an evidence of his guiltiness in this offence, then they transgressed the bounds of charity ; that because a viper had seized Paul's hand, Paul must needs be a murderer.
And then when we shall have passed through those things which belong to that first consideration, which consists of these two propo- sitions. That to conclude so, God strikes, therefore he is angry, is natural, but hastily to apply this to the condemnation of particular persons is uncharitable ; we shall descend to our second consideration, to see what they did : when they changed their minds, " they said. He
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is a god." And, as in the former part, we shall have seen tliat there is in man a natural logic, but that strays into uncharitableness ; so in this wc shall see, that there is in man a natural religion, but that strays into superstition and idolatry. Naturally man is so far from being divested of the knowledge and sense of God, fi:om thinking that there is no God, as that he is apt to make more gods than he should, and to worship them for gods whom he should not. These men of Malta were but natural men, but barbarians, (says St. Luke) yet they were so far from denying God, as that they multiplied gods ; and because the viper did Paul no harm, tliey change their minds, and say, " He is a god."
And from these two general considerations, and these two branches in each, that there is in man a natural logic, but that strays into fallacies ; and a natural religion, but that strays into idolatry and superstition ; we shall derive, and deduce imto you, such things as we conceive most to conduce to your edification, from this knot and summary abridgment of this story, " Then they changed their minds, and said. He is a God."
First, tlien, for the first proposition of our first part, that this is natural logic, an argumentation imprinted in every man, God strikes, therefore God is angry ; he, whom they that even hate his name, (our adversaries of the Roman persuasion) do yet so far tacitly reverence, as that, though they will not name him, they will transfer, and insert his expositions of Scriptures, into their works, and pass them as their own, that is Calvin, he, Calvin, collects this proposition from this story, Patsim receptum omnibus scecuUs, In all ages, and in all places, this hath ever been acknowledged by all men, that when God strikes, God is angry, and when God is angry, God strikes ; and therefore, says he, Quotiex occurrit memorahilis aliqua calamitax, ximul in men- tein vcniat, as often as you see any extraordinary calamity, conclude that God hath been extraordinarily provoked, and hasten to those means by which the anger and indignation of God may be appeased again. So that for this doctrine a man needs not be preached unto, a man needs not be catechised ; a man needs not read the fathers, nor the councils, nor the schoolman, nor the ecclesiastical story, nor summists, nor casuists, nor canonists ; no nor the Bible itself for this doctrine ; for this doctrine, that wlien God strikes he is angry, and when he is angry he strikes, the natural man hath as full a library in his bosom as the Christian.
We, we that are Christians, have one author of ours, that tells us, Vindicta mihi, " Revenge is mine, saith the Lord ;" Moses tells us so : and in that, we have a first and a second lesson ; first, that since revenge is in God's hands, it will certainly fall upon the malefactor, God does not mistake his mark ; and then, since revenge is in his VOL. I. 9
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hands, no man must take revenge out of his hands, or make himself his own magistrate, or revenge his own quarrel. And as we, we that are Cliristians, have our author, Moses, that tells us this, the natural man hath his secular author, Theocritus, that tells him as much : Reperit Deus nocentes, God always finds out the guilty man. In which, the natural man hath also a first, and a second lesson too : first, that since God finds out the malefactor, he never scapes ; and then, since God does find him at last, God sought him all the while : though God strike late, yet he piu"sued him long before ; and many a man feels the sting in his conscience, long before he feels the blow in his body. That God finds, and therefore seeks ; that God overtakes, and therefore pursues ; that God overthrows, and therefore resists the wicked, is a natural conclusion as well as a divine.
Tlie same author of ours, Moses, tells us, " The Lord our God is Lord of lords, and God of gods, and regardeth no man's person." The natural man hath his author too, that tells him. Semper virgines furice, — the furies, (they whom tliey conceive to execute revenge upon malefactors) are always virgins, that is, not to be corrupted by any solicitations. That no dignity shelters a man from the justice of God, is a natural conclusion, as well as a divine. We have a sweet singer of Israel that tells us, Non dimidiahit dies, " The bloody and deceitful man shall not live out half his days ;" and the natural man hath his sweet singer too, a learned poet that tells him, that seldom any enormous malefactor enjoys siccam mortem, (as he calls it) a dry, an unbloody death. That blood requires blood, is a natural conclu- sion, as well as a divine. Our sweet singer tells us again, that if lie fly to the farthest ends of the earth, or to the sea, or to heaven, or to hell, he shall find God there ; and the natural man hath his author, that tells him. Qui fugit, non ejfugit, he that runs away from God does not scape God. That there is no sanctuary, no privileged place against which God's Quo Warrajito does not lie, is a natural conclusion, as well as a divine: Sanguis Abel, is our Proverb, that Abel's blood cries for revenge ; and Sanguis JEsopi is the natural man's proverb, that Esop's blood cries for revenge ; for Esop's blood was shed upon an indignation taken at sacrifice, as Abel's was. St. Paul's Deus remunerator, that there is a God, and that God " is a just rewarder of men's actions," is a natural conclusion, as well as a divine.
When God speaks to us, us that are Christians, in the Scriptures, he speaks as in a primitive and original language ; when he speaks to the natural man, by the light of nature, though he speak as in a trans- lation into another language, yet he speaks the same thing ; every where he offers us this knowledge, that where he strikes he is angry, and where he is angry he does strike. Therefore Calvin might, as he
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dotli, safely and piously establish his Qjeotks occurrit, as often as you see an extraordinary calamity, conclude that God is extraordinarily provoked : and he might as safely have established more than that, that wheresoever God is angry, and in that anger strikes, God sees sin before ; no punishment from God, where there is no sin. God may have glory in the condemnation of man ; but except that man were a sinful man, God could have no glory in his condemnation. "At the beginning of tliy prayer the commandment went out," says Gabriel to Daniel ; but till Daniel prayed there went out no commandment. At the beginning of the sinner's sin, God bends his bow, and whets his arrows, and at last he shoots ; but if there were no sin in me, God had no mark to shoot at ; for God liates not me, nor any thing that he hath made. .
And farther we carry not your consideration upon this first branch of our first part : naturally man hath this logic, to conclude, where God strikes, God is angry ; when God is angry, he will strike : but God never strikes in such anger, but with relation to sin. These men of Malta, natural men, did so, and erred not in so doing ; they erred when they came to particulars, to hasty and inconsiderate applications, for that is uncharitableness, and constitutes our second branch of this part.
When one of the consuls of Rome, Caninius, died the same day that he was made consul, Cicero would needs pass a jest upon that accident, and say. The state had had a vigilant consul of Caninius, a watchful consul, because he never slept in all his consulship ; for he died before he went to bed. But this was justly thought a fault in Cicero, for calamities are not the subject of jests ; they are not so casual things. But yet, though they come from a sure hand, they arc not always evidences of God's displeasure upon that man upon whom they fall. Tliat was the issue between Job and his friends ; they relied upon that, pursued that which they had laid down, " Remember, who ever perished being innocent, or where were the righteous cut off?" Job relied upon that, pursued that wliich he had laid down, " If I justify myself, mine own words shall condemn me ;" (self- justification is a self- condemnation.) " If I say I am perfect, that also shall prove me per- verse," says Job ; (no man is so far from purity and perfection, as he that thinks himself perfect and pure). But yet, says he there, " Though I were perfect, this is one thing, and therefore I say it, God destroyeth the perfect and the wicked." God's outward proceeding with a man in this world, is no evidence to another what he intends him in the next. In no case ? In no case (on this side of revelation) for the world to come. Till I be a judge of that man's person and actions, and being his judge have clear evidence, and be not misled by rumours from others, by passion and prejudices in myself, I must pass no judgment
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upon him in this world, nor say, Tliis fell upon him for this crime. But whatsoever my capacity be, or whatsoever the evidence, I must suspend my judgment for the world to come. Therefore says the apostle, "Judge nothing before the time." When is the time ? When I am made judge, and when I have clear evidence, then is the time to pass my judgment for this world ; but for a final condemnation in the world to come, the apostle expresses himself fully in that place : " Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light tlie hidden things of darkness, and manifest the counsels of the heart."
It was a wise and a pious counsel that Gamaliel gave that state, Abstinete, — forbear a while, give God sea-room, give him his latitude, and you may find that you mistook at first; for God hath divers ends in inflicting calamities, and he that judges hastily may soon mistake God's purpose. It is a remarkable expression which the Holy Ghost hath put into the mouth of Naomi, " Call not me Naomi," says she there ; Naomi is lovely, and loving, and beloved : " but call me Mara," says she, Mara is bitterness: but why so ? "for," says she, " the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me :" bitterly, and very bitterly, but yet so he hath with many that he loves full well. It is true, says Naomi ; but there is more in my case than so. " The Almighty hath aSlicted me, and the Lord hath testified against me :" testified, there is my misery ; that is, done enough, given evidence enough for others to believe, and to ground a judgment upon it, that he hath abandoned me utterly, forsaken me for ever. Yet God meant well to Naomi for all this testification, and howsoever others might misinterpret God's proceeding with her.
Tliat ostracism which was practised amongst the Athenians, and that petalism which was practised amongst the Syracusians, by which laws the most eminent and excellent persons in those states were banished, not for any crime imputed to them, nor for any popular practices set on foot by them, but to conserve a parity and equality in that state, — this otracism, this petalism, was not without good use in those governments. If God will lay heaviest calamities upon the best men, if God will exercise an ostracism, a petalism in his state, who shall search into his arcana imperii, into the secrets of his government ? who shall ask a reason of his actions ? who shall doubt of a good end in all his ways ? Our Saviour Christ hath shut up that way of rash judgment upon such occasions, when he says, " Suppose ye, that those Galileans whom Herod slew, or those eighteen whom the fall of the tower of Siloe slew, were greater sinners than the rest?" It is not safely, it is not charitably con- cluded. And therefore he carries their thoughts as far on the other
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side, that he that suffered a calamity was not only not the greatest, but no sinner ; for so Christ says, " Neitlier hatli this man sinned, nor his parents ;" (speaking of the man that was bom blind.) Not that he or liis parents had not sinned ; but that that calamity was not laid upon him, in contemplation of any sin, but only for an occasion of the manifestation of Christ's divinity, in the miraculous recovery of that blind man. Therefore says Luther, excellently and elegantly, Non judicandum de cruce secundum prcedicamentum quantitatis, sed relationis, We must not judge of a calamity by the predicament of quantity, how great that calamity is ; but by the predicament of relation, to what God refers that calamity, and what he intends in it ; for Deus ultionum Deus, (as St. Hierome reads that place) God is the God of revenge ; and, Deus ultionum libere agit, this God of revenge revenges at his own liberty, when, and where, and how it pleases him.
And therefore, as we are bound to make good constructions of those corrections that God lays upon us, so are we to make good interpretations of those judgments which he casts upon others. First, for ourselves : that which is said in St. Matthew, that at the day of judgment shall appear in heaven the sign of the Son of man, is frequently ordinarily received by the fathers to be intended of the cross ; that before Christ himself appear, his sign, the cross, shall appear in the clouds. Now this is not literally so in the text, nor is it necessarily deduced, but ordinarily by the ancients it is so accepted ; and thougli the sign of the Son of man may be some other thing, yet of this sign, the cross, there may be this good application, that when God affords thee this manifestation of his cross, in the participation of those crosses and calamities that he suflFered here, when thou hast this sign of the Son of man upon thee, conclude to thyself that the Son of man Christ Jesus is coming towards thee ; and as thou hast the sign, thou shalt have the substance, as thou hast his cross, thou shalt have his glory. For this is that which the apostle intends : " Unto you it is given," (not laid upon you as a punishment, but given you as a benefit) "not only to believe in Christ, but to suffer for Christ." Where the apostle seems to make our crosses a kind of assurance, as well as our faith : for so he argues, "not only to believe, but to suffer:" for, howsoever faith be a full evidence, yet our suffering is a new seal even upon that faith ; and an evident seal, a conspicuous, a glorious seal. Quid gloriosius, qnam coltegam Chriati in 'passione factum fuisse ? what can be more glo- rious than to have been made a colleague, a partner with Christ in his sufferings, and to have fulfilled his sufferings in my flesh ? For that is the highest degree which we can take in Christ's school, as St. Denys the Areopagite expresses it : A Deo doctus, non soliim diviva discit, led divina pafitur; which we may well translate or accommo-
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date thus : He that is thoroughly taught by Christ, does not only beUeve all that Christ says, but conforms him to all that Christ did, and is ready to suffer as Christ suffered. Tndy, if it were possible to fear any defect of joy in heaven, all that could fall into my fear would be but this, that in heaven I can no longer express my love by suffering for my God, for my Saviour. A greater joy cannot enter into my heart than this, to suffer for him that suffered for me. As God saw that way prosper in the hands of Absalom, he sent for Joab, and Joab came not : he came not when he sent a second time, but when lie sent messengers to burn up his corn, then Joab came, and then he complied with Absalom, and seconded and accomplished his desires : so God calls us in liis own outward ordinances, and a second time in his temporal blessings, and we come not ; but we come the sooner if he burn our com, if he draw us by afflicting us.
Now, as we are able to argue thus in our own cases, and in our own behalfs; as when a vehement calamity lies upon me, I can plead out of God's precedents, and out of his method be able to say. This will not last ; David was not ten years in banishment, but he enjoyed the kingdom forty ; God will recompense my hours of sorrow with days of joy ; if the calamity be both vehement and long, yet I can say with his blessed servant Augustine, Et cvm blandiris pater en, et pater es cum ccedis, I feel the hand of a father upon me when thou strokest me, and when thou strikest me I feel the hand of a father too : Blandiris ne dejiciam, ccedis ne peream, I know thy meaning when thou strokest me, it is lest I should faint under thy hand ; and I know thy meaning when thou strikest me, it is lest I should not know thy hand; if the weight and continuation of this calamity testify against me, (as Naomi said) that is, give others occasion to think and to speak ill of me, as of a man for some secret sins forsaken of God, still Nazianzen's refuge is my refuge. Hoc mi hi commetitor, this is my meditation, si falsa objicit conviiiator, non me attingit, if that which mine enemy says of me be false, it concerns not me, he cannot mean me, it is not I that he speaks of, I am no such man ; and then, Si vera dicit, if tliat which he says be true, it begun not to be true then when he said it, but was true when I did it ; and therefore I must blame myself for doing, not him for speaking it: — If I can argue thus in mine own case, and in mine own behalf, and not suspect God's absence from me, because he lays calamities upon me, let me be also as charitable towards another, and not conclude ill, upon ill accidents ; for there is nothing so ill, out of which God .and a godly man cannot draw good. When John Huss was at the stake to be burnt, his eye fixed upon a poor plain country fellow, whom he observed to be busier than the rest, and to run oftener to fetch more and more faggots to burn him ; and he said thereupon no more but this, 0 sancta aim-
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plicitas ! O holy simplicity ! He meant that that man being then under an invincible ignorance, misled by that zeal, thought he did God service in burning him. But such an inter])retation will hardly be app liable to any of these hasty and inconsiderate judges of other men, that give way to their own passion ; for zeal and uncharitableness are incompatible things; zeal and uncharitableness cannot consist together; and there was evident uncharitableness in these men of Malta's pro- ceeding, when, because the viper seized his hand, they condemned him for a murderer.
It is true they saw a concurrence of circumstances, and that is always more weighty than single evidence. They saw a man who had been near drowning ; yet he scaped that. Tliey saw he had gathered a bundle of sticks, in which the viper was enwrapped, and yet it did him no harm when it was in liis hand ; he scaped that. And then they saw that viper dart itself out of the fire again, and of all the company fasten upon that man. What should they think of that man in God's name, what they would, to the advancement of God's glory. Tliey might justly have thought that God was work- ing upon that man, and had some great work to do upon that man. We put no stop to zeal ; we only tell you where zeal determines : where uncharitableness enters, zeal goes out, and passion counterfeits that zeal. God seeks no glory out of the uncharitable condemning of another man. And then in this proceeding of these men, we justly note the slipperiness, the precipitation, the bottomlessness of un- charitableness in judgment ; they could consist nowhere till they charged him with murder : " Surely he is a murderer." Many crimes there were, and those capital, and such as would have induced death on this side of murder, but they stopped at none till they came to the worst. And truly it is easy to be observed in the ways of this world, that when men have once conceived an uncharitable opinion against another man, they are apt to believe from others, apt to imagine in themselves any kind of ill of that man ; sometimes so much and so falsely, as makes even that which is true the less credible. For when passionate men will load a man with all, sad and equitable men begin to doubt whether any be true ; and a malefactor scapes sometimes by being overcharged.
But I move not out of mine own sphere ; my sphere is your edification, upon this centre, the proceeding of these men of Malta with St. Paul : upon them and upon you I look directly, and I look only, without any glance, any reflection upon any other object. And therefore, having said enougli of those two branches vvliicli con- stitute our first part, that to argue out of God's judgments, his displeasure is natural, l)ut then that natural logic should determine
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in the zeal of iuivancing God's glory, and not stray into an uncharitable condemning of particular persons, because in this uncharitableness there is such a slipperiness, such a precipitation, such a bottomless- ness, as that tliese hasty censurers could stop nowhere till they came to the highest charge. Having said enough of this, we pass in our order to our second part, to that which they did ; when they changed their minds: "They changed their minds, and said he was a god."
In this second part, we consider, first, the incongruity of depending upon any thing in this world ; for all will change. Men have con- sidered usefully the incongruity of building the tower of Babel, in this, that to have erected a tower that should have carried that height that they intended in that, the whole body of the earth, the whole globe and substance thereof would not have served for a basis, for a foundation to that tower. If all the timber of all the forests in the world, all the quarries of stones, all the mines of lead and iron, had been laid together, nay, if all the earth and sea had been petrified and made one stone, all would not have served for a basis, for a foundation of that tower ; from whence then must they have had their materials for all the superedifications ? So, to establish a trust, a confidence, sucli an acquiescence as a man may rely upon, all tliis world affords not a basis, a foundation ; for every thing in this world is fluid, and transitory, and sandy ; and all dependence, all assurance built upon this world is but a building upon sand ; all will change. It is true that a fair reputation, a good opinion of men is, though not a foundation to build upon, yet a fair stone in the building, and such a stone as every man is bound to provide himself of. For, for the most part, most men are such as most men take them to be : Neminem omnes, 7iemo omnes fefelHl, All the world never joined to deceive one man, nor was ever any one man able to deceive all the world. Contemptu famcB contemnuntur et virtutes, was so well said by Tacitus, as it is pity St. Augustine said it not : " They that neglect the good opinion of others, neglect those virtues that should produce that good opinion." Therefore St. Hierom protests to abhor that paratum dt trivio, as he calls it, that vulgar, that street, that dunghill language, ^atis mihi, as long as mine own conscience reproaches me of nothing, I care not what all the world says. We must care what the world says, and study that they may say well of us. But when they do, though this be a fair stone in the wall, it is no foundation to build upon, for " they change their minds."
Who do ? our text does not tell us who ; the story does not tell us of what quality and condition these men of Malta were, who are here said to have changed their minds. Likeliest they are to have been of the vulgar, the ordinary, the inferior sort of people, because they
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are likeliest to have flocked and gatliered together upon this occasion of Paul's shipwreck upon that island. And that kind of people are always justly thought to he most subject to this levity, to change their minds. The greatest poet lays the greatest levity and change that can be laid to this kind of people ; that is, in contraria, that they change even from one extreme to another : Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus. Where that poet does not only mean, that the people will be of divers opinions from one another : for, for the most part they are not so ; for the most part they think, and wish, and love, and hate together ; and they all do by example, as others do, and upon no other reason but therefore because others do. Neither was that poet ever bound up by his words, that he should say in contraria, because a milder or more modified word would not stand in his verse ; but he said it because it is really true, the people will change into contrary opinions ; and whereas an angel itself cannot pass from east to west, from extreme to extreme, without touching upon the way between, the people will pass from extreme to extreme, without any middle opinion ; last minute's murderer is this minute's god, and in an instant, Paul, whom they sent to be judged in hell is made a judge in heaven. Tlie people will change. " In the mul- titude of people is the king's honour ;" and therefore Joab made that prayer in the behalf of David, " The Lord thy God add unto thy people, how many soever they be, a hundredfold." But when David came to number his people with a confidence in their number, God took away the ground of that confidence, and lessened their number seventy thousand in three days. Therefore as David could say, " I will not be afraid of ten thousand men," so he should say, I will not confide in ten thousand men, though multiplied by millions ; for they will change, and at such an ebb the popular man will lie as a whale upon the sands deserted by the tide. We find in the Roman story, many examples (particularly in Commodus liis time, upon Cleander, principal gentleman of his chamber) of severe executions upon men that have courted the people, though in a way of charity, and giving them corn in a time of dearth, or upon like occasions. There is danger in getting them, occasioned by jealousy of others ; there is difficulty in holding them, by occasion of levity in themselves ; therefore we must say with the prophet, " Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." For they, the people, will "change their minds."
But yet there is nothing in our text that binds us to fix this levity upon the people only. The text does not say, that there was none of the princes of the people, no connnanders, no magistrates, present at this accident, mA partners in tliis levity. Neither is
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it likely but that in such a place as Malta, an island, some persons of quality and command resided about the coast, to receive and to give intellif^ence, and directions upon all emergent occasions of dan- ger, and that some such were present at this accident, and gave their voice both ways, in tlie exclamation, and in the acclamation, that he was a murderer, and that he was a god. For, they will change their minds ; all, high as well as low, will change. A good states- man, Polybius, says, that the people are naturally as the sea ; naturally smooth, and calm, and still, and even ; but then naturally apt to be moved by influences of superior bodies ; and so the people apt to change by tliem who have a power over their affections, or a power over their wills. So says he, the sea is apt to be moved by storms and tempests ; and so the people apt to change with rumours and windy reports. So the sea is moved, so the people are changed, says Polybius. But Polybius might have carried his politic con- sideration higher than the sea, to the air too ; and applied it higher than to the people, to greater persons ; for the air is shaked and transported with vapours and exhalations, as much as the sea with winds and storms ; and great men as much changed with ambitions in themselves, and flatteries from others, as inferior people with in- fluences and impressions from them. All change their minds ; high as well as low will change. But " I am the Lord ; I change not." I, and only I, have that immunity, immutability ; and, "Therefore," says God there, " ye sons of Jacob are not consumed ;" therefore, because I, 1 who cannot change, have loved you ; for they who depend upon their love who can change, are in a woeful condition. And that involves all : all can, all will, all do change, high and low.
Therefore " it is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in man." What man ? Any man. " It is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in princes." Which David thought worth the repeating ; for he says it again, " Put not your trust in princes." Not that you may not trust their royal words and gracious promises to you ; not that you may not trust their councils, and executions of those councils, and the distribution of your contributions for those executions ; not that you may not trust the managing of affairs of state in their hands, without jealous inquisitions, or suspicious mis- interpretations of their actions. In these you must trust princes, and those great persons whom princes trust ; but when these great persons are in the balance with God, there they weigh as little as less men. Nay, as David hath ranked and disposed them, less ; for thus he conveys that consideration, " Surely men of low degree are vanity," that is sure enough ; there is little doubt of that : men of low degree can profit us nothing ; they cannot pretend or promise to do us good ;
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but tlien says David there, " Men of high degree are a lie ;" they pretend a power and a purpose to do us good, and then disappoint us. Many times men cannot, many times men will not ; neither can we find in any but God liimself a constant power, and a constant will, upon which we may rely : the men of Malta, of what rank soever they were, did ; all men, low and high, will change their minds.
Neither have these men of Malta (consider them in what quality you will) so much honour afforded them, in the original, as our trans- lation hath given them. We say, " they changed their minds ;" the original says only this, " they changed," and no more. Alas, they, we, men of tliis world, wonns of this dunghill, whether basilisks or blind worms, whether scarabs or silk-worms, whether higli or low in the world, have no minds to change. The Platonick philosophers did not only acknowledge anima in homine, a soul in man, but mentem in anima, a mind in the soul of man. They meant by the mind the superior faculties of the soul, and we never come to exercise them. Men and women call one another inconstant, and accuse one another of having changed their minds, when God knows they have but changed the object of their eye, and seen a better white or red. An old man loves not the same sports that he did when he was young, nor a sick man the same meats that he did when he was well : but these men have not changed their minds : the old man hath changed his fancy, and the sick man his taste ; neither his mind.
Tlie mind implies consideration, deliberation, conclusion upon pre- mises ; and we never come to that ; we never put the soul home ; we never bend the soul up to her height ; we never put her to a trial, what she is able to do towards discerning a tentation, what towards resisting a tentation, what towards repenting a tentation ; we never put her to trial what she is able to do by her natural faculties, whether by them she cannot be as good as a Plato, or a Socrates, who had no more but those natural faculties ; what by virtue of God's general grace, which is that providence in v/hich he inwraps all his creatures, whether by that slie cannot know her God, as well as the ox knows his crib, and the stork her nest ; what by virtue of those particular graces which God offers her in his private inspirations at. home, and in his public ordinances here; whether by those she cannot be as good an hour hence as she is now, and as good a day after as that day that she receives the sacrament : we never put the soul home, we never bend the soul up to her height ; and the extent of the sou! is this mind. When David speaks of the people he says, " They imagine a vain thing ;" it goes no farther than to the fancy, to the imagination ; it never comes so near the mind as consideration, re- flection, examinaticm ; they only imagine, iancy a vain thing, which
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is but a walking dream; for the fancy is the seat, the scene, the theatre of dreams. When David speaks there of greater persons, he carries it farther than so, but yet not to the mind ; " The rulers take counsel," says David; but not of the mind, not of rectified and religious reason ; but, " They take counsel together," says he, that is, of one another : they sit still and hearken what the rest will do, and they will do accordingly. Now this is but a herding, it is not an union ; this is for the most part a following of affections and passions, which are the inferior servants of the soul, and not of that which we understand here by the mind, the deliberate resolutions and executions of the superior faculties thereof.
" They changed," says our text ; not their minds : there is no evidence, no appearance that they exercised any, that they had any ; but they changed their passions. Nay, they have not so much ho- nour as that afforded them in the original ; for it is not, " they changed," but, " they were changed," passively : men subject to the transportation of passion do nothing of themselves, but are merely passive ; and being possest with a spirit of fear, or a spirit of am- bition, as those spirits move them, in a minute their yea is nay, their smile is a frown, their light is darkness, their good is evil, their murderer is a god. These men of Malta changed not their minds, but their passions, and so did not change advisedly, but passionately were changed, and in that distemper they said, " He is a god."
In this hasty acclamation of theirs, " He is a god," we are come to that which was our principal intention in this part, that as man hath in him a natural logic, but that strays into fallacies, in uncha- ritable judgments, so man hath in him a natural religion, but that strays into idolatry and superstition. The men of Malta were but mere natural men, and yet were so far from denying God, as that they multipUed gods to themselves. Tlie soul of man brings with it into the body a sense and an acknowledgment of God, neither can all the abuses that the body puts upon the soul whilst they dwell together (which are infinite) divest that acknowledgment, or extinguish that sense of God in the soul. And therefore, by what several names soever the old heathen philosophers called their gods, still they meant all the same God. Chrysippus presented God to the world in the notion and apprehension of Diviiia necesaitm, that a certain divine necessity which lay upon every thing, that every thing must necessarily be thus and thus done, that that necessity was God; and this others have called by another name, Destiny. Zeno presented God to the world in the notion and apprehension of Divina lex ; that it was not a constraint, a necessity, but a divine law, an ordinance, and settled course for tlie administration of all things ; and this law
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was Zeno's god ; and this others have called by another name, Nature. The Brahmans, whicli are the priests in the East, they present God in the notion and appreliension of Divina Ivx, that light is God ; in whicli they express themselves not to mean the lire, (which some natural men worshipped for God) nor the sun, (which was worsliipped by more) but by their light they mean that light by which man is enabled to see into the next world ; and this we may well call by a better name, for it is grace. But still Clirysippus by his divine necessity, which is destiny, and Zeno by his divine law, which is nature, and the Brahmans by their divine Hght, which is grace, (tliough they make the operations of God, God) yet they all intend in those divers names the same power.
Tlie natural man knows God. But then to the natural man, who is not only finite, and determined in a compass, but narrow in his compass, not only not bottomless, but shallow in liis comprehensions, to this natural, tliis finite, and narrow and shallow man, no burden is so insupportable, no consideration so inextricable, no secret so inscru- table, no conception so incredible, as to conceive one infinite God, that should do all tilings alone, without any more gods. Tliat that power that establishes councils, that things may be carried in a constancy, and yet permits contingencies, that things shall fall out casually, that the God of certainty and the God of contingency should be all one God, that tliat God that settles peace sliould yet make wars, and in the day of battle should be both upon that side that does, and that side that is, overcome, that the conquered God and the victorious God should be both one God, that that God who is all goodness in himself should yet have his hand in every ill action, — this the natiu"al man cannot digest, not comprehend. And therefore the natural man eases himself, and thinks he eases God, by dividing the burden, and laying his particular necessities upon particular gods. Hence came those enormous multiplications of gods ; Hesiod's tliirty thousand gods, and three hundred Jupiters. Hence came it that they brought their children into the world under one god, and tlien put them to nurse, and then to school, and then to occupations and professions, under other several gods. Hence came tlieir Vagitanus, a god that must take care that children do not burst with crying ; and their Fabulanus, a god that must take care that children do not stammer in speaking ; hence came their Statelinus, and their Potinus, a god that must teach them to go, and a god that must teach them to drink. So far as that they came to make febrem deam, to erect temples and altars to diseases, to age, to death itself; and so all those punishments, which our true God laid upon man for sin, all our infirmities they made gods. So far is the natural man from denying God, as that he thus multiplies' them.
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But yet never did these natural men, the gentiles, ascribe so much to their gods, (except some very few of them) as they of the Roman persuasion may seem to do to their saints. For they limited their devotions, and sacrifices, and supplications, in some certain and deter- mined things, and those, for the most part, in this world ; but in the Roman Church, they all ask all of all, for they ask even things per- taining to the next world. And as they make their saints verier gods than the gentiles do theirs, in asking greater things at their hands, so have they more of them. For if there be not yet more saints celebrated by name than will make up Hesiod's thirty thousand, yet they have more in this respect, that of Hesiod's thirty tliousand one nation worshipped one, another another thousand ; in the Roman Church, all worsliip all. And howsoever it be for the number, yet, saith one, we may live to see the number of Hesiod's thirty thou- sand equalled, and exceeded ; for, if the Jesuits, who have got two of their order into the consistory, (they have had two cardinals) and two of their order into heaven, (they have had two saints canon- ized) if they could get one of their order into the chair, one pope — as we read of one general that knighted his whole army at once — so such a pope may canonize liis whole order, and then Hesiod's thirty thousand would be literally fulfilled.
And, that, as we have done, in the multiplication of their gods, so, in their superstition to their created gods, we may also obsen'e a congruity, a conformity, a concuiTence between the heathen and the Roman religion ; as the heathen cast such an intimidation, such an infatuation, not only upon the people, but upon tlie princes too, as that in the story of the EgA'ptian kings, we find, that whensoever any of their priests signified unto any of tlieir kings, that it was the pleasure of his god that he should leave that kingdom and come up to him, that king did always, without any contradiction, any hesitation, kill himself ; so are they come so near to this in the Roman Church, as that, though they cannot infatuate such princes as they are weary of to kill themselves, yet when they are weary of princes they can infatuate other men to those assassinats, of which our neighbour kingdom hath felt the blow more than once, and we the offer and the plotting more than many times.
That that I drive to, in this consideration, is this, that since man is naturallv apt to multiply gods to himself, we do, with all Christian diligence, shut up ourselves in the belief and worship of our one and onlv God ; without admitting any more mediators, or intercessors, or advocates, in any of those modifications or distinctions with which the later men have painted and disguised the religion of Rome, to make them the more passable, and without making any one step towards meeting them, in their superstitious errors, but adhere en-
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tirely to our only advocate, and mediator, and intercessor, Christ Jesus ; for lie does no more need an assistant in any of those offices, than in liis office of redeemer, or saviour ; and therefore, as tliey require no fellow-redeemer, no fellow-saviour, so neither let us admit any fellow-advocate, fellow-mediator, fellow-intercessor in heaven. For why may not that reason hold all the year, which they assign in the Roman Church, for their forbearance of prayers to any saint upon certain days? Upon Good-Friday, and Easter-day, and Whit- sunday, say they, we ftiust not pray to any saint, no, not to the blessed virgin; Quia Christiis; el Spiritvs Sanctus, mnt tunc temporis„ nupremi, et unici advocati, "Because upon those days Christ and the Holy Ghost are our principal, nay, upon those days our only advo- cates." And are Christ and the Holy Ghost out of office a week after Easter, or after Whitsuntide ? Since man is naturally apt to multiply gods, let us be cliristianly diligent to conclude ourselves in One.
And then, since man is also naturally apt to stray into a super- titious worship of God, let us be cliristianly diligent to preclude all ways that may lead us into that tentation, or incline us towards superstition. In which I do not intend that we should decline all such things as had been superstitiously abused in a superstitious church ; but, in all such things, as being in tlieir own nature indif- ferent, are, by a just commandment of lawful authority, become more than indifferent (necessary) to us, thougli not necessitate medii, yet necessitate prcecepti, (for, though salvation consist not in ceremonies, obedience doth, and salvation consists much in obedience) : That in all such things we always inform ourselves of the right use of those things in their first institution, of their abuse with which they have been depraved in the Roman Church, and of the good use which is made of them in ours : That because pictures have been adored, we do not abhor a picture ; nor sit at the sacrament, because idolatry hath been committed in kneeling. That church which they call Lutheran hath retained more of these ceremonies than ours hath done, and ours more than that which they call Calvinist; but both the Lutheran and ours without danger, because, in both places, we are diligent to preach to the people the right use of these indifferent tilings. For this is a true way of shutting out superstition, not always to abolish the thing itself, because in the right use thereof the spiritual profit and edification may exceed the danger, but by preaching, and all convenient ways of instruction, to deliver people out of that ignorance which possesses people in the Roman captivity.
From which natural inclination of man, we raise this by way of conclusion of all : that since man is naturally apt to multiply gods to himself, and naturally apt to worship his gods superstitiously, since there is a proneness to many gods, and to superstition, in nature.
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there cannot be so unnatural a thing, no such monster in nature, or against nature, as an atheist, that beHeves no God. For, when we, we that are Christians, have reproached the atheist tlms far, our way, Canst not thou believe one God? — such a debility, such a nullity in thy faith, as not to believe one God ! we require no more, and canst thou not do that, not one ? — when we, we that are Christians, have reproached him so far, the natural man, of whose company he will pretend to be, will reproach him so much farther, as to say, Canst not thou believe one God ? we, we who proceed by the same light that thou dost, believe a thousand. So that the natural man is as ready, readier than the Christian, to excommunicate the atheist; for the atheist that denies all gods, does much more oppose tlie natural man, that believes a thousand, than the Christian, that believes but one.
Poor intricated soul! riddling, perplexed, labyrinthical soul ! thou couldest not say that thou believest not in God ; if there were no God ; thou couldest not believe in God, if there were no God : if there were no God, thou couldest not speak, tliou couldest not think, not a word, not a thought, no not against God ; thou couldest not blaspheme the name of God, thou couldest not swear, if there were no God ; for all thy faculties, however depraved and perverted by thee, are from him ; and except thou canst seriously believe that thou art nothing, thou canst not believe that there is no God. If I should ask thee at a tragedy, where thou shouldest see him that had dravra blood, lie weltering and surrounded in his own blood. Is there a God now ? if thou couldst answer me, No, these are but inventions, and representations of men, and I believe a God never the more for this, — if I should ask thee at a sermon, where thou shouldest hear the judgments of God formerly denounced and executed, re-de- nounced and applied to present occasions, Is there a God now ? if thou couldest answer me, No, these are but inventions of state, to supple and regulate congregations, and keep people in order, and I believe a God never the more for this ; — be as confident as thou canst in company, for company is the atheists' sanctuary ; I respite thee not till the day of judgment, when I may see thee upon thy knees, upon thy face, begging of the hills that they would fall down and cover thee from the fierce wrath of God, to ask thee then, Is there a God now ? I respite thee not till the day of thine own death, when thou shalt have evidence enough that there is a God, though no other evidence but to find a devil, and evidence enough that there is a heaven, though no other evidence but to feel hell ; to ask thee then, Is there a God now? I respite thee but a few hours, but six hours, but till midnight. Wake then ; and then, dark and alone, hear God ask thee then, remember that I asked thee now, Is there a God ? and, if thou darest, say No.
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And then, as there is an universal atheist, an atheist over all the world, that believes no God, so is he also an atheist, over all the Cliristian world, that believes not Christ. That which the apostle says to the Ephesians, absque Christo, absque Deo, as long as you were without Christ, you were without God, is spoken (at least) to all that have heard Christ preached ; not to believe God, so as God hath exhibited and manifested himself in his Son Christ Jesus, is, in St. Paul's acceptation of that word, atheism : and St. Paul, and he that speaks in St. Paul, is too good a grammarian, too great a critic, for thee to dispute against.
And then, as there is an universal atheist, he that denies God, and a more particular atheist, a practical atheist, who though he do not pretend to make God, and God in Christ the object of his faith, yet does not make Christ, and Christ in the Holy Ghost, that is, Christ working in the ordinances of his church, the rule and pattern of his actions, but lives so as no man can believe that he believes in God.
This universal atheist, that believes no God, the heavens, and all the powers therein, shall condemn at the last day; the particular atheist that believes no Christ, the glorious company of the apostles, that established the church of Christ, shall condemn at that day ; and the practical atheist, the ungodly liver, the noble army of martyrs, that did and suffered so much for Christ, shall then condemn. And condemn him, not only as the most impious thing, but as the most inhuman ; not only as the most ungodly, but as the most unnatural thing : for an atheist is not only a devil in religion, but a monster in nature ; not only elemental and composed of heresies in the church, but of paradoxes and absurdities in the world. Natural men, the men of Malta, even barbarians, though subject to levity and changing their minds, yet make this their first act after their change, to constitute a god, though in another extreme, yet in an evident and absolute averseness from atheism, " they changed their nnnds, and said lie was a god." And be this enough for the explication of the words, and their application, and complication to the celebration of the day.
The God of heaven rectify in us all our natural logic, that in all his judgments we glorify God, without uncharitably condemning other men ! The God of heaven sanctify to us our natural religion, that it be never quenched nor damped in us, never blown out by atheism, nor blown up by an idolatrous multiplying of false, or a superstitious worship of our true God ! The God of heaven preserve us in safety, by the power of the Father; in saving knowledge, by the wisdom of the Son ; and in a peaceful unity of affections, by the love and goodness of the Holy Ghost 1 Amen.
VOL. I. 10
[A.D.
Dr. JACKSON.
A. D. 1600 — 1640.
Wk have contemplated, in Donne, a divine whose cha- racter was formed, where his profound acquirements were employed, within the circle of the court ; and whose works may, consequently, be supposed to reflect the more serious modes of thought and language fashionable in his day. In Jackson, one of his great contemporaries, are presented the principles and mental habitudes of a mind trained wholly in academical life ; the difference, perhaps, is less than might have been produced by the same contrasted circumstances, in a later or a less learned age.
Thomas Jackson was born at Witton-le-wear, in 1579, From childhood he evinced so strong a natural propensity to learning, that no other recreation or employment could divert him from its pursuit. Accordingly, though his parents had designed him to be a merchant in Newcastle, where several members of his family were living in great respect- ability, they readily yielded to the solicitations of a noble- man of their neighbourhood, Ralph Lord Eure, to send him to the University of Oxford. The estimation in which Jackson was held, in times near to his own, may be inferred from the enthusiastic praise lavished upon this incidental service to the cause of religion and letters by the pious Barnabas Oley, the editor of his works. " I never knew this noble lord," Oley writes, " nor any of his posterity ; yet can I not forbear to say, Blessed be his memory ! and, wherever the writings of our author are read, let this which he hath done be reported of him."
Jackson became first, in 1593, a member of Queen's College; whence he was honourably elected, in the year following, to a scholarship in Corpus Christi, the college of Jewel and of Hooker. Here he had not been long ad- mitted, when he narrowly escaped being drowned while bathing. " It was a long and almost incredible space of
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time wherein he lay under water, before a boat could be procured ; which was sent for rather to take out his body for a decent funeral, than out of hopes of recoverinoj life. The boatman discerning- where he was by the bubbling of the water (the last signs of a man expiring) thrust down his hook at that very moment, which by happy providence at the first essay, lighted under his arm, and brought him up into the boat." It was long before any prospect of his recovery appeared ; but his fellow-students having brought him to land, and " lapped him in their gowns, the best shroud that love or necessity could provide," warmth return- ed, and with much care, time, and difficulty, he was restored. "All men," adds the narrator of his life, "concluded him to be reserved for high and admirable purposes."
This great scholar and divine began, we are told, early to apply to the study of theology, because he well considered that without large and good provisions for the way he could not hope to prosper in the long journey that he proposed to make. He laid the grounds of this science in the acquisi- tion of the learned languages, including the oriental, with all the arts and sciences known and studied in his time, but especially metaphysics. No man better employed human knowledge, in subservience to the eternal truths of God, or was more successful in making the heathen submit the rich presents of their wise men to the cradle and cross of Christ. To adopt Anthony Wood's less elegant but equally apt me- thod of expressing the same commendation, all other sciences he made use of to serve either as rubbish under the founda- tion, or drudges and day-labourers to theology. His other employments were rather recreations and assistances, than di- versions from his principal object. In his own college, of which he became a fellow in l6ofi, he read every Sunday morning a lecture in divinity ; and the same on another day of the week in Pembroke College, (then newly erected) at the request of the master and fellows. He was, for many years in suc- cession, chosen president of the former. In this office it was a part of his duty to preside as moderator at the dis- putations in divinity ; and, on these occasions, " he demeaned himself with great depth of learning, far from that know- ledge which pufleth up, but accompanied with all gentleness, courtesy, and humility." The reduction of his theological studies and reflections to the form in which we possess them, in
10—2
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his immortal writings, had now, however, become the serious labour of his life.
From the society where he was so useful, and to which he had greatly endeared himself, Jackson was occasionally separated by his residence at Winston, in his native county ; to the rectory of which village he had been presented by Neile, bishop of Durham, whose fellow-chaplain he had been with Laud. He quitted it after a short period, on taking possession of the vicarage of Newcastle, described to have been then, as now, " a very populous town, furnished with multitudes of men, and no small variety of opinions." Here, where he was originally designed to have been a mer- chant, he now became, by his better choice, " a factor for heaven." He adorned the profession of the gospel with a life and conversation beautifully in harmony with the scriptural truth and sincerity of his doctrine. By many acts of gene- rosity and benevolence, he proved, that in a place devoted to trade and commerce, his mind was intent on nobler business, " willing to spend and to be spent for his parishioners," as " not seeking theirs, but them."
It was while thus engaged, that he was summoned back to the University, in consequence of his election to the head- ship of his college ; a choice made " so unexpectedly, with- out any suit or petition on his part, that he knew nothing of the vacancy of the place but by the same letters that informed him that it was conferred upon himself." Re- specting his demeanor in this appropriate station, we are presented with the following testimony. "Upon his return to Oxford, and admission to his government, they found no alteration by his long absence, and more converse with the world, but that he appeared yet more humble than in his elder times; and this not out of coldness and remission of spirit, but from a prudent choice and experience of a better
way He ruled in a most obliging manner, the fellows,
scholars, servants, tenants ; no man departed from him with a sad heart, excepting in this particular, that by some misde- meanour or willing error, they had created trouble or given
offence unto him He was a lover and maker of peace.
He silenced and composed all differences, displeasures, and animosities, by a prudent impartiality, and the example of
his own sweet disposition Those under his authority were
kept within bounds and order, not so much out of fear of the
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penalty, as out of love to the governor. He took notice of that which was good in the worst men, and made that an occasion to commend them for the good's sake ; and living himself as if he were so severe that he could forgive no man, yet he reserved large pardons for the imperfections of others. His nature was wholly composed of the properties of charity itself....! can truly avouch this testimony concerning him," continues the writer, "that living in the same college with- him more than twenty years, partly when he was fellow, and partly when he returned president, I never heard (to my best remembrance) one word of anger or dislike against him — He willingly admitted, and was much delighted in, the acquaint- ance and familiarity of hopeful young divines, not despising their youth, but accounting them as sons and brethren, en- couraging and advising them what books to read, and with what holy preparations; sending them such as they had need of, and hoping withal that (considering the brevity of his own life), some of them might live to finish that work upon the Creed, which he had happily begun unto them.... He was as diffusive of his knowledge, counsel, and advice, as of any other of his works of mercy."
In the year l635, Jackson had a prebend of Winchester bestowed on him ; and he appears, to have been at this time removed from his other parochial preferments to Witney, in Oxfordshire. With reference to these preferments, we are thus informed : —
" In all the histories of learned, pious, and devout men, you shall scarcely meet with one that disdained the world more generously ; not out of ignorance, as one brought up in cells and darkness, for he was known and endeared to men of the most resplendent fortunes ; nor out of a melancholy dis- position, for he was cheerful and content in all estates ; but out of a due and deliberate scorn, knowing the true value, that is, the vanity, of it. As preferments were heaped upon him without his suit or knowledge, so there was nothing in his power to give, which he was not ready and willing to part with to the deserving or indigent man. His vicaraffe of St. Nicholas in Newcastle he gave to Mr. Alvye, of Trinity College, upon no other relation but out of the good opinion which he conceived of his merits. The vicarage of Witney, after he had been at much pains, toil, and expence to clear the title of the rectory to all succeeding ministers, he freely bestowed, when he had
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made it a portion fitting either to give or keep, upon the worthy Mr. White, then proctor of the University, and late chaplain to his college. A college-lease of a place called Lye, in Gloucestershire, presented to him, as a gratuity by the fellows, he made over to a third, late fellow there, merely upon a plea of poverty. And whereas they that first offered it unto him were unwilling that he should relinquish it, and held out for a long time in a dutiful opposition, he used all his power, friendship, and importunity with them, till at length he prevailed to surrender it. Many of his friends have professed that they made several journeys, and employed all powerful mediation with the bishop, that he might not be suffered to resign his prebend of Winchester to a fourth ; and upon knowledge that, by their contrivance, he was disappointed of his resolution herein, he was much offended, and this was in- terpreted as a discourtesy and disservice unto him, who knew that it was a more blessed thin^ to give than to receive. But that which remained unto him was dispersed to the poor, to whom he was a faithful dispenser, in all places of his abode, distributing unto them with a free heart, a bountiful hand, a comfortable speech, and a cheerful eye." — This abundant charity and munificence, we are again told, had distinguished him from his earliest years. His grateful acknowledgments towards the fisherman who had rescued him from the water when a youth, were a constant revenue to the man's family as long as he lived; in short, " his heart was so free and enlarged in this kind, that very often his alms made him more rich that received, than they left him that gave."
The chief trouble of this good man, was the view of those growing divisions which, in his latter days, distracted the kingdom ; and the ruinous effects of which, (in com- mon with several distinguished individuals whom purity and deep thought endued, as it were, with a prophetic spirit,) he distinctly foresaw and predicted. At the first entrance of the Scots into England, " he had much compassion for his countrymen, although that were but the beginning of sorrows. One drop of Christian blood was a deep corrosive to his tender heart. Like ' Rachel weeping for her children, he could not be comforted.' His body grew weak, the cheerful hue of his countenance was paled and discoloured, and he walked like a dying mourner in the streets. But God took him from the evil to come : it was a sufficient punishment for
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him to foresee it : it had been more than a thousand deaths to him to have beheld it with his eyes." — Jackson died in Septem- ber, 1640, with unaffected piety and resignation, answerable to the wisdom, meekness, and holiness of his life. " Giving all in his lifetime," concludes his biographer, "as he owed nothing but love, so he left nothing when he died. The poor was his heii', and he was the administrator of his own goods; or, to use his own expression in one of his last dedications, he had little else to leave his executors but his papers only, which the Archbishop of Armagh \ being at his funeral, much desired might be carefully preserved. This was that which he left to posterity, in pios usus — for the furtherance of piety and godliness ; in perpetuam eleemosynam — for a perpetual deed of charity."
The works of Dr. Jackson consist of a complete system of divinity, under the title of Comments on the Creed, in twelve hooks, besides twelve sermons or treatises relating to portions of the same subject. Nine books, with a part of the twelfth, and the sermons, were published at intervals during his lifetime. In the years 1654 and l657, long subsequently to his death, they were given to the world by Sheldon, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. In I671, the whole were collected and published in three volumes, folio, (with the life of the author, by Edward Vaughan, a preface to the reader, and a dedication to the archbishop,) by Barnabas Oley, likewise editor of Herbert's Priest to the Temple.
The following are the general contents of the twelve books :
1 . Of the Eternal Truth of Scripture.
2. Of the Necessity of the Ministry of Man for the planting of the Faith.
.S. Blasphemous Positions of Jesuits, ^c. concerning the Churclis Authority.
4. Of Justifying Faith.
5. Of the Origin of Unbelief, Misbelief, Sfc.
6. Of the Divine Essence and Jttributes.
7. Of the Knoioledge of Christ.
8. Of the Humiliation of the Son of God
9. Of the Consecration of the Son of God to his Everlast- ing Priesthood.
10. Of Original Righteousness, Sin, Freedom of Will, Mortification, Sfc.
' Ussher, at that time resident in Oxford.
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11. Of Christ" s Exaltation and Session at God's right hand.
12. A Treatise of the Holy Catholic Church.
After declaring it "the rooted opinion of his heart," that " this author was the divine of his rank and age, and breathing his gratitude to heaven for the boon, with his con- gratulations to those who had begotten and brought him up —
"Qui te genuere beati, Et mater felix, et fortunata profecto Si qua tibi soror est, et quse dedit ubera nutrix," —
this enthusiastic editor proceeds to state his views on the value of the collection. His preface is addressed " particu- larly to the younger sort of students in divinity, and academi- cal men;" to whom only, in this place, he modestly observes, he presumes to speak. " Those," says he, " that have com- passion on the multitude; that teach the people knowledge, and for their edification do seek out 'acceptable words, in wri- tings upright and true ;' that mean to tread the good old way for better instructing the poor of the flock ; may find in this author's works proper matter for christenings, communions, funerals, fasts ; for every dominical and festival in the year ; but abundance of matter for those days on which our Church commemorates the great benefits received by the In- carnation, Birth, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. As for expounding the doctrinal, and opening the more difficult places of scripture, this author seems to have a rare felicity therein, above the professed commenta- tors or expositors, whether Protestants or Papists. And of- ten, when he pretends but to take one verse as the centre of his discourse, he illuminates the reader in a great circumference of the context. I shall say more (he that will try, I hope, shall find my words true) : he that will carefully peruse this good author's works, shall thereby have a goodly prospect of the Old and New Testaments opened to him ; shall mightily im- prove in the understanding of the Holy Bible. And, putting a case, that besides the Holy Bible and Fathers, I should be confined to the use of one author, whom I should choose, I
should make choice of this author If others at the first view,
came not up to my rate or esteem of him, I have their excuse ready. For when a fatherly friend of mine, thinking my younger years had need of such an instructor, commended this author to my reading, I wished for some time after, he had
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lent me his understanding together with his books ; yet with frequent reading, I first began to like, at last I mastered and made him my own." On this point, the alleged obscurity of Jackson, he thus proceeds : " His style is full and deep, which makes the purity of it seem a kind of darkness. His stream runs full, but always in its own channel, and within the banks: if any man will yet say it overflows, he must give me leave to tell him, it then enriches the ground. He wrote to scholars : his pen drops principles, as frequently as ordinary men's do sense. His matter is rare ; his notions, parcels of truth dig- ged e profunda, and so at first aspect look like strangers to the ordinary intellect, but with patience and usance will cease to be so. The reader will assuredly find this most certain token of true worth in him, that the more he is acquainted with him the better he will like him.""
Archdeacon Todd, the introduction to whose useful analy- sis of these precious volumes has been my guide in the present article, adduces also the encomiums of other learned theolo- gians, nearer to our own times — as Worthington, Stanhope, and the Rev. W. Jones in his life of Bishop Home. — But it is time the reader were permitted to judge for himself.
PORTIONS OF THE WORKS OF Dr. JACKSON.
THE SACRED ORIGIN AND RIGHT USE OF POETRY, WITH THE MAN- NER OF ITS CORRUPTION BY LATER POETS.
A POET being (as his name imports) a maker, according to the Latin proverb, is not made by art, but framed to this divine faculty by nature. Not that many amongst the Romans became poets on a sudden ; but that many very fruitful wits in all other kinds of learning could not be forced by any industry, art, or culture, to such a temper as was befitting this plant of Eden, which groweth not in any modem breast without more tender care and greater cherish- ing than any other slip or branch of the tree of knowledge ; and yet, when all is done, seldom comes to any proof, unless it borrow grounds from the ancients ; as tender plants can hardly be removed from a better soil to worse, without some of the earth wherein they naturally grow. Were arts to begin anew, poetry, which was the first and most common among the ancients, in all probability, would
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spring the last, and grow the slowest, amongst us. Their wits of old were not naturally or generally better than ours : vvliy then was the way to Parnassus, which unto us, using all help of art and imitation, is laborious and hard to ascend, so plain and easy to them, without any guide to help ; all other artificial learning being then either unknown, or very scant ? Such knowledge or observations, as they had or cared for, they knew not otherwise how to convey unto posterity, than by poetical numbers and resemblances. " He is a poet by nature," saith that excellent poet and divine philosopher, " that is apt to be ravished with the true and native beauty of such objects as are represented to his senses, and can express his conceit by such pleasant resemblances, as often as he shall have occasion to utter his mind in writing or set speech." This inclination or disposition is as the ground or soil wherein poetry doth naturally grow, whether in ancient or modern breasts. But the ancients had this advantage : the fashion of the world in their times was more apt to ravish their thoughts with admiration : wonderful events were then frequent ; nor did their fre- quency abate, but rather increase wonderment, because their variety was great, and the apprehension of invisible or supernatural power in them, usual. So that admiration was then enforced upon men, and the breasts of such as diligently observed these events, or were any way disposed by nature to the faculty, were inspired with lively and sublimate affections, apt to vent themselves in such poetical phrase and resemblances as we cannot reach unto, unless we raise our invention by art and imitation, and stir up admiration by meditation and study. And because neither our senses are moved with any extraordinary effects of God's power, nor our minds bent to observe the ways of his wisdom, so as we might be stricken with true admira- tion of them, we have fewer good sacred poems than of any other kind. But as the ancients' chief learning did consist of poetry ; so the excellency of their poetry was chiefly seen in the proper and native subject of this faculty, that is, in matters of sacred use or observation ; whence the title of vates did descend unto secular or profane poets, which retained the number and manner of speech used by the former.
That such as were vatea indeed were taught the sublimity of speech by admiration of extraordinary events, may be confirmed by historical narrations of the sacred story ; wherein poetical hymns or songs are the usual consequents of strange or wonderful events. As (Judges V.) after the victory gotten over Sisera, " Then sang Deborah, and Baracli the son of Abinoam, the same day, saying, Praise ye the Lord," &c. So likewise Hannah, after the Lord had heard her prayer, and taken away her barrenness, burst out into the like poetical hymn (1 Sam. ii.). So did the Blessed Virgin, upon her cousin Elizabeth's
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salutation, and John Baptist springing in her womb, take up her song (Luke i. 46), " My soul doth magnify the Lord," &c. So doth Zacliary, John Baptist's father, take up his prophecy (Luke i. 68), and Simeon (Luke ii. 28). So hkewise after tlie manifestation of God's wonders in the Red sea, all his people (as if they had been baptized in a sacred Helicon,) presently turn poets, (Exod. xv. 1). And again (Numb, xxi.) after tliey had returned to Beer, the well which Moses liad opened out of the hard rock with his rod, Israel (as if they had washed their mouths in Hippocrene) had tlieir voices tuned to an liigh strain of poetry: "Then Israel sang this song. Rise up, well; sing ye unto it; the princes digged this well, the captain of the people digged it, even with their staves."
That the frequent use of poetry among the ancient heathen did arise from like occasions, may be gathered from Strabo', who from antiquity, better known to him than us, avoucheth it as unquestion- able, that all other set speech, whether historical or rhetorical, was but the progeny of poetry, falling in latter times from its wonted state and dignity ; whereas the ancients knew no other branch of artificial or set speech but only poetry. Albeit to speak properly, it was (in respect of the efficient or impulsive cause,) rather super- artificial, than natural or artificial ; and rhetoric and history only, artificial. This opinion will not seem strange, if we consider, that the wiser sort in those times did commend such matters only to writing as might inflame posterity with devotion and love of virtue. For poetry as the same author tells us, was accounted by antiquity prima qvcedam philosophia, a kind of sacred moral philosophy, appro- pri<ated, as it seems, at the first to the relation or representation of supernatural events or divine matters only ; of which the most ancient had best experience, and were impelled to communicate them to posterity, elevated (as is observed before) by the excellency of the object, to this celestial kind of speech, which is most apt to ravish younger wits, as itself was bred of admiration. This use of poetry appears in some fragments of most ancient poets, in their kind pro- portionable to the book of Psalms, of Job, and the songs of Moses, the only pattern of true poesy; whose subjects, usually, are the wonderful works of God manifested unto men. Some degenerate footsteps of these holy men, the heathen, about Homer's time, did observe ; using their poets and musicians for planting modesty and chastity, among other virtues, in their auditors ^
So Agamemnon left the musical poet as guardian to Clytemnestra, who continued chaste and loyal until yEgisthus got the poet conveyed
' Strabo, Lib. i.
' Homer. Orfyss.
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into an uninhabited island. For this reason was poetry taught cliildren first throughout the Grecian cities ^ as Moses had commanded the Israehtes to teacli their children his divine poem (Deut. xxxi. 19, and xxxii. 46). And they much wrong that divine philosopher; that think lie was any farther an enemy unto the sacred faculty, than only to seek the reformation of it by reducing it to its first natural use ; which was not mere delight, as Eratosthenes dreamed, rightly taxed by Strabo for this error. That might he true of the comic Latin poets,
Poeta quum primum animum ad scribendum appulit,
Id sibi negoti credidit solum dari, —
Populo ut placerent quas fecisset fabulas : —
When first the poet bent his wits to write, The only mark he aim'd at was delight.
Which, notwithstanding, had neither been the only, nor chief use; — no end at all, but rather an adjunct, of poetry amongst the ancients ; by the wiser and better sort of whom nothing was apprehended, at least approved as truly delightful, which was not also honest, and of profitable use for bettering life and manners. The law of nature being then less defaced, they could read it without spelling, and com- prehend all the three elements of goodness jointly under one entire conceit ; as we do the product of divers letters or syllables in one word, without examination of their several value apart. But when the union of this trinity, wherein the nature of perfect goodness consists, was once dissolved in men's hearts, and delight had found a peculiar issue without mixture of honesty or utility, the desire of becoming popular poets did breed the bane of true poesy ; and those sacred numbers, which had been as amulets against vice, became incentives unto lust. Or, if we would but search the native use of poetry by that end which men, not led awry by hopes of applause, or gain, or other external respects, but directed rather by the internal impulsion of this faculty, and secret working of their souls, do aim at, it princi- pally serves for venting extraordinary affections. No man almost so dull, but will be poetically affected in the subject of his strongest passions. As we see by experience, that where the occasions, either of joy for the fortunate valour, or sorrow for the mishaps, of their countrymen or alliance, are most rife, this disposition is both most pregnant and most common. And as speech, or articulation of voices in general, was given to man for communicating his conceits or mean- ing unto others ; so poetry, the excellency of speech, serves for the more lively expressing of his choicer conceits, for beautifying his darling thoughts or fancies, which almost disdain to go abroad in other than this pxactlv pro])ortioned attire, — the soul's wooing suits (if 1
' Strabo. I>ib. i.
- Plato, fie Rrp. Lib. x.
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may so speak), whereby she wins others to sympathize with her in abundance of grief, or to consent with her in excessive joy, or finally to settle their admiration or dislike where she doth hers. And the more strange or wonderful the matter conceived, or to be represented, is, tlie more pleasant and admirable will the true and natural repre- sentation of it be ; and the more he that conceives it is ravished with deliglit of its beauty or goodness, the more will he long to communi- cate his conceit and liking of it to others. Whence, such as had seen the wonders of God, and had been fed with his hidden manna, sought by their lively and hearty representations to invite others, as the psalmist doth, to " taste and see the goodness of the Lord ;" as birds and beasts, when they have found pleasant food, call, on their fashion, unto others of the same kind, to be partakers v/ith them in their joy : until Satan, who hunts after the life of man, as man doth after the life of birds, did invent his counterfeit calls to allure our souls into his snare. For, when men had once taken a delight in the natural representation of events, delightful in themselves, he stirred up others to invent the like ; albeit there were no real truth or stability in the things represented, and the manner of representation usually so light and affected, as could argue no credence given by authors to their own report, but rather a desire to please such as had never set their minds to any inquisition of solid truth ; whose unsettled fancies cannot choose but fall in love with as many fair pictures of other's pleasant imaginations as are presented to them. For, as to view the connexion of real causes with their effects (most of all, if both be rare, or the concurrence of circumstances unusual) doth much affect the judicious understanding ; so the quaint and curious contrivance of imaginary rarities, set forth in splendid artificial colours, doth captivate the fancies of such as are not established in the love of truth. But (as the orator said of such as applauded the tragedy of Pylades and Orestes) how would such men's souls be ravished, could they upon sure grounds be persuaded that these stories were true, albeit devoid of artificial colours, or poetical contrivances, never used by sacred antiquity ! in whose expression of wonders the plirase is usually most poetical, as naturally it will always be, where the mind is much affected ; their invention less artificial or affected, than our historical narrations of modern affairs ; the character of the style (as was in- timated before) doth argue that they sought only to set down the true proportion of matters seen and heard, with such resemblances as were most incident to their kind of life. And from the efficacy of such extraordinary effects upon their souls is it, that the prophets so often express the same things in divers words, as if all they could say could not equalize the sensible experiments, which did move their
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hearts and fancies (as the musician's liands or breath doth liis instru- ments, to sound out such pathetical ditties). Nor had their ditties any greater disproportion with their subject, than our songs of famous victories liave witli theirs ; or otlier passionate ditties, with tlieir composers' affections ; albeit, he that hath experience of love, or abundant grief, or joy, will speak in .motlier dialect than ordinarily he useth, without .any touch of affectation.
Hence we may clearly discern, whilst wonders decayed, and men sought as great in feigned, as their fathers had done in true represen- tations, how the disproportion betwixt representations, and the real events or experiments of the times wherein the later poets lived, because so monstrous and prodigious. This fell out just so, as if armourers of this age should not observe the stature of men now living, but fashion their armour by old Guy of Warwick's harness ; or our painters not look upon tlie bodies of modem Englishmen, but take their proportions from some ancient pictures, which had been truly taken about some thousand years ago, in some country that had yielded men of more ample stature in that age, than this land of ours did in any. Such an error as this, which we have mentioned in poetry, would quickly have been reformed in any other faculty, that had concerned men's temporal profit or commodities, or wliereof others had been as competent judges as the professors. For so, when they had begun to wander or digress a little from their right end, they should presently have been called to this account : Quid ad rem ? your work may be pretty, but not to our purpose. But when such admirable events, as were well worth poetical expression, decreased, and worldly cares did multiply as men increased, the divine art of poetry, which admits not many competent judges in any age, was counted no better than a matter of mere delight, or recreation ; and for this reason the prodigious representations of it, so monstrously disproportionable to the truth represented (because oftimes more pleasant to men wearied with other studies or employments, than the bare narration of the truth), were never reformed. And so at length, that audacious licentiousness of fictions, for moving delight, did in the judgment of posterity disparage the very patterns or pro- totypes of poetical representations, whereunto later poems had been firamed ; as many tall fellows in this present age, if they should see the true image or picture of some ancient giants, would swear that the painter had played the poet, were it not that the dead bodies or limbs of some ancient people, lately digged out of the ground, did by their unusual bigness teach us to estimate (as we say) ex pedt Hercnlem, how great others might have been, whose big limbs and bones have not come unto this age's sight.
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liut most of tliese strange events were such as did continue no longer than while they were a doing ; wlierefore we must seek out the true proportion of these heavenly hodies hy their shadows, repre- sented in the later profane poets ; tlie original and manner of whose digression from the patterns of the ancient divine poets, or rather from divine truth, the pattern of ancient poetry itself, was "partly as vou have heard, partly as followeth.
God's wonderful works have been more plenteous in Asia than in other parts of the world ; more plentiful in Judca, and the regions about it, than in other parts of Asia ; most plentiful in them, about the Israelites' deliverance out of Egypt. In that time, and in the ages before, or immediately succeeding it, artificial learning was very scant ; and characters, either not invented, or their use very rare in most places. The fresh memory of such wonders presupposed, the lively image either of such licentiousness in copying fables, or confounding true histories with the mixture of false and unnatural circumstances (as these wants everywhere in all times naturally breed), we may clearly behold in the modern Turks ; who are as abundant in prodigious fables, as defective in good learning, and for want of painting, or neglect of writing, have no perfect character of the world's fashion in times past, nor any distinct order of former events. It is but a petty solecism among them, to affirm that Job the Hushite was cliief justice, and Alexander the Great, lieutenant-general, unto King Solomon.
The like confusion of times and places might be more incident unto the Asiatic nations before Alexander's time ; because their ancestors had been acquainted with more strange events, latelier fore- past, than the modem Turks are. Now, always, the more strange the events be, the more ready they be to mount upon the wings of fame ; and once so mounted, the more apt to receive increase in every circumstance, and vary their shape, whilst they fly from mouth to mouth in the open air, not fashioned or limited at their first birth by some visible character, or permanent stamp set upon them.
From this vicinity of true wonders in Jewry, or thereabouts, were the Medes, Persians, and Syrians so much addicted to fabulous narrations, that their delight in such traditions did make their later writers ambitious in the skill of coining wonders ; as Strabo tells us '. And Greece, as it received artificial learning first from Asia, so did it drink in this humour with it. For the traditions of God's miracles in Jewry, and the regions about it, liaving been far spread, when Greece began first to tattle in artificial learning, the Grecians ("always
' Strabo, Lib. ii.
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children in true antiquity," as the Egyptian priest told one of their philosophers) were apt to counterfeit the form of ancient truths, and misapply it to unseemly matters, or foolish purposes ; as children will be doing that in homelier stuff, which they see their elders do in better. Finally, the same humour which yet reigns amongst men, might possess most of the heathen. There is no famous event that falls out (though it be but a notable jest) but in a short time is ascribed to a great many more than have any affinity with it ; as many of Diogenes' conceits have been fathered upon Tarleton ; and what the Christians say of St. George, the Turks ascribe to Chederly'. If it be any story concerning wayfaring men, every hostler, tapster, or chamberlain will tell you that it fell out in their town, or in the coun- try thereabouts. And though you hear it in twenty several places, yet shall you have always some tricks of addition put upon it. In like manner did the reports of sundry events, which either fell out only in Jewry, or upon occasion of God's people, fly about the world, sometimes with cut and mangled, but most usually with enlarged, artificial wings, as if the same had been acted every where, or the like invented upon every occasion.
Jacfisoji's Works, Book i. chap. 14.
LOVING GOD, THE WAY TRULY TO KNOW HIM.
To make love the mother, and knowledge the daughter, will seem an v<rTepov •npoTepov, or mere inversion of nature's progress, from whose footstep the common ma.xim, " Unseen unsought alter;" or (as the Latins e.xpress it) Ignoti nulla aipido, " unknown undesired ;" hath been gathered by the investigations of truth. The very essences of desire and love (especially of things not actually enjoyed) are so closely entervvrapt and linked together, that for knowledge, or what- soever is no essential part of themselves to interpose or come between them, is impossible. If, then, knowledge (according to the former saying) be always presupposed to desire, how should it be the offspring of love ?
The former maxim, notwithstanding, (if I much mistake not) though within its limits without control, yet rightly examined hath no just authority, save only in such express and actual desires as are fashioned to determinate particulars desired. It no way stretcheth' to the mother desire, which all men naturally have, of knowledge
Or t'heileiles. Busbequiu?, Epist. i.
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indefinitely taken. This always works before we are aware, and all of us desire to know, before we know what knowledge or desire meaneth. This native desire of knowledge, no ;man, I think, (were he to speak directly and bona Jide to this point) would avouch to be different from the desire of happiness, alike naturally and inse- parably rooted in all. One and the same inclination of the reasonable nature sways to happiness, as to the end or mark, through knowledge, as the entry or passage ; but often miscarries, not so mifch through faint intention or remiss endeavours, as from too hasty, level, unsteady, loose, or immature delivery, before it be furnished with internal weight to balance itself against external impulsions or attractions. Good- ness divine, in whose fruition this happiness consistetli, was the port for which the pliilosophers, in their intricate disputes, were bound ; the point whereon the former desire is by nature directly set ; but from which the alacrious endeavours or vigorous intentions of men most greedy of knowledge, usually divert as far as an headless un- feathered flight, shot out of a strong bow in a mighty wind, doth from the mark whereto the archer would have sent it. Not the most exquisite knowledge of nature's secrecies, of every creature in the world, can add ought unto our liappiness, otherwise than by recti- fying or right levelling tliat inbred desire, which impels or sways us to this anxious search of knowledge. For knowledge itself we desire only as it is good ; whereas no goodness, save divine, can give satis- faction to this desire. Unto this point or centre of the soul's rest and contentment, which philosophers sought up and down by as many arch-lines as there be spheres or circles in the several works of na- ture, the Psalmist directs us by a short cord or string : " Delight thou in the Lord, and he shall give thee thy heart's desire." (Psal. xxxvii. 4.) And our heart's desire includes (at least) such a mea- sure of knowledge and true happiness, as in this life is fittest for us. But as we may in some sort desire his goodness, may we so truly delight in him whom we have not known ? Is it true of our hearts, what Jacob said of Bethel? Are they indeed "the houses of God?" is He in them, and we are not aware of his presence?
Of things in their nature sensible, but never apprehended by any particular sense, there may be an implanted hate or loathing. As whatsoever the mother near childbirth hath been affrighted or mis- affected with, will be misliked by the cliild brought forth. Hence do these secret enmities, which some reasonable creatures bear to dumb beasts, which never offend them, usually grow. The paroxysms or fits of this dislike are never occasioned but by sight, or feeling, or some other sensitive actual apprehensions of matters thus offensive; howbeit, some grudgings of the same disease may be procured by vol.. I. 11
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mere vicinity, or tlie unknown presence of the adversary ; as I have known some men restless after hard labour, and ever and anon to refuse the seat of their wonted rest, not knowing any reason why so they did, till search being made, the sight of their adversary (that was a cat) did bring their fit upon them. And yet I make no ques- tion, but either delightful employments, exercise of the spirit and senses, or the company of lovely creatures, might easily have either prevented the working of the antipathy or deaded all impression of irksomeness or dislike ; although their bad neighbour had still been present. As dislike and hate from antipathy, so love or delight may be raised from secret contact, of vicinity, or sympathizing natures. And whether we hold our souls to be immediately created of nothing, or to spring as branches from our parents, both ways they may be capable of impressions from God's presence, which (though for the most part unapprehended) is always intimate and immediate to them, as well in their operations as productions ; and would undoubtedly fill them with secret joy, did we not either give preposterous issue to such gladness as by the sympathy is often unwittingly raised in our hearts, or stifle the first workings or intimations of it by contrary motions of unhallowed mirth. Were those secret rays of warmth and comfort, which daily issue from his brightness, not cast (as they usually are) upon secondary causes or by-standing creatures, but reflected upon their fountain, the light of his countenance would more clearly shine upon us, and instamp our minds with the right portraiture of his perfections imitable. The sum of the Psalmist's late-mentioned advice is, to nurse the sympathizing instinct, or seeds of secret joy, but by abandoning all delight, save in those practices which preserve the health and peace of conscience. For to delight in the Lord, and in his Law, are with him terms synonymal. The imperfect light of speculation or artificial knowledge may well beget some heat of love ; but the perfection or splendour of knowledge divine cannot spring but from love throughly kindled and bursting out into a flame, which it seldom doth, if those inward touches of unknown joy find too much, too speedy, or sinister vent. It is an excellent observation, which some have misquoted out of Plato, to this purpose : " Sacred mysteries can hardly be taught with words ; but if a man long inures himself to divine matters, and fits his life to his meditations, the light of truth will suddenly burst out, as from a sparkling fire."
The doctrine we may maintain, without intermeddling in that quarrel between some late schoolmen and mystical divines more ancient, concerning the precedency of love and knowledge, in the unition of our souls with God. In the opinion of the ancients, the acts of love or affection outstart actual knowledge or apprehension. We only give
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this precedency to the indefinite desire, or apprehension of manifest joy, from a cause unknown and latent. And perhaps the reason why some so stiffly deny all possibility, etiam de potentia Dei absoliifa, for love to kindle in the rational soul, without some present elicit act of knowledge or apprehension, may be their averseness from Plato in holding science to be but a kind of reminiscence. And though upon these terms we may not second him, yet can wc as little brook their opinions which either expressly maintain, or tacitly suppose the manner, how love or knowledge rational are first planted, or receive increase, to resemble the compositions of art, rather than the natural growth of vegetables. The first seeds of both are not from without, but within us ; and the manner how our knowledge conies to perfection, may (I take it) be best illustrated by the manner how we ourselves become capable of this chief ornament of our nature. The first and prime substance of all bodies organical is homogeneal, or of one form. The mould whence man (far the most excellent in this rank) is, by degrees scarce sensible, extracted, ought to be reckoned rather amongst the creatures lifeless and inanimate, than vital. At the best, it is but as the mean between them, not more like to the one in possibility, than it is to the other in act ; yet duly cherished, it quickenetli and brancheth itself into several parts, first exercising only the operations of life, then of sense, lastly of reason. For, although the rational soul be immediately created by God, yet the operations of it as naturally presuppose the operations of sense, as these do operations vegetative. Parallel hereto, our natural desire of knowledge or true happiness (considered in its first root or element) is but (as the schools speak) quoddam naturce pondus, a sway, or bent, or secret working of nature, seeking to be delivered of this her burden. Afterwards it aims or levels at some particular objects, rather drawn unto them by sympathy, or impelled by instinct, than directed by express rule of reason or actual choice. And, perhaps, the first thing apprehended by it is its own attractions or impulsions ; the apprehension of them being but as it were a reflex or doubling of former inclinations or propensions ; and, once come to this perfection, it moves itself, and loves as well the exercise of its own acts or choice, as the objects to which it was other- wise drawn or impelled ; now using sense as a servant, which before did lead it as a guide, but did not give it life or beginning.
As food received by the mother doth only nourish, not give life to the fruit conceived in her womb ; so the most pregnant suggestions of sense do only feed, not beget, the internal desire of knowledge or happiness. The best instructions or precepts of tutors, or parents, or the experiments we get ourselves, are but as so many offices or rules of midwifery, for bringing forth what was before con-
11—2
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[A.D.
ceived. Meditation itself, (which is, in common reputation, the mother of science) or whatever intention of mind we can use, serve no other- wise to the former purpose, than the influence of the sun or stars doth to the production of flowers or plants, or (were the story true) as the eye of ostriches, or the warmth of other birds, to the formation of their young ones. And thus we see natural inclinations or desires always come to best proof, when they are cherished with assiduous, calm, and quiet meditations ; whereas the nimble motions of unsettled brains usually sufi'er the best seeds which man was permitted to bring with him out of Paradise to perish, as some birds do their young ones by often running off" their nests. Nor that their inventions are not ofttimes most pleasant, or delightful to spectators ; for so curious pictures observantly taken from the several perfection of many lifeless statues, do far surpass any one live substance in freshness of colour or exact proportion ; howbeit, the meanest creature endued with life and motion, simply considered, is much better than the most glorious works of Polycletus or Apelles. And herein the nimble or pleasant wit and the settled contemplator properly differ. The one proceeds by addition, or quaint composition of external or borrowed forms ; the other, by multiplication of his own internal capacities ; or by a kind of silent incubation doth as it were hatch his brood, and find every limb or branch drawn out of his proper root, before he mark the frame or composture. And though the conception be sometimes slow, and the proportion long in setting ; yet the fruit of his mind once throughly set, overgrows the other in height, in strengtli, and vigour. But unto this facility in bringing forth few attain, without extraordinary midwifery or much experience. The difficulties of their first travails make many prostitute their wills to fruitless popular com- mercements, never resolving to conceive more deeply of any matters, than may occasion extemporary pleasure or delight, or procure some anniversary or solemn flashes of general applause. But much more painful than any contemplation besides, whereof the reasonable soul seeketh to be delivered, is our own new birth, which, in the apostle's language, is but the fashioning of Christ Jesus, or God's image in us. In this our translation from darkness to light, how often are we enforced to cry out with Hezekiah, " The children are come unto the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth !" Sometimes we seek witli sighs and groans to give vent to the inward working of the implanted inclination, stirred and quickened by the Spirit of God. Otherwhiles, we strive to strengthen the expulsive force, or to make an eruption by knocking our breasts ; ofttimes enforced to rest con- tented with a stream of tears, strained out by this struggling agony between the infusions of spiritual life, and the flesh resisting this our
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hirtli, as the dragon did the bringing forth of the woman's child. Hovvbeit these sorrowful tears serve to this end, as a spring or summer sliower to a joyful harvest. And the greater our pain in the travail, or the longer our expectation hath been masked with carnal blindness, the greater always is our joy in the delivery ; when our minds are enliglitened to sec the beauty of that, wliich heretofore wc so fervently expected only by secret instinct or sympathy. Then fearing lest these transient gleams might fade or vanish, either we crave, with old Simeon, our Nunc dimittis, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servants de- part in peace, while our eyes behold thy salvation," or complain with the prophet, " How long wilt thou be as a passenger, or as one that sojourneth but for a night ? Return, O Lord, return unto thy resting- place, thou, and the ark of thy strength." And with Peter, we proffer to build him a lasting tabernacle, to allot him our hearts for a per- petual habitation.
What joy of heart doth usually accompany the internal illumina- tions, which break forth from such ardent desire of acquaintance with the divine nature, as hath been secretly kindled and nourished by a touch or sympathy of his former unapprehended presence ; and how incomparably they exceed the most lively representations which others can frame of his essence or attributes, whether for sohd infor- mation of the understanding, for affecting the will, or for uniting our souls and affections to him, may in part be gathered from that ex- cessive delight which men naturally take in tiieir own labours in respect of others more exquisitely adorned ; partly from the measure of our exceeding ourselves either in the right apprehension, or exqui- site adorning of subjects much affected, in comparison of those which we naturally fancy not, or lightly esteem. The fruits of other men's labours, being, as it were, gathered to our hands, we like no farther, than as they fit those moulds of our speculative reflective conceits, which have their seat in the superior part of the soul, and scarce communicate with affection. And our judgments are always most sincere in respect of those men's works, whose persons or conversation have given us least occasion of any affectionate sympathy or antipathy. But in the approbation of our own invention, affection, and that natural inclination whence they spring, have swaying voices ; and unless these stubborn suffragans be first squared to the rules of reason taught by others, they enforce our judgments to bow unto their bent. But albeit too much affection leadeth many into folly, yet no man understands or handles any subject well, wliich he doth not much affect. Hence poets, as their inventions are most delicate, so are they usually most in love with them ; because the same bent of affection, which animates and strengthens their fancies to bring forth, doth
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also enamour tlieni with the beauty of their own brood. Howbeit though " indignation" may give the faculty of making verses, where nature hatli denied it ; yet to make a poet, nature itself is not able, but by giving an extraordinary affection of like or dislike, of such objects as fall within the consideration of the poetical faculty. Gene- rally, as blunt irons thoroughly heated pierce further into hard bodies than cold edge-tools ; so wits in themselves not the acutest, whilst accompanied with ardour of affection, conceive most acutely and deeply of matters much affected, and will go through such difficulties, as would turn the edge of the best wits living, not thus backed or fortified. Nor is it the nimbleness of conceit or apprehension, but the relenting temper of inbred desire, and incessant sway or work- ing of secret instinct, which brings the seeds of knowledge to just growth and maturity ; as those plants prosper best, not which shoot out fastest or flourish soonest, but such as have the soundest roots and sappiest stems.
As reason requires aff'ection to back it, so, much more, doth affec- tion need the eye of reason (domestic or foreign) to direct and level it ; nor is it only directed, but withal refined and purified, by being as it were new cast in the moulds of our rational or reflex conceits ; each act of settled contemplation diminisheth somewhat of its natural sourness, as crabs or wild apples, by often transplanting or engrafting, grow more mild and pleasant. As there is a circular progress of seed from trees, and trees from seed ; so is there a reciprocal production of desire or love by knowledge, and of knowledge by desire or love, in one and the same man. For man's actions of this kind are imma- nent, and multiply within himself. And as the seed since the first creation doth still in order of nature go before the tree ; so doth knowledge always presuppose instinct or desire. And yet knowledge of things amiable, being come unto maturity, is always laden with love, as with its natural fruit. Nor should we so nmcli desire to know any subject, unless love to it known were most natural. So that knowledge properly is but our natural desire, or implanted blind love restored to siglit ; and nature doth as it were first grope after that, which at length she conies to see, and having seen, desires to embrace or kiss. The apparent inconstancy of young desires never satisfied, manifests their natural blindness, in that they secretly solicit a guide or instructor ; and the original of this inconstancy, as was intimated before, is but the working of the soul, seeking to unsheath the implanted notion or desire of knowledge and of true happiness, from those fleshly inwrapments wherewith it was blindfolded, as a child in the womb. Or, to deduce tlic original of the error from a principle more properly philosophical : As unto knowledge truly
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speculative, there is required a perfect abstraction of the object known, or of the form by wliich we know it, from all material con- ditions, or sensitive adjuncts which accompany it ; so on tlie behalf of the intellective faculty itself (especially for the right contemplation of matters moral or practical) a correspondent extraction of the en- grafted notion or desire of good is as requisite. For as those specula- tive or general rules, which have been taken from sensitive experiments not rightly severed or abstracted, though they hold in some, yet fail in most particulars, when we come to practice ; so likewise all love of goodness whatsoever is insincere and inconstant, unless the ingrafted desire of happiness, whence it springs, be first stript of those sensitive desires or propensions, which, by the corruption of nature, are either linked with it, or inclose it as the ivy doth the oak. And yet the more we inure ourselves to any sensual or external good, the greater ad- vantage those sensual appetites or propensions gain, as well for strength- ening, as for fast linking or mingling themselves with the intellectual inclination or desire, which by long custom they either quite blind, or make it willing to admit them for its leader.
This then is the aphorism, for whose proof thus mucli hath been premised : The most compendious and safest way to conceive or speak aright of God, or his goodness, is to have our inbred desire of happiness right set in youth, and continually held as in a bay unto those practices whereto God liath promised the communication of his gracious pre- sence. So shall the sincere knowledge of his goodness and otiier attri- butes break fortli (in a measure fittest for every man in his vocation) in best season, and bring forth the most lasting, constant, and plea- sant fruits of love. And knowledge again, relying upon the internal desire of happiness, which is the stem or branch whence these fruits of love proceed, doth season and sweeten the very nature or property of it, and, in a sort, transform it from a wild plant to a tree of life ; as cunning gardeners, by often transplanting and good dressing, much better the stock, and in process of time, in a manner, alter the very specifical nature of the fruit. And after our cogitations come once to resolve upon the fore-mentioned sympathy or settled peace of conscience (which cannot arise but from God's presence) as upon a firm and constant centre, our souls become like a surveyor's table rightly set, for taking the true model of the incomprehensible Nature.
Jackson's Works. Book v. Chap. 51.
[A. D
JOSEPH MEDE.
A.D. 1600—1638.
This " sublime genius," as Bishop Hurd terms him, was a native of Berdon, near Bishop's Stortford, and born in the year 1586. While a schoolboy at Wethersfield in Essex, going on some occasion to London, he bought Bellarmine's Hebrew Grammar. His master, who was ignorant of Hebrew, told him it was a book not fit for him ; but the youth, already possessed by that thirst of knowledge which afterwards dis- tinguished him, proceeded, notwithstanding, to study it with so mucli eagerness, that on being admitted of Christ's College, Cambridge, in l602, he took with him to the university con- siderable skill in the language of the Old Testament.
At Cambridge he quickly attracted notice by his abilities, although a distressing hesitation in his speech, which he after- wards in some degree overcame, prevented his appearing with advantage in public. As, at some period, has happened to so many powerful and inquisitive intellects, he lost himself for a season in the gloom of scepticism. For meeting, not long after the commencement of his philosophical studies, with the works of Sextus Empiricus, or some such sceptical writer, he began to perplex himself with those obscure and endless questions which they suggest, and even went so far as to doubt whether the whole visible frame of things were any thing more than a mere phantasm of the imagination. By degrees, how- ever, this uncomfortable state of mind gave way to juster views.
By the time he took his master's degree, in 1610, his reputation, as a profound scholar, was established. He was considered an acute logician, an accurate philosopher, an ex- cellent anatomist, a great philologer, a master of many lan- guages, and a good proficient in history and chronology.
The first notice taken of Mede beyond the sphere of the university, proceeded from Bishop Andrewes, who formed a high opinion of him from a Latin tract De Sanctitate Re-
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lntiva\ which he addressed to that learned and discrimi- nating prelate. It was through Andrewes's patronage that he succeeded in obtaining a fellowship in his college, after having been passed over at several elections, on account of a groundless suspicion entertained by the master, Dr. Gary, that he had a leaning to the discipline of Geneva. The bishop likewise offered to make him his domestic chaplain ; but this distinction he gratefully refused, " as valuing the liberty of his studies above any hopes of preferment, and esteeming that freedom which he enjoyed in his cell (so he used to term his study) as the haven of all his wishes." Such thoughts had, indeed, possessed him early. At the age of ten years he had the misfortune to lose his father. Soon after this event, an offer was made by his uncle, a merchant with- out children, to adopt him as his son, if he would engage in business : this advantageous proposal he rejected, as his friend, Dr. Jackson, did a similar one. How much subsequent times have been indebted to the generous determination of these two illustrious divines, to pursue the retired path of learning, rather than the busier and more favoured road to wealth, is not sufficiently known to the present generation.
Not long after his election to a fellowship, he was ap- pointed to read the Greek lecture founded by Sir Walter Mildmay. This office, his only source of income besides his fellowship, he held all his life, and made it the means of perfecting his philological studies, by extensive collations of that language with the Oriental, Latin, and English tongues. He was an able and faithful tutor. His custom was, after he had, by daily lectures, well grounded his pupils in the routine of the schools, rather to set each a daily task suitable to his ability and inclination, than constantly to confine himself and them to precise hours for lectures. In the even- ing they all assembled in his chamber ; when the first question which he used to put, to every one in his order, was. Quid duhitas? "What doubts have occurred to you in your studies to day ?" — for it was his opinion, that to doubt nothing was to understand nothing. He then heard and resolved their difficulties ; and having by prayer commended them and their studies to the divine blessing, dismissed them for the night.
His own studies he pursued in the mean time, with un-
' He afterwards more largely treated the same subject, in a Cnncio ad Clerum, preached in HilK.
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remitted energy. He allowed himself little or no exercise except walking ; and often, in the fields, or in the college- garden, which he delighted in cultivating and adorning, would take occasion to expatiate on the beauty, the characteristics, and useful properties, of the plants in view ; for he was a curious florist, an accurate herbalist, and generally versed in the great book of nature. He indulged not much in the ordinary relaxations of society, but enjoyed the conver- sation of a few learned friends, and delighted in communi- cating his knowledge to the junior members of the university, whom he encouraged to visit him for the resolution of such difficulties as they met with in their reading. His taste led to the more abstruse provinces of inquiry; in his juvenile years he even spent some time, in " sounding the depths" of astrology, a subject not yet excluded from the list of sciences. This visionary pursuit, however, he soon abandoned, without regret, for the more sober study of history and antiquities. " He inquired particularly into those profound sciences, in which the Chaldseans and Egyptians made themselves so famous ; tracing them, as far as he could find any certain light to guide him, in their oriental schemes and figurative expres- sions." He applied himself also to the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, — a language whose seal of two thousand years it was reserved for our own age to break ; and included within his field of research the oneirology of the ancients, on account of the affinity which he believed it might have with the lan- guage of the prophets. As divinity was the subject to which he made all his other studies subservient, so to this particular department of that science, — the elucidation of prophecy, — he applied an unwearied assiduity in historical research. Perhaps no scholar, even of those laborious times, more completely ex- hausted the stores of ancient erudition, both sacred and pro- fane: his researches into antiquity, whether Pagan or Jewish, Christian or Mahometan, were alike accurate and extensive. The opinion which Ussher entertained of his judgment in sacred chronology, is attested by this passage of one of the letters addressed to him by that unrivalled master of the science, at the commencement of his preparations for his pro- jected great work, the Chronnlogia Sacra: — "I have entered," writes the learned primate, " upon the determination of the controversies which concern the chronology of the Sacred Scripture, wherein I .shall need your help-""
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Long previously to the date of this testimony, Mede had given the first evidence of his success in those enquiries, and of a peculiar genius for prophetical investigation, in his fa- mous Clavis Apocalyptica. and Commentarius in Apocalypsin. These elaborate treatises, which together constitute but one work, were, says his biographer. Dr. Worthington, "his first- born, his might, and the excellency of his strength." Two short tracts only besides were published by him in his lifetime, viz. On the name QuaiaaTi^piov, anciently given to the Holy Table, and. Of Churches in the Apostles' time.
The great work on the Apocalypse, it is well known, sup- plied the system on which almost all subsequent expositors of note have proceeded ; and which, if any may be said to be so, is received as authoritative in the Protestant Churches. The principle of synchronisms, the discovery of which is due to him, seems undoubtedly to present the safest clue through the " sacred labyrinth'' of that mysterious book ; and though the work of Mede is not free from errors and imperfections, some of which were immediately pointed out, as others have been made evident by the experience of later times, these are not of a magnitude to injure its foundation, nor, materially, to affect the fame of its author. His most considerable error seems to be the support he has given to the ancient millenary opinions ; and the most imj)erfect part of his Apocalyptic scheme is con- sidered to be his explication of the vials. It is easy for those who, especially after the lapse of a long series of subsequent events, mount upon the shoulders of this critical giant, and apply to their optics the telescope which he (in the true sense of the word) invented, to see, in some directions, more clearly, if not farther, than their master. But when it is remembered, that not only the foundation, but also the chief materials of later attempts, were supplied by Mede, such advantages, enjoyed by his successors, appear to furnish occasion rather of thankfulness than of triumph.
But the labours of Mede, as an expositor of Scripture, are not confined to the department of prophecy. " For his noble genius leading him on to encounter difficulties, he ever seemed most delighted with those studies wherein he might strain the sinews of his brain ; and therefore he used, as occasion offered itself, to set upon those difficult places of Scripture which seemed to be of more use and concernment, and much time did he spend that way to give light to those
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^vafotjTa and dark places in Holy Writ. He was taken notice of by many for his singular faculty in this kind, and sent to by several learned men for his resolution of such doubts ; which was usually so clear, that there was no person who loved truth but would be satisfied with his answers, if not as certain and unquestionable, yet as ingenious and very pro- bable ; insomuch that strangers, of other universities, who had never seen him, gave him this eulogy, that for removing scripture difficulties he was to be reckoned the best in the world." A selection from those learned essays has been pub- lished with the title of "■DiatribcB: Fifty Discourses on several TeMs of Scripture.''''
Concerning these profound disquisitions, the occasional composition of which extended through many years, we have this intimation from the writer of his life, — that though there are in them several things of a strain that transcends the capacities of common readers, yet it would be a great mistake for that reason to suspect the author of ostentation or afFected- ness. For as they were academical exei'cises, and not fitted for a vulgar audience ; so he himself was of all knowing men the greatest hater of that vanity. He always disapproved the unnecessary quotation of authors, and the use of foreign languages and terms of art, in popular sermons.
Indeed the modesty and humility of this eminent person were equal to his abilities and acquirements. While he was constant in imploring the Divine assistance, as absolutely necessary in all enquiries after truth, and while he abounded in gratitude and thankful acknowledgments for any measure of light given to his prayers and endeavours; he with unfeigned sincerity declined the praise which flowed in upon him from all sides. When urged to follow up his brilliant labours in those college exercises, just described, by writing expressly in difficiliora loca scripturcB, his answer was, with a sigh — "No: such a work must be done in an age when men's thoughts are not imprisoned or circumscribed within the pale of overruling parties ; and would, besides, require more learning than I have or am capable of, and a longer time than I dare reckon I have to live."
The same humble disposition appeared in him with re- spect to academic honours and professional advancement. He never took the degree of Doctor of Divinity, nor would he have proceeded, to that of B.D , which he received in l6lS,
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if he had not been urgently persuaded by the master of his college. Twice he refused to accept the provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, to which he had been elected by that society on the recommendation of his friend the primate of Ireland'. After his second refusal of the provostship, another dignity in the Church of Ireland, worth a thousand pounds per annum, was also placed at his disposal, and refused. His highest ambition was only to have had some small sine- cure in addition to his fellowship, or to have succeeded to some quiet preferment, where, retired from the noise and tumults of the world, he might have been wholly at leisure for study, and acts of piety ; and even this he would mention, not as a desire that troubled him, but to shew with what kind of life he could be contented. Consequently, when a report had gained currency that the archbishop of Canterbury designed to ap- point him one of his chaplains, he thus declared his mind in a letter to a friend : " I have lived,"" he writes, " till the best of my time is spent, in tranquilHtate et secessu; and now that there is but little left, should I be so unwise (suppose there were nothing else) as to enter now into a tumultuous life, where I should not have time to think my own thoughts, and must of necessity displease others in myself.'' Those who think so, know not my disposition in this kind to be as averse as some perhaps would be ambitious." Few, indeed, of the scholars of that great age of learning understood, or failed to despise, the art, since so largely cultivated, of learning just so much as will serve a worldly ambition ; and no more.
Yet was Mede no melancholy, indolent, or incapable re- cluse : no man was more free and open for converse, especially with ingenuous and enquiring scholars ; few fitter for business and active pursuits. He took the interest that became a man, a Christian, and an Englishman, in the stirring and presageful events which were transacted in his time ; yet this was accom- panied with the utmost moderation in the expression of his own opinions, and the largest liberality regarding the views and prejudices of others. Peace, in fact, peace, at least among Protestants — was the object of his earnest desires ; and in his own transactions he always evinced this temper. Even in what
' In the first of these instances, which occurred before his refusal could be an- ticipated, the election was positive, and
he was required to make a fonnal resig- nation before the office could be proposed to Bedel, who succeeded him.
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he deemed his great vocation, the prosecution of truth, lie early resolved never to abandon charity : " I never found myself prone to change my hearty affections to any one for mere difference in opinion,'" was the return he made to one who had opposed him with needless heat. " Thus was he a rare pattern of patience when himself was touched ; but otherwise he would be justly impatient when any, especially worthy persons, were unworthily dealt with in his presence." An instance of this charitable indignation is related as having occurred while he was on a visit to his friend Dr. Jackson, at Oxford, It chanced one day, at dinner, when several of the most eminent men of the university were present, that some disrespectful obser- vations were made on Dr. John Prideaux, then Regius Pro- fessor of divinity in that university. Mede, unable to restrain himself, on hearing an absent and estimable man unfairly cen- sured, thus cut short the discourse : " Gentlemen," he ex- claimed, " the man of whom you speak deserves far better words. It was his infirmity, let it be admitted, in this in- stance to be overseen ; but he has virtues and great accom- plishments far more than enough to make up this defect. That he is both learned and pious is beyond question ; and one in- firmity among so many perfections is not to be regarded, nor ever made mention of by one Christian towards another. Let me therefore take the boldness to beg that you would desist from this discourse, and fall upon some more profitable argu- ment."
His charity, in the more restrained sense of the term, was large and diffusive. The givins; of alms to the necessitous he looked upon as not arbitrary, and left to every one's discretion, but a necessary and indispensable duty. Like Hammond, and others, he set apart, and devoted to God for charitable and pious uses, a tenth of his narrow income ; nor would he permit the flow of his liberality to be checked, or lose his " cheerfulness in giving," by meeting with in- gratitude in those whom he obliged. One instance of such unworthy returns which he met with, is truly extraordinary and characteristic. He had lent money to a person at Cam- bridge, whom at a future time, when no longer in need, he reminded of his obligation. The answer he received was, " That upon a strict and exact account he had no right to what he claimed." "No right?" demanded Mede. "No, no right," rejoined the other, who was a Puritan, "because you
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are none of God's children ; for they only have right, who are gracious in God's siglit." This occurred at the time when, in London, none were allowed to take holy orders who could not satisfactorily answer concerning the famous position, that " dominion is founded in grace." Such, however, were Mede's frugality and temperance, that he had always sufficient.
In person he was well proportioned, and naturally of a strong constitution, which however was in some degree dis- ordered, by a life of incessant study. He was of a good height, and though in his youth spare, inclined to corpulence at a later period, notwithstanding his abstemiousness. "His eye was full, quick, and sparkling; his whole countenance com- posed to a sedate seriousness and gravity. Majestas et amor, majesty with sweetness, wei'e in it well met."
On fitting occasions he could be merry and facetious. Several of his witticisms are reported in the Appendix to his life, but none of them would now be reckoned very remark- able for point. Perhaps the following, though classed under another head, — Serious Sayings, is not inferior to any. " To that stale triumphing demand of the llomanists, ' Where was your Church before Luther.?' he answered, 'Where was the flour when the wheat went to the mill
Mede did not survive the civil war; but he lived to feel the grief and apprehension which were diffused, among all who were loyal to the Church and king, by the Scottish in- surrection. That ebullition of popular fury he regarded as the beginning of a series of public calamities which he had long foreseen. With Jackson, Herbert, and other acute and religious persons among his contemporaries, he applied to Eng- land that passage. Judges iii. 30, "The land had rest four- score years." Such a rest, he would observe, the longest that the people of Israel ever enjoyed, we in England have enjoyed from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign : and who knows whether our period be not near at hand
Mede's death was painful and unexpected. He was dis- covered by a friend, extended in a fit upon his hearth ; and after enduring, with Christian patience, much agony, from unskilful medical treatment, expired within two days of his seizure, on the 1st of October, l638. He gave by his will, besides some legacies to members of his family, one hundred pounds to the poor of the town of Cambridge ; and his remain- ing estate, amounting to three hundred pounds, towards the
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new buildings, and to adorn the chapel, of Christ's College. His books he bequeathed to the college library. His body lies buried in the chapel.
The works of Mede were collected and published, in two volumes folio, in the year l664, by Dr. Worthington. In this task (to him truly "a labour of love") that accu- rate scholar and accomplished divine, to whose editorial powers, on another occasion, hereafter to be mentioned, the readers of English theology are indebted, has shewn extraordinary care and ability.
In Vol. I., which is divided into two books, are contain- ed,_
DiatribcE : Fifty Discourses on several texts of Scrip- ture.
Of Churches ; that is, appropriate places for Christian worship. First published in the author's lifetime, with a de- dication to Laud. The design of this very learned tract is, to prove that there were already places appointed and set apart for Christian worship, as early as the time of the apostles.
The Christian Sacrifice. The argument of this treatise imports, that the Eucharist is properly a sacrifice ; that is, an oblation of thanksgiving and prayer, through Jesus Christ who is commemorated, but in no other sense offered, in the consecrated bread and wine.
Of the name Altar, or QvaiaaTtiptov, anciently given to the Holy Table. — The volume concludes with three other short discourses on similar subjects.
Vol. II. Consists of three books, and includes the follow- ing works ; —
Claris Apocalyptica, SfC. a Key to the Apocalypse First
printed for private circulation at Cambridge, in 1627.
Respecting this great work, Bishop Hurd, who had studied it with diligence, thus writes : —
" He [[Mede] considered the whole [[Apocalypse] as a naked recital of facts, literally expressed ; and not as a prophetic scheme mystically represented. In this way of enquiry, he discerned that several parts of the history, whatever their secret and involved mean- ing might he, were homogeneous and contemporary ; that is, they related to the same subject, and were comprised within tlie same period ; and this though they were not connected in the order of tiie narration, i)Mt lay dispersed in different quarters of it. These
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several sets of Iiistorical passages (or of Visions, to speak in the language of tlie book itself) he carefully analysed and compared ; shewed fi-om circumstances, not imagined, but found, in the history, their mutual relation and correspondency ; and established his con- clusions as he went along, not in a loose way of popular conjecture, but in the strictest forms of geometric reasoning. The coincident histories thus classed and scrutinized, he distinguished by the name of Synchronisms.
The reader, who is about to sit down to the study of Mede's treatise, or to that of the Apocalypse itself, will do well to prepare his mind by reading the tenth of the bishop's Sermons on the Prophecies, delivered at the Warburton Lecture, from which the above paragraph is copied : a very distinct and analytical account is there given of " this dis- covery, which did so much honour to the profound genius and accurate investigation of its author — may we not add — and to the Church of England ?
Commentarius in Apocalypsin, l6,S2. This treatise sup- plies the application of the Key.
Appendix ad Clavem Apocalypticam.
UapdXenroneua: Remains on some passages in the Apo- calypse.
Paraphrase and Exposition of the Prophecy of St. Peter, 2 Ep. eh. iii.
The Apostacy of the latter times. The idea developed in this extremely learned, but incomplete treatise, is, that the demon-worship of the ancients was revived in the corrupt ages of the Christian Church, in the adoration of angels, the deifying and invocation of saints, the worshipping of relics and images, &c.
Three Treatises on the Prophecies of Daniel.
Epistles; Correspondence of Mede with divers learned men. These letters are ninety-eight in number, and abound in interesting discussions respecting most of those subjects which at that time chiefly engaged the thoughts of learned men. Fragmenta Sacra ; or Miscellanies of Divinity.
The style of this eminent writer is clear, vigorous, manly, and, in his English writings, though thickly studded with learned quotations, unaffectedly vernacular.
The general " qualities of his head and heart" are thus summed up by Hurd : "He was a candid, sincere man; dis- VOT.. I. 12
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interested and unambitious ; of no faction in religion, or government, (both which began in his time to be overrun with factions) but solely devoted to the cause of truth, and to the investigation of it. His learning was vast, but well chosen, and well digested ; and his understanding, in no common degree, strong and capacious."
FROM THE WORKS OF MEDE.
THE REVERENCE OF GOd's HOUSE.
The house of God is the place set apart for his worship and ser- vice, and so hath peculiar relation unto him ; wherewith being in- vested, it becomes sacred and holy ; not only whilst divine duties are performed therein, as some erroneously affirm, but as long as it is for such use, namely, according to the nature of other sacred things, which continue their state of separateness and sanctity so long as that relation they have unto God (wherein this sanctity consists) is not quite abolished.
To erect and set apart such places as these for the exercise of the rites of religion, is derived from the instinct of nature, and ap- proved of God from the beginning. It began not with that taber- nacle or ambulatory temple which Moses caused to be made by God's appointment at Mount Sinai, but was much more ancient. Noah built an altar as soon as he came out of the ark. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, wheresoever they came to pitch their tents, erected places of divine worship, (that is, altars, with their septs and enclosures) with- out any special appointment from God. Jacob in particular vowed a place for divine worsliip by the name of God's house, where he would pay the tithes of all that God should give him (Gen. xxviii. 19, &c.) Lo, here a church endowed. Yea, Moses himself, (Exod. xxxiii. 7) before the ark and that glorious tabernacle were yet made, pitched a tabernacle for the same purpose without the camp, whither every one that sought the Lord was to go. And all this was done tanquam recepto morin, as a thing of custom, and as mankind by tradition had learned to accommodate the worship of their God, by appropriating some place to that use ; nature teaching them that the work was honoured and dignified by the peculiamess of the place appointed for the same ; and that if any work were so to be honoured, there was nothing it more beseemed than the worship and service of Almighty God, the most peculiar and incommunicable act of all other.
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Now, concerning tlie condition and property of places thus sanc- tified or hallowed, what it is, whence can we learn better than from that which the Lord spake unto Moses, (Exod. xx.) immediately after he had pronounced the Decalogue from mount Sinai : where pre- mising that they should not make with him gods of gold and gods of silver, but that they should make him an altar of earth (as, namely, their ambulatory state then permitted, otherwise of stone), and thereon sacrifice their burnt-offerings and peace-offerings ; he adds, " In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and bless tliee." In every place where the remembrance or memorial of my name shall be, or, wheresoever that is which I have or shall appoint to be the remembrance or memorial of my name and presence, there I will come unto thee, and bless thee. Lo, here a description of the place set apart for divine worship : it is the place " where God records his name," and " comes unto men to bless them." Two things are hereby specified : 1. The monument, record, or memorial of God's name; 2. His coming or meeting there with men. Of both let us enquire distinctly what they mean.
I know it would not be untrue to say in general, that God's name is recorded or remembered in that place upon wliich his name is called, or which is called by his name (as the scripture speaks), that is, which is dedicate to his worship and service. But there is some more special thing intended here ; namely, the memorial or monument of God's name is that token or symbol whereby he testifieth his covenant and commerce with men. Now although the ark, called the ark of the covenant or testimony (wherein lay the two tables, namely the book or articles of the covenant, and manna, the bread of the covenant) were afterwards made for this purpose, to be the standing memorial of God's name and presence with his people ; yet cannot that be here either only, or specially, aimed at ; because when these words were spoken, it had no being, nor was there yet any com- mandment given concerning the making thereof. Wherefore the record here mentioned I understand with a more general reference to any memorial whereby God's covenant and commerce with men was testi- fied ; such as were the sacrifices immediately before spoken of, and the seat of them, the altar ; which therefore may seem to be in some sort the more particularly here pointed unto. For that these were rites of remembrance, whereby the name of God was commemorated or recorded, and his covenant with men renewed and testified, might be easily proved. Whence it is that that which was burned upon the altar is so often called the memorial ; as in Leviticus, the 2d, 5th, 6th, and 24th chapters. Accordingly, the son of Sirach tells us, (chap. xlv. 16) that Aaron " was chosen out of all men living, to offer sacrifices to
12—2
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the Lord, incense and a sweet savour, for a memorial to make recon- ciliation for the people." Add also that, (Isaiah Ixvi. 3) " He that" (without true contrition and humiliation before the Lord) "recordeth or maketh remembrance with incense, is as if he blessed an idol." You will say, What is all this to us now in the time of the gospel ? T answer. Yes : for did not Christ ordain the holy Eucharist to be the memorial of his name in the New Testament ? " Tliis," saith he, "is my body; do this for my commemoration," or, "in memorial of me." And what if I should affirm that Christ is as much present here as the Lord was upon the mercy-seat between the cherubims? Why should not then the place of this memorial, under the gospel, have some semblable sanctity to that where the name of God was recorded in the law ? And though we be not now tied to one only place, as those under the law were, and that God heareth the faithful prayers of his servants wheresoever they are made unto him, (as also he did then,) yet should not the places of his memorial be promiscuous and common, but set apart to that sacred purpose. In a word, all those sacred memorials of the Jewish temple are both comprehended and excelled in this one of Christians : the sacrifices, shew-bread, and ark of the covenant ; Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist being all these unto us in the New Testament, agreeably to that of the apostle (Rom. iii. 25), " God hath set forth Jesus Christ to be our l\a<TTripiov through faith in his blood;" tliat is, our propitiatory or mercy-seat ; for so it is called in the Greek both of the Old and New Testament ; nor is the word, I tliink, ever used but in that sense, unless in Ezek. xliii. for the settle of tlie altar.
But you will say, this Christian memorial is not always actually present in our churches, as some one or other at least of those in tlie law were in the temple. I answer. It is enough it is wont to be ; as the chair of state loses not its relation and due respect, though the king be not always there. And remember, that the ark of the covenant was not in Jerusalem when Daniel opened his windows and prayed thitherward, yea, that it was wanting in the holy place (I mean that sacred cabinet made by Moses) all the time of the second, or Zorobabel's, temple ; and yet the place esteemed notwith- standing as if it had been there.
You will yet except, and say, that in the Old Testament those things were appointed by divine law and commandment, but in the New we find no such thing. I answer. In things for which we find no new rule given in the New Testament, there we are referred and left to the analogy of the Old. This the apostle's proof, taken from thence for the maintenance of the ministers of the gospel, I Cor. ix. 13, 14, (viz. thus were they ; ergo, so God hath ordained that we
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should be,) will give us to understand ; likewise the practice of the church in baptizing infants, derived surely from tlie analogy of cir- cumcision ; tlie hallowing of every first day of the week, as one in every seven, from the analogy of the Jewish sabbath ; and other the like. St. Jerome witnesseth the same in that saying of his, Ut sciamm traditiones apostolicas mmptaa ex veieri Testamento; quod Aaron et Jilii ejus atque Lvvitcc in templo fucrunt hoc sibi episcopi, preshyteri atque diaconi vendicant in Ecclesia. "That we may know," saith he, " that the apostolic traditions were derived from the Old Testament, that which Aaron, his sons, and the Levites were in the temple, the same do bishops, priests, and deacons, claim in the Church." For we are to consider, that the end of Christ's coming into the world was not properly to give new laws unto men, but to accom- plish the law already given, and to publish the gospel of reconcilia- tion, through his name, to those who had transgressed it. Whence it is, that we find not the style of the New Testament to carry a form of enacting laws almost any where ; but those which are there mentioned, to be brought in occasionally, only by way of proof, of interpretation, exhortation, application, or the like, and not as by way of constitution or re-enacting. Meanwhile, lest I should be mistaken, mark well that I said not, the Old Testament was to be our rule simply in the case mentioned, but the analogy thereof only ; that is, this regulation is to be made according to that proportion which the difference of the two covenants, and the things in them, admits, and no further : the more particular application and limitation of which analogy is to be referred to the judgment and prudence of the Church.
There comes here very fitly into my mind a passage of Clemens, (a man of the apostolic age, he " whose name," St. Paul saith, was " written in the book of life,") in his genuine epistle Ad Corinthios, lately set forth : YldvTa, saith he, ra^et Troieii/, k.t.A. — "All those duties which the Lord hath commanded us to do, we ought to do them regularly and orderly ; our oblation and divine services to celebrate them on set and appointed times. For so he hath ordained, not that we should do them at haphazard and without order, but at certain determined days and times. Wliere also and by whom he will have them executed, himself hath defined, according to his supreme will." But where hath the Lord defined these things, unless he hath left us to the analogy of the Old Testament ?
It follows in the text alleged, " There I will come unto thee, and bless thee." In the place where the Lord's memorial is, where his colours, as I may so speak, are displayed and set up, there, in a special manner, he vouchsafes his presence with the sons of men to
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bless them : or, to speak rotunde, where liis memorial is, there his Shechinah or Ao'fa (as the Hebrew masters term it) is — tliat is, His Glory. The Gentiles ascribed the presence of their gods to the places where images and statues were erected and consecrated for them : but such personal similitudes the God of Israel abhors, and forbids to be made unto him ; yet promiseth his presence in every place where the memorial or record of his name shall be ; but of his own appointment, not of man's devising. For thus, I suppose, is the text there to be understood, and to be construed by way of antithesis or opposition : "You shall not make with me gods of silver, nor gods of gold: an altar only of earth, or of stone, shalt thou make unto me, to offer thy sacrifices upon. For in every place where I shall record my name, I will come unto thee, and bless thee."
Thus have we seen what is the condition and property of that place which in my text is called God's house. But before I pro- ceed to speak of the duty of those who come thither, (which was the second thing I propounded) there is one thing yet to be cleared, concerning that which I last mentioned, namely. How God is said to come unto, or be present with, men in one place more than an- other ; seeing his presence fills every place, heaven being his throne, and the whole earth his footstool. For although we read often in Holy Scripture of such a Shechinah, or speciality of the divine pre- sence, and have it often in our mouths ; yet what it is, and wherein the ratio thereof consistetli, is seldom, if at all, enquired. When we speak of churches, we content ourselves to say. That God's spe- cial presence there is in his word and sacrament. But though it be true, that the Divine Majesty is there specially present where his word and sacrament are ; yet seems not this speciality of presence to be the same with his word and sacrament, but a diverse relation from them. This may be gathered, in some sort, out of those words of Exodus whereupon we have so long dwelt, as where " the record- ing of God's name," and " his coming thither," are spoken of as two ; but is more strongly evinced by such instances of scripture, where the Lord is said to have been specially present in places where this record of his word and sacrament was not ; as, for example, to Moses in the bush, to Jacob at Bethel, and the like. The true ratio therefore of this Shechinah, or speciality of divine presence, must be sought and defined by something which is common to all these, and not by that which is proper to some only.
This specification, then, of the Divine presence, whereby God is said to be in one place more than another, I suppose (under cor- rection) to consist in his train or retinue. A king is there where his court is, where his train and retinue are : so God the Lord of
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liosts is there specially present, where the heavenly guard, the blessed iuigels, keep their sacred station and rendezvous.
Tiiat this is consonant to the revelation of holy Scripture, I shew first, from the coOection or inference wliicli the patriarch Jacob makes upon tliat divine vision of his at Betliel ; where having seen a ladder reaching from heaven to earth, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it, " Surely," saith he, " the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not : how dreadful is this place ! It is no other but the house of God, even the gate of heaven ;" that is, heaven's hall of judgment, heaven's court ; namely, because of the angels : for the gate was wont to be the judgment-hall, and the place where kings and senators used to sit, attended by their guard and ministers.
Secondly, I prove it from that interpretative expression, used in the New Testament, of the Lord's descent upon Mount Sinai, when the Law was given, intimating that the specification of the presence of the Divine Majesty there also consisted in the angelical retinue there encamping. For so St. Stephen (Acts vii. 53), "You who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it." St. Paul, twice, (first Gal. iii. 19), "The law was added because of transgressions, ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator;" and again (Heb. ii. 2), he calls the law \oyo9 \e\a\t]deK it AyyeXosv, "the word spoken by angels." Howbeit, in the story itself we find no such thing expressed, but only that the Lord descended upon the Mount in a fiery and smoking cloud, accompanied with thunders and lightnings, with an earthquake, and the voice of a trumpet. Whence then should this expression of St. Stephen and the apostle proceed, but from a supposition that the special presence of the Divine Majesty, wheresoever it is said to be, consisted in the encamping of his sacred retinue, the angels? for that of himself. He who fiUeth the heaven and the earth could not descend, nor be in one place more than another.
Yea, all the apparitions of the Divine Majesty in scripture are described by this retinue. That of the Ancient of days coming to judgment (Dan. vii. 10): "Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him ; " to wit, of angels. Whence we read in the gospel, that Christ our Saviour shall come in the glory of his Father, that is, with an host of angels, as the Holy Ghost himself in the same place expounds it ; for Ao'fa, or glory, here signifies the presence of the Divine Majesty.
In the same style, of the same appearing, prophesied Enoch, the seventh from Adam (Jude, ver. 14), " Behold, the Lord cometh with his holy myriads," or " ten thousands ; " for so it ought to be rendered, and not, as we iiavo it, " with ten thousand of his saints."
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Wlierefore here the vulgar Latin comes nearer, which hath, Ecce, venit Dominus in Sanctis millibus suis. A like expression whereunto of the Divine presence we shall find in Moses' blessing (Deut. xxxiii. 2). "The Lord," saith he, "came from Sinai unto them' (i. e. unto Israel), and rose up from Seir unto them ; he shined forth from Mount Paran, he came with his holy ten thousands," or holy mvTiads : (for so it should be translated: then it follows) "from his right hand went a fiery law for them." From whence perhaps that notion of the Jewish doctors, followed by St. Stephen and the apostle, that the law was given by angels, had its beginning. And thus you have heard out of scripture, what that is whereby the special presence of the Divine Majesty is (as I suppose) defined, that is, wherein it consists ; namely, such as is applicable to all places wherein he is said to be thus present, even to heaven itself, his throne and seat of glory, the proper place (as every one knows) of angelical residence.
Now according to this manner of presence is the Divine Majesty to be acknowledged present in the places where his name is recorded, as in Ills temple under the law, and in our Christian oratories or churclies under the gospel; namely, that the heavenly guard there attend and keep their rendezvous, as in their master's house : accord- ing to that vision which the prophet Isaiah had thereof, (Isai. vi. 1,) " I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, liigh and lifted up, and his train filled the temple, (Septuagint, and John xii. 14, Ao'fa auVou,) that is, the angels and seraphims, his stipatores, as may be gathered from that which immediately follows, (ver. 3,) where it is said, "The seraphims cried one unto another. Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts ; the whole earth is fidl of his glory."
You will say, Such a presence of angels perhaps there was in that temple under the law ; but there is no such thing in the gospel. No ! Why ? are the memorials of God's covenant, his insignia in the gospel, less worthy of their attendance than those of the law ? or have the angels, since the nature of man, Jesus Christ our Lord, become their head and king, gotten an exemption from this service ? Surely not. St. Paul, if we will understand and believe him, supposes the con- trary, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, (chap. xi. 10,) where treating of a comely and decent accommodation, to be observed in church-assemblies, and in particular of women's being covered or veiled there, he enforces it from the presence of angels : " For this cause," saith lie " ought the woman to have a covering on her head, because of the angels ;" namely, which are there present. For other- wise the reason holds not, that she should more be covered in the
' That is, came unto them resting upon Sinai. Compare Ps. Ixviii. v. 17 or 18.
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place of prayer tlian any where else, unless the angels be more there than elsewhere. This place much troubleth the expositors : but we see what it is to admit a truth ; for now there is no difficulty in it.
And that the ancient fathers conceived no less venerably of their Christian oratories in this particular, than tlie Jews did of their temple, appears by St. Chrysostom, who is very frequent in urging an awful and reverent behaviour in God's house, from this motive of angelical presence. As in his thirty-sixth homily, (on 1 Corinth.) where, reproving the irreverent behaviour of his auditory in that church, in talking, walking, saluting, and the like, (which he saith was peculiar unto them, and such as no Christians elsewhere in the world presumed to do) he enforces his reproof with words that come home to our purpose : " The church," saith he " is no barber's or drug- seller's shop, nor any other craftsman's or merchant's workhouse or warehouse in the market-place, but the place of angels, the place of archangels, the place of God, heaven itself."
St. Ambrose acknowledgeth the same (in c. i. Luc.) " Doubt not but an angel is present when Christ is present, when Clirist is sacri- ficed."
Yea, TertuUian, (in whose time, vvliich was within two hundred years after Christ, some will scarcely believe that Christians had any such places as churches at all) if I understand him, intimates as much in his book de Oratione (c. 12,) where reprehending the irre- verent gesture of some in sitting at the time of prayer in the church, Si quidem, saith he, irreverens est, &c. " If it be an irreverent thing to sit in the sight of and before him whom thou in a special manner honourest and reverencest, how much more is it an act most irre- ligious to do it in the presence of the living God, the angel of prayer yet standing by?" Mark, "in the presence of the living Cod, the angel of prayer standing by;" that is, in the presence of the living God, specified by his angel : the latter being an explanation of the former. It is like unto that in the chapter of my text, " Say not thou before the angel, it was an errcr :" yet I believe not borrowed thence, forasmuch as the Septuagint, whose translation Tertullian was only acquainted with, and everywhere follows, have no mention of angel in that place, but of God ; rendering it, Mij elwri'; wpo -n-po- (TtoTTov Tov OeoD, " Say not before the presence of God." Which shews how they understood it.
I cite the passages of these fathers thus at large, lest I might to some seem to broach a novelty. And though some of those of St. Chrysostom* be hyperbolically expressed, yet for the main and
- [Several of the passages referred to ate omitted, as superfluous in a work of this nature.]
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substance of wliat he intended, I believe it to be true, and ground my belief upon tlie autliority of St. Paul before alleged, " Because of the angels." If any shall say, Whatsoever were then, they will not believe there is any such kind of presence in our churches now ; I must tell them, if it be so, ib is because of our irreverent and unseemly behaviour in them, which makes those blessed spirits loathe oiu" company. For though they be invisible and incorporeal creatures, yet can they not look into our hearts (that is God, their Master's prerogative), but are witnesses of our outward behaviour and actions only ; and it was a case of external decorum, wherein the apostle mentions this presence of theirs for a motive or reason ; " For this cause ought the woman to have a covering on her head, because of the angels." For they love not to behold any thing that is uncomely and unbeseeming, but fly from it ; and if we lose their company, the best members of our congregation are wanting.
Thus you have heard what is the dignity and prerogative of God's house. Who now considers and believes this (and there was a time when it was beUeved) will not say with the patriarch Jacob, when he saw the angels ascending and descending at Bethel, " How reverend are the places ! " For every place where the name of God is recorded is Bethel, where the angels of God are ascending and descending, that is, God in a special manner present and meeting with men. How seemly, therefore, orderly, and awfully should we compose our- selves in them ! how reverent should our manner be at our coming into them !
Mede's Works. Vol. i. B. ii.
1()25.]
HISTORICAL SKETCH: PERIOD OF CHARLES THE FIRST.
A. D. 1625—1649.
Wk have glanced at the melancholy anticipations of Jackson and of Mede, and have had a glimpse, in the in- stance of Morton, of the actual experience of those miseries which enlightened men foretold, as impending over their country : we now continue our general sketch of the events of King Charles's reign, as far as those events relate immediately to the subject of this work. From such outlines, as from a rude but not unfaithful map, the reader may derive infor- mation sufficient to elucidate the course of action, or of suffer- ing, followed by those illustrious characters who adorned the Church of England, in this her great but disastrous period.
A thorough separation of views and interests had now in- tervened between the non-conformists and the regular clergy. But this was not the only division that existed. The members of the clerical body were, unfortunately, far from being united among themselves. The rigid views of Andrewes and Laud, on the subject of church-government, were not suited to all minds. A much more moderate path was pursued by Ussher, by Davenant, and by many other estimable divines. These differences had a mischievous effect ; for while the former partly supported, and helped to carry out, the arbitrary mea- sures of the court, the latter, though opposed to Puritanism, at least on points of discipline, nevertheless, by the contrast they presented, and in some instances by more direct means, threw the weight of their characters into the Puritan scale.
Charles was attached, with equal sincerity and earnestness, to his own sovereign rights and prerogative, and to the rights and authority of the Church. It was his unhappiness that he found in Laud a minister who thoroughly sympathised with him in both respects, and who, by his position also as an ecclesiastic, was enabled, in both, to advance the sovereign's
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views. The hierarchal influence in the government, to which Laud looked as to tlie main pillar of the Church's safety, fatally assisted, on the contrary, in its subversion. To the aristocracy this influence was odious ; and it offered an ever-ready pretext for exciting the hatred and contempt of the people, of which there were at no time wanting individuals, eagerly followed as writers or preachers on the patriotic side, ready to take advan- tage. Among this class were those libellers (such as Leighton, Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton,) in whose cruel punishments Laud and other prelates were unfortunately concerned, in their official capacity, as members of the government. It was easy to diff'use a belief among the people, that the prelates were the true cause of these severities, since the great authority of those venerable men in the council was well known ; while their appearance in the character of judges was peculiarly offensive, inasmuch as they were commonly at the head of the parties traduced, and were members of a profession the nature of which rendered their concurrence in acts of barbarity especially liable to censure and misreport. The policy of Laud was such as, if it failed to subdue, could not fail to exasperate. The Puritans, by this time the majority of the nation, had long been raising an united voice against the ceremonies re- tained at the Reformation : Laud revived others that had fallen into desuetude, and which, to say the least, were not more ap- propriate or defensible. The Puritans demanded greater liberty of speech : the king, in his Declaration prefixed, by Laud's advice, to the thirty-nine articles, forbade them to treat in the pulpit, or in print, those doctrines which they regarded as most vital. They complained of the pressure of ecclesiastical authority : they were answered in the needless and irregular enactment of a large body of canons. The sincerity, the erudition, the magnanimity of the prelate, availed nothing to success in his plans; even his munificent support of the schools of learning, his liberal patronage of distinguished scholars, and his general ardour for the advancement of literature, were over- looked, or subjected to the suspicion of proceeding from a design to promote despotism.
The tumults in Scotland, occasioned by the resolution of the government, in 1()37, to force on the Scottish people a liturgy and form of church-government odious to their preju- dices, were the muttered thunder on the horizon, which menaced danger to the Church and Monarchy of England ; the assem-
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bling, November, l640, of the long parliament, comprising in its numbers a powerful band of zealous, able, experienced, politi- cians, ready to sacrifice all things else for what they deemed, or at least represented, to be the interests of freedom and conscience, was the cloud suspended directly overhead, ready to burst in ruin. Hardly had that memorable convention met, when the first bolt prostrated Strafford, lord-deputy of Ireland, the greatest and most gifted supporter of the Church and monarchy. The impeachment and incarceration of Laud, his faithful friend and colleague, quickly followed. What remained to be done was easy ; for Charles was now deprived of those who had possessed at once the ability and the will to serve him : he could not protect the Church, who was unable to defend his crown. The indiscretion of Williams, archbishop of York, and other leading prelates, in signing the famous protest against the legality of the proceedings in the house of Lords, during their absence, occasioned by the violence of the mobs who surx'ounded the doors, afforded a convenient pre- text for smoothing the way to the end proposed by the Puri- tan or patriotic party, viz. the total exclusion of the spiritual peers from parliament. A bill for effecting this object had already been proposed, but was rejected. No sooner were those venerable members lodged in the Tower, than it was again brought forward, and now easily passed. Meantime, Prynne and his fellows were liberated by order of the par- liament, brought into London in triumph, and the prelates and judges who had been concerned in their condemnation, were, besides the other " censures'" now impending over them, burdened with fines for the compensation of their sufferings. The bishops, deprived already of their votes, presently un- derwent the spoliation of their property ; and when either it was distinctly perceived that the absurd charge of high treason, on which they had been committed, was not sustain- able, or that the objects of that bold measure had now been sufficiently secured, they were dismissed with contempt, to exhibit to the world a spectacle of penury and impotence. Nor did the inferior clergy fare better: very many of them, on partial accusations or slight pretences, were suspended, or summarily deprived, by authority of those parliamentary ordi- nances which had now superseded the laws of England.
At length, as the civil war advanced, all connexion between the Church and a large proportion of the country being cut
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[A. D.
off, and many parishes being left without ministers, the parlia- ment, consisting now wholly of secular persons, began to feel the concerns of religion a matter of serious embarrassment. With a view to relieve themselves from this difficulty, they issued, in June l643, an ordinance for calling an assembly of divines to assist them. To this worthy convention one hun- dred and twenty clergymen were nominated ; of whom rather more than half, including a. few sincere professors of episco- pacy, attended its meetings. That the assembly might be in a condition to supply the numerous vacant parishes with mi- nisters, the power of ordination was granted to it by authority of parliament ! The Book of Common Prayer being de- clared illegal, its place was taken by the meagre outline called A Directory for Public Worship. In short, the framework of a Presbyterian establishment was set up, though then un- accompanied with such stringent authority as the adherents of that persuasion had expected ; the Parliament reserving an appeal, in all matters of religion, to themselves. This shadow of an establishment maintained a partial existence down to the Restoration. But the rising sti'ength of the Independents effectually checked all its efforts to exercise real power, and finally succeeded in reducing the consistory to the same con- dition as that to which the Presbyterians had brought down episcopacy.
The next step towards subverting the remaining influence of the clergy, and uniting dissenters, political and religious, in the vigorous prosecution of their designs, was the imposition of the " Solemn League and Covenant.'" The covenant was a public vow to renounce episcopacy, in imitation of one by which the Scots had bound themselves, during the tumults that broke out in their country some time previous to the assembling of the long parliament. It was taken by the members of the two houses, and by the assembly of divines, at Westminster, in September l643. Subsequently the same pledge was exacted from the clergy. The ranks of the sacred profession had already been thinned by the process of seques- tration ; by the operation of this oath, a large proportion of its remaining members, and those the most upright and con- scientious, as well as, in many instances, the most learned and moderate, were ejected from their livings.
Loyal attachment to the altar and the throne had still been enabled, notwithstanding, to occupy one stronghold —
1647.]
CHARLES 1.
191
viz. the universities; or rather, the university of Oxford. For while the voice of her venerable sister had, from the commencement of the war, been smothered within the grasp of the parliament, Oxford, as the head-quarters of the royalist forces, continued, till the close of the struggle, free to main- tain and teach her ancient doctrines. But the ruin of the king's cause became, the signal for an attempt to bring that twin nurse of the Church likewise under the new order of things. A parliamentarian committee of visitors, sent down, in the summer of ifi*?, with the test of the covenant in their hands, could indeed effect nothing towards that object : the entire refractory body remained firm to their famous "judg- ment" adopted unanimously in convocation, against the legality of the oaths. The following spring the republican earl of Pembroke, appointed, with that view, chancellor of the univer- sity, succeeded, though not without the assistance of a military force, in depriving, and in some instances imprisoning, those heads of houses and professors, who still refused to submit; and their places were filled by the visitors with persons of their own choice. Nevertheless it was not before July 1649, that the great body of the fellows and students of the university could be forced to any degree of compliance with the new govern- ment ; nor even then, until all the known episcopalians and royalists had been expelled from the university " by beat of drum."'
Periods of contention and strife, at least in every great and reflective nation, are also those periods in which intellectual energy is most powerfully developed ; and the ardour of the soldier in the field, and of the statesman at the council-board, is partaken, in such times, by the recluse scholar in his cell. Never had learning flourished with more vigour, or ripened to a more sunny maturity, than beneath the frowning and con- vulsed atmosphere of our great civil war. That a Selden and a Judge Hale should appear, at a season when every man took a lively interest in the history and working of our national constitution and jurisprudence, is not surprising; nor, while so many were perilling life for personal freedom, can we won- der that liberty of thought found such advocates as Taylor, Chillingworth, and Hales. But the less practical and obvious provinces of enquiry were also cultivated, with more than equal success. Pococke, Walton, Greaves, with a long list of their illustrious fellow-labourers, distinguish the period of the
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[A.D.
Commonwealth and the latter days of Charles's reign, as the great age of Oriental learning in England ; the works of More, of Cudworth, and their friends and pupils, claim for it the highest character in regard to profound metaphysical disqui- sition; Ussher, Hammond, and their illustrious coadjutors, laid the foundations of a school of correct, discerning criticism ; while to the same energetic period we must refer the effectual germination of that philosophy which Bacon had planted : for it is, moreover, tlie age of Wilkins and Ward, of the estab- lishment of the Royal Society, and of the " wondrous boy- hood" of Newton.
Not a little of the intellectual greatness which marks this period is owing, in fact, to its disastrous character. With faculties roused by the stirring events and great ideas abroad, many of the best and most learned men of the seventeenth century withdrew in disgust and weariness, or were driven by violence from the tumult of public life, to those shades of retirement which favour meditation. Of these, some, as we have seen, betook themselves to the study of natural science ; some, to theological and literary criticism; some, to converse with Greek and Eastern sages ; but nearly every one enjoying the experience, and leaving to the world the evidence, that (though the contrary might, at first sight, be imagined) the circumstances in the midst of which they laboured were friendly to the effectual exercise of intellectual power. And, of those circumstances, none are more worthy to be remem- bered, than the religious temper, which, with some excep- tions, pervaded the nation ; and a certain congenial habit of independent thinking, new to the world, and — it must be ad- mitted— not originally bred in schools and universities.
1600.]
BISHOP DAVENANT.
A.D. 1600 — 1641.
This name might challenge a place in the present series, on the ground, merely, of its owner's personal merits, as uniting distinguished abilities and erudition with remarkable simplicity and benevolence of character. It possesses however, besides, an historical interest.
John Davenant, the son of a citizen of London, of ancient family and fair estate, was born there, in May, 1572. In 1587 he was admitted of Queens'" College, Cambridge; was elected fellow in 1597, notwithstanding his desire to decline that advantage, on account of his competent fortune ; took the degree of D.D. in l601, and was, the same year, chosen Lady Margaret's professor of divinity.
In l6l3-14, and again in the following year, Davenant presided with great approbation as moderator, in a theological disputation before King James. About the same time, he was elected president of his college ; and in l6l8 the king nominated him one of the five divines deputed to attend the Synod of Dort. This choice indicated the learned monarch's usual sagacity in relation to the affairs of the church ; for Davenant, says Ussher, understood those controversies that were to be brought before that assembly, better than any man since the days of Augustine. It likewise indicates the fact, that his opinions were Calvinistic. At the same time, in his recorded sentiments, as in those of his friends Ussher and Hall, we distinctly trace that modifying and softening process, which the system of Christian fatalism underwent in its temporary adoption by divines of the Church of England. At Dort, he shared the praise, common to the whole deputation, of con- ducting themselves with a degree of dignity and judgment becoming their mission. "What a pillar he was in the synod," observes his pupil and admirer. Racket, "is to be read in the judgments of the British divines, inserted among vol.. I. 13
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[A.D.
the public acts; his part being the best in that work, and that work being far the best in the performances of that synod."
The moderate, or sublapsarian tenour of Davenant's Calvinism, and that of the deputation at large, these learned persons maintained throughout. They asserted the univer- sality of redemption ; and although they subscribed to that article of the synod which affirms that only the elect are endued with saving faith, they nevertheless procured the adoption of another, which avers that the promise of the gospel is, "that whosoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have everlasting life."" They also defended the scriptu- ral authority of bishops ; and when afterwards Dr. Montague, in his Appello Ccesarem, hazarded an assertion, that " the discipline of the Church of England was condemned in that assembly," implying that this was done with the connivance of the British divines there present, these divines drew up, and jointly signed, a distinct and circumstantial contradiction, in which they largely appealed to the synodical acts. Neither are they in any respect chargeable with participating in the subsequent proceedings of that body against the Remonstrants; their departure having preceded those disgraceful events.
Davenant's eminence now pointed him out for the mitre, and he was accordingly nominated to the vacant see of Salis- bury, in 1621.
In the discharge of the Episcopal duties, his conduct was marked by moderation, judgment, and benevolence. The known bias of his principles, however, could hardly fail, sooner or later, to cast a cloud over the good prelate, at a court where the chief direction of ecclesiastical affairs was in the rigid hands of Laud. To put a stop to the inconveniences arising from continual disputes on the subject of the pre- destinarian controversy. King Charles, by the advice of that prelate, had issued his famous Declaration, still placed at the head of the Thirty-nine Articles of religion, in which the clergy are required to abstain from treating that subject in their popular discourses. Davenant, however, probably con- sidering this edict as not designed to apply to the royal chapel, or personally to the bishops, seems to have disregarded the prohibition in a sermon which he preached before the king, in Lent 1630-31, on Rom. vi. 23. This act of disobedience greatly offended Charles. The poor bishop was brought on his knees before the privy council, where he underwent a severe lecture
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from Harsnet, archbishop of York, and Neile bishop of Dur- ham, while Laud, the probable instigator of the punishment, walked apart in silence. Upon Davenant's submission, a par- tial reconciliation was effected : he was allowed to kiss the king's hand ; but never afterwards recovered any favour at court.
He had already, in his intervals of leisure, prepared for the press the lectures delivered by him at Cambridge, under the title of Expositio EpistolcB D. Pauli ad Colossenses; he now retreated to his studies for consolation, and during this and the following years published several learned works. From this time he appears to have submitted in silence to the superior ecclesiastical authority of Laud, though probably disapproving many of the proceedings of the impetuous pri- mate. No further incident of importance is recorded of his life : he however did not suffer any opportunity to escape him of endeavouring to promote peace and affectionate unanimity among the reformed churches. To this holy cause the latest labour of his life was dedicated ; the publication of his beauti- ful and appropriate treatise on Brotherly love among Christians, having preceded his death only a few weeks. In a prayer a short time previous to that event, " he thanked God for his fatherly correction, because in all his lifetime he never had had one heavy affliction ; which made him often much suspect with himself, whether he was a true child of God, or no, until this last sickness." He died in April l6"41, and lies buried in his cathedral.
Bishop Davenant's epitaph styles him, omnigence erudi- tionis epitome ; and he is described by his contemporaries as a churchman of sound learning, a profound theologian, and a person of spotless life. He was particularly celebrated for his skill in legal and historical antiquity. When Archbishop Laud, having three several times solemnly admonished Bishop Good- man to subscribe the canons, was proceeding to excommuni- cate him for his refusal, it was Davenant who intimated to the primate that he doubted that procedure was not agreeable to the laws of the Church in general, or of this realm in par- ticular ; on which Laud thanked him, and desisted. His re- gard for the interests of learning he expressed by leaving to his college a rent-charge of £31. 10*. for the founding of two bible-clubs, and to purchase books for the library.
Of his probity and simplicity several anecdotes remain. At a college election, he gave his negative vote against a near
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[A.D.
kinsman and a most excellent scholar: "Cousin," said he, "I will satisfy your father that you have worth, but not want enough, to be one of our society." On quitting the univer- sity, at his elevation to a bishopric, he took leave, among its other inmates, of one John Rolfe, an old college-servant, de- siring the old man to give him his prayers. Rolfe modestly replied that he had rather need of his lordship"'s : " Yea, John," rejoined Davenant, " and I need thine too, being now to enter into a calling wherein I shall meet with many and great temptations." Shortly after his consecration, being sent for to attend King James at Newmarket, he refused to ride thither on the Sunday : when in consequence of his scrupu- losity, he appeared at court, a day later than the time appoint- ed, James, who knew how to respect conscience in a clergyman, readily allowed and even applauded his excuse. On another occasion, being scandalized at the levity of the discourse which prevailed at the table of a prelate, (Bishop Field) who had invited him to his house, Davenant seized the first opportunity, after dinner, to withdraw : and when his host came officiously to light him down stairs, " My lord, my lord," said he, " let us lighten others by our unblameable conversation."
The works of Bishop Davenant are : —
Eocpositio Epistolce D. Pauli ad Colossenses. 1627. This is Davenant''s principal work, and is considered one of the ablest expositions, of any portion of scripture, in existence ; being learned, perspicuous, pious, and in a high degree prac- tical. It was published in English, with the life of the author, and notes, in 1831, by the Rev. Josiah Allport.
First Sermon, on Jeremiah iii. 2.
Prcelectiones de duobus in Theologia Controversis Ca- pitibus : De Judice Controversiorum primo : De Justitia hahituali altera. l63l. Dedicated to King Charles.
Determinationes QucBstionum quarundam Theologica- rum. 1634. This work consists of a discussion of forty-nine subjects controverted between the Romanist and Protestant churches, or between Protestants of diflFerent tenets. " They are all handled," observes the bishop's recent biographer, " with great acuteness, learning, and moderation."
A tract on Catholic Unity, contained in a volume entitled, De Pad inter Evangelicos procuranda SententicE quatuor ; Sfc. 1638, comprising the sentiments on this subject, of
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Morton, Davenant, Hall, and of certain eminent French di- vines. The chief of these contributors was Davenant.
Animadversions upon a treatise entitled God's Love to Mankind. l641. The treatise to which this is a reply, " written," his biographer tells us, " with all the powers of his mind," was the production of Samuel Hoard, B. D. and is said to have been the first treatise published in England expressly against Calvinism. In his reply, the bishop of Salisbury maintains unconditional election, — ^and admits that in election, reprobation is of necessity involved ; but asserts that the latter " is not a denial of sufficient grace, but a denial of such special grace as God knoweth would infallibly bring them (the elect) to glory." A more forcible vindication of the Calvinistic system has scarcely appeared, than this able discourse.
Ad Pacem Ecclesice adhortatio, 6fc. an Exhortation to brotherly love. 1641. This was Davenant''s last work: it is praised in animated terms, by Bishop Hall, as " that golden tractate which he wrote, now breathing towards the gates of heaven."
Subsequently to the bishop's death, two other treatises by him were published, under the following title, Dissertationes DucB : prima, de Morte Christi ; altera, de Prcedestinatione et Electione, SfC. l650. The MS. of these treatises had been in the possession of Archbishop Ussher, who thus expresses his opinion of them, in writing to Dr. Ward : " for the Arminian question, I desire never to read more than my lord of Salisbury's lectures, touching predestination and Christ's death — They are excellent; learnedly, soundly, and per- spicuously performed."
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[A.D.
THE ABSOLUTE DECREE.
MB, hoard's statement.
" Absolute and inevitable reprobation liath little or no footing in antiquity. The upper way was never taught or approved by any of the fathers (even the stoutest defenders of grace against the Pelagians) for the space of six hundred (I may say eight hundred) years after Christ, nor the lower way till the time of St. Augustine, which was about four hundred years after Christ. They did generally agree upon the contrary conclusion, and taught men in their times, that it was possible for them to be saved, which in the event were not saved, and to have repented, which repented not ; and, that there was no decree of God which did lay a necessity of perishing upon any son of Adam. This that I say, Mr. Calvin himself doth freely acknowledge, speaking of election and reprobation according to God's foreknowledge, ' this commonly received opinion, ' saith he, (of a conditional respective decree) ' is not the opinion only of the common people, but hath had great authors in all ages.' Reverend Beza, likewise speaking of the same opinion, hath these words to the same purpose ; ' into which surely most foul error Origen hath driven many of the ancients, both Greek and Latin.' To the same effect also Prosper, St. Augus- tine's follower, hath a remarkable speech : ' Almost all the ancients,' saith he, ' did grant with one consent that God decreed men's ends according to his foresight of their actions, and not otherwise.' To these speeches let me add that of Remigius, archbishop of Lyons, who to Rabanus, archbishop of Mentz, objecting that St. Augustine wrote a book called Hypognosticoii, against Pelagius and Coelestius, where- in he denied that reprobates were properly prcedeslinati ad interitum, predestinate to destruction, answereth that, ' St. Augustine said not so ; but some other man, (as it is supposed) to purge the Church of that calumny which some ill-affected ones did cast upon it, namely, that it taught that God by his predestination did impose upon men a necessity of perishing, did withdraw the word predestination from the point of reprobates, and gave it only to the elect, and so gave great occasion of farther error and mistake.' In this speech of his is clearly implied that it was the constant doctrine of the Church then, that reprobates lie under no necessitating decree of perdition.
" The truth of this charge may farther appear by a few particular instances. Minutius Felix bringeth in the Pagans objecting to the Christians, that they held the events of all things to be inevitable, and did feign and frame to themselves an unjust God, wlio did punish in
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men their unavoidable destinies, not their ill choices. This is the objection, ' Whatsoever we do, as others to fate, so ye ascribe to God ; ye make therefore to yourselves an unjust God, who punisheth in men their lot, not their will' To this he answereth, ' Christians hold no other fates than God's decrees ; who foreknowing all men and their actions, did accordingly determine their retributions.'
" St. Jerome, an eager opposer of the Pelagians, in many places of his writings saith the same thing : ' From the foreknowledge of God it cotneth to pass, that who he knowetli will be righteous, him he loveth before he cometh out of the womb ; and who he knoweth will be a sinner, liim he hateth before he sinneth. ' In another place he speaketli to the same purpose, ' the love and hatred of God ariseth eitlier from the foresight of future things, or from the works ; otherwise we know that God loveth all things, nor doth he hate any thing that he hatli made ;' and in his book against Pelagius he saith, Eligit Deus quern bonum remit, ' God chooseth whom he seeth to be good.'
" The sum of all which speeches is but this, tliat there is no decree of damning or saving men, but what is built upon God's foreknowledge of the evil and good actions of men. Fulgentius is plain for that too: ' those whom God foresaw would die in sin, he decreed should live in endless punishment.' I may take in St. Augustine and Prosper also, who are judged to be the patrons of the absolute decree, as it is set down the sublapsarian way ; even they do many times let fall such speeches as cannot fairly be reconciled with absolute reprobation. I will only cite Prosper; (for St. Augustine speaketh in him.) He dis- coursing of some that fall away a sanctitate ad immundifiem, from holiness to uncleanness, saith ' they that fall away from holiness to un- cleanness lie not under a necessity of perishing because they were not ])redestinate ; but therefore they were not predestinate, because they were foreknown to be such by voluntary prevarication.' Not long after, speaking of the same men, he saith, ' Because God foresaw they would perish by their own free will, therefore he did not by any pre- destination sever them from the children of perdition.' And again, in his answer to the twelfth objection he hath these words, ' God hath not withdrawn from any man ability to yield obedience because he hath not predestinated him, but because he foresaw he would fall from obedience, therefore he hath not predestinated him.'
" I will shut up the instances of that age with the judgment of the council at Aries, against the Pelagians, in the year 1590, or there- about. This council subscribed to the letter which was written by Faustus against Lucidus the predestinarian, and made the anathemaes and curses which therein he denounceth against him and such like, to be their own; some of which were these: 'Cursed be the man
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[A.D.
that shall say, that the man that perisheth might not have been saved;' and again, 'Cursed be the man that shall say, that a vessel of dishonour may rise not to be a vessel of honour.'
"A testimony or two I will borrow likewise from some persons of note, and those St. Augustine's followers too, who lived about 400 years after St. Augustine's time. Remigius the great patron of Gotteschalk, the zealous preacher and publisher of absolute reproba- tion in those times, in his answer to that epistle which we suppose to be the epistle of Rabanus, to Rabanus, saying, that God did 'make the nations of the world healthful,' and that he doth velle omnes salvos Jiere, will that all men be saved; he giveth such an answer as cannot stand with absolute reprobation : this, saith he, 'is very true, because God layeth on no man a necessity of perish- ing, as he hath laid on none a necessity of sinning.' And a little after he is plainer : ' Those whom God did foreknow would live, and die in this wickedness, for reasons most just he decreed should perish : as himself saith. Him which sinneth against me, even him will I blot out of my book.'
" In the Valentine Synod, assembled in favour of Gotteschalk, we may find these words, ' Therefore do the wicked perish, not because they could not, but because they would not be good, and by this their own fault, original or actual also, remained in the mass of perdition.' And in the end of their third canon, they denounce anathema to those that hold that men are so predestinated unto evil as that they cannot be otherwise: 'That any should be' (saith the council) 'predestinated to evil by the power of God, so as he cannot be otherwise, we do not only not believe, but also if there be any that will believe so great an evil, with all detestation we denounce them accursed, as the Arausicane council also did.' By these testimo- nies (which are but a few of many) it appeareth that absolute and inevi- table reprobation found but cold entertainment from antiquity."
davenant's answer.
Absolute negative reprobation is no " novel " opinion : but on the contrary, that God's immanent and eternal acts of predestina- tion and reprobation can be in potestate praedestinatorum et repro- batorum, is novel and false.
The ancients before St. Augustine granted a prescience in God of all the future good and bad acts of men ; but their good acts they derived from predestination ; their bad from their own free will, and not from the reprobation. And as for the sentence of damnation.
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it layeth hold upon them, iion qua noti electi, sed qua inipii. In all this Augustine differeth not from those fathers that went before him.
Tlic terms of "possible" and "impossible" being taken in divers senses, afford the Kemonstrants many advantages amongst the igno- rant, in their disputes against absolute election and reprobation. It is tlierefore to be observed, that in scriptures, fathers, schoolmen, and all manner of authors, and in the common use of all languages, many acts or events wherein no necessity or inforcement is laid upon men's wills, are notwithstanding said to be impossible to be other- wise than they are. But for the eternal Divine decrees of predesti- nation and reprobation, to say that they are or ever were in potestate pr<edestina(orum ant reprobatoruju, is contrary to the very essence and formality of decrees. Those things wherein men may agere or 7ion agere, are said to be in their own power : but predestination and reprobation are immanent acts of the Divine will and understanding, and tlierefore it is impossible that they should be either way in potes- tate voluntatis humance. Hoc quisque in sua potestate habere dicitur, quod si vultfacit, si non vult nonfacit.
Now for the acts of believing, repenting, and attaining unto salvation, we say not that these are simply impossible, or that the decree of God leaveth a necessity of perishing upon the non-elect. Perditio tua ex te, is as true in their doctrine which maintain abso- lute, and oppose conditional predestination and reprobation, as in the decree of the Remonstrants.
The Remonstrants grant an eternal prescience of many men's infidelity and impenitency, and thereupon an eternal immutable de- cree of their damnation : and yet they hold (and that truly) that thereby no necessity of infidelity, or impenitency, no impossibility of believing or repenting, is laid upon men. They must give us leave to say the same of predestination, until they can demonstrate how this doth more infringe the liberty of man's will than the other. If we respect that necessity which is called necessitas infallibilitatis, Anselmus maketh it alike in both : Necesse est fieri quae prcEscAuntur et qvcE prtedestinantur. If we call that an impossible act or event which cannot stand in sensu cotnposito, when the contrary is pre- supposed, the divine prescience maketh believing, repenting, and being saved, as being impossible unto Cain, Judas, or any person reprobated upon prescience, as when they are reprobated upon God's mere will. But the truth is, neither the one nor the other can stand cum eventu contrario ; and yet both the one and the other do stand cum ponsibilitate ad eventum contrarium. Conditional decrees of salvation and damnation have been published in the gospel, and are acknowledged by all d ivines ; but conditional decrees of eternal pre-
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[A. D.
destination and pretention are not found in scripture, nor allowed of by the church of England. Every man knoweth where to find these conditional decrees ; " if any man believe and repent, he shall be saved ; if any man continue in infidelity and impenitency, he shall be damned :" but it will be hard for any Eemonstrant to shew these other, " if any man believe, he shall be predestinated ; if he believe not, he shall not be predestinated." Faith is a temporal effect produced in those which were elected from eternity, not a foreseen condition drawing after it God's eternal election." And infidelity and final im- penitency are faults voluntarily proceeding out of the wicked hearts of men eternally reprobated, not preceding the eternal act of repro- bation, but the temporal act of their judicial condemnation. As for the fathers which grounded predestination upon prescience, they under- stood a practical divine prescience, not a bare speculative.
No divine that acknowledgeth the omniscience of God and his eternal prescience of all future actions and events, will deny, that God in the same eternity, wherein he elected some and passed by others, foresaw both what the one and what the other would do, and what contrary ends they would come unto. But the question is not, whether God fi'om all eternity had such a foresight, but, whe- ther the different actions of men foreseen caused the different decrees of their election and pretention. As for their different ends, namely, that the one attaineth salvation after this life, and the other undergo eternal damnation, tliis we confess to follow upon their contrary actions of believing, repenting, and not believing, not repenting. Neither were they otherwise by any eternal decree appointed unto damnation, than with respect unto the just desert of their sin. It is truly said by Calvin, Reprobi suo delicto morti devoti sunt : non pereunt nini qui digni sunt : and Zanchius, Peccatum non est causa rejectionis, sed est causa damnationis.
For the phrase, preedestinati ad interitum; it is manifest that Augustine and his followers applied it unto all such as were not prae- destinati ad gloriam : though the word electi was never used by them in that sense.
That which Augustine denied, was a predestination of reprobates unto sin : but as for their predestination vmto the just punishment of their sins, namely deatii and destruction, Augustine, Prosper, Ful- gentius, were never afraid to acknowledge it.
As for Hincmarus his fancy, that the book called Hypognosticon or Hyponniesticon, was written by St. Augustine himself, and that in the sixth book thereof he retracted what before he delivered concern- ing preedestinati ad interitum, is false and frivolous, and sufficiently confuted by Remigius. Vet we willingly crant, tliat in the most
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strict and proper sense, the word predestination doth only respect the good supernatural qualities and acts wliich God worketh in men elected, and the supernatural blessed end whereunto he bringeth them by the foresaid means. And the reason hereof is, because destination is the direction of a thing unto such a scope as by its own strength and nature it coidd never move unto. Thus the arrow is destinated unto tiie mark, whereunto of itself it could never move. Now men are too ready to move in the way of wickedness, and to carry them- selves unto destruction : and therefore as God cannot predestinate men unto sin, so he doth not properly predestinate them unto their damnation, (for then he should be a working cause thereof) ; but he preordinateth their just damnation, as a recompence of their sin and rebellion. So that if by predestination ad iiileritiim we under- stand the causing and effectual working of any man's destruction, God cannot be said prcedestinare ad interiUim : but if we only under- stand the preordaining of those to damnation whom God foresaw deserving and working the same, we neither think nor speak other- wise than the orthodox fathers did.
It is still tlie constant doctrine of those that teach absolute pre- destination and reprobation, that neither persons elected lie under a " necessitating decree" of doing well and being saved, nor persons not elected under a " necessitating decree" of doing ill and being damned. The eternal decrees of God's will take not away the liberty of man's will ; and therefore the pagan objections were paganish. « The eternal decree of saving or damning men is conjoined with the eternal foresight of the obedience of men saved, and disobedience of men to be damned ; but with this difference : the foreseen good actions of the elect were neither antecedent conditions moving God to elect them, nor meritorious causes of their salvation ; but the fore- seen final estate of the wicked in their sins, was the intuition of a most just and meritorious cause of their damnation. As for election and preterition, all men being represented unto God electing as in the common mass of sin and misery, there can be found no opposite qualities or actions in men whereupon to ground the opposite decrees of God's eternal election and reprobation. And therefore we think that saying of Calvin warrantable, Deus in negotio prcEdestinationis non regreditvr extra seipmm. To which we add another of the same author : Si judicio mortis ohnoxii sunt omnes nalitrali coiiditione quos- Dominus ad mortem pradeslinat, si cx rorrupta massa desnmti sunt omnes, non mirum si damnatioiii snbjaceant.
There neede;l no such pains in heapirig up fathers for proof of this conclusion, that there is no decree of damning men otherwise than upon the guilt, and for the mis-deserts of their sins. Not only
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Fulgentius, Augustine, Prosper, but Calvin, Beza, and others whom you make supralapsarians, have constantly defended this true doctrine. Calvin : Quisque sibi propria incredulitate est damnationis autor. Beza : Iiiepte faciunt, qui reprobationis decretum cum damnatione confundunt : cum hujus causa manifesta sit, nempe peccatum ; illius verd, sola Dei voluntas. Zanchius: Cerium est, Deum, sicut propter peccala impios punit, sic etiam decrevisse illos jjropter hcec peccata punire.
This author is doubly mistaken ; first, in that he conceiveth a con- ditional predestination or election grounded upon prescience of men's good actions ; whereas no such good actions can be foreseen in men, considered in statu massce corruptee, but as they are caused by that grace which was eternally prepared for them in their predestination, and actually bestowed upon them in their effectual vocation, justifi- cation, sanctification. This conditional predestination upon foresight of men's goodness or holiness, was the error which Augustine ascri- beth to the Pelagians : Praesciebat ergo, ait Pdagiamis, qui futuri essent sancii per liberce voluntatis arhitrium, et ideo eos ante mundi constitutionem in ipsa sua prcescientia, qua tales futuros esse prcesci- vit, elegit. But what saith St. Augustine to this point ? Non quia futuri eramus sancti, sed ut essemust, nos elegit. Ideo quippe tales eramus futuri, quia elegit ipse prcedestinans ut tales per gratiam essemus.
Secondly, he is mistaken, in thinking those speeches of the fathers cannot fairly stand with absolute non-election, pretention, or negative reprobation, which import a decree of positive or primitive reprobation, that is, of damnation, no otherwise grounded than upon preconsideration of sin. For though God out of the corrupted mass of mankind electeth some men unto the means and end of salvation, merely of his own gracious good pleasure in Christ, yet he enacteth no decree of damning men for his pleasure, but for their own sin and mis-deserts. And as for negatio prcedestinationis ; it is not a working cause of any man's sin or damnation, though it contain a decree of not working their delivery, of not working their effectual salvation. But far be it from God, that it should import a decree of necessitating their perdition and eternal destruction. As men not comprised within the decree of predestination, commit sin willingly and greedily, so they run on to their own destruction voluntarily, and not carried by any necessitating force flowing out of the decree of reprobation.
Whereas Augustine or Prosper seem to fetch the cause negaiae pradestinationis, or negativce reprobationis (as some call it), from the foreseen disobedience of men, their purpose is to shew that the final continuance of any man in the state of sin, and his final falling into the state of damnation, is not caused by the negative
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act of predestination ; and further, that where men are foreseen of God as ending their lives in sin, tliere is a sufficient reason to infer, idso no7i fuerant ex prcedesiinatis, or ideo Dens eos non prcedesti- navit. But that this foresight of tlieir personal sins was the cause of the Divine decree of their non-election, whereby they stand dis- tinguished from the elect, was no part of the father's meaning. So tliat the eternal prevision of some men's perseverance in faith and godliness, and of other men's perseverance in infidelity and ungodli- ness, was not the ground, cause, or reason of the opposite decrees of election and pretention, but a proof that there are such distinct or different decrees concerning men.
Last of all, this foresight of God concerning men left to the deficiency of their own wicked wills, and through infidelity and im- piety procuring their own destruction, is not alleged as a cause why this man rather than another was not predestinated, but as a certain note and an infallible consequent of men not predestinated ; causa probaf.ionis, non rei ipsius.
Those curses may be most just, granting the positive reprobation, which is peremptorium decretum puiiiendi, never proceedeth ex solo Dei bene placito ; though we hold therewithal, that negative repro- bation, which is absolutuni decretum. non prwdedinandi dependeth only upon God's free pleasure. For it is no error to say, that non- election or negative reprobation may stand together with a possibility of avoiding sin and damnation. The non-elect angels had this possi- bility : all mankind generally in Adam had this possibility : and yet every singular person was not predestinated. And if God were so pleased to give us sufficient grace to every particular man in the world as he gave to Adam in his creation, yet the opposite decrees of election and preterition, or negative reprobation, may stand firm and good. The reason is evident : because predestination is not a bare ordination of men unto eternal life by sufficient means, which make the event only possible ; but a merciful providence in ordering such means for the elect as make the event infallible and infrustrable. On the other side, preterition or negative reprobation is not a decree necessarily excluding persons not elect from all possible means of salvation ; but a decree permitting such out of the freedom of their own wills to neglect and abuse such means of their salvation : which abuse, foreseen of God, is unto him a just cause of their damnation.
As for "vessels of honour and dishonour;" we grant, that not only men may but do continually from vessels of dishonour, rise to be vessels of honour. For when any man whatsoever, who hath lived in infidelity and uncleanness of life, believeth, repenteth, and leadeth a holy life, then a vessel of dishonour becometh a vessel of
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honour. But if by vessels of lionour you understand the elect, and by vessels of dishonour the non-elect ; and conceive such a change, that men not elected, may by acts of their own make themselves elected ; this is a fancy contrary to truth, and rejected of all ortho- dox and judicious divines : who consent, nec prcedestinationem esse in potesfcde prcedestitiati, sed prwdestinantis, nec reprobationem in potestate reprobati sed reprobanlis. For we understand the divine reprobation, where there is not a predestination unto effectual and infallible means of eternal life. Now, who can say that it is in the power of man's will either to procure, or hinder, such a decree ?
All the testimonies of the ancient fathers here cited, do not prove the eternal decrees of election and non-election to be conditional, or to depend upon the contrary foreseen actions of men's will : but they prove two other things, which we willingly grant ; first, that these decrees necessitate no man's will unto good actions, much less unto wicked ; secondly, that wicked men are not therefore damned because they were not predestinated, but because they lived and died obstinate in sin.
As for the possibility which men non-elected have, either to be- lieve, or to eschew this or that sin, and so to escape condemnation ; the fathers, when they consider that the wills of men not elected, do commit all their evil acts freely, usually say, that they had a power to have done the contrary : but when they consider the in- fallible certainty of their impiety and infideHty, then many times they pronounce it a thing impossible that they should unfeignedly repent, perseverantly believe, and finally attain salvation ; of which manner of phrase of speech we have frequent examples in scripture, fathers, schoolmen, and all kind of authors.
He that embraceth the opinion of the orthodox fathers, cannot hold predestination to be grounded upon the prevision of perse- verant faith, since they confess perseverance to be an effect of elec- tion ; nor the decree of negative reprobation to be grounded upon foresight of infidelity, since infidelity is a consequent thereof.
Animadversions on a Treatise, &c.
CONCERNING THE ABUSE OF THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION AND REPROBATION.
It now remaineth that for a close of all, we speak sometliing con- cerning the abuse of the doctrine of election and reprobation, and of the right use of the same. Let us begin with the preachers them- selves, and then proceed unto the hearers.
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First, those ministers do very ill and indiscreetly, who deliver this most true doctrine preposterously, and not in its due place. Thus we conceive them to do, who at the first step do bring carnal men to the contemplation of this great depth of election and reprobation, who ought in the first place to be called to faith in Christ and to serious repentance ; which is all one, as if a man should purjjosely give to a sick and weak person, strong and solid meat which his stomach is not able to bear, contrary to tliat of the apostle, " Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." We ought therefore to imitate the practice of Christ and of the apostles, and to preach the gospel in the same order which our Master, and those most skilful builders, did follow. But in what manner did our Saviour Christ instruct men to life eternal ? We have a notable example, John iii. 16, where in the first place he teachetli, that God so loved the world, that he gave his Son for the redemption of mankind. Then he addeth, that every one who be- lieveth in this Redeemer, shall obtain life everlasting ; but those that believe not, shall therefore perish, because they believed not in the Son of God. Hitherto we have not one word concerning the mys- tery of election and reprobation. But afterwards when Christ saw some by the preaching of the gospel brought to repentance, faith, and holiness of life, lest they should attribute unto themselves these effects of special grace and mercy, he openeth unto them the deep mystery of election, and telleth them how all those graces followed from the decree of predestination. This is the scope of these places: " It is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given." "All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me." St. Paul treadeth in his Master's steps, and observeth the same method of teaching. For being about to preach unto the Jews the gospel of Christ, he beginneth not at the point of election and reprobation, but promiseth in general forgivenexs of sins to all be- lievers, and teachetli that all unbelievers do by their own default " put from them everlasting life" offered unto them. But after that divers of them had embraced Christ by a true faith, then at length the evangelist thought fit to lay down the cause thereof in these words : " As many as were ordained unto eternal life believed." If therefore we would not go to work preposterously, whensoever we have to do with such who for the greatest part, it is likely, are igno- rant and carnal men, and not yet endued with true faith and holiness, we are to move them to faith in Christ, and newness of life, and not to step into the doctrine of election and reprobation until we deal with those in whom we manifestly perceive the effects of election, that
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is faith, and the fruits thereof St. Augustine to this purpose saith very wisely, " It is good that some truth be concealed, for their sakes who are incapable tliereof." Whence that of the apostle, " I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal."
Secondly, tliose do abuse this most true doctrine, who when they explain it unto the people do wander into such questions as through their too much subtilty do exceed the vulgar capacity, and are more fit for the schools than the pulpit ; yea, indeed unfit even in the schools to be meddled withal, if the importunity of our adversaries, and the necessity of maintaining our own cause, did not sometimes drive us even against our wills to these nice speculations. Such are the discussions which are made by divines about the signs of priority and posteriority in the eternal decrees of God, with great labour and little profit. Some affirm that the first decree in the Divine understanding and will, was of sending the Redeemer ; and then another of saving the elect by this Redeemer. Others hold the contrary way ; yea, so boldly curious have some mortal men been, that when they have laid down the order of the divine decrees as a thing whereof tliey had certain knowledge, affirming this to have been the first decree of the divine will, that the second, another the third, and so on, at length they stick not to avouch, that if God had not observed this very order which they approve of, he should have done either unwisely or unjustly. A wise minister should wholly abstain from handling these thorny questions : however the business never ought to come to that point, that if we fail in these our speculations any reproach should be fastened upon God himself The ministers of the word therefore, as oft as occasion is offered of treating of predestination before the people, must be content to contain themselves within those bounds which the holy scripture hath clearly chalked out unto us. Let them teach, how God elected his own unto life eternal before the foundations of the world were laid. Let them teach, how this election flowed not from the foresight of man's merits, but from the free will and gracious pleasure of God electing. Let them teach, that whatsoever saving good is found in us, is the eff"ect of this free and gracious mercy. Let them teach, that the assurance of our elec- tion is not to be sought in God's secret decrees, or our own idle imaginations, but in tlie eff"ects and operations of the faithful and sanctified soul. These and other such doctrines, which are clear, sound and profitable, may and ought to be preached unto Christians. But those which are either too knotty, or else altogether fruitless, (especially when they are not clearly grounded and revealed in the word of God) ought quite to be excluded out of vulgar congregations. And here I cannot but tax the folly and rashness of some (especially
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young) preacliers, who, as soon as they hear any new controversy concerning predestination started amongst divines, be it never so intricate, never so unfruitful, yet presently tliey acquaint the people with it. This they press, this they daily stand upon, and think it an argument of great learning to discuss those points amongst the unlearned, which their auditors do not at all understand. Against these may we take up that of the son of Sirach, "A fool travaileth with a word as a woman in labour of a child : as an arrow that sticketh in a man's thigh, so is a word in a fool's belly." This abuse therefore is chiefly to be avoided by the ministers of the word ; who, as they may deliver the simple, clear, and fundamental doctrine of predestination, with profit and edification to the people of God rightly trained up, so can they not run out into intricate questions, and curiously discuss both sides of the controversy after the manner of the schools, but by this their superfluous diligence they must needs train up their people rather unto curiosity and itch of contention, than unto faith and zeal of a godly life. Yea, what Prudentius said of wrangling sophisters may well be applied unto these men : Fidem minutis dissecarit ambagibus, "They mince the faith into petty circum- stances:" or rather that of the Apostle, "They dote" (or, are sick) " about questions or strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, &c."
Thirdly, as we do worthily blame those who ofi"end by doing too much, stretching this doctrine of predestination to intricate and super- fluous questions, so also are they no less to be taxed who seem to offend by doing too little, while they propound predestination and reprobation to the people in the effect only or the event, that is, the infallible sal- vation of the elect, and the infallible damnation of the reprobate ; in the mean time little regarding, or at least not with the same diligence acquainting the people with, the means whereby the elect are brought unto salvation, and the means whereby the reprobates do rush headlong into destruction : whereas indeed it is a dangerous matter to lay open before the eyes of the vulgar the naked and bare doctrines of predesti- nation and reprobation. A wise minister therefore will never teach the people that some particular persons are absolutely predestinated unto life, but withal he will let them know that these persons are none other but such as by faith and holiness do walk in the way to eternal life. He will never teach, that some particular persons were passed by in this infaUible ordination unto life everlasting, but withal he will also sliew that these are none other but they who by their own voluntary impeni- tency, infidelity, and impiety, did most deservedly pull upon themselves eternal destruction. So Paul delivereth this doctrine of predestination, Rom. viii. where having made mention of predestination, he presently annexeth thereunto vocation, justification, sanctification, without which
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we ought not so much as to dream of our predestination ; at least we cannot come to any certain evidence thereof. So likewise, Ephes. i. unto the doctrine of predestination he joineth sanctification and other spiritual gifts, which are TCK/xtipia manifest tokens of the predestinate. In like manner, the point of reprobation is so to be unfolded, that all may understand, that although by his special mercy God do not free the reprobates from death, yet he forceth not any unto sin, but they are carried headlong unto their destruction, and that by their own voluntary motion. So Paul in his epistle to the Philippians, when he speaketh of the reprobate, " whose end is destruction," he addeth, " whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." So Jude, in his Epistle, speaking of some, "who were ordained to condemnation," he straight addeth, that they were wicked men, " who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, and deny the Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ." It is not therefore the duty of a minister so to urge absolute predestination, as in the mean time to forget the means : because although God's decree concerning the salvation of this man, suppose Peter, or Paul, be absolute, yet the salvation of Peter and of Paul in regard of the event and fulfilling of the decree doth depend upon the conditionate use of the means. Neither, on the other side, is the reprobation of any particular persons so to be pressed, as though they were infallibly to be damned, whatsoever they do. Because the decree of reprobating some doth not infringe the truth and steadfast- ness of the evangelical promises made unto all and every one. For they hold true when they are in general divulged in this form : " Who- soever believeth shall be saved." And they hold true also when they are applied in special to any particular person : " If thou believest and leadest an holy life thou shalt be saved." To be short, the saying of that most wise and learned Father is very necessary to be observed by all ministers of the word, who sheweth', that we may speak that which is true concerning the absolute decree of the Divine will to save and reprobate men, and yet not in that due manner in which we ought to speak. For example, if a man should speak to his auditors to this purpose: "Whether ye run or sleep, whether ye receive the word into your hearts or reject it, yet in the conclusion ye shall all be such as God who is invincible decreed ye should be, as God who is infallible foresaw ye would be ;" this is indeed a most true doctrine. But be- cause the manner of propounding it seemeth to separate the end from the means, and to invite men to slothfulness, in the judgment of St. Augustine, " it is so most true that withal it is most wicked, unsea- sonable, inconvenient ; not that the saying is false, but because it is
' August, (le Bono Perscv. L. ii. c.21.
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not wholesomely applied to human infirmity. Now it is the part of a deceitful or unskilful physician so to apply a good plaster, that either it shall do no good or do hurt." And hitherto we have touched upon those abuses whereinto ministers do sometimes run, when they go about to preach unto the people the doctrine of predestination and reprobation. We comprise them all (as ye might observe) under tliree heads : For either they are preposterous, and deUver it to such as are yet uncapable thereof ; or else they stretch their discourse beyond that fundamental and simple doctrine delivered by the apostle, and run out into intricate and curious speculations, far unfit for the people's under- standing ; or lastly, they deliver it defectively, barely and abruptly mentioning the infallible end and absolute event predetermined by God on either side, but speaking not a word of the several means, conditions, or ways, whereby those several ends are attained. But the decree of the divers ends is secret, and concerneth God more properly than men, but the precept about the means is revealed, and belongeth to men rather than to God ; this therefore ought chiefly to be pressed, and inculcated by the ministers of the word. — But from the preachers let us proceed unto the people.
Now men are wont to abuse this doctrine of predestination two manners of ways, either unto presumption, or unto despair. Tlie presumptuous, when they hear predestination mentioned, as though they could guess what God before the creation of the world deter- mined concerning them, straight without any premises at all they conclude themselves to be of the number of the predestinate, and to this rash conclusion they annex this profane inference: " Live as I will, since I am predestinated I shall be saved." Thus from rashly presuming what they please, they proceed to live licentiously as they please. On the contrary, the desperate, as soon as they understand how some were elected, some passed by, by God, before the foundations of the world were laid, presently conceiting ill of their own case, they reckon themselves among the reprobate. And to this blind conjecture they add this wicked conclusion: "Since I am none of the elect, wherefore should I trouble myself by hearing God's word, receiving the sacraments, mortifying my flesh, and bringing forth the fruits of new life ? for do I what I can I shall at length be damned." Thus these by despair do fall into the same slothfulness and neglect of their salvation whereunto the others fell by presump- tion. Both these abuses ought most sharply to be reproved, and withal the remedies are to be shewn whereby they may be avoided. For the former, those rash presumers are to be admonished, that although, in thesi, in the general, it be most certain that God from all eternity elected some, rejected others, yet if we come down
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to particular persons, it is a secret kept close in God's own breast, which be those persons that were destinated unto life, which be those who are not comprehended in his gracious decree. It is there- fore a very diabolical temptation wliich moveth men to dive into the depths of God's eternal decrees, and from thence take up a rash persuasion of their predestination. For the decree of predestination as it concerneth others, is altogether by us unsearchable. Whence that of Prosper, "Let it not much trouble us that we are ignorant who are vessels of election." As it concenieth ourselves, it is un- searchable also a priori, in its causes, and is to be perceived only by its effects after our conversion and sanctification. Luther most ex- cellently saith, "Of God so far as he is not revealed, there is no faith, no science, no knowledge. Leave off to muse of God where he concealeth himself, if thou wouldest avoid being guilty of blas- phemy. If thou believest in God revealed, and receivest his word, he will also by little and little reveal unto thee God concealed. Soar not after things above thy reach, and search not for what is above thy capacity. Hearken to tlie Son incarnate, and thy predestina- tion will quickly manifest itself unto thee." Thus Luther. They flatly dote therefore who, as if they were of God's privy counsel, presume that they can be assured of their predestination before they have any knowledge of their conversion and justification. The only remedy for this madness is, that as they have been taught out of the word of God that some were elected, some passed by, from all eternity, so they should learn out of the same word, that no man either can or ought absolutely conclude himself in the number of the elect before he find himself to be in the number of those who are converted and do tndy believe. Thus St. Paul, " The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one tliat nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." As if he had said, God himself knoweth who are elected by looking into the secret decree of his own will : but thou, O man, whosoever thou art, dost not know that thou art elected, but by departing from tiiy course of iniquity. So saith Peter, " Give diligence to make your calling and election sure." For though it be most sure and firm in the person of God electing, yet there can be no certainty of the election of any particular man, but only of him that doth well. Lastly, Ephes. i. (where the doctrine of predestination is professedly handled) the Apostle teacheth both these points, viz. that God chose his before, the foundation of the world ; and, that we have not the assurance of this election sealed in our hearts till after that we have received the gospel into our hearts, and believed in Christ. If thou obeyest God's call, thou mayest rightly conclude that thou wast from all
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eternity predestinated : if thou persevere in thy unbelief and im- piety, dream thou mayest or surmise that thou art predestinated* know or believe thou canst not. Away therefore with all rash pre- sumption of predestination, which is never begotten by the right unfolding of this doctrine, but by the foolish imagination of carnal men, or the pernicious suggestions of the devil.
Now let us weigh the inference which such presumptuous men do use to make : " Live as I will," say they, " since I am predesti- nated, I shall be saved." I will not further stand to examine the rashness of this presumption,, having spoken sufficiently thereof al- ready. Let it be granted that such an one is indeed predestinated, yet nothing can be more wicked, nothing more foolish, nothing more false, than this conclusion.
First, it is a certain token of a wicked wretch, not of an elected person, to take occasion of sinning from that which should have en- couraged him to holiness of life. He who saith in his heart, " I am predestinated," what saith he else but this, " God out of his mere good pleasure hath ordained me to eternal life ? " But he who hence doth gather, " Therefore I may live as I list," what saith he but this, " Therefore I may of set purpose run headlong towards hell ? " But how can he who is not more wicked than wickedness itself reason thus: " Because I believe that God was thus specially gracious towards me, therefore I will shew myself exceedingly unthankflil towards him : because God hath decreed to bring me to the kingdom of heaven, therefore I will try if I can, maugre his decree, cast myself into the pit of hell ? " Profane and godless men, who turn the grace of God into wantonness, may sometimes perhaps out of a conceited opinion of their predestination fall into this desperate madness ; but for a truly regenerate and faithful man, whose heart is assured by the Holy Ghost that he is the son of God, and ordained from all eternity to the participation of the kingdom of heaven, it is as impossible that he from the sense and persuasion of his predestination should draw this wicked conclusion, as for wood to be cold in the middle of the fire, or the air to be dark when the sunbeams are diffused through it. " Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself," saith the apostle (1 John iii. 3). Therefore they that defile themselves with all manner of lusts, come far short of a true persuasion of their being elected.
Secondly, nothing is more foolish than the foresaid inference. For as it is an argument of wisdom to choose and use fit and proper means for the obtaining of the appointed end ; so it is the height of folly, from the appointment of the end to infer a refusing or neglect of the means. We will explain this by some special examples. God hath decreed from eternity, and moreover revealed unto Abraham,
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that in his seed all nations should be blessed. Now suppose that Abraham, presuming upon this decree, had resolved wholly to abstain from the company of Sarai his wife, and had thus reasoned with himself, " Whatsoever I do, or not do, God will take care for the accomplishment of his own decree ;" it would be hard to say, whether such reasoning were more guilty of folly or of wickedness. In like manner, if Hezekiah after notice of God's decree to prolong his life fifteen years, should thereupon have determined with himself from thence forward neither to eat nor drink, nor do anything else that is ordained for the preservation of man's life, who could excuse him from extreme madness ? Accordingly, should we grant that such a particular man were elected by God unto life eternal; should we further grant the same man to have certain knowledge of liis election, not by faith only and the secret testimony of the spirit, but by the voice of God Iiimself clearly sounding from heaven; yet after such an extraordinary revelation of his election, to neglect the means leading to salvation, and supinely to expect by power of the divine decree to be drawn to the use of them whether he will or no, would be a manifest argument not of an elected but of a brainless person.
Thirdly, nothing is more false than this manner of reasoning, " I am predestinated, therefore whether I believe or not beUeve, whe- ther I live well or ill, I shall be saved." For although, the predes- tination of a man being granted, his salvation must necessarily follow, yet it followeth not upon every condition. For example : that Paul was elected to salvation from all eternity, is most true ; yet if any should argue thus, "Therefore whether he had been converted unto Christ, or had persevered in his blasphemy against liim, he had been saved," he would infer a most false condition. For if these reason- ings were true, the preacliing of the gospel would be in vain ; the administration of the sacraments superfluous, our conversion, justi- fication, sanctification, idle and frivolous : for predestination alone would carry a man to heaven, whether he would or no ; but such dreams as these are to be avoided, for the decree of predestination about the end to be obtained, doth not exclude but include the means and ordinary way whereby men tend to that end. This conditional proposition therefore, " Although Paul continue in unbeUef he shall be saved," is so far from following upon the doctrine of predestination, that the contradictory thereof may thence be deduced, namely, " If Paul believe not, it is impossible he should be saved." The reason is manifest : because the same God who decreed to save Paul, decreed to save him by faith, not by impenitence and unbelief. Tliis may very well be illustrated by that purpose of God to save all those from shipwreck wlio sailed together with St. Paul towards Rome : for though
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God had infallibly decreed to deliver all these men, and by an angel had revealed this his decree unto Paul, yet the apostle crieth out, " Except the mariners abide in the ship, they cannot be saved." The same say we concerning the predestination of any particular persons unto life eternal : although it be infallibly decreed by God, although it be clearly evidenced to the persons themselves, yet can they not be saved except they abide in faith and goodness.
The doctrine of predestination therefore permitteth not any man to persuade himself that his salvation is certain, before he find that he is truly converted, truly faithful, truly sanctified. Much less doth it permit men to presume, that following their lusts and living wick- edly they may nevertheless attain the kingdom of heaven. And thus much concerning the former abuse.
Now let us come to them who from the doctrine of predestination take occasion to despair, and conclude from thence, that although they believe in Christ, and lead their lives never so holily, notwithstanding by reason of the infallibility of the divine decree they shall at length be damned. First, let us consider how ill these men's persuasion of their reprobation is grounded ; secondly, what an ill consequence this is, That though they believe and follow good works yet their damna- tion is certain. For the first, I would fain know what argument of despair any Christian can draw from this doctrine, that God before the foundations of the world were laid did pass those decrees of pre- destination and reprobation in the secret council of his own will. For first, even reason itself forbiddeth us in matters whereof we are alto- gether ignorant to determine any thing on either side : now what God did before the creation of the world, is a point so deep and unsearch- able, that to go about by conjecture to dive into it, is ever as if a man, a poor earth-worm, should attempt to scale heaven with a ladder. Here we may well take up that, Exod. xix. 12: " Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it : whosoever toucheth the mount, shall be surely put to death." Hilary saith very well : " We are to pry no farther into the Divine reason than it hath pleased to reveal itself to our understanding." Now this it giveth us to understand, that some were elected, some reprobated; but who are elected, who reprobated, it sufFeretli us not to know. But further, though any man were so rash and heady as that he could not moderate himself, but must needs peep beyond the written word into these eternal and hidden actions of God, yet from these his most uncertain conjectures to prescribe himself what to do, or not to do, were mad- ness void of all reason. For let us put case, that a battle were to be waged between two armies, and God by some prophet had revealed that the far greater part of the soldiers should perish in the fight, and
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the lesser part should escape, without mentioning what particular per- sons he will by his special favour preserve from death, or suffer to be slain, I demand now, if any man by occasion of the Divine will thus far revealed would needs before the combat reckon himself to be one of the number of those who must certainly perish, and hereupon out of a desperate humour throw down lus weapons, run upon the enemies' swords, and voluntarily offer himself to be slain ; I demand, I say, whether this wretch should rather be thought to be driven into this despair by the Divine revelation, or by his own madness. With- out doubt, he may blame himself for taking occasion (where no just one was given) from the foresaid revelation. The very same we may think of those who from the doctrine of predestination and reprobation set forth in general, do take occasion to thrust themselves into the number of those that are reprobated and shall certainly perish, and thereupon to neglect their spiritual armour, to offer their throat to the devil, and wilfully to plunge themselves into the pit of hell. " A man ought not to despair," saith St. Augustine in a certain place, " of the salvation of any one whom the patience of God doth suffer to live ; least of all of his own. This deadly conclusion therefore, I am one of the rejjrobates, ought to be repelled by every Christian as the most dangerous temptation of all other." Lastly, although (as we touched formerly) before true conversion and sanctification no man can obtain either any certainty of his election, or any true feeling and lively com- fort, yet the doctrine of eternal election doth not afford to a Christian any probable conjecture whence he may gather that himself in par- ticular is one of the non-elect : yea, rather any one that liveth within the pale of the Church, although yet unconverted, may learn so much from thence, as may and ought to move him rather to conceive himself to be one of those whom God from all eternity elected to everlasting life. It is a commonly received rule amongst divines, De quolibit homine jircEsumendum est boiiiim donee constel confrarivm, we ought to hope well of every one until we know the contrary. If we ought not out of conjecture to conclude anything amiss of others, then ought we not of ourselves. But let us see now how many reasons there be which may keep a Christian from thus despairing. If thou art a Christian, thou hast God by the gospel calling thee ; thou hast the Son of God in the gospel offered unto thee, and together with him remission of sins and life eternal ; thou hast the Spirit of God standing and knocking at the door of thy heart ; thou hast many other things, which though they be not sufficient to demonstrate infallibly to a man that he is elected, while yet he believcth not and remaineth unsanctified, yet they ought abundantly to demonstrate^U'ius much to any man, that he neither can or ought to have any preconceit that he is reprobated.
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But tliey object, " God indeed doth offer the outward means to me ; but since 1 am none of his elect, he will never impart unto me the ])recious gift of faith," How knowest thou that? Ask thou faith of God, and use diligently the means ordained for the begetting of faith, and thou mayest be confident that thou art neither shut out of God's predestination, nor shalt finally be ke])t destitute of the gift of faith. But if any do so stiffly persuade himself that he is a reprobate, as withal to cast off all care of his salvation, he hath entertained this persuasion into his breast without all reason, and he neglecteth the means against all religion. But this doctrine of predestination and reprobation is no more to be concealed or relinquished, because such as these do thus waywardly abuse it, than the doctrine of the Trinity is because the Jews and Mahometans deride and reject it.
Having therefore confuted this rash and impious persuasion, let us examine a little the conclusion which they infer from it, viz. That although they do believe the gospel,' and live never so holily, yet for all that they shall be damned by reason of the infallible decree of the Divine will. I answer, there was never in the Divine will any such decree as these men imagine, of damning any man, though he should believe and live righteously. Yea, God hath established and published unto all men a quite contrary decree, tliat "whosoever believeth in his Son shall not perish, but have everlasting life ;" and, that " there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The doctrine therefore of God's secret decree of predestination and reprobation, can afford no comfort to any man before he knoweth that he is in Christ, and is become a new creature ; neither can it drive any man to despair, who believeth the gospel, and is careful to lead a godly life ; because such a care is a consequent fruit of election. Whence St. Augustine, "from your godly and upright course of life ye may conclude that ye do belong to God's gracious election." The sum of what we have said is this : that the doctrine of eternal predestination and reprobation is true, and quoad the sin, in the general, clearly dehvered in the Scriptures : yet as it hath respect unto particular persons elected or reprobated, it is a most unsearchable mystery ; which to go about by curious search or mere conjecture to pry into, is both extremely foolish and wicked. We must always therefore have recourse to the word revealed, the which when we believe and obey, we do safely draw out from thence this comfortable conclusion d posteriori, from the effects, that we are God's chosen children ; but as long as we abide in infidelity and unconverted, it is folly to presume we are elected, madness to conclude we are reprobated, whereas the will of God hath as yet by no external effect evidently manifested itself unto us on either side.
Ibid.
[A. D.
ARCHBISHOP LAUD.
A. D. 1625—1644.
The character and melancholy fate of this remarkable person are of necessity brought, at large, under the notice of every one who makes a study of English history or the English constitution. On this exhausted, but (in some senses) inexhaustible subject, it would be futile to enter, in the pre- sent compendium. Nevertheless, the plan of the work did not allow the total exclusion from its pages, of a prelate so eminent, not only as a statesman, but as a man of learning and a splendid patron of literature.
William Laud was born in 1573, at Reading. In the grammar-school of that town he received his early education ; and, before the close of his l6th year, obtained a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford. He became fellow of his college in 1593, and in May l6ll was raised to the presidency, by an election disputed for a time, but finally confirmed in his favour by the king. Till near the age of fifty, his time was passed either in the university, or at court, where he was long a suiter for preferment, in the capacity of chaplain to Archbishop Neile. The learning, activity, and polemic skill of Laud, won for him, at Oxford, more of admiration, than his disposition procured of personal attachment. It would, nevertheless, be unfair to attribute to heat of temper the fact, that, in a community overrun with Calvinism, this accurate scholar and able disputant constantly appeared at the head of the eager defenders of those doctrines and practices which every Calvinist of his time abhorred as popish. Hav- ing at length secured the favour of King James, he was in l6l6, on the death of Dr. Field, made dean of Gloucester, and in November 1621 was raised to the see of St. David's, He officiated, as dean of Westminster, at the coronation of King
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Charles ; was shortly afterwards translated to the bishopric of Bath and Wells; and thence, in l628, to London. Already, in the previous year, the ambitious energy of Laud had found a sphere for its exercise, in his appointment to the commission for executing the archiepiscopal functions during Abbot's sequestration. The path was now open to his greatness, and his ruin. He was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford in l630; became prime minister, at the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham ; and, on Abbot's death, in l633, his ascent was crowned by an elevation to the primacy, — a conspicuous mark for the indignation of an angry and powerful party, whom he had never feared nor scrupled to irritate.
The history of the twelve disastrous years that followed, is the most minutely known, but the most eagerly disputed passage in our country's annals. Strafford in Ireland, Laud in England (the peer, one of the most high-minded of men, and gifted with pre-eminent genius as a politician ; the churchman inflexibly honest, profoundly pious, regally mu- nificent,) became conjointly, not, certainly, the cause, but the eager and self-applauding, though unintentional, instru- ments, of subverting a civil constitution worthy to be the world's model, and a church establishment, which, when wisely administered, combines with the purity of the primitive ages an exquisite adaptability to the necessities of more advanced periods of civilization. We now know, how all that befel in those dismal times was providentially overruled for good results ; yet can hardly refrain, when we read their history, from exclaiming, with wonder, against the blindness and infatuation of great men. The heart of a mighty nation was bursting with an exuberance of strength, given for the accomplishment of vast and beneficent achievements ; and here was a ruler who thought to stifle its complaints, cor- rect its waywardness, and repress the distortions of its self- torturing power, by the magic of ceremonies raked from the dust of ages to which those struggles and that strength were unknown, and to lay it, bound, at the foot of antiquated and illegal, if not irrational prerogative ! We attribute not the overthrow of the institutions of our country to Arch- bishop Laud : — that was the work of a restless, ambitious, unprincipled faction, whose designs were promoted by the generous confidence of a pious people and by a junction with
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some few individuals of large intellect and noble natures; yet his trifling in the resuscitation of extinct observances, no less than the countenance given by him to arbitrary taxation and to the despotic severities of the Star Chamber, hastened the ruin, and made it complete.
Immediately on the assembling of the Long Parliament, in November l640, Strafford, we have seen, was struck down. The primate, having been impeached at the bar of the house of peers, on the 18th of December, and, six weeks later, committed, had already become the statesman's neighbour in the Tower of London ; whence, on the 12th of May 1641, he beheld him walk forth to die. A long interval suc- ceeded before his turn also came, — an interval of unworthy and illegal usage of Laud himself, from which, however, he refused the opportunity to escape by flight into a foreign land ; of triumph to the Puritans and republicans ; of war and misery to the nation. At length, January 10th, 1644-5, he submitted to the executioner's axe, with the courage of a hero, the meekness of a sincere Christian, and the charity of a martyr.
The life of Laud was passed in too much of the turmoil of distracting public affairs, to allow of his leaving behind him many literary compositions ; and those which he did leave are distinguished i-ather by accurate research, patience of detail, solidity of judgment, and manifest sincerity of purpose, than by elegance of style, depth of pathos, or liveliness of imagina- tion. The following are what chiefly remain.
Relation of the Conference between Bishop Laud and John Fisher the Jesuit. l624.
Fisher's real name was John Pierce, or Percey. This man had succeeded in winning over the countess of Buckingham to popery, and had shaken the faith of her brilliant son, when, by command of King James, Laud encountered him. May 1622, in the famous conference of which the primate published a report in this work. Its result was, the settling of the duke in the communion of the Church of England, and the recovery of his mother to it ; though indeed only for a time. It was to this encounter that Laud owed the patronage of Buckingham, and, incidentally, his own fatal elevation. " As a theological controversialist," writes Archdeacon Todd, " this book against the Jesuit Fisher bespeaks him matchless." It
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was re-published in l665, by Stillingfleet, with a vindication, &c. under the title of Grounds of the Protestant Religion.
Seven Sermons, preached on several occasions. l64l. Published, at first, separately.
Ojfficium Quotidianum, or Manual of Private Devotions. 1650. It is well known in what manner garbled portions of this record of the poor archbishop's communings with his Maker were made public by Prynne, in order to ensure his destruction by the parliament.
History of his Troubles and Trials ; to which is prejiwed his Diary. I695. This publication was edited by Henry Wharton, chaplain to Archbishop Sancroft, in the notice of whose life some further account of it will be found.
Remains of Archbishop Laud. 1700. This volume con- tains some of the archbishop's speeches, in particular, the elaborate Speech delivered at the Censure of Prynne, Bast- wick, and Burton (which, with several others, had already been published in a separate form). It comprises also an account of transactions relating to his chancellorship of the university of Oxford.
Many of Laud's letters are among those which are en- titled, G. J. Vossii et Clarorum Virorum ad eum Epistolce, in the Cabala ; in the Prcestantium Virorum Epistolce ; and in other books.
The services rendered by the archbishop to the cause of literature, as a patron and encourager of learning and learned men, are extraordinary, and beyond all praise : from an in- teresting paper on this subject, by Archdeacon Todd, in the second volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, are extracted the following particulars.
His munificence was, in a great measure, directed to the enrichment of the university of Oxford, his alma mater, for whom his regard knew no bounds. In the year l635, he presented to the Bodleian Library a magnificent collection of several hundred manuscripts, chiefly oriental ; a second col- lection, scarcely less rich and costly, in the following year ; and finally, in 1639, he sent to the same learned repository a further present of the remainder of his manuscripts ; the whole number amounting to 1276. Some of tiicse had been pur- chased, for large sums, by the learned orientalists, Pococke and Greaves, whom he employed to collect them in the East. The
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archbishop likewise obtained for the university similar bene- factions, on a more limited scale, from the earl of Pembroke, and others. His second donation of manuscripts he accom- panied with a valuable present of coins, collected by himself ; and added afterwards a fine collection formed by Dr. Barcham, dean of Bocking.
But the university had the benefit of his munificence, in other respects of no less importance. He founded in l636, and in l640 "settled for ever," the Arabic professorship, ap- pointing Pococke the first lecturer. He obtained the annex- ation of a canonry of Christ Church to the regius professor- ship of Hebrew, and of another to the office of public orator, which was enjoyed (the second turn) by the admirable divine. Dr. Henry Hammond. He reformed the statutes of the university, especially with regard to public examinations ; and secured to it a patent for printing, with other encouragements to its press.
His own college, St. John"'s, had a special share in his bounty ; its library was enriched by him, and a quadrangle added to the buildings, from a design by Inigo Jones.
Laud was also chancellor of the university of Dublin ; which seat of learning was likewise indebted to his care for a charter, and amended statutes.
The list of learned individuals, who were animated to labour by his encouragement, promoted to deserved honour by his means, or supported by his bounty, is such as might grace a royal patron. Bramhall and Bedell, in Ireland ; Jeremy Taylor, Pococke, Chillingworth, Hales, Sanderson, and the younger Casaubon, in England ; abroad, the elder Vossius ; were among those whom his liberality assisted, on whom he conferred, or for whom he sought and obtained, prefer- ment.
In short, the whole career of Laud, from the epoch of his obtaining influence, evinces that, as Archdeacon Todd has remarked, like Wolsey, —
"in bestowing He was most princely;" —
and justifies the eloquent encomium of South, quoted by the same instructive and indefatigable writer, " in reference to this illustrious part of his history, both as to what he magnifi- cently performed, and to what he further intended " Si vel
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ea quae scripsit, quae extruxit, quaeque dederit, metiamur, liquebit certe nihil esse posse grandius iis quae perfecit ac praestitit, nisi ea quae idem cogitavit. Quis enim literatus, quem non promovit ? Quis felicis indolis, quern non studiose ad se undique attraxit^"
LAUD S SERMON ON THR SCAFKOLD.
Good people ! This is an uncomfortable time to preach, yet I shall begin with a text from Scripture, in the 12th chapter of Hebrews, the 1st and 2nd verses: "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the riglit hand of the throne of God."
I have been long in my race, and how I have looked to Jesus the Author and Finisher of my faith, he best knows. I am now come to the end of my race, and here I find the cross, a deatli of shame : but the shame must be despised, or there is no coming to the right hand of God. Jesus despised the shame for me, and God forbid but that I should despise the shame for him. I am going apace, as you see, towards the Red Sea, and my feet are now upon the very brink of it ; an argument, I hope, that God is bringing me into the Land of Promise, for that was the way by which of old he led his people. But before they came to it, he instituted a passover for them, a lamb it was, but it must be eaten with sour herbs : I shall obey, and labour to digest the sour herbs, as well as the lamb. And I shall remember, it is the Lord's passover ; I shall not think of the herbs, nor be angry with the hand which gathereth them, but look up only to Him who instituted the one and governs the other; for men can have "no more power over me, than that wliich is given them from above." I am not in love with this passage through the Red Sea, for ,1 have the weaknesses and infirmities of flesh and blood in me ; and I have prayed, with my Saviour, that this cup of red wine might pass from me ; but if not, God's will, not mine, be done, and I shall most willingly drink of this cup as deep as he pleases, and enter into this sea ; yea, and pass through it in the way that he shall lead me.
' When we contemplate his writings, his buildings, his munificent donations, it is difficult to imagine any thing no- bler than what he achieved, until we come to look at what he only lived to plan.
What scholar of mature learning in his time did he fail to prefer ? What youth of promise was any where heard of, whom he did not attract within the sphere of his influence ?
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But, good people, I would have it remembered, that when God's servants were in this boisterous sea, and Aaron among them, the Egyptians which persecuted them, and did in a manner drive them into tliat sea, were drowned in the same waters, while they were in pursuit of them. I know, my God, whom I serve, is as able to deliver me from the sea of blood, as he was to deliver the three children from the furnace ; and (I humbly thank my Saviour for it) my resolution is now as theirs was then : they would not worship the image the king had set up, nor will I the imaginations which the people are setting up ; nor will I forsake the temple and the truth of God, to follow the bleating of Jeroboam's calves in Dan and Bethel. And as for this people, they are at this day miserably misled, — God, of his mercy, open their eyes, that they may see the right way I for at this day, "the blind lead the blind, and if they go on, both will fall into the ditch." For myself, I am, and I ac- knowledge it in all humility, a most grievous sinner many ways, by thought, word, and deed ! yet I cannot doubt but that God hath mercy in store for me, a poor penitent, as well as for other sinners. I have now, and upon this sad occasion, ransacked every comer of my heart, but I thank God, I have not found, among the many, any one sin which deserves death by any known law of this kingdom ; and yet hereby I charge nothing upon my judges. And, though the weight of my sentence be heavy upon me, I am, I thank God, as quiet within as ever I was in my life. And though I am not only the first archbishop, but the first man that ever died by an ordinance in parliament, yet some of my predecessors have gone this way, though not by tliis means. For Elphegus was hurried away and lost his head by tlie Danes, and Simon Sudbury in the revolt of Wat Tyler ; also long before these, St. John Baptist had his head danced off by a lewd woman, and St. Cyprian, archbishop of Cartilage, submitted his to a persecuting sword; — examples great and good, which teach me patience ; for I hope that, in heaven, my cause will look of another dye than the colour that is put upon it here. Some comfort likewise it is to me, not only that I go the way of these great men in their several generations, but also that my charge, foul as it is made, looks like that of the Jews against St. Paul (Acts XXV. 3) ; for he was accused for the law and the temple, i. e. for religion ; and like that of Stephen, arraigned (Acts vi. 14) for breaking the ordinances which Moses gave, i. e. law and religion, the holy place and the temple. But, you will say, do 1 then compare myself with the integrity of St. Paul and St. Stephen ? No, far be that from me ! I only raise a comfort to myself, that these great saints and servants of God were struck at in their time
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as I am now. And it is memorable that St. Paul, who helped on this accusation against St. Stephen, did afterwards fall under the very same himself.
But, here is a great clamour that I would have brought in popery : I shall answer that more fully by and by. In the mean time, you know what the Pharisees said against Christ himself : " If we let him alone, all men will believe in him, et venient Romani, and the Romans will come, and take away both our place and nation." Here was a causeless cry against Christ, that the Romans would come : and see how just the judgment was ; they crucified Christ for fear, lest the Romans shoiUd come, and his death it was which brought in the Romans upon them ; God punishing them with that tliey most feared : and I pray God this clamour of Venient Romani (of which I have given no cause) help not to bring them in ! for the pope never had such an harvest in England, since the Reformation, as he hath now, through the sects and divisions that are among us. In the mean time, " by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as a deceiver, and yet true," am I passing out of this world. Of some particulars I have, farther, to speak.
And, first, tliis I shall be bold to say of the king, our gracious sovereign. He also hath been much traduced for bringing in popery, but on my conscience (of which I shall give to God a very present account) I know him to be as free from this charge as any man living ; and I hold him to be as sound a protestant, according to the religion by law established, as any man in this kingdom, and that he will venture his life as far and as freely for it. And I think I do, or should, know his affection to religion, and his grounds for it, as fully as any man.
The second particular is concerning this great and populous city, which God bless. Here hath been of late a fashion taken up, to gather bands, and then go to the great court of the kingdom, the parliament, and clamour for justice ; as if that great and wise court could not, or would not, do justice, but at their appointment: — a custom which may endanger many an innocent man, and pluck his blood upon their own heads, and perhaps upon the city's also. This hath been lately practised against myself, the magistrates standing still, and suflFering them to proceed without any check. God forgive those who set them on ! with all my heart, I beg it : but many well-meaning people are thus caught. In St. Stephen's case, when nothing else would serve, " they stirred up the people against him ;" and Herod went the same way, when he had killed James : he would not venture on St. Peter, till he found how the other had pleased the people. But take heed of having your hands full of blood ; for there is a VOL. I. 15
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time, best known to himself, when God (above other sins) " makes inquisition for blood." And when that inquisition is on foot, the Psalmist tells us, " God remembers and forgets not the complaint of the poor;" that is, those whose blood is shed by oppression. Take heed of this : it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but, then especially, " when he maketh inquisition for blood."
The third particular is the poor Church of England. It hath flourished, and been a shelter to other, neighbouring churches, when storms have driven upon them. But alas ! now it is in a storm itself, and God only knows whether, or how, it shall get out. And (which is worse than the storm from without) it is become like an oak cleft to shivers with wedges made out of its own body, and, at every cleft, profaneness and irreligion are entering in ; while (as Prosper speaks) " men that introduce profaneness are cloaked over with the name rdigionis imaginaricB, of imaginary' reUgion ;" for we have lost the substance, and dwell too much in opinion ; and that Church which all the Jesuits' machinations could not ruin, is now fallen into danger by her own.
The last particular (for I am not willing to be too long, — I shall hasten to go out of this miserable world,) is myself. I was bom and baptized in the bosom of the Church of England established by law : in that profession I have ever since lived, and in that I come to die. This is no time to dissemble with God, least of all in matters of religion ; and therefore I desire it may be remembered, I have always lived in the Protestant religion established in England, and in that I come now to die. What clamours and slanders I have endured for labouring to keep an uniformity in the external service of God, according to the doctrine and discipline of this Church, all men know, and I have abundantly felt. Now at last I am accused in parliament of high treason, a crime which my soul ever abhorred.
This treason was charged to consist of two parts — an endeavour to subvert the laws of the land, and a like endeavour to overthrow the religion established by law. Besides my answers to the several charges, I trusted my innocency in both houses. It was said, pri- soners' protestations at the bar must not be taken. I can bring no witness of my heart, and the intentions thereof — therefore I must come to my protestation, not at the bar, but my protestation at this hour and instant of my death : in which I hope aU men will be such charitable Christians as not to think I would lie and dissemble, being instantly to give God an account for the truth of it. I do therefore here, in the presence of God and his holy angels, aver upon my death, that I never endeavoured the subversion of law or religion ; and I desire you all to remember this protest of mine, for my inno-
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cency in tliis, and from all treasons whatsoever. 1 have been accused likewise as an enemy to parliaments : no, I understand them, and the benefit that comes by them, too well to be so. But I did mislike the misgovernment of some particular parliaments, and I liad good reason for it. For, corruptio optimi est pessima ; there is no cor- ruption in the world, so bad as that which is of the best thing in itself; for the better the thing is in its own nature, the worse it is when corrupted. And that being the highest court, over which no other hath jurisdiction, when it is misinformed or misgoverned the subject is left without all remedy. But I have done. I forgive all the world, all and every of those bitter enemies which have persecuted me ; and humbly desire to be forgiven, of God first, and then of every man, whether I have offended him or not ; if he do but conceive that I have, Lord, do thou forgive me, and I beg forgiveness of him ! and so I heartily desire you to join with me in prayer.
. . . O eternal God and merciful Father! look down upon me in mercy, in the riches and fulness of all thy mercies look down upon me : but not till thou hast nailed my sins to the cross of Christ, not till thou hast bathed me in the blood of Christ, not till I have hid myself in the wounds of Christ ; that so the punishment due unto my sins may pass over me. And since thou art pleased to try me to the uttermost, I humbly beseech thee, give me now, in this great instant, full patience, proportionable comfort, and a heart ready to die for thine honour, the king's happiness, and the Church's pre- servation. And my zeal to these (far from arrogancy be it spoken !) is all the sin, (human frailty excepted, and all the incidents there- unto) which is yet known to me in this particular, for which I am now to suffer : I say, in this particular of treason. But other- wise my sins are many and great : Lord, pardon them all ; and those especially (whatever they are) whicli have drawn down this present judgment upon me 1 And when thou hast given me strength to bear it, do with me as seems best in thine own eyes ; and carry me through death, that I may look upon it in what visage soever it shall appear to me. Amen. And that there may be a stop of this issue of blood, in this more than miserable kingdom, (I shall desire that I may pray for the people too, as well as for myself) O Lord, I beseech thee, give grace of repentance to all bloodthirsty people. But if they will not repent, O Lord, confound all their devices, defeat and frus- trate all their designs and endeavours, which are or shall be contrary to the glory of thy great name, the truth and sincerity of religion, the establishment of the king and his posterity after him in their just rights and privileges, the honour and conservation of parliaments in their just power, the preservation of this poor Church in her truth,
15—2
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peace, and patrimony, and the settlement of this distracted and dis- tressed people under their ancient laws, and in their native liberty. And when thou hast done all this in mere mercy to them, O Lord, fill their hearts with thankfulness, and with religious, dutiful obedience to thee and thy commandments all their days. Amen, Lord Jesus, Amen. And receive my soul into thy mercy, Amen. Our Father &c.
SUM OF PROOFS, THAT SCRIPTURE IS THE WORD OF GOD.
To gather up whatsoever may seem scattered in this long discourse to prove that Scripture is the word of God, I shall now in the last place put all together, that so the whole state of the question may better appear.
First, then, I shall desire the reader to consider, that every rational science requires some principles quite without its own limits, which are not proved in that science, but presupposed. Tlius rhetoric presupposes grammar, music, and arithmetic. Therefore it is most reasonable that theology should be allowed to have some principles also which she proves not, but presupposes ; and the chiefest of these is, tliat the scriptures are of divine authority.
Secondly, That there is a great deal of difference in the manner of confirming the principles of divinity, and those of any other art or science whatsoever. For the principles of all other sciences do finally resolve, either into the conclusions of some higher science, or into those principles which are per se nota, known by their own light, and are the grounds and principles of all sciences. And this is it which properly makes them sciences, because they proceed with such strength of demonstration as forces reason to yield unto them. But the prin- ciples of divinity resolve not into the grounds of natural reason (for then there would be no room for faith, but all would be either know- ledge, or vision), but into the maxims of divine knowledge super- natural. And of this we have just so much light, and no more, than God hath revealed unto us in the scripture.
Thirdly, That though the evidence of these supernatural truths, which divinity teaches, appears not so manifest as that of the natural ; yet they are in themselves much more sure and infallible than they. For they proceed immediately from God, that heavenly wisdom, which being the fountain of ours, must needs infinitely precede ours both in nature and excellence. " He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know ? " (Psalm xciv.) And therefore, though we reach not the order of their deduction, nor can in this life come to the vision of them, yet we yield as full and firm assent, not only to the articles, but to all
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the things rightly deduced from them, as we do to the most evident principles of natural reason. This assent is called faith. And faith being " of things not seen," (Heb. xi.) would quite lose its honour, nay itself, if it met with sufficient grounds in natural reason wherein to stay itself. For faith is a mixed act of the will and the understanding, and the will inclines the understanding to yield full approbation to that whereof it sees not full proof. Not but that there is most full proof of them, but because the main grounds which prove them are concealed from our view, and folded up in the unrevealed counsel of God. God in Christ resolved to bring mankind to their lost happiness by faith, and not by knowledge, that so the weakest among men may have their way to blessedness open. And certain it is, that many weak men believe tliemselves into heaven, and many over-knowing Christians lose their way thither, while they will believe no more than they can clearly know. In which pride and vanity of theirs they are left, and have these things " hid from them." (Matth. xi.)
Fourthly, That the credit of the scripture, the book in which the principles of faith are written, (as of other writings also) de- pends not upon the subservient inducing cause, that leads us to the first knowledge of the Author, which leader here is the Church ; but upon the Author himself, and the opinion we have of his suffi- ciency, which here is the Holy Spirit of God, whose penmen the prophets and apostles were. And therefore the mysteries of divinity contained in this book, as the incarnation of our Saviour, the resur- rection of the dead, and the like, cannot finally be resolved into the sole testimony of the Church, who is but a subservient cause, to lead to the knowledge of the author ; but into the wisdom and sufficiency of the Author, who being omnipotent, and omniscient, must needs be infallible.
Fifthly, That the assurance we have of the penmen of the scriptures, the holy prophets and apostles, is as great as any can be had of any human authors of like antiquity. For it is morally as evident to any pagan, that St. Matthew and St. Paul wrote the Gospel, and Epistles, which bear their names, as that Cicero or Seneca wrote theirs. But that the apostles were divinely inspired, whilst they wrote them, and that they are the very word of God expressed by them, this hath ever been a matter of faith in the Church, and was so, even while the apostles themselves lived, and was never a matter of evidence and knowledge, at least as knowledge is opposed to faith. Nor could it at any time then be more demonstratively proved than now. I say, not scientifice, not demonstratively. For, were the apostles living, and should they tell us, that they spake and writ the very oracles of God, yet this were but their own testimony of them-
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selves, and so not alone able to enforce belief on others. And for their miracles, though they were very great inducements of belief, yet were neither they evident and convincing proofs, alone and of themselves ; both because there may be counterfeit miracles, and because true ones are neither infallible nor inseparable marks of truth in doctrine. Not infallible ; for they may be marks of false doctrine in the highest degree (Deut. xiii.) Not proper, and in- separable ; for all which wrote by inspiration did not confirm their doctrine by miracles. For we do not find that David, or Solomon, with some other of the prophets, did any, neither were any wrought by St. John the Baptist (St. John x.) So, as credible signs, they were, and are still of as much force to us, as it is possible for things on the credit of relation to be: for the witnesses are many, and such as spent their lives in making good tlie truth which they saw. But that the workers of them were divinely and infallibly inspired in that which they preached and writ, was still to the hearers a matter of faith, and no more evident by the light of human reason to men that lived in those days, than to us now. For had that been demonstrated, or been clear (as prime principles are) in its own light, both they and we had apprehended all the mysteries of divinity by knowledge, not by faith. But this it is most apparent was not. For had the prophets or apostles been ordered by God to make this demonstratively, or intuitively by discourse, or vision, appear as clear to their auditors as to themselves it did, that whatsoever they taught was divine and infallible truth, all men which had the true use of reason must have been forced to yield to their doctrine. Isaiah could never have been at — Domine, quis? " Lord, who hath believed our report ? " (Is. liii.) ; nor Jeremiah at — Domine, factus sum, "Lord, I am in derision daily," (Jer. xx.); nor could any of St. Paul's auditors have mocked at him, as some of them did, (Acts xvii.) for preaching the resurrection, if they had had as full a view as St. Paul himself had, in the assurance which God gave of it in and by the resurrection of Christ, (verse 31). But the way of know- ledge was not that which God thought fittest for man's salvation. For man having sinned by pride, God thought fittest to humble him, at the very root of the tree of knowledge, and make him deny his understand- ing, and submit to faith, or hazard his happiness. The credible object all tlie while, that is, the mysteries of religion, and the Scripture wliich contains them, is divine and infalUble, and so are the penmen of them by revelation. But we, and all our forefathers, the hearers and readers of them, have neither knowledge, nor vision of the prime principles in, or about them, but faith only. And the revelation, which was clear to them, is not so to us, nor therefore the prime tradition itself delivered by them.
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Sixthly, That hence it may be gathered, that the assent, which we yield to this main principle of divinity, that the Scripture is the word of God, is grounded upon no compelling, or demonstrating rati- ocination, but relies upon the strength of faith, more than any other principle whatsoever. For all other necessary points of divinity may by undeniable discourse be inferred out of Scripture itself once ad- mitted; but this, concerning the authority of Scripture, not possibly: but must either be re-proved by revelation, which is not now to be expected, or pre-supposed and granted as manifest in itself, like the principles of natural knowledge, which reason alone will never grant ; or by tradition of the Church, both prime and present, with all other rational helps, preceding or accompanying the internal light in scripture itself ; which though it give light enough for faith to believe, yet light enough it gives not to be a convincing reason, and proof for knowledge. And this is it which makes the very entrance into divinity inaccessible to those men, who, standing high in the opinion of their own wisdom, will believe nothing but that which is irrefragably proved from rational principles. For as Christ requires a denial of a man's self, that he may be able to follow him, (St. Luke ix.) so as great a part as any of this denial of his whole self (for so it must be) is the denial of his understanding, and the composing of the unquiet search of this grand inquisitor into the secrets of him that made it, and the overruling the doubtfulness of it by the fervency of the will.
Seventhly, That the knowledge of the Supreme cause of all (which is God) is most remote, and the most difficult thing reason can have to do with. The quod sit, that there is a God, blear- eyed reason can see. But the quid sit, what that God is, is infi- nitely beyond all the fathoms of reason. He is a light indeed, but such as no man's reason can come at for the brightness (1 Tim. vi.) If anything therefore be attainable in this kind, it must be by reve- lation; and that must be from himself: for none can reveal, but he that comprehends ; and none doth, or can comprehend God, but himself. And when he doth reveal, yet He is no farther discernible than himself pleases. Now, since reason teaches that the soul of man is immortal, and capable of felicity ; and since that felicity consists in the contemplation of the highest cause, which again is God himself ; and since Christ therein confirms the dictate, that man's eternal happiness is "to know God, and him whom he hath sent," (John xvii.) and since nothing can put us into the way of attaining to that contemplation, but some revelation of himself, and of the way to himself ; I say, since all this is so, it cannot reasonably be thought by any prudent man, that the all-wise God should create
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man with a desire of felicity, and then leave liim utterly destitute of all instrumental helps to make the attainment possible ; since God and nature do nothing, but for an end. And helps there can be none sufEcient, but by revelation. And once grant me that reve- lation is necessary, and then I will appeal to reason itself, and that shall prove abundantly one of these two : that either there was never any such revelation of this kind irom the world's beginning to tliis day : and that will put the "frustra" upon God, in point of man's felicity ; or, that the Scriptures which we now embrace, as the word of God, is that revelation. And that is it we Christians labour to make good against all atheism, profaneness, and infidelity.
Last of aU, To prove that the Book of God which we honour as His Word, is this necessary revelation of God and his tnith, which must, and is alone able, to lead us in the way to our eternal blessed- ness, or else the world hath none, come in a cloud of witnesses. Some for the infidel and some for the believer ; some for the weak in faith, and some for the strong : some for all. For then first comes in the tradition of the Church, the present Church ; so it is no heretical, or schismatical belief. Then the testimony of the former ages ; so it is no new belief. Then the consent of times ; so it is no divided or partial belief. Tlien the harmony of the prophets, and them ful- filled ; so it is not a devised, but a forespoken belief. Then the success of the doctrine contained in this Book ; so it is not a belief stifled in the cradle ; but it hath spread through the world in despite of what the world could do against it, and increased firom weak and unlikely beginnings, to incredible greatness. Then the constancy of this truth ; so it is no moon belief ; for in the midst of the world's changes, it hath preserved its creed entire through many generations. Then that there is nothing carnal in the doctrine ; so it is a chaste belief. And all along it hath gained, kept, and exercised, more power upon the minds of men, both learned and unlearned, in the increase of virtue, and repression of vice, than any moral philosophy or legal policy that ever was. Then comes the inward light and excellency of the text itself ; and so it is no dark or dazzling belief. And it is an excellent text : for see the riches of natural knowledge wliich are stored up there, as well as supernatural. Consider how things quite above reason consent with things reasonable ; weight it well, what majesty lies there hid under humility ; what depth there is with a perspicuity unimitable ; what delight it works in the soul that is devoutly exercised in it ; how the sublime wits find in it enough to amaze them, while the simplest want not enough to direct them. And then we shall not wonder, if (with the assistance of God's Spirit, who alone works faith and belief of the Scriptures, and
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their divine authority, as well as other articles) we grow up into a most infallible assurance, such an assurance as hath made many lay down their lives for this truth ; such as that, though an angel from heaven should preach unto us another gospel, we would not believe him, or it ; no, though we should see as great, and as many miracles done over again to dissuade us from it, as were at first to win the world to it. To which firmness of assent by the operation of God's Spirit, the will confers as much, or more strength, than the understanding clearness, the whole assent being an act of faith, and not of knowledge.
So then, as far as it appears to me, the credit of Scripture to be divine, resolves finally into that faith, which we have touching God himself, and in the same order. For as that, so this, hath three main grounds, to which all other are reducible. The first is, the tradition of the Church, and this leads us to a reverend persua- sion of it. The second is, the light of nature : and this shows us how necessary such a revealed learning is, and that no other way it can be had : nay more, that all proofs brought against any point of faith, neither are, nor can be demonstrations, but solvable argu- ments. The third is, the light of the text itself ; in conversing wherewith we meet with the Spirit of God, inwardly inclining our hearts and sealing the full assurance of the sufficiency of all three unto us. And then, and not before, we are certain, that the scrip- ture is the Word of God both by divine and by infallible proof. But our certainty is by faith, and so voluntary; not by knowledge of such principles as in the light of nature can enforce assent, whether we will or no.
Relation of the Conference with Fisher, p. 104, &c
[A.D.
ARCHBISHOP USSHER,
A.D. 1600—1656.
In Ireland, the Reformation followed the same general course, which was marked out by it in our own country ; but (in consequence of the greater weakness of the government, of the prevailing want of education, and of the more direct in- fluence of foreign papists,) with a great diminution of the benefits, and an aggravation of the defects, which on this side the channel were the consequence of that providential event. The larger part of the ecclesiastical revenues, having been the property of the monasteries, fell, at the suppression of those establishments, to the crown, and were swallowed up in grants to its greedy dependents. In a multitude of parishes, no means of support existed for ministers ; and even the sees were so impoverished, that, to secure a maintenance for the bishops, two or three were in some instances thrown into one. The clergy, reformed as well as popish, were illiterate, and the people sunk in ignorance and superstition. To add to the calamity of this state of things, numerous churches, and even cathedrals, were demolished and lying in ruins. The excellent Sir Henry Sidney, in a despatch to Queen Elizabeth, dated 1575, after describing the particulars of this desolation in the strongest terms, adds, "your majesty may believe it, that upon the face of the earth, where Christ is professed, there is not a Church in so miserable a case." Thus left in the condition of sheep without shepherds, that part of the Irish people who had rejected popery were abandoned to their own fancies in religion. Nor did the remedy recommended, and in part adopt- ed, effect more than a mitigation of the disease. Those bodies of Scottish settlers who passed over to Ireland, took with them their peculiar prejudices, and commonly their ministers to enforce them ; and when any members of the Puritan body of clergy in England were induced to follow their example, they were for the most part those whose restlessness and violence
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had made them obnoxious at home. It was the unfortunate consequence of these circumstances, that the principles of the Reformation never took root generally in the Irish mind ; and that where they did flourish, their growth was too often de- formed by the rankness of nonconformity.
The first effectual step towards correcting these evils was the establishment, in the year 1593, of the university of Dublin. This patriotic design, intended as the means of training up a supply of native clergy, received the cordial support of the best friends of Ireland ; but was by none more zealously advanced, than by the family and connexions of the illustrious prelate, whose name stands at the head of this chapter. Arnold Ussher, the father of the archbishop, was one of the six clerks in chancery; his mother was a daughter of James Stanihurst, recorder of Dublin, and speaker of the house of commons in three parliaments. It was to this enlightened person that the foundation of the university was mainly owning ; and his generous efforts were seconded by Henry Ussher, the future primate's uncle ; himself at that time honourably occupying the archiepiscopal see, on which his nephew afterwards shed so much lustre.
James Ussher was born January 4.th, 1580. Among the inmates of the family were two sisters of his mother, who, under the calamity of blindness from their birth, sought con- solation in the daily study of the Holy Scriptures. By these affectionate kinswomen was Ussher taught the first rudiments of learning ; and with their lessons he imbibed those profound impressions of piety, which accompanied him through life. From female hands he was transferred, at eight years of age, to the care of James FuUerton and James Hamilton, two Scotch gentlemen of good families and attainments, who resided at Dublin for political purposes, occupying themselves, as a cloke to their real business, with the tuition of youth : by these persons the education of young Ussher was, for the five following years, conducted with signal success.
On the opening of Trinity college, he was one of the first three scholars there matriculated. The natural bent of his mind was, at this period, towards poetry, and the lighter departments of literature ; a taste which, with a self-command uncommon in boyhood, he relinquished for what he deemed manlier studies. Meeting with this observation of Cicero, Nescire quod antea quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper
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esse puerum — that " to be ignorant of what occurred before one's birth, is to be always a child," — he resolved to devote himself to those pursuits in which his labours afterwards proved so eminently serviceable to the cause of learning and religion. He immediately commenced, on a systematic plan, his researches into the vast and hitherto chaotic regions of antiquity, with the view of rendering them tributary to the elucidation of the Bible ; and such was his application, that at the age of sixteen he had laid down the framework of his most celebrated production, the Annals of the Old and New Testa- ment.
His father, who had designed him for the law, dying in 1598, Ussher was left at liberty to choose his profession ; and immediately determined to prepare himself for the Church. He began with an act of remarkable disinterestedness. The paternal estate, which was considerable, and had fallen to him as the eldest son, he freely resigned to his numerous brothers and sisters; reserving only sufficient means to maintain him- self at college, and enable him to purchase books.
The popish controversy was in those days the engrossing topic of theological investigation; for Ussher it had acquired a further interest from the circumstance, that an accomplished member of his family, Richard Stanihurst, his maternal uncle, had embraced the religion of Rome. Among other pro- ductions on that side, he now read Stapleton's Fortress of the Faith — a book of high repute in its day. Suspecting that this author had unfairly cited his authorities, he deter- mined to examine the question thoroughly for himself ; and with this view undertook to read through all the works of the Fathers, " and trust none but his own eyes in the search of them." This laborious task he accordingly began at twenty years of age ; and persevering with a certain portion daily, completed it by the time he was thirty-eight. Previously however to the systematic commencement of this undertaking, he had made himself in a great degree master of the subject, and had engaged in disputation with some of the most dis- tinguished popish clergy in Ireland ; one of whom, a Jesuit of high reputation, named Fitzsymons, in terms of studied and unusual courtesy, styled his youthful opponent, " the most learned of the non-catholics" — AcathoUcorum doctissimus.
In the year 16OI, he received ordination from the hands of his uncle, the Archbishop of Armagh, by virtue of a special
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dispensation, — for he was then only in his twenty-first year, — and immediately laid the foundation of that celebrity as an earnest and eloquent preacher, which he maintained to the close of a long life. Educated at a period when the theology of Calvin was at its highest point of influence in the Church of England, and in a country where that influence was nearly co-extensive with the doctrines of the Reformation, the earnest and profound mind of Ussher naturally caught so deep a tincture from the solemn peculiarities of that system, as at no period wholly to divest itself of them. To enter into no terms with popery, was the great principle of Calvinistic puritanism; and, reared in the daily experience of the mischiefs of that corrupt form of the common faith, he set out in his career as a Christian minister with the conviction, that principle and expediency alike forbade its toleration. For this reason he had consented, even before his ordination, to employ his great abilities in delivering controversial lectures from the pulpit, and soon after it, took the office of preacher, in one of the churches, at those times when the Roman Catholics, in consequence of recent attempts at rebellion, were obliged by statute to attend the national service. This rigorous law was, however, in a short time, so completely relaxed, that Ussher thought it his duty to avail himself of an occasion, when it was in his course to officiate before the members of the government, to deprecate farther indulgence. The turn of his discourse was remarkable. Taking for his text Ezekiel, chapter iv. verse 6, in which is threatened the destruction of Jerusalem, for idolatry, after forty years, he applied the words, with foreboding sagacity, to those dangers that would attend the present connivance. " From this year," exclaimed he, addressing the friends of tole- ration, "I reckon forty years; and then those whom you now embrace shall be your ruin, and you shall bear their iniquity." This, when uttered, in 1601, "seemed only to be the present thoughts of a young man, who was no friend to popery ; but those who lived to remember it after the Irish rebellion broke out, in 1641, began to think he was a prophet." In the mean time, that he had spoken from a settled conviction, and not a sudden impulse, appeared from his frequently repeating the same sentiments afterwards; which he did with the more con- fidence the nearer the predicted period approached, although nothing visibly tended to realize his apprehensions.
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In 1603, Ussher was made Chancellor of St. Patrick's ; in 1607 he took the degree of B.D. ; was soon after chosen divinity professor in the university, an office which he dis- charged, during many years, with equal diligence and ability ; and in )6l3, his thirty second-year, he was made D.D.
When, in 1603, the officers of the English army in Ireland had generously subscribed a large sum towards purchasing books for the university library, the high literary reputation of Ussher pointed him out as one of the most proper persons to proceed to England to lay out their donation to the best ad- vantage. It is a pleasing incident connected with the history of two valuable kindred foundations, that while he and his colleague Dr. Challoner were employed in executing this commission, they formed an acquaintance and exchanged good offices, in London, with Sir Thomas Bodley ; who was also there, en- gaged in the same search, for enriching the noble structure, then newly erected at Oxford, which perpetuates his munificence.
Ussher's next visit to England did not occur till the year 1609. But subsequently to this date, he made it a practice to come over once every three years, to enlarge his collection of books, and to enjoy the society of his learned contemporaries. While here, he divided his time between the universities and the metropolis, consulting the rarest manuscripts, and con- versing with the profoundest scholars, in both. On one of these occasions, the university of Oxford honoured him with the degree of doctor of divinity.
In 1614, he brought out, in London, his first publica- tion— De Ecclesiarum Christianorum successions et statu — designed to prove, against the empty assumptions of antiquity advanced in the Church of Rome, two fundamental principles of ecclesiastical history; viz. 1. That there existed, even in the darkest and most ignorant times, a visible Church of true Christians, untainted with popish errors and corruptions ; 2. That the British islands are not indebted to Rome for their conversion to the faith of Christ. In the year l6l5, the Irish Convocation employed Ussher to draw up an independent body of articles for that kingdom. These articles differ from the English, chiefly in incorporating those already mentioned as subscribed in 1595, at Lambeth, by Archbishop Whitgift and other prelates and divines, but in effect repudiated by the Anglican Church. That the Irish articles were passed,
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" unanimonsly," as the historian Neal says, both by the parliament and convocation, is a fact which strongly con- firms what has been intimated respecting the predominance of the Genevan opinions in Ireland. What the friends of Laud afterwards asserted, that they were the result of a plot devised by the English Puritans to strengthen the hands of their brethren in the sister island against the Church, may not be so certain ; but this at least is evident, that were the English articles, as some even now allege, plainly and logically declarative of a Calvinistic sense, the Calvinists of Ireland would not have needed so strong a predestinarian infusion to make them harmonize with their own sentiments. With regard to Ussher''s share in these compositions ; that he drew them out and translated them into Latin, after they had been debated in the convocation, are circumstances which do not necessarily identify them with his own opinions. Those writers who have assailed his memory on this ground, admit that he was less decided, in some points, than the language of the Lambeth articles ; and some, who, at the time, availed themselves of this incident to endeavour to intercept his promotion in the Church, signally failed. On his next visit to England, shortly after, in the autumn of 1619, he was furnished by the lord-deputy and council with so strong a letter, recommending him to the king for orthodoxy, abilities, and moderation — as " abounding in goodness, and his life and doctrine so agreeable, that those who agree not with him are constrained to admire him,"" — that James sent for him without delay, and was so well content with the inter- view, that pointing his satisfaction with one of his usual quibbles^ he forthwith nominated him to the vacant bishopric of Meath, with the remark, that he was " a bishop of his own making."
Before his return to Ireland, in Feb. 162O, the bishop elect of Meath preached, by the choice of the house of commons, before that assembly, at St. Margaret's church — " an unruly flock to look unto,"" as the king hinted to him. His sermon, which related principally to the difference between the Romish and Anglican Churches in regard to the doctrine of the real presence, from 1 Cor. x. 17, was printed by order
' Alluding to the charge of Puritan- i Puritan," he said, "was bad; but the ism brought against Ussher, "the knave 1 knave's Puritan an honest man."
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of the house. One other sermon only, on the unity of the Catholic faith, preached before King James, the year of that sovereign's death, was at any time published by him.
When Ussher returned, and was consecrated to his sacred office, he appears to have resolved to apply all the authority — a very limited one — which, in his view, belonged to it, to the great work of advancing the Reformation. The divine origin of episcopacy he appears never to have questioned ; on the contrary, he wrote expressly in its defence ; yet, hold- ing that the difference between a bishop and a presbyter lies, not in order, but in eminence of place and jurisdiction, and, at the same time, that the intrinsic power of ordaining proceeds from order, not from jurisdiction, he without scruple allowed presbyters to share with him in that sacred office. He even went so far as to permit clergymen to retain livings in his diocese, who used the Scottish form of worship, and rejected the Liturgy ; though it is probable that this extreme laxity was merely a concession to existing difficulties, which, in a more flourishing slate of the establishment, he would by no means have indulged : it was next to impossible, in fact, in Ireland, to meet with an adequate supply of Pro- testant ministers of any denomination. The necessary coun- terpart of this treatment of the Puritans, was a disposition to adopt, in regard to the adherents of popery, as much of rigour as was consistent with the native liberality of his mind. In October l622. Viscount Falkland, the father of Clarendon's celebrated friend, received the sword as lord- deputy. On this occasion, Ussher, being called upon to preach before him, chose for his text the words " He beareth not the sword in vain and though, — to use his own ex- pressions referring to this subject, which certainly do no more than bare justice to his sentiments, "as one that natu- rally abhorred all cruel dealings, — it was far from his mind to excite the magistrate to any violent courses yet the very choice of such a text created a violent clamour. These trivial wounds were, however, soon healed. When, in the fol- lowing month of November, he rose in his place as a privy counsellor to remonstrate with some popish magistrates, who had been cited to the castle-chamber at Dublin for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, he treated this delicate ques- tion with so much learning, argument, and discretion, that several of the recusants were persuaded by his eloquence:
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King James also expressed his approbation in a letter to him under the royal signet. To the personal labours of his office he earnestly devoted himself. He ascertained the state of his diocese by frequent visitations; he gave every encouragement in his power to the diligent and pious among his clergy, and severely reproved the vicious ; he took pains to make himself acquainted with the character as well as the qualifications of candidates for ordination, to whom his advice was always accessible; and his directions to those whom he admitted, deserve to be studied by all clergymen.
By command of the king, who appreciated his unrivalled ability in that department in which he had peculiarly laboured, JBishop Ussher now vigorously resumed his more learned pursuits ; with a view to furthering which, he at this period spent much of his time in England. While he was thus en- gaged, the primacy of Ireland became vacant, and Ussher was chosen as the fittest person to succeed to that eminent station. Before he went over to take possession of his new see, the king died. The first important duty that devolved on Ussher, when he appeared as primate, in his native coun- try, was to make a farther stand against the Romanists. On the accession of the new sovereign, an increase of the army was thought necessary ; and that party, seizing what seemed a favourable opportunity, intimated their willingness to raise large contributions towards its support, on condition, among other privileges, of their being relieved from the oath of supre- macy. To these overtures the wants of the government in- duced Lord Falkland to listen ; an assembly of the nation was convened, at which the question was to be discussed. In 'the meantime the convictions of Ussher, respecting the neces- sity of opposing all concessions, had acquired strength from observing the recent conduct of the Papists, in particular, their zeal and audacity in making proselytes; to which his own mother had, in his absence, fallen a victim. He thei-e- fore invited the archbishops and bishops to a consultation on the proposed measure ; when a strong protest was drawn up and subscribed, in consequence of which the project failed.
His augmented revenues now enabled the primate not only to proceed more rapidly with the enlargement of his library, but farther to indulge his munificence in promoting the gene- ral interests of literature. By means of a correspondent at Aleppo, he obtained a cppy of the Samaritan Pentateuch (one vol.. I. IG
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[A. D.
of the first ever introduced into Western Europe), the most perfect copy then known of the Old Testament in Syriac, and other precious masuscripts. These, and other oriental treasures collected by him, afforded valuable assistance to Walton, in the compilation of his famous Polyglott Bible ; an undertaking to the success of which the archbishop greatly contributed by his countenance and assistance. The whole collection found at length an appropriate depository in the Bodleian Library.
In 1631 the zeal of Ussher was again enlivened by a cir- cular, addressed, in the king's name, to all the Irish archbishops, directing their attention to the disorders that had crept into the Church, through the neglect of the bishops and clergy, by which disorders Romanism had been encouraged. Towards remedying the abuses referred to, with all others affecting the welfare of the Church, — as pluralities, neglect of preaching and catechising, and, in particular, the farther impoverishment of the clergy by " grants and patents to great men," — he cordially co-operated with Laud, now the chief manager of ecclesiastical affairs. It was at the suggestion of that prelate, by the intervention of Lord Strafford, the illustrious successor of Falkland, and on the urgent recommendation of Bishop Bramhall, that he likewise concurred in the adoption of the articles of the Church of England in the sister Church. The Irish articles were not indeed formally abrogated, nor, accord- ing to the primate's view, deprived of authority. " We let them stand," he wrote to his friend Dr. Ward, " as they did before. But for the manifesting of our a<;reement with the Church of England, we received and appi'oved your articles also, as concluded in the year 1562." Such a compromise, it may be said, implies no great concession on the part of the compiler of the Irish articles ; in connection with other circumstances however, it may not unfairly be assumed as indicative of that progress of moderation in Ussher's mind, to which allusion has already been made, respecting the more extreme positions of the predestinarian creed. The ques- tion has recently been decided, on evidence sufficiently con- vincing^; but the reader needs only compare the statements on the subject of reprobation and election, in the Body of Divinity, compiled by Ussher in his youth, with his mature opinions in the admirable letters appended to the present
' "Lives of Eminent Christians.^' Vol. i. p. 51, et seq.
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sketch. The canons of the Anglican Church, however, like- wise proposed for the adoption of the Church of Ireland, wercj by his care, previously remodelled in the Irish convocation.
At the beginning of l640, the primate was preparing to come over to England for the transaction of private business, when his departure was hastened by an intimation from Lon- don, that the presence in that capital of a prelate of his in- fluence and character for moderation, might tend to allay the ferment which now threatened ruin to the nation. Taking with him his wife and daughter, (he had been now many years married,) he left his native country, then in a state of apparent tranquillity — never, as the event proved, to return. The fol- lowing year broke forth that terrific rebellion, which raged through years of massacre and ravage, until its extinction made way for a partial establishment of the polity of Geneva, amid the ruins of that Church whose most distinguished orna- ment he had long been acknowledged. In London, he en- deavoured to justify the expectations of his friends, by pro- posing a plan of discipline calculated to unite, on a common basis of conciliation, the episcopal and presbyterian schemes ; but the unfortunate dissolution of parliament intervened ; and the march of events proved too overpowering to endure any expedient tending to charity and peace. He retired to the more congenial atmosphere of Oxford, where he laboured to serve the holy cause of order and religion, through the me- dium of the press.
The dispute respecting episcopacy was now at its height. Bishop Hall had stood ably forward as the champion of his outraged order, and presently found himself engaged, at once with no less than five Puritan divines^; to whom was presently joined an antagonist stronger and fiercer than all combined— viz. Milton. Oxford put forth a collection of tracts on Church government, by Andrewes, Hooker, Morton, and other divines, to which Ussher contributed two pieces, especially levelled at the great republican poet : in these he strenuously maintained the apostolic origin and authority of episcopacy ; without, however, relinquishing his opinion, that bishops and presbyters differ only in degree.
' Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcommen, and William Spurstow, writing conjoint-
ly under the once famous title of " Smec- tymnm,'" — a word compounded from the initials of their names.
16—2
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Notwithstanding the marked contrast on some important subjects between the sentiments of Ussher and those of Straf- ford, there is probably no ground for the vulgar surmise that an unfriendly feeling divided those excellent persons in Ireland : on the common grounds of zealous attachment to the Church, and monarchy, of a love of learning, and of the absence of all interested views, they must have regarded each other with that respect which, in generous and noble natures, is never diminished by the frank avowal on either side, of opinions in themselves unacceptable. Hence, when the first great act of the long parliament had brought the lord deputy within the power of his enemies, the consolations of the venerable primate w^ere not wanting to his distress. That Ussher concurred in the casuistical distinctions between treason in fact and trea- son in law, by means of which some of the bishops are said to have satisfied the perplexed conscience of the king that he might assent to the bill of attainder against Strafford, was a calumny raised, but soon afterwards effectually refuted. The archbishop was not even present at the conference referred tOi While preaching at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, a message referring to this subject summoned him to the royal presence. Descending for a moment from the pulpit, he told the bearer, that he " was then (as he saw) employed about God's busi- ness, which as soon as he had finished, he would attend the pleasure of the king."" Having concluded his sermon, he hastened to Whitehall ; but Charles was engaged with other advisers. In the evening, being admitted to an audience, he declared his opinion, "that if his majesty was satisfied by what he heard at the trial, that the earl was not guilty of treason, he ought not in conscience to consent to his condemnation." And we have the king's own attestation, that after he had, in compliance with the popular demand, passed the fatal bill, the archbishop came to him, and with tears in his eyes, expressed his regret.
During the unfortunate earl's imprisonment, the arch- bishop frequently visited him ; and at its close assisted in his solemn preparation to appear before that tribunal, " where," as Strafford remarked, "neither partiality can be expected, nor error feared." He was the bearer of that affectionate message to Laud, himself also now a prisoner, which, the next morning brought the fallen primate of England to the window of his cell to bestow a last blessing on his noble friend ; he knelt
1642.]
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liy the cal l's side on the scaffold ; and to him chiefly were directed his last eloquent and courageous words.
Hitherto personal calamity had not reached Ussher him- self. It fell on him now, however, though in a shape less terrible. His property and revenues in Ireland became a prey to the insurgents ; nothing was spared but his library, and some furniture in his house at Drogheda. During some time his only resource, for the support of his family, lay in the sale of such plate and other valuables as had been brought over with them into England. This grievous reverse could not fail to be felt, by one accustomed for more than sixty years to a life of prosperity. But Archbishop Ussher had never esteemed external advantages and accommodations above their true value. He "submitted to God's providence with Christian patience," allowing nothing to disturb his mental tranquillity. His situation, in the mean time, excited the anxious feelings of his numerous friends and admirers, at home and abroad. The university of Leyden endeavoured to obtain his acceptance of an appointment, as their honorary professor, by offering him a larger stipend than had previously been annexed to the place. Richelieu also, who held him in the highest esteem, invited him over to France, promising him the free exercise of his religion, with an ample allowance for his support. But a more attractive offer was made him by the king, of the vacant bishopric of Carlisle, to be held in com- mendam ; although the income of that see, impaired by the wars, afforded no more than a scanty maintenance. Even this fell with the seizure of the episcopal lands by the parliament ; nor does he appear, at least after the first year or two, to have received payment of the pension voted to him in common with the other bishops.
In 1642, the commencement of hostilities rendering a re- sidence in London irksome, if not dangerous, Ussher retired once more to Oxford, and there, in the house of his friend, Prideaux, bishop of Worcester, resumed his studies with all the application the times allowed. He likewise officiated, almost every Sunday, in one of the pulpits of the town, or the uni- versity ; where " his plain substantial way of preaching, for the promoting of piety and virtue, without studied eloquence. Or a vain ostentation of learning," not only drew round him large auditories, but wrought a revolution in the system of affected oratory which had prevailed. After the retirement of
246
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[A.D.
the court to Oxford, the king sometimes heard him, and took the sacrament from his hands: on one of these occasions, Charles, rising from his knees when preparing to receive the sacred elements, made a memorable protestation of his inno- cence respecting any such design as was constantly alleged against him by his enemies, to connive at the introduction of popery.
In the summer of l643, the primate of Ireland was nomi- nated a member of the assembly of divines at Westminster ; far, however, from taking his seat in that irregular convention, he publickly denied its authority and censured its acts. When formally consulted, indeed, he gave a plain and positive opinion, that scripture afforded no countenance to rebellion on any pre- tence; but that, in the present case, the concessions made by the king had removed all reasonable pretext whatever. This conduct, in a person whom they had been disposed to regard with favour, the parliament warmly resented, and indicated their displeasure by passing an order for the confiscation of his library, then deposited at Chelsea. By the interposition of his friend Selden, he obtained permission to redeem it for a sum of money ; but this was not effected without the loss of some volumes, besides "divers papers and collections of the archbishop's own writing, with all his letters either to or from his learned friends — for which loss"" adds the editor of his correspondence, " this ensuing collection fares the worse."
During his residence at Oxford the venerable archbishop prepared for publication sevei-al works, of which a more parti- cular notice will be subjoined. In some of these admirable compositions he enjoyed the advantage of having Hammond for his coadjutor, with whom he, at this period, contracted a friendship, which continued through the remainder of his life.
The royal cause rapidly declined ; and early in the year 1645, Oxford being menaced with a siege, the primate yielded to the advice of his friends, and sought a more tranquil and secure abode. Accompanying the prince of Wales as far as Bristol, he thence proceeded onward to Cardiff, of which place Sir Timothy Tyrrel, who had married his only child, was governor for the king. Remote from the noise of war, and cheered by the affectionate attentions of his family, he passed nearly twelve months within the walls of Cardiff Castle, in quiet application of his studies. A considerable portion of the first part of the great labour of his life, his famous Annals, was
1645.]
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the fruit of this year of repose. When, after the fatal fight at Naseby, the king retired into Wales, he passed several days at Ragland Castle, freely discoursing with his venerable chaplain, on the melancholy prospect before him. The necessities of his position soon afterwards obliged Charles to withdraw the garrison from Cardiff, and the primate had to seek another refuge. In this emergency, while undetermined what course to pursue, an invitation reached him, from the dowager Lady Stradling, to take up his abode at her castle of St. Do- natt's. On the way thither, an incident occurred characteristic of the period. The mountaineers of those parts had risen in arms, and occupied the road by their straggling bands. These rude insurgents were, indeed, friends to the royal cause; but having entered into a resolution to admit no English among them, they considered the party of travellers lawful objects of plunder. They dragged the archbishop and Lady Tyrrel from their horses, broke open their baggage, and in an instant his books, papers, and other articles of value, were dis- persed among a thousand hands. By the intervention of some gentlemen of the country, the captives were liberated and con- ducted to a mansion in the neighbourhood, with the restitution of the greater part of their property. As, however, the books and manuscripts could not be so quickly recovered, the "wonted patience" of the good prelate was sorely tried by this disaster. " I must confess," writes Parr, who was present, " that I never saw him so much troubled in my life; and those that were with him before myself, said, that he seemed not more sensibly concerned for all his losses in Ireland than for this, saying to his daughter, and those that endeavoured to comfort him, ' I know that it is God"'s hand, and I must endeavour to bear it patiently, though I have too much human frailty not to be extremely concerned ; for I am touched in a very tender place ; and He has thought fit to take from me at once all that I have been gathering together above these twenty years, and which I intended to publish for the advancement of learning and the good of the Church"." But in the end the loss happily proved inconsiderable; the gentlemen and clergy of the vicinity exerting themselves so effectually, that in two or three months nearly all the books and papers were recovered.
At the castle of St. Donatt''s he found an excellent library, collected by its late proprietors, Sir Edward and Sir John Stradling, both distinguished antiquaries, and correspondents
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of Camden. From some of its manuscript contents he had already made valuable extracts, when his employments were interrupted by so violent an attack of illness, that death was apprehended. AVhile the venerable patient lay expecting his last hour, a circumstance took place, which recalls to the mind the celebrated dying words of Lord Lindsay, after the battle of Edgehill. A member of the parliament, a gentleman related by marriage to the family at St. Donatt's, came to visit him ; to whom he said in a solemn manner, " Sir, you see I am very weak, and cannot expect to live many hours ; you are returning to the parliament, I am going to God : I charge you to tell them from me, that I know they are in the wrong, and have dealt very injuriously with the king."
The parliament being now everywhere successful, the archbishop, as soon as he had in some degree recovered his strength, began to think of quitting his hospitable but insecure abode. He contemplated withdrawing to the con- tinent ; but was roughly refused permission by the vice- admiral in command on the coast, to avail himself of a pass- port he had obtained for that purpose. Not long afterwards a message reached him, which put an end to his perplexity. When Ussher was in England in the year l625, he had held a disputation with a Jesuit at the house of Lord Mordaunt, after- wards earl of Peterborough, the result of which discussion was the conversion of that nobleman to the Protestant faith. Of the service rendered on this occasion to her family, the countess, a zealous Protestant, ceased not, during her life, to entertain a grateful remembrance. This lady now pressingly entreated him to make her house his home ; engaging " that he should not be molested, but have all accommodations suitable to his station, and the great affection and esteem she had for him." The invitation was, after some consideration, accepted ; *' and," continues one of the writers of his life, " it is a cir- cumstance highly honourable to both parties, that the primate was thenceforth to the day of his death, an usual and most respected inmate in some one of the lady's mansions."
At his appearance in London, in June 164-6, some slight annoyances, as was to be expected, befel him. The order of the parliament was now in force, that all persons who came from any of the king's garrisons to the metropolis should gignify their names, and the place where they lodged, to the
1646.]
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government. Accordingly, having given the required notice, the primate was summoned before the " committee of examina- tions" at Westminster; where several captious questions were put to him, directed chiefly to ascertain whether he had had any share in the negociations for a toleration in Ireland, which had taken place while he was at Oxford. On this point (though it appears that he had, most reluctantly, complied with the measure) the well-known tenour of his opinions enabled him readily to satisfy the inquisitors. The " negative oath " was then proposed to him ; but with respect to this he desired time for consideration ; and, through the influence of Selden and other friends in the house, the subject was allowed to drop, and was never revived.
Ussher did not retreat to a life of inaction. Lady Peter- borough had a house at Reigate ; and, either in the chapel of the mansion, or at the parish church, he frequently preached during his abode there'. Having also, with difficulty, ob- tained leave to preach publicly in London, the society of Lincoln's Inn, at the suggestion, probably, of Hale, who had warmly attached himself to the primate, chose him to be their preacher, and appropriated to his use some apartments, where he afterwards deposited that library which had escaped the fury of the rebels in Ireland. Some of the most precious fruits of his scientific, as well as historical and philological acquirements, date from about this period.
• ' The following extract from Eve- lyn's Diary contains a manifestly honest, though imperfect report of some of Us- sher's opinions on literary subjects, as stated in a conversation which occurred at this place.
"1655. Aug. 21. I went to Rygate to visit Mrs. Gary at my Lady Peter- boro's, in an ancient monastery well in repair, but the park much defaced ; the house is nobly furnish 'd. The chimney- piece in the great chamber, carved in wood, was the property of Henry VIII., ind was taken from an house of his in Blechinglee. At Rygate was now the archbishop of Armagh, the learned .James Ussher, whom I went to visit. He re- ceived me exceeding kindly. In discourse with him, he told me how great the loss of time was to study much the Eastern languages ; that excepting Hebrew, there
was little fruit to be gathered of exceed- ing labour; that besides some mathema- tical books, the Arabic itself had little considerable, that the best text was the Hebrew Bible ; that the Septuagint was finished in 70 days, but full of errors, about which he was then writing; but St. Hierom's was to be valued next the Hebrew ; also that the 70 translated the Pentateuch only, the rest was finished by others; that the Italians understood but little Greek, and Kircher was a mounte- bank ; that Mr. Selden's best book was his '•Titles of Honour ;'' that the Church would be destroyed by sectaries, who would, in all likelihood, bring in popery. In conclusion, he recommended me to the study of philology above all human studies ; and so with his blessing I took my leave of this excellent person, and re- turned to Wooton."
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In the autumn of the year l648, this apostoh'cal person was once more called upon to take a part in public trans- actions. Charles was now a prisoner in Carisbrook Castle ; and Ussher was one of the six divines whom, by permission of the parliament, he summoned thither to assist in the management of the celebrated treaty, in which the affairs of the Church had so large a part. The demands of the par- liamentary commissioners extended to the total abolition of episcopacy, its rights and revenues; — the king had already consented to its abolition for three years ; it remained for Ussher, consistently with his ultra-moderate views, to frame, if possible, such a plan as should unite the two parties, "with- out abusing episcopacy into presbytery, or stripping the Church of its lands and revenues, both which" (avers his chaplain) " the lord primate abhorred." His proposition, in substance a revival of the measure suggested by him in 1641, was to this effect : that the government of the Church should reside in diocesan and provincial synods of the clergy, the former to be presided over by the bishops, the latter by the archbishops. It pleased neither party. The Presbyterians (who, acccording to the observation of Parr, " would have all or nothing' — and,"" he adds, " they had their desire,") cried it down as wholly inadmissible. The clergy, on the other hand, were little satisfied with a scheme of accommodation which struck away the fundamental distinction of order between bishops and presbyters ; and after the Restoration, when the Church of England was re-erected in her unshorn proportions, the outcry against the comprehensive plan of the venerable primate was renewed, with too little allowance for the prostrate condition in which her ruined polity was lying at the occur- rence of the treaty. A share of this obloquy fell also on a sermon which the archbishop delivered before the king, on the 19th of November, Charles's birth-day. "Birth-days of kings," he said, " have been usually celebrated with great solemnity. It pleaseth God that this day begins the 49th year of his majesty's life, and let me call it the jubilee to his majesty. The Jews had a custom, that in the 49th year of any man"'s life he should be at liberty, whatever his sufferings were before. It must be the desire and prayer of every loyal heart, that the king may have a jubilee indeed." No wonder,
' See also Baxter's Life^ Pt. 11. sect. 62.
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that a strain of tenderness such as this was called " flattering the king,"" by those who, though they permitted their sovereign to have private communication with his friends and coun- cillors, had nevertheless the cruelty to reduce that permission to comparative insignificance, by forbidding them to be present at, and join in the debate ; but who, for two months, during which the crown, his life, and (what he esteemed more dear than either) the Church itself, hung suspended on the issue, refused to discuss any question except with himself in person ; and daily led forth their marshalled band of fifteen politicians, the ablest of the time, to combat in argument with the royal captive ! With a sorrowful heart the aged primate took his last farewell of his prince, regretting that his journey had been attended with no better success. He saw him once again — on the scaffold.
With what grief he witnessed that spectacle, then unpa- ralleled in the history of the world, Ave learn from the nar- rative of Parr : *' The Lady Peterborough"'s house being just over against Charing Cross, divers of the countess's gentlemen and servants got upon the leads of the house, from whence they could see plainly what was acting before White Hall : as soon as his majesty came upon the scaffold, some of the household came and told my lord primate of it, and askt him if he would see the king once more be- fore he was put to death : my lord was at first unwilling, but was at last prevailed to go up ; as well out of his desire to see his majesty once again, as also curiosity, since he could scarce believe what they told him, unless he saw it : when he came upon the leads, the king was in his speech ; the lord primate stood still, and said nothing, but sighed ; and lifting up his hands and eyes (full of tears) towards heaven, seemed to pray earnestly ; but when his majesty had done speaking, and had pulled off his cloak and doublet, and stood stripped in his waistcoat, and that the villains in vizards began to put up his hair, the good bishop no longer able to endure so dismal a siglit, and being full of grief and horror, for that most wicked fact, now ready to be executed, grew pale, and began to faint ; so that if he had not been observed by his own servant, and some others that stood near him (who thereupon supported him) he had swooned away. So they presently carried him down, and laid him on his bed, where he used those powerful weapons
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which God has left his people in such afflictions, viz. prayers, and tears; tears that so horrid a sin should be committed, and prayers, that God would give his prince patience, and con- stancy to undergo these cruel sufferings ; and that he likewise would not (for the vindication of his own honour and pro- vidence) permit so great a wickedness to pass unpunished."
His state of mind, a few months after the king''s death, he thus describes in the beginning of one of bis letters to Vossius : Vivo adhuc, si vivere dicendus est, SfC. " I am still alive, if any one can be said to live, who, having been spared till times of calamity and wickedness, is daily compelled to be a witness of transactions which his mind dreads to contem- plate, and from which it sorrowfully recoils."
Beneath the thickening shade which events had thrown over his advancing years, Ussher continued nevertheless to labour, both in his private studies and in the pulpit. Some affectionate and grateful notices of his sermons occur about this period in the Diary of Evelyn. In l650 appeared the first part of his great and long-expected work, the Annals of the Old Testament : the second part followed four years later ; in the interim, 1 652, he published his Epistle to Louis Cappel on the various readings of the Hebrew text. His larger work, on the Septuagint, he printed in l6"55.
Though conscious that the moderation of his conduct, and the approximation of his religious opinions to those which then prevailed, had rendered him less obnoxious than the generality of his brethren, he avoided as much as possible the notice of the usurping government. Cromwell, however, was am- bitious of obtaining, as far as policy allowed, the praise of a tolerant disposition. He had shewn favour to some of the orthodox clergy, in particular to Brownrigg, bishop of Exe- ter, and to Dr. Bernard, the primate's chaplain, afterwards dean of Kilmore. The venerable character and distinguished reputation of Ussher, made him desirous of adding him to the number. He sent a request for an interview : after some hesitation, the primate visited him. The discourse between these very remakable men related to some plan which Crom- Avell had in contemplation for promoting the Protestant in- terest, both abroad and in England. He received his visitor with kindness and courtesy, and promised him a lease of part of the lands belonging to the see of Armagh. This offer, Jaeing only a promise to repossess him of his own, the im-
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poverished prelate did not decline ; as long however as he lived the passing of the grant was delayed ; and after his decease, it was refused to his daughter and her husband, on the ground of " malignancy.'"
Cromweirs declaration issued January 1655, gave occasion to the renewal of this intercourse. By that harsh interdict, the clergy were prohibited, under severe penalties, from em- ploying themselves as tutors, or performing any part of their ministerial functions, either in public or in private. The extremities to which they were consequently brought, induced some of the more considerable sufferers to apply to Arch- bishop Ussher, as a person generally believed to stand high in the protector's regard, to intercede for some relaxation of its severity. The primate accordingly waited on him for this purpose, and after several interviews obtained a promise that the petitioners should not suffer molestation, provided they did not in any way interfere with his govern- ment. Ussher returned to get this assurance confirmed and put in writing; but was now told by Cromwell, that having maturely considered the matter with his council, he was advised " that it was not safe for him to grant liberty of conscience to those men whom he deemed restless and implacable enemies to his government." Ussher retired, much affected with his disappointment ; and, to the friends who anxiously waited his return, broke out in severe invectives against Cromwell, and mournful predictions of the advantage which popery would draw from the confusions in church and state. It does not appear, however, that the declaration was put in force either generally or with rigour.
Meantime, the gloom of advancing age fast gathered around the primate's own condition. The vigour of his mind he, indeed, stiil retained, and his bodily health was strong for his years; but the feebleness of his vision, injured by long and intense application, with other organic decays, at length forced him to resign his pulpit at Lincoln's Inn. It was with difficulty he could see to write, by following the ^un in its course from one window to another'.
' The following letter from Bishop Morton, with reference to the primate's infirmity, is an interestinjj and character- istic example of the friendly correspond- ence of that period. ^
Salulem in Chrislo Jesu. Most uevehend Father in God, Too long silence among friends useth to be the moth and canker of friend- ship, and therefore 1 must write unto your
grace.
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Ere the return of his birthday, in 1655-6, he appears to have had farther intimations that the close of his mortal pilgrimage drew near ; for in his journal, opposite the date of the day, of which he was accustomed to take some special note, was found written this memorandum : " Now aged 75 years. My days are full !" and after an interval, in capital letters — " Resignation." The termination of his long and valuable life was, however, brought on, at last, by an acute disorder. March 20th, 1655-6, having passed the greater part of the day, as usual, in study, he visited a sick lady, also an inmate in the family of Lady Peterborough, and discoursed to her on topics suited to her condition, " in such a heavenly manner, as if, like Moses upon the mount Pisgah, he had then a prospect of the celestial Canaan." That night he complained of pain. He suffei-ed acutely the next morning; and in a few hours, the disease, an inflamma- tion of the pleura, had so increased as entirely to subdue his strength, and to leave no prospect of recovery. In his devotional prepai'ations, he accepted the aid of the family chaplain. Availing himself of a short interval of ease, he solemnly exhorted those who were present to prepare betimes for the approach of death ; and, finally, took leave of his noble hostess, with due expressions of gratitude for her long kindness. Then he desired to be left to his private devotions, and presently expired, after uttering these words, "O Lord, forgive me; especially my sins of omission!" " He had been, when he died,"" observes Dr. Parr, " fifty-five years a minister, and almost all that time a constant preacher ; nearly fourteen years a professor of divinity in the Univer-
grace, although I have nothing to write but this nothing : and yet I have as much as Tully had to his friends, Si vales bene est, iS,c. Notwithstanding, in earnest, I grieve at the heart to hear of your grace's declination of sight, though it be my own disease, yet so (I thank God) that it is not more, considering mine age. Some- thing I should add of O iempora, O mores! albeit an exclamation which I reprove in the authors, because of Hys- teron proteron, for that it ought to be rather, O mores, O temporal but it is God that moves the wheels, and blessed be his holy Name; and let it be our com-
fort, my lord, that in his good time he will remove us from those vexatious mu- tabilities. If there were any thing in my power which 1 might contribute as grateful unto your grace, I would not be wanting: However (according to the mutual obligation between us) I shall still commend your grace to the protec- tion of the Almighty, to the glory of saving grace in Christ Jesus. I am,
Your grace's in all dutiful acknowledgement,
Thomas Duuesu,
Jan. 20 . 53.
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sity of Dublin, and several years vice-chancellor of the same ; he sat bishop of Meath near four years, and one and thirty years archbishop of Armagh, being, from St. Patrick, the hundredth bishop of that see."
It was the wish of the priiTiate''s friends to inter his re- mains at Reigate, in the family vault of the Countess of Peterborough. Preparations for that purpose were already in progress, when Cromwell, either prompted by respect for the memory of the illustrious deceased, or anxious to acquire credit by affecting it, sent down an order that the body should be deposited, with public honours, in Westminster Abbey ; the expenses, however, fell chiefly upon his impoverished re- lations. The funeral was delayed to the 17th of April ; on which day the procession, in its approach to the metropolis, was joined by the carriages of most of the persons of rank then in London. At Somerset House it was met by the clergy, who, with a great concourse of people, accompanied it onwards to the abbey. The funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Bernard, from 1 Sam. xxv. 1. " And Samuel died, and all Israel were gathered together, and lamented and buried him :" — an appropriate text ; for, of the multitude assem- bled, many testified their regret with tears. In fact, there was, perhaps, in that period of dissension, no sentiment in which a greater number of persons were agreed, than vene- ration for the piety, learning, wisdom, and moral worth of the good Archbishop of Armagh.
The bodily constitution of Ussher was robust, and adapted to a life of laborious exertion ; an advantage which he re- tained to a late period, by the simplicity of his habits, and the christian serenity of his temper. His countenance well expressed the combined gravity and benevolence which ap- peared in his conduct and writings. Of his prodigious at- tainments, and admirable qualities of intellect and heart, many eulogies have fallen from both foreign and compatriot pens; from the enemies as well as the friends of the Ciiurch : we subjoin the sketch of a master in the art of moral por- traiture. "In his conversation," says Burnet, "he expressed the true simplicity of a Christian ; for passion, pride, self- will, or the love of the world, seemed not to be so much as in his nature. He had a way of gaining people's hearts, and of touching their consciences, that looked like somewhat
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of the apostolic age revived. He spent much of his time in those two best exercises, secret prayer, and dealing with other people's consciences, either in his sermons or private dis- courses ; and what remained he dedicated to his studies, in ■which those many volumes that came from him showed a most amazing diligence and exactness, joined with great judg-* ment : so that he was certainly one of the greatest and best men that the age, or perhaps the world, has produced." The pu-blic testimony to his merits by the university of Oxford, which passed the Convocation in l644, mav claim higher consideration. In an inscription directed by that learned l)ody to be placed under the porti'ait, engraved at their expence, to be prefixed to his works, he is described as — " Antiquitatis primcevas peritissimus ; orthodoxae religionis vindex avuvrippriTo^ ; errorum malleus; in concionando fre- quens, facundus, prjepotens ; vitas in culpatae exemplar spec- labile*." To the archbishop"'s qualifications as a pulpit orator, allusion has been made more than once, in the pre- ceding notice. Much of his usefulness and popularity were, in fact, due to his excellence in this respect, the secret of which he has laid open in a series of directions to those who were newly admitted by him to holy orders, too valuable to be omitted here.
" 1 . Read and study the Scriptures carefully, wherein is the best learning and only infallible truth. They can furnish you with the best materials for your sermons ; the only rules for faith and practice ; the most powerful motives to persuade and convince the conscience ; and the strongest arguments to confute all errors, heresies and schisms. Therefore, be sure, let all your sermons be congruous to them. And it is expedient that you understand them as well in the originals as in the translations.
" 2. Take not hastily up other men's opinions without due trial, nor vent your own conceits : but compare them first with the analogy of faith and rules of holiness recorded Iti the Scriptures, which are the proper tests of all opinions and doctrines.
" 3. Meddle with controversies and doubtful points as little as may be in vour popular preaching, lest you puzzle your hearers or engage
" A consummate master of ancient !eaniing, an irresistible champion of the orthodox faith, the destroyer of erroneous
opinions; as a preacher, constant, elo- quent, powerful ; of blameless life a dis- tinguislied example. -
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them in wrangling disputations, and so hinder tlieir conversion, which is the main end of preaching.
" 4. Insist most on those points which tend to effect sound belief, sincere love to God, repentance for sin, and that may persuade to holiness of life. Press these things home to the consciences of the hearers, as of absolute necessity, leaving no gap for evasions, but bind them as closely as may be to their duty. And, as you ought to preach sound and orthodox doctrine, so ought you to deliver God's message as near as may be in God's words ; that is, in such as are plain and intelligible, that the meanest of your auditors may understand. To which end it is necessary to back all the precepts and doctrines with apt proofs from Holy Scriptures ; avoiding all exotic phrases, scholastic terms, unnecessary quotations from authors, and forced rhetorical figures ; since it is not difficult to make easy things appear hard, but to render hard things easy is the hardest part of a good orator as well as preacher.
" 5. Get your heart sincerely affected with the things you persuade others to embrace, that so you may preach experimentally, and your hearers may perceive that you are in good earnest ; and press nothing upon them but what may tend to their advantage, and which you yourself would enter your own salvation on.
" 6. Study and consider well the subjects you intend to preach on, before you come into the pulpit, and then words will readily offer themselves. Vet think what you are about to say before you speak, avoiding all uncouth fantastical words or phrases, or nauseous, indecent, or ridiculous expressions, which will quickly bring your preaching into contempt, and make your sermops and person the subject of sport and merriment.
" 7. Dissemble not the truths of God in any case, nor comply witii the lusts of men, nor give any countenance to sin by word or deed.
" 8. But above all, you must never forget to order your own con- versation as becomes the gospel ; that so you may teach by example, as well as precept, and that you may appear a good divine every where, as well as in the pulpit ; for a minister's life and conversation is more heeded than his doctrine.
" 9. Yet, after all this, take heed that you be not puffed up with spiritual pride of your own virtues, nor with a vain conceit of your parts and abilities ; nor yet be transported with the applause of men, nor be dejected or discouraged by the scoffs or frowns of the wicked or profane."
" He would also,"" adds Dr. Parr, " exhort those who were already engaged in this holy function, and advise them VOL. I. 17
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how they might well discharge their duty in the Church of God ansvverably to their calling, to this eft'ect : —
"You are engaged in an excellent employment in the Churchy and intrusted with weighty matters as stewards of our Great Master, Christ. Under him, and by his commission, you are to endeavour to reconcile men to God ; to convert sinners, and build them up in the holy faith of the gospel, that they may be saved, and that re- pentance, and remission of sins may be preached in his name. This is of the highest importance, and requires faithfulness, diligence, pru- dence, and watchfulness. The souls of men are committed to our care and guidance ; and the eyes of God, angels, and men, are ujion us, and great is the account we must make to our Lord Jesus Clnist, who is the supreme head of his Church, and will at length reward or punish his servants in this ministry of his gospel, as he shall find them faithful or negligent. Therefore it behoves us to exercise our best talents, labouring in the Lord's vineyard with all diligence, that we may bring forth fruit, and that the fruit may remain.
" This is the work we are separated for, and ordained unto. We must not think to be idle or careless in this office, but must bend our minds and studies, and employ all our gifts and abilities, in this service. We must preach the word of faith, that men may believe aright, and the doctrine and laws of godliness, tliat men may act as becomes Christians indeed. For without faith no man can please God ; and without holiness no man can enter into the kingdom of heaven."
Of Ussher's theological opinions incidental mention has already been made. Whether they sufficiently coincide, or not, with the tenets of our apostolical Church, is a question more likely than desirable to be revived. That they in effect do so coincide, Dr. Parr, in the elaborate appendix to his Life, has attempted to prove. The points discussed by the Doctor, with this view, are, 1. The Sabbath. 2. Episcopacy. 3. The efficacy of our Lord''s mediation, 4. The real presence. 5 Ab- solution. 6. Christ's descent into hell. On the whole of these points, it appears hardly controvertible, that a line drawn between the orthodox Anglican and the Calvinistic noncon- formist, would leave the liberal primate on the side of dissent. But a charitable moderation was the rule by which he walked; nor would he be so " rigorously dogmatical in his own opinions, as to impose them on others, learned and pious men, of a different apprehension in the more obscure points, Avith whom nevertheless (though not altogether of his judgment) he had a
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friendly conversation, and mutual affection and respect, seeing tlicv agreed in the points necessary."
Respecting the primate's claim not only to respect, but to the deference due to a master in ancient literature, including the sciences of chronology, geography, and theology, (to which last, indeed, he made all his other learning subservient,) with the whole circle of learned languages, one opinion only has been entertained among scholars. The following list of his chief publications will enable the reader to form some slight conception of his labours and acquisitions in these departments,
De Christimiarum Ecclesiarum, in occidentis prcesertim partibus, successione et statu. l6\3. The design of this work, (the " firstfruits of the college of Dublin,") it has been before stated, was to demonstrate the existence of a pure visible Church of Christ, essentially the same with the primitive Church in the earliest, and with the Protestant Churches in modern times, even through the darkest periods of popery. The principle had already been applied to the state of religion down to the close of the fifth century, by Bishop Jewel, in his Apology. At that point therefore, more particularly, Ussher took it up, and in his first part brought down the examina- tion to the pontificate of Gregory VII. in the 10th century. It was continued in the second part to 1270.
Sermon on Church Communion, preached before the House of Commons. 1620.
Discourse of the Religion anciently professed by the Irish and British. l622. The principle of the De Successione applied, in a particular manner, to the inhabitants of these islands.
Sermoji on the Universality of ChrisCs Church, preached before the King. l624.
Anstver to a Challenge made by a Jesuit in Ireland, about the judgment of Antiquity concerning the Romish Religion. Ifi25. The Jesuit, Malone, had appealed to the first ages of Christianity, in proof of the pretended uniformity of doctrine in the Romish Church : on the contrary, Ussher, in this very learned treatise, has shewn that transubstantiation, auricular confession, purgatory, prayer for the dead and to the saints, the use of images, and the doctrine of merit, were all unknown to the Church in primitive times.
17—2
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Goteschalci et PrcedestinaricB Controversice ah eo motce Historia. l631.
Gotteschalk was a monk of the abbey of Orbais, who lived in the beginning of the 9th century, and wrote against Pela- gianism. This production is dedicated to Isaac Vossius, and was the first Latin book printed in Ireland.
Veterum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge. \G'32. A col- lection of letters to and from ancient Irish bishops and monks, between the years 592 and 1180, These letters shew the high esteem in which the clergy of Ireland were at that time held, on the continent of Europe : many of them relate to the con- troversy concerning the time of the celebration of Easter.
Immanuel ; or the Incarnation of the Son of God. 1 638. This excellent discourse was afterwards appended to A Body of Divinity, or the Sum and Substance of the Christian Reli- gion, published under the name of Ussher, by John Douname, but, though collected and transcribed by the primate in his youth, never acknowledged by him as his production.
Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates et Primordia. 1639: — begun in lG24 by command of King James, in order to carry out, in a more complete manner, the design of his former treatise on tlie Religion anciently professed by the Irish and Scots. This performance, the fruit of elaborate and profound research, contains the antiquities of the Church of Christ in the British Islands, from its supposed commencement, twenty years after our Saviour''s crucifixion, down to the close of the 7th century. The earlier periods are, of course, involved in much darkness and fable, through which the author makes his way with caution and judgment. In the latter, he expatiates more freely, treating at large on the introduction of the Pela- gian heresy, the colonies of Picts and Scots, and their conver- sion to Christianity, and the preaching of St. Patrick and other Irish saints. This work has constantly been regarded as of high authority. An edition, from a copy corrected and improved by the author, was published in London, 1677-
The Judgment of Dr. Reynolds concerning the original of Episcopacy defended. lC4l.
Geographical and Historical Disquisition touching the Lydian and Proconsular Asia. 1641. The design of this piece (which, with the preceding, first appeared in the collec- tion of treatises on episcopacy, published at Oxford) was to
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prove, that the Asia mentioned in the New Testament, and the seven churches of Asia particularly, are contained within the limits of Lydia; that each of these seven cities was a metropo- litical seat of civil government ; that there was a great har- mony between the civil and ecclesiastical governments ; and consequently, that the bishops of every province were subject to the metropolitan bishop, (similar to our archbishop), as the magistrates of subordinate cities were to the chief governor of the province.
Polycarpi et Ignatii Epistolce. l644. The epistles of the bishop of Antioch collected by Poly carp, and frequently cited by the fathers, had been transmitted to our times in a corrupt and interpolated form. In this edition the primate has cor- rected these faults of the original, from two Latin versions of the epistles, from a collation of several Greek copies, and from a variety of other sources. This great critical labour long engaged his pen, and on its publication added to his already high reputation. He had intended to annex the epis- tle of Barnabas to those of Ignatius ; but the copy prepared by him for that purpose was unfortunately destroyed in a fire at the printer's, with the exception of a fragment, afterwards inserted by Bishop Fell in his edition of the same epistle.
Appendix Ignatiana. 16'47. In this publication are con- tained the seven genuine epistles of Ignatius, as published by Vossius from a MS. in the Library of the Medici, with several other tracts relating to the martyrdom of Ignatius, of Poly- carp, &c.
Diatriba de Romance Ecclesics symholo Apostolico vetere, et aliis Jidei formulis. 1647. This work on the Creeds, the archbishop dedicated to his friend G. J. Vossius, who had him- self investigated the same subject.
De Macedonum et Asianorum Anno Solari Dissertatio. l648. A small work, but of great service to students of his- tory. It treats on the introduction of the Macedonian solar months into Greece, comparing them and the lunar months previously used, with the Julian, and with the months of other nations ; it establishes the method of the Macedonian and Asian year, and supplies canons for perpetually finding the cycles of the sun and moon, and the time of celebrating Easter. Some curious observations on the celestial motions according to the old Greek astronomers are interspersed, and there is annexed an ephemeris for the whole year, which seems
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to have been the first attempt made in England to frame a true astronomical calendar. This work abounds in proofs of the wonderful combination and extent of the author's various learning.
Annalium pars prior, a temporis hisiorici principiis, usque ad Maccabceorum initia perducta, he. l650. The^w- nals is the great remaining labour of the primate's life. This first part, usually called Annals of the Old Testament, is a chronological digest of universal history, from the creation to the time of the Maccabees, in which, by fixing the three epochs of the deluge, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and the return of the Jews from captivity in the first year of Cyrus, he has established a harmony of sacred and profane chronology. The value which the world has set on the work is evident from the testimony of the learned, from the foreign editions of it which have appeared, and from the adoption of the author's system of chronology by many emi- nent writers, both of his own and all subsequent times.
Epistola ad Ludovicum Capellum de Variantibus Tewtus Hebraici Lectionibus. l652. This tract was the result of an appeal made to Ussher by Arnold Boate and Louis Cappel, the professor at Saumur, to act as arbiter of a controversy between them, respecting the use of the Septuagint in correct- ing the various readings in the Hebrew Bible. It comprises much curious and valuable erudition.
Annalium pars posterior. 1654. In this second part, the Annals are brought down to the reign of Vespasian, and the destruction of the Jewish state. It was Ussher's intention^ to write an ecclesiastical chronicle to the beginning of the 4th century ; but this was prevented by his death.
Syntagma de Grceca Septuaginta Interpretum versione^ &c. 1655. This treatise advances, with equal moderation and research, an ingenious theory respecting the origin of the Sep- tuagint, which has not however met with the general sufFrases of critics. To it are appended two ancient Greek versions of the book of Esther.
Reduction of Episcopacy to the form of Synodical Govern-, ment, ^c. ; or, Episcopacy and Presbyterial Government con- joined. 1655. This tract contains the scheme laid before the king at the Isle of Wight.
' Preface to Annuls, Lib. ii.
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ARCHBISHOP USSHER.
Posthumous Works : —
The Jif dgmetit of the late Archbishop of Armagh and Pri- mate of Ireland, 1. Of the E.vtentof Christ's Death and Satis- faction : 2. Of the Sabbath, and Observation of the Lord's Day: 3. Of the Ordination in other Reformed Churches. 1657. These tracts were published by Dr. Bernard, and at- tacked by Heylin, in a pamphlet called Petrus Respondet, from the representations of which Dr. Parr vindicates the me- mory of Ussher in his Appendix to the primate's Life.
Judgment and Sense of the present See of Rome, from the Apocalypse, xviii. 4. iGop- Ussher argues that Rome is the Babylon of the Revelation. This tract likewise was published by Dr. Bernard.
Chronologia Sacra, &c. edited by Dr. Thomas Barlow, 1660. This was left unfinished at the author"'s death.
The Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject, written in the beginning of the Civil War. It was published after the Restoration, in 1661, by the primate's grandson, James Tyrrel, with a preface by Bishop Sanderson.
Twenty Sermons, preached at Oxford before his Majesty, and elsewhere. 1677-
Historia Dogmatica Controversice inter Orthodoxos et Pon- iijicios de Scripturis et Sacris Vernaculis. 1688. Archbishop Sancroft employed his cliapiain, Henry Wharton, to prepare this work for the press. The same volume contains two smaller dissertations.
A collection of three hundred letters, which passed between the primate and about sixty of the most distinguished of his contemporaries. This collection was appended by Dr. Parr to his life of Ussher, published in ]687.
A complete edition, in 8vo, of the Works of Archbishop Ussher, by the Rev. Dr. Elrington, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin, is now in course of publication.
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THE SATISFACTION OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS.
The true intent and extent of the all-sufficient satisfaction of Christ, made for the sin of the whole world, is lubricus locus (a difficult topic) to handle, and hath and doth now much trouble the Church. This question hath received contrary resolutions : the reason is, tliat in the two extremities of opinions held in this matter, there is somewhat true and somewhat false.
The one extremity extends the benefit of Christ's satisfaction too far, as if hereby God, for his part, were actually reconciled to all mankind, and did really discharge every man irom all his sins, and that the reason why all men do not reap the fruit of this benefit is the want of that faith, whereby they ought to have believed that God in this sort did love them. Whence it would follow, that God should forgive a man his sins, and justify him, before he believed; whereas the elect themselves, before their effectual vocation, are said to be " without Christ and without hope," and to be " utter strangers from the covenants of promise." Ephes. ii. 12.
The other extremity contracts the riches of Christ's satisfaction into too narrow a room, as if none had any kind of interest therein but such as were elected before the foundation of the world, how- soever by the Gospel every one be charged to receive the same ; whereby it would follow, that a man should be bound in conscience to believe that which is untrue, and charged to take that where- with he hath nothing to do.
Both extremities then drawing with them unavoidable difficulties, the Word of God (by "hearing whereof faith is begotten," Ephes. i. 13) must be sought unto by a middle course, to avoid these ex- tremities.
For finding out this middle course we must, in the matter of our redemption, carefully put a distinction betwixt the satisfaction of Christ absolutely considered, and the application thereof to every one in particular : the fonner was once done for all ; the other is still doing: the former brings with it sufficiency abundant to dis- charge the whole debt ; the other adds to it efficacy. The satisfac- tion of Christ only makes the sins of mankind Jit for pardon, which without it could not well be ; the injury done to God's majesty being so great, that it could not stand with his honour to put it up without amends made. The particular application makes the sins of those to whom that mercy is vouchsafed, to be actually par- doned; for as all sins are mortal, in regard to the stipend due there-
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unto by the law, but all do not actually " bring forth death," because the gracious promises of the Gospel stay the execution, even so all the sins of mankind are become venial, in respect of the price paid by Christ to his Father, so far that in shewing mercy upon all, if so it were his pleasure, his justice should be no loser: but all do not obtain actual remission, because most offenders do not take out nor plead their pardon as they ought to do. If Christ had not assumed our nature, and therein made satisfaction for the injury offered to the Divine Majesty, God would not have come unto a treaty with us, more than with the fallen angels, whose nature the Son did not assume ; but this way being made, God holds out unto us the golden sceptre of his word, and thereby not only sig- nifieth his pleasure of admitting us unto his presence, and accepting of our submission, which is a wonderful grace, hut also sends an embassage unto and " entreats us that we would be reconciled unto him." 2 Cor. v. 20.
Hence we infer, against the first extremity, that by the virtue of this blessed oblation God is made placable unto our nature, (which he never will be unto the angelical nature offending) but not actually appeased with any, until he hath received his Son, and " put on the Lord Jesus." As also against the latter extremity, that all men may be truly said to have interest in the merits of Christ in common, though all do not enjoy the benefit thereof ; because they have no will to take it.
The well-spring of life is set open unto all : " Whosoever will, let him take of life freely," Apoc. xxii. 17 ; but many " have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep." Faith is the vessel whereby we draw all virtue from Christ and the apostles. He tells us that "all have not faith." 2 Thess. iii. 2. Now the means of getting this faith is the " hearing of the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation," Ephes. i. 23, which ministereth this general ground for every one to build his faith upon. — Syllogism : What Christ hath prepared for thee, and the Gospel offereth unto thee, that oughtest thou with all thankfulness to accept and apply to the comfort of thy own soul. But Christ by his death and obedience hath pro- vided a sufficient remedy for the taking away of all thy sins, and the Gospel offereth the same unto thee. Therefore thou oughtest to accept and apply the same to the comfort of thine own soul.
Now this Gospel of salvation many do not hear at all, being destitute of the ministry of the word ; and many hearing do not believe, or lightly regard it ; and many that do believe the truth thereof, are so wedded to their sins, that they have no desire to be divorced from them ; and therefore they refuse to accept the
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gracious offer that is made unto them. And yet notwithstanding their refusal on their part, we may truly say, tliat good things were provided for them on Christ's part, and a rich " prize was put into the hands of a fool, howsoever he had no heart to use it." Prov. xvii. 16.
Our blessed Saviour, by that which he hath performed on his part, hath procured a jubilee for the sons of Adam, and his Gospel is his trumpet, whereby he doth proclaim " liberty to the captives, and preacheth the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke iv. 18, 19). If for all this some are so well pleased with their captivity, that they desire no deliverance, that derogates nothing from the generality of the fireedom annexed to that year. If one say to sin, his old master, " I love thee, and will not go free," (Levit. xxv. 39. Exod. xxi. 5, &c.) he shall be bound for a slave, and serve for ever. But that slavish disposition of his maketh the extent of the privilege of that year not a whit the straiter, because he was included within the general grant, as well as others, howsoever he was not disposed to take the benefit of it. "The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king that made a marriage for his son, and sent his servants to those that were bidden to the wedding with this message : Behold, I have prepared my dinner ; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready ; come ye to the mar- riage" (Matt, xxiv.) If we look to the event, they that were bidden made light of their entertainment, " and went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise but that neglect of theirs doth not falsify the word of the king, viz. tliat the dinner was prepared, and these unworthy guests were invited thereunto ; for, " what if some did not believe ? shall their unbelief disannul the faith and truth of God ? God forbid : yea, let God be true, and every man a liar ; as it is written, That thou mayest be justified in thy saying, and overcome when thou art judged" (Rom. iii. 3, 4). Let not the house of Israel say. The way of tlie Lord is unequal, for when he cometh to judge them, the inequality will be found on their side. " O house of Israel, are not my ways equal, and your ways unequal ? saith the Lord," Ezek. xviii. 22, 30. " The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works;" all the ways of our God are mercy and truth. When we were in our sins it was of his infinite mercy that any way, or remedy, should be prepared for our recovery ; and when the remedy is prepared, we are never the nearer, except he be pleased of his free mercy to apply the same to us, that so the whole promise of our redemption, from the beginning to the end thereof, may be entirely attributed to the riches of his grace, and nothing left to sinful flesh wherein it may rejoice.
The freeing of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon was a type of that great deliverance which the Son of God hath wrought for us.
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Cyrus, king of Persia, wlio was Chridus Domini, (and herein but a shadow of Chridus Domimm, the autlior of our redemption) published his proclamation in this manner: "Who is amongst you of all his people, the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up" (2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, and Ezra i. 2). Now, it is true they alone did follow this calling, whose spirit God had raised to go up (Ezra i. 5). But could they that remained still in Babylon justly plead, that the king's grant was not large enough, or that they were excluded from going up by any clause contained therein ? The matter of our redemption purchased by our Saviour lieth open to all ; all are invited to it ; none, that hath a mind to accept of it, is excluded from it. "The beautiful feet of those that preach the Gospel of peace, do bring glad tidings of good things" to every house where they tread; the first part of their message being this, " Peace to this house" (Rom. x. 15. Luke x. 5). But unless God be pleased out of his abundant mercy "to guide our feet into the way of peace," the rebellion of our nature is such, that we run headlong to the " ways of destruction and misery" (Rom. iii. 16). " And the ways of peace do we not know." They have not all obeyed the Gospel (Rom. x. 6). All are not apt to entertain this message of peace, and therefore, though God's ambassadors make a true tender of it to all unto wliom they are sent, yet, " their peace only resteth on the sons of peace ;" but if it meet with such as will not listen to the motion of it, " their peace doth again return unto themselves" (Luke x. 6). The proclamation of the Gospel runneth thus, Apoc. xxii. 17: "Let him that is athirst come:" for him this grace is specially provided, because none but he will take the pains to come ; but lest we should think this should abridge the largeness of the oifer, a qtiicuiiqve vult, is immediately added, " and wliosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely ;" yet withal it must be yielded for a certain truth, that it is God who must work in us "to will and to do of his good pleasure," and tliough the call be never so loud and large, yet none can come unless the Father draw him (John vi. 44). For the universality of the satisfaction dero- gates nothing from the necessity of the special grace in the application, neither doth the speciality of the one any ways abridge the generality of the other. Indeed Christ; our Saviour saith, (John xvii. 9) "I pray not for the world," but " for them that thou hast given me ;" but the consequence hereby inferred may well be excepted against, viz. he prayed not for the world, therefore he paid not for the world ; because the latter is an act of his satisfaction, the former of his intercession ; which being divers parts of his priesthood, are distinguishable one from another by sundry differences. This his satisfaction doth properly give contentment to God's justice, in such
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sort as formerly hath been declared, his intercession doth solicit God's mercy ; the first contains the preparation of the remedy necessary for man's salvation, the second brings with it an application of the same, and consequently the one may well appertain to the common nature which the Son assumed, when the other is a special privilege vouchsafed to such particular persons only, as " the Father hath given him." And therefore we may safely conclude out of all these premises, that the " Lamb of God offering himself a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world," intended by giving sufficient satisfaction to God's justice, to make the nature of man, which he assumed, a fit subject for mercy, and to prepare a medicine for the sins of the whole world ; which should be denied to none that intended to take the benefit of it : howsoever he intended not by applying this all-sufficient remedy unto every person in particular, to make it effectual unto the salvation of all, or to procure thereby actual pardon for the sins of the whole world. So in one respect he may be said to have " died for all," and in another respect "not to have died for all;" yet so as in respect of his mercy he may be counted a " kind of universal cause" of the restoring of our nature, as Adam was of the depraving of it ; for as far as I can discern, he rightly hits the nail on the head that determineth the point in this manner.
[T/iom. Contra Gentiles. Lib. iv. 55.] Mors Christi est quasi quaedam universalis causa salutis ; sicut peccatum primi hominis fuit quasi universalis causa damnationis. Oportet aulem universalem causam applicari ad unumquemque spe- cialiter, ut effectum universalis causa participet. Effectus igitur peccati primi parentis pervenit ad unumquemque per camis originem ; effectus autem mortis Christi pertinget, ad unumquemque per spiritualem regenerationem per quam Christo homo quodammodo conjungitur et incorporatur.
Ussher's Letters.
MATERIALS AND PRINCIPLE OP UNITY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
The matter of this spiritual edifice (that we may begin with that) are we ourselves. " Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house," saith St. Peter (1 Pet. ii. 5). To this St. Paul doth here add a note of universality, " We all," as suiting best with the nature of the catholic or universal Church, which is that body of Christ, of the edifying whereof he here noteth : of which therefore he telleth us more plainly, in another place, that "by one Spirit we are baptized
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into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free." For the Catholic Church is not to be sought for in any one angle or quarter of the world, but among " all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." (1 Cor. i. 2). Therefore to their Lord and ours was it said, " Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession" (Ps. ii. 8), and to this mystical body the Catholic Church, accordingly, " I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west : I will say to the north. Give up ; and to the south. Keep not back : bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth ; even every one that is called by my name" (Is. xliii. 5 — 7).
Thus must we conceive of the Catholic Church as of one entire body, made up by the collection and aggregation of all the faithful unto the unity thereof ; from wliich union there ariseth unto every one of them such a relation to and dependence upon the Church Catholic, as parts use to have in respect of their whole. Whereupon it foUoweth, that neither particular persons, nor particular churches are to work, as several divided bodies, by themselves (which is the ground of all schism) but are to teach and to be taught, and to do all other Christian duties, as parts conjoined unto the whole, and members of the same commonwealth or corporation ; and therefore the bishops of the ancient church, though they had the government of particular congregations only, yet in regard of this communion which they held with the universal, did usually take to themselves the title of bisliops of the Catholic Churcli. Which maketh strongly as well against the new Separatists as the old Donatists ; who either hold it a thing not much material, so they profess the faith of Christ, whether they do it in the catholic communion, or out of it ; or else (which is worse) dote so much upon the perfection of their own part, that they may refuse to join in fellowship with the rest of Christians, as if they themselves were the only people of God, and all wisdom must live and die with them and their generation.
And herein, of all others, do our Romanists most fearfully offend, as being the authors of the most cruel schism that ever hath been seen in the Church of God. Those infamous schisms of the Novatians and Donatists were but petty sects, in comparison of this huge rupture, which hath pulled asunder east and west, north and south ; and grown to such a head at home, that in our western parts, where this faction was so prevalent, it hath for divers ages past been esteemed Catholic. In the xviith of the Revelation we have a woman described unto us sitting upon seven mountains, and upon many waters. The woman is there expounded to be " that great city which reigneth over the kings
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of the eai'tli." The seven mountains upon wliich that city sat, needed not to be expounded : every child knew wliat was meant thereby. The waters are interpreted " peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (ib. ver. 15) ; which is that very universality and Catholicism that the Romanists are wont so much to brag of. For, this woman is the particular Church of Rome, the city Church, which they call the mother Church, [but which] the Holy Ghost styleth " the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth" (ib. ver. 5). Those " peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues," are such as this proud city reigneth over : the Catholic Roman Church they iare commonly called by themselves ; but by the Holy Ghost, the beast upon which the woman sittetli (ib. ver. 3 and 7).
This woman is the head of the faction, and the very mother of this schism : the Beast, that is to say, they that suffer themselves to be ridden by her, are her abettors and supporters in it. For the particular Church of Rome, not being content to be a fellow-member with the rest of the churches of Christ, and to have a joint dependence with them upon the whole body of the Church Catholic, " which is the mother of us all" (Gal. iv. 26), will needs go out of her rank ; and, scorning any longer to be accounted one of the branches of the Catholic Church, would fain be acknowledged to be the root of it ; so that now all other churches must hold their dependence upon it, or otherwise be cast forth as withered branches, which are fit only to be thrown into the fire and burned. The wisdom of God foresaw this insolency long beforehand ; and therefore caused a caveat to be entered against it, even in that epistle which was specially directed to the church of Rome itself. The words are plain enough, Rom. xi. IS, " If thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee." The Church of Rome must know therefore tliat she is no more a root to bear up other churches, than other churches are to bear up her : she may not go beyond her line, and boast her- self to be the root of the Catholic Church, but be contented to be herself borne by the root, as well as other churches are. For a stream to sever itself from the common fountain, that it may be counted a fountain itself, without dependence upon any other, is the next way to make an end of it, and dry it up. The church of Rome may do well to think of this, and leave oft" her vain boasting : " I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow" (Rev. xviii. 7). Other churches may fail, and the gates of hell may prevail against them ; but it cannot fall out so with me ! Whereas she might remem- ber, that they were Romans unto whom the apostle so long since gave this admonition, " Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God •spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
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Behold therefore tlie goodness and severity of God : on them which fell, severity ; but towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness ; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off."
The Romans therefore by their pride may get a fall, as well as others ; and the Church of Rome by infidelity may be cut off, as well as any other congregation ; and yet the Catholic Church subsist for all that, as having for her foundation neither Rome, nor Rome's bishop, but Jesus Christ the Son of the living God. And yet this proud dame and her daughters, the particular Church of Rome, I mean, and that wliich they call the Catholic Roman (or the faction rather that prevaileth in them both), have in these latter ages confined the whole Church of Christ within themselves, and excluded all others that were not under the Roman obedience, as aliens from the com- monwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise. The Donatists were cried out against by our forefathers, for shutting up the Church within the parts of the south, and rejecting all otliers that held not correspondency with that patch of theirs ; and could they think well of them that should include the Church within the western parts of the world, and exclude all other Christians from tlie body of Christ, that held by the same root there that they did ? It is a strange thing to me, that wise men should make such large discourses of the Catholic Church, and bring so many testimonies to prove the univer- sality of it, and not discern that while by this means tliey think they liave gotten a great victory over us, they have in very truth overthrown themselves ; for when it comcth to the point, instead of the Catholic Church, which consisteth of the communion of all nations, they obtrude their own party unto us, circumscribing the Church of Christ within the precincts of the Romish jurisdiction, and leaving all the world beside to the power of Satan ; for with them it is a resolved case, that to every creature it is altogether of necessity to salvation to be subject to the Roman bishop.
What must then become of the poor Muscovites and Grecians (to say nothing of the reformed churches) in Europe? What of the Egyptian and Ethiopian churches in Africa ? What of the great companies of Christians scattered over all Asia, even from Constan- tinople to the East Indies, which have [endured] and still do endure more afflictions and pressures for tlie name of Christ, than they have ever done that would be accounted the only friends of Christ ? Must these, because they are not the pope's subjects, be therefore denied to be Christ's subjects ? because they are not under the obedience of the Roman Church, do they thereupon forfeit the estate which they claim in the Catholic Church, out of which there is no salvation ? Must we give all these for gone, and conclude that they are certainly
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damned ? They who talk so much of tlie Catholic Church, but indeed stand for their own particular, must of force sink as low in unchari- tableness, as they have thrust themselves deep in schism : we who talk less of the universality of the Church, but hold the truth of it, cannot find in our hearts to pass such a bloody sentence upon so many poor souls, that have given their names to Christ. He whose pleasure it was to spread the Church's seed so far, said to east, west, north, and south, " Give :" it is not then for us to say, " Keep back." He hath given to his Son " the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession :" we for our parts dare not abridge this grant, and limit this great lordship, as we con- ceive it may best fit our own turns ; but leave it to its own latitude, and seek for the Catholic Church neither in this part nor in that, but (as it hath been before said, in the words of the apostle) among " all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." 1 Cor. i. 2.
Yea, but how can this be, will some say, seeing the Catholic Church is but one ; and the principal reason for which it is ac- counted one, is the unity of the faith professed therein ? How then can this unity of faith be preserved in all pla'ces, if one special Church be not set as a mistress over all the rest, and one chief bishop appointed for a master over all others, by whom in matters of faith every one must be ruled ? And out of such diff"erent pro- fessions as are to be found among the divided Christians in those several parts of the world, how can there be fit matter drawn for the making up of one universal Church ? To this I answer (and so pass from the matter of the building to the structure), that it is most true indeed, that in the Church there is " one Lord, one faith, one baptism;" for so we are taught by the apostle in this chapter. But yet, in the first place, it is to be considered, that this unity of the faith must be compassed by such means as God hath ordained for the procuring of it, and not by any politic tricks of man's devising. Now for the bringing of us all to this unity of the faith, the apostle telleth us, that Christ " gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers" (Ephes. iv. 11). If he had thought that the maintenance of this unity did depend upon the singularity of any one apostle, or pastor, or teacher, is it to be imagined that he would have overslipped such a singular person (even in that very place where, of all others, his presence was most requisite) and run altogether, as he doth, upon the plural number?
That the multitude of teachers dispersed over the world, without any such dependency or correspondency, should agree together in laying the foundations of tiie same faith, is a special work of God's
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Spirit. And it is " the unity of the spirit" which the apostle here speaketh of, and exliorteth us to "keep in the bond of peace." Whereas, tlie unity of which our adversaries boast so much (which is nothing else but a wilful suffering of themselves to be led blind- fold by one man, who commonly is more blind than many of them- selves) is no fruit of the Spirit, but of mere carnal policy ; it may serve, peradventure, for a bond of peace betwixt themselves and their own party, but hath proved the greatest block that ever stood in the way for giving impediment to peace and unity of the universal Church, which here we look after. And therefore Nilus, arch- bishop of Thessalonica, entering into the consideration of the original ground of that long-continued schism, whereby the west standeth as yet divided from the east, and the Latin Churches from the Greek, wrote a whole book purposely of this argument ; wlierein he sheweth "that there is no other cause to be assigned of this distraction, but that the pope will not permit the cognizance of the controversy unto a general council, but will needs sit himself as the alone teacher of the point in question, and have others hearken unto him as if they were his scholars ; and that this is contrary both to the ordinances and the practice of the apostles and the fathers." Neither indeed is there any hope that ever we shall see a general peace for matters of religion settled in the Christian world, as long as this super- cilious master shall be suffered to keep this rule in God's house ; how much soever he may be magnified by his own disciples, and made the only foundation upon which the unity of the Catholic Churcli de- pendeth.
Now, in the next place for the farther opening of the unity of the faith, we are to call to mind tlie distinction which the apostle maketh betwixt "the foundation" and that which is "builded there- upon" (1 Cor. iii. 10, &c.) ; betwixt the "principles of the doctrine of Christ," and that which he calleth "perfection" (Heb. vi. 1). The unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, here spoken of, hath reference (as we heard) to the foundation ; as that which followeth of "a perfect man," and "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," to the superstruction and perfection. In the former there is a general unity among all true believers ; in the latter, a great deal of variety ; there being several degrees of perfec- tion to be found in several persons, "according to the measure of the gift of Christ" (Ephes. iv. 7). So we see in a material build- ing, that still there is but one foundation, though great disparity be observed in sundry parts of the superstruction ; some rooms are high, some low, some dark, some lightsome, some more substantially, some more slightly built, and in tract of time some prove more ruinous VOL. I. 18
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than others ; yet all of them belonging to one building, as long as tliey hold together, and stand upon the same foundation. And thus it is in the spiritual building also, whether we respect the practical part of Clu-istianity, or the intellectual. In the practical, we see wonderful great difference betwixt Christian and Christian ; some by God's mercy attain to a high measure of perfection, and keep them- selves unspotted from the common corruptions of the world ; others watch not so carefully over their ways, and lead not such strict lives, but are oftentimes overtaken and fall foully ; that he who looketh upon the one and the other would hardly think that one heaven should receive both. But although the one doth so far outsti'ip the other in the practice of new obedience (which is the Christian man's race), yet are there certain fundamental principles in which they both concur, as, a desire to fear God's name, repentance for sins past, and a sincere purpose of heart for the time to come to cleave unto the Lord : which whosoever hath is under mercy, and may not be excluded from the communion of saints. In like manner for the intellectual part : " the first principles of the oracles of God" (as the apostle calleth them) hold the place of the common founda- tion, in which all Christians must be grounded ; although some be "babes," and for further knowledge are "unskilful in the word of righteousness," other some are of "perfect age, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Heb. v. 12, &c.)
The oracles of God contain abundance of matter in them, and whatsoever is found in them is a fit object for faith to apprehend ; but that all Christians should uniformly agree in the profession of all those truths that are revealed there, is a thing that rather may be wished than ever hoped for. Yet the variety of men's judgments in those very points that belong to theological faith, doth not dissolve the unity which they hold together in the fundamental principles of the Catholic faith. The " unity of the faith" commended here, is a CathoHc unity, and such as every true Christian attaineth unto. "Till we ALL come in the unity of the faith," saith the apostle. As there is a " common salvation" (Jude ver. 3), so is there a " common faith" (Tit. i. 4), which is alike precious in the highest apostle and the meanest believer. For we may not think that heaven was pre- pared for deep clerks only. And therefore beside that larger measure of knowledge, whereof all are not capable, there must be "a rule of faith common to small and great*;" which as it must consist but of few propositions, (for simple men cannot bear away many) so is it
Aug. Ep. .57
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also requisite that those articles should be of so much weight and moment that they may be sufficient to make a man wise unto salvation ; that howsoever in other points learned men may go beyond common Christians, and exceed one another likewise by many degrees, yet in respect of these radical truths which are the necessary and common food of all the children of the Church, there is not an unity only, but such a kind of equality also^, brought in among all sorts of Christians, as was heretofore among the congregation of the Israelites in the collection of their manna, where " he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered nothing had no lack" (Exod. xvi. 18).
If then salvation by beheving these common principles may be had, and to salvation none can come that is not first a member of the Catholic Church of Christ, it foUoweth therefore that the unity of the faith, generally requisite for the incorporating of Christians into that blessed society, is not to be extended beyond those common principles. Which may be further made manifest unto us by the continual practice of the Catholic Church itself, in the matriculation of her children, and the first admittance of them into her commimion. For when she prepared her catechism for baptism, and by that door received them into the congregation of Christ's flock, we may not think her judgment to have been so weak that she should omit anything herein that was essentially necessary for the making of one a member of the Churcli. Now the profession which she required of all that were to receive baptism, was, for the agenda or practical part, an abrenun- ciation of the devil, the world, and the flesh, with all their sinful works and lusts ; and for the credenda, the tilings to be believed, an acknowledgment of the articles of the creed ; wliich being solemnly done, she then baptized them in this faitii ; intimating thereby suffi- ciently, that this was that " one faith" commended unto her by tlie apostles, as the other that " one baptism" wliich was appointed to be the sacrament ^ of it.
This creed, though for substance it was the same everywhere, yet for form was somewhat difl"erent ; and in some places received more enlargements than in others. The western cliurches herein applied themselves to the capacity of the meaner sort, more than the eastern did, using in their baptism that shorter form of con- fession, commonly called the Apostles' Creed, which in the more an- cient times was briefer also than now it is ; as we may easily perceive by comparing the symbol recited by Marcellus Ancyranus, in the
^ Irenaeus, lib. i. cap. 3.
^ SacramcnUim fidei, Aug. Ep. 23.
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profession of faith which he delivered to pope JuHub\ with the ex- positions of the Apostles' Creed written by the Latin doctors, wherein the mention of the Father's being maker of heaven and earth, the Son's death and descending into hell, and the communion of saints, are wholly omitted. All which, though they were of undoubted verity, yet for brevity's sake seem at first to have been omitted in this short sum : because some of them, perhaps, were not thought to be altogether so necessary for all men (which is the judgment of Suarez touching the point of the descent into hell) ; and some that were most necessary, either thought to be sufBciently implied in other articles (as that of Clirist's death in those of his crucifixion and burial), or thought to be sufficiently manifested by the light of rea- son, as that of the creation of heaven and earth. For howsoever this, as it is a truth revealed by God's word, becometh an object for faith to apprehend (Heb. xi. 3), yet it is otherwise also clearly to be understood by the discourse of reason (Rom. i. 20), even as the unity and all the other attributes of the Godhead likewise are : which therefore may be well referred unto those prcecogiiita, or common principles which nature may possess the mind withal, before that grace enlighten it, and need not necessarily to be inserted into that symbol which is the badge and cognizance whereby the believer is to be differenced and distinguished from the unbeliever.
The creed wliich the Eastern Churches used in baptism was larger than this ; being either the same or very little different from that which we call commonly the Nicene Creed, because the greatest part of it was repeated and confirmed in the first general council held at Nice, where the first draught thereof was presented to the sjTiod by Eu- sebius, bishop of Csesaria, with this preamble : " As we have received firom the bishops that were before us, both at our first catechizing, and when we received baptism ; and as we have learned from the Holy Scriptures ; and as we have both believed and taught, when we entered into the ministr}', and in our bishopric itself ; so believing at this present also, we declare this our faith unto you To this the Nicene fathers added a more clear exphcation of the deity of the Son, (against the Arian heresy, wherewith the Chiu-cli was then troubled) professing him to be " begotten, not made," and to be " of one sub- stance with the Father." The second general council, which was assembled fifty-six years after, at Constantinople, approving this confession of faith, as " most ancient and agreeable to baptism
' Epiph. in Hjeres. 72. ' Euseb. Ep. apud Sociatem, Lib. i. Hist. cap. 8. (col. 5.) et Theodoret, Lib. i.
cap. 12.
^ Cone. Constant, apud Theod. Lib.v. cap. 9.
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enlarged it somewhat, in the article that concerned the Holy Ghost especially, which at that time was most oppugned by the Macedonian heretics. And whereas the Nicene confession proceeded no farther than to the belief which we have in the Holy Trinity, the fathers of Constantinople made it up, by adding that which was commonly professed touching the Catholic Church and the privileges belonging thereunto ; Epiphanius, repeating this creed at large, affirmeth it to have been delivered unto the Church by the apostles*. Cassianus avoucheth as much, where he urgeth this against Nestorius, as the creed anciently received in the Church of Antioch, from whence he came*. The Roman Church, after the days of Charles the Great, added the article of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, unto this symbol ; and the council of Trent hath now recommended it unto us, as " that principle in which all that profess the faith of Christ do necessarily agree, and the firm and only foundation against which the gates of hell shall never prevail
It is a matter confessed therefore by the fathers of Trent them- selves, that in the Constantinopolitan creed, as in the Roman creed at the farthest (which differeth nothing from the other, but that it hath admitted Filioque to the procession of the Holy Ghost, and out of the Nicene creed Deum de Deo, to the articles that concern the Son) that only foundation and principle of faith is to be found, in the unity whereof all Christians must necessarily agree. Which is other- wise cleared sufficiently by the constant practice of the apostles, and their successors, in the first receiving of men into the society of the Church : for in one of the apostle's ordinary sermons, we see, there was so much matter delivered as was suffiicent to convert even unto the faith, and to make them capable of baptism ; and those sermons treated only of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ ; upon the receiving whereof the Church, following the example of the apostles, never did deny baptism unto her catechumeni. In these first principles therefore must the foundation be contained, and that common " unity of faith" which is required in all the members of the Church.
Sermon on the Universality of the Church.
Epiph. in AyKvpiaT. p. 518.
Jo. Cass- De Invarnat. Verbi, Lib. v. " Cone. Trident, sess. 3.
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BISHOP HALL,
A.D. 1600 — 1656.
In that large number of clergy whom the parliament and its agents deprived, and dismissed to penury, scarcely two or three are known to have recorded their sufferings. Of these, one was this popular and admired prelate. Four years after his death, appeared a volume, edited by his sons, with the title of The shaking of the Olive Tree, &c. containing, with other remains of the bishop, two tracts, since well known, relating to the events of his life, viz. Observations of some Specialties of Providence, &c., and Hard Measure. On these pieces the various biographical notices of Bishop Hall, since given to the public, have been all founded. The following pages, chiefly derived from the same source, pretend to little more than to mark the order of his literary labours, and their connexion with the public events, and prevailing opinions of the time.
Joseph Hall was born July 1, 1574, at Ashby de la Zouch, in Leicestershire, in which town his father held the office of bailiff or governor, under Henry earl of Huntingdon, presi- dent of the north. To the instructions of a religious mother he, in common with some other holy men, owed the constant piety of his disposition. His education, to the 15th year of his age, was conducted, with success answerable to his lively genius, at the grammar-school of his native town. He was then, at his own earnest intreaty, sent to Cambridge, and en- tered of Emmanuel College, then recently founded. Here he was soon admitted to a scholarship ; and, about the 22nd year of his age, was chosen fellow. He acquired great reputation by the ability shewn in his public exercises. He likewise ably filled, during two years, the office of professor of rhetoric ; when he resigned it for more congenial studies, and soon after- wards took orders. It was at this period that he composed his six books of satires, published in ]591 and 8 : he had pro-
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bably exercised his poetic faculty in some earlier pieces, which never saw the light. Having passed nearly thirteen years at Cambridge, he quitted the university for the rectory of Haw- sted, near Bury St. Edmund's, to which he was appointed by Sir Robert Drury. While at Hawsted he published his First Century of Meditations. There he also married ; and though the period of his holding that incumbency was under two years, he found time, in the course of it, to visit Germany. In this journey, which he performed in company with Sir Edmund Bacon, grandson of the illustrious chancellor, he held several public disputes with divines of the Romish Church. While at Spa he composed his Second Century of Meditations. About this time he embarked in a pious and benevolent at- tempt to bring back the Brownists to the Church, by writing two apologies for the establishment, addressed to the members of that sect, and by entering into a correspondence with some of the leading- individuals among them. On his return from the continent he found his writings preparing the way for his farther advancement. Lord Denny, afterwards Earl of Nor- wich, removed him from Hawsted to the superior living of Waltham Abbey. The amiable Prince Henry also, whose name is connected, during his brief career, with the history of so many good men, was so much pleased on hearing him preach, that he immediately made him one of his chaplains, and, not long afterwards, procured his collation to a prebend in the collegiate church of Wolverhampton. At Waltham, Hall continued many years, in the exemplary discharge of the pastoral functions. Fuller, who succeeded to that incumbency, at three removes from him, found the good effects of his la- bours still evident in the minds and habits of the parishioners. While there, he likewise engaged in some other employments, which kept him in the public eye. He carried on a protracted suit for recovering to the church at Wolverhampton some considerable revenues, of which it had been long unjustly deprived ; and, on the final success of his exertions, resigned the prebend " to a worthy preacher, who should constantly reside there." In 1616, he attended the embassy of Viscount Doncaster, afterwards Earl of Carlisle, into France ; during his absence on which honourable service, he was nominated by the king to the deanery of Worcester. He was still suffering from the effects of an illness which had attacked him abroad, when he received his majesty's commands to be one of the
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divines who were to attend him into Scotland : Hall's mild and conciliatory behaviour, on this occasion, to the Presbyte- rians, was afterwards represented to the King as indicative of a want of zeal for the design contemplated in the royal visit — viz. to approximate the discipline of the church of Scotland to that of England. The mind of James, however, was not seriously alienated from his chaplain by those representations ; on the contrary, he commanded the explanation of his views on the Five Points, in which Hall vindicated himself, to be read in the university of Edinburgh, and when, in 1617, he resolved to send the deputation to the Synod of Dort, Hall was one of the divines appointed to that undesirable service. Illness obliged him to retire from the assembly sooner than his brethren; but not before he had, by his learning and elo- quence, won the respectful admiration of its members. On his departure they took leave of him with much ceremony, and many expressions of regret at losing the benefit of his assistance ; the States of Holland likewise presented him with " a rich medal of gold, representing the assembled synod," now the property of Emmanuel College.
Moderation, charity, and love of peace, were at all times the Christian characteristics of HalFs mind. It was therefore with much grief, and many sad apprehensions, that he saw the breach daily growing wider between the prelatic and puri- tan parties. The extravagance of zeal displayed on both sides, in the business of Dr. Montague, filled him with the most painful apprehensions : to adopt his own language, he " saw the sky thicken, and heard the winds whistle hollow afar off, and felt all the presages of a tempest." As a Calvinist he was opposed to Montague ; but as shrinking, with Ussher, Davenant, and many others, from the terrific logical conse- quences of his system of doctrine when thoroughly followed out, he at the same time partially condemned the factious op- ponents of that able divine. With such views he advanced the olive-branch between the contending parties, in the cele- brated treatise called Via Media : the Way of Peace in the Five busy Articles. " Wherein," says he, I desired to rectify the judgment of men, concerning this misapprehended controversy: and because Bishop Overall went a midway 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
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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 superfluous, and every moderate Christian might find where to rest himself without hazard of contradiction." But such a tempest of zeal was now on all sides raging, that the voice of moderation could not be heard : Montague for his part, and some few on the other side, professed their willing- ness to subscribe to Hall's plan of conciliation; but the zealots, who were the great body of partizans, raised an universal outcry against the work, " crying it down for the very name's sake." That part of the treatise, however, which probably gave more offence than any other, in particular to the Puritans, was the "humble motion" which it contained to his majesty, afterwards carried into effect, to enjoin a peaceable silence on both parts, "in those other collateral and needless disquisitions:" their strength lying, as they well knew, in the agitation of those topics which Hall declared unfit for " the pulpits of popular auditories."
In the part he presently afterwards took in the contro- versy with the Romanists, the efforts of his eloquent pen were followed by no better success. Encouraged by the leniency with which they were treated towards the close of King James's reign, that party had piqued the Protestants with frequent challenges to produce proofs of the visibility of their Church previously to the Reformation. It appeared to Hall, that Abbot and others, who came forward to meet this challenge, had dangerously diminished the strength of their position by denying that the Church of Rome was a true Church. For the consequence of this is, that instead of throwing back upon the Romanist the onus of proving that there is any difference between the reformed religion and that of our ancestors, except in the rejection of those things with which the true faith was burdened by the super- induction of popery, such injudicious defenders are driven to trace the visibility of the Church, in some imperfect man- ner, thi'ough the- succession of the followers of Berengarius, the Albigenses, the Wicliffites, the Hussites, &c. to Luther and Calvin. " In a just indignation," writes Hall, " to sec us thus wronged by misstating the question betwixt us, as
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if we, yielding ourselves of another 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, 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 corruptions of the Roman Church, yet making our game of the outward visibility hereof, 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," he continues, " being not well conceived by some spirits, that were not so wise as fervent, I was suddenly exposed to the rasii censures of many well-affected and zealous Pro- testants." The work to which he refers is The Old Religion. " This envy," proceeds Hall, " I was fain to take off by my Apologefical Advertisement, and after that by my Reconciler^ To the latter were appended letters from Bishops Morton and Davenant, and other learned divines of moderate senti- ments, shewing their concurrence in the views of the author. In these tracts, he asserts that he had advanced nothing in The Old Religion but what he had published without offence twenty years before ; and ascribes the clamour now raised against him to his elevation to the episcopal dignity : " it is my rochet," exclaims he, " that hath offended, and not I."
In December 16275 Dr. Hall was raised to the see of Exeter, having previously refused Gloucester, when it was offered him. His episcopal office was rendered painful to him by the representations made to the king, probably through Laud, that he was immoderately indulgent to the scruples of nonconformists. " The billows went so high, that I was three several times upon my knee to his majesty, to answer these great criminations ; and I plainly told the Lord Arch- bishop of Canterbury, that rather than I would be obnoxious to those slandei'ous tongues of his misinformers, I would cast up my rochet." What a strange want of confidence, even in quarters most worthy of it, was engendered by the restless state of men's minds in those times, when every man sought to tyrannize over the opinions of his neighbour !
i. e, availing ourselves.
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But, whatever differences existed between Hali and the primate, on many points of doctrine, and perhaps of dis- cipline, the former was a no less strenuous advocate of epis- copacy than the latter. To Hall's character was still attached a considerable degree of popularity. He had borne his epis- copal faculties " meekly." He had shewn himself implacably opposed to popery and Arminianism — the two great objects of popular abhorrence. When the violence with which the Scots resisted the attempt to force episcopacy on their nation, answered by echoes " not loud but deep" in England, gave threatening indications of the ruin which soon afterwards fell on that apostolical institution, Laud employed himself in searching out engineers to raise new bulwarks for its defence. Hall's eloquence and learning, his candour and moderation, coupled with his zealous attachment to the venerable insti- tution of which he was himself so fair an ornament, pointed him out for the work : at the primate's suggestion he under- took his powerful and celebrated treatise, The Divine Right of Episcopacy. The two chief propositions he designed to establish, were, 1. the divine origin, and consequent inviola- bility, of the episcopal institution ; 2. the novelty and ground- lessness of the presbyterian discipline. In Hall's statement of these propositions, as well as in the arguments by which they were supported, many alterations were made by the primate's hand, as the work, while in progress, was submitted to his censure, until the whole was brought more nearly to coincide with his loftier notions and severer judgment. But the current, swelled by political rage and sectarian rancour, now ran too strong to be arrested by the force of reason and persuasion. Hall nevertheless, appealed again to his country- men, by An Humble Remonstrance addressed to the High Court of Parliament : it was this publication which roused the famed adversary, " the monster Smectymnuus." The bishop replied in A Defence of the Humble Remonstrance, which he dedicated to the king ; and yet again, after Milton had descended into the arena of controversy, in an Answer to Smectymnuus, &c. In all these productions of his facile pen, the meek and candid spirit of Bishop Hall is no less con- spicuous than the extent of his learning and the skill employed in its application.
Immediately after the meeting of the long parliament, he had given farther offence to the predominant party, by
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consenting to be translated to the see of Norwich. His former popularity could not therefore be expected to procure any exception in his favour, from the danger which now hung over all who filled high stations in the Church. He was one of those bishops whose lives were threatened at the door of the house of lords ; he was one also of those who, for protest- ing against the validity of any acts passed during the com- pelled exclusion of themselves, as one estate of the realm, from parliament, were by that assembly, now sovereign in the state, committed to the Tower. It was a dark night, during a se- vere frost, when this vote was passed, and those venerable persons despatched to their gloomy prison. " Two of their number" — the bishops of Durham and Lichfield — "by rea- son of their age, had the favour of being committed to the custody of the black rod but to Hall, though himself also an old man, this privilege was refused.
Bishop Hall appears to have distinguished himself in the group of venerable prisoners, by his cheerful, patient, and unbending spirit. He heard without dismay the sounds of popular rejoicing which celebrated their incarceration ; he persevered in his usual habits of study and contemplation ; willingly took his turn to preach to the congregation in the Tower ; and when brought to the bar of the house of lords, spoke resolutely in defence of himself and his brethren. After a confinement therefore of nearly six months, aggravated by exposure to much rude and insulting usage, they were released on giving bail to the amount of five thou- sand pounds. In this convenient interval, the bill for the total expulsion of the bishops from parliament, and for taking away all temporal jurisdiction from the Church, which had been twice rejected, was once more brought up, and passed.
At Norwich, whither he retired on regaining his liberty, the good bishop enjoyed a short interval of comparative quietude. In the following March, however, the parlia- mentary sequestrators coming down, his estate, real and personal, was seized, including the arrears of rent due ; and even his furniture, books, and wearing apparel, were exposed to sale. Many other grievous vexations followed, ending in his expulsion from the episcopal residence ; notwithstanding his earnest entreaty to be permitted to remain there, at a rent to be deducted by the sequestrators from the fifths allowed by the parliament, for the support of his family.
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The deprived prelate retired to a small house which he rented, at Heigham, near Norwich \ " Here," observes one of his early biographers, " he exercised moderation and patience as exemplarily as he recommended them to others pathetically and eloquently ; often passionately complained of the sacrilegious outrages upon the Church, but was silent respecting those unjust ones on himself. In the midst of his miseries he provided for the Church's com- fort by his treatises of Consolation, for its peace by the Peacemaker, Pax Terris, and Modest Offer ; for its in- struction by his frequent sermons, as often as he was allowed ; for its poor by a weekly contribution to distressed widows ; for its professors by holy admonitions, counsels, and reso- lutions ; for its enemies by dealing with some of them so effectually that they repented." His life in his retreat from the world, during the greater part of which period he suf- fered severely from acute disease, was " solemn and staid, with a composed and heavenly temper of spirit," yet active and earnest. In his last illness many persons of distinction paid him visits of pious condolence ; whom he received with paternal affection, and repaid their attention with solemn admonishments. The approach of death did not, till the last, deprive him of his usual vigour of sense or intellect. " After many holy prayers, exhortations, and discourses, he roused up his dying spirits to a pious confession of his faith ;" in the midst of which his speech failed him, and " quietly, gradually, and even insensibly, he gave up his last breath." The death of Bishop Hall occurred Sept. 8th, 1656. A peculiarity of this prelate, often alluded to, is his disapproval of the practice of burying in churches. This opinion he expressed in a sermon at the consecration of a burial-ground at Exeter, in 16.37 ; and, in the beginning of his will, he says, " I do not hold God's house a meet repository for the dead bodies of the greatest saints." His remains were, notwithstanding, interred in the chancel of the church at Heigham.
' Heigham, in Hall's days a retired hamlet, with a population of a few hun- dred persons, is now the largest suburb of Norwich, and contains 6000 inhabit- ants. The house, an interesting object, from its association with the memory,
not of the Bishop only, and his family, but of many eminent persons who visited him in that humble retreat, is still stand- ing : it is now a public-house— the Dol- phin.
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Bishop Hall may be fearlessly named among the best and holiest persons that any age or country has produced. In his own person he realized that character which it was the design of his numerous writings to form — a thorough Christian. His habits inclined to be ascetic ; not from sour- ness of disposition, but partly because such was, with good men, the fashion of the times in which he lived ; and partly because such habits were congenial with his apostolical simpli- city of character, confirmed by much retired study. If he despised the world, — and, speaking of himself, he says, " It were too great a shame for a philosopher, a christian, a di- vine, a bishop, to have his thoughts grovelling here upon earth ; for mine, they scorn the employment, and look upon all these sublunary distractions with no other eyes than con- tempt ;" — this was neither the consequence of ignorance of society, nor of an unwilling seclusion from its pleasures ; for abundant evidence remains, that he was a keen and curious observer, while the amusements and pursuits of the court were open to him, and inviting his regard, throughout that portion of his life in which they are commonly found most attractive. If, again, he was devoutly earnest in his pre- paration for a higher sphere of existence, it was not that his eye was insensible to the natural charms which earth presents to her intelligent inhabitants, or his heart indifferent to human ties — he was a poet, a friend, a husband, a father ; but because his faith admitted him to clear views of that future existence, and because the familiar experience he en- joyed of the immortality daily strengthening within him, endeared to his thoughts the anticipation of its full de- velopement. Benevolence and humility were the most pro- minent traits of his character. Few writers have laboured more assiduously, or with equal success, for the moral and religious benefit of their fellow-men ; perhaps the native dis- position of none has sustained with less injury the glare of a brilliant contemporary reputation. " He was not twice a child," observes the author of his funeral sermon, "(though he lived long enough to be so) ; but always one in our Saviour''s sense, namely, in humility and . innocence." — "All those," his sons write, " who truly know him, can witness with us his abundant contentment in his retreat to a private life, as not a misery, but a blessing to him. In the height of all his honours he was ready enough to such a secession.
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could he fairly and handsomely have retired : and now that impetuous storm, which beat him off from the course of his public employments, though it battered his vessel and tore his sails, yet it did but drive him to the quiet haven where he would be."
In his professional capacity — as a clergyman and bishop — his laboriousness kept pace with his piety ; his considerateness and discretion, with his zeal. While, by the greater part of his contemporaries, charity was forgotten in fierce dispute about petty and transient distinctions, his regards were exclusively fixed on the essential and the permanent ; and peace among Christian brethren was the great object of his labours and his prayers. At Hawstead and at Waltham he preached regularly thrice a week ; never, notwithstanding his natural fluency, omitting the preparation of a written sermon, (a habit by no means general in those times) although, in his delivery making himself, as he records, " no slave to syllables." The solidity and simplicity of his views, and his love of recurring to first principles, is seen in his earnestly contending, though a great and admired preacher, for the superior utility of catechizing. " There is no one thing," he writes, in his dedication of The Old Religion to the diocese of Exeter, " whereof I repent so much, as not to have bestowed more hours in this public exercise ; in regard whereof I could quarrel with my very sermons, and wish that a great part of them had been ex- changed for this preaching conference."
The writings of Bishop Hall, though not unblemished by that quaint mannerism which deformed the literature of his school-days, are not to be approached, on the side of their literary merits, without the respect due to a great native classic. That he was gifted, in no inconsiderable degree, with the mens divinior, — the feeling and the loftiness of the poetical temperament, — is apparent in most of his works ; but that a writer, of a temper so mild and tender, should have started in his public career as a satirist, is undoubtedly singular: it is perhaps less remarkable, that, having done so, he should have applied the poetical lash with the heartiness and spirit which characterize his Virgidemiarmn. It was Sir Henry Wotton who first named Hall the "English Seneca:" in fact, in some of his compositions, he himself professes to imitate that philo- sopher. Fuller's amplification is popular — "He was commonly called our English Seneca, for the pureness, plainness, and
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fulness of his style : not ill at controversies, more happy at comments, very good in characters, best of all in his medita- tions," This testimony is just; as far, at least, as respects the graduation of his excellence in the several departments of composition which he adorned. Hall's fund of general liter- ature w^as extensive ; his biblical learning admirable : but it is for his practical and devotional works, including, especially, his contemplations and sermons, that he will continue to be read with profit, and remembered with grateful veneration. Feeling, earnestness, — above all, a truly catholic spirit un- confined by any limits narrower than those of substantial Christian truth, constitute the basis of their popularity.
The Latin compositions of this author are distinguished by a pure and flowing diction : at Dort, where his skill in this branch of scholarship was put to the test, he was distinguished for his expedita concionatio, his ready speech in that language. Of these compositions, the most considerable — viz. Henochis- mus: Enochs or a Treatise on the manner of walking with God, has been inaccurately translated into English. The Occa- sional Meditations {Meditatiuticulce Subitanece) were written in both languages by himself. A sermon called Columha NocB, and the tract entitled Inurbanitati PontificicB responsio, were translated by one of the bishop's sons, the Rev. Robert Hall. The longest of his works in Latin is the curious trea- tise, Mundus alter et idem, never published in the vernacular tongue: it is a kind of romance; in which, under the fiction of a voyage to an Australian region hitherto unknown, he satirizes, in an agreeable style, the vicious manners of Euro- pean nations.
Bishop Hall at one period entertained the design of making a metrical version of the Psalms : he does not appear, however, to have well understood the art of adapting words to tunes ; and meeting, probably, with little encouragement, he proceeded no further than to the end of the first ten Psalms, which he has left in rude archaic verse, the monument of a failure which many authors share with him. He likewise composed some anthems for the choir at Exeter.
Hall's writings being very numerous, and many of them consisting of small tracts, such of them only as, from size or peculiar merit, appear in some prominent measure en- titled to the reader's attention, are enumerated in the follow- ing list.
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Virgidemiarum : Siv Books: First three Books of Toothless Satires. l6mo. 1597. The three last Books of Biting Satires. l6mo. 1598. Both parts, l6mo. 1599. Ritson, in his Bihlio- graphia Poetica, says that HalFs satires were suppressed by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. They were republished at Oxford, in 12mo, in 1753. The last and best edition is that of 1824, also in 12rao.
Epistles. Six Decads. Dedicated to Prince Henry, 8vo. 1608-11. Hall has been styled — he styles himself, indeed — the first English Satirist. This however, unless understood in a qualified sense, is a mistake ; but his claim is indisputable to the authorship of the first collection of letters published in our language. They were addressed to a great variety of correspondents, and contain discussions on many subjects, religious, moral, casuistical, &c.
Apology of the Church of England against the Brownists, 4to. 16I0.
Contemplations on the Old Testament. Ttventy-one books. The first four were published in l6l2, with a dedication to Prince Henry. This was the last work offered to that in- teresting patron of literature, and "the last," Hall says, "that was turned over by his gracious hand." The next fifteen books are preceded by a dedication to Prince Charles, after his brother's death. A second dedication, to Charles as king, is prepared to the twentieth.
Quo Vadis ? A just censure of Travel, as commonly un- dertaken, Sfc. 1617.
Via Media : The way of Peace in the Jive busy Articles. 1617.
The honour of the married, Clergy maintained. 8vo. 1620. The Old Religion : the true state of the difference between the Reformed and the Roman Churches. 8vo. l628. The Reconciler. 8vo. 1629.
A plain and familiar Explication of Chrisfs Presence in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. l631.
An Explication, by way of Paraphrase, of all the hard Texts in the Old and New Testaments. Folio. l633.
Contemplations on the New Testament. Four Books. Dedicated to King Charles, l633. The Contemplations are the substance of sermons abridged, and are valuable for their criticism, as well as for the earnest piety which breathes in them. They have been more frequently reprinted than any VOL. I. 19
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other of this author's works, and portions of them continue to be incorporated into popular commentaries on Scripture.
Certain Irrefragable positions concerning Oaths, Sfc. 4to. 163!).
Christian Moderation. In Two Books. 8vo. l640. Episcopacy by Divine Right asserted. Folio. 1640. The Devout Soul, or the Rtdes of heavenly Devotion. l2mo. 1643.
Mundus alter et idem. 8vo. 1643.
The Free Prisoner ; or the Comfort of Restraint. Writ- ten in the Tower. 12mo. l644.
The Remedy of Discontents. l645.
The Peacemaker ; laying forth the right way of Peace in the matters of Religion. 12mo. 1647. Paso Terris. 8vo. 1647.
Resolutions and Decisions of Cases of Conscience. Four Decads. Folio. l650.
The Art of Divine Meditation.
The great Mystery of Godliness laid forth by way of Meditation. 18mo. l652.
Songs in the Night, or Cheerfulness under Affliction. \653.
The Invisible World discovered to Spiritual Eyes, and reduced to useful Meditation. Three Books.
Heaven upon Earth ; or True Peace and Tranquillity of Mind.
Characters of Virtues and Vices. Two Books. Sermons. 1661.
Henochismus, ^c. Enoch, or a Treatise of the manner of walking with God. 12mo. 1662.
The preceding works, with numerous smaller tracts, ap- peared singly, at intervals, during a period of nearly sixty years. The greater part of them were collected into three volumes, in folio, and published in his lifetime, viz. Vol. i. in 1617, and again in l624; Vol. 11. in l633; Vol. iii. in 1634 : a fourth volume, in 4to, The Shaking of the Olive- tree, was added after the author's death, in 166O, and a fifth, containing Divers Treatises, in folio, in 1662. An edition was published in 1808, in 10 vols. 8vo. by the Rev, Josiah Pratt, in which the various pieces are judiciously arranged under the following heads : Contemplations, — Paraphrases — Sermons — Devotional Works — Practical Works — Polemical Works. An edition, in 12 vols. 8vo, was likewise published at Oxford in 1838-9.
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THE I'UOEM.
I HAVE heedlessly lost, I confess, many good tliouglits : these few my paper hath preserved from vanishing ; the example vifhereof may, perhaps, be more useful than the matter.
Our active soul can no more forbear to think, than the eye can choose but see when it is open. Would we but keep our wholesome notions together, mankind would be too rich. To do well, no ob- ject should pass us without use. Every thing that we see, reads us new lectures of wisdom and piety. It is a shame for a man to be ignorant or godless, under so many tutors.
For me, I would not wish to live longer than I shall be better for my eyes : and have thought it tiiankworthy, thus to teach weak minds how to improve their thoughts upon all like occasions. And if ever these lines shall come to the public view, I desire and charge my reader, whosoever he be, to make me and himself so happy as to take out my lesson ; and to learn how to read God's great book by mine.
PROLOQUIUM AD LECTOREM
Occurrerunt mihi ultro meditatiuncul^e istse : ego illas non solici- tavi importunius ; imo, ne accersivi quidem : sponte oblatas admiyi non illibenter, nec morosius repuli ; admissas excepi familiariter ; exceptas, denique, permisi prodire in vulgus, non cura et studio comptas, non omatas elegantius, sed nativa simplicitate indutas, pro- cul et sordibus et fastu.
Mille mihi, fateor, hujusmodi cogitationes, qu;e mea fuit incuria, neglectae exciderunt evanueruntque : istas ego chartulae mea^ scrvan- das dedi, ne itidem perirent. Meo prius idiomate editas donavi Latinitate, ut pluribus prodesse possint, quae meis placuissent. Qua- rum forte exemplum, refuerit ipsa utilius.
Agilis quippe est haec anima humana ; neque minus possibile est ut non cogitet, quam ut nihil quicquam videat oculus apertus. Si curae nobis foret notiones quasque salutares adservare studiosius, nimis profecto ditesceret genus hunianum. Nobis certe si probe considtum voluerimus, nullum quamlibet exile subitumve objectum practervolaverit, absque suo et usu et beneficio. Quic(}uid usj)iain videmus praelegit nobis nova ot prudentite documenta et pietatis. Turpe est homini, ut, sub tot prteceptoribus, parum sapiat.
Quod ad me, nollem equidem superesse diutius, quam me oculi mei aliquid doceant : jam vero curae pretium duxi, cxemplo praeire aliis, ut infirmiores, si qui sint, animi, inde discant cogitationibus quibusque ob- viis meliorescere. Lcctorem igitur meum, quisquis fuerit, exoratum volo, ut hac ratione, et me et seipsum beare veht ; perdiscatque, ex hoc meo libellulo, magnum Dei volunien(mundum intelligo) utiliterperlegere.
' [The first and a part of the second paragraph are omitted in ihe English.]
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ON THE SIGHT OF THE HEAVENS MOVING.
I can see nothing stand still, but the earth : all other things are in motion. Even the water, which makes up one globe with the earth, is ever stirring in ebbs and flowings ; the clouds over my head ; the heavens above the clouds : these, as they are most con- spicuous, so are they the greatest patterns of perpetual action.
What should we rather imitate, than this glorious frame ? O God, when we pray, that thy will may be done in earth as it is in heaven, though we mean chiefly the inhabitants of that place ; yet we do not exclude the very place of those blessed inhabitants from being an example of our obedience. The motion of this thy heaven is perpetual ; so let me ever be acting somewhat of thy will : the motion of thy heaven is regular, never swerving from the due points ; so let me ever walk steadily in the ways of thy will, without all diversions or variations from the line of thy law. In the motion of thy heaven, though some stars have their own peculiar and contrary courses, yet all yield themselves to the sway of the main circum- volution of that first mover : so, though I have a will of mine own ; yet let me give myself over to be ruled and ordered by thy Spirit
CONSPECTO CCELI MOTQ.
Nihil quicquam pra>ter terram quiescere video : caetera quaeque motu perpetuo agitantur. Etiam et aqua ilia, quae unum cum terra globum constituit, continue fluxu et refluxu reciprocatur : nubes, supra caput volitantes ; supra nubes, ccelum ac sidera ; sic aguntur perpetim : haec, uti prae caeteris eminent conspicua, ita nobis ex- empla praeferunt perpetuae activitatis.
Quid tandem aemulemur nos aeque, ac speciosam banc mundi machinam ? O Deus, quoties precamur supplices, ut fiat voluntas tua in terris sicut in ccelo, tametsi praecipue intelUgamus loci illius incolas beatissimos ; non tamen excludimus locum ipsum caelitum illorum receptaculum, quo minus exemplo nobis sit vera; perfectaeque obedientiae. Circumvolutio coeli tui perpetua est et perennis ; itidem faxis, 6 Deus, ut nunquam non in aliquid ferar voluntati tuae con- sentaneum : motus coeli tui regularis est, nunquam a constitutis sibi terminis, vel minimum divaricans ; ita faxis, in via praeceptionum tuarum, absque omni diversione aberrationeve a linea Legis tuae, constanter usque obambulem. In hoc ccelestium motu, quamvis stellae quaedam peculiares sibi quosdam et contraries motus sortiantur ; sin- gulae tamen rapidae circumgyrationi primi motoris se ultro subjiciunt : itidem et ego, tametsi voluntatem habeo propriam liberamque ; faxis tamen, ut in omnibus vitae viis, me totum dedam a Spiritu tuo diri-
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in all my ways. Man is a little world ; my soul is heaven ; my body is earth : if this earth be dull and fixed ; yet, O God, let my heaven, like unto thine, move perpetually, regularly, and in a constant sub- jection to thy Holy Ghost.
ON THE SIGHT OF A DIAL.
If the sun did not shine upon this dial, nobody would look at it : in a cloudy day, it stands like an useless post, unheeded, unre- garded ; but, when once those beams break forth, every passenger runs to it, and gazes on it.
O God, while thou hidest thy countenance from me, methinks, all thy creatures pass by me with a willing neglect. Indeed, what am I without thee ? And if thou have drawn in me some lines and notes of able endowments ; yet, if I be not actuated by thy grace, all is, in respect of use, no better than nothing; but when thou renewest the light of thy loving countenance upon me, I find a sensible and happy change of condition : methinks all things look upon me with such cheer and observance, as if they meant to make good that word of thine. Those that honour me, I will honour :
gendum gubemandumque. Homo microcosmus est : anima coelum ; corpus terra est : si haec terra mea fixa maneat inersque ; faxis tamen, 6 Deus, ut coelum hoc meum, sicut et tuum, jugiter atque ordinate moveatur, Spirituique tuo, velut primo motori, intelligentiaeve sapientissimee potentissimseque, perpetuo subjiciatur.
AD CONSPECTUM HORARII SCIOTERICI.
Si sol radiis suis non illustraret horarium istud, nemo illud pro- fecto intueretur : nubilum ubi coelum est, negligitur hoc plane, stat- que velut inutilis aridusque truncus ; ubi, vero, radii illi paulo clarius emicuerint, accurrit viator omnis, oculosque illo conjicit intentius.
O Deus, quando tu vultum a me tuum absconderis, creaturae tuae omnes, ut mihi quidem videtur, praetereundo me lubentur neg- ligunt. Certe vero, quid sum ego sine te i Si tu lineolas in me quasdam duxeris, insculpserisque mihi qusedam non contemnendarum facultatum specimina ; si, tamen, efficaci gratia tua, ista parum in actum redigantur, omnia haec, quoad usum utilitatemque, vix quid, sane nihilo meliora sunt : ubi, vero, lumen benignissimi vultus tui mihi tandem reddere dignatus fueris, certam foelicemque conditionis mese vicissitudinem illico persentisco : omnia me nunc ita alacriter officioseque contuentur, quasi propositum iis foret adserere verbum
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now every line and figure, wliich it hath pleased thee to work in me, serve for useful and profitable direction. O Lord, all the glory is thine. Give thou me light : I shall give otliers information : both of us shall give thee praise.
ON A FAIR PROSPECT.
What a pleasing variety is here of towns, rivers, hills, dales, woods, meadows ; each of them striving to set forth the other, and all of tliem to delight the eye ! So as this is no other than a natural and real landscape drawn by that almighty and skilful liand, in this table of the eartli, for the pleasure of our view. No other creature, besides man, is capable of apprehending this beauty : I shall do wrong to Him that brought me hither if I do not feed my eyes, and praise my Maker. It is the intermixture, and change, of these objects, that yields this contentment both to the sense and mind.
But there is a sight, O my soul ! that, without all variety, offers thee a truer and fuller delight ; even this heaven, above thee. All thy other prospects end in this. This glorious circumference bounds, and circles, and enlightens all that thine eye can see : whether thou look upward, or forward, or about thee, tliere thine eye alights ; there
illud tuum Honorantes me honorabo: nunc, linea onmis et figura, quara milii inscribere volueris, utili alicui salutarique directioni inservit. O Domine, gloria tibi redundat tota. Da tu mihi lumen : ego aliis documentum subministrabo : utrique tibi laudem tribuemus.
VISO LUCULENTO QUODAM PROSPECTU.
Quam jucunda se heic exhibet varietas oppidomm, fluminum, montium, vallium, nemorum, pascuorum ; quorum singula ornare sese mutuo, omnia vero oculum delectare contendunt ! Ita ut istoc spec- taculum non aliud quidem videatur, quam vera ac nativa pictura cho- rographica, in hac terrae tabula, oblectando spectatoris oculo, a dsedala omnipotentis manu concinnata. Nulla creaturarum omnium, prseter hominem solum, capax est pulchritudinis hujusce discernendae : injurius plane ero illi, qui me hue adduxerit ; nisi et .oculos mihi una pascam, et laudem Conditorem. Vicissitudo (juaedam est, sed et mistura ob- jectorum, quse voluptate hac tanta sive sensum sive animum afficit.
Est tamen spectaculum quoddam, quod tibi, 6 mea anima, absque omni varietate, solidiorem plenioremque delectationem offert ; ccelum hoc intelligo, quod supra te cornitur. Prospectus alii omnes tui in hoc desinunt. Splendidissimus hujus ambitus continet, definit, illu- minat quicquid oculus tuus poterit contemplari : sursumne spectes,
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let thy thoughts be fixed. One inch of tliis lightsome firmament hath more beauty in it than the whole face of the earth : and yet, this is but the floor of that goodly fabric ; tlie outward curtain of that glorious tabernacle. Couldest thou but (oh that thou couldest I) look within that veil, how shouldest thou be ravished with that blissful sight ! There, in that incomprehensible light, thou shouldest see him, whom none can see and not be blessed : thou shouldest see millions of pure and majestical angels, of holy and glorified souls: there, amongst thy Father's many mansions, thou shouldest take happy notice of thine own. Oh the best of earth, now vile and contemptible ! Come down no more, O my soul, after thou hast once pitched upon this heavenly glory ; or, .if this flesh force thy descent, be unquiet, till thou art let loose to immortality.
ON THE SIGHT OF A GRAVE DIGGED UP.
The earth as it is a great devourer, so also it is a great preserver too : liquors and fleshes are therein long kept from putrifying ; and are rather heightened in their spirits, by being buried in it : but, above all, how safely doth it keep our bodies for the Resurrection ! We are
deorsumve, aut circunicirca, determinatur illo visus ; sed et inibi cogitationes tuue fixte acquiescant. Lucidissimi hujus firmamenti vel palmus unus plus in se venustatis habet, quam tota terrae facies : et tamen, hoc totum, nihil aliud est quam pulcherrimae illius fabricae pavimentum imum ; nitidissimi tabernaculi velum extimum. Possesne (6 si posses I) intra velum illud prospicere, quali te iUico beatifica visione ilia raptum ecstasi sentires ! In ilia luce incomprehensibili, videres eum, quern nemo non beatus videre unquam potest : multas purissimorum potentissimorumque angelorum, sanctarumque et glori- ficatarum animarum myriadas aspiceres : ibique, inter innumeras Pa- temae domus tute mansiones, tuam tibi foeliciter designatam cerneres. O vel optimam terrse partem, vilem modo et despicabilem ! Noli ! o, noli descendere deinceps, animula mea, ubi seniel coelestem banc gloriam perlustraveris ; aut, si caro ista descendere te vel invitam coegerit, inquieta esto, dum soluta fueris ut libere fruaris immortalitate.
AD CONSPECTUM SEPULCHRI EFFOSSI.
Terra, uti magnus rerum heluo, ita et fidissimus earundem custos et conservator merito audit : in cujus visceribus liquores, sed et cames quaedam, diu a putredine vindicantur ; inibique reconditorum spiritus magis exaltari solent ct educi fortiores : prtecipu^ vero, quam tuto servat corpora li;ec nostra in ilium Resurrectionis diem ! Custodiendi,
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here but laid up for custody. Balms, and sere-cloths, and leads, can- not do so much as this lap of our common mother: when all these are dissolved into her dust, as being unable to keep tliemselves from corruption, she receives and restores her charge. I can no more withhold my body from the earth, than the earth can withhold it from my Maker.
O God, this is thy cabinet or shrine, wherein thou pleasest to lay up the precious relics of thy dear saints, until the jubilee of glory: with what confidence should I commit myself to this sure reposition, while I know thy word just, thy power infinite !
ON THE SIGHT OF A PITCHER CARRIED.
Thus, those that are great and weak, are carried by the ears, up and down, of flatterers and parasites : thus ignorant and simple hearers are carried, by false and miszealous teachers. Yet, to be carried by both ears, is more safe than to be carried by one. It argues an empty pitcher, to be carried by one alone. Such are they, that, upon the hearing of one part, rashly pass their sentence, whether of acquittal or censure. In all disquisitions of hidden truths, a wise man will be led by the ears, not carried ; that implies a violence of
nempe, nos istic reponimur. Balsami, serata lintea, capsulse plumbe«e non ita fideliter hoc preestant, ac communis iste matris sinus : ubi omnia hsec in suum pulverem reciderint, quippe quae non possunt semet a sui dissolutione liberare, ilia recipit restituitque chara htec pignora. Neque magis potero ipse corpusculum hoc meum a terra detinere, quam terra illud detinere potest a manu Creatoris.
O Deus, htec arcula tua est scriniumve sacrum, in quo preciosas sanctorum tuorum reliquias, usque ad ultimum gloriae jubilaeum, servari voluisti : quam me fidenter commendare ausim tutissimae huic repositioni, qui certo norim, et verbum tuum esse justum, et potentiarn infinitam !
AD CONSPECTUM AMPHORA CIRCUMGESTAT^.
Qui loco potentes sunt, parum valentes judicio, facile hac iliac, ab adulatoribus et parasitis, hoc plane modo, auribus gestari solent : ita, ignari simplicesque auditores, a falsis et male-zelocis doctoribus misere circumvehuntur. At sane, utraque aure, quam una portari tutius est. Vacuam plane ollam arguit, una ferri aure. Ejusmodi sunt praeproperi illi judices, qui, parte una audita, sententiam, sive absolutionis sive damnationis, temere ferre non dubitant. In omni veritatis abstrusae disquisitione, vir sapiens duci auribus, non gestari sustinet ; nimirum
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passion over-ssvaying judgment : but, in matter of civil occurrence and unconcerning rumour, it is good to use the ear, not to trust to it.
ON THE SIGHT OP A TREE FULL BLOSSOMED.
Here is a tree overlaid with blossoms. It is not possible that all these should prosper: one of them must needs rob the other of moisture and growth.
I do not love to see an infancy over hopeful : in these pregnant beginnings, one faculty starves another; and, at last, leaves the mind sapless and barren. As, therefore, we are wont to pull off some of the too-frequent blossoms, that the rest may thrive ; so, it is good wisdom, to moderate the early excess of the parts or progress of over- forward childhood.
Neither is it otherwise in our Christian profession. A sudden and lavish ostentation of grace may fill the eye with wonder, and the mouth with talk ; but will not, at the last, fill the lap with fruit. Let me not promise too much, nor raise too high expectations of my undertakings. I would rather men should complain of my small hopes, than of my short performances.
hoc violentum quendam passionis impetum arguit, quo recta ratio a sua sede disturbatur : in rebus, vero, civilibus ac communi fama, uti auribus licet, certe fidere auribus parum expedit.
AD CONSPECTUM ARBORIS NIMIUM EFFLORESCENTIS.
Ecce istic arborem flosculis nimio quam onustam. Fieri non potest, ut flores hi omnes adolescant, et spem fructus edant : unus alterum et humore spoliat et incremento.
Non equidem nimis mihi gestit animus videre infantiam plus aequo feracem : in praecocibus hisce initiis, una facultas detrahit alteri ; tan- demque, animum succi expertem sterilemque pror&us relinquit. Ut, ergo, in more nobis est quosdam ex superfluis hisce ac nimium nume- rosis floribus avellere, ut eo magis crescant reliqui ; ita, non minimae prudentitfi est, moderari primos hosce praematurye pueritiae excessus.
Neque aliter profecto se habet in re professionis Cliristianae. Su- bita ac prodiga gratiae ostentatio facile implere potest et oculos vana admiratione, et os futili elogio ; vix unquam sero fructu gremium, tandem, impletura. Quod ad me; stetmihi, neque nimium promittere, neque majorem quam par est de me expectationem aliorum ciere. Malo de me conquerantur homines quod minus poUicear, quam quod pariim praestem.
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ON OCCASION OF A HED-BRKAST COMING INTO HIS CHAMBER, AND
SINGING.
Pretty bird, how clieertully dost thou sit and sing ; and yet know- est not wliere thou art, nor where tliou shalt make thy next meal, and at night must shroud thyself in a busli for lodging ! What a shame is it for me, that see before me so liberal provisions of my God, and find myself set warm under my own roof ; yet am ready to droop under a distrusted and unthankful dulness ! Had I so little certainty of my harbour and purveyance, how heartless should I be, how careful ! how little list should I have, to make music to thee or myself! Surely, thou earnest not hither without a Providence. God sent thee, not so much to delight, as to shame me ; but all in a con- viction of my sullen unbelief, who, under more apparent means, am less cheerful and confident. Reason and faith have not done so much in me, as in thee mere instinct of nature. Want of foresight makes thee more merry, if not more liappy, here, than the foresight of better things maketh me.
O Godj thy providence is not impaired by those powers thou hast given me, above these brute things : let not my greater helps hinder me from a holy security, and comfortable reliance upon thee.
AD CONSPECTCM ERITHACI COBICULUiM SUUM INTRANTIS, CANENTISQUE.
Bella avicula, quam tu alacris istic sedes et tantillas; et tamen nescis aut ubi sis, aut unde tibi ca-nam comparare possis, aut in quo demOim arbusculo tibi licebit postmodo pernoctari ! Quam me jam pudet mei, qui, ubi tarn largam mihi alimoniam munifica Dei manu parari videam, meque sentiam aedibus hisce meis tuto ac commode insidentem ; tristi tamen quadam et ingrata diffidentia languescere videor ! Ego vero si seque incertus essem aut domicilii aut aiimenti, quam mcestus essem, quam solicitus ! quantilla mihi lubido foret, aut tibi cantandi aut mihi ipsi ! Certe, non sine Providentia quadam venisti tu hue. Misit nempe te hue Deus, non tam ut delectares mihi animum, quam ut me pudore justo suffunderes ; convinceresque tetricoe cujusdam infidelitatis, qui, cum media palam abunde suppetant, minus tamen aut gestiam aut confidam. Ratio ac fides non tantum apud me valuerunt, quantum merus apud te naturae instinctus. Ipsa hsec futuri nescientia hilariorem te prsestat fcelicioremque, quam me certa conditionis melioris praescientia.
O Deus, non minuitur Providentia tua donis illis, qute mihi, super bruta liaec animalia, benignus indulsisti : noli sinere, ut majora hsec adminicula impedimento mihi sint, quo minus et sancte securus sini et fidenter alacris.
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ON THE SIGHT OF A RAIN, IN THE SUNSHINE.
Sucli is my best condition in this life. If the sun of God's countenance shine upon me, I may well be content to be wet with some rain of affliction. How oft have I seen the heaven overcast with clouds and tempest ; no sun appearing to comfort me ! yet even those gloomy and stormy seasons have I rid out patiently, only with the help of the common light of the day : at last, those beams have broken forth happily, and cheered my soul. It is well for my ordinary state, if, through the mists of mine own dulness and Satan's tempta- tions, I can descry some glimpse of heavenly comfort : let me never hope, while I am in this vale, to see the clear face of that sun, without a shower. Such happiness is reserved for above : that upper region of glory is free from these doubtful and miserable vicissitudes.
There, O God, we shall see as we are seen. Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.
ON THE LENGTH OF THE WAY. <
How far off is yonder great mountain ! My very eye is weary with the foresight of so great a distance ; yet time and patience shall
AD CONSPECTUM PLUVI^, SOLE INTERIM SPLENDENTE.
Talis est vel optima vitae hujus conditio. Si sol divini vultus mihi tantillum affulserit, non est quod aegre mihi fuerit afflictionum pluviis interea madefieri. Quoties vidi ego coeli faciem nubibus et tempestatibus obvolutam ; nullo interim splendescente sole ! tristia tamen ilia et nebulosa tempora patienter evici, solo fretus communis lucis solatio : tandem vero, radii illi foeHciter emicuerunt, animamque mihi exhilararunt. Bene mecum actum erit, si, quoad ordinarium vitie statura, licuerit mihi, per innatte cujusdam tristitiae nebulas Satanaeque tentationes, vel minimo ccelestis consolationis obtutu frui : non est quod sperem, dum in hac valle sum, claram soils faciem, absque omni sive imbre sive nubecula, contueri. Uni ccelo reservatur haec tanta beatitude : suprema ilia regio gloriae ab his dubiis miserisque vicis- situdinum turbis immunis est.
Ibi, 6 Deus, videbimus uti videmur ipsi. Lux sata est justis, et rectis corde gaudium.
DE VI^ LONGITUDINE.
Heu, quantum distat mons ille, quern u longe conspicor ! Ipse mihi oculus tantae intercapedinis mera praevisione fatigatur ; tempus tamen et patientia intervallum illud facile supcrabunt : hac nocte
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overcome it : this night we shall hope to lodge beyond it. Some things are more tedious in their expectation, than in their performance. The comfort is, that every step I take sets me nearer to my end : when I once come there, I shall both forget how long it now seems, and please myself to look back upon the way that I have measured.
It is thus in our passage to heaven. My weak nature is ready to faint, under the very conceit of the length and difficulty of this journey : my eye doth not more guide than discourage me. Many steps of grace and true obedience shall bring me insensibly thither. Only, let me move, and hope : and God's good leisure shall perfect my salvation.
O Lord, give me to possess my soul with patience ; and not so much to regard speed, as certainty. When I come to the top of thy holy hill, all these weary paces and deep sloughs, shall either be forgotten, or contribute to my happiness in their remembrance.
ON THE RAIN AND WATERS.
What a sensible interchange there is in nature, betwixt union and division! Many vapours, rising from the sea, meet together in
sperabo fore ut nos ultra fastigia ilia pemoctemur. Sunt qusedam quorum expectatio plus in se tsedii habet, quam executio. lUud me solatur interim, nullum posse vestigium metiri quo non accedam propius ad vise terminum : quem ubi semel fuero assecutus, facile quidem et itineris longitudinem obliviscar, et refocillabo mihi animum retrospectando in immensum hunc terrae tractum, quem ita tempes- tive licuit pedibus commensurari.
Non aliter se habet in nostro coelum versus itinere. Natura haec, imbecillitatis suae conscia, mera et longitudinis et difficultatis prae- cogitatione languere incipit : oculus non magis ducit, quam dejicit milii animum. Multa gratiae et verae obedientiae vestigia illo me sensim perducent. Tantum, movere mihi fas sit, et sperare : divina bonitas opportune tandem salutem meam perficiet.
Da mihi interea, 6 Deus, animum meum constanti quadam pa- tientia possidere ; et non tarn celeritatem respicere, quam certitudinem. Ubi ad summitatem sancti montis tui adspiraverim, omnes hi molesti gressus viaeque sive ccenosae paludes sive ardua praecipitia, vel prorsus oblivioni dabuntur, vel certe memoria sui ad faelicitatis meae cumulum baud parum adjicient.
AD CONSPECTUM PLUVI^ ET AQUARUM.
Quam certam ipsique sensui obnoxiam vicissitudinem constituit natura, inter unionem ac divisionem ! Vapores multi, e mari exorti.
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one cloud : that cloiicl falls down divided into several drops : those drops run together ; and, in many rills of water, meet in the same channels : those channels run into the brook, those brooks into the rivers, those rivers into the sea. One receptacle is for all, though a large one : and all make back to their first and main original.
So it either is, or sliould be, with spiritual gifts. O God, thou distiUest thy graces upon us, not for our reservation, but conveyance. Those manifold faculties, thou iettest fall upon several men, thou wouidest not have drenched up where they light ; but wouldest have derived, through the channels of their special vocations, into the common streams of public use, for Church, or Commonwealth. — Take back, 0 Lord, those few drops, thou hast rained upon my soul ; and return them into that great ocean of the glory of thine own bounty, from whence they had their beginning.
ON OCCASION OF THE LIGHTS BROUGHT IN.
What a change there is in the room, since the light came in ! yea, in ourselves! all things seem to have a new form, a new life: yea, we are not the same we were. How goodly a creature is light ! how
in unam conveniunt nubem : decidit ilia nubes in plurimas guttas divisa : concurrunt hae guttae illico ; et, per multa stillicidia, in eundem canalem desinunt ; canales illi in rivulos, rivuli in flumina, flumina in mare confluunt. Receptaculum unum, vastum illud quidem capaxque, omnia haec suo sinu complectitur : istuc nempe velut ad primum ac originale principium refluunt ac recurrunt omnia.
Pari modo se habet, aut habere saltem debet, cum donis spiritu- alibus ac divinis. Tu, 6 Deus, charismata super nos tua ubertim diffundis, non servanda nobis ilicet, sed aliis derivanda. Multijuges illae facultates, quas in varium hominum genus depluere tibi placuit, non eo abs te animo dimissae sunt ut eo ipso in loco absorberentur in quo decidunt ; sed, ut per diversarum vocationum canales, in fluenta communia, universali sive Ecclesiee sive Reipublicce bono, deducerentur. Recipe a me, Domine, pauculas illas guttulas, quibus animam meam irrigare voluisti ; faxisque redeant affatim in immensum illud gloriosae gratiae tuae oceanum, unde originem sumpserunt.
LUCEBNA INTRODUCTA.
Quantum vero mutatus, ex quo lumen introiit, videtur locus iste ! imo, et nos ipsi! Omnia profecto novam formam, et vitam quasi novam induisse visa sunt : neque nos ipsi iidem sumus. Quam pulchra
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pleasing, how agreeable to the spirits of man I no visible tiling comes so near to the resembling of the nature of the soul ; yea, of the God that made it. As, contrarily, what an uncomfortable thing is dark- ness ! insomuch as we punish the greatest malefactors with obscurity of dungeons ; as thinking they could not be miserable enough, if they might have the privilege of beholding the light : yea, hell itself can be no more horribly described, than by outward darkness. What is darkness, but absence of light ? The pleasure or the horror of light or darkness, is according to the quality and degree of the cause, whence it ariseth.
And if the light of a poor candle be so comfortable, which is nothing but a little inflamed air gathered about a moistened snuff ; what is the light of the glorious sun, the great lamp of heaven ! But, much more, what is the light of that infinitely-resplendent Son of Righteousness, who gave that light to the sun, that sun to the world I And, if this partial and imperfect darkness be so doleful, which is the privation of a natural or artificial light ; how unconceivable, dolorous, and miserable shall that be, which is caused through the utter absence of the all-glorious God, who is the Father of lights ! O Lord, how justly do we pity those wretched souls, that sit in dark-
res lux est ! quam jucunda, quam spiritibus humanis apprime congrua ! nec qua remm visibilium uspiam est, quae ita prope accedit ad naturam aniniije nostras ; imo, creatoris, Dei. Uti, e contra, quam tristes sunt tenebr* ! adeo ut sceleratissimos quosque carceruni obscuritate punire soleamus ; utpote, quos satis miseros esse posse non arbitremur, modd lucis hujusce privilegio frui liceret : sed, et ipsi damnatorum cruciatus non atrociore quopiam, quam extimarum tenebrarum nomine, describi solent. Quid aliud sunt tenebrae, quam mera lucis absentia? Lucis vero tenebrarumve sive jucunditas sive horror, secundum qualitatem gradumve causae, unde ortum habet, solet sestimari.
Quod si pauperis lucernaj igniculus, qui nihil aliud est nisi pauxil- lum inflammati aeris fuliginosi cujusdam hni oleaginosae pinguedini circumfusi, ita oculos animumque afficiat ; quanto magis gloriosis solis radiis, coelestis lampadis splendore delectamur ! Quanto, vero, adhuc magis supremi illius aeterniimque splendentis Justitiae Solis, qui hoc lumen soli visibili, liunc solem mundo donavit, beatifica luce refo- cillamur I Et, si dubiae hae imperfectaeque tenebrae, quae praeter luminis sive naturahs sive artificial! s privationem nihil omnino sunt, tantum tristitiae secum afferre solent ; quantum horroris incutient dirae iliae tenebrae, quae ab aeteni^ gloriosissimi Dei, Patris Luminum, absentia oriuntur ! Quanta, 6 Domine, quamque justa miseratione pro- sequimur infoelices illas animas, qiice in ignorantice tenebris ac umbra
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riess and lite shadow of death; shut up I'roin the light of the saving knowledge of thee, the only True God ! But, how am I swallowed up with horror, to think of the fearful condition of those damned souls, that are for ever shut out from the presence of God, and adjudged to exquisite and everlasting darkness ! The Egyptians were weary of themselves in their three days' darkness ; yet we do not find any pain that accompanied tlieir continuing niglit : what shall we say to those woeful souls, in whom the sensible presence of infinite torment shall meet with the torment of the perpetual absence of God ?
0 thou, who art the True Light, sliine ever through all the blind comers of my soul ; and, from these weak glimmerings of grace, bring me to the perfect brightness of thy glory !
ON HIS LYING DOWN TO REST.
What a circle there is of human actions and events ! We are never without some change ; and yet that change is without any great variety. We sleep, and wake ; and wake, and sleep ; and eat, and evacuate ; labour, in a continual interchange : yet hath the infinite wisdom of God so ordered it, that we are not weary of these perpetual iterations ; but with no less appetite enter into our daily courses, than if we
mortis secure usque sedent ; ab omni salutari tui, Veri nempe Dei, cognitione miserrime exclusse ! Sed, quanto horrore concutior planeque consternor, ubi subit animum tremenda damnatarum illarum animarum conditio, quae a facie divina perpetuo arcentur, exquisitissimis sempi- temisque caliginibus adjudicatee ! Pigebat sui yEgyptios etiam ob tene- bras triduanas ; nusquam tamen comperimus cruciatuum genus uUum, longam illam noctem fuisse comitatum : quid igitur dicemus de illis deploratissimis animabus, in quibus infinitorum torminum sensus cum summo perpetuae Dei absentiae cruciatu, horrendo plane modo, con- jungetur ?
O tu, qui solus es Vera Lux, diffunde radios tuos per cajcas omnes animae meae latebras anfractusque ; meque, per debiles quasdam gratiae emicationes, ad perfectum gloriae tuae splendorem perducito.
AD DECUBITUM SUUM.
Qualis est iste rerum humanarum eventuumque circulus ! Nunquam sane mutatione quadam vacat conditio nostra ; nec tamen in ilia mu- tatione nimia cemitur varietas. Donnimus, evigilamus ; evigilamus, dormimus denuo ; edimus, evacuamur ; laboramus, non sine continua quadam vicissitudine : ita tamen omnia disposuit ordinavitque infinita Dei sapientia, ut perpetuis hisce iterationibus paruni fatigemur ; nec minus alacres ingeramus nos quotidianis istis exercitationibus, quam
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should pass tliem but once in our life. When I am weary of my day's labour, how willingly do I undress myself, and betake myself to my bed ! and ere morning, when I have wearied my restless bed, how glad am I to rise and renew my labour !
Why am I not more desirous to be unclothed of this body, that I may be clothed-upon with immortality ? What is this, but my closest garment ; which when it is once put off, my soul is at liberty and ease ? Many a time have I lain down here in desire of rest ; and, after some tedious changing of sides, have risen sleepless, disap- pointed, languishing. In my last uncasing, my body shall not fail of repose, nor my soul of joy ; and, in my rising up, neither of them shall fail of glory.
What hinders me, O God, but my infidelity, from longing for this happy dissolution ! The world hath misery and toil enough, and heaven hath more than enough blessedness, to perfect my desires of that my last and glorious change. I believe. Lord, help my unbelief I
ON THE KINDLING OF A CHARCOAL FIRE.
There are not many creatures but do naturally affect to diffuse and enlarge themselves. Fire and water will neither of them rest
si semel in vit^ nobis forent transigendse. Diurnis laboribus bene fessus, quam libentur exuo me, lectumque subeo ! ante lucis dein matu- tinse exortum, inquietioris lecti pertaesus, quanto libentius exurgo laboremque repeto !
Quidni ego magis appetam exuere corpusculum hoc, ut immorta- litate super-induar ? Quid enim aliud hoc est, nisi vestis intima ; quam ubi semel deposuero, libertate fruitur anima mea ac quiete ? Quoties decubui ego plenus spe nocturni refrigerii ; tandem vero, post cre- brarum volutationum taedia laterumque frustra commutatorum situs varios, surrexi insomnis, tristis, languidus. Ubi me extremum hoc tandem exuero, non potest vel corpus hoc meum quiete, vel anima gaudio destitui ; neutrum vero, ubi surrexero, gloria.
Quid est, 6 Deus, prteter innatam quandam infidehtatem, quod me impedit ab hujus tam foelicis dissolutionis ambitu ? Sat habet mundus miseriee ac molestiae, satis superque habet coelum beatitudinis, ad ciendum perficiendumque hujus ultimae gloriosissimaeque mutationis desiderium. Credo, Domine, adjuva incredulitatem meam.
VISIS CARBONIBUS IGNITIS.
Vix quae creaturarum omnium est, quae naturali quodam instinctu non appetat diff'undere se ac dilatare. Nec ignis nec aqua suis se
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contented with tlieir own bounds. Tliose little sparks, that I see in those coals, how they spread, and enkindle their next brands I
It is thus morally, both in good and evil: eitlier of them dilates itself to their neighbourhood : but especially this is so much more apparent in evil, by how much we are more apt to take it. Let but some spark of heretical opinion be let fall upon some unstable, proud, busy spirit, it catcheth instantly, and fires the next capable subject : they two have easily inflamed a third ; and now, the more society, the more speed and advantage of a public combustion. When we see the Church on a flame, it is too late to complain of the flint and steel. It is the holy wisdom of superiors, to prevent the dangerous attritions of stubborn and vvrangling spirits ; or to quench their first sparks in the tinder. But why should not grace, and tioith, be as successful in dilating itself, to the gaining of many hearts ? Certainly, these are in themselves more willing, if our corruption had not made us indisposed to do good.
O God ! out of a holy envy and emulation at the speed of evil, I shall labour to enkindle others with tliese heavenly flames : it shall not be my fault, if they spread not.
terminis contineri sinit. ScintilluliB illse, quae in carbonibus istis cer- nuntur, quam se exerunt, accenduntque proximas faces !
Identidem se habet moraliter, cum in malo tum etiam in bono : utrunque horum se dilatat facile, proximosque afficit: quod tamen in malo tanto magis conspicuum est, quanto nos illi fovendo prose- quendo aptiores sumus. Ubi minima hsereticae opinionis scintillula in animum instabilem, superbum, irrequietum inciderit, afficit ilium illico, proximumque capax subjectum statim accendit : illi duo tertium subinde inflammant ; jam vero, quanto major societas, tanto major pubhcye combustionis et celeritas et intentio. Ubi ecclesiam Dei videmus flamrais misere correptam, sero quidem de ferro et silice con- querimur. Illud superiorum sanctcE prudentite fuerit, periculosam pervicacium contentiosorumque animorum attritionem tempestive prae- pedire ; et primas quasque scintillulas, ubi exciderint, confestim extin- guere. Quorsiim vero non eeque prsevaleat gratia, ac Veritas, suos propagando terminos, ad plurimorum utilitatem ac salutem ? Certe quidem, plus habent istse in se illicii, nisi depravatio nostra nos nimis incapaces boni pra^stitisset.
O Deus, dum sacra quadam invidia percitus aemulabor foelicem nimis mali successum, dabo quantum potero operam, ut alii ccelestibus hisce flammis accendantur : quae, si non latissime se diff'uderint, baud mea profecto culpa accident.
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ON THE SIGHT OF A LABK FLYING UP.
How nimbly tlotli that little lark mount up, singing towards hea- ven, in a right line ! whereas the hawk, which is stronger of body and swifter of wing, towers up, by many gradual compasses, to his highest pitch. That bulk of body, and length of wing, hinders a direct ascent; and requires the help, both of air and scope, to ad- vance his flight; while that small bird cuts the air without resist- ance, and needs no outward furtherance of her motion.
It is no otherwise with the souls of men, in flying up to their heaven. Some are hindered by those powers which would seem helps to their soaring up thither: great wit, deep judgment, quick apprehension, send men about, with no small labour, for the re- covery of their own incumbrance ; while tlie good affections of plain and simple souls raise them up immediately to the fruition of God. Why should we be proud of that which may slacken our way to glory? Why should we be disheartened with the small measure of that, the very want whereof may (as the heart may be aff'ected) faciUtate our way to happiness ?
CONSPECTA ALAUDA SURSUM VOLITANTE.
Quam agili celerique penna pusilla h^c alauda, recta quidem linei, ccelum versus cantillans ascendit ! ubi accipiter, cui robur cor- poris majus et ala celerior, per multas circumgyrationes, ascensus sui fastigium gradatim tandem assequitur. Nempe ilia corporis moles alarumque longitudo impedimento sunt, quo minus recta possit as- cendere; quandoquidem istud, et aliquod aeris adminiculum et ido- neum volatui promovendo spatium, requirat ; ubi minima ilia avicula absque omni reluctatione aerem libere fmdit, nec quo indiget ex- terno motus sui adjumento.
Nec se habet aliter cum hominum animabus, ccelum suum repe- tentibus. Non desunt, quse suis iisdem facultatibus, quibus accelerari posse videretur foelix hie cursus, baud parum retardantur : ingenium fortasse igneum, profundum judicium, apprehensio facilis, ita nimis multos prifipediit, ut necesse illis fiierit, suam ipsorum remorationem, non parvo labore, redimere ; ubi boni adfectus honestas simplicesque animas immediate evehunt ad suum ccelum, Deoque libere frui jubent. Quorsum vero efFerri nos patimur illis dotibus, quae nostram ad gloriam iter retardare possunt ? Quorsum, e contra, dejicimur tenuitate aut paucitate donorum illorum, quorum absentia (quae cordis nostri esse potest affectio) ad beatitudinem facilitare nobis viani potest?
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ON A COAL COVERED WITH ASHES.
Nothing appears in this heap but <lead ashes : licre is neither light, nor smoke, nor lieat ; and yet, when I stir up these embers to the bottom, tliere are found some living gleeds, which do both contain fire, and are apt to propagate it.
Many a Christian's breast is like this hearth. No life of grace appears there for the time ; either to his own sense, or to the appre- hension of others : while the season of temptation lasteth, all seems cold and dead : yet still, at the worst, there is a secret coal from the altar of heaven raked up in their bosom ; which, upon the gracious motions of the Almighty, doth both bewray some remainders of that divine fire, and is easily raised to a perfect flame. Nothing is more dangerous than to judge by appearances. Why should I deject my- self, or censure others, for the utter extinction of that Spirit ; which doth but hide itself in the soul, for a glorious advantage ?
ON THE SIGHT OP BOYS PLAYING.
Every age hatli some peculiar contentment. Thus we did, when we were of these years. Methinks I still remember the old fervor of
AD CONSPECTUM PRUN E CINERIBUS COOPERT^.
In cumulo hoc toto nihil quicquam apparet, praeter meras favillas : neque lux istic est, neque fumus, nec calor ; et tamen, ubi excito hosce cineres, vivi quidam carbones inibi reperiuntur, qui ignem et continent, et propagare apti sunt.
Non pauca Christianorum pectora instar foci hujusce sunt. Nulla, pro tempore, in illis gratiae vita apparet ; sive sensui suo, sive judicio aliorum : durante tentationis impetu, frigida videntur omnia planeque emortua : adhuc tamen, ubi pessimo in statu res ipsorum sunt, prunae quaedam secretae ac altari coelesti accensae in illorum sinu absconditae latent ; quae, salutaribus Spiritus Sancti motibus, crutee et afflatae, re- liquias quasdam prae se ferunt divini ignis, tandemque facile ad per- fectam usque flammam excitantur. Nihil periculosius est, quam ex specie externa judicare. Quare aut me dejicerem ipse, aut alios cen- sura notarem, quasi Spiritum omnino extinxissent ; ubi ille retraxerit se modo aliquantisper, inque pectore intimo abdiderit, ut se tandem magis gloriosum praesentemque exhibeat.
VISO PUERORUM LUDO.
Trahit sua quamque setatem voluptas. Ita fecimus et nos, hoc jetatis. Videor equidem mihi, jam nunc veterem puerilium ludorum
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my young pastimes. With what eagerness and passion do they pur- sue these childish sports ! Now tliat there is a handful of cherry- stones at the stake, how near is that boy's heart to his mouth, for fear of his play-fellow's next cast ; and how exalted with desire and hope of his own speed ! Those great unthrifts, who hazard whole manors upon the dice, cannot expect their chance with more earnest- ness, or entertain it with more joy or grief.
We cannot but now smile to think of these poor and foolish pleasures of our childhood. There is no less disdain that the re- generate man conceives of the dearest delights of his natural con- dition. He was once jolly and jocund in the fruition of the world. Feasts, and revels, and games, and dalliance were his life ; and no man could be happy without these ; and scarce any man but himself: but when once grace hath made him both good and wise, how scorn- fully doth he look back at these fond felicities of his carnal estate ! Now he finds more manly, more divine contentments ; and wonders he could be so transported with his former vanity. Pleasures are much according as they are esteemed : one man's delight is another man's pain. Only spiritual and heavenly things can settle and satiate the heart, with a full and firm contention.
fervorem recens recordari. Qu^m acriter quantoque passionum im- petu, prosequuntur pueruli isti ludicra h;3ec exercitia! Vide mihi puerum ilium, ubi tbtus calculorum manipulus jam pignori sistitur, quam cor illi fere in os insilit, prae formidine proximi jactus ; quarh- que desiderio ac spe proprii successus nimium exaltatur ! Certe, magni illi nepotum gurgites, qui quicquid est patrimonii alearum fortunse totum committere audent, casum ilium de.cretorium, aut vehementiiis expectare, aut majore cum gaudio doloreve accipere nequeunt.
Non possumus non ridere modo, ubi subit animum tam futilium fatuarumque pueritiae nostrao delectationum recordatio. Nec minore profecto fastidio, renatus homo vel charissimas naturalis conditionis voluptates prosequi solet. Hilari olim solutoque animo, solebat ille mundo frui. Convivia, comessationes, ludi, lascivi gestus, obscoeni- tatesque cordi huic fuerant prius ; nec quern sine istis foelicem esse posse autumabat ; vix vero, praeter seipsum, aliuni quempiam : ubi autem salutaris Dei gratia et probum hunc redidit et prudentem, quam fastidiose despicit hie insulsas carnalis suae conditionis foelici- tates! Delectationes nunc alias magis viriles, imo divinas magis persentiscit ; miraturque potuisse se olim juvenem, vanis hisce vo- luptatum blandimentis abripi. Ita se plerunque habent voluptates prout aestimantur : quod huic volupe est, cordolio est illi. Sola spiritualia ac ccelestia, firma solidaque contentatione, et stabilire ani- mum possunt et satiare.
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O God, thou art not capable, either of bettering or of change : let me enjoy thee ; and I shall pity the miserable fickleness of those that want thee ; and shall be sure to be constantly happy.
ON THE SIGHT OF A NATURAL [fOOl].
0 God, why am not I thus ? What hath this man done that thou hast denied wit to him ? or what have I done that thou shouldest give a competency of it to me ? What difference is there betwixt us, but thy bounty ; which hath bestowed upon me what I could not merit ; and hath withheld from him, what he could not challenge ? All is, O God, in thy good pleasure, whether to give or deny.
Neither is it otherwise in matter of grace. The unregenerate man is a spiritual fool : no man is truly wise but the renewed. How is it, that while I see another man besotted with the vanity and corruption of his nature, 1 have attained to know God and the great mystery of salvation ; to abhor those sins which are pleasing to a wicked appetite ? Wlio hath discerned me ?
Nothing but thy fi*ee mercy, O my God! Why else was I a man ; not a brute beast ? why right shaped ; not a monster ? why
Tu solus, 6 Deus mi, capax non es, aut emendationis cujuscun- que aut mutationis ; liceat mihi te uno frui ; miserebor ego serio in- foelicissimae illorum, qui te carent, instabilitatis ; certusque ero semper constantissimae beatitudinis.
CONSPECTO MORIONE QUODAM.
O Deus, unde fit quod ego talis non sim ? Quid fecit iste homo, quod tu illi intellectum negaveris ? aut quid feci ego, quod modum ejus saltern aliquem mihi indulseris ? Quid inter nos discriminis est, praeter tuam solius bonitatem ; qui mihi largitus es, quod mereri nullus poteram ; illique denegaveris, quod nulla potuerat ratione ven- dicare ? Seu dare seu detinere etiam, tui solius, 6 Domine, bene- placiti est.
Neque aliter, se habet, in re gratise. Irregenitus quisque merus est morio spiritualis : nec quis, praeter renatum, vere sapit. Unde fit, quod, ciim alium aspiciam vanitate pravitateque naturae suae pror^ sus infatuatum, ipse interim cognitionem Dei magnorumque salutis mysteriorum fuerim assecutus ; didicerimque ab illis peccatis, quae pessimo hominum malorum appetitui perplacere solent, penitiis ab- horrere ? Quis me tandem discrevit ?
Nihil quicquam, praeter tuam unius liberrimam misericordiam, O Deus. Quorsum ego alias homo sum; non brutum? quorsum recte
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perfectly limbed ; not a cripple ! why well-sensed ; not a fool ? why well-affected ; not graceless ? why a vessel of honour ; not of wrath ? If ought be not ill in me, O Lord, it is thine. Oh let thine be the praise ; and mine the thankfulness !
ON A SPRING IN THE WILD FOREST.
Lo here the true pattern of bounty. What clear crystal streams are here ; and how liberally do they gush forth, and hasten down with a pleasing murmur into the valley ! Yet you see neither man, nor beast, that takes part of that wholesome and pure water. It is enough, that those may dip who will : the ' refusal of others doth no whit abate of this profferred plenty.
Thus bountiful housekeepers hold on their set ordinary provision, whether they have guests or no. Thus conscionable preachers pour out the living waters of wholesome doctrine, whether their hearers partake of those blessed means of salvation, or neglect their holy endeavours. Let it be our comfort, that we have been no niggards of these celestial streams : let the world give an account of the improvement.
formatus ; et non monstrum potiiis ? quare corpore integro ; non mancus ? quare sensibus ac judicio prseditus ; non fatuus ? quare probe aflFectus ; non destitutus gratia ? quare vas honoris ; non irse ? Si quid in me non mali sit, tuum est, 5 Domine. Tu tibi laudem habe ac gratias ; da mihi interim gratitudinem.
VISO FONTXCULO E LOCO QUODAM DESERTO EBULLIENTE.
Ecce veram imaginem beneficentiaj. Quam clarae pureque chrys- tallinse sunt hte undee ; quamque largiter effluunt, et suavi quodam murmure in vallem festinant ! Hominem tamen nullum interea vides, imo ne brutum quidem, quod puree illius saluberrimaeque lymphse particeps esse possit. Satis est, obvio cuique patere laticem hunc, ita ut haurire possit, qui volet, libere.
Sic munifici patres-familias quotidianum semper dimensum apparant, adsint absintve hospites. Sic concionatores pii vivas salutaris doctrinae aquas ubertim profundunt, sive auditores sacrosancta salutis media participare malint, sive tantos conatus negligant. Ilicet hoc nobis solatio sit, non fuisse harum coelestium aquarum deparcos: harum vero beneficii ac usus rationem reddat mundus.
[' This sentence is omitted in the Latin^
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ON A WORM. •
It was a homely expression wliich God makes of the state of his Churcli ; Fear not, thou worm Jacob. Every foot is ready to tread on tliis despised creature. While it kept itself in that cold obscure cell of the earth wherein it was liidden, it lay safe, because it was secret: but now, that it hath put itself forth of that close cave, and hath presented itssif to the light of the sun, to the eye of passengers, how is it vexed with the scorching beams ; and wrings up and down, in a helpless perplexity, not finding where to shroud itself! how obnoxious is it to the fowls of the air, to the feet of men and beasts !
He, that made this creature such, and calls his Church so, well knew the answerableness of their condition. How doth the world overlook and contemn that little flock, whose best guard hath ever been secrecy! And, if ever that despicable number have dared to shew itself, how hath it been scorched, and trampled upon, and entertained with all variety of persecution I
O Saviour, thy Spouse fares no otherwise than thyself. To match her fully, thou hast said of tliyself, / am a worm, and no man. Such thou wert in thine humbled estate here on earth : such thou wouldest be. But, as it is a true word, that He, who made the angels in heaven,
VISO VERME.
Quam humili loquendi modo, exprimit Deus Ecclesise suae con- ditionem ; Ne metue, 6 vermis Jacob. NuUus non pes est, quin despicatissimam illam creaturam calcare soleat. Dum intra frigidas obscurasque terrse cellulas, in quibus delituerat, sese contineret ; tuto, quia secrete, habitaverat : nunc vero, cum ex abditis illis cavernulis se exeruerit semel, luminique solari sese audacter praesentaverit, oculisque simul transeuntium ; quam radiis hisce fervidioribus tor- retur illico ; hac ac iliac se torquet, misere cruciata, quo se subducat nescia! quam palam, ct volucribus cceli, et hominum bestiarumque pedibus obnoxia!
Qui tale fecit animalculum hoc, sicque appellare voluit Ecclesiam suam, bene norat conditionis utriusque analogiam. Quam despicit contemnitque mundus pusillum ilium gregem, cujus tutamen maxi- mum fuit semper obscuritas ! Sicubi vero unquam contemptissima haec bonorum paucitas mundo se exhibere ausa fuerit, quam statim tosta, quam calcata, quam omni persecutionum genere accepta fuit !
O Servator, non aliter quidem Sponsse tuae, quam ipsi tibi factum sentio. Par ut illi fores, tu de te dixisti ipse. Vermis sum, non homo. Talis in ilia terrene humiliationis conditione fuisti : talis esse voluisti. Sed, uti verum vcrbuni illud est, qui fecit in coelo angelos, etiam in
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made also^the worms on earth : so it is no less true, that He, who made himself and his Church worms upon earth, hath raised our nature in his person above the angels ; and our person, in his Church, to little less than angels. It matters not how we fare in this valley of tears, while we are sure of that infinite amends of glory above.
ON THE SIGHT OF A GREAT LIBRARY.
What a world of wit is here packed up together ! I know not, whether this sight doth more dismay, or comfort me : it dismays me, to think that here is so much that I cannot know ; it comforts me, to think that this variety yields so good helps to know what I should. There is no truer word than that of Solomon ; There is no end of making many books. This sight verifies it. There is no end : indeed, it were pity there should. God hath given to man a busy soul ; the agitation whereof cannot but, through time and experience, work out many hidden truths : to suppress these, would be no other than in- jiu-ious to mankind, whose minds, like unto so many candles, should be kindled by each other. The thoughts of our deliberation are most accurate : these we vent into our papers. What a happiness
terra fecisse vermiculos : ita non minus etiam verum est, qui se et Ecclesiam suam vermes fecit super terram, naturam utique nostram sibi adsumptam super omnes angelos elevasse ; personamque nostram, Ecclesiae suae membra, paulo minus angelis honorasse. Parum refert, quid nobis fiat in hac valle lachryniarum, dum certi simus pauxillum hoc miseriae seterno ccelestis glorise pondere compensandum.
CONSPECTA BIBLIOTHECA INSTRUCTISSIMA.
Quantus ingenii et eruditionis mundus istic congeritur! Nescio certe, plusne mihi animi adimat, addatve spectaculum hoc : adimit quidem, quod tam multa hie sint, quae ego scire nullus unquam potero ; addit vero, quod varietas haec tanta tam accommoda mihi adminicula suppeditet, ea quae debeo cognoscendi. Nihil verius est illo Solomonis ; Librorum conjiciendorum Jinis nullus est. Etiam spectaculum istoc luculento indicio est. Finis nullus est : imo, nec esse debet quidem. Operosam agilemque animam indulsit homini Deus ; cujus assiduae agitationes non possunt non multas, obstetricante interim tempore et experientia, abstrusas veritates in lucem producere : istas si quis supprimere ac suffocare vellet, nse ille humano generi, cujus mens mutuo lumine accendi usque solet, baud parum injurius foret. E diuturna deliberatione et studio ortae cogitationes accu- ratissimae omnium sint oportet : has scilicet chartis committimus.
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is it, that, without all offence of necromancy, I may here call up any of the ancient worthies of learning, whether human or divine, and confer with tliem of all my doubts ! that I can, at pleasure, summon whole synods of reverend fathers and acute doctors from all the coasts of the earth, to give their well-studied judgments, in all points of question which I propose ! Neither can I cast my eye casually upon any of these silent masters, but I must learn some- what. It is a wantonness to complain of choice. No law binds us to read all : but the more we can take in and digest, the better- liking inust the mind needs be. Blessed be God, that hath set up so many clear lamps in his Church : now, none, but the wilfully Wind, can plead darkness. And blessed be the memory of those his faithful servants, that have left their blood, their spirits, their lives, in these precious papers ; and have willingly wasted themselves into these during monuments, to give light unto others.
ON THE RUINS OF AN ABBEY.
It is not so easy to say, what it was that built up these walls ; as what it was that pulled them dovTO : even the wickedness of the pos-
Quantae fcelicitatis est, posse me heic, absque omni necromanticae vitio, quemlibet priscorum heroum doctrina?, sive humanae sive divinae, statim evocare, cumque illis dubia mea omnia liberrime communicare I posse, pro libito, totas reverendorum patrum acutis- simorumque doctorum synodos ab omnibus terrae plagis, suffragia sua mihi, de arduis quibusque subortis quaestionibus, non temera ilia quidem sed mature digesta laturas, convocare ! Neque vel casu oculos conjicere possum in tacitorum istorum praeceptorum quem- piam, quin aliquid addiscam illico. De copia vero conqueri, delicati est nauseantisque animi. Nulla nos lex jubet omnes perlegere : quanto vero plures imbiberimus digesserimusque, tanto certe magis crescat pinguescatque animus necesse est. Benedictus sit Deus, qui tot claras lampades in Ecclesia sua accenderit: nemo nunc, nisi qui ceecutit volens, tenebras causari potest. Benedicta sit etiam fidelium ipsius servorum memoria, qui tantum sudoris, sanguinis, spirituumque, ani- maruni denique, in pretiosissimis hisce chartis reliquerint ; seque lubentes in duratura hoec monumenta profuderint, ut aliis praelu- cerent.
VISIS MOXASTERII CUJUSDAM KUINIS.
Non ita facile dictu est, quid parietes istos olim extruxerit; ac quid modo dejecerit : ipsa nempe dominonmi ncquitia. Unicuique
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sessors. Every stone hath a tongue, to accuse tlie superstition, hypo- crisy, idleness, luxury of the late owners. Methinks, I see it written all along, in capital letters, upon these heaps, A fruitful land maketh he barren, for the iniquity of them that dwell therein. Perhaps, there wanted not some sacrilege in the demolishers. In all the carriage of these businesses there was a just hand, that knew how to make an wholesome and profitable use of mutual sins. Full little did the builders or the indwellers think that this costly and warm fabric should so soon end violently in a desolate rubbish.
It is not for us to be high-minded, but to fear. No roof is so high, no wall so strong, as that sin cannot level it with the dust. Were any pile so close that it could keep out air, yet it could not keep out judgment, where sin hath been fore-admitted. In vain shall we promise stability to those houses which we have made witnesses of and accessaries to our shameful uncleannesses : the firmness of any building is not so much in the matter, as in the owner. Happy is that cottage that hath an honest master, and woe be to that palace that is viciously inhabited.
lapidi lingua est, quie nuperorum possessorum superstitionem, hypo- crisin, otium, luxuriam subincuset. Videor mihi, videre in unaquaque liarum congerie, majusculis characteribus, inscriptum, Terrain frugi- feram sterilem reddit, ob iniquitatem incolentium. Non defuit, forte, aliquod in demolitoribus ^dium istarum sacrilegii. In toto quidem negotio hoc, justa quaedam manus fuit, quae mutua hominum peccata ad sanum salubremque usum redigere noverat. Parum profecto cogi- tarant vel architecti vel incolae, tam sumptuosam commodeque con- structam fabricam adeo cito violenterque in desertis ruderibus desi- turam.
Non est quod nos efferamur animo, sed timeamus. Nullum ita altum tectorium est, nullus paries tam firmus, quem peccatum solo pulverique acquare non possit. Esto moles qu;epiam tam accurate fabricata clausaque, ut ne aerem quidem ipsum admittat ; peccatum intromiserit modo, judicium Dei frustra excludere tentaverit. Nequic- quam profecto stabilitatem a?dibus illis pollicebimur, quas nos turpis- sinue immunditite nostrte et testes et reas usque fecerimus : aedificii cujusque firmitudo, non tam materice adscribenda est, quam domino. Fcelix ilia casa est, qua? honestum sortita est dominum ; vae palatio, cui vitiosus obtigit habitator.
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ON THE SIGHT OF A LILY.
This must needs be a goodly flower, that our Saviour liath singled out, to compare with Solomon ; and that not in his ordinary dress, but in all his royalty. Surely, the earth had never so glorious a king as he. Nature yielded nothing, that might set forth royal magnifi- cence, that he wanted : yet He, that made both Solomon and this flower, says, that Solomon, in all his royally, was not clad like it.
What a poor thing is this earthly bravery, that is so easily over- matched ! How ill judges are we of outward beauties, that contemn these goodly plants, which their Creator thus magnifies ; and admire those base metals, which He, in comparison hereof, contemns I If it be their transitoriness that embaseth them, what are we t All Jlesh is grass ; and all the glory of man, as the flower of grass. As we can- not be so brave, so we cannot be more permanent.
O God, let it be my ambition to walk with thee hereafter in white ! Could I put on a robe of stars here, with proud Herod, that glittering garment could not keep me from lice or worms. Might I sit on a throne of gold within a house of ivory, I see I should not compare with this flower : I might be as transitory ; I should not be so beau-
AD CONSPECTUM LILIORUM.
Non potest non esse flos pulcherrimus, quem selegit Servator noster, ipsi Solomoni, non quotidiano quidem habitu, induto, sedsplen- dore regio jam tum ornatissimo, conferendum. Certe, nullus unquam rex terrae fuit, aeque ac ille gloriosus. Nihil sane produxit natura, regiae magnificentiae illustrandge idoneum, quod ipsi defuit : ille tamen, qui utrunque et Solomonem et florem hunc fecerat, ait, Solomonem, vel regio apparatu insignem, huic Jlori parem nonfuisse.
Quam frivola est terrena istsec gloria, qu<fi tam facile potest exupe- rari ! Quam iniqui sumus nos formarum externarum judices, qui spe- ciosas hasce plantas, quas ita laudat Creator, adeo contemnimus ; admiramurque viliora quaeque metalla, quae ille, istarum habita ratione, contemnit ! Quid vero est ? nunquid istge tam cita aritudine vilescunt ? at nos ipsi quid sumus ? Omnis caro foemim ; et omnis gloria hominis, nt flos agri. Ut nos Deque speciosi esse non possumus, ita neque magis permanentes.
O Deus, ilia mihi ambitio esto, tecum postmodo albis indutum ambulare. Vestem si ego istic stellis ornatam, cum superbo Herode, gestavero, splendida ilia toga non me poterit a pediculis vermiculisve vindicare. Insiderem modo throno aureo in domo eburnea, cum istoc tamen flore minime forem comparandus : ;cque certe caducus esse possem ; non ieqi\c speciosus. Quid rcfert pro florene, hie, habear.
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tiful. What matters it, wlietlier I go for a flower, or a weed, here ? Whethersoever, I must wither. O thou, which art greater than Solo- mon, do thou clothe me witli thy perfect righteousness ! so shall L flourish for ever, in the courts of the house of my God.
ON THE VIEW OP THE WORLD.
It is a good thing, to see this material world ; but it is a better thing, to think of the intelligible world. This thought is the sight of the soul, whereby it discenieth things like itself, spiritual and im- mortal ; which are so much beyond the worth of these sensible objects, as a spirit is beyond a body, a pure substance beyond a corruptible, an Infinite God above a finite creature.
O God, how great a word is that, which the Psalmist says of thee. That thou abasest thyself, to behold the things both in heaven and earth ! It is our glory, to look up even to the meanest piece of heaven : it is an abasement to thine incomprehensible Majesty, to look down upon the best of heaven. ' Oh, what a transcendent glory must that needs be, that is abased to behold the things of heaven ! What a happiness shall it be to me, that mine eyes shall le exalted to see thee, who art humbled to see the place and state
an herba noxia? Uterlibet sim, arescam necesse est, O tu, qui major es Solomone, indue me perfecta justitia tua : sic ego, in atriis domiis Dei mei, seternum efflorescam.
CONSPEOTA MUNDI FABRICA.
Vel materialem hunc mundum cemere, bonum est ; melius tamen, mundum intelligibilem cogitare. Cogitatio hsec animee quaedam visio est, qua res sui similes, spirituales scilicet immortalesque contem- platur ; quae quidem objecta sensibilia quaeque non minus exuperant, quam spiritus materiam corpoream; substantia pura corruptibilem, Deus Infinitus finitam creaturam, transcendit.
O Deus, quale illud Psaltis de te tui verbum est, Humiliare te nempe temetipsum, ut contempleris et quae in ccelo sunt et quw in terra ! Haud parum nobis glorise est, vel infimam cceli partem con- tueri : humihatio vero quaedam tui est, vel optimam coeli partem despicere. Quanta mihi foelicitas erit, adeo exaltatum iri oculos meos ut te videant, cujus tam immensa est gloria, ut vel locum statumque beatitudinis mece videre, quoddam demissionis genus sit ! Imo, ipsi illi angeli, qui faciem tuam adspiciunt, ita gloriosi sunt, ut si quam unius istorum faciem intueremur, tant;e nos gloriae diutius saperesse
[' Omitted in the Latin.]
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BISHOP HALL.
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of my blessedness ! Yea, those very angels, tliat see thy face, are so resplendently glorious, tliat we could not overlive the sight of one of their faces, who are fain to hide their faces from the siglit of thine. How many millions attend thy throne above, and thy foot- stool below, in the ministration to thy saints ! It is that thine invisible world, the communion wlierewith can make me truly blessed. O God, if my body have fellowship here amongst beasts, of whose earthly substance it participates ; let my soul be united to thee, the God of spirits ; and be raised up to enjoy the insensible society of thy blessed angels. Acquaint me beforehand with those citizens and affairs of thy heaven ; and make me no stranger to my future glory.
ON THE VARIETY OP THOUGHTS.
When I bethink myself, how eternity depends upon this moment of life, I wonder how I can think of anything but heaven : but, when I see the distractions of my thoughts, and the aberrations of my life, I wonder, how I can be so bewitched, as, while I believe a heaven, so to forget it. All that I can do, is, to be angry at mine own vanity. My thoughts would not be so many, if they were all right. There are ten thousand by-ways, for one direct. As there is but one heaven, so there is but one way to it ; that living way,
non possemus, qui tamen interea faciem suam ab aspectu tui splendoris abscondunt. Quot horum myriades, et throno tuo in coelis, et scabello in terris, Sanctis istic tuis, ministraturae, sive adstant, sive provolvun- turl Mundus ille tuus alter invisibilis, is est, cujus communio nos vere foelices preestare potest. O Deus, si corpus meum hie cum brutis, quonuTi terrenam substantiam participat, versetur ; uniatur anima mea tecum, spirituum Deo ; et ad insensibilis beatorum tuorum angelorum societatis fruitionem elevetur. Fac pree manu intercedat mihi cum civibus rebusque ccsli tui sancta qutedam familiaritas ; neque sim futurae gloriae hospes ac peregrinus.
DE COGITATIONUM VARIETATE.
Ubi cogito, quam ab hoc vituj momento pendet eeternitas, miror posse me quid aliud, priEter cesium, meditari : ubi video cogitationum mearum distractiones varias, vitaeque meae aberrationes, miror rursum, quomodo ita possim fascinari, ut coelum hoc, quod credo, adeo obli- viscar. Quod unum modo facere possum, illud est, vanitati meae succensere. Non ita variae essent cogitationes meae, si rectse forent omnes. Pro uno directo tramite, mille sunt devii. Ut unum tantum coelum est, ita una est, quae co ducit, via ; viva ilia nempe via, in qua.
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wlierein I walk by faith, by obedience. All things, the more perfect they are, the more do they reduce tliemselves towards that unity, which is the centre of all perfection.
O thou, who art one and infinite, draw in my heart from all these straggling and unprofitable cogitations ; and confine it to thy heaven, and to thyself who art the heaven of that heaven. Let me have no life, but in thee ; no care, but to enjoy thee ; no ambition, but thy glory. Oh, make me thus imperfectly happy, before my time ; that, when my time shall be no more, I may be perfectly happy with thee in all eternity.
ON THE BEQINNING OF A SICKNESS.
It was my own fault, if I looked not for this. All things must undergo their changes. I have enjoyed many fair days : there was no reason, I should not at last make account of clouds and storms. Could I have done well, without any mixtures of sin, I might have hoped for entire health ; but, since I have interspersed my obedience with many sinful failings and enormities, why do I think much, to interchange health with sickness ? ^Vliat I now feel, I know : I am not worthy to know, what I must feel. As my times, so my measures, are in the hands of a wise and good God. My comfort is. He, that sends these evils, proportions them. If they be sharp, 1 am sure
fide et obedientia ambulo. Quo perfectiora sunt omnia, eo se magis ad unitatem illam, quae perfectionis omnis centrum est, reducunt.
O tu, qui unus es idemque infinitus, retrahe cor meum, ab omnibus vagis inutihbusque cogitationibus ; affigeque me tuo coelo, tibique ipsi qui cceli illius coelum es. Nulla mihi, nisi in te, vita sit ; nulla cura, nisi te fruendi ; nulla, nisi glorise tuse, ambitio. Fac me sic, ante tempus, imperfecte foelicem ; ut, ubi tempus non erit amplius, perfecte beatus esse possim per omnem seternitatem.
INEUNTE MORBO.
Mea quidem unius culpa fit, quod ego istud non expectaverim. Omnia suas vicissitudines subeant necesse est. Multos ego serenos detrivi dies : nonerat, quod non ahquando nubes et turbines praesen- tirem. Si modo potuissem ego semper bene agere, absque omni pec- cati mistura, perfectam forte sanitatem merito sperassem ; sed, ciim obedientiam meam multis defectibus vitiosis enormibusque delictis intersperserim, cur mihi aegre est, misceri morbum valetudini ? Quid nunc sentiam, novi : quid deinceps perpessurus sim, non dignus sum qui sciam. Ut tempora mea, ita rerum mearum mensurte, penes sapi- entissimum benignissimumque Deum sunt. lUud me solatur unice.
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tliey are just : the most, that I am capable to endure, is the least part of what I have deserved to suffer. Nature would fain be at ease ; but, Lord, wliatever become of this carcase, thou hast reason to have respect to thine own glory. I have sinned ; and must smart. It is the glory of thy mercy, to beat my body for the safety of my soul. The worst of sickness, is pain ; and the worst of pain, is but death. As for pain, if it be extreme, it cannot be long ; and if it be long, such is the difference of earthly and hellish torments, it cannot be extreme. As for death, it is both unavoidable, and beneficial ; there ends my misery, and begins my glory : a few groans are well bestowed, for a preface to an immortal joy.
Howsoever, O God, thy messenger is worthy to be welcome. It is the Lord ; let him do whatsoever he will.
qui mihi immisit mala haec, modum etiam iisdem malis preestituisse. Si gravia sint, scio esse justa : maximum eorum, quae ego ferre possum, minimum est eorum quee perpeti meruerim. Quieti indulgere vellet natura ; sed, O Deus, quicquid fiat de cadavere hoc meo, jure bono tu gloriam tuam respicis. Ego peccavi ; necesse est vapulem. Mi- sericordiae tuse ingens gloria est, corpus meum verberare, ut animam serves. Pessimum morbi, dolor est; pessimum doloris, mors est. Dolorem quod spectat, si gravis is sit, diutumus esse nequit ; si diutur- nus, illud nempe discriminis est inter terrenum hunc et infernum cruciatum, gravis esse non potest. Mortem vero quod attinet, et inevitabilis ilia est, et baud parum benefica : ibi desinit miseria mea, incipit gloria. Bene locantur pauci gemitus, ubi praeludio sunt immor- talis gloriae.
Quicquid sit nuntius tuus, O Deus, dignus est qui summa gratu- latione excipiatur. Domiims est ilicet : quid viilt, facial.
[A. D.
ANTHONY FARINDON.
A. D. 1630 — 1658.
This learned and eloquent divine, and patient sharer in the sufferings of the Church of England, was successively scholar, fellow, and tutor of Trinity College, Oxford. He became, in 1634, vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, and was soon afterwards appointed preacher in the royal chapel at Windsor. During the progress of the Rebellion, he was deprived of his preferments ; and is said to have been, on his expulsion from Bray, plundered and otherwise ill-treated by Ireton, in re- venge for some reprimand which that tyrannical republican had received from him, when a wild youth at college. Poor Farindon, with his wife and seven children, was reduced to such extreme distress, that they must have perished, had not some charitable friends come forward to their relief; among whom the principal was " the ever-memorable John Hales." The inhabitants of St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street, likewise invited him to be their pastor. Of this seasonable resource also he was, however, after a short time, deprived by the ordinance which prohibited the sequestered clergy from offi- ciating in any church within seven miles of London. Such nevertheless was the esteem his parishioners had for him, that collections were made in his behalf at the church-doors, the last two Sundays before his leaving the parish, which produced the sum of £400. It was, most probably, the receipt of this bounty that enabled him, when Hales in his turn was reduced to penury by the oppression of those in power, to refund a portion of what he had enjoyed from that illustrious scholar's liberality. Sir John Robinson, a wealthy alderman of London, was likewise among the generous benefactors to this persecuted family, both before and after the death of Farindon. Whe- ther Farindon ever recovered possession of his church in Milk Street, is not recorded : in that parish however he died, in the month of September, 1658; leaving behind the character
1658.]
ANTHONY FARINDON.
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of an orthodox, rational, modest, and patient confessor — " a worthy example," writes Wood, " to be imitated by all."
We have no remains of Farindon, except two volumes of sermons, in folio. The first of these volumes contains thirty- three discourses, with a dedication by himself to Sir John Robinson, dated in April, 1657. The second volume com- prises forty-seven sermons : it was published after his decease, by Dr. Anthony Scattergood, and dedicated by his executors to Sir Orlando Bridgman. From the dedication we learn, that this gentleman was among those who charitably befriended the author's widow and children in their bereavement.
Concerning these discourses, we are told by Archdeacon Todd, that " none are more worthy again to issue from the press in this our day." The republication of two such golden volumes would, indeed, be a benefit conferred on this age. Nervous, yet flowing ; learned, but elegant ; marked with the profoundest impress of thought, and adorned with all the charms of graceful rhetoric, they may be compared to the best of Bishop Taylor's ; if we can imagine that great genius stripped of the cumbrous magnificence of his redundant fan- cies, and moving, with a sober and equable state, somewhat nearer to the earth than he was wont.
We learn from Pearson, in his preface to Hales's Golden Remains, that Farindon had prepared materials for the life of his admired friend and benefactor ; but no such collection was found among his papers.
ON PREJUDICE IN RELIGION.
The affections are blind, and when they carry us along with violence they do not judge but choose: Unicuique sua cupiditas tem- pestas est, every man's inordinate affection is not only as a wind to drive forward, but a tempest to whirl him about from error to error, which commonly is like that affection that raiseth it. But the philosopher' will tell us no tempest is long, but soon breatheth itself forth ; and when the cloud is removed the eye is clear. In his wrath Esau will kill his brother ; but when time had worn that out, he is a brother again, and he meeteth and kisseth him. David's lust brought him to the forbidden bed, but the voice of a prophet maketh him wash it with his tears. It is open to our observation, that what men do out of passion, they do they know not how, and the greatest reason they
VOL. I.
' Seneca.
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[A.D.
have, is, tliat they do it ; and if in passion we pass any judgment, it is not long lived, but wasteth, and decayeth and dieth with it. But prejudice is a rooted and a lasting evil, an evil we are jealous of because we think it good, and we build upon it as upon a sure founda- tion ; so that he that looketli but towards it, that doth but breathe against it, appeareth as an enemy that cometh to dig and cast it down. Sometimes, we see, it is raised by the affections, sometimes the affec- tions intermingle and weave themselves with it ; but most commonly they come in the rear of prejudice, and follow as the effects of it, and help to strengthen and continue it. And thus we love him who is of our opinion, because it is ours ; and we hate him who opposeth it, upon the same reason ; we are afraid of every proffer and angry with every word that is spoken against it. And this gathereth every conventicle, this mouldeth every sect, coineth every heresy. This is that sword which our Saviour speaketh of, which maketh division of a man from liis father, and a daughter from her mother, and maketh enemies of those who are of a man's own household. It is that east-wind which bringeth in the locusts, which cover the face of the Church and make it dark, and eat up those fruits of peace and holiness which otherwise we might gather. And indeed it worketh most trouble in the house of peace, in the Church, in controversies concerning religion. For in philosophical treaties new discoveries are very welcome ; and if there rise any debate, it goeth no farther than to curst words, and seldom breaketli out to personal hazard ; but these of more divine speculation, which should be managed with peace and charity, are commonly held up with great heat and pride of wit, which some call shame, which men have to seem to have erred. Which may be the reason why we have so few instances of retractation, — but one among the ancients', and of latter days one more''; but such a one as did but like some plumbers, make his business worse by mending it. So harsh a thing it is to the nature of men to seem to have mistaken, and so powerful is prejudice : for to confess an error is to say we wanted wit.
And therefore we should fly from prejudice as from a serpent: for it deceiveth us as the serpent did Eve, giveth a " No" to God's " Yea ;■' maketh men true, and God a liar, and nulleth the sentence of death. " You shall die the death," when this is the interpreter, is, " Your eyes shall be opened ;" and to deceive ourselves, is to " be as gods, knowing good and evil." And it may well be called a serpent ; for the biting of it is like that of the tarantula ; the working of its venom maketh us dance and laugh ourselves to death ; for a settled, prejudicate, though false, opinion may build
' Augustine.
■' Bellarmiue.
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up as strong resolutions as a true. Saul was as zealous lor the law as Paul was for the gospel. A heretic will he as loud for a fiction us the orthodox for the truth ; tlie Turk as violent for his Mahomet as a Christian for his Saviour. Habd diabolus suos martyres — For the devil hatli his martyrs as well as God. And it is prejudice which is that evil spirit that casteth them into the fire and the water, that consumeth or drowneth them, that leadeth them forth like Agag, delicately to their death.
And this is most visible in those of the Church of Rome. We may see even the marks upon them, obstinacy, insolency, scorn and contempt, a proud and high disdain of any thing that appeareth like reason, or of any man that shall speak it to teach and recover them : which are certainly the signs of the biting of this serpent prejudice, or as some will call it, the mark of the beast. Qiidvi gravis inciihat! — How heav^ doth prejudice lie upon them who are taught to renounce their very sense, and to mistrust, nay to deny, their reason ; who see with other men's eyes, and hear with other mens ears; qui non animo sed auribus cogitant^, who do not judge with their mind but with their ears! The first prejudice is, that theirs is the Catholic Church, and cannot err ; and then all other search and inquiry is vain. For what need tliey go furtlier to find tlie truth than to the high priest's chair, to which it is bound ? And this they back and strengthen with many others ; of antiquity, making that most true which is most ancient. And yet, omnia Vetera nova fuere, that which is now old was at first new." And by this argument truth was not truth when it first began, nor the light light when it first sprung from on high and visited us. And besides, truth, though it had found professors but in this latter age, yet was first born ; because error is nothing else but a deviation from the truth, and cometh forth last, and layeth hold on the heel of truth to supplant it. Besides these, councils ; which may err, and the truth many times is voted down when it is put to most voices. Nazianzen was bold to censure them, as having seen no good effect of any of them. And we ourselves have seen, and our eyes have dropped for it, what a mere name, what prejudice, can do with the many, and what it can countenance. And many others they have : — of miracles ; which were but lies : — of glory, which is but vanity : — of universality, which is bounded and confined to a certain place. With these and the like that first prejudice, that "the Church cannot err," is underpropt and upheld. And yet again these depend upon that : such a mutual complication there is of errors, as in a bed of snakes. If the first be not true, then these were
■'' Apul. De iniindo.
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ANTHONY FARINDON.
[A. D.
notliing : and if these pillars be once shaken (and they are but mud) that will soon sink in its reputation, and not sit so high as magisterially to dictate to all the churches of the world.
And as we have set up this queen of churches as an ensample of the effects of prejudice, so may we hold it up as a glass to see our own. She saith we are a schismatical, we please and assure ourselves that we are a reformed church : and so we are ; and yet prejudice may find a place even in the Reformation itself. Rome is not only guilty of this, but even some members of the Reform- ation, who think themselves nearest to Christ when they run farthest from that church, though it be from the truth itself. And this is nothing else but prejudice, to judge ourselves pure because our church is purged ; to be less reformed, because that is reformed ; or to think that heaven and happiness will be raised and rest upon a word or name, and that we are saints as soon as we are Pro- testants. Almost every sect and every faction laboureth under this prejudice, and feeleth it not, but runneth away with its burden. And too many there be who predestinate themselves to heaven, when they have made a surrendry of themselves to such a church, to such a company or collection ; nay, sometimes, but to such a man. I accuse not Luther or Calvin of error, but honour them rather, though I know tliey were but men ; and I know they have erred, or else our church doth, in many things ; and it were easy to name them. But suppose they had broached as many lies as the father of them could suggest ; yet they who have raised them in their esteem to such an height must needs have too open a breast to have received them as oracles, and to have licked up poison itself if it had fallen from their pens, since they have the same motive and inducement to believe them when they err, which they have to believe them when they speak the truth, and that is no more than the name. Tolle Catojiem de causa, said Tully', Cato was a man of virtue, and carried authority witli it ; and therefore he thought him not a fit witness in that cause against Mursena, for his very name might overbear and sink it. Tolle Augustinum de causa : Take away the name of Augustine, of Luther, and Calvin, and Arminius ; for they are but names, not arguments. There is but one Name by vvliich we may be saved ; and his Name alone must have authority, and prevail with us, who is " the Author and Finisher of faith." We may honour others, and give unto them tliat which is theirs ; but we must not deify them, nor pull Christ out of his throne to place them in iiis room. Of this we may be sure, there is not, there cannot be, any influence in a name to make a con-
' Oral, pro Murtena.
1658.]
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elusion true or false ; and if we fix it in our mind as in its firmament, it will sooner dazzle than enlighten us. Nor is it of so great use as men may imagine. For they who read or hear can eitlier judge, or are weak of understanding. To them who are able to judge and to discern errors from truth, a name is but a name and no more, and is no more esteemed ; for they look upon the truth as it is, and receive it for itself. But for those who aro of a narrow ca- pacity, and fail in their intellectuals, a name will sooner lead them into error than into the truth ; or if into truth, it is but by chance : for it should have found the same welcome and entertainment had it been an error, for the name's sake ; for a name is their rule, and not the thing. All they now gain is, that having sucli a leader they shall fall with more honour into the ditch.
It will be good then to be wary and watchful against ourselves, and so to deprehend ourselves, and not to love ourselves so as to be the greatest enemies we have ; not to take that upon trust to which we entrust our souls, and on which we depend as our surest guide to that happiness which now our hope and expectation looketh on ; but to try and examine even the truth itself, and to know what ground we stand on ; whether our foundation be firm and sure, whether that which we have been taught be not now to be un- learned, whether we have not took up that which we should have run from, delighted in that which we should hate, loved that which we should have feared, been too long familiar with that which will undo us ; whether our natural temper and complexion, education and custom, have not carried us so far from ourselves, with that swift but insensible motion, that we had no leisure to look back and consult with our reason, which was given us for our best help and guide ; whether delight, or profit, or honour, or security, did not make up our creed for us ; whether in our pursuit of the truth they were not the only lure which we did strike upon, and now adhere to as to the truth itself. It will be good, thus to try and examine every conclusion which we have made our rule, to let one day teach another, maturity oversee and judge our greener years, and the wisdom of age correct the easiness of our youth, reason recognize our education, consideration control custom, judgment censure our delight, and the new man crucify the old ; in a word, to think that we may have erred, and not to be so wise as, be- cause we are deceived, to be so for ever.
Of this we may be sure, for it is obvious to our eye, tiiat our education can be no forcible motive to bind us everlastingly to any conclusion. For our pupillage doth too often, most unfortunately, fall under such tutors as instil not any principles in us but their
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own ; which are not always true, but more often false ; being such which they also took up upon trust from their instructors. And then, custom prevaileth more in evil than in good, and in those ways in wliicli the flesh is carried on with a swing and violence then in those in which we use to move but heavily. And there be a thousand false fires at which we kindle our delight, and there can be but one true one. And therefore in these conclusions which we ourselves deduce and draw out of known principles (in which all agree, and in which our first judgment is our last) we must be Iree and disengaged, not in subjection to any thing, not under the awe of our first instructors, or of custom, or of any name under the sun, or of our satisfaction and delight, which we so often mis- place, or of profit and advantage, which name we commonly give to that which undoeth us. Nor must we be so positive, so wedded to our own decrees, as to be averse and strange when a fair over- ture is made of better ; because, having no surer conduct than these, it is more probable we should err than judge aright ; and from hence error hath multiplied itself, and is that monster with so many heads, even from this presumption in men, that they cannot err; and we see many most conclusive and confident in that which they have but lightly looked upon, and never came so near as to survey it, and so discover what it is. For if men were either impartial to themselves, or so prudently humble as to hearken to the judge- ment of others, and to try and examine all, the prince of this world and the father of lies would not have so much in us, nor should we be in danger of so forward a generation. If men were not so soon good, they would not be so often evil ; if they were not sure, they would not err ; and if they were not so wise, they would not be so much deceived.
Nor doth this submission and willingness to hear reason blast or endanger that truth which reason or revelation hath planted in us, but improveth it rather to a fairer growth and beauty, as we see gold hath more lustre by its trial. And this readiness to hear what may be said either for or against it, is a fair evidence that we fell not upon it by chance, nor received it, as we do the devil's temptations, at the first shew and appearance, but have maturely and carefully deliberated, and fastened it to our souls by frequent meditation, and are rooted, and estabUshed in it. Neither doth it argue any fluctuation or wavering of the mind, or unfixedness of judgment. For mutatio sententia; non est inconstantia, saith TuUy, " to disannual a former judgment upon better evidence," is not inconstancy ; nor doth he stagger in his way who foUoweth a clearer light. And had not Tally forgot himself and what he here said, which may well go
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tor a rule, lie would not have made it a part of that eulogy and commendations which he giveth to another orator, that " he never spake word which he would recal ; which, in St. Augustine's judg- ment, is truer of a fool than a wise man ' : for who more positive and peremptory than fools, who being what they are, will be ever so ? No, to be willing to hear, to learn, to " prove every thing," is the stability rather and continued act of reason ; it is its natural and certain course to judge of that which is most reasonable. And the mind in this dotli no more wander than the planets do ; which are said to do so, because they appear now in this, now in that part of the heavens, but yet keep their constant and natural motion. Thus it entertainetli truth for itself ; nor suflfereth error to enter but in that name and resemblance. And when truth appearetli in its rays and glory, and that liglit which doth most throughly and best discover it, it runneth from error as from a monster, and boweth to tlie sceptre and com- mand of truth. It is never so wedded to any conclusion, though never so specious, as not to be ready to put it by and forsake it, when another presenteth itself which liath better evidence to speak for it, and commend it to its choice and practice. Thus St. Paul was a champion of the law, and after that a martyr of the gospel : thus he persecuted Christians, and thus he died one. Thus St. Peter would not converse and eat with tlie heathen, as polluted and unclean ; yet when the sheet was let down, and in it the will of Christ, he preached unto them and baptised them. This is the mother of all repentance : for what is repentance but the changing of our mind upon better information ? This, if it were well practised, would fill the world, which is now full of error, with recognitions and recan- tations, which are not only confessions, but triumphs over a conquered error, as the rejoicing and jubilees of men who did sit in darkness, but have now found the light. This would be an amulet and sure preservative against prejudice, and those common and prevailing errors to which it giveth life and strength, and which spread themselves as the plague, and infect whole families, cities, and nations. In brief, this would make our errors more venial, and men more peaceable : for he that seeketh the truth with this impartial diligence is rather un- » fortunate than faulty if he miss it ; and men would never advance their opinion with that heat and malice against dissenters, if they could once entertain this thought, that it is possible that they them- selves may err, and that that opinion in which they now say they will die, may be false, if they did not rest in the first evidence as best, and so suffer it to pass unquestioned, and never seek for "a
' August. Epist. II.
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sure word of prophecy," or a well-grounded assurance that this is one.
The sum of all Christianity is made up in this, to level and place all our hope where it should be, on God through Jesus Christ our Lord ; to love him, and keep his commandments, which are both open and easy when we are willing. In other more nice than useful disquisitions, I am well pleased to be puzzled and to be at a loss ; and yet am not at a loss, because I cannot lose that which I would not, which I cannot have ; and resolve for God, and not for myself, or indeed for myself because for God. And my answer is most satisfactory, that I believe the thing, and God only knoweth the mannner how it is, and doth not therefore reveal it because it is not fit for me to know.
When I am to appear before God in his house and at his table, I recollect my thoughts, and turn upon myself ; I severely enquire in what terms I stand with God and my neighbour ; whether there be nothing in me, no imagination, which standeth in opposition with Christ, and so is not suitable with the feast, nor with him that maketh it. And when this is done, my business is at an end ; for to attempt more is to do nothing, or rather that which I should not do : but I do not ask, with the schools, how the ten predicaments are in the eucharist, how the bread is con or tran-substantiated, or how the body of Christ is there ? For they who speak at distance most modestly, and tell us it is not corporally but yet really there, do not so define as to ascertain the manner, but leave it in a cloud and out of sight. " I know that my Redeemer liveth," and that he will raise me up at the last day ; for he hath promised who raised himself, and is " the first fruit of them that slept ;" but I do not enquire, what manner of trumpet it shall be that shall then sound, nor of the solemnity and manner of the proceeding at that day, or how the body which shall rise can be the same numerical body with that wliich did walk upon the earth. It is enough for me to know that " it is sown in dishonour," and " shall be raised in glory ;" and my business is to " rise with Christ" here, and make good my part in this first resurrection ; for then I am secure, and need not to extend my thoughts to the end of the world to survey and compre- hend the second.
To add one instance more, in the point of justification of a sinner, in which, after sixteen hundred years preaching of the gospel, and more, we do not well agree, and yet might well agree if we would take it as the Scripture hath reached it forth, and not burthen it with our own fancies and speculations, with new conclusions forced out of the light to obscure and darken it ; for when this burden
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is upon it, it must needs weigh according as the hand is that poisoneth it. And what necessity is there to ask whether it consist in one or more acts, so I do assure myself that it is the greatest blessing that God ever let fall upon the children of men ? or whether it be perfected in the pardoning of our sins, or the imputation of universal obedience, or by the active and passive obedience of Christ, when it is plain tiiat the act of justification is the act of the judge, and this cannot so much concern us as the benefit itself, which is the greatest that can be given ; I am sure, not so much as the duty, which must fit us for the act. It were to be wished that men would speak of the acts of God in his own language, and not seek out divers inventions, which do not edify, but many times shake and rend the Church in pieces, and lay the truth itself open to reproach, which had triumphed gloriously over error, had men " contended," not for their inferences and deductions, but for the common " faith which was once delivered to the saints." And as in justification, so in the point of faith by which we are justified : what j)rofit is it busily to enquire, whether the nature of faith consisteth in an obsequious assent, or in appropriating to ourselves the grace and mercy of God, or in the mere fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ ; whether it be an instrument or a condition ; whether a living faith justifieth, or whether it justifieth as a living faith. What will this add to me, what hair to my stature, when I may settle and rest upon this, which every eye must needs see, that the faith by which I am justified must not be dead faith, " but a faith working by charity ;" which is the language of faith, and demonstrateth her to be alive ? My sheep hear my voice, saith Christ ; 'AKovet, elnev ov, a-v^riTcT, saith Basil : They hear and obey, and never dispute or ask questions:" they taste, and not trouble and mud, that clear water of life. It is enough for us to be justified, it is enough for us to be saved ; which we may be, by pressing forward in the way which is smooth and plain, and not running out into the mazes and labyrinths of disputes, where we too oft lose ourselves in our search, and dispute away our faith ; talk of faith and the power of it, and be worse than infidels ; of justification, and please ourselves in un- righteousness ; of Christ's active obedience, and be " to every good work reprobate;" of his passive obedience, and deny him when we should suffer for him ; of the inconsistency of faith and good works in our justification, and set them at as great a distance in our lives and conversations, and because they do not help to justify us, think they have no concurrence at all in the work of our salvation. For we are well assured of the one and contend for it, and too many are too confident of the other. There is indeed a kind of intemperance
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in most of us, a wild and irregular desire to malvc things more or less than they are, and remove them well near out of sight by our additions and defalcations ; and few there are who can be content with the truth, and settle and rest in it as it appeareth in that nakedness and simplicity in which it was first brought forth ; but men are ever drawing out conclusions of their own, spinning out and weaving speculations, these unsuitable, unfit to be worn, which yet they glory in and defend with more heat and animosity than they do that truth which is necessary and by itself sufficient without this additional art. For these are creatures of our own, shaped out in our fancy, and so dressed up by us with all accurateness and curiosity of diligence, that we fall at last in love with them, and apply our- selves to them with that closeness and adherency which duUeth and taketh off the edge of our affection to that which is most necessary, and so leaveth that neglected and last in our thoughts which is the main : as we read of Euphranor the painter, who having stretched his fancy and spent the force of his imagination in drawing Neptune to the life, could not raise his after and wearied thought to the setting forth the majesty of Jupiter; so when we are so lively and overactive in that which is either impertinent or not so considerable, not much material to that which is indeed most material, we commonly dream, or are rather dead to those performances which the wisdom of God hath bound us to as the fittest and most proportioned to that end for which we were made.
And these, I conceive, are most necessary which are necessary to the work we have to do, and will infallibly bring us to the end of our faith and hopes. Others, which our wits have hammered and wrought out of them, may be peradventure of some use to those who are watchful over them to keep tliem in a pliableness and subserviency to that which is plain and received of all, but may prove dangerous and fatal to others who have not that skill to manage them, but favour them so much as to give them line and sufferance to carry them beyond their limit, and then shut them up in themselves, where they are lost to that truth which should save them, which they leave behind them out of their eye and remembrance, whilst they are busy in the pursuit of that which they overtake with danger, and without which the apostles of Christ, and many thousands before them, have attained their end, and are now in bliss. Certainly it would be more safe for us, and more worthy our calling, to be diligent and sincere in that which is plainly revealed,, to believe, and in the strength and power of that faith, to "crucify our flesh with the affections and lusts" {Hoc opys, hie labor est), than to be drawing out of sciiemes, and measuring out the actions and operations of God ; safer far to
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make ourselves fit to be justified, than too furiously to study how justification is wrought, in wliich study we are many times more subtle than wise ; in a word, safer to make ourselves capable of favour and mercy. For then the work is done, and the application made. For "all God's promises are Yea and Amen," and fall close with the performance of the duty. And as to apply them to ourselves is our comfort and joy, our heaven upon earth ; so to be able and fit to apply them is the work and labour of our faith and love whilst we abide in the flesh.
But besides these points of doctrine, wiiich are but inferences and deductions made by them, whereof some are easy and natural, and hold correspondence and affinity with the truth as it was delivered, and are upon that accoiuit to be " received as faithful sayings, of all men ; " others are more forced, and therefore as ejactaneous and un- profitable, as begetting more heat than love, and raising more noise than devotion ; besides these, there be conclusions in point of dis- cipline and church polity, in the defence of which we see much dust raised by men of divided minds and apprehensions, and many times both parties well near smothered in the bustle. For though discipline and government be necessary, yet the best fonn that was ever drawn cannot be absolutely necessary, because it cannot always find place wherein to shew itself, and the Holy Spirit of God never laid an absolute necessity but on those tilings which, as the Stoics speak, are etc tmu i<p' ^fxiv, " within our reach and power," or which we may do or have when we will. It is necessary " to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ," but it is not necessary to be under this or that discipline, though the best, fiirther than in affection a'nd desire. For in the midst of the changes and chances of this world, we cannot be what we would, nor be governed as we please.
We see well enough (for it is as visible as anything under the sun) that the sword, which hath no edge or point against the es- sential parts of reUgion (with which we may be certainly happy, and without which it is most certain we cannot), as it maketh its way, dictateth and appointeth what it please with a no)i obstante, not- withstanding all contrary constitutions, though never so ancient ; and discipline is either quite cut off, or else drawn out with the same hand which did form and shape the comm.onwealth. We have seen what a flow of troubles and dispute in matters of this nature hath passed on and carried away with it our peace and religion itself, and then left it as it were upon the sands to shift for itself, in the breasts of some few, who by Divine assistance are able to raise and cherish it up to some growth in themselves without these helps and advantages, and to give it a place and power in them even
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in the foulest weather ; being forced to be their own bishops and priests, when the liand of violence hath buried those their seers either in silence or in the grave. We have seen religion made an art and craft, and that which was first set up to uphold and pro- mote it struck at and trod upon as the only worm which did eat it out. We have seen the axe laid to the very root of it, by those sons of thunder and noise which is heard in every coast which these clouds liang over. We cannot but observe what art and diligence hath been used, what fire and brimstone hath been breathed forth, to cast it down. We have needed no perspective to look through the disguise under which they walk, or to behold with what slight and artifice they wrought themselves into the hearts of the people, who are never better pleased than when they are led as beasts to the slaughter, and do flatter and pride themselves most when thev are under tlie yoke. We see it hath been the work of an age to shatter and then blow away that form of polity in the Church which shewed itself to the profit and admiration of the best in so many, and was the fairest bulwark the Church had to secure her from the incursions of schism, heresy, and profaneness. Of which, if we had no other argument, the frenzy of this present age, the wild confusion and medley of the sects and factions which we see, may be an un- questionable evidence. And now we have seen it laid level with the ground. All this we have seen, but yet we do not see that discipline which did emulate and heave at it, and was placed in equipage with the gospel of Christ, we do not see that which was so much extolled as yet up in its room. Nay, we scarce see anything left but the idea of it, which they still carry with them with expectation and great hopes, which prophesy to them the building up of the second temple of this new form, which, might it obtain, would, they say, be far more glorious than the first. All this art and endeavour hath been used to make them great and supreme on earth ; the one half of which might have wrought out a crown for them in a better place. For that may be had if we will, and if we be faithful to the death, it will fall upon our heads. But in what ground our lines will fall, or how they will be drawn out, is a thing so far out of our reach and power, that no human providence can design and make it out. Day unto day teaches us, and the experience of all ages liath made it good, that they who like not what is, but only what they would have, and propose it to themselves and others, do many times open and pave a fair way to it, and walk forward towards it as full of hope as desire, and yet when they are come so near as even to touch and lay hold on it, may see it removed as far from them as before, and their hopes in their blossom and glory to fall off"; may live to
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see themselves in umbrage, under a more mild and friendly toleration, and behold that past by and sunk lower which they so longed to see in that height which might amaze and awe all about them, and bring them in that liarvest which was already gathered in their ex- pectation. I should be unwilling to stir the blood, or draw upon me the displeasure of any who have cast in their lot witli those who have been earnest in such a design ; and I have no other end but this, to shew the vanity and deceitfulness of such attempts, and how dangerous and vexatious a thing it is to drive so furiously after that which hath come towards us so often, and then turned the back, which we overtake and lose at once. For it is so in the world, and will be so even till the end of it, that which is mutable in its own nature may and will be changed ; nor is there anything certain but piety and bliss, the way and the end : and therefore those things which are not so essential to religion as that she cannot stand without them, and are essential only when they may be had, being exemplified and conveyed to us by the best hands, must not take up all that labour which we owe to the heat of the day, and those duties of Christianity which are the sum of all, and for which the others were ordained. When they may be had, we must bless God, and use them to that end for which they were given ; and when a stronger than we cometh upon us, and removetli them, look after them with a longing eye and bleeding heart, follow them with our sorrow and devotion, use ail lawful and peaceable means to bring them back, bewail our own ingratitude, which raised up that power that took them from us, and was the greatest strength they had ; and so press forward in that open and known way which no power can block up, in that obedience to the gospel which the sword cannot reach, wiiich no violence can hinder. For this alone can restore us to the favour of God, and restore to us those advantages which we first abused, then lost, and now " seek carefully," as Esau did the blessing, " with tears." In a word, these helps which we would have, and cannot always have, we may yet always have in our remembrance and affection ; but we must not so seek after them as to drive down all before us, and the gospel itself, in our motion and adventure towards them, but fix our eye and desires upon that heaven which is presented to us in the way, and on those divine rules of life from which no power on earth can absolve and disengage us, and for the neglect of which no necessity can be brought in as an apology ; and thus bless God in all things, even in those which are gone from us, and cleave fast to that which is most essential and necessary to the end, which is out of reach and danger, and which the power of darkness itself cannot take awav.
Farindon. — Preface to the first Volume of his Sermonn.
[A.D.
JOHN PLAIFERE.
A.D. 1652.
It can hardly escape discerning minds, in contemplating the period which now engages our attention, that those ques- tions which relate to the Augustinian or Calvinistic doctrines lay at the root of all the evils that threatened, and, in the end, overthrew the Church and monarchy of these realms. It was natural, therefore, that many scholars and divines should be found eagerly entering on the discussion of those doctrines ; some, on both sides, as controversialists ; others as moderators, with at least the appearance of impartiality. Among the ablest of the latter class may be named the author of a small, but not insignificant volume, entitled Appello Evangelium : An appeal to the Gospel, for the true doctrine of the Divine Predestination, concorded with the orthodox doctrine of God's Free Grace and Man^s Free Will. It bears the date l652 ; and its author, John Plaifere, B. D. is described in the title, as "sometime Fellow of Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, and late Rector of Debden in Suffolk." Any farther information respecting this learned writer the editor of the present work has not to impart. He is unable even to decide, whether, as Archdeaon Todd supposes, he was a relation of Dr. Thomas Plaifere, a man of distinguished character in the reigns of Elizabeth and Jatnes I, mentioned by Wood and others of our old writers.
Plaifere thus opens his preface:
" The principal end of that labour which brought forth this work, was, by the help of God and through his blessing, to get some satisfaction to myself in the great question of this age, de ordine et modo Prcedestinationis in mente Divind, secundvm nostrum in- tdligendi modum, concerning the order and manner of Divine Prae- destination, conceived in the mind of the oidy Wise, after the
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manner of our understiinding-, :is the lioly Scrijitiires liave revealed it unto us."
On this profound subject, he proceeds to state, there existed five several theories of note and estimation :
" These " says he, " I have examined and compared together. In four of the five, I find and acknowledge some parts and pieces of truth (for no probable doctrine can consist all of falsehoods), but mingled with such defects, as tliey seem to me to lead both into error in faith and into corruption of manners, if men should Hve after them ; and that not by abuse only (as may be pretended) but by just and necessary consequence, and by the nature of the very principles. But in the fiflih opinion (I will not say, there shineth forth the perfection of the full and naked truth, for since we see per speculum in cenigmate, if I should say, nudam veritatem videmus, nihil esset cwcius istd arrogantid visionL<i\ — yet this I say,) there seemeth to appear a cer- tain way of apprehending and of teaching this high mystery, sucli as is far more free from occasion of error, either in faith or in life, that may arise as from itself, than in any other form of the four formerly delivered."
The treatise itself consists of an examination and expla- nation, in brief, of these five opinions, followed by a confirma- tion and demonstration of the fifth, " by the light of divine revelation in God's holy word." In this latter portion, which in fact comprises the substance of the work, the author affirms that he has stated nothing " but the very doctrine of the ancient fathers of the Church, and builded upon the sense and letter of the holy Scriptures, and consonant to the public established doctrine of the Church of England, contained in the books of Articles, Common Prayer, and Homilies."
The first opinion exhibits Calvinism in its harshest form, as set forth in the Lambeth Articles : viz. That God from eternity absolutely, and of his mere will, decreed certain in- dividuals of the human race to everlasting life, others to ever- lasting death.
The second is the sublapsarian opinion ; according to which, reprobation consists in the decreeing to pass by a portion of mankind, as foreseen in a lost state : it is a forsaking of them in their helpless exposure to sin and death eternal, not the creation of them expressly to it. This view was held by Abbot, by Carleton, &c.
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The third presents the via media, followed in regard to this doctrine, by Overall and the British divines at Dort, viz. 1. That Christ died for the sins of the whole world. 2. That the promise of the Gospel is universal. 3. That grace suf- ficient is given to all that hear the Gospel, to believe and obey it ; but that for some men there was prepared by God a more superabundant and effectual grace than for others.
The fourth makes the elective decree depend on the fore- seen faith and perseverance in grace of the elect. This is the opinion of the Remonstrants or Arminians.
The fifth opinion so conceives of the Author of Divine Predestination, " as that we set not forth only some one or two of the divine attributes and properties, but preserve them all : his dominion and power, as the first opinion would ; his mercy and justice, as the second opinion would ; his truth and special grace, as the third opinion would ; his wisdom and foreknowledge, as the fourth opinion would ; and yet acknow- ledge ' his judgments unsearchable,' &c. as the Apostle would. Rom. xi. 33.""
That this last opinion represents " the orthodox doctrine, both of the ancient Church and of the Church of England," it is the author's design to prove. Having completed his task (ably at least, and learnedly, if not convincingly) he sums up his argument in an abridged form. With this sum- mary the reader will now be presented. It is not adduced as undoubtedly the true explanation of the doctrine, or of the sense of our Church ; but as an attempt, in a liberal and learned spirit, to reconcile, as the author's title imports, grace and free-will with each other, and divine predestination with both.
DOCTRINE OP PREDESTINATION.
Texts the foundation of it : Acts xv. 18, " Known unto God are all liis works from everlasting. Psal. cxxxv. 6, Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven and in earth. Rom. viii. 29, Whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate. 1 Pet. i. 2, To the elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Ephes. i. 3, 4, Blessed be God who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world."
To conceive aright of the order and manner of the divine pre- destination in the mind of God, revealed unto us in the holy
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Scriptures, after our manner of understanding ; it is necessary to con- sider sometliing of the nature of God, who did predestinate ; and something of tlie nature of man, who was predestinated.
Of tlie nature of God cliiefly in tiiis matter must be considered, with humble reverence, his infinite understanding or knowledge — his just will — his sovereign dominion.
His knowledge may be conceived of two sorts : that which is called scientia visionis, knowledge of vision, or that which is scientia sim- plicis intelligenticB, knowledge of simple or mere understanding : that is called also scientia libera, because it followeth some free act of the will of God ; this is called natiiralis, natural, because it is in God, who is of infinite understanding, before any act of his will be supposed to have passed.
His knowledge of vision, or of sight, is only of those things which either have or shall have a being, and therefore knowledge is after predestination, and builded upon it ; for when predestination hath decreed what things shall be, then God by his understanding of vision doth know them, as beholding them. Seeing then this knowledge is after predestination is finished and concluded, it hath no place in the act of God predestinating ; neither can anything that is under such knowledge or sight be any cause or rule of predestination : whence it appeareth that (Rom. viii. 29), " Whom he foreknew he did pre- destinate," such foreknowledge of vision cannot be understood, seeing there foreknowledge goes before predestinating, as predestinating goes before calling, and calling before justifying. So that they speak im- properly, that use the terms of prcevisa Jides, for fides prcecognila, in the question. Whether faith foreknown have any place in God's predestination : with this knowledge then of vision, we have no more to do in this matter.
God's knowledge of pure or simple understanding- is of the same things that are predestinate to be, but before they were predestinated, and of infinite things more, besides them : all which it understood and compared together, before anything was decreed or determined to be.
This knowledge is founded on God's omnipotency, for he knoweth his own power ; and so it is of things but as possible to be, if he please to give them being : and he knoweth also by this his under- standing (if he please to give them being) what will be their ope- rations and effects, and what may flow or issue from them, either as they are natural agents or voluntary : so by tliis means the knowledge of God ariseth to an infiniteness, and to be " without number," as the Psalmist saith (Ps. cxlvii. 7). But if it should be limited to these things alone, which have a being, and are within the circle of Leaven, or within the compass of the ages of the world, the knowledge VOL. I. 22
338
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[A.D.
of God sliould in a sort be finite, since these tilings, though to us they be many, yet certainly they are finite.
Now the first act of predestination was in choosing these things to be which now are, and the decree to put them into being, refusing and rejecting infinite other things, which God knew as possible as these, and which might have been, if it had pleased him. But of this predestination of all things that are, and the rejection of such things as are not, our inquiry and dispute is not, but of angels and men that have a being ; in what order and manner some were pre- destinated to life, and some rejected. To which my answer is, that this was not done without that self-same foreknowledge of simple understanding of this part of the world, angels and men, which was used in the predestinating of the whole ; that is to say :
1. That God did understand, that if it pleased him to create among other his glorious works, some creatures endued with reason, and of a free nature, they would be more fit than the rest for him to shew forth in them his wisdom, goodness, bounty, justice, mercy, fidelity, and all his glorious properties, yet it remained at his pleasure to create them or not.
2. That he did understand, that such creatures according to their freedom would vary in their choices, some cleaving fast to good, some declining to evil ; he knew this not only in general, and as possible, but particularly the very persons (if they were created, and put to the trial) ; yet it remained at his pleasure to create them, or to try them, or no, to permit or hinder any of them in their choices, which he knew how to do if he would.
3. That he did understand, that of them who he knew would forsake their first good estate (if he permitted them) he might justly forsake some, and punish them for their rebellion : or he could find means to restore them, and reconcile them to himself : but yet he determined neither.
4. That he understood, that it might be more justifiable and equal, not to spare angels, but to shew mercy to men, as more frail and weak, as also deceived by angels ; yet he would consider what to do.
5. That he understood, that if he should out of that mercy pro- vide excellent means, sufficient to raise men fallen, and to restore to them power and freedom to work like reasonable and free agents, in the use of those means to their salvation ; he understood, I say, that among many, some would thankfully receive his mercy, some ungratefully reject it, for the sake of the pleasures of sin : the very particulars he knew, of all his own mercies in their several degrees and varieties, of all the persons in their several conditions and events : but still the determination what should be done, or permitted of all this, was, as it were, held in suspense.
1652.]
JOHN PLAIFERE.
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6. That he understood, that if he should condemn them that liad refused his many mercies, and should receive them to favour that returned to him, he should do justly to the one, and mercifully to the other, and judge them ail righteously. But all these things, understood from the first to the last, from the beginning to the end of the world, with every particular circumstance (the same that now are under execu- tion), I say understood as under condition and with supposition, if it shall please the sovereign Lord to determine and decree to put them into being, and into act, were brought and presented to the wisdom, counsel, and will of God, to allow or amend, to approve or to alter, or to decree and establish them for ever ; which after long and deep contemplation (that we may still speak after our poor manner of understanding) it pleased the only wise God, and Lord of all, upon them to pronounce this mighty word or decree, Fiant, let them be so. This frame, this order, these causes with their effects, these benefits, these mercies, these judgements, these ends, glory to some, shame to others ; let them be established and ratified to the glory of the divine wisdom, justice, grace, power, and holiness : Amen, Amen, Amen, said the blessed and eternal Trinity.
Thus the will of God coming to his knowledge maketh the decree of predestination, which knowledge or understanding alone doth not.
Of this will of God we are further to consider an essential property of it, and a necessary distinction.
The property of the will of God is to be free, absolute, independent, to proceed out of no cause, but out of himself ; in so much as even his occasioned will had liberty not to have taken the occasion: from whence it followeth, that the things predestinate cannot be causes or motives of their predestination, neither are tilings predestinate out of prescience of simple understanding such, for therein all things were known yet but as possible, and having no subsistence at all, being as possible never to be, they could not be movers of God's will to will them. They are deceived therefore that think predestination, out of prescience, makes God's will to depend on man's will, or to be a conditional or uncertain will ; nay, a decree out of this prescience of simple understanding concludes God's predestination to be as absolute, free, certain, infallible, as his omniscience is infallible, and his will free, and his power supreme, or as any other way or manner of understanding this mystery can conclude it.
The distinction of the will of God is that of Damasccn out of Chrysostom, into his antecedent and consequent will : that is his chief and primary will, proceeding out of himself, or out of his own goodness, and therefore is called by Anselm "the will of his mercy;"
22—2
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[A. D.
this other is his occasioned will, or the will of his justice, as the cause now standeth. Out of the first proceedeth all the good of grace and glory, which the reasonable creature receiveth ; out of the second proceedeth all the evil of punishment and revenge (for the evil of chastisement may proceed from love, and so from the first will, as good) that an offender sufFereth or enduretli. From the first of these floweth that part of predestination, which is to life ; which decreeth to give those means and benefits, which understanding knows will be saving to such men, if they be given them : which is the very decree of election. From the second of these floweth the other ]iart of predestination, which is to wrath ; which decreeth to give but those means and benefits which foreknowledge understandeth will fail to be saving to some men, through their extreme fault, and to inflict death upon them for their fault, which is the decree of reprobation. And thus much is enough of the will of God.
The third excellency in the Nature of God, seen especially in his predestination, is his sovereign lordship and dominion, called by the Apostle i^ovtrla, Rom. ix. 21, whereby he hath right and power to dispose of his creatures at his pleasure (yet with wisdom and justice, according to his nature,) and by which he is accountable to none for his so doing.
From hence an answer is given to any that shall ask a reason, why God allowed and allotted unto these men the means which he foreknew would bring them to glory, and settled the end, glory and eternal life, upon them ? and why he permitted any at all to perish, or why these rather than others, when he foreknew their ends would be unhappy through their own fault, when he could have remedied, and have so disposed things out of the treasures of his wisdom and know- ledge whereby these also might have been saved, and others that are saved might have perished ?
The answer, I say, to this is, out of the dominion of God, that it was his high pleasure to have his justice manifested, as well as his mercy, and his justice in these, as his mercy in those, out of the same his pleasure, without wrong or injustice to any, with free and frank bounty to others, as lord of his own things. Thus is that verified in God, as the supreme cause, disposer and ruler of all, (then when all things were in contriving and ordering how they should be) " to have mercy on whom he will, and to harden whom he will," Rom. ix. ; that is, not to help him farther, whom he finds to fail under sufficient help already given him.
Here is to be seen that mass or lump of mankind, out of which the great potter made vessels to honour, and to dishonour, namely
1652.]
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tlio whole race of men, from the first man to the last, under all cir- cumstances accompanying every particular, both on God's part, and also on man's, known and considered by the natural and simple un- derstanding of God : for then they were as a lump without determined forms, capable of any change, or amendment, which the great work- master might please to have. For as God, by his sovereign power, makes of the same earth some pieces of gold, some lead, or baser stuff; so of mankind, he made some to holiness and honour, some he per- mitted to be defiled and to come to dishonour. But with this differ- ence, that there his own hand did all, as working upon a dead and senseless matter; here he worketh upon a living and reasonable creature, whose nature we must suppose and provide to be preserved in God's working upon it : for in comparisons, as there must be some likeness, so the differences must be marked, as the natures of things compared differ ; else nothing is more fit to deceive with than a similitude.
Thus much for the consideration of the nature of God, who did predestinate : there followeth the consideration of the nature of man, who was predestinated.
It pleased the most wise and omnipotent Creator, amongst other his glorious works, to conceive one more admirable and excellent than the rest : to subsist of a mixed and compound nature, of spirit and of flesh ; by tlie flesh inferior to the angels, by the spirit superior to beasts ; to whom he might say, " Be not as the horse and as the mule that have no understanding." For he would make him a reasonable creature, and so a free creature ; not free to be under no superior, or to be absolute and sufficient in himself to himself, and independent on any other (for this belongs only to God himself), but in such things as he should will or nill, the nature of his will to be free, and at liberty to choose or refuse this or that ; to be the master and owner of his own acts, to be thereby capable of righteousness and of sin, of doing good or evil, of obedience or dis- obedience, and thence a subject of praise or punishment, of bounty or of justice ; which no creature could properly be, that is not free in will, and loose, and at liberty from all kind of necessity.
This perhaps may be said to be true of the first man Adam, in his creation ; but since his fall, that freedom of man is to all kind of things decayed, and to things spiritual utterly lost ; which being granted, yet this is to be added, that God who knew and permitted this fall, and loss, knew also how to provide, and to prepare graces of his powerful spirit, to restore and supply that which was lost, and how to give a new commandment, or make a new covenant with man fallen, fit and proportionable to the impotent will of man, and to those graces of his spirit, which he would be ever ready to su|)ply,
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[A.D.
either preventing man, or working in him, or assisting, helping, pro- tecting, preserving liim, as need shall require ; so that this noble creature still might hold and keep the place and rank of a free creature.
For we may not think that the wisdom of God made such an one to shew him to the angels, and to the world, and ever after to have banished him out of the world ; or to have admitted so notorious a defect in this universe, that there should not be found in it, the noblest nature of things here below, above a day or two, in the very infancy of the world ; and ever after men should all either be necessarily evil or necessarily good, after the Manichees' heresy, see- ing God created man to be the subject of his righteous judgment. The old saying therefore must be remembered, " If there be not the grace of God, how shall God save the world ? If there be no freewill in man, how shall God judge the world?" Grace is to be defended so, as we do not subvert the freedom of man's will ; and the freewill of man is to be defended so, that we do not evacuate the graces of God.
To conclude with uniting the consideration of these two natures together, of God and man, in our conceiving the order and manner of the divine predestination.
Seeing the nature of a free creature is the subject and the root of most contingency in the world, and the natural knowledge of God, or his simple understanding, is the infallible foreknower of all future contingents, even conditional, if God please to create such a free creature ; it foUoweth from hence, that a just decree before all time, what shall become of every free creature in the end of time, cannot possibly be conceived by us to have been made, but as proceeding from that infallible foreknowledge, which is in God, of every man's works, since he " will render to every man according to his works."
And again, because the same decree doth proceed from a sovereign Lord, whose will is absolute, who will be debtor to none, but will have all debtors to him ; it followeth again, that the foreknowledge out of which the decree proceedeth, can be no other (after our man- ner of understanding) than that of God's natural, simple understand- ing of things, when they were but as possible, before any decree was made, that they should be created or come into being. To which knowledge when the omnipotent will of God adjoined itself, an infallible, an unchangeable decree was made, that things should be such as they are now, necessary or contingent, means or ends, causes or effects, such as foreknowledge had apprehended them, and un- derstood them ; so that the salvation of every man who is saved is from God, and the perdition of every man that perisheth is from himself
To God only wise, the gracious and righteous Lord, be all lionour, glory, and dominion for ever. Amen.
1630.]
CHILLINGWOKTH.
A. D. 1630—1644.
Those great men who compiled the Articles and Offices of the Church of England, understood better than most of their successors the comprehensive grandeur of that apostolical institution. They understood, that they had to deal with the religious polity of a free and thoughtful people ; a people whose various and vigorous character is combined with a firm attachment to the faith of the gospel. In harmony also with the latitude allowed to individual opinion by the Anglican formu- laries, has been, for the most part, the dominant temper in the Church : those individuals who have obtained an honourable reputation among their contemporaries, or whose names are uttered by their posterity with veneration, may have widely differed from each other in their sentiments and views. If Whitgift by his abilities in the primacy, upheld the pre- rogatives of the Church of England, while the unequalled learning of Andrewes demonstrated its catholic consistency with primitive times ; we possess, on the other hand, a long list of justly venerable names of churchmen, who have boldly defended the rights of private judgment and unshackled free- dom of inquiry. Jewel carried to an extreme his repudiation of church authority ; still his name is never mentioned with- out some addition of respect. What free use was made by Hooker of his great stores of learning and his admirable " discourse of reason," has been already noticed ; yet Hooker is, by universal consent, styled " the judicious." Nay, more to shame those who hold the Church of England to require a slavish devotedness to mere authority, we number among the most honoured of her sons the " immortal" Chillingworth and the " ever-memorable" Hales ; men, who in the language of a powerful writer of our times "made a bold revolt" against its claims. It is confirmatory of this truly catholic
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[A. D.
view of our Church, that the patron of both these robust- minded scholars was Laud, the most rigid of high churchmen.
Chillingworth was the son of a citizen of Oxford, and was born in that city, in October, l602 ; *' so that," as Wood, in a well-known passage observes, " by the benefit of his birth he fell from the lap of his mother into the arms of the muses."" Laud, to whom in other respects he owed so much, was his godfather. In 1616, he was entered at the university, became scholar of Trinity College in 16I8, was admitted master of arts in l623, and in l628 was elected fellow of his college.
In his youth he was noted for being rather contemplative and disputative, than fond of laborious application to study ; but the vigour of his mind was early indicated ; and its versatility appeared in his acquiring reputation both as a mathematician and as a poet. His could be no common or limited mind, who numbered among his early friends the incomparable Falkland, Hales of Eton, and Sheldon.
" The study and conversation of the university scholars in his time, turned chiefly upon the controversies between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. The occasion was this. Towards the latter end of the reign of King James I. the Romish priests, both regular and secular, were allowed an uncommon liberty in England ; which was continued in the reign of King Charles I., upon the account of his marriage with the princess Henrietta, sister to Henry IV. of France. Several of them lived at or near Oxford, and made frequent attempts upon the young scholars ; whereby some were deluded to the Romish religion, and afterwards conveyed to the English seminaries beyond sea'." Their plan was then, as it has since been, to attack those youths espe- cially, who were distinguished from their fellow-students by excellency of parts and accomplishments. Accordingly, the notorious Fisher, or Pierce, attracted by the reputation of Chillingworth, found means to obtain access to his acquaint- ance. The point he more particularly urged on his victim, was the necessity of an infallible living judge in matters of faith. On this point he succeeded in convincing the unpre- pared reason of Chillingworth : the inference was thus ren- dered easy, that as such an infallible judge was to be found
' Des Maizeaux.
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in the Church of Rome, and nowhere else, that Church must be the true Church, and the only one in which there is sal- vation.
In order to make sure of his proselyte, the Jesuit pre- vailed on him to go over, and settle in the college of his order, at Douay. But such a man was not so poorly to be lost. Laud, the old antagonist of Fisher, at this time bishop of London, who knew both the native vigour of Chillingworth's intellect, and his sincere love of truth, immediately entered into correspondence with him. A residence of a few weeks within the walls of Douay had already, in part, opened the eyes of the young divine to the delusion under which he had acted : the solid learning and plain logic of Laud ac- complished the rest. He came back to England, in 1(532, after a stay of two or three months, and returning, with the approbation and encouragement of the bishop, to Oxford, pursued his inquiries into the grounds of religious belief, by earnest converse with books and men, both of the popish and protestant sides : for his determination to follow the truth was such, that even after the second decisive step he again hesitated, paused, doubted; and did not scruple once more to open and examine the whole question. He shortly after- wards wrote a confutation of those arguments which had pre- vailed with hira to go over to the Romish Church ; but this production was not published until long subsequently to his death. His enemies asserted, that upon his principles, urging to perpetual inquiry, no man can be constant in any religion. Chillingworth denied that such was the necessary consequence, and took credit for the sacrifices he made to truth. And for men of powerful intellr'^t, great learning, and much leisure, it may be very well, na :ven a duty, to pursue this course; but Chillingworth's is iTn ixample which can be " followed by few, and, perhaps, wisely ecommended to none."
In this interval Chillingworth wrote several tracts, and ap- peared as an opponent in sundry disputes, against the principles and practices of the Church of Rome. He was thus by degrees led on to the composition of his great work ; the immediate occasion of which, however, was a controversy, begun in the year l630, between Wilson, a learned Jesuit who went bv the name of Edward Knott, and Dr. Potter, provost of Queen's College, Oxford, on the alleged uncharitableness of the papist's assertion, that Protestantism cannot consist with
346
CHILLINGVVORTH.
[A. D.
salvation — a controversy begun, on Dr. Potter's side, by the command of King Charles. Having resolved to engage in this controversy, and, in particular, to draw up a reply to a publication by Knott, entitled Mercy and Truth ; or Charity maintained by Catholics, he retired, in 1635, to the seat of Lord Falkland, at Tew, near Burford in Oxfordshire, for the convenience of a choice library, quiet, and the advantage of that accomplished nobleman's conversation.
In the meantime a difficulty presented itself in his path. His circumstances made it very desirable that he should ob- tain preferment. Accordingly his friends applied on his behalf to the Lord Keeper Coventry ; who, knowing the great merit of their client, was ready to accede to their request to bestow some vacant benefice upon him. Chillingworth however scrupled to subscribe the formularies ; and, in a letter to Shel- don, he stated it to be his immoveable resolution, after much and anxious consideration, to accept of no preferment, if it could not be had without subscription. His scruples referred, in the first instance, only to some portions of the Common Prayer, But it is the infirmity of such acutely logical minds, to start endless difficulties respecting every subject of enquiry: on farther examination he disapproved likewise of several of the articles. In fine, Sheldon replied, that he would by no means persuade any one to act against his conscience ; but added, he did " not put the title of conscience upon an humour of contradiction;"" and, " to deal plainly with him, he was afraid it would ruin him here, and not advantage him at the last day." By the arguments and remonstrances of Sheldon, and perhaps of Laud, he was, not long after, induced to alter his view of sub- scription. His objections proceeded upon the supposition that subscription implies belief of and assent to each particular doc- trine maintained in the articles, &c. He subsequently sub- scribed them, as merely bonds of peace and union, which was the sense of those prelates, as it has been of many other divines.
Knott, hearing who was about to engage in the dispute, an- ticipated the onset of this powerful adversary by a fierce and disingenuous attack on Chillingworth, in which he exaggerates his inconsistencies, and affects to prove him a Socinian. Nor, in- deed, were Chilling worth's friends devoid of apprehension, lest, by the fearless indiscretion of his temper, he might yield an advantage of this kind to the adversary. We find Laud, in a letter to Prideaux, then professor of divinity, betraying
1637.]
CHILLINGWORTH.
347
much anxiety on this point, and not only charging the pro- fessor diligently to revise the work before publication, but associating other divines with him in the examination of the manuscript. It is a curious proof, both of the audacity and the ingenuity of the Jesuits, at this time, that Knott attended in Oxford during the impression of the book, and, in spite of the vigilance of the censors, found means to procure the proofs one by one as they were worked off at the press. At length, in the latter end of l637, appeared this famous treatise, known to the world by the title, The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation, <§-c. It is dedicated, in modest and graceful terms, to the king, and prefaced by a powerful defence of the clergy of the Anglican Church from the charge of want of learning, (which Knott, in the pamphlet above mentioned, had brought forward,) and by a reply to asper- sions cast by the Jesuit on himself.
Chillingworth's work is designed to vindicate, not the Church of England only, but Protestantism in general, from the uncharitable calumnies of the Romanists. With this view, he maintains the following propositions, to each of which he assigns a chapter: 1. That Papists are uncharitable in con- demning Protestants. 2. That the Scripture is the only rule whereby to judge of controversies. 3. That no Church of one denomination is infallible. 4. That the Apostles' Creed contains all necessary points of mere belief. 5. That the religion of Protestants is a safer way to salvation than the religion of Papists. 6. That Protestants are not heretics. 7. That they are not bound by the charity which they owe to themselves, to reunite themselves to the Church of Rome.
Every one knows that the grand principle which runs through the argument of this famous treatise, is that enunci- ated in his sixth chapter, in the emphatic maxim, " The Bible, the Bible only, is the religion of Protest- ants." It is so : but it is not every one, nevertheless, that quotes this sentence, who carries with him the true sense of the author. Chillingworth was far from the exclusive biblicality, or rather bibliolatry, which is mistaken by many for the test of true Protestantism. The Bible he regarded as the centre of Protestant unity, and the ultimate foundation of faith : but that no opinion is entitled to regard, no ordinance to be held sacred, except such as the Bible expressly enjoins, —
348
CHILLINGWORTH.
[A. D.
this he surely does not intend ; much less, the Bible as inter- preted by minds unacquainted with history, languages, and philosophy. The very next sentence after that just and noble maxim explains it, in some degree, as follows: "Whatever else they believe, besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubi- table consequences of it, well may they hold as a matter of opinion ; but as matter of faith and religion, neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require the belief of it of others." In another place, after pointing out the weakness of the pretence to infallibility as the ground of faith, he adds, "therefore, I beseech you pardon me, if I choose to build mine upon one that is much firmer and safer, and lies open to none of these objections, which is Scripture and universal tradition."
Chillingworth's work was received, and read, with extra- ordinary avidity. Two editions were published within less than five months. Knott, however, was not silenced : he and his party continued to issue pamphlets from the St. Omer's press, in defence of the infallibility of their Church, arguing that whatsoever opposed that doctrine " tended to the over- throw of all religion !" The charge of Socinianism was also revived : but no answer was attempted to Chillingworth until 1652, long subsequent to his death, when Knott's confutation, such as it is, made its appearance, with the uncharitable title of Infidelity Unmasked, 8^c. It was the uniform object of this writer, rather to asperse his opponent's character than to answer his arguments. His want of temper, and his ground- less assertions, betray the hollowness of his cause.
The service rendered to the Protestant cause by Chilling- worth's immortal production, was justly considered to entitle its author to reward. In July l638, the chancellorship of Sarum having become vacant by the promotion of Brian Duppa to the bishopric of Chichester, that preferment was bestowed on him, with the prebend of Brixworth in North- amptonshire annexed ; and he was likewise, about the same time, nominated to the mastership of Wygstan's Hospital in Leicester.
Chillingworth sat in the Convocation of 1640, as proctor of the chapter of Salisbury ; and for his part in the enact- ment of the Constitutions and Canons, for which that assembly became afterwards famous, he was, in the year following, con- demned bv the house of commons to pay a fine of £lOOO.
1643.]
CHILLINGWORTH.
349
In the calamitous civil war, which ensued, he distin- guished himself by his efforts in defence of the Church and monarchy. He was present at that critical action, the siege of Gloucester, and is said to have suggested the construction of certain warlike engines, similar to the Roman testudines cum pkiteis, which were likely to have facilitated the capture of the city, had not Essex, with admirable and unexpected celerity, succeeded in raising the siege. This took place September 5th. At the beginning of October the king re- tired to Oxford, and a few days later Chillingworth preached before his majesty, at Christ Church, the only one of his sermons which was printed before the Restoration. " This sermon is not only remarkable for that strength of reason, which seems to have been the author's peculiar talent ; but also for the eloquent addresses, and pathetic and affectionate exhortations, whereby he endeavours to enforce the practice of virtue and piety'." He pointed out, and strove to correct, the vices of the cavaliers as well as of their enemies, with such plainness and earnestness as did honour to his sincerity, his courage, and his patriotism. "Seeing," he exclaims "so many Jonases embarked in the same ship, the same cause, with us, and so many Achans entering into battle with us against the Canaanites ; seeing publicans and sinners on the one side, against Scribes and Pharisees on the other ; on the one side hypocrisy, on the other profaneness ; no honour nor justice on the one side, and very little piety on the other; on the one side horrible oaths, curses, and blasphemies, on the other pestilent lies, calumnies, and perjury; when I see amongst them the pretence of reformation, if not the desire, pursued by antichristian, mahometan, and devilish means, and amongst us little or no zeal for reformation of what is indeed amiss, little or no care to remove the cause of God's anger towards us, by just, lawful, and Christian means; — I profess plainly, I cannot without trembling, consider what is likely to be the event of these distractions. I cannot but fear that the goodness of our cause may sink under the burthen of our sins; and that God, in his justice, because we will not suffer his judgments to achieve their prime scope and intention, which is our amendment and reformation, may either deliver us up to the blind zeal and fury of our ene-
' Des Maizeaux.
350
CHILLINGWORTH.
mies, or else, which I rather fear, make us instruments of his justice each against other, and of our own just and de- served confusion. This I profess plainly is my fear." — It is creditable to the piety and earnestness of Charles, that he commanded this powerful and prophet-like discourse to be published : subsequently, in l664, it was prefixed to the author's other sermons.
The march of the Scotch army into England, in the beginning of l644, was preceded by the appearance of several declarations intended to justify that measure. In reply to these papers, Chillingworth drew up some observations, founded upon the maxim (which he took studious pains to ascertain) that it is unlawful, on any pretence, to resist the authority of sovereign princes : he however withheld these remarks from the press. A small treatise which he wrote at this time, on The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy, was included in the collection of tracts, already described as put forth in l644, by Ussher, and others. Chillingworth's views on this subject were, of course, characterized by extreme moderation.
The animosity of Knott, the Jesuit, towards his anta- gonist had by no means subsided, when Chillingworth had to encounter the wrath of a no less implacable, and as the event proved, more fatal enemy, in the person of the well-known presbyterian, Francis Cheynell. Cheynell, originally a fellow of Merton College, had followed Essex's army in the ca- pacity of chaplain ; and, by his undaunted courage, and ardent devotion to the cause of the parliament and the presbytery, obtained great influence. In l643, the house of commons published a tract by this fierce religious partizan, On the Rise, Growth, and Danger of Socinianism ; in which Chillingworth, together with Laud, Potter, Hales, and other divines eminent for their loyalty, were denounced as abetters of this heresy. On Chillingworth, however, in particular, he seems to have fastened with all the frenzy of controversial hate : it is to a person standing in this relation of antipathy to the illustrious author of The Religion of Protestants a safe way, that we owe the account of his last sad days — his early and lamentable death.
Towards the end of the year, Chillingworth accompanied his friend lord Hopton to the seizure of Arundel castle; but the place, after being occupied by the king's troops rather
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less than a month, was treacherously surrendered to Waller. Chillingworth''s health had suffered from the severity of the season ; on which account he had determined to repose himself in the castle, till the return of milder weather, and thus was made prisoner with the garrison. Being unable, on account of increased infirmity, to accompany his fellow prisoners to London, he was allowed to retire, in a state of extreme weakness, to the bishop's palace at Chichester ; a favour for which he was indebt- ed to Cheynell, who, while entering with the captors, by acci- dent met the man for whom he professed a distaste more than theological; " whom," to use his own words, " he ever opposed in a charitable and friendly way.*" From this time till the death of Chillingworth he paid him frequent visits ; and his published account of what he calls the Novissima ; or the sickness, heresy, death, and burial, of Chillingworth, is not the least curious pamphlet of an age abounding beyond all others in remarkable productions of that class. The struggle it exhibits, between some lurking sense of humanity, (strength- ened by a desire to obtain the credit of generous behaviour towards an enemy in affliction,) with the severity of sectarian zeal, is as amusing as the melancholy nature of the circum- stances will permit. The tract is " published by authority," and dedicated to Sheldon, Morley, Potter, Fell, and other " learned and eminent friends of Mr. Chillingworth," in an epistle, the pragmatical and extravagant abuse contained in which makes it quite worthy of the book.
Cheynell, elated with the fancied superiority of his own principle of unreasoning faith in the hour of adversity, re- presents " this man of reason," as he sneeringly calls Chil- lingworth, as having been so depressed by some slights, which he alleges to have been put upon him in Arundel castle, and by the delay of his friends to send his ransom, that his death, which soon afterwards followed, was attributable rather to his state of dejection, and to the wilful neglect of medical advice, than to the violence of disease. Notwithstanding, however, this state of weakness and dejection, in which he found his fellow-chaplain, he appears to have omitted no opportunity of pestering the unfortunate captive with arguments directed against his religious views, and his share in promoting the war ; failing, in no instance, to place those evasive replies, by which the sufferer hoped to obtain a respite from annoyance, to the score of victory, and his silence, to unwilling con-
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viction. " At length," says he, with complacency, " I per- ceived my gentleman somewhat puzzled, and I took my leave, that he might take his rest."
In the mean time, some of the party who occupied Arun- del, wrote to acquaint the friends of Chillingworth at Oxford with his melancholy condition. Cheynell also, who saw him manifestly sinking from day to day, was, as he alleges, deeply concerned for him, and endeavoured to procure him all the relief in his power. Still he could not refrain from urging him to dispute. " When I found him pretty hearty one day," re- lates the indefatigable controvertist, "I desired him to tell me, ■whether he conceived that a man living and dying a Turk, Papist, or Socinian, could be saved ? All the answer that I could gain from him was, ' That he did not absolve them, and would not condemn them.' I was much displeased with the answer," continues he, " upon divers reasons : First," &c. Poor Chillingworth begged to be spared, but in vain! "When Mr. Chillingworth saw himself entangled in disputes, he desired me that I would deal charitably with him, for, saith he, I was ever a charitable man." This answer drew down a severe reproof. "My answer was somewhat tart, and there- fore the more charitable, considering his condition. It was to this effect : Sir, it is confessed that you have been very excessive in your charity ; you have lavished so much charity upon Turks, Socinians, and Papists, that I am afraid you have very little to spare for a truly reformed Protestant." Seeing that the release of his patient, but unwilling, opponent was evidently not far off, he had, finally, the consideration to desist ; and, it being Sunday, proposed that Chillingworth should be mentioned in the public prayers in the cathedral. To this proposal the dying scholar gladly consented. His death seems to have taken place the next day, January * 26th, 1643—4, (the day has not been positively ascertained) after he had thanked those persons who had the charge of him, for their kindness, and had expressed a desire that, " if it might be obtained," his interment might take place " according to the custom of the Church of England." Himself to perform the last office for his deceased opponent, was beyond the utmost stretch of Cheynell's charity ; yet he overruled the opinions of some among his friends, who thought that such a man " ought not to be l)uried like a Christian," and permitted " the malignants in the city " to
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lay him in consecrated earth, within the cloisters of the cathedral, but without reading the service. The place of the affecting office in the Liturgy was supplied in a manner unexampled. Holding in his hand the great work of Chil- lingworth, the fanatic met the corpse of its illustrious author at the grave, and there pronounced an oration, of a quality which few men would have had the hardihood to deliver on such an occasion, and still fewer to record. In a strain of heated vituperation, he denied the reality of his recon- version from popery, and his claim to be esteemed a son of the Church of England. Throwing then the volume into the grave, Cheynell thus continued : " Get thee gone, thou cursed book, which hast seduced so many precious souls; get thee gone, thou rotten book : earth to earth, and dust to dust ; get thee gone into the place of rottenness, that thou mayest rot with thy author and see corruption ! So much for the burial of his errors. Touching the burial of his corpse, I need say no more than this : it will be most proper for the men of his persuasion to commit the body of their deceased friend — brother — master, to the dust, and it will be most proper for me to hearken to that counsel of my Saviour, Luke ix. 60, ' Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.' And so," adds this sincere but fi'antic zealot, " I went from the grave to the pulpit, and preached on that text to the congregation.""
The great scholar, whom the reader has thus followed to his forlorn grave, may have asserted in too unmixed and exclusive a form the great principle of the right of inquiry into the grounds and reasons of religion, which distinguishes the Church of England ; but most aptly did his life and death represent her constant and honourable fate, to be harassed and calumniated, on the one side, by the tools of ecclesiastical infallibility ; on the other, by the dupes of unreasoning assurance. The tone and temper of this divine, however, are not in strict harmony with the character of the established Church of England. He suf- fered from the mutual exasperation and party violence, so much of which he saw and felt ; and there is more truth than could be wished, in the allegation of his enemies, that he was " too confident of his wit and parts.'' The character of Chillingworth, as an author and controversialist, is cor- vol.. I. 23
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rectly given by Bishop Barlow. His excellence, observes that writer, consisted not in his learning, wliich, great as it was, he shared with many others ; but " in his logic, both natural, and (by exceeding great industry) acquired." We may safely add the prediction, that his fame, on what- soever ground it mainly rest, will endure as long as the liberties and language of Englishmen.
A glance over the principal editions of The Religion of Protestants, will comprise every thing which remains to be observed, respecting this author's works.
After the publication of the first edition, in l638, at Oxford, a second made its appearance, the same year, in London. To the third, dated l664, were added (1.) The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy, (2.) Niyie Sermons, 4*c. The edition of l684, comprises, farther, Chillingworth's Letter touching Infallibility, addressed to Mr. Lewgar, first published in l662.
In the year 1687 appeared an abridged edition by the learned and pious Dr. Patrick, bearing the following title : Mr. Chillingworth''s hook, called ' The Religion, t^c.' made more generally useful, by omitting personal contests, but inserting whatsoever concerns the common cause of Pro- testants, or defends the Church of England : with an addition of some genuine pieces of Mr. Chillingworth''s, never before printed. The additions consist chiefly of the following tracts : Conference between Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar, in the presence of Sheldon, on the question, ' Whether the Church of Rome be the Catholic Church, and all out of her communion heretics and schismatics:'' A similar conference with Floyd, or Daniel, a Jesuit, on the pretended infallibility of the Church of Rome. In these reports, the arguments on both sides are set down, with the answers to them.
In The Works of Chillingworth, 1704, are contained, besides all the pieces already made public, his account of his going over to Popery ; with a confutation of the argu- ments which had persuaded him to that step.
Several of the autograph manuscripts of Chillingworth, formerly in the possession of Henry Wharton, from which some of the preceding publications had been copied, were purchased and presented to the Lambeth Library, by Arch- bishop Tenison.
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FROM THE WORKS OF CHILLINGWORTH.
SCRIPTURE A SURER GUIDE THAN THE CHURCH.
It remains now, that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alleged for the justification of Protestants, which arc dis- sembled by you', and not put into the balance. Know then, Sir, that when I say, the religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours ; as, on the one side, I do not understand by your religion the doctrine of Bellarmine, or Baronius, or any other private man amongst you, nor the doctrine of the Sorbonne, or of the Jesuits, or of tlie Dominicans, or of any other particular company among you, but that wherein you all agree, or profess to agree, the doctrine of the council of Trent ; so accordingly, on the other side, by the religion of Protestants, I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon ; nor the Confession of Augusta, or Geneva; nor the Catechism of Heidelberg, nor the Articles of the Church of England, no, nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions ; but that wherein they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as a perfect rule of their faith and actions, that is, THE Bible. The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the re- ligion of Protestants, whatsoever else they believe besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion ; but as matter of faith and religion, neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require the belief of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption. I for my part, after a long and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of the true way to eternal happiness, do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot, but upon this rock only. I see plainly, and with mine own eyes, that there are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the Church of one age against the Church of another age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found : no tradition but only of Scripture, can derive itself from the fountain, but may be plainly proved, either to have been brought in in such an age after Christ ; or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only, for any considering man to build upon. This therefore, and this only I have reason to believe : this I will profess,
[' i. e. the Jesuit, Edward Knott, in | and Truih,^' <Sfc. " The Religion of Pro. reply to whose work, entitled "Mercy I testants a safe mai/" was written.]
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according to this I will live, and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me. Propose me any thing out of this book, and require whether I believe or no, and, seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than tliis — God hath said so, therefore it is true. In otlier things, I will take no man's liberty of judgment from him ; neither shall any man take mine from me : I will think no man the worse man, nor the worse Christian : I will love no man the less, for differing in opinion from me. And what measure I mete to others, I expect from them again. I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore that men ought, not to require any more of any man than this, — to believe the Scripture to be God's word, to endeavour to find the true sense of it, and to live according to it.
This is the religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation, and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely, much more wisely than if I had guided myself according to your Church's au- thority. For the Scripture being all true, I am secured by believing nothing else, that I shall believe no falsehood as matter of faith. And if I mistake the sense of Scripture, and so fall into error, yet am I secure from any danger thereby, if but your grounds be true ; because endeavouring to find the true sense of Scripture, I cannot but hold my error without pertinacy, and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto me. And then all necessary truth being, as I have proved, plainly set down in Scripture, I am certain by beheving Scripture, to believe all necessary truth : and he that does so, if his life be answerable to his faith, how is it possible he should fail of salvation ?
Besides, whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a guide, all that and much more may be said for the Scripture. Hath your Church been ancient ? the Scripture is more ancient. Is vour Church a means to keep men at unity ? so is the Scripture, to keep those that believe it and will obey it in unity of belief, in matters necessary or very profitable ; and in unity of charity, in points un- necessary. Is your Church universal for time or place ? certainly the Scripture is more universal. For all the Christians in the world (those I mean that in truth deserve this name) do now, and always have believed the Scripture to be the word of God, so much of it at least, as contains all things necessary ; whereas only you say, that you only are the Church of God, and all Christians besides you deny it.
Thirdly, following the Scripture, I follow that whereby you prove your Church's infallibility, (whereof were it not for Scripture, what
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y)retence could you have, or what notion could we have ?) and by so doing tacitly confess that yourselves are surer of the truth of the Scripture than of your Church's authority. For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved, otherwise it is no proof.
Fourthly, following the Scripture, I follow that which must be true if your Church be true ; for your Church gives attestation to it. Wliereas, if 1 follow your Church, I must follow that which, though Scripture be true, may be false; nay which, if Scripture be true, must be false, because the Scripture testifies against it.
Fifthly, to follow the Scripture I have God's express warrant and command, and no colour of any prohibition : but to believe your Church infallible, I have no command at all, much less an express command. Nay, I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these words ; " Call no man master on the earth :" " They fell by infidelity, thou standest by faith ;" " Be not high minded, but fear : " " Tlie spirit of truth the world cannot receive."
Following your Church, I must hold many things not only above reason but against it, if any thing be against it ; whereas following the Scripture, I shall believe many mysteries, but no impossibilites ; many things above reason, but nothing against it ; many things which had they not been revealed, reason could never have discovered, but nothing wliich by true reason may be confuted ; many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be, but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be. Nay, I shall believe nothing which reason will not convince that I ought to believe it : for reason will convince any man, unless he be of a perverse mind, that the Scripture is the word of God : and then no reason can be greater than this ; — God says so, therefore it is true.
Following your Church, I must hold many things which to any man's judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment, will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture, than the infallibility of the Church appears to be confirmed by it : and consequently must be so foolish as to believe your Church exempted from error upon less evidence, rather than subject to the common condition of man- kind upon greater evidence. Now, if I take the Scripture only for my guide, I shall not need to do any thing so unreasonable. If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities, and that with an absolute certainty, upon motives which are confessed to be but only prudential and probable ; that is, with a weak foundation I must firmly support a heavy, a monstrous heavy, building : now following the Scripture, I shall have no necessity to undergo any such difficulties.
Following your Church, I must be a servant of Christ and a subject of the king, but only ad placitum PajJCB. I must be prepared in
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mind to renounce my allegiance to tlie king, wlien the pope shall declare him an heretic, and command me not to obey him ; and I must be prepared in mind to esteem virtue vice, and vice virtue, if the j)ope shall so determine. Indeed, you say, it is impossible he should do the latter ; but that you know is a great question, neither is it fit my obedience to God and the king should depend upon a questionable foundation. And howsoever, you must grant, that if by an impossible supposition the pope's commands should be contrary to the law of Christ, that they of your religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the pope than the law of Christ ; whereas if 1 follow the Scripture I may, nay I must, obey my sovereign in lawful things, though an heretic, though a tyrant ; and though, I do not say the pope, but the apostles themselves, nay an angel from heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ, I may, nay I must denounce anathema to him.
Following the Scripture, I shall believe a religion, which being contrary to flesh and blood, without any assistance from worldly power, wit, or policy, nay against all the power and policy of the world, prevailed and enlarged itself in a very short time all the world over ; whereas it is too apparent, that your Church hath got and still main- tains her authority over men's consciences by counterfeiting false miracles, forging false stories, by obtruding on the world supposititious writings, by corrupting the monuments of former times, and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you, by wars, by per- secutions, by massacres, by treasons, by rebellions ; in short, by all manner of carnal means, whether violent or fraudulent.
Following the Scripture, I shall believe a religion, the first preachers and professors whereof, it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the world ; that they should not project to them- selves by it any of the profits, or honours, or pleasures of this world ; but rather were to expect the contrary, even all the miseries which the world could lay upon them. On the other side, the head of your Church, the pretended successor of the apostles, and guide of faith, it is even palpable, that he makes your religion the instrument of his ambition, and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the monarchy of the world. And besides, it is evident to any man that has but half an eye, that most of those doctrines which you add to the Scripture do make, , one way or other, for the honour or temporal profit of the teachers of them.
Following the Scripture only, I shall embrace a religion of ad- mirable simplicity, consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God, in spirit, and in truth. Whereas your Church and doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak, childish, ridiculous, unsavoury
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superstitions and ceremonies, and full of that "righteousness" for which " Christ shall judge the world."
Following the Scriptures, I shall believe that which universal, never failing tradition assures me, tliat it was by the admirable supernatural works of God confirmed to be the word of God ; whereas never any miracle was wrought, never so much as a lame horse cured, in confirmation of your Church's authority and infallibility. And if any strange things have been done, which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your doctrine, yet this proves nothing but the trutli of Scripture, which foretold that (God's providence permitting it, and the wickedness of the world deserving it) " strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false doctrine, that they which love not the truth, may be given over to strange delusions." Neither does it seem to me any strange thing, that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the world.
If I follow the Scripture, I must not promise myself salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all vices, and the effectual practice of all Christian virtues : but your Church opens an easier and a broader way to heaven, and though I continue all my life long in a course of sin, and without the practice of any virtue, yet gives me assurance that I may be let into heaven at a postern gate, even by an act of attrition at the hour of death, if it be joined with confession, or by an act of contrition witliout confession.
Admirable are the precepts of piety and humility, of innocence and patience, of liberality, frugality, temperance, sobriety, justice, meekness, fortitude, constancy and gravity, contempt of the world, love of God, and the love of mankind ; in a word, of all virtues, and against all vice, which the Scriptures impose upon us, to be obeyed under pain of damnation. The sum whereof is in a manner comprised in our Saviour's Sermon upon the Mount, recorded in the vth. vith. and viith. of St. Matthew, which, if they were generally obeyed, could not but make the world generally happy, and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe, that this religion, rather than any other, came from God, the fountain of all goodness. And that they may be generally obeyed, our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his sermon, with these universal sanctions: "Not every one that saitli Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom, but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven :" And agahi, " whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, whicli built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended, and the flood came, and the winds blew, and it fell, and great was the
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fall thereof." Now your Church, notwithstanding all this, enervates, and in a manner dissolves and abrogates, many of these precepts; teaching men that they are not laws for all Christians, but counsels of perfection and matters of supererogation ; that a man shall do well if he do observe them, but he shall not sin if he observe them not ; that they are for them who aim at high places in heaven, who aspire with the two sons of Zebedee, to the right hand or the left hand of Christ : but if a man will be content barely to go to heaven, and to be a door-keeper in the house of God, especially if he will be content to taste of purgatory in the way, he may obtain it at an easier purchase. Therefore the religion of your Church is not so holy nor so good as the doctrine of Christ delivered in Scripture, and therefore not so likely to come from the fountain of holiness and goodness.
Religion of Protestants, fyc. Chapter vi.
THE APOSTOLICAL INSTITUTION OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED.
If we abstract from episcopal government all accidentals, and consider only what is essential and necessary to it, we shall find in it no more but this ; an appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have care of all the churches, within a certain precinct or diocess ; and furnishing him with authority (not absolute or arbitrary, but regulated and bounded by laws, and moderated by joining to him a convenient number of assistants) to the intent that all the churches under him may be provided of good and able pastors : and that both of pastors and people, conformity to laws, and performance of their duties may be required, under penalties, not left to discretion, but by law appointed.
To this kind of government, I am not by particular interest so devoted, as to think it ought to be maintained, either in opposition to apostolic institution, or to the much desired reformation of men's lives and restoration of primitive discipline, or to any law or precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end ; for obedience to our Saviour is the end for which church government is appointed. But if it may be demonstrated (or made much more probable than the contrary) as I verily think it may —
That it is not repugnant to the government settled in and for the Church by the apostles : 2. That it is as compilable with the reformation of any evil which we desire to reform either in Church or State, or the introduction of any good which we desire to in- troduce, as any other kind of government : and 3. That there is
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no law, no record of our Saviour against it : tken, I hope, it will not be thought an unreasonable motion, if we humbly desire those that are in authority, especially the high court of parliament, that it may not be sacrificed to clamour, or over-borne by violence : and though (which God forbid) the greater part of the multitude should cry, " Crucify, crucify ;" yet our governors would be so full of justice and courage, as not to give it up, until they perfectly understand concerning episcopacy itself, Quid mali fecit?
I shall speak at this time only of the first of these points : That episcopacv is not repugnant to the government settled in the Church for perpetuity by the apostles. Whereof I conceive tliis which follows is as clear a demonstration as any thing of this na- ture is capable of: —
That this government was received universally in the Church, either in the apostles' time, or presently after, is so evident and unquestionable, that the most learned adversaries of this govern- ment do themselves confess it.
Petrus Molinseus in his book, De munere Pastorali, purposely written in defence of the presbyterial government, acknowledgeth, " that presently after the apostles' times, or even in their time, (as ecclesiastical story witnesseth) it was ordained, that in every city one of the presbytery should be called a Bishop, who should have pre- eminence over his college ; to avoid confusion which ofttimes ariseth out of equality. And truly this form of government all churches every where received."
Theodorus Beza in his tract, De triplici Episcopatus genere, confesseth in effect the same thing. For having distinguished epis- copacy into three kinds. Divine, Human, and Satanical ; and at- tributing to the second (which he calls Human, but we maintain and conceive to be apostolical) not only a priority of order, but a superiority of power and authority over other presbyters, bounded yet by laws and canons provided against tyranny ; he clearly pro- fesseth that of this kind of episcopacy, is to be understood what- soever we read concerning the authority of bishops (or presidents, as Justin Martyr calls them) in Ignatius, and other more ancient writers.
Certainly from Uhese two great defenders of the presbytery, we
' To whom two others also from Ge- neva may be added : Daniel Chamierus (in Pansiratia, Tom. ii. Lib. x. cap. C. sect. 24) and Nicol. Vedelius {Eocercikit. III. in Epist. Ignaiii ad I'liiladelph. cap. 1, 4. and Exercit. 8 in Epist. ad
Miriam, cap. 3), which is fully demon, strated in Dr. Hammond's Dissertations against Blondel (which never were an- swered, and never will) by the testimo- nies of those who wrote in the very next age after the Apostles.
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should never have had this free acknowledgment, (so prejudicial to their own pretence, and so advantageous to their adversaries' pur- pose) had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it. It- will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters, who affirms, that " their disparity began long after the apostles' times" ; but we may safely take for granted that which these two learned adversaries have confessed ; and see, whether upon tliis foundation laid by them, we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure, — Tiiat seeing episcopal government is con- fessedly so ancient and so catholic, it cannot with reason be denied to be apostolic.
For so great a change, as between presbyterial government and episcopal, could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time. Had episcopal government been an aberration from (or a corruption of) the government left in the churches by the apostles, it had been very strange, that it should have been received in any one church so suddenly, or that it should have prevailed in all for many ages after. Varidsse debuerat error ecclesiarum : quod autem apud omnes unum est, non est erratuin, sed traditum — " Had the churches erred, they would have varied : what tlierefore is one and the same amongst all, came not sure by error, but tradition." Thus Tertullian argues very probably, from the consent of the churches of his time, not long after the apostles, and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserved alteration. But that in the frame and sub- stance of the necessary government of the Church, a thing always in use and practice, there should be so sudden a change, as pre- sently after the apostles' times ; and so universal as received in all the churches ; this is clearly impossible.
For, what universal cause can be assigned or feigned of this universal apostacy ? You will not imagine, that the apostles, all or any of them, made any decree for this change when they were living ; or left order for it in any will or testament, when they were dying. This were to grant the question ; to wit, that the apostles, being to leave the government of the churches themselves, and either seeing by experience, or foreseeing by the Spirit of God, the dis- tractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals, substituted episcopal government instead of their own. General coun- cils to make a law for a general change, for many ages there was none. There was no Christian emperor, no coercive power over the Church to enforce it. Or if there had been any, we know no force was equal to the courage of the Christians of those times. Tlieir
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lives were tlien at command (for they had not then learnt to fight for Christ), but their obedience to any thing against his law was not to be commanded (for they had perfectly learnt to die for him). Therefore there was no power then to command this change ; or if there had been any, it liad been in vain.
What device then shall we study, or to what fountain shall we reduce tliis strange pretended alteration ? Can it enter into our hearts to think, that all the presbyters and other Cliristians then, being the apostles' scholars, could be generally ignorant of the will of Christ, touching the necessity of a presbyterial government ; or, dare we adventure to think them so strangely wicked all the world over, as, against knowledge and conscience, to conspire against it? Imagine the spirit of Diotrephes had entered into some, or a great many of the presbyters, and possessed them with an ambitious de- sire of a forbidden superiority, was it possible they should attempt and achieve it at once without any opposition or contradiction ? and besides, that the contagion of this ambition, should spread itself, and prevail without stop or controul, nay without any noise or notice taken of it, through all the churches in the world ; all the watch- men in the mean time being so fast asleep, and all the dogs so dumb, that not so much as one should open his mouth against it ?
But let us suppose (though it be a horrible untruth) that the presbyters and people then, were not so good Christians as the presbyterians are now ; that they were generally so negligent to retain the government of Christ's Church commanded by Christ, which we now are so zealous to restore ; yet certainly we must not forget nor deny, that they were men as we were. And if we look upon them but as mere natural men ; yet knowing by experience how hard a thing it is, even for policy armed with power, by many attempts and contrivances, and in a long time, to gain upon the liberty of any one people ; undoubtedly we shall never entertain so wild an imagination, as that, among all the Christian presbyteries in the world, neither conscience of duty, nor love of liberty, nor averseness from pride and usurpation of others over them, should prevail so much with any one, as to oppose this pretended universal invasion of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the liberty of Christians.
When I shall see, therefore, all the fables in the Metamorphosis acted and prove true stories ; when I shall see all the democracies and aristocracies in the world lie down and sleep, and awake into monarchies ; then will I begin to believe that presbyterial govern- ment, having continued in the Churcli during the apostles' times, should presently after (against the apostles' doctrine and the will of Christ) be whirled about like a scene in a masque, and trans-
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formed into episcopacy. In the mean time, while these things re- main thus incredible, and, in human reason, impossible, I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus : —
Episcopal government is acknowledged to have been universally received in the Church, presently after the apostles' times.
Between the apostles' times and tliis presently after, there was not time enough for, nor possibility of, so great an alteration.
And therefore there was no such alteration as is pretended.
And therefore episcopacy being confessed to be so ancient and catholic, must be granted also to be apostohc. Qiwd erat demon- strandum.
Chillingworth's Works.
1612.]
JOHN HALES.
A. D. 1612— 1G56.
John Hales, the friend of Chillingworth (nomen, as his epitaph records, non tarn hominis quam scientice,) received his birth and early education at Bath, whence, in the begin- ning of 1597, he was sent to Oxford, and entered, in the first instance, of Corpus Christi College. By the earnest encou- ragement of Sir Henry Savile, warden of Merton College, he stood for and gained a fellowship in that society ; in the ex- amination for which, his extraordinary parts and attainments, particularly in the Greek language and philosophy, obtained for him distinguished notice. He was appointed to read the Greek lecture in his college; and, in l6l2, was made Greek professor in the University. He is said to have assisted Sir Henry Savile in preparing his admirable edition of the works of Clirysostom. The university likewise appointed him to com- pose and speak the Latin oration at the funeral of Sir Thomas Bodley. But the chief public incident in the life of this re- markable scholar was his appearance at the synod of Dort. Having gone out with Sir Dudley Carleton, King James's ambassador to the states of Holland, in quality of chaplain, he was employed by him to attend the sittings of that assembly, with the view of making a correct report of its proceedings, to be transmitted to the English court. The letters which he wrote, in pursuance of this mission, are extant, and contain a lively account of the synodical transactions. Hales, we are told by his friend Anthony Farindon, had been hitherto a Calvinist, but the near view he now obtained of the doctrines of the predestinarian theologians, and their practical work- ings, effectually changed him: when Episcopius pressed the text, John iii. 16, "there" — he observed to Farindon, "I bid John Calvin good night."
Shortly after his return to England, a fellowship at Eton College was procured for him by the joint exertions of his
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patrons, Sir Dudley Carleton, and Sir Henry Savile (then provost of" Eton) ; an appointment which has permanently associated in the ear of posterity the name of Hales with that of this distinguished seminary of learning.
In 1628 Hales composed his famous tract on Schism and Schismatics, in which he boldly asserted that " Church authority is none and throughout, treated that delicate subject with an incautious frankness natural to his temper, yet with great learning and intellectual vigour, and a manifest desire to promote peace and concord in the distracted Church. A manuscript copy having fallen in the way of Laud, rumour quickly reported to the author, that this free production had given that degree of offence to the archbishop, which, in such a quarter, was naturally to be expected. He immediately ad- dressed his grace in an apologetic and explanatory letter, which is extant. " It is hard to conceive," observes Des Maizeaux the writer of the life of Hales, with reference to this letter, " how that prelate could forbear admiring and esteeming a man who vindicated himself with so much wit, learning, and courage, and at the same time expressed so much humility, piety, and disinterestedness.*" Laud now sent for him. Heylin, in his life of the primate, entertains his readers with a romantic story of his converting Hales, on this occasion, from Socinianism (a heresy into which we have no proof of his having ever fallen), in a long and animated conversation, the subject of which that partial writer could only conjecture. The result seems, however, to have been, that the primate found employ- ment for the profound and acute Etonian, in preparing for the press the second edition of his answer to the Jesuit Fisher. Certain it is, that Hales was placed on the list of chaplains at Lambeth, and soon afterwards, June l639, was presented with a canon ry of Windsor.
Those preferments he was not long permitted to enjoy. Among the good qualities for which tliis great scholar was remarkable, we find him commended " for his prudence in avoiding the oaths of the times, without any snare to his conscience." Nevertheless, his refusal to take the covenant, or to comply with some other ordinance of the parliament, occasioned his ejection from both his fellowship and his canonry. Into the former was thrust one Penwarden. This man's conscience becoming uneasy at the wrong he was doing to a person of such extraordinary merit, he volun-
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tarily offered to restore the fellowship. Hales, however, re- fused to receive it back ; probably because the offer was burdened with such conditions as he could not conscientiously comply with.
The generosity and charity of Hales were as remarkable as his abilities and his learning. The only share of his income reserved by him for his own use, was a small sum annually set apart for the purchase of books , of which, we are told, he had "one of the best collections that a person of his station ever enjoyed. " This collection he now sold for his support; but so liberally did he divide the produce of it with fellow- sufferers in that calamitous period, that in a short time nothing of it remained. Friends could not be wanting to such a man in distress ; but he refused to be burdensome to any one, choosing rather to earn a subsistence by accepting the humble office of tutor in a family near Eton. On the appearance of CromwelFs final declaration against the clergy, in l655, from conscientious repugnance to expose his employer (a lady, a relation of Bishop Duppa,) to the penalty of harbouring a " malignant," he withdrew from her house, and, returning to Eton, took shelter under the roof of a poor woman, the widow of a former servant of his. Here he was presently reduced to extreme destitution, yet still shrank from accepting the assist- ance of sympathising friends and admirers ; in particular, repelling the grateful urgency of Farindon, (of whose family, as long as anything remained to him, he had been the sup- port), although the circumstances of that worthy divine were now, by the generosity of his parishioners, materially improved. In the midst of such melancholy circumstances, to the eternal disgrace of Cromwell's government, was " the ever-memorable John Hales," suffered to depart from life, May IQth, l656, at the age of 72.
The temper of Hales was naturally gay and jocose. "Those" we are told by Wood, "that remembered him after his death, have said, that he had the most ingenuous counte- nance that ever they saw ; that it was sanguine, cheerful, and full of air: his stature was little and well proportioned, and his motion quick and nimble." In his letter to Laud he gives the following account : —
" Galen the great physician thus speaks of himself, 'E-yto S' ovk ol S'oTro)? evdv^, &c. ' I know not how, even from my youth up, in a won- derful manner, wlietlier by divine inspiration, or by fury and possession.
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or however you may please to style it, I have contemned the opinion of the many ; but truth and knowledge have above measure affected ; vainly persuading myself that a fairer, more divine fortune could never befal a man.' Some title, some claim, I may justly lay to the words of this excellent person ; for the pursuit of truth hath been my only care, ever since I first understood the meaning of the word. For this I have forsaken all hopes, all friends, all desires, which might bias me, and hinder me from driving right at what I aimed. For this I have spent my money, my means, my youth, my age, and all I have ; that I might remove from myself that censure of TertuUian — suo vitio quis quid ignorat."
Marvel, no flatterer, especially of churchnnen, describes him as " a most learned divine, and most remarkable for his sufferings in the late times, and his Christian patience under them. And," continues that writer, " 1 reckon it not one of the least ignominies of that age, that so eminent a person should have been by the iniquity of the times reduced to those necessities under which he lived ; as I account it no small honour to have grown up into some part of his acquaintance, and conversed awhile with the living remains of one of the clearest heads and best prepared hearts in Christendom.""
But, for a complete character of Hales we must consult the preface to his posthumous tracts, written by Dr. Pearson, afterwai'ds bishop of Chester.
" Mr. John Hales," writes this learned person, "was a man, I think, of as great sharpness, quickness, and subtility of wit, as ever this or perhaps any nation bred. His industry did strive, if it were possible, to equal the largeness of his capa- city; whereby he became as great a master of polite, various, and universal learning, as ever yet conversed with books. Proportionate to his reading was his meditation, which fur- nished him with a judgment beyond the vulgar reach of man, built upon unordinary notions, raised out of strange observa- tions and comprehensive thoughts within himself. So that he really was a most prodigious example of an acute and piercing wit, of a vast and illimited knowledge, of a severe and pro- found judgment.
"Although this may seem, as in itself it truly is, a grand eulogium, yet I cannot esteem him less in any thing which belongs to a good man than in those intellectual perfections ; and had he never understood a letter, he had other ornaments sufficient to endear him. For he was of a nature so kind, so
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sweet, so courteous to all mankind, of an affability so prompt, so ready to receive all conditions of men, that I conceive it nearly as easy a task for any one to become so knowing as so obliging.
"As a Christian \ none ever more acquainted with the nature of the gosjjel, because none more studious of the know- ledge of it, or more curious in the search ; which, being strengthened by those great advantages before mentioned, could not prove otherwise than highly effectual. He took in- deed to himself a liberty of judging, not of others, but for himself; and if ever any man might be allowed in these matters to judge, it was he, who had so long, so much, so advantage- ously considered, and, which is more, never had the least worldly design in his determinations. He was not only most truly and strictly just in his secular transactions, most exem- plarily meek and humble notwithstanding his perfections ; but beyond all example charitable."
Among other proofs, that might be advanced, of the ripe literary judgment of this admired scholar, his going so far beyond his age in a just appreciation of the merits of Shake- speare, is not unworthy of observation. Relating to this point, there is a well-known anecdote, first reported by Rowe. In a company consisting of the chief wits of the age, a poet who was present, reproached the " myriad-minded" bard with want of learning, and ignorance of the ancients. Hales, who had hitherto been listening in silence, suddenly retorted, that if Shakespeare had not read the ancients, neither had he stolen from them (" a fault,"" observes Rowe, " the other made no conscience of'); and that if the objector would produce any one topic finely treated by any of them, he would undertake to shew something upon the same subject, at least as well written, by Shakespeare.
The means by which posterity can judge of the abilities of this learned person, the object of unlimited panegyric to his contemporaries, are, unfortunately, slender. He wrote little — scarcely any thing except at the earnest desire of his friends. "None," says Dr. Pearson, "ever so resolved (pardon the expression, so obstinate) against it. His facile and courteous nature learnt only not to yield to that solicitation. And there- fore the world must be content to suffer the loss of all his
[ ' The reader will perceive the neces- sity of adopting this panegyric only in a very limited sense, on discovering, as he VOL. I.
presently will do, the deplorable hetero- doxy of the celebrated Etonian, regard- ing the sacrament of the Eucharist.]
24.
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learning with the deprivation of himself ; and yet he cannot be excused for hiding of his talent, being so communicative that his chamber was a church, and his chair a pulpit.
"Only,'" proceeds Dr, Pearson, "that there might be some taste continue of him, here are some of his remains collected ; such as he could not but write, and such as, when written, were out of his power to destroy."
Writings of John Hales : —
The celebrated volume, to which the above remarks are introductory, was published in the year 1659, with the title: Golden Remains of the ever-memorable Mr. John Hales, of Eton College. It consists of two parts. Sermons and Letters. The sermons are nine in number. The letters, in number thirty-two, are those which he wrote to Sir Dudley Carlton, from the Synod at Dort. They are dated between the middle of November, 16I8, and the end of the first week in February, I619. Together with some by Walter Balcanqual, the representative at Dort of the Church of Scotland, which also are published in the same volume, they contain the best account extant of the proceedings of that partial con- clave. A selection of these letters was translated into Latin, and inserted by Limborch in the Prcestantium ac Erudi- torum Virorum Epistolce Ecclesiasticce et Theologicce.
A second edition of the Remains appeared in l6'73, en- larged by the addition of four sermons, and several mis- cellaneous tracts, of which the principal are Mr. Hales''s Confession of the Trinity ; How we come to know the Scriptures to be the Word of God; and. The Method of Reading Profane History.
The same year, four other sermons by this author were printed by themselves.
Several tracts, <§-c. by Hales, were published in 1677- The first of these productions treats concerning the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost ; which sin Mr. Hales defines to be the malicious ascription of Christ's miracles to the power of the devil. The second relates to the sa- crament of the Lord's Supper, and reveals such views of the author, on this most important subject, as tend to recon- cile the mind to the paucity of his writings. He reduces the Eucharist to a mere commemorative observance ; denies all "spiritual eating" of Christ therein, except such as is
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" common to all places, as well as the Lord's Table and classes the administering of the Communion to the sick, among the "errors" of the reformed churches. Tract 3rd is a para- phrase on Matth, xii. Tract 4th treats on the power of the keys, and on auricular confession. The 5th is the famous tract concerning Schism and Schismatics. This production, first printed in l642, without the writer''s consent, from an imperfect copy, is in this edition corrected from the original. It excited much attention at its first appearance, but still more after the Restoration ; when the nonconformists, and other advocates of comprehension, were fond of appealing to its latitudinarian views in support of their opinions.
Letter to Archbishop Laud, upon occasion of his tract concerning Schism, 8fC. 1716.
Of the Dignities and Corruptions of Man''s Nature since the Fall. 1720.
An Account of the Life and Writings of Hales was pub- lished in 1719, by Des Maizeaux. It is carefully written, and sufficiently complete ; but too favourable to the bold peculiarities of its distinguished subject.
A beautiful edition of the Whole Works of Hales, edited by Lord Hailes, was printed at Glasgow, in three vols. 12mo. in 1675.
FROM THE REMAINS OF JOHN HALES.
OF DEALING WITH ERRING BRETHREX.
Rom. xiv. 1. — Him that is weak in the faith receive, but not to doubtful disputations.
Goodness, of all the attributes by which a man may be styled, hath chief place and sovereignty ; goodness, I say, not that metapliysical conceit which we dispute of in our schools, and is nothing else but that perfection which is inwardly due unto the being of every creature, and without which, erther it is not at all, or but in part, that whose name it bears ; but that which the common sort of men do usually understand, when they call a man good ; by which is meant nothing else but Jy^oV koi /ieiXi^ov ^^o<r, a soft, and sweet, and flexible dis- position. For all other excellencies and eminent qualities which raise in the minds of men some opinion and conceit of us, may occasion peradventure some strong respect in another kind ; but impression of love and tnie respect, nothing can give but tliis. Greatness of place
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and authority may make us feared, depth of leaniiug admired ; abun- dance of wealth may make men outwardly obsequious unto us ; but that which makes one man a god unto another, that which doth tie the souls of men unto us, that wliich, like the eye of the bridegroom in the book of Canticles, ravishes the heart of liim that looks upon it, is goodness : without this mankind were but (as one speaks) com- missioni's vierm et arena sine calce, " stones heaped together without mortar," or a piece of boards without any cement to bind and tie them together : for this it hath singidar in it, above all other properties of which our nature is capable, that it is the most available to human society, incorporating and as it were kneading us together by softness of disposition, by being compassionate, by gladly communicating to the necessity of others, by transfusing ourselves into others, and re- ceiving from others into ourselves. All other qualities, how excellent soever they are, seem to be somewhat of a melancholic and soUtary disposition ; they shine then brightest when tliey are in some one alone, or attained unto by few ; once make them common, and they lose their lustre : but goodness is more sociable, and rejoiceth in equalling others unto itself, and loses it nature when it ceases to be communicable. Tlie heathens spealdng of God, usually style him by two attributes, optimus and maximus, the one importing his goodness, the other his power. In the first place they called him optimus, a name signifying his goodness, giving the precedency unto it ; and in the second place maximus, a name betokening lus power ; yea, goodness is that wherein God himself doth most dehght himself : and therefore all the acts of our Saviour, while he conversed on earth among men, were purely the issues of his tenderness, without any aspersion of severity^, two only excepted; I mean his chasing the profaners out of the temple, and the curse laid upon the innocent fig-tree ; and yet in both these mercy rejoiced against judgment, and his goodness had the pre-eminence. For the first brought some smart with it indeed, but no harm at all ; as fathers use to chastise their children by means that fear them more than hurt them. Tlie second of itself was nothing, as being practised on a creature dull and senseless of all smart and punishment ; but was merely exemplary for us: Sterilitas nostra in feu va-pulat, " Christ whips our fruitlessness in the innocent fig-tree ; " like as the manner was among the Persians, when their great men had offended, to take their garments and beat them. Now that gracious way of goodness, which it pleased our Saviour thus to tread himself before us, the same hath he left beliind him to be gone by us, and hath ordained us a course of religious and Christian service unto him, known by nothing more than goodness and compassion. The very heathens themselves, though utter enemies unto
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it, have candidly afforded us this testimony. Amniianus Marceliinus taxing Georgius, a factious and proud bishop of Alexandria, for abusing the weakness of Constantius the emperor, by base tale-bearing, and privy informations, notes precisely that he did it, oblitus professiojiis svm, qitcB nil nisijustum suadet et lene; " quite besides the meaning of his profession, whose especial notes were gentleness and equity." And TertuUian tells us, that anciently among the heathen, the professors of Christianity were called, not Christiani, but Chrestiani, from a word signifying benignity and sweetness of disposition. The learned of our times, who for our instruction have wi'itten, de notis Ecclesite, " by what notes aud signs we may know the Church of Christ," may seem to have but ill forgotten this, which the heathen man hath so clearly discovered. For what reason is there why that should not be one of the chiefest notes of the Church of Christ, which did so especially characterise a Christian man, except it were the decay of it at this day in the Church ? Of this thing therefore, so excellent in itself, so useful, so principally commended by the precept and example of our blessed Saviour, one especial part is, if not the whole, which here by our apostle is commended unto us, when he speaks unto us of kindly intreating and making much of such who are, as he calls them, weak in faith.
" Him that is weak in faith, &c." To know tlie natural ground and occasion of which words, it shall be very pertinent to note unto you, that with the Church of Christ, as it signifies a company of men on earth, it fares no otherwise than it doth with other societies and civil corporations. One thing there is unavoidable, and natural to all societies, which is the greatest occasioner, yea, the very ground of disunion and dissent, I mean, inequality of persons and degrees. All are not of the same worth, and therefore all cannot carry the same esteem and countenance ; yet all, even the meanest, are alike impatient of discountenance and contempt, be the persons never so great from whence it proceeds. Wherefore we find that in states governed by the people, nothing did more exasperate the common sort, than the conceit of being contemned by men of greater place. For the taking away therefore of tumult and combustion, which through this inequality might arise, it was anciently counted an excellent policy in the Roman state, that men of greater account and place did as it were share the inferior sort amongst themselves, and every one, according to his ability, entertained some part of them as clients, to whom they yielded all lawful favour and protection. Even thus it fares with the Church of God ; it cannot be, that all in it should be of equal worth, it is likewise distinguished into Plebem and Optimates. Some there are, and those that either through abundance of spiritual graces, or else of natural gifts, do far outstrip a great part of other
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Christians ; these are the Optimutes, the nobles of the Church, whom our apostle somewhere calls " strong- men in Christ." Others there are, and those most in number, who, either because God hath not so liberally blessed them with gifts of understanding and capacity, or by reason of some other imperfections, are either not so deeply skilled in the mysteries of Christ, and of godliness, or otherwise weak in manners and behaviour ; and these are the Plebs, the many of the Church, whom our apostle sometimes calls " brethren of low degree," sometimes " babes in Christ," and here in my text the "weak" and sick in faith. Men by nature querulous, and apt to take exception, saith Electra in the tragedy, dva-dpea-rov yap ol vo<TovvTe<: dtroplaK vtto, " a sick man is a pettish and wayward creature, hard to be pleased ;" as therefore with the sick, so are we now to deal with a neighbour weak and sick of his spiritual constitution, and much we are to bear with his frowardness, where we cannot remedy it. For as Varro some- times speaks of tlie laws of wedlock, Uxoris vitium aut tollendum est, aut ferendum, "either a man must amend or endure the faults of his wife ; " he that amends them, makes his wife the better, but he that patiently endures them, makes himself the better ; so is it much more true in dealing with our weak bretliren. If we can by our be- haviour remedy their imbecilities, we make them the better ; if not, by enduring them we shall make ourselves the better ; for so shall we increase the virtue of our patience, and purchase to ourselves at God's hand a more abundant reward. A great part of the lustre of a Christian man's virtue were utterly obscure, should it want this mean of shewing itself. For were all men strong, were all of sufficient discretion to see and judge of conveniency, where were the glory of our forbearance ? As well therefore to increase the reward of the strong man in Christ, as to stop the whining and murmuring of the weaker sort, and to give content at all hands ; our apostle, like a good tribune, in this text gives a rule of Christian popularity, advising the man of worthier parts to avoid all slighting behaviour, to open the arms of tenderness and compassion, and to demerit by all courtesy the men of meaner rank, so to prevent all inconvenience that might arise out of disdainful and respectless carriage : for God is not like unto mortal princes, jealous of the man whom the people love. In the world, nothing is more dangerous for great men than the extraordinary favour and applause of the people ; many excellent men have miscarried by it. For princes stand much in fear when any of their subjects hath tlie heart of the people. It is one of the commonest grounds upon which treason is raised. Absalom had the art of it, who by being plausible, by commiserating the people's wrongs, and wishing the redress, " O that I were a judge to do this people good ! " by putting out his hand, and embracing and kissing every one that come nigh
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hini, so stole away the hearts of the people, that he had well nigh put his father besides his kingdom. But what alters and undoes the kingdoms of this world, that strengthens and increases the kingdom of God : Absalom, the popular Christian, that hath the art of winning men's souls, and making himself beloved of the people, is the best subject in the kingdom of grace ; for this is that which our apostle expresses in the phrase of " Receiving the weak."
Now it falls out oftentimes that men offend through intempestive compassion and tenderness, as much as by overmuch rigidness and severity ; as much by familiarity, as by superciliousness and contempt : wherefore our love and courtesy must be managed by discretion. St. Paul saw this well, and therefore he prescribes limits to our affec- tions ; and having in the former part of my text counselled us to admit of all, to exclude none from our indulgence and courtesy ; in this second part, " but not to doubtful disputations," he sets the bounds how far our love must reach. As Moses, in the 19th of Exodus, sets bounds about mount Sinai, forbidding the people that they go not up to the hill, or come within the borders of it ; so hatli the apostle appointed certain limits to our love and favour, within which it shall not be lawful for the people to come. Enlarge we the phy- lacteries of our goodness as broad as we list, give we all countenance unto the meaner sort, admit we them into all inwardness and fami- liarity ; yet, unto disputations and controversies, concerning profounder points of faith and religious mysteries, the meaner sort may be by no means admitted. For, give me leave now to take this for the meaning of the words ; I know they are very capable of another sense : as if the apostle's counsel had been unto us, to entertain with all courtesy our weaker brethren, and not overbusily to enquire into, or censure their secret thoughts and doublings, but here to leave them to themselves, and to God, who is the judge of thoughts : for many there are, otherwise right good men, yet weak in judgment, who have fallen upon sundry private conceits, such as are unnecessary differencing of meats and drinks, distinction of days, or (to exemplify myself in some conceit of our times) some singular opinions concerning the state of souls departed, private interpretations of obscure texts of scrip- ture, and others of the same nature. Of these or the like thoughts, which have taken root in the hearts of men of shallow capacity, those who are more surely grounded may not presume themselves to be judges ; many of these things of themselves are harmless and in- different, only to him that hath some prejudicate opinion of them they are not so ; and of these things, they who are thus or thus conceited, shall be accountable to God, and not to man, to him alone shall they stand or fall. Wherefore, bear (saith the apostle) with these infirmi- ties, and take not on you to be the lords of their thoughts ; but gently
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tolerate these their unnecessary conceits and scrupulosities. This though I take to be the more natural meaning of the words, (for indeed it is tlie main drift of our apostle's discourse in this chapter) yet choose I rather to follow the former interpretation. First, because of the authority of sundry learned interpreters, and because it is very requisite tiiat our age should have something said unto it concerning this over- bold intrusion of all sorts of men into the discussing of doubtful disputations. For disputation, though it be an excellent help to bring the truth to light, yet many times, by too much troubUng the waters, it suffers it to slip away unseen, especially with the meaner sort, who cannot so easily espy when it is mixed with sophistry and deceit. hifirmum autem in fide recipite, but not to " doubtful disputations."
Tliis my text therefore is a spiritual regimen and diet for these who are of a weak and sickly constitution of mind, and it contains a recipe for a man of a crazy and diseased faith. In which, by that which I have delivered, you may plainly see there are two general parts. First, an admonition of courteous entertainment to be given to the weaker sort, in the first words, " Him that is weak in the faith receive," &c. Secondly, the restraint and bound of this admo- nition, how far it is to extend; even unto all Christian offices, excepting only the hearing of '-doubtful disputations." In the first part we will consider : first, who these weak ones are of whom the apostle speaks, and how many kinds of them there be, and how each of them may be the subject of a Christian man's goodness and courtesy ; secondly, who these persons are, to whom this precept of entertaining is given; and they are two, either the private man, or the public magistrate. In the second general part we will see what reasons we may frame to ourselves why these weak ones should not be admitted to questions and doubtful disputations. Which points severally, and by themselves, we will not handle ; but we will so order them, that still as we shall have in order discovered some kind of weak man, whom our apostle would have received, we will immediately seek how far forth he hath a right to be an hearer of sacred disputation ; and this as far only as it concerns a private man. And for an upshot in the end, we will briefly consider by itself, whether, and how far this precept of bearing with the weak pertains to the man of pubhc place, whether in the Church, or in the commonwealth.
And first, concerning the weak, as he may be a subject of Christian courtesy in private. And here, because that in comparison of him that is strong in Christ, every man of what estate soever may be said to be weak, that strong man only excepted, we will in the number of the weak contain all persons whatsoever. For I confess, because I wish well to all, I am willing that all should reap some benefit by my text. As therefore the woman in the gospel, who, in touching
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only the hem of Christ's garment, did receive virtue to cure her disease; so all weak persons whatsoever, though they seem to come behind, and only touch the hem of my text, may peradventure receive some virtue from it to redress their weakness; nay, as the king in the gospel, that made a feast, and willed his servants to go out to the highway-side, to the blind and the lame, and force them in, that his house might be full ; so what lame or weak person soever he be, if I find him not in my text, I will go out and force him in, that the doctrine of my text may be full, and that the goodness of a Christian man inay be like the widow's oil, in the book of Kings, that never ceased running so long as there was a vessel to receive it. Wherefore to speak in general, there is no kind of man, of what life, of what profession, of what estate and calling soever, though he be an heathen, an idolater, unto whom the skirts of Christian compassion do not reach. St. Paul is my author, " Now wliilst you have time (saith he) do good unto all men, but especially to the houseliold of faith." Tlie household of faith indeed hath the pre-eminence ; it must be chiefly, but not alone, respected. The distinction that is to be made, is not by excluding any, but not participating alike unto all. God did some- times indeed tie his love to the Jewish nation only, and gave his laws to them alone, but afterward he enlarged himself, and instituted an order of serving him promiscuously, capable of all the world. As therefore our religion is, so must our compassion be, catholic. To tie it either to persons, or to place, is but a kind of moral Judaism. Did not St. Paul teach us thus much, common reason would. There must of necessity be some free intercourse with all men, otherwise the passages of public commerce were quite cut off, and the common law of nations must needs fall. In some things we agree, as we are men, and thus far the very heathen themselves are to be received. For the goodness of a man, which in Solomon's judgment extendeth even to a beast, much more must stretch itself to a man of the same nature with him, be his condition on what it will. St. Paul loved the Jews because they were his brethren according to the flesh : we that are of the heathen, by the same analogy, ought to be tenderly aflfected to the rest of our brethren, who though they be not as we are now, yet now are that which we sometimes were. Facile est atque proclive, saith St. Austin, malos odisse quia mali sunt ; varum autem et pium eosdem ipsos diligere, quia homi?ies sunt; " It is an easy thing to hate evil men, because they are evil ; but to love them as they are men, this is a rare and a pious thing." The offices of common hospitahty, of helping distressed persons, feeding the hungry, and the like, are due, not only betwixt Christian and Christian, but between a Christian and all the world. Lot, when the angels came
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to Sodom, and sat in tlie streets ; Abraham, when he saw three men coming toward him, stood not to enquire who they were, but out of the sense of common liumanity, ran forth and met them, and gladly entertained them, not knowing whom they should receive. St. Chry- sostom, considering the circumstances of Abraham's fact, that he sat at his tent-door, and that in the heat of the day, that he came to meet them, thinks he therefore sat in public, and endured the incon- venience of the heat even for this purpose, that he might not let slip any occasion of being hospitable. The writings of the fathers run much in commendation of the ancient monks, and were they such as they report, well did they deserve to be commended ; for their manner was to sit in the fields, and by the highway-sides, for this end, that they might direct wandering passengers into the way, that they might relieve all that were distressed by want, or bruising or break- ing of any member, and carry them home in their cells, and perform unto them all duties of humanity. This serves well to tax us who affect a kind of intempestive prudence, and unseasonable discretion, in performing that little good we do, from whom so hardly after long en- quiry and entreaty drops some small benevolence, like the sun in winter, long ere it rise, and quickly gone. How many occasions of Chris- tian charity do we let slip, when we refuse to give our alms, unless we first cast doubts, and examine the persons, their lives, their necessities, though it be only to reach out some small thing which is due unto him, whatsoever it be ! It was anciently a complaint against the Church, that the .liberality of the Christians made many idle persons. Be it that it was so, yet no other thing befel them, than what be- fals their Lord, who knows and sees that his sunshine and his rain is every day abused, and yet the sun becomes not like a sack, nor the heaven as brass ; unto him must we, by his own command, be like : and whom then can we excuse that have a pattern of such courtesy proposed to us to follow ? We read in our books of a nice Athenian, being entertained in a place by one given to hospitality, finding anon that another was received with the like courtesy, and then a third, growing very angry, I thought said he, that I had found here {^evwva, but I have found iravioj^eTov ; " I looked for a friend's house, but I am fallen into an inn, to entertain all comers, rather than a lodging for some private and especial friends." Let it not offend any that I have made Christianity rather an inn to receive all, than a private house to receive some few. For so both the precepts and examples I have brought teach us, Benijicia prcestare non ho- mini, sed hvrnano generic " to extend our good not to this or that man, but to mankind ;" like the sun that ariseth not on this or that nation, but on the whole world. Julian observes of the fig-tree, that above
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all trees it is most capable of grafts and scions of other kinds, so far as that all variety will be brought to take nourishment from one stock. Beloved, a Christian must be like unto Julian's fig-tree, so universally compassionate, that so all sorts of grafts, by a kind of Christian inocu- lation, may be brouglit to draw life and nourishment from his root.
But I am all this while in a generality only, and I must not forget that I have many particular sick patients in my text, of whom every one must have his recipe, and I must visit them all ere I go. But withal I must remember my method, which was, still, as I spake of "receiving the weak," to speak likewise of excluding them from dis- putation. So must I needs, ere I pass away, tax this our age for giving so general permission unto all to busy themselves in doubtful cases of religion. For nothing is there that hath more prejudiced the cause of religion, than this promiscuous and careless admission of all sorts to the hearing and handling of controversies, whether we consider the private case of every man, or the public state of the Church. I will touch but one inconvenience which much annoys the Church, by opening tliis gate so wide to all comers ; for by the great press of people that come the work of the Lord is much liindered. Not to speak of those who out of weakness of understanding fall into many errors, and by reason of liberty of bequeathing their errors to the world by writing, easily find heirs for them. There is a sort that do harm by being unnecessary, and though they sow not tares in the field, yet fill the Lord's floor with chaff : for what need this great breed of writers, with which in this age the world doth swarm ? how many of us might spare the pains in committing our meditations to writing, contenting ourselves to teach the people viva voce, and suffer- ing our conceits quietly to die in their birth ? The teaching the people by voice is perpetually necessary, should all of us every where speak but the same things. For all cannot use books, and all that can have not the leisure. To remedy therefore the want of skill in the one, and of time in the other, are we set in this ministry of preaching. Our voices are confined to a certain compass, and tied to the indi- viduating properties of hie and ?iunc ; our writings are unlimited. Necessity therefore requires a multitude of speakers, a multitude of writers not so. G. Agricola, writing de Animaritibus Subterraneis, reports of a certain kind of spirits that converse in minerals, and much infest those that work in them ; and the manner of them when they come, is, to seem to busy themselves according to all the custom of workmen ; they will dig, and cleanse, and melt, and sever metals ; vet when they are gone, the workmen do not find that there is anything done: so fares it with a great part of the multitude, who thrust themselves into the controversies of the times: they write books, move
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questions, frame distinctions, give solutions, and seem sedulously to do whatsoever the nature of the business requires ; yet if any skilful workman in the Lord's mines shall come and examine their work, he shall find them to be but spirits in minerals, and that with all this labour and stir there is nothing done. I acknowledge it to be very true, which St. Austin spake in his first book, de Triiiitate : Utile est plures libros a pluribus fieri diverso stilo, sed non diversd fide, etiam de qucestionibus iisdem, ut ad plurimos res ipsa perveniat, ad alios sic, ad alios vera sic ; " It is a thing very profitable, that divers tracts be written by divers men, after divers fashions, but according to the same analogy of faith, even of the same questions, that some might come into the hands of all, to some on this manner, to another after that." For this may we think to have been the counsel of the Holy Ghost himself, who may seem even for this purpose to have registered the selfsame things of Christ by three of the Evangelists with little difference. Yet notwithstanding, if this speech of St. Austin admit of being qualified, then was there no time which, more than this age, required should be moderated ; which I note, because of a noxious conceit spread in our universities, to the great hindering of true proficiency in study, springing out from this root. For many of the learned themselves are fallen upon this preposterous conceit, that learning consisteth rather in variety of turning and quoting of sundry authors, than in soundly discovering and laying down the truth of things. Out of which arises a greater charge unto the poor student, who now goes by number rather than weight ; and the books of the learned themselves, by ambitiously heaping up the conceits and authorities of other men, increase much in the bulk, but do as much imbase in true value : wherefore as Gideon's army, of two and thirty thousand, by prescript from God was brought unto three hundred ; so this huge army of disputes might, without any hazard of the Lord's battles, be well contracted into a smaller number. Justinian the emperor, when he found that the study of the civil law was sur- charged, and much confused, by reason of the great heaps of unneces- sary writings, he calls an assembly of learned men, caused them to search the books, to cut off what was superfluous, to gather into order and method the sum and substance of the whole law : were it possible that some religious Justinian might after the same manner employ the wits of some of the best learned in examining the controversies, and selecting out of the best writers what is necessary, defaulting un- necessary and partial discourses, and so digest into order and method, and leave for the direction of posterity, as it were, theological pandects ; infinite store of our books might well lie by, and peaceably be buried, and after-ages reap greater profit with smaller cost and pains. But
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that which was possible in the world, united under Justinian, in this great division of kingdoms is peradventure impossible. Wherefore liaving contented myself to shew what a great and irremediable incon- venience this free and uncontrollable venturing upon theological dis- putes hath brought upon us, I will leave this project as a speculation, and pass from this general doctrine unto some particulars. For this generaUty, and heap of sick persons, I must divide into their kinds, and give every one his proper recipe.
The first in this order of weak persons, so to be received and clie- rished by us, is one of whom question may be made, whether he may be called weak or no ; he may seem to be rather dead ; for no pulse of infused grace beats in him. I mean such a one who hath but small, or peradventure no knowledge at all in the mystery of Christ, yet is other- wise a man of upright hfe and conversation, such a one as we usually name a moral man. Account you of such a one as dead, or how you please, yet methinks I find a recipe for him in my text. For this man is even to be wooed by us ; as sometimes one heathen man wished of another, Talis cum sis utinam noster esse. This man may speak unto a Christian, as Ruth does unto Boaz, " Spread the skirt of thy garment over me, for thou art a near kinsman." Two parts there are that do completely make up a Christian man, a true faith, and an honest conversation. Tlie first, though it seem the worthier, and therefore gives unto us the name of Christians, yet the second in the end will prove the surer. For true profession without honest conver- sation, not only saves not, but increases our weight of punishment ; but a good life without true profession, though it brings us not to heaven, yet it lessens the measure of our judgment : so that a moral man, so called, is a Christian by a surer side. As our Saviour saith of one in the gospel, that had wisely and discreetly answered him, " Thou art not far from the kingdom of Heaven ;" so may we say of these men, suppose that as yet they be not of, yet certainly far from, the kingdom of heaven they cannot be. Yea, this sincerity of life, though severed from true profession, did seem such a jewel in the eyes of some of the ancient fathers, that their opinion was, and so have they in their writings (erroneously doubtless) testified it. That God hath in store for such men not only this mitigating mercy, of which but now I spake, but even saving grace, so far forth as to make them possessors of his kingdom. Let it not trouble you, that I entitle tliem to some part of our Christian faith, and therefore with- out scruple to be received as weak, and not to be cast forth as dead. Salvianus disputing what faith is. Quid est igitur crcduUtas vel fides ? saith he ; opinor, fideliter hominem Chrislo credere, id est, fidelem Deo esse, hoc est fideliter Dei mandata servare: "What might this faith be? I suppose it is nothing else but faithfully to believe Christ,
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and this is to be faithful unto God, which is notliing else but faithfully to keep the commandments of God." Not therefore only a bare belief, but the fidelity and trustiness of God's servants faithfully accom- plishing the will of our Master, is required as a part of our Christian faith. Now all those good things which moral men by the light of Nature do, are a part of God's will written in their hearts ; wherefore so far as they were conscientious in performing them, (if Salvianus's reason be good) so far have they title and interest in our faith. And therefore Regulus, that famous Roman, when he endured infinite tor- ments rather than he would break his oath, may thus far be counted a martyr, and witness for the truth. For the crown of martyrdom sits not only on the heads of those who have lost their lives rather than they would cease to profess the Name of Christ ; but on the head of every one that suffers for the testimony of a good conscience, and for righteousness' sake. I must confess that I have not yet made that proficiency in the schools of our age, as that I could see why the second table, and the acts of it, are not as properly the parts of religion and Christianity, as the acts and observations of the first. If I mistake, then it is St. James that hath abused me ; for he describ- ing religion by its proper acts, tells us, that " true religion, and unde- filed before God and the Father, is, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted of the world." So that the thing which in an especial refine dialect of the new Christian language signifies nothing but morality and civility, that, in the lan- guage of the Holy Ghost, imports true religion. Wherefore any difference that the Holy Ghost makes notwithstanding, the man of virtuous dispositions, though ignorant of the mystery of Christ, be it Fabricius or Regulus, or any ancient heathen man, famous for sincerity and uprightness of carriage, hath as sure a claim and interest in the Church of Christ, as the man deepest skilled in, most certainly believ- ing, and openly professing all that is written in the holy books of God, if he endeavour not to shew his faith by his works. The ancients therefore, where they found this kind of men, gladly received them, and conversed familiarly with them, as appears by the friendly inter- course of the epistles of St. Basil with Libanius, of Nazianzen and Austin with sundry others ; and antiquity hath either left us true, or forged us false epistles betwixt St. Paul himself and Seneca. Now as for the admitting of any of these men to the discussing of the doubts in our religious mysteries, who either know not, or peradveuture contemn them, there needs not much be said. By a canon of one of the councils of Carthage, it appears it had sometimes been the erroneous practice of some Christians to baptise the dead, and to put the sacrament of Christ's body into their mouths. Since we have con- fessed these men to be in a sort dead, as having no supernatural quick-
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ening grace from above, to put into their hands the handling of the word of life at all, much more of discussing of the doubtful tilings in it, were notliing else but to baptise a carcase, and put the commu- nion bread into the mouth of tlie dead. Wherefore leaving this kind of weak person to your courteous acceptance, —
Let us consider of another, one quite contrary to the former ; a true professor, but a man of profane and wicked life, one more danger- ously ill than the former : have we any recipe for this man ? Mav seem for him there is no balm in Gilead ; he seems like unto the leper in the law, unto whom no man might draw near. And by so much the more dangerous is his case, because the condition of conversing with heathen men, be they never so wicked, is permitted unto Christians by our apostle himself ; whereas with this man all commerce seems by the same apostle to be quite cut off. For in the 1 Cor. vi. St. Paul having forbidden them formerly all manner of conversing with fornicators, infamous persons, and men subject to grievous crimes, and considering at length how impossible this was, because of the gentiles with whom they lived, and amongst whom necessarily they were to converse and trade, he distinguishes between the fornicators of this world and the fornicators which were brethren. I meant not, (saith the blessed apostle,) expounding himself, that ye should not admit of the forni- cators of this world, that is, such as were gentiles ; for then must ye have sought a new world. So great and general a liberty at that time had the world assumed for the practice of that sin of fornication, that strictly to have forbidden them the company of fornicators, had almost been to have excluded them the society of mankind. But saith he, " If a brother be a fornicator, or a thief, or a railer, with such a one partake not, no not so much as to eat." WTierefore the case of this person seems to be desperate ; for he is not only mortally sick, but is bereft of all help of the pliysician. Yet notwithstanding all this, we may not give him over for gone ; for when we have well searched our boxes, we shall find a recipe even for him too. Think we that our apostle's meaning was, that we should acquaint ourselves only with the good, and not the bad ; as physicians in the time of pestilence look only to the sound, and shun the diseased ? Our Saviour Christ familiarly conversed, ate, and drank, with publicans and sinners, and gives the reason of it, because he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Is Christ contrary to Paul ? This reason of our Saviour concerns every one on whom the duty of saving of souls doth rest. It is the main drift of his message, and unavoidably he is to converse, yea, eat and drink with all sorts of sinners, even because he is to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Necessary it is that some means be left to reclaim notorious ofFertders, let their disease be never so dangerous. Nescio an in extremis aliquid lentare medicina
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sit, certe nihil ientare perditio est ? "who can tell whether in this ex- tremity, were it at the last cast, it may some way profit to receive him ; but tliis we all know, that altogether to cast him out of the society of good men, is to cut him off from all outward means of health?" The leper in the law, though he were excluded the multitude, yet had he access unto the priest. Beloved, the priest in the new law hath much greater privilege than the ancient had ; he was only a judge, and could not cure : but this is both a judge and a physician, and can both discern and cure the leprosy of our souls ; wherefore he is not to be excluded from the most desperately sick person. Neither doth this duty concern the priest alone ; for, as Tertullian sometimes spake in another case, in majestatis reos et publicos hostes om?iis homo miles est, "against traitors and public enemies every man is a soldier;" so it is true in this. Every one who is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire, is for this business, by counsel, by advice, by rebuking, a priest, neither must he let him lie there to expect better help. Again, no man so ill but hath some good thing in him, though it breaks not out, as being clouded and darkened with much corruption. We must take heed that we do not pro solis com- prehendere frequentissima, "mistake in thinking there is nothing else but evil where we often see it." We must tlierefore entertain even near friendship with such a one to discover him. Nemo enim nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur, saith St. Austin, " no man is perfectly discovered but by his inward acquaintance." As therefore they who seek for treasure give not over by reason of clay and mire, so long as there is any hope to speed ; so may we not cast off our industry, though it labour in the most polluted soul, vt ad qncedam sana in quorum delectatione acquiescamus per charitatis ioleranliam per- ducamur ; " that so at length through charitable patience and long suffering we may discover in him some good things which may content us for the present, and give hope of better things to come." For as they that work in gold and costly matter diligently save every little piece that falls away : so goodness, wheresoever it be, is a thing so precious, that everv little spark of it deserves our care in cherishing. Many miscarry through the want of this patience in those who un- dertake them, whilst they despair of them too soon: dum ita ohjurgant quasi oderini, "whilst they rebuke us as if they hated, and upbraid rather than reprehend." Transit convicium et intemperantia culpatur, uterque qui periere arguuniur. As unskilful physicians, who suffer their patients to die under their hands, to hide their error, blame their patients' intemperance ; so let us take heed lest it be not so much the strength of the disease, as the want of skill in us which we strive to cover, and veil over with the names of contumacy, intemperance, or the like. David received an express message from the prophet,
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that tlie child conceived in adultery should surely die ; yet he ceased not his prayers and tears and fasting, as long as there was life in it. We receive no such certain message concerning any man's miscarriage, and why then should we intermit any office wliich christian patience can afford? Wherefore, wliat Maecenas sometime spake loosely in another sense, Debilem facito manu, dehilem pede, coxa ; lubricos quale denies : vita dum super est, bene est, that we may apply more properly to our purpose, let our weak person here be lame, hand and foot, hip and thigh, sick in head and heart ; yet so long as there is life in him, there is no cause we should despair. How knowest thou how potent the word of God may be tlirough my ministry, out of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham ? I cannot therefore persuade myself that this prohibition of St. Paul, of which we but now spake, so far extended as that it quite interdicted good men the company of the sinners, be they never so gross. For when he delivered men unto Satan (the greatest thing that ever he did in this kind) it was ad interitum carnis, to the mortifying of the flesh, that so the spirit might be safe in the day of the Lord. But this is worse ; for by this peremptory excluding the gross sinner from the good, a greater gap is opened to the liberty of the flesh ; and a more immediate way could not be found to bring final destruction on him at that day. The extent therefore of St. Paul's precept, though given in shew to all, I take to reach no farther than the weak, and such as are in danger of in- fection ; for the weaker sort of men are always evermore the most, and a charge given unto the most, is commonly given under the style of all. Our apostle therefore jealous of the tenderer sort, whom every unwholesome blast doth easily taint, seems, what he intended for the most, to make general to all. Tlie reason which the apostle gives does warrant this restraint. See ye not (saith he) that a little leaven sours the whole lump? If therefore there be any part of the lump, 6^0) /Je'Xouc, out of shot and danger of souring and contagion, on it this precept can have no extent ; and surely some wrong it were to the Church of Christ, to suppose that all were necessarily subject to souring and infection, upon supposal of some admission of leaven. Evil indeed is infectious; but neither necessarily, nor yet so that it need fright us from those who are diseased with it. Contagious diseases which seize on our bodies, infect by natural force and means which we cannot prevent ; but no man drinks down this poison, whose will is not the hand that takes tlie cup : so that to converse with men of diseased minds, infects not except we will. Again, Aristotle in his problems makes a question, Why health doth not infect as well as sickness ? for we grow sick many times by incautiously conversing with the diseased, but no man grows well by accompanying the healthy. Thus indeed it is with VOL. I. 25
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the healthiness of the body, it hath no transient force on others. But the strength and liealthiness of tlie mind, carries with it a gracious kind of infection : and common experience tells us, that nothing profits evil men more than the company of the good. So that strength of mind, accompanied with the preservative of the grace of God, may not only without fear of contagion safely converse with ungracious sinners, but by so doing, as it were infect them, and make them such as himself is. No cause therefore hitherto why the true professors, though notorious sinners, should not be partakers of our christian courtesies, and therefore as of the former, so of this, my conclusion is, we must receive him. Only let me add St. Paul's words in another place, " Ye that are strong, receive such a one."
Having thus far spoken of his admission, let us now a little con- sider of his restraint, and see whether he may have any part in hearing and handling religious controversies ; where, plainly to speak my mind, as his admission before was, so his exclusion here is much more neces- sary : the way to these schools should be open to none but to men of upright life and conversation ; and that as well in regard of the profane and wicked men themselves, as of the cause which they pre- sume to handle : for as for themselves, this is but the field, wherein they sow and reap their own infamy and disgrace. It cannot be, that they who speak, and plot, and act wickedness, should ever write up- rightly. Nam lit in vita, ita et in causis quoque spes improbas ha- bent: "Doubtless, as in their lives, so in the cause they undertake, tliey nourish hopes full of improbity." Besides all this, the opinion of the common sort is not to be contemned, whom no kind of reason so much abuses and carries away, as when the discredit of the person is retorted on the cause ; which thing our adversaries here at home amongst us know very well, a master-piece of whose policy it is, to put into the hands of the people such pamphlets which hurt not our cause at all, but only discredit our persons. St. Chrysostom observes, out of the ancient customs of the Olympic games, that whensoever any man off"ered himself to contend in them, he was not to be admitted till public proclamation had been made throughout the multitude to this purpose : Whether any man knew him to be either a servant, or a thief, or otherwise of infamous life? And if any imputation in this kind were proved against him, it was sufficient to keep him back. Had the heathen this care that their vanities should not be discredited ? how great then must our care be, that they which enter into these exercises be of pure and upright condition ? Let men's skill and judgment therefore be never so good, yet if their lives be notoriously subject to exception, let them know, that there is no place for them in these Olympics. Men indeed, in civil business, have found out a dis-
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tinction between an honest man and a good commonwealtli's-man : and therefore Fabricius in the Roman story is much commended for nominating to the consulsliip Ruffinus, a wicked man, and his utter enemy, because he knew him to be serviceable to the commonwealth, for those wars which were then depending. But in the business of the Lord, and Commonwealth of God, we can admit of no such dis- tinction. For God himself in the book of Psalms, staves them off with a Quid tua ut enarres mea ? &c. "What hast thou to do to take my words into thy mouth, since thou hatest to be reformed ?" The world for the managing of her matters, may employ such as herself hath fitted : " But let every one who names the name of God, depart from iniquity." From the consideration of this sick person, let us proceed to visit the next.
The weak persons I have hitherto treated of, are the fewest, as consisting in a kind of extreme. For the greatest sort of men are in a mediocrity of men : eminently good, or extremely ill, the number is smallest; but this rank of sick persons that now we are to view, is an whole army, and may be every one of us, if we do well examine ourselves, shall find ourselves in it : for the weak, whom we now are to speak of, is he that hath not that degree and perfection of faith, and strength of spiritual constitution, that he ought to have. Where- fore our recipe here must be like the tree of life in the book of the Revelation, it must be medicine to heal whole nations. For who is he amongst men that can free himself from this weakness? Yea, we ourselves that are set over others for their cure, may speak of ourselves and our charge, as lolaus in Euripides doth of himself and Hercules's children: Soj^to tu o oJto? leofxevo^ a-uTtjp'ta^ ; "We take care of these, ourselves standing in need of other's care for us." Hippocrates counsels his physician to look especially, that himself be healthy, to be eui^pw? ko.) eJo-apKw?, " fair of colour, and full of flesh." For otherwise, saith he, how can he give comfort and hope of success to a sick patient, who by his ill colour and meagreness bewrays some imperfection of his own ? But what physician of soul and manners is capable of this counsel ? or who is it, that, taking the cure of others, doth not in most of his actions bewray his own disease ? Even thus hath it pleased God to tie us together with a mutual sense of each other's weakness ; and as ourselves receive and bear with others, so for ourselves interchangeably, must we request the same courtesy at others' hands. Notwithstanding, as it is with the health of our bodies, no man at any time is perfectly well, only he goes for an healthy man who is least sick, so fares it with our souls. God hath included all under the name of weak ; some, peradventure, are less weak than others, but no man is strong. Infelicissimum con-
25—2
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solationis genus est, de miseriis hominum peccatorum capere solatia: "It is but a miserable comfort to judge our own perfections only by others' defects ;" yet this is all the comfort we have. Let us leave, therefore, those who by reason of being less crazy pass for healthy, and consider of those whom some sensible and eminent imperfection above others hath ranked in the number of the weak. And of those there are sundry kinds, especially two. One is weak, because he is not yet ftilly informed, not so sufficiently catechized in the mysteries of faith, whom farther institution may bring to better maturity : the other, peradventure, is sufficiently grounded for principles of faith, yet is weak by reason of some irritatory and troublesome humour in his behaviour. Nullum unquam ingenium placuit sine venia ; "There is no man so perfect, but hath somewhat in his behaviour that requireth pardon." As for the imperfection of the former of these, it is the weakness of infancy and childhood in faith, rather than a disease ; and with this weak man we are especially to bear above all others. For as for him that is weak through gross and wilful ignorance, or contumacy, or the like, it is pardonable, if sometimes we yield him not that measure of courtesy which were meet ; but to be cruel against infancy and childhood were inhumanity. The manner of our recipe for these men, our apostle somewhere expresses, where he tells us of some that must be fed with milk, and not strong meat : unto these we must rather be as nurses, than physicians ; as Christ being God, emptied himself, and became man like to us, so must we lay down our gifts of wit, in which we flatter ourselves, and take ourselves to be as gods, and in shew and fashion become like one of them. Grave men have thought it no disparagement to have been seen with their little sons, Ludere par impar, equitare in arundine longa ; " toying and prac- tising with them their childish sports :" and if any take ofi'ence at it, they are such as know not what it is to be fathers. Those therefore who bear the office of fathers amongst other men, to bring up the infancy of babes in Christ, must not blush to practise this part of a father, and out of St. Paul's lesson of becoming all to all, learn to become a child to children ; do it he may very well, without any im- peachment to himself. He that helps one up that is fallen, non se projicit, ut ambo jaceant ; sed incurvat tantum, utjacentem erigat, " throws not himself down to lie by him, but gently stoops to lift him up again." But of this weak person I have little need, I trust, to speak : for what is the end of all this labour and pains in teaching, but that ye might at length not need a teacher ? Wherefore from this I come unto that other weak person, strong in faith, but weak in carriage and behaviour.
Golden Remains, &c.
1644.]
JOHN SMITH.
A.D. 1644—1652.
This divine— o Trdw ixaKaplrrj^ — "whose memory is most blessed," writes one of his admiring friends, was born at Achurch in Northamptonshire, in l620, and sent to Em- manuel College, Cambridge, in April, 1636, where he en- joyed the advantage of having as his tutor the learned Dr. Whichcote. In 1644 he was chosen fellow of Queens' College ; and here that intimacy was formed between him and Patrick, to which we are indebted for the greater part of what is known respecting his character and life. " He died," writes that good bishop and sound-hearted man, " August 7, 1652, much lamented. But blessed be God for the good I got by him while he lived!" Patrick, though a young man, and then not even in orders, was desired by the fellows of the college to preach his funeral sermon ; " which," he observes, " I did, in the chapel, where the vice-chancellor and all the heads, and a great many others, (more than the chapel could hold,) at- tended him to his grave in that place." The discourse de- livered on this occasion, sufficiently attests both the learning and eloquence of the preacher, and the warmth of his attach- ment to his deceased friend. Some further notes concerning Smith are likewise contained in the Autobiography of Patrick, recently published. The testimony of the bishop is more- over confirmed, and, in some degree, enlarged, by Dr. Worth- ington, (a divine whose praise is not less honourable than Patrick's) in his preface to the reader, prefixed to Smitlis Remains. From these authorities the following brief account of this excellent young divine is derived ; and it is given, not unfrequently, in the words of the respective originals.
Mr. Smith appears to have made himself, at an early age, thoroughly master of the various branches of learning at that time taught in the university ; but was particularly distin- guished by his proficiency in mathematics, in which faculty he for some years read the lecture in the schools. He had
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many pupils ; to whom, as indeed to all with whom he con- versed, the delight and facility he experienced in imparting knowledge seem to have equalled that which he enjoyed in the acquisition of it : on this point both his panegyrists dwell with grateful satisfaction. Theology, in particular that de- partment of it which regards the rational grounds of faith, was, clearly, the study that most engaged his mind ; as the practice of "religion pure and undefiled" was the object of his life. His rational, profound, practical, and manly views of divine truth, were instrumental in freeing the mind of Patrick, (whose senior he was by some few years) and pro- bably of other students his contemporaries, from the fatalism which so many young men of those times imbibed in boyhood, without, on the other hand, delivering them over to the jejune and sterile doctrines of mere Arminianism\ "One singular blessing," pleasantly relates that grateful friend, " I cannot but here acknowledge, which I enjoyed by my con- versation with Mr. Smith, which is fresh in my mind to this day," (this was written by Patrick at an advanced period of his life) " as the very place is where we were discoursing together. Our subject was the doctrine of absolute pre- destination, which I told him had always seemed to me very hard; and 1 could never answer the objections against it, but was advised by divines to silence carnal reason. At which he fell a laughing, and told me they were good and sound reasons which I had objected against that doctrine, and made such a representation of God to me, and of his good- will to men in Christ Jesus, as quite altered my opinion, and made me take the liberty to read such authors (which were before forbidden me) as settled me in the belief that God would really have all men to be saved ; of which I never after made a question, nor looked upon it as a matter of con- troversy, but presumed it in all my sermons."
Early in the year 1651 Mr. Smith was attacked by a disease which perplexed his friends and the Cambridge phy- sicians. " He had a husking cough, and spit up stones : so," says Patrick, " I call them, for they resembled a cherry-stone, and were of that bigness." Committing his pupils, according to his custom when absent, in term-time, to the care of
' Tliis v/as among the benefits derived | of a profound school of divines to whidi to the Church from those Platonical studies I Smith may be regarded as belon.!,'ing.
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Patrick, he went to London to obtain more efficient medical advice, and passed there the greater part of the summer, under the treatment of the famous Dr. Theodore Mahern ; but with little benefit. About the end of July he returned to Cambridge, and presently afterwards became farther debili- tated by the addition of diarrhoea to his other symptoms. With a view to check this aggravation of his malady, he resort- ed to an imprudent use of steel, " by quenching a gad of it in all his drink." This drove the disease upwards, into his head, and brought on a kind of lethargic sleep, in which he passed the last six days of his life — "if," says Patrick, "I may call it life." His friends now became anxious respecting the settlement of his worldly affairs, and demanded of the phy- sician whether no means could be used to bring him for a while to himself. By the doctor's direction, some oil of mace was brought, with which he chafed the patient's temples, and so far succeeded that with the suggestions of those present he made his will, by which he left his library, "a noble company of books," to Queens' college, and a small landed estate he possessed, to a relation. But before he could set his hand to tlie instrument he again fell asleep, and, concludes Patrick, never v/aked more, but died August 7th, l652.
Referring to the volume of his friend's Remains, the bishop states, that in them alone may be seen the admirable genius of Mr. Smith, which, he continues, " my poor young weak thoughts were not able to express. For I could only declare how much I was transported in my admiration of him, who spake of God and religion so as I never heard man speak. Once, I remember, speaking of the being of God, he told me that perhaps he had reason to believe there was a God, above most other men. I have often since blamed myself that I was not so bold as to enquire what he meant ; but modesty becomes young men, especially to their superiors ; and I was withheld by a profound reverence for him, as vastly above me, though not in years ; for he was but thirty- two years old when he died : what a man would he have been if he had lived as long as I have done, when he had attained to such a pitch of perfection at those years !"
The following more detailed testimony is extracted from the Funeral Sermon.
" He could do," observed Patrick, " what he would. He had such a huge wide capacity of soul, such a sharp
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and piercing understanding, such a deep reaching mind, that he set himself about nothing but he soon grasped it and made himself a full possessor of it. He was a most laborious searcher after wisdom — a living library. I never," conti- nues he, "got so much good among all my books by a whole day''s plodding in a study, as by an hour's discourse I have got with him. For he was not a library locked up, nor a book clasped, but stood open for any to converse withal that had a mind to learn. Yea, he was a fountain running over, labouring to do good to those who perhaps had no mind to receive it. None more free and communicative than he was to such as desired to discourse with him ; nor would he grudge to be taken olF from his studies upon such an occa- sion, and he was no less happy in expressing his mind, than in conceiving. He had such a copia verhorum, such a plenty of words, and those so full, pregnant, and significant, joined with such an active fancy, as is very rarely to be found in the company of such a deep understanding and judgment as dwelt in him.
" His learning was so concocted, that it lay not as an idle notion in his head, but made him fit for any employment. Add to this his known integrity, uprightness, and faithfulness: he had — incorporated, shall I say ? or inserted all principles of justice and righteousness, and made them one with himself. Methinks I see how earnest he would be in a good matter which appeared to be reasonable and just, as though justice herself had been in him, looking out at his eyes, and speaking at his mouth.
" But his endeavour was not only to be e^w a/jiaprla^, out of the pollutions of the world through lust, but to come to the true likeness of God and His Son, or in the apostle's language ' to be partaker of the divine nature.' What shall I tell you of his love ? None that knew him well, but might see in him love bubbling and springing up in his soul, and flowing out to all ; and that love unfeigned, without guile, hypocrisy, or dissimulation. His patience was no less ad- mirable. Under a lingering and tedious disease, he shewed what Christianity and true religion is able to do ; what power and virtue there is in it to bear up a soul under the greatest loads; and that he could, through Christ strengthening him, do all that which he so admirably discoursed of in his life. But his humility was that which was most apparent and conspicuous :
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I challenge any one that is impartial to say, they ever beheld in him any pride, vain glory, boasting, self-conceit, desire of honour and being famous in the world. Shall I add, above all, his faith — his true, lively, and working faith — his simple, plain-hearted, naked faith in Christ? — It made him godlike, and he lived by faith in the Son of God ; by it he came to be truly partaker of the righteousness of Christ, and had it wrought and formed in his very soul. For this indeed was the end of his life, the main design which he carried, that he might become like to God."
Such language (and the entire discourse is in the same strain) we are apt to consider tinged with the high colouring of a friend's partiality. Yet, with all fair allowance for youth- ful and endeared admiration striving to do justice to its theme, he must have been a person of uncommon virtues and ac- complishments, to whose merits this high testimony could have been borne by a writer so learned, rational, and pious as Bishop Patrick.
His mind, we are told by Worthington, (a witness no less honest, but less open to the sources of affectionate bias) " was thoroughly imbued with the generosum honestum, as the satirist not unfitly styles it — incoctum generoso pectus honesto. Those that were thoroughly acquainted with him knew well, that as there was in him (as it was said of Solo- mon, 1 Kings iv. 29.) a largeness and vastness of heart and understanding, so there was also in him ' a free, ingenuous, noble spirit' (Ps. li. 12.) most abhorrent of what was sordid and unworthy."
To a just estimate of the literary remains of Smith the public have been in some degree recalled by the recent praise of two persons, in many respects widely different from each other, but meeting at least upon the common grounds of exquisite judgment and earnest piety — the late Bishop Jebb and the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
After the author's death, his papers were placed in the hands of Dr. Worthington. They consisted merely of notes of the lectures delivered by him in the discharge of his duty as dean and catechist of his college, many of them written merely on " loose and scattered" leaves. To ascertain whether these fragments were likely to repay that affectionate labour which the solicited editor was willing to bestow on them, little
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examination was needed. It was no inconsiderable task, how- ever, guided by some intimations, which he met with, of the course the author meant to pursue, to reduce the disjointed portions to their natural order. The next business (likewise no trivial one) was to translate the numerous quotations from the learned languages, which occur in them. The doctor then divided the whole into discourses and chapters, prefixing to each chapter an analysis of its contents ; and concluded a service honourable to friendship and to literature by the composition of an useful preface. The Discourses are, in all, ten.
The 1st, Of the True Way or Method of attaining to Divine Knowledge, was designed as an introduction to those that follow. It shews, that purity of heart and life, with an ingenuous freedom of judgment, is the proper ground and preparation for the entertainment of truth ; that, consequently, the knowledge of divine things, though not wholly neglected by the heathen philosophers, belongs, in the highest and most excellent sense, only to the Christian ; and that it is but in its infancy while he is here on earth.
The £nd, Of Superstition, and the 3rd, Of Atheism, are likewise preparatory. The source of superstition the author considers to be a servile fear of the Deity. His in- dignation against that more refined and subtle superstition which takes the form of pharisaical righteousness, and against which he frequently spoke with indignant force, are developed in the eighth discourse. Superstition not only prepares the way for atheism, but promotes and strengthens it.
Discourse the 4th demonstrates the Immortality of the Soul. In this, as Avell as in the preceding treatise on Athe- ism, the author had especially in view the notions of the Epicurean philosophers. The powerful arguments from philo- sophy, which it brings forward, in evidence of the soul's im- mortality, though happily but little needed in our day, were not without their practical utility in the author's age of abused learning.
The 5th, Of the Existence and Nature of God, unfolds and applies the principles laid down in the first ; showing that as sanctified souls resemble God, so the best way to know God is by contemplating the soul itself, and its operations.
The 6th, Of Prophecy, treats elaborately of the nature, degrees, and laws of prophetical inspiration ; these the author
1652.]
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illustrates by researches, reckoned profound even in that age, into the remains of Jewish and pagan learning, and applies them to the detection of imposture.
The 7th, is a more practical discourse — Of the Legal and Evangelical Righteousness ; yet here also, for the better stating of the Jewish notion of the righteousness of the law, the author, says Worthington, " has traversed — loca nullius ante trita solo — the more unknown records and monuments of Jewish authors."
The 8th, is Of Pharisaic Righteousness. — It powerfully demonstrates the vanity of substituting unsound observances for the sanctity of the individual ; and therewith the truth of the author's aphorism, " that true religion is not an art, but a new nature, which discovers itself best in a serene and clear temper of mind, in deep humility, meekness, self-denial, uni- versal love of God and all true goodness."
The 9th discourse treats Of the Excellency and Nobleness of true Religion and Holiness. — The true magnanimity and ultimate blessedness of the Christian have seldom been more attractively set forth, especially to the apprehension of vigorous and well informed minds, than in this excellent composition. It proves the author to have largely profited by the principles he so well describes.
The 10th, and last, is entitled A Christianas Conflicts with, and Conquests over Satan. It considers the devil not only as an apostate spirit watching for men's destruction without, but as a spirit of apostacy and degeneracy in the soul itself ; and that the danger of temptation is rather in their yielding through their own frailty, than by the unassisted suggestions of the spiritual adversary. This discourse was delivered be- fore a public auditory ; it is consequently more familiar, and, in the ordinary sense of the word, more practical, than those which precede.
"It is likely," observes Dr. Worthington, in the close of his preface, "that if the author had revised these essays in his life- time, with a view to publication, they would have received from his happy hand some further polishing and enlargements. But it pleased the only wise God (in whose hand our breath is) to call for him home to the spirits of just men made perfect, after he had lent him to this unworthy world for about five and thirty years ^. A short life was his, if we measure it by
' Patrick, we have seen, says thirly-tivo only.
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so many years ; but if we consider the great ends of life and being in the world, which he fulfilled in his generation, his great accomplishments qualifying him for eminent service, and accompanied with as great a readiness to approve himself a good and faithful servant to his gracious Lord and Master in heaven, his life was not to be accounted short, but long; and we may justly say of him what is said by the author of the Book of Wisdom concerning Enoch, reXetOek ev oXiyto €ir\t]p<Dae -^povov^ fioKpov^ — 'He being consummated in a short time, fulfilled a long time.' For (as the same author doth well express it, in some preceding verses) 'honourable age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that which is measured by number of years : but wisdom is the gray hair unto man, and an unspotted life is old age.'"
FROM THE REMAINS OF JOHN SMITH.
THE TRUE METHOD OF ATTAINING TO DIVINE KNOWLEDGE.
It hath been long since well observed, that every art and science hath some certain principles upon wliich the whole frame and body of it must depend ; and he that will fully acquaint himself with the mysteries thereof, must come furnished with some prcecognita or ■Trp6\ti\f/^ft^, that I may speak in the language of the Stoics. Were I indeed to define divinity, I should rather call it a divine life, than a divine science ; it being something rather to be understood by a spiritual sensation, than by any verbal description, as all things of sense and life are best known by sentient and vital faculties : as the Greek philosopher hath well observed, every thing is best known by that which bears a just resemblance and analogy with it ; and therefore the Scripture is wont to set forth a good life as the prolepsis and fundamental principle of divine science : " Wisdom hath built her an house, and hewen out her seven pillars, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," the foundation of the whole fabric.
We shall therefore as a prolegomenon or preface to what we shall after discourse, upon the heads of divinity, speak something of this true method of knowing, which is not so much by notions as actions ; as religion itself consists not so much in words as things. They are not always the best skilled in divinity that are the most studied in those pandects which it is sometimes digested into, or that have erected the greatest monopolies of art and science. He that is most practical in divine things, hath the purest and sincerest knowledge of them, and
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not he tliat is most dogmatical. Divinity indeed is a true efflux from the eternal light, which like the sun-beams does not only enlighten, but heat and enliven ; and therefore our Saviour hath in his beatitudes connexed purity of heart with the beatifical vision. And as the eye cannot behold the sun, »;AioeiB»;? iitj ytvo/xevo^, unless it be sunlike, and hath tlie form and resemblance of the sun drawn in it ; so neither can the soul of man behold God, deoei^rjv /jitj •y'ivofxevtj, unless it be godlike, hath God formed in it, and be made partaker of the divine nature. And the apostle St. Paul, when he would lay open the right way of attaining to divine truth, he saith that knowledge puffeth up, but it is love edifieth. The knowledge of divinity that appears in systems and models is but a poor wan light, but the powerful energy of divine knowledge displays itself in purified souls : here we shall find the true weliov dXrjdela^, as the ancient philosophy speaks, " the land of truth."
To seek our divinity merely in books and writings, is to seek the living among the dead : we do but in vain seek God many times in these, where his truth too often is not so much enshrined as entombed : no ; intra te qucere Deum, " seek for God within thine own soul ; " he is best discerned voepa eird<p^, as Plotinus phraseth it, " by an in- tellectual touch of him : " we must see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and our hands must handle the word of life, that I may express it in St. John's words. "Eo-ti Se y^vyri^ ai'o-^j/o-i? tic, the soul itself hath its sense, as well as the body : and therefore David when he would teach us how to know what the Divine goodness is, calls not for speculation but sensation, " Taste and see how good the Lord is." That is not the best and truest knowledge of God wliich is wrought out by the labour and sweat of the brain, but tliat which is kindled within us by an heavenly warmth in our hearts. As in the natural body it is the heart that sends up good blood and warm spirits into the head, whereby it is best enabled to its several functions, so that which enables us to know and understand aright in the things of God, must be a living principle of hohness within us. When the tree of knowledge is not planted by the tree of life, and sucks not up sap from thence, it may be well fruitful with evil as with good, and bring forth bitter fruit as well as sweet. If we would indeed have our knowledge thrive and flourish, we must water the tender plants of it with holiness. When Zoroaster's scholars asked him what they should do to get winged souls, such as might soar aloft in the bright beams of divine truth, he bids them bathe themselves in the waters of life; they asking what they were, he tells them, the four cardinal virtues, which are the four rivers of Paradise. It is but a thin, airy knowledge that is got by mere speculation, which is ushered
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in by syllogisms and demonstrations ; but that which springs forth from true goodness, is BetoTepov re irda-ii^ aVoSeifeo)?, as Origen speaks, it brings such a divine light into the soul, as is more clear and convincing than any demonstration. The reason why, notwith- standing all our acute reasons and subtle disputes, truth prevails no more in the world is, we so often disjoin truth and true goodness, which in themselves can never be disunited ; they grow both from the same root, and live in one another. We may, like those in Plato's deep pit with their faces bended downwards, converse with sounds and shadows ; but not with the life and substance of truth, while our souls remain defiled with any vice or lusts. These are the black Lethe lake wlaich drenches the souls of men : he that wants true virtue, in heaven's logic is blind, and cannot see afar olF. Those filthy mists that arise from impure and terrene minds, like an atmo- sphere, perpetually encompass them, that they cannot see that sun of divine truth that shines about them, but never shines into any un- purged souls ; the darkness comprehends it not, the foolish man understands it not. All the light and knowledge that may seem sometimes to rise in unhallowed minds, is but like those fuliginous flames that arise from our culinary fire, that are soon quenched up in their own smoke : or like those foolish fires that fetch their birth from terrene exudations, that do but hop up and down, and flit to and fro upon the surface of this earth where they were first brought forth, and serve not so much to enlighten, as to delude us ; nor to direct the wandering traveller into his way, but to lead him farther out of it. While we lodge any filthy vice in us, this will be perpetually twisting up itself into the thread of our finest spun speculations ; it will be continually climbing up into the to 'HyefxovtKou, the Hegemonical powers of the soul, into the bed of reason, and defile it : like the wanton ivy twisting itself about the oak, it will twine about our judgments and understandings, till it hatli sucked out tlie life and spirit of them. I cannot think such black oblivion should possess the minds of some as to make them question that truth which to good men shines as bright as the sun at noonday, had they not foully defiled their own souls with some hellish vice or other, how fairly soever it may be they may dissemble it. Tliere is a benumning spirit, a congealing vapour that ariseth from sin and vice, that will stupify the senses of the soul ; as the naturalists say tliere is from the torpedo, that smites the senses of those tliat approach to it. This is that venomous solanum, that deadly nightshade, that derives its cold poison into the understanding of men.
Such as men themselves are, such will God himself seem to be. It is the maxim of most wicked men, that the Deity is some way or
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other like themselves : their souls do more than whisper it, though their lips speak it not ; and though their tongues be silent, yet their lives cry it upon the house-tops, and in the public streets. Tliat idea which men generally have of God, is nothing else but the picture of their own complexion : that archetypal notion of him, which hath the supremacy in their minds, is none else but such an one as hath been shaped out according to some pattern of themselves ; though they may so clothe and disguise this idol of their own, when they carry it about in a pompous procession to expose it to the view of the world, that it may seem very beautiful, and indeed any thing else rather than what it is. Most men (though it may be they themselves take no great notice of it) like that dissembUng monk, do aliter sentire in scholis, aliter in ■musceis, are of a different judgment in the schools from what they are in the retirements of tlieir private closets. There is a double head, as well as a double heart. Men's corrupt hearts will not suffer their notions and conceptions of divine things to be cast into that form, that an higher reason which may sometimes work them would put them into. What are all our most subhme speculations of the Deity, that are not impregnated with true goodness, but insipid things that Iiave no taste nor life in them, that do but swell like empty frotli in the souls of men ? They do not feed men's souls, but only puff them up and fill them with pride, arrogance, and contempt and tjTanny towards those that cannot well ken their subtile curiosities : as those philosophers that Tully complains of in his times, qui disciplinam suam ostenta- tionem scientice non legem vita, putabant, which made their know- ledge only matter of ostentation, to venditate and set off themselves, but never caring to square and govern tlieir lives by it. Such as these do but spider-like take a great deal of pains to spin a worthless web out of their own bowels, which will not keep them warm. These indeed are those silly souls that are "ever learning, but never come to the knowledge of the ti-uth." They may, with Pharaoh's lean kine, eat up and devour all tongues and sciences, and yet wlien they have done, still remain lean and ill-favoured as they were at first. Jejune and barren speculations may be hovering and fluttering up and down about divinity, but they cannot settle or fix themselves upon it : they unfold the plicatures of truth's garment, but they cannot behold the lovely face of it. There are hidden mysteries in divine truth, wrapped up one within another, wliich cannot be discerned but only by divine Epoptists.
We must not think we have then attained to the right knowledge of truth, when we have broken through the outward shell of words and phrases, that house it up ; or when by a logical analysis we have found
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out the dependencies and coherencies of them one witli another ; or when, like stout champions of it, liaving well guarded it with the invincible strength of our demonstration, we dare stand out in the face of the world, and challenge the field of all those that would pretend to be our rivals.
We have many grave and reverend idolaters, that worship truth only in the image of their own wits ; that could never adore it so much as they may seem to do, were it any thing else but such a form of belief as their own wandering speculations had at last met to- gether in; were it not they find their own image and superscription upon it.
Tliere is a " knowing of the truth as it is in Jesus," as it is in a Christ-like nature, as it is in that sweet, mild, humble, and loving spirit of Jesus, which spreads itself like a morning sun upon the souls of good men, full of liglit and life. It profits little to know Christ himself after the flesh ; but he gives his Spirit to good men, that searcheth the deep things of God. There is an inward beauty, life and loveliness in divine truth, which cannot be known but only then when it is digested into life and practice. The Greek philosopher could tell those high-soaring Gnostics, that thought themselves no less than Jovis aiites, that could (as he speaks in the comedy) ae'^o/JaTe?!/ koi irepi- (ppovtiv Tov tjXiov, and cried out so much, fSXene -npo^ rov Qeov, " look upon God," that avev dpert^^ Geo? ovo/xa fxovov, " Without virtue and real goodness God is but a name," a dry and empty notion. The pro- fane sort of men, like those old Gentile Greeks, may make many ruptures in the walls of God's temple, and into the holy ground, but yet may find God no more there than they did. Divine truth is better understood, as it unfolds itself in the purity of men's hearts and lives, than in all those subtil niceties into which curious wits may lay it forth. And therefore our Saviour, who is the great Master of it, would not, while he was here on earth, draw it up into any system or body, nor would his disciples after him ; He would not lay it out to us in any canons or articles of belief, not being indeed so careful to stock and enrich the world with opinions and notions, as with true piety, and a God-like pattern of purity, as the best way to thrive in all spirit- ual understanding. His main scope was to promote an holy life, as the best and most compendious way to a right belief. He hangs all true acquaintance with divinity upon the doing God's will : " If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." This is that alone which will make us, as St. Peter tells us, "that we shall not be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour." There is an inward sweetness and deliciousness in divine
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truth, vvliicU no sensual mind can taste or relish : this is that \//v^iKo? ai't^p, that " natural man" that favours not the things of God. Corrupt passions and terrene affections are apt of their own nature to disturb all serene tlioughts, to precipitate our judgments, and warp our under- standings. It was a good maxim of the old Jewish writers, — " The Holy Spirit dwells not in terrene and earthly passions." Divinity is not so well perceived by a subtile wit, as by a purified sense; uxnrep aKrSr^aei KeKadapfxevri, as Plotinus phraseth it.
Neither was the ancient philosophy unacquainted with this way and method of attaining to the knowledge of Divine things ; and therefore Aristotle himself thought a young man unfit to meddle with the grave precepts of morality, till the heat and violent precipitancy of his youthful affections was cooled and moderated. And it is observed of Pythagoras, that he had several ways to try the capacity of his scholars, and to prove the sedateness and moral temper of their minds, before he would entrust them with the sublimer mysteries of his philosophy. The Platonists were herein so wary and solicitous, that they thought the minds of men could never be purged enough from those earthly dregs of sense and passion, in which they were so much steeped, before they could be capable of divine metaphysics : and therefore they so much solicit a ^upKrixoi aVo tov o-Mjuaro?, as they were wont to phrase it, " a separation from the body," in all those that would Kadapu^ (piXoa-ocpeTir, as Socrates speaks, that is indeed, sincerely understand Divine truth ; for that was the scope of their philosophy. This was also intimated by them in their defining philosophy to be neXeTtj davdrov, "a meditation of death ;" aiming herein at only a moral way of dying, by loosening the soul from the body and this sensitive life ; which they thought was necessary to a riglit contemplation of intelligible things : and tlierefore besides those by which the souls of men were to be sepa- rated from sensuality and purged from fleshly filth, they devised a further way of separation, more accommodated to the condition of philosophers, which was their mathemata, or mathematical contempla- tions, whereby the souls of men might farther shake off their dependency upon sense, and learn to go as it were alone, without the crutch of any sensible or material thing to support them ; and so be a little inured, being once got up above the body, to converse freely with immaterial natures, without looking down again and falling back into sense. Besides, many other ways they had whereby to rise out of this dark body, aW/Jao-ei? €k tov (nrr]\alov, as they are wont to call them, several steps and ascents out of this miry cave of mortality, before they could set any sure footing witli their intellectual part in the land of light and immortal being.
And thus we should pass from this topic of our discourse, upon VOL, I. 26
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[A.D.
which we have dwelt too long already, but that before we quite let it go, I hope we may fairly make this use of it farther (besides what we have openly driven at all tliis while), which is, to learn not to devote or give up ourselves to any private opinions or dictates of men in matters of religion, nor too zealously to propugn the dogmata of any sect. As we should not, like rigid censurers, arraign and condemn the creeds of other men which we comply not with, before a full and mature understanding of them, ripened not only by the natural sagacity of our own reasons, but by the benign influence of holy and mortified affection : so neither should we over-hastily credere in Jidem alienam, "subscribe to the symbols and articles of other men." They are not always the best men that blot most paper; truth is not, I fear, so voluminous, nor swells into such a mighty bulk as our books do. Those minds are not always the most chaste that are most parturient with these discourses, which too often bear upon them a foul stain of their un- lawful propagation. A bitter juice of corrupt affections may some- times be strained into the ink of our great clerks, their doctrine may taste too soiu- of the cask they come through. We are not always happy in meeting with that wholesome food (as some are wont to call the doctrinal part of religion) which hath been dressed out by the cleanest hands. Some men have too bad hearts to have good heads: they cannot be good at theory who have been so bad at the practice, as we may justly fear too many of those from whom we are apt to take the articles of our belief have been. Wliilst we plead so much our riglit to the patrimony of our fathers, we may take too fast a possession of their errors as well as of their sober opinions. There are idola speeds, innate prejudices, and deceitful hypotheses, that many times wander up and down in the minds of good men, that may fly out from them with their graver determination. We can never be well assured what our traditional divinity is ; nor can we securely enough addict our- selves to any sect of men. That which was the philosopher's motto, 'YiKevdepov e'lvai oei ■yi/to'jUj; tov fxeWovTu <pi\o<To(p€w, we may a little enlarge, and so fit it for an ingenuous pursuer after divine truth : he that will find truth, must seek it with a free judgment, and a sanctified mind. He that thus seeks, shall find ; he shall live in truth, and that shall live in him ; it shall be like a stream of living waters issuing out of his own soul ; he shall drink of the waters of his own cistern, and be satisfied; he shall every morning find tliis heavenly manna lying upon the top of his own soul, and be fed with it to eternal life ; he will find satisfaction within, feeling himself in conjunction with truth, though all the world should dispute against him.
And thus I shall again leave this argument, but that perhaps we may all this while have seemed to undermine what we intend to build
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up. For if divine truth spring only up from the root of true goodness, how sliall we ever endeavour to be good, before we know wliat it is to be so ? or how shall we convince the gainsaying world of trutli, unless we could also inspire virtue into it ?
To both which we shall make this reply, that there are some radical principles of knowledge that are so deeply sunk into the souls of men, as that the impression cannot easily be obliterated, though it may be much darkened. Sensual baseness doth not so grossly sully and bemire the souls of all wicked men at first, as to make them, with Diagoras, to deny the Deity, or with Protagoras to doubt of, or with Diodorus to question, the immortality of rational souls. Neither are the common principles of virtue so pulled up by the roots in all, as to make them so dubious in stating the bounds of virtue and vice as Epicurus was, though he could not but sometimes take notice of them. Neither is the retentive power of trutli so weak and loose in all sceptics, as it was in him, who being well scourged in the streets till the blood ran about him, questioned, when he came home, whether he had been beaten or not. Arrianus hath well observed, that the common notions of God and virtue impressed upon the souls of men, are more clear and perspicuous than any else ; and that if they have not more certainty, yet have they more evidence, and display them- selves with less difficulty to our reflexive faculty, than any geometrical demonstrations : and these are both available to prescribe out ways of virtue to men's own souls, and to force an acknowledgment of truth from those that oppose, when they are well guided by a skilful hand. Truth needs not any time fly from reason, there being an eternal amity between them. They are only some private dogmata, that may well be suspected as spurious and adulterate, that dare not abide the trial thereof. And this reason is not every where so extinguished, as that we may not by that enter into the souls of men. What the magnetical virtue is in these earthly bodies, that reason is in men's min'fls, which when it is put forth draws them one to another. Besides, in wicked men there are sometimes distastes of vice, and flashes of love to virtue ; which are the motions which spring from a true intellect, and the faint strugghngs of an higher hfe within them, which they crucify again by their wicked sensuality. As truth doth not always act in good men, so neither doth sense always act in wicked men : they may.sometimes have their lucida intervalla, their sober fits ; and a divine spirit blow- ing and breathing upon them may then blow up some live sparks of true understanding within them ; though they may soon endeavour to quench them again, and to rake them up in the ashes of their own earthly thoughts.
All this, and more that might be said upon this argument, may
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serve to point out the way of virtue. We want not so much means of knowing what we ought to do, as wills to do that which we may know. But yet all that knowledge which is separated from an inward acquaint- ance with virtue and goodness, is of a far different nature from that which ariseth out of a true living sense of them, which is the best discemer thereof, and by which alone we know the true perfection, sweetness, energy, and loveliness of them, and all that which is cure ftrjTov, ovTc ypaiTTov, that which Can no more be known by a naked demonstration, than colours can be perceived of a blind man by any definition or description which he can hear of them. We must there- fore endeavour more and more to withdraw ourselves from these bodily things, to set our souls as free as may be from its miserable slavery to this base flesh : we must shut the eyes of sense, and open that brighter eye of our understandings, that other eye of the soul, as the philosopher calls our intellectual facvdty, ^i' e-^^et fxiv ttc?, ^ptpvTai oe 0A1701, " which indeed all have, but few make use of it." This is the way to see clearly ; the light of the divine world will then begin to fall upon us, and those sacred e\\dfx\l/€i?, those pure coruscations of immortal and everliving truth will shine out into us, and in God's own light shall we behold him. The fruit of this knowledge will be sweet to our taste, and pleasant to our palates, sweeter than the honey or the honeycomb. The priests of Mercury, as Plutarch tells us, in the eating of their holy tilings, were wont to cry out yXvKv »/ d\tjdeta, " Sweet is truth !" But how sweet and delicious that truth is which holy and heaven-born souls feed upon in the mysterious converse with the Deity, who can tell but they that taste it? When reason once is raised by the mighty force of the Divine Spirit into a converse with God, it is turned into sense : that which before was only faith well built upon sure principles, (for such our science may be) now becomes vision. We shall then converse with God tw i/w, whereas before we conversed with him only Biai/om, with our discursive faculty, as the Platonists were wont to distinguish. Before, we laid hold on him only \6ym aVoSeiKTiKo?, with a struggling, agonistical, and contentious reason, hotly combatting with difficulties and sharp contests of divers opinions, and labouring in itself, in its deductions of one thing from another ; we shall then fasten our minds upon him with such a serene understanding, such an intellectual calmness and serenity, as will present us with a blissful, steady, and invariable sight of him.
•Select Discourses.
Dr. HAMMOND.
A. D. 1625—1660.
Of few among the worthies of the Church of England, are the characters more generally known, or more affection- ately esteemed, than that of Henry Hammond. Born in l605, five years later than his unfortunate master, this faith- ful chaplain of King Charles grew up with the growth of the national discontents ; was a sufferer, in his mature years, from their explosion ; and, if we except his immediate pas- sage to the grave, his whole remaining life was darkened by their issues. Yet was not Hammond unsuited to his age : his abilities were adapted no less to serve the Church in affliction, than to adorn her in prosperity ; and his moral nature was of that stamp, on which adversity produces a purifying and ripening effect.
His father was Dr. John Hammond, of Chertsey, physician to Prince Henry. From that lamented youth, his sponsor at the font, Hammond received his Christian name. At an early age, being already grounded in learning by his father, who had been Greek professor at Cambridge, he was sent to Eton ; where his proficiency in languages, including the then rare accomplishment of an elementary acquaintance with Hebrew, was not more remarked, than the sweetness and inoff'ensive- ness of his disposition.
In 161 8, at thirteen years of age, he was removed to Mag- dalen College, Oxford. Dr. Hammond was now dead ; but his son's extraordinary merits supplied the failure of interest which was the consequence of that bereavement. "At his first admission he had no less than eio;ht bachelors his scholars for Greek, and four masters his pupils for Hebrew." He was chosen dean of his college in l622 ; the same year he took the degree of bachelor of arts, and that of master in 1625. In this year he was likewise elected to a fellowship ; and in 1629, when twenty-four years of age, entered into holy orders.
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In his professional studies he followed the course adopted before by his illustrious friend Ussher, and recommended in King James's Instructions to the Universities : he began by reading the Fathers ; " as conceiving it most reasonable to search for primitive truth in the primitive writers, and not to suffer his understanding to be prepossessed by the con- trived and interested schemes of modern authors." In mas- tering this, and every other department of learning studied in those times, he passed at the university about fifteen years of intense labour ; finding leisure, in the mean time, for the discharge of several offices in his college, as well as for cultivating the society of various friends, eminent for piety and learning. — Hammond had now risen to a reputa- tion which, at a period when great attainments in the clergy were seldom passed by, could hardly fail to attract prefer- ment. For his only benefice, however, he was no more than incidentally indebted to his reputation at Oxford. He was appointed, in the year 1633, by Dr. Frewen, president of his college, one of the king''s chaplains, (after the Restoration, Archbishop of York,) to preach in his turn at court. The Eai'l of Leicester happened to be present, and was so much delighted with the preacher, that he immediately offered him the vacant living of Penshurst, in Kent.
Hammond was twenty-eight years of age, when thus sud- denly appointed to the care of an extensive parish. Small, however, was the risk of an unsatisfactory result : from earliest youth, his character had been marked by those dis- positions,— viz. mildness of temper, a sedate deportment, and ai'dent devotion, — which are chiefly requisite in the pastoral office. The delight he took in the public duties of the ministry, his munificence and hospitality, his various labours of love among his parishioners, as related at large by his biographer. Bishop Fell, exhibit, in their combination, a perfect model of the English " country parson." "His ser- mons were not undigested and shallow effusions, but rational and sound discourses. Prayers 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 ; but every day in the week, and twice on Saturdays and holy-day eves. At those devotions he took order that his family should give diligent and exemplary attendance ; which was the easier performed, it being guided by his mother," a
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virtuous and pious woman. He administered the sacrament monthly ; and by his example and recommendation raised a fund at the offertory sufficient to relieve the aged poor, and to apprentice the young, throughout the parish. He provided an able schoolmaster, and himself catechised the children before evening service, giving such simple and pregnant ex- positions of the Church Catechism, as were observed to be generally beneficial to the congregation. For the relief of the poor, besides the receipts at the sacrament, and a tenth of his income dedicated to this purpose, " he constantly set apart every week a certain rate in money. Another act of charity he had, — the selling corn to his poor neighbours at a rate below the market-price." His hospitality to his neigh- bours " of the better quality," on Sundays, and the great festivals, in particular at Christmas, was proportionately liberal ; for " he knew well how much the application at the table enforced the doctrines of the pulpit, and how subserv- ing the endearing of his person was to the recommending of his instructions. He farther obliged his parishioners in the settling of their tithes and dues to him ; whereof one memorable instance is this : having set the tithe of a large meadow, and upon agreement received part of the money at the beginning of the year, it happening that the profits were afterwards spoiled by a flood, when the tenant came to com- plete his payment, he not only refused it, but returned the former sum, with this generous reflection, God forbid I should take the tenth where you have not the nine parts. So much charity exercised among his neighbours, taught them that love among themselves, that no difference there in his time went beyond his mediation ; and that kindness for him, that as long as he was there he had never any trouble for his dues."
This peaceful, profitable, and agreeable current of Ham- mond''s life flowed on, with little interruption, besides his preach- ing now and then at St. Paul's Cross, or on some other public occasion, during ten years. In the year iGSQ he proceeded to the degree of doctor in divinity, performing his exercises (which, in those days, were not merely formal) to the admira- tion of the hearers ; who expected to find something of the rust of a country life spread over his scholarship. He was summoned to the convocation which was called with the short parliament in 1640; and in l643 Brian Duppa, bishop of Chichester, con-
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ferred on him the archdeaconry of that diocese. The events of this memorable year put an end to his retirement. Though summoned before the parliamentary committees, for conformity, he went on as before in the performance of his duties ; but about the middle of July, finding himself dangerously com- promised by an unsuccessful attempt of the royalist party about Tunbridge, he withdrew from his parish. Oxford, after some demur, was chosen as the most advisable place of his retreat. " Procuring there," says bishop Fell, " an apartment in his own college, he sought that peace in his retirement and and study, which was nowhere else to be met with, taking no other diversion than what the giving instruction and encou- ragement to ingenious young students yielded him (a thing Avherein he peculiarly delighted) ; and the satisfaction which he received from the conversation of learned men ; who, besides the usual store, in great numbers at that time for their security resorted thither.""
Such a man as Hammond, however, could not in those unsettled times be long permitted to enjoy an undisturbed devotion to learned pursuits. The discerning eye of the king, and the affectionate expectations of the university, were fixed upon him; and he was presently engaged in public employ- ments. He accompanied the royal commissioners to Uxbridge, in January 1643-4, as one of the chaplains appointed to treat of religious affairs ; acquitting himself with so much ability, tliough without the result desired, that, a canonry of Christ- church falling vacant in his absence, the king immediately bestowed it on him. The university, about the same time, appointed him their public orator. He was, shortly after- wards, made chaplain in ordinary; being, it is said, the last person whom Charles nominated in that capacity.
Amid the duties following these preferments, (to which was soon afterwards added that of sub-dean of Christ-church,) and in spite of the public distractions, Dr. Hammond found time for the composition of numerous writings, which were presented to the public in rapid succession. Of these several .are desig-ned for the general edification of all classes of Christians ; at the head of which, must ever be named the Practical Catechism. This sound and pious work, which still maintains its high reputation, was compiled originally for the author's own use ; and it was with unfeigned diffidence that, at the earnest instance of his friend Dr. Potter, to whom
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he had communicated the manuscript, and who judged it well fitted to correct the profaneness and formalism of the times, he consigned it to the press. His other compositions were mostly polemical, and were directed against the various wild and con- flicting errors, in doctrine and discipline, with which the public mind was then overrun. Several are answers to exceptions against his opinions, and defences of pi-evious publications; for the rapid popularity of this new and able champion of orthodoxy and established government, quickly pointed him out as the common mark of opposition to hostile sects and parties. The " London ministers" were the first to object to the doctrines of this learned digest. His next opponent was Cheynell, already mentioned for his restless persecution of the dying Chillingworth.
From the surrender of Oxford till the king''s escape from the custody of the Presbyterians, the attendance of his chap- lains was superseded ; but that consolation, earnestly sought by the afflicted prince, being granted, though from no favour- able motive, when he finally came into the hands of the army, Charles made choice of Hammond, to be one of the four, (Sheldon, Morley, and Sanderson, being the other three), whose services he desired. " 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 Christmas l647 ; at which time his majesty's attendants were again sent from him, and he among the rest."
Some time previous to Hammond's return to Oxford, the visitors, deputed by the parliament "to settle the university," made their appearance there ; by whom Fell, the stout dean of Christ-church, after having, with the other heads and leading members of the university, been deprived of his preferments, was sent prisoner to London. On Hammond, as sub-dean, was devolved the office of publishing the order for Fell's ejection ; but he absolutely refused compliance. On the con- trary, he distinguished himself by a most diligent and courage- ous discharge of all those functions, which in that situation, the times demanded from a good and loyal man. The whole management of the college affairs rested in him. He added the solemn task of preparing the youth under his charge, by pious discourses and exercises of devotion, for those further calamities which he regarded as impending over their ancient
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institution. In the midst of these engagements, he continued to redeem such a share of his time as he could for private study, by late hours, and by a degree of diligence, unusual even for him : for three years together, though seldom in bed before midnight, sometimes not till three in the morning, he nevertheless regularly made his appearance at prayers, at five o'clock.
At length, in March 1(548, the refractory loyalists were summarily expelled, with the exception of Hammond, and Sheldon, (at that time warden of All-Souls,) whose courageous resistance to the illegal acts of the visitors entitled them to share with Fell the distinction of a prison. Wallingford Castle was designed for their place of confinement; but the governor of that fortress, though a stiff parliamentarian, re- fused to receive these excellent persons in the character of prisoners : they were consequently detained in custody at Ox- ford. The treaty at the Isle of Wight being now in contem- plation, the king demanded his chaplains ; but was refused. He then sent to Hammond for the sermon on Peace and Charity, which the Advent previous he had heard him preach ; and Hammond, by forwarding it with some other discourses dedicated to the king, had the satisfaction, though absent, to communicate some comfort and assistance to his afflicted master.
At the end of ten weeks (during which he employed him- self in beginning his Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament,) Hammond's imprisonment at Oxford was, through the mediation of his friends, exchanged for a less irksome confinement in the house of Sir Philip Warwick, at Clapham, in Bedfordshire. There he resided until the exe- cution of the king ; and when events were plainly pointing towards that ghastly consummation of the national miseries and crimes, he did all that was left to him to do, by raising his voice against the meditated "villany." His pathetic protest exists among his works in the form of A humble Address to the Lord Fairfax and his Council of War. The argument of this Address he afterwards defended against the objections of Ascham and Goodwin.
The affectionate chaplain of King Charles strove to assuage the first excess of grief and horror at the catastrophe of his royal master, by redoubling his customary solemn use of fasting and prayer ; he then resumed his habitual studies. He sent
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to the press his tract on the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion. His great work, the Annotations, he likewise pre- pared, about the same time, for publication. The materials of this useful undertaking had grown under his hands, as a collection, in Latin, of illustrations of the difficulties of the New Testament, with reference to ancient Jewish and heathen customs ; to the early heresies ; and especially to the Hellenistic dialect. He had likewise collated several Greek copies, and had made an entirely new translation. He now commenced the labour of throwing the whole of these materials into the form in which that excellent and »still popular commentary afterwards appeared. A third labour in which he engaged at this time, was the Latin tract in favour of episcopacy, against Blondel. This Dutch professor had addressed a letter to Arch- bishop Ussher, containing objections, derived from the canons of several eastern councils, against his edition of Ignatius ; which the archbishop communicated to Hammond, requesting his opinion as to the validity of the writer's arguments. Ham- mond returned a brief reply, promising, if required, afterwards to enter more largely into the subject. With this letter the primate was so well satisfied, that in acknowledging the receipt of it, he entreated the writer " to publish it to the world in Latin," not only as a sufficient answer to Blondel, but as like- wise a vindication of himself from an insolent attack made on him by Salmasius, "for the assertion of episcopacy."
Towards the close of the year (1649), all restraint on his liberty being removed, he retired to Westwood in the county of Worcester, the seat of the loyal Sir John Pack- ington ; where he continued to prosecute his indefatigable la- bours in the cause of religious truth, and where he finally closed his useful life. In this seclusion, his observant eye followed the tendencies of those schismatic and violent times, while his facile pen supplied such remedies as were at the command of learning, and eloquence. Perceiving that the exertions of Romish missionaries, under various disguises suited to the age, were successful in withdrawing many " to a pompous and imperious church abroad from an afflicted one at home," he now sent into the world his treatises on Schism and Heresy, that on Fundamentals, and several others. On the other side, the errors of conflicting Pro- testant sects, which, by the charm of novelty, drew in many of the ignorant and inconsiderate, called forth his renewed exer-
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[A. D.
tions, in controvei'sies with the respective champions of the several sects, " that sought themselves a name by being the gainsayers" of this eminent defender of the establishment. He suffered no assailant, in the least degree worthy of his lance, to appear unopposed in the lists, nor any public event to pass in silence, if the least hope appeared of his interference being serviceable to the prostrate Church. The issuing of Cromwell's last decree against the clergy seemed to his afflicted mind such an occasion : his persuasive and practical tract, which he called a Parcenesis, " penned," observes Fell, " first in tears and then in ink," commemorates that disgraceful proclamation. So deeply was it felt by him, that, we are told, he was almost forsaken by his accustomed great serenity and peaceful submission to the will of Providence ; for he "looked on this dispensation as God's pronouncing him un- worthy to do him service," " the reproaching," (to use his own words) " his former unprofitableness, by casting him out as straw to the dunghill." With this impression, though he had of late, in compliance with the earnest advice of his medical attendant, remitted the habit of fasting, to .which he had been long habituated, he now resumed his ascetic practices with unusual rigour, " esteeming this calamity such a one as admitted of no exception, — as should not be out- lived,— but that it became men to be martyrs too, and deprecate even in death." As soon as he had recovered a little from the stunning effect of this sorrow, he looked round for some expedient by which the Church of England might be preserved from utter extinction. He drew up a plan, and commenced a fund, for the support of young men at the universities, to be trained in the ancient discipline of Anglican piety and learning. It is no less charactei'istic of the man, than of the effect of calamity in opening the mind to holy truths, that in his instructions to the managers of this patriotic project, they were directed carefully to seek out " such as were piously inclined, and to prefer that qualification before unsanctified good parts;" a direction founded on the certain principle, " that it was by exemplary virtue the fallen Church must be restored." This noble design Dr. Hammond's means did not enable him to prosecute on a scale proportioned to its worth ; yet it did not wholly fail ; since several students, among others the illustrious Barrow, were known to have been in part supported at the university by the bounty thus Avisely
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appropriated. Another object of his solicitude was the relief of the loyal sufferers abroad, whose numbers had now been greatly increased by the consequences of the defeat at Worces- ter. Such sums as he could either spare, or collect, for their use, he hesitated not to continue sending over, after the practice had been declared treasonable, and when he knew that he had already been betrayed to Cromwell. There were some men whose virtue the Protector dared not allow himself to treat with disrespect ; and his forbearance, in this instance, justified Hammond's own brave maxim, that " they who least consider hazard in the doing of their duties fare best."
Among his latest writings were — a first and second Re- view of the Annotations ; an Exposition of the Book of Psalms ; and A Pacific Discourse of God's Grace and De- crees, contained in a correspondence with his friend the pious Dr. Sanderson. To these were also added a Latin tract on Confirmation. He had likewise in view a complete com- mentary on the Old Testament, and had finished a third part of the book of Proverbs, when his last illness interrupted these enlightened labours.
Dr. Hammond just survived to witness the Restoration. He had been summoned to London, to assist in the great work of restoring the "breaches'" of the Church. He had even studied a serious and devout preparation of himself for those honours and that authority in it, which, though avoided ra- ther than sought by himself, he knew were designed for him ; and was expecting a peremptory mandate from the king to quit his peaceful retreat ; "when," in the words of Fell, "he was overtaken by a more important, though infinitely more welcome summons." How welcome it Avas, appears from the remark, which he had made a short time previous to a friend, while expressing, in terms of deep humility, his real dread of exchanging a condition in v/hich he enjoyed " a constant equable serenity, and unthoughtfulness in outward accidents," for a high station and large responsibility, "I never saw the time in all my life," he said, " wherein I could so cheerfully say my Nunc Dimittis as now." The life of this admirable person, like that of too many of those great and good men "into whose labours we are entered," was shortened by un- remitting study and immoderate mental toil. On the 25th of April, 166'0, he died a saint-like death, preceded by much suf- fering, of a complaint which was, in those times, peculiarly the
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students' malady, — the stone. A few minutes before his de- parture, he breathed out these words, which well became the tenour of his life — '^'Lord, make haste ! "
The character of Hammond, as drawn by Bishop Fell, the son of his friend the dean of Christ-church, is one of the most agreeable portraitures of Christian virtue adorned by profound scholarship, which biography, happily rich in this class, ex- hibits. His pure and active spirit was becomingly lodged in a body remarkable for beauty and strength. His elocution was free and graceful, and his ear more sensible to the charms of style, than that of most of his contemporaries : King Charles, no unskilful judge of elocution, gave him the character of " the most natural orator he ever heard."
The amplitude of Hammond's learning is sufficiently attested by his works : they prove his thorough acquaintance with the classical and biblical tongues ; with the Fathers and ecclesiastical historians ; and with the stores of pagan philoso- phy and eloquence. How well he had digested his acquisitions, is shewn by the astonishing facility with which he reproduced and applied what he had learned. This readiness was, indeed, his most striking faculty. He composed his works, though usually abounding in citations, faster than a very dexterous amanuensis could write them down. Five sheets he on some occasions produced in a day, though frequently called away by other engagements. His tract on Episcopacy, consisting of fourteen pages of close, small type, in quarto, was written without the pen being once raised from the paper till all was done. It was begun after ten o'clock at night, and, the next morning, sent to press. In the same manner, his tract on Scandal was commenced at eleven o'clock and was finished before he went to bed : it occupies just ten pages of un- usually close and minute type, in the large folio edition of his works. What renders this fluency truly worthy of admiration, is, that the composition betrays neither negligence of style, poverty of thought, nor barrenness of allusion ; but exhibits the excellences opposed to each of these faults.
Hammond's greatest work is his Annotations; the most popular, his Practical Catechism : as works of utility, they are, each in its class, nearly equal. That the Catechism produced an impression, in the first instance, on the public mind, is at- tested by the numerous editions which were quickly sold, and by the controversies into which it drew its author. The defect
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of this work, regarded as a complete religious system, may be thought to be its hasty dismissal of the main doctrines of the gospel, in order to arrive at their practical application. But in the light of a complete religious system, the author never meant it to be regarded. The age, for the use of which he designed it, was one of much and general religious informa- tion ; an age trained in casuistry and familiar with polemics. Consequently, he supposes in his readers a competent previous acquaintance with the Christian doctrines: the catechumen pro- fesses, on the threshold of the discussion, that he comes to his lesson furnished with this kind of knowledge. On the other hand, that it was an age extremely defective in moral practice — not the less so, perhaps, for the interest manifested by all parties in contending about points of faith and of form — is in- sinuated in the title of the book, is earnestly alleged in the preface, and clearly appears in other places. To attack this evil, was Hammond's object. He does not entitle his work a Catechism, generally; hwl a Practical Catechism; — "a Cate- chism," according to his own definition, " restricted to one kind of matter." His plan therefore excluded all statements of doc- trine, except such as were needed to make his arguments and directions, respecting moral practice, intelligible.
Viewed in this, its true light, the Practical Catechism of Hammond — the book by which (if we except the pleasing bio- graphy so often quoted) he is now chiefly known to the general reader — must be allowed to be worthy of its long-sustained estimation, and of the fame of one of the brightest ornaments of the Anglican Church. Few productions, so sedulously adapted to the temper and wants of a particular period, have been so highly valued by posterity ; because few have so much substan- tial merit, at all times applicable and appreciable. Its learning- is weighty, but readily producible, and dexterously wielded ; its piety deep and ardent, but rational, calm, and manly — the piety of the best spirits of England, in all periods. The author's arguments are conducted with masterly judgment and acuteness ; and if, now and then, his style be too rugged to please the fastidiousness of modern taste, it is at least per- spicuous, and suited to the form and purpose of the work.
The chief attacks on the Practical Catechism proceeded, as we have seen, from Cheynell, who, at the time of its publi- cation, resided in Oxford, as one of the parliamentary visitors ; and from certain of the "London ministers." The contro-
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versy with Cheynell was published by Hammond, in l647, with the title of Copy of some Papers, passed at Oxford, ^c. The "censures" of the London ministers, as the objections of the Presbyterians are termed by Neal, appeared in a book subscribed by fifty-two preachers in that diocese, entitled A Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ. These strictures refer to three several passages of the Catechism, and were answered by Hammond, in a Vindication of his work, which appeared in the year 1647, and never received any reply.
The following is a list of Dr. Hammond's, writings, as collected and published in four vols, folio, by W. Fulman, with a dedication to Humphrey (Henchman), bishop of London : —
Vol. I., chiefly practical.
A Practical Catechism, 1644. This work the editor re- gards as a kind of index to the whole body of divinity, com- prised in these weighty volumes.
Of Conscience, 4to. l644.
Of Scandal. 4to. 1644.
Of Will-worship. 4to. l644.
Of resisting the lawful Magistrate under colour of Re- ligion, 4to. l644.
Considerations concerning the Change of Church-go- vernment. 4to. l644.
Of Superstition. 4to. l645.
Of Sins of Weakness and Wilfulness. 4to, l645. Of a late or Death-bed Repentance. 4to. l645. A View of the New Directory, and Vindication of the Ancient Liturgy. 4to. 1645. Of Idolatry. 4to. 1646.
Of Fraternal Admonition or Correption. 4to. l647. Of the Power of the Keys. 4to. 1647. Address to the Lord Fairfax. 4to. 1649. A Vindication of the Address. 4to. l650. Of the Reasonableness of Christian Religion. 12mo. l650. A Letter of Resolution to Six Queries. 12mo. l653. Of Fundamentals. 12mo. l654. Of Schism. 12mo. l654.
A ParcBnesis, with a Discourse of Heresy. 12mo. 1656. A Pacific Discourse of God''s Grace and Decrees. 8vo. l66o.
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Two Prayers. 8vo. I660.
Of Hell-Torments. 12mo. 1664.
Vol. II. Discourses in Defence of the Church of Eng- land:— 1st, Against the Romanists —
View of some Exceptions to the Lord Falkland's Dis- course of Infallibility. l6i6.
A Defence of the Treatise of Schism. 1654.
A second Defence of the Treatise of Schism. 1656.
A third Defence of the Treatise of Schism. 1659.
Brief Account of a Suggestion of the Romanists against the last tract. 166O.
Snd, — Against other adversaries —
Vindication of the Dissertations concerning Episcopacy. 1654.
Answer to the Animadversions on the Dissertations touch- ing Ignatius''s Epistles. 1654.
Vindication of a Digression in the foregoing Answer, concerning Grotius. 1655.
Continuation of the Defence of Grotius. 1657.
Defence of Infant Baptism. 1655.
Account of a Triplex Diatribe, concerning Superstition, Will-worship, and the Christmas Festival. 1654.
The Degrees of Ardency in Chrisfs Prayer reconciled with his fulness of habitual Grace. l656.
The Grounds of Uniformity Vindicated.
Vql. III. A Paraphrase and Annotations upon the Books of the New Testameiit.
Vol. IV. A Paraphrase and Annotations upon the Psalms. 1659.
A Paraphrase and Annotations upon the Ten first Chapters of the Proverbs. Ten Sermons. 1649. Two Sermons. 1657.
Nineteen Sermons. 1664. This is a posthumous series. Appendix, containing two Latin Dissertations : 1. On Epis- copacy : 2. On Confirmation.
VOL. I.
27
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FROM THE WORKS OP Dr. HAMIMOND.
THE AUTHORITY OF LEARNING AND LEARNED MEN IN MATTERS OP
RELIGION.
Among the acts of God's providence and wise economy of all things, there is not one more observable than the succession of his Church, and dispensation of his most precious gifts attending it. You shall not in any age find the flourishing of learning severed from the profession of religion ; and the proposition shall be granted without exception, God's people were always the learnedest part of the world. Before the flood we are not so confident as to define and set dovra the studies and proficiency in all kinds of knowledge amongst those long-lived ancients ; how far soever they went belongs little to us. The deluge made a great chasm betwixt us, and it would be hard for the liveliest eyes to pierce at such a distance ; let those who fancy the two pillars, in which all learning was engraven, the one of brick, the other of marble', to prevent the malice either of fire or water, please themselves with the fable, and seem to have deduced all arts from Adam. Thus far it is agreed on, that in those times every father being both a priest and a king in his own family, bestowed on his son all knowledge both secular and sacred which himself had attained to ; Adam by tradition instructing Seth, and Seth Enoch, in all knowledge as well as righteousness. For it is Josephus's obser- vation, that whilst Cain and his progeny employed themselves about wicked and illiberal inventions, grovelling upon the earth, Seth and his bore up their thoughts as well as eyes towards heaven, and ob- served the course and discipline of the stars : wherein it was easy to be exquisite, every man's age shewing him the several conjunctions and oppositions, and other appearances of the luminaries, and so needing no successors to perfect his observations. Hence Philo calls Abraham 'Avopd fxerewpoXoyiKov, and says his knowledge in astronomy led him to the notice of a Deity, and that his sublime speculation gave him the name of Abram, a high exalted father, before his faith had given the better compellation of Abraham, Father of many nations ; hence from him, Chaldea, Egypt, Greece, came all to the skill they trag of. So that Proclus made a good conjecture, that the wisdom of the Chaldeans was deocoTo<; Ka\ d€07rapdcoTo<;, a gift of the gods ; it coming from Abraham, who was both a friend and in a manner an acquaintance of the true God, and far ancienter and wiser than any of their false. In sum, all learning as well as religion was pure and classical only among the Hebrews, as may appear by Moses in his Hexameron, the only true natural philosophy that
Joseph. Lib. i. cap. 4.
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ever caine into the world : so tliat even Longiniis", who took the story of the creation to be a fable, yet commends Moses' expression of it, " Let there be light, and there was light," for a speech admirably suited to a God ; for the greatest u\|/o?, or sublimity, that any rhe- torician could strain for. And Demetrius Phalereus commends the Pentateuch to Ptolemy^ as the most philosophical, accurate discourse he had ever heard of. And if by chance any scraps or shreds of knowledge were ever scattered among the gentiles, they certainly fell from the Chaldeans' table : from whence in time the poor beg- garly world gathered such baskets-full, that they began to feed full, and be in good liking, and take upon them to be richer than their benefactors ; and Athens at last begins to set up as the only university in the world. But it is Austin's observation, that it was in respect of Christ, and for the propagation of the Church, that learning was ever suffered to travel out of Jewry. Christ was to be preached and re- ceived among the Gentiles, and therefore they must be civilised before- hand, lest such holy things being cast abruptly before swine, should only have been trampled on ; or as Moses' books falling among the poets, have been only distorted into fables, and turned into prodigies, metamorphoses, and mythical divinity. Cum enim prophetce, &c. "Under Abraham and Moses, whilst the learning and the sermons of the prophets were for Israel's use, the heathen world was as ignorant as irreligious." But about Romulus's time, when the prophecies of Christ, which belonged also to the gentiles, were no longer whispered, but proclaimed by the mouth of Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and Jonas, from the reign of Uzziah to Hezekiah, kings of Judah, then also began learning to flourish abroad among the nations, to dilate itself over the world; Greece began to hearken after wisdom, and brag of its a-o(po\, Thales and the like, vt fontes divince et hnmancB sapi- tntias pariter erupisse vidcaniur, " that then secular knowledge might dare to shed itself among the nations," when Christ began to be revealed, the expectation of the gentiles. It were an infinite dis- course to present unto you the like proceedings through all ages, the continual marriages, the combinations, and never any divorce, betwixt learning and religion. The fathers before mentioned are large in drawing it down to our hands in tables of collateral descent through- out all generations; and I hope the present state of the world will sufficiently avouch it. For what is all tlie beggarly skill of the Ara- bians in physics and the mathematics, all the cabalisms of the Jews ; in sum, all the rather folly than wisdom, that either Asia or Africa pretend to ? what hath all the world beside that dare look a Christian in the face ? I doubt not but this corner of Europe wliere we live
^ Tepi vij/ovi.
3 Euseb. I. p. 206.
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may cliallenge and put to shame, nay, upbraid tlie ignorance of the learnedcst Mahometan, and be able to afford some champions which shall grapple with the tallest giant, with* the proudest son of Anak that Italy can boast of. I will hope and pray, and again dare to hope, that as all Europe hath not more moderation and purity of religion than this kingdom, so it never had a more learned clergy ; never more encouragement for learning from religion ; never more advantages to religion from learning.
The disciples [of Christ] were but fishermen and mechanics, illite- rate enough ; and yet a word of theirs shall more sway mine assent, and rule my faith, than the proudest dictates out of Moses' chair. And thus indeed are we now-a-days ready to repose as much trust in the shop as in the schools, and rely more on the authority of one lay- professor, than the sagest elders in theirs or our Israel. Learning- is accounted but an ostentatious complement of young scholars, that will never bring the pastor or his flock the nearer to the way toward heaven. But to recal our judgments to a milder temper, we are to learn from Clemens, that although the wisdom of God, and doctrine of the gospel be auToxeAjjc koi aTryjoo-Se*;?, able to maintain, and fence, and authorize itself, yet even philosophy and secular learning is of use, nay necessity, to defeat the treacheries and sophisms and stratagems of the adversary. And although the truth of Scripture be the bread we live on, the main staff and stay of our subsistence, yet this exoterical learning, ra SvpaQev fxaS^ixara, as Sophronius calls them, must be served in as cates and dainties, to make up the banquet. Nay, they are not only for superfluity, but solid and material uses. It was a custom of old, saith Dionysius Halicamassensis, to build cities (Tvve-)(^ei<; eVi to?? opeai, never far from some hill, or mountain, that beside the natural strength, the hold from the foundation, they may receive some security and safeguard from so stout and tall a neighbour ; thus will it stand us upon, so to build our faith upon a rock, that we may also have some shelter near us to fence and fortify our fabric, when the wind or tempest sliall arise. Had not Peter indeed and the rest, at Christ's call, left their ignorance with their nets and trades ; had they not been made scholars as well as disciples, all trades promiscuously might justly have challenged and invaded the pulpit, and no man been denied to preach that was able to be- lieve. But their calling was an inspiration ; they were furnished with gifts as well as graces ; and whatever other learning they wanted, Bure I am they were the greatest linguists in the world. Yea, the power and convincing force of argument, which the heathen observed in Peter, made them get the oracles to proclaim that he had learnt magic from his Master. To drive the whole business to an issue in brief, take it in some few propositions.
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1. Tliere is not so great a dependence betwixt learning and re- ligion in particular persons, as we have observed to be in ages and countries : so that though plenty of knowledge be a symptom or judiciary sign, that that Church where it flourishes is the true Church of God, yet it is no necessary argument, that that man where it in special resides is the sinccrest Christian ; for upon these terms the wisest man is the scribe, the disputer of the world ; whereas the loudest braggers, of Jews or Grecians, are found guilty of spiritual ignorance (I Cor. i.), as the last part of our discourse shall make evident.
2. Matters of faith are not to be resolved any farther than the Scriptures ; they are not to beg authority from any other science ; for this is the true metaphysics, dp-x^iKioTaTr] Ka\ tjyefxoviKoiraTr], the mistress and commandress of all other knowledges, which must per- petually do their homage to it, as servants always to attend and con- firm its proposals, never to contradict it, as Aristotle hath it, Md. 2. 2.
3. Though faith depend not upon reason, though it subsist en- tirely upon its own bottom, and is then most purely faith when it relies not on reason, and adheres wholly to the auVoTrio-Tia, [the essen- tial credibility,] of God's word, yet doth the concurrence, and agreement, and evidence of reason, add much to the clearness, and beauty, and splendour of it : it takes away all fears and jealousies, and suspicious surmisings out of the understanding, and bestows a resolution and constancy on it. For faith, though in respect of its ground, God's word, it be most infallible, yet in its own nature is, as the philosopher defines it, a kind of opinion, and in our humane frailty subject to demurs, and doubts, and panic terrors, for fear it be false grounded ; and therefore Aristotle saith of it, that it differs from knowledge to? voa-mirj^ vyieivov, as a sickly man from a strong, it is very weak and subject to hourly distempers : whereas the evidence and assurance of sense and reason added to it, bestows a full health and strength upon it, an dd\r]TtKri tfi?, a perfect state that it shall never be forced or frighted out of. In brief, where reason gives its suffrage, it un- veils faith, and to adherence superadds evidence, and teaches us to feel, and touch, and handle, what before we did believe ; to gripe, and hold, and even possess what before we apprehended : and thus are believers in a manner elevated above an earthly condition, initiated to the state which is all vision, where every thing is beheld "naked and displayed" (Heb. iv. 13), "or with open face as in a glass" (2 Cor. iii. 28).
4. There be some difficulties in religion at which an illiterate understanding will be struck in a maze ; some depths of mystery above the apprehensions of the most capacious brain, where reason
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being not able to express, must be content to shadow, and describe in some rude lines what it cannot perform in pourtraiture : and here, I say, learning, though it cannot reach, yet can heave up, and point at ; can profit, though not perfect us ; can help us to some images and resemblances to conceive that which we cannot fully comprehend. So, saith Philoponus, will mathematical abstractions facilitate the simplicity of God's essence to our understandings ; the lucid nature of the sun express the brightness of his glory, and the mysterious numbers of the Pythagoreans represent the Trinity to our fancies : and thus doth Zoroastes in Patricius, philosophari de Deo, subdue, as it were, divinity to reason, and raise up reason to join issue with divmity ; and by his waTpiKo^ /3v6o^ ck Tpiuv (TvyKeiixevo<; rpidcwv, that paternal depth made of three threes, comprise all the secrets of the Godhead. But besides these supernatural depths, there are others secundce altitudinis, and as Halicamassensis calls those which are above the reach of all but philosophers, (pva-tKa Gavp-ara, and Aristotle Qavpa^oneva Kara, (pvcrtv, natural miracles, which none but scholars can attain to. And these I hope shall never be discussed upon a shopboard, or enter into any brain that is not before well ballast with weight and substance at the bottom : I need not name them to you ; you may know them by this, that when they come into an empty brain, they breed winds, and turn all into vertigoes and dizziness. There be yet farther lights of a third magnitude, which yet every one hath not eyes to gaze on ; and of this condition are almost all the speculations in divinity. Nay, the ordinariest truth in a catechism can scarce be forced into a vulgar understanding.
5. It is but necessity and exigence of nature that those which are the weak should apply themselves for help and directions to those that are stronger ; the child in a cradle must be put to a nurse, which may give it suck till it be able to eat, and for a while bear it in her arms, that it may be taught to go. It is the law of nature, saith the historian', ap-^eiv tjrroviov rovt KpelrTova<;, that superiors should have a kind of sovereignty, a magisterium and command over all that are inferior, to rule and order them ; and this superiority and sove- reignty hath the learned pastor, or generally the scholar, over all ignorant men, be they never so rich or potent ; and whosoever denies or scorns thus to obey, I say not, is to be slain (as the law was in the ancient wars) dKptru<:, without an assize ; but to be condemned of much peevishness and more stupidity, and his punishment is, let him fall into his own hands, i. e. be ruled by a fool or madman.
6. Much of tlie speculative part of religion may be had from a
1 Dion. Hal. Lib. i. p. C.
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Pharisee as well as a disciple. Clirist himself bears witness of the Pharisee, that he was orthodox in matters concerning the law : they " sit in Moses' chair, and therefore whatsoever they bid you, that observe and do" (Matt, .\xiii. 3). They erred indeed in prescribing their additions to duty, as divine command, but the chief obliquity was in their lives : they were lieretics, nay, apostates from their doctrine, and therefore "do not after their works, for they say and do not" (ver. 3). If I am resolved of such a man's abilities in learning, but see him a scandalous liver, I will borrow of his gifts, and pray God to increase his graces. In matters of spiritual joy and sorrow, I will, if I can, be counselled by an heart wliich once was broken, that I may see how he recovered, and repair my breaches by a pattern ; and yet even these things may be learnt from liim which never had them, but in his speculation, as the physician may cure a disease, though himself was never sick of it. But for the ordinary theories of religion, I will liave patience to receive instructions from any one, and not examine his practices, but in modesty, and in submission, and humility, receive the law at his mouth. But all this with caution, to'? ijyeixovi ov Sea-TroVjj, as to a guide not a monarch of my faith ; rule he shall my belief, but not tyrannise over it. I will assent to my teacher till I can disprove him, but adhere, and anchor, and fix myself on the Scripture.
7. In matters of superstruction, where Scripture lays the foun- dation, but interpreters, i. e. private spirits, build upon it, some gold, some stubble, &c., and I cannot judge or discern which is firmliest rooted on the foundation ; I will take the philosopher's counsel, and be guided either by the ancientest, if they have shewed themselves in the cause, or else men alive whicli be best reputed of for integrity and judgment : I shall scarce trust the lionestest man you can commend to me, unless I have some knowledge of his parts; nor the leamedest you can cry up, unless I can believe somewhat in his sincerit}'.
8. All the contradictions and new ways of my own brain, opposite to or wide from the current of the learned, I must suspect for a work of my own fancy, not entitle tliem to God's Spirit in me. Whatever a man can call his own he must be very cautious and jealous over it. For it is no less than atheism, wliich the sconiers of the last age are to fall upon by "walking after their own lusts" (2 Pet. iii. 3). There is not a more dangerous mother of heresies in the midst of piety, than this one, that our fancy first assures us that we have the Spirit, and then that every fancy of ours is the work of the Spirit. There are a multitude of deceits got altogether here. We make every idle persuasion of our own the evidence of God's Spirit ; then we join infallibility to the person, being confident of the gift ; then we make
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every breath of our nostrils, and flame that can break out of our liearts, an immediate effect of the Spirit and fire whicli hath spiritually enlivened us, and tlien we are sure it is authentical : and all this while we never examine either the ground or deductions from it, but take all upon trust from that everlasting deceiver our own heart, which we ought to sit upon and judge of by proofs and witnesses, by com- paring it with other men's dictates, probably as godly, perhaps more learned, but certainly more impartial judges of thee than thou canst be of thyself.
9. Lastly, if the word of God speak distinctly and clearly, enforce by miracles done before all men, to their astonishment and redargu- tion, then will I not stay my belief to wait on or follow the learnedest man in the world : when Christ himself speaks to my eyes, the proudest eminentest Pharisee shall not be able to charm my ear, or lay any clog upon my understanding. Yet learning remains a good guide still, though an ill master in matters of religion. Scholars ought to learn to set a value on their precious blessing which God liath vouchsafed them above all the world beside ; to bless God infinitely that they understand and conceive what they are com- manded to believe. This I am sure of, there is not a greater and more blessed privilege, besides God's Spirit, which our humane con- dition is capable of, than this of learning, and specially divine know- ledge. As long as we have no evidence or demonstration from that, (which yet it most nearly concerns us to rely upon) we cannot enjoy, without an immediate supernatural irradiation, a tranquillity and consistency of spirit ; we cannot peremptorily have resolved our- selves that we have built upon the rock ; every temptation proves a discouragement to us, many horrors take hold of us, and sometimes we must needs fall to that low ebb, not far from despair, which the apostles were in (Luke xxiv. 21), " We had trusted," but now we know not what to tliink of it, " that this was he that should have redeemed Israel." But, to see all the articles of my faith ratified and confirmed to my understanding, to see the greatest treasure and inheritance in tlie world sealed and delivered to me in my hand, written in a character and language that I am perfectly skilled in, O what a comfort is this to a Christian soul ! O what a fulness of joy to have all the mysteries of my salvation transcribed out of the book of the Lord, and written in my heart, where I can turn and survey, and make use of them, as much and as often as I will I Nay, where I have them without book, though there were neither Father nor Bible in the world, able out of my own stock to give an account, nay, a reason of my faith, before the perversest papist, heathen, or devil. This serves me instead of having lived, and conversed, and been
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acquainted, with Christ. By this I have my fingers put into the print of the nails, and my hands thrust into his side, and am as sure as ever Tiiomas was; I see him as palpably as he that handled him, that he is my Lord and my God.
It was observed by the philosopher, as an act generally practised among tyrants, to prohibit all schools and means of learning and education in the commonwealth, that men being kept bhnd might be sure to obey, and tyrannical commands through ignorance be mistaken for fair government. And thus did Julian interdict tlie Christians all manner of literature, and chiefly philosophy, for fear, saith Nazianzen, " they should be able to grapple with the heathen," and cut off Goliah's head with his own weapon. The continuance of these arts of spiritual tyranny, we may observe in the prescribed stupidity and commanded ignorance of the laity through all Italy. All which must call for a superlative measure of thanks to be expressed, not in our tongues and hearts only, but in our lives and actions ; from us I say, who have obtained not only a knowledge of his laws, but almost a vision of his secrets ; and forasmuch as concerns our eternal bliss, do even see things as they were acted, having already comprehended in our reason, (not only in our faith,) the most im- possible things in nature, the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the conceived, incarnate, and crucified God. The realest thanks we can perform to God for this inestimable prize, is modestly and softly to make use of it ; first, to the confirming of others' faith, and secondly, to the expressing of our own. For, first, he is the deepest scholar, saith the philosopher, who is best able to teach other men what himself conceives': and then, secondly, he hath the habit most radicated who hath pressed it down into his heart, and there sowed a seed which shall increase and fructify, and spread, and flourish, laden with the fruits of a lively faith. He is the truest scholar that hath fed upon learning, that hath nourished, and grown, and walked, and lived in the strength of it. * * * *
In brief, our very knowledge will be set at nought, and our gifts scoffed at, if our lives do not demonstrate that we are Christians as well as scholars. O let us deliver ourselves from that catalogue of woes which were denounced against the Pharisees for many vices, all contained in this, "Ye say but do not" (Matt, xxiii. 4). And seeing all our intellectual excellences cannot allure or bribe, or woo God's Spirit to overshadow us, and conceive Christ, and bring forth true and saving faith in us ; let all the rest of our studies be ordered in a new course ; let us change both our method and our tutor, and having
mjnuov eicoTos owaaGai Stod<TKetv.
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liithcrto learned God from ourselves, let us be better advised, and learn ourselves from God. Let us all study all learning from the spring or fountain, and make him our instructer who is the only author worth our understanding, and admit of no interpreter on him but himself. The knowledge of God shall be our vision in heaven, O let it be our speculation on earth. Let it fill every conceit or fancy that we at any time adventure on. It is Tra'o-fj? ■jrpayixaTe'ia': TeXecriovpyrnxa, the last work in which all the promises, all om- possible designs are accomplish- ed. O let us in part anticipate that final revelation of him, lest so sudden and so full a briglitness of glory be too excellent for the eyes of a saint ! and laboiu* to comprehend here, where the whole comfort of our life is what we shall then possess.
Hammond's Sermons.
A PAR^NESIS OK SEASONABLE EXHORTATORY TO ALL TRUE SONS 01' THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
In this sad conjuncture of affairs, when those whose ofiice it is to speak to the people from God, and to God from the people, are solemnly forbidden all public discharge of these and all other branches of that sacred function so useful to make up the breach, to reconcile the enmity betwixt an angry God and a sinful land ; it may not, I pre- sume, and I hope it will not, be deemed by any, either impertinent or unseasonable, to make some attempt to supply those wants, and remove those pressures, which may otherwise lie too heavily unsup- portable on those our weak brethren's souls, toward whom the example of Christ's bowels and blood-shedding may reasonably expect to be answered with our utmost compassion. In obedience therefore to opportunity, which may possibly be a duty incumbent on us, (since, Rom. xii. 11 ; the Greek copies of greatest authority read Katpw SouAeJen', serving the season, instead of Kuplw, the Lord,) I shall now, though the unworthiest of all my many brethren, assume this venerable office of being a remembrancer to the people of God, even to all those who have been brought forth to Christ by our precious, dear, persecuted mother, the Church of England, and remain still constant to that faith which from her breasts they have sucked, and are not yet scandalized in her.
And for the first step of my address, it cannot be more regidar than by beholding and representing awhile the peculiarity of our pre- sent condition, considered only in the sad matter of it, without any unkind reflection on the inflicters ; that no one of us may miss to discern the nature of that judgment, that by God's just vengeance, and all-wise Providence, is permitted to fall, and lie upon us, even the
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saddest addition to tlie former weight that our unparalleled sins and provocations could solicit God to tolerate, or suggest to others to inflict, or to tlic patients to fear, or expect in this life. Some images we have of it in sacred writ. As, first, the expulsion of our first parents, and in them of all God's people, at one interdict, out of the garden of God, that lively emblem of a pure reformed church ; and a flaming sword, sent to back that interdict, to guard the way of the tree of life, to keep those, who most desired, from tasting it : and the sad positive penalties, wliich attended that, the sweat and agony of their combat with the briers and thorns, were nothing in comparison with the vast dismal privation and intercision of those blessed advantages, all which were designed the daily fruits and enjoyments of that Paradise. Add to this tlie captive ark, with " Icliabod" inscribed on it, the departure of the Schechina, the majestic presence of the Lord, and with it the glory from Israel ; the very news whereof was, in God's own judgment, such as that tlie ears of every one that heard it should tingle, and the effect yet more direful to Eli, whose but mildness and want of due severity had somewhat contributed towards it : the greatness of which punishment to the discomfited Israelites, is much more agreeable, and useful matter of meditation to us at this time, than the inauspicious consequents thereof to those who took it captive, the emerods and the ruinous prostration of their Dagon, and the weight of God's hand on the men of Ashdod, and Gath, and Ekron, who were any way guilty of taking, or accessory to the witliholding it.
Besides these, the prophets both of the Old and New Testament have yielded many dismal adumbrations, their pencils advancing as high as to the sun's being turned into darkness and the moon into blood ; the casting down of the host, and of the stars to the ground ; some in calmer style to represent the deportation of the worshippers into a strange country, from the garden of Eden into a desolate wilderness, from Sion unto Babylon : others in the sharper accent of the threefold woe in Josephus' and the Apocalypse^ to set out the captivity of the very worship and temple itself ; destroying the sanctuary, causing the sacrifice and oblation to cease, banishing even their eyes and thoughts from the wonted joy and delight of both (the KXtjTtj dyla, the holy convocation, and the beauty of that holiness) ; and of this the conclusion is but equitable, "this is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation." Lastly, to come nearer home, to the most flourishing, once purest, Christian assembhes, we have in vision from St. John in his exile, predictions of churches, and their angels, both threatened to deportation, of removing Ephesus her candlestick
' See Euseb. Lib. iii. cap. 13,
- Rev, viii, 13.
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out of the place, putting the lamp thereof (fitly qualified to have enlightened the whole room) under the narrow bounds of a bed or bushel, of delivering up whole assemblies to Satan, that he may cast them into prison, sentencing them to black and dark restraints; the sins of professors being the forges or moulds of such more than iron fetters, whereby even the word of God is taught to be bound, when the free use of it hath been abused by them.
That these are the very lines that make up the face of sorrow, that is at present on this Church, is none of the advertisements that we can stand in need of at this time ; the matter itself speaks too loud to be news to any of us. The doubts that are more apt to exercise men's thoughts are founded in the acknowledgment of it, and every one hath borrowed his objection or argument from one of Job's friends, to add some weight of sorrow to her whom God hath afflicted. A few of these it may be pertinent to examine awhile, instead of farther enlarging on our threnodia.
It is first made matter of argument against our Church and establishment, that God hath found us out, that it is because of transgressions that an host hath been given against the daily sa- crifices, and therein hath practised, and prospered ; and that prosper- ousness interpreted to be God's own decision, as signal as any response from the ephod, a sentence by Urim and Thummim, that it is no other than the quarrel of God, which he hath thus signally managed against us. This argument thus proposed hath somewhat which must be granted, and by no means denied by us ; and for the other part, wherein it is fallacious, it brings sufficient light with it to assist us in the discovery of the paralogism. And it may be worth the while distinctly to consider it, in the two branches of it.
First, I say, it must not be denied, but that our sins have found us out ; all the punishments we have undergone being but the just, and withal merciful reward of our sins. For although we are by our Saviour's answer, Luke xiii. 3, restrained from making such inferences of other men, to conclude their guilt by their sufferings ; though Job's friends are rebuked for this kind of logic, arguing his insincerity from the pressures that fell upon him ; yet such methods are very safe to be used by ourselves toward ourselves. We are now obliged, and never more loudly called on, to judge ourselves ; though it be not allowed to any man else to judge us upon these premises. It is, I say, true beyond all contradiction, and never more applicable to any, than to us, that all God's punishments, especially his spiri- tual, and heaviest sort of them, are brought upon men by their sins. The lover of souls, the patient and long-suffering Father of all con- solations and mercies, never puts on the guise or armature of an
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enemy, but when our metliods have suggested tliis, and our unre- formed sins made it doubly necessary to vindicate himself, and to chastise us. And herein how bitter soever our portion prove, though to have our lot with Admah and Zeboim, to be thrown away as straw to the dunghill, or unprofitable servants into utter darkness ; yet our hands are on our mouths, the honour of a most perfect righteous- ness belongetli unto our Judge, and to us conflision of face, as at tliis day. And we shall be foully to blame, if these so generous medicaments do not, in some proportion to the wisdom and design of our great physician, prove effectually operative, beyond all the former gentler methods ; if the sins that have lain disguised in their closest concealments, kept so strictly from the eyes of men, and, in our design, of God himself, that they have ever been unknown to ourselves, do not now upon this scrutiny give God the honour, come forth and offer themselves to justice. This is indeed but our just return to our sins' finding us out, for us to find out our sins, to act this one revenge on them, to deliver those up to wrath which have so signally delivered up us. And instead of shaking off or taking leave of this part of the argument too hastily, I shall desire to give it its full scope, to reap as much benefit by it as we may, and take notice of some (at least) of those guilts which the signatures we discern in the judgment, the lines in this hand of God, do, according to the rules of the steadiest augury, point out and discover to us.
And first, the deep thougli most causeless displeasure, under which the Liturgy of our Church is fallen, is a slirewd indication of the great coldness and indevotion so scandalously frequent among us, of the formal perfunctory performance of our offices, nay, of the many foul profane mixtures, which have so frequently interposed, and by a kind of fascination converted the most spotless sacrifice into the very lame and the sick, the purest unleavened offering into bitter polluted bread upon God's altar ; and then no marvel that God should have no pleasure, and at length refuse to accept an offering from such mystae. We know, the unwashed hands that brought it defamed the sacrifice of God's own ordaining, blasted tlie very incense and fat of fed beasts, the sabbaths and calling of assemblies, and turned them into mere abominations ; and then what wonder, that what he detests and cannot away with, he should permit to be destroyed ? lay down that weight, which he is weary to bear? suffer that to be deemed an abomination, and used accordingly, which our unsanctified usage hath made such ?
To descend to some particulars ; our continued obstinate unrc- formed sins have made forms of confession and contrition unfit to be taken into our moutlis ; tliose cannot be repeated by such, without
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gross liypocrisy and belying ourselves before God and men ; and tlien vvbat possibility is tbere that the ministerial absolution should with any justice be applied to us ?
And for that sacred form of words which Christ commanded us to use in our addresses to our Father, — "When ye pray, say, Our Father," — there needs no other argument, for the discountenancing of it, (and hell itself can yield no other, though search hath been made into all topics, to find some) — this one is sufficient for the rending it from us, our unqualifiedness for the rehearsing the several petitions of it. We tliat are so far from our due charity to others, that we are not at unity within ourselves, that live so unlike children, that we have not so much as the livery of the servants of God, with what face can we hourly and solemnly invoke "Our Father?" We that do actually with horrid oaths defile and reproach the name of God, cannot be tliought to be in earnest, when we require it may " be hallowed." We that like rebels have dethroned God out of our hearts, cannot without the same mockery that the soldiers were guilty of in the crown of thorns and purple robe, and ironical salutation, instyle him King, or pray for that " coming of his kingdom." And as long as we mutiny, and repine at the execution of God's will in heaven, it is not possible we should heartily beg that honour, of transcribing the angels' pat- tern of cheerful diligent obedience to his " will on earth." Our wants may seem indeed to qualify us for an ardent address of the fourth petition ; but our surfeiting on manna makes us of all others the least fit to go out to gather it ; and the " bread that came down from heaven" being so neglected by us, with what face can we ask that other, which we mean but to consume upon our lusts ? But, beyond all, we are most unqualified for that petition wherein we set om* forgiving of trespasses, as the pattern for God to copy out in for- giving us. It is but just that they which are implacable to enemies should be excluded from, if they will not voluntarily renounce, all part in this prayer, this legacy of Christ to be merciful : why should they be inclinable to use a form which is so ill fitted to their con- stitutions, an imprecation on those whom they tender most dearly ? And yet those who are most unwilling to lose their right in tliis donative, have not been, to that degree they ought, mindful of the condition, without which they do but call for vengeance upon their own heads, when they are most importunate for mercy and forgiveness. In a word, they that solicit, and even court temptations, invade sin and Satan in his own territories, not to subdue, but to be subdued by him, how can they pray not to be " led into temptation," or be reconciled to themselves for hoping deliverance from those evils which themselves have brought down upon themselves?
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As for tlie sacraments, they also may deserve to be reflected on awhile by us.
The baptism of infants is well known to have of late found great opposition among us ; many with some earnestness, as it were their solid concernment, denying their tender years the enjoyment of this privilege, whereby the benefits of the death of Christ, (of which the Catliolick Church against the Pelagians defined all that are born in sin to stand in need) are, according to his institution, sealed unto them. And for others, which, retaining kindness to the Directory, do, in obedience thereto, maintain Infant Baptism, yet have they taken away the form of abrenunciation, though such as hath been univer- sally practised in the Church of all ages, and that as delivered to them by the apostles themselves, and in every word almost of that form which is retained in our Liturgy, and that extended to the ten- derest infants. And this, though it be such an apostolical rite, con- taining no unconsiderable supervacaneous condition and qualification in the person baptized, is, by interdicting the administration of bap- tism according to the ancient order of our Church, or by those which have continued constant to that order, endeavoured to be superseded and removed from among us.
And the wisdom and justice and mercy of God is remarkable in this, thereby branding our infamous repeated innumerable breaches of this vow, our perjurious acting of all those sins, with confidence and without regrets, which we do so solemnly renounce and defy in our baptism. The greatness of that crime of rescinding oaths, and re nouncing abrenunciations, was that which made the ancient discipline of the Church so severe against every presumptuous act of sin after baptism, in respect of the heightening circumstances of such, drawn from the solemnity of that vow against which they were committed, and of that presence in which that vow was made, and of that weight which is set upon it by God, and of that judgment which attends every breach of it. And our scandalous negligence in this kind is by this interdict signally pointed out to us.
In like manner, and upon the same grounds of our unreformed sins, it is, that the sacrament of Christ's body and blood should be in all justice withdrawn from those, who have no way approved them- selves for the eating of that bread, and drinking that cup ; this greatest severity being by our unprepared hearts converted into the only sea- sonable mercy ; it being little for the advantage of the swine to have the trampling of pearls under their feet, and as little for the unworthy receivers to deal after the same manner with the blood of the covenant.
And why should the sacramentals escape better than the sacra- ments ? Marriage, we know, is become so deformed among us, so
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extremely unlike the union betwixt Christ and his Church, by which St. Paul thought meet to resemble it, the band is so frequently and so scandalously torn asunder, the designs of it ordinarily so very unlike what they ought to be, so more than polluted by either earthly or sensual considerations ; that the mysterious band is in danger to become o\r] a-dp^, "all flesh," nothing but luxury and brutishness ; and in pro- portion thereto the very rites of it so wholly transformed from the ydfjiot, or nuptial-feasts in Scripture, honoured by Christ's presence, into the saturnalia or heathen riots in Macrobius, that it were even a reproach to the Church-service, especially to the offertory, and sacra- ment of Christ's body (whicli our rubric exacts indispensably from the married couple at the time of their espousals) to bear part in such kind of solemnities. And to these, and the like provocations, we may reasonably impute it, that the binding and blessing those bands, and rendering them truly sacred, to which the bishops* or presbyters' hands were always thouglit necessary from the apostles' days through all ages of the Church over all the world, is now solemnly laid aside, and no image of it reserved to the Church ; the presbyterian minister, as well as the prelatist, not only the Liturgy, but the Directory, being deemed superfluous and equally impertinent in this matter.
And so the office for burial, which is now under the like pro- scription, may well be our seasonable admonition, and memorative of the sublime and sacred uses to which our living bodies were by God designed, even to the vao\ cfx-^v^oi, the animate walking tem- ples of his Spirit ; and to bear their parts with the soul in all the devotions it offers up, — tlie eye, the hand, the knee, the tongue, being thus' obliged, as well as the heart ; but are commonly so obstinately withdrawn from all holy offices, and so profaned and polluted with our unsanctified practices, that, as to so many self-murderers, so to many sacrilegious, anathematised persons, the burial of an ass or dog is but fitly apportioned ; and upon that account, all more decent ceremonies or regard, all offerings for the dead, though but for a joyful resurrection, withdrawn from us.
And even the creeds of the Catholic Church, that great depositum, which the apostles, in their several plantations, left as the summary of all that was to be believed to our soul's health, and foundation of all Christian practice and reformation, together with the Nicene, or ConstantinopoUtan and Athanasian enlargements of that, for the se- curing that depositum, and for the expulsing of all heresies, risen up against it, — all these now being fallen under the same ostracism, with the other parts of the inheritance of the Church, must serve to adver- tise us that a pure faith attended with impure lives, foundations of reformation laid by God, without any conformable superstructures of
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ours, are like the talent laid up in a napkin, avTOKaTaKpl<Tet<:, testi- fications, and self-confessions of an unprofitable wicked servant ; and so very fit to be taken away from them who have made such unchristian uses of them. The Solifidian that must be saved by his faith with- out works, and liatli found out artifices to elude St. James's exhorta- tion and resolution, that such a faith will never save or justify any, well deserves to have his amulet taken away fi'om him, to be deprived of the instrument of his destructive security, as the Jews were of the temple of the Lord, when that was become the great sanctuary and reserve of safety for all their unsanctified practices.
As for the contempt of the persons of those that have been set apart to that venerable office of waiting on God's altar, and at length the interdict that is fallen upon them, there be many matters of sea- sonable admonition which seem to be designed us thereby. First : it may mind us of a considerable defect. For though the four Ember- weeks were, according to ancient custom, preserved for fasting and praying, and that in order to that business of greatest weight, praying to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth labourers into the liarvest, (therein transcribing the example of the Apostolick Church, Acts xiii. 3,) yet there being no special service appointed in our Liturgy for those times, it is too probable that duty being left to every man's voluntary private devotions, hath been very much neglected ; which neglect was therefore thus to receive its chastise- ment from God. Secondly : the admission of some men into that calling which were not duly qualified for it ; and the negligent and unworthy performances of the offices of so sacred a function, and the many profane mixtures ; the seeking our own wealth and ease and praise, &c., qualifying us for that contempt and ruin which is now- fallen upon us ; and, lastly, the unprofitableness of the people in the midst of very plentiful means of instruction, — were all fit to be thus disciplined with a famine of the word, or unwholesome food in exchange for that aooAoi/ ydxa, sincere and unmixed nutriment, which began to be nauseated.
And so in like manner for holy times and places, which are fallen under so great displeasure and contempt, even those that have been consecrated not only to the honourable memory and imitation of the apostles, saints, and martyrs of God, and even to the commemoration of the most glorious mysteries of our redemption, the most signal mer- cies of Christ himself, — the deprivation of those blessed seasons and advantages, cannot but mind us how they liave been formerly neg- lected, and even despised, and so either way profaned and sacrilegiously handled by us, instead of being instrumental to the inciting and ad- vancing (as they were, sure, designed) the works of holiness in us. VOL. I, 28
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In a word, (to cut off and omit many particulars in tliis large and vast field of useful meditation, beseeching every man to examine his guilts by such reflections as these,) when the characters, or dis- criminative marks, of the English Reformation are principally two; one, the conforming all our doctrines to the primitive antiquity, re- ceiving all genuine apostolical traditions for our rule, both in matters of faith and government ; the other, in uniting that KaXt^v (rvvtaploa, fair, beautiful j)air, of faith and works, in the same degree of neces- sity and conditionality both to our justification and salvation, and to all the good works of justice and mercy, which the Romanist speaks of, adjoining that other most eminent one of humility ; attributing nothing to ourselves when we have done all, but all to the glory of the mercy and grace of God, purchased for us by Christ. It is but just that they which have walked unworthy of such guides and rules as these, and lived so contrary to our profession, should at length be deprived of both ; not only to have our two staves broken, Beauty and Bands, the symbols of order and unity, both which have now for some years taken their leaves of us, but even to have the whole fabric demolished, the house to follow the pillars' fate ; and so to be left, and abide " without a sacrifice, and without an image, and with- out an ephod, and without teraphim," deprived of all our ornaments, left naked and bare, when we had misused our beauty unto wanton- ness. And so still, the taking of the ark, and breaking the high priest's neck, and the slaying his sons, and many more in that dis- comfiture, are all far from new or strange, being but the proper natural effects of the profanations, which not the ark itself, (that was built every pin of it according to God's direction,) but the sacrifices, not the religion, but the worshippers, were so scandalously guilty of.
Thus we that are taught by Christ to love our enemies, and by nature and natural kindness to ourselves, to receive all profit we may by their oppositions, must make our advantage of the first part of the objection, distinguished betwixt the innocence or guiltlessness (nay, more than so, fruitfulness and goodness) of the land, and the barren- ness and wickedness and provocations of them that dwell therein, for whose sake it is regular with God to make that fruitful land barren, to convert the milk and honey of Canaan into gall and wormwood, to leave it to imitate and copy out the temper of the inhabitants, (whom yet his own hand of transcendant special mercy had once planted there), to suffer it to petrify and degenerate, as geographers tell us of that once good land, into rock and mine, at once to punish and reproach their obdurate and impenitent hearts ; and yet discern- ing the blessedness of that Canaan, both in itself and to us, as long as we were thought worthy to enjoy it, and indeed judging by this
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one criterion (if we wanted all others), that it was a most precious establisliment, because such provokers could not, in the justice and wisdom of God, be longer allowed the fruition of it.
Herein our punishment consists, that that wliicli we are deprived of was truly valuable. It is not a vengeance, but a boon, to have poi- sonous drugs snatched from us and cast out into the sink, ordinances that are not good abolished and nailed to the cross ; and in like man- ner it is but proportionable to our merits to have even the kingdom of heaven taken from us, that initial part, the suburbs and confines of it here, and bestowed on them that arc more worthy, and so capable of receiving benefit by such jewels.
I now proceed to the second and more principal part of the answer, (in reference to the latter ]mrt of the objection) which on the grounds premised must be this : That the improsperousness, and persecutions, and even subversion and eradication of a particular church, is in no way an evidence, nay not so much as a probable argument, that that was uocent which thus perisheth, but only tliat they were unworthy which are thus deprived, and that too good to be enjoyed by them. An indi- cation of this, the text referred to in the proposal of the objection doth expressly afford us; the whole verse runs thus, "An host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practised and prospered."
Here indeed transgression is the one procatarctick, external, im- pulsive cause, moving God to give that destroying host to the little horn ; and to continue so prodigious a success, and prosperity to it ; and this transgression, not that of the horn, or host, (which yet oft provokes God, even in judgment, to give them such kind of destructive prosperities, whether to be presently out of their debt — to pay Nebuchadnezzar that hire which is due to him for being in- strumental to some of God's purposes, or to allow them, like Dives, their good things in this life) ; but I suppose the transgression of those against whom tlie host prospers, just as in our case it is.
But then still it is the daily sacrifice and the truth, which it is thus empowered to cast down, — the sacrifice we know of God's own prescrib- ing, and such as was an act of his special favour to that above any other nation, that he so prescribed it ; and this worship so true, so ac- ceptable to God, that as he exacted it daily, loved to have it always before him, came constantly to meet with them at the seasons of offer- ing it, and was propitiated thereby ; so it is there, by way of excel- lence and in the abstract, styled truth and the truth itself. And this the fittest, as for that host to cast to the ground, so for those transgressors to be deprived of ; such as for whom no ill thing being too bad, any good thing was too precious to be continued to them.
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In like manner, when tlic temple was kept from being re- edified, when the sanctirm sanctorum was profaned, will any man affirm that these prosperities and great successes, whether of Tobiah and Sanballat, or of Ponipey, were a decision of God's, a verdict of heaven brouglit in against the temple and services?
If there were need of more instances to evince this, tlie whole history of tlie Turkish successes and victories over the Christians would not miss to do it ; that great volume would crowd together, and condensate into one undeniable argument, the sum whereof is this, that Christianity hath been foiled and Mahomedism set up in many hundred cities and regions ; wheresoever that false epileptick prophet's banners were displayed, the ensigns of truth and God him- self o'i-)(ovTai, were presently banished, or put to flight. And yet, sure, God hath not thus decided the controversy against Christian religion, to which liis promise was long ago sealed, that the gates of hell should never prevail against it. If he have, he hath also yielded the great sultan the honour of his own throne ; for to that he hath as just a title, that of long, peaceable possession, and pre- scription, liaving put it successfully, and as prosperously maintained it, among his titles to be King of kings, and Lord of lords. God's verdict was herein intelligible enough, against the factions, and di- visions, and intestine broils of the Christians among themselves, too busily and ambitiously engaged in wars against one another, to attend the designs, and obviate the motions of that common enemy. And many other sins there were tliat fitted them for those deprivations.
If this be not sufficient, I shall then ascend but one step farther in this argument ab exemplo, and demand whether Satan, tliat great adversary, hath not sometimes been prosperous in his attempts against the Chmxh and true faith : and whether tliat be not the meaning of his being "loosed a little season'," after the determining of the thousand years, and his deceiving the nations before the commencing of them ; and whether in both those periods of time, wherein he had his desired success in the wXavr] edvuiv, " deceiving the nations," God have decided the question for him, and given judgment against the truth? If so, then was Simon of Samaria no longer a magician, but a god, and all the powers of heaven itself submitted to him, -vvhen he prevailed with the emperor to have a statue so inscribed to him, Simoni summo Deo, "to Simon the highest God;" and the strumpet Helena transformed from the stray sheep into the queen ■of heaven, when once she obtained to be adored as his prima ewoiu : and then did Arianism commence orthodox, and apostolical truth
Rev. XX.
1656.]
Dr. HAMMOND.
437
become the only heresy, when by tiie favour of the Emperor Con-^ stantine it triumphed tlirough all the East over the catholic doctrine ; it being known in story, how upon that emperor's great prosperities and successes, particularly upon the overthrow of Magnentius, and joining the Western empire to the Eastern, which formerly he posr. sessed, he ft'equently boasted, Prohatam diviiio calculo sucnn Jidem, that God himself by those victories decided the controversy on the Arians' side against the Fathers of Nice, and determined their belief to be the true. And then (in brief) prosperity is not, as the Roman- ist but m.odestly pretends, one of his many marks of the true Church, hut like Aaron's rod, in the midst of those of the magicians, devours, and supplies the place of them all ; neither antiquity nor piu-ity shall any longer signify any thing, nor Christ himself, if he have ever been so improsperous as to be crucified; the Jews, and Judas, and Pilate, must have been in the right for three days, till he conquered, and so confuted them again at his resurrection.
These few, I suppose, may serve for some competent topics of rea- soning, to repel all the force of this objection ; though if there could be need of it, the whole Christian religion itself, which bears the cross for its standard, and hath no assurance of conquest but by constancy in suffering, and gives us no promise of this life but cum mixtura i rucis, " with the exception, or mixture of the cross," would abun- dantly demonstrate sucli objections as this to be perfectly unchristian. ********
It is now time that I look forward on some few of the many great uses we are to make of this state, the beneficial exercises which seem most peculiarly apportioned to it ; that so we may, according to St. Paul's direction toT^ eixTrpocrdcv eireKTe'tveadat, " give a stretch forward to the things which are before," and so ciuiKeiv, make that a latter stage in our present course towards the great (ipafieiov, the. prize (of all, and so) of our present agonies.
And the first step that we advance, as it cannot miss to furnish us with an armature against all the vastest changes that this unstable world can subject us to, with an, O passi graviora, giving us an assurance, that what jiext shall come cannot be more strange and unexpected, less within the diviner's power to foresee, and indeed much more vast and horrid, at the nearest approach, than tin's which we already discern that God hath chosen for us ; so it may be very proper to wean us, and mortify in us all fondness to that which hath now nothing left that is lovely or desirable in it.
We know David's uninim petti (Psalm xxvii. 4), tlie " one thing" that he counted worth desiring of the Lord, and without which the rest had no relish in it. And this hath God seen fit to rend from
438
Dr. HAMMOND.
[A. D.
us, at this time, that we may have never an hostage left to engage our kindness to the world.
When all that deserves to be rejoiced in, in this life, is most strictly warded from us, (such sure are the fruits of that paradise from which we are now exiled) what Christian spirit, of the coarsest mould, tliat hath most of allay in his composition, can in earnest solicit a reprieve of the severest sentence, court this world, or dread a final parting with it, when by any farther summons he that hath cast him into these briers and tliorns, shall mercifully call and in- vite him out of them ?
The eremite or anchoret that hath passed so great a part of his journey towards heaven as to become within a pace of his non ultra., and hath but the patience of one step more required of him, to conclude his travel, to lodge him in Abraham's bosom, Avere surely very unkind to heaven, and treacherous to his own aims and interests, if he should then stop, or start, or think of a retreat. And the like contradiction were it to our own greatest concernments, when we are divested of all the vivendi causes, the comforts or causes of living, (the chief of which is that gladsome news in the Psalmist, " when they said unto him. Let us go up to the house of the Lord," whereupon he could revive himself out of any sadness with this one cordial, " My feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem," and, " Jeru- salem is as a city at unity with itself ;") when, I say, we are cast out of this presence of the Lord, this comfortable, though but ambulatory tent of His, where for a time he hath allowed us an access unto Him, to tremble at the sight of that officer which comes but to return us to our home and joys, and to secure the firmness of our future abode, that it shall be ascertained to us for ever.
Schammatha and Maranatha we know were the significative titles of the Jewish exterminations, and the interpretation of them, the approach of destruction from the Lord. The sanhedrim's casting- out of the assembly, was thought to attend the Druids' censures, when they interdicted any man the liberty of sacrificing, qnoe j)cena apud eo# gravisaima est, saith Ciesar, the heaviest punishment that could befal the Gauls or Britons. And though this of ours be no parallel, yet it may be useful thus far to remind us of our duty, to prepare us so as not to be surprised, whatsoever God shall next send.
Meanwhile, one comfort this of ours is capable of, above any real though meekest censures of the Church (eViri/xjaj and vovdety'iai, the reproofs or admonitions ecclesiastical), that it is not futuri judicii prcejudicium, in Tertullian's phrase, — hath no inauspicious influence on our future weal ; the binding us on earth, though it never be re- scinded here, will be far from interdicting or excluding us from heaven.
1635.]
THOMAS FULLER.
A.D. 1640—1661.
This very lively, and (to make use of a trite phrase, which, if the force of its original meaning could be recovered, would correctly express the leading characteristics of his in- tellect) ingenious writer, Avho employed not a few of the best years of his life in endeavouring to do justice, as a biographer, to the " Worthies"" of his country, ought not to be omitted in the present enumeration of a class to which he peculiarly belonged.
He was born at Aldwinckle St. Peter's, in Northampton- shire, of which place his father, also named Thomas Fuller, was rector. His early education was conducted under the immediate care of this respectable clergyman ; owing to whose able tuition, seconded by the quickness and surprising memory of his pupil, the boy was fit to be transferred to the university at the age of twelve years. Davenant, who was his maternal uncle, at that time held the mastership of Queens' college Cambridge ; thither, consequently, was young Fuller sent. In lC28, he took his master's degree, with unusual credit; when, finding that a statute of tlie college stood in the way of his obtaining a fellowship, unless he procured a dispensation, he migrated to Sidney college. Shortly after this time, he produced his first literai-y essay, a poem, entitled David'n Heinous Sin, hearty Repentance, and heavy Funishment; and undertook his first clerical charge, the parish of St. Benet, Cambridge. In that quaint alliterative title of the firstfruits of his lively genius, some of the well-known characteristics of Fuller are already apparent. At St. Benct's he laid the foundation of his high repute as a preacher. The simultaneous offer of a prebend at Salisbury and a fellowship in Sidney college, determined him to quit the scene of his academical honours and employments. To those preferments was presently added the rectory of Broadwinsor in Dorsetshire, the gift of his uncle. He returned to Cambridge, in 1635, and, amidst
440
THOMAS FULLER.
[A.D.
the congratulations of many friends, (for he was greatly loved and admired in the university,) took the degree of bachelor of divinity.
The next incident worthy of record, in Fuller's life, was liis marriage, which occurred in 1638. He was then engaged in the composition of his Holy Wm\ and published it in 1640. The year following, the death of his wife having put a period to a brief but happy union, the solitude of Bi'oad- winsor became painful to him, and he removed to London. It was a period when ability in the pulpit readily obtained notice : he was soon chosen lecturer of the Savoy, and followed by an admiring auditory, not a few of whom issued from Whitehall and the inns of court. Fuller was half a Puritan, and consequently, on points relating to church-discipline, mo- derate, or, rather, lax. Nevertheless, having too much loyalty to approve the lengths to which the parliament was now pro- ceeding, he, in a sermon preached at Westminster Abbey, in 1642, on the anniversary of the king's coronation, so power- fully enforced the duty of allegiance and submission, as to bring on himself much odium from the ruling party. He was the more conspicuous object of suspicion and hostility in consequence of the singularity of his position ; nearly all the royalist clergy having by this time retired, or been driven beyond the "lines of communication." For some time longer he remained in London, in an anxious and unsettled state; but having conscientiously refused to take an oath required of him, (not the covenant, as has been alleged, for that was not yet in being, but one of those minor obligations, which the jealousy of the parliament from time to time imposed,) he judged it prudent to seek a refuge within the royalist lines ; accordingly lie withdrew to the court at Oxford, in April 1()4,';. The dis- turbed state of the times seems not to have prevented his usual literary diligence : his most generally admired work, the Holy and Profane State, was the fruit of his residence, at this period, in the metropolis. He appears likewise now to have been engaged in making collections for his Church History.
Fuller's retirement to Oxford was, as might have been foreseen, the signal for proceeding against him as a delin- quent: it was followed by his immediate deprivation, and by the plunder of his library. To this latter misfortune he alludes more than once, particularly in the following goodnatured and charitable remarks. The passage is in his Good Thoughts
1643.]
THOMAS FULLER.
441
in worse Times. He introduces the subject by reciting^ from Plutarch's Morals the story of Nicias the philosopher, who, being robbed of his shoes, wished they might Jit his feet who had taken them away ; which, though at first it might ajipear a charitable wish, was indeed a revengeful one, for Nicias was clubfooted.
" Wliosoever," writes Fuller, "hath plundered me of my books ;ind papers, I freely forgive him, and desire that he may fully under- stand and make good use thereof, wishing him more joy of then), than he hath right to them. Nor is there any snake under my herbs, nor have I (as Nicias) any reservation, or latent sense to my sell, but from my heart do desire that to all purposes and intents my books may be beneficial unto him. Only requesting him, that one passage in his (lately my) bible, namely, Ephesians iv. 2S, may be taken into serious consideration."
At Oxford he was well received. The king wished to hear him preach, and attended for that purpose at St. Mary's. But with the same honest moderation which had sutjgested to him to recommend submission at Westminster, he now coun- selled conciliation; and instantly found himself as unpopular with the royalists, as he had previously become with their ene- mies. Suspicions of indifference to the royal cause were more than whispered against him by the eager satellites of the court. In order to wipe off these aspersions, he obtained a chaplaincy in the army xmder the excellent Sir Ralph Hopton. While traversing, in this capacity, some of the most interesting parts of the country, he employed such moments as he could snatch from his employments, in collecting materials wherever he came, for hislaboi'ious, but imperfect work, the Worthies of England. His assiduity in this search was extraordinary ; yet it did not interfere with the zealous discharge of his duties, as a chaplain and military partizan. Of his exertions in the latter character, to the extent permitted in one of his profession, he exhibited an instance during Waller's famous siege of Basing House, the Marquis of Worcester's seat in Hampshire, The encou- ragement communicated, on that occasion, to the soldiery, by his animated exhortations, contributed greatly to preserve the ])lace for the king. When, towards the miserable conclu- sion of the war, Hopton's shattered forces were driven into Cornwall, Fuller took leave of his patron, and fixing himself for a time in Exeter, resumed his studies and his exertions in the pulpit. While there the king marked his approbation
442
THOMAS FULLER.
[A. D.
of his conduct by appointing him chaplain to the infant princess Henrietta, and rector of Dorchester. The latter pre- ferment he declined; for he was always jealous of his freedom and independence ; and had now resolved, with a view to the successful prosecution of those literary undertakings in which he was engaged, to go and settle in London, as soon as the way thither was open.
The surrender of Exeter, and the close of the war, brought the desired opportunity. He found, of course, his pulpit at the Savoy closed against him ; but he officiated, successively, as lecturer, at the church in Clement"'s-lane, Lombard-street, and at St. Bride's, Fleet-street, until silenced by authority. He was then made chaplain to the Earl of Carlisle, and pre- ferred by that nobleman to the living of Waltham Abbey. During this second residence in London, which continued about two years, he brought out several of his works, and nearly completed that costly and curious volume, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine : it was published in l650, after his removal to Waltham. The collection of lives of religious reformers, martyrs, confessors, &c. entitled, Ahcl Redivivus, — a slight and inaccurate, yet pleasing book, compiled partly by Fuller liimself, and in part by Featley, Gataker, and others, — made its appearance in l651. He now married a second time, and having satisfied Cromwell's "triers,"" continued without moles- tation in the diligent discharge of his pastoral functions, not- withstanding the prohibitory Declaration, issued in l655.
In that year he published his Church History of Great Britain. Few books on grave subjects have been so much read, or so thoroughly enjoyed ; not many more extravagantly praised, or more severely censured. Heylin's prejudiced attack, in the Examen Historicum, and Nicolson's dull criticisms, in the Historical Library, are effectually neutralized by the high encomiums of such critics as Coleridg-e and Lamb. No intelligent reader will reject the claim of the Church History of Britain, as the most entertaining of histories ; nor can the severest deny its value, as richly enshrining for preservation many precious documents. Fuller answered the animadver- sions of his contemporary, Heylin, in a spirit very different from tliat in which he was assailed : he acknowledged with graceful ingenuousness the existence of many errors, and for- warded his defence with a letter in a friendly strain to the sour castigator.
1661.]
THOMAS FULLER.
443
From Waltham, Fuller removed to another parish in Essex ; and thence again, in l658, to Cranford in ^liddlesex, a living presented to him by Lord Berkely. At the dawn of the Restoration, this nobleman took him over to the continent, and introduced him to Charles the Second. He was now readmitted to his lectureship in the Savoy ; restored (after twenty year.s'' deprivation) to his prebend at Salisbury ; appointed chaplain in ordinary to his majesty ; and created doctor of divinity by royal mandate. But, in the midst of triumphs, congratu- lations, and preferments, literature was not forgotten. He committed to the press his Worthies of England, — "the main channel," it has been said, " of his thoughts." In connexion with much local and statistical information, often of a very curious kind, it professes to contain the lives of all the most famous persons born in any part of the kingdom. From its nature, as well as from the desultory mode in which the materials were collected and compiled, this monument of patient and protracted labour could hardly be free from in- accuracies and imperfections ; it nevertheless continues to be consulted, as a work of authority and extensive usefulness. Like its predecessor, it fell under the censure of Bishop Nicolson.
The Worthies was, however, destined to be a posthumous publication. The 12th of August, l66l, on returning from a visit to Salisbury, its author was attacked by indisposition. It ■was Sunday ; and he had promised on that day to preach the weddinff-sermon of a relation. His eldest son observing; the threatening nature of his symptoms, dissuaded him from the attempt. He answered, (in language which every, earnest preacher will feel,) "that he had often gone up into the pulpit sick, but always came down well." Feeling, in the course of his sermon, his illness increase, he acknowledged it to his con- gregation ; adding, however — " But I am resolved by the grace of God to preach this sermon, thougli it be death to myself." The presage was verified. With difficulty he per- severed to the close ; was obliged to be assisted down the pulpit-stairs ; and, four days later, viz. on the ifith, in the 54th year of his chequered and laborious life, he sank under the effects of his disease, a malignant fever, at that time raging in England. Throughout a great part of the interval from his seizure, he had been delirious ; in which state, his mind being ever intent on study, he " often called for pen and
444
THOIMAS FULLER.
[A. D.
ink, telling those about him that 'he would write it out,'" Src; but, towards the linal close of his earthly existence, reason returned, though accompanied by great exhaustion. Fuller ■was buried in his church at Cranford. The inscription on his monument concludes with an allusion to his work on The Worthies of England, expressed in a style which he himself might have dictated : Diim viros Anglice illustres opere post- Jiumo immortalitati consecrare meditatus est, ipse imniortali- tatem est consecutiis. — "While enffacjed in conferring immor- tality, by his posthumous work, on the illustrious men of England, he obtained immortality for himself."
Fuller was of rather more than the middle height, well made, and of a ruddy and sanguine complexion, with liglit curling hair. The favourable qualities of liis person, however, did not prevent a degree of negligence in his dress ; nor the elegance and high cultivation of his richly-stored mind, a natural simplicity of manner. He was the most engaging of companions. His conversation flowed in an inexhaustible tide from the fountain of a sincere and generous heart, en- riched with various recondite learning, and sparkling with incessant ebullitions of an unrivalled fancy ; infinite in shape^ and sti'angely coloured, yet often most beautiful, and some- times exquisitely appropriate. It is not to be wondered at that such a man could number many and affectionately attached friends. Among his accomplishments that which seems, as much as any, to have excited the admiration of his contem- poraries was the tenaciousness of his memory. Concerning Fuller's perfect command of this faculty, several anecdotes are recorded which rank him with the most remarkable ex- amples of its extraordinary development. In him, however, the retentive were not, as in such instances they commonly are, of a largeness disproportioned to the creative and combining powers of the mind.
The modesty, not to say the moderation (to some men a less pleasing quality) of Fuller, perhaps appears in his never having risen higher in the church, with all his ability and " troops of friends," than to a prebend at Sarum. " He was wholly conversant, during the broils and dissensions of party, in the thoughts and consideration of that text, 'Let your moderation be known unto all men.'" Peace and charity he never ceased to urge on all around him, but especially when he began clearly to discern the healing dawn of the Restoration.
1661.]
THOMAS FULLER.
445
Ho blamed those on both sides, who " will take all, but tender nothing; make motions with their mouths, but none with their feet, for peace, not stirring a step towards it. Oh," exclaims he, " that we could see some proffers and performances of condescension on either side, and then let others who remain obstinate be branded with Perez — ' the breach be upon them l"" In this spirit, though a strenuous enemy of Rome, he was earnest in demandino* toleration for all Christians. "Let them," he said, " privately enjoy their consciences, both in opinions and practices. Such favour may safely, not to say ought justly, be afforded unto them, so long as they continue peaceably in our Israel, and do not disturb the state." At the same time, he did not neglect the apostle's rule to do good " especially unto them that are of the household of faith :" throughout the calamitous period of the civil war, and the commonwealth, he exerted himself greatly in extending chari- table assistance to his brethren, the deprived clergy, and to others, who were less leniently treated than himself.
On the literary character of this learned divine, it were needless to dilate. His faults and beauties have often supplied a theme to criticism. The former, though obvious, may prove hurtful to young readers, from being little more than the wanton over-growth of excellences, and hence extremely capti- vating to unchastened tastes; the latter will assuredly be felt and acknowdedged, in a degree commensurate with the reader's experience and comprehension. That "waste abundance of a prolific nature," that affluence and that discursiveness, which are generally pointed out as the blemishes of Fuller's man- ner, are chiefly to be regarded in this light in his historical and biographical works, where they disturb the method and destroy the simplicity we justly expect in such compositions. Yet even in the Church History, a work of a class in which such incumbrances are least of all allowable, he himself judged them not incapable of defence. He compared his subject, as so treated, to a church decorated with evergreens in fes- tival time ; his monkish tales, his pleasant anecdotes, his poetical quotations, his quaint turns and playful remarks, were designed, he says, to make the book acceptable to young and unreflective readers, by " illuminating the obscure and enlivening the languid portions of the story." In his minor productions these peculiarities are scarcely perceived as objec- tionable. We feel, as we read his contemplative works, such
446
THOMAS FULLER.
[A. D.
as his Good Thoughts in had Times, Good Thoughts in worse Times, Mixed Contemplations, &c. (in whicli he fol- lows the steps of Bishop Hall, hardly scattering the flowers of rhetoric more profusely in his path, than his admired pre- decessor,) that only from a mind characterised, like his, by playful movement and exuberant fecundity, could the most ordinary incidents suffice to draw forth, in brilliant variety, such a succession of learned recollections, of interesting allu- sions, and of thoughts no less eloquently than pointedly ex- pressed.
Works of Fuller: —
Poems. 8vo. l6o\.
History of the Holy War. fol. iGSg.
The Holy State, fol. lC42.
Good Thoughts in had Times. 12rao. l645. This, the author informs us, was the first book printed at Exeter. Good Thoughts in worse Times. 12mo. 1647. The Profane State, fol. 1648.
Andronicus ; or the Unfortunate Politician. 8vo. 1649. A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, and the Conjities thereof, (Sj-c. fol. 1650.
Abel Redivivus : the Lives and Deaths of the Modern Divines. 4to. 1650 — Of this slight but pleasing work, however, some portions are from the pens of Featley, Gataker, Isaac- son, and other contemporary writers. At the end of each life is a copy of verses, written, " for the most part, by Master Quarles, father and son."
The Infants'' Advocate ; a treatise on Pcedo-haptism. 8vo. 1653.
The Triple Reconciler of Three Controversies, viz. 1. Whether ministers have an exclusive power of barring Com- municants from the Sacrament ; 2. Whether any person un- ordained may law fully preach ; 3. Whether the Lord's Prayer ought not to be tised by all Christians. 8vo. l654.
The Church History of Britain, fol. 1606. To this work are usually appended A History of the University of Cam- bridge, and A History of Waltham Abbey, which were printed about the same time.
The Appeal of injured innocence, to the religious, learned, and ingenious reader, hettvixt Dr. Peter Heylin and the Author Thomas Fuller, fol. 1659. The Reply to Heylin' attack in the Examen Historicum.
7G61.]
THOMAS FULLER.
447
The Speech of Birds; also of Flowers: partly moral, partly mystical. 8vo. ififiO.
Mixed Contemplations on better Times. 12mo. 16C().
History of the Worthies of England, fol. 1662.
Truth Delivered : the Just MarCs Funeral ; Perfection and Peace; the Best Name on Earth, and many other sermons, ])ublished for the most part singly. To two, which appear- ed together in 1654', was added A Comvientary on Ruth. His Sermon of Reformation, delivered at the Savoy, from Heb. ix. 10, and published in l6i3, '• with a defence of some positions in the same," occasioned a controversy between the author and the Puritan divine, Saltmarsh, who drew from it a charge against Fuller of an inclination towards popery.
CHARACTER OF THE GOOD BISHOP, EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIVES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND BISHOP RIDLEY.
He is an overseer of a flock of shepherds, as a minister is of a flock of God's slieep. Divine providence and his prince's bounty advanced him to the place, whereof lie was no wit ambitious : only lie counts it good manners to sit there where God hath placed him, though it be higher than he conceives himself to deserve; and hopes that he who called him to the office hath, or will in some measure fit him for it.
His life is so spotless, that malice is angry with him because she cannot be angry witli him ; because she can find no just cause to accuse him. And as Diogenes confuted him who denied there was any motion, by saying nothing, but walking before his eyes ; so our bishop takes no notice of the false accusations of people dis- afi'ected against his order, but walks on circumspectly in his calling, really refelling their cavils by his conversation. A bishop's bare presence at a marriage in his own diocese, is by the law interpreted for a license ; and what actions soever he graceth with his company, he is conceived to privilege them to be lawful; which makes him to be more wary in his behaviour.
With his honour, his holiness and humility doth increase. His great place makes not his piety the less ; far be it from him that the glittering of the candlestick should dim the shining of his candle. The meanest minister of God's word may have free access unto him : whosoever brings a good cause brings his own welcome with him. The pious poor may enter in at his wide gates, when not so much as his wicket shall be open to wealthy unvvorthiness.
448
THOMAS FULLER.
i:a.d.
He is diligent and faithful in preaching the gospel : either by his pen, Evangelizo manu ct scriptione, saith a strict divine ; or by his vocal sermons (if age and other indispensable occasions hinder him not), teaching the clerg>' to preach, and the laity to live, according to the ancient canons. Object not, that it is unfitting he should lie perdue, who is to walk the round, and that governing, as a higher employment, is to silence his preaching ; for preaching is a principal part of governing, and Christ himself ruleth his Church by his word. Hereby bishops should govern hearts, and make men yield unto them a true and willing obedience, reverencing God in them. Many in consumptions have recovered their health by returning to their native air, wherein they were born. If episcopacy be in any declination or diminution of honour, the going back to the painfulness of the pri- mitive fathers in preaching, is the only way to repair it.
Painful, jjious, and peaceable ministers are his principal favourites. Jf he meets tbem in his way (yea, he will make it his way to meet them), he bestowcth all gi-ace and lustre upon them.
He is careful that church censures be justly and solemnly inflicted : namely,
1 . Admonition, when the Church only chideth, but with the rod in her hand.
2. Excommunication, the mittimus whereby tlie malefactor is sent to the gaoler of hell, and delivered to Satan.
3. Aggravation, whereby for his gi'eater contempt he is removed out of the gaol into the dungeon.
4. Penance, which is or should be inward repentance, made visible by open confession, whereby the congregation is satisfied for the public offence given her.
5. Absolution, which fetcheth the penitent out of hell, and opens the door of heaven for him, which excommunication had formerly locked, and aggravation bolted against him.
As much as lies in his power he either prevents or corrects those too frequent abuses, whereby offenders are not pricked to the heart, but let blood in the purse : and when the court hath her costs, the Cliurch hath no damage given her, nor any reparation for the open scandal she received by the party's offence. Let the memory of worthy Bishop Lake ever survive, whose hand had the true seasoning of a sermon with law and gospel, and who was most fatherly grave in inflicting church-censures : such offenders as were unhappy in de- serving, were happy in doing penance in his presence.
He is careful and happy in suppressing of heresies and schisms. He distinguisheth of schismatics, as physicians do of leprous people : some are infectious, others not ; some are active to seduce others.
1661.]
THOMAS FULLER.
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others quietly enjoy tlieir opinions in their own consciences. The latter, by his mildness, he easily reduceth to the truth, whereas the chirurgeon's rigorously liandling it, often breaks that bone quite off', which formerly was but out of joint : towards the former he useth more severity, yet endeavouring first to inform him aright before he punisheth him. To use force first before people are fairly taught the truth, is to knock a nail into a board without wimbling a hole for it, which then either not enters, or turns crooked, or splits the wood it pierceth.
He is very merciful in punishing offenders; both in matter of life and livelihood, seeing in St. John's language the same word j3lo<;, signifies both. He had rather draw tears than blood. It was the honour of the Roman state, as yet being pagan, In hoc gloriari licet, nulli gentium mitiores placuisse pcenas. Yea, for the first seventy years (till the reign of Ancus Martius) they were without a ])rison. Clemency, therefore, in a Christian bishop is more proper. Oh let not the stars of our Church be herein turned to comets, whose appearing in place of judicature presageth to some death or destruc- tion ! I confess that even justice itself is a kind of mercy : but God grant that my portion of mercy be not paid me in that coin. And though the highest detestation of sin best agreeth with clergymen, yet ought they to cast a severe eye on the vice and example, and a merciful eye on the person.
None more forward to forgive a wrong done to himself. Worthy Archbishop Whitgift interceded to Queen Elizabeth for remitting of heavy fines laid on some of his adversaries (learning from Clirist his master to be a meditator for them), till his importunity had angertxl the queen, yea, and till his importunity had pleased her again, and gave not over till he got them to be forgiven.
He is very careful on whom he layeth hands in ordination ; lest afterwards he hath just cause to beshrew his fingers, and with Mar- tianus, a bishop of Constantinople (who made Sabbatias, a Jew and a turbulent man, priest), wish he had then rather laid his hand on the briers, than such a man's head. For the sufficiency of scholarship he goeth by his own eye ; but for their honest life, he is guided by other men's hands, which would not so oft deceive him, were testi- monials a matter of less courtesy and more conscience. For wliosoevcr subscribes them enters into a bond to God and the Church, under a heavy forfeiture, to avouch the honesty of the party commended : and as Judah for Benjamin, they become " sureties for the young man unto his father." Nor let them think to avoid the bond, and make it but a blank with the clause, so far forth as we know, or words to the like effect. For what saith the apostle? "God is not mocked."
He meddleth as little as may be with temporal matters ; having VOL. I. 29
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little skill in them, and less will to them ; not that he is unwoi-thy to manage them, but tliey unworthy to be managed by him. Yea, generally the most dexterous in spiritual matters are left-handed in temporal business and go but untowardly about them. Wherefore our bishop, with reverend Andrewes, " meddleth little in civil affairs, being out of his profession and element." Heaven is his vocation, and therefore he counts earthly employments avocations, except in such cases which lie, as I may say, in the marches of divinity, and have connexion with his calling ; or else when temporal matters meddle with liim, so that he must rid them out of his way. Yet he rather admireth than condemneth such of his brethren wlio are strengthened with that which would distract him, making the concurrence of spiritual and temporal power in them suppoi't one anotlier, and using worldly business as their recreation to heavenly employment.
If called to the court, he there doeth all good offices betwixt prince and people, striving to remove all misprisions and disaffections, and advancing unity and concord. They that think tlie Chiffch may flourish when the commonwealth doth wither, may as well conceive that the brains may be found when the pia mater is perished. When in tlie way of a confessor, he privately tells his prince of his faults, he knows, by Nathan's parable, to go the nearest way home by going tar about.
He improves his power witli his prince for the Church's good, in maintaining both true religion and the maintenance thereof; lest some pretending, with pious Hezekiah, to beat down the brazen serpent, the occasion of idolatry, do indeed, with sacrilegious Ahaz, take away the brazen bulls from the laver, and set it on a pavement of stone. He jointly advanceth the pains and gains, the work and wages of ministers, which, going together, make a flourishing clergy, with God's blessing, and without man's envy.
His mortified mind is no whit moved with the magnificent vanities of the court, no more than a dead corpse is affected with a velvet hearse-cloth over it. He is so far from wondering at their pomps, that though lie looks daily on them, he scarce sees tliem, having his eyes taken up with higher objects ; and only admires at such as can admire such low matters. He is loved and feared of all ; and his presence frights the swearer either out of his oaths or into silence, and he stains all other men's lives with the clearness of his own.
Yet he daily prayeth God to keep him in so slippery a place. Elisha prayed that a double portion of Elijah's spirit might rest upon him. A father descantcth hereon, that a double portion of grace was neces- sary for Elisha, who was gi-acious at court, lived in a plentiful way and favoured of the kings of Israel ; whereas Elijali lived poorly and
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privately : ami more wisdom is necessary to manage prosperity tlian affliction.
Li his grave writings lie aims at God's glory, and tlic clnu'cli's j)eace ; witli that worthy prelate, the second Jewel of Salisbury, whose comments and controversies will [transmit his memory to all posterity :
AVhose (lying pen iliil write of Christian union,
riow church with cliurch might safely keep communion.
Commend his care, although the cure do miss ;
The woe is ours, the happiness is his :
Who finding discords daily to increase,
Because he could not live, would die, in peace.
He ever makes honourable mention of foreign protestant churches, oven when lie differs and dissents from them. The worst he wisheth the French church is a protestant king : not giving the left hand of fellowship to them, and reserving his right for some other. Cannot Christ's coat be of different colours, but also it must be of several seams ; railing one on another, till these sisters, by bastardizing one another, make the popish church the sole heir to all truth ? How often did reverend Whitgift, knowing he had the far better cheer, send a mess of meat from his own table to the ministers of Geneva, relieving many of them by bountiful contributions ? Indeed, English charity to foreign protestant cliurches, in some [respect, is payment of a debt : their cliildrcn deserve to be our welcome guests, whose grandfathers were our loving hosts in the days of Queen Mary.
He is thankful to that college whence he had his education. He conceivetli himself to hear his mother college always speaking to him in the language of Joseph to Pharaoh's butler, " But think on me, I pray thee, wlien it shall be well with thee." If he himself hath but little, the less from him is the more acceptable : a drop from a sponge is as much as a ton of water from a marsh. He bestows on it books, or plate, or lands, or building ; and the houses of the propliets rather lack watering than planting, there being enough of them, if they had (snough.
He is hospitable in liis housekeeping according to his estate. His bounty is with discretion to tliose that deserve it: cliarity mistaken, which relieves idle people, like a dead corpse, only feeds the vemiin it breeds. The rankness of his housekeeping produccth no riot in his family. St. Paul calls a Christian family well ordered, a church in their liouse. If a private man's liouse be a parochial, a bishop's may seem a cathedral church, as much better as bigger, so decently all things therein are disposed.
Wc come now to give a double example of a godly bishop : tlu5 first out of the primitive times, the second out of the English church since the Reformation, both excellent in their several ways.
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[A.D.
THE LIFE OF ST. AUGUSTINE.
Augustine was born in tlie city of Tagasta, in Africa, of gentle parentage, Patricius and Monica, though tlieir means bore not pro- portion to tlieir birth, so that the breeding of their son at learning much weakened their estate, insomuch as Romanian, a noble gentle- man (all the world is bound to be thankful to St. Augustine's bene- factor), bountifully advanced his education.
It will be needless to speak of his youth, vicious in manners and erroneous in doctrine, especially seeing he hath so largely accused him- self in his confessions. It is tyranny to trample on him that prostrates himself ; and whose sins God hath graciously forgotten, let no man despitefully remember.
Being made a presbyter in the church of Hippo, this great favour was allowed him, to preach constantly, though in the presence of Valerius the bishop : whereas in that age to hear a priest preach when that a bishop was in the church, was as great a wonder as the moon shining at midday. Yea, godly Valerius, one that could do better than he could speak, and had a better heart than tongue (being a Grecian, and therefore not well understood of the Africans), procured Augustine in his lifetime to be designed bishop of Hippo, and to be joined fellow-bishop with himself, though it was flatly against the canons.
For a coadjutor commonly proves a hinderer, and by his envious clashing, doth often dig his partner's grave with whom he is joined ; besides that such a superinstallation seems an unlawful bigamy, marrying two husbands at the same time to the same church. Yea, St. Augus- tine himself, afterwards understanding that this was against the constitutions of the church, was sorry thereat, though others thought his eminency above canons, and his deserts his dispensation ; and desiring that his ignorance herein should not misguide others, obtained that the canons, then not so hard to be kept as known, because obscure and scattered, were compiled together and published, that the clergy might know what they were bound to observe.
Being afterwards sole bishop, he was diligent in continual preaching and beating down of heretics, especially the Manicheans, in whose fence- school lie was formerly brought up, and therefore knew best how to hit them, and guard himself ; also the Pelagians, the duellists against grace, and for firee-will, which till St. Augustine's time was never tho- roughly sifted ; points in divinity being but slenderly fenced, till thev are assaulted by heretics. He was also the hammer of the Donatists, heretics who did scatter more than they did devour, and their schism was more dangerous than their doctrine.
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He went not so willingly to a fccast as to a conference, to reduce any erroneous persons : once he disputed with Pascentius, the Arian, who requested that what passed hetwixt them might not be written, and afterwards gave out his brags that he had worsted Augustine in the dispute ; which report was believed of all who desired it.
In other battles, if the conquered side should be so impudent as to boast of the victory, it will ere long be confuted by the number of their men slain, ensigns and waggons taken, with their flight out of the field. It is not thus in the tongue-combats of disputes, wherein no visible wounds are given, and wherein bold men, though inwardly convinced with force of reason, count not themselves con- quered till they confess it ; so that in effect none can be overcome except they will tliemselves ; for some are so shameless tliat they count not their cause wrecked as long as anything alive comes to the land ; so long as they have breath to talk, though not to answer, and employ their hands, not to untie their adversaries' arguments, but only obstinately to lay hold on their own opinions ; yea, after the conference ended, they cry Victoria in all companies wherein they come ; whilst their auditors, generally as engaged as the disputants, will succour their champion with partial relations, as the Arians did in the case of Pascentius.
But their false cavils liave done the Church this true courtesy, that ever after St. Augustine set down liis disputations in writing, that so the eye of the reader might more steadily behold his arguments presented, fixed in black and white, than when they were only in fluxu, as passing in his words.
His clothes were neither brave nor base, but comely : as for the black cowl of the Augustinians, which they pretend from his practice, it seemetli rather, if so ancient, to be cut with the shears, or by the pattern of Augustine the monk. He would not receive gifts to the Church from those who had poor kindred of their own : divinity saith, that mercy is better than sacrifice ; and the law provides, that debts are to be paid before legacies.
In case of great want he would sell tlie very ornaments of the churcli, and bestow the money on the poor, contrary to the opinion of many (the thorn of superstition began very soon to prick), who would not have such things in any case be alienated. Sure a communion- table will not catch cold with wanting a rich carpet, nor stumble for lack of the candles thereon in silver candlesticks. Besides, the church might afterwards be seasonably replenished with new furniture, whereas if the poor were once starved, they could not be revived again. But let not sacrilege in the disguise of charity make advantage hereof, and covetousness, which is ever hungry till it surfeits, make a constant
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ordinary on church-bread, because David, in necessity, fed one meal thereon.
His diet was very cleanly and sparing, yet hospitable in the enter- taining of others, and had this distich wrote on his table ;
Quisqjiis amai diclis ubsentum rodere fttmam, Hanc mensavi indignant noverit esse sibi. He that doth love on absent friends to jeer, May hence depart, no room is for him here.
His family was excellently well ordered, and ten of tliose scholars who were brought up under him, came afterwards to be bishops.
To come to his death. It happened that the northern countries, called by some. Vagina gentium, the sheath of people, (though more properly they may be termed Ensis Dei, the sword of God,) sent forth the Vandals, Albans, and Goths, into the southern parts, God punishing the j^ride of the Roman empire, to be confounded by bar- barous enemies. Out of Spain they came into Africa, and massacred all before them. The neiglibouring villages, like little children, did fly to Hippo, the mother-city, for succour: tliirteen months was Hippo besieged by the Goths, and St. Augustine being tlierein, prayed to God either to remove the siege, or to give tiie Christians tli^ehi patience to suffer, or to take him out of this miserable world ; wliich lie obtained, and died in the tliird month of the siege.
Falling very sick, besides the disease of age and grief, he lay languishing a prett)' time, and took order that none should come to him, save when his meat was brought, or physicians visited liim, that so he might have elbow room the more freely to put off the clothes of his mortality.
The motion of piety in him (by custom now made natural), was relocior in fine, daily breathing out most pious ejaculations. He died intestate, not for lack of time to make a will, but means to bestow ; having formerly passed his soul to God, whilst his body of course be- queathed itself to the earth. As for tlie books of his own making, a treasure beyond estimation, he carefully consigned them to several libraries. He died in the seventy-sixth year of Ids age, having hved a bishop almost forty years. Thus a saint of God, like an oak, may be cut down in a moment ; but how many years was he a growing ! Not long after his death the city of Hi])j)0 was sacked by the Gotlis, it being no wonder if Troy vvas taken, when the Palladium was first fetched away from it.
THE LIFE OF BISHOP KIDLEY,
Nicholas Ridley was bom in tlie bishoprick of Durham, but descended from the ancient and worsliipful family of the Ridlej's of
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Willimotcs-wike in Northumberland. He was brouglit up in Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, where he so profited in general learning, that he was chosen fellow of the college, and, anno 1533, was proctor of tiie university.
At which time two Oxford men, George Throgniorton and John Ashwell, came to Cambridge, and in the public schools challenged anv to dispute with them on these questions :
^ j Jus civile sit medicina prasstantins?
\ Mnlier condernnatci. Lis rnptis lacjueis, .sit iertio suspendenda9
It seems they were men of more brow than brain, being so ambitious to be known, that they had rather be hissed down, than not come upon the stage. Sure Oxford afforded as many more able tlisputants, as civil law yielded more profound and needful questions. Throgmorton liad the fortune of daring men, to be worsted, being so pressed by John Redman and Nicholas Ridley, the opponents, that his second refused at all to dispute.
Indeed, a university is an only fit match for a university ; and any private man who in this nature undertakes a whole body, being of necessity put to the worst, deserves not Phaeton's epitaph, Magnis, but, Siultis tamen excidit ausis. And tliough one objects, Neminem Cantabrigiensium constat Oxonienses vnquam ad cerlamm provo- casse; yet less learning cannot be inferred from more modesty. The best is, the two sisters so well agree together, that tliey only contend to surpass each other in mutual kindness, and forbidding all duels be- twixt their children, make up their joint forces against the common foe of them and true religion.
He was after chosen master of Pembroke Hall, and kept the same whilst bishop of Rochester and London, till ousted in the first of Queen Mary. Not that he was covetous to hold his place in the college, but the college ambitious to hold him ; as who would willingly part with a jewel ? He was in good esteem with Henry" the Eighth, and in better with pious king Edward the Sixtli, and was generally beloved of all the court, being one of a handsome person, comely presence, affable speech, and courteous behaviour.
But before I go fmther, reader, pardon a digression, and yet is it none, for it is necessary. I have within the narrow scantling of my experimental remembrance, observed strange alteration in the world's valuing of those learned men who lived in that age ; and take it plainly without welt or guard ; for he that smarts for speaking truth, hath a plaster in his own conscience.
When I was a child, I was possessed with a reverend esteem of tliem, as most holy and pious men dying martyrs in the days of
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Queen Mary, for profession of the ti-uth ; whicli opinion having from my parents taken quiet possession of my soul, they must be very forcible reasons which eject it.
Since that time they have been much cried down in the mouths of many, who making a coroner's inquest upon their death, have found them little better than felons de sc, dying in their own blood, for a mere formality, de modo, of the manner of the presence, and a sacrifice in the sacrament, who might easily, with one small dis- tinction, have knocked off their fetters, and saved their lives. By such, the coronet of martyrdom is plucked off from theu" memories ; and others, more moderate, equally part their deatli betwixt their enemies' cruelty and their own over-forwardness.
Since that, one might have expected that these worthy men should have been reinstated in their former honour, whereas the con- trary hath come to pass. For some who have an excellent faculty in uncharitable synecdoches, to condemn a life for an action, and taking advantage of some faults in them, do much condemn them: and one lately hath traduced them with such language as neither beseemed his parts, whosoever he was that spake it, nor their piety of whom it was spoken. If pious Latimer, whose bluntness was in- capable of flattery, had his simplicity abused with false informations, he is called "another Doctor Shaw, to divulge in his sermon forged accusations." Cranmer and Ridley, for some failings, styled, " the common stales to countenance with their prostituted gravities every politic fetch which was then on foot, as oft as the potent statists pleased to employ them." And, as it follows not far after, " Bishop Cranmer, one of king Henry's executors, and the other bishops, none refusing (lest they should resist the Duke of Northumberland), could find in their consciences to set their hands to the disenabling and defeating of the Princess Mary, &c." Where Christian ingenuity might have prompted unto him to have made an intimation, that Cranmer (with pious justice Hales in Kent) was last and least guilty, much refusing to subscribe; and his long resisting deserved as well to be mentioned as his yielding at last. Yea, that very verse which Doctor Smith, at the burning of Ridley, used against him, is by the foresaid author (though not with so foil a blow, with a slanting stroke) applied to those martyrs, "A man may give his body to be burnt, and yet have not charity."
Thus the prices of martyrs' ashes rise and fall in Smithfield market. However, their real worth floats not with people's fancies, no more than a rock in the sea rises and falls with the tide. St. Paul is still St. Paul, though the Lycaonians now would sacrifice to him, and pre- sently after would sacrifice Ixim. Those bishops, ministers, and lay
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people, who were put to death in Queen Mary's days, were worthy saints of God, lioly and godly men, but had their faults, failings, and imperfections. Had they not been men they had not burned ; yea, had they not been more than men, by God's assistance, they had not burned. Every true Christian should, but none but strong Christians will, die at the stake.
But to return to Ridley : one of the greatest things objected against him was his counsel to King Edward (which the good prince washed away with his tears) about tolerating the mass for Princess Mary, at the intercession of Charles the Fifth, emperor ; which how great it was, let the indifferent party give judgment, when the historian hath given his evidence : the bishops of Canterbury, London, and Rochester, gave their opinion, that to give license to sin was sin, but to connive at sin might be allowed, in case it were neither too long, nor without hope of reformation.
Another fault wherewith he was charged, was that woeful and unliappy discord betwixt him and reverend Bishop Hooper, about the wearing of some episcopal garments at his consecration, then in use, which Ridley pressed and Hooper refused with equal violence, as being too many, rather loading than gracing him ; and so affectedly grave, that they were light again ! All we will say is this, that when worthy men fall out, only one of them may be faulty at the first, but if such strife continues long, commonly both become guilty : but thus God's diamonds often cut one another, and good men cause afflictions to good men.
It was the policy of the Lacedemonians always to send two ambas- sadors together, who disagreed amongst themselves, that so mutually they might have an eye on the actions each of other. Sure I am that in those ambassadors, the ministers whom God sendeth to men, Godsuffereth great discords betwixt them (Paul with Barnabas, Jerome with Ruffin and Augustine, and the like), perchance because each may be more cautious and wary of his behaviour in the view of the other. We may well behold men's weakness in such dissensions, but better admire God's strength and wisdom in ordering them to his glory and his children's good. Sure it is, Ridley and Hooper, were after- wards cordially reconciled ; and let not their discords pierce farther than their reconciliation. The worst is, men's eyes are never made sound with the clearness, but often are made sore witli the bleaniess, of other men's eyes in their company. The virtues of saints are not so attractive of our imitation, as their vices and infirmities are prone to infect.
Ridley was very gracious with King Edward the Sixth, and by a sermon he preached before him, so wrought upon his pious disposi-
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tion, wliose princely charity rather wanted a director tlian a persuader, that tlie king, at motion, gave to the city of London,
1. Grayfriars, now called Christ Church, for impotent, fatherless, decrepid people by age or nature, to be educated or maintained.
2. St. Bartliolomew's, near Smithfield, for ])oor by faculty, as wounded soldiers, diseased and sick persons, to be cured and relieved.
3. Bridewell, the ancient mansion of the English kings, for the poor by idleness or unthriftiness, as riotous s})enders, vagabonds, loiterers, strumpets, to be corrected and reduced to good order. I like that emblem of charity, which one hath expressed in a naked child giving honey to a bee without wings ; only I would have one thing added, namely, holding a whip in the other hand to drive awa\ the drones : so that King Edward's bounty was herein perfect and complete.
To return to Eidley : his whole life was a letter written full of learning and rehgion, whereof his death was tlie seal. Brought he was with Cranmer and Latimer to Oxford, to dispute in the days of Queen Mary, though before a syllogism was formed their deaths were con- cluded on; and, as afterwards came to pass, being burnt the 16th of October, anno 1555, in the ditch over against Baliol college.
He came to the stake in a fair black gown, furred and faced with foins ; a tippet of velvet, furred likewise about his neck ; a velvet night-cap upon his head, and a cornered cap upon the same.
Doctor Smith preached a sermon at their burning ; a sermon which had nothing good in it but the text, (though misapplied,) and the sliortness, being not above a quarter of an hour long. Old Hugh Latimer was Ridley's partner at the stake, sometime bishop of Worcester, who crawled thither after him ; one who had lost more learning than many ever had, who flout at his plain sermons ; though his downright style was as necessary in that ignorant age, as it would be ridiculous in ours. Indeed, he condescended to people's capacity ; and many men unjustly count those low in learning, who indeed do but stoop to their auditors. Let me see any of our sharp wits do that with the edge, which liis bluntness did with the back of the knife, and persuade so many to restitution of ill-gotten goods. Tliough he came after Ridley to the stake, he got before him to heaven : his body, made tinder by age, was no sooner touched by the fire, but instantly this old Simeon had his Nunc Dimittis, and brought the news to heaven that his brother was following after.
But Ridley suffered with far more pain, the fire about him being not well made : and yet one would think that age should be skilful in making such bonfires, as being much practised in them. The gunpowder tl::it was given him did him little service, and his brother-
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in-law, out of desire to rid liini out of pain, increased it (great grief will not gi\'o men leave to be wise with it), heaping fuel upon him to no purpose ; so that neither the fagots which his enemies' anger nor Ills brother's good-will cast upon him, made the fire to burn kindly.
In like manner, not much before his dear iriend. Master Hooper, suffered with great torment ; tlie wind, which too often is the bellows of great fires, blowing it away from liim once or twice. Of all the martyrs in tliose days, tliese two endured most pain, it being true that each of them,
Qnarebdt in if/iiiliiis it/nes : And still he did desire. For fire in midst of fire.
Both desiring to burn, and yet both their uj)per parts were but confessors, when their lower parts were martyrs, and burnt to asiies. Thus God, where he hath given the stronger faitli, he layetli on the stronger pain. And so we leave them going up to heaven, like Elijah, in a chariot of fire.
[A.D.
BISHOP WALTON.
A.D. 1640—166].
Although, if we except those copies which were pur- posely mutilated by heretics, the scriptures, as they exist in the oriental and learned languages, contain no variations of important bearing upon doctrine ; yet it was highly desirable, as well for the confirmation of the truth and the satisfac- tion of doubtful minds, as for the gratification of literary curiosity, that men of learning should have the means of examining the principal versions in juxtaposition, with every other facility for minute and exact comparison. To effect this object was a service, performed for our Church, and for the Christian world, by Brian Walton; and this illus- trious scholar so acquitted himself of his arduous task, as thereby to secure an enviable renown in the annals of our national literature.
Walton was born at Cleveland in Yorkshire, in the year 160O. He became a member of the University of Cambridge ; belonging first to Magdalen college, and after- wards to Peter-house. His earliest preferment was the rectory of St. Martin's Orgar, in the city of London ; in which situa- tion he was so highly esteemed, that when, early in Charles the First's reign, the London clergy, who had long been de- frauded of their legal dues, determined to petition the king for redress, the management of an enquiry into the laws relative to the payment of tithes in that city, and the draft of a valuation, requisite to give effect to the measure, were devolved on him. Upon such points he was considered, even in a court of law, an unquestionable authority. Besides the collections made for that particular occasion, he wrote an original treatise on the subject : this production however was not sent to the press until the middle of the following cen- tui'y, when it was included in Brewster's Collectanea Ecclesi- astica. The manuscripts both of the treatise and collections have been deposited in the Lambeth Library.
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At the epoch of the eruption of the civil war, Walton appears to have been one of the royal chaplains ; he likewise held, with the rectory of St. Martin''s, the living of Sandon in Essex, where he chiefly resided. He was now to suffer for the prominent and active part he had previously taken in maintaining the rights of the clergy. Being presented by his parishioners, on some of those charges, which, at that sad period, were got up with so much ease and received with so much avidity, he was brought before the house of commons as a delinquent, and, after severe personal usage, dispossessed of both his benefices. To avoid further persecution, he adopted the course which was forced upon nearly all those members of his profession in whom learning and loyalty were eminently united, and escaped to Oxford. What a centre of interest must that city, at all times delightful, have presented in those days ; when, in strange concurrence, on the one side, with the gaiety of a court, and, on the other, with the rude inci- dents of war, the service of the graver muses, far from being forgotten or neglected, was vigorously cultivated by a larger number of gifted and experienced scholars than ever, before or since, resided at the same time within the walls of an university! Walton, excluded, with the rest, from the direct exercise of his professional functions, but gathering strength meantime for the more arduous auxiliary studies, from daily intercourse with such kindred minds as Ussher and Hammond, Greaves and Pococke, now first conceived that sigantic de- sign, the Polyglot Bible ; the completion of which has made his name deservedly memorable.
To meet the expense of the undertaking, recourse was had to a subscription. By the close of the year lG52, Walton and his friends had obtained from private sources, among the nobility and gentry, contributions to the amount of nearlv £4000 : they then published a description of the plan, with proposals to subscribers. This great work is said to have been the first book published by subscription. The contem- plated edition was to comprise the Bible in the original He- brew, Samaritan, and Greek, with the most ancient translations of the Jewish and Christian churches, viz. the Septuagint Greek, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, &c., and the Latin versions of them all ; a new apparatus ; divers prolegomena and prefaces. With his prospectus, which is still a useful document on account of the information it contains.
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Avas circulated a strong recommendation of the plan, signed by Hssher and Selden, with an " approbation and allowance" from the existing council of state. It was proposed to comprise the whole in six volumes in folio. Thorndike, Lightfoot, Whee- lock, Huish, Hammond, with others, including nearly all of the most eminent scholars of that erudite period, — but, in particular, tlie profound orientalist Pococke, — took a share in this vast and laborious enterprise ; the whole being under the special countenance and supervision of Archbishop Ussher. To the government belongs the merit of allowing paper to be purchased for the work free of duty. The impression was begun in the month of October, l653 ; and, notwithstanding much harassing opposition, it was completed in l657. " Thus," writes the biographer of Walton's contemporary and coadjutor, Pococke, — " thus, in about four years was finished the English Polyglot Bible, the glory of that age, and of the English Church and nation ; a work vastly exceeding all former at- tempts of that kind, and that came so near perfection, as to discourage all future ones." To adopt the words of Walton's amiable and indefatigable biographer, " his own fine avowal, alluding to the evil days and evil tongues on which he was fallen, when employed in behalf of the Church of England, must not here be overpassed: —
" Sic bona pro malls rependendo, Patris coelestis Alios nosniet pro bare studemiis, et Magistri Summi discipulos, necnon Ecclesiie Angli- canio ut jam despicatse, monumentum perenne erigere, in omne ajvum duraturum, quo omnibus pateat earn, cummaximis angustiis premeretur, oraculoruni divinorum et animarum curam non deposuisse, nec defuisse inter ejus filios qui, etsi a-Kv/SaXa et irepiKadapixaTu Tov KotT/xov et TidvTitiv Trep/x/zfj/ia habeantur, ejus auspiciis opus, quo orbi Christiano, utilius post canonem SS. Scripturre consignatum nullum evulgatum (absit invidia verbo) elaborarunt."
" Thus, by returning good for evil, we endeavoui- to prove ourselves children of our heavenly Father, and disciples of our gi-eat Master; to erect such an imperishable monument in the Church of England, as shall evince to all future ages, that though now despised and op- pressed with the most grievous afflictions, she has not laid aside her recard for the divine oracles or for the souls of men ; and that there are not wanting, among her sons, those who, though regarded as ' the filth of the world and the offscouring of all things,' have produced under her auspices a work (without offence be it said) equal in utility to any that has appeared suice the formation of the canon of scripture."
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Walton's Polyglot is in nine languages ; but no indi- vidual book of the Bible is printed in so many. The four evangelists appear in six languages; the other books of the New Testament, in five only. The book of Juditli and tliose of the Maccabees, are in no more than three. The Prolegomena comprise sixteen valuable dissertations. The publication of this vast work forms an era in the history of biblical learning. In the enumeration of Walton's coadjutors the name of Dr. Edmund Castell is entitled to special mention. This able and industrious scholar, less fortunate in the support of friends than Walton, expended all his property on a congenial enter- prise, the Lexicon Heptaglotton, published in 1669.
After the Restoration, Walton was reinstalled in the livings of which he had been deprived ; and as a reward for his suffer- ings, his great learning, and persevering labours in the cause of religion and loyalty, was consecrated, December, 2nd 1660, to the bishopric of Chester. The journey of the bishop to his diocese, with his reception there, is detailed in an animated narrative, reprinted by Archdeacon Todd, from a collection of tracts, published at Chester, towards the close of the last century. He was received by the local authorities, and by the resident nobility and gentry of that loyal shire, with a degree of public respect and affection which powerfully demonstrates the general joy that was excited at the restoration of his order to their legal rights and apostolic functions.
Brief, however, were Walton's services to the Church, in the episcopal station. He died, November l66"l, at his house in Aldersgate-street ; and was buried in the south aisle of St. Paul's cathedral. Over his grave Avas soon afterwards erected a monument inscribed with a lofty but just encomium on his character and labours, and an outline of his life, no less honourable to himself than disgraceful to his age. It records, that it was he —
Qui sub nupera tyrannide labanti Ecclesia; Suppetias cum primis tulit ;
Clero a rebelli profanaque plebe conculcatc? Improperium abstulit ; Religioni apud nos Reformatos professae Gloriam attulit ; Dum
Fremente licet Gehenna, Bi%Iia Polyglotta summo praj cijeteris studio excoluit, Et excudi pvocuravit.
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" Who, among tlie first, aided the Church of England while groan- ing under the tyranny of the usurpation ; who removed the aspersions cast upon the clerg)% while trampled upon by the rebellious and pro- fane rabble ; who brought honour to the reformed religion professed among us, while in spite of the most malicious opposition, he carried on and completed the Polyglot Bible."
Critical knowledge of the scriptures was, in Walton's age, confined to a very small proportion of those who made them the chief subject of their discourse. Many openly despised it ; and it is not improbable that the sufferings of this great scholar, though mainly drawn upon him bv his loyalty, were likewise owing in part to his peculiar pursuits and reputation. The ignorant outcry of those fanatics who inveighed against human learning, as needless, and inapplicable to scriptural investigation, received too much countenance from the fears and prejudices of men who ought not to have been enslaved to the same limited and distempered notions.
In the year 1659, Dr. John Owen, the celebrated non- conformist, Cromweirs dean of Christ Church and vice-chan- cellor of Oxford, attacked the doctrines advanced by Walton, in his Considerations upon the Bihlia Polyglotta, the Prolegomena, and Appendiv thereof. Those points, to which the doctor chiefly directed his animadversions, were two — the admission, by Walton, of various readings of equal authority ; and his defence of the opinion, already advanced by Louis Cappel and other learned persons, concerning the novelty of the He- brew vowel-points. Respectable as were the learning and abilities of Owen, in his appropriate sphere, he had now under- taken a task for which he was wholly unfit. His department of study was merely theological ; nor has any literary effort, proceeding from a respectable source, been more decidedly condemned as the issue of zeal without knowledge, than this injudicious publication. Walton replied by a defence of his opinions, in The Consideration considered, published the same year. Without naming his opponent, he treats him with, perhaps, a needless degree of asperity ; answering, how- ever, his allegations with so much manifest superiority of knowledge and argument, confirmed subsequently by the pro- gress of enquiry and opinion, that the doctor's biographer acknowledges, that "his fears magnified his expectations of danger, and multiplied his difficulties; and neither the cause
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of sacred learning, nor his own fame, would have suffered, had he never wi-itten a sentence on the subject
The only other remaining work by Walton, is a manual for the use of oriental students, entitled Introductio ad Lect'ionem Lingnarum Orientalium, &c., sent forth by him in l65i, while engaged in the publication of the Polyglot.
THE ORIGINAL TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE FREE FROM GROSS CORRUPTIONS, BUT NOT FROM VARIATIONS.
What the author of the Prolegomena delivered concerning the purity and authority of the original texts, is to be seen Proleg. vii. de Textuian Oris;inaliuni iiitegritate et auctoritaie, and Proleg. vi. de Variis Lectionibus ; whither I must refer the reader for full satisfaction. Tlie sum is this, as hath been touched in part already. 1. That the Hebrew text is not corrupted by the Jews either before or after Christ. Tliis is proved by sundry reasons, and amongst others by tliese. That it were against the providence of God to permit the Scriptures to be corrupted, and against the fidelity of the Church, to whose care the sacred oracles are committed. That the Jews neither did, nor could falsify tlie Hebrew text, but that the fraud would have been presently discovered. Tliat it is incredible : (as Saint Augustine saith, De Civit. 1. xiii. c. 1 3) ipsos voluisse codicibus mis eripere veritatem, id nobis eriperejit aucioriiatem, vel in latum orbem disperses potuisse in hoc conspirare, mdlo contradicente. Tliis is at large proved, Proleg. vii. p. 52, and the arguments to the contrary answered. 2. That neither the Hebrew nor Greek texts of the Old or New Testament are cor- rupted by heretics or others, but that they remain pure and entire ; and tliat they always were, and still are, the authentic rule in all matters of faith and religion, and that by them all translations are to be tried and examined ; to which end many arguments are pro- duced ; among others, that God at the first delivered to the Church, not translations, but original texts, and those pure and free from all corruption : and therefore those that say they are corrupt must prove them so to be, and shew when and how they came to be corrupted, and how they came to lose that authority vvliich tliey once had ; other- wise they are presumed to be pure and authentic, as being in possession of this autliority. Nor can any general corruption be proved from a few particular instances, but only the casual errors of the tran- scribers, wliicli may well consist with the purity of the fountains. 3. That though by the negligence or inadvertency of transcribers
' Orme's Life of Owen, as quoted in Archdeacon Todd's Remains of IValton.
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some casual mistakes or involuntary errors may creep into the text, from whence various readings have risen both in the Old and New Testament ; yet the original text remains pure and authentic, because those varieties are not in matters of any moment, whereby any point of faith or salvation is prejudiced in the least ; nor are tlierc means wanting whereby such errors may be amended, and the true reading established. That it was not possible that any errors should have risen in matters of weight, but it would presently have been discovered, there being so many thousand copies dispersed all the world over, which were daily read, expounded, and considered of, and every word weighed and examined, either in public or private, by learned men and others in all ages, who esteemed these books as the records of their salvation, and the grand charter of their inheritance in heaven ; and for other mistakes, there are means to rectify them when they are discovered, as the analogy of faith, the writings and comments of the ancients, coUation of ancient copies, consulting ancient trans- lations, especially the Scripture itself, the comparing of parallel places, considering antecedents and consequents, &c. That these various readings seldom change the sense, or if they do, yet both are agreeable to the analogy of faith ; and if notwitlistanding these means, both readings seem equally balanced, tliere can be no danger to follow which we will. These things are handled Proleg. vi. sect. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, &c. and Proleg. vii. sect. 15, 16, &c.
By this it appears what the author of the Prolegomena holds about the purity and authority of original texts. Now seeing he is charged to deliver the contrary, it may well be expected that evident proof be brought to shew that he contradicts himself. And what proof is here brought ? No words, as I told you before, are alleged, only, page 158, he quotes in the margin. Proleg. vii. sect 12. and Proleg. vi. sect. 12. In both which places there is not one word of cor- ruptions in the original text ; much less of gross corruptions, or of correcting them by men's own conjectures, unless errata et mendce leviores signify gross corruptions, and qi/w aliorum codicum et inter- pretum collatione, aliisqiie mediis {de quibus supra) tolli et emendari possunt, do signify correcting by men's own conjectures. It is said indeed, Proleg. vi. sect. 12, that various readings may in some cases be gathered out of ancient translations ; but that this doth not infer the corruption of the present copies, shall be showed when we come to that particular. In the mean time, the reader may please to take notice that in tlie other place (nor indeed anywhere else) there is not one word of corruptions, nor more said than what all men that will believe their eyes have said before, that there have been casual mistakes by transcribers in matters of no concernment, or that there
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are various readings in the Hebrew and Greek texts. Tliis is proved by tlie general consent of all, and by sundry instances ; and is by our author frequently confessed, as we shall see anon.
For my part I do not know any at this day that is of another opinion. The greatest patrons of the purity of the Hebrew text grant it without any scruple. The revered and learned Ussher, Episf. ad Cappel, writes thus : Sentadia mca hcec perpetua fiiit. Hcb. Vet. Test. Codicem acribarum erroribus iioii minus obnoxium esse cpiam Novi Codicem, ct omnes alios libros, &c. Buxtorf, de Pnnct. Antiq. Part i. c. 16, and frequently in his Vindicia Textus Hebr. affirms the sa'.ne.
Here, we see, these two learned patrons of the purity of tlie He- I)rew text affirm as much as is said in the Prolegomena, With them concur all others that handle this argument. For though there have been two or three, as Polanus and Pagnine, and some others, that have thought the Jewish scribes so privileged as never to have erred in the least, yet this fancy is generally exploded by all. Nor shall I need to bring any more witnesses, when the author of these Considerations frequently confesses the same.
Tliose various readings, which the Prolegomena affirm may bo some- times gathered out of translations, are of the same nature with these which the Considerator grants may be gathered out of original copies, viz. of no weight, containing nothing repugnant to the analogy of faith ; and further, are not asserted to be of equal authority or cer- tainty with tliose that are gathered out of the Hebrew and Greek texts : and therefore the present reading of the original copies ought not, barely upon the different reading of a translation, to be judged corrupt ; as we shall show when we come to that charge. But if our author will needs have all various readings, though the difference be never so small, to be corruptions of the text, he may call them so if he pleaseth ; I cannot hinder him. Yet he might learn of Buxtorf, whose authority he hath no reason to question, to distinguish between various readings and corruptions, properly so called, Vindic. Textus Hebr. Parti, civ. p. 11:2. Porro onniino, ut supra monui, diJJ'trcnttam faciendum censeo inter corruptiotiem et variam lectionem. Corrup- tion is properly a wilful falsifying upon design ; as where heretics wilfully falsified some places of Scripture, which made against their error, sucli were quickly discovered. And that no such are in our copies, is acknowledged. But a various reading is an involuntary error from mistake, or inadvertency, which is always in matters of little moment, and therefore not so easily at first discerned ; and having passed through rnany copies not observed, nor being contrary to the circumstances of the text, or repugnant to any other place of Scripture, so that it cannot be clearly proved which may be the mistake of the
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scribe, it comes to be in the number of various readings. For tlie differences of any copy, when they can be clearly proved to have been at first errors of the scribe, are not properly various readings ; as is confessed in the Prolegomena vi. sect. 6. But if our adversary will needs call various readings corruptions, he shall give me leave to call such corruptions various readings ; and the rather, l)ecause I do no where in the Prolegomena grant corruptions, but acknowledge only various readings. And upon this account, all copies that are, or ever have been, (the autograplia of the sacred penman only excepted,) must be said to be corrupt ; because no scribes or printers ever had a privilege of not erring, and so all their failings, though never so small, must make the text corrupt. And as the originals, so all versions, by this reason must be corrupt ; and so there will be no scripture in the world, but what is corrupt and uncertain ; and by consequence, unfit for a ground of faith or obedience. For, as Buxtorf saith, Vindic. Part i. c. iv. p. 67, Facile potuit error unius exemplaris corrigi, ex alio meliore, et tandem ejnendaium satis exemplar credi, licet noii ad extremum usque apicem, {istjid enim ^facile concedo, nec esse, iiec fuisse, imo nec esse posse.) And Vindic. Part ii. c. xii. p. 800, he saith. The scripture is so preserved, ut nulla, vel paucissima alicvjus momenii <T^d\fxaTa in its demonstrari possint. He that saith there are paucissima alicujus momenii, grants that there are some that are of moment, which is more than the Prolegomena do anywhere affirm. And in the same place he adds, Libros sacros a Mosis, Pro- phetarum, et Esdrce, temporibus ad nos usque, sine ulla lectionis varietatc pervenisse, quia nullibi asserimus, nulla etiam raiione pro- batio a nobis exigi potest. With these learned men concur Arnold Bootius, a fierce defender of the Hebrew text against Cappellus, Epist. ad Usserium, sect. 64, and in his Vindic. i/e6r. cap. xxiii. p. 221, where he affirms our present copies to agree with the first avroypaipa, but fixcepts two cases, Prceterquam iii duohis casibus modo memoratis, ubi, vel de vitio, vel de varia lectione, apertissime constat.
Our adversary, notwithstanding, proceeds upon this supposed charge, (of whicli himself is most guilty,) to prove that which is not denied, nay, which was before proved to his hand. Prolegomena vii. where also the arguments to the contrary are answered : where the readers if he please, may find the chief arguments used in the Considerations, with some others by him omitted, to prove that the original texts are not •corrupted.
Chap. ii. p. 168 — 181, he objects "the special providence of God, the care and fidelity of the Church ;" (not the Romish synagogue ;) " the care of the first writers giving out authentic copies, which made it impossible for them to be corrupted, either wilfully or by negligence ;
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tlie public copies preserved in the synagogues, and after in the cluirclies; the daily reading, studying, and weighing every word ; the weight of every letter in this book, which the transcribers knew to be the Word of the great God &c. ; the care of Ezra and his companions ; the care of the Masorites and Jewish rabbins, giving an account of every word and syllable ; the prodigious things related of their diligence ; the con- sent of all copies of the world, that not a word in the Mishna, Gemara, or either Talmud, is read otlierwise than in our copies; our Saviour's silence not reproving the Jews on this account, when he spared them not for their false glosses, which secures us, that there were no mis- takes voluntarily, or negligently brought into the text before his coming ; the watchfulness of the Jews and Christians over one another, &c." — All which as they prove the text not to be wilfully corrupted, and tliat not any errors of consequence could creep in by negligence, to which end the most of these reasons are brought in the Prolego- mena ; so they do not in the least prove, but that by the negligence or inadvertency of transcribers some small mistakes of no moment might escape undiscemed, (and so are nothing at all to our author's purpose). Of which we can have no clearer argument, than the experience of all ages, that notwithstanding all the care and diligence that could be used, yet various readings have been still observed in the best copies, which must needs come at first from the negligence, or involuntary error, of the scribe, as is confessed frequently by this author himself, and by all others that write of these things ; so that to prove this, were to hold up a candle to the sun. We have more copies of the Bible now, than ever were in any age ; and more that pretend to the know- ledge of it. For, as St. Jerom, Epid. ad Paulinum, ScripliirfB ars est quam omnes sihi vindicant. And printing is a surer way to prevent errors than transcribing by far ; and yet have many errors daily escaped in printing the Bibles, and those undiscemed ; many years not observed ; and some of them altering the sense.
The multitude of copies, public and private, and of all such that studied and read them, might rather prove the Greek LXX. which was in more frequent use than the Hebrew, both among Jews and Chris- tians, to have been free from all error, than the original texts ; and so the vulgar Latin, the Syriac, and other translations, of which were many thousand more copies, and those studied and read by thousands more than the Hebrew ; yet I know our author will not grant that they were translations free from all error, for he inveighs against them all as most corrupt. Cap. ult. Our printers also know, as well as the transcribers did of old, the weight and worth of what they print ; and yet we know they are not free from error. The care taken amongst the Jews, from time to time to get corrected copies, by which others
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were exanunerl, shews that there were still copies that needed cor- rection. What needed Ben Ascliar, or Ben Naphtali, or R. Hillel, or others, to have taken such pains, and spent so many years, in the accurate writing of one copy, if errors had not still crept into other copies ?
That of tlie Mishna and Geniara, (wliich are the integral parts of both the Talmuds, the one being as the text, and the others as the comment, and yet distinguished here from tlie Talmuds,) that they never read one word otherwise than they are in our copies, is utterly void of truth, though repeated. Witness Buxtorf himself, (one that I believe, is more versed in the Talmud than either of us,) Vindic. 1. 2. c. xii. p. 808 : Puhlicc dico et so ibo, inveniri quidem in Talmvd, quod Gemara in qitihusdam locis dissentiat a Masora, hoc esi, a Icc- tione in nostris codicibus recepta, &c. This cannot stand with our adversary's rash assertion, nor would it have been granted by Buxtorf to Cappellus, if it had not been certainly true. The argument from our Saviour's silence was brought. Prolegomena vii., to prove that the original texts were not corrupted before his coming ; the end of whose coming was not to correct every letter or word that was mistaken in any copv of the Bible, but to assert the true sense against the corrupt glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees, and to restore it to its original integrity, if any wilful corruptions had been, or errors of any moment, which might have endangered the saving truth ; of which kind we say there are none. Nay, so far were our Saviour and his apostles from observing every casual slip of a scribe in Hebrew copies, that they made more fi-equent use of the Greek LXX. than the Hebrew, and quoted places out of the Old Testament according to that trans- lation, even where there seems to be some difference from the Hebrew, and left that translation to the Christian Cliurch, who used it generally for many hundred years, as the Greek cliurch doth to this day, as is largely shewed. Prolegomena ix. de Greeds Versionibus, sect. 38, 39, &c.
But besides these reasons mentioned, chap, ii, of the Considera- tions, we find some others scattered here and there, which we will briefly examine, pp. 168, 169. " He finds fault with the arguing from the oscitancy and negligence of transcribers of heathen authors, Homer, Aristotle, &c., to shew that errors might creep into the original texts." Tliis, he saith, " is not tolerable in a Christian, or any one that hath the least sense of the nature and importance of the Word of God." He urges likewise, " the care of the heathen about their Sybils' verses," p. 171, "that the Roman pontifices would not do it negligently nor treacherously, &c." Answer : It is not denied, l>ut that the Church of Christ had a religious care that the copies
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transcribed for public use especially should be fi'ee fiom all errors, as much as could be ; and that far more care was taken about them than ever was taken by any about the writings of tlie heathen ; nor do I know any who affirm the contrary. It is true, tliis argument is used by some, that the various readings in sucii authors, in matters of less moment, do not make all their philosophy, histories, &c. un- certain ; and therefore the like various readings in some copies of the Scripture, do not make the Scripture uncertain, or prove it to be corrupt. But what is this to the care and fidelity of the Church in preserving the copies of the Scripture, which all acknowledge to be more than any had, or could have, in preserving any human writings, the Sybils' verses, or any other of the heathen's pretended oracles ? But though their care was great, and therefore no wilful errors could pass, nor mistakes in any matter of concernment ; yet that they did never err, not in the least, needs no other confutation, than the comparing of all copies, MSS. or printed, which have had errors of this kind, more or less, according to the diligence and care of the scribe or corrector, as ocular inspection demonstrates.
Again, p. 17, 18, &c. he tells us, "the rehef provided by Cappellus, and approved in the Prolegomena, against various sections, viz. That the saving doctrine of the Scriptures, as to tlie substance of it, in all things of moment, is preserved in the copies of the original, and in the translations that remain, — is pernicious and insufficient, because, though it be a great relief against inconvenience of translations, that the worst of them contains all necessary saving fundamental truth, yet to depress the sacred truth of the original into such a condition, as wherein it should stand in need of such an apology, and that with- out any colour or pretence from discrepance in the copies themselves that are extant, or any tolerable evidence tliat ever there were any other in the least differing from these extant in the world, will at length be found a work unbecoming a Christian protestant divine. — The nature of this doctrine is such, that there is no other principle or means of discover}^ no other rule or measure of judging and de- termining any thing about it, but only the writing from whence it is taken, it being wholly of Divine revelation, which is expressed in Scripture ; so that, upon supposal of any corruption there is no means of rectifying it, as there is in coiTecting a mistake in any problem of Euchd, &c. Nor is it enough to satisfy us, tliat the doc- trines above mentioned are entire ; every tittle or iota of the Word of God must come under our care and consideration." He provides us therefore better security, p. 198. He tells us of " a copy which was a standard to try all others by. The vulgar copy we use was the public possession for many generations, and, upon the invention of
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printing, it was in actual possession througliout the world. This must pass for a standard, which confessedly is its right and due." But p. 173, we are referred to all the copies that arc remaining : "in them all, we say, is every letter and tittle of the Word of God : these copies are the rule, standard, and touchstone, of all translations," &c.
For answer: First, for what Cappellus affirms, I am not bound to answer. But as for the Prolegomena, I do not only say, that all saving fundamental truth is contained in the original copies, but that all revealed truth is still remaining entire ; or if any error or mistake have crept in, it is in matters of no concernment, so that not only no matter of faith, but no considerable point in historical truth, prophecies, or other things, is thereby prejudiced ; and that there are means left for rectifying any such mistakes where they are discovered, as hath been often said. Secondly, to say, that, upon any corruption in the saving doctrine supposed, there is no means of rectifying or restoring, is a very strange assertion. May not the consideration of antecedents and consequents, of places pa- rallel, of the analogy of faith, the testimonies, expositions, and trans- lations of the ancients, &c. help to rectify a corruption crept in? And may we not judge by one part of revealed truth of what agrees with it, or disagrees from it, as by any theorem of Euclid, what is agreeable with it, or disagreeable, though the one be by reason, the other by revelation ? Is there no use of reason in matters of faith ? or in judging of divine truths ? Vedelius might have spared his labour of a Rationale, if this be so. It is confessed by all, that various readings are found in the original texts, which several readings cannot both be false and erroneous ; and if in such smallest things, (all being of Divine revelation, the least as well as the weight- iest,) no way can be found to rectify any mistake without a new revelation, the Scriptures are in an ill condition ; for by this means no error, once got in, can ever be amended or corrected.
Nor is it any where said in the Prolegomena, that there is any corruption in any fundamental truth crept into original copies, or in any saving doctrine, whereby it may need rectifying or restoring ; nay, the contrary is both maintained and proved ; yea, that in no matter of moment there is any variety in the copies. And though we grant lesser varieties to appear, (whicii is confessed by all,) yet we deny not but that every tittle of the Word, though never so small, comes under our care, and ought not to be neglected. But for all the care we can use, such lesser varieties will happen, which being involuntary, and of little or no importance to the sense or matter, neither the providence of God is there prejudiced, nor the care of the Church to be called in question.
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But what better security gives he against tlie uncertainty arising from these varieties? To make one copy a standard for all others, in which no mistake in the least can be found, he cannot. No copy can plead this privilege since the first avr6ypa<pa were in being. So it is confessed by Buxtorf and Bootius, his best authors. Nor can he tell us where this copy is to be found to which we must liave recourse, and in which every tittle is entire and perfect. Some co{5ies there have been more correct than others, which deserve all due regard. But to find one that is free from all mistakes, even in the least, he will find a hard task ; yea, Buxtorf grants it impossible, as we have seen. What that vulgar copy was, which, before printing was invented, was in possession ail the world over for many generations, and must pass for a standard, I would gladly know, and where it is to be found ; and should very much esteem it, if it could be shewed ; but this, I doubt, will ])TO\e an Utopian conceit. For doth our ad- versary think there was 110 difference in the copies that were in use before printing ? the collation of all MSS. copies shews this to be false. Let him produce any two that are the same in every thing. Or doth he think that those that first printed the Hebrew and Greek text had only one copy, and did not collate divers of the best they could find, and that there is no difference in the printed copies, I mean, not typographical errors, but such as were in the copies which they followed? If any such standard were in being, surely we have it printed in some edition of the Bible. Is it, for the Hebrew text, the Venice edition ? and if so, which of those editions ? or Munster's, or Stephanus's, or the Regia, or Platine's, or which of these ? And for the Greek, let him declare whether it be Erasmus's edition, or the Complutense, or Stephens's, or Beza's, or vvhich it is. For that there are varieties and differences among them all, is evident, and cannot be denied.
But if he fly to his other refuge, and say, that in all the copies extant, that is, in some one or other, every tlie least iota and tittle is to be found, then we are left more uncertain. For then we must have all the copies that are any where throughout the world, and must compare them all together before we can find all the entire truth of God ; for if we want but one copy, there may be something in that wliich differs from the rest, and so we can have no certainty in the rest. Now all men know this to be impossible to get together all copies whatsoever, and never to be expected ; and therefore, upon this ground, it is impossible to attain any certaintv about all and every tittle of the Word of God. Or suppose we had all the copies extant in the world, and could compare them together; yet, where they differ, how shall we, by any directions he gives us, know which
474
BISHOP WALTON.
copy is riglit in this particular, and wlucli in that? Tliese ways, then, which he propounds being invalid and insufficient, I appeal to any whether it be not more satisfactory, to say that we have all saving truth preserved in the copies, which are in common and public use in the Church of Christ; and that they are free from all errors in matters of moment ; and that in other matters there are ways and means to judge of the best reading and what is most genuine, wherein our industry is to be used ; and if there be some places wherein both readings render the sense so that we cannot tell which to prefer, (both being agreeable to the analogy of faith, and neither of them repugnant to any other place of Scripture,) that there is no danger to choose wliich we will.
Considerator Considered.
1630.]
Dr pococke.
A.D. 1630—1656.
Oriental literature in general having been first approach- ed through the Hebrew, and mostly with the same view as that language is studied, viz. for purposes of scriptui-al inter- pretation ; the literati of Europe continued in ignorance of it, until the Reformation had opened the way, and supplied an incentive to the study of the Bible. Since that great era of intellectual light and activity, England has never been wholly without some scholars who devoted themselves to the cultiva- tion of the Eastern languages. The progress, nevertheless, of English scholarship in this direction was neither rapid nor general. It was not until the seventeenth century, that the study of the Arabic language began to be added by our learned theologians to that of the Hebrew, and its dialects, the Syriac and Chaldee. Erpenius indeed, the oriental professor of Leyden, had visited England ; and our countryman Bid- well had already obtained some reputation as an orientalist, abroad as well as at home ; when a scholar of extraordinary capacity made his appearance, and at once established his country in the highest credit, throughout Europe, for success in this important department of erudition.
Edward Pococke, the great orientalist of England, was the son of a clergyman of the same name, vicar of Chevely in Berkshire. His birth took place at Oxford, in November l604. His early education he obtained at the free-school at Thame ; where he distinguished himself by so memorable a proficiency, that at fourteen years of age he was entered at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, Two years afterwards, having obtained a scholarship in Corpus Christi, he removed to that college. He passed with rapidity and distinction through all such walks of learning as were then generally pui-sued ; and, by the time he had reached his eighteenth year, had proceeded beyond those limits, and was eagerly applying himself to those peculiar studies which still shed a lustre on his name.
476
Dr. POCOCKE.
[A. D.
Having, in l628, been admitted a probationer for a fellow- ship, he proceeded to comply with the statute of his college, which required him to take orders ; but without relaxing from his favourite pursuits. In these he now gave a public proof of his advancement. The Syriac New Testament had hitherto wanted the second Epistle of St. Peter, the second and third Epistles of St. John, and that of Jude : Pococke prepared a complete edition ; and about a year afterwards on the recommendation of Vossius, the work was published at Levden.
In 1629 Pococke obtained, through the interest of Selden, an appointment as chaplain to the English merchants at Aleppo ; an office which he was led to seek, not so much by curiosity to view foreign regions, as by an eager desire to perfect himself in the learning of the East. For a season he appears, indeed, to have been affected with melancholy by his position " among the barbarous people of that country ;" but it was not long before the public duties of his station created in him an interest which, in a great measure, reconciled him to his abode. These duties he discharged with so much zeal, that when, in the year 1634, the plague raged furiously at Aleppo, and many of the English residents withdrew to a distance among the mountains, Pococke remained behind to comfort those who were still shut up in the city. During his residence, he made such observations on the manners and customs of the Arabs, and on the natural productions of the country, as proved afterwards of eminent service to him in elucidating the obscure passages of Holy Writ. But the chief employment of his leisure from more immediate duties, was to perfect himself in the Oriental dialects. From several rabbles, with whom he successively read Hebrew, he obtained all the knowledge they could impart ; which, indeed was little beyond what he had previously acquired. He also improved himself in Syriac, and applied to the Ethiopic. But it was to Arabic he attached himself with the greatest earnestness and assiduity; until, at length, he had so completely overcome the difficulties of this copious language, that he spoke it with the same ease as his mother-tongue. It is a familiar anecdote, that the sheik Vho officiated as his teacher, laying his hand on Po- cocke's head, declared, " This young Englishman speaks and understands Arabic as well as the mufti of Aleppo."
1636.]
Dr. POCOCKE.
477
The collecting of manuscripts was a farther object of his attention. In this pursuit he had already been engaged, on his own account, when Archbishop Laud, in a letter dated Oct. 31, l6"31, sent him the well-known commission to purchase coins and MSS. with a view to the augmentation of the col- lections at Oxford. This munificent patron, who probably contemplated already the foundation of an Arabic professor- ship in his university, and had been determined, by Pococke's reputation, as to the choice of the first professor, at the same time encouraged him to persevere in the study of that lan- guage. Accordingly, two years later, when Pococke had passed about five or six years abroad, he was recalled by an invitation from the primate to undertake that office.
On his arrival in England he hastened to Oxford, took the degree of B.D., and was soon after nominated to the new professorship ; the duties of which he commenced in August, l6'36'. A short time only had elapsed, however, when, by the encouragement of the same patron, he once more yielded to his inclination to visit the East. Thither he accordingly proceeded, July l637, in company with his friend the learned Mr. John Greaves, an orientalist inferior only to himself, who was employed by the archbishop to search for MSS. in Egypt.
Constantinople was the place, which, on this occasion, Pococke selected for his abode. There he enquired in vain for some Turk, able to promote his farther acquisitions in the learning of the eastern world ; but was more successful among the learned Jews. The patriarch of the Constantino- politan see, Cyril Lucaris, a profound scholar, who "laboured with a mighty courage and industry to promote the common cause of Christianity," entei'ed zealously into the English professor's views. Lucaris owned communion with the Angli- can Church, and acknowledged a high veneration foi- its liturgy. It was this prelate who presented King Charles the First with the famous Alexandrine copy of the Scriptures, now in the British Museum ; a manuscript of great value, though inferior in antiquity to that deposited in the Vatican. Lucaris was murdered about a year after Pococke's arrival in Constantinople, through the machinations of the Jesuits. A rich treasure of manuscripts which he had amassed, was, after his death, lost at sea, on its passage to Holland. By the
478
Dr. POCOCKE.
[A. D.
assistance of this worthy patriarch, and other friends and correspondents in different parts of the East, Pococke was enabled, on his return to Europe, which took place in the year 1640, to eni'ich the MS. collections of his country with some valuable acquisitions ; such as, the Persian Gospels, afterwards made use of by Walton for his Polyglot, the writings of Ephrem the Syrian, &c. On his way through Italy and France, he visited several of the most celebrated literati of the continent ; in particular Grotius, then the Swedish ambassador at Paris.
The professor landed in England, in the midst of the tumult which immediately preceded the llebellion ; arriving in London shortly after his venerable patron's commitment to the Tower. In that gloomy abode. Laud received him with his usual courtesy and condescension to men of emi- nent learning; thanked him for the diligent discharge of his connnission ; and lamented, as a sensible aggravation of his misfortunes, the loss of ability to reward such services with preferment. Pococke found, however, on proceeding to Oxford, that the primate had not been unmindful of his interests. Foreseeing the storm that threatened his own life, he had provided for the continuance of tlie Arabic lecture, by a grant to the university of land for its perpetual en- dowment. At Oxford, Pococke, with such application as the troubled and melancholy state of the times would allow, began to prepare for the press some of those works which the learned world naturally expected from his abilities and op- portunities. He now entered likewise upon a correspondence with most of those great scholars, at home and abroad, whose pursuits were congenial with his own ; as Alting, Selden, Hottinger, &c.
In the year l643 he became a rural incumbent, being presented by his college to the living of Childrey, in Berk- shire. His pastoral duties he discharged with great assiduity, and with the humblest adaptation of himself to the needs and apprehensions of his parishioners. Of this judicious conde- scension, a well-known anecdote may be adduced as a proof. " His care", writes his biographer, " not to amuse his hearers with things which they could not understand, gave some of them occasion to entertain very contemptuous thoughts of his learning, and to speak of him accordingly. So that one of his
1647.]
Dr. POCOCKE.
479
Oxford friends, as he travelled through Childrcy, enquiring, for his diversion, of some people, 'who was their minister?' and ' how they liked him T received from them this answer : ' Our parson is one Mr. Pococke, a plain, honest man ; but, master,' said they, ' he is no Latiner.' His avoiding, as he preached," continues the writer, " that boisterous action, and those canting expressions, Avhich were then so very taking with many lovers of novelty, was the reason that not a few considered him as a weak man, whose discourses could not edify, being dead morality, having nothing of power and the Spirit." But his preaching loyalty and peace had tlie worst effect of all, " and raised the greatest clamour against him." The man whom even Jews and Turks had treated with respect, on account of his virtues and eminent acquire- ments, was so insulted by the turbulent zealots of his own parish, that he began to entertain serious thoughts of retiring once more into the East, to enjoy, in those semi-barbarous regions, the quiet he was denied at home.
He remained, however, in England : but a share in the miseries of the time continued to pursue him. With the re- mainder of Laud's estate, the lands settled for the Arabic lecture were sequestered ; nor were they restored without the long and earnest solicitation of Selden, and other eminent persons, who were scandalized at the iniquity of such a pro- ceeding. Neither was this by any means the only instance in which he had occasion for the interposition of powerful friends. A protection, under the hand and seal of Fairfax, forbidding the plunder of his house, and the molestation of his person and his family, was found necessary, and obtained in 1 647. Another favour was extorted for him, shortly afterwards, by the same parties. A vacancy having occurred in the pro- fessorship of Hebrew, the king, then a prisoner at Carisbrooke, nominated Pococke to' that situation, and consequently to the sixth canonry of Christ-church, which, at Laud's instance, his majesty had annexed to it. On the intercession of Selden and others, the Parliament confirmed this appointment, as far as regarded the professorship ; but the visitors, tlien at Oxford, having previously nominated another person to the canonry, assigned a different stall, inferior in value, to Pococke. With difficulty he consented, on such terms, to accept the office, protesting, at the same time, against the injustice done to the
480
Du. POCOCKE.
[A. D.
professorship and to himself. But his troubles did not end here. Having refused to appear before the visitors, or to sign " the Engagement," he was, in October 1650, superseded in his canonry by Finch, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, and, three months later, deprived of both his professorships. The vote of ejection was indeed rescinded, or, at least, not carried into execution, in consequence of numerous petitions and remonstrances against it, addressed to the parties in power ; many of which proceeded from their own side. It is a fact scarcely credible, that, presently after this failure, a farther attempt was made to dispossess him of his living of Childrey. With this view nine articles were exhibited against him, of which the first and most important alleged, "that he had frequently made use of the idolatrous Common Prayer Book, in performing Divine Service in others, he is charged with " railing at professors,"" and with " refusing to suffer some godly men to preach in his pulpit." The list presents, altogether, a curious picture of the times. Po- cocke appeared before the commissioners at Abingdon, and answered the charge article by article. Notwithstanding, the persecution went on ; and the characteristic style in which it was followed up, is very amusingly I'elated in the learned professor's Life. In the end it was allowed to drop, with respect to the charge of scandalousness ; but was again renewed on the ground of " incompetency and only the indignant interference of Ward, Wilkins, Wallis, and Owen, ■who appeared for that purpose, in a body, before the com- missioners at Abingdon, saved the commission from the infamy of expelling on such an allegation, the great scholar, whom, as even Owen, himself one of their number, told them, " all the learned, not of England only, but of all Europe, so justly admired for his vast knowledge and extraordinary accomplish- ments."
In the midst of these annoyances, Pococke prepared for the press, and published at the end of 1649, his Specimen Historice Arahum^ containing a discourse in Arabic from Abulfaragius, with notes illustrative of the history, religion, language, &c. of the Arabians. This work is considered a most accurate and judicious selection from the mass of Arabic learning. In 1650 he began a translation of the Porta Mosis of Maimonides, which he published in 1655, with a Latin translation and notes.
1663.]
Dr. FOCOCKK
481
This erudite and useful performance was chiefly intended to demonstrate how much an acquaintance with Arabian and Rabbinical learning may contribute towards a discovery of the true sense of many difficult and important passages in the Scriptures. It has been mentioned already, that he con- tributed valuable aid to Walton, in the preparation of his celebrated Bible, published in l657. In l658, on the sug- gestion, and at the expence of Sclden, he engaged in an edition of the Arabic Annals of Eutychius ; though with some reluctance; that very learned but prejudiced writer having already unfairly availed himself of Eutychius, as the vehicle of an attack on Episcopacy.
The Restoration saw Pococke reinstated in his Oxford preferments, including the prebend and prebendal house, annexed to the Hebrew professorship. The completion of that remarkable effort for the benefit of the Eastern world, his Arabic adaptation of Grotius De Veritate Christiana, printed in 1660, was the first fruit of his repose. The charge of the impression of this work was borne by the pious and munificent Mr. Boyle. The following year he published an Arabic poem by Ibn Ishmael Tograi, with a translation and notes ; and, in 1663, the remainder of Abulfaragius's History, of which a specimen had been given to the public some years earlier.
This great scholar and good man, however, lived to experience, that the course of events and the current of opinions did not justify those expectations, which he, in com- mon with so many others, had founded on the restoration of the Church and monarchy. Those labours which, even in a period of trouble and calamity, had met with the just esteem of at least a part of the nation, he had now the mortification to find generally neglected for the frivolous and ephemeral literature of a profligate court, or in favour of a new and fashionable philosophy, the prodigious results of which he probably did not foresee. This indifference to the abstruser kinds of learning accounts for the otherwise extraordinary fact, that after all his hopes, his labours, and his sufferings, Pococke obtained nothing by the Restoration, beyond a bare restitution of his former preferments. That by this time, however, a high esteem of his attainments had penetrated throughout Europe, multiplied proofs are adduced by his biographer.
VOL. I. 31
482
Dr. POCOCKE.
[A.D.
He moreover continued to advance new claims to the grateful admiration of his own and future ages by his literary labours. A Supplement to the History of Abulfaragius, an Arabic version of the Liturgy of the Church of England, Commen- taries on the prophets Micah, Hosea, and Joel, with other works, were the occupation of his declining years.
The time at length arrived which brought this learned and indefatigable scholar's labours to a close. He expired, in September 1691, at the extreme old age of eighty-seven, " after having been for many years confessedly the first person in Europe for Eastern learning, and not less remarkable for humanity and modesty, than for profoundness of erudition." His knowledge of languages was both accurate and extensive. He was profoundly skilled in the Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac; was well acquainted with the Persian, the Samaritan, the Coptic, Ethiopic, and Turkish ; and understood, besides, Italian, and something of Spanish. In Greek and Latin he was critically conversant ; and composed in the latter language in a style both appropriate and elegant. It is only necessary to add, that in the most important particular, a deep and unfeigned sense of religion, according to the sober, rational piety of the Church of England, he was hardly less conspicuous than for his erudition.
As nearly all the works of Dr. Pococke have been enu- merated, and all the more remarkable in some slight degree described, in the preceding pages, to subjoin a list of them would be superfluous. His theological writings were collected, and published, with his Life, in two volumes, folio, in the year 1740, by Dr. Leonard T wells. The Life is a valuable and instructive piece of biography. It closes with a celebrated Latin ode to his memory, by Edmund Smith, of Christ Church, preceded by an encomium in prose from the pen of Dr. Marsh, primate of Ireland, and another by Locke, who knew him well. The character drawn of him by the philosopher concludes with the following sentence : " I can say of him what few men can say of any friend of theirs, nor I of any other of my acquaint- ance, that I do not remember I ever saw in him any one action that I did, or could in my own mind blame, or thought amiss in him."
Ki'Jl.]
Dk. pococke.
483
COMMENTAKY ON MALACIII, IV. 5.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the cominy of the great and dreadful day of the Lo7'd.
CoNCEKNiNG tlie pcTsoii, vvlio is here meant by Elijah, is no small controversy and difference betwixt expositors. The Jews agree not among themselves : Kimclii, with several others of them, thinks it meant of that Elijah himself in person, who lived and prophesied in the time of Ahab king of Israel. (1 Kings xvii, &c.) The meaning, saith he, is " That he will put again his soul which ascended into heaven, into a body which shall be created like his first body, because his first body turned to earth at his ascension, every element to its like element ; and after that he shall cause him to live in his body, he shall send him to Israel before the day of judgment, which is the great and dreadful day of the Lord ; and he shall warn both fathers and children together, to turn with all their heart unto the Lord, and they that turn shall be delivered from the day of judgment, as he saith, &c." Aben Ezra seems to be of the same opinion, but to think that Eliah continued still in the same body, and to believe that he appeared sometimes in the days of their holy wise men, and prays God to hasten the time of his coming. So others of them. Abarbinel here thinks the same as to his person, though not determining whether he shall come in a new raised body, or in his old body which he never put otf : " God saith he, shews them that the first which shall arise at the resurrection shall be Eliah the prophet, whether he shall rise as others do if his body were consumed when he was taken up, as some of the modern doctors affirm, or whether he miraculously remain in his body and soul in the earthly paradise, as our wise men tliought, and that God will send him before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, which is the day of judgment for all living." All these think that here is a promise of sending Eliah (the old Elijah) in person. Others of them, of no less authority, think it not neces- sarily to be so meant, but of sending some other great prophet, who because he should be hke to Eliah in dignity and knowledge, is called by his name, as appears by what Rabbi Tanchum notes on this place, whose words are in their own language, partly set down in the miscellaneous notes in the book called Porta Mosis, (chap. vi. p. 219) and translated into English, sound thus : " This, without doubt, is a promise that there should appear a prophet in Israel a little before the time of the appearance of the Messiah, and some of the learned men do think that he is Elijah the Tishbite himself, and that is
31—2
484
Dr. POCOCKE.
[A. D
the opinion that is found in most of the allegorical expositions ; others think it meant that he should be some great prophet like unto him in degree, and occupying his place as for what concerns the know- ledge of God, and the making manifest of his name, and therefore called by tlie name of Eliah. So expressly declares that eminent great doctor, Rabbi Moses the son of Maimon, at tlie end of his great juridical work called Mishneh Tor ah, or (the repetition of the law) and perhaps according to this opinion may be understood to be Messias the son of Joseph, as he saith also." These words seem to intimate that that should be said by Maimonides in that place ; but I do not find any such thing in him there at all, either in any printed copies or manuscripts, which I have seen. He mentions indeed in the preceding chapter there, two Messiahs, but the first he saith was David, who delivered Israel from their enemies, and the second should be of the posterity of David, who should save Israel from the hands of the children of Esau, (the Romans he means) according to that obstinate error of theirs, expecting that Christ should come to restore a temporal kingdom to them, and destroy their enemies ; but of a Messiah the son of Joseph (by whom what they mean hath been elsewhere shewn, viz. such a one as should be of the posterity of Joseph, and, coming before the Messiah, the Son of David, undergo all the suffering part of such things as are in the scripture spoken of Messiah, and leave only the glorious and triumphant part alone of the Son of David,) I find not in him any mention. Rabbi Tanchum goes on and saith, " That here is said the same that was above said, (chap. iii. 1.) Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and that what he there saith, and the Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, &c., is meant no doubt of the king Messiah ; may he quickly be revealed. But the truth of the matter as to these promises will be distinctly known by their manifestation (or fulfilling,) for there is none that hath any certain tradition concerning them, but every one speaks ac- cording to what appears to liim, and preponderates with him among the interpretations of the text of Scripture, as there also the same Moses the son of Maimon declares." Out of these words of his appears that among them is this difference, that some understand Eliah in person to be here spoken of, others not so, but some great prophet in degree and dignity like him. The same difference and doubt seem anciently to have been among their ancestors, as appears by the questioning John Baptist, whether he were the Messiah, or ■ Elias, or that prophet, (John i. 19, 20, 21.) for what can those words
1691.]
l)u, POCOCKE.
485
more [U-obably seem to mean, than whether he were Eliah in person, or that prophet which was propliesied of, called by the name of Eliah ? And we may think that the scribes mostly thought that it should be Elijah in person, (Matt. xvii. 10.) This difference and doubt he thinks cannot be determined but by the event and fulfilling of the things themselves; no man (saith Maimonides) can know how they should be, till they be fulfilled. This therefore that we except against them for, is, why, since they have seen fulfilled, the things concerning the messenger and Eliah in John Baptist, the things concerning the Lord, spoken of in Christ, they will not yet, for all such demonstrations by the perforaance of their offices, acknow- ledge them ; but rejecting them, and shutting their eyes against what hath been already fulfilled, look on them as things not fulfilled, and expect both Eliah and the Messiah, as here promised, yet to come. But perhaps they will here be ready to retort, and ask, why then do Christians yet dissent among themselves, concerning the ex- position of this prophecy, some of them affirming that here is meant Eliah in person, and that he is yet to come, as well as any Jews do ? It is to be confessed, that here is a wider difference betwixt Christians than might be wished there were, though on other grounds than the Jews go. Tlie Jews, whether they understand it of Eliah in person, or any other great prophet set forth by his name, all drive at this end, to prove that the Messiah is not yet come ; because no such prophet hath yet appeared ; against whom we need not add to what hath been said on chap. iii. 1. Their not acknowledging them is no proof that they are not both long since come. The Christians all in this agreeing, that the Messiah of Christ is already come a first time, and shall at the end of the world come a second time ; and in this also, that John Baptist was the promised messenger sent before him at his first coming, and that he was deservedly called Elias ; yet in this differ, that some of them do not think that the Elias here mentioned, is the same with the messenger before promised, (chap. iii. 1.) nor the same coming of Christ spoken of, that [is spoken of] there : but that there, is to be understood his first coming, and John Baptist his forerunner at that [first advent], but here his second coming to judgment, and, as Mr. Mede thinks, either Eliah in person, or some other called by that name, who shall come before him at that [second advent] : whereas others rightly take the Eliah, here mentioned, to be the same with the messenger there promised to be sent, viz. John Baptist, and in both places the same coming of Christ to be meant, viz., that usually called his first coming. And this we say is manifestly the truth. It appears
486
Dr. POCOCKE.
[A. D.
by vvliat is spoken by Christ himself in tlie Gospel, (Matt. xvii. 9, &c., and Mark ix. 11, &c.,) in the story of his transfiguration, where the disciples Peter, and James, and John, which he took up into the mountain with him, after they had heard what Moses and Elias talked with him (probably concerning the fulfilling of the prophecies in this chapter of Malachi mentioned, concerning the approach of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, wherein he should destroy his wicked obstinate enemies, the unbelieving Jews, and deliver his faithful servants that believed in him, out of that destruction, before which it is here said that he would send Elias to forewarn them of it, and to preach repentance for the averting of it, whom they did not discern to be yet come ;) asked him, "Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come ? and Jesus answered a.nd said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, (or cometh first) and shall restore all things: but I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, (or acknowledged him not) but have done unto him whatsoever they listed, &c." These words, I say, make it so plain that the Elias here meant was then already come, and that no other for fulfilling this prophecy, on which that saying of the scribes (or doctors of the law among the Jews) was grounded, was to be expected before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, that there seems to be no place for questioning it. Yet do they, who would have Elias that ancient prophet to be here meant, take hence their chief argument to prove that he here spoken of is not yet come ; and therefore that the day here mentioned is likewise to be understood of the day of the last judgment, before which they expect he shall come, because say they, it is said in the future, Elias truly shall first come and restore all things, as if it were a thing yet to come ; but surely the following words, " But I say unto you, that Elias is already come," make it evident that that interpretation cannot be put on the former, so as to infer from them that Elias is not yet come : but that they must be expounded thus. It was truly said, Elias shall come &c., or. It is true that Elias should first come (or was first to come) : and so it appears the disciples understood it, of whom it is said, ver. 13. "Then the dis- ciples understood that he spake to them of John the Baptist," which is a plain proof, that they that understand it of any other understand it not aright. They, though the opinion be ancient, and have many both of note and learning which follow it, (for what end it will not be to our purpose to examine) may seem (as a great learned man observes) to have taken it rather from some tradition, that they had heard from the Jews, than to have warrant from the Scripture,
1691.]
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or any good ground for it. Sure, the words of our Saviour in the place cited, make not for them, but evidently against them, while he concludes all with affirming, that that Elias which they spake of was already come, not saying that another was to be expected, though one were already come. To the same purpose as clearly makes what he elsewhere saith, concerning John Baptist, (Matt. xi. 10.) " This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare tliy way before thee," and ver. 14. " And if ye will receive it (if ye will receive and believe the truth), this is Elias which was to come," (o fxeWiov epxe<Tdat) spoken there as of the future as well as in the forementioned words, which shall come to shew that he was when the prophet Malachi spake, to come afterward, not that vvlien our Saviour spake, he was yet to come : he plainly sheweth by saying thus, that he was already come. By all this our Saviour makes it manifest, that all that could in Malachi be interpreted of Elias was made good in John Baptist, who came in the spirit and power of Elias, and was to be understood of him alone, as much as if he had in express words said, that he only was the Elias that was to come, and they were not by virtue of Malachi's prophecy, or any other, to look for another. And of him, because he is here styled a prophet, doth he say, " that he was more than a prophet, Matt. xi. 9. yea much more, Luke vii. 26 ; for " (saith he) ver. 28, " I say unto you. Among those that are born of women, there is not a greater propliet than John the Baptist." And in Luke i. 76, Zecharias saith of him, that he should be called the " prophet of the Highest," and all the people were persuaded that he was so, (Luke xx. 6.) His denying himself to be that prophet, when the people asked him if he were he, (John i. 21.,) shews only that they were mistaken in their conceit, concerning that prophet which they asked after, as likewise they were in their question concerning Elias, which likewise he denied himself to be, viz. Elias in person as they expected, but not that he was he that is here called Elijah the prophet.
Here the Greek version instead of prophet puts the epithet of Tish- bite, which was the appellation of the propliet Elijah of old, and by that they who would here have it to be understood of him in person, strengthen their opinion : but sure that adds no strength to it ; besides that this is a manifest change of the word in tlie original, which ought to be of greatest authority, there is no doubt but that by the same reason, and figurative way of speaking, he may as well be called Elijah the Tishbite, as Elijah the prophet, that only shewing the country of that prophet, as the other word his office ; if he deserved to be called Eliah tlic propliet, he deserved to be called Eliah the
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Tishbite. For that Eliah the prophet, whose name, because he came in his spirit and power, he was called by, was a Tishbite : in this there is nothing of force to prove that here, and in the tliird chapter, ver. 1. are meant two different Eliahs. We conclude therefore from the express words of our Saviour, that he that is meant here by Eliah is John the Baptist and no other. That which is added in this verse concerns tlie time of his coming, viz. tliat he sliould be sent before the coming of tlie great and dreadful day of the Lord. That day is the same which is spoken of, chap. iii. 2. called there the day of his coming and his appearing, and ver. 17. the day which the Lord shall make, or (according to our translation) the day wherein he shall make up his jewels, and in this chapter, ver. l.the day which shall come burning as an oven, and shall bum up the wicked as stubble, but wherein to those that fear the name of the Lord, the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings ; and again, ver. 3. the day which the Lord should make, or wherein he should do what he had spoken ; so signal a day as that it may above others be called the day of the Lord, as shewing more of his power and presence than ordinary days, though all are his. And that day we look upon (as we have before shewed) to be that day or time which should end in the dreadful destruction of Jerusalem, so comprehending under it (as we have said on chap. iii. 2) all the time from Christ's first beginning to preach to the Jews, to that destruction of tliem and their city. And all this may be called the day of his first coming, to distinguish it from that which is usually called his second coming, viz. his coming at the last day to judge all the world. Otherwise, if we will more nicely distinguish and confine the day of his first coming to his birth, and the second to his coming at the day of doom to judge the world, this will be to be accounted a middle day, or coming between those two (as the learned Dr. Ham- mond calls it on Matt. xxiv. 3. and Luke ix. 31) for vengeance on his enemies, and deliverance of his servants.
But it may seem convenient to comprehend, as we said, all that time from his first manifestation till his executing that fearful national judgment on the Jews, under one notion of his first coming. For though that which makes these titles of great and dreadful, is most signally applicable to that day of vengeance ; yet all along in his preaching and foretelling, and threatening them with that doom as certain to come, if they continued obstinate and would not repent, as if it were already present, is that which may deservedly denominate this whole time a great and dreadful day to them. John the Baptist's words, wherein he describes it, and forewarns of it, sound no less, as
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Matt. iii. 2. where he begins liis preaching with " Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at liand," and ver. 7, " O generation of vipers, who liatli warned you to flee from the wratli to come?" and ver. lU, " Now the axe is laid to the root of the trees, therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is liewn down and cast into the fire;" and ver. 12, where he tells them of Christ's coming with his fan in hand. The day or time thus described is a day of terror, and that so described is the day of Christ's first coming, then already begun. Our Saviour's own preaching and behaviour while he was on earth, was likewise very troublesome to the unbelieving priests, scribes, and pharisees ; their quiet by both he disturbs, by continual minding them of, and sharply reproving them for their sins and hypocrisy, and denouncing to them many sad woes for them with severest threats : "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the dam- nation of hell?" (Matt, xxiii. 33,) and telling them, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate," (ver. 38,) i. e. the desolation of your temple, city, and nation is irreversibly at hand ; as certainly shall it be as if it were already done. Again, when of that stately admired frame of their temple, which his disciples shewed him as a thing to be wondered at, he saith, "Verily I say unto you. There shall not be left one stone upon another which shall not be thrown down," (Matt xxiv. 2,) and likewise that the days should come upon Jerusalem, that her enemies should cast a trench about her, and compass her round, and keep her in on every side, and should lay her even with the ground, and her children within her, and should not leave in her one stone upon another, because she knew not the day of her visita- tion, i. e. because she would not repent upon all his calls, (Luke xix. 43, 44.) and that generation, he saith, should not pass till all these things were fulfilled. (Matt. xxiv. 34, and Luke x.\i. 32.) Within tlie life-time of some that there were then alive, all that he said should be certainly fulfilled. The time in which these and like dreadful things were spoken by him, who spake as one having authority, as the people acknowledged. Matt. vii. 29, the Lord himself then on earth, whose words were as things done, may well be called a great and dreadful day of the Lord ; at least an awful day, or day to be feared, (as some would have it rather rendered) ; how much more when we shall look on it as concluded before that generation was passed away, within a matter of forty years, with the fearful and total destruction of Jerusalem ! So that comprehending all that time, both of Christ's being on earth, come in the flesh, wherein he threatened such destruction to the Jews, and of his coming in that short space after his leaving the earth, to execute what he had threatened under the name of his first cominer, VOL. I. 32
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we say that by the day here called the great and dreadful day of the Lord, that is meant. If any shall so distinguish the parts of this time as to call the time of his being on earth, the day of his first coming, and the destruction of Jerusalem a distinct coming from it ; that which we say is, that by the great and dreadful day here meant, seems chiefly to be understood that of Jerusalem's destruction, though we think it better to join both these together under the notion of one day, as we have said ; and that which we would evince is, that it is not literally and primarily meant of tlie day of the last judgment, as divers would have it, especially they who will have by Elias to be meant Elias in person : the one opinion depends much on the other. A chief argument of such of them as are Christians, seems that taken from the epithet itself, given to this day, because it is called a dreadful day, which they say is proper to the day of the last judgment ; whereas the day of his first coming is not so called, but an acceptable time and day of salvation. But sure, by what hath been already said, it appears that the day of his first coming, taken as reaching to the destruction of Jerusalem (as we do take it) may well so be called, and was indeed so.
To the same purpose may be added to what hath been said, that which Simeon said unto Mary when she presented Jesus in the temple, concerning him, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel," (Luke ii. 34,) that is, as it is well and appositely to our purpose paraphrased by the learned Dr. Hammond, " is appointed by God to be a means of bringing punishment and ruin upon all obdurate impenitents, and on the other side to redeem, restore, and recover those that will be wrought upon by him." He that was a chief corner stone, elect and precious indeed to those that believed, was at once unto the disobedient " a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence," (1 Peter ii. 6, 7, 8,) such a stone as "whosoever should fall on should be broken, but on whomsoever it should fall, it should grind him to powder," (Matt. xxi. 44 ;) and whereas they urge in confirmation of their opinion, that Christ at his first coming came not to judge but to be judged, not to destroy but to save, we may oppose what he saith, John ix. 39. "For judgment am I come into this world," so as to shew that that cannot be so understood, as to contradict this. And that place of (John xii. 47,) where he saith, "he came not to judge the world," may, as Dr. Hammond observes, be well understood, that he came not to accuse ; but certain it is that the Father " committed all judgment to the Son, and gave him authority to execute judgment," (John v. 22, 27,) and that as he came for judgment into the world, so he did execute it being come, both by his preaching while he was
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among men, laying the axe to the root of the tree, and severely putting liome tlie blow at the signal destruction of the unbelieving obstinate Jews, in a few years after his departure out of the world, when they who before refused to be judged by him, and to be convinced by his preaching, of their evil ways, and to repent of them, that so judging tliemselves they might have prevented the farther judgment of the Lord, and thought to prevent that, by judging him, and crucifying him, <lid by their obstinacy pull it on themselves, and felt the sad effects in so dreadful a manner in that particular judgment on that nation, that nothing but that fearful perdition of the whole world expected at the last day, can be imagined more terrible : so that that destruction of theirs being comprehended under the day of his first coming, (in the way that we have said) makes it deservedly called, " the great and dreadful day of the Lord," as well as the last of his coming to the general judgment may be so called. And whereas, as they say, that the day of his first coming is called an acceptable day, a "day of sal- vation," it is to be considered to whom it was so ; viz. to such as re- ceived him with good will as a Saviour, believed in him, and obeyed liim, but to others it was far otherwise, a day burning as an oven to destroy them. In like manner also may that day of the future judg- ment be termed, and shall be to the righteous, a day of salvation, a welcome day, a day longed for by them, and in respect to the certain expectation of which they hold up their heads against all the pressures and persecutions, which from ungodly men they suffer beforehand, and are by the apostle bid to comfort one another with those words, 1 Tliess. iv. 18. So that in these epithets here put to the day here spoken of, there is notliing which maketh why it may not be attributed as well to the one as to the other, to that of Christ's first coming, as that of his second : and the other circumstances make it evident that it ought to be understood primarily here of the first, however applicable to the second.
In the prophet Joel, chap. ii. 31, we read of the day of the Lord described in the very same terms, and concerning the day designed thereby is much the like difference of opinions, as here. But St. Peter, in Acts ii. 20, manifestly interprets that also of the day of Christ's first coming. And so from all which hath been said we conclude that by the great and dreadful day, before the coming of which the Lord bids them here take notice that he will send Eliah the prophet, is to be understood the day of Christ's first coming, which includes his coming in judgment particular, against the nation of the Jews, and ended in the destruction of the unbelievers amongst them and of their city, before which John the Baptist, designed here by the name
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and title of Eliali the prophet, was according to tliis prophecy sent ; and not of his coming to execute tlie general judgment on the whole world at the day of doom, which shall end in the destruction of the whole, farther than as this was a type of that ; before which that he will send an harbinger, as he did before this, is but the conjecture of those that affirm it, and that for which there is not fi"om these words any evident proof.
That which hath made me so long to insist on the clearing of this exposition, even to tediousness, is because the expounding the words otherwise, and as of a thing yet to come, would be to give up to the Jews an argument which ought not to be given up to them. For if it be granted to them that Elijah in person be to be expected before the coming of Christ, here spoken of, and that the day here spoken of be not yet come, they will think they have reason to sav, (as they obstinately do) that the true Messiah is not yet come, and yet to expect another Christ as well as another messenger ; whereas if it be made evident (as we suppose it is) that that Eliah here foretold of is already come, and the day here meant also come, they can have nothing more but mere obstinacy to pretend why they should not believe in Christ, and forsake that error received from their fathers.
END OF VOL. I.