him to this place of Government in the Church For with Basilius Magnus Non ex majoribus sed ex propria virtute nobilitatem duxit He ennobled himself with his own worth and virtue 13. Two singular ornaments crowned him which seldom meet in one man Learning and Humility On a time and many such I could tell you a poor Minister sending in to speak with him abruptly he brake off a most serious discourse saying But the Minister must not stay lest we should seem to take state upon us Therein imitating the great Athanasius being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. 14. When in his sickness one hoped for his recovery he gave the answer that St. Ambrose gave to the Nobles of Milain that desired him to pray for life Non ita inter vos vixi ut pudeat me vivere nec timeo mori quoniam dominum bonum habemus 15. Not many hours before his departure for non obiit sed abiit I found him as me seemed victorious upon some conflict Quis sanctorum sine certamine coronatur I drew near his bed he reached for my hand and greezed it saying I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day This occasioned something about relyance on God by Faith Yea said he I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living And again The mercies of the Lord are from generation to generation on them that fear him Mercy brought in thoughts of Christ Oh saith he in the words of that holy Martyr none but Christ none but Christ Being told how pretiously the Lord esteemeth the death of such He replyed Right dear right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Some prayers made for him upon his desire at conclusion he said Amen I thank God Amen enough Amen I thank God 16. When he was leaving this life he looked on his daughter and on the rest of his children in the chamber present and said Christ bless you all And like that old Patriarch he moved himself upon the bed and cried Christ Jesus help and so Christ took him and conclamatum est His soul is now at rest his Name is among the Worthies of our Church His Motto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ob. A. S. 1624. aet supra 70. FINIS A Letter To fill up this void leaf or rather to promote conformity which is partly the designe of these Memorials I take leave to translate hither out of the Oxford-book very worthy to be Reprinted A Letter of the Vice-Chancellour and others the Heads of the Vniversity of Cambridge to the Vice-Chancellour and others of the Vniuersity of Oxford Octob. 7. 1603. E Latino WHen newly and indeed very late there came unto us a report of the Petition for Reformation forsooth of the Church of England offered to his Majestie as is pretended by a thousand Ministers though we found in it nothing new and what hath been answered heretofore a thousand times Yet because they boast of their number that these Millenaries may know if Saul hath his thousand David in this cause will never want his ten thousand we were desirous notwithstanding the work was altogether unworthy of it to provide an answer Whilst we were meditating thereof there is brought unto our hands that most Elegant answer of the Vniuersity of Oxford being a most rational and brief confutation of all that had by those men so laboriously been framed and feigned upon sight whereof nothing seemed to remain for us whom in this best of causes the zeal and industry of our Brethren easily able to refute such Adversaries had prevented but this to add unto the weight of their Arguments because those men glory most in their multitudes the number of our Suffrages This we did formerly as it were divining both foresee and provide for For when after the death of our Excellent Queen Elizabeth alwaies the same and most constant a singular and incomparable example in a woman in this best of causes those men did not so much deplore the loss of a most Religious Princess and the case of Religion it self if not dying with her yet at least in very great hazard as meditate and every day attempt Innovations against the new Kings approach Our Vniversity very opportunely judged her aid to be needful and a decree to be made in a full and solemn Convocation That whosoever shall in the Vniversity of Cambridge publickly oppose in word or writing or any other way the Doctrine or Discipline of the Church of England or any part thereof by Law established He shall be excluded from taking any degree and be suspended ipso facto from the degree he hath taken Which decree even by Unanimous consent of the whole House voted and recorded publickly Jun. 9. 1603. we do now desire to publish to the whole World that all may be assured what is the judgment not of some Opiniasters in their corners and Conventicles but of allmost all the Cantabrigians in open senate concerning that Discipline which we have not forced on us but freely received and entertained Whose consent so fraternally and sweetly concurring with the Oxford-answer with Scripture Fathers and Councils with the decrees of our Princes our Laws and Parliaments Away with those thousand Ministers let them go and answer at thousand Books of ours already written and set forth for their satisfaction before they do so impudently obtrude their Crambe so often boiled upon so wise a King and so excellently learned Or if they would have Suffrages rather to be numbred then weighed let the poor Fellows forsaken of the Universities and Muses bethink themselves of how little account what nothings they are Thus we take our leave of our most dear Brethren in Christ and as we and our Vniversity being united to you both by similitude of studies and manners are most firmly Yours So we intreat you alwaies to continue your love to Us. Camb. Oct. 7. 1603.
her To gratify which desire she gave him her table-Table-book in which she had written three sentences in Greek Latine and English as she saw her Husbands Body brought unto the Chappel which she besought him to accept as her last Bequest The Greek to this effect That if his executed body should give testimony against her before Men his most blessed soul should give an eternal proof of her Innocence in the presence of God The Latine added That Humane Justice was against his Body but the Divine Mercy would be for his Soul The Conclusion in English That if her fault deserved punishment her Youth at least and her Imprudence were worthy of Excuse and that God and Posterity would shew her Favour 11. Conducted by Fecknam to the Scaffold she gave not much heed to his Discourses but kept her eyes upon a Prayer-book of her own And being mounted on the Throne from which she was to receive a more excellent Crown then any which this vile Earth could give her she addressed her self in some few words to the standers by letting them know That her offence was not for having layd her hand upon the Crown but for not rejecting it with sufficient Constancy That she had lesse erred through Ambition then out of Reverence to her parents yet such Reverence deserved punishment That she would willingly admit of death so to give satisfaction to the injured State And that she had justly deserved this punishment for being made the Instrument though an unwilling Instrument of Anothers ambition Then having desired the people to recommend her in their prayers to rhe mercies of God being ready for the block with the same clear and untroubled Countenance wherewith she had acted all the rest of her Tragedy she said aloud the Psalm of Miserere mei Deus in the English Tongue and so submitted her pure neck to the Executioner An. 1553. Miraris Janam Graio Sermone loquutam Quo primum nata est tempore Graia fuit Camd. in Reliq III. Sir JOHN CHEEK Out of his Life prefixed to The hurt of Sedition written by Dr. Langbane 1. THIS learned and worthy man fell immediately from the womb of his Mother into the lap of the Muses being both born and bred within the liberties of that famous nursery of good Letters Cambridge He seems to have been of no vulgar extraction for two of his Sisters were fairly matched one to Dr. Blith the Kings professor of Physick and Mary another of them to William Cecil afterwards Lord Burghley a most able Minister of State 2. Certainly his deserts were so far above vulgar and ordinary that they quickly purchased him a Fellowship in S. Johns Colledge and it may be disputable whether in point of learning he owed more to the place or the place to him His eminency was so generally taken notice of by the whole University that they pitched upon him for the sole manage of two weighty but honorary employments of their publick Orator and Greek Reader 3. In the discharge of this later he went over all Sophocles twice all Homer all Euripides and part of Herodotus to his Auditors benefit and his own credit which was all the Salary he then had till King Henry VIII of his royal bounty endowed that and the other Chairs with the liberal Allowance of XI pounds per annum and upon the sole Commendatories of his former deservings conferred that honour on him to be the first Regius professor of the Greek tongue in Cambridge as Sir Thomas Smith was of Law 4. These two especially by their advice and example brought the study of Tongues and other politer learning first into request in that University Upon hopes of facilitating the Greek Tongue they attempted to reduce it to the antient but obsolete manner of pronuntiation an innovation quickly observed by B. Gardiner the Chancellor and repressed by a strict Injunction May 21. 1542. And though at last after several Writings Mr. Cheek was content to submit to that one unanswerable Argument of the Chancellors Authority yet his Rules and Practice had taken such deep root in his Auditors that by them it was propagated through this whole Kingdom and that we English-men speak Greek and are able to understand one another we must acknowledge it to be a special effect of Mr. Cheek's rare ingeny 5. That famous King Henry VIII thought it sit to call this great light of Learning out of the shadow and so he did July 10. 1544. and to his Custody he then committed the most precious Jewel of the Kingdom the young Prince Edward being at that time not full seven years of age What progresse he made under this Director of his studies appears by those noble Reliques of his industry and sufficiency both in Greek and Latine which are still preserved in his Majesties Library at S. James 6. It may be truly said that under God Mr. Cheek was a special Instrument of the propagation of the Gospel and that Religion which we now professe in this Kingdom For he not only sowed the seeds of that Doctrin in the heart of Prince Edward which afterwards grew up into a general Reformation when he came to be King but by his means the same saving truth was gently instilled into the Lady Elizabeth by those who by his procurement were admitted to be guides of her younger studies Such were first William Grindall and after him Roger Ascham who had fomerrly bin his Scholar in the Coll. and successor in the Orators place in the University a man dear unto him for similitude of studies but more for his zeal to the true Religion 7. An. 1547. When the young King was wel settled in his Throne he admitted Mr. Cheek to be one of his privy Chamber This accrue of Honour to her son made his learned Mother the University a suiter to him for protection in those stormy times who in her Lerters to him gives him such an Elogie as must not be omitted here This it is Ex universo illo numero clarissimorum virorum Clarissimè Chece qui ex hac Academia in Remp. unquam prodierunt Tu unus es quem semper Academia prae universis aliis praesentem complexa est absentem admirata est quam Tu vicissim plusquam universi alii praesens ornaveras absens juvas An. 1551. When his Majesty was pleased to make a doal of Honours among his deserving Subjects Mr. Cheek was not forgotten He with his Brother in Law Secretary Cecil were then Knighted This was but a foundation upon which the gratefull Prince had a purpose to erect higher preferments had not the hand of Providence so soon snatcht him away into another Kingdom to invest his temples with a more glorious Crown This was done July 6. 1553. not long after he had called Sir John Cheek to sit at the helm of State the Council Boord In this common losse of so good a King He good man had more then mon share Being clapt up in prison
insomuch as he was able to arme at all points both horse and foot and divers times had one hundred foot and fifty horse of his own servants mustered and trayned for which purpose he entertained Captains c. His house for the Lectures and Scholastick exercises therein performed might justly be accounted a little Academy and in some respects superiour c. His Domestick Chaplains both before and since his death attained to the chiefest honours and dignities in our Church and Common-wealth namely Bancroft Ravis Barlow c. 37. He carried himself with great Resolution and courage in the determination of Causes belonging to his proper Cognizance When a Gentleman of good note told him once that the Lords of the Council were of another opinion then his Grace What tellest thou me said the Arch-bishop of the Lords of the Council I tell thee they are in these Cases to be advised by us and not we by them He would upon such occasions oftentimes say unto his private friends toward his later time That two things did help much to make a man confident in good causes namely Orbitas Senectus and said he they steed me both 38. He gave Audience unto Suitors twice a day and afforded them set hours for their dispatch at which time he would so courteously intreat them giving so mild and gentle Answers that even they that sped not in their suits did depart without discontentment Wherein I may justly pare him unto Titus qui neminem unquam à se tristem dimisit He often feasted the Clergy Nobility and Gentry of his Diocess and Neighbourhood at Christmas especially his Gates were alwayes open and his Hall set twice or thrice over with strangers Every year he entertained the Queen at one of his houses and some years twice or thrice who besides other favours would bid him Farewell by the name of her Black Husband c. 39. His Charity is testifyed by that notable Monument his Hospital of the blessed Trinity in Croydon which he built very fair and Colledge-wise for a Warden and eight and twenty Brothers and Sisters He builded also near unto it a goodly free School with a School-masters house allowing to the School-master twenty pounds by year for ever And when he had finished and done the whole work he found himself no worse in his estate then when he first began which he ascribed unto the extraordinary blessing and goodnesse of God After which when the French Ambassador by whom he was reputed a peerlesse Prelate for piety and learning enquiring what Books he had written was told He had only published certain Books in the English tongue in defence of the Ecclesiastical Government and that he had founded an Hospital and a School The Embassador replyed Profecto Hospitale ad sublevandam paupertatem Schola ad instruendam juventutem sunt optimi libri quos Archiepiscopus conscribere potuit 30. 1603. Ap. 28. He was the principal Mourner at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth crowned and anointed King James Jul. 25. being visited by his Majesty in his sicknesse spake to him earnestly in Latin and by his last words pro ecclesia Dei pro ecclesia Dei was conceived by the King to commend unto his royal care as he had done sundry times before the Church of England Ob. ult Feb. hora 8. pomerid An. Dom. 1603. Aet 73. V. Mr RICHARD HOOKER Out of his life written by the R. R. Bishop of Exeter Dr Gauden 1. HE was born in the West either in or not far from the City of Exeter An. 1550. A Country that is as Mr Cambden observes ferax ingeniorum But with what presages of his future eminency there is not any notice to be had One of his Vncles was Chamberlain of Exeter in Mr Hookers Youth and contributed both care and cost toward his Education in the free School there His Parents need no other monument of honour then this that they were blessed with so worthie a Son 2. This excellent Person had a body and soul every way so adjusted and suited to each other that they were like meet pairs happily married together and living peaceably His outward aspect and carriage was rather comely than Courtly his looks alwaies grave and reserved his soul more looking inward then exspatiating at his eyes or taking the outward prospect of his senses He went alwaies as if he meditated some great and good design what he designed he industriously acted without affectation or ostentation 3. His words were alwaies sober and well-ordered not more in number then weight He was like an hive full of honey of a plain outside and a narrow accesse and orifice but heavy as having in him all manner of good literature industriously gathered and aptly digested His friends or Confidents were few but choise as one that had no great opinion of himself nor sought the applause of others 4. While he continued in Corpus Christi Colledge few men of any note in either University but promised more than he did as to any great and publick undertaking not that he wanted a publick spirit or excellent Abilities in nature and education but he was so locked up and reserved by a natural modestie and self-distrust that he seemed to think it reward sufficient to have the conscience of weldoing and pleasure enough to see himself dayly profit in his studies and preferment even to envy to enjoy vertue though never so cloistred and confined to his own breast 5. Mr Hooker did not look upon the ease and quietnesse of a Colledge life as the ultimate design of his studies nor did he say with the Apostle It is good to be here as in a settled Tabernacle but gently embraced those small offers of Ministerial Employments in the Country which were made to him by such as thought them somewhat proportionate if not to his worth and learning yet to that humble plainnesse and simplicity of his Genius and mode of living His first living was Boscomb in the West to which the Colledge presented him his next in Lincolnshire called Drayton Beauchamp An. 1584. 6. The noise which some Non-Conformists made kept this good Country Parson awake who however he could bear with patience and silence the reproaches cast upon himself as a private man yet he thought it stupor to hear without just indignation his Mother reviled by ungrateful children Hence sprang that excellent work of the Ecclesiastical Policie Wherein he hath justly obtained this Encomium from all intelligent Readers That never any man undertook a better cause since the antient conflicts of the Fathers nor handled it with an honester heart an abler judgment or an eloquenter stile 7. His first five Books he lived to publish providence in time brought forth those esteemed Abortive the three last Books with such lineaments of their fathers virtue and vigour on them that they may be easily and justly owned for genuin although they had not the last politure of their Parents hand The seventh book by
comparing the writing of it with other indisputable papers or known Manuscripts of Mr Hooker's is undoubtedly his own hand throughout The eighth is written by another hand as a Copy but interlined in many places with Mr Hooker's own characters as owned by him 8. An. 1592. He had the Dignities of a Prebend in Salisburie and the Subdeanrie bestowed on him and by the Queen he was preferred to be Master of the Temple i. e. the publick preacher in that great Auditory which requires an excellent preacher and where he may well deserve an honourable maintenance Mr Travers was popularly chosen by the Societie to be Lecturer in the afternoon a man of esteemed piety and good learning but a Non-conformist In comparison of whom Mr Hooker was much undervalued by the vulgar hearers 9. These two although they differed in some matters yet they corresponded in the main of sound Doctrine and holy life like generous rivals they honoured and loved what they saw good in one another Hence that very worthy speech of Mr Travers when being asked what he thought of some vile aspersion cast upon Mr Hooker he answered In truth I take Mr Hooker to be a very holy man 10. An. 1594. He was removed to his last station at Bishopsburn in Kent and was made also Prebend of Canterburie by the favour of the Archbishop Whitgift whose valiant and able Second he was in that Conflict which he so notably maintained against the Disciplinarian faction or the unruly Non-conformists 11. This was the period of Mr Hooker's promotion much below indeed his merit but adequate it seems to the retirednesse of his temper and most suitable to the policies of those times where Church-Governors were to be rather active than contemplative spirits And from this something rising but not very high ground did this excellent person take his ascent and rise to heaven the onely preferment worthie of him dying with great comfort at his parsonage in Kent about 50 years old An. 1599 saies Mr Camden An. 1603 saies his Monument He was interred in the Chancel of Bishopsbourn where a fair Marble and Alabaster Monument no way violated or deformed in all our late years of confusion was long after erected to his Memory An. 1634. See the rest in the eloquent Bishop before the Eccl. Pol. ADDITIONS Out of Dr W. Covel's Defence of Hooker 1603. 12. A Letter which is here answered was published by certain Protestants as they term themselves which I hear how true I know not is translated into other tongues This they presume hath given that wound to that reverend and learned man that it was not the least cause to procure his death But it is far otherwise for he contemned it in his wisdom as it was fit and yet in his humilitie would have answered it if he had lived But first of all he was loth to entermeddle with so weak adversaries thinking it unfit as himself said that a man that hath a long journie should turn back to beat every barking curre and having taken it in hand his urgent and greater affairs together with the want of strength weakned with much labour would not give him time to see it finished Death hath taken from us a sweet friend a wise Counsellour and a strong Champion Others are fit enough to live in the midst of errour vanitie unthankfulnesse and deceit but he was too good p. 13. 13. As profoundly to judge with sound variety of all learning was common to him with divers others so to expresse what he conceived in the eloquence of a most pure stile was the felicity almost of himself alone That honourable Knight Sr Philip Sidney gave a tast in an Argument of Recreation how well that style would befit an Argument of a graver Subject which it may be is more unpleasing in the tast of some because the manner is learned and the subject is not agreeing to their humour Doubtlesse the perfecting of a style and especially of our English style which in my opinion refuseth not the purest ornaments of any language hath many mo helps than those honourable places of learning the Vniversities can afford and therefore in those things which they conceive and some of them conceive much there are found in the Princes Court divers most purely eloquent whom even the best in the Vniversities may despair to imitate And if I may speak without offence I am fully perswaded that Mr Hookers stile if he had had lesse learning a strange fault for the weight of his learning made it too heavy had been incomparably the best that ever was written in our Church If our English storie had been born to that happinesse ever to have been attired in such rich ornaments she might worthily have bin entertained in the best Courts that the World hath But all Countries know our actions have been better done then they have been told 14. His Arguments you say are found in the Answer of that Reverend Father unto Mr Cartwright If there were no difference yet the consent of their Arguments were reason enough for you to allow Mr Hooker seeing you have given your approbation of the works of that most Reverend Father whose worthinesse no doubt can receive little honour from your praise yet you know that the whole subject of Mr Hooker's first four Books is an argument as full of learning so directly heretofore not handled by any that I know Concerning those three Books of his which from his own mouth I am informed that they were finisht I know not in whose hands they are nor whether the Church shall be bettered by so excellent a work For as the Church might have been happy if he had lived to have written more so she were not altogether so much harmed if she might but enjoy what he hath written p. 150. 15. The government of his passions was in his own power and he was able to rule them For he was truly of a mild spirit and an humble heart and abounding in all other virtues Yet he specially excelled in the grace of Meeknesse The Gravitie of his looks was cleered by those that did sit or converse with him least he should be burdensome unto them but a full laughter few ever discovered in him Some such our church had in all ages a few now alive which are her ornament if she can use them well but more that are dead whom she ought to praise For all these were honourable men in their generations c. * While this was under the Printers hand I had the happinesse to be in Dr Pococks company sometimes Fellow of C. C. C. and heard him amongst other good Discourse tell a story of Hooker to this effect That He with some others of the colledge journeying on foot as the manner then was into their country by the way visited Bishop Jewel sometime of the same Coll. The Bishop understanding some Scholars desired to see him or as we now speak more courtly to wait upon his Lordship