done out of a narrow Revenue Salmasius O what a Miracle of Judgment and Learning wrote bountifully and liv'd bountifully as I have heard These are his words Lib. de Usur p. 392. Quomodo liberalis esse potest qui nihil plus acquireret quà m quod sibi ad victum necessarium sufficere queat They that talk of possessing no more then to content Nature must live with such as know no other People but themselves else it is impossible but they will depart from that Primitive Simplicity And truly I have known but few perhaps none that would not be content to have had all the Chaplain's Portion or more if they had liv'd in as good a way of getting I do not excuse him therefore it need not that he got sufficient Wealth and bestow'd it Charitably and Honourably as will be manifested Whither it be Tully or Panaetius that says it or both it is well said as I learnt it in my Lessons of Puerility Lib. 1. de Off. Neque rei familiaris amplificatio vituperanda est nemine nocens sed fugienda semper injuria Riches that are augmented out of Niggardice or by Cheating Extortion or doing unworthy Offices carry their Curse along with them those that are well gotten are the Blessing of God The Adjection of Wealth then was not to be refus'd by one that serv'd not such an Idol but made it serve him for worthy Purposes Neither did his franc and generous Nature esteem such Things to be the Recompence of five years Service but this rather to be brought up at the Feet of the most prudent Counsellor that lived in the King's Service and that he got his Favour so early and held it so strongly till Death which came on apace An. 1616. in October this aged Patriarch began to languish and droop Therefore to recreate him and to put an after-spring into his decaying Spirits the Prince with due Solemnity being created Prince of Wales Nov 4. the Lord Chancellor was created Viscount Brackley on the 7th of the same This Honour was a Token that the King held him Precious yet it work'd not inward Who did ever see that the Sand in an Hour-Glass did run the flower because the Case in which it was put was guilded For all this Viscountship his Feebleness was more and more sensible the Eyes that look'd out of the Windows were darkned and he grew thick of Hearing From thence that is about January he delighted not in any Talk unless his Chaplain spoke to him All his Business with his Great and Royal Master the King he sent by him to be deliver'd with Trust and Prudence Upon which Messages the King took great notice that the Chaplain was Principled by his Master to be a Statesman and a Pillar of the Kingdom And even hard upon the day of his Death which was Mart. 15. the Chancellor call'd him to him and told him If he wanted Money he would leave him such a Legacy in his Will as should furnish him to begin the World like a Gentleman Sir says the Chaplain I kiss your hands you have fill'd my Cup full I am far from Want unless it be of your Lordships Directions how to live in the World if I survive you Well says the Chancellor I know you are an expert Workman take these Tools to work with they are the best I have And he gave him some Books and Papers written all with his own hand These were as Valuable as the Sibylline Prophesies They were that old Sage's Collections for the well ordering the High Court of Parliament the Court of Chancery the Star-Chamber and the Council-Board An inestimable Gift being made over to the true Heir Apparent of his Wisdom Let every one wear the Garland he deserves For my part I attribute so much to the Lord Egerton that I believe the Master's Papers were the Marrow of Mr. Williams his Prudence and subtle Judgment in all his Negotiations These Notes I have seen but are lost as it is to be feared in unlucky and devouring Times So died that Peerless Senator the Mirror of a Lord Chancellor having left that Blessing to his Chaplain and dear Servant that bewailed him long after with the mourning of a Dove and attended his Body to Cheshire and said the Office of Burial over him in a Chapel where he was entomb'd with his Ancestors Whose surviving Name a Grave cannot cover and a Tomb is too little to preserve it You may measure him in much by these two Spans Queen Elizabeth says Mr. Cambden was a Lady that never Chose amiss in the Preferment of an Officer when she was left to her own Judgment She made him her Solicitor Attorney-General Master of the Rolls and Lord-Keeper She tried him in every Place of Trust the former meriting the latter till he possess'd the highest King James did more not because he gave him the splendid Name of Lord-Chancellor or enobled him with the Titles of a Baron and a Viscount but because in the open Court of Star-Chamber he bless'd him with his Prayers and the Speech wherein he made the Prayer is Printed with his Works That as he had long held that Place so God would continue him longer in it To know him altogether I will borrow the Character of Aemilianus and engrave it into the green Saphir of his Memory which will ever keep green Qui nihil in vitâ nisi laudandum aut fecit aut dixit aut sensit 38. While the Obsequies for the Entertainment of this deceased Lord were preparing at London the Successor unto the Office of the great Seal was Sir Francis Bacon very Learned in the judgment of all European Scholars especially best known at home that his Soul was a Cabinet replenish'd with the greatest Jewels of Wit and in all our Kingdom none did ever set them forth with purer Language He hearing that Mr. Williams had chested up his Books and had furnish'd himself every way for an House-keeper to remove to his Cure of Walgrave he made him an offer of great Civility to continue with him in that place wherein he had serv'd the Lord Egerton which he declined but with so graceful a compliment that they parted great Friends and Sir Francis willing to mark him with some cognizance of his Love of his own accord made him Justice of Peace and of the Quorum in the County of Northampton an Office fitter for none than a Scholar and a Gentleman Yet he could hot leave London so God had provided without a calling into a new Service but it was in Caesars houshold His faithful and fast Friend Dr. James Montagu now Bishop of Winton sent for him and brought him to the King who received him with consolatory Words and extraordinary Grace and commanded he should be Sworn his Chaplain forthwith whereupon he Attended at the Court yearly in the Month of February appointed him also to wait on him in his great Northern progress into Scotland now hard at hand to begin in
SCRINIA RESERATA A MEMORIAL Offer'd to the Great Deservings OF John Williams D.D. Who some time held the Places of L d Keeper of the Great Seal of England L d Bishop of Lincoln and L d Archbishop of York CONTAINING A SERIES OF THE Most Remarkable Occurrences and Transactions of his LIFE in Relation both to CHURCH and STATE Written by JOHN HACKET Late Lord Bishop of LITCHFIELD and COVENTRY 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. de laudibus Athanasii Vita mortuorum in memoriâ vivorum est posita Cicero Philip. nonâ IMPRIMATUR Nov. 27. 1692. JO. Cant. In the SAVOY Printed by Edw. Jones for Samuel Lowndes over against Exeter-Exchange in the Strand M. DC XC III. THE PROEM READER Paragr 1. BOOKS are sown so thick in all Countries of Europe that a new one which one adds more to the former Gross had need of an Apology The easie Dispatch of so many Sheets in a day by the readiness of Printing hath found the World a great deal more Work then needs Many that love Knowledge both Industrious and of sound Judgment are not nice to say that Repletion of Authors hath begat Loathing Which is a Reason likewise or a Pretence that divers who are Learned and full Men contain their Liquor in their Vessels and never broach it in the Press to make it Publick because they think it is Folly to contribute to Waste and Excess I am one of those I confess that wish it were possible that a Moses could be raised up to restrain us from bringing more either of our Pamphlets or Volumes to the Work of the Tabernacle For the Stuff already is sufficient for all the Work to make it and too much Exod. 36.7 2. How shall I answer it therefore Or how shall I defend that I am constant to mine own Judgment in this Design that I thrust my Labours into the World What Warrant can I plead that I build a new Cottage upon the Waste I conceive that it will stand for satisfaction that I set forth an History of Things not travers'd before but of memorable Passages running through the Channel of one Man's Life in our present Age. It is a Debt owed to Posterity to furnish them with the true Knowledge of sore-gone Occurrences worthy to be Registred as I believe these ensuing are A Tradition must be kept of famous Exploits especially moving upon the Stage of turbulent Times For when it is skilfully drawn through the Acts of famous Men it will rouze up our Children by Emulation as much as by Precept and give them double advantage to seek Virtue and Glory But better it will be to have it coarse spun then quite omitted For such will serve for Cork to keep a Net from sinking 3. This Century of our Account from Christ's Birth wherein we live now wasting beyond the middle hath been happy in this That it hath brought forth in our Kingdom of England many of great Renown Wise and Eloquent deep in Learning and sage in Counsels in a word to be praised as much as the best of their Forefathers yet granting to all both former and latter an Allowance for some Grains of Frailties It were pity their Memorial should perish with them Caesar was a large seeker of Glory yet grudge no Man a share in Glory as testifies that little which remains of his Oration for the Bithynians saying It is a Duty required from the surviving Generation to keep them alive in their good Name who deserv'd it and can endure the Censure of the World for ever I listen to his Encouragement yet measuring my Strength by mine own Meet-wand I task my self to set up a Pillar but for one Man's Memory The Event will clear me that I stint not my self to this one Theme to do but little But First Because there is so much Kernel in one Shell I must set forth a great Bishop a great Judge a great Counsellor in all these Capacities most active in most active Times Such a Mill will not go with a little Water Beside the Turnings and Returnings of his Fortune multiformous Changeableness rather Prodigious then Strange by Honour and Dishonour by Evil Report and good Report 2 Cor. 6.8 Which will draw considerate Thoughts for no little time to this one Center As Pliny writes of the Emperor Augustus his Life interwoven with much Glory Lib. 7. Nat. Hist c. 45. and much Misfortune Si diligenter aestimentur sancta magna sortis humanae reperiantur volumina So it is highly remarkable that in this one Piece a diligent Eye may discern all the Colours of human Inconstancy and Instability 4. Secondly I spend all my little Skill upon this Subject for I can draw no Picture so like because I knew none so well I noted his Ways and Worth in the University when I was but young I observ'd him in his earliest Preferments when he came first sledge out of the Nest I was taken into his Houshold Service as soon as he ascended to his highest Office And commencing from that time till thirty Years expired with his Life I trespass not against Modesly if I say I knew his Courses as much and saw them at as near a distance as any Man beside I have as much Intelligence from an Eye-witness Information and from his familiar Conference with me as can be expected from any Writer of the Memorials of a great Statist Qui audiunt audita dicunt qui vident planè sciunt says Plautusvery well He that reports but what he hears must confess he is at uncertainty he that sees a Thing done can relate it perfectly Pliny hath cast down a great deal of that which he built up in the seventh Book of his Natural History with this Passage in his Proem Nec in plerÃsque corum obstringam sidem meam potiúsque ad autores relegabo He would make Faith for little of that which he wrote but turns his Reader over to such Authors as himself did not trust in I am far from such Prevarication I drew the knowledge of those things of most moment which I shall deliver from the Spring-Head And I trust in God that I have incorporated them into this Frame with Integrity This then is my confidence to make this Compilement that my Tools were whetted at home I need not repair to the Allophyli or Philistins to sharpen my Axe at their Grind-stone 5. Thirdly I am full of willingness to be the Father of this Child And nothing is apter for a Man to undergo then that which is agreeable to his Delight I profess it is not the least of my drifts to sweeten my Master's Memory with a strong composed Perfume and to carve him out in a commendable but a true Figure Suffer me to put one Day to his Life after his Decease When a worthy Man's Fame survives him through their help that light a Candle for that use that others in succession of Ages may perfectly behold him it is
Church under the Persian and Macedonjan Monarchies together with the Seleuctan and Ptolemaeâ—n Princes he had it at his Fingers ends But after that the Barren brought forth more Children then the Fruitful since the propagation of the Christian Faith among the Nations the Books are infinite which have compiled Occurrences of Evangelical Memorials yet our indefatigable Undertaker was not disheartned to read over all that was preserv'd but ransack'd Rolls and Libraries for all that was hid or lost Of such as faithful Custody had brought to light none escap'd him They are not the Divines of Magdepurg nor Baronius Annals though twice read over by him which furnished him with the Title of his Skill He knew more then they had observ'd from the Originals out of which they had digged their Ore Especially he was cunning in all Transactions done in the old Asian Churches and no less in the Greek even to the time of their Decay or Ruine rather under the Turkish Tyranny And because General and Provincial Councils the most Pure of them having been Celebrated in the East were the brightest Lanthorns of this kind of History he had observ'd in them as much as his Wit could penetrate into I say as much as he could for none was more ingenuous then he to confess his Defects And he did deplore when discourse of that Learning was on foot that the meaning of the Greek Canons nay nor of the Latin likewise was not opened to the World by an Artifice that was able to try their Metal That all Glossators hitherto had mistaken the Phraseologies and Terms of Imperial Laws and quaint Words having allusion to popular Speech in those days which are couched in them And since he minded me of such abstruseness in the Contexture of those Canons I have accused mine own oversight to my self that I thought I had known more of the true sense of those Canons then now I perceive I do There wants a Scholar like an Hound of a sure Nose that would not miss a true Scent nor run upon a false one to trace those old Bishops in their fuse A Divine he ought to be of the first Magnitude a Critic that should be an Hercules in the Greek Tongue a rare Canonist a most Learned Civilian mightily acquainted with all Pristine Ceremonies of a strong and inquisitive Judgment And since the matchless Salmasius is lately dead the Man whom I would have trusted with such a Work before all others who is sufficient for such a Task 19. The Histories of the Occidental Churches of great Bulk but little Credit he knew were both Partial and Adulterated many of them no better Authors then Luit prandus though it was his ill hap more then his Fellows to confess his Knavery for he says in his third Book that he set himself to write Ut de inimicis sumat vindictam landibus extollat eos qui se multis 〈◊〉 affâ—erant Such as this plain-dealing Fellow and all after him that struggled to raise up the Grandeur of the Româ—n Court Mr. Williams had read them and had hanged them all upon the File of his Memory and could vouch each or them to King James when a Question was ask'd about any of their Contents as if it had been the freshest thing in his Mind which he had perused but an hour before I think bonâ side there was no Man born more like to Eumâ—es in our Divine Poet Mr. Spencer's Description Recording all Things which this World doth weld laying them up in his Immortal Scrine where they for ever Incorrupted dwelt Let the Reader if he be not struck enough into Wonder already be advertized further that he could as readily and as dextrously recite Things which had been done in our British and English Churches from the first Infancy of them to his own days as if it had been written in the Palm of his Hand He carried in his Mind an Universal Idea of all Synods and Convocations that were ever held in our Land of all our Cathedrals their Foundations Conditions of Alteration Statutes Revenues c. As he had spared for no Travel to purchase this Skill so to fill his Vessel brim full he received all that Sir Harry Spelman Sir Robert Cotton and Mr. Selden his dear Friends could pour into him Some will say his Mind was set upon this Church and every particular of it might in some occasion concern him I will satisfie him that so proposes it that there was not a corner of an History Sacred or Secular in any Kingdom or State in Europe which he had not pried into and wherein he could not suddenly enlarge himself whether they were their Wars or Leagues of Amity whether their Laws Inheritances of their Crowns and Dignities their Lineages Marriages or what not The Chronicles of the Empire and German Princes the great Partidas of Spain all the Pieces of Antiquity he could rake out of French Abbies he was expert in them all as if he had got them by heart The issue of his Life bewrayed his End therein for he made this Study pay him Wages for all his Labour For he discerned his own Abuities to be fit for Publick Employment therefore he search'd into the notable Particularities of all Kingdoms Republicks and their Churches with all the Importances that hung upon them And he guessed right that King James would give all he could ask for such a Minister 20. The Tertia of his Industry and happy Studies and the Top-sail of them was the reading of the Fathers Greek and Latin Great was his Diligence in them marvellous was his Devotion to their Volumes These were the casting Counters with whom he reckoned all the Items of Christian Truth The least stood for a Pound the best for an hundred These were the Champions that first took the Field to fight the Lord's Battel all of them the Worthies of David whereof the stoutest had lifted up his Spear against 800 2 Sam. â— 23. and chased them These were after the Apostles the first-born Sons of the New-Jerusalem to whom by the Blessing of Primogeniture God had given the double Portion of Wisdom and his Spirit Mr. Williams remembred and would remember others of it when they needed such Advice that a Disciple of the Church of England must be their Disciple and would often cite out of the Canons concluded in Convocation an 1571. That Preachers should teach nothing in their Preaching which they would have the People Religiously to observe but that which is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old Testament and the New and that which the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered out of that Doctrine This is our Directory Let our Adversaries make the best of it to their advantage as the Funambulatory Jesuit Câ—mpian presumes Ad patres si 〈…〉 ctum est praeliuns Let him crow over Capons we have long laugh'd at his Arrogancy 21. I have here a Passage to insert as well for the Good of others
taught to know him by that Name and his Stile at every Word was his Excellency The Duke was singularly Learned for one of that Eminency and Illustrious Blood Therefore it was thought meet to receive him in the Publick Schools with a disputation in Philosophy performed by the most expert Professors of it who were ready we were sure at the shortest warning I must do him Right to him that was the first Opponent that he charged the Repondent bravely with Arguments of the best Artillery It was Mr. Wrâ—n of Pembrooke-Hall now the Reverend and Afflicted Bishop of Ely whose Enemies God hath punisht with such hardness of Heart that he being never yet brought to Answer to the Objections of his Persecutors after Ejection out of all his Estate and after Twelve years of Imprisonment in the Tower he continues still in that cruel Durance But I look back to my own Matter Mr. Prectour Williams was the President or Moderator at this Learned Act who by discretion as well as other sufficiency outstript them all For as the Apostle of the Gentiles says He was made all things to all Men so the Proctor manag'd his part before this Prince alla Tudesea to Dutch-men he became a Dutch Philospher for all his Conceptions he confirm'd by Quotations out of Julius Pacius Gâ—â—lâ—â—ius Keckerman and others that had been Professors within the Districts of the Gorman Principalities which was so unexpressibly acceptable to the Duke of Wittenberg and his Retinue that they kept him in their Company so long as they stay'd in Cambridge and would never part with him and in fine carried him in their Caroaches to Nowmarket and acquainted the King what Credit he had done to their Country Philosophers 28. The next Passage is of another frame and tried his Judgment not his Learning The Earl of Salisbury that famous Lord-Treasurer had Govern'd our University as Chancellor from the Year 1600 with good liking to all Uxit dum vixit bene He lest this World May 24. 1612. In the Election of a Successor the Regent-House in whom the Choice was were improvidently divided The greater Number gave their Voices for Henry Earl of Northampton Lord Privy-Seal sometimes a Gremial of our Body superlatively Learned a Writer of Books in Queen Elizabeth's days that especially against Judicial Astrology is of as elegant Contexture as any that are written in more Sunny Climates Beside he was very Rich and a Batchelor a Founder already of a charitable and handsom Pile of Building at Greenwich Therefore such as devised all good ways to attract the Benevolence of Liberal and Wealthy Men unto us hoped he would be very beneficial to Cambridge his Mother which now cast her self into the Arms of his Governance and Patronage So far the adverse Part could not dislike him One and the only thing to them of ill digestion was that Vox populi not the Jealousie but the Clamour of Court and Country was that he was no better then a Church-Papist That certainly his Heart was more with the Consistory of Rome then of Cambridge These with whom this Objection stuck were close Students plain and honest Men the least of all others acquainted with the World abroad Therefore they run blindfold upon a desperate way and to discountenance or discourage the Lord Privy-Seal they put one far better then himself in balance against him the King 's second Son Charles Duke of York his Highness though then but in the 12th Year of his Age. The Lord Privy-Seal had far more Votes in the Scrutiny for his Election and so it was in all Post-haste signified unto him But he took on with all Impatience to be so Abus'd to be made Competitor with the King's Son and to prevail in the Election And the King was more Wroth with the Simplicity or rather Presumption of those silly Clerks that durst Nominate his Dear and Tender Son the Duke to any Place or Office before they had beg'd Leave in all Humility for the Royal Assent A few of these received a great Check for it at the Council-Table and were a while under the Custody of Pursuivants For their Error the whole University was under as black a Cloud of Displeasure as ever I knew it in all my time and floated like a Ship in a great Storm that knew not where to Anchor The King exclaimed at them for Heady Inconsiderate swayed by Puritanical Factions The Lord Privy-Seal the Elect Chancellor shrunk up his Shoulders and made an Answer of fine Words and well set together ' That he was not worthy to have the Primacy or Pilotship ' over the Argonauts of such an Argosie But in Rude English it was no better then that He scorn'd their Proffer The Lords of the Council told them plainly They deserv'd no Chancellor among the Peerage who had so spitefully confronted an Earl of that Eminency The Vice-Chancellor Dr. Gouch with the Sophies of the Consistory Resolved That this was not a Sore that would heal with delay therefore they dispatch Proctor Williams with their Letters to offer himself before the King though the Storm blew stiff against him So he came to the Court at Greenwich and casting himself upon his Knees before the King with his Letters in his hand the King with no pleased Countenance ask'd him what he would have Sir says he my self and they who sent me crave Justice of Your Majesty in the behalf of Your University of Cambridge which suffers under Your Displeasure in that sort as I believe never any of Your Subjects did before that nineteen Parts of a great Incorporation should be Condomn'd for the Frowardness and that unpreventable by all the Power we had of the twentieth Part and they the meanest of us all We beseech You Gratiâ—us Sovereign to Name a Chancellor to preside over us or suffer us to come to Your Majesty upon all Occasions as unto our Chancellor not made so by the suffrage of poor Scholars You are far above that but in the sublime Title of Your Kingly Office by which You are obliged to Protect all Your People that are Unprotected This confident Speech was enough to hint to so wise a King that this was not the Style of Guiltiness so Justice being even the Girdle of his Loins and Mercy dropping easily from his Lips like an Honey-comb without streining he gave the Petitioner his Hand to kiss and bad him bid those that sent him to take Courage in looking well to their Charge in the University All Errors lately committed were struck off They should have Power to choose their Chancellor for he would not take their Right of Free Election from them His further Pleasure should be declared in his Letters which would be at Cambridge before him if he made not haste home And indeed the Proctor and the Letters came thither both in a day which being opened signified to the Vice-Chancellor and the Heads assisting That they should forthwith call a Congregation and resume an Election for a
satisfaction who will judge of good Works by Visions and not by Dreams I will cast up in a true Audite other Deeds of no small reckoning conducing greatly to the Welfare of that College Church and Liberty wherein Piety and Beneficence were Relucent in despight of Jealousies First that God might be praised with a chearful Noise in his Sanctuary he procured the sweetest Music both for the Organ and for the Voices of all Parts 〈◊〉 was heard in an English Quire In those days that Abby and Jerusalem-Chamber where he gave Entertainment to his Friends were the Volaries of the choicest Singers that the Land had bred The greatest Masters of that delightful Faculty frequented him above all others and were never nice to serve him And some of the most Famous yet living will confess he was never nice to reward them a Lover could not court his Mistress with more prodigal effusion of Gifts With the same Generosity and strong propension of mind to enlarge the Boundaries of Learning he converted a wast Room scituate in the East side of the Cloysters into Plato's Portico into a goodly Librarary model'd it into decent Shape furnished it with Desks and Chains accoutred it with all Utensils and slored it with a vast Number of Learned Volumes For which use he lighted most fortunately upon the Study of that Learned Gentleman Mr. Baker of Highgate who in a long and industrious Life had Collected into his own possession the best Authors in all Sciences in their best Editions which being bought at 500 l. a cheap Peny worth for such precious War were removed into this Store-House When he received Thanks from all the professors of Learning in and about London far beyond his expectation because they had free admirtance to such Hony from the Flowers of such a Garden as they wanted before it compell'd him to unlock his Cabinet of Jewels and bring forth his choicest Manuscripts A Right Noble Gift in all the Books he gave to this Serapaeum but especially the Parchments Some good Authors were confer'd by other Benefactors but the richest Fruit was shaken from the Boughs of this one Tree which will keep Green in an unfading Memory in despite of the Tempest of Iniquity As Pliny the younger wrote in an Epistle upon the Death of his Son quatenus nobis denegatur diu vivere relinquamus aliquid quo nos vixisse testemur so this Work will bear Witness to Posterity that he liv'd and that he liv'd beneficently I borrow that assurance from honour'd Mr. Selden in his Epistle before the History of Eadmerus Dedicated to the Founder of this Library to whom he writes in these Words Egregius peritissimusque literarum censor fautor indulgentissimus audis verè es Quippe qui Doctrinam suo merito indies cupientissimus honestas Et sumptuosam in struendis publico usui Bibliothecis operam impendis Praemium ita studiosis armarium etiam sine exemplo solicitus parandi Yet what an ill requital did these unthankful times make him when they removed that worthy Scholar the Bibliothecary whom he had placed Mr. Richard Gouland whom he pick'd out above all men for that Office being inferiour to none in the knowledg of good Authors Superiour to any for Fidelity and Diligence of so mortified a Life that he could scandalize none but with Innocency and Piety nor offend any but by Meekness and Inoffensiveness Such times such Fruits for as Antoninus the Emperor says lib. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is mad that looks for Figgs upon the Tree in Winter I cannot end with the Erection of this Library I have but almost done For this Dean gratified the College with many other Benefits When he came to look into the State of the House he found it in a Debt of 300 l. by the Hospitality of the Table It had then a Brotherhood of most worthy Prebendaries Moumford Sutton Laud Caesar Robinson Dorrel Fox King Newel and the rest but ancient frugal Diet was laid aside in all places and the prizes of Provisions in less than fifteen years were doubled in all Markets By which enhancements the Debt was contracted and by him discharg'd Not long after to the Number of the forty Scholars the Alumni of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation anno 1560. he added four more distinguish'd from the rest in their Habit of Violet Colour'd Gowns for whose maintenance he purchased Lands These were Adopted Children and in this divers from the Natural Children that the place to which they are removed when they deserve it by their Learning is St. John's College in Cambridge of whom more hereafter And in those days when good Turns were received with the Right Hand Cabal pag. 69. it was Esteemed among the praises of a Stout and Vigilant Dean that whereas a great Limb of the Liberties of the City was threatned to be cut off by the Encroachments of the higher Power of the Lord Steward of the Kings Houshold and the Knight Marshal with his Tip-Staves he stood up against them with a wife and a confident Spirit and would take no composition to let them share in those Priviledges which by right they never had but preserv'd the Charter of his place in its entire Jurisdiction and laudable Immunities 57 As the place was most Fortunate in him so it come now to be shewn that he was most Fortunate in that place That which was the Lodging of a Dean became in the current of one year the House of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and the 〈…〉 lace of the Bishop of Lincoln Ab eo Magistratu alium post alium sibi peperit semperque in potestatibus eo modo agitabat ut amplioris quà m gerebat dignns haberetur Words as fit for this Man as Salust made them for C. Marius The Occasion of his sudden Rising was wondred at because known to few And they that were busie in the search did not find it albeit it had done him Credit that received the Honour Works that deserve well deserve the better when they are wrapt up in Silence till Prudence chooseth the best time to disclose them When the Apostles had seen the Glory of our Lord Transfigur'd in the Mount they were commanded Secrecy to Tell the Vision to no Man till the Son of Man was Risen from the Dead Math. 17.9 Let discretion then be my Warrant to give some State-Occurrencies liberty to go abroad which were confined upon good Reason to the Kings Cabinet in their Minority Nam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ille tempus est ipsum temporis Jul. Seal On Jan. 30. 1620. the King met with the Lords and Commons in the High Court of Parliament The like Assembly convened anno 1613. had given unkindness to the King so that Parliaments had been disused for seven years The unkindness so deeply taken was chiefly from hence that the greatest part of the House of Commons gave willing Audience to those Zealots who would admit no business into Treaty
Liturgy and Canons of this â—â—tion but I sent him back again with the frivâ—lous Draught he had drawn It seems I remembred St. Austin ' s Rule better then he Ipsa mutatio consuetudinis ctiam quae adjuvat utilitate novitate perturbat Ep. 118. For all this he feared not mine Anger but assaulted me again with another illfangled Platform to make that slubborn Kirk stoop more to the English Pattern But I durst not play fast and loose with my Word He knows not the Stomach of that People but I ken the Story of my Grandmother the Queen Regent That after she was inveigled to break her Promise made to some Mutineers at a Perth Meeting she never saw good day but 〈◊〉 thence being much beloved before was despised of all the People And now your 〈◊〉 hath compel'd me to shrive my self thus unto you I think you are at your furthest and have no more to say for your Client May it please you Sir says the Lord-Keeper I will speak but this once You have indeed convicted your Chaplain of an Attempt very Audacious and very Unbeseeming my Judgment goes quite against his C. Gracâ—â—hus mended nothing but lost himself in his Tribuneship Qui nihil 〈◊〉 nihil tranquillum nihil quietum nihil denique in côdom staturelinquebat I am assured he that makes new work in a Church begets new Quarrels for Scriblers and new Jealousies in tender Consciences Yet I submit this to Your Sacred Judgment That Dr Laud is of a great and a tractable Wit He did not well see how he came into this Error but he will presently see the way how to come out of it Some Diseases which are very acute are quickly cured And is there no whee but you musl carry it says the King Then take him to you but on my Soul you will repent it And so went away in Anger using other fierce and ominous Words which were divulged in the Court and are too tart to be repeated So the Lord-Keeper procured to Dr. Laud his first Rochet and retained him in his Prebend of 〈◊〉 a Kindness which then he mightily valued and gave him about a year after a Living of about 120 l. per annum in the Diocese of St. David's to help his Revenue Which being unsought and brought to him at Durham-House by Mr. William Winn his Expression was Mr. Winn my Life will be too short to require your Lord's Goodness But how those Scores were paid is known at home and abroad Which he that will excuse hath no way but to shift it upon an Adagie Unum arbustum nen capit erithecos duos He that would be Great alone cares not whom he depresseth that would be as Great as himself 76. More cannot be required to shew how great the Lord-Keeper's Credit was with the King then that four Bishopricks were bestowed at once to three others with himself for which he interposed All three did then observe him with Congratulation as their Raiser Salisbury and Exeter were Men of faithful Acknowledgment in all their Life Est tanti ut gratum invenias experiri vel ingratos says Seneca He that finds two faithful Men among three is well requited Our Saviour found but one among Ten Luke 17.15 This Quaternion making ready for their Consecration a Calamity fell out which put them all to their Studies that they knew not which way to turn The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury making a Summer Journey into Hampshire was welcom'd by the Lord Zeâ—nch and invited to some Hunting-Sports in Bramshill-Park about St. James-tide The Arch-Bishop pretending to be a Wood-man took a Cross-bow to make a shot at a Buck. One of the Keepers did his Office to wind-less up the Deer to his stand who too suddenly shot at a fair-headed Buck in the Herd But his Arrow meeting with a small Bought in the way was cast a little from the mark and by an unhappy Glance wounded the Keeper in the Arm. It was but a Flesh-wound and a slight one yet being under the Cure of an heedless Surgeon the Fellow died of it the next day The like had never happen'd in our Church nor in any other in the Person of a Bishop and a Metropolitan which made work for Learned Men to turn over their Books Councils and Canon-Laws and Proviso's of Casuists were ransack'd whose Resolutions were unfavourable and greatly to the prejudice of the Fact It was clear in our Common-Law that his Personal Estate was forfeited to the King though it were Homicidium involuntarium But he was quickly comforted that he should not Suffer in that For upon the first Tidings His Majesty who had the Bowels of a Lamb censured the Mischance with these words of melting Clemency That an Angel might have miscarried in that sort The Arch-Bishop was an happy man in this Unhappiness that many Hearts condoled with him and many precious Stones were in the Breast-Plate which he wore that Pleaded for him He was Painful Stout Severe against bad Manners of a Grave and a Voluble Eloquence very Hospital Fervent against the Roman Church and no less against the Arminians which in those days was very Popular he had built and endowed a beautiful Eleemosynary Mansion at Guilford where he was born he sent all the Succors he could spare to the Queen of Bohemia the King 's only Daughter was a most stirring Counsellor for the Defence of the Palatinate was very acceptable to the Nobility and to the People both of this Realm and of Scotland where he had preach'd often 14 years before when he was in the Train of the Earl of Dunbar All those Flowers in his Garland were considered severally and mixtly when this gloomy day of Misfortune bedarken'd him And you may be sure our Sovereign Lord thought it the more Pardonable because it was an Hunting Casualty and was very Humane to those Harms beyond prevention which fell out in that Sport wherein he greatly delighted Therefore His Majesty Resolved and gave it him in a Consolatory Letter under his Hand That He would not add Affliction to his Sorrow nor take one Farthing from his Chattels and Moveables which were Confiscated by our Civil Penalties 77. But it cost more Labour to get out of the Ecclesiastical Brias for many of our best advised Churchmen took it sore to heart and lamented for it not without bitter Tears for the Scandal which was fallen upon our Church in his Person who in the Eye of General Councils and Canon-Laws was wonderfully Tainted and made Uncapable to all Sacred Functions performing Therefore to come home to the case they said God forbid those Hands should Consecrate Biships and Ordain Priests or Administer the Sacraments of Christ which God out of his secret Judgments had thus permitted to be embrued in Human Blood And some of the Prelacy profess'd If they had fallen into the like mischance they would never have despaired of God's Mercy for the other Life but from this World they would have retired and besoughts
effected Mellino had a good Course for it though Cardinal Barberino catcht the Hare and was as near to the Papacy and as publickly cry'd up as Cardinal Sachetti in the late Contestation of the tedious Conclave wherein the now inthroned Alexander the VII had much ado to step before him But Mellino lost the Day and thereupon Am. de Dominis his Cake was Dough who set his Rest upon a Card before it was drawn Yet that was the least part of his Folly he remains for an Example of the most besotted Cast-away that ever I read Ita se res habet ut plerumque cui fortunam mutaturus est Deus consilia corrumpat says Paterculus The Judgment of Blindness fell upon Sodom before the Vengeance of Fire How durst this bold Bayard look the Court of Rome in the Face upon any Terms whose Writings were more copious against the Amplitude of the Papacy than ever came out of the Press An Italian never forgives an Injury But Indignities written and with the Pen of a Diamond against the Sublimity Pontifical are more unpardonable with them than Blasphemies against Christ Had Cardinal Mellino his Confident been elected Pope the Pope would have forgotten all that the Cardinal had promised him What had Fulgentio the Servite done to be compared with his Scopuli and such jerking Books He had maintained the Venetian just Laws against Paul the Fifth's Abrogations yet ever abode in the Bosom of the Roman Church He had wrote the Life of Frier Paul whom they hated to the full pitch of his Praise But what were these Toys to the Ecclesiastical Republick of Antonius de Dominis Yet after twelve years that Fulgentio had provok'd them he having obtained safe Conduct to go to Rome under the Fisher's Ring and Berlingerius Gessius the Apostolical Nuntio at Venice pawn'd his Faith to the poor Man for his Incolumity yet he was cited before the Inquisition Condemn'd and Burnt in Campo di Flora And his Ashes were scarce cold when this daring Wretch came wittingly into the Den of the Lion 111. I forbear a while to tell his Disaster for a third Reason remains of the retrocession of this Crab whose Brains were fallen into his Belly He protested he came hither and returned to the Place from whence he came for the same end to finish the Work which G. Cassander began to compose a Method of Concord for the Eastern and Western Churches Greeks and Latins for the Uniting of the Northern and Southern Distractions of the Reformed Evangelical Divines and the Papalins That this had been his Design within his own Breast for twenty years and that his Studies were now come to that Maturity that he saw no Unlikelihood to prevail But what if the Arch-Bishopric of York had fallen into his Mouth which he gap'd for Certainly he would have forgot his Trade of Composing Churches and cast Anchor upon this Shoar for ever for his Religion was a Coat that had all Colours but wanted Argent and Ore Yet if a Mountain of some such Promotion had stopt his way I do not dis-believe him but that he was traversing in and out to attone the Differences of the most principal Christian Sects So Mr. Camden understood him under whose Hand I find this Note among his Diary Records Accingit se aditer Romam Versus nescio quâ spe convocandi generalis concilii rem religionis componendi He was packing for Rome in hopes to see a General Council call'd to cure the Distractions of Religion I appeal also to the Writer of the best Appeal Bishop Morton our Holy Polycarpus who told me that he dehorted Spulat from his Vagary into Italy to accommodate Truth and Peace for the Italians would never be perswaded to retract an Error Spalat takes him up for it churlishly An putas Papam Cardinales diabolos esse quod non possunt converti Says our Bishop again Neque puto Spalatensem Deum esse ut possit eos convertere Further When he was convented before the High Commissioners Mart. 30 he requested their Lordships to think charitably of him that his Departure hence was not that he took any Dislike at the Church of England which he held to be sound and Orthodox and that he would avouch before the Pope Grackan c. 85. to whom he was going Etiamsi hoc fiat cum discrimine vitae meae though it cost him his Life And it will not cost you less says the Lord Keeper for you may propound to the Pope the Conciliation you drive at but you will never be suffered to live to prosecute it God's Will be done says the other I do not fear it yet I suspect it the more that so wise a Man presageth it The same had dropt from his Pen Lib. 7. Eccl. Reip. c. 7. ar 133. Conciliation and Union to reduce Christ's Flock to feed together without Schism is so brave a Work Ut pro hôc negotio si contingeret nobis vitam cum sanguine fundere praeclari martyrii laudem apud Deum Ecclesiam mereremur For all this sew believ'd him that he was in earnest He that is untrue in many things is justly presum'd to be bad in all But I am brought over by palpable Evidences to suspect him of so much Honesty that he followed that good Work with all the Might of Wit and Labour to bring the Churches of Christ together which were withdrawn from one another in Hatred and Hostility And it was an easie thing to him to surmise it feasible because he was of so loose a Religion Nay He thought it was so near to be effected that it was already as good as done if both sides would take prudent notice that it was done For he builds upon this Bottom 7 de Rep. Eccl. c. 12. a. 13. Nihil sive in dogmatibus sive in ritibus in alterutrd parte adeo intolerabile esse invenw ut propterea separatio facienda sit aut schisma fovendum On all sides all Opinions were so tolerable in his Presumption that the White and the Black Church were both of a Colour For Example these Instances which follow and many others may be found in that 12 Chap. rashly slubber'd over We may communicate with them that hold Transubstantiation for it destroys Nature rather than Grace it is an Error of a good Mind not out of Dishonour to Christ but out of Devotion For Image-worship it is the least thing of an hundred to be past over for as when the Bible lyes before us and we Pray out of the Psalms we do not adore the Bible no more do they the Crucifix that is plac'd before them The Supremacy of the Pope is no necessary Cause of Divorcement for John and Cyriacus of Constantinople took to themselves the Title of Universal Bishop yet Gregory the Great who highly inveighed against their Error kept Unity with that Church And so should we do upon like Provocation Art 117. Thus he patcheth up the Rents but it was
Cause It is the Author of the Observations upon H. L. his History of the Reign of King Charles pag. 137. He hath not bestowed his Name upon his Reader but he hath a Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Homer Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I ought not to put him to the first Question of our Catechism Quo nomine vocaris For good Writers nay Sacred Pen-Men do not always Inscribe their Names upon their Books Scholars do invariably Father the Work and some of them say they have it from the Printer upon one that hath Wrote and Publish'd much favoring of Industry and Learning And they give Reasons which will come into the Sequel though a great while deferr'd why he blotts the good Name of King James Why he grates so often upon the mild Nature and matchless Patience of King Charles And if Fame have taken the right Sow by the Ear it is one that had provok'd the then Bishop of Lincoln in Print with great Acrimony Twenty years ago and that Anger flames out in him now as hot as ever Panthera domari nescia non semper saeuit Yet when that Bishop came out of the Tower and this Adversary sought him for Peace and Love because the Bishop was then able to do him a Displeasure he found him easie to be Reconciled What should move this Man to forget that Pacification so truly observ'd on the Bishops part who was the greater and the offended Party Naturale est odisse quem laeseris And Malice is like one of the Tour Things Prov. 30.15 That never say it is enough 'T is Degenerous for the Living to Trample upon the Dead but very Impious that he that was once a Christian nay a Christian Priest should never cease to be an Enemy The Words with which he wounds the Spanish Match through his side though otherwise he is one that witheth it had succeeded are these That that Bishop being in Power and Place at C◠the time of King James made himself the Head of the Popish Faction because he thought the Match with Spain which was then in Treaty would bring not only a Connivance to that Religion but a Toleration of it And who more like to be in Favour if that Match went on than such as were most zealous in doing Good Offices to the Catholick Cause Here 's a Knot of Catter-Pillars wrapt in a thin Cobweb so easie it will be to sweep them of The accused Person was always free of Conference Let any now living say that heard him often Discourse of the adverse Church if he did not constantly open himself not for a Gainsayer only but for a Stiff Defier of their Corrupt Doctrines although he was ever pitiful for Relaxation of their Penalties And would that Party cleave unto him for their greatest Encourager Encouragement was the least their Head could give them Beside the Thing is a Chimaera I never knew any Head of the Popish Faction in this Kingdom Others and Bishops in Rank above him have been traduced in that Name but who durst own that Office especially in the end of King James his Reign when every year almost was begirt with a Parliament and every Parliament procreated an inquisitive Committee for Matters of Religion What Mist did he walk in that neither Parliament nor Committees did detect him for Head or Patron or Undertaker call it what you will of the Pseudo-Catholick Cause could nothing but the goggle Eye of Malice discover him 135. Perhaps the Contemplation of the Spanish Match might embolden him so this Author would have us think It could not it did not take a little in the highest Topicks to both It could not For as the Anteceding Parliament was much taken with King James's Words That if the Match should not prove a fartherance to our Religion he were not Worthy to be our King so this his Majesties near Counsellor knew his meaning of which he often discours'd that when the Holy-Days of the Great Wedding were over his Majesty would deceive the Jealousies of his Subjects and be a more vigorous Defender of the Cause of the True Faith than ever And Judge the Bishop by his own Words in his Sermon Preach'd at the Funerals of that Good King that his Majesty charg'd his Son though he Married the Person of that Kings Sister never to Marry her Religion I said likewise he did not Look back to the first Letters he dispatch'd into Spain but much more let every Reader enjoy the Feature of his own Piety and Wisdom which he put into the Kings Hand to have his liking while his Majesties Dear Son was in Spain to Cure popular Discontents and sickly Suspicions which had come forth with Authority in October following if the long Treaty had not Set in a Cloud The Original Draught of his Contrivances yet remaining is thus Verbation That when the Marriage was Consummated and the Royal Bride received in England His Majesty should Publish his Gracious Declaration as followeth First To assure his Subjects throughout his three Kingdoms that there is not one word in all the Treaty of the Marriage in prejudice of our own Religion Secondly To Engage himself upon his Kingly Word to do no more for the Roman-Catholics upon the Marriage than already he did sometime voluntarily Grant out of Mercy and Goodness and uncontroulably may do in disposing of his own Mulcts and Penalties Thirdly That our Religion will be much Honoured in the Opinion of the World that the Catholic King is content to match with us nor can he Persecute with Fire and Sword such as profess no other Religion than his Brother-in-Law doth Fourthly That His Majesty shall forthwith advance strict Rules for the Confirmation of our Religion both in Heart and in the outward Profession 1. Common-Prayer to be duly performed in all Churches and Chappels Wednesdays and Fridays and two of every Family required to be present 2. Every Saturday after Common-Prayer Catechising of Children to be constantly observed 3. Confirmation called Bishopping to be carefully executed by the Bishop both in the General Visitations of his Diocese and every Six months in his own House or Palace 4. That Private Prayers shall no Day be omitted in the Family of him that is of the Degree of an Esquire else not to be so named or reputed 5. All Ladies and all Women in general to be Exhorted to bestow two hours at the least every Day in Prayer and Devotion 6. All our Churches to be Repaired and outwardly well Adorned and comely Plate to be bought for the Communion-Table 7. Dispensations for Pluralities of Livings to be granted to none upon any Qualification but Doctors and Batchelors in Divinity at the least and of them to such as are very Learned Men. 8. Bishops to encourage Public Lectures in Market-Towns of such Neighbouring Ministers as be Learned and Conformable 9. A Library of Divinity-Books to be Erected in every Shire-Town for the help of the poorer Ministers and Leave shall be
the whole Bible Are there some that will not believe it stay and take the Proof and it will be the better it was not believ'd As St. Austin says de Vit. Cler. Serm. 2. Beatus homo qui tam bonum opus fecit ut non crederetur Happy is the Man that did so good a Work that the World would not imagine it And wherefore should it be thought that he would not go in hand with a Work of so great Learning and Labour Even for that reason which Tully gives Hoc usu plerumque venit ut in rebus diversis eundem praecellere nolint homines It is the Malignancy of Men that will not conceive it possible for one Man to excel in many Endowments because themselves fall short of all But for satisfaction not to be controul'd he did not only discourse sometimes that he would dedicate his Industry and his Wealth to compile so excellent and voluminous a Piece but he left much of the Materials behind him Much of the Wool was ready yet not spun out for the Garment intended because his Loom was broken To speak it out distinctly Mr. Richard Gouland Keeper of the Library of the College of Westminster till Men of good Parts in all kinds himself not the least were deprived he hath in his Custody the Bible in three Parts in a large Folio with the Translation of Jun. and Tremell bound together wherein are Notes upon all the Scriptures except the Apocaclyps which is untouch'd written with the Bishop's own Hand in which are drawn out of all kind of Authors of the first middle and chiefly the latter Age and out of all Languages as the prime of Hebrew Greek and Latin with the modern of Italian Spanish and French whatsoever is the Choice and Flower of their Commentations All this I have seen and turn'd over and observ'd so much Judgment in the Extraction so much Industry in the Mass of it that I admir'd one Man could compass so much but more astonish'd that he could find leisure for any business or time for any Study beside All is not barren Land that lies fallow Nor all Scholars idle that have not discover'd their precious Treasures in Print But the increase of this Knowledge increas'd his Sorrow with the great Declension of his Health As the Poet says Attenuant juvenum vigilatae corpora noctes Ovid. His Lamp burnt many Nights till Morning the constant time of his Study before he had gather'd in this rich Harvest Yet neither Colick nor Catarrhs nor the Stone the sharpest of Pains could stay him from his main purpose The Count Mirandulan in Politian writes of Marianus a Divine whom he valued above all Corpus habet invictum infatigabile ut non aliunde magis reparare vires quà m de laboribus ipsis videatur So the more feeble the Bishop was the more he toil'd as if he thought to repair his Strength by Watching and assiduity of Labour Yet he knew that to expound the whole Scripture learnedly was above the Powers and Parts of one Man Therefore he reserv'd both the filling and finishing of it to the assistance of Twelve or more of the ablest Scholars in the Land whom he had in his Eye and Thoughts and purpos'd the Recompence of a great Stipend For he hath said it to his Friends that he would not stick at the Sum of Twelve no nor of Twenty thousand Pounds to perfect that Master-piece of Divinity But this young Feature like an imperfect Embryo was mortified in the Womb by Star-Chamber Vexations A Letter from King Ataxerxes caused Ezra and the Builders with him to cease from working Yet so much of the Stuff as was made ready with his own Pen in Three Volumes if it be not deposited in the Library at Westminster the Author will be wrong'd in his Fame and Posterity in the Profit His invincible Mind was not satisfied with this Task alone But as Pliny spake to Trajan Paneg. p. 57. Inter refectiones existimas mutationem laboris So to pass from one Study to another was not a new Labour but the Bishop's Recreation Therefore he laid out for the Works of his Predecessor Robert Grost head made Scrutiny for them in all Libraries of England and in France where he had Credit and his Friends could furnish him Bishop Grost head living in the Reign of Henry the Third was a good Linguist a famous Philosopher a Divinity reader an assiduous Preacher a painful Writer of Two Hundred Books says Bale wherein the Ambition and Covetousness of the Church of Rome were his chief Subject These being in Manuscript and many obscur'd in blind Corners this Bishop collected digested them had wrote Arguments upon divers parts of them which others have read as well as my self expected daily more and more of the same Author that all that could be got might be printed fairly together And as Symmachus writes Lib. 2. Ep. Quodam modo societatem laudis affectat qui aliena benè gesta primus enuntiat He that is the first that publisheth the worthy Acts of another Man is a Sharer in his Praise But by his Eclipse Bishop Grost head 's Works remain'd in darkness The Success was unfortunate but he that set it on had a publick Soul and a studious Head There is not a better Pattern of a noble and industrious Spirit or of worse proof in the Up-shot Fortunam ex aliis says Aeneas in Virgil. Whose Fault was that 43. Such of whom as a Bishop he had most right to say they were his Work in the Lord 1 Cor. 9.1 were they upon whom he conferr'd Holy Orders by Imposition of Hands Those blessed days did not last long when the Apostles themselves appointed some over the Houshold of Christ to give them their Portion of Meat in due season They could discern by the Gifts of the Spirit who were sit for that high Calling Such as Timothy that was set apart according to the prophesies that went before upon him 1 Tim. 1.18 And Mich. Syncellus follow'd the Tradition that Dionysius was made Bishop of Athens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lookt into by the Eyes of St. Paul who could see him through and through After which tryal by Illumination it was fit that the want of that Spirit should be supplied by the testimony of many and by as much heed and diligence as could reasonably be taken by those that laid their Hands upon them that were vouchsafed to be Stewards of the manifold Graces of Christ Wherein I rejoyce in the truth he that is before us was as strict an examiner of Novices as any of his Order Some that were not admitted by him in his first Ordinations because they were found Light upon the Weight saved him much work afterward Divinity is a deep and a copious Science wherein he that fear'd he could not answer his expectation would not venture upon his repulse For he was so constant and regular that they knew what to trust to before they
no more than what St. Hierom wrote long ago in his Epistle to Nepotian Qui servit ecclesiae interpretetur primò nomen suum We that are received into any Place of Office in God's Church must before all other Lessons be sure to understand aright the Titles of those Offices whereunto we are received And that being once apprehended Niti esse quod dicimur To endeavour with all might and main to be no other than we are said to be We Bishops are said to be Visitatores the Temporary Visitors You the Incumbents of Churches to be Visores the perpetual Seers of Christ's Flock Our Visitation is a frequentative Word Frequentatio autem non est unius actus continuatio sed actus intercisi multiplicata repetitio saith Grosthead once a famous Bishop of this See in one of his Epistles Frequentation doth not import any whole frame or thread as it were of a continued Act but the Repetition and often taking up of a broken and interrupted Act. And therefore in this spiritual Flock of Christ being in their nature individua vaga Cattle of a scattering and wandring Condition there must be some to have an eye upon them continually some to attend from day to day beside those Over-lookers from year to year Or where the Sheep are many and the Pastures of a large extent from three years to three years there must be Visitores saith Grosthead as well as Visitatores continual Seers as well as triennial Overseers And these are you my Brethren of the Clergy as by your Institutions Inductions and Licenses may appear Remember therefore in the Fear of God the Titles of your Offices that you are those Videntes in Israele those continual and immediate Seers of Israel You are those that are to see to the praying to see to the Hearing to see to the reverend and awful Receiving to see to the Manners and Living to see to the Peace and good Agreeing and if you would see the Comfort of any thing you set to see throughly to the catechising of your People 56. Primùm omnium fieri orationes saith St. Paul Above all other Duties of a Christian Man bring your People as much as you can to delight in praying When all is well and throughly weighed you shall find it the only Duty whereby a Christian doth most resemble an Angel on Earth and most ascertain himself of being hereafter a Saint in Heav'n Say what you can and you cannot over-reach or say too much in the Commendations of Faith yet must you confess it is the Gift of the Holy Ghost And behold Christ tells you plainly the Holy Ghost it self is the Gift of Devotion and Praying And when we have read and studied and heard never so much yet tantum scimus quantum oramus as Luther was wont to say we may have more Notions and Ginglings in the Head but we have no more true feeling and pricking Divinity at the Heart than we have Inclination to Devotion and Prayer And of all Prayers none so fit for Devotion as the Prayers of the Liturgy understood by all and known of all and therefore putting the poor People to no straining of the Understanding but to an intuitive Discourse as it were of their Wills and Affections to Almighty God Whereas the long and tedious Prayer of a Preacher especially where it is crude and extemporary sets the Mind of a Country-man on hunting so fast after the unconth Words which are the Body that it loseth all the Mellowness as it were the Ardency and Devotion which is the Spirit and Soul of true Prayer And the Laws do call upon us to call upon you to cause your Parishioners to conn by heart these Prayers of the Liturgy especially the Confession and Collects That when they are assembled in the Church militant a Type and Representation of the Church Triumphant they may not be musing and studying for you do not read that the Saints and Angels do so in Heaven but sympathizing and uniting their best Affections with the Devotion of their Minister Secondly You that are daily Seers of Christ's Flock must see to their Pasture that is their Hearing For it is a fond and novel Conceit to cry up Praying and with the same breath to cry down Preaching That most excellent Form of Prayer How was it taught but in an excellent Sermon Lord teach us to pray teaching is a necessary Fore-runner of Praying It is a kind of new Monster not heard of in former times that Preachers should preach against Preaching And yet I must correct this Assertion I confess it was heard of long ago in the middle Ages in the time of ignorant and stupid Popery Jo. Gerson preaching a Visitation Sermon before the Arch-bishop of Rhemes in the Year 1408. saith that the Clergy of his times bent all their Studies to enable themselves for Ruling and Governing leaving the Mendicants and the Curates only to supply their Preaching But as I told you before this was in the time of the gross and dull not of the refined and quintessential Popery The Dominicans of Spain the Minors of Italy the Oratorions of France and the Jesuites over all the World are more than sufficient Preachers So that this is no Age for us to preach against Preaching I will conclude this Point with a Saying not out of Calvin or Beza who may be thought partial but out of a Prosne or Homily made on purpose to be read before the Clergy and Laity in all Visitations as I find it in a Book of this Subject written by one Jo. Franciscus Pavinus two hundred Years ago Saith he Fides sine operibus vana sine verbis nulla Faith without doing will prove little but without Preaching it will prove nothing at all Thirdly You that are the Seers of God's People must see to their due and awful receiving of the high Mysteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascen calls them those pure and hallowed things of God Especially that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysost terms it that Super-coelestial Food in the Lord's Supper which a Christian ought not once to think of without a sacred kind of Horror and Reverence Here is an Action I confess wherein you can hardly exceed either by expressing in your selves or by exacting from others any Circumstance of Awe and Reverence I know it is safest for a Child of the Church to hold him still to the Canons of the Church But if in any one thing surely in this the Canons are rather to be out-bidden and exceeded than any way neglected or abated The Fear or rather the Experience of the Peoples falling from extremity to extremity in this case from an extremity of Superstition which the six Articles had bred in the Hearts or at leastwise in the outward Gestures of Men to an extremity of Profanation did much trouble the Magistrates in the beginning of the Reformation You may see it clearly in the Letters of the
other in point of Practice In point of Belief I must require your assent without wavering or hesitation and to continue the remembrance of that Article of your Creed the Resurrection to Judgment at the last day And for your Practice I shall desire you for your own great good as well in this as in the Life to come to meditate day and night upon that Sentence of our Saviours Mat. 7.12 All things whatsoever you would that Men should do to you do ye even so to them For the Resurrection to Judgment it was an Article decried by the Heathen from the first hour it came to be preached it was mock'd at in St. Paul's time Risus gentium the Flout of the Nations in Tertullian's time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an universal Laughter in St. Basil's time and the Point of Christianity least brook'd in St. Austin's time And therefore peradventure enjoyned the Bishops to be inculcated thus into the People ever since the Braccaran Council But however you may conceive it perhaps unnecessary at this time or in this Auditory For God be praised you are all good Christians can say your Creed and use to repeat it orderly after your Minister That 's well done Yet must you know further that it is not enough to say this Article with the Priest unless you remember to practise it with all the People This is an Article not penned for the Tongue alone but for the Hands also of a true Christian It is not enough to say it in Confession if you act it not in Life and Conversation Do you therefore continually mind that dismal sound that St. Hierom speaks of Arise you Dead be changed you Living and come to Judgment If you all do so I shall confess my Exhortation needless and shall believe that you believe indeed the Resurrection to Judgment But on the other side if upon every slight Motion and Temptation you surrender up the Members of those Bodies of yours that shall rise to Judgment as Servants to Sin your Tongues for Lying your Hands for Stealing your Brains for Cheating your Hearts for Malicing your Feet for running to shed Blood if you make the Members of Christ the Members of an Harlot if you have all the reason in the World upon the sounding of that Trump to call for the Mountains to fall upon you and the Hills to cover you that you may not come to Judgment I must tell you that shewing your Faith no better by your Works as St. James bids you I may believe that you can rehearse but I cannot believe that you do mind or believe at leastwise while you are in flagranti crimine in the heighth and meridian of your Sins the Resurrection to Judgment It is not enough for you to believe but also with all your might and power to live the Resurrection to Judgment 59. And were you but once past this first you would quickly take out your second Lesson whatsoever you would that Men should do unto you so to do unto them it being impossible for a Christian Soul to do otherwise that were actually and throughly season'd with a practical Belief of the Resurrection to Judgment This Sentence and Rule of Justice and Charity found out of purpose by our Saviour Christ for plain and simple Men that are able to bear away no longer discourse to direct them to live peaceably in this Life and happily in that to come if you can remember and put in use that one Sentence it is enough Do as you would be done unto Why then will some say to me you are come to this Visitation to bring us nothing or almost nothing a short Sentence to make a Posie in a Ring O for all that do not disrespect the Littleness It is Sententia bracteata a Sentence to be written in Plates of Gold And heretofore it hath been written in the Palaces of Kings and Emperors It is a Sentence that procur'd ease with Anton. Pius and respect to the Christians with the Emperor Severus as Historians report Julius Capitolinus indeed makes some question whether that Emperor learn'd this Sentence from the Jews or from the Christians But we make no question at all but he suck'd it with his Milk from his Mother Mammaea the Scholar of that great Origen as Casaubon notes upon that Author I tell you dearly Beloved Do as you would be done unto is a Sentence which once put in practice would make an end of a World of Sentences nay of all the Sentence in this World and peradventure of those we fear in the World to come You are many of you afraid of the Ecclesiastical and many more as you have more reason of the Temporal Courts Your Purses may suffer in the one and your Persons beside your Purses in the other And yet do all the bitter Sentences of either Court issue from this Spring from this only Spring that either the Plaintiff or the Defendant or the Witness or the Advocate or the Proctor or at the furthest the Judge himself hath quite forgotten this little Sentence to do as he would be done unto Yea but is not this University Learning and above the apprehension of a plain Man No St. Chrys says you need not repair to any Man to learn it You have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at home in your own breast It is a Flower that grows in your own Garden It is a Notion or Apprehension planted by the Finger of Nature in your own Bosom As for Example Would you know whether you may not parle droict de bien-seance as the Trench Masters use to say by a certain Point of Law which I may call your better fitting and accommodation make bold with your Neighbours Goods in such a case with his Lands in such a case his Fame in such a case his Wise in such a case or any thing that is his as you will make the case And yet do all these Feats cleanly and handsomely with a colour at the least of some Law or Equity You need not study Ulpian Bartolus or Baldus in this Point You need not turn over the Reports of the Law or the year-Year-books of the Judges Unclasp only the Book in your own Bosom in your own Conscience and mark well what is written therein You have your Demurrer argued there without Judge or Counsellor Do you find it there registred that upon the putting of the like case your self would be content to have your own Goods your own Lands your own Fame your own Wise or any thing that is yours taken from you and withal to make the Matter a little worse and more picquant to have a flourish of Law or Equity cast upon the Case to bereave you of that poor and last Comfort the Pity and Compassion of the Beholders If you find there no such case reported from yourselves moot it not upon any other but listen unto Christ's little Sentence and do as you would be done to Yea but perhaps I would
where it was spread made it difficult to be obey'd One about that time would have replied thus Hold your Hands for all that is ye be Good-fellows for your hour is not yet come The Stream is against you Both they that have read this Letter and they that never heard of it wonder why you are so double-diligent about Accessories more than about the Work it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Aristoph in Acharn and are not pliable for this Alteration He that seeks a thing in the wrong way goes so far backward The sage Prelates that ruled for 80 years before did overlook this matter and they neither wanted Will nor Care to advance Decency with God's Glory If you think that he hath more Power that now sits in chief than the best of his Order before him that 's true Yet let him rein in a galloping Fortune and he will sit the surer Beside he must have more than Power he must have the Hearts of Men that will form them to a new Model this the Metropolitan wants if he had that he might easily command them if he have not he must slatter them or he will do worse And it is well known how he that will bring a People from a Custom in God's Worship with which they have been inured to a Change must be more than wise that is he must be thought to be wise Look you to that Can you say there is any harm in that which you are so busie to correct Then what good can you hope to bring in which is more valuable than Constancy I think Plato was a prudent Moralist from whom this came 7. de Leg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is hazardous to tamper with that which hath continued long to mend it unless it be evil But list Sirs and tell me what Bell it is that rouls in your Ears Do you not hear that Great and Small are not only froward but sull of Threatning against the Grandeur of the Church As yet we have lost nothing all our care should be to keep that which we have else as good Bishop Hall wrote while we plead for a higher strain of Prosperity we bring our selves into a necessity of Ruin Archbishop Abbot said often Parta tueri Play for no more lest you lose your Stake It is an Epitaph for the Grave-stone of a Fool I was well and would be better I took Physick and dyed Can you be insensible of this impendent Ruin Are you so intent upon your Altars that you know not how the Nation bears a grudge at you Are you only Strangers in Jerusalem As Budaeus said of the Troubles that broke in while he lived de Asse l. 4. p. 110. France wanted Eyes and Ears and which is strange it wanted a Nose Qui tantam cladem odorari ante non potuimus quà m ab eâ oppressi You do not smell the Vultures but while you are chopping and changing the Vultures smell after you to prey upon the Carcass of your Patrimony You cannot say that there is any thing in it of Conscience to God why you should not forbear to provoke the Discontents of the Kingdom any further Lege fidei manente coetera jam disciplinae conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis Tertul. de Vel. Virg. c. 1. Keep the Old Faith God is the Judge of that Order and Discipline may vary according to the liking of the Times Discretion is the Judge of that In a word we do not see but the Swarms of God's Servants work well in all Parishes if you will let them alone if you remove their Hives or stir them take heed they do not sting you It may be a Coal-kindler would think such Counsel as this not worth the hearing Fore-cast and Fear with him are phlegmatick things the Piety of the Times and a rigid prosecution of a comely Uniformity must not stoop unto them Then do I say no more but that I do not altogether dislike what a wise man hath taught me That warm Devotion quiet and innocent is less hurtful than ardent Zeal which is turbulent and misdirected 101. So much advisedly thought of might have conduced not to meddle in that Cause at this time but this Bishop and his Estimation was shot at and he must be tempted what he would do by a Provocation in Print They were none of the Bishop's worst Friends that wish'd him when he read the Coal to look no more after it It is a small thing but a pretty which Camerarius tells of Melancthon p. 79. His Daughter had gadded from home till it was late What will you say to your Mother if she chide you says he Nothing says the Girl 'T is well resolved says her Father The Bishop had more reason to take that course because the Rulers of the time frowned on him and he that Answers a Calumny keeps it alive he that will not starves it A Reproach is warm when it is fresh but no longer As Astronomers say of the Dog-star Cunicula calore oritur frigore occidit It riseth in a hot Month it sets in a cold 'T is much he did not listen to this and if it were but for another reason that he thought Learning did surfeit of too many Books and that the most of our late Authors were more troublesome than profitable To which Sir H. Wootton's Motto comes near That the Itch of Writing makes a Scabby Church And what else made so great a Wit as Fryar Paul profess it is in his Life That he would never write any thing with intention to print it unless Necessity constrain'd him It may be the Bishop fancied somewhat like Necessity in this case or it was because every one hath not both the Qualities of the brave General Decebalus in Dion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He knew how to charge on and how to retreat upon occasion Therefore he publish'd a little Tractate called The Holy Table under the name of a Lincolnshire Minister The Analyse of it may be spared since it is in many hands it insists chiefly upon two Heads the Name Altar and the Posture of Christ's Table Altar-wise a mean Subject for the Pen of so good a Scholar but Art is confin'd to small things sometimes as well as Nature And Pliny teacheth us lib. 29. c. 1. Non puduit naturam gignere muscam cum gignat hominem Nature is not ashamed to be the Parent of a Fly as well as to be the Parent of a Man That the name of Altar might pass with more allowance the Vicar of Grantham declared that he would set up a Fabrick of Stone to support the Elements of the Holy Sacrament Quite cross to the Advertisements 17 of Q. Eliz. That the Parish provide a decent Table standing on a frame for the Communion and cross to the Canons Anno 1571. Title Church-wardens They shall see there be a joined handsom Table which may serve for the administration of the Holy Communion in the Latin Curabunt mensam
had even his Books were seized and he deprived of his Library He could not fight without his Arms or how could the Bell ring out when they had stoln away the Clapper Baronius pitties Photius whom he could not abide for sustaining that hard usage an 871. p. 14. and brings him in complaining to his unkind Lord Basilius of whom he had deserved better Libris privati sumus novâ in nos excogitatâ poenâ librorum amissio non est poena in corpus sed in animam But hear himself speak Epist 97. of Bishop Montague's Edition that Constantine had censur'd some Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet he spoiled them not of their Goods nor deprived them of their Books But the Bishop of Lincoln found not that mercy because he might be indefensible and bear the Reproaches that fell thick upon him Even sorry Clerks came into the Lists when they knew they should not meet the Champion Children talk most when they can speak least sence Among these was a Doctor like Theophrastus's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ardelio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that will be a Guide to Travellers when he knew not a foot of the way He thrust out his Altare Christianum to revile his Master and his Patron for the Bishop in his great Office had protected him against a Justice of Peace who had served this Doctor with a Warrant for some Misdemeanors the then L. Keeper put the Justice out of Commission for it and made this Doctor a Justice in his place took him to be his Chaplain kept him often by some months together in his House bestowed on him a Prebend in Lincoln Church commended him to the L. Chamberlain to swear him the King's Chaplain in ordinary and prevailed Indeed the Dr. lost some favour with the Bishop at last because he was a Tell-tale and made needless Complaints against his Brethren In those black days when the Bishop was over-clouded this man strikes at him with all the force of his no-great Learning Want makes men busie and industrious the man wanted Preferment for he would not have been so fierce if he had been full The Puritans might sit still and look on when the King 's Chaplains were allowed and preferred for their forwardness to do disgrace against a Bishop There was a time when those factious Romans were most extolled that cried down their honourable Patricians Quae res Marii potentiam peperit reip ruinam Match Resp lib. 1. c. 5. Now if these two Doctors think they got the Garland because no Answer was made to their Books let them wear it if they desired work to write more and to get Mony by the Press like the diurnal Scribler they were disappointed And well did Camerarius content himself not to defend Melancthon against the Flaccians because it was in vain to meddle with them they had no Forehead to be ashamed if they were convicted Et ad unum probrum statim erant quae adjicerentur decem So far if not too far upon the Bishop's Letter and his Book The Holy Table to set some Ceremonies in order in the Church of Grantham and I will listen to Sidonius lib. 8. c. 1. Post mortem non opuscula sed opeea pensanda We are to consider after a good man's Death his Works of Bounty and Mercy rather than his Books of Controversie 107. It was not Art but Power it was not a Book but a Bill that crush'd our stout Prelate All other Billows even to the Rage of his Enemies lifted him up but this sunk him Now I must bring his Boat to the Tower-wharf the worst landing-place in all the River 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Court and Court-luck for Company from that day forward farewel he never more lookt for good from you Here 's as much occasion to open a wide Gate to let in Complaint and Sorrow as any case will afford upon the oppression and downfal of the most compleat Bishop that the Age afforded take him in the latitude of all his Abilities Yet Thankfulness was not sensible of the Good-turns he had done nor Honour of his Affronts nor Justice of his Wrongs nor Wrath of his Sufferings nor Charity of his Undoing If the Prosecution against him were fair and the Sentence righteous let him not be pitied nor the Blot wiped out from his Memory Se quisque ut vivit effert As he lived so let him hear well or ill being dead But he was so secure so ready to represent his Cause to the Judgment of the whole Kingdom that against a Parliament was call'd in April 1640. he drew up the whole matter of his Suits and Troubles in twenty sheets of Paper to offer it to that Honourable House for their severest Review And if his Remonstrance were a Clamour and not a just Complaint he invited his Judges to lay a new and a severer Censure upon him And it is fit that every Complainant should be devoved to that Court of Justice wherein he begins a Quarrel to suffer as much Penalty if he make not good his Bill as he would have those to undergo whom he challenged for his pretended Injuries Which was Roman Law in Symmachus's days Ep. p. 67. Provisum est ne quis temerè in alieni capitis crimen irrueret nisi se idem priùs poenae sponsione vinciret But it came not to that dint for this Parliament was bespoken four months before and was dissolved when it had met but three weeks A Duck could not hatch an Egg if she had sate no longer The opportunity therefore was prevented for the Plaintiff to make use of his Papers which were prepared for this Parliament Fortune had mock'd him if he had tryed her Courtesie at that time who is a true Handmaid to no Mistriss but Good-occasion Yet this Memorial of his Case which came not to their Hands but to mine so large so exact so fairly copied without expunction of a word without interlining or the least correction in the Margin is fortunately kept till now when so many noble Registries have been torn and embezzled in these consuming times to content both itching Curiosities and staid Judgments that would know the Truth out of which I will glean up faithfully a few handfuls and no more for these reasons First For the length it may pass for a Book and I affect not to make this Book swell with the incorporation of another Secondly The Press at London by hook or crook lights upon every man's Papers and doth license it self to publish them the more shame for them that are in power and do not mend it And to save me the pains Lincoln's Star-chamber-Trial will come ere long into the Fingers of some sharking Broker of Stationers-hall and be entred in there for his own Chattel as well as the Author's Prayers and Meditations made Anno 1621. for the use of L. M. B. which I glanced at in their due place which a bold fellow hath filed up in his
same Building Where should we look for kindness but in the Rulers of the Church the noblest part of Christ's Family And kindness is nobleness says St. Chrysostom and mercy is a generous thing The Beraeans were more noble than the Thessalonians Acts 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he It doth not signifie nobleness of blood but gentleness of pity Now for the Book the Stone of Scandal at which his Grace stumbled so much it was known unto him that some things got into practice in the Church under his Government and by his Authority were disrelisht by a considerable part in his Province and they of the best conformity whose averseness he thought would be the stiffer by the contents of that Book His remedy was to bring the Author into question and to crush all that sided with him in his Person as the State Maxim goes Compendium est victoriae devincendorum hostium duces sustulisse Paneg. to Constantine p. 339. But which way shall the Book be brought into Disgrace with bad Interpretations It will do no good Forced Earth in time will fall to its own level First then besides some Answers publisht to decry it he incensed his Majesty with a relation of it in whose Ecclesiastical Rights it was mainly written for what he had collected and offered in a Paper to his Majesty Lincoln got a sight of it by the Duke of Lennox and proved that all the Matters of Fact set down against him were false and not to be found in the Book but that it strongly maintain'd the contrary Positions which when his Majesty saw he seem'd to take it ill from the Informer So these flitting Clouds were blown over before they could pour down the Storm they were big with His Grace sent the Book to the Attorney Generâ— to thrust it into an Information who return'd it back that it would not bear it Here again was Tencer's luck in Homer Il. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He had a good will to hit Hector with an Arrow but he mist him Then in his Speech made against Burton Prin and Bastwick which he printed with a Dedication to the King he fell upon this Book reading out of his Notes that he that gave allowance to thrust it at that time into the Press did countenance thosethâ—ee Libellers and did as much as in him lay to fire the Church and State Now under colour to Censure others to fall upon a man that was neither Plaintiff Defendant nor Witness in their Cause would amount to a Libel in anothers mouth against whom Justice had been open But as Demosthenes says against Aristogiton 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sword is useless if it have not an edg to cut so this bitter flam was but a leaden Dagger and did not wound What remained next but take him Bull-begger fetch him into the High-Commission Court where his Grace was President Judge and might be Advocate Proctor Promotor or what he would And he was so hot upon it that three Letters were written by Secretary Windebank in his Majesties Name to hasten the Cause Whereas honest and learned Dr. Rive the King's Advocate knew not where to act his part upon it Lincoln is now in his Coup in the Tower whither four Bishops and three Doctors of the Civil Laws came to take his Answer to a Book of Articles of four and twenty sheets of Paper on both sides The Defendant refuseth to take an Oath on the Bible claiming the Priviledge of a Peer but his Exception was not admitted He stood upon it that himself was a Commissioner that they had no power over him more than he had over them which did not suffice him Then they come to the Articles whose Proem in usual form was That he must acknowledge and submit to the power of that high Court which he did grant no otherwise than in such things and over such persons as were specified in their Commission The second Article contain'd That all Books licensed by his Grace's Chaplains are presumed to be Orthodox and agreeable to sound and true Religion which he denied and wondred at the Impudency that had put such an Article upon him The third That he had licensed a Book when none but the Archbishops and Bishop of London had such power Nay says Lincoln my self and all Bishops as learned as they have as much power as they not only by the Council of Lateran under Leo the Tenth and the Reformatio Cleri under Cardinal Pool but by Queen Elizabeth ' s Injunctions and a Decree in Star-Chamber The fourth That he named a Book called A Coal from the Altar a Pamphlet The fifth That he said all Flesh in England had corrupted their ways The sixth That in a jear he said he had heard of a Mother Church but never of a Mother Chappel The seventh That again in a scoff he derived the word Chappel from St. Martin 's Hood The eighth That he said the people were not to be lasht by every mans whip The ninth That he maintain'd the people were God's people and the King's people but not the Priest's People The tenth That be flouted at the prety of the Times and the good work in hand The rest of the Cluster were like these and these as sharp as any of the seven and twenty Articles and one and thirty Additionals This was the untemper'd Mortar that crumbled away or as the Vulgar Latin reads it Ezech. 13.10 Liniebant parietem luto absque paleis So here was dirt enough but not so much as a little straw or chaff to make it stick together But such as they were the Bishop had the favour to read them all over once before he was examined a favour indeed not shew'n to every body After the Examination past over he required a Copy of it which the three Civilians voted to be granted but his Grace and Sir J. Lamb would first have him re-examined again upon the same Interrogatories to try the steadiness of his memory and to catch him in a Snare if he did vary An Error that may easily be slipt into by the tediousness of the Matter and the intricate Forms of the Clerk's Pen wherein an aged or illiterate man will scarce avoid the danger of Perjury But the Bishop being of a prodigious memory had every word by heart which he had deposed before against two subsequent Examinations which laid this Cause asleep till God shall awaken it and hear it on both sides at the last day 124. No worse could be lookt for than that their frivolous Articles should go out as they did in a Cracker And less was expected from that which followed whose steam when it came abroad was laught at in good Company but it cost the unfortunate Bishop some thousands in good earnest for Cyphers for Riddles for Quibbles for Nothing It made a third Information in Star-Chamber for like Herulus in Virgil Aen. 8. Ter letho sternendus erat The driver on and the dealer in it was the
to Practice and Use in our own Country Why it was in use in this Island before the Romans entred the same when the Druids gave all the Sentences in Causes of Blood Si coedes facâ—e pâ—as constituunt Caesar Bel. Gai. li. 6. And see Mr. Selden's Epinomis c. 2. Nor is it like that the Romans when they were our Masters should forbid it in Priests whose Pontifical College after they had entertain'd the twelve Tables meddled in all matters of this kind Strabo Geogr. lib. 4. And it is as unlike that the Christian Religion excluded Bishops in this Island from Secular Judicatures since King Lucius is directed to take out his Laws for the regulating of his Kingdom by the Advice of his Council ex utráque pagina the Old and New Testament which could not be done in that Age without the help of his Bishops See Sir H. Spelman's Councils p. 34. Ann. Dom. 185. And how the great Prelates among the ancient Britains were wholly employ'd in these kind of secular agitations you may see in the Ecclesiastical Laws of Howel Dha set forth by Sir H. Spelman pag. 408. anno 940. And a little before this Howel Dha lived K. Aetheljtan in the second Chapter of whose Ecclesiastical Laws we have it peremptorily set down Hinc debent Episcopi cum Saeculi Judicibus interesse judiciis and particularly in all Judgments of the Ordeals which no man that understands the word can make any doubt to have been extended to Mutilation and Death Sir H. S. Counc p. 405. ann 928. And that the Bishops joyned alwaies with the secular Lords in all Judicatory Laws and Acts under the whole reign of the Saxons and Danes in this Island we may see by those Saxon-Danish Laws or rather Capitularies which among the French and Germans do signifie a mixture of Laws made by the Prince the Bishops and the Barons to rule both Church and Common-wealth set forth by Mr. Lambert anno 1568. See particularly the ninth Chapter of St. Edward's Laws De his qui ad judicium sorri vel aquae judicati sunt fol. 128. And thus it continued in this Kingdom long after the Conquest to wit in Henry Beu-clerk's time after whose Reign it began to be a little limited and restrained for at Clarendon anno 1164 8 Calend. Febr. 11 Henr. 21 a general Record is agreed upon by that King 's Special Command of all the Customs and Liberties of this Kingdom ever since Hen. the First the King's Grandfather as you may see in Matth. Paris p. 96 of the first Edition where among other Customs agreed upon this is one Archbishops and Bishops and all other persons of this Kingdom which hold of the King in capite are to enjoy their Possessions of the King as a Barony and by reason thereof are to answer before the Judges and Officers of the King and to observe and perform all the King's Customs And just as the rest of the Barons ought for it was a Duty required of them as the King now by his Summons doth from us to be present in the Judgments of the King's Courts together with the rest of the Barons until such time as they shall there proceed to the mangling of Members or Sentence of Death 147. Observe that there is a diversity of reading in the last words for Matth. Paris a young Monk that lived long after reads this Custom thus Quousque perveniatur ad diminutionem membrorum vel ad mortem Which may be wrested to the first agitation of any Charge tending that way but Quadrilogus a Book written in that very Age and the original Copy of the Articles of Clarendon which Becket sent to Rome extant at this day in the Vatican Library and out of which Baronius in his Annals anno 1164 transcribes it reads the Custom thus Usque perveniatur in judicio ad diminutionem membrorum c. which leaves the Bishops to sit there until the Judgment come to be pronounced amounting to Death or Mutilation of Members And as this was agreed to be the Custom so was it the Practice also after that 11th year to wit in the 15th year of Henry the Second at what time the Lay-Peers are so far from requiring the Bishops to withdraw that they endeavour to force them alone to hear and determine a matter of Treason in the person of Becket Stephanides is my Author for this who was a Chaplain and Follower of that Archbishop The Barons say saith that Author You Bishops ought to pronounce Sentence upon your selves we are Laicks you are Church-men as Becket is you are his fellow-Priests and fellow-Bishops To whom some one of the Bishops replied This belongs to you my Lords rather than to us for this is no ecclesiastical but a secular Judicature We sit not here as Bishops but as Barons Nos Barones vos Barones hic Pares sumus And in vain it is that you should labour to find any difference at all in our Order or Calling See this Manuscript cited by Mr. Selden Titles of Honour 2 Edit p. 705. And thus the Custom continued till the 21st year of the same King Henry II. at what time that Provincial Synod was kept at Westminster by the Archbishop of Canterbury and some few of his Suffragans which Roger Hoveden mentions in his History p. 543. And it seems Gervasius Dorobernensis which is a Manuscript I have not seen The quoting of this Monk in the Margin of that Collection of Privileges which Mr. Selden by command had made for the Upper House of Parliament is the only ground of stirring up this Question against the Bishops at this present intended by Mr. Selden for a Privilege to the Bishops not for a Privilege to the Lay Peers to be pressed against the Bishops The Canon runs thus It is not lawful for such as are constituted in Holy Orders Judicium sanguinis agitare to put in execution Judgment of Blood and therefore we forbid that they shall either in their own persons execute any such mutilation of Members or sentence them to be so acted by others And if any such person shall do any such thing he shall be deprived of the Office and Place of his Order and Function We do likewise sorbid under the peril of Excommunication that no Priest be a secular Sheriff or Provost Now this is no Canon made in England much less confirmed by Common Law or assented to by all the Bishops of the Province of Canterbury or by any one of the Province of York but transcribed as appears by Hovenden's Margin out of a Council of Toledo which in the time that Council is supposed to be held was the least Kingdom in Spain and not so big as York-shire and consequently improper to regulate all the World and especially this remote Kingdom of England Beside as this poor Monk sets it down it doth inhibit Church-men from being Hang-men rather than from being Judges to condemn men to be thus mutilated and mangled in their
refuse to concurr with the Parliament nay if he took more time to deliberate upon it it would be worse for the Earl and he would come to a more unhappy Death for an Hellish Contrivance was resolved upon just as in St. Paul's case Acts 23.15 the Zealots that had vowed Paul's death laid the Plot with the Priests and Elders to signisie to the Captain to bring him down to enquire somewhat more perfectly concerning him and ere ever he came near they would fall upon him The condemn'd Earl when he heard of this was no longer fond of Lise but sent word to the King that he was well prepared for his End and would not his gracious Majest y should disquiet himself to save a ruin'd Vessel that must sink A valiant Message and sit for so great a Spirit Loginus notes acutely that when Ajax was to combat with Hector he begg'd some things of such Gods as he call'd upon but to escape with life was not in his Prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was beneath a Graecian Heroe to desire Life It being therefore to no purpose to dispute what was the best Remedy to save this Lord when there was none at all the House of Lords nominate four Prelates to go to His Majesty to propound how the Tenderness of his Conscience might safely wade through this insuperable dissiculty these were L. Primate Usher with the Bishops Morton Williams Potter There was none of those four but would have gone through Fire and Water as we say to save the Party which being now a thing beyond Wit and Power they state the Question thus to the King sure I am of the Truth because I had it from the three former Whether as His Majesty refers his own Judgment to his Judges in whose Person they act in Court of Oyer Kings-bench Assize and in Cause of Life and Death and it lies on them if an innocent man suffer so why may not His Majesty satisfie his Conscience in the present matter that since competent Judges in Law had awarded that they found Guilt of Treason in the Earl that he may susser that Judgment to stand though in his private mind he was not satisfied that the Lord Strafford was criminous for that juggling and corrupt dealing which he suspected in the Proofs at the Tryal and let the Blame lye upon them who sate upon the Tribunal of Life and Death The four Bishops were all for the ashrmative and the Earl took it so little in ill part that Reverend Armagh pray'd with him preach'd to him gave him his last Viaticum and was with him on the Scassoid as a Ghostly Father till his Head was severed from his Body 154. Indeed His Majesty in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth seem to represent it as if he did not approve what he received from the four Bishops at that Consultation And I will leave such good men to his Censure rather than contradict any thing in that most pious most ravishing Book which deserves as much as Tully said of Crassus in his Brutus Ipsum melius potuisse scribere alium ut arbitror neminem Perhaps the King could have wrote better but I think no man else in the three Kingdoms What a venomous Spirit is in that Serpent Milton that black-mouth'd Zoilus that blows his Vipers Breath upon those immortal Devotions from the beginning to the end This is he that wrote with all Irreverence against the Fathers of our Church and shew'd as little Duty to his Father that begat him The same that wrote for the Pharisees That it was lawful for a man to put away his Wife for every cause and against Christ for not allowing Divorces The same O horrid that desended the lawfulness of the greatest Crime that ever was committed to put our thrice-excellent King to death A petty School-boy Scribler that durst graple in such a Cause with the Prince of the learned men of his Age Salmasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius says of Ammonius Plutarch's Scholar in Aegypt the Delight the Musick of all Knowledge who would have scorn'd to drop a Pen-full of Ink against so base an Adversary but to maintain the Honour of so good a King whose Merit he adorns with this Praise p. 237. Con. Milt De quo si quis dixerit omnia bona vix pro suis meritis satis illum ornaret Get thee behind me Milton thou savourest not the things that be of Truth and Loyalty but of Pride Bitterness and Falshood There will be a time though such a Shimei a dead Dog in Abishai's Phrase escape for a while yet he and the Enemies of my Lord the King will fall into the Hands of the Avenger of Blood And that Book the Picture of King Charles's innocent Soul which he hath blemish'd with vile Reproaches will be the Vade Mecum of godly persons and be always about them like a Guardian Angel It is no marvel if this Canker-worm Milton is more lavish in his Writings than any man to justifie the beheading of Strafford whom good men pray'd for alive and pitied him dead So did the four Bishops that I may digress no longer who pour'd the best Oyl they could into the King's Conscience to give him Peace within himself when the main Cause was desperate and common Fury would compel him in the end to sacrifice this Earl to the Parliament Things will give better Counsel to men than men to things But a Collector of Notes W. Sa. hath a sling at the Bishop of Lincoln his quill hits him but hurts him no more than if it were a Shuttle-cock with four Feathers Forsooth when those four Bishops were parting from the King he put a Paper into His Majesty's Hand and that could be nothing else but an Inflammatory of Reasons more than were heard in publick left the King should cool and not set his Hand to the fatal Warrant This Author was once in the right p. 154. of his own Book That it becomes an Historian in dubious Relations to admit the most Christian and Charitable Pessumè it is optimè herclè dicitis Plaut in Pen. But this Case needs no Favour The Paper which that Bishop put into the King's Hands as he told me the next morning was an humble Advice to His Majesty why he should not give the Parliament an indesinite time to sit till both Houses consented to their own dissolution Was not this faithful Counsel For what could the King see in them who had been so outragious already to stand out the trial of their wavering Faith Trust should make men true Says Livy lib. 22. Vult sibi quisque credi habita fides ipsam plerumque fidem obligat But a number of these men cared not for moral Principles they were all for the Scriptures and they read them by new Lights The King had too much Faith and they had no Good Works What magnanimous Prince would bow so low to give the Keys of Government to so many Male-contents
the elder would never punish a Slave till the Slaves of the Family who did wear the same Chain did cast him by their Verdict Now the case is alter'd at Westminster-Hall a Prisoner is tryed at the Bar neither by the Law for Reason nor by Jury upon Matter of Fact but by the Conscience of some that are commissioned to judge upon Law Reason Right and Fact Suppose that the Conscience of Sultan Cromwel and his Visier Bashaw alias Bradshaw sit among them that Court must prove a Rock against which an Innocent cannot chuse but split and these high Justitiaries Gentlemen of the first Edition Quid facturi sunt illi si consules si Dictatores fuissent qui proconsulorem imaginem tam trucem saevamque fecissent Liv. Dec. 1. lib. 5. They that raised such Storms among us being Vapours in the lower Air would have lightned and thunder'd if they had been Exhalations in the middle Region but that the Authors of the forenamed Miseries and Depressions durst say that they took up Arms against the King for Liberty take out the Tables and write down Villany 188. Our Observation must not launch now into the Whirl-pool or rather plounce into the Mudd and Quagmire of the Peoples Power and Right pretended That the Soveraignty is theirs and originally in them That they of meer Choice and Election cast themselves into such and such forms of Government at first and may dissolve them by Force and Constraint when they will and do no man Injury for they recall their own which they did but lend during pleasure upon a natural Paction Some things discovered before were very ill which did disorder us to Rebellion saying that this Invention doth disembogue it self into the roughest and blackest Sea of Treason Like to Verres's stripping the Sicilians his last Oppression was a more grievous Pillage than all the former Secum ipse certat id agit ut semper superius suum sacinus novo scelere vincat Act. 7. The Axiom which hath gone from hand to hand in some dangerous Books is Rex singulis major est Universis minor Grotius said so but it was Grotius the Advocate of Rotterdam a Minister to a popular State and Barnevale's Creature but Grotius the Ambassador to the French King from the Swedish Crown would be asham'd of such Politicks So says as spightful an Author to the Honour and Safety of Princes as ever writ Stephanus Junius Brutus that 's the Title of his disguise whom learned K. James suspected to be a Papist dissembling the person of an Hugonote to make them all odious But we are beholden to Gisb. Vootius who hath pull'd off his Mask Tom. 2. Disp p. 852. he says that Tronchinus making an Oration in Geneva at the Funerals of Simon Goulartius made it known to his Auditors that Simon Goulartius had assured him that Hubertus Languettus a Gentleman of Burgundy and of good same till this Mischief came to light did hatch the Monster and send it forth To spare the rest all but one the same is the Doctrine of Parsons the Jesuite in his Dolman who follows it all the way That Civil Government is radically in the People that they may set up and pull down their Rulers for the publick good as they will Let the Index of Expurgation look to it whether the Temporal Soveraignty of the Pope come not under the Whip of this Doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The People of Romania Bononia Ancona Ferrara will be very insolent if you buz such a Bee into their Brain every light Offence taken will make them threaten But whence do these People-pleasers draw this Maxim That a King is greater than every Subject apart but less than their Body taken altogether Not from Scripture for the Kings of Israel and Judah in that Book were above all the Tribes in their Aggregation Hiram writes to Solomon Blessed be the Lord who hath given to David a wise Son over this great people 1 Kin. 5.7 Hear the Queen of Sheba likewise That Solomon was Minister Dei non populi God delighted in thee to set thee in his Throne to be a King for the Lord thy God and made thee over them to do judgment and justice to all 1 Chron. 9.8 Shall I leave my fatness says the Olive in the Parable to be promoted over the Trees That is over every Tree in the Forrest But these Dogmatists dare not recourse to Scripture they must be traced in prudential ways Proteus the man of all shapes says Synesius Ep. 136. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 acted always among Men not in Heavenly but in Earthly Wisdom Let it be Reason and not Fallacy wise men will be ready to hear it One Argument of the Adversaries is That once upon a time they know not when Men were gathered out of Desarts and Savageness into a body to live sociably and it was their Courtesie then to set up such a King as did please them He is but the Peoples Creature therefore in his first making and always at their mercy This is a Tale put together of a thing out of the Memory of all Writers which were it true as it is unlikely it will come to nothing If the People did part with their Right to a King to be governed and defended in Wealth and Peace their Act is irrevocable the Bond indissoluble Though Democritus thought his Atoms might concurr to make a World yet the World being made those Atoms could not fall asunder again to dissolve the World Conceive we were in Polonia at this day the Eligents who make the King by their Vote are tyed fast by their Oaths and Faith to their own Act. Nor do they give the King his Power but design his Person because Election is not an Act of Power but of Privilege That a Monarch is not greater than the Universe of his People whether it look like somewhat to the weakness of Sence I know not but it is nothing to Reason for Comparisons are to be made between things of the same kind Mark then A part of the Body is less than the whole Body in magnitude but the Soul though one part of Man and no more is greater in Virtue than all the Body The intellectual Faculty is but one Faculty yet greater in Dignity and Regency than all the Faculties of the Soul beside The Sorbonists adhering to the Council of Constance tell us That a Pope is less than a whole general Council they give him Honour and Place before any single Prelate Metropolitan or Patriarch by Ecclesiastical Constitution yet he is inferiour to an Oecumenial Synod in totâ because he comprehends not in his Office the Vertue of the Catholick Church for that 's an Usurpation But the Vertual Power of the Kingdom is in the King which discovers the odds of the Comparison Our Politico's also object that the People were before the King Not before him if Soveraignity grew first out of Paternal Right