Selected quad for the lemma: king_n
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A26855
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Additional notes on the life and death of Sir Matthew Hale, the late universally honoured and loved Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench written by Richard Baxter at the request of Edward Stephens, Esq. ...
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing B1180; ESTC R1267
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16,221
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62
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ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE Life and Death OF Sir MATTHEW HALE THE LATE Universally Honoured and Loved LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE KINGS BENCH Written by Richard Baxter at the request of Edward Stephens Esq the Publisher of his Contemplations and his familiar Friend And Published by the urgency of others LONDON Printed for Richard Janeway in Queens-head Alley in Pater-noster-Row 1682. NOte that this Narrative was written two years before Dr. Burnet's and it 's not to be doubted but that he had better information of his Manuscripts and some other circumstances than I. But of those Manuscripts directed to me about the souls Immortality of which I have the Originals under his Hand and also of his thoughts of the Subjects mentioned by me from 1671. till he went to die in Gloucestershire I had the fullest notice READER SInce the History of Judg Hale's Life is published written by Dr. Burnet very well some men have thought that because my familiarity with him was known and the last time of a mans Life is supposed to contain his maturest judgment time study and experience correcting former oversights and this great man who was most diligently and thirstily learning to the last was like to be still wiser the notice that I had of him in the later years of his Life should not be omitted I was never acquainted with him till 1667. and therefore have nothing to say of the former part of his Life nor of the later as to any publick affairs but only of what our familiar converse acquainted me But the visible effects made me wonder at the industry and unwearied labours of his former Life Besides the Four Volumes against Atheism and Infidelity in Folio which I after mention when I was desired to borrow a Manuscript of his Law-Collections he shewed me as I remember about Two and Thirty Folio's and told me he had no other on that Subject Collections out of the Tower-Records c. and that the Amanuensis work that wrote them cost him a Thousand pound He was so set on study that he resolvedly avoided all necessary diversions and so little valued either grandure wealth or any worldly vanity that he avoided them to that notable degree which incompetent judges took to be an excess His Habit was so course and plain that I who am thought guilty of a culpable neglect therein have been bold to desire him to lay by some things which seemed too homely The House which I surrendred to him and wherein he lived at Acton was indeed well scituate but very small and so far below the ordinary dwellings of men of his rank as that divers Farmers thereabout had better but it pleased him Many censur'd him for choosing his last Wife below his Quality but the good man more regarded his own daily comfort than mens thoughts and talk As far as I could discern he chose one very suitable to his ends one of his own judgment and temper prudent and loving and fit to please him and that would not draw on him the trouble of much Acquaintance and Relations His house-keeping was according to the rest like his Estate and Mind but not like his Place and Honour for he resolved never to grasp at Riches nor take great fees but would refuse what many others thought too little I wondered when he told me how small his Estate was after such ways of getting as were before him But as he had little and desired little so he was content with little and suited his Dwelling Table and Retinue thereto He greatly shunned the visits of many or great persons that came not to him on necessary business because all his hours were precious to him and therefore he contrived the avoiding of them and the free enjoyment of his beloved privacy I must with a glad remembrance acknowledg that while we were so unsuitable in places and worth yet some suitableness of judgment and disposition made our frequent converse pleasing to us both The last time save one that I was at his house he made me lodg there and in the morning inviting me to more freqnent visits said No man shall be more welcome And he was no dissembler To signifie his love he put my name as a Legatee in his Will bequeathing me Fourty shillings Mr. Stephens gave me two Manuscripts as appointed by him for me declaring his judgment of our Church-contentions and their cure after mentioned Though they are imperfect as written on the same question at several times I had a great mind to Print them to try whether the common reverence of the Author would cool any of our contentious Clergy but hearing that there was a restraint in his Will I took out part of a Copy in which I find these words I do expresly declare That I will have nothing of my own Writings Printed after my Death but only such as I shall in my Life-time deliver out to be Printed And not having received this in his Life-time nor to be Printed in express terms I am afraid of crossing the Will of the Dead though he ordered them for me It shewed his mean Estate as to Riches that in his Will he is put to distribute the profits of a Book or two when Printed among his Friends and Servants Alas we that are great losers by Printing know that it must be a small gain that must thus accrue to them Doubtless if the Lord Chief Justice Hale had gathered money as other Lawyers do that had less advantage as he wanted not will so he would not have wanted power to have left them far greater Legacies But the Servants of a self-denying mortified Master must be content to suffer by his Vertues which yet if they imitate him will turn to their final gain God made him a Publick Good which is more than to get Riches His great judgment and known integrity commanded respect from those that knew him so that I verily think that no one Subject since the days that History hath notified the affairs of England to us went off the stage with greater and more Universal Love and Honour And what Honour without Love is I understand not I remember when his Successor the Lord Chief Justice Rainsford falling into some melancholy came and sent to me for some advice he did it as he said because Judg Hale desired him so to do and expressed so great respect to his judgment and Writings as I perceived much prevailed with him And many have profited by his contemplations who would never have read them had they been written by such a one as I. Yet among all his books and discourses I never knew of these until he was dead His resolution for Justice was so great that I am persuaded that no wealth nor honour would have hired him knowingly to do one unjust Act. And though he left us in sorrow I cannot but acknowledg it a great mercy to him to be taken away when he was Alas what would the good man have done if he
had been put by Plotters and Traitors and Swearers and Forswearers upon all that his Successors have been put to In likelihood even all his great wisdom and sincerity could never have got him through such a wilderness of thorns and briars and wild beasts without tearing in pieces his entire Reputation if he had never so well secured his conscience O! how seasonably did he avoid the tempest and go to Christ And so have so many excellent persons since then and especially within the space of one year as may well make England tremble at the Prognostick that the righteous are taken as from the evil to come And alas what an evil is it like to be We feel our loss We fear the common danger But what Believer can chuse but acknowledg Gods mercy to them in taking them up to the world of Light Love Peace and Order when confusion is coming upon this world by Darkness Malignity Perfidiousness and cruelty Some think that the last conflagration shall turn this Earth into Hell If so who would not first be taken from it And when it is so like to Hell already who would not rather be in Heaven Though some mistook this man for a meer Philosopher or Humanist that knew him not within yet his most serious description of the sufferings of Christ and his copious Volumes to prove the truth of the Scripture Christianity our Immortality and the Deity do prove so much reality in his Faith and Devotion as makes us past doubt of the reality of his reward and glory When he found his belly swell his breath and strength much abate and his face and flesh decay he chearfully received the sentence of Death And though Dr. Glisson by meer Oximel squilliticum seemed a while to ease him yet that also soon failed him and he told me he was prepared and contented comfortably to receive his change And accordingly he left us and went unto his native Country of Gloucestershire to die as the history tells you Mr. Edward Stephens being most familiar with him told me his purpose to write his Life and desired me to draw up the meer Narrative of my short familiarity with him which I did as followeth but hearing no more of him cast it by But others desiring it upon the sight of the published History of his Life by Dr. Burnet I have left it to the discretion of some of them to do with it what they will And being half dead already in those dearest friends who were half my self am much the more willing to leave this mole-hill and prison of earth to be with that wise and blessed Society who being united to their Head in glory do not envy hate or persecute each other nor forsake God nor shall ever be forsaken by Him R. B. Additional Notes on the Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale To my worthy Friend Mr. Stephens the Publisher of Judg Hale's Contemplations SIR YOU desired me to give you notice of what I knew in my personal converse of the Great Lord Chief Justice of England Sir Matthew Hale You have partly made any thing of mine unmeet or the sight of any but your self and his private friends to whom it is useless by your divulging those words of his extraordinary favour to me which will make it thought that I am partial in his praises And indeed that excessive esteem of his which you have told men of is a divulging of his imperfection who did over-value so unworthy a person as I know my self to be I will promise you to say nothing but the truth and judg of it and use it as you please My acquaintance with him was not long and I lookt on him as an excellent person studied in his own way which I hoped I should never have occasion to make much use of but I thought not so versed in our matters as our selves I was confirmed in this conceit by the first report I had from him which was his wish that Dr. Reignolds Mr. Calamy and I would have taken Bishopricks when they were offered us by the Lord Chancellor as from the King in 1660. as one did I thought he understood not our case or the true state of English Prelacy Many years after when I lived at Acton he being Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer suddenly took a house in the Village We sate next seats together at Church for many weeks but neither did he ever speak to me or I to him At last my extraordinary friend to whom I was more beholden than I must here express Serjeant Fountaine asked me why I did not visit the Lord Chief Baron I told him because I had no reason for it being a stranger to him and had some against it viz. that a Judg whose Reputation was necessary to the ends of his Office should not be brought under Court-suspition or disgrace by his familiarity with a person whom the interest and diligence of some Prelates had rendred so odious as I knew my self to be with such I durst not be so injurious to him The Serjeant answered It is not meet for him to come first to you I know why I speak it Let me intreat you to go first to him In obedience to which request I did it and so we entered into Neighbourly familiarity I lived then in a small house but it had a pleasant garden and backside which the honest Landlord had a desire to sell. The Judg had a mind to the house but he would not meddle with it till he got a stranger to me to come and enquire of me whether I was willing to leave it I told him I was not only willing but desirous not for my own ends but for my Landlord's sake who must needs sell it and so he bought it and lived in that poor house till his mortal sickness sent him to the place of his Interment I will truly tell you the matter and the manner of our converse We were oft together and almost all our discourse was Philosophical and especially about the Nature of Spirits and superior Regions and the Nature Operations and Immortality of mans Soul And our disposition and course of thoughts were in such things so like that I did not much cross the bent of his conference He studied Physicks and got all new or old books of Philosophy that he could meet with as eagerly as if he had been a boy at the University Mousnerius and Honoratus Faber he deservedly much esteemed but yet took not the later to be without some mistakes Mathematicks he studied more than I did it being a knowledg which he much more esteemed than I did who valued all knowledg by the greatness of the benefit and necessity of the use and my unskilfulness in them I acknowledg my great defect in which he much excelled But we were both much addicted to know and read all the pretenders to more than ordinary in Physicks the Platonists the Peripateticks the Epicureans and specially their Gassendus