be true without Torment in the life to come they whet their wits to annihilate the joys of Heaven wherein they see if any such be they can have no part and likewise the pains of Hell wherein their portion must needs be very great They labour therefore not that they may not deserve those pains but that deserving them there may be no such pains to seize upon them But what conceit can be imagined more base than that man should strive to persuade himself even against the secret Instinct no doubt of his own Mind that his Soul is as the Soul of a Beast mortal and corruptible with the Body Against which barbarous Opinion their own Atheism is a very strong Argument For were not the Soul a Nature separable from the Body how could it enter into discourse of things merely Spiritual and nothing at all pertaining to the Body Surely the Soul were not able to conceive any thing of Heaven no not so much as to dispute against Heaven and against God if there were not in it somewhat Heavenly and derived from God The last which have received strength and encouragement from the Reformers are Papists against whom although they are most bitter Enemies yet unwittingly they have given them great advantage For what can any Enemy rather desire than the Breach and Dissention of those which are Confederates against him Wherein they are to remember that if our Communion with Papists in some few Ceremonies do so much strengthen them as is pretended how much more doth this Division and Rent among our selves especially seeing it is maintained to be not in light matters onely but even in matter of Faith and Salvation Which over-reaching Speech of theirs because it is so open to advantage for the Barrowist and the Papist we are to wish and hope for that they will acknowledge it to have been spoken rather in heat of Affection than with soundness of Judgment and through their exceeding love to that Creature of Discipline which themselves have bred nourished and maintained their mouth in commendation of her did soon overflow From hence you may proceed but the means of connexion I leave to your self to another discourse which I think very meet to be handled either here or elsewhere at large the parts whereof may be these 1. That in this cause between them and us men are to sever the proper and essential points and controversy from those which are accidental The most essential and proper are these two overthrow of Episcopal erection of Presbyterial Authority But in these two points whosoever joyneth with them is accompted of their number whosoever in all other points agreeth with them yet thinketh the Authority of Bishops not unlawful and of Elders not necessary may justly be severed from their retinue Those things therefore which either in the Persons or in the Laws and Orders themselves are faulty may be complained on acknowledged and amended yet they no whit the nearer their main purpose for what if all ertors by them supposed in our Liturgy were amended even according to their own hearts desire if Non-residence Pluralities and the like were utterly taken away are their Lay-Elders therefore presently Authorized or their Soveraign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction established But even in their complaining against the outward and accidental matters in Church-government they are many ways faulty 1. In their end which they propose to themselves For in Declaming against Abuses their meaning is not to have them redressed but by disgracing the present State to make way for their own Discipline As therefore in Venice if any Senatour should discourse against the Power of their Senate as being either too Soveraign or too Weak in Government with purpose to draw their Authority to a Moderation it might well be suffered but not so if it should appear he spake with purpose to induce another State by depraving the present So in all Causes belonging either to Church or Common-wealth we are to have regard what mind the Complaining part doth bear whether of Amendment or Innovation and accordingly either to suffer or suppress it Their Objection therefore is frivolous Why may not men speak against Abuses Yes but with desire to cure the Part affected not to destroy the Whole 2. A second fault is in their Manner of Complaining not onely because it is for the most part in bitter and reprochful Terms but also it is to the Common people who are Judges incompetent and insufficient both to determine any thing amiss and for want of Skill and Authority to amend it Which also discovereth their Intent and Purpose to be rather Destructive han Corrective 3. Thirdly those very Exceptions which they take are frivolous and impertinent Some things indeed they accuse as impious which if they may appear to be such God forbid they should be maintained Against the rest it is onely alleged that they are Idle Ceremonies without use and that better and more profitable might be devised Wherein they are doubly deceiv'd for neither is it a sufficient Plea to say This must give place because a Better may be devised because in our Judgments of Better and Worse we oftentimes conceive amiss when we compare those things which are in Devise with those which are in Practice for the Imperfections of the one are hid till by Time and Trial they be discovered The others are already manifest and open to all But last of all which is a Point in my Opinion of great regard and which I am desirous to have enlarg'd they do not see that for the most part when they strike at the State Ecclesiastical they secretly wound the Civil State for Personal faults What can be said against the Church which may not also agree to the Commonwealth In both States Men have always been and will be always Men sometimes blinded with Errour most commonly perverted by Passions many Unworthy have been and are advanced in both many Worthy not regarded And as for Abuses which they pretend to be in the Laws themselves when they inveigh against Non-residence do they take it a matter lawful or expedient in the Civil State for a man to have a great and gainful Office in the North himself continually remaining in the South He that hath an Office let him attend his Office When they condemn Plurality of Livings Spiritual to the pit of Hell what think they of Infinite of Temporal Promotions By the great Philosopher Pol. lib. 2. c. 9. it is forbidden as a thing most dangerous to Commonwealths that by the same man many great Offices should be exercised When they deride our Ceremonies as vain and frivolous were it hard to apply their Exceptions even to those Civil Ceremonies which at the Coronation in Parliament and all Courts of Justice are used Were it hard to argue even against Circumcision the Ordinance of God as being a cruel Ceremony against the Passeover as being ridiculous should be girt a Staff in their hand to eat a Lamb To conclude you may exhort the Clergy or what if you direct your Conclusion not to the Clergy in general but only to the Learned in or of both Universities you may exhort them to a due Consideration of all things and to a right Esteem and Valuing of each thing in that degree wherein it ought to stand For it oftentimes falleth out that what Men have either devised themselves or greatly delighted in the Price and the Excellency thereof they do admire above desert The chiefest Labour of a Christian should be to know of a Minister to preach Christ crufied in regard whereof not onely Worldly things but things otherwise precious even the Discipline it self is vile and base Whereas now by the heat of Contention and violence of Affection the Zele of men towards the one hath greatly decayed their Love to the other Hereunto therefore they are to be exhorted to Preach Christ crucified the Mortification of the Flesh the Renewing of the Spirit not those things which in time of Strife seem precious but Passions being allayed are vain and childish FINIS * This you may find in the Temple Records William Ermstead was Master of the Temple at the Dissolution of the Priory and died 2. Eliz. Richard Alvey Bat. Divinity pat 13 Feb. 2 Eliz Magisles sive Custos Domûs Ecclesiae novi Templi died 27 Eliz. Richard Hooker succeeded that year by Patent in terminie as Alvey had it and he left it 33 Eliz. That year Dr. Balgey succeeded Richard Hooker * Mr. Dering †Vide Bishop Spotswoods Hist of the Church of Scotl. * In his Annals 1599. * John Whitgift the Archbishop * Hacket and Co pinger
Imprimatur Ex AEd. Lamb. Oct. 29. 1664. Geo. Stradling S.T.P. Rev in Christo Pat. D. Gilb. Archiep. Cant. Ã Sac. Do. Mr RICHARD HOOKER Author of those Learned Bookes of Eoclesiasticoll pollitie W. DolleF THE LIFE OF Mr. RICH. HOOKER The Author of those Learned Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Prov. 2.15 The tongue of the wise useth knowledge rightly LONDON Printed by I. G. for Rich. Marriott and are to be sold at his Shop under the Kings-head Tavern over against the Inner Temple gate in Fleetstreet 1665. To the Right Honourable AND Right Reverend Father in God GEORGE Lord Bishop of Winchester Dean of His Majesty's Chapel Royal and Prelate of the most Noble Order of the Garter MY LORD THere present you with a Relation of the Life of that Humble man to whom at the mention of his Name Princes and the most Learned of this Nation have paid a Reverence It was written by me under your Roof for which and more weighty Reasons you might if it were worthy justly claim a Title to it But indeed my Lord though this be a well-meant Sacrifice to the Memory of that Venerable man yet I have so little Confidence in my Performance that I beg your Pardon for Supscribing your Name to it and desire all that know your Lordship to receive it not as a Dedication by which you receive any Access of Honour but rather as a more humble and a more publick Acknowledgment of your long-continued and your now daily Favours to Your most Affectionate and most Humble Servant Nov. 28. 1664. IZAAK WALTON The Copy of a Letter writ to Mr. Walton by Dr. King Lord Bishop of Chichester THough a Familiarity of almost Forty years continuance and the constant experience of your Love even in the worst times be sufficient to indear our Friendship yet I must confess my Affection much improved not onely by Evidences of private Respect to many that know and love you but by your new Demonstration of a Publick Spirit testified in a diligent true and useful Collection of so many Material Passages as you have now afforded me in the Life of Venerable Mr. Hooker Of which since desired by such a Friend as your self I shall not deny to give the Testimony of what I know concerning him and his learned Books but shall first here take a fair occasion to tell you that you have been happy in chusing to write the Lives of three such Persons as Posterity hath just cause to honour which they will do the more for the true Relation of them by your happy Pen of all which I shall give you my unfeigned Censure I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable Friend Dr. Donne late Dean of S. Pauls Church who not onely trusted me as his Executor but three days before his death delivered into my hands those excellent Sermons of his now made publick professing before Dr. Winniff Dr. Montford and I think your self then present at his bed-side that it was by my restless importunity that he had prepared them for the Press together with which as his best Legacy he gave me all his Sermon-Notes and his other Papers containing an Extract of near Fifteen hundred Authors How these were got out of my hands you who were the Messenger for them and how lost both to me and your self is not now seasonable to complain but since they did miscarry I am glad that the general Demonstration of his Worth was so fairly preserv'd and represented to the World by your Pen in the History of his Life indeed so well that beside others the best Critick of our later time Mr. Iohn Hales of Eaton College affirm'd to me He had not seen a Life written with more advantage to the Subject or more reputation to the Writer than that of Dr. Donnes After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne you undertook the like office for our Freind Sir Henry Wotton betwixt which two there was a Friendship begun in Oxford continued in their various Travels and more confirm'd in the religious Friendship of Age and doubtless this excellent Person had writ the Life of Dr. Donne if Death had not prevented him by which means his and your Pre-collections for that Work fell to the happy Menage of your Pen a Work which your would have declin'd if imperious Persuasions had not been stronger than you modest Resolutions against it And I am thus far glad that the first Life was so impos'd upon you because it gave an unavoidable Cause of Writing the second if not 't is too probable we had wanted both which had been a prejudice to all Lovers of Honour and ingenious Learning And let me not leave my Friend Sir Henry without this Testimony added to yours That he was a Man of as Florid a Wit and Elegant a Pen as any former or ours which in that kind is a most excellent Age hath ever produced And now having made this voluntary Observation of our two deceased Friends I proceed to satisfie your desire concerning what I know and believe of the ever-memorable Mr. Hooker who was Schismaticorum Malleus so great a Champion for the Church of Englands Rights against the Factious Torrent of Separatists that then ran high against Church-Discipline and in his unanswerable Books continues to be so against the unquiet Disciples of their Schism which now under other Names still carry on their Design and who as the proper Heirs of their Irrational Zele would again rake into the scarce-closed Wounds of a newly bleeding State and Church And first though I dare not say that I knew Mr. Hooker yet as our Ecclesiastical History reports to the honour of Ignatius that he lived in the time of S. Iohn and had seen him in his Childhood so I also joy that in my Minority I have often seen Mr. Hooker with my Father from whom and others at that time I have heard most of the material passages which you relate in the History of his Life and from my Father received such a Character of his Learning Humility and other Virtues that like Jewels of unvaluable price they still cast such a lustre as Envy or the Rust of Time shall never darken From my Father I have also heard all the Circumstances of the Plot to defame him and how Sir Edwin Sandys out-witted his Accusers and gained their Confession and could give an account of each particular of that Plot but that I judge it fitter to be forgotten and rot in the same Grave with the Malicious Authors I may not omit to declare that my Fathers Knowledge of Mr. Hooker was occasioned by the Learned Dr. Iohn Spencer who after the Death of Mr. Hooker was so careful to preserve his unvaluable Sixth Seventh and Eighth Books of ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY and his other Writings that he procured Henry Iacksow then of Corpus-Christi College to transcribe for him all Mr. Hookers remaining written Papers many of which were imperfect for his Study had been
had changed this for a better Life Which may be believed for that as he lived so he died in devout meditation and prayer and in both so zelously that it became a religious question Whether his last Ejaculations or his Soul did first enter into Heaven And now Mr. Hooker became a Man of Sorrow and Fear of Sorrow for the loss of so dear and comfortable a Patron and of Fear for his future Subsistence But Dr. Cole raised his spirits from this dejection by bidding him go cheerfully to his Studies and assuring him he should neither want Food nor Raiment which was the utmost of his hopes for he would become his Patron And so he was for about nine moneths and not longer for about that time this following accident did befall Mr. Hooker Edwin Sandys then Bishop of London and after Archbishop of York had also been in the days of Queen Mary forced by forsaking this to seek safety in another Nation where for many years Bishop Iewell and he were Companions at Bed and Board in Germany and where in this their Exile they did often eat the bread of sorrow and by that means they there began such a friendship as lasted till the death of Bishop Iewell which was 1571. A little before which time the two Bishops meeting Iewell began a story of his Richard Hooker and in it gave such a Character of his Learning and Manners that though Bishop Sandys was educated in Cambridge where he had obliged and had many Friends yet his resolution was that his Son Edwin should be sent to Corpus-Christi College in Oxford and by all means be Pupil to Mr. Hooker though his Son Edwin was then almost of the same Age for the Bishop said I will have a Tutor for my Son that shall teach him Learning by Instruction and Virtue by Example and my greatest care shall be of the last and God willing this Richard Hooker shall be the Man into whose hands I will commit my Edwin And the Bishop did so about twelve moneths after this resolution And doubtless as to these two a better choice could not be made for Mr. Hooker was now in the nineteenth year of his age had spent five in the University and had by a constant unwearied diligence attained unto a perfection in all the learned Languages and by the help of them an excellent Tutor and an unintermitted Study had made the subtilty of all the Arts easie and familiar to him and useful for the discovery of such Learning as lay hid from common Searchers so that by these added to his great Reason and his Industry added to both He did not onely know more but what he knew he knew better than other men And with this Knowledge he had a most blessed and clear Method of Demonstrating what he knew to the great advantage of all his Pupils which in time were many but especially to his two first his dear Edwin Sandys and his as dear George Cranmer of which there will be a fair Testimony in the ensuing Relation This for his Learning And for his Behaviour amongst other Testimonies this still remains of him That in four years he was but twice absent from the Chapel prayers and that his Behaviour there was such as shewed an awful reverence of that God which he then worshipped and prayed to giving all outward testimonies that his Affections were set on heavenly things This was his Behaviour towards God and for that to Man it is observable that he was never known to be angry or passionate or extreme in any of his Desires never heard to repine or dispute with Providence but by a quiet gentle submission bore the burthen of the day with patience never heard to utter an uncomly word and by this and a grave Bahaviour which is a Divine Charm he begot an early Reverence unto his Person even from those that at other times and in other companies took a liberty to cast off that strictness of Behaviour and Discourse that is required in a Collegiate Life And when he took any liberty to be pleasant his Wit was never blemisht with Scoffing or the utterance of any Conceit that border'd upon or might beget a thought of Loosness in his hearers Thus innocent and exemplary was his Behaviour in his College and thus this Good man continued till his death still increasing in Learning in Patience and Piety In this nineteenth year of his age he was chosen December 24. 1573 to be one of the twenty Scholars of the Foundation being elected and admitted as born in Devon-shire out of which Country a certain number are to be elected in Vacancies by the Founders Statutes And now he was much encouraged for now he was perfectly incorporated into this beloved College which was then noted for an eminent Library strict Students and remarkable Scholars And indeed it may glory that it had Bishop Iewel Doctor Iohn Reynolds and Doctor Tho. Iackson of that Foundation The First famous by his Learned Apologie for the Church of England and his Defence of it against Harding The Second for the learned and wise Menage of a publique Dispute with Iohn Hart about the Head and Faith of the Church and now printed And the Third for his most excellent Exposition of the Creed and other Treatises All such as have given greatest satisfaction to men of the greatest Learning Nor was this man more Note-worthy for his Learning than for his strict and pious Life testified by his abundant love and charity to all men And in the year 1576. Febr. 23. his Grace was given him for Inceptor of Arts Doctor Herbert Westphaling a man of note for Learning being then Vice-chancellour The Act following he was compleated Master which was Anno 1577. his Patron Doctor Cole being Vice-chancellour that year and his dear friend Henry Savill of Merton College being then one of the Proctors 'T was that Henry Savill that was after Sir Hen Savill Warden of Merton College and Provost of Eaton He which founded in Oxford two famous Lectures and endowed them with liberal maintenance 'T was that Sir Henry Savill that translated and enlightned the Annals of Cornelius Tacitus with a most excellent Comment and enriched the world by his laborious and chargeable collecting the scatter'd pieces of S. Chrysostome and the publication of them in one entire Body in Greek in which Language he was a most judicious Critick 'T was this Sir Hen Savill that had the happinesse to be a Contemporary and familiar friend to Mr. Hooker and let Posterity know it And in this year of 1577. he was chosen Fellow of the College Happy also in being the Contemporary and Friend of Dr. Iohn Reynolds of whom I have lately spoken and of Dr. Spencer both which were after and successively made Presidents of Corpus-Christi College men of great Learning and Merit and famous in their Generations Nor was Mr. Hooker more happy in his Contemporaries of his Time and College than in the Pupillage and
be true the latter I suppose will follow for if above all things men be to regard their Salvation and if out of the Church there be no Salvation it followeth that if we have no Church we have no means of Salvation and therefore Separation from us in that respect is both lawfull and necessary as also that men so separated from the false and counterfeit Church are to associate themselves unto some Church not to ours to the Popish much lesse therefore to one of their own making Now the ground of all these Inferences being this That in our Church there is no means of Salvation is out of the Reformers Principles most clearly to be proved For wheresoever any matter of Faith unto Salvation necessary is denyed there can be no means of Salvation But in the Church of England the Discipline by them accounted a matter of Faith and necessary to Salvation is not onely denyed but impugned and the Professors thereof oppressed Ergo. Again but this reason perhaps is weak Every true Church of Christ acknowledgeth the whole Gospel of Christ The Discipline in their opinion is a part of the Gospel and yet by our Church resisted Ergo. Again The Discipline is essentially united to the Church by which term Essentially they must mean either an essential part or an essential property Both which wayes it must needs be that where that essential Discipline is not neither is there any Church If therefore between them and the Brownists there should be appointed a Solemn disputation whereof with us they have been oftentimes so earnest challengers it doth not yet appear what other answer they could possibly frame to these and the like arguments wherewith they might be pressed but fairly to deny the Conclusion for all the Premisses are their own or rather ingeniously to reverse their own Principles before laid whereon so foul absurdities have been so firmly built What further proofs you can bring out of their high words magnifying the Discipline I leave to your better remembrance but above all points I am desirous this one should be strongly inforced against them because it wringeth them most of all and is of all others for ought I see the most unanswerable you may notwithstanding say that you would be heartily glad these their positions might so be salved as the Brownists might not appear to have issued out of their Loynes but until that be done they must give us leave to think that they have cast the Seed whereout these tares are grown Another sort of men there are which have been content to run on with the Reformers for a time and to make them poor instruments of their own designs These are a sort of Godless Politicks who perceiving the Plot of Discipline to consist of these two parts the overthrow of Episcopal and erections of Presbyterial Authority and that this latter can take no place till the former be remov'd are content to joyn with them in the Destructive part of Discipline bearing them in hand that in the other also they shall find them as ready But when time shall come it may be they would be as loath to be yoaked with that kind of Regiment as now they are willing to be released from this These mens ends in all their actions is Distraction their pretence and colour Reformation Those things which under this colour they have effected to their own good are 1. By maintaing a contrary faction they have kept the Clergy always in awe and thereby made them more pliable and willing to buy their peace 2. By maintaining an Opinion of Equality among Ministers they have made way to their own purposes for devouring Cathedral Churches and Bishops livings 3. By exclaiming against abuses in the Church they have carried their own corrupt dealings in the Civil State more covertly for such is the Nature of the Multitude they are not able to apprehend many things at once so as being possessed with a dislike or liking of any one things many other in the mean time may escape them without being perceived 4. They have sought to disgrace the Clergy in entertaining a conceit in mens minds and confirming it by continual practise that men of Learning and specially of the Clergy which are imployed in the chiefest kind of Learning are not to be admitted or sparingly admitted to matters of State contrary to the practise of all well-governed Common-wealths and of our own till these late years A third sort of men there are though not descended from the Reformers yet in part raised and greatly Strengthened by them namely the cursed crew of Atheists This also is none of those points which I am desirous you should handle most effectually and strain your self therein to all points of motion and affection as in that of the Brownists to all strength and sinews of reason This is a sort most damnable and yet by the general suspition of the world at this day most common The causes of it which are in the parties themselves although you handle in the beginning of the fift Book yet here again they may be touched but the occasions of help and furtherance which by the Reformers have been yielded unto them are as I conceive two senseless Preaching and disgracing of the Ministry for how should not men dare to impugn that which neither by force of Reason nor by Authority of Persons is maintained But in the parties themselves these two Causes I conceive of Atheism 1. more aboundance of Wit then Judgement and of Witty than Judicious Learning whereby they are more inclined to contradict any thing than willing to be informed of the truth They are not therefore men of sound Learning for the most part but Smatterers neither is their kind of Dispute so much by force of Argument as by Scoffing which humour of scoffing and turning matters most serious into merriment is now become so common as we are not to marvail what the Prophet means by the seat of Scorners nor what the Apostles by foretelling of Scorners to come our own age hath verified their speech unto us which also may be an Argument against these Scoffers and Atheists themselves seeing it hath been so many ages ago foretold that such men the later days of the world should afford which could not be done by any other Spirit save that whereunto things future and present are alike And even for the main question of the Resurrection whereat they stick so mightily was it not plainly foretold that men should in the latter times say Where is the promise of his coming Against the Creation the Ark and divers other points exceptions are said to be taken the ground whereof is superfluity of Wit without ground of Learning and Judgement A second cause of Atheism is Sensuality which maketh men desirous to remove all stops and impediments of their wicked life among which because Religion is the chiefest so as neither in this life without shame they can persist therein nor if that