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THE LIFE OF

"time and years have now altered that disposition (which I "cannot believe, seeing yet no token thereof, but rather the contrary), I will be as ready to do him good as any friend "he hath. Otherwise I cannot in duty but do my endeavour "to keep him from that place, where he may do so much "harm, and do little or no good at all. For howsoever "some commend him to your lordship and others, yet I "think that the greater and better number of both the Temples have not so good an opinion of him. Sure 1 am "that divers grave, and of the best affected of them, have "shewed their misliking of him to me; not only out of "respect of his disorderliness, in the manner of the com"munion, and contempt of the prayers, but also of his negligence in reading. Whose lectures, by their report, are so barren of matter, that his hearers take no com❝modity thereby.

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"The book De Disciplina Ecclesiastica, by common opin"ion, hath been reputed of his penning, since the first "publishing of it. And by divers arguments I am moved "to make no doubt thereof. The drift of which book is wholly against the state and government. Wherein also, "among other things, he condemneth the taking and pay"ing of first fruits, tenths, &c. And therefore, unless he "will testify his conformity by subscription, as all others do, which now enter into ecclesiastical livings, and make "proof unto me that he is a minister ordered according to "the laws of this church of England, as I verily believe he "is not, because he forsook his place in the college upon "that account; I can by no means yield my consent to the placing him there, or elsewhere, in any function of this "church."]

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And here I shall make a stop; and, that the reader may the better judge of what follows, give him a character of the times, and temper of the people of this nation, when Mr. Hooker had his admission into this place: a place which he accepted, rather than desired and yet here he promised himself a virtuous quietness, that blessed tranquillity which he always prayed and laboured for; that so he might in peace bring forth the fruits of peace, and glorify God by uninterrupted prayers and praises :

for this he always thirsted and prayed: but Almighty God did not grant it: for his admission into this place was the very beginning of those oppositions and anxieties, which till then this good man was a stranger to; and of which the reader may guess by what follows.

In this character of the times, I shall, by the reader's favour, and for his information, look so far back as to the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; a time, in which the many pretended titles to the crown, the frequent treasons, the doubts of her successor, the late civil war, and the sharp persecution for religion that raged to the effusion of so much blood in the reign of Queen Mary, were fresh in the memory of all men; and begot fears in the most pious and wisest of this nation, lest the like days should return again to them, or their present posterity. And the apprehension of these dangers begot a hearty desire of a settlement in the church and state; believing, there was no other probable way left to make them sit quietly under their own vines and fig-trees, and enjoy the desired fruit of their labours. But time, and peace, and plenty, begot self-ends; and these begot animosities, envy, opposition, and unthankfulness for those very blessings for which they lately thirsted, being then the very utmost of their desires, and even beyond their hopes.

This was the temper of the times in the beginning of her reign: and thus it continued too long: for those very people that had enjoyed the desires of their hearts in a reformation from the church of Rome, became at last so like the grave, as never to be satisfied, but were still thirsting for more and more: neglecting to pay that obedience, and perform those vows which they made in their days of adversities and fear: so that in short time there appeared three several interests, each of them fearless and restless in the prosecution of their designs; they may for distinction be called, the active Romanists, the restless Nonconformists (of which there were many sorts), and, the passive peaceable Protestant. The counsels of the first considered and resolved on in Rome: the second in Scotland, in Geneva, and in divers selected, secret, dangerous conventicles, both there, and within the bosom of our own nation: the third pleaded and defended

their cause by establisht laws, both ecclesiastical and civil; and, if they were active, it was to prevent the other two from destroying what was by those known laws happily establisht to them and their posterity.

I shall forbear to mention the very many and dangerous plots of the Romanists against the church and state; because what is principally intended in this digression, is an account of the opinions and activity of the Nonconformists; against whose judgment and practice, Mr. Hooker became at last, but most unwillingly, to be engaged in a book-war; a war which he maintained not as against an enemy, but with the spirit of meekness and reason.

In which number of Nonconformists, though some might be sincere, well meaning men, whose indiscreet zeal might be so like charity, as thereby to cover a multitude of their errors; yet, of this party, there were many that were possest with a high degree of "spiritual wickedness;" I mean, with an innate restless pride and malice. I do not mean the visible carnal sins of gluttony and drunkenness, and the like, (from which good Lord deliver us,) but sins of a higher nature, because they are more unlike God, who is the God of love and mercy, and order, and peace; and more like the Devil, who is not a glutton, nor can be drunk, and yet is a devil; but I mean those spiritual wickednesses of malice and revenge, and an opposition to government: men that joyed to be the authors of misery, which is properly his work, that is the enemy and disturber of mankind; and thereby greater sinners than the glutton or drunkard, though some will not believe it. And of this party, there were also many, whom prejudice and a furious zeal had so blinded, as to make them neither to hear reason, nor adhere to the ways of peace: men, that were the very dregs and pest of mankind: men whom pride and self-conceit had made to overvalue their own pitiful, crooked wisdom so much, as not to be ashamed to hold foolish and unmannerly disputes against those men whom they ought to reverence, and those laws which they ought to obey; men that laboured and joyed first to find out the faults, and then to "speak evil of government," and to be the authors of confusion: men, whom company, and

conversation, and custom had at last so blinded, and made so insensible that these were sins, that, like those that " perisht "in the gainsaying of Core," so these died without repenting of these "spiritual wickednesses," of which the practices of Coppinger and Hacket in their lives, and the death of them and their adherents, are God knows too sad examples; and ought to be cautions to those men that are inclined to the like "spiritual wickednesses."

And in these times which tended thus to confusion, there were also many of these scruplemongers that pretended a tenderness of conscience, refusing to take an oath before a lawful magistrate: and yet these very men, in their secret conventicles, did covenant and swear to each other, to be assiduous and faithful in using their best endeavours to set up the presbyterian doctrine and discipline; and both in such a manner as they themselves had not yet agreed on, but, up that government must. To which end there were many that wandered up and down, and were active in sowing discontents and sedition, by venomous and secret murmurings, and a dispersion of scurrilous pamphlets and libels against the church and state; but especially against the bishops; by which means, together with venomous and indiscreet sermons, the common people became so fanatic, as to believe the bishops to be Antichrist, and the only obstructors of God's Discipline; and at last some of them were given over to so bloody a zeal, and such other desperate delusions, as to find out a text in the Revelation of St. John, that "Antichrist was to be overcome by the sword." So that those very men, that began with tender and meek petitions, proceeded to admonitions, then to satirical remonstrances, and at last having like Absalom numbered who was not, and who was, for their cause, they got a supposed certainty of so great a party, that they durst threaten first the bishops, and then the Queen and parliament; to all which they were secretly encouraged by the earl of Leicester, then in great favour with her majesty, and the reputed cherisher and patron-general of these pretenders to tenderness of conscience; his design

* [2 Sam. xv.]

being, by their means, to bring such an odium upon the bishops, as to procure an alienation of their lands, and a large proportion of them for himself; which avaricious desire had at last so blinded his reason, that his ambitious and greedy hopes seemed to put him into a present possession of Lambeth-house.

And to these undertakings the Nonconformists of this nation were much encouraged and heightened by a correspondence and confederacy with that brotherhood in Scotland; so that here they became so bold, that one told the Queen openly in a sermon, "She was like an untamed heifer, that "would not be ruled by God's people, but obstructed his "discipline." And in Scotland they were more confident, for there they declared her an Atheist*, and grew to such a height as not to be accountable for any thing spoken against her; nor for treason against their own king, if it were but spoken in the pulpit†; shewing at last such a disobedience to him, that his mother being in England, and then in distress, and in prison, and in danger of death, the church denied the King their prayers for her; and at another time, when he had appointed a day of feasting, their church declared for a general fast, in opposition to his authority.

To this height they were grown in both nations; and by these means there was distilled into the minds of the common people such other venomous and turbulent principles, as were inconsistent with the safety of the church and state and these opinions vented so daringly, that, beside the loss of life and limbs, the governors of the church and state were forced to use such other severities, as will not admit of an excuse, if it had not been to prevent the gangrene of confusion, and the perilous consequences of it; which, without such prevention, would have been first confusion, and then ruin and misery to this numerous nation.

These errors and animosities were so remarkable, that they begot wonder in an ingenious Italian, who being about this time come newly into this nation, writ scoffingly to a friend

* Vide Bishop Spotswood's History of the Church of Scotland. [B. VI. ann. 1596. p. 419. ed. 1655.]

† [Ibid. p. 330. (1584.) p. 421. (1596.)]