Page images
PDF
EPUB

74

APPENDIX TO THE LIFE OF

Cranmer, of whom I have spoken) told me forty years since, in these, or in words to this purpose," that her husband had "made up, or finisht Mr. Hooker's last three Books; and "that upon her husband's death-bed, or in his last sickness, " he gave them into her hand, with a charge they should not "be seen by any man, but be by her delivered into the hands " of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, which was Dr. Abbot, "or unto Dr. King then Bishop of London, and that she did as he enjoined her.”

[ocr errors]

I do conceive, that from D. Spencer's, and no other copy, there have been divers transcripts, and I know that these were to be found in several places, as namely, Sir Thomas Bodlie's library, in that of D. Andrews, late Bishop of Winton, in the late Lord Conway's, in the Archbishop of Canterbury's, and in the Bishop of Armagh's, and in many others and most of these pretended to be the author's own hand, but much disagreeing, being indeed altered and diminisht, as men have thought fittest to make Mr. Hooker's judgment suit with their fancies, or give authority to their corrupt designs; and for proof of a part of this, take these following testimonies :

Dr. Barnard, sometime chaplain to Dr. Usher, late Lord Archbishop of Armagh, hath declared in a late book called Clavi Trabales, printed by Richard Hodgkinson, anno 1661, that in his search and examination of the said bishop's manuscripts, he there found the three written Books, which were supposed the 6, 7, and 8, of Mr. Hooker's Books of Ecclesiastical Polity; and, that in the said three Books (now printed as Mr. Hooker's) there are so many omissions, that they amount to many paragraphs, and which cause many incoherencies; the omissions are by him set down at large in the said printed Book, to which I refer the reader for the whole; but think fit in this place to insert this following short part of some of the said omissions.

"First, as there could be in natural bodies no motion "of any thing, unless there were some first which moved "all things, and continued unmoveable; even so in politic "societies there must be some unpunishable, or else no "man shall suffer punishment; for such [sith] punishments "proceed always from superiors, to whom the administra

[blocks in formation]

"tion of justice belongeth, which administration must have "necessarily a fountain that deriveth it to all others, and "receiveth not from any, because otherwise the course of "justice should go infinitely in a circle, every superior having "his superior without end, which cannot be; therefore, a "well-spring, it followeth, there is, a supreme head of justice "whereunto all are subject, but itself in subjection to none. "Which kind of preeminency if some ought to have in a kingdom, who but the king shall have it? Kings therefore, "or no man, can have lawful power to judge.

66

"If private men offend, there is the magistrate over them "which judgeth; if magistrates, they have their prince; if “princes, there is Heaven, a tribunal, before which they shall appear; on earth they are not accountable to any." "Here," says the doctor, "it breaks off abruptly*."

66

“ I

And I have these words also attested under the hand of Mr. Fabian Philips, a man of note for his useful books. "will make oath, if I shall be required, that Dr. Sanderson, "the late Bishop of Lincoln, did a little before his death "affirm to me, he had seen a manuscript affirmed to him to "be the handwriting of Mr. Richard Hooker, in which there was no mention made of the king or supreme governors being accountable to the people; this I will make oath, "that that good man attested to me.

66

66

"FABIAN PHILIPS."

So that there appears to be both omissions and additions in the said last three printed Books; and this may probably be one reason why Dr. Sanderson, the said learned bishop (whose writings are so highly and justly valued) gave a strict charge near the time of his death, or in his last will, "that nothing of his, that was not already printed, should be "printed after his death."

[ocr errors]

It is well known how high a value our learned King James put upon the Books writ by Mr. Hooker, as also that our late King Charles (the martyr for the Church) valued them the second of all books, testified by his commending them to the reading of his son Charles, that now is our gracious king; and you may suppose that this Charles the First was not a

* [Clavi Trabales, p. 94.]

76

APPENDIX TO THE LIFE OF HOOKER.

stranger to the pretended three Books, because in a discourse with the Lord Say, in the time of the long parliament, when the said lord required the king to grant the truth of his argument, because it was the judgment of Mr. Hooker, (quoting him in one of the three written Books,) the king replied, "they were not allowed to be Mr. Hooker's Books;" "but, however, he would allow them to be Mr. Hooker's, "and consent to what his lordship proposed to prove out "of those doubtful Books, if he would but consent to the judgment of Mr. Hooker in the other five that were the "undoubted Books of Mr. Hooker."

[ocr errors]

[In this relation concerning these three doubtful Books of Mr. Hooker's, my purpose was to inquire, then set down what I observed and know, which I have done, not as an engaged person, but indifferently; and now, leave my reader to give sentence, for their legitimation, as to himself; but so, as to leave others the same liberty of believing or disbelieving them to be Mr. Hooker's; and it is observable, that as Mr. Hooker advised with Dr. Spencer, in the design and manage of these books, so also, and chiefly with his dear pupil George Cranmer, (whose sister was the wife of Dr. Spencer,) of which this following letter may be a testimony; and doth also give authority to some things mentioned both in this Appendix and in the Life of Mr. Hooker, and is therefore added.

I. W.]

FURTHER APPENDIX

ΤΟ

THE LIFE OF MR. RICHARD HOOKER.

NUMBER I.

The Copy of a Letter writ to Mr. Izaak Walton, by Dr. King, Lord Bishop of Chichester.

HONEST IZAAK,

THOUGH a familiarity of more than forty years' continuance, and the constant experience of your love, even in the worst of the late sad times, be sufficient to endear our friendship; yet I must confess my affection much improved, not only by evidences of private respect to those very many that know and love you, but by your new demonstration of a public 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 yourself, 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 choosing 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 St. Paul's church, who not only trusted me as his executor, but three days before his death delivered into my hands those excellent sermons of his now made public; professing before Dr. Winniff, Dr. Monford,

78

FURTHER APPENDIX, No. I.

and, I think, yourself, 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 yourself, is not now seasonable to complain; but, since they did miscarry, I am glad that the general demonstration of his worth was so fairly preserved, and represented to the world by your pen in the history of his life; indeed so well, that, beside others, the best critic of our later time (Mr. John Hales, of Eton college) affirmed 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. Donne's."

After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne, you undertook the like office for our friend Sir Henry Wotton, betwixt which two there was a friendship begun in Oxford, continued in their various travels, and more confirmed 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 precollections for that work fell to the happy menage of your pen: a work, which you would have declined, if imperious persuasions had not been stronger than your modest resolutions against it. And I am thus far glad, that the first life was so imposed upon you, because it gave an unavoidable cause of writing the second: if not, it 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 as 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 satisfy 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 England's rights, against the factious torrent of Separatists that then ran high against Church Discipline, and in his unanswerable Books continues

« PreviousContinue »