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command which commandeth an act in itself lawful, and no other act whereby any unjust penalty is enjoined, nor any circumstance, whence directly, or per accidens, any sin is consequent, which the commander ought to provide against, hath in it all things requisite to the lawfulness of a command, and particularly cannot be guilty of commanding an act per accidens unlawful, nor of commanding an act under an unjust penalty."

Mr. Baxter denied it upon the same reasons.

PETER GUNNING.*
JOHN PEARSON.t

These were then two of the disputants, still alive, and will attest this; one being now Lord Bishop of Ely, and the other of Chester. And the last of them told me very lately, that one of the Dissenters-which I could, but forbear to name-appeared to Dr. Sanderson to be so bold, so troublesome, and so illogical in the dispute, as forced patient Dr. Sanderson-who was then Bishop of Lincoln, and a moderator with other Bishops-to say, with an unusual earnestness, "That he had never met with a man of more pertinacious confidence, and less abilities, in all his conversation.'

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But though this debate at the Savoy was ended without any great satisfaction to either party, yet both parties knew the desires, and understood the abilities, of the other, much better than before it and the late distressed Clergy, that were now restored to their former rights and power, did, at their next meeting in Convocation, contrive to give the dissenting party satisfaction by alteration, explanation, and addition to some part both of the Rubric and Common-Prayer, as also by adding some new necessary Collects, and a particular Collect of Thanksgiving. How many of those new Collects were worded by Dr. Sanderson, I cannot say; but am sure the whole Convocation valued him so much, that he never undertook to speak to any point in question, but he

* Dr. Peter Gunning, was a loyalist Divine, who suffered considerably for the Royal cause, and died Bishop of Ely, in 1684.

+ Dr. John Pearson, was the author of the famous "Exposition of the Creed;" in 1661, he was made Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, at Cambridge, and died Bishop of Chester, in 1686, aged 74.

was heard with great willingness and attention; and when any point in question was determined, the Convocation did usually desire him to word their intentions, and as usually approve and thank him.

At this Convocation the Common Prayer was made more complete, by adding three new necessary Offices; which were, "A Form of Humiliation for the Murder of King Charles the Martyr; A Thanksgiving for the restoration of his Son our King; and For the Baptizing of Persons of riper Age." I cannot say Dr. Sanderson did form, or word them all, but doubtless more than any single man of the Convocation; and he did also, by desire of the Convocation, alter and add to the forms of Prayers to be used at Sea-now taken into the Service-Book.-And it may be noted, that William, the now Right Reverend Bishop of Canterbury,* was in these employments diligently useful; especially in helping to rectify the Calendar and Rubric. And lastly, it may be noted, that, for the satisfying all the dissenting brethren and others, the Convocation's reasons for the alterations and additions to the Liturgy were by them desired to be drawn up by Dr. San. derson; which being done by him, and approved by them, was appointed to be printed before the Liturgy, and may be known by this title "The Preface;" and begins thus-" It hath been the Wisdom of the Church."

I shall now follow him to his Bishopric, and declare a part of his behaviour in that busy and weighty employment. And first, that it was with such condescension and obligingness to the meanest of his Clergy, as to know and be known to them. And indeed he practised the like to all men of what degree soever, especially to his old neighbours or parishioners of Boothby Pannell; for there was all joy at his table, when they came to visit him: then

* Dr. William Sancroft, born at Freshingfield, in Suffolk, in 1661, and educated at Emanuel College, Cambridge, where he was deprived of his Fellowship in 1649, for refusing to take the engagement. He was made Archbishop in 1677, and in 1688, he was one of the seven Prelates sent to the Tower by James II. He was a man of the greatest integrity and innocence, and at the Revolution, he refused taking the Oaths to the new government, for which, being suspended and deprived, he died in retirement Nov. 24th, 1693.

they prayed for him, and he for them, with an unfeigned affec

tion.

I think it will not be denied, but that the care and toil required of a Bishop, may justly challenge the riches and revenue with which their predecessors had lawfully endowed them and yet he sought not that so much, as doing good both to the present age and posterity; and he made this appear by what follows.

The Bishop's chief house at Buckden, in the County of Huntingdon, the usual residence of his predecessors,—for it stands about the midst of his Diocese, having been at his cc.secration a great part of it demolished, and what was left standing under a visible decay, was by him undertaken to be erected and repaired: and it was performed with great speed, care, and charge. And to this may be added, that the King having by an Injunction commended to the care of the Bishops, Deans, and Prebends of all Cathedral Churches, "the repair of them, their houses, and augmentation of small Vicarages;" he, when he was repairing Buckden, did also augment the last, as fast as fines were paid for renewing leases: so fast, that a friend, taking notice of his bounty, was so bold as to advise him to remember "he was under his first-fruits, and that he was old, and had a wife and children yet but meanly provided for, especially if his dignity were considered." To whom he made a mild and thankful answer, saying, "It would not become a Christian Bishop to suffer those houses built by his predecessors to be ruined for want of repair; and less justifiable to suffer any of those, that were called to so high a calling as to sacrifice at God's altar, to eat the bread of sorrow constantly, when he had a power by a small augmentation, to turn it into the bread of cheerfulness: and wished, that as this was, so it were also in his power to make all mankind happy, for he desired nothing more. And for his wife and children, he hoped to leave them a competence, and in the hands of a God that would provide for all that kept innocence, and trusted his providence and protection, which he had always found enough to make and keep him happy."

There was in his Diocese a Minister of almost his age, that had been of Lincoln College when he left it, who visited him often, and always welcome, because he was a man of innocence and

openheartedness. This Minister asked the Bishop what books he studied most, when he laid the foundation of his great and clear learning. To which his answer was, "that he declined reading many; but what he did read were well chosen, and read so often, that he became very familiar with them ;" and said, "they were chiefly three, Aristotle's Rhetoric, Aquinas's Secunda Secundæ, and Tully, but chiefly his Offices, which he had not read over less than twenty times, and could at this age say without book.” And told him also, "the learned Civilian Doctor Zouch-who died lately-had writ Elementa Jurisprudentia, which was a book that he could also say without book; and that no wise man could read it too often, or love or commend too much;" and told him "these had been his toil: but for himself he always had a natural love to genealogies and Heraldry; and that when his thoughts were harassed with any perplexed studies, he left off, and turned to them as a recreation; and that his very recreation had made him so perfect in them, that he could, in a very short time, give an account of the descent, arms, and antiquity of any family of the Nobility or gentry of this nation."

Before I give an account of Dr. Sanderson's last sickness, I desire to tell the Reader that he was of a healthful constitution, cheerful and mild, of an even temper, very moderate in his diet, and had had little sickness, till some few years before his death; but was then every winter punished with a diarrhoea, which left not till warm weather returned and removed it: and this distemper did, as he grew older, seize him oftener, and continue longer with him. But though it weakened him, yet it made him rather indisposed than sick, and did no way disable him from studying -indeed too much.-In this decay of his strength, but not of his memory or reason,—for this distemper works not upon the understanding, he made his last Will, of which I shall give some account for confirmation of what hath been said, and what I think convenient to be known, before I declare his death and burial.

He did in his last Will,* give an account of his faith and per

*Bishop Sanderson's Will is recorded in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, in the volume called Juxon, Article 37. After his death, it was industriously reported that he repented of his writing against the Presbyterians, and

suasion in point of Religion, and Church-government, in these very words:

“I, Robert Sanderson, Doctor of Divinity, an unworthy Minister of Jesus Christ, and, by the providence of God, Bishop of Lincoln, being by the long continuance of an habitual distemper brought to a great bodily weakness and faintness of spirits, butby the great mercy of God—without any bodily pain otherwise, or decay of understanding, do make this my Will and Testament,-written all with my own hand,-revoking all fo.mer Wills by me heretofore made, if any such shall be found. First, I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God, as of a faithful Creator, which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept, looking upon it, not as it is in itself,-infinitely polluted with sin, —but as it is redeemed and purged with the precious blood of his only beloved Son, and my most sweet Saviour Jesus Christ; in confidence of whose merits and mediation alone it is, that I cast myself upon the mercy of God for the pardon of my sins, and the hopes of eternal life. And here I do profess, that as I have lived, so I desire, and—by the grace of God-resolve, to die in the communion of the Catholic Church of Christ, and a true son of the Church of England: which, as it stands by law established, to be both in doctrine and worship agreeable to the word of God, and in the most, and most material points of both, conformable to the faith and practice of the godly Churches of Christ in the primitive and purer times, I do firmly believe: led so to do, not so much from the force of custom and education,—to which the greatest part of mankind owe their particular different persuasions in point of Religion,-as upon the clear evidence of truth and reason, after a serious and impartial examination of the grounds, as well of Popery as Puritanism, according to that measure of understanding, and those opportunities which God hath af forded me and herein I am abundantly satisfied, that the schism which the Papists on the one hand, and the superstition which the Puritan on the other hand, lay to our charge, are very justly chargeable upon themselves respectively. Wherefore I humbly beseech Almighty God, the Father of mercies, to preserve the would not suffer a Church Minister to pray by him, which is refuted by the narrative of Mr. Pullin's giving him the Sacrament.

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