Lordship and others, yet I think that the greater and better number of both the Temples have not fo good an opinion of him. Sure I am, that divers grave, and of the beft affected of them, have fhewed their mifliking of him to me; not only out of refpect of his diforderliness in the manner of the Communion, and contempt of the Prayers, but also of his negligence in reading. Whofe Lectures, by their report, are fo barren of matter, that his bearers take no commodity thereby.

The book De Difciplina Ecclefiaftica, by common opinion, bath been reputed of his penning, fince 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 alfo, among other things, he condemneth the taking and paying of First-fruits, Tenths, &c. And therefore, unless he will testify his conformity by subscription, as all others do, which now enter into Ecclefiaftical 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 be forfook his place in the College upon that account, I can by no means yield my confent to the placing him there, or elsewhere, in any function of this Church.]

And here I fhall make a ftop; 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 admiffion into this place: a place which he ac. cepted, rather than defired; and yet here he promifed himself a virtuous quietnefs: that bleffed tranquility which he always prayed and laboured for; that fo he might in peace bring forth the fruits of peace, and glorify God by uninterrupted prayers and praifes; for this he always thirsted; and yet this was denied him. For his admiffion into this place was the very beginning of thofe oppofitions and anxieties, which till then this good man was a

ftranger to, and of which the Reader may guess by what follows.

In this character of the times, I fhall, by the Reader's favour, and for his information, look fo 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 fucceffor, the late civil war, and the fharp perfecution that had raged to the effufion of so much blood in the reign of Queen Mary, were fresh in the memory of all men; and these begot fears in the most pious and wifeft of this nation, left the like days fhould return again to them or their prefent pofterity. The apprehenfion of which dangers begot an earnest defire of a fettlement in the Church and State; believing there was no other way to make them fit quietly under their own Vines and Fig-trees, and enjoy the defired fruit of their labours. But time, and peace, and plenty, begot felf-ends; and those begot animofities, envy, oppofition, and unthankfulness for those bleffings for which they lately thirfted, being then the very utmost of their defires, and even beyond their hopes.

This was the temper of the times in the beginning and progrefs of her reign; and thus it continued too long: for thofe very people that had enjoyed the defires of their hearts in a Reformation from the Church of Rome, became at laft fo like the grave, as never to be satisfied; but were still thirfting for more and more: neglecting to pay that obedience to government, and perform thofe vows to God, which they made in their days of adverfities and fears: fo that in fhort time there appeared three feveral interests, each of them fearlefs and reftlefs in the profecution of their defigns; they may for diftinction be called, The active Romanifts, the restless Nonconformifts (of which there were many forts) and, the paffive peaceable Proteftant. The counfels of the firft confidered and refolved on in Rome: the fecond in Scotland, in Geneva, and in divers felected, fecret, dangerous

Nonconformifts reprefented.

dangerous conventicles, both there, and within the bofom of our own nation: the third pleaded and defended their cause by established laws, both ecclefiaftical and civil: and if they were active, it was to prevent the other two from deftroying what was by thofe known laws happily established to them and their pofterity.

I fhall forbear to mention the very many and dangerous plots of the Romanifts against the Church and State; becaufe, what is principally intended in this digreffion, is an account of the opinions and activity of the Nonconformifts; against whose judgment and practice Mr. Hooker became at last, but moft unwillingly, to be engaged in a book-war; a war which he maintained not as against an enemy, but with the spirit of meeknefs and reafon.

In which number of Nonconformifts, though fome might be fincere and well meaning men, whofe indifcreet zeal might be fo like charity, as thereby to cover a multitude of errors, yet of this party there were many that were poffeft of an high degree of fpiritual wickednefs; I mean with an innate reftlefs radical pride and malice; I mean not those leffer fins which are more vifible and more properly carnal, and fins against a man's felf, as gluttony and drunkennefs, and the like (from which good Lord deliver us ;) but fins of an higher nature; because more unlike to the nature of God, which is love, and mercy, and peace; and more like the Devil, (who is not a glutton, nor can be drunk; and yet is a Devil :) thofe wickedneffes of malice and revenge, and oppofition, and a complacence in working and beholding confufion (which are more properly his work, who is the enemy and difturber of mankind; and greater fins, though many will not believe it) men whom a furious zeal and prejudice had blinded, and made incapable of hearing reafon, or adhering to the ways of peace; men whom pride and felf-conceit had made to overvalue their own wifdom, and become

pertinacious,

pertinacious, and to hold foolish and unmannerly difputes against thofe men which they ought to reverence, and those laws which they ought to obey; men that laboured and joyed to speak evil of government, and then to be the authors of confufion (of confufion as it is confufion :) whom company, and conversation, and cuftom had blinded, and made infenfible that these were errors; and at last became fo reftlefs, and fo hardened in their opinions, that like those which perished in the gain-faying of Core, so these died without repenting these spiritual wickedneffes, of which Coppinger and Hacket, and their adherents, are too fad teftimonies.

And in these times, which tended thus to confufion, there were alfo many others that pretended to tenderness of confcience, refufing to fubmit to ceremonies, or to take an oath before a lawful magiftrate and yet these very men did in their fecret conventicles, covenant and fwear to each other, to be affiduous and faithful in ufing their best endeavours to fet up a Church-government that they had not agreed on. To which end, there were many felect parties that wandered up and down, and were active in fowing difcontents and fedition, by venemous and fecret murmurings, and a difperfion of scurrilous pamphlets and libels againft the Church and State; but especially against the Bishops; by which means, together with very bold, and as indifcreet Sermons, the common people became fo fanatick, as St. Peter obferved there were in his time, fome that wrefted the Scripture to their own deftruction: fo by thefe men, and this means many came to believe the Bishops to be Antichrift, and the only obftructors of God's difcipline; and many of them were at last given over to fuch defperate delufions, as to find out a text in the Revelation of St. John, that Antichrift was to be overcome by the fword, which they were very ready to take into their hands. So that those very men, that began with tender meek Petitions, pro

ceeded

ceeded to print publick Admonitions; and then to fatyrical Remonftrances: and at laft, (having like David, numbered who was not, and who was, for their caufe,) they got a fuppofed certainty of fo great a party, that they durft threaten firft the Bishops, and not long after, both the Queen and Parliament; to all which they were fecretly 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 confcience; whom he used as a facrilegious fnare to further his defign, which was by their means to bring fuch an odium upon the Bishops, as to procure an alienation of their lands, and a large proportion of them for himself: which avaricious defire had fo blinded his reason, that his ambitious and greedy hopes had almost flattered him into prefent poffeffion of LambethHouse.

And to these strange and dangerous undertakings, the Nonconformifts of this nation were much encouraged and heightened by a correfpondence and confederacy with that brotherhood in Scotland; fo that here they became fo 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 bis difcipline. And in Scotland they were more confident, for there + they declared her an Atheist, and grew to fuch an height as not to be accountable for any thing fpoken against her; no nor for treason against their own King, if fpoken in the pulpit: fhewing at laft fuch a difobedience even to him, that his Mother being in England, and then in distress, and in prifon, 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.

*Mr. Dering.

+ See Bishop Spotfwood's Hiftory of the Church of Scotland.

To