cant. The paffages whereof, taken verbatim out of their faid letters, may deferve here to be specified for the fatisfaction of the Readers.

And first, in the month of Auguft, upon the death of the former Mafter, the Archbishop wrote this letter unto the Queen.

to the

vacancy of

IT may pleafe your Majefty to be advertifed, that the The Archb. Maftership of the Temple is vacant by the death of Mr. Queen conAlvey. The living is not great, yet doth it require a cerning the learned, difcreet, and wife man, in refpect of the company the Tem there: who, being well directed and taught, may do much ple. good elsewhere in the commonwealth, as otherwife also they may do much harm. And because I hear there is fuit made to your Highness for one Mr. Travers, I thought it my duty to fignify unto your Majesty, that the faid Travers hath been, and is one of the chief and principal authors of diffenfion in this Church, a contemner of the Book of Prayers, and of other orders by Authority eftablished; an earnest feeker of innovation; and either in no degree of the Miniftry at all, or else ordered beyond the feas; not according to the form in this Church of England ufed. Whofe placing in that room, efpecially by your Majesty, would greatly animate the rest of that faction, and do very much harm in fundry respects.

Your Majefty bath a Chaplain of your own, Dr. Bond, a man in my opinion very fit for that office, and willing alfo to take pains therein, if it fhall please your Highness to bestow it upon him. Which I refer to your own most gracious difpofition: befeeching Almighty God long to blefs, profper, and preferve your Majesty to his glory, and all our comforts.

Your Majefty's most faithful

Servant and Chaplain,

The Archb.

Treasurer.

Next, in a letter of the Archbishop to the Lord Treasurer, dated from Lambeth, Sept. 14, 1584, he hath thefe words:

I beseech your Lordship to help fuch an one to the to the Lord Mafter fhip of the Temple as is known to be conformable to the laws and orders established; and a defender, not a depraver, of the prefent ftate and government. He that now readeth there is nothing lefs, as I of mine own knowledge and experience can testify. Dr. Bond is defirous of it, and I know not a fitter man.

'The Lord Treasurer to the Archb.

The Lord Treasurer, in a letter to the Archbishop, dated from Oatlands, (where the Queen now was,) Sept. 17, 1584, thus wrote:

THE Queen bath afked me what I thought of Travers to be Master of the Temple. Whereunto I answered, that at the request of Dr. Alvey in his fickness, and a number of boneft gentlemen of the Temple, I had yielded my allowance of him to the place, fo as he would fhew himself conformable to the orders of the Church. Whereunto I was informed, that he would fo be. But her Majefty told me, that your Grace did not fo allow of him. Which, I faid, might be for fome things fuppofed to be written by him (in a book) intituled, De Difciplina Ecclefiaftica. Whereupon her Majefty commanded me to write to your Grace, to know your opinion, which I pray your Grace to fignify unto her, as God fhall move you. Surely it were great pity, that any impediment should be occafion to the contrary; for he is well learned, very boneft, and well allowed, and loved of the generality of that house. Mr. Bond told me, that your Grace liked well of him; and fo do I alfo, as of one well learned and honeft; but, as I told him, if he came not to the place with fome applaufe of the company, be shall be weary thereof. And yet I commended bim unto her Majesty, if Travers should not have it. But her Majefty thinks him not fit for that place, becaufe of his infirmities. Thus wishing your Grace

affiftance

Part of the Archbishop's letter in anfwer to this was to this tenor :

in answer to

Treasurer.

Mr. Travers, whom your Lordship names in your let- The Archb. ter, is to no man better known, I think, than to myself: I the letter of didelect him Fellow of Trinity College, being before rejected the Lord by Dr. Beaumont for his intolerable ftomach; whereof I bad alfo afterwards fuch experience, that I was forced by due punishment fo to weary him, till he was fain to travel, and depart from the College to Geneva, otherwife he should bave been expelled for want of conformity towards the orders of the boufe, and for his pertinacy. Neither was there ever any under our government, in whom I found lefs fubmiffion and humility than in him. Nevertheless, if time and years have now altered that difpofition, (which I cannot believe, feeing yet no token thereof, but rather the contrary,) I will be as ready to do him good as any friend be bath. Otherwife I cannot in duty but do my endeavour to keep him from that place, where he may do Jo much harm, and do little or no good at all. For bowfoever fome commend him to your 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 best affected of them, have fbewed their mifliking of him to me; not only out of refpect of bis 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 bis bearers take no commodity thereby. The book De Difciplina Ecclefiaftica, by common opi

nion, 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 ftate and government. Wherein alfo, among other things, be condemneth the taking and paying of First-fruits, Tenths, &c. And therefore, unless he will testify his conformity by fubfcription, as all others do which now enter into Ecclefiaftical livings, and make proof unto me, that be 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 elfewhere, in any function of this Church.]

And here I fhall 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 admiffion into this place: a place which he accepted, rather than defired; and yet here he promised himfelf a virtuous quietnefs: that bleffed tranquillity 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 praises; for this he always thirfted; 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 stranger 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 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 treafons, the doubts of her fucceffor, the late civil war, and the sharp perfecution that had raged to the effufion of fo much blood in the reign of Queen Mary, were fresh in the memory of all men; and these begot fears in the moft 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 earneft 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 thofe 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 progress 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 fatisfied; but were ftill thirsting 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 short time there appeared three several interests, each of them fearless and reftlefs in the profecution of their defigns; they may for diftinction be called, the active Romanists, the reftlefs Nonconformifts, (of which there were many forts,) and, the paffive peaceable Proteftant. The counfels of the first confidered and refolved on in Rome: the fecond in Scotland, in Geneva, and in divers felected, fecret, 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 destroying what was by thofe known laws happily established to them and their posterity.

I fhall forbear to mention the very many and dangerous plots of the Romanists against the Church and State; because what is principally intended in this digreffion, is an account of the opinions and activity of the Nonconformifts; against whofe judgment and practice Mr. Hooker became at laft, but most unwill