No. II. HOOKER TO BURGHLEY. 81 manca unto Franciscus Suarez, (then residing there as President of that college,) with a command to answer it. And it is worth noting, that when he had perfected the work, (which he calls Defensio Fidei Catholica,) it was transmitted to Rome for a view of the inquisitors; who according to their custom blotted out what they pleased, and (as Mr. Hooker hath been used since his death) added whatsoever might advance the Pope's supremacy, or carry on their own interest: commonly coupling together deponere et occidere, the deposing and then killing of princes; which cruel and unchristian language Mr. John Saltkell, the amanuensis to Suarez, when he wrote that answer, (but since a convert, and living long in my father's house,) often professed, the good old man (whose piety and charity Mr. Saltkell magnified much) not only disavowed, but detested. Not to trouble you further, your reader (if, according to your desire, my approbation of your work carries any weight) will here find many just reasons to thank you for it; and possibly for this circumstance here mentioned (not known to many) may happily apprehend one to thank him, who is, Mr. Richard Hooker to the Lord Treasurer, when he sent him the written copy of his Ecclesiastical Polity. My duty in most humble maner remembered. So it is, my MSS. good Lord, that manitimes affection causeth those things to Burghlean. be don, which would rather be forborn, if men were wholly guided by judgment. Albeit therefore, I must needs in reason condemne my self of over-great boldness, for thus presuming to offer to your Lordship's view my poor and slender labours: yet, because that which moves me so to do, is a dutiful affection some way to manifest itself, and glad to take this present occasion, for want of other more worthy your HOOKER, VOL. I. G 82 HOOKER TO BURGHLEY. Lordship's acceptation: I am in that behalf not out of hope, your Lordship's wisdom wil the easier pardon my fault, the rather, because my self am persuaded, that my faultiness had been greater, if these writings concerning the nobler part of those laws under which we live, should not have craved with the first your Lordship's favourable approbation. Whose painful care to uphold al laws, and especially the ecclesiastical, hath by the space of so meny years so apparently shewed it self: that if we, who enjoy the benefit thereof, did dissemble it, they whose malice doth most envy our good herein, would convince our unthankfulness. Wherefore submitting both myself and these my simple doings unto your Lordship's most wise judgment, I here humbly take my leave. London, the xiiith of March, 1592. Your Lordships most willingly at commandment, TO THE READER. THIS unhappy controversy, about the received ceremonies and discipline of the Church of England, which hath so long time withdrawn so many of her ministers from their principal work, and employed their studies in contentious oppositions; hath by the unnatural growth and dangerous fruits thereof, made known to the world, that it never received blessing from the Father of peace. For whose experience doth not find, what confusion of order, and breach of the sacred bond of love, hath sprung from this dissension; how it hath rent the body of the church into divers parts, and divided her people into divers sects; how it hath taught the sheep to despise their pastors, and alienated the pastors from the love of their flocks; how it hath strengthened the irreligious in their impieties, and hath raised the hopes of the sacrilegious devourers of the remains of Christ's patrimony; and given way to the common adversary of God's truth, and our prosperity, to grow great in our land without resistance? who seeth not how it hath distracted the minds of the multitude, and shaken their faith, and scandalized their weakness, and hath generally killed the very heart of true piety, and religious devotion, by changing our zeal towards Christ's glory, into the fire of envy and malice, and heart-burning, and zeal to every man's private cause? This is the sum of all the gains which the tedious contentions of so many years have brought in, by the ruin of Christ's kingdom, the increase of Satan's, partly in superstition and partly in impiety. So much better were it in these our dwellings of peace, to endure any inconvenience whatsoever in the outward frame, than in desire of alteration, |