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neglects and oppositions by those of Mr. Travers's judgment; insomuch that it turned to his extreme grief; and, that he might undeceive and win them, he designed to write a deliberate treatise of the Church's power to make canons for the use of ceremonies, and by law to impose an obedience to them, as upon her children; and this he proposed to do in eight books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity; intending therein to show such arguments as should force an assent from all men, if reason, delivered in sweet language, and void of any provocation, were able to do it. And, that he might prevent all prejudice, he wrote before it a large preface or epistle to the dissenters, wherein there were such bowels of love, and such a commixture of that love with reason, as was never exceeded but in Holy Writ; and particularly in that epistle of St. Paul to his dear brother and fellow-labourer Philemon, than which none ever was more like this epistle of Mr. Hooker's; so that his dear friend and companion in his studies, Dr. Spencer, might, after his death, justly say, "What admirable height of learning, and depth of judgment, dwelt in the lowly mind of this truly humble man; great in all wise men's eyes, except his own!-with what gravity and majesty of speech his tongue and pen uttered heavenly mysteries; whose eyes, in the humility of his heart, were always cast down to the ground! -how all things that proceeded from him were breathed as from the spirit of love; as if he, like the bird of the Holy Ghost, the dove, had wanted gall! Let those that knew him not in his person.

judge by these living images of his soul, his writings."

The foundation of these books was laid in the Temple; but he found it no fit place to finish what he had there designed; he therefore earnestly solicited the Archbishop for a remove from that place; to whom he spake to this purpose: "My Lord, when I lost the freedom of my cell, which was my college, yet I found some degree of it in my quiet country parsonage: but I am weary of the noise and oppositions of this place; and indeed God and nature did not intend me for contentions, but for study and quietness. My Lord, my particular contests with Mr. Travers here have proved the more unpleasant to me, because I believe him to be a good man; and that belief hath occasioned me to examine mine own conscience concerning his opinions; and, to satisfy that, I have consulted the Scripture, and other laws, both human and divine, whether the conscience of him, and others of his judgment, ought to be so far complied with as to alter our frame of Church-government, our manner of God's worship, our praising and praying to him, and our established ceremonies, as often as his and other tender consciences shall require us. And in this examination, I have not only satisfied myself, but have begun a treatise, in which I intend a justification of the laws of our Ecclesiastical polity; in which design God and his holy angels shall at the last great day bear me that witness which my conscience now does, that my meaning is not to provoke any, but rather to satisfy all

tender consciences: and I shall never be able to do this, but where I may study, and pray for God's blessing upon my endeavours, and keep myself in peace and privacy, and behold God's blessing spring out of my mother-earth, and eat my own bread without oppositions; and therefore, if your Grace can judge me worthy of such a favour, let me beg it, that I may perfect what I have begun."

About this time the parsonage or rectory of Boscum, in the diocese of Sarum, and six miles from that city, became void, to which Richard Hooker was presented in the year 1591, as also to a minor prebend of Salisbury. There he continued till he had finished four of his eight proposed books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, which were published in the year 1594, being then in the thirty-ninth year of his age.

He left Boscum in the year 1595; and in the same year (July the 7th) he was presented by the Queen to the living of Bishops Borne, in Kent; in which living he continued till his death, without any addition of dignity or profit.

CHAP. IV.

AND now, having brought our Richard Hooker from his birth-place, to this, where he found a grave, I shall only give some account of his books, and of his behaviour in this parsonage of Borne, and then give a rest both to myself and my reader. His first four books and large epistles have been declared to be printed at his being at Boscum, anno 1594. At the end of these four books there was this Advertisement to the Reader: "I have for some causes thought it at this time more fit to let go these first four books by themselves, than to stay both them and the rest, till the whole might together be published. Such generalities of the cause in question as are here handled, it will be perhaps not amiss to consider apart, by way of introduction unto the books that are to follow concerning particulars; in the mean time the reader is requested to mend the printer's errors, as noted underneath."

I am next to declare that his fifth book (which is longer) was first also printed by itself, anno 1597, and dedicated to his patron, the Archbishop. These books were read with an admiration of

their excellency in this country, and their just fame spread itself also into foreign nations. And I have been told, more than forty years past, that either Cardinal Allen, or learned Dr. Stapleton, (both Englishmen, and in Italy about the time when Hooker's four books were first printed,) meeting with this general fame of them, were desirous to read an author that both the Reformed and the learned of their own Romish Church did so much magnify, and therefore caused them to be sent for to Rome; and after reading them, boasted to the Pope, (which then was Clement VIII.,) "that though he had lately said, he had never met with an English book whose writer deserved the name of author, yet there now appeared a wonder to them, and it would be so to his Holiness, if it were in Latin; for a poor obscure English priest had writ four such books of Laws and Church-polity, and in a style that expressed such a grave and so humble a majesty, with such clear demonstration of reason, that in all their readings they had not met with any that exceeded him." And this begot in the Pope an earnest desire that Dr. Stapleton should bring these said four books, and, looking on the English, read a part of them to him in Latin; which Dr. Stapleton did, to the end of the first book; at the conclusion of which, the Pope spake to this purpose: "There is no learning that this man hath not searched into, nothing too hard for his understanding; this man, indeed, deserves the name of an author; his books will get reverence by age; for there is in them such seeds of eternity, that if the rest be

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