LIFE OF MR. RICHARD HOOKER.

INTRODUCTION.

I HAVE been persuaded, by a friend whom I reverence, and ought to obey, to write the Life of Richard Hooker, the happy author of five, if not more, of the eight learned books of "The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity." And though I have undertaken it, yet it hath been with some unwillingness, because I foresee that it must prove to me, and especially at this time of my age; a work of much labour to inquire, consider, research, and determine what is needful to be known concerning him. I knew him not in his life, and must therefore not only look back to his death-now sixty-four years past-but almost fifty years beyond that, even to his childhood and youth, and gather thence such observations and prognostics as may at least adorn, if not prove necessary, for the completing of what I have undertaken.

For

This trouble I foresee, and foresee also that it is impossible to escape censures, against which I will not hope my well-meaning and diligence can protect me; for I consider the age in which I live, and shall therefore but entreat of my reader a suspension of his censures till I have made known unto him some reasons, which I myself would now gladly believe do make me in some

measure fit for this undertaking; and if these reasons shall not acquit me from all censures, they may at least abate of their severity, and this is all I can probably hope for. My reasons follow.

About forty years past-for I am now past the seventieth of my age-I began a happy affinity with William Cranmer, now with God, grand-nephew unto the great Archbishop of that name; a family of noted prudence and resolution. With him and two of his sisters I had an entire and free friendship: one of them was the wife of Dr. Spencer, a bosom friend and sometime compupil with Mr. Hooker in Corpus Christi College in Oxford, and after President of the same. I name them here, for that I shall have occasion to mention them in the following discourse, as also George Cranmer, their brother, of whose useful abilities my reader may have a more authentic testimony than my pen can purchase for him, by that of our learned Camden and others.

This William Cranmer and his two fore-named sisters had some affinity, and a most familiar friendship, with Mr. Hooker, and had had some part of their education with him in his house, when he was parson of Bishop's Bourne, near Canterbury, in which city their good father then lived. They had, I say, a part of their education with him, as myself since that time, a happy cohabitation with them; and having some years before read part of Mr. Hooker's works with great liking and satisfaction, my affection to them made me a diligent inquisitor into many things that concerned him; as, namely, of his person, his nature, the management of his time, his wife, his family, and the fortune of him and his. Which inquiry hath given me much advantage in the knowledge of what is now under my consideration, and intended for the satisfaction of my reader.

I had also a friendship with the Reverend Dr. Usher, the late learned Archbishop of Armagh; and with Dr. Morton, the late learned and charitable Bishop of Durham; as also with the learned John Hales, of Eton College; and with them also—who loved the very name of Mr. Hooker—I have had many discourses concerning him; and from them and many others that have now put off mortality, I might have had more informations, if I could then have admitted a thought of any fitness for what by persuasion I have now undertaken. But though that full harvest be irrecoverably lost, yet my memory hath preserved some gleanings, and my diligence made such additions to them, as I hope will prove useful to the completing of what I intend; in the discovery of which I shall be faithful, and with this assurance put a period to my Introduction.

IT is not to be doubted but that Richard Hooker was born at Heavy-tree, near or within the precincts or in the city of Exeter, a city which may justly boast that it was the birthplace of him and Sir Thomas Bodley; as indeed the county may, in which it stands, that it hath furnished this nation with Bishop Jewel, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many others, memorable for their valour and learning. He was born about the year of our Redemption 1553, and of parents that were not so remarkable for their extraction or riches as for their virtue and industry, and God's blessing upon both; by which they were enabled to educate their children in some degree of learning, of which our Richard Hooker may appear to be one fair testimony, and that Nature is not so partial as always to give the great blessings of wisdom and learning, and with them the greater blessings

of virtue and government, to those only that are of a more high and honourable birth.

His complexion, if we may guess by him at the age of forty, was sanguine, with a mixture of choler; and yet his motion was slow even in his youth, and so was his speech, never expressing an earnestness in either of them, but a humble gravity suitable to the aged. And it is observed, so far as inquiry is able to look back at this distance of time, that at his being a schoolboy he was an early questionist, quietly inquisitive, "why this was, and that was not, to be remembered? why this was granted and that denied ?" This being mixed with a remarkable modesty, and a sweet serene quietness of nature, and with them a quick apprehension of many perplexed parts of learning, imposed then upon him as a scholar, made his master and others to believe him to have an inward blessed divine light, and therefore to consider him to be a little wonder. For in that children were less pregnant, less confident, and more malleable, than in this wiser but not better age.

This meekness and conjuncture of knowledge, with modesty in his conversation, being observed by his schoolmaster, caused him to persuade his parents, who intended him for an apprentice, to continue him at school till he could find out some means by persuading his rich uncle or some other charitable person to ease them of a part of their care and charge, assuring them that their son was so enriched with the blessings of nature and grace, that God seemed to single him out as a special instrument of His glory. And the good man told them also that he would double his diligence in instructing him, and would neither expect nor receive any other reward than the content of so hopeful and happy an employment.

This was not unwelcome news, and especially to his mother, to whom he was a dutiful and dear child, and all parties were so pleased with this proposal that it was resolved so it should be. And in the meantime his parents and master laid a foundation for his future happiness by instilling into his soul the seeds of piety, those conscientious principles of loving and fearing God, of an early belief that He knows the very secrets of our souls; that He punisheth our vices and rewards our innocence; that we should be free from hypocrisy, and appear to man what we are to God, because first or last the crafty man is catched in his own snare. These seeds of piety were so seasonably planted, and so continually watered with the daily dew of God's Blessed Spirit, that his infant virtues grew into such holy habits as did make him grow daily into more and more favour both with God and man; which, with the great learning that he did after attain to, hath made Richard Hooker honoured in this, and will continue him to be so to succeeding generations.

This good schoolmaster, whose name I am not able to recover, and am sorry, for that I would have given him a better memorial in this humble monument, dedicated to the memory of his scholar, was very solicitous with John Hooker, then chamberlain of Exeter, and uncle to our Richard, to take his nephew into his care, and to maintain him for one year in the University, and in the meantime to use his endeavours to procure an admission for him into some college, though it were but in a mean degree; still urging and assuring him that his charge would not continue long, for the lad's learning and manners were both so remarkable that they must of necessity be taken notice of, and that doubtless God would provide him some second patron that would free him and his parents from their future care and charge.