1. TO write the lives of worthy personages was ever accounted a most laudable custom among the heathens; for to perpetuate the memory of the dead who were eminent in virtue did manifestly conduce to the public benefit of the living. Much more the ancient Christians, in their time, both solemnly retained this practice, and adjudged it an act of piety and justice to the deceased, if they were men of fame for learning or other virtues, to celebrate their praises to posterity, and by this means stir up emulation in others to follow so noble precedents before them. 2. For which cause St Jerome writ his Catalogus Il1ustrium Virorum; before whom also Eusebius, with others, in short recorded to future ages the holy lives of those primitive fathers who were signally active or passive for the Christian faith. Suum cuique decus posteritas refendit (saith the historian): “Posterity doth render to every man the commendation he deserves.” 3. Therefore for the Reverend Doctor’s sake, and in due veneration of his name, — which I doubt not is honored by all true sons of the Church of England, both for his learned writings and constant sufferings in defense of her doctrine and discipline established by law — here is faithfully presented to them a true and complete narrative of his life; to answer the common expectations of men in this case, who would read his person (together with the ordinary and extraordinary occurrences of providence that befell him) as well as his books, that were long before published to the world. 4. To give satisfaction in the former, here is nothing inserted but the relations of truth, which hath been often heard from his own mouth, spoken to his dearest friends, or written by his pen in some loose fragments of paper that were found left in his study after his death; upon which, as on a sure foundation, the whole series and structure of the following discourse is laid together; but would have been more happily done, if he had left larger memoirs for it. Nothing was more usual in ancient times, than for good men (saith Tacitus) to describe their own lives — (suam ipsi vitam narrate, fiduciam potius morum quam arrogantiam arbitrati sunt) — “upon a confidence of their right behavior, rather than to be supposed any arrogancy or presumption in them.” 5. First of all, I shall begin with his birth, in that country above all other ennobled with the famous seat of the Muses, to which he was a constant votary. By Cambden, Oxford is called “the sun, eye, and soul of Great Britain;” by Matthew Paris, “the second school of the Church;” by the Reverend Doctor “coeval to Paris, if not before it, the glory of this island and of the western parts.” Yet it cannot be denied as high praises have been attributed by learned men to the most famous University of Cambridge, that I dare make no comparisons betwixt those two sisters of Minerva, for the love I owe to either of them, who were both my dear nurses. However, the University of Oxon was long since honored with the title of generale studium, in nobilissimis quatuor Europoe academiis; and this glorious title conferred upon none else in former times, but the Universities of Paris in France, Bononia in Italy, and Salamanca in Spain. Near which Oxon, or noble Athens, he was born, at Burford, an ancient market-town of good note, in the county of Oxford, upon the twenty-ninth day of November, anno Dom. 1600, in the same year with the celebrated historian Jacob. August. Thuanus. On both whom the stars poured out the like benign influences; but the former, viz. Peter Heylyn, had not only the faculty of an historian, but the gift of a general scholar in other learning, poloumaqe>statov kai< oJ pe>ri pa~n pepaideume>mov as will appear to any one that reads his laborious writings. 6. He was second son of Henry Heylyn, gentleman, descended from the ancient family of the Heylyns of Pentre-Heylyn, in Montgomeryshire, then part of Powis-land, from the princes whereof they were derived, and unto whom they were hereditary cupbearers; for so the word “Heylyn” doth signify in the Welch or British language; — an honorable office in most nations, which we find in divine as well as profane history; whereby Nehemiah became so great a favorite with Artaxerxes, that he obtained a grant for the rebuilding of the holy city. Magni honoris erat pincernoe munus apud Persas, saith Alex[ander] ab Alex[andro]. 7. If Camden Clarencieux be of good authority, (as with most he is unquestionable), the Doctor deriveth his pedigree from Gronoap-Heylyn, who descended from Brockwel Skythrac, one of the Princes of Powis-land, in whose family was ever observed that one of them had a gag-tooth, and the same was a notable omen of good fortune; which mark of the tooth is still continued in the Doctor’s family. These and such-like signatures of more wonderful form are indeed very rare, yet not without example: so Seleucus and his children after him were born with the figure of an anchor upon their thigh, as an infallible mark of their true geniture, (saith Justin): Originis hujus argumentum etiam posteris mansit, si quidem filii nepotesque ejus anchoram in femore veluti notam generis naturalem habuere. f54 8. The aforesaid Gronoap-Heylyn’s, from whom the Doctor is one of the descendants, was a man of so great authority with the Princes of North Wales, that Llewellen, the last Prince of the country, made choice of him before any other, to treat with the Commissioners of Edward the First, King of England, for the concluding of a final peace between them; f55 which was accordingly done; but afterwards Llewellen, by the persuasion of David his brother, raised an army against the King, that were quickly routed; himself slain in battle: and in him ended the line of the Princes of North Wales, — who had before withstood many puissant monarchs, whose attempts they always frustrated by retiring into the heart of their country, and (as the Doctor saith) “leaving nothing for their enemies to encounter with but woods and mountains,” — after they had reigned Princes of North Wales for the space of four hundred and five years — a goodly time, that scarcely the greatest monarchies in the world have withstood their fatal period and dissolution, as chronologers usually observe — Anni quingenti sunt fatalis periodus regnorum et rerum publicarum, saith Alsted. f57 9. But this little monarchy of Wales may be compared to a finger or toe, or the least joint, indiscernible in the vast body of the four great empires, and yet withal shows the mutability of them and all worldly powers — that time will triumph in the ruin of the strongest states and kingdoms; as is most excellently represented to us by Nebuchadnezzar’s image of gold, silver, iron, and brass, that moldered away, though durable metal, because it stood upon feet of clay. So unstable are all mortal things, and of no longer duration are the most high and mighty powers under heaven than the British monarchy; which caused the historian to complain, that the more he meditated with himself of things done both in old and latter times, tanto magis ludibria rerum mortalium cunctis in negotiis obversantur f59 — “so much the more,” saith he, “the uncertain-tics and mock vanities of fortune in all worldly affairs came to his remembrance.” 10. Notwithstanding those great alterations in Wales, no longer a kingdom of itself, but annexed to the crown of England, the family of Pentre-Heylyn, from whom the said Gronoap-Heylyn descended in a direct line, removed not their station for all the ages past, but continued their seat until the year anno Dom. 1637; at which time Mr Rowland Heylyn, Alderman and Sheriff of London, and cousin-german to Dr Heylyn’s father, dying without issuemale, the seat was transferred into another family, into which the heiresses married. This Mr Rowland Heylyn was a man of singular goodness and piety, that before his death caused the Welch or British Bible to be printed at his own charge in a portable volume, for the benefit of his countrymen, which was before in a large church folio; also the “Practice of Piety” in Welch — a book, though common, not to be despised; besides a Welch Dictionary for the better understanding of that language; all which certainly was a most pious work, notwithstanding their opinion to the contrary, who think that the Bible in a vulgar tongue is not for edification but destruction. Yet God hath been pleased in all ages to stir up some devout men of public spirits, as Sixtus Senensis the monk confesseth, that Christians may read the holy Bible to their own edification and comfort, and not be kept hoodwinked in blindness and heathenish ignorance. Not to mention what other nations hath done, King Alfred caused both the Old and New Testament to be published in the vulgar tongue for the benefit of this land; and in the reign of Richard the Second the whole Scripture was set forth in English, as Polydor Virgil testifies, that, when the parliament endeavored to suppress the same, John Duke of Lancaster stood up in defense thereof, saying, “We will not be the refuse of all men; for other nations have God’s laws in their own language: so ought we.”

Therefore, seeing such noble precedents of godly zeal for the general instruction of the people, it was a most excellent work of the good Alderman Mr Rowland Heylyn to print those Welch Bibles, which were before rare and costly, but now grown common in every man’s hand, and in his own mother’s tongue. 11. As the Doctor was of honorable extraction by his father’s side, so his mother’s pedigree was not mean and contemptible, but answered the quality of her husband; being a gentlewoman of an ancient family, whose name was Eliz. Clampard, daughter of Francis Clampard of Wrotham in Kent, and of Mary Dodge, his wife, descended in a direct line from Peter Dodge of Stopworth in Cheshire, unto whom King Edward the First gave the seigniory or lordship of Padenhugh in the barony of Coldingham, in the realm of Scotland, as well for his special services that he did in the siege of Barwick and Dunbar, as for his valor showed in several battles, encontre son grand enemy et rebelle le Baillol, roy d’Escose et vassal d’Angle terre, as the words are in the original charter of arms, given to the said Peter Dodge by Guyen King of Arms, at the King’s command, dated April the 8th, in the 84th year of the said King Edward the First. One of the descendants from the said Peter Dodge was uncle to Dr Heylyn’s mother, and gave the manor of Lechlade in the county of Gloucester, worth Ł1400 per annum, to Robert Bathurst, Esq., uncle to the Doctor, and father to the loyal Knight and Baronet, Sir Edward Bathurst, lately deceased. 12. The Doctor in his green and tender years was put to school at Burford, (the place of his nativity and education), under the care of Mr William North, then schoolmaster; by whose good instructions, and his own wonderful ingenuity, he grew up to that proficiency in learning, that he was admired both by his master and scholars; because his entrance into the free school was at the time of childhood, when he was but six years old; betwixt which time and the space of four years after he plied his book so well, that he appeared more than an ordinary Latinist, being composer of several exercises both in prose and verse, particularly a tragi-comedy upon the wars and destruction of Troy, with other exercises historical, which foreshowed what an excellency he would after attain unto in all kind of generous learning. 13. Such early blossoms are for the most part. blasted, or seldom bring forth fruit to ripeness and perfection; that few examples can be named of precocious wits as have been long-lived, or come near to the years of old age, as the Doctor did, excepting one fatuously known above others, Hermogenes the rhetorician, of whom it was said, oJ ejn paisi< ge>rwn, ejn de< ge>rousi pai~v — “ He was an old man when he was a child, and a child when he was an old man.” In his childhood he was often brought before Marcus Ant[oninus], the Roman Emperor, who delighted to hear his talk, for the natural eloquence that flowed from him: but though he lived long, his wit and admired parts soon decayed; and for his long life, saith Rhodiginus of him, ut unus ex multis, “he was one (as it were) of a thousand.” Yet a reverend Father of the Christian Church, the glory of his time, St Augustine, did far excel Hermogenes the orator; for he tells us in his Confessions, that in secunda pueritia, that is, about the age of twelve, legisse et intellexisse Logicos et Rhetorieos Aristotelis libres, “he read and understood the books of Aristotle’s Logic and Rhetoric;” by which learning and study of divinity, well managed together, St Augustine appeared the only champion in the field for the orthodox faith, confounded the Manichees, Donatists, and other heretics, and finally he lived to a great old age, — a blessing which ordinarily accompanied the primitive Bishops and holy Fathers, and still is continued, as may be observed, to the worthy Prelates of our Church. But to find many of prodigious wits and memories from childhood, and for such persons to live unto extraordinary years, and keep up their wonted parts most vigorously after they are turned sixty, — which is the deep autumn of man’s life, — I believe Dr Heylyn had the happy fortune in youth and age above many others, that his virtues and excellent abilities kept equal balance together for all his life, primus ad extremum similis sibi — that as he began 84 happily, so he went on; like Isocrates his master, who, being always the same, could say, Nihil habeo quod senectutem meam accusem — “ He had nothing to accuse his old age with.” f72 14. After he was first disciplined under his master North, whom death took from the school to another world, he was committed to his successor Mr Davis, a right worthy man and painful schoolmaster, who trained him up in all points of learning befitting a young scholar for the University; where he was admitted at the fourteenth year of his age commoner in Hart Hall, and put under the tuition of Mr Joseph Hill, an ancient Batchelor of Divinity, and formerly one of the Fellows of Corpus Christi College, but then a Tutor in Hart Hall. After whom Mr Walter Newbery, a zealous Puritan in those days, undertook the charge of him; who little thought his pupil would afterward prove so sharp an enemy to the Puritan faction.

But by the help of his two tutors, who faithfully discharged their office in reading logical lectures to him and other kind of learning, his own industry also and earnest desire to attain unto academical sciences setting him forward beyond his years and standing, he was encouraged by his tutor and good friends (who saw his parts were prodigious) to stand for a Demy’s place in Magdalen College at the time of their election. But he being very young, and the Fellows already pre-engaged for another, he missed the first time, as is usual in this ease; with which disappointment he was not at all discouraged, but cheerfully followed the course of his studies: and, among other exercises for recreation sake, and to show his wit and fahey, he framed a copy of verses in Latin, on occasion of a pleasant journey he took with his two tutors to Woodstock; which verses he presented to the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, who at the next election, in the year 1615, unanimously chose him Demy of the House, where soon after he was made Impositor of the Hall: which office — (no small honor to him, being then but fifteen years of age) — he executed with that trust and diligence, that the Dean of the College continued him longer in it than any of his predecessors; for which he was so envied by his fellow Demies — (as that malignant passion is always the concomitant of honor) — that they called him by the name of Perpetual Dictator. About the same time, being very eager upon his juvenile studies, he composed an English tragedy, called by him Spurins, that was so generally well liked by the society, that Dr Langton, the President, commanded it to be acted in his lodgings. 15. After those and many other specimina ingenii, fair testimonies of his wit and scholarship, he easily obtained his grace for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in [July] the year 1617, [but was not presented to it till the October following, by reason of the absence of one of his seniors; holding it unworthy to prejudice another person for his own advancement. After the performance of the Lent exercises for his degree, he fell into a fever, which, increasing with great violence, at last turned into a tertian ague, and caused him again to retreat unto his country air, which he enjoyed till the middle of July following, and] then, according to the College Statutes and custom, that requires some exercise to be performed by a junior bachelor in the long vacation, he read several lectures of geography, to which his genius naturally led him, and carried them on so pleasantly in a new method, not observed by others, by joining history with cosmography, that made the work very delightful; for scarce any memorable action done in any nation, country, or famous city in the world, but he hath recorded it: which was a wonderful task for a youth of his years; that all his auditors, grave fellows as well as others, .was struck into deep admiration of his profound learning and wisdom, that forthwith the whole society, nemine contradicente, admitted him Probationer Fellow, in the place of Mr Love, and that before such time he had fully finished the reading of his lectures.

And for a further encouragement of him in his studies, being also a good philosopher as well as geographer, the college chose him Moderator of the Senior Form in the Hall, that brought both credit to his name and profit to his purse; for which, in gratitude to them, — (as he ever showed a grateful mind to his patrons and benefactors,) — he presently writ a Latin comedy, called by him Theomachia, which he finished and transcribed in a fortnight’s time, and dedicated the same to the Fellows; who were so highly pleased with his ingenuity and pains, that on July the 19th, 1619, he was admitted Fellow in that honorable society, according to the usual form — In verum et perpetuum socium. After which followed a new honor upon him, — (as all degrees in the university are honorable, and but the just reward of learned men) — that in the year 1620 the University conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts. And surely a young master he was, that not one of twenty is capable of this degree at his years; but more remarkable it was at that time, because he was one of those masters that first sat with their caps on in the Convocation-house, by order of the Earl of Pembroke, then Chancellor of the University, who signified his Lordship’s pleasure by his especial letters: “That from that time forward, the Masters of Arts, who before sat bare, should wear their caps in all congregations and convocations;” which has been ever since observed. f82 16. He, now a Master of Arts in the University, and Fellow of a noble College, than which no greater encouragements can be imagined for young men to follow their studies, and put audacity into them to show their parts, especially when they have gained by their learning and merits both preferment and honor — he was persuaded by several friends to publish those Geographical Lectures which he read in the long vacation, that others might taste the sweetness and pleasure of those studies, besides his own fellow-collegians. Accordingly, having got his father’s consent for the printing of them, and the perusal and approbation of his book by some learned men, at the age of twenty and one years the young writer comes forth, November the 7th, anno Dom. 1621. Whose ingenious writings found such general acceptance, (manibus omnium teruntur, f85) that scarce any scholar’s study was without them; and to this day, since their enlargement by several editions, are as commonly cited upon occasion as any authentic author that is extant. The first copy was presented to his Royal Highness King Charles the First, then Prince of Wales, unto whom the young author dedicated his work, and by the young Prince was as graciously received, being brought into his Highness’ presence by Sir Robert Carr, afterward Earl of Ancram, but then one of the Gentlemen of the Prince’s Bed chamber. 17. Having so fortunate a beginning, to gain the Prince his patron, he desisted in geography, and proceeded to higher studies, that might capacitate him for greater services hereafter, both in Church and State. In order thereto, first piously he took along with him the episcopal blessing of confirmation by the hands of Bishop Lake, in the parish-church of Wells, September the 15th, anno Dom. 1623; the fruits of whose fatherly benediction, [and] devout prayers, with imposition of hands, did manifestly appear in this true son of the Church; whom the Almighty did bless, and “daily increase in him the manifold gift of grace, bestowed on him the spirit of wisdom and understanding,” etc. And certainly such singular benefits do accompany this apostolical institution, mentioned in Scripture, constantly used in the primitive Church, that the neglect or contempt thereof from the hands of God’s Bishops no doubt deprives us of many good blessings which we should otherwise receive from the hands of God.

Being thus confirmed by the Bishop, according to the order of the Church of England, he afterward applied himself to the study of divinity, which St Basil calleth qewri>a tou~ o]ntov the theory or contemplation of the great God, or his being, so far as he hath revealed himself to us in the book of nature and Scripture. This knowledge excelleth all other, and without it who knoweth not the saying, Omnem scientiam magis obesse quam prodesse, si desit scientia optimi, that “all other knowledge does us more hurt than good, if this be wanting.” notwithstanding, he met with some discouragements to take upon himself the profession of a divine, for what reasons it is hard for me to conjecture; but it’s certain at first he found some reluctancy within himself, whether for the difficulties that usually attend this deep mysterious science, to natural reason incomprehensible, because containing many matters of faith, which we ought to believe and not to question, — (though now divinity is the common mystery of mechanics, to whom it seems more easy than their manual trades and occupations;) — or whether because it drew him off from his former delightful studies. More probably (I believe), his fears and distrusts of himself were very great, to engage in so high a calling and profession and run the hazards of it, because the like examples are very frequent both in antiquity and modern history. However, so timorous he was upon this account, lest he should rush too suddenly into the ministry, although his abilities at that time transcended many of elder years, that he exhibited a certificate of his age to the President of the College, and thereby procured a dispensation, notwithstanding any local statutes to the contrary, that he might not be compelled to enter into holy orders till he was twenty-four years old: at which time still his fears did continue, or at least his modesty and self-denial wrought some unwillingness in him, till at last he was overcome by the arguments and powerful persuasions of his learned friend Mr Buekner; after whose excellent discourses with him he followed his studies in divinity more closely than ever, — (having once tasted the sweetness of them, nothing can ravish the soul more with pleasure unto an ecstasy than divine contemplation of God and the mysteries in his holy word, which the angels themselves pry into, and for which reason they love to be present in Christian assemblies when the Gospel is preached, as the Apostle intimates to us:) — that by continual study and meditation, and giving himself wholly to read theological books, he found in himself an earnest desire to enter into the holy orders of Deacon and Priest, which he had conferred upon him at distinct times in St Aldate’s Church at Oxon, by the Reverend Father in God Bishop Howson. At the time when he was ordained priest, he preached the ordination sermon, upon the words of our Savior to St Peter, Luke 22:32: “And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” — an apposite text upon so solemn occasion. Being thus ordained, to his great satisfaction and contentment, the method which he resolved to follow in the course of his studies was quite contrary to the common road of young students; for he did not spend his time in poring upon compendiums and little systems of divinity, whereby many young priests think they are made absolute divines, when perhaps a gentleman of the parish doth oftentimes gravel them in an ordinary argument; but he fell upon the main body of divinity, by studying Fathers, Councils, Ecclesiastical Histories, and Schoolmen, — the way which King James commended to all younger students for confirming them in the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, that is most agreeable to the doe-trine of the primitive Church. 18. By this time his book of Geography, — in the first edition bought up by scholars, gentlemen, and almost every householder, for the pleasantness of its reading, — was reprinted and enlarged in a second edition, and presented again to his highness the Prince of Wales, who not only graciously accepted the book, but was pleased to pass a singular commendation upon the author. But afterward the book being perused by his royal father King James, the second Solomon for wisdom, and most learned monarch in Christendom, — (the book put into his Majesty’s hand by Dr Young, then Dean of Winton, and Mr Heylyn’s dear friend), — the King’s piercing judgment quickly spied out a fault, which was taken no notice of by others; — as God always endows Kings his vicegerents with that extraordinary gift, the spirit of discerning .above other mortals, — (Sicut angelus Dei est dominus meus Rex, saith the holy Scripture, f99 “As an angel of God, so is my lord the King.”) Who, lighting upon a line that proved an unlucky passage in the author, who gave precedency to the French King, and called France the more famous kingdom; with which King James was so highly displeased, that he presently ordered the Lord Keeper to call the book in: but this being said in his anger and passion, no further notice was taken of it. In the mean time Dr Young took all care to send Mr Heylyn word of his Majesty’s displeasure; the news of which was no small sorrow to him, that he was now in danger to lose the King’s favor, — Nil nisi peccatum manifestaque culpa fatendum est.

Pcenitet ingenii, judiciique mei — that Mr Heylyn could have wished them words had been left out. Dr Young advised him to repair to court, that by the young Prince’s patronage he might pacify the King’s anger; but, not knowing whether the Prince himself might not be also offended, he re, sided still in Oxford, and laid open his whole grief to the Lord Danvers, desiring his lordship’s counsel and best advice, what remedy he should seek for cure, According to the good lord’s counsel, he sent up an apology to Dr Young, which was an explanation of his meaning upon the words in question, and then under condemnation: the error was not to be imputed to the author, but to the errata of the printer, which is most ordinary in them, to mistake one word for another; and the grand mistake was, by printing is for was, which put the whole sentence out of joint, and the author into pain, if it had been of a higher crime than of a monosyllable, it had not been pardonable, for the intention of the author was very innocent. — Quis me deceperit error?

Et culpam in facto, non scelus esso meo. f102 The words of his apology which he sent up to Dr Young, for his Majesty’s satisfaction, are these that followeth — “That some crimes are of a nature so unjustifiable, that they are improved by an apology; yet, considering the purpose he had in those places which gave offense to his sacred Majesty, he was unwilling that his innocence should be condemned for want of an advocate. The burden under which he suffered .was a mistake rather than a crime; and that mistake not his own, but the printer’s. For if, in the first line of page 441, was be read instead of is, the sense runs as he designed it; and this appears from the words immediately following; for by them may be gathered the sense of this corrected reading: ‘When Edward the Third quartered the arms of France and England, he gave precedency to the French; first, because France was the greater and more famous kingdom; that the French,’ etc. These reasons are to be referred to the time of that King, by whom those arms were first quartered with the arms of England, and who desired by [this] honor done unto their arms to gain upon the good opinion of that nation, for the crown and love whereof he was then a suitor; for at this time — (besides [that] it may seem incongruous to use a verb of the present tense in a matter done so long ago) — that reason is not of the least force or consequence; the French King having so long since forgot the rights of England, and our late Princes claiming nothing but the title only. The place and passage so corrected, I hope I may, without detraction from the glory of this nation, affirm that France was at that time the more famous kingdom. Our English swords, for more than half the time since the Norman Conquest, had been turned against our own bosoms; and the wars we then made, — except some fortunate excursions of King Edward the First in France, and King Richard in the Holy Land, — in my opinion were fuller of pity than of honor. For what was our kingdom under the reigns of Edward the Second, Henry the Third, John, Stephen, and Rufus, but a public theater on which the tragedies of blood and civil distensions had been continually acted? On the other side, the French had exercised their arms with credit and renown both in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and had much added to the glory of their name and nation by conquering the kingdoms of Naples and Sicilia, and driving the English themselves out of [all] France, Guyen only excepted. If we look higher, we shall find France to be the first seat of the Western Empire, and the forces of it to be known and felt by the Saracens in Spain, the Saxons in Germany, and the Lombards in Italy: at which time the valor of the English was imprisoned in the same seas with their island. And therefore France was at that time, when first the arms were quartered, the more famous kingdom. It is true indeed, that since the time of those victorious Princes, those duo fulmina belli Edward the Third and the Black Prince his son, the arms of England have been exercised in most parts of Europe; nor am I ignorant how high we stand above France and all other nations in [the] true fame of our achievements. France itself divers times overrun, and once conquered, the house of Burgundy upheld from ruin, the Hollanders supported, Spain awed, the ocean commanded, — are sufficient testimonies that in pursuit of fame and honor we had no equals. That I always was of this opinion, my book speaks for me, — (and indeed so unworthy a person needs no better advocate), — in which I have been nowhere wanting to commit to memory the honorable performances of my country. The great annalist Baronius, pretending only a true and sincere History of the Church, yet tells the Pope, in his Epistle Dedicatory, that he principally did intend that work pro sacrarum traditionum andquitate, et authoritate Romance Ecclesioe. The like may I say of myself, though not with like imputation of imposture. I promised a description of all the world, and have, according to the measure of my poor ability, fully performed it; yet have I apprehended withal every modest occasion of ennobling and extolling the soldiers and Kings of England. “Concerning the other place at which his most sacred Majesty is offended, viz. the precedency of France before England; — besides that I do not speak of England as it now stands, augmented by the happy addition of Scotland, I had it from an author whom, in my poverty of reading, I conceived above all exception. Cambden Clarencieux, that general and accomplished scholar, in the fifth page of his Remains, had so informed me; if there be error in it, it is not mine but my authors. The precedency which he there speaks of, is in general councils. And I do heartily wish it would please the Lord to give such a sudden blessing to his Church, that I might live to see Mr Cambden confuted by so good an argument as the sitting of a general council.”

Thus Mr Heylyn apologized for himself, in his letter written to the Dean of Winton, who showed the whole apology to the King: with which his Majesty was fully satisfied, as to the sincere intention and innocent meaning of author; yet, to avoid all further scruples and misconstructions that might arise hereafter, Mr Heylyn, by the advice of his good friend, the wise and most worthy Dean, took order that whole clause which gave so much offense should be left out of all his books.

Ita plerique ingenio sumus omnes; nostri nosmet poenitet, as once the comedian said.

Having undergone such troubles about France, he was resolved upon a further adventure, to take a voyage thither, with his faithful friend Mr Lever, of Lincoln’s Inn, who afterward, poor gentleman, through misfortune of the times, lived and died prisoner in the Fleet. They both set out anno Dom. 1625, and, after their safe arrival in France, took a singular interview of the chief cities and most eminent places in the realm, of which Mr Heylyn’s gives a more accurate account and description (though his stay was not there above five weeks) than Lassel the priest doth of his five years’ voyage into Italy. And now Mr Heylyn was sufficiently convinced with his own eyes which was the more famous kingdom, that after his return home he composed a History of his Travels into France; and, being put into the hands of several friends, [it] was at first printed by a false copy, full of gross errors and insufferable mistakes, that he caused his own true copy to be printed, — one of the most delightful histories of that nature that hath been ever heretofore published; wherein is set out to the life the monsieurs and the madams the nobility and the peasantry, the court and country; their ridiculous customs, fantastical gait, apparel, and fashions, foolish common talk, so given to levity that without singing and dancing they cannot walk the open streets; in the Church serious and superstitious; the better sort horridly atheistical.

Besides all he hath written in that ingenious book, I think he hath in short most excellently deciphered them in his Cosmography where he maketh a second review of their pretty qualities and conditions; as thus, if the reader has a mind to read them: “They are very quick-witted, of a sudden and nimble apprehension, but withal rash and hare-brained; precipitate in all their actions, as well military as civil, failing on like a clap of thunder, and presently going off in smoke; full of law-suits and contentions, that their lawyers never want work; so litigious that there are more law-suits tried among them in seven years than have been in England from the Conquest.

Their women witty, but apish, sluttish, wanton, and incontinent; generally at the first sight as familiar with you as if they had known you from the cradle, and are so full of chat and tattle, even with those they know not, as if they were resolved sooner to want breath than words, and never to be silent till in the grave: dancing such a sport, to which both men and women are so generally affected, that neither age nor sickness, no nor poverty itself, can make them keep their heels still when they hear the music. Such as can hardly walk abroad without crutches, or go as if they were troubled all day with a sciatica, and perchance have their rags hang so loose about them that one would think a swift galliard might shake them into their nakedness, will to the dancing-green howsoever, and be there as eager at the sport as if they had left their several infirmities and wants behind them.

Their language is very much expressed by their action; for the head and shoulders must move as significantly, when they speak, as their lips and tongue, and he that hopeth to speak with a grace must have in him somewhat of the mimic. They are naturally disposed for courtship, as makes all the people complimental, that the poorest cobbler in the parish hath his court cringes, and his eau beniste de cour, his ‘court holy water,’ (as they call it), as perfectly as the best gentleman-usher of Paris. They wear their hair long, goes thin and open to the very shirt, as if there were continual summer; in their gait, walk fast, as if pursued on an arrest. f122 Their humor is much of scoffing, yea even in matters of religion; as appeareth in the story of a gentleman that lay sick on his bed, who, seeing the host brought unto him by a lubberly priest, said that ‘Christ came to him as he entered into Jerusalem, riding upon an ass.’ I cannot forget another of the like kind, a gentleman lying sick upon his death-bed, who, when the priest had persuaded him that the Sacrament of the altar was the very body and blood of Christ, refused to eat thereof, because it was Friday.” And so far the good geographer, who hath pleasantly and truly described them. 21. But now we must come to him as a divine, wherein he acted his part as well as of a cosmographer, when he was called unto the Divinity School to dispute in his turn, according to the Statutes of the University. On April 18th, A.D. 1627, he comes up as opponent, and on Tuesday the 24th following he answered, pro forma, upon these two questions — An Ecclesia unquam fuerit invisibilis?

An Ecclesia possit errare?

Both which he determined in the negative. Upon occasional discourse with him at Abingdon, he was pleased once to show me his supposition, which I read over in his house at Lacye’s Court; but I had not then either the leisure or good luck to transcribe a copy of it, which would have been worth my pains, and more worthy of the press, to the great satisfaction of others. For my part, I can truly say that I never read any thing with more pleasure and heart-delight, for good Latin, reason, and history, which that exercise was full of; but since, both it and many other choice papers in his study (through the carelessness of those to whose custody they were committed, I suppose) are utterly lost and gone, ad blattarum et tinearum epulas. f123 22. In stating of the first question, that caused the heats of that day, he tells us himself — “I fell upon a different way from that of Doctor Prideaux, the Professor, in his Lecture De Visibilitate Ecclesioe, and other tractares of and about that time, in which the visibility of the Protestant Church, (and consequently of the re nowned Church of England), was no otherwise proved, than by looking for it in the scattered conventicles of the Berengarians in Italy, the Waldenses in France, the Wicklifists in England, and the Hussites in Bohemia.

Which manner of proceeding not being liked by the respondent, as that which utterly discontinued that succession of the hierarchy which the Church of England claims from the very Apostles and their immediate successors, — he rather chose to find out a continual visible Church in Asia, Ethiopia, Greece, Italy, yea Rome itself, as also in all the western provinces then subject to the power of the Roman Bishop, when he was the chief Patriarch.” Which Mr Heylyn, from his great knowledge and more than ordinary abilities in history, strenuously asserted and proved; to which the Professor could make but weak replies, (as I have heard from some knowing persons who were present at that disputation), because he was drawn out of his ordinary bias, from scholastical disputation to foreign histories: in which encounter Mr Heylyn was the invincible Ajax — Nec quisquam Ajacem possit superare nisi Ajax. f129 But chiefly the quarrel did arise for two words in Mr Heylyn’s hypothesis, after he had proved the Church of England received no succession of doctrine or government from the Berengarians, Wicklifists, etc., who held many heterodoxes in religion, as different from the established doctrine of our Church as any point that was maintained at that time in the Church of Rome: that the writers of that Church, [and] BeHar-mine himself [amongst them] hath stood up as cordially in maintenance of some fundamental points of the Christian faith against Anti-trinitarians, Anabaptists, and other heretics of these last ages, as any of the divines f132 and other learned men of the Protestant Churches; which point Mr Heylyn closed up with these words: Utinam (quod ipse de Calvino,) sic semper errasset nobilissimus Cardinalis. At which words the reverend Doctor was so impatient in his chair, that he fell upon the respondent in most vile terms, calling him Papicola, Bellarminianus, Pontificius, etc., to draw the hatred of the University upon him, according to the saying, Fortiter calumniare et aliquid adhoerebit: grievously complaining to the younger sort of his auditors, unto whom he made his chiefest addresses, of the unprofitable pains he took among them, if Bellarmine, whom he had labored to confute for so many years, should [now] be honored with the title of nobilis-simus. f135 23. Notwithstanding the respondent acquitted him- [self most bravely before all the company, ascribing no more honor to Bellarmine than for his deserts in learning, and integrity in that particular point before spoken of; which any generous man would give to his learned antagonist. For many Lutherans and Calvinists, I may say, (pace tanti viri), so angry at a word, have not grudged, much less judged it any crime, to praise the Cardinal’s learning. Doctrinam et nos in ipso commendamus, saith a rigid Lutheran, and St Paul himself would not stick to call him who was an inveterate enemy of the Christians, “most noble Festus.” And though Cardinals, we know, were originally but parish Priests, by pride and usurpation have made themselves compeers to Kings, that which is unjustly once obtained by time groweth common and familiar, that none will refuse to give such their ordinary titles of honor, although they come by indirect means and not by merit to them. Bellarmine also was of no poor and base extraction, but better than his fellows; for which reason he was created Cardinal by Clement the Eighth. Hunc eligimus (saith he) quia est nepos optimi et sanctissimi Pontificis because he was the nephew of Marcellus the Second, who said that he could not see how any one could be saved who sat in the pontifical chair — Non video quomodo qui locum hunc altissimum tenent, salvari poossunt. f139 24. After those heats of disputation were over, Mr Heylyn took a journey to London, where he waited on Bishop Laud, then Bishop of Bath and Wells, who had heard of all the passages that had happened at Oxford. Of which Mr Heylyn gave a more perfect account to his Lordship, who was pleased to read over the supposition at which Dr Prideaux was so highly offended: but the good Bishop, on the other side, commended it, and encouraged Mr Heylyn in his studies — “ saying that he himself had in his younger days maintained the same positions in a disputation in St John’s College; that Mr Heylyn’s hypothesis could not be overthrown in a fair way: exhorting him to continue in that moderate course; and that, as God had given him more than ordinary gifts, so he would pray to God, that he and others might employ them in such a way and manner as might make up the breaches in the walls of Christendom.” Mr Heylyn, to clear himself from the suspicion of popery, which Dr Prideaux had most unjustly branded him with, in November next following preached before the King on those words, John 4:20: “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain,” etc. In which sermon he declared himself with such smart zeal and with as quick judgment against several errors and corruptions in the Church of Rome, that his sermon was otherwise resented by the King and court than his supposition by the King’s Professor at Oxon.

And when that clamor was revived again by his enemies, that he had some inclinations to the Romish religion, he gave such satisfaction in his third and fourth sermon preached at Whitehall, in the year 1638, upon the Parable of the Tares, on these words, Matthew 13:26, Tunc apparuerunt zizania, (“ Then appeared the tares also”), that some of the court did not stick to say that he had done more towards the subversion of popery in those two sermons than Dr Prideaux had done in all the sermons which he had ever preached in his life. For that Doctor was a better disputant than a preacher, and, to give him his due, a right learned man in his place of Regius Professor; yet withal so dogmatical in his own points, that he would not abide to be touched, much less contradicted by Mr Heylyn — Non aliam ob causam, nisi quod virtus in utroque, Summa fuit…. f145 More especially being a great man, at that time very popular in the University, profoundly admired by the junior masters, and some of the seniors inclined to Puritanism; his own College then observed to be (communis pestis adolescentum ) the common nursery of west-country, men in Puritan principles, so that Mr Heylyn could expect no favor nor fair dealing in the way of his disputation, when it ran contrary to the Professor’s humor. 25. After these academical contests, growing weary of ohs. and sols. in scholastical disputations, which was ever opposite to his genius, and for this purpose being unwilling to be always cloistered up within the walls of a College, where he must be tied to such exercises; — besides, a man of an airy and active spirit, (though studious and contemplative,) would not be perpetually devoted to a melancholy recluse life: — also emulation and envy, the two inseparable evils that accompany learned men in the same society, hath frequently stirred up animosities and factions among them, that I have known some ingenious persons for this reason have been wearied out of a collegiate life; — resolved therefore he was to marry, and alter the condition of his life, which he thought would prove more agreeable to the content and satisfaction of his mind; — (Neque aliud probis quam ex matrimonio solatium esse, saith the good author, “because marriage is the only comfort of minds honestly given.”) Accordingly a fair fortune was offered to him, a wife with a thousand pounds portion, and a gentlewoman of a very ancient family and of as excellent education, Mrs Letitia High-gate, third daughter of Thomas High-gate of Heyes, Esq., one of his Majesty’s justices of peace for the county of Middlesex, (who in his younger days, whilst his elder brother was alive, had been Provost-Marshal-General of the army under the Earl of Essex at the action of Cales), and of Margery Skipwith his wife, one of the daughters of that ancient family of the Skipwiths in the county of Leicester, of which family still there is a worthy person living, Sir Thomas Skip-with, Knight, a learned Serjeant in the Law. Which said Thomas High-gate, the father before mentioned, was second son of that Thomas High-gate who was Field-Marshal-General of the English forces before St Quintine, under the command of the Earl of Pembroke, anno Dom. 1557, and of Elizabeth Stoner his wife, a daughter of the ancient family of the Stoners in the county of Oxon. f151 26. To this young gentlewoman, Mrs Letitia High-gate aforesaid, Mr Heylyn was no stranger; for his elder brother, Mr Edward Heylyn, had married some years before her eldest sister. His seat was at Minster Lovel in Oxfordshire, where his son (to whom Dr Heylyn was uncle) now liveth, viz. Henry Heylyn, Esq., justice of peace for the county of Oxon, an ancient colonel, and an excellent commander in the army of King Charles the First, and a most accomplished gentleman in all respects, to the honor of his family. Another of the sisters of Mrs Letitia High-gate married Robert Tirwhit, Esq., one of the ancient family of the Tirwhits in the county of Lincoln, Master of the Buck-hounds in the reign of King Charles the First, a place of honor and of great revenue. Finally, to the honor of that family, Sir Henry Bard of Stanes, Knight, who afterward was created Viscount Lord Bellamount, did marry the daughter of Sir William Gardiner, whose Lady and Mrs Letitia High-gate were sisters’ children.

That unfortunate Lord, (who is mentioned in the Marquess of Worcester’s Apophthegms for a brave commander, and governor of Camden House in the time of war,) did attend his sacred Majesty all the time of his exile, until the treaty at Breda, when he was sent, (as I have heard), on some ambassage into the Eastern Countries, where, travelling in Arabia Deserta, for want of a skillful guide, [he] was swallowed up in the gulf of sands.

These were the relations, and many others of quality, (which I forbear to mention), of Mrs Letitia High-gate. And whereas the late writer disparages the young gentlewoman, that her portion was never paid, I am sure he has done her that wrong which he can never recompense; for her elder brother did both pay her and the other sisters’ portions, who were all married to persons of quality; himself had an estate left him by his father to the value of Ł800. per annum; he married an heiress, whose fortune added to his estate, on which they lived nobly for many years, before he fell into losses and misfortunes, caused by his own extravagant pleasures, and chiefly of gaming at dice and cards, f155 Quem damnosa Venus, quem praeecps alea nudat. f156 To the said Letitia High-gate Mr Heylyn was an earnest suitor. For indeed he could not make a better choice, for the excellency of her person, wit, and friends, all concentering together for his more happy contentment; she being also a discreet, religious young lady, which is a blessing to a Clergyman. His courtship of her was not after a romantic manner, nor as a gallant of the times, but like a scholar and a divine, as appears by a copy of verses written upon a rich gilded Bible which he presented to her; and the verses are as followeth — Could this outside beholden be To cost and cunning equally; Or were it such as might suffice The luxury of curious eyes; Yet would I have my dearest look, Not on the cover, but the book.

If thou art merry, here are airs; If melancholy, here are prayers; If studious, here are those things writ Which may deserve thy ablest wit; If hungry, here is food divine; If thirsty, nectar, heavenly wine.

Read then, but first thyself prepare To read with zeal, and mark with care; And when thou read’st what here is writ, Let thy best practice second it; So twice each precept read shall be, First in the book, and next in thee.

Much reading may thy spirits wrong; Refresh them therefore with a song; And that thy music praise may merit, Sing David’s Psalms with David’s spirit; That as thy voice do pierce men’s ears, So shall thy prayer and vows the spheres.

Thus read, thus sing, and then to thee The very earth a heaven shall be; If thus thou readest, thou shalt find, A private heaven within thy mind; And singing thus before thou die, Thou sing’st thy part to those on high. 27. The verses with the Bible were most affectionately received by her, as the best tokens of love that could be given, to lay the foundation of a future happiness betwixt them, that was now begun so religiously with the book of God, which they both intended to make the rule of their life and love. Soon after the solemnization of marriage followed, by the consent of friends on both parties; in the presence of whom and other witnesses they were married by Dr Allibone his faithful friend, upon the festival day of St Simon and St Jude, in Magdalen College Chapel, where he was Fellow, but now the husband of a good wife; of whom we may say as the poet, Felices [ter et amplius] Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malls Divulsus querimoniis Suprema citius solver [amor] die. f159 Most happy is the marriage-tie, Where love abideth constantly; No sad complaints or cries, whilst breath Remains, but true love unto death. 28. At his marriage with this virtuous gentle woman, he had a good estate of his own, besides her portion, to begin the world with; for he had a rent charge of inheritance paid him out of the manor of Leehlade in the county of Glocester, and the advow-son of Bradwel living near Lechlade, both which were left him by his father, as a competent portion for a younger brother; but he wisely parted with the Advowson, resolving not to bury his parts in a country parish; where if he had been once settled, possibly his fortune might have proved like other men’s, never to have been master of more lands or goods than the tithe or glebe of his own parsonage. Therefore he took the first opportunity offered to him as a more probable means of his future preferment; and that was to attend the right honorable the Earl of Danby to the Isles of Guernsey and Jersey, (of which afterward he writ a description). And for this good service he so much endeared himself to his Lordship, who took great notice of his extraordinary merits, that at their return back, the noble Lord commended him, not only to some Lords in court, but presented him to Archbishop Laud, then Bishop of London, who had cast a singular eye of favor upon him before; but now, reminded by the Earl, he presently got him admitted Chaplain to the King; knowing that step to preferment would carry him on further, because the rise of the Clergy is either from the press or the pulpit, in both which Mr Heylyn was exercised. The good Bishop instructed him with counsel and wise cautions, how to behave himself in all circumstances suitable to the calling and dignity of his place; telling him amongst other things, that “the King did not love silk nor satin Chaplains;” which Mr Heylyn ever observed, both young and old, never ruffling in silks like some of his brotherhood, but went always in a plain, grave, and decent habit. 29. In humble gratitude to the Earl his original patron, who first recommended him to the Bishop, and afterward brought him to the honor of acquaintance with noblemen, among whom he found such a general love and respect that their Lordships would often call him to a familiar conversation with them, by which means Mr Heylyn’s acquired more than an ordinary interest in court — he could not study out a more ingenious way to please and oblige all their Lordships than the vindication of the most noble order of the Garter, and that by writing his “History of the famous Saint and Soldier of Christ Jesus, St George of Cappadocia.” f167 Which work he performed so admirably well, for history, learning, and language — all these not vulgar, but incomparable in their kind that I would fain see the fellow that can second it; especially considering that never any one before Mr Heylyn durst attempt the work, by reason of the many difficulties occurring in story. But what could resist the author’s ingenuity and industry, who had importunum ingenium, a restless working head, and a mind indefatigable for study? Perrupit Acheronta Herculeus labor. f168 So various and perplexed are the infinite stories that go of this Saint, that one would think it were an impossible thing to find out the truth. Great care was taken by Anterus, Bishop of Rome, anno Dom. 236, (who was a martyr himself), to preserve the memory of the Christian martyrs, by causing all their acts and passions to be written by public notaries, and afterwards laid up in the register of the Church, as Platina tells us; and we find in Gregory’s Epistles that in the ancient martyrologies the time of their death and place where they suffered is described, but not the circumstance and manner of their deaths: whereby hath risen so many fables and incredible stories, especially of St George, which the monks of old hath filled their legends with. And on the other side, some, because they would be contradictory to them, do run into another extreme of things, not regarding whether they are true or false: they stigmatize St George with all the reproaches imaginable, making him not a Saint but a devil, at the best the bloody George of Alexandria, who was a butcher rather than a Bishop, that caused the slaughter of so many poor Christians for being orthodox and not Arians. More kind and favorable are they that condemn him for a fiction, a mere chimera and non entity, and “will allow him no place,” as the historian saith, “on earth, in heaven, nor hell itself.” f173 30. From all which slanderous accusations of the one side, and from the foppish superstitions and forgeries of the other, Mr Heylyn hath redeemed St George’s honor and reputation; proving by undeniable authorities that St George was a blessed and glorious martyr for Christ, so believed and owned in all Christian nations, a canonized Saint through Christendom, the patron both of our English nation anciently deemed, and of the most honorable order of knighthood in the world. The History was at first presented to his Majesty by the author, and afterwards to the Knights of the noble Order; by his Majesty it was most graciously accepted, and by the nobility highly praised. Notwithstanding Dr Hackwel, the intimate friend of Dr Prideaux, for whose sake, to revenge the old quarrel, appeared against the author, and treated him “neither with that ingenuity which became a scholar, nor that charity as becomes a Christian.” The King, hearing of Dr Hackwel’s sharp reply to this History of St George, sent for Mr Heylyn, commanding him to consider the arguments of his adversary, and for this purpose to go to Windsor, and there search into the records of the Order. But there was little need for that, because all Dr Hackwel’s arguments and allegations were idem per idem, the very same repeated over, which Mr Pryn had before laid down in his book called Histriomastix: which occasioned a second edition of Mr Heylyn’s History, wherein he answered the arguments of both his antagonists; who never troubled him more upon that point; and Dr Hackwel, for his part, in the next edition of his book about the Decay of Nature made an ingenious retractation of the passages relating to St George. Which blessed Saint and Martyr Mr Heylyn the more zealously defended with his pen, not only for the reasons before mentioned, but from a particular obligation wherewith he thought himself bound above others to prosecute the History; because several churches being dedicated to the honor of God by St George’s name, particularly St George’s church at Burford, “where it pleased God,” saith he, “to give me first my natural being and afterward my education, in which regard I hold myself bound in a manner to vindicate St George his honor [having received such comforts in a place] where his memory was anciently precious, and the only church in it dedicated by his name.” Finally the memory of this Saint shines in our calendar, prefixed before the public Liturgy of the Church of England, where he is specially honored with the name of Saint, as is not any of the rest excepting those which saw our Savior in the flesh. f182 Let me finally add what the author of the “Present State of England,” in honor of St George, hath written: — “The greatest monarchs,” saith he, “of Christendom have been enrolled, and have taken it for an honor to be of this Order: a Saint so universally received in all parts of Christendom, so generally attested by the ecclesiastical writers of all ages from the time of his martyrdom to this day, that no one Saint in all the calendar (except those attested by Scripture) is better vindicated.” f184 31. The publishing of this History met with that general good entertainment, for the rarity of its subject, that a gentleman of quality, one Mr Bridges, out of a real respect and love to the author’s learning, presented him to the parsonage of Meysie Hampton, in Gloucestershire; to which if things had happened successfully, Mr Heylyn had then been successor to the Reverend Sebastian [Benefield], D.D., Rector of that living, and Margaret Professor in the University of Oxon. But, contrary to his Patron’s and his own expectation, it proved a living of most litigious title, from whence followed a chargeable suit in law, occasioned by Bishop Goodman, the worst of all his predecessors that sat in the see of Gloucester; who outwardly pretended great kindness to Mr Heylyn, for his learning’s sake, but (like the Fox in the fable, Then he praised the Crow’s singing) to get the meat out of his mouth: for, after he had persuaded Mr Heylyn to leave his presentation in his hands, and enter a caveat in his court, and promising that he would grant no institution to any person till the title was cleared, his Lordship immediately after gave institution to another, (who was his friend), one Mr Jackson, who was presented by Corpus Christi College, in Oxon, that pretended the right of patronage and presentation to that parsonage. And no wonder Mr Heylyn found such base dealing, when this spiritual father so prevaricated with his mother, the Church of England, from which he apostatized most shamefully. No doubt he! was a Jesuite in voto, or “had a Pope in his belly,” before he crept into the bishopric. His Lordship’s hypocrisy was detected in a sermon afterwards preached, for which he was not only questioned, but sentenced to a recantation before the King. But much more scandal he gave at the time of his death, “a scandal so unseasonably and untimely [given],” saith Dr Heylyn’s “as if the devil himself had watched an opportunity to despite this Church. And though some [men] have gladly cherished this occasion to draw the rest of the f193 prelates [and prelatical party] into a general suspicion [of being as much inclined to Popery], yet Christian charity should instruct them not to think evil of all for the fault of one, or prejudge any one man, much less the whole body of a Clergy, for the fault of another. It rather should be wondered at by all moderate and discerning men, that, notwithstanding so many provocations of want and scorn, which have of late been put upon them, there should be found but one of that sacred order [and but three more, that I have heard of, of the regular Clergy] to fall off to Popery; though to say truth, it was not in this Bishop a late falling off, but a pursuance rather of some former inclinations which he had that way, that being thought to be the reason why he refused subscription to the canons in convocation.” f197 32. Seldom misfortunes go alone, but one of them is a prologue to another, though in conclusion of all the scene may end with a pleasant epilogue.

And so it fared with Mr Heylyn, who met with a second disappointment by the hand of fortune, he being yet neither parson, vicar, nor curate, but one of his Majesty’s Chaplains in Ordinary. He was now presented to another living, of which he missed his aim, but thereby was fortunate in his very misfortune. For, having attended the King, and preaching in his course at Whitehall, his Majesty was so well pleased with his sermon, that within a few days after Mr Heylyn was presented by the King to the rectory of Hemingford in the county of Huntington. Soon after he applied himself to the Bishop of Lincoln for institution; which was not only denied him, but the Bishop, more boldly than did befit his Lordship, disputed his own title against his Sovereign, and fell upon Mr Heylyn with most foul opprobrious language, because he presumed to defend the King’s right against his Lordship: which he proved by the instruments of conveyance made from the other party; at which the Bishop was the more highly offended with him, that such a young divine should have so great knowledge of the law, and especially to argue the case with his Lordship.

F200 But this was not the main business, — latet anguis in herba, “there was a snake in the garden;” for his Lordship had a subtle design under disguise, or otherwise he would have easily waived his right of presentation, pro hac vice, to pleasure the King in the preferment of his Chaplain, or at least, preserving his own right, bestowed the living upon Mr Heylyn. But then here lieth the matter — his Lordship had been crossed in his wonted method, that is, to give with one hand and take away with the other, which he could not for shame do with a King’s Chaplain. For when he bestowed a living upon any person, (as he had many in his gift, being both Lord Bishop and Lord Keeper,) — he would tie the incumbent to pay an annum pension out of it, to be disposed to such charitable and pious uses as he thought fit; so that the stream of his charity flowed out of other men’s purses, and not his own; at the best he robbed Peter to pay Paul: which the incumbents felt by dear experience, whom he kept at a low pittance, that for the most part they lived but poorly, for the heavy taxations laid upon them. By this means he had more pensioners than all the Noblemen and Bishops in the land together: and, though he made no particular benefit to himself out of those livings than his name cried up for a noble benefactor, in all other things, to fill his own coffer, he was so covetous and extremely tenacious, that he would never let go what once he had laid hold on; for at the same time he was both Bishop, Dean, Lord Keeper, Parson of Walgrove, and held the poor Prebendary of Asgarby f204 in which last I have the honor to succeed his Lordship. 33. The King, hearing the news of Mr Heylyn’s rough entertainment at Bugden, — how his royal presentation was slighted, and his Chaplain with ill words abused — was not a little offended with the Bishop, on whom he had heaped so many dignities one upon another, both in Church and State; — I will not say undeservedly, if his Lordship’s loyalty and integrity had been answerable to his other great abilities. But his Majesty was pleased, for the comfort of his poor Chaplain, so disappointed and badly treated by the Bishop, to send him this gracious message by the Attorney General Mr Noy (not usual with Kings to private persons) — “ that he was sorry he had put him to so much charge and trouble at Bugden; but it should not be long before he would be out of his debt.” Nor long it was; for within a week after, a Prebendship in the collegiate church of Westminster, (where the Bishop of Lincoln was Dean), fell void, by the death of Mr Darrell; which the King bestowed upon Mr Heylyn, and with it sent a most gracious message by Mr Noy again — “ that he bestowed that prebendary on him to bear the charges of his last journey, but he was still in his debt for the living.” 34. So that he is now entered into one of the fairest preferments, that hath all the accommodations and pleasures which a scholar’s heart can wish: — a learned society; a well furnished library; a magnificent church, that hath an excellent quire in it for a chorus of heavenly voices — the one enough to stir up the coldest heart to devotion, and the other to the veneration of antiquity; where so many ancient monuments of Kings and Queens in Henry VII. Chapel have their sepulture the most accurate pile of building in Europe, by some called the wonder of the world; near which the courts of judicature, the high court of parliament, and not far from thence his Majesty’s palace royal at Whitehall; that, if one would converse with all sorts of famous men, divines, lawyers, statesmen, and other persons of quality, he could not find out a place more suitable to the heart’s desire; besides, situated healthfully, upon a firm gravelly foundation, and pleasantly, on the river Thames, about whose banks may be seen along that river, for many miles, most princely buildings, stately palaces, fair towers and fields, as an old German poet describeth, whose verses are thus translated by the Doctor himself in his Cosmography — Tot campos, silvas, tot regia tecta, tot hortos Artifici excultos dextra, tot vidimus arces Ut nunc Ausonio Thamesis cum Tibride certet.

We saw so many woods, and princely bowers, Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers:

So many gardens drest with curious art, That Thames with Tiber strives to bear a parts. F208 35. Therefore Mr Heylyn was happily disappointed of his former expectations, (as Providence ordained), to embrace a more noble preferment; that he might say now rejoicingly as Chaerea did, Ecquis me vivit hodie fortunatior?

Cui tam subito tot contigerint commoda? f209 Or rather in the Scripture words — “ The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage;” for certainly he could not be seated in a better manner, all those delightful conveniences considered; and yet to add more pleasure to them, he spared no cost to beautify and enlarge his Prebend’s house. In the mean time his wife lived in the country, with his brother, Mr Edward Heylyn, at Minster Lovel in Oxfordshire, and sometimes with his uncle Raynton, at Shilton in Barkshire, a man of a good estate, who was afterward High Sheriff of the same county. 36. So soon as he was settled in his Prebend’s house, several of his friends about town came to visit him and give him joy. Amongst others of most noble acquaintance, that he had gained by his frequent attendances in Whitehall, the Right Honorable Lord Falkland was pleased first to honor him with a visit, and brought along with him a miles gloriosus, one Mr Nelson, an old sea Captain, with whom his Lordship seemed to be mightily delighted for his new way of discovery to find out the longitude of the sea; with which the Captain had troubled all the mathematicians about town, who generally dissented from his opinion, that at last, by his Majesty’s order, the decision of this sea question was referred to Mr Heylyn, as a person thought fit to determine it; but he could neither satisfy the Captain nor the Lord with any further answer at present, than — “ that his Majesty was mistaken in him, for his skill and knowledge did lie more in the historical than philosophical part of geography.” At which the Lord Falkland seemed to be much displeased, thinking that he had spoken thus either out of slight to his old Captain, or through some averse-ness in himself to be engaged in the business; but Mr Heylyn quickly satisfied his Lordship to the contrary, that he intended to use all possible means by his own study, and consult with others more learned than himself in this point, — non conamur tenues grandia — and afterward give the King and his Lordship a full account of the whole matter. 37. Several letters passed betwixt his Lordship and Mr Heylyn; but in one particularly his Lordship commended “the honest old Captain to his judicious care and consideration,” — telling him that “in the credibility of that phenomenon, his Majesty’s resolution would be much guided by his judgment, which he found would be of special authority with him; that he pressed the point oftener to him, because he conceived it a duty which he owed to the truth itself, to have it made manifest one way or other: — that is, either to be freed from the Captain’s imposition and pretense, if upon trial it appeared to be fallacious; or else to be approved and declared for right and perfect, (if such it be), to the silencing perpetually of all malicious impugners thereof, that the world may be deprived no longer of the participation and use of so public and common a benefit.” 38. After the receipt of his Lordship’s letter, Mr Heylyn, who was ever forward to promote any probable notion in learning, and as ready to obey his Lordship’s commands, he both studied the point himself, and conferred with the learned Mr Oughtred, who was a person most likely, for his admired abilities in this kind of learning, to give satisfaction: but his judgment ran quite contrary to the sea Captain, with whom he discoursed about his hypothesis, and showed him his errors, of which he gave a full account to Mr Heylyn in a letter as followeth. “I asked him the ground whereon he went, and told him the difficulties which others found. ‘His ground’ (he said) ‘was by the nodes of the moon’s circle, because the moon accompanies the earth, having it the center of her orb. The difficulties which others imagined, was the finding out the place of the node or * upon the superficies of the earth.’ His principle I determine to omit till more leisure; for I had but one whole day to stay in London. The difficulty of the place of * I saw factible at sea, and accordingly let him understand it. Now being at London, I desired conference with him, and thus I proceeded — ‘You require for the discovery of the longitude, the place of * upon the earth; well, imagine you were now at sea in an unknown place, and that I gave you in degrees of longitude the distance of * from that place where you are: — what will you conclude?’ He was entering into I know not what, by demands of, If this, and If that; but I held him to the question in the hypothesis, telling him, he had what he required. At last he answered — ‘Why me-thinks you have already done it yourself.

You have the distance of * in the degrees of longitude of the * from an unknown place, and therefore the difference of the * is also unknown, except to that place only: but we require the distance from the other known place, which you promised to argue.’ At last he began to be sensible of his mistake, and I advised him to desist from such undertakings, and, being of so great an age, to labor the discovery of another voyage, or rather only labor to attain to the blessed end thereof, being already opened to us by our Savior. And this was the end of our communication, and will be, I suppose, of that business also. I wonder how [the Captain] for these twelve years, wherein he hath mused upon this subject, and hath had conference with so many learned men, would receive no answer: but it seems they gave him too much liberty of digression; and he, having a very ill expression of his confused conceits, entangled himself more and more in perplexities.”

Thus at last the old Captain was weaned from his dear opinion, which he had doted upon for so many years; but to his further grief, and worthily to be lamented by others, followed the death of his friend and learned Lord, who was the honor of his time and degree. And had his Lordship but lived unto these times of ours, since the institution of the Royal Society, unto whom he had commended the hypothesis, their profound learning and exquisite knowledge, rare invention and judgment, by which they have made so many wonderful discoveries of things, would have quickly satisfied his Lordship’s scrupulosity, which was more to be regarded than the Captain’s fancy: “For this noble society has made particular inquiries of tides, currents, and depths of the sea, since their first foundation, having [made] a vast number of experiments,” — “a new instrument,” saith Dr Sprat, “to sound the depth of the sea without a line.” The sea’s longitude is easy, once taken under their consideration. 39. Mr Heylyn’s being released of this troublesome Captain and the sea’s longitude, which was out of Mr Heylyn’s reach and proper element, he thought it more useful and necessary to study the statutes of the land, the laws and customs of this nation, Acts of parliament, old statutes and records, to compare them with the times and circumstances occurring in story, whereby he might enable himself by this means to do better service both to Church and state. And this was a most profitable as well as delightful diversion from his other studies. His improvements appeared to be so great therein, that afterward he utterly confounded the utter barrister and scribbler against the state Mr William Pryn, of Lincoln’s Inn; who being called to question for his Histrio-mastix, Mr Heylyn’s was sent for to the council-table, where his Majesty commanded him to read over that seditious book, and collect thence all such passages as were scandalous and dangerous to the King and state, and write them down in such logical inferences as might naturally arise and follow upon the premises: all which Mr Heylyn exactly performed, and delivered his copy to the Attorney General, Mr Noy, who presented the same to the King and Lords of the Council; of whom it was observed, that they urged not any thing against Mr Pryn upon his trial, but what was contained in Mr Heylyn’s papers of collection: who took occasion at the same time to publish a book touching the punishments due by law and in point of practice against such notorious offenders as Pryn, Bastwick, and Burton, the trium-viri of sedition. 40. For this and other good services, which with wonderful prudence, as well as diligence, Mr Heylyn faithfully performed, his Majesty was graciously pleased to requite him, as Caesar did those servants who best merited, — he bestowed upon them riches and honors, saith Sueton: Quanto quis servitio promptior, opibus et honorthus extollebantur. f220 Therefore the parsonage of Houghton, in the bishoprick of Durham, worth near Ł400. per annum, being made void by the preferment of Dr Lindsel to the see of Peterborough the King bestowed [it] upon Mr Heylyn; which afterward he exchanged with Dr Marshal, Chanter of the church of Lincoln, for the parsonage of Alresford in Hampshire, that was about the same value; to which exchange Mr Heylyn was commanded by his Majesty, that he might live nearer the court, for readiness to do his Majesty service. Neither was he envied for this or his other preferments, because every one knew his merits was the only cause of his promotion — (for “men of eminent worth and virtue, when they are advanced,” saith my Lord Bacon, “their fortune seemeth but due to them, for no man envieth the payment of a debt:”) — that, as his Majesty was pleased most graciously to express upon his loss of the living by the Bishop of Lincoln, so, according to his royal promise, he doubly repaid that debt by a living of twice the value.

Into which he was no sooner instituted and inducted, but he took care for the service of God to be constantly performed, by reading the Common Prayers in the church every morning, which gave great satisfaction to the parish, being a populous market-town; and for the communion-table, where the blessed Sacrament is consecrated, he ordered that it should be placed, according to ancient custom, at the east end of the chancel and railed about decently, to prevent base and profane usages; and where the chancel wanted any thing of repairs, or the church itself, both to be amended. 41. Having thus showed his care first for the house of God, to set it in good order, the next work followed was to make his own dwelling-house a fit and convenient habitation, that to the old building he added a new one, which was far more graceful, and made thereto a chapel next to the diningroom, that was beautified and adorned with silk hangings about the altar.

In which chapel himself or his Curate read Morning and Evening Prayer to the family, calling in his laborers and workfolks; for he was seldom without them while he lived, saying, that he “loved the noise of a workman’s hammer:” for he thought it a deed of charity, as well as to please his own fancy, by often building and repairing to set poor people a-work, and encourage painful artificers and tradesmen in their honest callings. He built a hall in the middle of the house, from the very foundation, upon the top whereof was a high turret of glass: on one side of the hall, a fair garden with pleasant walks, cypress-trees, and arbors; on the other side, upon the front, a spacious court, at the gate of which next the street a high wooden bridge, that went cross over the street into the church-yard, on which himself and family went to church, to avoid the dirty common way, which was almost unpassable. Besides, he made many new conveniences to the out-houses and yards belonging to them. All which was no small charge to his purse; for I have heard him say, it cost him several hundreds of pounds in Alresford’s-house, where he in a manner buried his wife’s portion. Yet after his death, his eldest son was unreasonably sued for dilapidations in the Court of Arches by Dr Beamout, his father’s successor; but the gentleman f226 pleaded his cause so notably before Sir Giles Swet, then judge of the court, that he was discharged, there being no reason or justice he should be troubled for dilapidations occasioned by the long war, when his father was unjustly turned out of his house and living. 42. After so much cost bestowed upon Alresford and his prebend-house in Westminster, he constantly resided in one of those places, where he kept good hospitality and took care to relieve the poor, following also his wonted studies, not only in History, but Fathers, Councils, and Polemical Divinity, the better to prepare himself for a new encounter with the old Professor, Dr Prideaux; for he resolved to go on in his University degrees, notwithstanding his removal from Oxon, and to perform those exercises required in that case, in which he always came off with credit and applause.

Being now to take his degree of Bachelor in Divinity in July, anno Dom. 1630, Ellis Latin Sermon was] upon these words, Matthew 4:19: Faciam vos fieri piscatores hominum. Upon the Sunday after he preached the Act Sermon, upon this text, Matthew 13:14: “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way;” where he made a seasonable application of this subject, (as the times then stood), of the danger of lay-feoffees in buying up impropriations. A godly project it appeared at the first sight, but afterwards a tare fit to be rooted up — Pulchra Laverna Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri. f230 The pretension of those feoffees seemed to be very just and pious; but their intention and practice was quite contrary, by planting many pensionary lecturers in many places, where the preachers were non-conformists, from whom could be expected no better fruit than the overthrow of episcopal government. The words of Mr Heylyn’s Sermon as to this particular are as followeth. 43. “For what is that which is most aimed at in it, but to cry down the standing Clergy of this kingdom, to undermine the public Liturgy, by law established, to foment factions in the state, schisms in the Church, and to have ready sticklers in every place for the advancement of some dangerous and deep design? And, now we are fallen upon this point, we will proceed a little further in the proposal of some things to be considered. The corporation of feoffees for buying in impropriations to the Church, doth it not seem in appearance to be an excellent piece of wheat, a noble and gracious part of piety? Is not this templum Dornini, templum Domini? f231 But, blessed God, that men should thus draw near to thee with their mouths, and be so far from thee in their hearts! For what are those entrusted in the management of this great business? Are they not most of them the most active and best affected men in the whole cause, et magna partium momenta, and chief patrons of this growing faction? And what are those that they prefer? Are they not most of them such men as are and must be serviceable to their dangerous innovations? And will they not in time have more preferments to bestow than all the Bishops of the kingdom — and so, by consequence, a greater number of dependants to promote their interest? Yet all this while we sleep and slumber, and fold our hands in sloth, and see, perhaps, but dare not note it. High time it is assuredly you should be awaked, and rouse yourselves upon the apprehension of so near a danger.”

If we look further upon this new device and holy project — it being observed, (as Fuller saith), “that those who hold the helm of the pulpit, always steer the people’s hearts as they please,” — the feoffees therefore placed their lecturers in market-towns and corporations that were most populous, where they might carry the greater sway of electing burgesses to serve in parliament; or for the most part these zealous preachers were such as had been silenced and suspended in the ecclesiastical courts or those that were well wishers to non-conformists. The parties themselves trusted in this design of buying impropriations were of such affections as promised no good unto the peace and happiness of the Church of England, being twelve in number, four ministers, four common lawyers, and four citizens; all of them known to be averse unto the discipline of the Church, that, as Dr Heylyn saith, “If such public mischiefs be pressaged by astrologers from the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, — (though the first of these be a planet of a most sweet and gentle influence,) — what dangers, what calamities might not be feared from the conjunction of twelve such persons, of which there was not one that wished well to the present government? And therefore I may say of them as Domitius AEnobarbus said unto his friends when they came to congratulate with him for the birth of Nero — Nihil ex se et Agrippina nisi detestabile et malo publico nasci potuisse.” f236 [The noise and calumnies that were raised and fixed upon Mr Heylyn after this Sermon incited him to make a more narrow search into the matter, and to multiply as well as strengthen his former arguments; which he delivered to his endeared friend Mr Noy, who undertook the suppression of the feoffees in the King’s name; and they were accordingly suppressed in a judicial way of proceeding in the Exchequer chamber, Feb. 13, 1633.] f237 44. But now we must come to the Divinity Schools again, where Mr Heylyn must undergo the public exercise of disputation for his degree of Doctor, and appear before his severe judge and Moderator Dr Prideaux, whose animosities and angers since the former disputation, in all the tract of time from the year 1627 to 1633, were not abated or in the least cooled, but more inflamed; that the Professor took upon himself the office of an Opponent rather than of a Moderator, so that those to whom the Opponent’s part belonged could hardly put in an argument for his passion.

In the former disputation Mr Heylyn asserted the visibility and infallibility of the Church, but now he insisteth upon its authority; and his questions were these following — AN ECCLESIA HABEAT AUCTORITATEM: 1. In determinandis fidei controversiis? 2. Interpretandi S. Scripturas? 3. Decernendi ritus et ceremonias? 45. “All which he held in the affirmative,” (as himself gives an account of the whole disputations ) “according to the plain and positive doctrine of the Church of England in the twentieth Article, which runs thus in terminis, viz. Habet Ecclesia ritus sive ceremonias statuendi jus et in fidei controversiis authoritatem, etc. But the Doctor was as little pleased with these questions and the Respondent’s stating of them, as he was with the former; and therefore, to create to the Respondent the greater odium, he openly declared that the Respondent had falsified the public doctrine of the Church, and charged the Article with that sentence, viz. Habet Ecclesia titus sive ceremonias, etc. — which was not to be found in the whole body of it. And for the proof thereof he read the Article out of a book which lay before him, beginning thus, — Non licet Ecclesiae quicquam instituere quod verbo Dei scripto adversetur, etc. To which the Respondent readily answered, that he perceived by the bigness of the book which lay on the Doctor’s cushion, that he had read that Article out of the Harmony of Confessions published at Geneva, anno 1612, which therein followed the edition of the Articles in the time of King Edward the Sixth, anno 1552, in which that sentence was not found; but that it was otherwise in the Articles agreed on in the Convocation, anno 1562, to which most of us had subscribed in our several places. But the Doctor still persisting upon that point, and the Respondent seeing some unsatisfiedness in the greatest part of the auditory, he called on one Mr Westly, (who formerly had been his chamber-fellow in Magdalene College), to step to the next bookseller’s shop for a book of Articles; which being observed by the Doctor, he declared himself very willing to decline any further prosecution of that particular, and to go on directly to the disputation. But the Respondent was resolved to proceed no further, usque dum liberaverit animam suam ab ista calumnia, as his own words were, till he had freed himself from that odious calumny; but it was not long before the coming of the book had put an end to the controversy, out of which the Respondent read the Article in the English tongue in his verbis, viz. ‘The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith,’ etc.: which done, he delivered the book to one of the standers-by who desired it of him, the book passing from one hand to another till all men were satisfied. And at this point of time it was that the Queen’s Almoner left the Schools, professing afterwards that he could see no hope of a fair disputation from so foul a beginning The Doctor went about to prove that it was not the Convocation but the high court of Parliament which had the power of ordering matters in the Church, in making canons, ordaining ceremonies, and determining controversies in religion; and could find out no other medium to make it good, but the authority of Sir Edward Cook (a learned but mere common lawyer) in one of the books of his Reports. An argument — (if by that name it may be called) — which the Respondent thought not fit to gratify with a better answer than Non credendum esse cuique extra suam artem. ” And certainly a better answer could not be given by Mr Heylyn, (I may say) Non Apollinis magis rerum atque hoc responsum. 46. This last exercise completed him in all degrees that the University could confer upon him. Being now a Doctor in Divinity, he returned home with honor; where shortly after news was sent him that the King had bestowed upon him a Prebendary at Windsor, by the intercession of Dr Neale, then Archbishop of York; but it proved otherwise, for that Prebendary was promised to Dr Potter, when he presented to the King his book called “Charity Mistaken;” and he also went without it, by reason of the Bishop of Glocester not being translated to the Church of Hereford, (as was then commonly reported); who kept the same Prebend in his hands, by which means both the candidates were disappointed. This Goodman, Bishop of Glocester, at that time affected a remove to the See of Hereford, and had so far prevailed with some great officers of state, that for money — (which he offered like Simon Magus, and it was taken) — his conge d’eslir issued out, and his election passed: but Archbishop Laud coming opportunely to the knowledge of it, and being ashamed of so much baseness in the man, who could pretend no other merit than his money — - the wretched Bishop was glad to make his peace, not only with the resignation of his election, but the loss of his bribe. While these things were agitated, the young Doctor, new come from the University, where he had run through so hard a task with the Regius Professor, though he missed Windsor, took this occasion to make himself merry as the poet did — (musa jocosa mea est. Ov.) — and so fell into this vein of poetry . “When Windsor Prebend late disposed was, One ask’d me sadly, how it came to pass Potter was chose, and Heylyn was forsaken?

I answer’d, ‘twas by Charity Mistaken.” 47. But this fancy was soon turned into a mournful elegy, by the death of his noble friend the Attorney General, Mr Noy, whose memory he could never forget for the honor of delivering to him the gracious message from his Majesty, and for the intimacy he was pleased to bear to him as a bosom friend, that he imparted to the Doctor all the affairs of state and transactions of things done in his time — which made him so perfect an historian in this particular — and showed him his papers, manuscripts, and laborious collections, that he had gathered out of statutes and ancient records for the proof of the King’s prerogative. Particularly before his death, at his house in Brainford, where the Doctor kept Whitsuntide with him in the year 1634, he showed to him a great wooden box that was full of old precedents for levying a naval aid upon the subjects, by the sole authority of the King, whensoever the preservation and safety of the kingdom required it of them. Mr Hammond Le Strange acknowledges that Mr Noy was a most “indefatigable plodder and searcher of old records.” The learned antiquary Mr Selden (though no friend to the King nor Church) confesses in his excellent book entitled Mare Clausum, that the Kings of England used to levy money upon the subjects without the help of parliament, for the providing of ships and other necessaries to maintain that sovereignty which anciently belonged to the crown. Yet the honest Attorney-General, for the same good service to the King and country, is called by Hammond Le Strange, “the most pestilent vexation to the subjects that this latter age produced.” So true is the old proverb, “Some may better steal a horse than others look on;” for it is usual with many, not to judge according to the merits of the cause, but by the respect or disrespect they bear to the person, as the comedian once said: Duo cum idem faciunt, saepe ut possis dicere, Hoc licet impune facere huic, illi non licet:

Non quod dissimilis res sit, sed quod [is] qui facit. fa13 When two does both alike, the self-same act, One suffers pain, the other, for the fact, Not the least shame or punishment; and why?

Respect of persons makes crimes differently. 48. The death of Mr Noy the more sadly afflicted the Doctor, to lose so dear a friend and an entire lover of learned men; during whose time, no unhappy differences brake cut betwixt the Dean of Westminster and the Prebends of that church, but all things were carried on smoothly by his Lordship, because he knew well that Dr Heylyn had a sure advocate in court, both in behalf of himself and his brethren, if they stood in need of help; that no sooner this worthy person departed the world, but the Bishop so extremely tyrannized over the Prebendaries, — infringing their privileges, violating their customs, and destroying their ancient rights — that, for the common preservation of themselves and their successors, they were forced to draw up a charge against his Lordship, consisting of no less than thirty-six articles, which were presented by way of complaint and petition of redress to his sacred Majesty; who forthwith gave order for a commission to be issued out unto the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Earl of Manchester, Lord ]Privy Seal, Earl of Portland, [Lord High Treasurer, the Lord Bishop of London], the Lord Cottington, the two Secretaries of State, Sir John Cook, and Sir Francis Windebank; authorizing them to hold a visitation of the church of Westminster, to examine the particular charges made against John Lord Bishop of Lincoln, and to redress such grievances and pressures as the Prebends of the said church suffered by his misgovernment. 49. The Articles were ordered by the Council Table to be translated into Latin by Dr Heylyn, (which accordingly he performed), to avoid the common talk and scandal that might arise, if exposed to the public view of the vulgar. On April 20, A.D. 1634, the commission bore date, which was not executed but lay dormant till December, 1635. The Bishop expecting the business would never come to a hearing, he raged more vehemently, dispossessed the Prebends of their seats, refused to call a chapter and to pass their accounts, conferred holy orders in the said church without their consent, contrary to an ancient privilege which had been inviolably retained from the first foundation of the church; he permitted also benefices in their gift to be lapsed unto himself, that so he might have absolute power to dispose them to whom he pleased — Quo teneam nodo ? — with many other grievances, which caused the Prebends to present a second petition to his Majesty, humbly beseeching him to take the ruinous and desperate estate of the said church into his princely consideration. 50. Upon which the former commission was revived, a day of hearing appointed, and a citation fixed upon the church-door of Westminster, for the Bishop and Prebends to appear on Jan. 27. Upon the 25th instant, the Prebends were warned by the Subdean to meet the Bishop in Jerusalemchamber, where his Lordship, foreseeing the storm that was like to fall upon his head, carried himself very calmly towards them, desiring to know what those things were that were amiss, and he would presently redress them, (though his Lordship knew them very well without an informer): to which Dr Heylyn replied, that, seeing they had put this business into his Majesty’s hands, it would ill become them to take the matters out of his into their own. Therefore on Jan. 27th, both parties met together before the Lords, in the inner Star-chamber; where, by their Lordships’ order, the whole business was put into a methodical course, each Monday following being appointed for a day of hearing, till a conclusion was made of the whole affair. On February the 1st, the Lords Commissioners with the Bishop and Prebends met in the Council-chamber at Whitehall; where it was first ordered that the plaintiffs should be called by the name of Prebends supplicant: secondly, they should be admitted upon oath as witnesses: thirdly, they should have a sight of all registers, records, books of account, etc., which the Bishop had kept from them: fourthly, that the first business they should begin with should be about their seat, because it made the difference or breach more visible and offensive to the world than those matters which were private and domestic: and lastly, it was ordered, that the Prebends should have an advocate to plead their cause, defend their rights, and represent their grievances. Accordingly the Prebends unanimously made choice of Dr Peter Heylyn for their advocate. 51. The business now brought on so fairly, the Lords Commissioners met again on February the 8th following, before whom the Bishop put in his plea about the seat or great pew under Richard II., from which he had disgracefully turned out the Prebends, and possessed it wholly to himself, or the use of those strangers to whom he had a special favor — thinking scorn that honored society should sit with him, a Bishop. But the Prebends’ Advocate proved their right of sitting there by these particulars: — first their original right; secondly their derivative right; thirdly their possessory right. How excellently he managed their cause, and what a mean defense the Bishop made for himself, would be too tedious and impertinent to insert here, concerning none but the church of Westminster. Finally, upon hearing the matters on both sides, it was ordered by general consent of the Lords Commissioners, that the Prebends should be restored to their old seat, and that none should sit there with them but Lords of the Parliament and Earls’ eldest sons, according to the ancient custom. [After this, there was no Bishop of Lincoln to be seen at Morning Prayer in the church, and seldom at Evening. Feb. 15, the Lords Commissioners went on in hearing the particulars of the second petition; and so they proceeded from one Monday to another, till Monday, April 4, and then adjourned till the 25th of the same month; upon which day the business was again resumed, and the Bishop of Lincoln appeared not so well to the Lords Commissioners, except those of the laity, who were apparently inclined to favor him: and therefore those of the Clergy thought it neither fit nor safe to proceed to sentence; and upon that the commission was put off sine die.

The Advocate’s activity in this affair procured him a great deal of enmity and ill-will, both in court and country — as every man’s zeal will do that will be true to his principles and faithful in his station. But Dr Heylyn gained these two advantages by his zeal in this business — viz. [1] that he justified the privileges of the Prebendaries, out of whose revenue the Bishop kept a plentiful table, inviting to it the chiefest of the nobility, clergy, and gentry; — the Prebendaries having no other advantages by his hospitality than to fill their bellies with the first course, and then, after the manner of great men’s Chaplains, to rise up and wait till the coming in of the second: and the other was, that, by his frequent and extempore debates before the Lords Commissioners, he was at last brought to such an habit of speaking, that preaching became more easy and familiar to him than it had been in the first part of his life.] 52. But what were those differences about a seat, to the disputes risen at that time about the Sabbath? In the History of which Dr Seylyn was then engaged, and in a short time he perfected it, to satisfy the scrupulous minds of some misguided zealots, who turned the observation of the Lord’s-day into a Jewish Sabbath; not allowing themselves or others the ordinary liberties for works of absolute necessity, which the Jews themselves never scrupled at. Against which sort of Sabbatarians the Doctor published his History of the Sabbath. The argumentative part of that subject was referred to Dr White, Bishop of Ely; the historical part of it to Dr Heylyn — Huic nostro tradita est provincia. Both of their books never answered to this day, but pickird at by Mr Palmer and Mr Cawdrey, two divines of the Smectymnian Assembly, and by some other sorry writers of less account. But the foundation and superstructure, both in the logical and historical discourses of those two pillars of our Church, stand still unmovable; the latter, though an historian upon the subject, does fully answer all the material arguments of the adversaries’ side brought out of Scripture, as well as history. Neither doth the Bishop nor the Doctor in the least encourage or countenance in all their writings any profaneness of the day, when Christian liberty is abused to licentiousness; nor, on the other side, would they have the religious observation of the day brought into superstition: for Sunday, amongst some I have known, hath been kept as a fast-day, contrary to the ancient opinion and practice of the primitive Church, who judged it a heresy and not an act of piety — Nefas est die Dominica jejunare. That the day should be spent from morning to evening so strictly in preaching and praying, in repetition upon repetitions, in doing works of super-arrogation which God never required at their hands, nor any Christian Church commanded, to make the Sabbath a burden, that ought to be a Christian’s delight, is new divinity among the reformed Churches: in Geneva itself, before and after divine service, the people are at liberty for manly recreations and exercises. Upon complaint made before Lord Chief Justice Richardson, of some disorders by feasts, wakes, revels, and ordinary pastimes on Sundays, particularly in the county of Somerset, his Majesty ordered that the Bishop of Bath and Wells should send a speedy account of the same.

The Bishop called before him seventy-two of the orthodox and ablest Clergymen among them, who certified under their several hands, that on the feast-days, (which commonly fell upon Sundays), the service of God was more solemnly performed, and the church was better frequented, both in the forenoon and afternoon, than upon any Sunday in the year. To decry the clamor of the Sabbatarians, a lecture read by Doctor Prideaux at the Act in Oxon, anno 1622, was translated into English, in which he solidly discoursed both of the Sabbath and Sunday, according to the judgment of the ancient Fathers and the most approved writers of the Protestant and Reformed Churches. This lecture was also ushered with a preface; in which there was proof offered of these three propositions — first, that the keeping holy one day of seven is not the moral part of the fourth commandment: secondly, that the alteration of the day is only an human and ecclesiastical constitution: thirdly, that still the Church hath power to change the day, and transfer it to some other. The “name of Prideaux was then so sacred, that the book was greedily bought up by those of the Puritan faction; but when they found themselves deceived of their expectation, the book did cool their courage and abate their clamor.” 53. Since our Savior’s reproof of the Jews for their superstitious fear of transgressing the traditions and commandments of their fathers, by which they kept the Sabbath with more rigor than God had commanded, they are now bent upon the other extreme, as Buxtorf tells us; so hard a thing it is to keep a medium between two extremes. Quanto voluptatis isti pereipiunt (saith he) tanto se devotius Sabbatum colere statuunt — “The more pleasures they take on the Sabbath-day, the more devoutly they thought that they keep the Sabbath.” So that the rigid Sabbatarian hath no example of Jew or Christian, and, I am sure, no command of God in Scripture, nor precedent in antiquity or ecclesiastical history, but will find there the Lord’s-day is from ecclesiastical institution. I speak not this — (I abhor it) — to animate or the least encourage people in looseness and debauchery, to neglect the duties of religion or the worship and service of God upon this holy day, which they ought, as they tender their souls, with singular care and conscience to observe; but hereby I think my father-inlaw is justified — (though his own book is best able to vindicate himself) — that his opinion is orthodox, both according to the doctrine of the Church of England, and the judgment and practice of Protestant Churches — that the Lord’s-day should be religiously observed, and yet withal the lawful liberties and urgent necessities of the people preserved, and not to be so tied up and superstitiously fearful that they dare not kindle a fire, dress meat, visit their neighbors, sit at their own door, or walk abroad, no nor so much as talk with one another, except it be, in the poet’s words, Of God, grace, and ordinances, As if they were in heavenly trances.

To which I may add a more smart and witty epigram, upon the scruple and needless dissatisfaction in them, not only about the Sabbath but our Church and religion; in those verses of Dr Heylyn to Mr Hammond Le Strange, as followeth — A learned prelate of this land, Thinking to make religion stand With equal poise on either side, A mixture of them thus he tried:

An ounce of Protestant he singleth, And then a dram of Papist mingleth, With a scruple of the Puritan, And boiled them [all] in his brain-pan; But when he thought it would digest, The scruple troubled all the rest. 54. Notwithstanding this scrupulosity in them, the world knows their hypocritical practices under all those zealous pretences, how light they are in the balance, and how extraordinary a thing it is to find from their hands downright honesty and plain dealing. They are too much like the scribes and Pharisees, who by godly shows of long prayers, sad countenances, justification of themselves, that they were the only righteous and all others sinners, played the hypocrites most abominably. To deceive the vulgar sort, they made religion a mere mock and empty show, proSavior “to be seen like stage — players in a theater.” Nam tota actio est histrionica, as Erasmus well observeth, “Their whole carriage was dramatic,” to make a reigned pageantry and ostentation of piety. Yet John Lord Bishop of Lincoln, in compliance with this sect, out of discontent and revenge, because deprived of the great seal and commanded by the King to retire from Westminster, transformed himself into one of these angels of new light, and made himself the archangel and head of their party: first of all, by writing his pretended Letter to one Titly, Vicar of Grantham, against the holy communion-table standing altarwise; to which Dr Heylyn made a sudden and sharp reply, in his book entitled, “A Coal from the Altar;” to which the Bishop within a twelve month after — (he took time enough for the work) — did return an answer, under the title of “The Holy Table, Name and Thing,” pretending withal that this was written long ago by a minister in Lincolnshire, against Dr Cole, a divine in Queen Mary’s reign. No sooner the King heard of this new book, but he sent a command to Dr Heylyn, to write a speedy answer to it, and not in the least to spare the Bishop. Neither did the Doctor balk the grand Sophos, but detected all his false allegations, and answered them that were true, which the Bishop had wrested to a contrary sense, if we will look into the Doctor’s book called by him Antidotum Lincolniense. All this while the Bishop — (as it must be confessed, being a man of learning) — writ against his own science and conscience; so dear is the passion of revenge, to gratify which, some men willfully sin against the light of their own souls: therefore the Bishop, according to the Apostle’s word was aujtokata>kritov “condemned of himself.” For look upon him in the point of practice, and we shall find the communion-table was placed altarwise in the cathedral church of Lincoln, whereof he was Bishop, and in the collegiate church of Westminster, of which he was Dean; and lastly, in the private chapel of his own house, (as Dr Heylyn saith) in which it was “not only placed altarwise, but garnished with rich plate and other costly utensils, in more than ordinary manner.” By all which the Bishop needed no further refutation of his book than his own example, that in those places where he had authority, the holy table did not stand in gremio and nave of the quire, as he would have it fixed, but above the steps, upon the altar, close to the east end of the quire, ex vi catholicoe consuetudinis, “according to the ancient manner and custom in the primitive Catholic Church.” But hinc illoe lachrymoe ever since; this mischief followed his book, that in most country churches, to this day, the table is set at the hither end of the chancel, without any traverse or rails to fence it; boys fling their hats upon it, and (that which is worse) dogs piss against it, country juries write their parish accounts, amercements, by-laws, etc., all which is a most horrible profanation, and not to be suffered. 55. But now John Lord Bishop of Lincoln, who would have removed the holy communion-table from its proper place, and had displaced his Prebends of their ancient seat, was himself at this time, anno Dom. 1637, thrown out. of his episcopal chair, by sentence of the Star-chamber, for endeavoring to corrupt the King’s evidence in a cause of bastardy brought before his Majesty’s justices of peace, at Spittle sessions, in the county of Lincoln, — which business afterward came to a hearing before the Lords in Star-chamber; by whose definitive sentence the Bishop was suspended ab officio et beneficio, deprived of all his ecclesiastical preferments, deeply fined, and his complices with him, and afterward committed to the Tower of London, where he continued prisoner for three years; and in all that space of time his Lordship did never hear sermon or public prayers, to both which he was allowed liberty; but instead thereof he studied schism and faction, by his own example, and his pen disguisedly. 56. During the time of his Lordship’s imprisonment, Dr Heylyn was chosen Treasurer for the church of Westminster; in which office he discharged himself with such diligence and fidelity, that he was continued in it from year to year, till the Bishop’s release out of the Tower and his removal back again to Westminster. While he was Treasurer, he took care for the repairs of the church, that had been neglected for many years: first, the great west aisle, that was ready to fall down, was made firm and strong; and the south side of the lower west aisle, much decayed, he caused to be new timbered, boarded and leaded; but chiefly the curious arch over the preaching place (that looketh now most magnificently) he ordered to be new vaulted, and the roof thereof to be raised up to the same height with the rest of the church; the charge of which came to Ł434. 18s. 10d. He regulated also some disorders of the quire, particularly the exacting of sconces or perdition money, which he divided among them that best deserved it, who diligently kept prayers, and attended upon other Church duties. 57. Whilst he was Treasurer, his brethren the Prebendaries, to testify their good affections to him, presented him to the Parsonage of Islip, near Oxford; a very good living, worth about Ł200. per annum, then by the death of Dr King made void; but by reason of the distance from Alresford, (though standing most conveniently to taste the sweet pleasures of the University), he thought fit to exchange it for another nearer hand, the Rectory of Southwarnborough, in the county of Hampshire, that was in the gift of St John’s College in Oxon; to which exchange he was furthered by the Archbishop, who carried a great stroke in that College, of which he had been President. It pleased God soon after to visit him and his family at Alresford with a terrible fit of sickness, of which none escaped — the disease was so contagious) — but the cook’s boy in the kitchen, who was then master cook for the whole family; and he performed his part so well in making their broths and other necessaries, that he was the best physician among the doctors; for by his kitchen-physic the sick was cured. No sooner Dr Heylyn recovered of the distemper, but he betook himself from his bed to his book, and fell upon a more than ordinary piece of study — the History of the Church of England since the Reformation. An easy matter for others to tread the path, when he had found out the way. Though he is dead, he yet speaketh, and the truth of things without respect of persons; not to ingratiate himself with the parliament and presbyterian party, to make our religion itself parliamentary, which Papists and Presbyterians affirm. He spared no pains nor cost to search into old records, registers of convocation, Acts of parliament, orders of council- table, and had the use of Sir Robert Cotton’s library to take out what books he pleased, leaving a pawn of money behind for them. In all his other writings what a faithful historian he hath appeared to the world, is sufficiently known, and will be showed in this particular. In the mean while let not men be too credulous of another’s transcriptions, that are under question, an verbum de verbo expressum extulit — whether they are copied out exactly from the originals, (wherein lies the main controversy in matter of fact), which I am not bound, nor other men, to believe till we are convinced by our own eyes; besides, it is an inglorious encounter to fight with a man’s ghost, after he has been dead near twenty years, with whom the late historian, nor any other whilst he was living, durst venture with him in the point. The heathens scorned to rake in the ashes of the dead, but, as Tacitus says of Agricola, ut in loco piorum manibus destinato placide quiescat, “that he might rest without disturbance in the place appointed for souls.” However the Doctor’s learning and fidelity in history is so publicly known, that it is not in the power of any Scot or English Aristarchus to blast his good name. And let this suffice at present . Magnus Aristarcho major Homerus erat. 58. Whilst he was so intent upon the History of [the] Reformation, he found little encouragement to go on in these studies, for the discontents that boiled in this nation, and the commotions then begun in Scotland, upon pretense of the Common Prayer imposed upon them. And a mere pretense indeed it was; for herein was nothing done but with the consent and approbation of their own Scottish Bishops, who made what alterations in the Liturgy they pleased to which they had his Majesty’s royal assent; but the blame was wholly laid upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, who only commended the book to them, spe quidem laudabili, sed eventu pessimo, as the learned Dr Bates said, “the success being improsperous, though the enterprise commendable.” The Archbishop unjustly censured for it, he caused Dr Heylyn to translate the Scotch Liturgy into Latin, and his Lordship intended to set out his own apology with the book, to vindicate himself from those aspersions thrown upon him, that the world might be satisfied with his Majesty’s piety and goodness, and his Lordship’s own care and readiness to serve that nation; but their hasty rebellion (to which they were ever precipitant) put an end to the Bishop’s apology and the Doctor’s translation.

Hamilton, whom Dr Burner doth so highly applaud, had a party that not only opposed this Liturgy but betrayed the King on all occasions; nay some of the bed-chamber, who were Scots, were grown so sauey and impudent, that they used to ransack the good King’s pockets when he was in bed; to transcribe such letters as they found, and send the copies to their country men in the way of intelligence. To speak the matter in a word, he was grown of Scots in faeta King, though not in title, his Majesty being looked on by them as a cypher in the arithmetic of state.

The Scotch Covenanters, after the unhappy war was begun, called it bellum episcopale, “the bishops’ war,” raised only to uphold their hierarchy; but the truth is, as the Doctor proveth: “Though Liturgy and Episcopacy were made the occasions, yet they were not the causes of this war, religion being but the vizard to disguise that business, which covetousness, sacrilege, and rapine had the greatest hand in; for the King resolving to revoke all [such] grants of abbey-lands, the lands of bishoprics and chapters, and other religious corporations, which, having been vested in the crown by Act of parliament, were conferred on many of the nobility and gentry in his father’s minority, when he was under protectors; whence the nobility of Scotland made use of discontented and seditious spirits, (under color of the canons and Common Prayer) to embroil that kingdom, that so they might keep their lands, and hold up their power and tyranny over the people.” 59. To appease the tumults in Scotland, and quench the sparks of sedition that began to kindle in England, the King called a parliament, and issued out his writ for Clerks in Convocation. At which time the Doctor was chosen by the College of Westminster their Clerk to sit in Convocation where he proposed a most excellent expediency, (which would be of happy use if still continued), for the satisfaction of some scrupulous members in the house of Commons, about the ceremonies of our Church; — that there might be a mutual conference by select committees between the house of Commons and the lower house of the Convocation, that the Clergy might give the Commons satisfaction in the point of ceremonies, and all other things relating to the Church. Which motion from him was well accepted, and generally assented thereto; and no doubt a most happy success would have followed upon it, not only to take away all scruples, but to beget a reverence and love from the Commons to the Clergy, by such a mutual conference and conversation. But this parliament being then suddenly dissolved put a period to that and all other business; at the news of which, brought unexpectedly to the Doctor, while he was busy then at the election for the school of Westminster, his pen fell from his hand, himself struck dumb with admiration — Obstupuit, steteruntque comae, [et] vox faucibus haesit. “A sad and unfortunate day it was,” saith the Doctor, “and the news so unpleasing, [unto the author of these papers, whosoever he be, that, being] brought him by a friend, whilst he was writing some dispatches, it so astonished him (though he had heard some inkling of it the night before) that suddenly the pen fell out of his hand, and long it was before he could recollect his spirits to return an answer” 60. The Convocation usually endeth in course the next day after the dissolution of parliament. But the Doctor, well knowing that one great end of calling parliaments is to raise the King money for the public concerns, he therefore went to Lambeth, and showed the Archbishop a precedent in the reign of Queen Elizabeth for granting subsidies or a benevolence by Convocation, to be levied upon the Clergy, without the help of a parliament; whereby the King’s necessities for money might be supplied: and so it successfully fell out. The Archbishop acquainting the King with this present expediency, the Convocation still continued sitting, notwithstanding the dissolution of parliament. And when this was scrupled at by some of the house, the Doctor resolved their doubts and rid them of their fears, by showing them the distinction betwixt the King’s writ for calling a parliament and that for assembling a Convocation, their different forms, and independence of one upon another. Finally it was determined by the King himself, and his learned counsel in the law, that the Convocation, called by his Majesty’s writ, was to be continued till it was dissolved by his writ, notwithstanding the dissolution of parliament. This benefit the King got by their sitting, six subsidies under the name of Benevolences. which the Clergy paid to him. [In this learned assembly, few or none of those propositions which either concerned the institution, power, or privileges of sovereign Kings, or related to the episcopal power, doctrine or discipline of the English Church, but were either first proposed or afterward drawn up by Dr Heylyn. It was he who was placed on purpose by the Prolocutor to speak last in the grand committee for the Canon of uniformity, and to answer all such arguments as had been brought against any of the points proposed, and were not answered to his hand. It was he who made a proposition for one uniform Book of Articles, to be used by all Bishops and Archdeacons in visitations, to avoid the confusion that happened in most parts of the Church for want of it — those Articles of the Bishops many times averting those of the Archdeacons, and one Bishop differing from another, the successors from the predecessors; and the same person not consistent to those articles which himself had published: by means whereof the people were much disturbed, the rules of the Church contemned for their multiplicity, unknown by reason of their uncertainty, and despised by reason of the inconstancy of those that made them. The motion, backed by these reasons, did so well please the Prolocutor, with the rest of the Clergy, that they desired the Doctor, in pursuit of his own project, to undertake the compiling of the said Book of Articles, and to present it to the house with all convenient speed.

And, notwithstanding all the storms that were then rising, this excellent person went through the Book of Articles; the compiling of which gave no obstruction to him from attending the service of the committee upon all occasions. And for the better authorizing of the Articles, he placed before every one of them in the margin the canon, rubric, law, injunction, or other authentic evidence, upon which they were grounded. Which, being finished, were by him openly read in the house, and by the house approved and passed, without any alteration; only that exegetical or explanatory clause in the fourth article of the fourth chapter, touching the reading of the communion-service at the Lord’s table, was desired by some to be omitted, which was done accordingly. Finally, it was Dr Heylyn who proposed a canon “for enjoining the said book to be only used in parochial visitations.”] 61. On Friday, May 29, the Canons of that Convocation were unanimously subscribed unto by all the Bishops and Clergy, no one of them dissenting but the Bishop of Glocester; for which he was deservedly suspended: who afterward turned Papist, and was the only renegado Prelate of this land.

FA89 Of this Convocation, Sir Edward Deering, to show his wit, (which he dearly paid for after), in one of his speeches to the house of Commons, was pleased to say, that “every one that had a hand in making their Canons should come unto the bar of the house of Commons with a candle in one hand, and a book in the other, and there give fire to his own Canons;” which good fortune afterward fell upon his own book of speeches, (nee lex est justior ulla), which by order of the house of Commons was burnt in the fire by the hand of the common hangman — a public disgrace that he worthily deserved for his proud eloquence, in often prating against the King and Church. In another of his speeches he tells them, “that if they could bring the Lords to sit in the House of Commons, and the King to be but as one of the Lords, then the work was done.” And finally, in another, he so abuseth all the cathedrals in the kingdom, with so foul a mouth, as if he had licked up the filth of all the former libels, to vomit it at once upon them. And yet this gentleman afterward, (as Doctor Heylyn saith), made it his earnest suit to be Dean of Canterbury; which being denied him by the King, in a great discontent he returned to the parliament, etc. fa94a But lastly, to consider the sad condition of that Convocation before they were dissolved, the Doctor, as one of their fellow-members, speaks most feelingly. During all the time of their sitting they were under those horrid fears, by reason of the discontents falling upon the parliament’s dissolution, “that the King was fain to set a guard about Westminster abbey for the whole time of their sitting. Poor men, to what a distress were they brought! in danger of the King’s displeasure if they rose, of the people’s fury if they sat; in danger [of being beaten up by tumults, while they were at work], of being beaten down by the following Parliament, when the work was done; and after all obnoxious to the lash of censorious tongues for their good intendments: for, notwithstanding their great care that all things might be done with decency and to edification, every one must have his blow at them.” For Pryn published the Unbishoping of Timothy and Titus, and his other libel of News from Ipswich, where in he called the Archbishop of Cant[erbury] “arch-agent of the devil,” that “Belzebub himself had been Arch bishop, and all the Bishops were Luciferian Lords.” “The like reproaches were thundered out of the pulpit by Burton in his sermon on Proverbs 24:ver. 22, where he abused the text and Bishops sufficiently, calling them instead of fathers, step-fathers; for pillars, caterpillars, limbs of the beast, factors for antichrist, and anti-christian mushrooms.” Bastwick laid about him before in his Flagellum Episcoporum Latialium; when he had worn out that rod, took another in his Litany. Finally, the rabble had a cursed song among them, to affront the poor Clergy with, as they met them, saying: Your Bishops are bite-sheep, Your Deans are dunces, Your Priests are the Priests of Baal:

The devil fetch them all by bunches. 62. And now the fire smothering in the embers at last broke forth into an open flame at the session of the next parliament, which was fatal both to Church and State, and finally to themselves, that with scorn they were turned out of doors by their own servants who became their masters. The first sitting of them was on a dismal day, notable and infamous, November 3rd, when Henry VIII. began the dissolution of abbeys, and Papists with Protestants “were laid both on one hurdle and burnt together at the same stake.” The King then promised his people should for ever be acquitted of taxes, ut facilus illi monasteria concederentur, saith Sanders, “that monasteries and religious houses might be more easily granted to him. The parliament opening on that critical day, Archbishop Laud was advertised in a letter to move the King, that for good luck sake their session might be put off to another day; but this being looked upon by his Lordship as a superstitious conceit, he waived the motion of it to the King; which proved afterward the fall of himself and the hierarchy. At the opening of this long parliament, a general rumor was spread abroad that Doctor Heylyn was run away, for fear of an approaching storm, that was like to fall on his own head, as well as on his Lordship’s Grace, the Arch bishop of Canterbury.

But he, who was ever of an undaunted spirit, would not pusillanimously desert the cause of the King and Church, then in question, but speedily hastened up to London from Airesford, to confute the common calumny and false report raised on him by the Puritan faction; that he appeared the next day in his gown and tippet in Westminster-hall, and in the church, with his accustomed formalities of cap, hood, and surplice; employed also his pen boldly in defense of the Bishops’ rights, when the temporal Lords began to shake the hierarchy, in passing a vote, that no Bishop should be of the committee for examination of the Earl of Strafford, being causa sanguinis: upon which the Doctor drew up a brief and excellent discourse, full of law and history, entitled De Jure Paritatis Episcoporum, “The Bishops’ Right of Peerage,” — (so consequently that they ought to sit in that committee). Their privilege and right are maintained by him, which by law or ancient custom doth belong unto them. 63. It is worth our while, to see what he hath written upon this point in the cause of blood many years after the first discourse of the Bishops’ Peerage, when there was little hopes of ever their returning again into the House of Peers. “That the Bishops were disabled by some ancient Canons” (saith he) “from sentencing any man to death, and, (it may be), from being present when any such sentence was pronounced, I shall easily grant; but that they were disabled from being assistants in such case, from taking the examinations or hearing the depositions of witnesses, or giving counsel in such matters, as they saw occasion, I believe not. Certain I am, that it is and hath been otherwise in point of practice, and that the Bishops, sitting as Peers in an English parliament, were never excluded before this time from any such assistance as by their gravity and learning and other abilities they were enabled to give in any dark and difficult business, (though of blood and death), which were brought before them. As for the Council of Toledo, it saith nothing to their disadvantage; the Canon is, Si quis Sacerdotum discursor in alienis periculis extiterit, apud Ecclesiam proprium perdat gradum, that ‘if any Priest shall intermeddle in cases endangering the life of others, let him be degraded.’ Here upon I conclude, (as to the present business in hand), that the Bishops were to be admitted to all preparatory examination [in the present business] because their counsel and assistance would have tended rather to the preservation than conduced to the endangering of the party’s life. I saw about that time” (saith he) “a little manuscript tract, entitled, De Jure Paritatis Episcoporum, that is to say, ‘Of the Right of the Peerage of the Bishops,’ in which their privileges were asserted, as to that particular. But they, not willing to contend in a business which seemed so little to concern them, or else not able to strive against the present stream, which seemed to carry all before it, suffered them selves to be excluded at that time, without protesting to the contrary, or interposing in defense of their ancient rights. And this I look on as the first degree of their humiliation; for when it was perceived that a business of so great consequence might be done in parliament without their counsel and consent, it opened a wide gap unto their adversaries; first, to deprive them of their votes, and after to destroy even the calling itself. But this was not the main point which the Commons aimed at; they were resolved to have a close committee to take examination in the business of the Earl of Strafford, and were not willing any Bishops should be of it; for fear lest, favoring the Earl’s cause or person, they might discover any part of those secret practices which were had against him, and thereby fortify and prepare him for his just defense, when the cause should come unto a trial.”

Thus far the Doctor writ of this subject, when he lived in Lacye’s Court in Abingdon. What he presented to the Bishops themselves at the time of Strafford’s trial, concerning the right of Peerage, deserved a rare commendation, especially at that conjuncture of time, that he could command his parts and pen of a sudden to write on this subject, or any other, if there was need, that did conduce to the public good either of Church or State; and above all, make a quick dispatch in accomplishing what he had once undertaken and begun — a virtue for which Q. Curtius praiseth Alexander, among other excellent qualities, Nullam virtutem Regis istius, magis quam celeritatem laudaverim, “I can commend no virtue more in this King than speed.” So Lucan, of Caesar — Nam Caesar in omnia princeps Nil actum credens, si quid superesset agendum. 64. But for those quick dispatches, the Doctor endured many tedious waitings at the backs of committee-men in that parliament, especially in the business of Mr Pryn, about his Histrio-mastix; for which he was kept four days under examination, because he had furnished the Lords of the Privy Council with matters out of that book, which Mr Pryn alleged was the cause of all his sufferings, “having joined him in a petition with the Lord Archbishop, as the chief agents and contrivers of the troubles he had undergone.” Great hopes had the committee, by his often dancing attendance after them, to sift the Doctor, if they could gather any thing by his speeches, whether the Archbishop had moved him to draw up those exceptions against Pryn’s book; which he denied, or at least was not bound to confess: for, as he was faithful to his Sovereign, so he would never prove himself unfaithful to his chief minister both in Church and State. For they would have been glad of any matter to put into their charge against that worthy Prelate, against whom Mr Pryn and others of his enemies never ceased prosecuting, till the parliament took off his head: and the axe, having once tasted of blood, had a keen appetite for more, went on afterwards to the supreme head of all. 65. Whilst the Doctor was thus harassed before the committees, his old friend the Bishop of Lincoln, in great favor with them and the whole parliament, was set at liberty from his imprisonment and returned from the Tower to the Church, (after so long a time of his suspension and indevotion), to say his prayers, and hear his brother Peter Heylyn preach in his course at the abbey in Westminster; when, notwithstanding the holiness of that place, — (to which his Lordship had no regard or reverence, but only to the name and thing of it) — he was resolved publicly to revenge himself for old-done deeds, that ought to have been forgotten, by disturbing the Doctor in his Sermon before all the congregation, contrary to the laws of this realm, and, (with reverence to his Lordship,) against all good manners and the common rules of civility. Mala meus furorque vetors In tantam impulerit…culpam. — CAT. 66. Strange! that a Bishop could not rule his passions for one hour, when no provocation was given by the Doctor, whose Sermon from the beginning to the end of it, throughout the whole discourse, was pacificatory, exhorting Christians to moderation, love, and charity among themselves, for the preservation of the public peace, although they differed in some opinions. For satisfaction of the reader, I will set down the Doctor’s own words, viz. “Is it not that we are so affected with our own opinions, that we condemn whosoever shall opine the contrary? and so far wedded to our own wills, that, when we have espoused a quarrel, neither the love of God, nor the God of love shall divorce us from it? Instead of hearkening to the voice of the Church, every man hearkens to himself, and cares not if the whole miscarry, so that himself may bravely carry out his own devices. Upon which stubborn height of pride, what quarrels have been raised! What schisms in every corner of this our Church! — (to inquire no further): — some rather putting all into open tumult, than that they would conform to a lawful government, derived from Christ and his Apostles to these very times.” At the speaking of which words, the Bishop of Lincoln, sitting in the great pew, (which was before the seat of contention) knocked aloud with his staff upon the pulpit, saying, “No more of that point, no more of that point, Peter.” To whom the Doctor readily answered, without hesitation or the least sign of being dashed out of countenance” I have a little more to say, my Lord, and then I have done.” Which was as followeth, viz.: “Others combining into close and dangerous factions, because some points of speculative divinity are otherwise maintained by some than they would have them: all so regardless of the common peace, that, rather than be quiet, we will quarrel with our blessed Peacemaker, for seeking to compose the differences, though to the prejudice of neither party. Thus do we foolishly divide our Savior, and rent his sacred body on the least occasion; vainly conceiving that a difference in a point of judgment must needs draw after it a disjoining of the affections also, and that conclude at last in an open schism. Whereas diversity of opinions, if wisely managed, would rather tend to the discovery of the truth than the disturbance of the Church, and rather whet our industry than excite our passions. It was St Cyprian’s resolution, Neminere, licet aliter senserit, a communione amovere, ‘Not to suspend any man from the communion of the Church’ — although the matter then debated was, (as I take it), of more weight than any of the points now controverted.

Which moderation if the present age had attained unto, we had not then so often torn the Church in pieces, nor by our frequent broils offered that injury and inhumanity to our Savior’s body, which was not offered to his garments [by those that crucified him].” 67. At this, and all the other parts of his Sermon, the auditory was highly pleased, but the Bishop in so great wrath that his voice, and the noise of his pastoral staff, (if I may so call it), had like to have frighted the whole flock or congregation out of the fold. Considering the ill posture of affairs in which the nation then stood, overflowing with seditions and schisms, — Navem reipublicae fluitantem in alto tempestatibus seditionum et discordiarum, as Tully once said — I think a more seasonable Sermon could not have been preached, to move men of different persuasions unto peace and unity one with another, which is a most Christian doctrine. After the Sermon was ended he took Sir Robert Filmore his learned friend, with some other gentlemen of quality that were his auditors, out of the church along with him to his house; where he immediately sealed up the book that contained this Sermon and other notes, to which they also set their seals, that so there might not be the least alteration made in the Sermon, nor any ground to suspect it. Which was presently after sent to the Bishop, who kept it in his hands for some days. In which time his passions allayed, being more calm at home than in the church; sent the book untouched back again to Dr Heylyn; in whose study it had lain dormant for the space of fifteen years, when, — (the danger of an old Sermon being called in question must needs be over) — by my persuasion and his consent, he was pleased to give me leave to open that apocalyptical book, that I might read and see the mystery that lay hid under the seals for so many years. Which indeed only proved a pious and practical Sermon for edification, to moderate the heats of those fiery spirits that were like to make a combustion in the whole kingdom. The Bishop deserved a sharper rebuke for his own Sermon which about that time he preached before the King, when he made a strange apostrophe from his text to the Sabbath, falling down upon his knees in the pulpit at the mid-die of his Sermon, beseeching his Majesty in most earnest and humble manner, “that greater care might be taken for the better observation of the Sabbath-day.” Which was looked upon by many as a piece of most grand hypocrisy, who knew his opinion well by his practice; for he did ordinarily play at bowls on Sundays, after evening service, shot with bows and arrows, and used other exercises and recreations according to his Lordship’s pleasure. Nay, more than all this, as the Doctor informs us in his Animadversions on the Church History of Britain, “he caused a comedy to be acted before him at his house at Bugden, not only on a Sunday in the afternoon, but upon such a Sunday also on which he had publicly given sacred orders both to Priests and Deacons; and to this comedy he invited the Earl of Manchester, and divers others of the neighboring gentry; though, on this turning of the tide, he did not only cause these Doctors to be condemned for some opinions which formerly himself allowed of, but moved at the assembly in Jerusalem-chamber, that all books should be publicly burnt which had disputed the morality of the Lord’s-day-sabbath.” But the Bishop, now restored to his dignity by means of that unhappy parliament, with whom he was in high favor, expected that Dr Heylyn should have submitted himself to his Lordship, and particularly acknowledge his error in putting out the Antidotum Lincolniense, which he commended him to call in; to which the Doctor replied, that he received his Majesty’s royal command for the writing and printing of that book, in which he had asserted nothing but what he was still ready to justify and defend against the opposers of it. And how could it be imagined otherwise, but he would vindicate his own writings? For men of known learning and integrity, satisfied with the truth and right of their cause, it’s impossible to bring them over to a retractation against their own conscience. The case ran thus betwixt St Jerome the Presbyter, and St Augustin the Bishop — Hortaris me ut palinwdi>an super quodam Apostoli capitulo canam: absit unusquisque abundet suo sensu. 68. No sooner was the Doctor out of the pulpit, but he must come again before the chair of the old committee, to answer unto new articles that Mr Pryn had drawn up against him; more especially for a sermon that he had preached many years ago; which Mr Pryn (who had then ears) heard himself, and brought along with him some other auditors, a company of the rabble sort to vex him — (urgeris turba circum to stante) — thrusting and justling the Doctor in the crowd, and railing against him with most vile speeches. To which he made no reply in this sorry condition, but patiently endured all their affronts and injuries; for it was to no purpose to take further notice of an ungoverned multitude — (non opus est argumentis sed fustibus) — with whom nothing can prevail but clublaw.

But, contrary to all their expectation, he got the victory of the day, was dismissed with a quietus est, by reason of a letter which he had wisely sent before-hand (ingenium res adversoe nudare solent) to a leading gentleman of that committee, who was before his most bitter enemy, but now, mollified with the letter, he allayed the fury of his brethren. [‘Tis true many attempts were made to create him new disturbances, some being employed to make a severe inquisition into his life and manners, which they found too spotless for their spleen and malice. Others engaged his neighbors at Alresford to draw up articles against him, which was accordingly done by two of them and few others of the most inconsiderable inhabitants; who were prevailed on to make their marks (for write they could not) by telling them it was a business in which the town were very much concerned. But when the articles were produced before the committee, they appeared so foolish and frivolous, as not to be deemed worthy of consideration, and upon that were returned to be amended upon a melius inquirendum; and this being done in a more correct and enlarged edition, they were again returned to the committee, and a set day was appointed for a hearing; and that being come, the complaint was put off and a copy of the articles delivered to the person accused, together with those newly put in against him by Mr Pryn, collected out of his printed books. But the poor Doctor, being quite tired with business and attendance, obtained leave of the chairman to retire into the country, who freely promised to send a private messenger to him, if there were any occasion for his return. Upon which he removed his study to Alresford, letting his house for no more than 3 pounds a year.] And glad was he to be so delivered out of the lion’s mouth, telling his friends, that he would now go to Alresford with a purpose never to come back to Westminster whilst these two good friends of his abode in it, viz. the House of Commons and the Lord of Lincoln. Accordingly he hastened down to his family and parishioners, to solace his soul with peace after his so long patience under Westminster troubles. O quid solutis est beatius curis, Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino Labore fessi, venimus larem ad nostrum Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto? That is to say, O what’s more happy than a patient mind, Loaded with cares and fears, relief to find — Sore labors first to suffer — then retire To our own home and bed, the heart’s desire? 69. Welcome was he to his parishioners in the country, who always loved him in the time of his prosperity and adversity, because of his affable and courteous behavior, his hospitality among them, and relief to their poor, his readiness to do his neighbors any kindness, by counsel or other assistance, his constant preaching during all time of his abode with them, and in his absence, when he was called to court, supplied them with an able Curate.

He was resolved now to spend his days among them and his parishioners at Southwarnborough, where he had the same respect and love. [About this time it was that Doctor Hackwe, taking advantage of the innumerable troubles and enemies of this learned man, published a book against him concerning the Sacrifice of the Eucharist. It was not without some difficulty that he obtained one of them to be sent to him in the country, where he wrote a speedy answer to it. But Dr Hackwel’s friends thought fit to call in the book so soon as it came into light, and then our Doctor was easily persuaded to suppress his answer, diverting his studies to more pleasing and no less necessary subjects, namely, “The History of Episcopacy” and “The History of Liturgies.” The first was printed presently after it was written, and presented to the King by Mr Secretary Nicholas, and published under the name of Theophilus Churchman; but the other, although sent to London and received by the bookseller, was not printed till some years after.] But the good shepherd was soon driven away from his flock by the unhappy wars following; for the seeds of schism and separation amongst the saints, taking root, quickly sprang up into open rebellion, put all into disorder, dispersed families asunder, parted nearest relations, forced people from their houses and ministers out of their churches, necessitated him to fly for his own safety and preservation, (as Elijah persecuted by Ahab).

Being sent for by a party of horse, under the command of Sir William Waller, to bring him prisoner to Portsmouth, he fairly escaped their hands; but, continually disturbed with new alarms of drums and trumpets sounding about him, he could find no other way of safety like going to Oxford, there to take sanctuary with his brethren the persecuted Clergy, who in the words of the historian, adversum fortuita aspecru Principis refoveri, “were only comforted with the sight of their Prince in the sad time of their crosses and adversities.” [He no sooner arrived, but he received his Majesty’s command, by the Clerk of his Closet, to address himself to Mr Secretary Nicholas, from whom he was to take directions for some special and important service; which was at last signified to Dr Heylyn under the King’s own hand — viz, to write the weekly occurrences which befell his Majesty’s government and armies in the unnatural war that was raised against him. The reverend man was hugely unwilling to undertake the employment, conceiving it not only disagreeable to the dignity and profession that he had in the Church, and directly thwarting his former studies and contemplations; but that by a faithful discharge of his duty in that service he should expose both his family and himself to the implacable malice of those persons whose very mercies were cruelty and blood. But no arguments or intercessions could prevail to have him excused from that employment, at least for some time, till he had made it facile by his own diligence and example. Neither were dangers or difficulties of any moment with him, when the service of his Prince and master required his labors and assistance: — Discere a peritis, sequi optimos, nihil appetere in jactationem, nihil ob formidinem recusare, simulque anxius et intentus agere, is a character as truly applicable to Dr Heylyn, as to the brave Roman of whom it was first written. For he desired no employment out of vain-glory, and refused none out of fear, but equally was careful and intent in whatever he undertook; and at that time too when he was denied the poor Deanery of Chichester, for which his Majesty was earnestly importuned in his behalf by Mr Secretary Nicholas. The weekly occur-fences that were wrote by him he called by the name of Mereurius Aulicus, which name continued as long as the cause did for which it was written. And besides these weekly tasks, influenced by the same royal commands, he wrote divers other treatises, before he could obtain his quietus est from that ungrateful employment, viz. 1st, A Relation of the Lord Hopton’s Victory at Bodmin; 2nd, A View of the Proceedings in the West for Pacification; 3rd, A Letter to a Gentleman in Leicestershire about the Treaty; 4th, A Relation of the Queen’s Return from Holland, and the Seizing of Newark; 5th, A Relation of the Proceedings of Sir John Gell; 6th, The Black Cross, showing that the Londoners were the cause of the recent Rebellion; with some others that were never printed.] 70. [These zealous services produced the very same effect that he foresaw when he first undertook them.] The news of his flying to Oxford quickly took wings to the old committee in London, who forthwith voted him a delinquent, [this being given for a reason, viz. that he resided and lived at Oxon]; and sent down an order for sequestration of all his goods and chattels. And first they fetched away his library, (for they thought he was too great a scholar), the plunder of which he took deeply to heart, and ever accounted it the greatest of his losses: for nothing is dearer to a good scholar than books, that to part with them goes as much against his nature and genius as to lose his life; for he spendeth his days wholly in them, and thinketh that a horrible night of ignorance, worse than Egyptian darkness, would overshadow the world without their learning.

Omnia jacerent in tenebris, saith Cicero, nisi literarum lumen accederet. Yet neither had he suffered the loss of his library nor household goods so suddenly as he did, but for Colonel Norton, his neighbor, a gentleman of the parliament party; by whose command his soldiers seized on all that he had in Alresford, for the use of the parliament, (as they pretended), but sold as they passed along to any chapman, at inconsiderable rates, Robin Hood’s pennyworths, what they had a mind to; some of which goods his honest neighbors bought on purpose to restore them again to him, except the best of his hangings, beds, and other costly furniture, which with his plate Colonel Norton took to his own use, as the Doctor was informed. His books carried away to Portsmouth; many of them were sold by the way, as folios for a flagon of ale a-piece, which some of his good parishioners bought of the soldiers, that the right owner might come to them again. The carters and such fellows as were employed in the carriage of his library and household goods were paid off in books instead of money; for the parliament soldiers loved that, as they hated learning: yet notwithstanding the books were so embezzled and wasted by them, they were appraised at near a thousand pound, and put into a public library, from whence they could never be redeemed. 71. After the loss of them, those Sabeans drove away his goods and chattels, they seized upon his corn and hay; for immediately, by order of the committee, the tithes of both his livings were sequestered, and the profits of his Prebendary in Westminster, and what temporal estate he had within their reach, taken from him: that, being asked by one of his acquaint-ante how he lived? he answered him readily — “By horse-flesh and old leather:” which seeming a riddle, he explained afterward his meaning — That he saved only his coach and horses, which brought him to Oxford, which he was forced to sell, and live upon the money. But that being spent — non oetherea vescitur aura, as the poet said, — he could not live like a chameleon, upon the air; he must find out some way of subsistence for himself and family. And that was first of all to live upon credit, which seldom holdeth long without an estate to support it; and afterward upon the charity of friends, which is shorter lived: for the heat of that love soon groweth cold. Being put to hard straits that he never knew before, indocilis pauperiem pati, he must now learn a new lesson, how to shift in the world for a mere livelihood. And more miserable he was, that, having been master of a plentiful and noble estate, 800 pounds per annum in ecclesiastical preferments, as he tells us himself, besides his own temporal estate, the wheel of fortune should bring such a sudden alteration, to turn him down from the top of her to the bottom, as to be in so low and poor a condition that he might justly complain of her, with the man in the tragedy — Quid me, potens fortuna, fallaci mihi Blandita vultu, sorte contentum mea Alte extulisti, gravius ut ruerem? May be Englished thus:

Why, powerful fortune, dost thou frown and smile, With thy deceitful looks me to beguile Of my content? Thou sett’st me up on high To throw me down in deeper misery. 72. Yet now he is but in the beginning of his misfortunes, and he hath a long race to run through them with patience. Not being able to maintain himself and family in Oxford, he sent his wife to London, to get what money she could amongst her nearest friends and relations. Himself went out of Oxford anno Dom. 1645, walking as a poor traveler in the country, not knowing well whither he should go, Ego hercle nescio, quorsum eam: ita prorsum oblitus sum mei. Quo me miser conferam . Disguised both in his name and habit, he sometimes went under the name of Barker, at other times took the name of Harding, by which he was well known among his friends, and not discovered by his enemies: his habit changed from a Priest to a layman, and in the likeness usually of an honest countryman, or else of a poor decayed gentleman, as indeed he was. The peril of the times made him such a Proteus in his garb, because the parliament was resolved, if they could take him, that he should follow his good Lord of Canterbury to another world than that described in his Cosmography; but he happily outlived most of them, and died in honor, which they did not. He wandered like a Jew, with a groat in his purse, and sometimes without it, till he got to some good friend’s house. 73. At his first setting out he was betrayed by a zealous she-Puritan, one Mrs Munday, at her house in Oxfordshire. Her husband was a true-hearted cavalier, unto whose protection he committed himself: he being one day gone from home, she, saint-like, unfaithful to her husband and his friend, sent intelligence to some parliament soldiers that there was a cavalier Doctor in her house. Of which he had notice given him by two of her husband’s sisters, who hated her pure qualities; that, as soon as the family was all in bed, he went out at a back door, down a pair of garden-stairs, from whence he took his march that night, (Factum est peric’lum, jam pedum visa est via, as Phormio said) made what haste he could, and by the help of God Almighty and the good stars, he got safely to another friend’s house by morning: at which time the soldiers beset Mrs Munday’s house, as the countrymen did the mountain; but the Cathedral rat — (as they then called him and the dignified Clergy) — was run away, that Mrs Munday’s plot with the soldiers proved a silly fable. Ever after the Doctor observed it for a rule, never to come within the doors of a holy sister, whose house may be compared to that which Solomon describeth, “Is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death;” that, had not divine Providence protected him from the treachery of that base woman, he had fallen into the hands of those Nimrods that hunted after his life. From place to place he shifted, like the old travels of the patriarchs; and in pity to his necessity found a hearty entertainment amongst his friends of the royal party, at whose tables he was fed, for he had none of his own. His children disposed of into several friends’ hands; his wife among her relations; himself depending upon the courtesy both of friends and strangers, till he grew weary and tired out with this kind of life, for vilis amicorum est annona. 74. It pleased God afterward to send him some supplies of money, that he settled himself, wife, and eldest daughter at Winchester, in the house of a right honest man, one Mr Lizard, with whom they tabled a good while: where he had a comfortable time of breathing and rest after his former troubles, and, to his heart’s delight, the sweet enjoyment and conversation with loyal persons; for Winchester was then a strong garrison for the King; and, being near Aires-ford, he would go sometimes in disguise to visit his old neighbors, whom he knew were true and faithful to him. [And yet even now the exuberancy of an honest zeal — (that I may use his own words, though upon another occasion,) — carried him rather to the maintenance of his brethren’s and the Church’s cause than to the preservation of his own peace and particular concernments. And therefore, considering unto what a deplorable condition the poor loyal Clergy were reduced — how they were “hungry and thirsty, and their souls ready to faint in them,” — as also how the parliament were about to establish those Presbyterian ministers for term of life in those livings out of which himself and many others were ejected, he drew up some considerations, and presented them to some members of the House of Commons, to see whether he could move them to any Christian charity and compassion: and, accordingly as this reverend person foretold, so it came to pass. For, when the Presbyterian intruders were settled in the benefices of the sequestered Clergy for term of life, although the commissioners for rejecting of scandalous ministers had power to grant a fifth part, together with the arrears thereof, to the ejected Clergy, yet the bill was clogged with two such circumstances as made it unuseful to some, and but a little beneficial to the rest. for, first, it was ordered that no man should receive any benefit by the bill who had either 30 pounds per annum in real, or 500 pounds in personal estate; by means whereof many, who had formerly pounds yearly to maintain their families, were tied up to so poor a pittance as would hardly keep their children from begging in the open streets. And, 2ndly, there was such a power given to the commissioners, that, not exceeding the fifth part, they might give to the poor sequestered Clergy as much and as little as they pleased, under that proportion. And the Doctor instances one of his certain knowledge, who for an arrear of twelve years out of a benefice, rented formerly for 250 pounds per annum, obtained but pounds 6s. 8d. — (the first intruder being then alive, and possessed of that benefice,) — and no more than 20 marks per annum for his future subsistence; which is but a nineteenth part, instead of a fifth.] But those halcyon days quickly vanished (as seldom prosperity continues so long a time as adversity); for that town, and castle especially, which was thought invincible to be taken by force of arms, was most treacherously delivered up to their enemies in three days’ time. And now, every house full of soldiers quartered amongst them, poor Dr Heylyn was in more danger than ever, had not Mr Lizard took care of him as his dearest guest, and hid him in a private room (as Providence ordained) to save his life; which room was supposed to have been made formerly for the hiding of seminary Priests and Jesuits, because the house heretofore belonged to a papist family. And indeed it was so cunningly contrived that there was no door to be seen, nor entering into it but behind an old bed’s-head; and if the bed had not been there, the door was so neatly made like the other wainscot of the chamber, that it was impossible for a stranger to find it out.

In which room, instead of a Papist, a right protestant Doctor, who was a professed enemy both to Popery and Puritanism, was now secured from the rage and violence of the soldiers, who sought after him with no less eagerness than if he had been a heretic followed by the Spanish Inquisition, when he, good man, was in the very next room to them, adjoining to the dining-chamber, where he could hear all their raillery and mirth, their gaming at cards and dice; for those idle lurdanes spent their time only in riot and pleasure at home, and when they went abroad, they would tread the maze near the town. He took his opportunity on the market-day to put on his travelling robes, with a long staff in his hand, and so walked out of the town confidently with the country crowd, bidding adieu to the conclave or little room, that he left for the next distressed gentleman; in the mean while his wife and daughter he intrusted to Mr Lizard’s care, his faithful friend. 75. And now he must again seek his fortune, which proved more kind to him than she did before; yet he met with a hard adventure not many miles from Winchester, where some straggling soldiers lighting on him, and catching hold of his hand, felt a ring under his glove, which through haste of his escape he forgot to pull off; which no sooner discovered, but they roughly swore he was some runaway cavalier. The ring being hard to get off, the poor Doctor willingly helped them; in which time came galloping by some of the Parliament’s scouts, who said to their fellow-soldiers, “Look to yourselves, the cavaliers are coming!” at which words being affrighted, they took that little money that was in his pocket, and so rid away without further search; and he, good man, jogged on to the next friend’s house, with some pieces of gold that he had hid in his high shoes, which, if the rogues had not been so hastily frighted away, would have been undoubtedly found, and might have cost him his life by further suspicions of him, — as it did the poor Jews, (though not in the same manner), at the siege of Jerusalem; who, flying from their city, fell into a worse calamity, by one of them swallowing gold, hid it in his belly, which he was afterward seen to take out of his dung when he exonerated himself; that caused the ripping up several of their bellies, according to Josephus. Had the Doctor been then apprehended by the soldiers, and sent up prisoner to London, or could they have taken him at any time, he had intelligence from a friend in the House of Commons that the Parliament designed to deprive him of his life, in revenge of the punishment inflicted upon Pryn, who, for his seditious libels written against the King and Church, was sentenced not only to lose his ears, but was stigmatized also upon his left cheek with the letter S. to signify he was a schismatic. Whence Cant, the zealous preacher at Glasgow, prayed to God after his sermon “to take away the King’s idolatry,” and said, that “the dear saints in England had their nose and their ears slit for the profession of the gospel.” The Parliament then might pretend the revenge of Mr Pryn’s sufferings by a retaliation of a worse punishment upon Dr Heylyn; but the real cause that exasperated them was the good Doctor’s loyalty to his King and fidelity to his Archbishop, the two great pillars of the Church, to whom all true sons of the Church of England ought to be faithful. And finally, the many books the Doctor had written, and still likely to write more, against the Puritan faction, was the grand cause of all his flights and sufferings in the time of war. Est fuga dicta mihi, non est fuga dicta libellis.

Qui Domini poenam non meruere sui. Though I am forc’d to fly, my books they are not fled:

No reason for my sake they should be punished. 76. At what friend’s house he was now secured from danger, though I have heard it named, indeed I have forgot; but from thence he traveled to Doctor Kingsmil, a loyal person of great worth and ancient family, where he continued, and sent for his wife and daughter from Winchester to him; and from thence removed to Minster Lovel, in Oxfordshire, the pleasant seat of his elder brother, in the year anno Dom. 1648, which he farmed of his nephew Colonel Heylyn for six years. Being deprived of his ecclesiastical preferments, he must think of some honest way for a livelihood. Fruges lustramus et agros Ritus ut a prisco traditus extat avo. 77. Yet notwithstanding he followed his studies, which was his chief delight; for though the usurped powers had silenced his tongue from preaching, they could not withhold his pen from writing, and that in as acute and as sharp a style as formerly, after he had done with his frequent visits of friends and long perambulations. For the public good of the Church, to uphold her ancient maintenance by tithes, being robbed then of all her other dues and dignities, — though himself was sequestered of both his livings, and made incapable of receiving any benefit by tithes — yet for the common cause of Christianity, ‘and in mere compassion of the presbyterian Clergy, (though his professed enemies), he published at that time, (when tithes were in danger to be taken away from them), an excellent little tract, to undeceive the people in the point of tithes; and proveth therein, that no man in the realm of England payeth any thing of his own toward the maintenance of his parish minister but his Easter offerings. 78. At the same time he enlarged his book of Geography into a large folio, which was before but a little quarto, and entitled it with the name of Cosmography; of which it may be truly said, it does contain a world of learning in it, as well as the description of the world, and particularly showeth the author’s most excellent abilities, not only in history, and smoothness of its style that maketh the whole book delightful to the reader, but in chronology, genealogy, and heraldry; in which last any one may see that he could blazon the arms and describe the descent and pedigree of the greatest families in Europe. In which pleasing study while he spent his time, his good wife, a discreet and active lady, looked both after her housewifery within doors and the husbandry without; thereby freeing him from that care and trouble which otherwise would have hindered his laborious pen from going through so great a work in so short a time. And yet he had several divertisements by company, which continually resorted to his house; for, having (God be thanked!) his temporal estate cleared from sequestration, by his composition with the Commissioners at Goldsmiths’ Hall and this estate which he farmed besides, he was able to keep a good house, and relieve his poor brethren, as himself had found relief from others’ charity; that his house was the sanctuary of sequestered men turned out of their livings, and of several ejected fellows out of Oxford, — more particularly of some worthy persons I can name, as Dr Allibene, Mr Levit, Mr Thornton, Mr Ashwell, who wrote upon the Creed, — who would stay for two or three months at his house; or any other acquaintance that were suffering men, he cheerfully received them, and with a hearty welcome they might tarry as long as they pleased. The Doctor himself modestly speaks of his own hospitality, how many (that were not domestics) had eaten of his bread and drunk of his cup. 79. A virtue highly to be praised, and most worthy of commendation in itself; for which Tacitus giveth this character of the old Germans, Convictibus et hospitiis non alia gens effusius indulget: “Greater hospitality,” saith he, “and entertainment no nation showed more bountifully, accounting it as a cursed thing not to be civil in that kind according to every man’s ability; and when all was spent, the good master of the house would lead his guest to the next neighbor’s house, where he, though not invited, was made welcome with the like courtesy.” Among others kindly entertained, Mr Marchamont Needham, then a zealous Loyalist and scourge to the Rump Parliament, was sheltered in the Doctor’s house, (being violently pursued,) till the storm was over. The good Doctor then, as his tutelar angel, preserved him in a high room, where he continued writing his weekly Pragmatieus; yet he afterward, like Balaam the son of Beor, hired with the wages of unrighteousness, corrupted with mercenary gifts and bribes, became the only apostate of the nation, and writ a book for the pretended Commonwealth, (or rather I may say a base democracy,) for which the Doctor could never after endure the mention of his name, who had so disobliged his country and the royal party by his shameful tergiversation. 80. The good Doctor’s charity did not only extend itself to ancient friends and acquaintance, but to mere strangers, by whom he had like to run himself into a proemunire: for word being carried to him in his study there was a gentleman at the door, who said he was a commander in the King’s army, and earnestly desired some relief and harbor; the Doctor presently went to him, and, finding by his discourse and other circumstances what he said was true, received him into his house, and made him very welcome.

The gentleman was a Scotch captain, who, having a Scotch diurnal in his pocket, they read it, fearing no harm thereby: but it proved otherwise; for one of the Doctor’s servants, listening at the door, went straightway to Oxford, and informed the Governor, Colonel Kelsey, that his master had received letters from the King; whereupon the Governor sent a party of horse to fetch him away. Strange news it was, knowing his own innocency, to hear that soldiers had beset his house so early in the morning, before he was out of bed. But go he must to appear before the Governor; and when he came, that treacherous rogue his man did confidently affirm that he heard the letters read, and was sure he could remember the very words, if his master would produce the letters. Upon which the Doctor relates the whole story to the Governor, and withal shows the diurnal, which the Governor read to the fellow, often asking him, “Is this right? Is this the same you heard?” To whom he answered, “Yes, sir, yes; that is the very thing, and those words I remember.” Upon which the Governor caused him to be soundly whipped, instead of giving him a reward for his intelligence; and dismissed the Doctor with some compliments, ordering the same party of horse that fetched him to wait upon him home. 81. Being thus delivered from the treachery of his servant, his great care was to provide one more faithful; which the good Lady Wainman, his neighbor, hearing of, commended to him one of her own servants, whom Sir francis her husband had bred up from a child, whose fidelity he need not fear in the worst of times, when a man’s enemies may be of his own household, as Q. Vibius Serenus was betrayed by his own son, — Reus pater, accusator filius, idem judex et testis, saith the historian, — “ The son was both accuser, judge, and witness against his father.” 82. After he had lived many years in Minster Lovel, he removed from thence to Abingdon, where he bought a house called Lacye’s Court, of which he bestowed much cost in repairing and building some additions to it, particularly of a little oratory or chapel, which about the altar was adorned with silk hangings; the other part of the room plain, but kept very decent, wherein himself and his family went to prayers. [The then usurping powers had, by the severest edicts, solemnly interdicted the regular Clergy the discharge of their public ministry in the sacred offices of religion; nay, they were forbid the teaching and instructing of youth in all private houses, though they wanted the necessaries of human life for themselves and families. In which sad prospect of affairs, our divine, in this private oratory, had frequency of synaxes — the Liturgy of the Church being daily read by him, and the holy Eucharist administered as often as opportunity gave leave; many devout and well-affected persons, after the manner of the primitive Christians, when they lived under heathen persecutions, resorting to his little chapel, that there they might wrestle with the Almighty for his blessing upon themselves, and upon a divided, infatuated people.] Most rooms of his house were well furnished, and the best furniture in them, as in the dining-chamber and next room to it, were saved by his good neighbors at Alresford, who were so far from thinking, (except some malicious persons among them,)that they should never fix eye on him more, unless they took a journey (which I hate to mention) to a gaol or a gallows, that they questioned not his return again to Alresford, and the enjoyment of his plundered goods. This house in Abingdon he purchased for the pleasantness of its situation, standing next the fields, and not distant five miles from Oxford, where he might be furnished with books at his pleasure, either from the booksellers’ shops, or the Bodleian Library. Particularly he was beholden to his reverend and learned friend Doctor Barlow, now Lord Bishop of Lincoln, who sometimes accommodated him with choice books: of whom I have heard the Doctor say, “If the times ever altered, he was confident that man of learning would be made a Bishop;” which indeed is now come to pass.

Such a fresh appetite to study and writing he still retained in his old age, that he would give his mind no time of vacancy and intermission from those labors in which he was before continually exercised. ‘Tis said of Julius Caesar Scaliger, an indefatigable student, as his son writes of him, Nullum tempus a studiis literatum et lucubrationibus [vacuum] relinquebat; but he was then forty years of age before he began the course of his studies, having spent his former days in the camp of Mars, and not of the Muses: the Doctor from a child devoted his whole life to painful study, not allowing himself ease in the worst of times, and in the midst of his troubles. 83. For at the time of his sad pilgrimage, when he was forced to wander and take sanctuary at any friend’s house, his thoughts were not extravagant, but studiously intent upon these matters which he digested afterward into form and use when he came to a settled condition. And in the beginning of his troubles, being under the displeasure of the House of Commons, on the complaint of Mr Pryn, when his enemies took the advantage, some to libel and others to write against him, — (particularly Doctor Hackwel, before mentioned, at such an unseasonable time; with whom Doctor Heylyn saith he “would not refuse an encounter upon any argument, either at the sharp or at the smooth”) — afterward, when monarchy and episcopacy was trodden under foot, then did he stand up a champion in defense of both, and feared not to publish “The Stumbling-Block of Disobedience,” and his Certamen Epistolare ; in which Mr Baxter fled the field, because there was impar congressus betwixt him, and (as I may say) an old soldier of the King’s, who had been used to fiercer combats with more famous Goliahs. Also Mr Thomas Fuller was sufficiently chastised by the Doctor for his Church History; as he deserved a most sharp correction, because he had been a son of the Church of England in the time of her prosperity, and now deserted her in her adverse fortune, and took to the adversary’s side: and it was then my hap, having some business with Mr Taylor, my fellow collegian in Lincoln College, then Chaplain to the Lord Keeper, Mr Nathaniel Fines, to see Mr Fuller make a fawning address to my Lord with his great book of Church History hugged under his arm, which he presented to the Keeper after an uncouth manner, as Horace describeth, Sub ala Fasciculum portas librorum ut rusticus agnum. The many falsities, defects, and mistakes of that book the Doctor discovered and refuted; of which Mr Fuller afterward being ingeniously ashamed, came to the Doctor’s house in Abingdon, where he made his peace; both became very good friends, and between them for the future was kept an inviolable bond of friendship. 84. In the year 1656, the Doctor printed some observations upon the History of the Reign of King Charles, published by H[amon] L[‘Estrange], Esq.: with whom the Doctor dealt very candidly, and modestly corrected some of his mistakes in most mild and amicable terms, telling him, viz., “Between us both the History will be made more perfect, and consequently the reader will be better satisfied; which makes me somewhat confident, that these few notes will be so far from making your History less vendible than it was before, that they will very much advantage and promote the sale: and if I can do good to all, without wrong to any, I hope no man can be offended with my pains and industry.” In answer to which Mr Hammond L’Estrange, led by his passion, and not by reason, fell upon the Doctor in such uncivil words, unbecoming a gentleman, that, as the Doctor saith, he never was accustomed to such Billingsgate language. “ There was indeed a time” (saith he) “when my name was almost in every libel which exercised the patience of the State for seven years together, and yet I dare confidently say, that all of them together did not vomit so much filth upon me, as hath proceeded from the mouth of the pamphleteer whom I have in hand.” Therefore the Doctor returned a quick and sharp reply to him in his book entitled Extraneus Vapulans, wherein, with admired wit and eloquence, he gave Mr L’Estrange a most severe, yet civil correction.

His brother Mr Roger L’Estrange, a most loyal gentleman, hath since made amends for his brother’s faults, by his good service done both to Church and State. 85. The next book which the Doctor published, An. Dom. 1657, “Ecclesia Vindicata; or the Church of England justified,” he dedicated it, (as a grateful testimony of his mind), to his Master, then living, Mr Edward Davis, formerly schoolmaster of Burford, and now vicar of Shilton in the county of Berks, to whom he ever showed a love and reverence; and had the Doctor’s power been answerable to his will and intention, he had designed more considerable preferments for him; but the sudden and unexpected alteration in his own affairs prevented, (so soon almost as himself was preferred), that he could show no other specimen of his gratitude. What saith the heathen? Diis, parentibus, et proeceptoribus non redditur oequivalens — “ An amends can never be made to God, our parents, and tutors;” and certainly he hath but little of a Christian in him that can forget this lesson. 86. About the same time he was harassed before Oliver’s major-general for the decimation of his estate. Hoc novum est aucupium; for he thought there had been an end of all further payments and punishment for his loyalty, by compounding for his estate in Goldsmiths’ Hall, that he argued the case notably with them, but all in vain for arguments, though never so acutely handled, are obtuse weapons against the edge of the sword. He tells us that his temporal estate was “first brought under sequestration, and under a decimation since, only for his adhesion to those sacred verities to which he hath been principled by education, and confirmed by study.” While he was arguing his cause before the majorgeneral and his captains, one Captain Allen, formerly a tinker, and his wife a poor tripe-wife, took upon him to reprove the Doctor for maintaining his wife so highly, like a lady; to whom the Doctor roundly replied — That “he had married a gentlewoman, and did maintain her according to her quality; and so might he his tripe-wife:” — adding withal, that “this rule he always observed, For his wife to go above his estate, his children according to his estate, and himself below his estate; so that at the year’s end he could make all even.” Soon after these things, came out the order of decimation against him; a heathenish cruelty in this ease — if men’s estates are as dear to them as their lives, (because the one without the other renders them miserable) — may be compared to that of Maximian, the tyrant and cruel persecutor of the Church, that put the Christians to such a bloody decimation that every tenth man of them was to be killed. And this other was barbarous enough in its kind, that all the gentry of the nation, (not only the tenth part of them), who had engaged in his Majesty’s service, should first be compelled to compound for their own estates, and afterward without mercy decimated: that brought an utter ruin upon many of their families. 87. Notwithstanding all this, the Doctor, like the palm-tree, (crescit sub pondere virtus,) the more he was pressed with these heavy loads, did flourish and grow up in his estate, that through the blessing of God being neither the subject of any man’s envy nor the object of their pity, he lived in good credit and kept a noble house: for I myself, being often there, can say, I have seldom seen him sit down at his table without company; for, being nigh the University, some out of a desire to be acquainted with him, and others to visit their old friend, whom they knew rarely could be seen but at meals, made choice of that time to converse with him: and likewise his good neighbors at Abingdon, whom he always made welcome, if they were honest men that had been of the Royal party, and was ready to assist them upon all occasions; particularly in upholding the Church of St Nicholas, which otherwise had been pulled down, on pretense of uniting it to St Ellen’s, but in truth to disable the sober party of the town, who were loyal people, from enjoying their wonted service and worship of God in their own parish-church, of which they had a reverend and orthodox man, one Mr Huish, their minister; and in his absence, the Doctor took care to get them supplied with able men from Oxford. Great endeavors were on both sides — the one party to preserve the Church, and the other to pull it down, because it was thronged with malignance, who seduced others from their godly way: religion always hath been the pretense of factious minds to draw on others to their party, as one saith well, Sua quisque arma sancta proedicat, suam causam religiosam; Deus, pietas, cultus divinus proetexuntur, “Every one proclaimeth their own quarrels to be a holy war, the cause religion; God, godliness, and divine worship must be pretended.” 88. Several journeys the good Doctor took to London, sparing neither his pains nor purse in so pious a cause; for the managing of which he employed divers solicitors; sometimes before committees, at other times before Oliver’s Council, where it was carried dubiously, and rather inclining to the other side: at which the Presbyterian party caused the bells to be rung, and made bonfires in the town, to express their joy, triumphing in the ruin of a poor Church. But the day was not so clearly their own as they imagined, Dum res, quamvis afflictoe, nondum tamen perditoe forcut , as the orator said; for the Church yet stood against all its enemies, God protecting his own House, and his zealous servants for it, in a time when they could look for little favors from the powers that then ruled, who had not so much respect for God’s House as the heathens had for their idol temples, and for those that vindicated them, as Justin saith on this occasion — Diis proximus habetur, per quem Deorum majestas vindicata sit: for which he praiseth Philip of Macedon, calling him, Vindicem sacrilegii, ultorem religionum, etc. During those troubles about the Church, Mr Huish, the minister thereof, durst not go on in his ministerial duties; which no sooner the Doctor heard of, but, to animate and encourage him, he writ a pious letter, a copy of which I then transcribed; which is as followeth, and worth the inserting here: — 89. “SIR, “WE are much beholden to you for your cheerful condescending unto our desires, so far as the Lord’s-day’s service; which though it be Opus diei in die suo , yet we cannot think ourselves to be fully masters of our requests, till you have yielded to bestow your pains on the other days also. We hope in reasonable time, to alter the condition of Mr Blackwel’s pious gift, that, without hazarding the loss of his donation, which would be an irrecoverable blow to this poor parish, you may sue out your Quietus est from that daily attendance, unless you find some further motives and inducements to persuade you to it; yet so to alter it, that there shall be no greater wrong done to his intentions, than to most part of the founders in each University, by changing prayers for the souls, first by them intended, into a commemoration of their bounties, as was practiced.

All dispositions of this kind must vary with those changes which befall the Church, or else be alienated and estranged to other purposes. I know it must needs be some discouragement to you to read to walls, or to pray in public with so thin a company as hardly will amount to a congregation; but withal I desire you to consider, that magis and minus, as logicians say, do not change the species of things; that quantities of themselves are of little efficacy, (if at all of any), and that He who promised to be in the midst of two or three when they meet together in his Name, hath clearly showed, that even the smallest congregations shall not want his presence. And why then should we think much to bestow our pains where He vouchsafeth his presence? or think our labor ill-bestowed, if some few only do partake of the present benefit? And yet no doubt the benefit extends to more than the parties present; for you know well that the priest or minister is not only to pray with, but for the people; that he is not only to offer up the people’s prayers to Almighty God, but to offer up his own prayers for them; the benefit whereof may charitably be presumed to extend to, as well as it was intended for, the absent also. And if a whole nation may be represented in a parliament of four hundred persons, and they derive the blessings of peace and comfort upon all the land, why may we not conceive, that God will look on three or four of this little parish as the representation of the whole, and for their sakes extend his grace and blessing unto all the rest; — that He who would have saved that sinful city of Sodom, had he found but ten righteous persons in it, may not vouchsafe to bless a less sinful people upon the prayers of a like or less number of pious and religious persons? When the high priest went into the Sanctum Sanctorum to make atonement for the sins of the people, went he not thither by himself — none of the people being suffered to enter into that place? Do not we read, that when Zacharias offered up incense, which figured the prayers of the saints, within the temple, the people waited all that while in the outward courts? or find we anywhere, that the priest who offered up the daily sacrifice, — (and this comes nearest to our ease,) — did ever intermit that office by reason of the slackness and indevotion of the people in repairing to it? “But you will say, ‘ There is a lion in the way,’ there is danger in it.

Assuredly I hope none at all; or if any, none that you would care for. The sword of the Committee had as sharp an edge, and was managed with as strong a malice, as any ordinance of a later date can empower men with. Having so fortunately escaped the danger of that, why should you think of any thing, but despising this, (as Tully did unto Mark Antony — Catilinoe gladios contempsi, non timebo tuos)? Why may you not conclude with David, in the like sense and apprehensions of God’s preservation, that He who saved him from the bear and from the lion, would also save him from the sword of that railing Philistine: and you may see that the Divine providence is still awake over that poor remnant of the regular and orthodox clergy which have not yet bowed their knees to the golden calves of late erected, by putting so unexpectedly a hook into the nostrils of those Leviathans which threatened with an open mouth to devour them all. I will not say as Clemens of Alexandria did in a case much like, that it is ajna>ndron ti< to indulge too much to apprehensions of this nature, in matters which relate to God’s public service: all I shall add is briefly this, that, having presented you with these considerations, I shall with greediness expect the sounding of the bell to-morrow morning, and in the meantime make my prayers to Almighty God [so] to direct you in this business, as may be most for his glory, your own particular comfort, and the good of this people. With which expressions of my soul, I subscribe myself, Your most affectionate friend and brother in Christ Jesus, PETER HEYLYN.” 90. After this good letter, Mr Huish went on in his prayers as formerly, and this little Church withstood all the batteries and fierce assaults of its enemies, who were never able to demolish it, or unite it to St Ellen’s; so well had the Doctor managed the business for the public good and the benefit of the parish: for as to his own particular, he might have spared that pains and charge, having, (as we said before), a chapel in his own house, where he constantly used the Common-prayer for his family devotions, being no lover of other forms, much less of extemporary effusions, for the impertinences, tautologies, and irreverent expressions that usually attends them: though such prayers are most admired by the vulgar, because some of them think themselves excellently gifted that way; as the Doctor tells us a story of a Puritan tradesman: — “ Meeting one time” (saith he) “by chance, my old chamber-fellow Mr L. D. at dinner, my chamber-fellow, being the only scholar in the company, was requested to say Grace, which he did accordingly; and having done, the tradesman, lifting up both his hands and whites to heaven, calls upon the company saying, ‘Dearly beloved brethren, let us praise God better;’ and thereupon began a long extempore Grace of his own conceiving.”