16; 1 Cor. xi.), doth declare that that which was continually profitable unto the whole church together, cannot but edify every one apart in his house. As for their reason to prove it not necessary, for that 'through man's malice or infirmity, the Scriptures are pernicious and much hurtful to many,' it is very childish. For by the same bolt they may shut out preaching as well as reading, considering that, through either infirmity or malice, many, and the most part oftentimes of those that hear, get a greater condemnation unto themselves. So also the sacraments shall be banished, which by many are received to judgment. Finally, so it should be dangerous for the people to meddle with Christ himself, as one that is set for the rising and fall of many."

We have still, however, left unnoticed the two books of this period which possessed the greatest intrinsic importance at the time of their appearance, and which still retain the largest place in our literature, the "Ecclesiastical Polity" of RICHARD HOOKER, and JOHN FOXE'S " Acts and Monuments."

Hooker's first preferment was Drayton-Beauchamp, in Buckinghamshire, where we have him depicted to the life by the Præ-Raffaelite pen of Isaac Walton. His pupils, Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer, took a journey to see their tutor, and here "they found him with a book in his hand; it was the Odes of Horace-he being then, like humble and innocent Abel, tending his small allotment of sheep in a common field, which he told his pupils he was forced to do then, for that his servant was gone home to dine, and assist his wife to do some necessary household business. But when his servant returned and released him, then his two pupils attended him unto his house, where their best entertainment was his quiet company, which was presently denied them, for Richard was called to rock the cradle; and the rest of their welcome was so

* Born 1553; died 1600.

like this that they stayed but till next morning, which was time enough to discover and pity their tutor's condition; and they having in that time rejoiced in the remembrance, and then paraphrased on many of the innocent recreations of their younger days, and other like diversions, and thereby given him as much present comfort as they were able, they were forced to leave him to the company of his wife Joan, and seek themselves a quieter lodging for next night. But, at their parting from him, Mr Cranmer said, 'Good tutor, I am sorry your lot is fallen in no better ground as to your parsonage, and more sorry that your wife proves not a more comfortable companion, after you have wearied yourself in your restless studies.' To whom the good man replied, 'My dear George, if saints have usually a double share in the miseries of this life, I, that am none, ought not to repine at what my wise Creator hath appointed for me, but labour, as indeed I do daily, to submit mine to His will, and possess my soul in patience and peace.""

However, the representations of his visitors resulted in his transference to the Temple, of which he became Master in 1585-a preferment which placed him alongside of the formidable colleague already mentioned, and with whom he was as unequally yoked as with his wife Joan. Travers was a Presbyterian; Hooker was an Episcopalian. Travers not only preferred the Geneva discipline, but carried the doctrinal views of Calvin their fullest length; Hooker's statements occasionally fell short of what his colleague deemed sterling orthodoxy. The consequence was, that the afternoon lecture was frequently devoted to a refutation of the morning sermon; and as in these pulpit combats the majority of the audience sided with the more fluent and eloquent speaker, his post grew extremely irksome to the recluse and sensitive student. He thankfully hailed the opportunity of rural retirement, and spent the remainder of his laborious days, first at Boscum, whence, in

1594, he issued the first four books of the "Polity," and afterwards at Bishop's Bourne, near Canterbury.

"In which parsonage of Bourne," says Isaac Walton, "Mr Hooker had not been twelve months, but his books, and the innocency of his life, became so remarkable that many turned out of the road, and others-scholars especially-went purposely to see the man whose life and learning were so much admired; and, alas! as our Saviour said of St John Baptist, What went they out to see? a man clothed in purple and fine linen? No, indeed; but an obscure, harmless man —a man in poor clothes, his loins usually girt in a coarse gown or canonical coat; of a mean stature, and stooping, and yet more lowly in the thoughts of his soul; his body worn out, not with age, but study and holy mortifications; his face full of heatpimples, begot by his inactivity and sedentary life. And to this true character of his person, let me add this of his disposition and behaviour: God and Nature blessed him with so blessed a bashfulness, that as in his younger days his pupils might easily look him out of countenance, so neither then nor in his age did he ever willingly look any man in the face, and was of so mild and humble a nature, that his poor parish-clerk and he did never talk but with both their hats on, or both off, at the same time; and to this may be added, that though he was not purblind, yet he was short or weak-sighted; and where he fixed his eyes at the beginning of his sermon, there they continued till it was ended."

Hooker was "the earliest among the great writers of England, who, having drunk at the streams of ancient philosophy, has acquired from Plato and Tully somewhat of their redundancy and want of precision, with their comprehensiveness of observation and dignity of soul. The reasonings of Hooker, though he bore in the ensuing century the surname of judicious, are not always safe or satisfactory, nor, perhaps, can they be reckoned wholly clear or consistent; his learning,

though beyond that of most English writers in that age, is necessarily uncritical; and his fundamental principle, the mutability of ecclesiastical government, has as little pleased those for whom he wrote as those whom he repelled by its means. But he stood out at a vast height above his predecessors and contemporaries in the English Church, and was, perhaps, the first of our writers who had any considerable acquaintance with the philosophers of Greece, not merely displayed in quotation, of which others may have sometimes set an example, but in a spirit of reflection and comprehensiveness which the study of antiquity alone could have infused."*

One great charm of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" is the union of a truly philosophical elevation of sentiment, with a no less truly Christian meekness of spirit; and another great charm is the magnificent language in which the mighty tide of thought flows along. It was this ocean-like amplitude which Edward Irving so admired in Hooker and the other great masters of old English, and which made his own abounding spirit so impatient of the limits imposed on preachers by the fidgetty congregations, and on authors by the finical octavos of our dwarfish and degenerate times. It remains only to add that in many of his views Hooker was in advance of his contemporaries. His theory of civil government is eminently liberal and popular, resting it as he does on the consent of the people. The figment of apostolical succession was either unknown to this the greatest of the champions of the Church of England, or his powerful understanding disdained to notice it.

The first of the following extracts is from the fifth book of the "Polity," in which book the rationale of the Church services. is expounded with wonderful ability and eloquence. The second extract is the conclusion of a celebrated sermon preached in the Temple Church, "on the certainty and perpetuity of faith in the elect."

* Hallam's "Literature of Europe" (1843), vol. ii., p. 23.

"A thing which all Christian Churches in the world have received; a thing which so many ages have held; a thing which the most approved councils and laws have so often ratified; a thing which was never found to have any inconvenience in it ; thing which always heretofore the best men and wisest governors of God's people did think they could never commend enough; a thing which, as Basil was persuaded, did both strengthen the meditation of those holy words which were uttered in that sort, and served also to make attentive, and to raise up the hearts of men; a thing whereunto God's people of old did resort with hope and thirst, that thereby especially their souls might be edified; a thing which filleth the mind with comfort and heavenly delight, stirreth up flagrant desires and affections correspondent unto that which the words contain, allayeth all kind of base and earthly cogitations, banisheth and driveth away those evil secret suggestions which our invisible enemy is always apt to minister, watereth the heart to the end it may fructify, maketh the virtuous in trouble full of magnanimity and courage, serveth as a most approved remedy against all doleful and heavy accidents which befall men in this present life; to conclude, so fitly accordeth with the apostle's own exhortation, 'Speak to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, making melody, and singing to the Lord in your hearts.'

"Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low in sounds a due proportionable disposition, such notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself by nature is, or hath in it harmony; a thing which delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent being added