THE PREFACE.

that) but excuse myself, or beg pardon for daring to attempt it.

This being premised, I desire to tell the reader, that in this relation I have been so bold, as to paraphrase and say, what I think he (whom I had the happiness to know well) would have said upon the same occasion; and if I have been too bold in doing so, and cannot now beg pardon of him that loved me, yet I do of my reader, from whom I desire the same favour.

And though my age might have procured me a writ of ease, and that secured me from all further trouble in this kind; yet I met with such persuasions to undertake it, and so many willing informers since, and from them and others, such helps and encouragements to proceed, that when I found myself faint, and weary of the burden with which I had loaden myself, and sometimes ready to lay it down; yet time and new strength hath at last brought it to be what it now is, and here presented to the reader, and with it, this desire, that he will take notice that Dr. Sanderson did in his will or last sickness advertise, that after his death nothing of his might be printed; because that might be said to be his, which indeed was not; and also, for that he might have changed his opinion since he first wrote it, as it is thought he has since he wrote his "Pax Ecclesiæ." And though these reasons ought to be regarded, yet regarded so, as he resolves in his "Case of Con"science concerning rash Vows," that there may

appear very good second reasons why we may forbear to perform them. However, for his said reasons, they ought to be read as we do apocryphal scripture; to explain, but not oblige us to so firm a belief of what is here presented as his.

And I have this to say more; that as in my queries for writing Dr. Sanderson's Life, I met with these little tracts annexed; so in my former queries for my information to write the Life of venerable Mr. Hooker, I met with a sermon, which I also believe was really his, and here presented as his to the reader. It is affirmed (and I have met with reason to believe it) that there be some artists, that do certainly know an original picture from a copy, and in what age of the world, and by whom drawn: And if so, then I hope it may be as safely affirmed, that what is here presented for theirs, is so like their temper of mind, their other writings, the times when, and the occasions upon which they were writ, that all readers may safely conclude, they could be writ by

In the first edition of Mr. Walton's Life of Dr. Sanderson, printed in octavo, 1678, were added the following tracts. 1. "Bishop Sanderson's Judgment concerning Submission to "Usurpers." 2. "Pax Ecclesiæ." 3. "Bishop Sanderson's

Judgment in one view for the Settlement of the Church." 4. "Reasons of the present Judgment of the University of "Oxford, concerning the Solemn League and Covenants," &c. And also a Sermon of Richard Hooker, upon Prayer, from Matt. vii. 7. found in the study of Bishop Andrews.

none but venerable Mr. Hooker, and the humble and learned Dr. Sanderson.

And lastly, the trouble being now past, I look back and am glad that I have collected these memoirs of this humble man, which lay scattered, and contracted them into a narrow compass; and if I have, by the pleasant toil of so doing, either pleased or profited any man, I have attained what I have designed when I first undertook it: But I seriously wish, both for the reader's and Dr. Sanderson's sake, that posterity had known his great learning and virtue by a better pen; by such a pen, as could have made his life as immortal as his learning and merits ought to be.

I. W.

THE LIFE OF

DR. ROBERT SANDERSON.

DR. ROBERT SANDERSON, the late learned Bishop of Lincoln, whose Life I intend to write with all truth, and equal plainness, was born the 19th day of September, in the year of our redemption 1587: The place of his birth was Rotherham in the county of York, a town of good note, and the more, that for Thomas Rotherham, sometime Archbishop of that See, was born

It appeared from the Register of the Parish of Sheffield in Yorkshire, that he was baptized in the church of Sheffield, Sept. 20, 1587. (Dr. Brown Willis.)See also "Thoresby's "Ducatus Leodensis,” p. 78.

d THOMAS SCOT, Fellow of King's College in Cambridge, was afterward Master of Pembroke Hall, and in 1483 and 1484, Chancellor of the University. He obtained great ecclesiastical preferment, being successively Provost of Beverley, Bishop of Rochester and of Lincoln, and lastly Archbishop of York. Nor was he less adorned with civil honours, having been appointed, first, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and then Lord Chancellor of England.

in it: A man whose great wisdom, and bounty, and sanctity of life gave a denomination to it, or hath made it the more memorable, as indeed it ought also to be, for being the birth-place of our Robert Sanderson. And the reader will be of my belief, if this humble relation of his life can hold any proportion with his great sanctity, his useful learning, and his many other extraordinary endowments.

During the reign of Edward IV. were founded the Collegiate Churches of Middleham and Rotherham, in the County of York. The latter originally consisted of one Master, three Fellows, and six Scholars, and was founded and most liberally endowed by Thomas Archbishop of York, from 1480 to 1501. He has assigned the reason that induced him to adopt that number, "ut ubi offendi Deum in decem præceptis suis, isti decem "orarent pro me." To this College were annexed three schools for instructing boys in writing, grammar, and music.

"schools," says Mr. Camden, are now suppressed by the "wicked avarice of the age." This Prelate changed his family name of Scot for that of Rotherham, the supposed place of his birth. It was usual for the Clergy to add the names of the places of their nativity to their Christian names, and such an addition affords the best evidence of the places where they were born. And it is remarked, that this Thomas Scot is the last Clergyman who is known to have observed this custom. He afterward augmented the College of Rotherham with five Priests. His munificence is amply displayed both at Oxford and Cambridge. In the latter University he built the library, and a considerable part of the schools: and while he was Bishop of Lincoln, he completed the buildings of Lincoln College in Oxford, and furnished the Society with a body of statutes, subscribed with his own hand, Feb. 11, 1479. He died of the plague, at his palace of Cawood, in 1501.