who was a great lover of truth and always valued the Jacoblike plainness and simplicity of spirit in any faithful christian as a high perfection,-looked upon all such practices with the greatest disgust and abhorrence: And so will every one who is an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. Though it be a most unworthy, it has been nevertheless a too common and usual, artifice among some of the divided Churches in Christendom, to heighten speculative doctrines, and such as are less weighty, into Fundamental Articles, especially when it is for the advantage of the party that they should be deemed such. But it had been infinitely better if the moderation of the Church of England as to Articles of Religion had been imitated in other Churches."

It is further said of him: "With his zeal for God's honour and church-decorum we may, not unfitly, join his mindful observances of the apostles' precepts, Honour the king,' (1 Pet. ii,) and,Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: For they watch for your souls, as they that must give account.' (Heb. xiii.) He had so hearty an affection for the peace of our Jerusalem, and, in order thereunto, for 'submitting to every ordinance of man for the Lord's 'sake, whether to the king as supreme, or unto governors as 'those that were set by him,' (1 Pet. ii,) that when he received notice of the evil that was then breaking forth out of the North, upon this intelligence of wars and rumours of wars, his righteous and meek soul was grieved within him; and in a letter of his, written to a friend within less than three months before his death, [1638, he thus expressed his resentments, concluding in a strain almost prophetical: If the Scottish business be no 'better than you write, I pray God both they and others have 'not cause to curse the time at length when such courses were 'first resolved upon; and that, in the event, the cause of reli'gion pretended be not advanced thereby as it is in Germany, [page 248] and no better. I am firmly persuaded, there 'will never come good of it. God avert his judgments, and 'make them wiser!'

"His writings testify how great a lover he was of unity, peace, all good and decent order, and whatsoever might make for the beauty and strength, the honour and safety of the Protestant Reformation both here and abroad; as considering, that confusion and envying, strife and divisions, would at once both weaken and dishonour the Protestant cause, and occasion the grand enemy to triumph, who, seeing much of his work done for him by those who would seem to be most averse from him, while they bite and devour one another, claps his hand, saying, Aha! Aha! Our eye hath seen it: So would we have it! But our author thought it his becoming duty to study obedience for peace and good order's sake, and not to expose the Protestant interest to danger and ruin.

"He was taken away from the evils that were then ready to come upon this island,-a favour which God vouchsafes to many of the righteous. It is true, he beheld them at a distance; and, by the presage of his own divining spirit, he guessed at what afterwards came to pass. For about a year or two before he died, he would sometimes mention an observation of his upon that in Judges, (iii, 30,) The land had rest fourscore years; the longest period of time, as he noted, that the people of Israel ever enjoyed it, and than which scarcely any other nation ever enjoyed a longer. 'Such a rest,' would he say, 'from 'the begining of blessed Queen Elizabeth's reign we of Eng'land have enjoyed, and who knows whether our period be not near at hand? And whether it be so or not, whosoever shall live but a year or two may know it certainly.' It happened accordingly; and what havoc the devouring sword made amongst us after God had sent it to revenge our abuse of his mercies, is well known, and can never' be remembered without horror."

In a marginal note it is added, "The preface to Mr. Herbert's "Remains observes of those three pious persons,-Dr. Jack"son, Mr. Herbert and Mr. Ferrar,-that they spake prophetically of the like events."

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By the knowledge which my readers have already gained of Dr. Twisse through the preceding extracts from his writings, it is evident that Mr. Mede was not a suitable companion for him either in disposition or studies. But the Doctor had imbibed a large portion of that enthusiastic spirit which has been described in a former part of the narrative, (page 264) and which was kept alive by the prophets who prophesied smooth things to the Calvinistic brotherhood, which Joseph Mede would not consent to do on any account whatever. It must have been something very extraordinary that could induce Dr. Twisse "to lay aside for a while his ordinary studies" about Absolute Predestination, and to suspend his attacks upon Arminianism. Yet his intensity of desire to learn such an interpretation of the mysteries of futurity as might be rendered auspicious to the grand aspirings of Calvinism, produced that effect, as the Doctor himself informs us in his Preface to Mr. Mede's excellent posthumous publication, entitled the Apostacy of the later Times.'

"A cup of good wine will be known where it is, without an ivy-bush: Such is the following discourse. Many years ago I was acquainted with it, by the author's own hand: For such was his scholastical ingenuity, I found him most free in communicating his studies, right like unto the description of the scholar in Chaucer :

Sounding in moral virtue was his speech,
And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.

And sometimes he dealt plainly with me, in telling me the reason why; and that was, because he found me so inquisitive after his meditations, whereas those with whom he familiarly conversed were nothing so. The truth is, I

That Preface is a good specimen of the Doctor's facetiousness, and verifies the report given by Mr. Reid concerning his “jo

was exceedingly taken with his notions; for he had a critical wit, and affected to correct common errors: And herein he seemed to me exceeding happy, demonstrating not only acuteness of wit, and clearness of conceipt, but solidity of judgment. And therefore, from the first time that I grew acquainted with him, I made bold to improve my acquaintance to the uttermost of mine own advantage scholastical, encouraged thereunto by his facility and ready condescension to my requests.

6

The beginning of our familiarity was occasioned by a rumour spread of his opinion, concerning the glorious kingdom of Christ here on earth, which many hundred years ago was cried down as the error of the Millenaries : and Augustine himself, though confessing that at first he liked the same, yet sheweth how that afterwards he was taken off from it, and upon what ground. And it seemed wondrous strange to us, that such an opinion should, after so many hundred years, be revived; and that in so strange a manner, as now we find, both amongst us, and amongst outlandish divines. Nevertheless, myself being firmly set upon studies of another nature, I had no great edge so much as to hearken to it, much less to take it into consideration. But a friend in the country sometimes urged me to write to an acquaintance in London; and to entreat him to enquire of Mr. Mede, whether he were of the same opinion with Piscator and Alstedius concerning the first resurrection, and the glorious kingdom of Christ. And hereupon, shortly after, word was sent me, that he did agree with Piscator in this, that 6 some shall rise a thousand years before others,' but he differed from him in this, that Piscator thought this reign of Christ should be in heaven: 'But I,' said master Mede, 6 agree rather with Alstedius, and conceive, that the thousand years' reign of Christ shall be on earth.' Yet herein he differed from Alstedius; that, whereas Alstedius was of opinion that the thousand years reign of Christ should be after the day of judgment, master Mede's opinion was that it should be in and during the day of judgment; which day of judgment should continue a thousand years, beginning with the ruin of Antichrist, and ending with the destruction of Gog and Magog. And that Camerarius, writing upon Plato's Alcinous, testifies that the Rabbins among the Jews write, that the seventh thousand years shall be the great day of judgment, or the judgment of the great day. And Hierome upon the sixty-fifth chapter of Esay confesseth, that it was a tradition among the Jews, that the Messias should reign a thousand years in new Jerusalem.

"When I heard this, my spirit was stirred up in me to lay aside for a while my ordinary studies, and to take this into consideration; and I prayed Mr. Mede to give me leave to propose my reasons against this opinion of his. Mr. Mede very readily entertained the motion, and prescribed me a time after which he should be at leisure for me; and in a letter after this, in his familiar manner asked me, saying: When come your queries? I accepted his courteous answer, and sent up unto him, first and last, twelve arguments against that opinion of his; and at the first I sent him ten, with an answer devised by myself to nine of them; for so I had promised him, namely, that I would bethink my wits of what possibly might be said in the solution of them, according to the straitness of my invention, leaving it to him to approve, or correct, or add, as he thought good. And whereas I could devise nothing at all in answer to my tenth argument, he sent me a large answer thereunto in three sides of a sheet of paper; whereby I well perceived, that my best arguments had been known to him, and examined before I devised them.

"After this, I came acquainted with many discourses upon the same argument. No less than seven manuscripts were sent me from one divine, treating of this and other mysteries. Now here I cannot but confess my corruption, for I received them by way of a bribe. And indeed I was to do him a favour, (which yet was never done, the death of a special friend preventing it,) and I dealt plainly with him, and told him, I would not sell my favours gratis; I would be well paid for them. And therefore whereas

cose illustrations," as may be perceived by its commencement and its termination: In the latter, his allusions to the much

I heard he had strange notions upon the Revelation, and touching the 'mysteries of the first resurrection, and Christ's kingdom, I looked to be 'feed with the communication of them; with promise to return them safely, ' after I had sucked the honey out of them, though he had never a whit the 'less for that, such is the nature of spiritual commodities.' The good man sent me word, that such bribes would never make me rich: But 1 returned answer, 'that they would make me more rich than the enjoying of all the "treasures of Ethiopia, and the hill Amara to boot: And here I found rich mines indeed, even all the mysteries belonging to Christ's glorious kingdom set down apart, by way of question, and a solemn resolution thereof, with proofs adjoined out of holy scripture. Since that, I have met with diverse choice pieces of the same argument; some prosecuting a few parts thereof only, and others more. But let that pass, I return to Mr. Mede.

"Many letters passing between us, he had occasion sometimes to touch upon some things, whereof he had written more at large, either by occasion of chapel exercises, as he called them, or in more operous and large discourses. I was glad to observe such precious birds of Paradise spring; and thereupon insinuated with him farther, entreating him to communicate such exercises of his to me. And truly I found such exemplary favour with him, that he would scarce deny me any thing. Thus I came to be partaker of divers chapel exercises of his.

"I confess there hath been some difference between us about ceremonies, as lawfulness of bowing towards the altar, and about the holiness of Churches, whereof he was as zealous as his Lord of Canterbury, or rather more; for he held it unlawful to pull down Churches, they being places separated for God's use, and his peculiar: wherein he followed Mr. Hooker's conceit, in the fifth book of his Ecclesiastical Policy. But his Lord Canterbury did not hold it unlawful to pull down St. Gregory's. That axiom, 'there is the same reason of time and place,' deceived him, as it deceiveth many; for where it doth hold, it holds only in reference to time, and place, natural. And indeed, time is only natural; but place may be artificial, and such is a temple: That is, for the general notions of them. Then as touching the special notions of them, herein is a vast difference: For the proportion of time is very considerable for the advancing of God's service; as one day in seven, rather than one day in a fortnight, or one day in a month; the like cannot be said of the proportion of place. And lastly, the time of God's worship is defined by God still even under the gospel, namely, the Lord's day; not for any place defined by him. And truly the Lord seemed to me by special providence to cast us upon a debate about the holiness of Churches. And it was high time to enquire into it, superstition in this kind of late strangely increasing. The Austine disputations in Oxford, which were wont to be kept in Saint Mary's, of late, I hear, are excommunicated thence. I wonder the Act, and the exercises thereof, are not translated to some other places, for fear of prophanation: and the Terræ-filius, or Prævaricator, must take heed of observing the old form of exercising their pleasant wits in facetious discourse, for fear of prophanation, which cannot be salved by aught but Doctor Cozens his Devotions: Yet were not the same kinds of exercises performed at the same time, and in the same place, in the time of Popery? Whence it follows, that either they were more prophane than we now a-days, or we more superstitious than they. But whereas some were too forward in censuring Mr. Mede, as complying with the times in this, it is well known, that twenty years and more before that last sermon of his, whereat divers took great offence, he had maintained his opinion that way, and upon a text very plausible at first sight to justify it, Levit. xix, 30. Ye shall reverence my Sanctuary: which text may easily miscarry an honest man, and a good scholar, into an opinion of reve rence due unto Churches, either civil or religious, or of a middle size betwixt them, as some (1 hear) have very unhappily set their wits on work to devise; as if man, made after God's Image, were bound to perform reverence to the work of his own hands. Amongst the chief pieces which Mr.

blamed but little-known Devotions of Bishop Cosin, * and to the Terra Filius or Prevaricator, (which the renowned Doctor Mede was pleased to communicate unto me, this of the Apostasy of the latter times, as it was the largest of all the rest, so it gave me greatest content; both for the interpretation he makes of the text in Paul, different from all former interpretations of course, which he shews to be most agreeable to the text; and that it affords new and more plentiful matter of meditation. I have heard others highly commend this discourse of Mr. Mede's, as a choice piece, as Mr. Steven Marshall by name, that worthy preacher. My opinion is, that never was the defection of the Church of Rome, and the native genius thereof more lively, and clearly, and learnedly set forth, as most exactly answerable to that which the scripture hath foretold, than by Mr. Mede in the opening and expounding of this text."

*"PARIS, Oct. 1, 1651. The Dean of Peterborough [Dr. Cosin] preached on Job xiii, 15, encouraging our trust in God on all events and extremities, and for establishing and comforting some ladies of great quality, who were then to be discharged from our Queen Mother's service, unless they would go over to the Romish Mass.

"The Dean dining this day at our house, told me the occasion of publishing those Offices which, among the Puritans, were wont to be called Cosin's cozening Devotions, by way of derision. At the first coming of the Queen into England, she and her French ladies were often upbraiding our religion, that had neither appointed nor set forth any hours of prayer or Breviaries, by which ladies and courtiers, who have much spare time, might edify and be in devotion as they [the Papists] had. Our Protestant ladies, scandalized, it seems, at this, moved the matter to the King; whereupon his Majesty presently called Bishop White to him, and asked his thoughts of it, and whether there might not be found some forms of prayer proper on such occasions, collected out of some already-approved forms, that so the court-ladies and others, (who spend much time in trifling,) might at least appear as devout, and be so too, as the new-come-over French ladies, who took occasion to reproach our want of zeal and religion. On which the Bishop told his Majesty, that it might be done easily, and was very necessary: Whereupon the King commanded him to employ some person of the Clergy to compile such a work; and presently the Bishop naming Dr. Cosin, the King enjoined him to charge the Doctor in his name to set about it immediately: This, the Dean told me, he did; and, three months after, bringing the book to the King, he commanded the Bishop of London to read it over and make his report: This was so well liked, that (contrary to former custom of doing it by a chaplain,) he would needs give it an imprimatur under his own hand. Upon this there were at first only 200 copies printed: 'Nor,' said he, was there any thing in the whole book of my own composure, nor did I set any name as author to it, but those necessary Prefaces, &c, out of the Fathers, touching the times and seasons of prayer; all the rest being entirely translated and collected out of an Office published by authority of Queen Elizabeth, 'anno 1560, and our own Liturgy."-This I rather mention to justify that industrious and pious Dean, who had exceedingly suffered by it, as if he had done it of his own head to introduce Popery, from which no man was more averse, and one who in this time of temptation and apostacy held and confirmed many to our Church." EVELYN'S Diary. Of this last remark, a strong corroboration will be found in Dr. Cosin's very satisfactory Scholastical History of the Canon of the Holy Scripture, which was written and published, during his residence at Paris, in opposition to "the New Canon of Scripture first set forth by the Council of Trent."

6

I introduce this quotation from Mr. BRAY's most interesting Memoirs of Evelyn, for the sake of the principle which it candidly avows-a desire to make the Church of England appear lovely to Roman Catholics. This might be done with a good conscience and to great effect, at such a peculiar juncture as that, when the Queen of England was a Papist, and surrounded by some of the most subtle emissaries of the Romish See, appointed for the avowed purpose of making proselytes among the nobility and the numerous classes of religious dissidents which the lax measures of Archbishop Abbot had greatly encouraged. She was the only Church in Christendom that pre