;S
!co
NICHOL'S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES.
PURITAN PERIOD.
xtfr <§,emral
Br JOHN 0. MILLER, D.D.,
LINCOLN COLLEGE ; HONORARY CANON OF WORCESTER ; RECTOR OF 8T MARTIN'S, BIRMINGHAM.
THE
WORKS OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D
VOL. I.
COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION.
W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., Professor of Theology, Congregational
Union, Edinburgh. JAMES BEGG, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Church, Edinburgh.
THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University, Edinburgh.
D. T. K. DRUMMOND, M.A., Minister of St Thomas' Episcopal Church, Edinburgh.
WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh.
ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby terian Church, Edinburgh.
EEV. THOMAS SMITH, M.A., EDINBUBGH.
THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
RICHARD SIBBES, D,D,,
MASTER OF CATHERINE HALL, CAMBRIDGE ; PREACHER OF GRAY'S INN,
LONDON.
, foitjjr gfommr,
BY THE REV. ALEXANDER BALLOCH GROSART,
(COR. MKMB. 80C. ANTIQ. OF SCOTLAND) KINROSS.
VOL. I.
CONTAINING I
THE DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST THE BRUISED REED AND SMOKING FLAX
THE SWORD OF THE WICKED THE SOUL'S CONFLICT
THE SAINTS' SAFETY IN EVIL TIMES — CHRIST is BEST, OR ST PAUL'S STRAIT- CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS FOR MAN'S SIN THE CEURGH's VISITATION
THE UNGODLY' s MISERY — THE DIFFICULTY OF SALVATION — THE SAINTS' HIDING:PLACE ITS THE EVIL DAY.
EDINBURGH: JAMES NICHOL.
LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN: W. ROBERTSON.
M.DCCC.LXII.
KVINBCRCH . BT JOHtf QREIQ ANJ>
TO
THE RET. JAMES AUGUSTUS EESSET, T>CL,
PREACHER TO THE HON. SOCIETY OF GRAY'S INN, LONDON, &C. &C. &C.
AND
THE REV. CHARLES KIRKBY ROBINSON, M.A.,
MASTER OF ST CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, DISTINGUISHED OCCUPANTS OF OFFICES FORMERLY HELD BY
RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.,
THIS EDITION OF HIS WHOLE WORKS IS, WITH THEIR KIND PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY
THE EDITOR.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE, ....... xiii
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D., xix
APPENDIX TO MEMOIR, ..... cxxxi
DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST MAT. XII. 18, . 1
Notes, ....... 31
THE BRUISED REED AND SMOKING FLAX MAT. XII. 20, . 83
Epistle Dedicatory, ...... 85-37
To the Christian Reader, ..... 88-41
PART I. CHRIST WILL NOT BREAK THE BRUISED REED.
The text opened and divided. What the reed is, and what the
bruising, . . . . . . . 43, 44
Those that Christ hath to deal withal are bruised, . . 44
Bruising is necessary, 1. before conversion ; 2. after conversion, 44
Use. Not to be rash in judging such, ... 44
Christ will not break the Bruised Reed, ... 45
Confirmed from his borrowed titles, relations, offices, . . 45
Use 1. Go boldly to the throne of grace, ... 46
Use 2. Despair not in thy bruisings, ... 46
Use 3. See the contrary to this in Satan, ... 46 (1.) Signs, (2.) Means, (3.) Measure, (4.) Comfort
to the bruised, .... 46-48
PART II. NOR QUENCH THE SMOKING FLAX.
Grace is little at the first, ..... 49
Use. Not to be discouraged at small beginnings, . . 49
Grace is mingled with corruption, .... 50
Use. Hence we judge so variously of ourselves, . . 50 Christ will not quench small and weak beginnings —
i CONTENTS.
PAGE
Because it is from him,
Because it is for him, . . . • • 51
Use 1. No more should we : therefore —
1. Let all men in general carry themselves with modera
tion ; yet with wisdom to discern those that are not
such, and tenderness towards beginners, . .51, 52
2. In particular to admonish of this, (1.) ministers, (2.)
the church, (3.) magistrates, (4.) private Christians: that they quench not good things in others by their — example, slanderings, censuring and judging them — [1.] for matters indifferent, [2.] for weaknesses, . 53-57 Use 2. Examine whether we be such as Christ will not quench :
1. Kules how to examine ourselves, ... 58
2. Signs whereby to examine ourselves, . . 59 Some scruples of heart answered, that keep us from the com fort of our examination, ..... 62
Use 3. We are encouraged to set upon duties, notwithstanding
our weaknesses and disabilities, .... 65
A case about indisposition to duty resolved, ... 66
Two doubts of acceptance, either, 1. From scruples about
duties ; 2. Ignorance of our condition in Christ, . . 67
Weaknesses what, ...... 68
How to recover lost peace, ..... 69
Use 4. Let us frame our conceits accordingly, and not believe
Satan's representations of Christ to us, .
Or of us unto ourselves, . . . . . 71
Use 5. Reproof of such as sin against this merciful disposition
in Christ, as those do, —
1. That go on in ill courses, either from despair, or pre
sumption, or a wilful purpose to quench the light
that is in them, ..... 78
2. That neglect good courses from hopes to have comfort,
because Christ is thus merciful, ... 74
3. That ill requite so gracious a Saviour as Christ is, (1.)
by neglecting his Mediatorship, (2.) or by being cruel to him in his [1.] members, [2.] name, [3.] by divi sions in opinion, . . . . . 75, 76
4. That walk contrary to Christ in their dealing with the
tender, for their own gain, ... 77
5. That despise and stumble at this low stooping of Christ, 77
PART III. UNTIL HE SEND FORTH JUDGMENT UNTO VICTORY.
Explanation of the words, . . . . . 77, 78
The matter whereof is drawn out into six conclusions — . 78
Conclusion 1. Christ is so mild that yet he will rule those that
enjoy the comfort of his light mildness, ... 79
Use. For trial to discern who may lay just claim to Christ's
mercy, ....... 79
Conclusion 2. The spiritual government of Christ is joined with
judgment and wisdom, ... 80
Use 1. Spiritual wisdom and judgment is excellent, and in
what respects, ... 81
CONTENTS. IX
PAGE
Why Satan envies and spiteth it, . . . . 81
It is most necessary for the managing of a Christian's course, 81
Where true wisdom and judgment is, there Christ sets up his government, ......
The best method for practice, .... 83
Use 2. There is no true judgment where the life is ill governed, 83
Conclusion 3. Christ's government is victorious, . . 84
1. In every private Christian, ....
2. In the church in general, .... 85 Why the victory seems sometimes to go on the contrary side, 85 Use 1. Comfort to weak Christians: the least spark in them,
if it be right, will prevail, .... 86
(1.) Signs whether there be any such grace in us as will be
victorious, ...... 87
Means to be used that it may be so, . . . 88
se 2. To admonish — 1. nations and states, 2. families, 3. every one in particular, (1.) for himself, (2.) his friends, to side with Christ, and to embrace his government, . 91
Use 3. To inform us that then Popery must come down, . 91
Conclusion 4. As Christ's government shall be victorious, so it shall openly appear, it shall be brought forth to the view of all to victory, ...... 91
Use. Deceit and error shall be laid open to shame, . . 92
Conclusion 5. This government is advanced and set up by Christ alone, ...... 93
In all spiritual essays look for strength from Christ, and not
from thyself, ...... 94
Conclusion 6. This prevailing and victory shall not be without
fighting, ....... 95
Because it is — 1. government, 2. spiritual government, 3.
government with judgment, .... 95
Use. It is no sign of a good condition to find all quiet, . 96
Wheresoever Christ cometh, there will be divisions, . . 97
Miserable are those men that stand out against him, and arc
still under Satan's government, . . .97
Conclusion and general application of this third part, — to en courage Christians to go on comfortably and cheerfully, with confidence of prevailing, both in respect, 1. of ourselves, although beset with corruption; and, 2. the church, although compassed with enemies, ..... 97
Notes, . 100, 101
THE SWORD OF THE WICKED Ps. XLII. 10, . 103
Notes, ....... 117. 118
THE SOUL'S CONFLICT WITH ITSELF, AND VICTORY
OVER ITSELF BY FAITH Ps. XLII. 11. . 119
Dedication, ..... ,121
CONTENTS.
PAGE
To the Christian Reader, ..... 122-127
Verses by Benlowes and Quarles, .... 128, 129
CHAP. 1. General observations upon the text, . . 131
2. Of discouragements from without, . . . 133
3. Of discouragements from within, . . . 136
4. Of casting down ourselves, and specially by sorrow.
The Evils thereof, .... 142
5. Remedies of casting down : to cite the soul, and press
it to give an account, . . . .144
6. Other observations of the same nature, . . 148
7. Difference between good men and others in conflicts
with sin, ..... 153
8. Of unfitting dejection : and when it is excessive. And
what is the right temper of the soul herein, . 155
9. Of the soul's disquiets, God's dealings, and power to
contain ourselves in order, . . . 160
10. Means not to be overcharged with sorrow, . . 162
11. Signs of victory over ourselves, and of a subdued spirit, 169
12. Of original righteousness, natural corruption, Satan's
joining with it, and our duty thereupon, . . 172
13. Of imagination : sin of it, and remedies for it, . 178
14. Of help by others : of true comforters, and their graces.
Method. Ill success, .... 191
15. Of flying to God in disquiets of souls. Eight obser
vations out of the text, . . . .197
16. Of trust in God: grounds of it: especially his provi
dence, ...... 202
17. Of graces to be exercised in respect of divine provi
dence, ...... 207
18. Other grounds of trusting in God: namely, the pro
mises. And twelve directions about the same, . 212
19. Faith to be prized, and other things undervalued, at
least not to be trusted to as the chief, . . 218
20. Of the method of trusting in God, and the trial of that
trust, ...... 221
21. Of quieting the spirit in troubles for sin : and objec
tions answered, ..... 226
22. Of sorrow for sin, and hatred of sin, when right and
sufficient. Helps thereto, . . . 232
23. Other spiritual causes of the soul's trouble discovered
and removed : and objections answered, . . 237
24. Of outward troubles disquieting the spirit ; and com
forts in them, ..... 239
25. Of the defects of gifts, disquieting the soul. As also
the afflictions of the church, . . . 242
26. Of divine reasons in a believer, of his minding to praise
God more than to be delivered, . . . 244
27. In our worst condition we have cause to praise God.
Still ample cause in these days, . . . 248
28. Divers qualities of the praise due to God. With helps
therein. And notes of God's hearing our prayers, 252
CONTENTS. XI
PAGE
CHAP. 29. Of God's manifold salvation for his people ; and why
open, or expressed in the countenance, . . 258
80. Of God, our God, and of particular application, . 262
81. Means of improving and evidencing to our souls that
God is our God, .... 267
82. Of improving our evidences for comfort in several pas
sages of our lives, .... 271
83. Of experience and faith, and how to wait on God com
fortably. Helps thereto, ... 277
84. Of confirming this trust in God. Seek it of God him
self. Sins hinder not : nor Satan. Conclusion
and soliloquy, ..... 282
Notes, ....... 289-294
THE SAINT'S SAFETY IN EVIL TIMES Ps. VII. 14, . . 295
Notes, 818
THE SAINT'S SAFETY IN EVIL TIMES, MANIFESTED BY ST PAUL, FKOM HIS EXPERIENCE OF GOD'S
GOODNESS IN GREATEST DISTRESS 2 TIM. IV. 17, 18, 814
Notes, 881
CHRIST is BEST ; OR, ST PAUL'S STRAIT PHIL. I. 23, 24, 885
Notes, ....... 850
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS FOR MAN'S SIN MAT. XXVII. 46, 851
Notes, ....... 869
THE CHURCH'S VISITATION 1 PET. IV. 17-19, 871
Notes, 384
THE UNGODLY'S MISERY 1 PET. IV. 17, . 885
THE DIFFICULTY OF SALVATION :1 PET, IV. 18, . 895
THE SAINT'S HIDING-PLACE IN THE EVIL DAY 1 PET. IV. 19, . 401
Notes, ....... 410
THE SAINT'S HIDING-PLACE IN THE EVIL DAY ..1 PET. IV. 19, . 411
*%* The ' Notes ' prefixed to the several Treatises and Sermons will shew, that in the present volume are included the whole of the works published by Stbbes himself: 4 The Description of Christ,' and * The Sword of the Wicked,' being restored to their proper places, as introductory to * The Bruised Keed,' and ' The Soul's Conflict,' re spectively.'— 0.
EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT.
Having now in my library the whole of the works of Sibbes, with the excep tion of two small volumes, I beg to note them here, in the hope that thereby I may secure them.
(I.) The Saint's Comforts, being the substance of divers sermons preached on Ps. cxxx., the beginning ; The Saint's Happiness, on Ps. Ixxiii. 28 ; The Kich Pearl, on Mat. xiii. 45, 46 ; The Success of the Gospel, on Luke vii. 34, 35 ; Mary's Choice on Luke x. 38-40. By a Reverend Divine now with God. Printed at London by Thos. Cotes, and are to be sold by Peter Cole, at the sign of the Glove, in Cornhill, near the Exchange. 1638. 12mo.
(2.) Antidotum contra Naufragium Fidei et Bonse Conscientise, Concio Latine. . . 2 Tim. i. 14. Pp. 78. 18mo.
In view of the bibliographical list (see a of this Preface), it is also exceedingly de sirable to have the following editions : —
(3.) Bruised Reed. 4th edition. 1632. 18mo.
(4.J Two Sermons on First Words of Christ's Last Sermon. 4to. 1636. 1st edition.
(5.) Spiritual Man's Aim. ^d edition,
(6.) Fountain Sealed. 2d edition.
(7.) Divine Meditations. 2d edition.
PREFACE.
IN presenting the public with the first volume of what, it is hoped, will prove a standard edition of the hitherto uncollected and in- edited works of Dr Richard Sibbes, I may be permitted to make the following remarks : —
(a) Sibbes has had no preceding editor. The edition (so-called), of his ' Works,' noted below,* contains a mere fraction, and those which are included have been mutilated and most care lessly printed. It were invidious to point out the abounding blunders of these volumes. * This edition/ says the late William Pickering, our English Aldus, 'which purports to be the entire works of Sibbes, contains only a small portion ; besides being incorrectly printed, and omitting the prefaces, dedications, and tables/ 1
There have been many editions, more or less accurate, and more or less attractive in their typography, of separate treatises, — especially of the Bruised Reed and Soul's Conflict. These, so far as known to us, will be recorded in a bibliographical list of editions in the concluding volume.
(6) It may therefore be pleaded, that any shortcomings, whether of omission or commission, claim indulgence, in that the editor has had wholly to prepare his text from the original and early editions ; J
* The Works of the Keverend Richard Sibbes, D.D., late Master of Catherine Hall, in the University of Oxford (sic), and Preacher of Gray's Inn, London, &c. Aberdeen, 1812. 3 Vols. 8vo. f ' Bruised Reed,' reprint of 1838, p. xxi.
t To explain ;— Adams's ' Sermons ' were collected by himself from the early 4tos into a folio, and so it is an editor's text. Had Sibbes's numerous writings been brought together into a folio or otherwise, by himself, or under his authority, it is plain that the labour of editing would have been much simplified.
PREFACE.
and that these, excepting the three small volumes published by or under the sanction of the author, swarm with misprints and mispunctuations. The posthumous publication of the larger pro portion explains this. It can hardly be hoped that in every case perfect accuracy has been attained, as many points must always remain to some extent matter of opinion ; but I have given a good deal of thought and pains to the production of an accurate text. It need scarcely be said, that in nothing save the modern isation of the orthography and punctuation, are Sibbes's words touched.
(c) By the kind help of friends interested in the work, every quotation and reference, coming within the general rule laid down for this series,* has been verified or filled in, as the case may be. Occasional casual references and allusions have been traced. It is believed that no quotation of any moment has been overlooked. This does not apply to the mere pointing of a sentence or barbing of an appeal with a saying introduced after the fashion of the age, as ' one saith/ or ' the heathen saith/ But when traced, even those have been given.
(d) To the treatises embraced in this volume, which were pub lished originally and superintended subsequently by the author in different editions, the ' various readings ' are appended as foot-notes. The letters a, 6, c, &c., refer to the few 'notes ' of the editor, added at the close of each treatise. These might have been multiplied ; but his design is simply to explain names, dates, facts. The old signi ficant words that occur will be given as a 'glossary' in the last volume, with references to the places where they occur. This may prove a not unacceptable addition to the stores of the ' Philological Society/ in their laudable endeavour to furnish that great desi deratum, a national dictionary of our English tongue.
(e) Foi the ' Memoir ' I have done my humble best. None can regret its deficiencies more than myself. Yet has it, as the whole undertaking, been done lovingly and as an honest piece of work. Those who have engaged in kindred investigations will best appre ciate the difficulties involved. As compared with preceding me moirs of Sibbes (or notices rather, for no one exceeds at the most five of our pages), it will be found more ample. I have been en abled to enrich it with new matter, to recover old which was lost or neglected ; and to bring together what is scattered through many volumes. I felicitate myself upon the possession of Zachary Catlin's MS.*)* Writing of one who came under the persecution
* See 'Editorial Note,' Adams' Works, vol. i. pp. ix, x. t See Appendix A. to Memoir.
PREFACE. XV
of Laud, and who was a ' Puritan ' of the true stamp, the policy of Laud must come under review. On that policy I have decided opinions, which I have not concealed. But I trust I have not spoken uncourteously, much less untruthfully. There are some minds that cannot speak well of their own favourites except at the expense of others. They cannot laud the Churchman without, to use a word of Sibbes's, ' depraving ' the Puritan, or the Puritan without impaling the Churchman. Such men would quench Orion that Saturn's rings may gleam the brighter. Whereas our dark world needs both, neeas all its stars. Let them all shine. Our great names are not so numerous, either in Church or State, that we can afford to ob scure any of our historic lights. Let all irradiate the firmament of fame.
(/) It would have unduly extended the ' Memoir ' to have in cluded an analysis and estimate of the works of Sibbes, or a view of his ' opinions ' and ' character ' as reflected therein. This I hope to overtake in a short essay, to be given in the course of the issue of the works, in which I trust to be able to throw some little light on his relations to other writers and theirs to him, and per chance to guide the casual reader to the treasures of rare thought, ripe wisdom, spiritual insight, beauty of illustration, sweetness of consolation, of this incomparable old worthy.
(#) The pleasant duty remains of returning my warm thanks to very many friends and correspondents. It were to savour of osten tation to name all who have rendered assistance, or endeavoured to do so. But I must mention a few. To the Rev. John Eyton Bicker- steth Mayor, M.A., Fellow of St John's College ; the Rev. Charles Kirkby Robinson, M. A., Master of St Catherine's College ; Charles Henry Cooper, Esq., F.S.A., and Thompson Cooper, Esq., F.S.A. ; Mr Wallis, — all of Cambridge, I owe special acknowledgments for various favours, and for local inquiries most obligingly made and communicated. My thanks are similarly due to Dr Hessey, preacher of Gray's Inn, London ; and to the Rev. Paul M. Sted- man, vicar of Thurston ; the Rev. W. G. Tuck, rector of Tostock ; the Rev. A. H. Wratislaw, Bury St Edmunds, from each of whom I have received many tokens of their interest in my labours, as well by letter, as personally on occasion of a visit to Suffolk. From his Grace the Duke of Manchester ; Richard Almack, Esq., Mel- ford, Sudbury ; James Spedding, Esq., editor of Bacon ; Joshua Wilson, Esq., Nevill Park, Tunbridge Wells ; Edward Foss, Esq., Churchill House, Dover ; William Durrant Cooper, Esq., F.S.A. ; Albert Way, Esq., F.S.A. ; R. Siegfried, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin ; Jonathan B. Bright, Esq., Waltham, Massachusetts,
Dub
XVI PREFACE.
United States ; the Rev. W. G. Lewis, Westbourne Grove ; the Rev, George Thomson, Hackney ; the Rev. E. Pattison, Gedding ; the Rev. Robert Redpath, M.A., London; W. E. Whitehouse, Esq., Bir mingham, I have received various memorabilia, communicated with such ungrudging alacrity and kindness as much to deepen the obli gation.
I beg to thank the Rev. J. C. Robertson, Canterbury ; the Rev. Hastings Robinson, D.D., Great Warley; the Rev. William West, Hawarden ; the Rev. William Webster, M.A., Richmond ; Charles Bird, Esq., London ; the Rev. Dr Cairns, Berwick ; the Rev. Dr Bonar, Kelso ; the Rev. Dr Bryce, Belfast ; and the Rev. Thomas Smith, M.A., Edinburgh, and numerous anonymous correspond ents, for service in verification of references in this volume and those that are to follow. I ain sure the edition will owe much to the willing hand and vigilant eye of the last-named gentle man, as General Editor of the series, in revision of the proofs with myself.
It would be ungrateful not to acknowledge the unvarying courtesy with which I have been permitted access to the stores of the great libraries, e. g., British Museum, where Mr Watt, as he is to all, was ever eager to assist ; Red Cross Street ; University and Advocates', Edinburgh. Nor can I withhold a grateful word from the Editors and Correspondents of 'Notes and Queries,' and other literary journals, whose columns I have had occasion to use. I have endeavoured to leave no source of information unconsulted, and have given the authority for my statements, whether in Memoir or Notes. ' For in all faculties, their writings have been of longest continuance, who have made fairest use of other authors.' Tor mine owne, either judgment or opinion ' also, with the foregoing, in the words of Sir John Hayward, ' as I do nothing the more value the spider's for that she draweth it out of her own bowels ; so doe I not esteeme the lesse of the honeycombe, because it is gathered out of many flowers.'— (Sanctuary of a Troubled Soul, Part ii. To the Reader, 1631. 18mo). Wherever I have been indebted to a pre decessor, it is duly recorded.
And now, with unfeigned diffidence in myself and my part, but with the conviction that no common service is being rendered to Christian literature by this edition of Sibbes, I would say, in the words of Isaak Walton, ' If I have prevented an abler person, I beg pardon of him and my reader.'— (7n£r. to Life of Herbert.)
A. B. G.
IST MANSE, KINROSS, 2d May 1862.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
CHAPTER I.
'MEMORIALS ' THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
Izaak Walton— Dr William Gouge— Richard Baxter— John Davenport, B.D. — Leading ' Puritans ' — Sibbes's own indifference.
THERE are more than common reasons to cause regret that hitherto there has not been, and in this later time can scarcely be, a worthy life of the ' heavenly' RICHARD SIBBES (the adjective, like the 'venerable' Bede, the 'judicious' Hooker, the 'holy' Baxter, being the almost invariable epithet associated with every mention of his name, through many generations after his departure).* I look upon my own gatherings, after no small expenditure of time and endeavour, all the more sorrowfully because of these reasons. I would fain have placed upon the honoured forehead of the author of the 'Bruised Reed' and 'Soul's Conflict' a wreath of 'amaranthine flowers;' but alas! have instead with difficulty gleaned a few crushed and withered leaves, some poor spires of faded grass and braids of grave-stone moss, with perchance a sprig of not altogether scentless thyme ; whereas in the course of my researches, I have come upon various notices and scintillations of revelation, which shew how different it might have been had con temporaries discharged their duty. These tantalizing indications
* ' Heavenly.' The famous Dr Manton thus speaks of him : ' This is mentioned .... because of that excellent and peculiar gift which the worthy and reverend author had in unfolding and applying the great mysteries of the gospel in a sweet and mellifluous way ; and, therefore, was by his hearers usually termed the " sweet dropper" — sweet and heavenly distillations usually dropping from him with such a native elegancy, as is not easily to be imitated.' — (To the Reader .... Commentary . ... on 2 Cor. i.). 'That "heavenly" man,' says Zachary Catlin ; and Neal, ' His works discover him to have been of a " heavenly," evangelical spirit.' — (Hist, of the Puritans, vol. i. 582, edition, 3 vols. 8vo, 1837.)
VOL. I. 6
-I '
XX MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
of personal knowledge, and ot reserved and now lost information, may perhaps most fitly introduce our narrative.
First of all, in that ' Last Will and Testament,' over which so many eyes have brimmed with unsorrowing tears — drawn out ' in a full age,' very shortly before the venerable writer went up to lay his silver crown of gray hairs at His feet — good, gentle, blithely garrulous Izaak Walton bequeaths, among numerous other tokens and legacies, his copies of the ' Bruised Reed' and ' Soul's Conflict,' and there gleams upon the antique deed, like a ray of sunlight, these noteworthy words about them : — ' To my son Izaak, I give Doctor Sibbes his Soul's Conflict, and to my daughter his Bruised Reed, DESIRING THEM TO BEAD THEM so AS TO BE WELL ACQUAINTED WITH THEM.'* Nor was this the only expression of esteem for Sibbes by the ' old man eloquent/ In a copy of ' The Returning Backslider,' now preserved in Salisbury Cathedral library, he has written this inscription : —
' Of this blest man, let this just praise be given, Heaven was in him, before he was in heaven. — IZAAK WALTON.'
Pity that either Wotton was not assigned to another, or that Richard Sibbes made not a sixth to the golden five ' Lives' of this most quaintly-wise and wisely-quaint of all our early English biographers. How lovingly, how tenderly, with salt of wit and warbling of poetic prose, would he have made 'sacrifice to the memory' (his own phrase) of Master Richard Sibbes, the more than equal of Donne or Herbert, Sanderson or Wotton, and only in degree, not in kind, beneath Hooker himself.
Again, in Sibbes's own will, the usual sum was left to Dr William Gouge of 'Blackfryer's, London,' to preach a funeral sermon. The wording runs, ' To my reverend frende Dr Gouge, I doe give as a testimony of my love, twenty shillings, desiring him to take the paynes to preach my funeral sermon/ Pity once more that this noble preacher, whose great 'Exposition of Hebrews' is worthy of a place beside the kindredly-massive folios of John Owen, having preached it, as he doubtless did, gave not his ' ser mon' to the press. Spoken by one who was his fellow-student at the university, and who knew and greatly loved him, while men's eyes were yet wet for him, while the tones of his 'sweet- dropping' voice (Manton's word) still lingered in the groined roof of the chapel of Gray's Inn, it must have contained not a little that we of the nineteenth century would have prized. It is vexatious that importunity should have got printed this large-thoughted man s
« ' WiU of Walton.' Introductory Essay to ' The Angler' by Major, 4th edition 1844, pp. xlii.-vi.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXI
funeral sermons, for a ' Mrs Margaret Ducke ! ' and numerous others equally unknown, and secured not this.
Further, Richard Baxter, his survivor for upwards of half a cen tury, might have been the biographer of Sibbes. In the story of his earlier days, in that marvellous ' Reliquiae Baxterianse,' which won the heart of Coleridge, he speaks gratefully of him : — ' About that time [his fifteenth year] it pleased God that a poor pedlar came to the door that had ballads and some good books, and my father bought of him Dr Sibbes's Bruised Reed. This also I read, and found it suited my state and seasonably sent me, which opened more the love of God to me, and gave me a livelier appre hension of the mystery of redemption, and how much I was beholden to Jesus Christ.'* This circumstance alone, observes Granger, in his meagre and chary fashion missing the right word 'immortal/ would have rendered his (Sibbes's) name memorable.'^ How priceless would have been a life of Sibbes from this like-minded man, as a companion to his Alleine ! How thankfully should we have spared half a dozen of his ' painful' controversial books for half a dozen pages of such a memoir !
Nor is my roll of casualties — shall I say ? — done. In the address 'to the Christian Reader,' prefixed to 'The knowledge of Christ indispensably required of all men who would be saved' (4to, 1653), of JOHN DAVENPORT, who, like Gouge, was Sibbes's contem porary, coadjutor, and bosom friend, he informs us of a grievous loss to himself and to us : — ' My far distance from the press,' he says, dating from his sequestered ' study in Newhaven,' New England, ' and the hazards of so long a voyage by sea, had almost discouraged me from transmitting this copy ; foreseeing that what soever <rpaX/Aarat are committed by the printer, men disaffected will impute it to the author ; and being sensible of my great loss of some manuscripts by a wreck at sea, together WITH THE LIVES OF SUNDRY PRECIOUS ONES, about six years since.' From the peculi arly close and endeared friendship between the two, there can be little doubt that among those precious ones would be Richard Sibbes.
Then again, we have Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Manton, and Philip Nye, Simeon Ash, and Jeremiah Burroughs, John Sedgwick, Arthur Jackson, James Nalton, and John Dod, John Hill, John Goodwin, Robert Towne, Joseph Church, Lazarus Seaman, William Taylor, Ezekiel Culverwell, in truth, all the foremost puritan names of the period, as the writers of ' Prefaces/ ' Epistles,' ' Dedications/
* ' Baxter,' R. B., pp. 3, 4, lib. i., pt. 1, 1696, folio. t ' Granger,' Biog. Hist, of England, 2d edition, 1776. J That is, ' slips, blunders.'
XXii MEMOIB OF EICHABD SIBBES, D.D.
addresses ' To the Header/ in the original quartos and duodecimos as they were issued in quick succession. In these there are pro voking hints, so to speak, of withheld information. Thus say Ash, Nalton, and Church : * The scope and business of this epistle is not so much to commend the workman (whose name is a sweet savour to the church), as to give a short and summary view of the generals handled in this treatise. THOUGH MUCH MIGHT BE SAID of this eminent saint, if either detraction had fastened her venomous nails in his precious name, or the testimony of the subscribers of this epistle might give the book a freer admission into thy hands.'* Again, John Goodwin thus pleads : ' Good reader, to discourse the worth or commendations of the author, especially the pens of others having done sacrifice unto him in that kind, / judge it but an unpertinency, and make no question but that if I should exchange thoughts or judgments with thee herein, / should have but mine own again'-}" A sketch of our saintly Calvinist by the great Ar- minian would have been worth having.
Once more, Arthur Jackson, William Taylor, and James Nalton, deem any enlargement supererogatory : ' WE NEED SAY NOTHING OF THE AUTHOR, his former labours sufficiently ' speak for him in the gates/ his memory is HIGHLY HONOURED AMONGST THE GODLY LEARNED. He that enjoys the glory of heaven needs not the praises of men upon earth.' J
Further, how many pleasant memories lay behind, when Jeremiah Burroughs thus poured out his reverence and love : ' Bless God for
this work, AND THE MAN THAT INDITED IT, a man, for
matter always full, for notions sublime, for expression clear, for style concise — a man spiritually rational and rationally spiritual — one that seemed to see the insides of nature and grace and the world and heaven, by those perfect anatomies he hath made of them all.'§
Finally (for it were endless to cite all), in the ' Marrow of Eccle siastical History' (folio, 1675), in the address 'to the Christian Reader/ signed ' Simeon Ash, John Wall/ we read : ' Here, we might have given in a true though short character of some precious servants and ministers of Christ, whose graces were admired whilst they lived, and whose memory their surviving friends do much honour, viz., Dr Preston, SIBBES, Taylor, Stoughton/ &c.
There are again and again such things, in every variety of loving
* ' To the Header,' Heavenly Conference betwixt Christ and Mary 12mo, 1654. 4to, 1656.
t ' To the Reader,' Exposition of 3d chapter of Philippians, &c., 4to, 1639. I ' To the Reader,' Glorious Feast of the Gospel, 4to, 1650. g ' To the Reader,' The Christian's Portion, 12rao. 1688.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XX111
epithet, but we look in vain for any adequate memorial of the tender and tenderly treasured friendships ; for even the welcome gossip that abounds, of far inferior men.
The ' evil days and evil tongues,' the crowding and trampling of events, England's 'ix/ag xaxwv, that made men hold their breath and ask, ' What next V explains, if it does not mitigate, the neglect of Sibbes's friends to place on record their knowledge and wealth of regard for him. He departed when the shadows of great calamities were falling, huge and dark, over the nation — calamities that were to recall, as with a clarion-blast, John Milton from Italy ; and it is easily to be understood, how, under such circumstances, there was delay issuing in forgetfulness. To all this must be added Sibbes's own splendid indifference to any blazoning of his name or fame, other than what might come spontaneously. His three small volumes — all that were published during his own life, under his own sanction — were literally compelled from him. Of the first, the ' Bruised Keed,' he tells us, with a touch of complaint, almost of anger, ' To prevent further inconvenience, I was drawn to let these notes pass with some review, considering there was an intendment of publishing them by some who had not perfectly taken them. And these first as being next at hand.' Of the ' Soul's Conflict,' he says also, ' I began to preach on the text about twelve years since in the city, and afterwards finished the same in Gray's Inn. After which, some having gotten imperfect notes, endea voured to publish them without my privity. Therefore, to do myself right, I thought fit to reduce them to this form.'
All this was the expression, not of passing irritation, much less of petulancy wearing the vizard of modesty, but of principle. For, in his ' Description of Christ/ the introductory sermons to the ' Bruised Reed' (which are now restored to their proper place), he had deprecated all eagerness after human applause. ' Let us com mit the fame and credit,' says he, * of what we are or do to God. He will take care of that, let us take care to be and to do as we should, and then for noise and report, let it be good or ill as God
will send it If we seek to be in the mouths of men, to dwell
in the talk and speech of men, God will ahhor us Therefore
let us labour to be good in secret. Christians should be as minerals, rich in the depth of the earth. That which is least seen is his (the Christian's) riches. We should have our treasure deep ; for the discovery of it, we should be ready when we are called to it ; and for all other accidental things, let it fall out as God in his wisdom eees good. .... God will be careful enough to get us applause. .... As much reputation as is fit for a man will follow him in
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
being and doing what he should. God will look to that There fore we should not set up sails to our own meditations, that unless we be carried with the wind of applause, to be becalmed, and not go a whit forward, but we should be carried with the Spirit of God, and with a holy desire to serve God and our brethren, and to do all the good we can, and never care for the speeches of the world, .... We should, from the example of Christ, labour to subdue this infirmity, which we are sick of naturally. . . / Then, in words that have the ring of Bacon in them, 'We shall have glory enough, and be known enough to devils, to angels, and men, ere long. Therefore, as Christ lived a hidden life — that is, he was not known what he was, that so he might work our salvation, so let us be content to be hidden ones.' More grandly, and even more like a stray sentence from ' The Essayes,' he elsewhere gives the secret of his unconcern as to what men might say or leave unsaid of him. ' THERE WILL BE A RESURRECTION OF CREDITS, as well as of bodies. We'll have glory enough BY AND BY.' The very ease, nay, negligence of that 'by and by' (recalling Henry Yaughan's ' other night,' in his superb vision of the great ring of eternity), sets before us one who ' looked not at the things that are seen and temporal, but at the things unseen and eternal,' one who would shine not in the lower firmament of human fame, but up higher, in the ' new heavens/ as a star for ever and ever.
With all explanations, and all the modesty of Sibbes himself, we cannot help lamenting that his contemporaries so readily ac quiesced in his choice of being a ' hidden one.'
But I must now try to put together such particulars as have been found, and in proceeding to do so it can only be needful to remind those who have attempted similar service, of the Greek proverb — To/s airov 'a-rogoDtf/ ffirov&dfyvTai oi ogojSo/ — which may be freely rendered, * Chick-peas are eagerly sought after when we lack corn/
CHAPTER II
PARENTAGE AND BIRTH — BIRTH-PLACE AND SCHOOLS.
Suffolk — Martyrs and ' Puritans' — Name, its various orthography — Bishop Mountagu — ' Blue blood' — Tennyson — Birth-place, Tostock, not Sudbury — Zachary Catlin —The old English Village— Removal to Thurston— The ' Wheel- wright'— School at Pakenham — Richard Brigs — The ' boy father of the man' — John Milton— Contemporary 'boys'— Grammar-school at Bury St Edmunds — Father begrudges ' expense'— Master Sibbes put in the ' wheel-wright's' shop— Friends step in.
RICHARD SIBBES was a native of Suffolk, one of the great martyr and puritan counties of England, that furnished many of the early
MEMOIR OF RICHAUD SIBBES, D.D. XXV
fugitives to Holland, a very unusual proportion of the emigrants to New England (whose lustrous names are still talismans over the Atlantic), and nearly a hundred of the 'ejected' two-thousand of 1662. The name 'Sibbes' is variously spelled. The spelling now given, and adopted in our title-page, is his own signature to his own dedications and ' epistles to the reader.' But he is fre quently called Sibbs, and such is the orthography of his Will, as well as of his heirs and their descendants. There is a third vari ation, Sybbes or Sybesius. But it is the Latinized form, as it occurs in Richterus Redivivus.* A fourth, Sibs, is common to many of the original editions, and furnishes a side-thrust in a play upon the word to Bishop Mountagu, in his ' Appello ad Caesarem' (1625), that over-clever ' Defence.' Even thus early Sibbes was speaking bravely out in his post at ' Gray's Inn' against the semi- popish practices of the prelates ; and the venal bishop, afraid to strike openly, must needs hint dislike in this taunt, 'So .... with our Puritans, very Sibs unto those fathers of the society, every moderate man is bedaubed with these goodly habiliments of Ar- minianism, popery, and what not, unless he will be frantic with them for their holy cause.' -f- This may, perchance, be a mere jest ing use of the word ' sib/ but the capital S and plural, and the man, seem to indicate an intended hit at our author, ever out spoken against such as the unquestionably astute but also unques tionably unscrupulous Richard Mountagu. The earliest occurrence of the name that I have met with is in a Robert Sibbes or Sybbs of Cony-Weston, Norfolk, who, in 1524, purchased Ladie's Manor, Rockland-Tofts, which again was sold by his son and heir, also a Robert, in 1594.J Perhaps, by further inquiries, it might be possible to connect the neighbouring Norfolk with the Suffolk Sibbeses ; and, though I have searched in vain in Burke's 'Armoury,' and all through the Davy ' Suffolk MSS.,'§ for genealogical record, it is pos sible that further research might even shew 'blue blood' in the descent of the author of the ' Bruised Reed/ But it would serve
* ' Kichterus Redivivus.' In a curious letter of Christopher Arnold, containing new and apparently unused information about Milton. Writing to Geo. Richter (from Lond., A.D. 7 Aug. (sic) 1651, printed in Richterus Redivivus, p. 485), he says, ' In Academia Cantabrigiensi vir peramans mei, Abrah. Whelocus, Arab, atque Anglo- Baxonicse Linguarum Professor et Bibliothecarius publicus codices manuscriptos cum
primis Grsecos, &c Obstupui in Johannitica (bibliotheca), cum mihi magnum
sacrorum librorum Grsecobarbarorum copiam o&tenderent, a benefactore quodam anonymo, suasione Richardi Sybbes, S. Th. Prof, et hujus Coll. quondam socii seni- oris, A.D. 1628, dono oblatorum.'
t ' Appello ad Csesarem, a Just Appeale from Two Unjust Informers.' By Richard Mountagu. 4to, 1625, p. 139.
J Blomefield's Norfolk, vol, i., pp. 481-82. g In British Museum. Addl. MSS.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
little purpose to do so, or to prove him ' sib' to this, that, or the other great family. The far-fountained 'red' ichor that has come down from
* The grand old gardener and his wife '*
suffices, the more especially as, at the time of his birth at least, our author's family was assuredly lowly, and of the people :
' Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.' t
In all preceding notices, Sudbury, the old town, so far back as Ed ward Ill's times inhabited by the Flemings, is given as Sibbes's birth-place. ' At Sudbury/ says Neal (' History of the Puritans'), and Brook (' Lives of the Puritans'), and so all the ' Biographical Diction aries.' 'Nigh Sudbury/ says Fuller ; ' At the edges of Suffolk, near Sudbury/ says Clarke. This is a mistake. The town, 'as great as most, and ancient as any/ according to Thomas Fuller, that can boast of Thomas Gainsborough and Thomas Constable later, as natives, and of Faithful Teate, William Jenkyn, and Samuel Peyto earlier, as ministers, can afford to give up an honour to which it has no claim. Tostock, not Sudbury, was his birth-place. The ' regis ters' of the period, of Sudbury and Tostock alike, have perished; but a contemporary manuscript 'Memoir' of Sibbes, from the pen of Zachary Catlin (of whom more anon), which the stream of time, while engulphing so much else of what was precious and what w<as worthless, has floated down and placed by lucky accident in my possession, states the fact. As this contemporary manuscript must be frequently laid under contribution in the sequel, it may be as well to give here its proem, which is sufficient, apart from what will subsequently appear, to attest its au thority and trustworthiness. ' At the request of a noble friend, Sir William Spring, I have here willingly contributed to the happy memory of that worthy man of God, Dr Sibbes, a few such flowers as I could collect, either from the certain relation of those that knew his first education, or from mine own observation of him&i that distance whereat we lived. And if anything here recorded may seem convenient for his purpose, who is (as I am informed)
* and f Tennyson. ' Lady Clara Vere de Vere .' Even were it possible to trace the name of Sibbes up to 'Norman blood,' we must remember our Scottish proverbs: — A' Stuarts are no rib to the king, 1 = Though of the same name,
A' Campbells are no rib to the duke, / not of the same family.
Moreover, as he says himself of another (Sherland), 'What should I speak of these things, when he has personal worth enough ? I need not go abroad to commend this man, for there were those graces and gifts in him that made him so esteemed, that verily I think no man of his place and years lived more desired, and died more lamented.' (« Christ is Best,' page 347 of this volume of the works.)
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXV11
about to publish the lives of some worthies deceased, I shall think my labour well bestowed. For I am not of that philosopher's mind, who lighting upon a book newly put forth, entitled, " The En comium of Hercules," cast it away, saying,^ quisLacedcemoniorum eum vituperavit ? accounting it a needless work to praise him whom no man did or could find fault withal. I rather judge it a com mendable thing to perpetuate and keep fresh the memory of such worthy men whose examples may be of use for imitation in this declining and degenerate age.'* I give his ipsissima verba of the birth-place, as above, and embrace in the quotation the birth-date as well. ' But I come to the matter. This Richard, the eldest son of Paul Sibs and Johan [= Joanna ?] was born at Tostock, in Suffolk, four miles from Bury, anno domini 1577.'f The source of the blunder of making Sudbury the birth-place is evidently confound ing 'Bury' St Edmunds with Sudbury. Tostock is 'nigh' the former, but not 'nigh' the latter, and cannot at all be described as 1 on the edges' of Suffolk, being fifteen or twenty miles in the interior. Tostock, to which I thus restore, if not in the popular sense a great, at least a revered, name, and one of which any place might be proud, remains to-day very much as we may suppose it to have been two hundred years ago, except perhaps that 'its tide of work has ebbed away,' and it is now wholly rural. It is a small sequestered village in Thedwestry hundred, about, as we have seen, four miles from Bury St Edmunds, and about thirteen miles from
Sudbury.
' A quaint, old, gabled place With Church stamped on its face.
Exactly such a ' village ' as ' Our Village ' has made dear to us all. Its few picturesquely scattered houses cluster around an unenclosed 'common' (once abundant in 'merry England,' but now sparse), and present fine specimens of what every year is seeing disappear — the peaked-roofed, mossy-thatched, or saffron-tiled ' homes ' of our forefathers of the 16th and 17th centuries, with every ' coign of van tage' of the over-hanging upper storeys and lozenge-paned windows,
' Held by old swallows on a lease of love Unbroken, immemorial ;'
and little gardens a-front flinging out into the air the breath of
* Above and throughout I modernise the orthography ; but in Appendix A to this Memoir I reprint from my MS. the whole very interesting document. Thither I refer for further information concerning its author.
t Neal gives 1579, and is followed by others; but the misprint is corrected by the statement that his death took place in 1635, in his 57th year, which, however, ought to be 58th. The ' Kegisters' of Tostock that remain commence long subsequent to 1577, and hence the date of his birth-rfoy is lost.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBE3, D.D.
old-fashioned flowers. It is pleasant in our day to come upon such a virgin spot.
• For it is well, amid the whirr Of restless wheels and busy stir, To find a quiet spot where live Fond, pious thoughts conservative,
That ring to an old chime,
And bear the moss of time.
4 And sweeter far and grander too The ancient civilisation grew, With holy war and busy work Beneath the spire and round the kirk
Than miles of brick and stone
In godless monotone.'
The 'church,' lichened and lady-ferned, but in excellent preser vation, is approached by a fragrant lane that strikes off from
' the rectory,'
«... where the budding purple rose, Prolific of its gifts, the long year through Breaks into beauty.
It is dedicated to St Andrew.
' Nor gargoyle lacks, grotesque and quaint, Nor saintly niche without its saint, Nor buttress lightsome, nor the tower, Where the bell marks the passing hour,
And peals out with our mirth,
And tolls our earth to earth.'
The ' font' — from which no doubt little Richard Sibbes was bap tized — is noticeable. The 'benches' are of dark oak, grotesquely carved. The graves around are ozier-woven, and on some of the stones, the once great Suffolk name of Bacon, is still to be read ; also in the wrecks of the ' Registers' that remain, the mighty name of Wolsey occurs, as elsewhere in the neighbourhood (by a strange link with Germany and the Reformation), is to be found that of Luther. We visited the primitive hamlet on one of the finest of English September days, and our Scottish eye and heart were touched with the quiet English scenery, long familiar by the 'landscapes' of Suffolk's Gainsborough and Constable, and her poets, Bloomfield and Crabbe. There were the 'Cart on a Road,' ' Cows crossing a Ford,' ' Boys a-straddle on a Gate,' the ' Stile,' ringed with honey-suckle, and now the glowing, and now the bleak originals of ' The Farmer's Boy' and of 'The Borough.' Tostock was a cheery, sunny, many-memoried birth-place ; to this hour, with its sister-villages, possessing traditions of martyrs and reformers, Rowland Taylor and Yeoman, and, farther off,
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXIX
Hooper and Coverdale and John Rogers, and legends of the Tudors and the Commonwealth. For a 'Puritan' none could have been more fitting, for all around were the family seats of grand old Puritan worthies, Barton-Mere, Talmach Hall, Pakenham, Nether Hall, where 'godly ministers' were ever welcome to the Bar- nardistons and Brights, Yeres and Brooks, Winthrops and Riches, Springs and Cavendishes, and the Bacon stock.
But Sibbes was very soon removed thence to Thurston, a similar hamlet only about three miles distant. Here, our old worthy the Yicar of Thurston informs us, Mr and Mrs Sibbes ' lived in honest repute, brought up and married divers children, purchased some houses and lands, and there both deceased.'
There will be something to say afterward of these ' divers chil dren' who were 'married ;' but it is to be regretted that, the 'registers having perished, no positive light can be cast on the dates of the de cease of the elder folks, except that the father was dead before 1608. Concerning him this is Catlin's testimony : ' His father was by his trade a wheel-wright, a skilful and painful workman, and a good, sound-hearted Christian.' ' Skilful and painful' * were very weighty words then, particularly 'painful,' which was the highest praise that could be given to a laborious, faithful, evangelical minister of the gospel. It is found in many an olden title-page, and un derneath many a grave, worn face. A ' mill-wright,' or ' wheel wright/ for they are interchangeable, was by no means an unim portant ' craftsman ' in those days. In country places, such as Thurston and Tostock, where division of labour could not be car ried so far as in the large towns, the ' wheel-wright ' was compelled to draw largely upon his own resources, and to devise expedients to meet pressing emergencies as they arose. Necessarily this made him dexterous, expert, and ' skilful ' in mechanical arrangements. If thus early, the whole of Smiles's description, on whose authority I am writing this,-)" does not hold (for he speaks of him devising steam-engines, pumps, cranes, and the like) ; yet in those primitive days, perhaps more than some generations later, such tradesmen were, in all cases of difficulty, resorted to, and looked upon as a very important class of workmen ; while the nature of their business tended to make them thoughtful, decided, self-reliant. The cradle of little Richard, therefore, would seem to have been rocked at a fireside not altogether unprosperous. And yet there must have been in the outset somewhat of poverty and struggle, or, the elder Sibbes will need the full benefit of Catlin's character of him. For our guileless
* Painful = full of pains, i.e., painstaking, laborious.
t Smiles's Life of Brindley, in Lives of the Engineers, vol. i. p. 312.
XXX MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
chronicler, carrying us swiftly onward, adds immediately thereafter, ' This Eichard he brought up in learning at the grammar school, though very unwillingly in regard of the charge' We will in charity give Master Paul Sibs, wheel-wright, the benefit of the vicar's testimony, and ascribe the ' unwillingness ' to the res angustce domi. Whether or not, the ' charge/ I fear, had prematurely removed the little fellow from the school to the wheel-wight's bench, but for his own bookish tastes, and the watchful interest of friends. This is explicitly affirmed in what follows. The sentence above, that tells us of the unwilling school-learning, through the ' charge,' thus continues — ' had not the youth's strong inclination to his books, and well profiting therein, with some importunities of friends, prevailed so far as to continue him at school till he was fit for Cambridge.' Most truly the ' boy was father of the man.' I turn again to the Izaak Walton-like words of the Vicar of Thurston. He says — ' Concerning his love to his book, and his industry in study, I cannot omit the testimony of Mr Thomas Clark, high constable, who was much of the same age, and went to school together with him at the same time, with one Mr Kichard Brigs (afterward head master of the Free School at Norwich), then teaching at Pakenham church. He hath often told me that, when the boys were dismissed from school at the usual hours of eleven and five or six, and the rest would fall to their pastime, and some times to playing the wags with him, as being harmless and meanly apparelled (for the most part in leather), it was this youth's con stant course, as soon as he could rid himself of their unpleasing company, to take out of his pocket or satchel one book or other, and so to go reading and meditating till he came to his father's house, which was near a mile off, and so he went to school again. This was his order, also, when his father sent him to the Free School at Bury, three or four miles off, every day. Whereby the said Mr Clark did then conceive, that he would in time prove an excel lent and able man, who of a child was of such a manly staidness, and indefatigable industry in his study.'* Milton's immortal portraiture
of ' The Child ' may be taken to describe Master Richard :
4 When I was yet a child, no childish play
To me was pleasing ; all my mind was set,
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do,
What might be public good.'— Paradise Regained. [B. i. 201-204.]
The ' school near Pakenham church ' has long since disappeared,
* 'StaM&iew'isthe very word Lord Brooke uses to describe the youthhood of Philip Sidney : and indeed his whole description is reflected in the above. Cf. the Life of the renowned Sir Philip Sidney (ed. 1652), pp. 6, 7.
MEMOIK OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXXI
and no memorial whatever has been transmitted of it. The man sion of Pakenham was the seat of the Gages, whence the mother of Sir Nicholas Bacon, father of the Bacon, came ; and later was the residence of Sir William Spring, at whose request Catlin drew up his notice of Sibbes. Probably, we err not in tracing back the after-friendship with Sibbes to those school-boy days. One likes to picture little Master Richard in his leathern suit (not at all uncom mon at the period), studiously walking day by day from Pakenham to Thurston, and home again. Nor can we avoid thinking of other * boys,' who were then likewise ' at school,' and destined to cross one another's paths. Not a few of them will be found united in inti mate friendship with the little leathern-suited pupil of Master Brigs. With others he came into conflict. They are relegated to a foot note.*
Having obtained all that he could, apparently, at the school of Master Brigs (of whom nothing has come down), little Richard, as our last citation from the vicar's manuscript has anticipated us in stating, was sent to Bury St Edmunds, to the ' Free School' there, by which must be intended the still famous c School ' founded by Edward VI. ; and we can very well understand the zest with which one so thoughtful and eager would avail himself of the advantages of such an institution. Dr Donaldson has failed to enrol Sibbes among the celebrities of the school, an omission which, it is to be hoped, will
* Contemporary 'boys.' The greatest of all, Master Willie Shakespeare, rising into his teens, has only very lately been tossing his auburn curls at Stratford ' school ; ' and, still a ' boy,' is now wooing his fair Anne Hathaway. Master Joseph Hall is playing about Bristow Park, Ashby-de la-Zouch, under the eye of Mistress Winifred, of whom he was to write so tenderly as his more than Monica. Away in the downs of Berks, diminutive Willie Laud is playing at marbles under the acacia-walk of Eeading. Master George Herbert is ruffling the humour of his stately brother, afterwards Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the 'doubter,1 by overturning a glass of malmsey on his slashed hose and 'roses of his shoon.' In not distant Tarring, Master John Selden is already storing up in the wizard cave of memory those treasures of learning the world is one day to marvel at. Masters Phineas and Giles Fletcher are truanting in the linden glades of their father's vicarage. Masters George Wither and Francis Quarles are agog (in strange contrast with their grim scorn of such ' gaudery,' by-and-bye) over their new lace-frill. Master William Browne is chasing the butterflies in Tavistock. Masters Ussher and Hobbea are perchance busy over their ABC. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher are still asunder. Master Massinger, tossing ha'pence under the minster of Salisbury, no vision yet of the ' Virgin Martyr,' and no shadow of the ' stranger's grave ' he is to fill. Moreover, as Master Sibbes was thus footing it between Thurston and Bury, men were alive who had seen martyr-faces, ' pale i' the fire.' In the words of Bourne, of a few years earlier, ' The English air was thick with sighs and curses. Great men [were] heavy-hearted at the misery which had fallen upon the land .... and he [may] have listened to their earnest, mournful talk. (Memoirs of Philip Sidney, by H. R. Fox Bourne, 8vo, 1862, pp. 9, 10.)
MEMOIR OF EICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
henceforward be supplied, for any school may boast of a name so venerable as the author of the ' Bruised Reed.' In the ' registers of the school the name of Sibbes has not been recorded. One would have been glad to know some of his schoolmates. I am not aware that history or biography has named any of them, none at any rate more distinguished than himself. The statutes and other documentary manuscripts of the school have been lost, and nothing is known of its celebrated scholars till 1610 — long subse quent to Sibbes — when the list is headed by that twin-brother to Pepys, Sir Symonds D'Ewes. Only one Master is given before 1583, a Philip Mandevill. In 1583, the office was filled by a John Wright, M.A., and in 1596, by Edmund Coote, M.A., who seems to have pub lished his 'English Schoolmaster' (hardly to be placed beside 'The Schoolmaster ' of Roger Ascham, though not without merit), during his short term of office.
The earliest extant list of 'boys' is dated 1656. It is a fine glimpse of the student-boy old Catlin gives, leisurely footing from Pakenham to Thurston, and it is to be remembered he did the same to the more distant Bury. We can avouch that, in this good year Eighteen hundred and sixty-two, twenty-fourth of Queen Victoria I., few more pleasant rural roads can be found than that which now winds from Thurston to Bury. On either side are picturesque hurdle-fences tangled with purple cornel, or hedge-rows odorous with hawthorn spray. But it must have been very different in Master Richard's time. Macadam was still unborn; and even a century and half later, Arthur Young* has anything but praise for this turnpike. ' I was forced/ he tells us in reference to it, ' to move as slow in it as in any unmended lane in Wales. For ponds of liquid dirt, and a scattering of loose flints, just sufficient to lame every horse that moves near them, with the addition of cutting vile grips across the road, under the pretence of letting the water off, but without effect, altogether render at least twelve out of these sixteen miles (between Bury and Sudbury) as infamous a turnpike as ever was beheld.' Alas ! for bookish, studious Master Richard, if he found his school-walk such a Slough-of-Despond.
Sent to Bury ' Free School' (visiting which I looked up at the time- stained bust of its youthful royal founder with interest for Sibbes's sake, who, perchance, practised his first Latin in spelling out the not over-elegant or accurate inscription beneath), there would, no doubt, be rapid advancement. But the ' child' had become a ' lad,' and again there was threatened interruption to his school-learning. I
* ' Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales.' 2d ed. 1769. Pp. 88, 89.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXX111
find an objurgation rising to my lips against this so 'unwilling' father ; but it is silenced by the recollection of the vicar's testi mony : ' He was a skilful and painful workman, and a good, sound- hearted Christian.' Master Catlin, I suspect thy sweet-nurtured charity was blind to Master Paul Sibs's penuriousness ! It may have been, again let us say, pressure of circumstances, many mouths to be fed, multiplied 'work' demanding another pair of hands. Still it is not altogether what we should like, to find Master Richard again hindered. 'His father,' continues our vicar, 'at length grew weary of his expenses for books and learning, took him from school, bought him an axe and some other tools, and set him to his own trade, to the great discontent of the youth, wnose genius wholly carried him another way.' So Master Paul Sibs proposed, but Another disposed. The lad was destined to work for his generation — and many generations — with other tools than these.
CHAPTER III.
STUDENT AND PREACHER AT CAMBRIDGE.
Leaves Bury St Edmunds for ' St John's College,' Cambridge — Greaves — Knewstub — Rushbrook — Enters as ' sub-sizar ' — Jeremy Taylor 'pauper scholaris ' — Pro gress— Degrees— B. A. — ' Fellow ' — M. A.— ' Taxer ' — B.D.— Paul Bayne — 1 Conversion ' — A 'Preacher ' — Lectureship of' Trinity,' Cambridge — Memorial — ' Hobson '—Accepts— Results— Samuel Clarke — Thomas Cawton — John Cotton — ' Word in season ' to Thomas Goodwin— Prevalent ' preaching.'
Once more vigilant friends stepped in. They saw the 'youth* set utterly against the grain, at the wheel-wright's bench. 'Where upon,' approvingly, with the faintest touch of rebuke, chronicles good Zachary Catlin : ' Mr Greaves, then minister of Thurston, and Mr Rushbrook, an attorney there, knowing the disposition and fit ness of the lad, sent him, without his father's consent, to some of the Fellows of St John's College of their acquaintance, with their letters of recommendation ; where, upon examination, he was so well approved of, that he was presently entertained as a sub-sizar, shortly after chosen scholar of the house, and at length came to be Fellow of the College, and one of the taskers of the university ; his father being hardly brought to allow him twenty nobles a year to wards his maintenance in Cambridge, to which some good friends in the country, Mr Greaves, Mr Knewstub, and some others, made some addition, for a time, as need required.' I am sure all my readers will wish that we knew more of those ' good friends.' All
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIB iES, D.D.
honour to the memory of ' Mr Greaves and Mr Rushbrook.' Of ' Mr Knewstub,' the scholarly, the pious, the brave-hearted, no ad mirer of the Puritans needs to be informed. Has is truly a historic clarum et venerabile nomen. His letter of recommendation to St John's College would have the greater weight, in that he was one of its greatest lights, and, subsequently, its benefactor. One is pleased, nevertheless, to learn that it was ' upon examination/ not mere ' recommendation,' the youth was received. He was then in his eighteenth year. Entered as a sub-sizar, which is even beneath a sizar, young Sibbes must have been placed at a disadvantage. Jeremy Taylor, however, was entered as 'pauper scholaris,' lower still. That has transfigured, if not ennobled, the lowly ' sizar.' Cer tainly the more honour is due to those who, starting with the meanest, have won for themselves the highest places. How many who entered among the highest are forgotten, while the lapse of time only brightens the lustre of our ' sub-sizar' and the ' pauper scholaris!
The career of Sibbes at the university was singularly successful, and indicates in the son of the wheel-wright of Tostock and Thurston, no common energy and devotion to study. It is probable that his 'school-learning' at Pakenham and Bury St Edmunds, alike, was frequently interrupted and hindered. Nevertheless, he seems to have at once placed himself abreast of the most favoured students. The records and registers of St John's College, shew that he passed B.A. in 1598-9 ; was admitted ' Fellow' 3d April 1601, commenced M.A. in 1602, taxer (the ' tasker' of Catlin) in 1608, was elected 'College Preacher' feast of 1st March 1609, and graduated B.D. in 1610.
We must return upon these dates. When Sibbes, in 1595, pro ceeded to Cambridge, ' without the consent of his father! but witt kind words of cheer and something more from Mr Greaves, Mr Knew stub, and Mr Rushbrook, it does not appear that he had any specific intentions in regard to the future. An academic life was evidently his ambition ; but to what profession, whether divinity, law, or medicine, he was ultimately to devote himself, was probably left undetermined. An event, or more accuratety, the one great event and ' change' in every man — his conversion (I like and therefore use the good old puritan, because Biblical, word), in all likelihood led him to decide to serve God in the ministry of the gospel of his Son. Paul Bayne, sometimes Baine and Baines, one of the most remarkable of the earlier ' Doctrinal Puritans' (that name of stigma imposed by Laud), whose ' Letters/ second only to those of Samuel Rutherford, and other minor books, were long the chosen fireside reading of every
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXXV
puritan household, and whose ' Exposition of Ephesians' is worthy to take its place beside Rogers and Byfield on Peter, Jenkyn on Jude, Fetter on Mark, Elton on Colossians and Romans, Newton on John, and their kindred folios, that lie now-a-days like so many unworked mines of gold — had succeeded Perkins as preacher at St Andrew's, Cambridge, ' and it pleased God,' says Clarke, ' to make him an instrument of the conversion of that holy and eminent servant of Christ, Dr Sibbes.' Sibbes himself is reverently reticent on the momentous matter, even in his preface to Bayne's ' Exposi tion of the first chapter of Ephesians' (published separately in 1618), making no allusion to it ; but it probably took place somewhere about 1602-3.* In 1602, having passed M.A., he shortly there after became a 'preacher.' By 1608 'he was a preacher of good note/ Where he did preach we are not informed. In his address to the reader prefixed to the ' Soul's Conflict/ he states that the ' Sermons' which compose it had been preached first of all ' about twelve years' before 'in the city,' i.e., London, and afterwards at ' Gray's Inn.' I have utterly failed to come upon any memorial of this ' city' ministry ; bat it is probable that it was commenced between 1602 and 1607. Elected 'College Preacher' in 1609, he must have been then well known and distinguished.
In 1610, when he had graduated B.D., another very important event happened. In that year a 'Memorial' was addressed to him, which, in so far as I can learn, appears to have been the origin of the subsequently celebrated ' Trinity Lectureship,' held since by some of the greatest names of the church. The memorial gives us
* ' Conversion .... reticent.' This is quite in accord with Sibbes's declared senti ments. I would refer the reader to ' The Description of Christ,' pp. 30, 31. There he will find not more sound than admirably expressed counsels and warnings as to the ' vainglory' of publishing abroad things too solemn to be so dealt with. I assume the responsibility of affirming, that at no period have those warnings been more demanded than the present. Every one who ' loves the Lord,' who prays and longs for the coming of ' the kingdom,' who mourns the wordliness and coldness of all sec tions of Christ's divided church, must rejoice in the past two years' awakening and ' revival.' I would gladly recognise the work of the Spirit of God in much that has taken place. I verily believe very many have been 'born again,' and more who were half asleep have been stirred and quickened. At the same time, it were to be un faithful and untruthful to blink the ' evil' that has mingled with the ' good.' It becomes every reverent soul to protest against those premature declarations of ' con versions,' and publication of 'experiences' that have got so common. It is perilous to forget the Master's words, Luke xvii. 20. Paul was fourteen years a ' servant' of Christ before he made known his ineffable rapture and vision. Modern ' converts,' do not allow as many hours to expire ere their whole story is blazoned in the public prints. Surely a thing so awful and so sacred, unless in very exceptional instances, is for the ear of God alone. The Tract Societies would act wisely if they circulated by thousands as a ' Tract for the Times,' Sibbes's priceless words of ' Vainglory.' VOL. I. C
MEMOIK OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
insight into the popularity of Sibbes as a preacher.* The ortho graphy and wording of the original are retained : —
1 A Coppye of the general request of the inhabitants of or p'ishe deliv'ed to Mr Sibs, publique p'acher of the house of Cambridge.
* We whose names ar heerunderwritten, the Churchewardens and P'ishion- ers of Trinity p'ishe in Cambridge, with the ful and fre consent of Mr Jhon Wildbore or minister, duely considering the extream straytnes & div'se other discomodities concerning the accustomed place of yr exercise & desireing as much as in vs lyeth ye more publique benefit of yor ministery, doe earnestlye entreat you wold be pleesed to accept of or p'ishe Churche, which al of vs doe willingly^ offer you for & concerning the exercising of yor ministery & awditorye at the awntient and usual daye & houre. In witnes hereof wee have heervnto set to or hands this 22th (sic) of Noveber 1610. * JOHN WILBORE, Minister.
' EDWARD ALMOND, ) ™ i -,
-r» h Churchewardens.
* THOMAS BANKES, )
(Signed also by 29 Parishioners.)
The churchwardens of the parish having kindly permitted access to their ' Records/ I find amongst them a list of the names of the sub scribers to the lectureship in the several parishes of the town, with the amount of each person's subscription, which runs generally 13s. 4d., 10s., and 6s. 8d. per annum. Three gave £1 per annum each, of whom one was Mr Hobson, the carrier, immortalised by Milton, and later by Steele in the 'Spectator,' and to this day a ' household word' in Cambridge, in kindly eccentric associa tion with the proverb, ' Hobson's choice, that or none,' which no one book-read will need explained. One thing is noticeable, that a goodly number of the signatures to the memorial are with marks -]-. This is of the last interest and not a little touching. The ' common people' heard Sibbes, like his Master, ' gladly,' and the ' straytnes of the place' hindered others. This is a sign of change for the better in Cambridge very worthy of observation. The old longing after that full preaching of the gospel which had characterised the period of Perkins's seraphic yet pungent ministry, was revived. Sibbes responded to the memorial, and immediately it was felt that ' Trinity' had a man of mark as its ' Lecturer,' the coequal of Bayne of St Andrew's. How those saintly servants of the same Lord would rejoice to be fellow-helpers of each other, the younger 'serving' with the elder, as a son with a father. The lectureship of ' Trinity' was a complete success. Besides the townsmen, many scholars resorted to him, whereby he became, in the words of Clarke, a ' worthy instrument of begetting many sons
' Trinity Lectureship.' The ' Memorial' is given by Mr Cooper in his Annals of Cambridge, iii. 168.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXXV11
and daughters unto God, besides the edifying and building up of others.'*
We have incidental confirmations of the weighty testimony of the 1 Pastor of St Bennet Fink, London.' More generally, in that curious little rarity of Puritan biography, ' The Life and Death of that Holy and Reverend man of God, Mr Thomas Cawton't (1662), we read ' He conscientiously and constantly laboured to counter work those factors of hell, and drove a trade for God in bestirring himself to insinuate into any lad that was ingenious, and was very successful therein, to the astonishment and confusion of his opposers. Many had great cause to bless God for him, and their first acquaintance with him, for his bringing them to Dr Preston's and Dr Sibbes, his Lectures in those times.' More specially, Cot ton Mather, the Thomas Fuller of New England, tells us of one memorable conversion through his instrumentality — John Cotton, who was in turn the ' leader to Christ ' of a greater than himself, Dr Preston, and whom Oliver Cromwell himself addressed as ' my esteemed friend.' J
It were like to rubbing off with coarse fingers the powder from a moth's wing, in any wise to change the loving and grave narrative It is as follows : — ' Hitherto we have seen the life of Mr Cotton while he was not yet alive ! Though the restraining and prevent ing grace of God had kept him from such outbreakings of sin as defile the lives of most in the world, yet like the old man who for such a cause ordered this epitaph to be written on his grave, ''Here lies an old man who lived but seven years," he reckoned himself to have been but a dead man as being " alienated from the life of God," until he had experienced that regeneration in his own soul, which was thus accomplished. The Holy Spirit of God had been at work upon his young heart, by the ministering of that reverend and renowned preacher of righteousness, Mr Perkins ; but he resisted and smothered those convictions through a vain persuasion, that if he became a godly man 'twould spoil him for being a learned one. Yea, such was the secret enmity and prejudice of an unregenerate soul against real holiness, and such the torment which our Lord's witnesses give
* Clarke, Lives of Thirty-two English Divines, 3d edition, 1677, folio, p. 143.
t ' Cawton,' p. 11.
J Cotton and Cromwell. The letter of the great Protector, alluded to, a very striking one, will be found in Brook's Lives of the Puritans, iii. 158-9. It is also given with characteristic annotation in Carlyle's ' Cromwell,' iii. 221-225 (3d ed. 1850). When, may I ask in a foot-note, will America give us worthy editions of the still inedited and uncollected ' Works' of John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, Daven port, and others of their kindred ? Surely this were better than much that has been reprinted over the Atlantic.
MEMOIR OF HICHAKD SIBBES, D.D.
to the consciences of the earthly-minded, that when he heard the bell toll for the funeral of Mr Perkins, his mind secretly rejoiced in his deliverance from that powerful ministry by which his conscience had been so oft beleaguered ; the remembrance of which things after wards did break his heart exceedingly ! But he was at length more effectually awakened by a sermon of Dr Sibs, wherein was dis coursed the misery of those who had only a negative righteousness, or a civil, sober, honest blamelessness before men. Mr Cotton became now very sensible of his own miserable condition before God ; and the errors of those convictions did stick so fast upon him, that after no less than three years disconsolate apprehensions under them, the grace of God made him a thoroughly renewed Christian, and filled him with a sacred joy which accompanied him into the ful ness of joy for ever. For this cause, as persons truly converted unto God have a mighty and lasting affection for the instruments of their conversion, thus Mr Cotton's veneration for Dr Sibs was after this very particular and perpetual, and it caused him to have the picture of that great man in that part of his house where he might oftenest look upon it.'*
Various similar memorabilia might be here adduced from the Puritan 'Biographies' and 'Histories.' One additional 'word in season,' spoken to Dr Thomas Goodwin, may suffice. In his earlier days this celebrated divine leant to Arminianism rather than to Calvinism, and it was through Sibbes that his views were cleared, to his life-long satisfaction, on the point of Jesus Christ being the Head and Representative of his people. It is also recorded that, in familiar discourse with Goodwin, Sibbes said, 'Young man, if you ever would do good, you must preach the gospel, and the free grace of God in Christ Jesus.'f The counsel was as a ' nail in a sure place,' and no reader of Goodwin needs to be told how fully and magnifi cently he sets forth the ' grace' of God in Christ.
Well was it that such men as Paul Bayne and Richard Sibbes were preachers in such a place and at such a time. From contem porary accounts it is apparent, that notwithstanding the profound impression 'on the town' by Perkins, and notwithstanding that there were a few who, Mary-like, ' kept all the things' they had heard from him, ' and pondered them in their hearts,' Cambridge was sunken down, as a whole, to ail its former indifferentism and for mality. The preaching that was fashionable among the ' wits ' of
* Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana : or the Ecclesiastical History of New England, book iii., c. i., § 6, p, 15. Folio, 1702.
t Robert Trail, A.M., Justification by Faith, Works, vol. i. p. 261 (edition 4 vols. 8vo, 1810).
MEMOIR OF EICHAED SIBBES, D.D. XXXIX
i
the university was a very different thing from the stern reproofs, bold invectives, burning remonstrances, prophet-like appeals of William Perkins. What was now cultivated and extolled was a frivolous, florid eloquence, that boasted itself on its deftly-turned tropes, its high-flown paraphrases of the classics, especially Seneca and Cicero, and the Fathers, the multiplied quotations of the ' ser mons' published shewing like purple patches on a thread-bare robe. There was trick of manner, mellifluous cadence, simpering refine ment, nothing more. The Senhouses et hoc genus omne sprinkled eau-de-cologne over their hearers (if they durst it had been 'holy water'), while parched lips were athirst for the ' living water' — tickled the ear when the heavily-laden soul sought pardon, the weary rest, the bruised balm. The cross lifted up on Calvary be neath the pallid heavens — the cross as proclaimed by Paul — was ' vulgar,' and to be kept out of sight. The awful blood must first be wiped off — the coarse nails withdrawn. Whoso gainsays, let him turn to their extant ' Sermons.' But amid the faithless some faithful were found. There were some not ashamed of the gospel/ some who could stand and withstand 'the loud laugh.' The 'towns people' would have that which the ' collegians' (so they called them) rejected. In such circumstances we may conceive that the ministry of Sibbes could scarcely fail to be a ministry of power. * The Day' alone will fully reveal its fruits.
CHAPTER IV.
' PREACHER' AT GRAY'S INN, LONDON.
'Deprived' of Lectureship and 'Outed' from Fellowsnip — Sir Henry Yelverton— ' Preacher' at Gray's Inn— Correction of date — The ' Chapel'— The < Inn'— Segar MS.— The Auditory— Lord Bacon.
From 1610 to 1615, Sibbes held his lectureship and other honours without molestation. But in the latter year he was de prived (' outed,' says Clarke) both of his fellowship and lecture. Even thus early Laud was at work against all Puritanism and 'preaching ;' and this was the manner of his working. However, as in many other instances, while there was unquestionable hard ship and hurt done by the double deprivation, it ' fell out for the furtherance of the gospel.' Sir Henry Yelverton, that ' constant patron to godly ministers/ stepped in and secured the 'preacher- ship ' of ' Gray's Inn/ London, for him. All preceding authorities
Xl MEMOIK OF RICHAED SIBBES, D.D.
give 1618— the 'Synod of Dort' year— or 'about 1618,' as the date of this well-timed appointment. This is incorrect. I found the fol lowing entry in the ' Order-Books : ' *
< Quinto die, Feb. A.D. 1616.
' At this penton [pension] Mr Richd. Sibbs is chosen preacher of Graies Inne ; and it is ordered that he shal be continually resident, and shall not take any other benefice or livinge.' f
This appointment introduced him at a bound to the first society of the metropolis.
Among the treasures of the British Museum is a noble folio, drawn up from the books of 'Gray's Inn/ by Segar, one of the society's former ' butlers.' J In it, with superb blazonry of shield and scutcheon, and all the 'pomp of heraldry,' are registered the names of those who were resident 'readers, benchers, an cients, barristers, students,' from the earliest date. If one had the Greek of Homer, or the ' large utterance ' of Milton, or even the rhetoric of Macaulay, it were possible to revivify the auditory of the 'chapel.' A more illustrious can scarcely be imagined. The flower of the old nobility, the greatest names of the state and of history, men who mark epochs, were embraced in it. I have looked through the roll from 1616 to 1635 — the period of Sibbes's office — and almost at random I note Abbots and Ashleys, Audleys and Amhersts, Bacons and Barnardistons, Boyles and Brookes, Bradshaws and Barrows, Cromwells and Cholmleys, Cornwallises
* ' Order Books.' These are deposited at ' Gray's Inn,' where I had the privilege of an unrestricted examination of them. The volume from which I make all my excerpts, is a huge folio, marked ' Gray's Inn. Book of Orders. II. of Eliz. to XVIII. of Chs. II.'
t ' Chapel ' of « Gray's Inn.' I cull from the above authority a record of the foundation of the ' preachership ' to which Sibbes was elected : —
CHAPELL.
* It appeareth as well by a deed of the Cort of Augmentacons, bearinge date the 10th of November, in ye 33th (sic) yeare of ye reigne of King Henry 8. As also by an Exemplificacon thereof, made ye 12th November in ye said yeare. As also by another Exemplificacon thereof, granted by ye late Queen Elizab., dated at Westminster the 12th of ffebruary, in the fourth yeare of her reigne. That ye treasurer of ye Cort of Augmentacons, of ye said revenue of ye crowne, for the time beinge, should yearely pay out of ye said treasurres to ye treasurer of ye house of Graye's Inn, Nigh Holborne, in ye county of Midd. for ye time being, ye sume of vi xiij iiijd (£6, 13s. 4d.), in recompense of a yearly stipend of vij xiij iiij (£7, 13s. 4d.), wch. was duely proved before ye said Cort of Augmentacons to be issuinge out of ye possessions of ye late monasterie of St Bartholomew in Smithfield, besides London ; and of right payable, time out of mind, by ye prior and convent of the said monastrie and their p'decessors, for ye findinge of a chaplaine to celebrate divine service in ye chapell of Graye's Inn aforesaid, for ye students, gent., and fellowes of ye said house,' &c. &c. &c.
t ' Segar.' Harleian MSS , 1912. 94, c. 25. Plut. xlvii. E folio.
MEMOIK OF EICHAKD SIBBES, D.D. xl
and Chetwinds, Drakes and Egertons, Fairfaxes and Fitzgeralds, Nevills and Pelhams, Riches and Sidneys, Staffords and Stanleys, Standishes and Talbots, Wallers, and Yaughans, and Veres.* Truly the wheel-wright's son has a worthy audience ; ay, and what is better, he is worthy of the audience.
At the date of Sibbes's appointment, the greatest of all the names enumerated, Francis Bacon, had ' chambers ' in Gray's Inn ; and, after his fall, was a permanent resident.*)- When it was dark with him, he had Sibbes for his 'preacher.' Am I wrong in thinking that the touching appeal of the stricken Lord Chancellor to his peers, recorded by every biographer, ' I am a bruised reed,' may have been a reminiscence of the golden-syllabled words which he had heard from the 'preacher' at Gray's Inn ?
I know not that the author of the Bruised Reed is once named
* * Gray's Inn.' I may give in a foot-note, from Segar's folio, the earlier history of the Society with which the name of Sibbes is so indissolubly associated. Having recited certain ancient mediaeval-Latin records, which are also supplemented by prior relations to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's, the chronicler proceeds : —
' By all w** severall offices, it appeares that the said manor of Portepole, now Gray's Inne, or within ye which a part of Graye's Inne is now situate, was anciently the Inheritance of the Grayes. But I do not find in any of ye said former, &c. . . . that any Gray, lord or owner of ye said manor or messuage, did at any time reside there. Keginald de Gray, in ye 44th year of ye reign of Kinge Edw. 3, for ye yearly rent of Q (?), as is mentioned in ye office, then found after his decease. And in ye w011 office (the same beinge in form1 inquisitions named mesuagium), is thereby found to be hospitium and in lease whereby it's manifested yt. ye house then and yet knowne by the name of Gray's Inn, was demised to some p'sons of speciall regard and rank, and not to meane ones, or p'sons of meane or privat behavr , but to such as were united into a Society p'fessinge ye lawes, that in those dayes begunn to congregat and setle themselves within ye Court (?) as an associated company entertayning hospitalitie together. And then this house grew to be off an higher title in denominacon and became to be totally termed by ye Intitulacon of Hospitium in Portopole. And it also appeareth that ye said Keginald de Gray devised ye said messuage as aforesaid in ye reigne of King Edw. 3, in his life time, and at his death was held for hospitium and by the jury before whom ye said inquisition was taken in ye said 44th yeare of Edw. 3d (a° 1370), was found to bee hospitium, and not mesuaginm. Imediatly whereupon ye said hospitium is called Grey's Inne, or Hospitium Graiorum, for that that estate had been soe long and by Boe many severall descents in yt name,' &c. &c. &c.
This quaint and curious narrative, which I believe is now for the first time pub lished, explains the origin of the name ' Gray's Inn.' Those interested will find much additional information in Segar, — all the more valuable that many of the originals were destroyed by a fire at Gray's Inn. These missing portions have been transcribed, but not very accurately, for the Hon. Society.
f ' Bacon and Gray's Inn.' See an interesting chapter of an unusually interest- ing, but not very accurate, book, Meteyard's ' Hallowed Spots of Ancient London ' (4to, 1862), entitled ' York House, Strand, and Gray's Inn,' pp. 80-99. An engrav ing of « Gray's Inn ' is given on page 90. I need hardly say that all the old build ings, and the ' faire gardenne,' with its Bacon-planted elms, have long disappeared.
Xl MEMOIE OF RICHAED SIBBES, D.D.
in all Bacon's writings, but then neither is Shakespeare. Still, I cannot help rejoicing that, in his closing years of humiliation and penitence, while he was building up the Cyclopean masonry of his * Novum Organum,' he had Kichard Sibbes to lift his thoughts higher. I delight to picture to myself the mighty thinker and the heavenly preacher walking in the 'faire gardenne' of the Inn, holding high and sanctified discourse.* I fancy I can trace the influence of Sibbes on Bacon, and of Bacon on Sibbes. There are in Sibbes many aphoristic sayings, pregnant seeds of thought, felicitous ' similies ' (so marked on the early margins), that bear the very mintage of the 'Essays ;' and again there is in them an insight into Scripture, a working in. of its cloth-of-gold with his own medi tations, an apposite quotation of its facts and words, that surely came of the sermons and private talk under the elms with Sibbes. It is something to know that two such men knew each other.
The ' Bruised Heed ' and ' Soul's Conflict/ and indeed nearly all his works, present specimens of the kind of preaching to which the auditory of ' Gray's Inn' listened from Sunday to Sunday. One is gladdened to think that such men heard such preaching, so wise, so grave, so fervid, so ChristfuL There grew out of it life-long friendships.
CHAPTER V.
PROVOSTSHIP OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
Archbishop Ussher— Dr John Preston— Letter of Sibbes— Sir William Temple — Letters of Ussher to Archbishop Abbot and the Hon. Society of Gray's Inn — Sibbes to Ussher— Archbishop Abbot to Ussher— Declines the Provostship.
Installed as 'preacher' at Gray's Inn, Sibbes seems to have acted up to the letter of his appointment ; which, it will be re membered, required that he was 'to be continually resident/ and ' to take no other benefice or living/ This he continued appa rently to do, with the exception of occasional ' sermons ' in the 'city 'or in Cambridge, until 1626. In that year new honours came to him. Archbishop Ussher sought to have him made pro vost of Trinity College, Dublin; and he was elected, on the death of Dr John Hills, ' Master' of St Katherine Hall (now College), Cam bridge. A very interesting correspondence remains in relation to
: One asks wistfully if they took any note of one William Shakespeare, who, within three months of the appointment to the « preachership' at ' Gray's Inn,' was laid beside his little Hamnet by the Avon ! (Died, 23d April 1616.)
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
the former, which I would now introduce. He had long been in intimate friendship with the illustrious primate of Ireland, who, on his visits to London, was wont to invite himself to his ' study/ * One early notice of their mutual regard is contained in a por tion of a letter from Dr John Preston to Ussher. It is as fol lows : ' March 16. 1619. — Your papers you shall surely have with you ; and if there be no remedy that I cannot see you myself, I shall entreat you to make plain to Mr Sibbes (or whom else you will) the last point especially, when the LXX weeks began, though I should speak to you about many other things/ f The following brief letter of Sibbes himself a few years onward, 1622, gives us a further glimpse of their relations, as well as of various memorable names and occurrences. Ussher was then Bishop of Meath. Mr R. Sibbs to the Bishop of Meath. I
I could not, Right Reverend Sir, omit so fit an opportunity of writing unto you as the coming of two of my worthy friends, Sir Nathaniel Rich and Mr Crew ; though it were but to signify unto you that I retain a thankful and respectful remembrance of your lordship's former love and kindness. Mr Crew is already known unto you ; Sir Nathaniel, I think, a stranger yet unto you ; you shall find him for sincerity, wisdom, and right judgment worthy your inward acquaintance. How matters stand here you shall have better information from those worthy gentlemen than from me. For Cambridge matters, I suppose your lordship hath already heard that Dr Ward is chosen professor in Dr Davenant's place ; there is hope of Mr Preston's coming to be lecturer at Lincoln's Inn, which place is now void. Mrs More, Mr Drake and his wife, Mr Dod, with others that love you heartily in the Lord, are in good health, the Lord be praised. Sir Henry Savil hath ended his days, secretary Murray succeeding him in Eton, but report will prevent my letter in this and other matters. Sir, I long to see your begun historical discourse of the perpetual continuity of a visible church, lengthened and brought to these latter times. No one point will stop the clamour of our adversaries more, nor furnish the weaker with a better plea. Others not very well affected to the Waldenses, &c., for some tenets . . . have gone about to prove what you do some other ways. But perhaps the present exigence of your Church is such as taketh up your daily endeavours and thoughts. And I know the zeal of your heart for the public good will put you forward for whatsoever is for the best advantage of the common cause. I fear lest the encountering with that daring chal-
* ' Ussher and Sibbes.' Brook's 4 Lives of the Puritans,' vol. ii. p. 416. From Brook's own copy, interleaved and containing additional MS. notes. In the library of Joshua Wilson, Esq., Tunbridge Wells.
f ' Preston and Ussher.' This and the succeeding correspondence I take from 1 The whole Works of the Most Kev. James Ussher, D.D., Lord Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. With a Life of the Author, and an Account of his Writings. By Charles Kichard Elrington, D.D., Kegius Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin. Dublin : Hodges & Smith. 16 vols. 8vo, 1847, seq? See vol. xvi. p. 873. Elrington supersedes Parr (who also gives the most of the letters), and I therefore take the whole from him.
t ' Sibbes to Usher.' Letter ccclxiii. Vol. xvi p. 395, 396.
xliv MEMOIE OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
lenger breed you a succession of troubles. How far you have proceeded in this matter we know not. The Lord lead you through all conflicts and businesses, with comfortable evidence of his wisdom in guiding you, and goodness in a blessed issue.
Your Lordship's in all Christian affection and service,
R. SIBBS.
Gray's Inn, March 21. 1622.
Advancing to 1626-27, Ussher was now archbishop and primate, and involved in an imbroglio of political and ecclesiastical difficul ties. His was only a splendid exile. He writes, half-mournfully half in dread, under date ' Feby. 9th, 1626 :' — ' As for the general state of things here, they are so desperate that I am afraid to write anything thereof.'* He was specially ' troubled ' in the matter of ' Trinity College/ of which he was the patron. Sir William Temple was provost, and from his great age, utterly inefficient, and even in dotage. There were perpetual disputes between him and the ' fellows,' so much so that the removal of the provost, in some quiet manner, was felt to be the only method of preserving the discipline and good order of the college. To this Ussher addressed himself, and ultimately persuaded the old man — a not unhistoric name — to resign, on condition that Sibbes took his place. This we learn from a letter of the primate to Archbishop Abbot, to whom, on 10th January 1626-27, he writes : — 'The time is now come wherein we have at last wrought upon Sir William Temple to give up his place, if the other may be drawn over.' That ' other ' was Sibbes. But all difficulty about the resignation, with or without conditions, was unexpectedly removed by the death of Sir William, who expired on the 15th of January 1626-27, five days only after the date of Ussher's letter, — upon which he again wrote Abbot in favour of Sibbes. The whole correspondence is of the last interest, and is self-explanatory. It may now be given in order, the more so, that, excepting one of the letters, it has been overlooked or left unused : —
The Archbishop of Armagh to the most Reverend GEORGE ABBOT,
Archbishop of Canterbury. f
MY MOST GRACIOUS LORD. — When I took my last leave of you at Lam beth, I made bold to move your grace for the settlement of the provostship of our college here upon some worthy man, whensoever the place should be come void. I then recommended unto you Mr Sibbes, the preacher of Gray's Inn, with whose learning, soundness of judgment, and uprightness of life I was very well acquainted ; and it pleased your grace to listen unto my motion, and give way to the coming over of the person named, when time required. The time, my lord, is now come, wherein we have at last wrought Sir William Temple to give up his place, if the other may be
* Ussher, xv. 365-6. f Ussher, letter cxxi. xv. 361-2.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. xv
drawn over. And therefore I most humbly entreat your grace to give unto Mr Sibbes that encouragement he deserveth ; in whose behalf I dare under take that he shall be as observant of you, and as careful to put in execution all your directions, as any man whosoever. The matter is of so great im portance for the good of this poor church, and your fatherly care, as well of the church in general, as our college in particular, so well known, that I shall not need to press you herein with many words. And therefore, leav ing it wholly to your grace's grave consideration, and beseeching Almighty God to bless you in the managing of your weighty employments, I humbly take my leave, and rest,
Your grace's in all duty, ready to be commanded,
J. A. Drogheda, January 10. 1626.
At the same time, the primate addressed a similar letter to the ' Honourable Society of Gray's Inn,' to deprecate their putting any obstacles in the way of Sibbes's acceptance. By a slip of the pen, he inserts — ' Lincoln's? instead of ' Gray's ' Inn. As himself formerly 'preacher' in 'Lincoln's,' the mistake was natural : —
The Archbishop of Armagh to the Honourable Society of Gray's-Inn.*
MY MOST WORTHY FRIENDS, — I cannot sufficiently express my thankful ness unto you for the honour which you have done unto me, in vouchsafing to admit me into your society, and to make me a member of your own body. Yet so is it fallen out for the present, that I am enforced to dis charge one piece of debt with entering into another. For thus doth the case stand with us. Sir William Temple, who hath governed our college at Dublin these seventeen years, finding age and weakness now to increase upon him, hath resolved to ease himself of that burthen, and resign the same to some other. Now of all others whom we could think of, your worthy preacher Mr Sibbes is the man upon whom all our voices have here settled, as one that hath been well acquainted with an academical life, and singularly well qualified for the undertaking of such a place of government. I am not ignorant what damage you are to sustain by the loss of such an able man, with whose ministry you have been so long acquainted ; but I consider withal, that you are at the well-head, where the defect may quickly be supplied ; and that it somewhat also tendeth to the honour of your Society, that out of all the king's dominions your house should be singled out for the place unto which the seminary of the whole Church in this king dom should have recourse for help and succour in this case. And therefore my most earnest suit unto you is, that you would give leave unto Mr Sibbes to repair hither, at leastwise for a time, that he may see how the place will like him. For which great favour our whole Church shall be obliged unto you : and I, for my part, shall evermore profess myself to rest
Your own in all Christian service, Ready to be commanded,
J.A.
Drogheda, January 10. 1626.
Further : —
The Archbishop of Armagh to the most Eeverend GEORGE ABBOT,
Archbishop of Canterbury, f
MY VERY GOOD LORD, — I wrote unto your grace heretofore concerning * Ussher, letter cxx., xv. 363-4. t TJssher, letter cxxi., xv. 366.
Xlvi MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
the substitution of Mr Sibbes into the place of Sir William Temple. But having since considered with myself how some occasions may fall out that may hinder him from coming hither, and how many most unfit persons are now putting in for that place, I have further emboldened myself to signify thus much more of my mind unto you, that in case Mr Sibbes do not come unto us, I cannot think of a more worthy man, and more fitted for the government of that college, than Mr Bedel, who hath heretofore remained with Sir Henry Wotton at Venice, and is now beneficed about Berry. If either he, or Dr Featly, or any other worthy man whom you shall think fit, can be induced to accept of the place ; and your grace will be pleased to advise the fellows of the college to elect him thereunto ; that poor house shall ever have cause to bless your memory for the settlement of it at such a time as this, where so many labour to make a prey of it.
Of the ' occurrences ' that might ' fall out ' to hinder Sibbes from coming, the primate had been informed in our next letter : — MR R. SIBBS to the Archbishop of Armagh.*
RIGHT REV. AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, — I answered your letters presently upon the receipt of them, but out of a mind diversely affected as divers things presented themselves to me ; it much moved me when I perceived your great care of the place, the cost, the trouble, the more than ordinary inclination towards me, far beyond any deserts of mine. Yet as I signi fied to your grace, when I consider God's providence in raising me so little before, to another place, and that compatible with my present employment here in London, it moveth me to think it were rash to adventure upon another place. And I have entered into a course of procuring some good to the college, which is like to be frustrate, if I now leave them, and they exposed to some who intend to serve their own turn of them. The scandal whereof would lie upon me. The judgment of my friends here is for my stay, considering I am fixed already, and there must be a call for a place ; as to a place, they allege the good which may be done, and doubtfulness of good succession here ; and that it were better that some other man had that place that were not so fixed here. These and such like considerations move them to think, that when your lordship shall know how it is with me at this time, that you will think of some other successor. Nothing of a great time so much troubled me. I humbly desire you, my lord, to take in good part this my not accepting, considering now there be other difficulties than were when you were in England with us. It is not yet openly known that I refuse it, that so you may have tune of pitching upon another. I write now this second time, fearing lest my former letter might miscarry. I could set the comfort by you against many objections, were not that late chief in Cambridge. I count it one part of my happiness in especial man ner, that ever I knew your lordship ; the remembrance of you will be fresh in my heart whilst I live, which will move me to desire the multiplying of all happiness upon you and yours.
I have not delivered the letter to my lord of Canterbury, because it hath reference to the business as it concerneth me. The Lord continue to honour you in his service for the good of many, and to keep you in these dangerous times. — Your Grace's to command in the Lord,
R. SIBBS. Gray's Inn, Feb. 7. A.D. 1626.
I humbly desire you to remember my service and respects to Mrs Ussher. * Ussher, letter ccclxxxvi., x \i 440-1.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
Upon receipt of this the primate wrote :* — * But now very lately, even by the last packet, I have received a letter from Mr Sibbs, signifying his doubtfulness of accepting the place of provost here (he having beine at the same time chosen head of another college in Cambridge), which hath much altered our intentions.' A few days later, Ussher was informed more definitely by Dr Samuel Ward of Sibbes's election to the Mastership of ' Catherine Hall.' I give an extract, with context, as it introduces to us an eminent ornament of Sibbes's circle : —
Dr SAMUEL WARD to USSHER— London, « Feb. 13. 1626.'f
The 25th of January deceased your good friend and mine, Mr Henry Alvey, at Cambridge. I was with him twice when he was sick : the first time I found him sick, but very patient and comfortable. He earnestly prayed that God would give him patience and perseverance. The later time I came lie was in a slumber, and did speak nothing : I prayed for him, and then departed. Shortly after he departed this life. He desired to be buried privately, and in the churchyard, and in a sheet only, without a coffin, for so, said he, was our Saviour. But it was thought fitting he should be put in a coffin, and so he was : I was at his interring the next day at night. Thus God is daily collecting his saints to himself. The Lord prepare us all for the dies ascensionis, as St Cyprian styleth it. Since the death of Dr Walsall, Dr Goslin, our vice-chancellor, and Dr Hill, master of St Katherine Hall, are both dead. In their places succeed, in Bennet College, Dr Butts ; in Caius College, Mr Bachcroft, one of the fel lows ; in Katherine Hall, Mr Sibbes of Gray's Inn.
Notwithstanding Sibbes's intimation, that he had not delivered the primate's letter to Abbot, he must have subsequently changed his mind, and done so. To Ussher's recommendation, Archbishop Abbot lent a cordially willing ear. This appears by his letter in reply, which would also seem to indicate that Sibbes had been persuaded to go over to Ireland, probably to consult personally with his friend : —
The most Reverend GEORGE ABBOT, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Archbishop of Armagh.^.
MY VERY GOOD LORD, — I send unto you Mr Sibbes, who can best report what I have said unto him. I hope that college shall in him have a very- good master, which hitherto it hath not had. You shall make my excuse to the fellows that I write not unto them. You shall do well to pray to God that he will bless his church ; but be not too solicitous in that matter, which will fall of itself, God Almighty being able and ready to support his own cause. But of all things take heed that you project no new ways; for if they fail you shall bear a grievous burden ; if they prosper, there shall be no thanks to you. Be patient, and tarry the Lord's leisure. And so com mending me unto you, and to the rest of your brethren, I leave you to the Almighty, and remain,
Your lordship's loving brother, G. CANT.
Lambeth, March 19. 1626.
Sibbes no doubt found, on his arrival in Dublin, that the ' place * Ussher, letter cccxci., xvi. 453. f Ussher, xv. 369. 1 Ussher, xv. 376
Xlviii MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
was likely to prove harassing, and to lead him into controversy. A sentence from a letter of Joseph Mede, in like circumstances, explains his declinature : — ' I would not/ he writes to Ussher, ' be willing to adventure into a strange country upon a litigious title, having seen the bad experience at home of perpetual jars and dis contents from such beginnings/ * Similar reasons, combined with the attractions of Gray's Inn and Cambridge, led Sibbes to return, leaving the provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, to be filled by the afterwards revered Bishop Bedell.
CHAPTER VI
MASTER OF CATHARINE HALL, CAMBRIDGE.
Accepts Mastership — Relaxation of ' order' at Gray's Inn — Founder of Catharine Hall and its celebrities — Its condition — ' Troublous times'— Dr John Preston — Trinity Lectureship — Bishopric declined— Friendship between Sibbes and Preston — Fellow-labourers — Conversion of Preston — The effect of the preach ing of the two Puritan Masters — Auditory of St Mary's — Memorials of Trinity Lecture— Success of Sibbes as Master — Clarke and Fuller — Fellows.
Having declined the Provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, Sibbes at once accepted the Mastership of Catharine Hall, Cam bridge, to which, as has been narrated, he was almost simultane ously elected. No record remains of the influence used to secure this coveted and often contested honour for the 'outed' Fellow and ' deprived' Lecturer. It is not improbable that it was to Dr John Preston, the Puritan Master of the 'nest of Puritans' (so his enemies designated it), Emmanuel, that he was indebted. Preston was then in the height of his favour with the Duke of Buckingham, — the acceptance of whose patronage is one of the stains upon the memory of the Puritans. He had long been in close friendship with the preacher of Gray's Inn.
There must have been some relaxation of the 'order' under which Sibbes accepted the appointment of preacher to Gray's Inn> — to admit of his accepting the mastership of Catharine Hall, without resignation of the other. The statute is very explicit, as will be seen :— ' 15 Nov. 40 Eliz. (1598-9).— The divinity-reader to be chosen shall be nominated, having no ecclesiastical prefer ment other than a prebend without cure of souls, nor readership in any other place ; and shall keep the same place as long as he con tinues thus qualified, and no longer; and to be charged with reading but twice a week, except when there is a communion.'t
* Ussher, as ante, p. 455-66, vol. xvi.
f This ' order ' was made in the term previous to the election of the successor of
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. xlix
There were then, as now, the two distinct offices of reader, some times called chaplain, and of preacher, sometimes called lecturer, and as in above order, ' divinity-reader.' * So that it was the more easy to arrange for Sibbes's absence during the week. From an entry, under date 19th Jan. 1612, we learn that ' The preacher, ye chap lain, ye steward were to be allowed such commons as
gentlemen'^ Not as 'gentleman' merely, but as associate and friend, was Sibbes regarded. The anxiety of the ' ancients, barris ters, students,' to retain his services, would also smoothe the way to place in practical desuetude the ' order ' as to ' no other ecclesiastical preferment.' Be all this as it may, Sibbes entered on the master ship of Catharine Hall forthwith. J
Catharine or Katharine Hall, on whose Mastership Sibbes thus entered, was then, as it continues, one of the minor Colleges of the University. Yet is it not without its own celebrities, even the foremost names of English theology, Church and Puritan, before and since. It proudly tells of John Bradford the martyr, John Maplet, John Overall, William Strong, Ralph Robinson, Ralph Brownrig, John Arrowsmith, William Spurstowe, James Shirley (the dramatist), John Lightfoot, Thomas Goodwin, John Ray, Wil liam Wotton, John Strype, Thomas Sherlock, Joseph Milner, and has recently lost Charles Hardwick. It was founded by a Robert Woodlark, D.D., § (whose name has passed away like his namesake's song of a previous summer), in 1475 ; and took its name in honour of the ' virgin and martyr St Katherine.' Its original endowment, beyond ' the tenements and garden,' was small for even those d&ys.
a certain Dr Crooke, who was preacher from 1583 to 1599. His successor was a Mr Fenton, elected 7th Feb., 41st Eliz., 1598-99. In respect to the preacher being unmarried, the ' order ' was rigid, and probably explains why Sibbes remained so to the end. I cull a couple of entries that don't say very much for the chivalry of the Gray's Inn authorities : — 1612, 'A ffine paid upon change of life.' 1630 4 Noe women to come into any pt. of ye Chapell.' 1647, ' No familie to bee in the house.' — Segar MS.
* ' Chaplain.' — I note certain little memoranda in relation to the ' Chaplain,' as distingushed from the ' preacher :' the later from Segar, being one of the items included in the destroyed originals — the warrrant itself having perished ; and the earlier from the 'order-book' at Gray's Inn: — 1625, "Warrant (granted) to pay to the treasurer of Gray's Inn £6 : 13 : 4, June 25. yearly, during pleasure, for a chap lain to read service daily in the chapel there. An earlier entry runs thus : — ' 5th Feb. 1620. Mr Finch allowed 4/ a week for reading in the Chappell.'
f ' Order-Book ' Gray's Inn, p. 16, Segar MS.
t In Carter's History of the University of Cambridge (pp. 202-6), and Graduati Cantabrigienses, Dr Brownrig is erroneously stated to have been elected Master of Catharine Hall in 1631. Even so accurate a writer as Mr Kussell (' Memorials of Fuller', p. 114) repeats the blunder.
§ ' Dr Woodelark.' The Cambridge Antiquarian Society have published a Cata logue of Books presented by the founder to ' Catharine Hall.'
1 MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
It had some subsequent c benefactors/ among whom appear, earlier and later, Barnardistons and Claypoles. At the period of Sibbes's election, the buildings were dilapidated, the revenues limited, the students few in number. But he threw his whole soul into his office, and speedily not only attracted a fair share of young men, but also persuaded his many noble and wealthy friends to become 'benefactors. So early as 1630, there were no fewer than twenty- eight new entries of students ; and, by that time, the hall was reno vated and adorned.
Sibbes entered on his mastership in 'troublous times.' When deprived of his 'lectureship' at Trinity — which in all probability, as we said, originated with the memorial addressed to him by the parishioners — he was succeeded by a John Jeffrey, of Pembroke Hall, who resigned in 1624. Upon his resignation a remarkable contest for the situation ensued. The ' townsmen' — who were now leavened with Puritanism through his preaching, and that of his associates — were desirous of electing Dr Preston ; and to make it better worth his acceptance, raised the stipend from £4<Q or JL°5Q, to £80 a year. He was opposed by Paul Micklethwaite, felk w of Sidney College, who was supported by the Bishop of Ely, Francis White, a creature of Laud's, and the heads of colleges. It is diffi cult to understand on what plea there was interference with the ' townsmen.' They had themselves originated the lectureship , had themselves appointed Sibbes, had themselves supported it. But the matter came before the king at Royston, and so intense was the royal wish to root out Puritanism, his primate inciting him to the dastardly work, that Dr Preston was actually offered a bishopric, the see of Gloucester being then void. He refused to withdraw. He accepted and entered upon the lectureship. All honour to the man who spurned a mitre, its honours and revenues alike, when offered at the price of proving false to the earnest desires of 'the people' to have the gospel, the very gospel, preached to them, — wherein, in the high but truthful enco mium of Goodwin, he did ' bow his more sublime and raised parts to lowest apprehension/* When Sibbes returned to Cambridge therefore, he found in Preston one like-minded, while equally did Preston find in him one worthy to stand by his side, and ' display a banner because of the truth.'
Preston and Sibbes, from the date of the mastership of the latter, were the two great centres of influence in Cambridge, in so far as the preaching of the gospel was concerned. They loved one an other with a love that was something wonderful. They were as * To the Reader. . . . Sermons before His Majesty, 1630. 4to.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D,D. \i
David and Jonathan in earlier, and as Luther and Melanchthon in later, days. They were never found apart when anything was to be done for THEIR MASTER. To the last it was so ; and when the prematurely old Master of ' Emmanuel' died, he left all his papers to his beloved friend the Master of Catharine Hall, along with John Davenport, sending words of kindly greeting by Lord Say and Seale to Gray's Inn. As Sibbes's return to Cambridge, and association with Preston, formed a marked era in his life and life-work, it is needful to dwell for a little on the history of his friend.
Dr Preston was a man of extraordinary force of character and splendour of eloquence, and burned with the zeal of a seraph. Very remarkable were his antecedents. For years, like John Cotton, he had been the glory of the ' wits ' fo" his learning and faculty of utterance. But by John Cotton's first sermon after his 'change,' he had been smitten as between joints and marrow, soul and spirit, and thenceforward had known nothing but Christ Jesus crucified. Cotton Mather tells the story of his conversion finely, and we may pause over it for a moment. 'Some time after this change upon the soul of Mr Cotton/ he says, ' it came to his turn again to preach at St Mary's ; and because he was to preach, an high expectation was raised through the whole university that they should hear a se.mon flourishing indeed with all the learning of the whole university. Many diffi culties had Mr Cotton in his own mind, and what course to steer.' And then he proceeds to tell how he decided ' to preach a plain sermon, even such a sermon as in his own conscience he thought would be most pleasing unto the Lord Jesus Christ ; and he discoursed practically and powerfully, but very solidly, upon the plain doctrine of repentance.' What then ? ' The vain wits of the university, disappointed thus with a more excellent sermon, that shot some troublesome admonitions into their consciences, discovered their vexation at this disappointment by their not humming, as according to their sinful and absurd custom they had formerly done; and the vice-chancellor, for the very same reason also, graced him not as he did others that pleased him. Never theless,' adds Mather, 'the satisfaction which he enjoyed in his own faithful soul abundantly compensated unto him the loss of any human favour or honour ; nor did he go without many en couragements from some doctors, then having a better sense of religion upon them, who prayed him to persevere in the good way of preaching which he had now taken.' And then he continues, with exultation, ' But perhaps the greatest consolation of all, was a notable effect of the sermon then preached. The famous Dr
VOL. i. d
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Preston, then a fellow of Queen's College in Cambridge, and of great note in the university, came to hear Mr Cotton, with the same " itching ears " as others were then led withal. For some good while after the beginning of the sermon, his frustrated ex pectation caused him to manifest his uneasiness all the ways that were then possible ; but before the sermon was ended, like one of Peter's hearers, he found himself "pierced at the heart/' His heart within him was now struck with such resentment of his own interior state before the God of heaven, that he could have no peace in his soul, till, with a " wounded soul/' he had repaired unto Mr Cotton, from whom he received those further assistances wherein he became a " spiritual father " unto one of the greatest men in his age.'*
These were men who believed in a ( living,' presiding God, and who were not ashamed to recognise, nor afraid to avouch, ' the finger of God,' the very interference of God, as real as when the Lord met Saul of Tarsus, in the turning of a human soul to Himself. They saw in Sibbes reaching the conscience of John Cotton, and in John Cotton touching the heart of Dr Preston, so many links of the mighty chain of predestination, whose last link is fast to the throne of the Eternal. They are weaker and not wiser men who scorn such faith. It is not to be wondered at, then, that in the correspondence of the Puritans in Cambridge of this period, it was felt to be ' of God/ that quick as one preacher of the word, in its blessed height and depth, breadth and length, was removed thence, another succeeded. William Perkins was taken away, but Paul Bayne was ' sent' in his room. Paul Bayne was removed, and Sibbes was sent ; Sibbes was ' outed/ and John Preston took his place ; and now while the Master of Emmanuel was longing for one who might be a fellow-helper with him, again came Eichard Sibbes. The hearts of the praying few were cheered, and under the awakening, rich, full, grand, proclamations of the ' grace of God that bringeth salvation/ all Cambridge was moved. Preston was from day to day at Emmanuel and Trinity, and Sibbes from day to day at Catharine Hall, preaching as * dying men to dying men / knowing nothing among them save Jesus Christ and him crucified, yea, regarding the demand of the ' wits' for ' polite' preaching as but an awful echo of the olden cry, ' Let him come down from the cross and we will believe him.'
From the title-pages of the early editions of their Sermons, we find that they were, again and again, appointed to preach at St Mary's, the church of the whole University. On these occasions * Magnalia, as ante page 16.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. liti
there was such a galaxy of men assembled as could not have been seen elsewhere in all the world. The effect was electric, among gentle as among simple. It rejoices one to scan the roll of the names of those who were then Masters, Fellows, and Students, and all of whom were found in attendance on the preaching of Sibbes and Preston. With relation to Sibbes, we read ' The Saint's Safety ' and ' Christ is Best/ ' Christ's Sufferings for Man's Sin' and ' The Church's Visitation,' and ' The Saints' Hiding-place/ with deepened interest, as, turning to the original title-pages, we find they were addressed to auditories that included the foremost names of the age. The dates inform us that these sermons, which are almost unrivalled for largeness, I might even say grandeur, of thought, rich ness of gospel statement, irnpressiveness and pungency of application, and music of diction, were delivered when the several colleges sent to St Mary's names such as these. Foremost stands John Milton, then at Christ's, and himself writing sonnets on the very themes of Sibbes 's discourses. Next comes Jeremy Taylor, just entered 'pauper scho- laris' as Sibbes assumed the Mastership. Behind him, already renowned as a ' public orator/ mark George Herbert. Side by side with him rises the girlish face, with its strange shadow of sorrow, of Matthew "Wren, destined to belie God's handwriting in that face, by becoming a ' persecutor/ Yery different is the next that meets our eye, William Gouge, of King's. And beside him is one who will be the preacher's successor at Catharine Hall, Ralph Brownrig, looking wistfully upward with his large, beaming eyes. Snug in some sequestered pew, taking keen note of all in that marvellous memory of his, see Thomas Fuller. Worn and weary, yet moved to listen, picture Edmund Castell and Abraham Whelock. Sitting at the foot of the pulpit stairs are Charles Chauncy and Richard Holdsworth, and dreamy Peter Sterry from Emmanuel. Taking notes, and wishing the hour-glass were turned again, is Joseph Mede. Fronting the preacher, and intent as any, lo ! the young Lord Wriothesly, son of Shakespeare's Earl of Southampton, and young Sir Dudley North, son of Lord North of Kirkling, both of Sibbes's own college, St John's. Linking himself arm-in-arm with the preacher as he descends, mark stormy John Williams, after wards Bishop and * Lord Keeper/ And thus might be recounted, almost by the hundred, names that still shine like a winter's night of stars. St Mary's pews and lobbies, crowded, above and below, with such hearers, to such preachers, is a noticeable mark of progress.* Perhaps I cannot better illustrate the advance of Puritanism
* I have gathered these names, after Masson (Life of Milton, i. 92-99), from numerous sources, but mainly from Cooper's 'Annals of Cambridge,' Wood's ' Athenso'
Hv MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
in Cambridge than by here submitting a hitherto unpublished document of this period, 1626-27, recovered from the 'Church wardens' books of the parish.* It very strikingly reveals the in terest pervading the community in the Trinity lectureship.
The document explains itself. I adhere to its orthography —
' Whereas, such p'sons as are interessed in the seates of the gallerie of this church (" Trinity") to sit there dureinge the time of the lecture, have- inge paid for the same to the p'ish, and yet, notwithstanding, are displaced by others haveinge not interest there, to their greivance and wronge ; and, unles redresse herein be speedely had, such p'sons soe greived will with draw their cotribucons from the said lecture. For remedie whereof, it is ordered and agreed unto, by a joynt consent of all the p'shioners, that from henceforth noe p'son nor p'sons of what condyc'on soever, except such who have interest in the seats, shal be permytted to goe up into the gal leries untyl the bell have done tollinge ; and then, yf any place be voyd, or may be spared to p'mytt, in the first place, grave divines, and after them such others as shall be lyked of by such as shall keep the dore ; and yf any who have interest in the seates shall bringe any stranger to be placed there, and will have him to have bis place in the gallerie, then such p'son bringing such stranger, to keepe belowe, and take bis place els where for such tyme ; and yf any person interessed in the seats doe not repair to the church before the bell have done tollinge, then he to lose his place for that tyme.
' It is likewise ordered, by ye like consent, that such p'sons as have inte rest in any of ye seates in ye church, shall not have it particularly to them selves to place and displace whom they will, but only to have ye use of the seats, duringe the tyme of the lecture, for tbeire owne p'sons, and to receave into them such other of the parish, yf any such come, as shall belonge to such seate, and such others likewise as are people of qualitye who doe con tribute to ye lecture ; and not to receave any children into their seats.
1 It is further ordered that noe seats eyther in ye galleries or in ye church shall hereafter be disposed of to any wtbout the consent of the parishiners at a publiq meetinge in the church, f
Thus moving the ' whole city/ Sibbes and Preston went hand-in- hand ; and long after they were gone, when a very different spirit
(by Bliss), Fuller's ' Worthies' (by Nichols), and the * Lives of Nicholas Ferrar, and of Matthew Kobinson,' two of, I trust, a series of like ' Biographies,' under the scho larly editorial care of Mr Mayor of St John's. Consult also the ' Memoirs' of each name given. All, however, wishing to get real insight into Cambridge-life of the period, I must again and again refer to Mr Masson's 'Milton.' Sibbes 's popularity and success is testified by all who write about him, and I can trace none who was so frequently called to preach in St Mary's.
* From « Between the Churchwarden's Accounts for 1626 and 1627, Trinity Parish, Cambridge.' Kindly pointed out to me by Mr Wallis, and obligingly transcribed, with his usual exactness, by Mr Cooper.
t It may be as well to round off, in a foot-note, such additional memoranda as are in my possession about the lectureship. On llth May 1630, there was again in terference and controversy, Dr Thomas Goodwin being the lecturer. A letter respecting it was addressed to the vice-chancellor by Dudley Carleton, Viscount Dor chester, one of the principal secretaries of state. This ' letter' may be here given from
MEMOIB OF BICHABD SIBBES, D.D. lv
reigned in Cambridge, born of the wild licence of the Restoration, white-headed men would recall their honoured names with a sigh.
But, while thus faithful as a ' servant of Jesus Christ' in preach ing, Richard Sibbes had the faculty of government. Catharine Hall soon found itself on an equality with its sister colleges. He returned from Sunday to Sunday, while the 'Courts' sat, to Gray's Inn, and was ever forward to plead the claims of his ' little house,' with his noble friends there.
We have many testimonies to his influence and usefulness in both. Of the former, Samuel Clarke observes : ' About the year 1618 (1616), he was chosen Preacher to Gray's Inn, one of the learnedest societies in England, where his ministry found such general approbation and acceptance that, besides the learned lawyers of the house, many noble personages, and many of the gentry and citizens, resorted to hear him, and many, till this day
the Baker MSS. (xxvii. 137), as inserted in Cooper's Annals of Cambridge (iii. 229- 30).
To my Reverend Friend Mr Dr BUTS, Vice-chan, $c.
SIR, — By reason of his Majesties late directions concerning lecturers, that they should read divine service according to the Liturgy, before their lectures, and the afternoone sermons to be turned into catechising, some doubt hath beene made of the continuance of the lecture at Trinity Church, in Cambr. which for many yeares past hath beene held at one of the clocke in the afternoone, without divine service read before yt, and cannot be continued at that hower, if the whole service should be reade before the sermon begin. Whereupon his Majestic hath been informed that the same is a publick lecture, serving for all the parishes in that town (being fourteen in number), and that the university sermon is held at the same tyme, which would be troubled with a greater resort than can be well permitted, yf the towne sermon should be discontinued : and that the same being held at the accustomed hower, there will be tyme enough left after that sermon ended, and the auditory departed thence to their own parish churches, as well for divine service as for catechising in that and all other churches in the towne, which could not well be, yf divine service should be read in that church before the lecture ; besides the catechising in that church, would hereby be lost. Upon these motives his Majesty, being graciously pleased that the said lecture may be continued at the accustomed hower, and in manner as yt hath been heretofore used, hath given me in charge to make knowne to you his royall pleasure accordingly, but under this caution, that not only divine service, but cate chising be duely read and used after that sermon ended, both in that and the rest of the churches of the towne ; and that the sermon doe end in convenient tyme for that purpose, soe as no pretext be made, either for the present or in future tyme, by color of the foresaid sermon, to hinder either divine service or catechising, which his Majestie is resolved to have maintained. And so I bidd you heartily farewell, and rest, Yours to doe you service, DOKCHESTEE.
From Whitehall, the llth of May 1630.
Mr Cooper annotates : ' Kandolph in a poem " On Importunate Dunnes,'' after a curious malediction on the Cambridge tradesmen, adds —
" And if this vex 'um not, I'le grive the town, With this curse, State, put Trinity -Lecture down." '
Randolph's Poems, ed. 1643, p. 119.
Ivi MEMOIK OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
(1674-77), bless God for the benefit which they received of him/* Besides this, various regulations and ' orders' as to seats and right of entrance in the order-books, inform us of over-crowded attendance. Thus, under 1623, 'All strangers to be kept out of the Chapell at Sermon, but such as are brought in by some of ye society.' Per haps even more significant of a crowd is what follows : ' And all ye gentlemen to goe out of ye Chappell bare-headed in decent manner/ Of the latter, again, Clarke says, ' About the year 1625, or '26, he was chosen Master of Katharine Hall in Cambridge, the government whereof he continued till his dying day ; and, indeed, like a faithful governor, he was always very solicitous and careful to procure and advance the good of that little house. For he procured good means and maintenance, by his interest in many worthy persons, for the enlargement of the College, and was a means and instrument to establish learned and religious Fellows there ; inasmuch as, in his time, it proved a very famous society for piety and learning, both in Fellows and Scholars/-)- To the same effect, though with character istic quaintness, Fuller testifies, ' He found the House in a mean condition, the wheel of St. Katharine having stood still (not to say gone backwards) for some years together ; he left it replenished with scholars, beautified with buildings, better endowed with revenues/ { Somewhat boastfully, perhaps, Daniel Milles, in his list of Masters, thus describes Sibbes : —
1 Ricardus Sibbs, Sacrse Theologiae Professor,§ omnium quos praesens setas viderit vir pientissimus, concionator mellitissimus, qui haud paucoram corda suavitate dicendi emolliit, et vivendi sanctitate ad bonam frugem plane rapuit. Hie erat qui collegium istud partim temporum injuria, partim Prsefectorum socordia et avaritia bonis suis spoliatum, et omni honore exutum, ad pristinam famam et dignitatem restituit, quiaque erat apud omnes pios autoritate maxima, largam benefactorum messem, in hoc vacuum gymnasium feliciter diduxit. Adeo fit non nudo Prsefecti nomine dignus videatur, sed alter fundator censeri debeat.'
Other testimonies, as of Eachard, || might be given, were it needful ; and, indeed, the tribute of Sir Philip Sidney to Hubert Languet must have been his, from many,
" hating what is naught,
For faithful heart, clean hands, and mouth as true. With his sweet skill my skill-less youth he drew To have a feeling taste of Him that sits Beyond the heaven, far more beyond our wits?
(Arcadia, Book iii. pp. 397-8, ed. 1755.)
Of the Fellows, during Sibbes's Mastership, may be named Anthony
* ' Clarke,' as ante, p. 144. | ' Clarke,' as ante, p. 144.
J Fuller, ' Worthies,' edited by. Nichols. 2 vols. 4to. 1811. Vol. ii. p. 343.
§ i.«., D.D. || • Eachard,' History of England, p. 451.
MEMOIK OF RICHAKD SIBBES, D.D. Ivii
Pym (1628), probably a relative of the John Pym, who was a per sonal friend, and mentioned in his will ; William Spurstowe (1630);* John Sibbes (1631), his nephew; Charles Pym (1631), brother of Anthony ; Roger Fleetwood (1632) ; Joseph Spurstowe (1634).
CHAPTER VII.
SIBBES AND LAUD — ' THE PALATINATE/
The Puritans watched — The Elector Palatine — Disasters — Shame of England — Battle of Prague — Frederick and Elizabeth fugitives — Persecution — Circular Letter by Sibbes, Gouge, Taylor, and Davenport — Citation before the Star- Chamber — Pronounced ' Notorious Delinquents.'
All the emotion and interest to hear such preaching as was that of Sibbes and Preston, while it gives a measure of the progress of Puritanism (using the word in its recognised historic and lustrous sense), is also to the student of the period a measure of the hate with which the king (in so far as he had stamina enough to hate) and Bishop Laud, now rising into notice, regarded it. So early as 1611, the latter was a ' whisperer' a ' busy-body' ever going about with sly, stealthy-paced, panther-like foot-fall, and keen, cold eye, if by any means, he might possess himself of secrets. Between Gray's Inn, and Catharine Hall, and St Mary's, with not unfrequent ' sermons* elsewhere, Sibbes had noble vantage-ground for noble service, and he was occupying it to the full ; and Laud was ready to pounce upon him. I have now to narrate the occasion. Sibbes was not a man to narrow his activities to his own immediate sphere, or to his own country. He watched with profoundest interest the progress of the great Protestant sister-countries, rejoicing in their joy and mourning with their mourning. In 1620, he had spoken burning words 'of the Palatinate ;' words that reveal the common shame of England for her king's pusillanimous desertion of the Elector Frederick, a man true and good in himself, and knit by the tenderest ties to the king of England. From shore to shore the nation had rung with acclaim over revolting Bohemia — the land of John Huss and many martyr-names. They had said 'Amen' to the rejection of Ferdinand II., and their hearts beat high for the Elector Palatine chosen in his stead, when he fearlessly said ' Yes' to the call. History tells the tragic sequel.
* Spurstowe. The date, 1630, of Spurstowe's ' fellowship ' (he was afterwards Master), shews that Mr Masson has made a slip in enumerating his name among the distinguished ' fellows ' under Dr Hill's Mastership. Life of Milton, i. 97. I cannot make even this small reference to Mr Masson without, in common with every literary man since the issue of his book, acknowledging my indebtedness to his industry, and almost prodigal elucidation and illustration of contemporary events and names.
MEMOIR OF EICHAKD SIBBES, D.D.
Then opened what proved the 'Thirty Years' War/ in which the emperor, and pope, and the king of Spain were leagued against Frederick, and against the Protestant Union in him. All Europe looked on. Our own England was humiliated, all but treasonous, as James talked his foolish talk and lived his unclean life, and for got daughter, son-in-law, Protestantism — all. Driven to do some thing, he did his little when too late. In November 1620, the Protestants were smitten in one decisive battle — Prague ; and Frederick and his queen, losing Bohemia, losing the Palatinate, losing all, fled as refugees to Holland. What followed, only the great sealed 'book' above will declare. The triumphant enemy * played havoc ;' and, through many dark and terrible years, the sufferings of the Protestants of Bohemia and the ' palatinate,' were something unimaginable. The cry reached England, and public help was sought and denied. But it went not everywhere unheard, unheeded. The Puritans, Sibbes among the first, recognised their brotherhood, and out of their own private resources sought to do a little, if it were only to shew their sympathy. I have been for tunate enough to recover a touching memorial of their efforts. Preserved among very different papers in Her Majesty's Record Office is a ' circular' letter, which, in the pathos of its simple words, goes right to the heart. Here it is : —
Whereas, a late information is given to his Matie of the lamentable dis tresses of two hundred and forty godly preachers, with their wifes and families, and sundrie thousands of godly private persons with them, cast out of their house and homes, out of their callings and countreys, by the furie of the mercilesse papists in the Upper Palatinate, whose heavie condicion is such as they are forced to steale their servises of religion in woods and solitarie places, not without continual feare and damage of their lives ; and whose present want is such as they would be very thankfull for coarse bread (and) drinke if they could gett it. As tenderinge the miserie and want of deare brethren and sisters, desire all godly persons to whom these presents may come, as fellowe feelinge members of the same body of Jesus Christ, to comiserate their present want and enlarge their hearts and hands for some present and private supply for them till some publique means (which hereafter may be hoped) may be raised for their reiiefe, as suring themselves that whatsoever is cast into heaven, and falleth into the lappe of Christ in his members, shall return with abundant increase in the harvest ; neither lett any be discouraged least their bounty should miscarrie, for we knowe a sure and safe way whereby whatsoever is given shall un doubtedly come to their hands to (whom) it is intended.
2 Martii 1627. (Signed) THO. TAYLOR.
BiCHARD SlBBS.
JOHN DAVENPORT. WILLIAM GOUGE.*
* ' Circular.' Described in ' Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series of the Reign of Charles I., 1627-28.' By John Bruce, 1858 (Longman).
MEMOIR OF RICHAED SIBBES, D.D. llX
One of two copies of this affecting ' circular ' is endorsed by Laud, and the names noted so carefully, that the Sibbs within is corrected to Sibbes without. One marvels what ground even a Laud could find for opposition, much less persecution, in so piteous an appeal. But when there is a will to hurt or hinder, an occasion is not ill to devise. Perchance the vehement words, ' merciless papists,' stung. At any rate, the four honoured men, Richard Sibbes, William Gouge, Thomas Taylor, John Davenport, were summoned before the Star Chamber, and reprimanded. It is not at all wonderful that William Prynne, in his ' Canterburie's Doom/ should ask, ' By what law of the land' — a question, by the way, that rings all through the charges of this extraordinary book, like a Gerizzim curse — ' did they convert Doctor Gouge, Doctor Sibbes, Doctor Taylor, and Master Davenport, as notorious delinquents, only for setting their hands to a certificate upon entreaty, testifying the distressed condition of some poor ministers of the Palatinate, and furthering a private contribution among charitable Christians for their relief, when public collections failed ?'
It does not appear what further steps, if any, were taken ; but one thing is certain, the miserable persecution did not 'silence' Sibbes. For he not only preached, but published passionately rebuking words against the national lukewarmness. ' What,' asks he, ' shall the members of Christ suffer in other countries, and we profess ourselves to be living members, and yet not sympathize with them ? We must be conformable to our Head, before we can come to heaven.' * What a pass things had reached, when those in autho rity would have shut even the hand of private charity against such sufferers ! It is impossible to restrain indignation when reading of James's more than poltroonly, more than mean, desertion of his own ' flesh and blood,' not to speak of Protestantism ; but doubly base was Laud's interference to stamp out as a pestilent thing, this little effort to relieve 'godly preachers and private persons.' "It only added to that thunder-cloud, which in a few years was to launch its lightnings on his own head, and whose preluding shadows were even now darkening the sky : such retribu tion as comes
4 "When the quick darting lightning's flash Is the clear glitter of His golden spear.' f
• 4 Soul's Conflict.' f Cecil and Mary, by Jackson, p. 19 (1868.)
h MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
CHAPTER VIII.
SIBBES AND LAUD AGAIN — ' THE IMPKOPRIATION FEOFEES.'
The Preacher of Gray's Inn under surveillance — Controversy not sought by Sibbes — Loyal to Church and State — The Puritans no ' Schismatics ' — Witness-bearing — "Wonder and yet no Wonder— Laud's ' Beauty of Holiness ' — ' Solemnity ' — Persecution — ' Silencing' — William Prynne — Puritan Literature — Laudian- Bishop's Literature— Sibbes against Popery — Lord Keeper Finch— The ' Im- propriation ' Scheme— Sibbes a ' Feoffee ' — Checks upon Laud — ' Overthrow ' of ' Feoffees ' — Confiscation — Banishment — Verdict upon Laud.
The Star Chamber citation, because of The Palatinate, with its result — a severe reprimand, and treatment as of ' notorious delin quents/ — was only a slighter issue of that unsleeping and venge ful resolution to suppress all Puritanism, which through upwards of a quarter of a century, Laud had planned. Accordingly, though defeated in the matter of the Palatinate, in so far as ' silencing' Sibbes and his compeers was concerned, they, in common with all the ' good men and true ' of the period — for really it appears that every man of note in his day, who was not his creature, was the object of his annoyance — were watched* Nor is it at all diffi cult to understand, that such preaching as was being heard from Sunday to Sunday at ' Gray's Inn/ and down in Cambridge, and by crowds in St Mary's, when reported to him, as everything was reported — must have been superlatively offensive. We do not find Sibbes mixed up with the controversies of the day. There is in his works a noteworthy absence of those fires of intolerant passion that burn so fiercely in many of the writings and actings of his contempo raries. Never once do we meet with him in the ante-chamber of ' the Court/ or mingling with the venal crowds that in unholy rivalry bade high and higher, or more properly low and lower, for place, seeking to cover their ' multitude of sins/ not with charity, but lawn sleeves. He lived serenely apart from the miserable squabbling and personal resentments, and exacerbations of the semi-political, semi-theological polemics that agitated state and church. He was loyal, even tenderly charitable to those in authority ; and true to the church, if only the church would be true to him, by being true to its Head. Let us hear what he was saying about both in those days. Of the State he thus speaks : — ' Sometimes it falleth out that those that are under the government of others are most
* ' Watched.' Scattered up and down Sibbes's writings are various indications of his knowledge of this espionage, e. g., ' So in coming to hear the word of God, some come to observe the elegancy of words and phrases, some to catch advantage, perhaps, against the speaker, men of a devilish temper.' — (' Bowels Opened,' pp. 130-31.)
MEMOIR OP RICHARD SIBEES, D.D. 1x1
injurious, by waywardness and harsh censures, herein disparaging and discouraging the endeavours of superiors for public good. In so great weakness of man's nature, and especially in this crazy age of the world, we ought to take in good part any moderate hap piness we enjoy by government ; and not be altogether as a nail in the wound, exasperating things by misconstruction. Here love should have a mantle to cast upon the lesser errors of those above us. Oftentimes the poor man is the oppressor by unjust clamours. We should labour to give the best interpretation to the actions of governors that the nature of the actions will possibly bear! * Simi lar sentiments abound. Of the Church we have many wise and considerate words. He had no wish for separation : none of the Puritans had, until they were driven to it. So far from seeking to divide 'the church' and injure it — the refrain of many an accusation — Sibbes has sarcasms that perhaps might have been spared, against those who even then felt they could not remain within her pale. ' Fractions/ he says, with an approach to un- kindness very unusual with him, 'always breed factions/ He could not mean it ; but this was capable of being turned by Laud to his own account. He was quick as a sleuth-hound to discern taint of treason. But we have more full and explicit state ments. Thus with more than ordinary vehemence he expostulates, accuses : — ' What a joyful spectacle is this to Satan and his faction, to see those that are separated from the world fall in pieces among themselves ! Our discord is our enemy's melody. The more to blame those that for private aims affect differences from others, and will not suffer the wounds of the church to close and meet together.'-]-
Was this man, so truly a man of peace, one to track and keep under surveillance, as though he had been at once traitor and fanatic ? Whence came it ? The answer is too easy. Though ' slow to speak/ and sweet-natured to a fault, he was fearless when the occasion demanded it.J Even immediately on saying the above,
* Bruised Reed, c. xvii. t Bruised Reed, c. xvii.
J ' Sweet-natured to a fault.' Brook (' Lives of the Puritans,' ii. 419) remarks : 1 This reverend divine was eminently distinguished for a meek and quiet spirit, being always unwilling to offend those in power.' This is too general, for however gentle, Sibbes, when roused, spoke out with no thought of who might be, or might not be, offended. For, says he, ' It argues a base disposition, either for frown or favour, to desert a good cause in evil times ' (' Bowels Opened,' 1st edition, 1639, 4to, p. 45). Brook continues, from Calamy (Calamy's Account, vol. ii. pp. 605, 606) : ' This trait in his character will appear from the following anecdote : — A fellowship being vacant in Magdalen College, for which Archbishop Laud recommended his bell-ringer at Lambeth, with an ardent design of quarrelling with
foji MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
he takes care to guard himself from misconstruction, by adding : — ' Which must not be understood, as if men should dissembk their judgment in any truth where there is just cause of expressing them selves ; for the least truth is Christ's, and not ours : and therefore we are not to take liberty to affirm or deny at our pleasure. There is a due in a penny, as well as in a pound ; therefore we must be faithful in the least truth, when season calleth for it! But again, so gentle and unpolemic was he, he continues finely : — ' But in some cases peace, by keeping our faith to ourselves, Rom. xiv. 22, is of more consequence than the open discovery of some things we take to be true : considering the weakness of man's nature is such, that there can hardly be a discovery of any difference in opinion, without some estrangement of affection. So far as men are not of one mind, they will hardly be of one heart, except where grace and the peace of God, Col. iii. 15, bear great rule in the heart. Therefore, open show of difference is never good but when it is necessary ; however some, from a desire to be somebody, turn into by-ways, and yield to a spirit of contradiction in themselves.'* And then, Leighton-like, he turns away from the distractions around him, and thinks of the ' rest that remains.' ' Our blessed Saviour, when he was to leave the world, what doth he press upon his disciples more than peace and love ? And in his last prayer, with what earnestness did he beg of his Father that they might be one, as he and the Father were one ! John xvii. 21. But what he prayed for on earth, we shall only enjoy perfectly in heaven. Let this make the meditation of that time the more sweet to us.'f Even so —
' Search well another world ; who studies this, Travels in clouds ; seeks manna where none is.' J
One wonders, and yet does not wonder, how such a peaceable and loveable man came to be thus harassed. But what has the dove done to make the serpent strike its fang into it ? Simply
them if they refused, or of putting a spy upon them if they accepted, Dr Sibhes, who was ever unwilling to provoke his superiors, told the fellows that Lambeth-house would be obeyed ; and that the person was young, and might in time prove hopeful. The fellows therefore consented, and the man was admitted.' This ' anecdote ' carries improbability in the face of it, and neither Calamy nor Brook adduce any authority. Sibbes could have no voice in ' Magdalen,' in the election or rejection of a ' fellow.' Nor is there the slightest memorial of such an appointment as is stated. Surely if it had been made, name and date would have been notorious. Amid the many charges against Laud, this has no place either in Prynne or elsewhere. Calamy is not guilty, ordinarily, of introducing mere idle gossip, but it would seem that in the present instance he has.
* and t Bruised Keed, c. xvii.
J Henry Vaughan, Silex Scintillans. Edition by Lyte, 1847, page 17.
MEMOIB OF EICHAKD SIBBES, D.D. xi
crossed its path. What the lamb, to cause the wplf to take it by the throat ? Again, simply crossed its path. Sibbes had don* , that with Laud. While the king, under his mitred councillor's tuition, was straining every nerve to un-Sabbath Sunday, Sibbeo and his co-Puritans held fast its inviolable authority. Whiln proclamations, unsanctioned by Parliament, were issued to sub stitute the May-pole for the Cross, the Book of Sports for the Book of God, and the village green for the sanctuary, Sibbes held up the cross and summoned the people to the sanctuary. While all dov~ trinal preaching, all declarations of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, was sought to be put down (precursor of the infamous 'Directions'), Sibbes avouched his Calvinism, and spoke with no bated breath of Arminianism. While churchmen of the school of Laud would have men regard transubstantiation as a ' school nicety,' bowing to the table of the Lord, as 'becoming reverence' images in churches worthy ' commemoration,' sacerdotal absolution and confession to a priest as 'proper things 'the Lord's Supper not as a sacrament, but ao a sacrifice, — Sibbes protested, and gave them their proper designa tion, with no periphrasis or courtly phrase, of papistical innovation, and delusions of the devil. I am not sure that I would make all his and the Puritans' side-thrusts against ' the papist' my own. I fear I cannot acquit either them or him of * upbraiding/ and even blameable uncharity for the men, in the honesty of his indignation against their doctrines and measures. But we must not forget the circumstances of ' the time.' He was old enough to remember the Armada, sent to his own Suffolk shore under a pope's blessing, and a ' bull ' being nailed to the palace-door with a pope's ban. He was cognizant of innumerable plots, not merely against our religious, but also our civil, liberties. He heard claims asserted, not for equality, but supremacy. And then there were those high in authority, coquetting with that popery that had incarnadined England with her best blood, and had been got rid of at a cost inestimable. He could not but speak, and, speaking as a patriot and Protestant, it was not easy to 'prophesy smooth things.' Perhaps Laud would have endured Sibbes's bold and passionate rebuke of the prevailing sins of the age, and even, however galled, have winked at his full and fervid assertions of the principles of the reformation from popery, and clear and articulate condemnation of Arminianism, had he gone no further. But words were not only to be answered with words, be it granted unadvised words, with occasional kindredly unadvised words. Action was to be met with action, if ' the church ' were not to be only a masked re-establishment of popery,
Ixlv MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
and if the Calvinism of its fathers were not to degenerate into u^ra-Arminianism ; and it was done, as we shall see. Peter Heylin was now at the ear of Laud ; and Racket observes, that ' they that watched the increase of Arminianism, said, confidently, that it was from the year 1628 that the tide of it began to come in , and this because it was from that year that ' all the preferments were cast on one side.' * Similar is the testimony concerning the favour shewn to popery. Thus opposing Laud in his two darling objects, it is easy to foresee that one like Sibbes, resident in London,' could not fail to come into conflict with the vigilant and suspicious head of the church. Nor are we to suppose that, if he was watched by Lambeth's police, Lambeth went unwatched. How far the primate was going in his ' papisti cal tendencies,' may be gathered from one notorious exhibition. Besides its bearing on the persecution springing out of the im- propriation scheme, it gives point to a suggestive hit by Sibbes, which was probably the thing that stung Laud to further action against him and his coadjutors in another blessed work. I there fore give the record of it from the admittedly authoritative pages of Kushworth and Wharton, in extenso : — On Sunday the 16th of January 1630-1, a new church — St Catherine Creed — in Leadenhall Street, was consecrated. It had been re-built, and had been suspended by the primate from all divine service, sermons or sacraments, until it should be re-consecrated. Laud and a number of his clergy came in the morning to perform the ceremony. Then as strange and sad a ' performance ' as ever men beheld was en acted, regard being had to the fact that the performer was the Protestant Primate of England : —
' At the bishop's approach to the west door,' says Kushworth, ' some that were prepared for it cried, with a loud voice, " Open, open, ye ever lasting doors, that the king of glory may enter in !" and presently the doors were opened, and the bishop, with some doctors, and many other principal men, went in, and immediately, falling down upon his knees, with his eyes lifted up, and his arms spread abroad, uttered these words : " This place is holy ; the ground is holy: in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I pronounce it holy." Then he took up some of the dust, and threw it up into the air, several times, in his going up towards the chancel, f When they approached near to the rail and communion-table, the bishop bowed towards it several times ; and, returning, they went round the church in procession, saying the 100th Psalm, and after that the 19th Psalm, and then said a form of prayer, commencing, "Lord Jesus
* Hacket . . . Life of Williams, Lord Keeper. Pt. ii. p. 42 and p. 82.
t Masson, ' Life of Milton,' i. 850, adds here this foot-note : — This was sworn to on Laud's trial by two witnesses ; but Laud denies it, and moreover, says that, if it had been true, it would not have been a popish ceremony, as the Komish pontifical prescribes, not ' dust,' but ' ashes ' to be thrown up on such occasions.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. IxV
Christ," &c., and concluding, " We consecrate this church, and separate it unto thee, as holy ground, not to be profaned any more to common use." After this, the bishop being near the communion-table, and taking a written book in his hand (a copy, as was afterwards alleged, of a form in the Romish pontifical, but according to Laud, furnished him by the deceased Bishop Andre wes), pronounced curses upon those that should afterwards profane that holy place by musters of soldiers, or keeping profane law- courts, or carrying burdens through it ; and at the end of every curse, bowed towards the east, and said, "Let all the people say, Amen." When the curses were ended, he pronounced a number of blessings upon all those that had any hand in framing and building of that sacred and beautiful church, and those that had given, or should hereafter give, any chalices, plate, ornaments, or utensils ; and at the end of every blessing, he bowed towards the east, and said, " Let all the people say, Amen." After this followed the sermon, which being ended, the bishop consecrated and ad ministered the sacrament in manner following : — As he approached the communion-table, he made several lowly bowings ; and coming up to the side of the table, where the bread and wine were covered, he bowed seven times ; and then, after the reading of many prayers, he came near the bread, and gently lifted up a corner of the napkin wherein the bread was laid ; and when he beheld the bread, he laid it down again, flew back a step or two, bowed three several times towards it, then he drew near again, and opened the napkin, and bowed as before. Then he laid his hand on the cup, which was full of wine, with a cover upon it, which he let go again, went back, and bowed thrice towards it ; then he came near again, and lifting up the cover of the cup, looked into it, and seeing the wine, let fall the cover again, retired back, and bowed as before. Then he received the sacrament, and gave it to some principal men ; after which, many prayers being said, the solemnity of the consecration ended.'
That was the sort of thing that the primate and his like-minded bishops, sought to impose on men as 'SOLEMNITY !' That 'mounte bank holiness' (it is Sir Philip Sidney's word of scorn) was to be its translation of the grand old ' Beauty of Holiness/ (1 Chron. xvi. 29 ; Ps. xxix. 2, and xcvi. 9).* It is no light occasion that
* ' Beauty of holiness.' The vehement words of John Milton, stern as Jeremiah. a few year later, are memorable, and may not be passed by : — ' Now for their de meanour within the church, how have they disfigur'd and defac't that more than angelick brightnes, the unclouded serenity of Christian religion, with the dark over casting of superstitious coaps andflaminical vestures. . . . Tell me. ye priests, where fore this gold, wherefore these roabs and surplices, over the gospel ? Is our religion guilty of the first trespasse, and hath need of cloathing to cover her nakednesse ? What does this else but cast an ignominey upon the perfection of Christ's ministery by seeking to adorn it with that which was the poor remedy of our shame ? Believe it, wondrous doctors, all corporeal resemblances of inward holinesse and beauty are now (The Keason of Church Government, B. II. ch. ii. p. 154. Mitford's Milton. Prose Works, vol. i. Pickering.) Elsewhere, denouncing the ' chaff of over-dated ceremonies,' he thus describes the Laudian ' prelaty :'— ' They began to draw down all the divine intercourse betwixt God and the soul, yea, the very shape of God himself, into an exterior and bodily form, urgently pretending a necessity and obligement of joining the body in a formal reverence and worship circumscribed : they hallowed it, they fumed it, they sprinkled it, they bedecked it, not in robes of
oy
it,'
Prc cer
Ixvi MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
calls for one's judgment of another in so awful and sacred a thing as his religion, however it may be darkened by super stition, or lightened by the fires of the wildest fanaticism. De plorable, therefore, as this mummery may be to us, we may not pronounce that it was an unreal, much less that it was a farcical thing to its chief actor. Such a soul as his, so small, so narrow, may have found channel deep enough for its reve rence in such return upon an effete ritualism. "We may agree with Macaulay's epithet of ' imbecile/ but not with the Puritan's angry charge of ' hypocrite/ But when one realises that prison, fine, the knife, the shears, persecution to the death, were the award of every honest soul that refused to regard as the ' Beauty of Holiness ' such exaggerations of even popery, it is hard to withhold an anathema, ringing as Paul's, on the memory of him who devised, and of the craven bishops who cravenly enforced them. There the spider-soul sat, in its craft, spreading out its net-work over broad England, and by its Harsnets and Curies, Mountagus and Buckridges, Bancrofts and Wrens, and Main- warings, united in a brotherhood of evil, sought to entrap all who held to the divine simplicity of the New Testament. The secret threads, revealed by the tears of the persecuted, as by the morning dew is revealed the drop-spangled and else concealed web of the open-air spider, thrilled news up to the hand that grasped all, and' forth the fiat went. ' Within a single year, at this period/ says Neal, ' many lecturers were put down, and such as preached against Arminianism or the new ceremonies were suspended and silenced, among whom were the Rev. Mr John Rogers of Dedham, Mr Daniel Rogers of Wethersfield, Mr Hooker of Chelmsford, Mr White of Knightsbridge, Mr Archer, Mr William Martin, Mr Edwards, Mr Jones, Mr Dod, Mr Hildersam, Mr Ward, Mr Saunders, Mr James Gardiner, Mr Foxley, and many others/ *
We have the burning words of Prynne, that at a ' later day/ in the day of his humiliation, the primate had to meet. Thus forcibly is the charge put — nor was it ever touched : —
1 As he thus preferred Popish and Arminian clergymen to the chief eccle-
jrare innocency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fantastic dresses, in palls and mitres, gold and gewgaws, fetched from Aaron's old wardrobe or the flamen's vestry ; then was the priest sent to con his motions and his postures, his liturgies and lurries, till the soul, by this means of overbodying herself, given up to fleshly delights, bated her wing apace downwards.' In our own day, one has cha racterised the same phenomenon, as presented by Tractarianism, which, indeed, was the harvest of the baleful seed sown by Laud, as ' a thing of flexions and genuflexions, postures and impostures, with a dash of man -millinery.'
* Hist, of Puritans, Vol. i. p. 589, &c. (eel., 3 vols. 8vo, 1837.)
MEMOIR OF KICHAED SIBBES, D.D.
eiastical preferments in our church, so, on the contrary, (following the counsel of Cautzen, the Mogonutive Jesuit, in his politics, see ' Look about you'), he discountenanced, suspended, silenced, suppressed, censured, imprisoned, persecuted most of the prime, orthodox, diligent preaching ministers of the realm, and forced many of them to fly into America, Hol land, and other foreign places, to avoid his fury, only for opposing his popish innovations, and expressing their fears of the change of our religion. Not to trouble you with any forementioned instances of Mr Peter Smart, Mr Henry Burton, Mr Snelling, and others, we shall instance in some
fresh examples ' Mr Samuel Ward's case, and Mr Chauncy's case,
are then narrated. * To these we could add,' he proceeds, ' Mr Cotton, Mr Hooker, Mr Davenport, Mr Wells, Mr Peters, Mr Glover, and sundry other ministers, driven into New England and other plantations.' And then « Dr Stoughton, Dr Sibbes, Dr Taylor, Dr Gouge, Mr White of Dor chester, Mr Rogers of Dedham, with sundry more of our most eminent preaching, orthodox divines, were brought into the High Commission, and troubled or silenced for a time by his procurement upon frivolous pre tences, but in truth because they were principal props of our Protestant religion against his Popish and Arminian innovations.'*
Now, we have the actual books containing the actual preach ing of these men, and the numerous others who shared their per secution. They are in our libraries • and he must be either a bold or a very foolish man, not only rash, but reckless, who gainsays that, remove these books from the Christian literature of the period and you remove the very life-blood of that literature.
The most recent, truthful, and catholic of 'the church' histo rians, Mr Perry, t admits that all the practical writers of the age were of the puritans and sufferers for nonconformity ; and he names a few, Willet and Dyke, Preston and Byfield, Bolton and Hildersam, and Sibbes. ' This fact/ he candidly observes, ' must needs have told with extreme force against the interests of the church. It was doubtless alleged that the church divines could only speak when their position or their order was menaced, but in the face of the great and crying sins and scandals of the age they were dumb and tongue- tied ;' and he might have added, in view also of the gross ignorance and darkness in which whole districts of the country were shrouded.
I should make larger reservation or exceptions in favour of 'church' writers than Mr Perry does ; for I find in Thomas Adams and Anthony Farindon, and others, whom I love equally with the fore most of the puritans, the same preaching with theirs. Still it re mains that the men whom Laud delighted to honour were the men who were vehement enough to bring men to ' the church/ but not at all concerned about bringing them to Christ ; ready to dispense
* « Canterburie's Doom,' pp. 862, teq. 1646, folio.
t The History of the Church of England from the death of Elizabeth to the pre sent time. By the Rev. G. G. Perry, M.A., Rector of Waddington. Vol. I. 1861. ifcaunders. Otley, & Co.) See C. ix. p. 326.
VOL. I.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
the sacraments, but oblivious of their antitype ; swift to jangle in hot controversies on ' super-elementation,' but cold about the one transcendent change ; reverers of the altar, but despisers of the cross. We have defences of the church, its tithes and dignities, its upholstery and repairs, ad nauseam. We have the primate himself fervid about his genu-flexions and reverence to the name of Christ, and the name only ; and a Mountagu, ribald as Billingsgate against holy Samuel Ward. They were, as was jested of a modern Lord Chancellor, buttresses rather than pillars of * the church/ We look in vain all through the extant writings of the bishops named, from Laud downward, for anything ap proaching one earnest, heartfelt utterance as from a servant of Jesus Christ to perishing sinners, one living word to men as ' under wrath/ nay, for one flash of genius, one gush of human feeling. They had no answer for the 'Anxious Inquirer' as he cried — ' I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears, Make me a humble thing of love and tears.' *
There exists not a more meagre, inane, contemptible literature, taken as a whole, than that composed of the Laudian books pro per; for it were a historic blunder, as well as a slander, to include Hall or Ussher or Bedell or Davenant among them, from the mere accident of their first appointment, more or less, coming from Laud. Yet we must believe that what they printed and gave to the world was their best, and at least was the preaching their auditories heard. On the other hand, it equally remains unchallengeable that the men whom Laud delighted to persecute were the only men then in England who were really discharging, in the fear of God, their office of preachers of the gospel, men, at the same time, of gener ous loyalty, and lovers, with the deepest affection, of that reformed church from which they were driven in 1662.
Such having been the state of things, it is only what we should expect, to find even the unpolemic and gentle Sibbes speaking out against the doings and tendencies of the men in authority. There is a time to be silent, and a time to speak. Fealty to truth demanded plain words, and translating of words into acts. Nor was either awanting. For words take these, over which we can conceive even the rheumy eyes of the primate flashing fire. They are taken from sermons preached during this period, and afterwards fearlessly published. I venture to italicise some few lines : —
' What shall we think them to be of that take advantages of the bruised- ness and infirmities of men's spirits to relieve them with false peace for
• Hartley Coleridge. Poems, ii. p. 387 (edition 1851).
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. Ixix
their own worldly ends ? A wounded spirit will part with anything. Most of the gainful points of popery, as confession, satisfaction, merit, purga tory, &c., spring from hence, but they are physicians of no Talue, or rather tormentors than physicians at all. It is a greater blessing to be delivered from " the sting of these scorpions" than we are thankful for. Spiritual tyranny is the greatest tyranny, and then especially when it is where most mercy should be shewed ; yet even there some, like cruel surgeons, delight in making long cures, to serve themselves upon the misery of others. It bringeth men under a terrible curse, " when they will not remember to shew mercy, but persecute the poor and needy man, that they might even slay the broken in heart," Ps. cix. 16.
4 Likewise, to such as raise temporal advantage to themselves out of the spiritual misery of others, join such as raise estates by betraying the church, and are unfaithful in the trust committed unto them, when the CHILDREN
SHALL CRY FOR THE BREAD OF LIFE, AND THERE IS NONE TO GIVE THEM,
bringing thus upon the people of God that heavy judgment of a spiritual famine, starving Christ in his members. Shall we so requite so good a Saviour, who counteth the love and mercy shewed in " feeding his lambs," John xxi. 15, as shewed to himself?
' Last of all, they carry themselves very unkindly towards Christ, who stumble at this his low stooping unto us in his GOVERNMENT and ORDINANCES, that are ashamed of the simplicity of the gospel, that count preaching foolishness.
' They, out of the pride of their heart, think they may do well enough without the help of the WORD and SACRAMENTS, and think CHRIST TOOK NOT
STATE ENOUGH UPON HIM, AND THEREFORE THEY WILL MEND THE MATTER
WITH THEIR OWN DEVICES, whereby they may give the better content to flesh and blood, as in popery.'*
Elsewhere, in his most eloquent sermon entitled 'The Saint's Safety in Evil Times/ he thus fearlessly speaks : —
* I beseech you consider, what hurt have we ever had by the " Reforma tion " of religion ? Hath it come naked nnto us ? Hath it not been attended with peace and prosperity? Hath God been " a barren wilder ness to us?" Jer. ii. 81. Hath not God been a wall of fire about us? which if he had not been, it is not the water that compasseth our island could have kept us.f
Once more, in the ' TJngodly's Misery/ also ' preached ' at this period, we have these plain-spoken words : —
' What is the gospel but salvation and redemption by Christ alone ? Therefore, Rome's church is an apostate church, and may well be styled an adulteress and a whore, because she is fallen from her husband Christ Jesus. And what may we think of those that would bring light and dark ness, Christ and Antichrist, the ark and Dagon, together, that would re concile us, as if it were no great matter ?' \
Still again, in his exceeding precious sermons on Canticles, he strikes high, even right at the prelates, on their neglect of abounding error : —
' Thus,' says he, « popery grew up by degrees, till it overspread tb*
* ' Bruised Reed,' page 78. f < Ungodly's Misery,' p. 388.
t ' Saint's Safety,' page 312.
1XX MEMOIR OF RICHARD S1BBES, D.D.
church, whilst the watchmen that should have kept others awake FELL ASLEEP THEMSELVES. And thus we answer the papists when they quarrel with us about the beginning of their errors. They ask of us when such and such an heresy began ; we answer, THAT THOSE THAT SHOULD HAVE OBSERVED THEM WERE ASLEEP. Popery is a " mystery," that crept into the church by degrees UNDER GLORIOUS PRETENCES. Their errors had modest beginnings.' *
These two words, ' glorious pretences/ must have been treasured up by Laud. They reappear in his ' Answers ' to the ' Charges ' against him, as I shall notice anon.
These were fiery words, and given to the world in print, the former in 'The Bruised Reed/ in 1629-30, the latter in 'The Saint's Safety/ in 1632-3, they could not fail to rouse the pri mate. Almost immediately upon his appointment to the preacher- ship of Gray's Inn, Laud had sought to have him deprived and silenced; for tidings had reached him of the Trinity lecture ship and the evangelical, ' soul-fatting ' (good old Bolton's word) preaching there. But Lord Keeper Finch had interfered to de feat his machinations, a right good service by not the best of men I fear, which he did not forget to plead when he stood at the bar of the House. Thus did he bring it up, the little quarto contain ing the full ' speech ' being now before me : — ' I hope for my affec tion in religion no man doubteth me. What my education was, and under whom I lived for many yeares, is well knowne. I lived neere thirty years in the society of Gray's Inne ; and if one (that was a reverend preacher there in my time, Doctor Sibs) were now living, he were able to give testimony to this House that when a party ill-affected in religion sought to tyre and weary him out, he had his chiefest encouragement and help from me/ Let the erring Lord Keeper have the benefit of this redeeming trait.
Defeated in this earlier effort, Laud postponed, but did not aban don, his purpose. He' soon found a pretext. As was observed before, Sibbes was a man of beneficent action as well as of beneficent words ; and holding as he did that the church was for the nation, and not the nation for the church, — that the ministry was for the preaching of the gospel, — he joined hand and heart in counter working those schemes, that, by quenching every ' golden candle stick * within which burned the oil of the sanctuary, sought to bring back the darkness and superstitions of the worst of popish times. Things had come to the crisis of endurance. If Laud and his myr midons would ' deprive/ ' out/ ' silence/ ' persecute ' the humble, faithful, godly preachers of salvation by grace, who were bearing the ' heat and burden ' of work, and would intrude men, from the bishop to his humblest curate, who enforced a thinly-veiled popery in * ' Bowels Opened,' pp. 84-5.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. x
practice, and tmscriptural, cmtfiscriptural teaching in doctrine, something was demanded that should neutralise such doings. What was devised is matter of history. * Feoffees ' were appointed — the sacred ' twelve ' in number — to raise funds, and buy in from time to time such ' impropriations ' as were in the hands of laymen, when they could be purchased, and then to appoint therein as lecturers those who would really do the work of preaching. Superadded was the appointment of similar lecturers in the more neglected regions where lay-impropriations were not purchasable. Years before Sibbes had expressed his earnest wish that a ' lecturer ' were in every dark corner of England.* It was a noble enterprise, and was nobly responded to. The best and wisest, the purest and holiest men of the age, took their part in the undertaking. I hesi tate not to avouch, that there was scarcely a man whose name is now remembered for good, but was found subscribing amply and co-operating zealously for its accomplishment. The national heart was stirred, and it was found to beat in the right place. Sibbes, along with his old friends and coadjutors, Davenport and Gouge, was appointed one of the 'Feoffees.' It needs not to be told how this drew down the vengeance of Laud. The scheme had been more or less hindered from its inauguration in 1626, but not till 1632-3 (coincident with Sibbes's defences of 'The Re formation from Popery ') was open action taken. The delay was caused by no relenting, much less forgetfulness. But events in the interval had transpired to ' give pause.' James had died, and his son reigned in his stead. The plague had passed over the metro polis in 1625, and there was 'lamentation and woe' in tens of thousands of households, again returning dolefully in 1630. There were political movements, also, that whitened to pallor the proudest cheek. One 'Mr Cromwell' had come up to Parlia ment in 1627-8. Besides ' the Petition of Right/ and the ex torted and memorable Soit fait comme il est desire, and the 'Declaration,' most uncourtly words fell from Masters Pym and Hampden and Eliot, and many others. But very especially was there plain-speaking, in his own stammering but forcible and resolute fashion, by ' Mr Cromwell ' about increase of ' popery.' The House of Commons resolved itself into a Committee of Re ligion. Let Thomas Carlyle, tell the issue. ' It was,' says he, ' on the llth day of February 1628-9, that Mr Cromwell, member for
* His words are memorable : ' If it were possible, it were to be wished that there were set up some lights in all the dark corners of this kingdom, that might shine to those people that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.' — (Saint's Safety, ). 331 of the present volume.)
MEMOIR OF EICHABD SIBBES, D.D.
Huntingdon (then in his thirtieth year), stood up and made his first speech, a fragment of which has found its way into history, and is now known to all mankind. He said : " He had heard by relation from one Dr Beard (his old schoolmaster at Huntingdon) that Dr Alabaster (prebendary of St Paul's and rector of a parish in Herts) had preached flat popery at Paul's Cross ; and that the Bishop of Winchester (Dr Neile) had commanded him, as his diocesan, he should preach nothing to the contrary. Main waring, so justly cen sured in this House for his sermons, was, by the same bishop's means, preferred to a rich living. If these are the steps to church- preferment, what are we to expect ? " ' * We shall probably not greatly err if we conclude that even the ' red face' of Laud blanched under that question of ' Mr Cromwell/ knowing as he well did that the facts named were only two out of many, and knowing also the 1 stuff ' of which the men were made who were upon the inquisition. Then came ' remonstrances ' and ' declarations ' stronger still, and they who drew them up meant to have what they demanded. True, the chief speakers were * indicted ' in the Star-Chamber, and ultimately sent to the Tower, ' Mr Cromwell,' and ' Mr Pym,' and ' Mr Hampden ' alone excepted (marvellous and suggestive excep tions). There lay Denzil Holies and Sir John Eliot, John Selden, Benjamin Valentine, and William Couton, Sir Miles Hobart and William Longe, William Strode and Sir Peter Hayman. For eleven years it was decreed to be penal so much as to speak of assembling another Parliament. There were ' wars and rumours of wars/ too. Every one who at all knows the time can see that a constraint which could not be disregarded was put upon Laud in the matter of his persecuting for religion. He durst not go in the teeth of the unmis- takeable menaces of the last memorable Parliament. He noted down everything, and certainly would not fail to note down what Rous and Pym, Eliot and Selden, had said. Let us hear a little of what was said. Francis Rous, trembling like an old Hebrew prophet with his ' burden/ had denounced that ' error of Arminianism which makes the grace of God lackey it after the will of man/ and called on the House to postpone questions of goods and liberties to this question, which concerned ' eternal life, men's souls, yea, God him self.' Sir John Eliot repudiated the claim that ' the bishops and clergy alone should interpret church doctrine ; and, professing his respect for some bishops, declared that there were others, and two especially, from whom nothing orthodox could come, and to em power whom to interpret would be the ruin of national religion* John Selden, grave and calm, referred to individual cases in which * Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, 3d edition, i. 29.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. Ixxiii
Popish and Arminian books were allowed, while Calvinistic books were restrained, notwithstanding that there was no law in England to prevent the printing of any books, but only a decree in Star- Chamber.' And then on one occasion the whole House stood up together, and vowed a vow against ' innovations in the faith' The issue of that, passed with closed doors, and with clenching of teeth and gripping of sword-hilts, none will soon forget. We have to do wkh only one of the three ' Resolutions : — ' Whoever shall bring in innovation of religion, or by favour or countenance seem to extend Popery or Arminianism, or other opinion disagreeing from the true and orthodox church, shall be reputed a capital enemy to this kingdom and commonwealth.' *
After these things it is remarkable that the king, a man without mind, and Laud, a man without either mind or heart, should at all have adventured to go against the mind and heart of England. But so it was. There was of necessity greater secrecy, very much of covert plotting against the liberties, civil and religious, of England. The ' feoffees' at last, borne with involuntarily from 1626, were summoned before the Star Chamber and High Commission both. And that was but the execution of Laud's cherished purpose from the beginning. For in that strangest of strange 'Diaries,' the oddest combination, that ever has been written, of piety and gro velling superstition, of faith and the most babyish credulity, (for Pepys' is wisdom itself in comparison f), we light upon this entry : —
' Things which I have projected to do, if God bless me in them — ' III. To overthrow the feoffinent, dangerous both to Church and State, going under the specious pretence of buying in impropriations.'
Opposite these words, a few out of many equally deplorable, that a little onward came to be to their writer terrible as the mystic ' handwriting ' of Babylon's palace- wall, is inscribed ' DONE.' And it was done — for the moment ; but it was a tremendous success to its doer. If only Nemesis had been touched with ruth to blot out the handwriting ! But no ! There the entry stood, when per haps not altogether lawfully or honourably, at least not courteously, the diary was seized : —
* Consult for the facts introduced Masson's Life of Milton, i. 181, 829, seq. ; Car- lyle's * Cromwell ; • John Forster's ' Statesmen of the Commonwealth,' and others of his historical works about this period.
t Pepys. I do not know if his prescient entry in favour of the Puritans hasheen remarked. Having witnessed Ben Jonson's ' Bartholomew Fair,' he jots down, ' And is an excellent play ; the more I see it the more I love the wit of it ; only the business of abusing the Puritans begins to grow stale, and of no use, they being the people that at last will be found the wisest.' See Index of any edition of ' Diary ' under ' Bartholomew Fair.'
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBEES, D.D.
'Feb. 13. 1632.
* Wednesday. — The feoffes that pretended to buy in impropriations were dissolved in the Chequer Chamber. They were the main instruments for the Puritan faction to undo the Church. THE CRIMINAL PART RESERVED.'*
Reserved ! Ay, and transferred !
Those who had engaged in the impropriation scheme, including Sibbes, having been thus summoned before the Star-Chamber, were dealt with, not as honourable and good men, but as ' crimi nals and traitors/ The verdict was — CONFISCATION of the funds and BANISHMENT of the men !
Some fled to Holland, some to New England.f Had the nation's
* Laud's ' Works,' vol. iii. p. 216, 217.
t Of the ' fugitives' associated with Sibbes in the ' feoffees' scheme, the most eminent was John Davenport. In Anderson's Life of Lady Mary Vere, in ' Memor able Women of Puritan Times,' some very touching letters of his are given from the Brit. Museum MSS. (Birch 4275, No. 69). Two extracts will shew the anxiety in which these godly men were kept, and at the same time shew how far they were from wishing to be ' schismatics,' or in any way to injure the church. First of all, while he and Sibbes and others were under the ban of the ' High Commission' as mentioned above, he writes, ' I have had divers purposes of writing to your honour, only I de layed in hope to write somewhat concerning the event and success of our High Com mission troubles ; but I have hoped in vain, for to this day we are in the same condition as before, delayed till the finishing of the session in Paliament, which now is unhappily concluded without any satisfying contentment to the king or commonwealth. Threatening $ were speedily revived against us by the new Bishop of London, Dr Laud, even the next day after the conclusion of the session. We now expect a fierce storm from the enraged spirits of the two bishops ; ours, as I am informed, hath a particular aim at me upon a former quarrel, so that I expect ere long to be deprived of my pastoral charge in Coleman Street. But I am in God's hand, not in theirs, to whose good pleasure I do contentedly and cheerfully submit myself.'
A more beautiful charity, or more modest assertion of conscience, than in our next extract, can scarcely be imagined.
1 Be not troubled, much less discouraged, good madam, at any rumours you meet with concerning my present way. The persecution of the tongue is more fierce and
terrible than that of the hand. At this time I have some of both The
truth is, I have not forsaken my ministry, nor resigned up my place, much less sepa rated from the church, but am only absent a while to wait upon God, upon the settling and quieting of things, for light to discover my way, being willing to lie and die in prison, if the cause may be advantaged by it, but choosing rather to preserve the liberty of my person and ministry for the service of the church elsewhere, if all doors
are shut against me here The only cause of all my present sufferings is the
alteration of my judgment in matters of conformity to the ceremonies established, whereby I cannot practise them as formerly I have done ; wherein I do not censure those that do conform (nay, I account many of them faithful and worthy instruments of God's glory ; and I know that I did conform with as much inward peace as now I do forbear ; in both my uprightness was the same, but my light different). In this
notion I walk by that light which shineth into me With much advice of
many ministers of eminent note and worth, I have done all that I have done hither to, and with desire of pitching upon that way wherein God might be most glorified, la his due time he will manifest it.'
MEMOIR OF EICHAKD SIBBES, D.D.
tongue not been cut out — no Parliament sat for years ! — there had been stormy debates on that !
So far as Sibbes was concerned, it does not appear that any part of the sentence was ever put into execution. He continued preacher at Gray's Inn, and Master of Catharine HalL This assures us that powerful friends, the Brooks and Veres, Manchesters and Warwicks, must have stood by him. But there was no compromise on his part. I find that almost like a menace, and most surely a defiance, Sibbes introduced into a sermon, preached immediately after the decision, an explicit eulogy of Sherland, the recorder of Northampton, for what he had done toward the impropriation scheme ; and published the sermon.*
Still it was crushed, the ' monies ' confiscated,™ the ' purchases ' reversed, the whole holy enterprise branded, and its agents dis graced. One thing is to be recalled. Among the 'things pro jected,' Laud enumerates, with imbecile forgetfulness, precisely such a scheme of purchase of ' impropriations ' — by HlMSELF.t So that it stands confessed that not the thing itself was dan gerous and illegal, but the doers of it. Let only him and his appoint to the places, and all was well and right. But let men such as Sibbes, Gouge, Taylor, Davenport in the Church, and the foremost men for worth in the State, their enemies themselves being witnesses, be the appointers, and instantly it smells of 'treason, stratagem, wiles.' These or those dangerous to Church and State ? What is the award of posterity ? And yet defenders have been found for the transparently mendacious and infamous act. Such jeer at the paltry minority of Puritanism, oblivious of what a living poet has finely expressed —
4 You trust in numbers, I
Trust in One only.' J
Let us see how Laud himself met it when it came in awful re surrection back upon him. Every one is aware that the suppres sion of the ' feoffment-impropriation ' scheme formed one of the counts in the great roll of accusation, whose issue was the block on Tower Hill. A careful record was kept of charges and answers, and the whole have been republished in the Works of Laud. It is but fitting that what he had to say should appear. Here, then, are 'charge' and 'defence.' The whole case, so vital as between Laud and the Puritan worthies, among whom Kichard Sibbes was prominent, can then be judged of : —
* See ' Christ is Best,' in the present volume, p. 349. f See the whole list in his works, as after-referenced. J Cecil and Mary, as ante, p. 10.
Ixxvi
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
That whereas divers gifts and dispositions of divers sums of money were here tofore m,ade by divers charitable and well-disposed persons, for the buying in of divers impropriations, for the maintenance of preaching the word of God in several churches; the said archbp., about eight years last past, wilfully and maliciously caused the said gifts, feoffments, and conveyances, made to the uses aforesaid, to be overthrown in his majesty's Court of Exchequer, contrary to law, as things dangerous to the Church and State, under the specious pretence of buying in appropriations ; whereby that pious work was suppressed and trodden down, to the great dishonour of God and scandal of religion.
This article is only about the feoffments. That which I did was this : I was (as then advised upon such information as was given me) clearly of opinion, that this was a cunning way, under a glorious pretence, to over throw the church government, by getting into their power more dependency of the clergy than the king, and all the peers, and all the bishops in all the kingdom had. And I did conceive the plot the more dangerous for the fairness of the pretence ; and that to the State as well as the Church. Hereupon, not "maliciously" (as 'tis charged in the article), but con scientiously, I resolved to suppress it, if by law it might be done. Upon this, I acquainted his majesty with the thing, and the danger which I con ceived would in few years spring out of it. The king referred me to his attorney, and the law. Mr Attorney Noye, after some pause upon it, pro ceeded in the exchequer, and there it was, by judicial proceeding and sen tence, overthrown. If this sentence were according to law and justice, then there's no fault at all committed. If it were against law, the fault, whate'er it be, was the judges', not mine ; for I solicited none of them. And here I humbly desired, that the Lords would at their leisure read over the sentence given in the exchequer,* which I then delivered in ; but by reason of the length, it was not then read. Whether after it were, I cannot tell. I desired likewise that my counsel might be heard in this and all other points of law.
1. The first witness was Mr Kendall. f He says, that speaking with me about Presteen, * I thanked God that I had overthrown this foeffment.'
2. The second witness, Mr Miller, J says he heard me say, ' They would have undone the church, but I have overthrown their feoffment.' These two witnesses prove no more than I confess. For in the manner afore said, I deny not but I did my best in a legal way to overthrow it. And if I did thank God for it, it was my duty to do so, the thing being in my judgment so pernicious as it was.
3. The third witness was Mr White, one of the feoffees. § He says, ' that coming as counsel in a cause before me, when that business was done, I fell bitterly on him as an underminer of the church.' I remember well his coming to me as counsel about a benefice. And 'tis very likely I spake my conscience to him, as freely as he did his to me ; but the parti culars I remember not ; nor do I remember his coming afterwards to me to
* Sir Leolin Jenkins hath a copy of it out of the records of the exchequer. W. S. A. C. (See Rushworth's Collections, vol. ii. pp. 151, 152.)
f ' William Kendall.' — Prynne's Cant. Doom, p. 388.
J ' Tempest Miller.'— Ibid.
§ John White. He was, in 1640, M.P. for South wark, and chairman of the Committee for Religion. He was commonly called ' Century' White from the title of his celebrated tractate, ' The First Century of Malignant Priests,' (Wood. Ath. Ox. iii. 144, 145).
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
Fulham; nor his offer « to change the men or the course, so the thing might stand.' For to this I should have been as willing as he was ; and if I re member right, there was order taken for this in the decree of the Exchequer. And his majesty's pleasure declared, that no penny so given should be turned to other use. And I have been, and shall ever be, as ready to get in impropriations, by any good and legal way, as any man (as may appear by my labours about the impropriations in Ireland). But this way did not stand either with my judgment or conscience.
1. First, because little or nothing was given by them to the present in cumbent, to whom the tithes were due, if to any ; that the parishioners which payed them, might have the more cheerful instruction, the better hospitality, and more full relief for their poor.
* 2. Secondly, because most of the men they put in, were persons dis affected to the discipline, if not the doctrine, too, of the Church of Eng land.
1 3. Thirdly, because no small part was given to schoolmasters, to season youth above, for their party ; and to young students in the univer sities, to purchase them and their judgments to their side, against their coming abroad into the church.
' 4. Fourthly, because all this power to breed and maintain a faction, was in the hands of twelve men, who were they never so honest, and free from thoughts of abusing this power, to fill the church with schism, yet who should be successors, and what use should be made of the power, was out of human reach to know.'
5. Because this power was assumed by, and not to themselves, without any legal authority, as Mr Attorney assured me.
He further said, ' that the impropriations of Presteen, in Radnorshire, was specially given to St Antolin's, in London.* I say the more the pity, considering the poorness of that country, and the little preach ing that was among that poor people, and the plenty which is in Lon don. Yet because it was so given, there was care taken after the decree, that they of St Antolin's had consideration, and I think to the full. He says, ' that indeed they did not give anything to the present incumbents, till good men came to be in their places.' Scarce one incumbent was bettered by them. And what then ? In so many places not one « good man ' found ? ' Not one factious enough against the church, for Mr White to account him good ? ' Yet he thinks ' I disposed these things afterwards to unworthy men.' « Truly, had they been at my disposal, I should not wittingly have given them to Mr White's worthies.' But his majesty laid his command upon his attorney, and nothing was done or to be done in these things, but by his direction. For Dr Heylin, if he spake anything amiss concerning this feoffment, in any sermon of hisf he is living to answer it ; me it concerns not. ' Mr Brown in the sum of the charge omitted not this. And I answered as before. And in his reply he
* This impropriation was, after the forfeiture, granted by King Charles I. to the rector of Presteign for ever. This grant was revoked during the Rebellion, but con firmed by King Charles II. at the beginning of his reign.
t The Sermon to which reference is here made, was preached by Heylin, at St Mary's, Oxford, July 11. 1630, at the Act. The passage relating to the feoffees will be found in Prynne (Cant. Doom, p. 386), who transcribed it from a MS. copy of the Sermon in Abp. Laud's study ; and in Heylin (Cypr. Ang. p. 199, Lond. 1671). who appears in his turn to have transcribed it from Prynne.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
turned again upon it, that it must be a crime in me, because I projected to overthrow it. But, under favour, this follows not. For to project (though the word ' projector' sounds ill in England), is no more than to forecast and forelay any business. Now as 'tis lawful for me, by all good and fit means, to project the settlement of anything that is good; so is it as lawful, by good and legal means, to project the overthrow of anything that is cun ningly or apparently evil. And such did this feoffment appear to my under standing, and doth still.' As for reducing of impropriations to their proper use, they may see (if they please) in my Diary (whence they had this) an other project to buy them into the church's use. For given they will not be. But Mr Pryn would shew nothing, nor Mr Nicolas see anything, but what they thought would make against me.
Of this Defence, it must be said in the apophthegm of Helps, * It would often be as well to condemn a man unheard, as to con demn him upon the reasons which he openly avows for any course of action/* Still, in common with the whole of the ' Answers/ as tragically told in the ' History of the Troubles/f it exhibits no little astuteness and dexterity, and more than all his resoluteness in assertion of conscience. There is also characteristic strategy shewn in his retreats behind others who acted with him, now Attorney- General Noye, and now the king himself, with an almost humorous contrast in the surrender of Hey 1 in to his fate. While then we cannot altogether deny that an answer (not reply merely, but answer) is returned, nor that his infamy was shared ; yet there lies behind all the indisputable fact, that here was an associa tion of the very salt of Cburcb and State, seeking from their own resources to purchase in a legal way, — in the very way their accuser himself had done, and still proposed to do, — ' impropriations' in the hands of laymen who were not only willing, but wishful, to part with them, and to place therein, through the recognised autho rities, men of kindred character with themselves, in order that tbe gospel might be fully preached, and the people cared for — and Laud prevents. It is not more strange than sad, that in this nine teenth century, men should be found maintaining that Laud did right — that in entering among ' the things to be done,' the overthrow of the ' Feoffees,' or the frustration of an earnest effort whereby men of God, in the truest sense, would bave 'fed the flock of God, which he hath redeemed with his own blood,' he came to a resolution, and in the execution of it performed a service, to be remembered and praised, not deplored. But, indeed, such de fences only mask a deeper hatred. For often, as Lovell Beddoes puts it —
* Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd. 1835, 12mo, page 9. f The History of the Troubles and Trial of Archhishop Laud. Works (edited by Scott and Bliss in ' Anglo-Catholic Library'), vol. iv. pp 302-306.
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
• These are the words that grow, like grass and nettletf Out of dead men ; and speckled hatreds hide, Like toads, among them.'*
There is always a certain nimbus of glory around a decollated head, and I am disposed to concede that a truer man, great among the small, fell on Tower Hill than he whose face paled on the awful block of Whitehall window, though it was a king's and has been canonized as a martyr's. There was a stout-heartedness in the face of fearful odds in the stricken and forsaken primate through out his trial that commands a measure of respect ; and, perhaps, such is the inscrutable mystery of poor human nature, he deceived himself into a conscientious suppression of all consciences that dif fered from his own. Neither would I forget that one or two, or even three or four — Hall and Prideaux, Ussher, Davenant, and William Chillingworth — may be named, who, self-contradictorily, were advanced in the church more or less by him.t I will not conceal this, though historic candour compels me to affirm that, in so far as they fell in with his wishes (taking Bishop Hall as an example), they stained the white of their souls, and that Ussher and the apostolic Bedell and Chillingworth protested against the ulti mate development of his views and actings.
I gladly give him all praise for his honest and courageous word to the king, when his irreverent Majesty camein too late and interrupted ' prayers.' It was a brave and worthy request that he made that the king should be present ' at prayers as well as sermon every Sunday.' J
I found no common joy also in coming, in the arid pages of the ' Diary,' upon these pitying words about a very venerable Puritan, gleaming like a drop of dew, or even a human tear : — ' In Leicester the dean of the Arches suspended one Mr Angell, who had con tinued a lecturer in that great town for these divers years, without any license at all to preach, yet took liberty enough. I doubt his violence hath cracked his brain, and do therefore use him more tenderly, because I see the hand of God hath overtaken him.' §
Brook (' Lives of the Puritans ' ||) testily criticises the entry. The conclusion was false, for the ' violence ' of the good Angell was the ' fine frenzy ' of a man in awful earnest, in a fashion which Laud could not so much as apprehend. Still he is entitled to the full advantage of it, and to have it placed beside the kindred touch-
* Poems : Posthumous and Collected, vol. i. p. 109.
t ' Advanced.' The most has been made of this in the following acute and, in certain respects, valuable pamphlet : — ' A Letter to the Rev. J. C. Ryle, A.B., in Reply to his Lecture on " Baxter and his Times." By a Clergyman of the Diocese of Exeter. Exeter, 1853. 8vo.'
J Diary, Nov. 14. 1626. g Ap. for 1634, pp, 325-6. fl Brook, iii. 236.
1XXX MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBZS, D.D.
ing notices of his dying servants, his love for whom is remarkable.* But with every abatement, unless we are to blur the noblest names of the Christianity of England ; to write ' false ' against its truest, and refuse honour to men who, rather than fail in fealty to what they believed was written in the word of God, hazarded all that was dear to them ; unless we are to overtop the loftiest intellects by one of the lowest, and sanctified genius and learning by one who was no scholar, and even could not write tolerable English, we must denounce every attempt to exalt and extol the morbid craving for an impossible ' uniformity' of this hard, cruel, unlovingly zealous, and unlovable man, around whom there kangs but a single gentle memory of tenderness to frailty or mercy to penitence ; from whose pen there never once flowed one true word for Christ or the salva tion of souls ; from whom, in his darkened end, there came not so much as that remorseful touch that wins our sympathy for a Stephen Gardiner, ' Erravi cum Petro at non flevi cum Petro.'-f Claver- house, the ' bloody,' and the first Charles, the ' false/ have been idealised. We look upon their pensive faces, and feel how traitorous they must have been to their better nature. But Laud it is not pos sible to idealise. The more, successive biographers have elucidated his history j they have only the more made him a definite object of contempt. He was elevated above men who, by head and shoulders (and we know what the head includes), were taller than himself. I The stilts fell from beneath him, and he found his level, as ' im becile ' (it is Lord Macaulay's word), as contemptible, as worthless a man as ever rose to power — a mitred Robespierre. A certain party are voluble in pronouncing their judgments upon the victims of Laud. It were to play false to truth to let them go unanswered ; and the present is undoubtedly an occasion demanding such answer and out-speaking. But —
' I say not that the man I praise
By that poor tribute stands more high, I say not that the man I blame Be not of purer worth than I ;
* Laud's servants. I give one entry in Diary :— ' Sept. 23. 1621.— Thy. Mr Adam Torless, my ancient, loving, and faithful servant, then my steward, after ho had served me full forty-two years, died, to my great loss and grief.'
f Gardiner. Foss's Judges of England, v. 370.
J A few wise words from ' Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowds' may enforce our remarks — ' Perhaps it is the secret thought of many that an ardent love of power and wealth, however culpable in itself, is nevertheless a proof of superior sagacity. But in answer to this it has been well remarked, that even a child can clench its little hand the moment it is born ; and if they imagine that the successful, at any rate, must be sagacious, let them remember the saying of a philosopher, that the meanest reptiles are found at the summit of the loftiest pillars.' (Pp. 20-1.)
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
But when I move reluctant lips For holy justice, human right,
The sacred cause I strive to plead Lends me its favour