m i"j CORNELL UN.IiVERSITY , »• «> LIBRARY From the library of GORDON MESSING Professor of Classics & Linguistics Cornell University CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 097 508 828 DATE DUE ^jMf* gtfHD^^ ::,,*-*r' 1 6AYL0RD PRINTED IN U.SA Cornell University Library The original of this bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924097508828 TABLE TALK OF JOHN SELDEN REYNOLDS Bonbon HENRY FROWDE Oxford University Press Warehouse Amen Corner, E.C. 112 Fourth Avenue THE TABLE TALK OF JOHN SELDEN EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY SAMUEL HARVEY REYNOLDS, M.A. LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE 0;»;fotr5 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1892 C)]cfoxi> PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BV HORACE HART. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ix List of editions referred to in the notes xxvi Introductory letter or dedication by Richard Milward . . i I. Abbeys. Priories 3 II. Thirty-nine Articles 5 III. Baptism 7 IV. Bastard 8 V. Bible, Scripture 9 VI. Bishops before the Parliament ... 13 VII. Bishops in the Parliament 16 VIII. Bishops out of the Parliament .... 23 IX. Books. Authors 29 X. Canon Law 31 XI. Ceremony . ib. XII. Chancellor 32 XIII. Changing Sides 33 XIV. Christians -35 XV. Christmas 37 XVI. Church 38 XVII. Church of Rome 40 XVIII. Churches 41 XIX. City .... ... 42 XX. Clergy ... .... 43 XXI. High Commission 45 XXII. House of Commons 46 XXIII. Competency 47 XXIV. Confession ... .... 48 XXV. Great Conjunction ib. XXVI. Conscience 49 XXVII. Consecrated places 51 XXVIII. Contracts 52 XXIX. Convocation 53 XXX. Council ib. XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XL. XLI. XLII. XLIII. XLIV. XLV. XLVI. XLVII. XLVIII. XLIX. L. LI. LII. LIII. LIV. LV. LVI. LVII. LVIII. LIX. LX. LXI. LXII. LXIII. LXIV. LXV. LXVI. LXVII. LXVIII. LXIX. LXX. LXXI. LXXII. LXXIII. LXXIV. LXXV. CONTENTS. PAGE Creed 53 Damnation 54 Self-denial 55 Devils ib. Duel 58 Epitaph 60 Equity ib. Evil speaking 62 Excommunication 64 Fasting Days 68 Fathers and Sons 69 Faith and Works ib. Fines 70 Free-Virill 71 Friends ib. Friars . ib. Genealogy of Christ ... . . 72 Gentlemen ib. Gold ......... 73 Hall 74 Hell 75 Holy-days 77 Humility 78 Idolatry H), Jews 79 Invincible Ignorance ib. Images 80 Imperial Constitutions 81 Imprisonment 82 Incendiaries 83 Independency ib. Things Indifferent 85 Public Interest ^i. Human Invention ii)_ God's Judgments 86 Judge . . 87 Juggling 88 Jurisdiction n Jus Divinum 2^ King 89 King of England oj The King ^^ Knight's Service o^ Land n^^ Language 08 CONTENTS. vii PACE LXXVI. Law 99 LXXVII. Law of Nature loi LXXVIIL Learning 103 LXXIX. Lecturers 103 LXXX. Libels 105 LXXXL Liturgy . ib. LXXXIL Lords before the Parliament ib. LXXXin. Lords in the Parliament 107 LXXXIV. Marriage 109 LXXXV. Marriage of Cousin-Germans . . . . ib. LXXXVL Measure of Things no LXXXVIL Difference of Men in LXXXVIIL Minister Divine 112 LXXXIX. Money 118 XC. Moral Honesty 119 XCI. Mortgage 120 XCIL Number ib. XCIIL Oaths 121 XCIV. Oracles . . 123 XCV. Opinion 124 XCVL Parity 125 XCVn. Pariiament ... .... 126 XCVIIL Parson . . 129 XCIX. Patience . . 130 C. Peace ib. CL Penance 131 CIL People . . ib. Cin. Philosophy . 132 CIV. Pleasure ib. CV. Poetry 134 CVL Pope 136 CVII. Popery i39 CVIIL Power. State .140 CIX. Prayer . . 143 ex. Preaching 144 CXL Predestination . 149 CXIL Preferment . . 151 CXIII. Praemunire i53 CXIV. Prerogative i54 CXV. Presbytery . . ib. CXVL Priests of Rome i57 CXVIL Prophecies i59 CXVm. Proverbs *• CXIX. Question 160 CXX. Reason ib. CONTENTS. CXXI. CXXII. CXXIII. CXXIV. CXXV. CXXVI. CXXVII. CXXVIII. CXXIX. cxxx. CXXXI. CXXXII. CXXXIII. CXXXIV. cxxxv. CXXXVI. CXXXVII. CXXXVIII. CXXXIX. CXL. CXLI. CXLII. CXLIII. CXLIV. CXLV. CXLVI. CXLVII. CXLVIII. CXLIX. CL. CLI. CLII. CLIII. CLIV. Excursus A. B. C. D. E. F. G. Religion i6i Non-Residency 167 Retaliation 168 Reverence ib. Sabbath 169 Sacrament 170 Salvation ib. Ship-Money 171 Simony . ib. State 173 Subsidies i73 Superstition ib. Synod Assembly 174 Thanksgiving 177 Tithes ib. Trade .... .... 181 Tradition 182 Transubstantiation ib. Traitor 183 Trial ib. Trinity 185 Truth 186 University 187 Vows 188 Usury ib. Pious Uses 189 War 190 Wife 194 Wisdom , . . . ib. Witches 195 Wit ib. Women 196 Year 197 Zealots 199 Excommunication Incendiaries .... The King's Chapel Establishment The Prior of St. John . Questions sent to the Assembly . 201 202 205 206 208 Changes in present Text 209 Testimonies and Criticisms about Selden . . 211 Index 213 INTRODUCTION It is now more than thirty years since the late Mark Pattison suggested to me to prepare an edition of Selden's Table Talk, and gave me some valuable hints as to the way in which a work of the kind ought to be done. Pattison was an enthusiast for Selden ; he considered him a typical Englishman, at once a representative of the best points in the distinctively Enghsh character, and wholly free from its common prejudices and shortcomings. Selden had certainly what have been termed the three main interests of Englishmen, politics, business and rehgion. His Table Talk gives us specimens of his remarks on all three, but on matters of business not so many as on the other two. That the conversations which it reports were held between 1634 and 1654, the year in which Selden died, may be assumed with certainty. The reporter, Milward, says in his introductory letter that he had had the oppor- tunity to hear Selden discourse twenty years together, and he thus fixes the range of time which his notes cover. Now the letters referred to in Tythes, sec. 6, bear date in the Autumn of 1653, so that the conversation about them must have come very shortly before Selden's death. The chief part of the discourse is about contemporary events, and Selden's remarks upon these throw an X THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. interesting light on the history of his opinions and on his attitude to the parties of his day. The early history of the book must be left incomplete on many points. It seems clear, as Mr. Singer has pointed out, that the MS. of it was put together within a few years of Selden's death. He finds proof of this in Milward's introductory letter where he speaks of ' Mr. Justice Hale, one of the Judges of the Common Pleas.' Hale, afterwards Sir Matthew Hale, ceased to be a judge of the Common Pleas in 1658 on Cromwell's death. It is clear too from this introductory letter, that when the MS. was ready it was placed in the hands of Selden's Executors, probably in the hands of Hale, whose name stands first in the fist. But what became of it afterwards I do not know. It is not to be found among Sir Matthew Hale's papers in the Lincoln's Inn Library. The collection includes several of Selden's own papers, some of them unpublished as yet, but no part of the Table Talk. I have to thank the Librarian for his courtesy in placing within my reach very full means of information on this point. Now the earliest printed edition did not come out until 1689, more than thirty years after the MS. had been prepared. Of the history of the book in the meanwhile we know little or nothing. In some form or other it must have been acces- sible, for it is certain that there were copies made from it or from some second-hand rendering of it. But the long time which was suffered to pass before it was sent to press, suggests that there were parts of it which its trustees did not approve, and there are some at which they may have taken very reasonable offence. Religious questions are handled with a freedom of expression not at all to Hale's mind : the political sentiments are not those of Hale himself, and the book is disgraced by the insertion of several indecent references and expressions, which add nothing to the force of the passages in which they occur, INTRODUCTION. xi and which Selden himself could hardly have wished should go down to posterity as specimens of his every- day talk. After the Restoration, and during the whole reigns of Charles II and James II, not even the remainder of the Table Talk could have been received with much approval. The course of opinion and of events was setting another way; and Selden's outspoken words, his attack on the divine right equally of kings and of bishops, his reduc- tion of the Monarchy to a limited constitutional form, his love of liberty, his insistence on obedience to law as part of a contract by which kings and subjects were alike bound — all this would have been very unlike the theory that found favour under the Stuarts. When the book at length appeared, in 1689, it was in a form which leaves much to be desired, replete as it is with blunders and in more than one place making downright nonsense of the passage. The present edition does something to bring the text back to what it must originally have been, and it certainly clears away some gross faults of which neither Selden nor his reporter can have been the origin- ating cause. The Harleian MS., No. 1315, in the British Museum Library, has been taken as the basis of the text. The Library has three MSS. of the Table Talk. To the earliest of these, the Harleian, No. 690, the date assigned by Mr. Warner, the Assistant Keeper of MSS., is circa 1670. Next in order of time and a little later comes the Sloane MS., No. 2513, and latest of the three is the Harleian, No. 1315, for which the posterior limit of date can (for reasons which I shall presently explain) be fixed with certainty as i68g. Mr. Warner's authority as a palaeographist is so high that his opinion may be taken as conclusive. It is certain, however, that no one of these MSS. can have been the original copy of the Table Talk. The Harleian 690, the earliest of the three, leaves blank xii THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. spaces for all the Greek words under the heading 'Descent into Hell,' and besides numerous other faults, blunders badly with the French. The Sloane MS. is even more out of the question. Besides its later date, it abounds throughout with blunders, grammatical and others, of the most obvious kind. Some of these have been corrected by a later hand, but the paper on which the MS. is written is so very like blotting-paper that almost every correction or change involves a deletion of the original text. The Harleian 1315 is of much better stamp than the Sloane. It accords very nearly with the MS. 690, and it has a special authority of its own by reason of an inscription on the back side of the title, which, as Harley's Librarian says, was written in it by Harley himself The inscription runs thus — ' This book was given in 168 (the final figure is unfortunately want- ing) by Charles erle of Dorset and Middlesex to a book- seller in Fleet Street, in order to have it printed : but the bookseller delaying to have it done, Mr. Thomas Rymer sold a copy he procured to Mr. Churchill, who printed it as it came out in 169 . . .' This inscription is dated February 17, 1697. It thus fixes the date of the MS. as not later than 1689, and gives it an authority of its own, since it stands as proof that, but for the printer's delay, it would have been the basis of the earliest printed edition. The inscription is incorrect on one point, since it implies that the edition of 169 . . . (presumably the edition printed in 1696, by Jacob Tonson and Awnsham and John Church- hill) was the first that had appeared. This, as we have seen, is not so. The first printed edition came out in 1689. For bringing back the text to some nearer approach to its original and correct form, the choice lay between the Harleian MSS. 6go and 1315. Both contain excellent readings, and the two together, with occasional help from INTRODUCTION. xiii the Sloane MS. and from the early printed editions, supply material for a fairly satisfactory revision. But where no notice appears .to the contrary, the text now printed is that of the Harleian MS. 1315. In all three MSS. several passages which have been detached from the body of the book are misplaced, or are added in an Appendix at the end. These, in the present edition, have been put back to the places to which they properly belong, and as they appear in the edition of 1689. This, and an occasional change of the spelling where it was obsolete or obviously incorrect, are the only changes which have been made without notice. Those who set a value on the vagaries of a half-lettered scribe, will find them in abundance and of all sorts in the Sloane MS. 2513. With all helps, but in the absence of any conclusive authority, the settlement of the text has been a matter of difficulty and doubt. In deciding between different read- ings, or in conjectural emendations, I have taken as my guide Selden's own rule. ' A man,' he says, ' must in this case venture his discretion, and do his best to satisfy him- self and others in those places where he doubts.' It is safe to assume that Selden did not talk nonsense, and that he was not ignorant of matters with which his published works prove him to have been perfectly conversant. For example, when he is made to say that a suffragan was no bishop, we may conclude with certainty that he did not say this, although the MSS. and the early printed editions agree in putting it into his mouth. When he is made to speak of Sir Richard Weston as the Prior of St. John's, and of Valentine's novels as laying down the limits of episcopal jurisdiction, I have borne in mind Porson's remark that no editor in his senses adopts a reading which he knows to be wrong, and I have changed the text accordingly. But in every instance the reader has notice of the change. xiv THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. Milward, in his introductory letter, requests the reader to distinguish times, and in his fancy to carry along with him the when and the why many of these things were spoken. The alphabetical arrangement of the matter of the book gives us no help here. There is no attempt at a chronological order. Times are confused throughout, and we pass from subject to subject with no notice of either when or why except such as we can gather from the con- tents of each paragraph. I have done what I could, in an imperfect tentative way, to supply the want. Out of the great stream of events and writings and speeches which formed, so to say, the environment of Selden's life, I have picked out, here and there, what seemed likely to have suggested some of his remarks. In some instances the reference has been clear and certain ; in some his pub- lished writings have given the clue, and have served to supplement the imperfect information in the Table Talk as well as to correct mistakes which must have been due to his reporter not to himself Of his very numerous works, his History of Tithes is the only one to which he makes direct reference in the Table Talk. (See Tithes, sec. 6.) Selden was born in 1584. In 1600 he entered at Hart Hall, Oxford. In 1602 he was a law-student at Clifford's Inn, and thence migrated to the Inner Temple in 1604. He soon became known as a man of vast and exact learn- ing. So great was his fame as a constitutional lawyer, that before he became a member of Parliament he was often called in to advise the House on questions of prero- gative, and he is credited with having had a principal part in framing the Protestation of 1621 — a service for which he paid the penalty of five weeks' imprisonment by order of the Council. He was thus already a marked man when, in 1624, he was elected a member of the House, a position which he held in several Parliaments, viz. in 1626, 1628, and in the second Parliament of 1640. It was not INTRODUCTION, xv long before he again became a prominent champion of the Pariiamentary cause and an opponent of the high- handed acts of injustice done by the King or in the King's name. His knowledge of past history and of precedents made him a valuable ally, and when the Petition of Right was drawn up, Selden was one of those who had been appointed to give help in preparing it. This, and his general outspokenness in his place in the House, marked him out, a second time, as a proper object for royal vengeance. In the spring of 1629 he was one of what he terms the ' Parliament men imprisoned tertio Caroli,' by a stretch of the prerogative, aided and ren- dered effective by the subservient temper of the judges before whom the prisoners were brought. Denzil Holhs, Eliot, and Valentine were among his fellow prisoners — an illustrious company, in which Selden may not have been unwilling to find himself included. The charge against them had to do with their conduct and language in Par- liament — matters about which no challenge could legally be made by any outside authority. The judges would have bailed the prisoners if they would have given security for their future good behaviour, but this at Selden's instance they most properly refused to do. It would have been a surrender of their privilege for the past, and a check on their future Hberty of deed or word. They were accordingly committed to the Tower, and though in Selden's case the confinement did not last long, and his treatment was not harsh, yet the restraint was an outrage which he did rightly to resent, and which in his case and in that of his fellow sufferers was of grave and lasting injury to the cause which it was intended to serve. In politics, as in religion, it is useless to play at persecution. Charles by his half measures succeeded only in making enemies of those whom he had hoped to terrify into submission. Selden was not the most xvi THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. formidable or the most bitter, but neither then nor in the future was he an adversary whom it was at all safe to provoke. But just as Selden started as a Parliamentary champion on strictly constitutional grounds, so it was not long before the proceedings of the second Parliament of 1640 forced him into more or less of an antagonism to his old allies. We have several traces in the Table Talk of his growing coolness towards the advanced section of the Parliamentary party. Not, indeed, that his breach with his old friends had gone so far as to drive him into the opposite camp, expectant as it was and ready to welcome him if he had come over to it. He still held that the original contract between king and people had been broken, and that the subjects had thus been released from their promise of obedience. The quarrel, he saw clearly, had gone so far that it must be settled by an appeal to arms. It was a contest now, in which the original issues had become obscured, ' a scuffle,' as he terms it, between two sets of opponents with neither of whom could he identify himself They must fight it out between themselves, and leave decent quiet people to their own business or to their books. The outbreak of the civil war accordingly found him lukewarm, if not indifferent. He could look with no satis- faction to the victory of either side, to the king's high- handed disregard of law, or to the puritans' zeal not according to knowledge, and for objects many of which he disapproved. With the authors of the revolution of 1689 he would have been more entirely in agreement. The declared policy of the new rule was just what he had himself stood up for in evil days when power was triumphant over right. The year for the publication of the Table Talk was thus well chosen. When the illegal rule of James H had been ended, and when the Bill of INTRODUCTION. xvii Rights had settled the government of England after the type which Selden approved, then and not till then was his Table Talk given to the world. The day had at length come in which Selden's own principles were in the as- cendant, it was the triumph of the only cause for which he had ever cared personally to contend. After the beginning of the civil war, there is not much in Selden's public career that calls for notice here. The references in the Table Talk to the public events of the time are few and indistinct. We have no word about Charles' trial and execution, or about Cromwell's rise and administration. It is hardly possible that these should not have been frequent matters of table talk, but we have no record of them in Milward's report. Has Milward avoided keeping a record of them, or has the Table Talk, prior to pubHcation, been curtailed and bowdlerised in a poHtical sense ? Or has Selden kept carefully to his rule that wise men say nothing in dangerous times (Wisdom, 3), and that the wisest way for men in these times is to say nothing (Peace, i) ? If he did say anything, we have certainly no record of it. The chief subject to which he again and again refers is of a very different class. In 1643 he was appointed one of the learned pious members of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and the Table Talk abounds with proofs of the kind of interest which he long continued to feel in his new work. The Assembly was formed of all parties in the Church and out of it. The prelatical party were included in it, but they studiously did not attend. The rest were Presbyterians with a moderate infusion of Independents and Erastians. Selden, it is certain, had no great love for bishops and clergy, but he did not regard them with the contemptuous dislike which he felt for the main body of their non-conformist opponents. The lofty claims and the ignorance and b xviii THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. intolerance of the Presbyterian section ; the ranting of the more ignorant Roundhead under the influence of what he termed the Spirit, were even less to his mind than the prelatical party had been. In the Westminster Assembly of Divines it was with the Presbyterians that he came chiefly into conflict. They formed a clear majority, and as far as votes went, contrived to carry things pretty well in their own way. This, however, was the limit of their success. The House of Commons refused to ratify their claims to a free spiritual jurisdiction, or to acknowledge the divine right by which they claimed to hold their ministry. In debate they were no less unfortunate. Selden, by the evidence of friends and of enemies, was one of the chief thorns in their side. It was his way to lead them on to argue, to amuse himself with their mistakes and con- tradictions, and to bring to bear his formidable battery of learning against their favourite doctrinal strongholds. His services in this sort were, as we might suppose, very variously regarded. His friend and fellow divine, Mr. Whitelock, a sound Erastian like himself, writes — ' Divers members of both houses, whereof I was one, were members of the Assembly of Divines, and had the same liberty with the Divines to sit and debate and give their votes .... In which debates Mr. Selden spake admirably, and confuted divers of them in their own learning. ' And sometimes when they had cited a text of Scripture to prove their assertion, he would tell them. Perhaps in your little pocket Bibles with gilt leaves (which they would often pull out and read) the Translation may be thus, but the Greek or the Hebrew signifies thus and thus; and so would totally silence them.' (Memorials, p. 71.) Anthony a Wood,, in his Athenae, quotes Aubrey to the same effect : — INTRODUCTION. xix ' He was one of the Assembly of Divines in those days, and was hke a thorn in their sides, for he was able to run them all down with his Greeke and antiquities.' Fuller, in his Church History, speaks less approvingly of the work, but bears testimony to the skill with which it was done. ' The Assembly,' he says, ' met with many difficulties, some complaining of Mr. Selden, that ad- vantaged by his skill in antiquity, common law and the oriental tongues, he employed them rather to pose than profit, perplex than inform the members thereof in the fourteen queries he propounded. Whose intent was to humble the jure divinoship of Presbytery . . . This great scholar, not overloving of any (and least of all these) clergymen, delighted himself in raising of scruples for the vexing of others ; and some stick not to say that those who will not feed on the flesh of God's word, cast most bones to others to break their teeth therewith.' (Church History, Bk. XI. sec. ix. § 54.) But when we pass from friends and neutrals to Selden's opponents in the Assembly, we find more ample proof than ever of his prominence and of the vigour of his destructive work. Poor Robert Baillie, a worthy Scotch Presbyterian, who had come up from Glasgow to join the Assembly of Divines, bringing with him the pure light of the Gospel as it was understood in those parts, found Selden terribly in his way in the Assembly and afterwards in Parliament. Baillie speaks sadly of ' Selden and others who will have no discipline at all in any Church jure divino, but settled only upon the free will and pleasure of the Parliament.' (Letters and Journals, ii. 31.) He rises presently to a more vigorous form of de- nunciation, after proof given of the effectiveness of Selden's antagonism. ' The Erastian party in the Parliament is stronger than the b a XX THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. Independent, and is like to work us much woe. Selden is their head. If L'Empereur would beat down that man's arrogance as he very well can .... if he would confound him with Hebrew testimonies, it would lay Selden's vanity, who is very insolent for his oriental literature.' (Vol. ii. p. 107.) Whether this call on L'Empereur to the rescue was heard, I do not know. I have found no trace that it was in any part of Selden's writings. In Book I. of his De Synedriis Veterum Ebraeorum, Selden quotes L'Em- pereur and praises him as ' doctissimus vir.' On one point he disagrees with him, but on a wholly different matter from those about which Baillie was in need of help. (See Works, i. 874.) The De Synedriis was published in 1650, two years after L'Empereur's death. In dealing with the successive religious questions of his day, Selden's language is substantially the same. The Table Talk, it will be seen, relates to two wholly distinct periods, — to that of the attempted High Church movement under Laud's impulse and guidance, and to the counter movement when the Presbyterians were in power. The former of these was recognised by the leaders of the Oxford movement of 1833 as in the main identical with their own, since Laud's claims for the Church served to bring into prominence just those principles and beliefs which they themselves advocated, and which the Reforma- tion had tended to obscure. Laud's failure is explained in the Table Talk. The promoters of the movement were in too great a hurry. They forced things on too suddenly, and in such a way as to give offence to those whom it would have been easy to conciliate by more gradual and more gentle methods. With the aims and purposes of the movement Selden had no sympathy, nor had he any with those of its more violent and fanatical opponents. He is thus in almost equal antagonism to each of the two parties which became dominant by turns. If he sometimes INTRODUCTION. xxi defends the bishops, it is not because he has any love for them, but because there must be some form of Church government, and there was no body more to his mind that could be put into the bishops' place. On their claim to rule jure divino, he speaks with great scorn, but he is no less scornful to those who think them so anti-Christian that they must be put away. In such matters as these, ' all is as the State hkes.' From first to last Selden shows himself firm and consistent as an Erastian. His own personal religion has been a matter of some controversy. ' Gentlemen,' he remarks, ' have ever been more temperate in their religion than the common people, as having more reason ; the others running in a hurry.' Selden himself was no exception to the rule. Temperate he certainly was ; indifferent or lukewarm he would have been termed by the more zealous. Baxter, indeed, reports, on the authority of Sir M. Hale, that Selden was ' a re- solved serious Christian, an adversary to Hobbes,' and that the opposition between them was sometimes so sharp that Selden either departed from Hobbes or drove him out of the room. But these alleged contests do not prove much. Both parties to them were men of strong opinions and of somewhat overbearing tempers. If they quarrelled occasionally, as they very probably did, it is much more likely that their quarrels were about politics than about re- ligion. Religion, they both held, was a matter to be settled by the State, and as the State settled it, so it was to be. In politics they were less at one. Selden, as the upholder of a constitutional monarchy based on an assumed contract which both parties were alike bound to observe, could never have been brought to agree with Hobbes, the champion of a monarchy in which no misconduct on the monarch's part could give the subjects any right to resist. For proof, then, of Selden's religious faith we must look elsewhere. We shall not find it in Clarendon, who with all his praise b3 xxii THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. of Seidell's learning, humanity, courtesy, affability, and delight in doing good, is silent on the point of his religion. Nor will Usher help us with his very laudatory funeral sermon, in which he finds every excellence in Selden, but says nothing of his piety, because, as his hearers thought, he could find nothing which he could say with truth. The discussions about religion in the Table Talk are not, in- deed, in the language of a theoretical sceptic. They show, beyond doubt, that Selden constantly professed a belief in revealed religion. But they are not at all what we should expect from a resolved serious Christian. They are rather in the language of one who takes religion under his wing, and finds it — like the virtue of humility— very good doc- trine for other people. Their author will show respect to the established religion of his country, but he has no great care what form it takes, except as far as it is a powerful poHtical engine which must not be suffered to fall into hands which will turn it to a mischievous use. D'Ewes, who knew Selden personally, took such offence at his seeming want of religion that he did not seek to be intimate with him. His death-bed scene— he died in November 1654 — has, as we might expect, been very variously reported. Lord Berkeley ^ tells us of the pious friends whom he summoned to be with him at the last, and of his own expressed trust in the promises of Holy Scripture as his best and only comfort at so anxious a time. On the other hand, Aubrey's account, as quoted in Wood's Athenae, is that — 'When he was neer death, the minister (Mr. Johnson) was coming to him to assoile him ; Mr. Hobbes happened then to be there: sayd he, "What, will you that have wrote like a man, now dye like a woman?" So the minister was not let in.' But death-bed stories are pro- • See Historical Applications, &c., written by a Person of Honour, p. 32, and Josiah Woodward's Fair Warnings to a Careless World, p. 139 INTRODUCTION. xxiii verbially ' common form.' They tell us more often what the narrator wishes to believe, than what he has any good authority for. We find accordingly that Selden's editor and biographer, Archdeacon Wilkins, accepts and records Lord Berkeley's story, and says nothing what- ever about Aubrey's. (Works, vol. i, Vita Authoris, p. xlv.) Selden's vast and varied learning was recognised in his own day by the general testimony of scholars in England and on the Continent, and the fame of it still survives. But this is all that can be said. As a writer, he has never been popular, and is never likely to be. His reputation, like that of Johnson, depends more upon what has been written about him or has fallen from him in con- versation, than upon any writings of his own. This is due, in Selden's case, about equally to the matter and to the manner of his works. The subjects which he treats relate, some of them to the questions of his own day, others to points of real permanent interest, but only to the antiquarian reader, nor had he the art of popular- ising what he wrote. Much of what he has written is in Latin, and his Latin style, correct as it is, is strangely rough and inelegant. Not seldom it presents an involved series of parentheses within parentheses, until at length the grammatical structure with which we start is put out of sight and lost. When this difficulty has been overcome, and when the reader has at last succeeded in evolving order out of the confused and disorderly mass, the result often is that he finds after all that he has gained nothing for his pains. Selden's digressions are so frequent and so perplexing as often to make it really doubtful what his drift can possibly have been in his Latin or in his English works. He draws at random on his vast stores, until the thread of his argument is lost by his many and prolonged and wholly irrelevant discursions, each of which gives xxiv THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. rise to fresh discursions, one subject calling up another, under no guide but the chance association of ideas in the very learned author's mind. His enormous erudition thus frequently proves to be a weight too heavy for him, an encumbrance rather than a help to clear methodical arrangement. This fault does not attach to the Table Talk. Selden, under the stimulus of society, was a different man from what he was when he took pen in hand and set himself down to write out an exhaustive account of some subject which he had made his special study, and to treat inci- dentally every other subject that suggested itself by the way. In writing, a man may go on unchecked to his own satisfaction and to the impatience of his readers. In the to-and-fro toss of conversation he is under more effective restraint, and he becomes short and incisive in just the degree in which he is possessed of the conversational art. In this art Selden unquestionably excelled. We do not need Clarendon's testimony that he was the most clear discourser, and had the best faculty in making hard things easy, and presenting them to the understanding of any man that hath been known. The Table Talk is evidence enough. It is as lively as his written works are dull, as attractive as they are many of them repelling. The mis- cellaneous collection varies in interest of course. Some of it has to do with matters of mere research; some with matters of grave consequence at the time, but of little or none now. Nor is it free from mistakes and contradictions, or from what its critic in the Acta Erudi- torum calls (poprLKa aKova-fxaTa. In one passage, for example, it speaks slightingly of the learning of the bishops ; in another it declares that there never was a more learned clergy, and that no one taxes them with ignorance. In the discourse on Preaching, it first condemns and then recom- mends preaching often in the same sense. In its defence INTRODUCTION xxv of duelling, in its explanation of the ass's head story (Christians, 3) and of the Descent into Hell, it is hardly ingenious, much less convincing. Its repeated assertions that moral rules are of no force without a theological sanction, display Selden possibly as a good theologian, certainly as an unsound moralist. Some of its remarks on the obligation of an oath are even more open to question. The discourse on Oaths might almost be headed — the art of perjury made easy. But on all these points it is Selden's reporter with whom the chief fault must rest. It was his business to discriminate between what was worth and what was not worth giving to the world ; and not to write down and publish everything said, it might be, at random or in a perverse mood, and forgotten as soon as it was said, or as soon as the thing under discussion had ceased to be a question which Selden had approached as a con- troversialist rather than as a judge. But when all deduc- tions have been made, enough remains to bear out the very high repute in which the Table Talk has stood. Its critic in the Acta Eruditorum ^ wishes it included among the ' multa ingenii monumenta quibus (Selden) aeternam famam meruit.' Johnson singles it out as the best book of its kind in existence, better than any of the much be- praised French anas. Coleridge, as a poet, quarrels with it, but he still finds more weighty bullion sense in it than in the same number of pages of any uninspired writer. This is substantially the verdict which the world of letters has accepted and has endorsed. Johnson, one of the vouchers for it, has been termed the wisest and the wittiest of Enghshmen. The Table Talk shows us, so to say, the figure in every-day dress of one who might not unfairly take rank as his competitor for one distinction. '■ Supplementa, Tom. i : see viii. p. 424. *^* The References in the Notes are to the following Editions : — Roger Bacon. Opus Majus. Jebb's ed. 1733. folio. Baillie. Letters and Journals. Edinburgh. 1775. 2 vols. Bingham. Christian Antiquities and other Works. Clarendon Press. 1855. 10 vols. Clarendon. History of the Rebellion. Clarendon Press. 1807. 6 vols. ; paged as 3 and so referred to. Clarendon. Life. Clarendon Press. 1827. Dugdale. Monasticon. By Caley, Ellis & Bandinel. 1830. 6 vols. Figuier. Histoire du Merveilleux. Paris, i860. 8vo. Gibson. Codex. 1761. 2 vols. Hardwick. History of the Articles. 1851. Laud's Works. Library of Anglo- Catholic Theology. 1854. Nalson. Collections. 1682. 2 vols. Neal. History of the Puritans. 1822. 5 vols. Pearson. On the Creed. Clarendon Press. 181 6. 2 vols. Preuves des libertez de I'Eglise Gallicane. 1639. I vol. folio. Prynne. Histrio-mastix. 1633. small 4to. RUSHWORTH. Historical Collections. 1721. 8 vols. Selden. Works. Wilkins' ed. 1726. 6 vols., paged and referred to as 3. folio. Stow. Chronicle. 1631. Traitez des droits et libertez de I'Eglise Gallicane. 1639. I vol. folio. Whitelock. Memorials. 1732. folio. Wilkins. Concilia. 1737. 4 vols, folio. Wood. Athenae Oxonienses. Bliss's ed. 1817. 4 vols. (Selden's Life is given in vol. iii. p. 366 ff.) THE DISCOURSE JOHN SELDEN, Esq. HIS SENSE OF VARIOUS MATTERS OF WEIGHT AND HIGH CONSEQUENCE RELATING ESPECIALLY TO RELIGION AND STATE Distingue tempora TO THE HONBLE Mr. justice HALE, ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE COMMON-PLEAS AND TO THE MUCH HONOURED EDWARD HEYWARD, JOHN VAUGHAN, AND ROWLAND JEWKS, ESQ^s Most Worthy Gentlemen, Were you not executors to that person, who {when he lived) lo was the glory of the nation, yet I am confident any thing of his would find acceptance with you, and truly the sense and notion here is wholly his, and most of the words. I had the opportunity to hear his discourse twenty years together, and lest all those excellent things that usually fell from him might be lost, some of them from time to time I faithfully committed to writing, which here digested into this method, I humbly present to your hands : you will quickly perceive them to be his by the familiar illustrations wherewith they are set off: in which way you know he was so happy, that [with a marvellous delight to those that heard him) he would presently 20 convey the highest points of religion, and the most important affairs of state to an ordinary apprehension. In reading be pleased to distinguish times, and in your fancy \ carry along with you the when and the why many of these things \ were spoken; this will give them the more life, and the smarter 1, relish. 'Tis possible the entertainment you find in them may render you the more inclinable to pardon the presumption of Your most obliged and most humble servant Rich. Milward. 30 1.2. Mr. Justice Hah, ) ,,., , , . , „ ,, , 1 I- J J tr J I Milward speaks of these as belden s executors. I. 5. Edward Heyward ) '^ I have therefore given the names as they stand in Selden's will (see Works, vol. i, Vita Authoris, p. 53), and as Milward may be assumed to have given them. THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN I. ABBEYS. PRIORIES. The unwillingness of the monks to part with their lands will fall out to be just nothing, because they were yielded up to the king by a supreme hand, viz*, a parliament. If a king conquer another country, the people are loth to lose their lands ; yet no divine will deny but the king may give them to whom he please. If a parliament make a law concerning leather, or any other commodity, you and I, for example, are parliament-men ; perhaps in respect to our own private interests we are against it, yet the lo Explaftaiion of sigtts. H. Harleian MS. 1315. H. z. Harleian MS. 690. S. Sloane MS. 2513. Lines, theywere yielded up to the king &.Q.i\ The lands were taken from the monks by two Acts of Parliament. The earlier, that oioq Henry VIII, cap. 28, gave the king the properties of the smaller houses, below a clear annual value of ^200. The next Act, that of 31 Henry VIII, cap. 13, confirmed the surrenders which the Abbots or Priors of the larger houses had in the meantime been threatened or cajoled into making. Selden's remarks, here, may have been suggested by any one of the numerous attacks made on church property in his own day. B % 4 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. major part concludes it; we are then involved, and the law is good. 2. When the founders of abbeys laid a curse upon them that should take away those lands, I would fain know what power they had to curse me. 'Tis not the curses that come from the poor, or from anybody, that do me hurt because they come from them ; but because I do something ill against them, that deserves God should curse me for it. On the other side, 'tis not a man's bless- lo ing me, that makes me blessed ; he only declares me to be so ; and if I do well, I shall be blessed, whether any bless me or not. 3. At the time of dissolution, they were tender in taking from the abbots and priors their lands and their houses, till they surrendered them, as most of them did. Indeed the prior of St. John's, Sir William Weston ^, being a stout ' William IVestoti] Richard Weston the High Treasurer in the early years MSS. and early editions ; probably of Charles' reign, through confusion with the name of 1. 3. when the founders of abbeys &c.] This may be an objection to one of the arguments which Selden had heard used by Dr. Hacket in defence of the sacredness of cathedral revenues. On May 12, 1641, there was a special session of the House of Commons to hear a dispute between Dr. Burgess, as assailant, and Dr. Hacket, as defender of these revenues ; and Hacket, in the course of his speech, urged that ' these ' (sc. the chapter revenues and lands) ' are dedicated to God ; the founders appoint the uses, and curse any that alter it.' See Vemey, Notes on the Long Parliament, p. 75-76. 1. 15. Indeed the prior of St. John's &c.] The priory of St. John of Jerusalem, the chief English seat of the Knights Hospitallers, was not touched by the Act of 31 Henry VHI, since the prior (as Selden implies) had not at that time surrendered ; nor does it appear that he ever did surrender. The priory lands were taken away by a special Act passed in the next year. The prior died in May, 1540, on the day on which the suppression took effect. In Dugdale's Monasticon (vol. vi. 800-805) there is a long list of the lands and farms which had be- longed to the priory. When the Knights Templars were suppressed, all their lands were given over to the Hospitallers ; see (7 Edward II) a letter De Terris quondam Templariorum Hospitalariis liberandis. The grant was confirmed by 6, 7, and 12 Edward III, and some tenements THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 5 man, got into France, and stood out a whole year ; at last submitted, and the king took in that priory also, to which the Temple belonged, and many other houses in England. They did not then cry no abbots, no priors, as we do now no bishops, no bishops. 4. Henry the 5th put away the friars aliens, and seized to himself ;£'ioo,ooo a year ; and therefore they were not the protestants only that took away church lands. 5. In Queen Elizabeth's time, when all the abbeys were pulled down, all good works defaced, then the preachers 10 must cry up justification by faith, not by good works. II. THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. The nine and thirty articles are much another thing in Latin, in which tongue they were made, than they are in London, which had been wrongfully seized by Hugh Despencer, were restored and secured to the Hospitallers. Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 809, 810. 1. 6. the friars aliens] These were religious orders, domiciled abroad, and holding land in England. They were pecked at several times before Henry Vth's reign. Edward I began in 1285 ; Edward III fol- lowed in 1337. In 1361 their lands were restored, but their revenues were still occasionally taken away for a while. They were sequestered during Richard II, and were finally expropriated in 2 Henry V. Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 985 ff. See also Prioratuum Alienigenorum Catalogus, qui Leicestrensi Parliamento suppressi sunt. Anno Henrici Quinti secundo. An. Dom. 1414. Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 1652-53. I. 13. much another thing in Latin &c.] See e. g. Article 9, in which ' quamvis renatis et credentibus nulla propter Christum est condem- natio,' is rendered by, ' although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized.' In Article 33, ' poenitentia ' is rendered ' penance ' — an error to which Selden seems to refer in the discourse on ' Penance.' The right claimed in Article 37, ' Christianis licet y^sto bella administrare,' is enlarged into ' it is lawful for Christian men to serve in the wars.' The older version of 1552 had translated the same 6 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. translated into English. They were made at three several convocations, and confirmed by act of parliament six or seven times after. There is a secret concerning them : of late, ministers have subscribed to all of them ; but by the act^ of parliament that confirmed them, they ought only to subscribe to those articles which contain matters of faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments, as appears by the first subscriptions. But Bishop Bancroft, in the convoca- tion held in King James's days, he began it; that ministers lo should subscribe to three things, to the king's supremacy, to the common prayer, and to the 39 articles : Many of them do not contain matter of faith. It is matter of faith how the church should be governed ? Whether infants should be baptized ? Whether we have any property in our goods ? 1 Acf, H. 2 and S.] Acts, H. words by ' to serve in laweful warres.' There are some other minor inaccuracies. 1. 2. six or seven times after] If this reading is to stand, the word ' times ' must be taken in a special sense— parliamentary sessions or terms. So, perhaps, in 'Confession,' sec. i, 'In time of Parlia- ment,' i. e. when Parliament had met. The Articles were confirmed once only, viz', in 1571, by 13 Elizabeth, chap. 12. 1. 5. by the act of parliament that confirmed them &c.] The Act orders that every minister (except certain specified persons) is to declare his assent, and subscribe to all the Articles of Religion which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments. The obUgation on the clergy to subscribe to the whole of the Articles was imposed at a Synod of the province of Canterbury, held in 1604, under the presidency of Bancroft, then Bishop of London. It was then settled that no one was to be ordained who had not stated in writing— Quod libro de religionis Articulis, in quos consensum est in Synodo Londinensi an. mdlxii. omnino comprobat, et quod omnes et singulos Articulos in eodem contentos, qui triginta novem citra ratifi- cationem numerantur, verbo Dei consentaneos esse agnoscit (Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 386). BAPTISM. 7 III. BAPTISM. 1. 'TwAS a good way to persuade men to be christened, to tell them that they had a foulness about them, viz*, original sin, that could not be washed away but by baptism. 2. The baptizing of children with us, doth only prepare a child, against he comes to be a man, to understand what Christianity means. In the church of Rome it has this effect, it frees children from hell. They say they go into limbus infantum. It succeeds circumcision, and we are sure the child understood nothing of that at eight days old. Why lo then may not we as reasonably baptize a child at that age ? In England, of late years, I ever thought the priest baptized his own fingers rather than the child. 3. In the primitive times they had godfathers to see the children brought up in the christian religion, because many times, when the father was a christian, the mother was not ; and sometimes when the mother was a christian, the father was not ; and therefore they made choice of two or more that were christians, to see the children brought up in that faith. . 20 1. 8. it frees children from hell. They say they go &c.] i. e. They say that unbaptized children go, &c. The Limbus Infantum was one of the divisions of hell. In the Church of Rome baptism is said to free children from this. See Canons, &c. of the Council of Trent, Session v. sec. 2, 3, 4. On the limbus puerorum, the place of eternal punishment for those qui solo originalipeccatogravantur, and on the degree of punish- ment, the mitissimam poenam which they are alleged to suffer, see Aquinas, Summa Theolog. Supplementum sW"" partis, quaest. 69, art. 5 & 6. So, too, Moroni (Eccles. Diet, under title Limbo, Limbus) writes — II secondo luogo, che chiamasi limbo o limbus puerorum, e quello in che vanno i bambini morti senza battesimo. Many various opinions are collected as to the nature and extent of their punishment. That it is to be eternal all the cited authorities agree. So, too, Dante writes of the occupants of the Limbo, or first circle of the Inferno, a vast crowd of infants, women, and men, there placed perche non ebber bat- tesmo, and suffering only dual sen&a martin. Inferno, Canto iv. 28-35. 8 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. V IV. BASTARD. 'Tis said, 23 Deuteron. 2, A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to the tenth generation. Non ingredietur ecclesiam Domini, he shall not enter into the church. The meaning of the phrase is, he shall not marry a Jewish woman. But upon this ground, grossly mistaken, a bastard at this day in the church of Rome, without a dispensation, cannot take orders. The thing haply well enough, where 'tis so settled : but that 'tis ^ upon 10 a mistake (the place having no reference to the church) ap- pears plainly by what follows at the 3 verse ; An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to the tenth generation. Now you know with the Jews an Ammonite or a Moabite could never be a priest ; because their priests were born so, not made. ' But that tis, S.] H. and H. 2, omit ' that.' 1. 5. The meaning of the phrase is &c.] Selden, in his De Successione in Pontificatum Ebraeorum, says that the sense which he gives here to the words is universally accepted among the Jews. Works, ii. p. 158. 1.6. But upon this ground, &.c^ That the rule in the Church of Rome was based on this text is stated, conjecturally, by Pope Gregory IX. In a letter addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the appoint- ment of a bastard to the see of Worcester, Gregory declares — Nos ergo cum fratribus nostris habito super hoc diligenti tractatu, relectis canonibus, quosdam invenimus qui non legitime genitos promoveri vetant ad officium pastorale, causam forte trahentes ex lege divina per quam spurii et manzeres usque in decimam generationem in ecclesiam Dei prohibentur intrare. The matter is then debated pro and con, and the Pope concludes that although, according to a canon of the Lateran Council, the appointment is irregular, yet he has a dispensing power. Decretales Gregorii IX, lib. i. tit. 6, cap. xx. Corpus Juris Canonici, vol. 2, pp. 61, 62 (ed. 2 by Friedberg, 1881). So, too, Boniface VIII insists on the need of a dispensation, episcopal for the lesser orders, papal for the greater. Ibid. p. 977. Aquinas cites the text as one among the arguments against the BASTARD. — BIBLE, SCRIPTURE. 9 V. BIBLE, SCRIPTURE, 1. 'Tis a great question how we know Scripture to be Scripture, whether by the Church, or by man's private spirit. Let me ask you how I know anything? How I know this carpet to be green ? First, because somebody told me it was green : that you call the church in your way. And then after I have been told it is green, when I see that colour again, I know it to be green, my own eyes tell me it is green ; that you call the private spirit. 2. The English translation of the Bible, is the best trans- 10 lation in the world, and renders the sense of the original best, taking in for the English translation the Bishops' Bible as well as king James's. The translators ^ in king James's time took an excellent way. That part of the Bible was given to him who was most excellent in such a tongue (as the Apocrypha to Andrew Downs) and then they met together, and one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c. If they found any fault they spoke ; if not, he read on. 3° ^ Translators, H. 2, corrected from 'translation'] 'translation,' H. admission of bastards to orders. He concludes against their admission without a dispensation, but on general grounds, and without further reference to the text. Summa Theolog. Supplement, 3 part, quaest. 39, art. 5. 1.2. ' Tis a great question &.C.] This question is discussed very fully in the course of the celebrated conference between Laud and the Jesuit Fisher, the first complete account of which was published in 1639. Laud handles the matter at greater length and with more unction than Selden ; but for the most part substantially to the same effect. See Laud's Works, vol. ii. p. 70 ff. 1. 10. The English translation &c.] For an account of the persons employed in the translation, and of the rules which they were in- structed to follow, see Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 432, and Fuller's Church History, bk. x. sec. 3, § i, with note h in Brewer's edition. lo THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. \ 3. There is no book so translated as the Bible. For the I purpose, if I translate a French book into English, I turn it into English phrase, not into French English. II fait froid, I say, it is cold, not it makes cold ; but the Bible is translated into English words rather than into English phrase. The Hebraisms are kept, and the phrase of that language is kept : as for example, [He uncovered her shame] which is well enough, so long as scholars have to do with it ; but when it comes among the common people, lord, 10 what gear do they make of it ! 4. Scrutamini scripturas. These two words have undone the world. Because Christ spake it to his disciples, there- fore we must all, men, women, and children, read and in- terpret the Scriptures. 5. Henry the 8th made a law, that all men might read the Scriptures, except servants ; but no women, except ladies and gentlewomen, who had leisure, and might ask somebody the meaning. The law was repealed in Edward the 6th days. 20 6. Laymen have best interpreted the hard places of the Bible, such as Joannes Picus, Scaliger, Grotius, Salmasius, Heinsius, &c. 7. If you ask, Which, of Erasmus, Beza, or Grotius, did best upon the New Testament? 'tis an idle question, for they did all well in their way. Erasmus broke down the first brick ; Beza added many things, and Grotius added much to him, in whom we have either something new, or 1. 1. For the purpose] i. e. for instance : for proof of what I say. A phrase used by Selden elsewhere. See ' Trade,' sec. i, and — Eudoxus yet hath otherwise placed them ; as for the purpose, the spring equinox on the sixth day after the sun's entrance into Aries &c. Works, iii. 1415. 1. 10. what gear] i. e. what stuff. 1. II. Scrutamini] Gk. ipevvare, probably the Present Indicative, and if so the words have been doubly misinterpreted. 1. 15. Henry the Qth made a law] This was 34 & 35 Henry VIII, ch. i. BIBLE, SCRIPTURE. ii else something heightened that was said before ; and so 'twas necessary to have them all three. 8. The text serves only to guess by; we must satisfy j ourselves fully out of the authors that lived about those times. 9. In interpreting the scripture, many do, as if a man should see one have ten pounds, which he reckoned by i, 2) 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, g, 10 ; meaning four was but four units, and five five units, &c., and that he had in all but ten pounds ; the other that sees him, takes not the figures 10 together as he doth, but picks here and there, and there- upon reports, that he has five pounds in one bag, and six pounds in another bag, and nine pounds in another bag, &c. when as in truth, he hath but ten pounds in all. So we pick out a text here and there to make it serve our turn ; whereas, if we took it all together, and considered what went before, and what followed after, we should find it meant no such matter. 10. Make no more allegories in scripture than needs must. The fathers were too frequent in them : they indeed, 20 before they fully understood the literal sense, looked out for an allegory. The folly whereof you may conceive thus ; here at the first sight appears to me in my window, a glass and a book, I take it for granted 'tis a glass and a book ; thereupon I go about to tell you what they signify ; afterwards, upon nearer view, they prove no such things ; one is a box made hke a book, the other is a picture made like a glass. Where's now my allegory ? 11. When men meddle with the literal text, the question is, where they should stop? In this case, a man must 30 venture his discretion, and do his best to satisfy himself and others in those places where he doubts. For although 1. 20. The fathers were too frequent in them] This is amply verified by the 120 closely printed pages of the Index de Allegoriis, in the second vol. of the Indices to Migne's Patrologiae Cursus Completus, p. 123 ff. 12 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. we call the Scripture the word of God (as it is) yet it was writ by a man, a mercenary man, whose copy either might be false, or he might make it false : for example, here were a thousand bibles printed in England with the text thus, [Thou shalt commit adultery] the word not left out. Might not this text be mended? 12. The scripture may have more senses besides the literal; because God understands all things at once ; but a man's writing has but one true sense, which is that which lo the author meant when he writ it. 13. When you meet with several readings of the text, take heed you admit nothing against the tenets of your church ; but do as if you were going over a bridge, be sure and hold fast by the rail, and then you may dance here and there as you please ; be sure you keep to what is settled, and then you may flourish upon your various lections. 14. The Apocrypha is bound with the Bibles of all churches that have been hitherto. Why should we leave it out? The church of Rome has her Apocrypha, viz'. 20 Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, which she does not ( 1. 4. here were a thousand Bibles &c.] Mr. Barker, the printer. There is a cause begunne against him for false printing of the Bible in divers places of it, in the edition of 1631, viz* in the 20 of Exod[us] ' Thou shalt committ adultery' ; and in the fifte of Deut[eronomy] 'The Lord hath shewed us his glory, and his great asse ' ; and for divers other faults. High Commission Cases, pp. 296 and 304 (Camden Society). Barker was not the only sufferer. Laud's account is that — among them (i. e. the printers) their negligence was such as that there were found above a thousand faults in two editions of the Bible and Common Prayer-Book. And one, which caused this search, was that in Exod. XX. where they had shamefully printed, Thou shalt commit adultery. For this, the masters of the printing house were called into the High Commission, and censured, as they well deserved it ... . And , Hunsford, being hit in his credit, purse, and friends, by that censure u\ •■ ' for so gross an abuse of the Church and religion, labours to fasten his fangs upon me. History of the Troubles and Trial of Abp. Laud, Laud's , Works, iv. 165 and 195. This edition was known as ' the wicked Bible.' 1. 20. Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon] This is not so. Susannah BISHOPS BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT. 13 esteem equally with the rest of those books that we call Apocrypha. VI. BISHOPS BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT. T. A BISHOP, as a bishop, had never any ecclesiastical jurisdiction : for as soon as he was electus confirmatus, that is, after the three proclamations in Bow-church, he might exercise jurisdiction, before he was consecrated ; but till then ^ he was no bishop, neither could he give orders. Be- sides, suffragans were bishops, and they never claimed any jurisdiction. 1 • But till then, H. 2, corrected] not till then, H. and Bel and the Dragon are canonical in the Church of Rome. They are not specially named in the Decree of the Council of Trent, settling the Canon of Scripture, because they are printed in the Vulgate as part of the book of Daniel, and come, therefore, under the general rule that the books named as canonical are to be received entire, with all their parts, as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate. The only books of the Apocrypha not received as canonical are the 3rd and 4th Books of Esdras (printed in the English Apocrypha as Esdras i & 2) and the Prayer of Manasseh. See Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Session iv. Accordingly, in the Douay version, the History of Susannah and Bel and the Dragon stand in their appointed place as parts of the canonical book of Daniel. 1. 4. A bishop as a bishop &c.] Selden discusses this very fully in his De Synedriis veterum Ebraeorum, lib. I, ch. 13. vol. i. p. 1066. 1. 6. three proclamations'] These were and are part of the ceremony of confirmation. Strype in his life of Archbishop Parker, bk. ii. ch. i, gives an exact account of the whole process in Parker's case, as it was performed in the church of St. Mary de Arcubus [i. e. Mary le Bow in Cheapside] . . . The consecration — until which he ' was no bishop, neither could he give orders '—came eight days afterwards. 1. 9. suffragans'] These are expressly said to have ' no authority or jurisdiction beyond that expressed in their licenses by a bishop or archbishop to whom they are suffragans by commission under seal.' 26 Henry VIII, ch. 14, sec. 6. 14 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. 2. Anciently the noblemen lay within the city for safety and security. The bishops' houses were by the water side, because they were held sacred persons, which no- body would hurt. 3. There was some sense for commendams at first ; when there was a living void, and never a clerk to serve it, the bishops were to keep it till they found a fit man ; but now 'tis a trick for the bishop to keep it to himself. 4. For a bishop to preach 'tis to do other folks' office. 10 As if the steward of the house should execute the porter's or the cook's place ; 'tis his business to see that they and all others about the house perform their duties. 5. That which is thought to have done the bishops hurt, 1. 5. commendams\ It was one of Archbishop Laud's projects ' to annex for ever some settled commendams, and those, if it may be, sine cura, to all the small bishoprics.' Laud's Works, vol. iii. p. 254. That he had done this was one of the charges brought against him at his trial. In his history of his trial, he explains and defends his act, but he adds in the course of his remarks about it — ' I considered that the commendams taken at large and far distant, caused a great dislike and murmur among many men. That they were in some cases materia odiosa and justly complained of.' Works, vol. iv. p. 177. For further proof of the abuse of which Selden speaks, see Sir Ralph Verney's Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament, p. 14, giving the heads of a remonstrance of some of the clergy, referring inter alia to commendams. The remonstrance says, in Article 16, ' Bishops hold commendams and never come at them. As Main- waring, Bishop of St. Davids, and the Bishop of Chester hold two of j^iioo per annum.' 1. 9. For a bishop to preach &c.] That bishops did not preach is among the charges made against them by Nathaniel Fiennes (Feb. 1640). Nalson, Collections, i. 758. See, too, Sir Benjamin Rudyard's speech on Sir E. Deering's Bill for the abolishing of bishops, &c. (May, 1641). Some of ours, as soon as they are bishops, adepto fine, cessat motus, they will preach no longer, their office is to govern. But in my opinion they govern worse than they preach, though they preach not at all, for we see to what a pass their government hath brought us. Nalson, Collections, ii. 249. 1. 13. That which is thought &c.] Clarendon, after speaking of the slovenly state into which many churches had fallen during Archbishop Abbot's time, and of the irregular way in which the services had in BISHOPS BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT. 15 is their going about to bring men to a blind obedience, im- posing things upon them [though perhaps small and well enough] without preparing them, and insinuating into their reasons and fancies. Every man loves to know his com- mander. I wear those gloves, but perhaps if an alderman should command me, I should think much to do it. What has he to do with me ? Or if he has, peradventure I do not know it. This jumping upon things at first dash will destroy all. To keep up friendship there must be little addresses and applications ; whereas bluntness spoils it 10 quickly. To keep up the hierarchy, there must be appli- cations made to men, they must be brought on by little and little ; so in the primitive times the power was gained, and so it must be continued. Scaliger said of Erasmus ; st minor esse voluerit, major fuisset ; so we may say of the bishops, si minores esse voluerint, 7najores fuissent. many places been performed, adds — ' This profane liberty and un- cleanliness the Archbishop [i. e. Laud] resolved to reform with all expedition, requiring the other bishops to concur with him in so pious a work.' He adds, presently, that — ' The Archbishop prosecuted this affair more passionately than was fit for the season ; and had pre- judice against those who, out of fear or foresight, or not understanding the thing, had not the same warmth to promote it. The bishops who had been preferred by his favour, or who hoped to be so, were at least as solicitous to bring it to pass in their respective dioceses ; and some of them with more passion and less circumspection than they had his example for, or than he approved ; prosecuting those who opposed them very fiercely, and sometimes unwarrantably, which was kept in remembrance.' Clarendon, Hist. vol. i. 148 ff. 1. 9. little applications] i. e. (as explained at length by Bacon in the Adv. of Learning) — 'the observing carefully a man's manners and customs, with the intention to understand him sufficiently whereby not to give him offence.' Lord Bacon's Works (Ellis and Spedding), vol. iii. 279. 1.14. Scaliger said &c.] The nearest I can find to this is a passage in J. J. Scaliger's Table Talk. Erasmus perspicacissimo vir ingenio, se ipso baud dubie futurus major (quod scribit Paulus Jovius) si Latinae linguae conditores imitari, quam petulanti linguae indulgere maluisset. Prima Scaligerana, sub voce Erasmus. 1. 15. voluerit,] voluit MSS. and early printed editions. i6 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. 6. The bishops were too hasty; else with a discreet slowness they might have had what they aimed at. The old story of the fellow that told the gentleman he might get to such a place if he did not ride too fast, would have fitted their turn. 7. For a bishop to cite an old canon to strengthen his new articles, is as if a lawyer should plead an old statute that has been repealed God knows how long. VII. BISHOPS IN THE PARLIAMENT. o I. Bishops have the same right to sit in Parliament as the best of earls and barons ; that is, those that were made 1. 6. For a bishop to cite Sec] This was done in the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, put out in 1640 by the Synods of the two Provinces. See Canon v. ' Against Sectaries ' and Canon ix on the summary or collection of visitatory articles which the Synod had caused to be made out of the rubric and the canons and warrantable rules of the Church. Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 548 and 550. 1. 10. Bishops have the same right &c.] The various objections, here stated and answered, to the right of bishops to sit in Parliament, to the nature of their seat by office and not by blood, and to the policy of allowing them to meddle with temporal affairs, were raised from time to time in the long series of discussions which led finally to the aboli- tion of their right and then of their office. See, especially, the reasons offered by the Commons in reply to the reasons offered by the Lords in favour of the bishops, June, 1641. They cover most of the points raised in this chapter of the Table Talk. The Commons do conceive that bishops ought not to have votes in Parliament. First, because it is a very great hindrance to the exercise of their ministerial function. (2) Because they do vow and undertake at their ordination, when they enter into Holy Orders, that they will give themselves wholly to that vocation. (5) Because they are but for their lives, and therefore are not fit to have legislative power over the honours, inheritances, persons, and liberties of others. (6) Because of bishops' dependency and expectation of translation to places of greater profit. Nalson, Collections, ii. 260. BISHOPS IN THE PARLIAMENT. 17 by writ. If you ask one of them [Arundel, Oxford, North- umberland] why they sit in the house ? they can only say, their father sat there before them \ and their grandfather before him, &c. And so says the bishop : he that was a bishop of this place before me, sat in the house, and he that was a bishop before him, &c. Indeed your later earls and barons have it expressed in their patents, that they shall be called to the parHament. Objection. But the lords sit there by blood, the bishops not. J Answer. 'Tis true, they sit not there both the same way, yet that takes not away the bishop's right. If I am a parson of a parish, I have as much right to my glebe and tithes, as you have to your land, that your ancestors have had in that parish 800 years. 2. The bishops were not barons, because they had ^ Before them, H. 2] so originally in H. ' him ' is written over ' them.' 1. 16. The bishops were not barons &c.J What Selden here denies was among the statements made by Mr. Bagshaw, Reader of the Middle Temple, in his speech in Hall (1639) on the thesis Whether it be a good Act of Parliament that is made without the assent of the Lords Spiritual. He argues that it is good, because inter alia ' they do not sit in Parliament as bishops, but by reason of the baronies annexed to their bishopricks, which was done 5 W. I, and all of them have baronies except the Bishop of Man, and he is not called to Parliament.' White- lock, Memorials, p. 33. Selden explains his point more fully in his Titles of Honour, part ii. ch. 5, vol. iii. pp. 659, 724, 727. He shows that in the Saxon times the lay claim to be included in the Witenagemot was the holding of land of the king in chief by knight's service. Those who so held were, after the Normans, parliamentary barons, and their tainlands only were the parliamentary baronies. But in Saxon times, the bishops did not hold by this tenure, yet they were none the less summoned regularly to the Witenagemot, and had voice and place as bishops. And thus their freedom from that tenure .... continued it seems till the fourth year of King William I, when he made the bishopricks and abbeys subject to knight's service in chief, by creation of new tenures, and so first turned their possessions into baronies, and thereby made them barons of the kingdom by tenure. C j8 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. baronies annexed to their bishoprics (for few of them had so, unless the old ones, Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, &c. the new erected we are sure had none, as Gloucester, Peterborough, &c. Besides, few of the temporal lords had any baronies). But they are barons, because they are called by writ to the parHament, and bishops were in the parliament ever since there is any mention or sign of a parr liament in England. 3. Bishops may be judged by the peers, though in time 10 of popery it never happened, because they pretended they were not obnoxious to a secular court ; but their way was to cry. Ego sum frater domini papce, I am a brother to my lord the pope, and therefore take not myself to be judged by you. In this case they impannelled a Middlesex jury, and dispatched the business. 4. Whether may bishops be present in case of blood ? 1. 3. as Gloucester, Peterborough &c.] These" were among the six bishoprics founded by Henry VHI out of part of the spoils of the monasteries. On the nature of their endowment see the king's grant to the bishopric of Gloucester : ' Damus .... habenda et tenenda omnia et singula praedicta, Aulas, Cubicula .... domos aedificia et caetera omnia et singula praemissa praefato episcopo Gloucestriae et successoribus suis imperpetuum, tenenda de nobis haeredibus et sucr cessoribus nostris in puram et perpetuam eleemosinam.' Rymer, Foedera, xiv. 727 (1712 fol.). ' So, too, in the case of Peterborough, the king (1542) grants to the -bishop and his successors, various manors and rents (valued at ^^368 IIS. (>d), in puram et perpetuam eleemosynam, and subject to de- ductions only for tenths and first-fruits.' Willis, Survey of Cathedrals, iii. 493 (London, 1742, 3 vols.). 1. 9. Bishops m,ay be judged &c.] Selden, in his treatise on the privi- leges of the baronage, lays it down as a rule of the common law that bishops, although unquestionably peers of the realm, were to be tried bj' common juries and were in fact so tried ; no regard being paid to their claim as churchmen to be free from lay jurisdiction. He gives several instances in which this claim was made and disallowed, and the trial had by a common jury. Works, iii. 1538 if. 1. 16. Whether may bishops be present &c.] This question became prominent and was hotly disputed at the trial of the Earl of Strafford. BISHOPS IN THE PARLIAMENT. 19 Answer. That they had a right to give votes, appears by this ; always when they did go out, they left a proxy ; and in the time of the abbots, one man had 10, 20, or 30 voices. In Richard the ad's time there was a protestation against the canons, by which they were forbidden to be pre- sent in case of blood. The statute of the 25th of Henry the 8th may go a great way in this business. The clergy were forbidden to use or cite any canon, &c. but in the later end of the statute, there was a clause, that such canons as were in usage in this kingdom, should be in force till the thirty- iq two commissioners appointed should make others ; pro- vided they were not contrary to the king's supremacy, Now the question will be, whether these canons for blood were in use in this kingdom or no ? The contrary whereof may appear by many precedents in Richard 3 and Henry 7 and the beginning of Henry 8 ^ in which time there were more attainted than since, or scarce before. The canons of irregularity for blood were never received in England, but upon pleasure. If a lay lord was attainted, the bishops ' Richard, Henry, Henry, H. 2] initials only in H. The bishops were denied all meddling even in the commission of preparatory examinations concerning the Earl of Strafford, as causa sanguinis, and they as men of mercy, not to deal in the condemnation of any person. Fuller, Church History, bk. xi. sec. 9, § 10. That bishops were forbidden by the canons to pronounce sentence of condemnation at trials on a capital charge, is clear. See e.g. Wilkins, Concilia, vol. i. 1 12, 365 and 474. On the authority of the canons, as law, it is laid down by 25 Henry VIII, chap. 19, that the canons are not to be pleaded or used if con- trary to the king's prerogative or to the customs, laws and statutes of the kingdom — canons, not thus contrary, to be in force, as Selden states. In the case referred to in Richard IPs time, the exclusion of the bishops was a concession granted to them at their own request. The whole subject is discussed exhaustively in the opinion delivered by the Bishop of Lincoln (Williams) as to the right of the bishops to be present at Strafford's trial. Hacket, Life of WilUams, part ii. P- 153 ff- C 2 20 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. assented to his condemning, and were always present at the passing of the bill of attainder : but if a spiritual lord, they went out, as if they cared not whose head was cut off, so none of their own. In those days the bishops, being of great houses, were often entangled with the lords in matters of treason; but when d'ye hear of a bishop- traitor now? 5. You would not have bishops meddle with temporal affairs. Think who you are that say it. If a Papist, they 10 do in your church ; if an English Protestant, they do among you ; if a Presbyterian, where you have no bishops, you mean your Presbyterian lay elders should meddle with temporal affairs as well as spiritual. Besides, all jurisdic- tion is temporal, and in no church but they have some jurisdiction or other. The question then will be reduced to magis and minus ; they meddle more in one church than in another. 1. 8. You tvould not have bishops meddle with temporal affairs, &c.] So in 1641, a bill was introduced for the second time to forbid bishops having votes in Parliament or holding any temporal office, 'the greatest argument being that their intermeddling with temporal affairs was inconsistent with, and destructive to, the exercise of their spiritual function.' Clarendon, i. 470. The same argument was used by Lord Say and Sele (June 1641), who based it on the Scriptural rule that — ' No man that warreth, en- tangleth himself with the affairs of the world.' Nalson, Collections, ii. 268. Early in 1641, a committee of the House of Commons, appointed to consider a remonstrance of some ministers, and the London petition for the better government of the Church, voted, inter alia, that Article 6, complaining that bishops were encumbered with temporal power and state affairs, was material and fit to be considered by the House. Sir R. Verney's Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament, pp. 4-14. Most of the questions treated in the Table Talk, were raised in the course of this inquiry. See, too,—' It is not possible for one man to discharge two functions, whereof either is sufficient to employ the whole man, especially that of the ministry, so great that they ought not to entangle themselves with the affairs of this world.' Speech of Nathaniel Fiennes, Feb. 1640-41. Nalson, Collections, i. 757. BISHOPS IN THE PARLIAMENT. 21 6. Objection. Bishops give not their votes by blood in parliament, but by an office annexed to them ; which being taken away, they cease to vote ; therefore there is not the same reason for them as for temporal lords. Answer. We do not pretend they have that power the same way, but they have a right ; he that has an office in Westminster-hall for his life, the office is as much his, as his land is his that has land by inheritance. 7. Whether had the inferior clergy ever anything to do in the parliament ? i Answer. No, no otherwise than thus; there were certain of the clergy that did use to assemble near the parliament, with whom the bishops, upon occasion, might consult; (but there were none of the convocation, as it was after- wards settled, viz', the dean, the archdeacon, one for the Instances to the same eflFect will be iound passim in the debates and speeches of the time. 1. I. Bishops give not their votes by blood &c.] This was one of the stock arguments against the bishops. See, e.g. ' If they may remove bishops, they may as well next time remove barons and earls. ' Answer. The reason is not the same, the one sitting by an honour invested in their blood and hereditary, which though it be in the king to grant alone yet being once granted he cannot take away. The other sitting by a barony depending upon an office, which may be taken away ; for if they be deprived of their office they sit not.' Speech of Lord Say and Sele, June, 1641. Nalson, Collections, ii. 268. 1. 14. the convocation as it was afterwards settled] In or about 1283, a canon was framed which may be regarded as settling historically the representation of the clergy in the convocation of the province of Canterbury. The rule laid down is ' ut in proxima congregatione .... praeter personas episcoporum et procuratores absentium, veniant duo aut unus a clero episcopatuum singulorum.' The Archbishop's full writ, of which the canon is a copy, summons the attendance of bishops, abbots, priors, deans, and archdeacons throughout the pro- vince of Canterbury. Also ' de qualibet diocesi duo procuratores nomine cleri, et de singulis capitulis ecclesiarum cathedralium et col- legiatarum singuli procuratores.' Stubbs, Documents illustrative of English History, pp. 452 and 456. 22 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. chapter, two for the diocese) but it happened by continu- ance of time (to save charges and trouble), their voices and the consent of the whole clergy were involved in the bishops, and at this day the bishops' writs run, to bring all these to the parliament, but the bishops themselves stand for all. 8. Bishops were formerly of these two conditions ; either men bred canonists and civilians, sent up and down am- bassadors to Rome and other parts, and so by their merit 10 came to that greatness ; or else great noblemen's sons, or brothers, or nephews, and so born to govern the state. Now they are of a low condition, their education nothing of that way; he gets a living, and then a greater living, and then a greater than that, and so comes to govern. 9. Bishops are now unfit to govern, because of their learning : they are bred up in another law : they run to the text for something done amongst the Jews, that nothing concerns England. 'Tis just as if a man would have a kettle, and he would not go to our braziers to have it 20 made, as they make kettles ; but he would have it made as Hiram made his brass-work, who wrought in Solomon's temple. ID. To take away bishops' votes, is but the beginning to 1. 23. To take away bishops' votes &c.] This was borne out by the event. ' In 1646, by ordinance of Parliament, the name, title, style, and dignity of archbishop and bishop were wholly taken away, from and after September 5, and all and every person was disabled to hold the place, function, or stile of archbishop or bishop.' Rushworth, Hist. Collections, vol. vi. 373. That they will ' always go for the king, as he will have them ' was, in effect, one of the arguments used against them in 1641. ' The Com- mons do conceive that bishops ought not to have votes in Parliament, because .... of bishops' dependency and expectation of translation to places of greater profit.' Nalson, Collections, ii. 261. So, too, Lord Say and Sele, in the course of a debate in the same year, urges that bishops 'have such an absolute dependency upon the king that they sit not here as freemen .... For their fears, they cannot lay them down, since their places and seats in BISHOPS OUT OF THE PARLIAMENT. 23 take them away ; for then they can be of no longer use to the king or state. 'Tis but Hke the little wimble, to let in the greater auger. Objection. But they are but for their life, and that makes them always go for the king as he will have them. Answer. This is against a double charity ; for you must always suppose a bad king and bad bishops. Then again, whether will a man be sooner content, himself should be made a slave, or his son after him ? [when we talk of our children we mean ourselves]. Besides, they 10 that have posterity are more obliged to the king than they that are only for themselves, in all the reason in the world. 11. How shall the clergy be in the parliament, if the bishops be taken away ? Answer. By the laity ; because the bishops, in whom the rest of the clergy are included, assent to the taking away their own votes, by being involved in the major part of the house. This follows naturally. 12. The bishops being put out of the house, whom will 20 they lay the fault upon now ? When the dog is beat out of the room where will they lay the stink ? VIII. BISHOPS OUT OF THE PARLIAMENT. I. In the beginning, bishops and presbyters were alike ; like your gentleman in the country, whereof one is made Parliament are not invested in them by blood, and so hereditary, but by annexation of a barony to their office ; and depending upon that office and thereby of their places, at the king's pleasure they .... sit ... . but at will and pleasure.' Nalson, Collections, ii. 268. 1. 20. The bishops being put out of the house &c.] This was done in 1642, when the king was at length induced to give his consent to the Bill excluding them. Clarendon, i. 668. 1. 24. In the beginning, bishops and presbyters &c.] The question 24 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. deputy-lieutenant, another justice of peace ; so one is made a bishop, another a dean : And that kind of govern- ment by archbishops and bishops no doubt came in, in imitation of the temporal government, no jure divino. In time of the Roman empire, where they had a legatus, there they placed an archbishop ; where they had a rector, there a bishop ; that every one might be instructed in Christi- anity, which now they had received into the empire. 2. They that speak ingenuously^ of bishops and presby- ' Ingenuously] MSS. ingeniously. The two words are confused in several places. raised in the first three sections as to the identity of bishops and presbyters was one of the stock subjects of dispute in Selden's day. After the triumph of the Presbyterian party, it was answered by the legislature in the affirmative : — ' Whereas the word Presbyter, that is to say Elder, and the word Bishop, do in the Scripture intend and signify one and the same function, although the title of Bishop hath been by corrupt custom appropriated to one, &c. ' Nov. 8, 1645.' Ordinance of Lords and Commons. Rushworth, Collections, vi. 212. Selden's view agrees with, and was not improbably based upon, that of Archbishop Usher, to whom he was in the habit of referring, and for whose judgment he had a great and merited respect. Usher^ his biographer Parr writes, was charged ' That he ever declared his opinion to be, that Episcopus et Presbyter gradu tantum differunt non ordine — which opinion,' says Parr, ' I cannot deny to have been my Lord Primate's since I find the same written almost verbatim with his own hand, dated Nov. 26, 1655. And that the Lord Primate was always of this opinion I find by another note of his own hand, written in another book many years before this.' Parr adds some limitations and cautions ; but subject to these, confirms the opinion from other writers. ' So that you see,' he adds, ' that as learned men, and as stout asserters of episcopacy as any the Church of England hath had, have been of the Lord Primate's judgment in this matter, though without any design to lessen the order of bishops or to take away their use in the Church.' — Life of Usher, Appendix, pp. 5-7. 1. 4. In time of the Roman Empire &c.] Bingham, Christian An- tiquities, bk. ix. goes minutely into this, and shows in detail that the Church, in setting up metropolitan, patriarchal, and episcopal sees, commonly took the model from the civil divisions of the state. BISHOPS OUT OF THE PARLIAMENT. 25 ters say, that a bishop is a greater presbyter, and during the time of his being bishop, above a presbyter : as the president of the college of physicians, is above the rest, yet he himself no more than a doctor of physic. 3. The word {bishop] and [presbyter] are promiscuously used; that is confessed by all: and though the word bishop be in Timothy and Titus, yet that will not prove the bishops ought to have a jurisdiction over the pres- byters, though Timothy or Titus had by the order that was given them. Somebody must take care of the rest : 10 and that jurisdiction was but to excommunicate ; and that was but to tell them they should come no more into their company. Or grant they did make canons one for another, before they came to be in the state : does it follow they must do so when the state has received them into it? What if Timothy had power in Ephesus, and Titus in Crete over the presbyters ? Does it follow therefore our bishops must have the same in England? Must we be governed like Ephesus or Crete ? 4. However some of the bishops pretend to be jure 20 divino, yet the practice of the kingdom has ever been otherwise ; for whatsoever bishops do otherwise than the 1. 20. However some of the bishops pretend &c.] This was and has ever been the claim of the High Church party. We find it e.g. asserted by Andrewes, and approved by Laud, and in express terms asserted by Laud himself. See ' Die Mercurii, ostendi rationes regi cur chartae Episcopi Winton. defuncti, de episcopis quod sint jure divino, praelo tradendae sint, &c.' Laud's Diary, Jan. 17, 1626; Works, iii. 199. ' We maintain that our calling of bishops is jure divino, by divine right. . . This I will say and abide by it, that the calling of bishops is jure divino, by divine right, though not all adjuncts to their calling.' Speech at the censure of Bastwick, Burton, and Prynne ; Works, vi. pt. i. p. 43. Selden's argument to the contrary seems to be based on the legal control exercised over bishops in the discharge of their functions, most notably in the matter of excommunications. See ' Excommuni- cation.' 26 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. law permits, Westminster-hall can controul, or send them to absolve, &c. 5. He that goes about to prove bishops to he jure divino, does as a man that, having a sword, shall strike it against an anvil ; if he strike it awhile there, he may peradventure loosen it, though it be never so well riveted ; it will serve to cut flesh or strike another sword, but not against an anvil. 6. If you should say, you held your land by Moses' or 10 God's law, and would try it by that, you may perhaps lose ; but by the law of the kingdom you are sure of it. So may the bishops by this plea of jure divino lose all. The pope had as good a title by the law of England as could be had, had he not left that, and claimed by power from God. 7. There is no government enjoined by example, but by precept : it does not follow we must have bishops still, be- cause we have had them so long. They are equally mad who say bishops are so jure divino that they must be 20 continued; and they who say, they are so anti-christian that they must be put away. All is as the state likes. 8. To have no ministers but presbyters, 'tis as if in the temporal state, they should have no officers but constables, and justices of peace which are but greater constables. Bishops do best stand with monarchy ; that as amongst the laity, you have dukes, lord-lieutenants, judges, %lc. to send down the king's pleasure to his subjects; so you have bishops to govern the inferior clergy : these upon occasion may address themselves to the king, otherwise every 30 parson of the parish must come and run up to the court. 9. The protestants have no bishops in France, because 1. 31. The protestants have &c.] Probably suggested by Usher, who is quoted by his biographer Parr, as excusing or palliating the absence of bishops in the Churches of France on the ground that they are ' living under a popish power and cannot do what they would.' Parr's Life, Appendix, pp. 5 and 6. BISHOPS OUT OF THE PARLIAMENT. 27 they live in a catholic country, and they will not have cathoHc bishops; therefore they must govern themselves as Virell as they may. 10. What is that to the purpose, to what end bishops' lands were given to them at first ? We must look to the law and custom of the place. What is that to any temporal lord's estate, how lands were first divided, or how in William the Conqueror's days? And if men at first are juggled out of their estates, yet they are rightly their successors. If my father cheat a man, and he con- to sents to it, the inheritance is rightly mine. 11. If there be no bishops, there must be something else which has the power of bishops, though it be in many; and then had you not as good keep them ? If you will have no half-crowns, but only single pence, yet 30 single pence are a half-crown ; and then had you not as good keep both? But the bishops have done ill. 'Twas the men, not the function. As if you should say, you would have no more half-crowns, because they were stolen, when the truth is they were not stolen because they were half- 20 crowns, but because they were money, and light in a thief's hands. 12. They that would pull down the bishops and erect a new way of government, do as he that pulls down an old house, and builds another of another fashion. There's a great deal ado, and a great deal of trouble ; the old rubbish must be carried away, and new materials must be brought ; workmen must be provided; and perhaps the old one would have served as well. 13. If the prelatical and presbyterian party should dis-30 pute, who should be judge ? Indeed in the beginning of queen Elizabeth there was such a difference between the 1. 31. Indeed in the beginning of queen Elisabeth &c.] Strype, in the Annals of the Reformation, vol. i. chap. 5, gives a lengthy account of this ' conference between some popish bishops and other learned 28 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. protestants and papists, and Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord chancellor, was appointed to be judge ; but the conclusion was, the stronger party carried it. For so religion was brought into kingdoms, so it has been continued, and so it may be cast out, when the state pleases. 14. 'Twill be a great discouragement to scholars, that bishops should be put down. For now the father can say to the son, and the tutor to the pupil, Study hard, and you shall have vocem ef sedem in parliamento ; then it must be, 10 Study hard, and you shall have an ;^ioo a year if you please your parish. Objection. But they that enter into the ministry for preferment, are like Judas that looked after the bag. Answer. It may be so, if they turn scholars at Judas his age. But what arguments will you use to persuade them to follow their books, when they are young ? men of that communion, and certain protestant divines, held in the month of March, 1559, by order of the Queen's privy council, to be performed in their presence, eight on one side and eight on the other.' The Queen orders it to be conducted in writing and the papists to begin. The first day passed off quietly. On the second day, difficul- ties were raised as to the course of the proceedings and the papists refused to go on, as it had been arranged that they should. The conference thereupon broke up, after some ominous words from the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon. ' For that ye would not that we should hear you, perhaps you may shortly hear of us.' And so they did, for, as a punishment for their contempt, the Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln were committed to the Tower, and the others, except the Abbot of Westminster, were bound to make their personal appear- ance before the Council and not to depart the cities of London and Westminster until ordered. They were afterwards compelled to dance attendance every day at the Council from April 5 to May 12, until at length their fines for contempt were settled ; ' and so they were discharged, recognizances for their good abearing being first taken of them.' In the Editor's Preface to the second volume of Laud's Works, numerous instances are given of oral and of written controversies and disputations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some of them between protestants and papists, others between the champions of different protestant sects. BOOKS. AUTHORS. 29 IX. BOOKS. AUTHORS. 1. The giving a bookseller his price for his books, has this advantage ; he that will do it, shall be sure to have the refusal of whatsoever comes to his hands, and so by that means get many things, which otherwise he should never have seen. So 'tis in giving a bawd her price. 2. In buying books or other commodities, it is not always the best rule to bid but half so much as the seller asks. Witness the country fellow, that went to buy two shove-groat shillings ; they asked him three shillings, and 10 he offered them eighteen-pence. 3. They counted the price of the books (Acts xix. 19), and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver; that is, so many sestertii, or so many three-halfpence of our money ; about three hundred pound sterling. 4. Popish books teach and inform ; what we know, we 1. 10. two shove-groat shillings?^ Shove-groat was one of the names of a game played by driving a smooth coin with a smart stroke of the hand along a table, at the further end of which nine partitions had been marked off, with a number inscribed on each of them. The score was reckoned according to the number on the partition in which the coin rested. See Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, bk. iv. sec. 19. Nares (Glossary, sub voce ' shove-groat ') adds that the shove-groat shilling, the coin with which the game was played, was sometimes a smooth shilling, sometimes a smooth groat, sometimes a smooth half- penny ; and that any flat piece of metal would have answered the purpose, and would have passed, therefore, as a shove-groat shilling. 1. 16. Popish books &c.] By 3 James I, ch. 5, sec. 25 the im- portation is forbidden of popish primers, ladies' psalters, manuals, rosaries, popish catechisms, missals, breviaries, portals, legends and lives of saints containing superstitious matter, and the books them- selves are ordered to be seized and burned. It was one of the charges against Laud that he had connived at the importation of popish books, and had restored them to their owners when they had been seized by the searchers. His answer to the charge is that great numbers of them had been burnt, and that if any of them had been re-delivered to their owners it was by order not from himself, but from the High Commission. Laud's Works, vol. iv. p. 347. 30 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. know much out of them. The fathers, church story, school-men, all may pass for popish books ; and if you take away them, what learning will you leave ? Besides, who must be judge ? The customer or the waiter? If he dis- allows a book, it must not be brought into the kingdom ; then lord have mercy upon all scholars ! These puritan preachers, if they have any thing good, they have it out of popish books, though they will not acknowledge it, for fear Whatever Laud may have done, or omitted to do, while he vs^as in power, the Act against popish books was strictly enforced afterwards. See Nalson's Collections, vol. ii. p. 690, Dec. 1, 1641. This day the Bishop of Exon reported to the Lords' House, ' That the Committee formerly appointed by their House,, have perused those books which were seized on coming from beyond the seas . . . and finds them to be of three several sorts. ' Such as are fit to be delivered to their owners and to be sold. The Holy Table, name and thing. Mr. Walker's Treaty of the Sabbath, &c. ' A second sort, fit to be sold to choice persons. Thomas de Kempis, Of the following of Christ, &c. ' A third sort of superstitious tablets and books, which are fit to be burnt, as Missals, Primers, and Offices of Our Lady, &c. . . . ' Ordered . . . the second sort to be delivered over to safe hands, to be sold to Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Scholars, but not to women. ' That the third sort be burned by the Sheriffs of London in Smith- field forthwith.' Selden's remark was probably made about the date at which this more strict rule was put in force. I 1.4. The customer] A collector and farmer of the customs. Conf. '. Hakluyt's Voyages, i. 189-191 (ed. of 1809, 4to). ' In the ancient state of Rome, the tenants of the empire paid for rent the tenth of their corn, whence the publicans that hired it, as the customers do here the king's custom, were called decumani.' Selden, Works, iii. 1098. 1. 4. ihe waiter] This probably means the tide-waiter, one of the officers of the customs, whose duty it was to watch the landing of goods arriving from abroad. 1. 6. These puritan preachers &c.] So the London Petition against bishops, &c., complains of ' the Liturgy for the most part framed out of the Romish Breviary, Ritualium, Mass Book, also the book of Ordination, framed out of the Roman Pontifical.' Nalson, Collections, i. 663. CANON LAW.-CEREMONY. 31 of displeasing the people. He is a poor divine that cannot sever the good from the bad. 5. It is good to have translations, because they serve as a comment, so far as the judgment of one man goes. 6. In answering a book, 'tis best to be short ; otherwise he that I write against will suspect I intend to weary him, not to satisfy him. Besides in being long I shall give my adversary a huge advantage ; somewhere or other he will pick a hole. 7. In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually 10 read ; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them. 8. Quoting of authors is most for matter of fact ; and then I write them as I would produce a witness ; sometimes for a free expression, and then I give the author his due, and gain myself praise by reading him. 9. To quote a modern Dutchman where I may use a classic author, is as if I were to justify my reputation, and I neglect all persons of note and quality that know me, and bring the testimonial of the scullion in the kitchen. 20 X. CANON LAW. If I would study the canon-law, as it is used in England, I must study the heads here in use, then go to the prac- tisers in those courts where that law is practised, and know their customs. So for all the study in the world. XI. CEREMONY. I. Ceremony keeps up all things ; 'tis like a penny glass to a rich spirit, or some excellent water; without it the water will be spilt, the spirits lost, 32 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. 2. Of all people, ladies have no reason to cry down ceremonies, for they take themselves extremely slighted . without it ^ And were they not used with ceremony, with I compliments and addresses, with legs, and kissing of hands, ! they were the pitifullest creatures in the world : but yet i I (methinks) to kiss their hands after their lips, as some do, ' I is like little boys, that after they have eat the apple, fall to the paring, out of a love they have to the apple. XII. CHANCELLOR. o I. The bishop is not to sit with the chancellor in his court as being a thing either beneath him or beside him, no more than the king is to sit in the king's bench, when he has made a lord-chief-justice. 2. The chancellor governed in the church, who was a layman. And therefore 'tis false which they charge the bishops with, that they challenge sole jurisdiction. For the bishop can no more put out the chancellor, than the 1 Without it, H. a] without, H. 1. 4. with legSjl The ' leg ' is an old-fashioned bow or courtesy, in which the leg is drawn back. The word occurs again in ' Poetry ' sec. 4 and in ' Thanksgiving.' Conf. ' I think it much more passable to put off the hat and make a leg like an honest country gentleman, than like an ill-fashioned dancing master.' Locke, Some Thoughts concerning Education, § 196. 1. 10. The bishop is not to sit &c.] This seems aimed at Canon xi. of the Constitutions and Canons of 1640, which ordains ' that hereafter no bishop shall grant any patent to any chancellor . . . otherwise than with express reservation to himself and his successors of the power to execute the said place, either alone or with the chancellor, if the bishop shall please to do the same.' Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 551. The next clause in the Table Talk must have been spoken before this Canon had been put out. The Canon clearly gives the bishop a ' sole jurisdiction,' as often as he chooses to claim it. CHANCELLOR.-CHANGING SIDES. 33 chancellor the bishop. They were many of them made chancellors for their lives: and he is the fittest man to govern, because divinity so overwhelms all other things. XIII. CHANGING SIDES. 1. 'Tis the trial of a man to see if he will change his side; and if he be so weak as to change once, he will change again. Your country fellows have a way to try if a man be weak in the hams, by coming behind him, and giving him a little blow unawares ; if he bend once, he will bend again. i 2. The lords that fall from the king, after they have got estates by base flattery at court, and now pretend con- science, do as a vintner, that when he first sets up, you may bring your wench to his house, and do your things there; but when he grows rich, he turns conscientious, and will sell no wine on the sabbath-day. 3. Colonel Goring serving first the one side and then 1. 2. for their lives] Singer suggests that 'for their learning' would give a better sense here, but there is no authority for the change. 1. 17. Colonel Goring &c.] Goring, in 1641, gave evidence in Par- liament about a real or alleged plot of the King for bringing up the army to London to surprise the Tower and overawe the Parliament. His disclosures were thought so important that he received public thanks ' for preserving the kingdom and the liberties of Parliament.' In 1642 we hear of him as Governor of Portsmouth, 'having found means to make good impressions again in their Majesties of his fidelity.' In the course of the same year, having come under the suspicion of the Parliament, and having been called to account by them, he contrived so to clear himself that ' they desired him to repair to his government, and to finish those works which were necessary for the safety of the place.' They supplied him with money for D 34 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. the Other, did Hke a good miller, that knows how to grind which way soever the wind sits. 4. After Luther had made a combustion in Germany about religion, he was sent to by the pope, to be taken off, and offered any preferment in the church, that he would make choice of: Luther answered, if he had the purpose, and gave him a lieutenant-general's commission in the Parliamentary army. On his return to Portsmouth he declared for the King. His next act was to surrender Portsmouth to the Parliament, treacherously according to Clarendon, but certainly not without having made strenuous efforts for its defence. In 1643 he was appointed to a command in the King's army at York ' by the Queen's favour notwithstanding all former failings,' and from this date onwards he continued to serve the King. Claren- don sketches his character and conduct in terms of great bitterness, very unlike Selden's easy-going remark. See Hist, of Rebellion, i. 414-417, 651, 1114-1119 ; ii. 27, 212, 830 ff. 1. 3. After Luther had made a combustion &c.] The story of the offers made to Luther by the Pope's legate, and of Luther's reply to them, rests on the authority of Father Paul Sarpi. But Selden does not tell it quite fairly to Luther. What Sarpi says is that in 1535 the legate, Vergerio, had a special commission to treat with Luther and with other prominent persons among the reformers, and to make all sorts of promises to them, if only he could bring them to terms. Vergerio, accordingly, arranged a meeting with Luther at Wittemburg, and threw out some very clear hints of what the Pope, Paul III, would do to reward him if he would but cease from troubling the Church and the world. Luther's answer was that the offers had come too late, for he had been driven by the harshness with which he had been formerly treated, to make a more exact enquiry into the errors and abuses of the papacy, and knowing what he now knew he could not in conscience refrain from telling it out to the world. See Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, lib. i. sec. 53 (edition of 1835, in 7 vols.), Luther speaks of this interview in a letter to Jonas, written in the same year, but he says only that he met the Pope's legate by invitation, — ' sed quos sermones habuerim non licet homini scribere.' (De Wette, Luther's Briefe, iv. 648.) Sarpi's story must be taken for what it is worth. His authority is not by any means unim- peachable, and Pallavicino (iii. c. 18) ridicules the tale as a romance. I am indebted to the Bishop of Peterborough for all the abov? references. CHRISTIANS. 35 offered half as much at first, he would have accepted it, but now he had gone so far, he could not come back. In truth he had made himself a greater thing than they could make him ; the German princes courted him ; he was become the author of a sect ever after to be called Lutherans. So have our preachers done that are against the bishops, they have made themselves greater with the people than they can be made the other way, and there- fore there is the less probability of^ bringing them off. Charity to strangers is enjoined in the text. By strangers lo is there understood, those that are not of your own kin, strangers to your blood, not those you cannot tell whence they come; that is, be charitable to your neighbours whom you know to be honest poor people. XIV. CHRISTIANS. 1. In the church of Jerusalem, the Christians were but another sect of Jews, that did believe the Messias was come. To be called, was nothing else but to become a Christian, to have the name of a Christian, it being their own language; for among the Jews, when they made a 20 doctor of law, 'twas said he was called. 2. The Turks tell their people of a heaven where there is a sensible pleasure, but of a hell where they shall suffer they do not know what. The Christians quite invert this order ; they tell us of a hell where we shall feel sensible pain, but of a heaven where we shall enjoy we cannot tell what. 3. Why did the heathen object to the Christians, that • Less probability of. Singer conjecturally] less charity probably of, MSS. 1. 28. Why did the heathen &c.] On the identification of Jews and Christians, and on the reasons for it, Selden speaks in several places. D 2 36 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. fhey worshipped an ass's head ? You must know, that to a heathen, a Jew and a Christian were all one, that they What he says in effect is that, since Christianity had its origin in Judaea, since the early Christians were in great part Jews by race, and worshipped the same supreme God as the Jews, and since they preserved for some time the civil rites and ceremonies of their nation, it was quite natural that the alien peoples, among whom they lived and from whose worship they both alike kept markedly aloof, should have seen no difference between them, and that in point of fact they habitually included them both under the common name of Jews. See Selden, Works, i. 59. H. Prolegomena, p. 10. H. 405 and 657. The fiction about the ass's head was, Bochart says, started by Apion, an Egyptian grammarian of the first half of the first century, and he adds proof of the very wide credence which it received, about the Jews first, and about the Christians afterwards. The origin of the story he explains in several ways, but not very happily. See Hierozoicon, pt. i, bk. ii. ch. xviii. Morinus criticises Bochart and the authorities which Bochart quotes, and then with some hesitation tries his own hand on the problem. One of his conjectures is that the Hebrew words for a pot (sc. of manna) and for an ass are so nearly alike as hardly to be dis- tinguished, and that the pot of manna, with its two handles or ears, preserved in the holy place, might itself be taken as an image of an ass's head. Conf Dissertationes Octo (Geneva, 1683), p. 157, on the question, ' Unde potuit venire in mentem gentium caput asininum esse Chris- tianorum Deum ? ' The story, as told by Apion, takes two forms, viz. that the head of an ass in gold, an object of worship among the Jews, was found in the holy place of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes ; and again that a man named Zabidus, in the course of a war between the Jews and the Idumseans, managed to make his way into the Temple, and there found and carried away the golden head. See Josephus against Apion, bk. ii. ch. 7 and 10. But if the calumny originated with Apion, and if the later versions of it can, as Bochart says, be traced to him as their source, it seems hardly worth while to enquire about it any further. Apion, it must be remembered, was notorious as a hater of the Jews. He not only wrote against them, but he was sent to Rome, on a special mission, as the most fit person to plead before the Emperor Caligula on behalf of the Alexandrian Greeks, in their quarrel with the Alexandrian Jews, and he did his work so effectively that the Emperor refused even to hear his opponent, Philo. The ass's head story, however started, and with whatever accessories it was adorned, would hav^ CHRISTMAS. 37 regarded him not, so he was not one of them. Now that of the ass's head might proceed from such a mistake as this. By the Jewish law, all the firstlings of cattle were to be offered to God, except a young ass, which was to be redeemed ; a heathen being present, and seeing young calves, and young lambs killed at their sacrifices, only young asses redeemed, might very well think they had that silly beast in some high estimation, and thence might imagine they worshipped it as a God. XV. CHRISTMAS. lo 1. Christmas succeeds the Saturnalia, the same time, the same number of holy days ; then the master waited upon the servant, just like the lord of misrule. 2. Our meats and our sports (much of them) have rela- tion to church-work. The coffin of our christmas pies, in shape long, is in imitation of the cratch; our choosing gained ready credence at Rome about a people of whom they knew httle, and for whom they had no love. It was told first about the Jews, and the identification of Jews and Christians explains suffi- ciently how it came to be told about the Christians afterwards. 1. 13. the lord of misrule] Strutt gives a full account of this 'mock | prince,' or ' master of merry disports,' of the manner of his appoint- ment, of the length of his reign, and of the nature and privileges of his office. He refers to and endorses Selden's opinion that all these whimsical transpositions of dignity are derived from the ancient Saturnalia, or feasts of Saturn, when the masters waited upon their servants, who were honoured with mock titles and permitted to assume the state and deportment of their lords. Sports and Pas- times, bk. iv. chap. 3, sec. 1-8. 1. 16. the cratch'] An old English word for rack or manger. Fr. ' creche. It is frequently used for the manger in which Christ was laid. Conf. ' And sche bare hir first borun sone, and wlappide hym in clothis, and leide hym in a cratche.' Luke ii. 7 ; WycliiTe's Trans, second version, as printed by Forshall and Madden. 38 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. king and queen on twelfth-night, has reference to the three kings. So Hkewise our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, jack of lents, &c. they were all in imitation of church-work, emblems of martyrdom. Our tansies at Easter have reference to the bitter herbs ; though at the same time it was always the fashion, for a man to have in his house a gammon of bacon, to shew himself to be no Jew. XVI. CHURCH. lo I. Heretofore the kingdom let the church alone, let them do what they would, because they had something else to think of, viz*, wars ; but now in time of peace, we begin to examine all things, will have nothing but what we like, grow dainty and wanton ; just as in a family, the heir uses to go a hunting, he never considers how his meal is dressed ; takes a bit ^, and away ; but when he stays within, then he grows curious, he does not like this, nor he does not like that, he will have his meat dressed his own way, or peradventure he will dress it himself. 20 2. It hath ever been the gain of the church, when the ' Takes a bit, H. 2] take a bit, H. \ 1. 3. Jack a len{\ Explained in Johnson's Dictionary as a puppet formerly thrown at in Lent, like shrove-cocks. Conf. : ' Thou, that when last thou wert put out of service, Travell'dst to Hamstead-heath, on an Ash Wednesday, Where thou didst stand six weeks the Jack o' Lent, For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee.' Ben Jonson, Tale of a Tub, Act iv. sc. 2. 1. 5. Our tansies] ' Tansy, a herb : also a sort of pancake or pud- ding made with it.' Bailey, Old English Dictionary. 1. 20. the gain of the church] I am not sure that this is the correct reading. The MSS. give gaine, which may quite possibly have been a mistake for game, a word better suited to the sense here. So, in Bacon's Essay ' Of Usury,' the unquestionably correct reading, ' at CHURCH. 39 king will let the church have no power, to cry down the king and cry up the church. But when the church can make use of the king's power, then to bring all under the king's prerogative. The catholics of England go one way, and the court clergy the other ^. 3. A glorious church is like a magnificent feast, there is all the variety that may be, but every one chooses out a dish or two that he likes, and lets the rest alone. How glorious soever the church is, every one chooses out of it his own reUgion, by which he governs himself, and lets 10 the rest alone. 4. The laws of the church are most favourable to the church, because they were the church's own making ; as the heralds are the best gentlemen, because they make their own pedigree. 5. There is a question about that article, concerning ^ The otker\ corrected in MSS. from ' an other.' the end of the game,' appears in some copies of the edition of 1625 as ' at the end of the gaine.' So, too, in the Table Talk (Power, State, end of sec. 7) the Harleian MS. 1315 reads, quite distinctly, ' comine,' instead of ' comme.' 1. 16. There is a question about that article &c.] The words in question — ' The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies and, authority in controversies of faith,' or, as they appear in the original Latin, ' Habet Ecclesia ritus statuendi jus, et in fidei controversiis auctoritatem ' — were certainly part of the Latin text as printed in 1563, with the approval of the Queen. They were not in Archbishop Parker's preparatory draft of the articles, but they certainly were in the copy finally signed by the archbishop, the bishops and the clergy of the Lower House, at the convocation on January 29, 1562 (1563). Their subsequent history is not equally clear. They were not in the English MS. signed by the bishops in the convocation of 1571. They were in the Latin articles signed by the Lower House in the same year. It appears, too, that in 1571 there were copies of the articles printed in Latin and in English with the above words, and other copies, certainly in English, without the words. The whole question is dis- cussed, and a summary of the arguments pro and con given, in Hard- wick's History of the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 141. See also Laud's Works, vol. iv. 30, and vol. vi. 64 ff. A charge that the bishops had 40 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. the power of the church, whether these words (of having power in controversies of faith) were not stolen in ; but 'tis most certain they were in the Book of Articles that was confirmed, though in some editions they have been left out : but the Article before tells you, who the church is ; not the clergy, but ccetus fidelium. XVII. CHURCH OF ROME, 1. Before a juggler's tricks are discovered we admire him, and give him money, but afterwards we care not for 10 them : so 'twas before the discovery of the juggling of the church of Rome. 2. Catholics say, we out of our charity believe they of the church of Rome may be saved : but they do not be- lieve so of us ; therefore their church is better according to our own selves. First, some of them no doubt believe as well of us, as we do of them ; but they must not say so. Besides is that an argument, their church is better than ours because it has less charity? forged the clause and had foisted it into the articles, is dealt with at length in Laud's speech at the censure of Burton, Bastwick, and Prynne. Strype, in his Life of Archbishop Parker, bk. iv. chap. 5, says that a Latin copy of the articles, printed in 1563, and containing the disputed clause, 'is still extant in the Bodleian Library among Mr. Selden's books . . . being found in Archbishop Laud's library, from whence Mr. Selden immediately had it.' He adds, further, that there were three editions of the Thirty-nine Articles in English, printed in 1571 by Jugg and Cawood, all which have this clause ; ' which three editions, with the said clause, I myself saw, as well as other inquisitive persons, at Mr. Wilkins's, a bookseller in St. Paul's Church-yard.' ' So that at length an edition that appeared abroad in the same year, printed by John Day, wanting the clause, hath been judged (and that upon good grounds) to be spurious.' 1. 17. Besides is that an argument, &c.] Dr. Prideaux makes this CHURCH OF ROME.— CHURCHES. 41 3. One of the church of Rome will not come to our prayers. Does that argue he does not like them? I would fain see a cathoHc leave his dinner, because a nobleman's chaplain says grace. Nor haply would he leave the prayers of the church, if going to church were not made a note of distinction between a protestant^ and a papist. XVIII. CHURCHES. The way coming into our great churches was anciently at the west door, that men might see the altar, and all the i church before them ; the other doors were but posterns. ^ Protestant, H. 2] protest, H. point in the course of a series of lectures to which Selden refers elsewhere. See note on ' Predestination,' sec. 3. 1. 9. The way coming &c.] After the narthex (ante-temple) followed that part which was properly called va6s, the temple, and navis, the nave or body of the church . . . The entrance into it from the narthex was by the gates, which the modern rituals and Greek writers call nvKai apaiai and ^acrtXtKai, the ' beautiful and royal gates.' Here their kings were wont to lay down their crowns before they proceeded further into the Church. Bingham, Christian Antiquities, bk. viii. ch. 5, sec. I. These royal gates were usually at the west, since the churches were usually built east and west, with the altar at the east end, but the rule was not always observed. See Christian Antiquities, bk. viii. ch. 3, sec. 2. Bingham gives, in this chapter, the ground-plan of an ancient church, showing the royal gates at the west, with the altar and all the church in full view in front of them, and the other gates or posterns at the sides. See also Selden's letter to Usher of March 24, 1621 (22), asking 'whether we find" that any churches in the elder times of Christianity were with the doors or fronts east- ward ' (Works, ii. 1707), and Usher's reply of April 16, showing that ancient churches were built in a variety of ways, some ' with the doors or fronts eastward,' some standing north and south ; but that for the most part they had the entrance at the west and the altar at the east end. R. Parr's Life of Usher. Letters, p. 81. Letter 49. 42 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. XIX. CITY, 1. What makes a city? Whether a bishoprick, or any- thing ^ of that nature ? Answer. 'Tis according to the first charter which made them a corporation. If they are incorporated by name of civitas, then they are a city; if by the name of burgum, then they are a borough. 2. The lord mayor of London by their first charter was to be presented to the king ; in his absence to the lord '"chief justiciary of England ; afterwards to the lord chancel- lor, now to the barons of the exchequer ; but still there was a reservation, that for their honour they should come once a year to the king, as they do still. 1 Anything, H. 2] any, H. 1. 8. The lord mayor of London &c.] The first notice of the presentment of the lord mayor to the King occurs in the fifth charter, granted by King John^ 1215. It grants to the barons of the city of London that they may choose every year a mayor, ' so as, when he shall be chosen, to be presented to us or our justice, if we shall not be present.' By the sixth charter of Henry III, the mayor when chosen is to be ' presented to the Barons of the Exchequer, we not being at Westminster, so notwithstanding at the next coming of us or our heirs to Westminster or London, he be presented to us or our heirs, and so admitted mayor.' Edward I fixes the first presentation to be to the ' Constable of our Tower of London, but to us at our next coming to London.' See Noorthouck, Hist, of London, pp. 778, 782, 784. This rule is not varied in any later charters. For the practice, as it had afterwards been settled, see Maitland's Hist, of London, p. 1193 (fol. 1756). 'The Lord Mayor elect,' Maitland says, 'is presented first to the Lord Chancellor, and afterwards to the Barons of the Exchequer, when he has been sworn into his office.' CITY.-CLERGY. 43 XX. CLERGY. 1. Though a clergyman have no faults of his own, yet the faults of the whole tribe shall be laid upon him, so he shall be sure not to lack. 2. The clergy would have us believe them against our Own reason ; as the woman would have had her husband against his own eyes, when he took her with another man, which she stoutly denied : What ! will you believe your own eyes before your own sweet wife ? 3. The condition of the clergy towards the prince, and 10 the condition of the physician is all one : the physicians tell the prince they have agaric and rhubarb good for him and good for his subjects' bodies ; upon this he gives them leave to use it ; but if it prove naught, then away with it, they shall use it no more ; so the clergy tell the prince they have physic good for his soul, and good for the souls of his people ; upon that he admits them : but when he finds by experience they both trouble him and his people, then away with them, he will have no more to do with them. What is that to them, or any body else, if a king will not go 20 to heaven ? 4. A clergyman goes not a dram further than this : you ought to obey your prince in general. If he does he is lost : how to obey him, you must be informed by those, whose profession it is to tell you. The parson of the Tower (a good discreet man) told Dr. Mosely (who was sent to me, and the rest of the gentlemen committed 3d Caroli, to persuade us to submit to the king) that they found no I. 6. as the woman would have had &c.] This seems to refer either to the story told in the first of the Adolphi Fabulse (quoted in the Aldine ed. of Chaucer, vol. i. 232, Introductory Remarks), or to Chaucer's adaptation of the story in the 'Merchant's Tale,' of January and May. 44 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. such words, as parliament, habeas corpus, return, tower, &c. neither in the fathers, nor in the schoolmen, nor in the text ; and therefore, for his part, he believed they understood nothing of the business. A satire upon all those clergymen that meddle with matters they do not understand. 5. All confess there never was a more learned clergy. No man taxes them with ignorance. But to talk of that, is like the fellow that was a great wencher ; he wished God would forgive him his lechery, and lay usury to his charge. 10 The clergy have worse faults. 6. The clergy and treaty together are never like to do 1. II. The clergy and treaty] This is the clear reading of the three MSS. which I have examined. The printed editions have 'the clergy and laity,' which gives an easier sense for the line, but does not suit so well with the general drift of the section. Selden seems to be referring to some attempted arrangement between two parties, in which the interference of the clergy, on the one side and on the other, was likely in his judgment to do harm by mixing up matters which had better have been left out. There were several attempted arrangements of which this might have been said. There was, e. g., the attempted treaty for peace between the King and the Parliament in 1643, in which one of the proposals was ' that religion might be settled with the advice of a synod of divines in such a manner as his Majesty, with the consent of both Houses of Parliament, should appoint ' (Clarendon, History, ii. 477). Again, there was the abortive treaty of Newport, discussed in September, 1648, between the King, with some divines among his advisers, and the Parliamentary com- missioners, attended by a body of their divines. In the course of this, questions about the church came prominently forward, and it was mainly on these that the negotiations finally broke down (Clar- endon, History, vol. iii. 324, 327, 338-9). The remark in the text, in whichever form it stands, must clearly be limited to some such instance as the above. It is not to be taken as condemning in every case the joint action of clergy and laity. In ' Synod Assembly,' sec. 3, Selden distinctly approves this, and indeed insists upon it as neces- sary. He was himself a lay member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, a mixed lay and clerical body, for which religious matters were the appointed business : so that ' the apothecary ' was in place there, and his rhubarb and agaric were the proper ingredients of the sauce. The reading, therefore,—' the clergy and treaty ' — though an awkward collocation of words, seems to give a sense best suited to HIGH COMMISSION. 45 well. 'Tis as if a man were to make an excellent feast, and would have his apothecary and his physician should come into the kitchen : the cooks, if they were let alone, would make excellent meat ; but then comes the apothecary, and he puts rhubarb into the sauce, and agaric into another sauce and so spoils all. Chain up the clergj^ on both sides. XXI. HIGH COMMISSION. Men cry out upon the high commission, as if only clergy- men had to do in it ; when I believe there are more laymen in commission there, than clergymen. If the laymen will 1° not come, whose fault is that ? So of the star-chamber, the people think the bishops only censured Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, when there were but two there, and one spoke not in his own cause. the whole passage, and most in agreement with Selden's judgment elsewhere. 1. 8. as if only clergymen &c.] The Commissioners present in the High Commission Court on e. g. Nov. 17, 1631, were six clerics and four laymen ; on Nov. 24 there were seven clerics and five laymen ; on Jan. 26, 163J, six clerics and four laymen ; on Feb. 9 there were three clerics and eight laymen. See High Commission Cases (Cam- den Society), pp. 239, 245, 261, 264. On the popular dislike of the High Commission Court, and on the very good reasons for it, see Clarendon, Hist., vol. i. p. 439. His statement is, in effect, that it had come to meddle with things which did not properly concern it ; that it had extended its sentences and judgments, in matters tryable before it, beyond that degree which was justifiable, and had not only neglected prohibitions from the supreme courts of law, but had re- prehended the judges for doing their duty in granting them. The growth of these abuses he ascribes to ' the great power of some bishops at court.' 1. 12. people think the bishops only &c.] They were tried. Clarendon says, ' in as full a court as ever I saw in that place.' The bishops pre- sent were ' only the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London.' Hist. i. 310. The bishop who spoke was Laud, the arch- 46 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. XXII. HOUSE OF COMMONS. I. There be but two erroneous opinions in the House of Commons ; that the Lords sit only for themselves ; when the truth is, they sit as well for the commonwealth. The knights and burgesses sit for themselves and others, some for more, some for fewer. And what is the reason? Be- cause the room will not hold all ; the Lords being few, they all come ; and imagine the room able to hold all the Com- mons of England, then the Knights and burgesses would lo sit no otherwise than the Lords do. The second error is, bishop. His speech is given at length in Laud's Works, vol. vi. p. 41 if. The sentence was brutal, and it was carried out with brutal and unusual severity. ' The report thereof,' says Rushworth, ' flew quickly into Scotland, and the discourse among the Scots were, that the bishops of England were the cause thereof.' Historical Collec- tions, ii. 385. So Prynne, speaking from the pillory, ascribes the whole business to the vexation of the bishops as the subjects of the libels for which he and the others had been sentenced. Cobbett, State Trials, p. 747. His statement is borne out by Whitelock's account of the case. ' The King and Queen did nothing direct against him (Prynne) till Laud set Dr. Heylin (who bore a great malice to Prynne for confuting some of his doctrines) to peruse Prynne's book, &c. The archbishop went with these notes to Mr. Attorney Noy, and charged him to pro- secute Prynne, which Noy afterwards did rigorously enough in the Star Chamber, and in the meantime the Bishops and Lords in the Star Chamber sent Prynne close prisoner to the Tower.' Whitelock, Memorials, p. 18. The trial in the Star Chamber was in 1637. That court and the High Commission Court were abolished in 1640. Selden's remarks must therefore have been made at some time between the two dates. 1. 3. that the Lords sit only &c.] ' If they (sc. the bishops) vote for the clergy, then they are to be elected by the clergy, as the members of the Commons House now are ; but your Lordships, voting only for yourselves, need no electors.' Solicitor St. John's speech at a confer- ence of the two Houses, 1641. Nalson's Collections, ii. 501. So, too, in Baillie's Letters and Journals, we find it stated that the Lords represent none but themselves. Vol. i. 369. 1. 10. The second error is &c.] That a money bill must originate with HOUSE OF COMMONS.— COMPETENCY. 47 that the House of Commons are to begin to give subsidies ; yet if the Lords dissent, they can give no money. 2. The House of Commons is called the Lower House in twenty acts of parliament : but what are twenty acts of parliament amongst friends ? 3. The form of a charge runs thus, I accuse in the name of all the Commons of England. How then can any man be as a witness, when every man is made an accuser ? XXHL COMPETENCY. That which is a competency for one man, is not enough 10 for another ; no more than that which will keep one man warm will keep another man warm : one man can go in the House of Commons is admitted on all hands. But whether the opinion, that if the Lords dissent the Commons can give no money, is, as Selden terms it, an error, is more than doubtful. ' It is true that the Bill of Subsidy is offered by the Commons only ; but before that stage is reached, it is sent up to the Lords, is thrice read by them, and is then sent back to the Commons, and there it remaineth to be carried by the Speaker, when he shall present it.' See Orders and Proceed- ings of the Commons, ch. xv. Harleian MS. v. 266. Sir Erskine May says expressly that ' A grant from the Commons is not effectual, in law, without the ultimate assent of the Queen and of the House of Lords.' Law, &c., of Parliament, p. 638 (9th ed.). Indeed, that the Commons in Selden's day had a less independent control over grants than they have gained since, appears from the fact that although their right to originate grants was unquestionable, yet bills of supply were, until 1671, liable to be amended by the Lords. Ibid. p. 641. 1. 6. The form of a charge &c.] See, Message to the Lords re Strafford, delivered by Mr. Pym at the command of the House : ' My Lords .... I do here in the name of the Commons now assembled in Parliament, and in the name of all the Commons of England, accuse Thomas, Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, of High Treason.' Nalson, Collections, vol. ii. p. 7. There are other instances given at p. 796, and passim. 48 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. doublet and hose, when another man cannot be without a cloak, and yet have no more clothes than is necessary for him. XXIV. CONFESSION. 1. In the time of parliament it used to be one of the first things the house did, to petition the king that his confessor might be removed ; as fearing either his power with the king, or else, lest he should reveal to the pope what the house was in doing, as no doubt he did, when the Cathohc lo cause was concerned. 2. The difference between us and the papists is, we both allow contrition, but the papists make confession a part of contrition; they say, a man is not sufficiently contrite, unless he confess his sins to a priest. 3. Why should I think a priest will not reveal confession ? I am sure he will do any other thing that is forbidden him, haply not so often as I. The uttermost punishment is deprivation. And how can it be proved, that ever any man revealed confession, when there is no witness ? And no 20 man can be witness in his own cause. A mere gullery. There was a time when 'twas public in the church, and that is much against their auricular confession. XXV. GREAT CONJUNCTION. The greatest conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter happens but once in eight hundred years, and therefore astrologers 1. 24. The greatest conjunction &c.] ' Conjonction en Astronomie se dit de la rencontre apparente de deux astres ou de deux planetes dans le meme point des cieux, ou plutot dans le meme degre du zodiaque. CONFESSION. — CONSCIENCE. 49 can make no experiments of it, nor foretell what it means ; not but that the stars may mean something, but we cannot tell what because we cannot come at them. Suppose a planet were a simple, or an herb ; how could a physician tell the virtue of that simple, unless he came at it, to apply it ? XXVI. CONSCIENCE. 1. He that hath a scrupulous conscience, is like a horse that is not well wayed ^ ; he starts at every bird that flies out 10 of the hedge. 2. A knowing man will do that which a tender con- ' Wayed, H. 2] weighed H. The conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, placed by astronomers among the grand conjunctions, happens once in every twenty years. A less frequent conjunction, placed among the very grand, is that of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, which happens once in every five hundred years. See Diderot and D'Alembert, Encyclopedic, under heading Con- jonction. If Selden is writing of astrological conjunctions (as it would appear he is, from the remarks which follow) see, on the whole passage, — Planetarum prima diversitas est in virtutibus propriis. Nam Saturnus est frigidus et siccus, et omnis pigritiae et mortificationis et destruc- tionis rerum causativus per egressum siccitatis et frigoris. Mars vero est corruptivus propter egressum caliditatis et siccitatis et isti duo planetae nunquam faciunt bonum nisi per accidens ; sicut aliquando -venenum est bonum per accidens .... Habent autem planetae virtutes alias a signis . . . . et iterum penes aspectus, qui sunt conjunctio, oppositio, etc. Conjuncti dicuntur planetae, quando sunt in eodem signo oppositi, quando unus est in septimo ab alio .... Quando vero malus opponitur aut conjungitur malo, tunc magnum malum est, &c. R. Bacon, Opus Majus, p. 237-8. 1.9. well wayed s\ Explained in Bailey's Etymological English Diet. ' to way a horse is to teach him to travel in the way.' 'Way'd Horse (with horsemen) is one who is already backed, suppled and broken and shows a disposition to the manage.' E 50 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. scienced man dares not do, by reason of his ignorance; the other knows there is no hurt : as a child is afraid to go in the dark, when a man is not, because he knows there's no danger. 3. If we once come to leave that out-loose, as to pretend conscience against law, who knows what inconveniency may follow ? For thus, suppose an anabaptist comes and takes my horse ; I sue him, he tells me he did according to his conscience ; his conscience tells him all things are 10 common amongst the saints, what is mine is his ; therefore you do ill to make such a law, if any man take another's horse he shall be hanged. What can I say to this man ? He does according to his conscience. Why is not he as honest a man, as he that pretends a ceremony, established by law, is against his conscience? Generally to pretend conscience against law is dangerous ; in some cases haply we may. 4. Some men make it a case of conscience, whether a man may have a pigeon-house, because his pigeons eat 20 other folks' corn. But there is no such thing as conscience in the business. The matter is, whether he be a man of such quality, that the state allows him to have a dove- house ; if so, there's an end to the business ; his pigeons have a right to eat where they list themselves. I. 21. The matter is, whether he he &c.] The law seems to have been that— A lord of a manor might build a dove-cote upon his land, parcel of his manor, and this he might do by virtue of his right as lord thereof. It appears also from the obiter dicta in a case before the King's Bench, that the parson had a like right. But the tenant of a manor could not do it without licence, the reason assigned being that he can have no right to any privilege that may be prejudicial to others. In every case, however, in which pigeons came upon a man's land, he might lawfully kill them, the quality of their owner notwithstand- ing. See Croke's Reports of cases in the reign of James I, pp. 382, 490, and Salkeld's Reports of cases in the reign of William and Mary, vol. iii. p. 248, sub voce ' Nuisance.' CONSECRATED PLACES. 51 XXVII. CONSECRATED PLACES. 1. The Jews had a peculiar way of consecrating things to God, which we have not. 2. Under the law, God, who was master of all, made choice of a temple to be worshipped in, where he was more especially present : just as the master of a house, who owns ^ all the house, makes choice of one chamber to lie in, which is called the master's chamber ; but under the gospel there is no such thing ; temples and churches are set apart for the conveniency of men to worship in ; they cannot meet 10 upon the point of a needle, but God himself makes no choice. 3. All things are God's already, we can give him no right by consecrating any that he had not before, only we set it apart to his service. Just as a gardener brings his lord and master a basket of apricocks, and presents them ; his lord thanks him for them, perhaps gives him something for his pains, and yet the apricocks were as much his lord's before as now. 4. What is consecrated, is given to some particular 20 man, to do God service ; not given to God, but given to man to serve God. And there's not anything, lands, or goods, but some men or other have it in their power to dispose of as they please. The saying things con- secrated cannot be taken away, makes men afraid of con- secration. 5. Yet consecration has this power, when a man has consecrated anything unto God, he cannot of himself take it away. ' Owns] owes, MSS. 1. 20. What is consecrated, &c.] See note on ' Tithes,' sec. 5. E 2 55 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. XXVIII. CONTRACTS. I. If our fathers have lost their liberty, why may not we labour to regain it ? Answer. We must look to the contract ; if that be rightly made, we must stand to it. If we once grant we may recede from contracts, upon any inconveniency may afterwards happen, we shall have no bargain kept. If I sell you a horse, and afterwards do not hke my bargain, I will have my horse again, lo 2. Keep your contracts. So far a divine goes, but how - to make our contracts is left to ourselves ; and as we agree about the conveying of this house, or that land, so it must be. If you offer me a hundred pounds for my glove, I tell you what my glove is, a plain glove, pretend no virtue in it, the glove is my own, I profess not to sell gloves, and we agree for an hundred pounds ; I do not know why I may not with a safe conscience take it. The want of that com- mon obvious distinction oi jus proeceptivum, and jus permts- sivunt, does much trouble men. 20 3. Lady Kent articled with Sir Edward Herbert, that he should come to her when she sent for him, and stay with her as long as she would have him ; to which he set his hand : then he articled with her, that he should go away when he pleased, and stay away as long as he pleased ; to which she set her hand. This is the epitome of all the contracts in the world, betwixt man and man, betwixt prince and subject ; they keep them as long as they like them, and no longer. 1. 20. Lady Kent articled &c.] This probably means that Lady Kent retained, or sought to retain, Sir Edward Herbert, an eminent lawyer of the time, at a yearly salary, to do her legal work. Such arrangements were not uncommon. See Aikin, Life of Selden, p. 154, note. CONTRACTS. — CREED. 53 XXIX. CONVOCATION. 1. When the king sends his writ for a pariiament, he sends for two knights for a shire, and two burgesses for a corporation : but when he sends for two archbishops for a convocation, he commands them to assemble the whole clergy ; but they, out of custom amongst themselves, send to the bishops of their provinces, to will them to bring two clerks for a diocese, the dean, one for the chapter, and the archdeacons; but to the king every clergyman is there present. i 2. We have nothing so nearly expresses the power of the convocation, in respect of the parliament, as a court- leet, where they have a power to make bye-laws, as they call them ; as that a man shall put so many cows or sheep in the common ; but they can make nothing that is contrary to the laws of the kingdom. XXX. COUNCIL. They talk (but blasphemously enough) that the Holy Ghost is president of their General Councils ; when the truth is, the odd man is still the Holy Ghost. - XXXI. CREED. Athanasius's creed is the shortest, take away the preface, and the force, and the conclusion, which are not part of the 1. 6. they, out of custom amongst themselves, &c.] See note on ' Bishops in Parliament,' sec. 7. 54 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. creed. In the Nicene creed it is ei's ^KKkr^crCav, I believe in the church ; but now our Common-prayer has it, I believe one catholic and apostolic church. They like not creeds, because they would have no forms of faith, as they have none of prayer, though there be more reason for the one than for the other. XXXII. DAMNATION. 1. If the physician sees you eat any thing that is not good for your body, to keep you from it, he cries 'tis lo poison. If the divine sees you do any thing that is hurtful for your soul, to keep you from it, he cries you are damned. 2. To preach long, loud, and damnation, is the way to be cried up. We love a man that damns us, and we run after him again to save us. If a man had a sore leg, and he should go to an honest judicious surgeon, and he should only bid him keep it warm, and anoint with such an oil (an oil well known), that would do the cure, haply he would not much regard him, because he knew the medicine before- 20 hand an ordinary medicine. But if he should go to a surgeon that should tell him, your leg will gangrene within three days, and it must be cut off, and you will die, unless I. I. In the Nicene creed it is &c.] In the original Nicene creed the words do not occur. They were introduced in 381 at the Council of Constantinople — Trioreuo/iei' eij fxiav dyiav koBoKik^v Koi diroaToXiKriv iKKKrf(TLav, On the distinction, to which Selden refers, between ' I believe in ' and ' I believe,' Bishop Pearson shows that ' Credo sanctam Ecclesiam, I believe there is an holy church ; or Credo in sanctam Ecclesiam is the same; nor does the particle in added or subtracted make any difference.' See Pearson on the Creed, vol. i. pp. 28, 504, and vol. ii. p. 421. DAMNATION. — DEVILS. 55 you do something that I could tell you; what Hstening there would be to this man ! Oh, for the lord's sake, tell me what this is, I will give you any content for your pains. XXXIII. SELF-DENIAL. 'Tis much the doctrine of the times, that men should not please themselves, but deny themselves every thing they take delight in ; not look upon beauty, wear no good clothes, eat no good meat, &c. which seems the greatest accusa- tion that can be upon the Maker of all good things. If they be not to be used, why did God make them ? The 10 truth is, they that preach against them, cannot make use of them themselves, and then again, they get esteem by seeming to contemn them. But yet, mark it while you live, if they do not please themselves as much as they can ; and we live more by example than precept. XXXIV. DEVILS. I. Why have we none possessed with devils in England ? The old answer is, the protestants the devil has already, and the papists are so holy, he dares not meddle with them. Why then, beyond seas, where a nun is possessed, when 20 1. 20. Why then, beyond seas, Sec] The argument seems to be that the alleged holiness of the papists is no sufficient safe-guard to prevent the devil from daring to meddle with them, and that the hunting of huguenots out of church is a proof of enmity between the devil and his alleged friends or allies. In the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth century, there were several outbursts of demoniacal possession. In 1609 the Basque 56 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. a huguenot comes into the church, does the devil hunt him out? The priest ^ teaches him; you never saw the devil throw up a nun's coats ; mark that ; the priest will not sufTer it, for then the people will spit at him. 2. Casting out devils is mere juggling. They never cast out any but what they first cast in. They do it where, for reverence, no man shall dare to examine it. They do it in a corner, in a mortice-hole, not in the market-place. They do nothing but what may be done by art. They make the lo devil fly out at a window in the likeness of a bat, or a rat. Why do they not hold him ? Why, in the likeness of a bat, or a rat, or some creature that is ? Why not in some shape we paint him in, with claws and horns? By this trick they gain much, gain upon men's fancies, and so are 1 The priest, H. a] the devil, H. country was the scene, and it was shifted, in the same year, to the Ursuline convent at Aix. In 1613 the nuns of St. Brigitte, at Lille, were tormented a second time by demons. They had suffered in the same way about half a century before. But the most notorious of all these attacks was the possession of the mother superior and some of the nuns at the Ursuline convent at Loudun in 1632-4. The history of this remarkable affair is given at length by Figuier. It appears to have been the combined result of wild nymphomania and conscious fraud on the part of the possessed nuns, probably aided by some sugges- tive trickery on the part of other persons. It had, as it was intended it should have, a tragical ending for the cure of Loudun, Urbain Grandier, who was burnt alive in 1634, on a maliciously contrived charge that he had introduced the devils into the bodies of the nuns. For the full details of this awful story, see Figuier, Histoire du Merveilleux, vol. i. pp. 81-257, ^'^^ Bayle, Dictionnaire, under the heading ' Grandier.' I find no mention anywhere of the possessed nuns hunting a huguenot out of the church. The nearest approach to it is in the account of the possession in 1552 of the nuns of the convent of Kintorp near Strasbourg, in the course of which — ' Elles ne gouver- naient plus leur volonte. Une fureur irresistible les portait a se mordre, a frapper et a mordre leurs compagnes, a se precipiter sur les etrangers pour leur faire du mal.' Introduction to the Histoire du Merveilleux, p. 47. DEVILS. 57 reverenced. And certainly if the priest can deliver me from him, that is my greatest enemy, I have all the reason in the world to reverence him. Objection. But if this be juggling, why do they punish impostors ? Answer. For great reason ; because they do not play their part well, and for fear others should discover them, and so think all of them to be ^ of the same trade. 3. A person of quality came to my chamber in the Temple, and told me he had two devils in his head ; [1 10 wondered what he meant] and just at that time, one of them bid him kill me, [with that I begun to be afraid, and thought he was mad] he said he knew I could cure him, and therefore entreated me to give him something, for he was resolved he would go to nobody else. I perceiving what an opinion he had of me, and that 'twas only melancholy that troubled him, took him in hand, warranted him, if he would follow my directions, to cure him in a short time. I desired him to let me be alone for an hour, and then to come again, which he was very willing to. In the mean 20 time I got a card, and lapt it handsomely up in a piece of taffata, and put strings to the taffata, and when he came, gave it him, to hang about his neck ; withal charged him, that he should not disorder himself neither with eating or drinking, but eat very little of supper, and say his prayers duly when he went to bed, and I made no question but he would be well in three or four days. Within that time I went to dinner at his house, and asked him how he did. He said he was much better, but not perfectly well, for in truth he had not dealt clearly with me : he had four devils 30 in his head, and he perceived two of them were gone with that which I had given him, but the other two troubled him still. Well, said I, I am glad two of them are gone ; I make no doubt but to get away the other two likewise. So I 1 Think all of them to be, H. a] all of them thought to be, H. 58 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. gave him another thing to hang about his neck. Three days after, he came to me to my chamber, and professed he was now as well as ever he was in his life, and did extremely thank me for the great care I had taken with him. I fearing lest he might relapse into the Hke dis- temper, told him that there was none but myself and one physician more, in the whole town, that could cure the devils in the head, and that was doctor Harvey (whom I had prepared) and wished him, if ever he found himself ill lo in my absence, to go to him, for he could cure this disease as well as myself. The gentleman lived many years, and was never troubled after. XXXV. DUEL. I. A DUEL may still be granted in some cases by the law of England, and only there. That the church allowed it 1. 14. A duel may still be granted &c.] See Selden, Analecta Anglo- Britannica, Works, ii. p. 949. But he adds that there is hardly an instance to be found in which this form of trial has been actually used in civil cases, and very few instances in which it has been used in criminal cases. Blackstone mentions it as still in force in his day. ' The next species of trial is of great antiquity, but much disused ; though still in force if the parties chose to abide by it ; I mean the trial by wager of battle .... a trial which the tenant or defendant in a writ of right, has it in his election at this day to demand.' Blackstone, Commentaries, bk. iii. ch. 22, sec. 5. So too in criminal trials— bk. iv. ch. 27, sec. 3. These forms of trial, in civil and criminal cases, were done away with by 59 George HI, ch. 56. 1. 15. That the church allowed it anciently, &c.] Ducange, Glossary, sub voce ' Campiones ' (champions), mentions the ' Campionum obla- tiones, in Charta Manassis Episc. Lingonensis, ann. 1185, quas ii, prius quam in arenam descenderent, Ecclesiis offerebant, quo in duellis Deum sibi propitium conciliarent.' Also, sub voce ' Duellum,' he shows that — ' sacramenta quae in his DUEL. 59 anciently, appears by this. In their pubHc liturgies, there were prayers appointed for the duellists to say ; the judge used to bid one of them go to such a church and pray, &c. for the victory : and to the other go to such a prelate in such a church, and pray, &c. But whether is this lawful? If you grant any war lawful, I make no doubt but to con- vince it. War is lawful, because God is the only judge betwixt two that are supreme. Now if a difference happen betwixt two subjects, and it cannot be decided by human testimony, why may they not put it to God, to judge lo between them, by the permission of the prince? Nay, what if we should bring it down, for argument's sake, to the sword-men. One gives me the lie ; 'tis a great disgrace to take it, the law has made no provision to give remedy for the injury, (if you can suppose any thing an injury for which the law gives no remedy) why am not I in this case supreme, and may therefore right myself? 2. A duke ought to fight with a gentleman. The reason is this ; the gentleman will say to the duke, 'tis true, you hold a higher place in the state than I ; there's a great 20 distance betwixt you and me ; but your dignity does not occasionibus de more fiebant super sanctam crucem, sanctas reliquias, aut sancta Evangelia, proferebantur coram sacerdotibus vel Ecclesiae ministris.' Canciani, in his Lex Costumaria Normannica, gives examples of the oaths administered to the combatants that they are using no help from sorcery or magical arts. Leges Barbarorum, vol. ii. p. 395, note. Muratori shows that judicial combats were held anciently under the full sanction of the Church, and that the clergy were sometimes parties to them, either in person or more often by a champion chosen to defend their cause. Antiq. Italicae, iii. p. 638, Dissert. 39. Also, on p. 637, ' Tanta autem fuit divini patrocinii spes in abomi- nandis hisce certaminibus ut (Johanne Sarisberiensi in Epistol. 169, aliisque testibus) certaturi noctem praecedentem ducerent insomnem in Templo ad tumulum alicujus sancti, ut eum in agone propitium experirentur.' That they were again and again disapproved by the Church and forbidden under heavy ecclesiastical penalties, hardly needs proof. The proofs occur passim. 6o THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. privilege you to do me an injury ; as soon as ever you do me an injury, you make yourself my equal, and as you are my equal, I challenge you ; and in sense the duke is bound to answer him. This will give you some light to under- stand the quarrel betwixt a prince and his subjects. Though there be a vast distance between him and them, and they are to obey him according to their contract ; yet he has no power to do them an injury. Then, they think themselves as much bound to vindicate their right, as they loare to obey his lawful commands. Nor is there any other measure of justice left upon earth but arms. XXXVI. EPITAPH. An epitaph must be made fit for the person for whom it is made. For a man to say all the excellent things that can be said upon one, and call that his epitaph, 'tis as if a painter should make the handsomest piece that he can possibly make, and say 'twas my picture. It holds in a funeral sermon. XXXVII. EQUITY. 5 I. Equity in law is the same that the spirit is in religion, what every one pleases to make it. Sometimes they go according to conscience, sometimes according to law, some- times according to the rule of the court. 1. 3. in sense the duke is bound] i. e. in reality ; in point of fact. Selden uses this phrase elsewhere, see ' Preaching,' sec. 3 and ' Vows.' EPITAPH. - EQUITY. 6i 2. Equity is a roguish thing. For law we have a measure, know what to trust to ; equity is according to the conscience of him that is chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. 'Tis all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a foot, a chancellor's foot^ What an uncertain measure would this be. One chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot ; 'tis the same thing in the chancellor's conscience. 3. That saying. Do as you would be done to, is often 10 misunderstood; for 'tis not thus meant, that I, a private man, should do to you, a private man, as I would have you to me, but do, as we have agreed to do one to another by public agreement. If the prisoner should ask the judge, whether he would be content to be hanged, were he in his case, he would answer. No. Then says the prisoner. Do • We call a foot, a chancelloi^s foot. Singer conjecturally] we call a chan- cellor's foot, MSS. 1. 1. Equity is a roguish thing. &c.] This has ceased to be true, as equity has come gradually to be administered under settled rules. On the conflict between law and equity in Selden's day, and on the general complaint about the aggressive and exorbitant authority of the Court of Chancery, see e. g. Chamberlain's letter to Carleton, November 14, 1616. ' On Tuesday, one Bertram, an aged gentleman, killed Sir John TyndaU, a master of the Chancery, with a pistol charged vnth three bullets, pretending he had wronged him in the report of a cause, to his utter undoing, as indeed he was not held for integerrimus. . . . Mine author, Ned Wymarke, cited Sir William Walter for saying that the fellow mistook his mark, and should have shot hailshot at the whole court, which indeed grows great, and engrosses all manner of cases, and breeds general complaint for a decree passed there this term, subscribed by all the king's learned counsel, whereby that court may receive and call in question what judgments soever pass at the common law, whereby the jurisdiction of that court is enlarged out of measure, and so suits may become as it were immortal. This success is come of my Lord Coke and some of the judges oppugning the Chancery so weakly and unreasonably that, instead of overthrowing that exorbitant authority, they have more established and confirmed it' Court and Times of James I, vol. i. 439 (2 vols. 1848). 62 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. as you would be done to. Neither of them must do as private men, but the judge must do by him as they have publicly agreed; that is, both judge and prisoner have consented to a law, that if either of them steal they shall be hanged. XXXVIII. EVIL SPEAKING. 1. He that speaks ill of another, commonly, before he is aware, makes himself such a one as he speaks against ; for if he had civility or breeding, he would forbear such kind lo of language. 2. A gallant man is above ill words. An example we have in the old lord of Salisbury, who was a great wise man. Stone had called some lord about court, fool, the 1.13. Stone had called Sec] Doran (Court Fools, p. 196) says that this remark is all that we know of Stone. It seems to have been suggested by the unseemly passages of arms between Archbishop Laud and Archibald Armstrong, the Court Fool of the time (1637). Their enmi- ties had been of long standing. The Fool had on several occasions offered public affronts to the Archbishop, with the result (according to Francis Osborn) that Laud ' managed a quarrel with Archie the King's fool, and by endeavouring to explode him the court rendered him at last so considerable , . . as the fellow was not only able to continue the dispute for divers years, but received such encouragement from bystanders as he hath oft, in my hearing, belched in his face such miscarriages as he was really guilty of, and might, but for this foul- mouthed Scot, have been forgotten ; adding such other reproaches of his own as the dignity of his calling and greatness of his parts could not in reason or manners admit.' Osborn goes on to speak of the Archbishop as ' hoodwinked with passion ' and as led by his too. low- placed anger into no less an absurdity than an endeavour to bring the fool into the Star Chamber, and as having at last through the mediation of the Queen got him discharged the Court. Rushworth says, further, that when news had come from Scotland that there had been tumults about the new service-book, introduced at Laud's suggestion, ' Archir bald, the King's fool, said to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, EVIL SPEAKING. 63 lord complained, and has Stone whipped : Stone cries, I might have called my lord of Salisbury fool often enough, before he would have had me whipped. 3. Speak not ill of a great enemy, but rather give him good words, that he may use you the better, if you chance to fall into his hands. The Spaniard did this when he was a dying ; his confessor told him (to work him to repentance), how the devil tormented the wicked that went to hell : the Spaniard replying, called the devil my lord ; I hope my lord the devil is not so cruel : his confessor reproved 10 him. Excuse me for calhng him so, says the Don ; I know not into what hands I may fall, and if I happen into his, I hope he will use me the better for giving him good words. as he was going to the Council Table, ' Whea 's feule now ? doth not your Grace hear the news from Striveling about the Liturgy ? ' with other words of reflection. This was presently complained of to the Council, and it produced an order from the King and the assembled Lords that ' Archibald Armestrong, the King's fool, for certain scan- dalous words of a high nature, spoken by him against the Lord Arch- bishop of Canterbury, his Grace, and proved to be uttered by him by two witnesses, shall have his coat pulled over his head and be dis- charged the King's service and banished the Court.'— Rush worth. Collections, ii. 470. It may be questioned whether Rushworth is correct in thus limiting the occasion of Archie's disgrace. ' Archye,' writes Mr. Gerrard to Lord Strafford (Strafford Papers, vol. ii.), ' is fallen into a great mis- fortune ; a fool he would be, but a foul-mouthed knave he hath proved himself ; being at a tavern in Westminster, drunk as he saith himself, he was speaking of the Scottish business, he fell a railing of my Lord of Canterbury, said he was a monk, a rogue, and a traitor. Of this, his Grace complained at Council, and the King being present, it was ordered he should be carried to the Porter's Lodge, his coat pulled over his ears, and kicked out of the Court,' &c. We have also the well-known story of the fool's grace at dinner — ' Great praise be given to God, and little Laud to the devil.' See Doran, Court Fools, 205-207. 64 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. XXXIX. EXCOMMUNICATION. I. That place they bring for excommunication, put away from among yourselves that wicked person, i Cor. v. 13, is corrupted in the Greek. For it should be t6 wowjpoV, put away that evil from among you, not rbv irovqpov, that evil person. Besides, 6 Trovrjpbs is the devil, in Scripture, and it may be so taken there ; and there is a new edition of Theodoret come out, that has it right to vovripov. 'Tis true the Christians, before the civil state became Christian, 10 did by covenant and agreement set down how they would live ; and he that did not observe what they agreed upon, should come no more amongst them ; that is, be excom- municated. Such men are spoken of by the Apostle, Romans i. 31, whom he calls acrwderovs koL aa-irovbovs ; the Vulgar has it, incompositos, et sine fcedere ; the last word is pretty well, but the first not at all. Origen, in his book against Celsus, speaks of the Christians' o-uz^^tjktj, the trans- lator renders it conventus, as it signifies a meeting, when it is plain it signifies a covenant, and the English Bible 20 turned the other word well, covenant-breakers. Pliny tells us, the Christians took an oath amongst themselves to live thus and thus. 1. 2. That place they bring &c.] Stanley, in his notes on the Epistles to the Corinthians, remarks on this verse that — i^dpare rbv novrjpov is the usual formula for punishment on great crimes. See Deut. xiii. 5, xvii. 7, xxiv. 7, &c., also 2 Kings xxiii. 24. He adds, however, that Theodoret and Augustine read t6 novrjpov, and interpret it ' put away evil from amongst you.' 1. 16. Origen, in his hook &c.] Ourm 817 luii Xpiariavoi . . . avv6r)Kas ITOiovvTai napa ra vevopicrfieva ra Sia^oXif kotci tov 8ia)3 pdssttn : and especially in § 4. EiAijTTTai ovi> {f] >/'UXv) T'eiToiitra, Koi npos ra Secrfia ovua . . . Tedd(j)6ai re Xeyerai Kai ev (rirrjXaico etvaL, But that these views affected the language of the early Christians, and that they understood the descent into hell in .Selden's sense of the words, there is nothing to show, and there is abundant evidence to the contrary. On this subject the Greek and Latin fathers speak with one voice. They understand Christ's descent into hell as a fact distinct from his burial and resurrection. It is a literal visit to the lower regions where the souls of the dead were detained, and from which the souls of the old prophets and saints were liberated at Christ's coming. Pearson, in his long and learned discussion on the descent, puts the question, thus far, beyond all reasonable doubt. Archbishop Usher, writing on the descent, shows out of Plato and other philosophers and poets, that the word Hades is used to signify HOLY-DAYS. 77 learning, who held a metempsychosis, and when a soul did descend from heaven to take another body, they called it Kara^aaiv ds abr)v, taking qbr}s for the lower world, the state of mortality. Now the first Christians, many of them, were Platonic philosophers, and no question spoke such language as then was understood amongst them. To understand by hell, the grave, is no tautology, because the creed first tells what Christ suffered. He was crucified, dead, and buried ; then it tells us what he did. He descended into hell, the third day he rose again, he ascended, &c. LH. HOLY-DAYS. They say the Church imposes holy-days. There's no such thing, though the number of holy-days is set down in some of our Common-pra3'er books ^. Yet that has rela- tion to an act of parliament, which forbids the keeping of any other holy-days. The ground thereof was the multi- tude of holy-days in time of popery. But those that are 1 Books, H. 2] book, H. a general invisible future state of the soul after it is separated from the body, and he interprets the descent accordingly. Conf. Parr's Life of Usher, Appendix 27. Selden's interpretation appears to be entirely his own. I can find no other authority for it. 1. 15. an act 0/ parliament, which forbids &c.] This is the 5 and 6 of Edward VI, ch. 3, which enacts : ' that all the days hereafter mentioned shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy-days, and none other . . . and that none other day shall be kept and com- manded to be kept holy-day, or to abstain from lawful bodily labour.' The list given corresponds with that now in the Book of Cpmmon Prayer. Selden's remark must have been made at some date before June 8, 1647, when an Ordinance was put out by Parliament that festivals called holy-days were no longer to be observed, any law, statute, custom or canon to the contrary notwithstanding. Rush- worth, Collections, vol. vi. p. 548. 78 THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. kept, are kept by the custom of the country ; and I hope you will not say the Church imposes that. LIII. HUMILITY. 1. Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet every body is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity. 2. There is humilitas qucedam in vitio. If a man does not take notice of that excellency and perfection that is in 10 himself, how can he be thankful to God, who is the author of all excellency and perfection ? Nay, if a man has too mean an opinion of himself, 'twill render him unserviceable both to God and man. 3. Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up his dignity. In gluttony ^ there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be drinking; 'tis not the eating, nor 'tis not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess. So in pride. LIV. IDOLATRY. ) Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another. Pilt case I bow to the altar, why am I guilty of ^ Gluttony, S.] gluttons, H. and H. 2. 1. 21. Put case I bow &c.] This practice had been attacked as idola- trous by Burton, in his Sermon for God and the King (p. 105), and had been described by Prynne, in his Histrio-mastix (p. 236), as 'our late crouching and ducking unto newly erected altars, a ceremony much in use with idolatrous Papists heretofore, and derived by them HUMILITY.— INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE. 79 idolatry ? Because a stander-by thinks so ? I am sure I do not believe the altar to be God, and the God I worship may be bowed to in all places, and at all times. LV. JEWS. 1. God at the first gave laws to all mankind, but after- wards he gave peculiar laws to the Jews, which they only were to observe. Just as we have the common law for all England, and yet you have some corporations that, besides that, have peculiar laws and privileges to themselves. 2. Talk what you will of the Jews, that they are cursed, 10 they thrive where'er they come ; they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him money ; none of them beg ; they keep together ; and for their being hated, my life for yours, the Christians hate one another as much. LVI. INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE. 'Tis all one to me, if I am told of Christ, or some mystery of Christianity, if I am not capable of understanding it, as if I am not told at all, my ignorance is as invincible ; and therefore 'tis vain to call their ignorance only invincible, who never were told of Christ. The trick of it is to advance 20 the priest, whilst the Church of Rome says a man must be told of Christ by one thus and thus ordained. from pagan practices.' Laud, in his speech at the censure of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne, justifies it at great length, and substantially for the same reasons as Selden. See Laud's Works, vol. vi. p. 55 ff. But he does not use Selden's phrase of bowing to the altar. What he defends is carefully guarded as bowing towards the altar. 8o THE DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN. LVII. IMAGES. 1. The papists taking away the second commandment, is not haply so horrid a thing, nor so unreasonable amongst Christians as we make it. For the Jews, they could make no figure of God but they must commit idolatry, because he had taken no shape ; but since the assumption of our flesh, we know what shape to picture God in. Nor do I know why we may not make his image, provided we be sure what it is : as we say St. Luke took the picture of the Virgin 10 Mary, and St. Veronica of our Saviour. Otherwise it would be no honour to the king, to make a picture and call it the king's picture, when 'tis nothing like him. 2. Though the learned papists pray not to images, yet 'tis to be feared the ignorant do ; as appears by that tale of St. Nicholas in Spain. A countryman used to offer daily to St. Nicholas's image ; at length by a mischance the image was broken, and a new one made of his own plum- tree ; after that the man forbore. Being complained of to his Ordinary, he answered, 'tis true, he used to offer to the 20 old image, but to the new he could" not find in his heart because he knew it was a piece of his own plum-tree. You see what opinion this man had of the image ; and to this tended the bowing of their images, the twinkling of their eyes, the virgin's milk, &c. Had they only meant repre- sentations, a picture would have done it without these 1. 2. The papists taking away &c.] The papists do not do this in terms. They read the second Commandment continuously with the first, and as forming part of the first. The first Commandment they take as — ' Thou shalt have none other Gods before me, i. e. in my presence,' and they interpret the second as enlarging upon and explaining this. See e.g. the Douay Version— 'Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me' (Latin Vulgate, coram me)— explained in the notes to Haydocke's edition of the version as ='in my presence. I shall not be content to be adored with idols.' IMAGES.— IMPERIAL CONSTITUTIONS. 8i tricks. It may be with us in England they do not wor- ship images, because living among protestants they are either laughed out of it, or beaten out of it by shock of argument. 3. 'Tis a discreet way concerning pictures in churches to set up no new, nor to pull down no old. LVIII. IMPERIAL CONSTITUTIONS. They say imperial constitutions did only confirm the canons of the Church ; but that is not so, for they inflicted punishment, which the canons never did. Viz*. If a man 10 converted a Christian to be a Jew, he was to forfeit his estate, and lose his life. In Valentinian's ' novels, 'tis said Constat episcopos ^ forum legibus non habere, et judicant tantum de religione ^. ' Valentiniati s\ Valentine's MSS. ' Episcopos, H. 2] episcopus, H. ' Religione, H. 2] religiones, H. 1. 8. confirm the canons of the Church'] Oea-mCoiiev rolvvv, rd^iv vojiav €7re;^et;' tovs dyiovs eKKKT)