heart an Infidel and inclined to the Opinions of Hobbs I desired him to tell me the truth herein And he oft professed to me that Mr. Selden was a resolved serious Christian and that he was a great adversary to Hobbs his errors and that he had seen him openly oppose him so earnestly as either to depart from him or drive him out of the Room And as Mr. Selden was one of those called Erastians as his Book de Synedriis and others shew yet owned the Office properly Ministerial So most Lawyers that ever I was acquainted with taking the word Jurisdiction to signifie something more than the meer Doctoral Priestly power and power over their own Sacramental Communion in the Church which they guide do use to say that it is primarily in the Magistrate as no doubt all power of Corporal Coercion by Mulcts and Penalties is And as to the Accidentals to the proper power of Priesthood or the Keys they truly say with Dr. Stillingfleet That God hath setled no one form Indeed the Lord Chief Justice thought that the power of the Word and Sacraments in the Ministerial Office was of Gods institution and that they were the proper Judges appointed by Christ to whom they themselves should apply Sacraments and to whom they should deny them But that the power of Chancellors Courts and many modall additions which are not of the Essence of the Priestly Office floweth from the King and may be fitted to the State of the Kingdom Which is true if it be limited by Gods Laws and exercised on thing only allowed them to deal in and contradict not the Orders and Powers setled by Christ and his Apostles On this account he thought well of the form of Government in the Church of England lamenting the miscarriages of many persons and the want of Parochial Reformation But he was greatly for uniting in Love and Peace upon so much as is necessary to Salvation with all Good Sober Peaceable Men. And he was much against the corrupting of the Christian Religion whose Simplicity and Purity he justly took to be much of its excellency by mens busie additions by Wit Policy Ambition or any thing else which sophisticateth it and maketh it another thing and causeth the lamentable contentions of the world What he was as a Lawyer a Judg a Christian is so well known that I think for me to pretend that my testimony is of any use were vain I will only tell you what I have written by his Picture in the front of the great Bible which I bought with his Legacy in memory of his Love and Name viz. Sir Matthew Hale That unwearied Student that prudent Man that solid Philosopher that famous Lawyer that PILLAR and BASIS of JUSTICE who would not have done an unjust act for any worldly price or motive the Ornament of his Majesties Government and Honour of England the highest faculty of the Soul of Westminster Hall and pattern to all the Reverend and Honourable Judges That godly serious practical Christian the lover of goodness and all good men a lamenter of the Clergies selfishness and unfaithfulness and discord and of the sad divisions following hereupon An earnest desirer of their Reformation Concord and the Churches peace and of a REFORMED ACT of UNIFORMITY as the best and necessary means thereto That great contemner of the Riches Pomp and Vanity of the World That pattern of honest plainness and humility who while he fled from the Honour that pursued him was yet Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench after his being long Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer living and dying entring on using and voluntarily surrendring his place of Judicature with the most universal Love and Honour and Praise that ever did English Subject in this Age or any that just History doth acquaint us with c. c. c. This man so wise so good so great bequeathing me in his Testament the Legacy of Forty shillings meerly as a Testimony of his respect and love I thought this book the Testament of Christ the meetest purchase by that price to remain in memorial of the faithful love which he bare and long expressed to his inferiour and unworthy but honouring Friend who thought to have been with Christ before him and waiteth for the day of his perfect conjunction with the Spirits of the Just made perfect Richard Baxter
therefore for the better management for the accountableness and the after use he had long accustomed to pâ—n his Meditations which gave us all of that nature that he hath left us Notwithstanding his own great furniture of knowledg and he was accounted by some somewhat tenacious of his Conceptions for men that know much cannot easily yield to the expectations of less knowing men yet I must say that I remember not that ever I conversed with a man that was readier to receive and learn He would hear as patiently and recollect all so distinctly and then try it so judiciously not disdaining to learn of an inferior in some things who in more had need to learn of him that he would presently take what some stand wrangling against many years I never more perceived in any man how much great knowledg and wisdom facilitate additions and the reception of any thing not before known Such a one presently perceiveth that Evidence which another is uncapable of For Instance The last time save one that I saw him in his weakness at Acton he engaged me to explicate the Doctrine of Divine Government and Decree as consistent with the sin of man And when I had distinctly told him 1. What God did as the Author of Nature Physically 2. What he did as Legislator Morally And 3. What he did as Benefactor and by special Grace 4. And where permission came in and where actual operation 5. And so how certainly God might cause the effects and not cause the volitious as determinate to evil though the volition and effect being called by one name as Theft Murder Adultery Lying c. oft deceive men He took up all that I had said in order and distinctly twice over repeated each part in its proper place and with its Reason and when he had done said that I had given him satisfaction Before I knew what he did himself in Contemplation I took it not well that he more than once told me Mr. Baxter I am more beholden to you than you are aware of and I thank you for all but especially for your Scheme and your Catholick Theology For I was sorry that a man that I thought so near death should spend much of his time on such Controversies though tending to end them But he continued after near a year and had leisure for Contemplations which I knew not of When I parted with him I doubted which of us would be first at Heaven But he is gone before and I am at the door and somewhat the willinger to go when I think such Souls as his are there When he was gone to Gloucestershire and his Contemplations were published by you I sent him the confession of my censures of him how I had feared that he had allowed too great a share oâ— his time and thoughts to Speculation and too little to Practicals but rejoyced to see the conviction of my error and he returned me a very kind Letter which was the last Some censured him for living under such a Curate at Act on thinking it was in his power to have got Dr. Reeves the Parson to provide a better Of which I can say that I once took the liberty to tell him that I feared too much tepidity in him by reason of that thing not that he needed himself a better teacher who knew more and could over-look scandals but for the sake of the poor ignorant people who greatly needed better help He answered me That if money would do it he would willingly have done it but the Dr. was a man not to be dealt with which was the hardest word that I remember I have heard him use of any For I never knew any man more free from speaking evil of others behind their backs Whenever the discourse came up to the faultiness of any individuals he would be silent but the sorts of faulty persons he would blame with cautelous freedom especially idle proud scandalous contentious and factious Clergy-men We agreed in nothing more than that which he oft repeateth in the Papers which you gave me and which he oft expressed viz. That true Religion consisteth in great plain necessary things the life of faith and hope the love of God and man an humble self-denying mind with mortification of worldly affection carnal lusts c. And that the calamity of the Church and withering of Religion hath come from proud and busie mens additions that cannot give peace to themselves and others by living in love and quietness on this Christian simplicity of faith and practice but vex and turmoil the Church with these needless and hurtful superfluities some by their decisions of words or unnecessary controversies and some by their restless reaching after their own worldly interest and corrupting the Church on pretence of raising and defending it some by their needless ceremonies and some by their superstitious and causless scruples But he was specially angry at them that would so manage their differences about such things as to shew that they had a greater zeal for their own additions than for the common saving truths and duties which we were all agreed in and that did so manage their several little and selfish causes as wounded or injured the common cause of the Christian and Reformed Churches He had a great distaste of the books called A Friendly Debate c. and Ecclesiastical Polity as from an evil Spirit injuring Scripture Phrase and tempting the Atheists to contemn all Religion so they might but vent their spleen and be thought to have the better of their adversaries and would say How easie is it to requite such men and all parties to expose each other to contempt Indeed how many Parishes in England afford too plenteous matter of reply to one that took that for his part and of tears to serious observers His main desire was That as men should not be peevishly quarrelsom against any lawful circumstances forms or orders in Religion much less think themselves godly men because they can fly from other mens circumstances or setled lawful Orders as sin so especially that no humane additions of Opinion Orders Modes Ceremonies Professions or Promises should ever be managed to the hindering of Christian Love and Peace nor of the Preaching of the Gospel nor the wrong of our common Cause or the strengthening of Atheism Infidelity Prophaness or Popery but that Christian Verity and Piety the Love of God and man and a good life and our common peace in these might be first resolved on and secured and all our additions might be used but in due subordination to these and not to any injury of any of them nor Sects Parties or narrow Interests be set up against the common duty and the publick interest and peace I know you are acquainted how greatly he valued Mr. Selden being one of his Executors his Books and Picture being still near him I think it meet therefore to remember that because many Hobbists do report that Mr. Selden was at the
Vis vel Virtus should be the adequate conceptus of a Spirit and not rather an inadequate supposing the conceptus of substantia Fundamentalis as Dr. Glisson calls it de Vitâ Naturae seeing omnis Virtus est rei alieni Virtus Yet he yielded to me that Virtus seu Vis Vitalis is not Animae accidens but the Conceptus formalis Spiritus supposing substantia to be the conceptus fundamentalis and both together express the essence of a Spirit Every created being is Passive For recipit in fluxum causae primae God transcendeth our defining skill But where there is receptivity many Ancients thought there was some pure sort of Materiality and we say there is receptive Substantiality And who can describe the difference laying aside the formal Vertues that difference things between the highest material substance and the lowest substance called Immaterial We were neither of us satisfied with the notions of Penetrability and Indivisibility as sufficient differences But the virtutes specificae plainly difference What later thoughts a year before he died he had of these things I know not But some say that a Treatise of this Subject the Souls Immortality was his last finished work promised in the end of his Treatise of mans Origination and if we have the sight of that it will fullier tell us his Judgment One thing I must notifie to you and to those that have his Manuscripts That when I sent him a Scheme with some Elucidations he wrote me on that and my Treatise of the Soul almost a Quire of Paper of Animadversions by which you must not conclude at all of his own judgment For he professed to me that he wrote them to me not as his judgment but as his way was as the hardest Objections which he would have satisfaction in And when I had written him a full Answer to all and have been oft since with him he seemed satisfied You will wrong him therefore if you should Print that written to me as his judgment As to his judgment about Religion Our discourse was very sparing about Controversies He thought not fit to begin with me about them nor I with him and as it was in me so it seemed to be in him from a conceit that we were not fit to pretend to add much to one another About matters of Conformity I could gladly have known his mind more fully But I thought it unmeet to put such questions to a Judg who must not speak against the Laws and he never offered his judgment to me And I knew that as I was to reverence him in his own Profession so in matters of my profession and concernment he expected not that I should think as he beyond the Reasons which he gave I must say that he was of opinion that the Wealth and Honour of the Bishops was convenient to enable them the better to relieve the poor and rescue the Inferior Clergy from oppression and to keep up the honour of Religion in the world But all this on supposition that it would be in the hands of wise and good men or else it would do as much harm But when I asked him Whether great Wealth and Honour would not be most earnestly desired and sought by the worst of men while good men would not seek them And whether he that was the only fervent seeker was not likeliest to obtain except under some rare extraordinary Prince And so whether it was not like to entail the Office on the worst and to arm Christs Enemies against him to the end of the world which a provision that had neither alluring nor much discouraging temptation might prevent he gave me no answer I have heard some say If the Pope were a good man what a deal of good might he do But have Popes therefore blest the world I can truly say that he greatly lamented the negligence and ill lives and violence of some of the Clergy and would oft say What have they their Calling Honour and Maintenance for but to seek the instructing and saving of mens Souls He much lamented that so many worthy Ministers were silenced the Church weakned Papists strengthened the Cause of Love and Prety greatly wronged and hindred by the present differences about Conformity And he hath told me his judgment That THE ONLY MEANS TO HEAL US WAS A NEW ACT OF UNIFORMITY which should neither leave all at liberty nor impose any thing but necessary I had once a full opportunity to try his judgment far in this It pleased the Lord Keeper Bridgman to invite Dr. Manton and my self to whom Dr. Bates at our desire was added to treat with Dr. Wilkins and Dr. Burton about the terms of our Reconciliation and Restoration to our Ministerial liberty After some days conference we came to agreement in all things as to the necessary terms And because Dr. Wilkins and I had special intimacy with Judg Hale we desired him to draw it up in the form of an Act which he willingly did and we agreed to every word But it pleased the House of Commons hearing of it to begin their next Session with a Vote That no such Bill should be brought in and so it died Quer. 1. Whether after this and other such agreement it be Ingenuity or somewhat else that hath ever since said We know not what they would have And that at once call out to us and yet strictly forbid us to tell them what it is we take for sin and what we desire 2. Whether it be likely that such men as Bishop Wilkins and Dr. Burton and Judg Hale would consent to such terms of our concord as should be worse than our present condition of division and convulsion is And whether the maintainers of our dividing Impositions be all wiser and better men than this Judg and that Bishop were 3. And whether it be any distance of opinion or difficulty of bringing us to agreement that keepeth England in its sad Divisions or rather some mens opinion that our Unity it self is not desirable lest it strengthen us The case is plain His behaviour in the Church was Conformable but prudent He constantly heard a Curate too low for such an Auditor In Common-Prayer he behav'd himself as others saving that to avoid the differencing of the Gospels from the Epistles and the bowing at the name Jesus from the names Christ Saviour God c. He would use some equality in his gestures and stand up at the reading of all Gods Word alike I had but one fear or suspicion concerning him which since I am assured was groundless I was afraid lest he had been too little for the Practical part of Religion as to the working of the Soul towards God in Prayer Meditation c. because he seldom spake to me of such Subjects nor of Practical Books or Sermons but was still speaking of Philosophy or of Spirits Souls the future State and the Nature of God But at last I understood that his averseness to Hypocrisie made