ancient Opinion and Observation That in the Universities of this Realm which I take to be the best endowed in Europe there is nothing more wanting towards the flourishing state of Learning than the honourable and plentiful Salaries of Readers in Arts and Professions in which point as your Majesties Bounty already hath made a beginning so this occasion is offer'd of God to make a proceeding surely Readers in the Chair are as Parents in Sciences and deserve to enjoy a Condition not inferiour to their Children who embrace the practical part else no man will sit longer in the Chair than till he can walk to a better preferment And it will come to pass as Virgil saith Et Patrum invalidi referent jejunia Nati For if the principal Readers through the meanness of their entertainment be but men of superficial Learning and that they shall take their places but in passage it will make the Mass of Sciences want the chief and solid dimension which is depth and to become but pretty and compendious habits of Practice Therefore I could wish that in both the Universities the Lectures as well of the three Professions Divinity Law and Physick as of the three Heads of Science Philosophy Arts of Speech and the Mathematicks were raised to 100 l. per Annum a piece which though it be not near so great as they are in some other places where the greatness of the reward doth whistle for the ablest men out of all Forreign parts to supply the Chair yet it may be a Portion to content a worthy and able man if he be likewise contemplative in nature as those Spirits are that are fittest for Lectures Thus may Learning in your Kingdom be advanced to a further heighth Learning I say which under your Majesty the most learned of Kings may claim some degree of Elevation Concerning propagation of Religion I shall in few words set before your Majesty three Propositions none of them devices of my own otherwise than that I ever approved them Two of which have been in agitation of speech and the third acted The first is a Colledge for Controversies whereby we shall not still proceed single but shall as it were double our Files which certainly will be found in the Encounter The second is a Receipt I like not the word Seminary in respect of the vain Vows and implicite Obedience and other things tending to the perturbation of States involved in that term for Converts to the Reformed Religion either of Youth or otherwise For I doubt not but there are in Spain Italy and other Countries of the Papists many whose hearts are touched with a sense of those corruptions and an acknowledgment of a better way which grace is many times smothered and choaked through a worldly consideration of necessity and want men not knowing where to have Succour and Refuge This likewise I hold a work of great Piety and of great Consequence that we also may be wise in our Generation and that the watchful and silent night may be used as well for sowing good Seed as of Tares The third is the Imitation of a Memorable and Religious Act of Queen Elizabeth who finding a part of Lancashire to be extremely backward in Religion and the Benefices swallowed up in Impropriations did by Decree in the Dutchy erect four Stipends of 100 l. per Annum a piece for Preachers well chosen to help the Harvest who have done a great deal of good in the parts they have laboured Neither do there want other Corners in the Realm that would require for a time the like extraordinary help Thus have I briefly delivered unto your Majesty my Opinion touching the Employment of this Charity whereby that Mass of Wealth which was in the Owner little better than a stack or heap of Muck may be spread over your Kingdom to many fruitful Purposes your Majesty planting and watering and God giving the increase Those who ever understood the temper of this Learned Man may easily perceive that at this time there were Baits enough laid for his partiality that such a mind as his could not but be byass'd nay now he was to contest for opposition's sake This made him busie and importunate eager at the Barr and earnest in his Addresses to the King The Motives that incouraged him to espouse the Plaintiff's Quarrel in short were these 1. The comfortable expectation of a great share of the Revenues 2. Because he was not named by Sutton as one of the Trustees for the Foundation which very reflection Mr. Laws the Executor used to him much about the Tryal 3. He and Sir Edward Coke could never agree and therefore no wonder if they differed in this Affair an Instance whereof I find in a Letter of his of Expostulation to Sir Edward wherein he says He took a Liberty to disgrace his Law Experience and Discretion c. I shall not undertake to answer the particular Arguments in the Letter but only briefly take thus much notice of it First The Simile of Salt and Sacrifice amounts to no more than this That we can do nothing perfectly but yet we must do as well as we can and in acts of Mercy every man is the proper Judge of his own Discretion Secondly He urges the Honourable Trustees cannot live for ever but yet at their decease their Equals are chosen in their Room What else is urged is rather a large and studied Essay of the end of Charity than a thing proper to this Affair But the greatest Vindication of Mr. Sutton and his Magnificent Charity is the Foundation it self which notwithstanding the Envy and Opposition against it and the difficulty after Six thousand pounds expence in sitting the healthful pleasant and large Mansion for those that were to dwell in it on Monday next after Michaelmas-day Octob. 3. 1614. three years after the death of the Founder was opened by his vigilant and faithful Executors at which time the Captains and Gentlemen Scholars and Officers entered this new and stately Hospital to the Glory of God the Honour of his Majesty and Mr. Sutton the effectual Founder thereof the Credit of the Protestant Religion for the good Example of the Rich the comfort of the Poor the Reputation of the Executors and Governours and the Joy of all good Minds to behold it so that it might well be said in the Settlement thereof as it was in the Solemnity of the Roman Jubilees Come and see a work the like to which none alive ever saw and no man alive is ever like to see again Some years after I find an Establishment made with many Excellent Orders at an Assembly June 21. 1627. and signed with King CHARLES the First 's own Hand Charter-house THE Hospital of King JAMES founded in Charter-house in the County of Middlesex at the humble Petition and only Costs and Charges of Thomas Sutton Esquire this Style shall be inviolably observed and expressed in the same formal words upon all Evidences Conveyances Leases and Writings
intent though varying in individuo for it appears that he had in notion a triple good an Hospital a School and maintaining of a Preacher which individuals refer to these three General Heads Relief of the Poor Advancement of Learning and Propagation of Religion Now then if I set before your Majesty in every of these three kinds what it is that is most wanting in your Kingdom and what is like to be the most fruitful and effectual use of such a Beneficence and least like to be perverted that I think shall be no ill scope of my labour how meanly soever performed for out of Variety represented Election may be best grounded Concerning the Relief of the Poor I hold some number of Hospitals with competent Endowments will do far more good than one Hospital of an Exorbitant Greatness for though the one Course will be more seen yet the other will be more felt For if your Majesty erect many besides the observing of the ordinary Maxim Bonum quo communius eò melius choice may be made of those Towns and places where there is most need and so the Remedy may be distributed as the Disease is dispersed Again greatness of Relief accumulated in one place doth rather invite a swarm and surcharge of poor than relieve those that are naturally bred in that place like to ill temper'd Medicines that draw more humour to the part than they evacuate from it but chiefly I rely upon the Reason I touched in the beginning That in these great Hospitals the Revenues will draw the Use and not the Use the Revenues and so through the Mass of Wealth they will swiftly tumble down in a mis-employment And if any man say That in the two Hospitals in London there is a Precedent of Greatness concurring with good Employment let him consider that those Hospitals have Annual Governours that they are under the Superiour care and policy of such a State as the City of London and chiefly that their Revenues consist not in Certainties but in Casualties and free Gifts which Gifts would be withheld if they appeared once to be perverted so as it keepeth them in a continual good behaviour and awe to imploy them aright None of which points do match with the present Case The next Consideration may be Whether this intended Hospital as it hath a more ample Endowment than other Hospitals have should not likewise work upon a better Subject than other poor as that it should be converted to the relief of maimed Souldiers decayed Merchants Housholders aged and destitute Churchmen and the like whose Condition being of a better sort than loose People and Beggars deserveth both a more liberal stipend and allowance and some proper place of Relief not intermingled or coupled with the basest sort of poor which Project though specious yet in my judgment will not answer the design in the event in these our times For certainly few men in any Vocation who have been Somebody and bear a mind somewhat according to conscience and remembrance of that they have been will ever condescend to that Condition as to profess to live upon Alms and to become a Corporation of declared Beggars but rather will choose to live obscurely and as it were to hide themselves with some private Friends So that the end of such an Institution will be That it will make the place a receptacle of the worst idlest and most dissolute Persons of every Profession and to become a Cell of Loyterers cast Serving men and Drunkards with scandal rather than fruit to the Common-wealth And of this kind I can find but one Example with us which is the Alms Knights of Windsor which Particular would give a man small encouragement to follow that Precedent Therefore the best effect of Hospitals is to make the Kingdom if it were possible capable of that Law That there be no Beggar in Israel for it is that kind of People that is a Burden an Eye sore a Scandal and a Seed of peril and tumult in the State But chiefly it were to be wisht that such a Beneficence towards the relief of the Poor were so bestowed as not only the meer and naked Poor should be sustained but also that the honest Person which maketh hard means to live upon whom the Poor are now charged should be in some sort relieved for that were a work generally acceptable to the Kingdom if the publique Hand of Alms might spare the private hand of Tax and therefore of all other Imployments of that kind I commend most Houses of Relief and Correction which are mixt Hospitals where the Impotent Person is relieved and the sturdy Beggar buckled to work and the unable Person also not maintained to be idle which is ever joyned with Drunkenness and Impurity but is sorted with such work as he can manage and perform and when the uses are not distinguish't as in other Hospitals whereof some are for Aged and Impotent some for Children and some for Correction and Vagabonds but are general and promiscuous so that they may take off Poor of every sort from the Country as the Country breeds them And thus the Poor themselves shall find the Provision and other People the Sweetness of the abatement of the Tax Now if it be objected That Houses of Correction in all places have not done the good expected as it cannot be denied but in most places they have done much good so it must be remembred that there is a great difference between that which is done by the distracted government of Justices of Peace and that which may be done by a setled Ordinance subject to a regular Visitation as this may be and besides the want hath been commonly in Houses of Correction of a competent and certain Stock for the Materials of Labour which in this Case may be likewise supply'd Concerning the Advancement of Learning I do subscribe to the Opinion of one of the wisest and greatest Men of your Kingdom That for Grammar Schools there are already too many and therefore no Providence to add where there is excess For the great number of Schools which are in your Highnesses Realm doth cause a want and likewise an overthrow both of them inconvenient and one of them dangerous for by means thereof they find want in the Country and Towns both of Servants for Husbandry and Apprentices for Trade and on the other side their being more Scholars bred than the State can prefer and imploy and the active part of that life not bearing a proportion to the preparative it must needs fall out that many persons will be bred unfit for other Vocations and unprofitable for that in which they were bred up which fills the Realm full of indigent idle and wanton people which are but Materia reram novarum Therefore in this point I wish Mr. Sutton's intention were exalted a degree that that which he meant for Teachers of Children your Majesty should make for Teachers of Men wherein it hath been my
healing his sores and binding up his wounds by relieving his pain and refreshing his spirits he eases his own mind and does an office of kindness to himself and this seems to be the proper sense of the Prophet When thou seest the naked cover him that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh Lastly nothing more secures our Interest in Heaven nor gives a fairer Title to the blessed Mansions above for the Scripture informs us that at the great and terrible day of Judgment inquiry will be made Whether we have fed the hungry and clothed the naked visited the sick and redeemed the prisoner for Charity is so requisite in order to our well being in the other world that Abraham would hardly think himself now in heaven had he not a Lazarus in his bosom It may be these Arguments were the cause of so much good that is found of this nature in the world for I believe we read of few or no Hospitals before the Plantation of Christian Religion Nor is this a private fancy of my own but partly gathered from the silence of former Ages in reference to these works of Charity and partly from several barbarous Instances of State-policy which were enjoyned to prevent the necessity of such Structures and Provisions for needy people These were customary in many Countries and gravely prescribed by Aristotle himself in these words Lib. 7. Pol. cap. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. which may be thus Englished As for the destroying or bringing up of Children there should be a Law that none might bring up any who were imperfect or lame in any of their Limbs and for the avoiding of too great a number of Children if it be not permitted by the Laws of the Country to expose them it is requisite to set down how many a man may have and if any have more than that prescribed number there must be used some means that the fruit may be destroy'd in the Mothers womb Several who were sick and weakly having no means of subsistence and hopes of human pitty did make Sale of their lives that upon their recovery both they and their Posterity should be slaves to him that was at the expence of the Relief If any person happened to be lame or blind he thought it in vain to endeavour to move the compassion of barbarous and self-ended men therefore their custom was to lay violent hands upon themselves to put a period to their miserable lives and wretched fortunes This was the lamentable effect of Pagan uncharitableness But when once Constantine the Great appear'd enabled with the Riches and Authority of Empire he bravely redressed all these horrid and inhuman practises Euseb Hist Lib. 10. and erected many structures for to entertain and refresh the sons and daughters of pitty and compassion This excellent example Julian the Apostate could not but applaud and imitate as may be seen by his Letters sent to the Proconsuls and Cities of Asia perswading them to follow the examples of Christians in this matter and though he reigned alone scarce two years yet he left many monuments of Charity behind him After these Reigns the good and pious Emperours were strangely forward in this way of Charity and their Benefactions became almost incredible Nay the very Turks now are famous for it and it seems not only a good act of kindness and piety among them but also a wise forecast and prudent consideration For no Turk is solicitous to provide for the future condition of his family lest he should provoke the jealousie of the Grand Seignour and be crushed in a moment therefore they usually leave their Children to cut out their own Fortunes who if they should prove maimed or sickly are in these places provided for They have one Hospital at the entrance of Mare Majore coming from Bosphorus which was founded by Solyman's Daughter the Wife of Rustan Bassa and by her endowed with 8000 Ducats per An. There is another built by a certain Bassa in the Isle of Phermena not far from Delos in Greece in the Reign of Mahomet 2d. who conquered Constantinople it is endowed with 12000 Ducats per Ann. A third is at Constantinople begun by Mahomet 2d. and finished by Bajazet his son it enjoyes 60000 Ducats per An. These with many others in the Turkish Dominions are erected to entertain sick and lame people men who are unfit for labour and whose conditions require Relief The Governours of their Hospitals usually walk out and desire wearied Travellers and that sort of people which commonly line the Highways to repair hither and accept of the kindness and refreshments of the charitable House Many of them are by their Establishments to receive persons of any Religion which is certainly a generous instance of kindness and civility Near these Foundations commonly a Mosque or Temple is erected as now upon Mount Sinai and elsewhere for those that are relieved are required to pray there for the Soul of the Founder the place where they intend to raise such a work of Charity is frequently made choice of in some solitary and retired place to avoid vain glory Their Charity likewise extends to the Inhabitants of the Aery and Watry Elements for they hire men to feed fishes in common Rivers and with expence purchase the Release of encaged Birds We read likewise of five goodly Hospitals in Fez and of a Persian King who caused a Mosque to be built in Armenia at the foot of that Mountain whereon Noah's Ark rested this is a Receptacle for men of all sorts of Religions and Complexions Christians and Turks Moors and Arabs here all are entertained three days and three nights with much kindness and freedom and for its maintenance it is endowed with 40000 Ducats per Ann. Thus we may observe the rise and spreading of these Instances of Benefaction how much it redounds to the honour of Christian Religion that as it at first out of its excellent Principles began this work so now it does continue it and provokes the emulation of all Countries For the honour of our own Nation I shall conclude with the words of Dr. Willet in that part of his Synopsis p. 1243. called the Catalogue of Good Works in the Defence of Protestant Charity I trust I have made it good that more Charitable Works have been done in these 60 years of the Gospel than in the like time in Popery I think they cannot shew in any Age almost a Million bestowed in Works of Charity more than forty Hospitals above twenty Free schools and more than ten Colledges and Churches Thus says he is the slanderous objection of the Papists answered who said That Protestants do no Good Works but are rather Enemies to them THE CHARTER-HOUSE IN that fatal year When Prodigies familiar were Ills and Distempers in the East began And nimbly over Europe ran When living men amaz'd beheld the dead And Carkases o're all the world were spread Thou Walter Manny
Fundo Erigo c. But in truth the Corporation is made by the King's Charter and the Founder is but an Instrument 9. The mony paid by some of the Governours in their private capacity is good but the payment was as Governours and so they are acquitted 2. a Rent was reserved which was a good consideration 3. a Bargain and Sale was to be upon Confidence and Trust 10. They may plead that they are seized in fore although then it be not in esse In Answer to the Precedents some are Explanatory and some Negatory ex Consuetudine Clericorum This being the Case it was argued shrewdly on the Plaintiff's side By Sir Francis Bacon Solicitor General Mr. Gualter of the Temple And Mr. Yelverton of Grays Inne And on the Defendants side the Hospital c. By Mr. Hubbard Attourney General Mr. Hutton Serjeant at Law Mr. Coventry of the Inner Temple But nevertheless an Adjournment was made of it from the Kings Bench to the Exchequer Chamber where it was solemnly argued by the Judges of the Land Sir Robert Hutton Sir Augustine Nicholls Sir John Doderidge Sir Humphrey Winoh Sir Edward Bromely Sir John Crooke Sir James Altham Sir George Snig Sir Peter Warberton Sir Laurence Tanfield Lord Chief Baron Sir Edward Coke Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir Thomas Flemming Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench was then sick and so not present Here it was judged with the great applause of all that heard it for the Defendants the Governours of the Hospital The Plaintiff being but a man of ordinary quality was judged to have reason to be content with a tolerable provision for him sutable to his degree viz. he had allotted to him the Mannor of Turback in Lancashire consisting of a fair ancient House two Parks and large Demeans plentifully stored with Timber valued at 350 l. per Annum Rent of Assise together with a Rectory worth 100 l. per Annum in the same County and 300 l. by Will Thus was this great Difference at Law decided 1. For the Honour of the Protestant Religion that has produced such a Work of Piety and Charity as never was in the Christian World all things considered for it was the Erection of one Private man who bequeathed a mighty Estate to this pious Use 2. It was for the glory of the King to whom ex congruo condigno it was dedicated that it might bear his Name engage Him in its Institution and His Royal Successours in its future Patronage and Maintenance 3. For the increase of Piety that men in this Age be not deterred from Good Works 4. That Justice and Mercy might come together Righteousness and Peace kiss each other That every Person may have his due esteem we are to understand that much is owing to the lasting memory of Sir Edward Coke who like a firm Rock stood between that and danger he outweather'd the storm and broke the fury of interested and mercenary Eloquence At one time it was almost crushed by the hungry hopes and violence of some Self-seeking Courtiers which made that Oracle of Law more warm and positive in his Determinations He endeavoured and brought it to pass and he deserves a Monument of greater Honour among us than he found in the Church of Norwich And if it were lawful to annex the Succession of a Governour to any but the Royal Family 'T were pity the Name of so Honourable a Patron should ever be out of the List of the Right Honourable the Lords and Governours of the Charter-house Among those who were Enemies to this Religious design I find Sir Francis Bacon writing this following Advice to King James Vide Resuscit May it please your Majesty I Find it a positive Precept in the Old Law That there should be no Sacrifice without Salt The Moral whereof besides the Ceremony may be That God is not pleased with the Body of a good Intention except it be seasoned with that Spiritual Wisdom and Judgment as it be not easily subject to be corrupted and perverted For Salt in the Scripture is both a figure of Wisdom and lasting this cometh into my mind upon this act of Mr. Sutton which seemeth to me as a Sacrifice without Salt having the Materials of a good Intention but not powdred with any such Ordinances and Institutions as may preserve the same from turning corrupt or at least from becoming unsavory and of little use For though the choice of the Feoffees be of the best yet neither can they always live and the very nature of the work it self in the vast and unfit proportion thereof is apt to provoke a mis-imployment it is no diligence of theirs except there be a digression from that Model that can excuse it from running the same way that Gifts of the like condition have heretofore done For to design the Charter-house a Building fit for a Prince 's Habitation for an Hospital is all one as if one should give in Alms a rich embroydered Cloak to a Beggar And certainly a man may see tanquam quae oculis cernuntur that if such an Edifice with Six thousand pounds Revenue be erected into one Hospital it will in a small time degenerate to be made a preferment of some great Person to be Master and he to take all the sweet and the Poor to be stinted and take but the Crums as it comes to pass in divers Hospitals of this Realm which have but the names of Hospitals and are but wealthy Benefices in respect of the Mastership but the poor which is the propter quid little relieved And the like hath been the Fortune of much of the Alms of the Roman Religion in the Great Foundations which being begun in Vain-glory and Ostentation have had their Judgment upon them to end in corruption and abuse This Meditation hath made me presume to write these few Lines to your Majesty being no better than good wishes which your Majesties great Wisdom may make something or nothing of Wherein I desire to be thus understood that if this Foundation such as it is be perfect and good in Law then I am too well acquainted with your Majesties Disposition to advise any course of power or profit which is not grounded upon a right Nay further if the defects be such as a Court of Equity may remedy and cure Then I wish that as St. Peter's Shadow did cure Diseases so the very shadow of a good intention may cure the defects of that Nature But if there be a Right and Birthright planted in the Heir and not remediable by Courts of Equity and that Right be submitted to your Majesty whereby it is both in your power and grace what to do then do I wish that this rude Mass and Chaos of a good Deed were directed rather to a solid Merit and durable Charity than to a blaze of Glory that will but crackle a little in Talk and quickly extinguish And this may be done observing the Species of Mr. Sutton's