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THE PREFACE.

IDARE neither think, nor afsure the Reader, that I have com

mitted no mistakes in this relation of the Life of Dr. Sanderfon; but am fure, there is none that are either wilful or very material. I confefs, it was worthy the employment of some perfon of more learning and greater abilities than I can pretend to; and I have not a little wondered that none have yet been fo grateful to him and pofterity as to undertake it: For as it may be noted that our Saviour had a care, that for Mary Magdalen's kindness to him, her name should never be forgotten: So I conceive the great fatisfaction many scholars have already had, and the unborn world is like to have, by his exact, clear, and useful learning; and might have by a true narrative of his matchless meeknefs, his calm fortitude, and the innocence of his whole life, doth juftly challenge the like from this present age, that pofterity may not be ignorant of them; And it is to me a wonder, that it has been already fifteen years neglected. But in faying this, my meaning is not to upbraid others (I am far from that) but excufe myself, or beg pardon for daring to attempt it.

This being premifed, I'defire to tell the reader, that in this relation I have been fo bold, as to paraphrafe and fay, what I think he (whom I had the happiness to know well) would have faid upon the fame occafion; and if I have been too bold in doing fo, and cannot now beg pardon of him that loved me, yet I do of my reader, from whom I defire the fame favour.

And though my age have procured me a writ of ease, and that fecured me from all further trouble in this kind; yet I met with fuch perfuafions to undertake it,and fo many willing informers fince, and from them and others, fuch helps and encouragements to proceed, that when I found myself faint, and weary of the burden with which I had loaden myfelf, and fometimes ready to lay it down; yet time and new ftrength hath at last brought it to be what it now is, and here prefented to the reader, and with it, this defire, that he will take notice that Dr. Sanderfon did in his will or laft fickness advertise, that after his death nothing of his might be printed; because that might be faid to be his, which indeed was not; and alfo, for that he might have changed his opinion fince he first wrote it, as it is thought he has fince he wrote his "Pax Ecclefiæ." And though thele reafons ought to be regarded, yet regarded fo, as he refolves in his "Cafe of Confcience concerning rafh Vows," that there inay appear very good fecond reafons why we may forbear to

perform them. However, for his faid reasons, they ought to be read as we do apocryphal fcripture; to explain, but not oblige us to fo firm a belief of what is here prefented as his.

And I have this to fay more; that as in my queries for writing Dr. Sanderson's Life, I met with these little tracts annexed; fo in my former queries for my information to write the Life of venerable Mr. Hooker; I met with a fermon, which I also believe was really his, and here presented as his to the reader. It is affirmed (and I have met with reafon to believe it) that there be fome artifts, that do certainly know an original picture from a copy, and in what age of the world, and by whom drawn: And if fo, then I hope it may be as fafely affirmed, that what is here prefented for theirs, is fo like their temper of mind, their other writings, the times when, and the occafions upon which they were writ, that all readers may fafely conclude, they could be writ by none but venerable Mr. Hooker, and the humble and learned Dr. Sanderfon.

And lastly, the trouble being now paft, I look back and am glad that I have collected thefe memoirs of this humble man, which lay fcattered, and contracted them into a narrow compafs; and if I have, by the pleasant toil of fo doing, either pleafed or profited any man, I have attained what I have defigned when I firft undertook it: But I feriously wish, both for the reader's and Dr. Sanderfon's fake, that pofterity had known his great learning and virtue by a better pen; by fuch a pen, as could have made his life as immortal as his learning and merits ought to be.

I. W.

In the first edition of Mr. Walton's Life of Dr. Sanderson, printed in octavo, 1678, were added the following tracts. 1. "Bifhop Sanderfon's Judgment concerning Submifsion to Ufurpers." 2. "Pax Ecclefiæ." 3. " Bishop Sanderfon's Judgment in one view for the Settlement of the Church." 4. "Reafons of the prefent Judgment of the University of Oxford, concerning the Solemn League and Covenants," &c. And alf a Sermon of Richard Hooker, upon Prayer, from Matt. vii. 7, found in the Itudy of Bishop Andrews.

THE LIFE OF

DR. ROBERT SANDERSON.

DR. ROBERT SANDERSON, the late learned Bishop of

Lincoln, whofe Life I intend to write with all truth, and equal plainnefs, was born the 19th day of September, in the year of our redemption 1587: The place of his birth was Rotherham in the county of York, a town of good note, and the more, that for Thomas Rotherham, fometime Archbishop of that See, was born in it: A man whose great wisdom, and bounty,

• It appeared from the Register of the Parish of Sheffield in Yorkshire, that he was baptized in the church of Sheffield, Sept. 20, 1587. (Dr. Brown Willis.)- See alfo "Thorefby's Ducatus Leodenfis," p. 78.

}

d THOMAS SCOT, Fellow of King's College in Cambridge, was afterward Master of Pembroke Hall, and in 1483 and in 1484, Chancellor of the University. He obtained great ecclefiaftical preferment, being fucceffively Provoft of Beverley, Bishop of Rochester and of Lincoln, and lastly Archbishop of York. Nor was he lefs adorned with civil honours, having been appointed, first, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and then Lord Chancellor of England.

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During the reign of Edward IV. were founded the Collegiate Churches of Middleham and Rotherham, in the county of York. The latter originally confifted of one Mifter, three Fellows, and fix Scholars, and was founded and moft liberally endowed by Thomas Archbishop of York, from 1480 to 1501. He has assigned the reason that induced him to adopt that number, ut ubi offendi Deum in decem præceptis fuis, ifti decem ora"rent pro me. To this College were annexed three fchools for instructing boys in writing, grammar, and mufic. "Thefe fchools," fays Mr. Camden, are now fupprefsed by the wicked avarice of the age." Prelate changed his family name of Scot for that of Rotherham, the fup pofed place of his birth. It was ufual for the Clergy to add the names of the places of their nativity to their Chriftian names, and fuch an addition affords the best evidence of the places where they were born. And it is Jemarked, that this Thomas Scot is the laft Clergyman who is known to have obferved this custom. He afterward augmented the College of Rotherham with five Priefts. Ilis munificence is amply difplayed both at Oxford and Cambridge. In the latter Univerfity he built the library, and a confiderable part of the fchools; and while he was Bishop of Lincoln, he completed the buildings of Lincoln College in Oxford, and furnished the Society with a body of ftatutes, fubfcribed with his own hand, Feb. 11, 1479. He died of the plague, at his palace of Cawood, in 1501.

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and fanctity of life gave a denomination to it, or hath made it the more memorable, as indeed it ought also to be, for being the birth-place of our Robert Sanderfon. And the reader will be of my belief, if this humble relation of his life can hold any proportion with his great fanctity, his useful learning, and his many other extraordinary endowments.

He was the second and youngest son of Robert Sanderson, of Gilthwaite-halle, in the faid parish and county, Efq. by Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Richard Carr, of Butterthwaitehall, in the parish of Ecclesfield, in the faid county of York, gentleman.

This Robert Sanderfon the father was defcended from a numerous, ancient, and honourable family of his own name : for the fearch of which truth I refer my reader that inclines to it, to Dr. Thoriton's "History of the Antiquities of Nottinghamfhire," and other records; not thinking it necefsary here to engage him into a fearch for bare titles, which are noted to have in them nothing of reality: for titles not acquired, but derived only, do but how us who of our ancestors have, and how they have achieved that honour which their descendants claim, and may not be worthy to enjoy. For if those titles defcend to perfons that degenerate into vice, and break off the continued line of learning, or valour, or that virtue that acquired them, they destroy the very foundation upon which that honour was built; and all the rubbish of their degeneroufnels ough to fall heavy on such dishonourable heads; ought to fall fo heavy, as to degrade them of their titles, and blast their memories with reproach and fhame.

But this Robert Sanderfon lived worthy of his name and family; of which one teftimony may be, that Gilbert, called the great and glorious Earl of Shrewsbury, thought him not unworthy to be joined with him as a godfather to Gilbert Sheldon, the late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury; to whofe merits and memory pofterity (the Clergy especially) ought to pay a re

verence.

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e Gill Thwait, or Gill-fort, near Rotherham, is named in "Short's Hiftory of Mineral Waters," P. I. p. 269, as having a fpring famous for reftoring the use of their limbs to fuch as have loft it by working in metals.

f In this Hiftory, p. 474, a pedigree of the family of Sanderson is inferted.

g Dr. SHELDON, Archbishop of York, was born July 19, 1598. His father, Roger Sheldon, though of no obfcure parentage, was a menial fervant to Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury, who died May 18, 1616, and was buried at Sheffield, July 17, in the fame year. That nobleman was feized of many valuable pofsefsions at or near Sheffield; and among others of the Manor and Rectory of Rotherham. See in" Collins's Peerage," p. 19, 20, an enumeration of the titles which he afsumed wher. he went Ambassador to France, in the 39.b year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

But I return to my intended relation of Robert the fon, who' (like Jofia that good King) began in his youth to make the laws of God, and obedience to his parents, the rules of his life; feeming even then to dedicate himfelf and all his ftudies to piety and virtue.

And as he was inclined to this by that native goodness, with. which the wife Difpofer of all hearts had endowed his fo this calm, this quiet, and happy temper of mind (his being mild and averfe to oppofitions) made the whole courfe of his life easy and grateful both to himself and others; and this blessed temper was maintained and improved by his prudent father's good example, as alfo by his frequent converfing with him, and feattering fhort and virtuous apophthegms with little pleasant stories", and making useful applications of them, by which his fon was in his infancy taught to abhor Vanity and Vice as monsters, and to difcern the loveliness of Wisdom and Virtue: and by these means, and God's concurring grace, his knowledge was fo augmented, and his native goodnefs fo confirmed, that all became fo habitual, as it was not eafy to determine whether Nature or Education were his teachers1.

And here let me tell the reader, that these early beginnings. of virtue were by God's afsifting grace blessed with what St. Paul feemed to beg for his Philippians, namely, "That he that "had begun a good work in them, would finish it." And Almighty God did: For his whole life was fo regular and innocent, that he might have faid at his death, and with truth and

We may almoft imagine, that Mr. Robert Sanderson had proposed to himfelf the example, which is recorded with fo much filial tenderness in the following lines:

63

-Confuevit pater optimus hoc me,
"Ut fugerem exemplis vitiorum quæque notande,
"Cùm me hortaretur parcè, frugaliter, atque
« Viverem uti contentus eo quod nî iple parà'set :
"Nonne sidės Albi ut malè vivat filius, utque
"Barus inops?"

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-Purus et infons

HORAT, SERM. Lib. I. iv. 105.

"(Ut me collaudem) fi vivo, et carus amicis,
"Caufa fuit pater his."

In the fame manner Demea inftructs his fon in Terence

"Nihil prætermitto, confuefacio; denique

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Infpicere tanquam in fpeculum in vitas omnium

"Jubeo, atque ex aliis fumere exemplum fibi,

"Hoc facito, et hoc fugito."

Ib. vi. £9.

ADELPH. Act III. Sc. III.

A fimilar felicity attended the celebrated Grotius, who, like Horace, has commemorated in grateful verle, the faithful attention of a father to Lis fon's improvement in the moral duties of life.

i 14

Alterius fic

"Altera pofcit opeṁ res, et conjurat amicè.” Hor. A. P. 410.

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