the spies; and Solomon's selected judgment proceeded upon a simulation; and our Saviour, the more to touch the hearts of the two disciples with an holy dalliance, made as if he would have passed Emmaus..

Another point of great inconvenience and peril is, to entitle the people to hear controversies, and all kinds of doctrine. They say no part of the counsel of God is to be suppressed, nor the people defrauded; so as the difference which the Apostle maketh between milk and strong meat is confounded; and his precept that the weak be not admitted unto questions and controversies taketh no place.

But most of all is to be suspected, as a seed of farther inconvenience, their manner of handling the Scriptures; for whilst they seek express Scripture for everything, and that they have, in a manner, deprived themselves and the Church of a special help and support, by embasing the authority of the fathers, they resort to naked examples, conceited inferences and forced allusions, such as do mine into all certainty of religion.

ner,

Another extremity is the excessive maguifying of that which, though it be a principal and most holy institution, yet hath its limits, as all things else have. We see wheresoever, in a manter, they find in the Scriptures the word spoken of, they expound it of preaching; they have made it, in a manof the essence of the sacrament of the Lord's supper, to have a sermon precedent; they have, in a sort, annihilated the use of liturgies and forms of divine service, although the house of God be denominated of the principal, "domus orationis," a house of prayer, and not a house of preaching. As for the life of the good monks and hermits in the primitive church, I know they will condemu a man as half a papist if he should maintain them as other than profane because they heard no sermons. In the mean time, what preaching is, and who may be said to preach, they move no question; but, as far as I see, every man that presumeth to speak in chair is accounted a preacher. But I am assured that not a few that call hotly for a preaching ministry deserve to be the first themselves that should be expelled. All which errors and misproceedings they do fortify and intrench by an addicted respect to their own opinions, and an impatience to hear contradiction or argument; yea, I know some of them that would think it a tempting of God to hear or read what may be said against them; as if there could be a "Quod bonum est tenete," without an "Omnia probate,"† going before.

* Hold to that which is good.

+ Prove all things.

I know the work of exhortation doth chiefly rest upon these men, and they have zeal and hate of sin: but again, let them take heed that it be not true which one of their adversaries said, that they have but two small wants, knowledge and love. And so I conclude this point.

Lastly, whatsoever be pretended, the people is no meet arbitrator, but rather the quiet, modest, private assemblies and conferences of the learned. "Qui apud incapacem loquitur, non disceptat, sed calumniatur."* The press and pulpit would be freed and discharged of these contentions; neither promotion on the one side, nor glory and heat on the other, ought to continue those challenges and cartels at the cross and other places; but rather all preachers, especially all such as be of good temper, and have wisdom with conscience, ought to inculcate and beat upon a peace, silence, and surceance. Neither let them fear Solon's law, which compelled in factions every particular person to range himself on the one side; nor yet the fond calumny of neutrality; but let them know that is true which is said by a wise man, that neuters in contentions are either better or worse than either side.

Its moderation and impartiality of tone would scarcely, it is to be feared, recommend this paper to any party at the time when it was written; and Bacon, upon further consideration or upon advising with his friends, probably saw good reason for suppressing it. Nor would it have been very acceptable to either side at a much later date even than that at which it was actually published, when the great struggle between the established church and the nonconformists was renewed with more earnestness than ever in the next century. Any chance that such an exhortation has of being listened to is only when men are beginning to think of a contest; and it has not much chance then. So long as the state of things is or seems to be tolerably tranquil, the dominant side rejects all such counsel as uncalled for and almost treacherous; and when the storm has fairly begun it soon drowns or makes men deaf to all sounds but its own. At no time indeed is such advice as Bacon here gives calculated to produce immediately much of a popular impression; it

*He who speaks to an incompetent auditor, does not discourse, but utters calumnies.

may after a long while work itself into the general mind; but at first it finds only an individual here and there disposed to receive it, and they are those by whom it is least needed. It was addressed without effect to the inflamed and angry tempers of the two parties on the eve of the civil war; after about another half-century it appears that the excellent Archbishop Sancroft collated and corrected both the Advertisement and the Considerations with great care, probably with the view of republishing them in aid of his favourite scheme of a comprehension of the Dissenters. They were first printed as we now have them from the copies left by him in Blackburne's edition of Bacon's works, in 4 vols. folio, 1730.

The discourse entitled "Certain Considerations touching the better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England" is longer and still more elaborate than the "Advertisement;" but it consists in part of a repetition of some things in that earlier paper, and, from going more into a detailed examination of the then existing circumstances of the Church, is not throughout of so much interest for all times and seasons. It is addressed, as already mentioned, to King James, and commences thus:

The unity of your Church, excellent Sovereign, is a thing no less precious than the union of your kingdoms; being both works wherein your happiness may contend with your worthiness. Having therefore presumed, not without your Majesty's gracious acceptation, to say somewhat on the one, I am the more encouraged not to be silent on the other: the rather because it is an argument that I have travelled in before. But Solomon commendeth a word spoken in season; and as our Saviour, speaking of the discerning of seasons, saith, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say it will be a shower:" So your Majesty's rising to this monarchy in the west parts of the world, doth promise a sweet and fruitful shower of many blessings upon this Church and commonwealth; a shower of that influence as the very first dews and drops thereof have already laid the storms and winds throughout Christendom; reducing the very face of Europe to a more peaceable and amiable countenance. But to the purpose.

It is very true, that these ecclesiastical matters are things

not properly appertaining to my profession; which I was not so inconsiderate but to object to myself; but finding that it is many times seen that a man that standeth off, and somewhat removed from a plot of ground, doth better survey it and discover it than those which are upon it, I thought it not impossible but that I, as a looker-on, might cast mine eyes upon some things which the actors themselves, especially some being interested, some led and addicted, some declared and engaged, did not or would not see. And knowing, in my conscience, whereto God beareth witness, that the things which I shall speak, spring out of no vein of popularity, ostentation, desire of novelty, partiality to either side, disposition to intermeddle, or any the like leaven; I may conceive hope, that what I want in depth of judgment may be countervailed in simplicity and sincerity of affection. But of all things this did most animate me; that I found in these opinions of mine, which I have long held and embraced, as may appear by that which I have many years since written of them, according to the proportion nevertheless of my weakness, a consent and conformity with that which your Majesty hath published of your own most Christian, most wise, and moderate sense, in these causes; wherein you have well expressed to the world, that there is infused in your sacred breast, from God, that high principle and position of government,-That you ever hold the whole more dear than any part.

An eulogium upon James follows, in part the same with that afterwards inserted in the beginning of the Advancement of Learning; and then, before entering upon the special matters in dispute, two objections are taken up which directly confront and oppose themselves to reformation; the first, that it is against good policy to innovate anything in church matters; the other, that all reformation must be after one platform, or plan. Here is part of what is advanced touching the first :

For the first of these, it is excellently said by the prophet, "State super vias antiquas, et videte, quænam sit via recta et vera, et ambulate in eâ."* So as he doth not say, "State super vias antiquas et ambulate in eis.”+ For it is true, that with all wise and moderate persons, custom and usage obtaineth that re

* Stand fast in the old ways, and see what is righteous and good, and walk in that.

Stand fast in the old ways, and walk in them.

verence as it is sufficient matter to move them to make a stand, and to discover, and take a view; but it is no warrant to guide and conduct them; a just ground, I say, it is of deliberation, but not of direction. But on the other side, who knoweth not that time is truly compared to a stream that carrieth down fresh and pure waters into that salt sea of corruption which environeth all human actions. And therefore if man shall not by his industry, virtue, and policy, as it were with an oar, row against the stream and inclination of time; all institutions and ordinances, be they never so pure, will corrupt and degenerate. But not to handle this matter common-place like, I would only ask, why the civil state should be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws, made every third or fourth year in parliament assembled, devising remedies as fast as time breedeth mischief; and contrariwise the ecclesiastical state should still continue upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration now for these five-and-forty years and more? If any man shall object, that if the like intermission had been used in civil causes also, the error had not been great: surely the wisdom of the kingdom hath been otherwise in experience for three hundred years' space at least. But if it be said to me, that there is a difference between civil causes and ecclesiastical, they may as well tell me that churches and chapels need no reparations, though castles and houses do: whereas commonly, to speak truth, dilapidations of the inward and spiritual edifications of the Church of God are in all times as great as the outward and material. Sure I am that the very word and style of reformation used by our Saviour, " Ab initionon fuit sic," was applied to church matters, and those of the highest nature, concerning the law moral.

There remaineth yet an objection, rather of suspicion than of reason; and yet such as I think maketh a great impression in the minds of very wise and well affected persons, which is, that if way be given to mutation, though it be in taking away abuses, yet it may so acquaint men with sweetness of change as it will undermine the stability even of that which is sound and good. This surely had been a good and true allegation in the ancient contentions and divisions between the people and the senate of Rome; where things were carried at the appetites of multitudes, which can never keep within the compass of any moderation: but, these things being with us to have an orderly passage, under a king who hath a royal

It hath not been so from the beginning.