STACK N*k ANNEX ^ 077 >ine flfcafcers of TEvinit\> College* A SERMON jf PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, av DECEMBER 9, 1898, AT THE ANNUAL COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS, WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE THEOLOGICAL OPINIONS OF DR. J. REDMAN, BY VINCENT HENRY STANTON, D.D., ELY PROFESSOR OK DIVINITY, FELLOW AND FORMERLY DEAN AND TUTOR OF THE COLLEGE. FABB & TYLER, "REVIEW" OFFICE, GUILDHALL STREET. Some flfeafcers of ^nmt\> College* A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, ON DECEMBER 9, fSyS, AT THE ANNUAL COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS, WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE THEOLOGICAL OPINIONS OF DR. J. REDMAN, BY VINCENT HENRY STANTON, D.D., ELY PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, FELLOW AND FORMERLY DEAN AND TUTOR OF THE COLLEGE. FABB & TYLER, "REVIEW" OFFICE, GUILDHALL STREET. * " Inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and apply thyself to that which their fathers have searched out: (for we are but of yesterday , and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) shall not they teach thee and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?" Job. viii. 8 10. As our thoughts travel back on such a day as this over the history of our College, it is natural to reflect on the principles which it symbolises, the manner in which it has fulfilled its end in successive generations, the results of faithful labour and generous sacrifice which are embodied in its ordered life, its buildings, its prosperity, its very ex- istence, and to seek to deepen thereby our own sense of responsibility. The past and its lessons are brought home to us with singular vividness when we follow the fortunes of a single place, or institution. A thread is supplied like that of our own personal identity, running through our experiences from childhood onward. We are taken back into the very midst of the actors of former ages. We see the men of the place or institution in question taking part in and affected by the events and movements of their own day. While in following such a history we may note how God manifestly to us even now trieth the works of men through the testing of time, how the honest labour of many who have long " gone down into silence " has been rewarded by lasting fruit, how on the other hand periods of vigour and public spirit have not prevented the rise of fresh abuses and sloth after them, how great opportunities have been missed, and even the happiest times and most successful individual lives have failed in this way or in that to realise the good which might have been achieved. Especially should the warning and the incentive thus supplied be felt when as now we are thinking of a place and society to which we belong, where some of us have for many years found a home, while most of us view our connexion with it, in the present or in the past, as one of the brightest circumstances in our lives. The preacher in this chapel to-day, if he speaks of the 2097599 history of the College, treats of a theme familiar in its main outlines and in many of its details to those whom he addresses. Yet it is one on which we all like to dwell ; and he can but hope that what he may find to say upon it may not be altogether profitless and uninteresting, if he touches upon some of the points which have specially impressed himself. I. We are coming to understand now that the Renaissance, which we have been in the habit of associating with a particular century, should rather be regarded as an age-long revolution, which had been slowly prepared for, and which has only by degrees reached different spheres of human thought and life, and the force of which is still not spent. When we perceive this, the thought assuredly becomes only the more impressive that the foundation of our College was a signal triumph of the true spirit of the Renaissance over the self-seeking politicians whose greed was the disgrace of the epoch of the Reformation. We are apt to forget the danger to which the University and the Colleges were exposed at that time, as they happily escaped it. Nevertheless it seems clear that the men who had fattened on the spoils of the monasteries and who were beginning to seize upon the property of the guilds, were ready to lay hands on that of Colleges in the Universities also, and that this was at least one motive with which an Act "for the dissolution of Colleges" was passed in the year preceding the founding of Trinity College. But scholars who had influence even at Court were active on the other side. Nor can we doubt that the able king, our founder, who has so much to answer for in regard to the plunder of other ancient endowments, was disposed to adopt a different attitude towards those in the Universities, being not devoid of a sense of the value of learning, and shrewd enough to see what kind of action in this instance would reflect most honour upon his reign. In pursuance of the Act just referred to, a commission was appointed, but the members of it were men of very different character to those who were employed in the case of the monasteries. It consisted of three of the most eminent men in the University itself, one being our own Redman, then Master of King's Hall ; and its sequel was the founding of Trinity Collese.* The only dissolution of existing Colleges or hostels which took place was a step towards uniting their members and their goods, with a view to greater strength and efficiency. Thus the new corporation preserved in itself the product of some much earlier efforts to advance learning, and to train and form character after a model adapted to growing needs, which the monasteries could not satisfy. Possessions of the dissolved monasteries were now also bestowed upon it to an amount which made this College, probably, the chief example of the manner in which the property of these institutions might have been usefully applied, when their own work was at least mainly done. 2. In thinking of the work alike of administration and of building by which the College was brought from this beginning to be approximately the Trinity that we know, our minds pause naturally upon four names those of Redman, Whitgift, Neville, and Barrow. (a) In the mastership of John Redman, no addition was made to the collection of buildings, in part certainly noble and beautiful, but yet heterogeneous and inconveniently grouped, which had been handed over to the new foundation. The task which had to be accomplished in those four or five years was that of organising the new society and harmonising the different elements of which it was com- posed. There is good reason to think that our first Master performed it well. He chiefly deserves notice, however, on account of the eminence ot his attainments and because he was in mind and character a true representative of the best academic spirit. * See Correspondence of Abp. Parker in Parker's Society Publica- tions, pp. 34 6. The other two were M. Parker himself, then Master of Corpus and Vice-Chancellor, and Wm. May, then President of Queens', who afterwards became Dean of St. Paul's, and died Archbishop-elect of York in 1560. On the fears of the University compare Sfrype, Eccles. Memorials, Vol. II., pt. i, ch. 16, p. 207 in edition of 1822. On the whole subject see Mullinger's History of University of Cambridge II., p. 76 ff. Roger Ascham repeatedly, in his " Scholemaster " and in his letters, speaks of Redman, Sir John Cheke, and Sir Thomas Smith, as the men through whom chiefly the study of the great writers of antiquity, in Greek as well as in Latin, first flourished at Cambridge.* We can well understand how these young men for such they all were when they began to teach of attractive personality, high examples themselves of plain and religious living and devotion to learning, full of enthusiasm for the glorious fields of literature and philosophy which had remained unknown for so long and which they had but recently begun to explore, and near enough in age to their pupils to have over them that influence which youth exerts upon youth, should have been able to arouse among the students of our University an interest in the New Learning which a far more famous and greater and riper scholar had some 10 to 15 years earlier failed to do, absorbed as he was in his own literary schemes and disposed to look upon the work of teaching Greek chiefly as a means of livelihood, and repelled as he- was by the uncongeniality of our climate and the English mode of living and manners. Moreover, among the three just named, the honour belongs to Redman of having led the way. He had been initiated in the New Learning at Oxford and at Paris, in which places he had studied for some years before he finally settled at Cambridge in A.D. 1521, when about 21 years of age, entering at St. John's College, of which he afterwards became a fellow. The other two, who were close friends, derived their inspiration from him, their senior by a few years : " ejus sive laudis aemulatione," says Ascham, " sive praeceptionis imitatione, admodum juvenes et omnibus modis aequales excitati."t * Redman's name occurs frequently in Ascham's letters, and one (lib. II. ep. 48) is addressed to him. The most important passage is in a letter to Sturmius (lib. I. ep. 6). The allusions in Ascham's Scholemaster should also be compared; see esp. pp. 68, 158, 164 in Prof. Mayor's edition. Subsequently, when Redman was Lady Margaret Reader in Divinity, he interested himself in the mode of pronouncing Greek, which his former pupil, T. Smith, was introducing, and adopted it when, in his Divinity lectures, he had occasion to quote Greek. See Mullinger ib. pp. 56 7, and the authority given by him. f Ascham Epp, I. 6. Sir John Cheke and Sir Thomas Smith continued to occupy themselves with classical subjects. Redman soon became absorbed in the study of Divinity, thus following the same course as that of some of the most revered of the members of our College in recent times, who, after gaining high distinction in early years for Classical scholarship, gave their main strength to the pursuit of sacred learning. The allusions made to Redman by his contemporaries place it beyond question that he was regarded as second to none among the English theologians of his own generation, and that his judgment on any grave and disputed question was reckoned to be of peculiar value.* He was also a man of sincere personal piety and consistency of character. And in respect to his preaching, Ascham declares that he hardly knew his equal as an artificer for fashioning Christian lije : " tam praeclarus artifex in concionibus suis ad formandam Christianam vitam, qualem ego profiteer vix unquam audivisse."t But he is specially interesting as affording an admirable example of the manner in which the great religious questions stirred in that age were faced by a mind at once cautious and thorough. To the end he belonged to the Conservative section of reformers. When beliefs in which he had been bred were challenged, he searched with diligence and open- ness of mind into the grounds of them, and formed his opinion on the evidence independently of the views and associations of any school, taking the time necessary for such a process. All that is known of him shews that, while he was ready to give up anything proved to be false, he was at the same time determined not to let go any truth. He was on his guard against surrendering the substance of great Christian verities through reaction from errors in the customary statements of them, and popular abuses connected with their reception. Young, one of his fellows who was much with him in his last hours, writing after his death to Sir John Cheke, says : " In grave and * Even Burnet's words (Kist. of Reformation III, under A.D. 1540) seem not to be too strong: "he was esteemed the most learned and judicious divine of that time." t Epp. Ib. weighty matters, not rashly and unadvisedly, but with constant judgment and unfeigned conscience, he descended into that manner of belief, which at that time of his going out of this world he openly professed."* Such a man could not fail to be sometimes misjudged alike by obscurantists and by extreme reformers. And glad as partisans might be to claim his authority whenever it suited their purpose^ his name could not be used as a signal or rallying-cry, and consequently would not be blown about by the breath of fame. The men, indeed, who usually exercise a decisive influence upon the course of human affairs, are of a different character to his. And yet we may surely believe that the work he did as a moderating and reconciling force was of real importance. The prayer for the Church in the ancient Canon of the Mass " pro Ecclesia tua sancta Catholica, quam pacificare, custodire, adunare, et regere digneris toto orbe terrarum" became in the hands of the Revisers of 1549, of whom Redman was one : " Beseeching Thee to inspire con- tinually the Universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord : and grant that all they that do confess Thy Holy Name may agree in the truth of Thy Holy Word." In this expansion of the ancient language the yearnings were spoken of the deeper minds in that age of religious controversy. " The spirit of truth," rare endow- ment, which is hardly ever seen, at least in any high degree of purity and strength, in parties either political or religious. " That the Church might be filled with the spirit of truth ": this they knew to be one of the great needs of their time, as it is of our own, the only really effective means for the solution of practical difficulties, and a condition of that unity, the lack of which caused them so much distress. No aspiration could better express the temper and bent of Redman's mind. * Foxe's Acts and Monuments ed. Cattley vi. p. 271. See v further, note A at end of this Sermon, on Redman as a theologian. His method, I may observe, throughout in the formation of his opinions was primarily to examine Holy Scripture, and secondarily to take into account the judgment of the Holy Fathers. He would seem to have set little store by the Schoolmen, perhaps less than the greater among them deserved. (ft) Between the death of Redman in 1551 and the appointment of Whitgift in 1567, our present Chapel had been erected, and no further change of any considerable magnitude took place in the outward form of the College till the latter years of the century. Nevertheless the ten years of Whitgift's Mastership were unquestionably a very critical period in our history The mere fact that the man who was the most vigorous personality in the University at the time, and who was afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, should have been thus closely associated with so youthful a society, must have been valuable to it. In various ways also he shewed himself an active, conscientious, and determined ruler of the College, as afterwards of the English Church, bent on enforcing the observance of College statutes, eager also to secure whatever was necessary for its efficiency, as for instance in seeking to limit the claims of Westminster upon scholarships in the College, which trenched unduly upon the means of encouraging other and sometimes more promising students. But the most serious episode in Whitgift's tenure of the office was his conflict with Cartwright, the chief and per- tinacious advocate in the University, as he was afterwards in England at large, of the Genevan discipline. At the time of Whitgift's removal from the headship of Pembroke Hall to that of Trinity, Cartwright was a fellow of the College of some six years' standing ; two years later he became Lady Margaret's Reader. He had many sympathisers both here and in other Colleges, among them Walter Travers, after- wards the special antagonist of Rd. Hooker, may be mentioned, who was elected to a fellowship at Trinity in the year that Whitgift became Master. \Vhitgift first in 1570 joined with other Heads of Houses in silencing Cartwright as Lady Margaret's Reader ; and he would not seem to have been sorry when, two years later, he was able statutably to deprive him of his fellowship, on the ground that he had not taken Priest's Orders, and to get rid of him from the College.* * On Whitgift's dealings with Cartwright, see Fuller, Hist, of University of Cambridge, 8, and on his Mastership and position in the University generally, Mullinger, I. pp. 209^" and 268^ 10 Such action was little in accord with our notions of freedom of opinion and practice. Whitgift's opponents, how- ever, were not greater friends of freedom than himself. They sought only the substitution of other forms of Church Government and Worship for those established. To Whit- gift himself the particular form was, comparatively speaking, a matter of indifference, but he cared greatly for the main- tenance of authority and the suppression of dissensions. And we may well believe that internal peace was a primary necessity for the College, as it was in the country generally for the throne of Elizabeth. His policy seems at all events to have been successful in its effect upon the prosperity of the College. The period beginning with his Mastership and extending to the close of Neville's, judged by the reputation which the College acquired, and the subsequent celebrity of men who were its members, was one ot the most brilliant in our history. (y) Neville by his great work of clearance and con- struction gave it external magnificence, corresponding to the lustre which was beginning to be shed upon it by distinguished sons. What we owe to him is so well known to us all that it would be superfluous for me to dwell on it. (8) The next name of striking interest in relation to the history of the College is that of Isaac Barrow, and of him, too, we have a manifest memorial in that noble addition to our buildings, the undertaking of which was so largely due to him. He was admitted to the College in A.D. 1645. During the Civil wars, or the days of the Commonwealth days of anxiety and tension still for the victors, and of iron constraint for the other half of the nation Cambridge is one of the pleasanter spots in England to contemplate. Royalists and faithful adherents of the Church of England had of course to endure many hardships here at the head-quarters of the district most devoted to the Parliamentary and Puritan cause. Nevertheless, here men were able during the greater part of the period quietly to pursue knowledge. And here the virulence of party strife was to some extent assuaged by a sense that reason ought to be appealed to, and by a dis- position to acknowledge genuine merit wherever it was 11 found. What is most remarkable, a body of independent thinkers was actively teaching here, who were directly engaged in controverting some of the distinctive tenets of the dominant Puritanism, and who rebuked the spirit shewn by many of its adherents, although several of them had been bred under its influences, and whose work it was to give men a worthier view of the Christian religion.* But the lights of the University at that time did not belong to our College. We have not the honour of having had one of the Cambridge Platonists among our members. Young Isaac Barrow,t however, we can hardly doubt, must have been more or less influenced by them in the formation of his opinions. He attracted the notice of the great Whichcote, and in later life acknowledges the kindness which he always experienced at his hands. At the same time, incidents in Barrow's early career illustrate at once the independence of his own character, and that liberality of feeling which sometimes marked members of the other and stronger party. His father had suffered much in his estate on account of adhering to the King's cause ; and when he came up to the University, he was chiefly supported at first by the liberality of that great ornament of the Clergy of the Church, Dr. Hammond. " The young man," writes his friend from whom we have our chief account of him, " con- tinued such a Royalist that he would never take the Covenant ; yet carrying himself with fairness, candour, and prudence, he gained the goodwill of the chief Governors of the University. One day Dr. Hill, the Master of the College, laying his hand on his head, said, ' Thou art a good lad, 'tis a pity thou art a Cavalier ; ' and when in an Oration on the Gunpowder Treason he had so celebrated the former times as to reflect * See note B at end. j- Almost all that is known of Barrow's life is derived from the notice of him by his friend Abraham Hill, written for, and prefixed to, Tillotson's edition of Barrow's English Works, published in 1683, six years after Barrow's death. This notice is prefixed also to the collection of his Theological Works, ed. by A. Napier, and pub. in 1859. Mr. Napier gives the few additional facts and letters which after careful search he had been able to discover, but (as he says) they amount to little. There is, however, an interesting essay on " Barrow and his Academical Times, as illustrated in his Latin Works," by Dr. Whewell, printed in Vol. IX. of Napier's edn. 12 much on the present, some fellows were provoked to move for his expulsion ; but the Master silenced them with this, ' Barrow is a better man than any of us.' "* The force and energy of Barrow's nature, his manifold ability, the keenness and variety of his intellectual interests, are well known. He was not less distinguished by modesty and generosity, scrupulous conscientiousness and preference of public to private ends. He resigned the Lucasian chair of Mathematics that Isaac Newton, who was but 27, and Barrow's junior by 12 years, might succeed him, though he had no provision for himself at the time save his fellowship. Again, in that age when pluralities were almost universally thought unobjectionable, he resigned, on his ap- pointment to the Mastership, a small sinecure in Wales, and a Canonry of Salisbury, the only preferments he ever had, which he had held but for a short time. While he held them, " he bestowed the advantages of both," the same friend to whom I have before referred tells us, " in a way of charity." With reference to his own many acquirements he said that " general scholars did more please themselves, but they who prosecuted particular subjects did more service to others." Nevertheless he made his mark in more than one field, he set before himself a high standard of duty as a professor and gave himself successively in a whole-hearted manner to the subject with which for each period he was engaged. On his resignation of his mathematical chair he turned to Ethics and Theology, and it is interesting to note how his most famous works on these themes arose. Those of us who were resident here before 1870 will remember having seen from time to time a notice on the screens that Mr., or Dr., A.B. " exponet catechismum in sacello."f Seme of those * According to Hill (edn. Napier I. xliii.) his inclination to Arminianism stood in his way when, on the recommendation of Dr. Duport, who had resigned the Greek Professorship, and with the support of Whichcote, he was a candidate for this Chair in 1654. But as Barrow was only 24 at the time, those who opposed his election cannot be severely blamed for doing so. He was elected to it at the next vacancy in 1660, but resigned it to take the Lucasian professor- ship of Mathematics three years later. f The statute in accordance with which this exercise was per- formed was of course in force till 1882. But after the time which I 13 present to-day have probably themselves performed this exercise, which was required by statute as a condition of admission to the number of the College preachers. It was characteristic of Barrow that when he had this task in prospect it so took up his thoughts (as he himself wrote to a friend), that he could not easily apply them to any other matter. The result was the composition of his Expositions on the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Decalogue, and the Sacraments, which are still regarded as classical works of English Theology.* 3. I have touched upon the work and character of four men who held important places in the history of our College during the first 130 years of its life. The names of the last two will be celebrated in the roll of benefactors to which we shall presently listen. The two former may stand as repre- sentatives of that great host of men who in successive generations down to the present day have contributed to the true welfare of the College by the faithful, ungrudging, unselfish labour which they have devoted to its service and by the examples of noble living which they have given in this place. Nor are those certainly to be forgotten, who after obtaining a chief part of their training here, have gone forth to do useful, and even it may be brilliant, work in the most varied callings and in all parts of the world, and to whom no small part of its fame is due. On Commemoration Day we remember any closely connected with our Society, who have been taken from us by death during the year preceding. Happily we have not to deplore to-day the loss of any actual fellow of the College. Four, however, have been removed from the number of living have indicated instances of the fulfilment of the requirement cease, owing probably both to the diminution in the number of fellows in Orders, and the fact that the younger ordained fellows had no im- mediate reason for conforming to it. The last case which I have found in the books of old College Notices is an interesting one : " Dr. Lightfoot exponet Catechismum hora tertia p.m. in Sacello. Dec. 28 and 29, 1869." It will be felt that the series of such exercises was thus worthily closed. * See Whewell in Napier's Barrow, Vol. IX., p. XXXVIII. There is a treatise on the fifth subject, an exposition of which was required by the Statute, De potestate eluvium, among Barrow's Latin Opuseula, 14 former fellows, and among these there is one name which calls for special mention. Some of us have known Dr John Hopkinson from his undergraduate days. We were impressed even then with his remarkable power and energy and the wholesome- ness of his life. When he was most sadly cut off in his prime last summer,* he was already in the front rank of those,, alike in this country and elsewhere, who are engaged in the application of science to the practical utilities of human life. And we may venture to say that if longer life had been appointed for him, it could not have failed to have brought him ever increasing fame, and would have enabled him to add to the number of his achievements. It is impossible for any of us to remain unmoved as we reflect upon the great traditions of our house, which have been accumulating for generations down to our own day, the many instances of brilliant gifts well used, the treasury ot countless honourable and beneficent lives ; or when we con- sider the beauty of outward form with which we are surrounded, and all the privileges which we here enjoy. And it is well to think on these things if they move us to give thanks to the Giver of every good and perfect gift, the Inspirer of every noble purpose, the Strengthener Who enables each right deed to be performed. "The lot is," indeed, "fallen unto us in a fair ground, yea we have a goodly heritage." Yet even in thanks- giving there may well be, nay there ought to be, a note of religious fear. We were equipped from the beginning of our history with great material resources. But material possessions are not a subject for pride ; they involve serious responsibilities. Again, there have been among the members of our College many illustrious men, but their lives may rebuke ours. And who will venture to say that what the College has done, or is doing, for the University, the Church, and the Nation has been, or is, an adequate return for the en- dowments and opportunities and encouragements to effort bestowed upon its members ? Let us at least try to quicken our own sense of the trust committed to us and to be true individually to it. * Killed together with his son and two daughters on the Petite Dent de Veisivi, near Arolla, Saturday, Aug. 28, 1898. 15 NOTE A. JOHN REDMAN AS A THEOLOGIAN. If we would understand the Reformation as a living process, we need to realise more fully than is commonly done, that different men modified the religious views in which they had been bred to diverse extents and with varying rapidity. It has, therefore, seemed to me worth while to put together the evidence enabling us to trace the history of Redman's theological opinions, as being those of one of the most eminent men of his time, whose course and final position were unlike those of both Gardiner and of Cranmer and Ridley, but who was on the whole nearer to the two latter than to the former. 1. Circa. A.D. 1530 he addressed to Latimer, whose preaching was then creating commotion in the University, a friendly letter of expostulation on what Redman considered to be the self-will and the schismatical tendency of his teaching. (Foxe's Acts and Monuments. VII. p. 413. Ed. by'Catley). 2. He was a member of the Commission on Doctrine appointed in 1540, whose work it was to produce the Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian man. As a preliminary step to the composition of this formulary, the members of the Commission were asked to answer a number of questions on the Sacraments, &c. The collection of their answers with their individual names, sometimes with their signed attestations, has been preserved FSeethe memorandum printed in Burnet's Collection of Records, Pt. I , bk. 3, No. 21. There exists also a more condensed memorandum, see ib., Pt. III., bk. 3., Nos. 69, 7o, 71. For the history and relation to one another of these memoranda and the date (1540) see Dixon's Hist, of Reformation II., p. 303 .] The following answers will sufficiently show Redman's position at this time. To the question " How many sacraments there be by the scripture," he replied : "As many as there be mysteries, which be inumerable ; but, by scripture, I think, the seven which be named sacraments may principally bear the name." To the question " Whether the Apostles lacking a higher power, as in not having a a Christian king among them, made bishops by that necessity, or by authority given them by God,"? he answered, "Christ gave His Apostles authority to make other bishops and ministers in His Church, as He had received authority of the Father to make them bishops ; but if any Christian prince had then been, the Apostles had been, and ought to have been, obedient subjects, and would nothing have attempted, but under the permission and assent of their earthly governor ; yet was it meet that they which were special and most elect servants of our Saviour Christ, and were sent by Him to convert the world ; and having most abundantly the Holy Ghost in them, should have special ordering of such ministry as pertained to the planting and increasing of the faith, whereunto I doubt not, but a Christian prince, of his godly mind, would most lovingly have condescended. And it is to be considered that in this question, with other like, this word 'making of a bishop or priest' may be taken two ways; for under- standing the word, to ordain or consecrate, so it is a thing which 16 pertaineth to the Apostles and their successors only ; but if by this word 'making' be understanded the appointing or naming to the office ; so, it pertaineth specially to the supreme heads and governors of *:he Church, which be princes." To the question " Whether a man be bound by authority of this Scripture (Quorum remiseritis,) and such like, to confess his secret deadly sins to a priest, if he may have him, or no " ? his reply was, " I think that although in these words con- fession of privy sins is not expressly commanded ; yet it is insinuated and showed in these words, as a necessary medicine or remedy, which all men that fall into deadly sin ought, for the quieting of their conscience, to seek, if they may conveniently have such a priest as is meet to hear their confession." 3. When in the Convocation of 1547 the proposal was made to abrogate all canons, laws, &c., forbidding the marriage of priests, Redman sent his opinion on the subject in writing and we possess it. After making allusion to the considerations which might be adduced from the Holy Scriptures in favour of the celibacy of the clergy, namely, that they might be free from ' the cumber of the flesh and the world ' and might thereby ' more wholly attend to their calling/ he proceeds to say that it does not rest on any binding precept of the Word of God but on canons and constitutions of the Church ; and that " forasmuch as canons and rules made in this behalf be neither universal nor everlasting, but upon considerations may be altered and changed ; therefore the king's majesty, and the higher powers of the Church, may upon such reasons as shall move them, take away the clog of perpetual continency from the priests." At the same time he considered second marriages unlawful for them. (Burnet's Colin, of Records. Pt. ii., bk. I., No. 30.) 4. We have two memoranda of interviews with Redman during his last illness at Westminster, when he gave his judgment on some of the chief questions then in dispute ; in each case there were several witnesses. One is entitled "A note of a communication which I, Rd. Wilkes, had with Master Dr. Redman, being sick at Westminster on his Death-bed but of good memory, &c." The other is drawn up in the form of a series of numbered statements, the names of the witnesses to each being separately given. Alex. Nowel, then Head- master of Westminster School, who had been sent for by Redman, was the principal person present on the occasion to which it refers. In addition to these we have a long letter to Cheke, about Redman's last days, written by Dr. Young, a Fellow of Trinity, who was con- stantly with him at this time. These documents are all given in Foxe's Acts and Monuments, VI. pp. 267 274. They were published soon after Redman's death as a tract ; there is a copy of it in the University Library. They agree perfectly together, and there is moreover an individuality in the views reported and the expression of them, which is a guarantee of truth. Redman's language more particularly on the subject of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ is full of interest and marked by singular thoughtfulness as well as devoutness. Let me quote from Wilkes' report : "I said, he would do much good in declaring his faith, and I would be glad to know his mind as touching the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. He said, " As man is made of two parts, of the body and the soul, so Christ would feed the whole man : but 17 what (saith he) be the words of the text ? let us take the words of the Scripture." And he rehearsed the text himself thus : '"Accepit Jesus panem ; ' ' Christ took bread ; ' wherein his will was to institute a sacrament. ' Accipite, comedite :' 'Take, eat.' Here he told the use of it. What did he give to them ? ' Hoc est corpus meum,' he calleth it his body." Then Tasked him of the presence of Christ. He said, Christ was present with his sacrament, and in those that received it as they ought. And there was " mira unitio," a wonderful union (for that word was named), betwixt Christ and us, as St. Paul saith : " Vos estis os ex ossibus ejus, et caro ex carne ejus ; " "Ye be bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh : " the which union was ineffable. Then I asked him, what he thought of the opinion, that Christ was there corporally, naturally, and really. He answered, "If you mean by corporally, naturally, and really, that he is there present ' vere,' I grant. " Then I asked, how he thought of that which was wont commonly to be spoken, that Christ was there flesh, blood, and bone ; as I have heard the stewards in their Leets give charge when the Six Articles stood in eflect, and charge the inquest to enquire, that if there were any that would deny that Christ was present in the sacrament of the altar, in flesh, blood, and bone, they should apprehend them. He said that it was too gross, and could no.t well be excused from the opinion of the Capernaites. Then I asked him, " Inasmuch as Christ is there 'vere,' how do we receive him ? in our minds and spiritual parts, or with our mouths, and into our bodies ; or both ? He said, " We receive him in our minds and souls by faith." Then, inasmuch as he was much on this point, that there was " mira unitio," " a marvellous union " betwixt us and Christ, in that we were " caro ex carne ejus, et os ex ossibus ejus," "bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh ; " I desired to know his opinion, whether we received the very body of Christ with our mouths, and into our bodies, or no ? Here he paused and held his peace a little space ; and shortly after he spake, saying, " I will not say so ; I cannot tell ; it is a hard question : but surely," saith he, " we receive Christ in our soul by faith. When you do speak of it otherways, it soundeth grossly, and savoureth of the Capernaites." Then I asked him, what he thought of that which the priest was wont to lift up and show the people betwixt his hands ? He said, " It is the sacrament." Then said I, " They are wont to worship that which is lifted up." " Yea," saith he, " but we must worship Christ in heaven; Christ is neither lifted up nor down." Then said he, looking up and praying, "God grant us grace that we may have the true understand- ing of his word, whereby we may come to the true use of his sacra- ments ; " and said, he would never allow the carrying about of the sacrament, and other fond abuses about the same. Then after a little while pausing, said I, " Master doctor, if I should not trouble you, I would pray you to know your mind in transubstantiation." " Jesus ! master Wilkes," quoth he, " will you ask me that ?" " Sir," said I, " not if I should trouble you." " No, no, I will tell you," said he. " Because I found the opinion of transub- stantiation received in the church, when I heard it spoken against, I 18 searched the ancient doctors diligently, and went about to establish it by them, because it was received. And when I had read many of them, I found little for it, and could not be satisfied. Then I went to the school-doctors, and namely to Gabriel, and weighed his reasons. The which when I had done, and perceived they were no pithier, ' Langues- cabat opinio mea de transubstantiatione,' My opinion of transubstantia- tion waxed feeble : and then," saith he, " I returned again to Tertullian and Irenasus, and when I had observed their sayings, mine opinion that there should be transubstantiation ' prorsus erat abolita,' was quite dashed." Then, said I, "You know that the school doctors did hold, that ' panis non remanebat post consecrationem,' ' that bread remained not after the consecration,' as they called it." " The school doctors," saith he, " did not know what ' consecratio ' meaneth :" and here he paused awhile. "I pray you," said I, "say you what 'consecratio' means ?"- Saith he, " It is ' tota actio,' in ministering the sacrament as Christ did institute it. All the whole thing done in the ministry, as Christ ordained it, that is 'consecratio;' and what," said he, "need we to doubt, that bread remaineth ? Scripture calleth it bread, and certain good authors that be of the later time, be of that opinion." Redman's open expression of his opinions on some of these points was not confined to the time when death was near. According to the second memorandum referred to above, he declared that " he never liked the carriage about of the Sacrament, and preached against it about sixteen years since in Cambridge." Ascham, also, in the letter (I. 6) which I have more than once quoted, writes of him that, " In doctrinal etiam de conjugio sacerdotum et aliis controversiis rectissime in publicis scholis Cantabrigia, sententiam et judicium suum declaravit. De justificatione autem solius fidei, nonnihil a nobis discrepavit, et id semper laude et sine aculeis, non tarn uti ego de illo existimo quod dubitavit de veritate illus doctrinas, quam quod metuit de licentiS vitas in quam virtutis inanes et tantum verbosi quidem homines praecipites ferebantur." 5. The concluding sentence of the last quotation shews that the more decided reformers were conscious of a special difference between themselves and Redman on one subject. The latter's views on it and kindred topics were more fully made known by men of another school, by whom two short treatises, which had been written by Redman, were published after his death. The more formal of these, in Latin, entitled " De justificatione opus" was given to the world in 1855, by Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, to whom Redman was related, and whose own liberal-conservative temper was not very dissimilar to Redman's, though he had adhered more closely to the old order. Tunstall himself wrote a preface for the little book, in which he speaks strongly of the dangers of the Solifidian and Prasdestinarian doctrines of the time. And certainly it would be difficult to imagine a better antidote to Solifidianism and Calvinism than Redman's treatise. For it confutes them by a broad and masterly exposition of the teaching of Holy Scripture, while it would be impossible to accuse the writer of a tendency to Pelagian or other false views from which those errors were a reaction. Tunstall states that it had been the author's intention to publish the 19 work, when he was prevented by death. [There are 3 copies in the British Museum, 4 in the University Library.] A work of a more popular character in English, on a similar subject, entitled " The Complaint of Grace " was " newly and first set forth (apparently in 1554) by Thomas Smyth, Servant to the Queene's most excellent majestie," and dedicated to Queen Mary. This was not a perfectly faithful reproduction of Redman's MS. But the facts may be most easily set forth by first describing the book as it originally appeared. It is in the form of an expostulation by the Grace of God personified. The action of Divine grace, and the waywardness and sin of men are rapidly reviewed throughout the Biblical history. He touches upon the declension of the Church through the invasion of worldliness after the age of persecution, and so passes to the more practical task of rebuking the faults of his own time, in which he finds much to disapprove : " Peradventure ye loke I should speke what misfortunes I have had in your fathers' dayes through their faults. Ye think I have no cause to complaine upon you, but ye be utterly deceived. What should I spare you and not rebuke you plainely as becommeth me, and is profitable for you, that by the truth ye may be converted and healed." He speaks severely of the self-seeking of the bishops and pastors, of laxity of conduct and novel affectations in drsss and demeanour, the controversial and flippant tone, the ignorance and self-conceit, of the preachers, whose aim often seemed to be to foster the spirit of division. " O would to God they declared God's worde, and not their presumption and phantasie. The gospel sayth : Grapes be not gathered of Thornes, nor Fygges of Breers. But I will say no more but God send the worlde good fruit of their preachinges. Surely more solemne ignorance joyned with pre- sumptuous boldnes in uttering itselfe, hath in no age been knowen. Preaching is prating, railyng, telling tales, jesting and scoffing, making the people laugh, where thei shuld rather weepe. Take these things out of a great sorte of their sermons, and the rest is small and veerye bare. What should I speake how with their preaching, undiscrete talking, and prophane reasoning, the people is so troubled and distracted that many be uncertain what to say, thynke or beleve. Yea, the cheife amonges them, yea the bishops themselves and they which be esteemed of some moste singular clerkes, be so divers in their opinions and judgements, that there be almost as many kindes of faithes, as sectes were amonges the Philosophers. Their division is noted by these names (whiche be in everye mannes mouthe), the newe and the olde. One sort runneth headlong, another draweth back, and not without a cause. For if all shuld runne alike, all were like to fall on a hepe and marre themselves. The new sorte spurre and pryke with all their might, the olde sorte holde in bridel with no lesse strength. No merveil if the horse being thus cumbred, reare by his whole bodye, that he scant will suffer any to sytte in the saddle " He complains of the want of charity, which would inspire humility and respect for the opinions of other men now living and of the ancients, and the neglect and disuse of godly customs in respect to prayer and also to fasting, and denounces avarice as if he regarded it as the special vice of the age, and concludes with a truly Evangelical appeal for personal godliness. To shew the balance of his mind, it may be well to mention that he /ays great stress upon St. Paul's teaching on the subject of grace. 20 In 1609, another edition was published with this frontispiece : " The Complaint of Grace Continued through all ages of the World, Written many years ago, by Dr. Redman, then President of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge. Printed in Popish times, falsely and corruptly, many notable places against Popery being left out. Found manuscript in the study of the reverend man, Mr. Perkins, perused and corrected by him. Restored now and those places put in out of a manuscript coppy. Out of the Library of W. Crashawe, Bachelour in Divinitie, and Preacher at the Temple." The omissions of a significant character doctrinally are not so many as might be inferred from this statement. The chief is regard- ing the ambitious contentions of the Bishops and Metropolitans after the age of persecution, and the arrogant pretentions of the Bishop of Rome. The only other one of importance is the omission of the words " throughout the Christian world " after " the bishops and pastours among the clergie," where those of the age then present were reproved. The addition of these words saves the following passage from being solely a censure of those of England. That the passage was meant to have a wider reference might also be gathered from the address preceding to " Princes, &c." At the same time some of Redman's strictures evidently applied in an especial manner to the preachers of the reforming party. The only other change made with a view to controversial effect which I have noticed in the edition of 1554 is the introduction of the word " some " before "Monks and Fryers" in the sentence "Great was the hypocrisie of Monks and Fryers in these latter dayes but thy hypocrise doth justifie them and make them Saintes in comparison of thee." [There is one perfect copy of the edition of 1554 in the British Museum and also an imperfect one, and there are two in the Univer- sity Library. We have none in the College Library, but we have one of the edition of 1609, and I have not come across it elsewhere.] 6. I place last as somewhat indefinite though interesting, a letter written from Cambridge, by Wm. Rogers, May 29, 1549, to Sir Thomas Smith, in which it is stated that Redman had just consented to sign the book of Homilies, though with an explanation. He picked out three sentences upon which he put a certain interpretation ; " he trusted the said sentences meant none other thing, but according to that his interpretation, though the very words straitly taken might seem, as he thought, to import another sense ; he was contented to subscribe and so did." (See Dixon, Hist, of Reformation III., p. 106 .) It does not appear what the sentences which caused him difficulty were. (I have consulted the letter at the Record Office, MSS. Edwd. vi., vol. vii. 23, to satisfy myself on this point). I may here remark that Canon Dixon's estimate of Redman (ib.) seems to me inappreciative and mistaken. 21 NOTE B. Benj. Whichcote took his M.A. in 1633 ; R. Cudworth in 1639 ; J- Smith in 1644 ; H. More in 1639. The appointment of Whichcote to be Provost of King's, and Cudworth to be Master of Christ's, in 1644, in place of deprived Heads, is one indication among several that the leaders of the Parliamentary party were inclined to act in a more or less liberal spirit towards the University, whether from a sense of the necessity of caution in dealing with such an influential body or from genuine respect for learning. Whichcote and Cudworth, though bred under Puritan influences, were as far as possible from being partisans. The former felt scruples about accepting the position offered to him, and consented to do so only on condition of transmitting to Dr. Collins the deprived provost one half of the salary payable to the provost from the College revenues. His use of his interest with some of the chief Parliamentary visitors of the University affords an example of the moderating forces to which I have alluded. He prevailed upon them to have the greatest part of the fellows of King's College exempted from the requirement to subscribe the Covenant, which he never did himself. See Tulloch, "Rational Theology in England in the iSth century." II. p. 49.