act in spite of authority:—in this extremity of fear, and danger of the Church and State, when, to suppress the growing evils of both, they needed a man of prudence and piety, and of an high and fearless fortitude, they were blest in all by John Whitgift, his being made Archbishop of Canterbury; of whom Sir Henry Wotton—that knew him well in his youth, and had studied him in his age—gives this true character; "That he was a man of reverend and sacred memory, and of the primitive temper; such a temper, as when the Church by lowliness of spirit did flourish in highest examples of virtue." And indeed this man proved so.

And though I dare not undertake to add to this excellent and true character of Sir Henry Wotton; yet I shall neither do right to this discourse, nor to my Reader, if I forbear to give him a further and short account of the life and manners of this excellent man; and it shall be short, for I long to end this digression, that I may lead my reader back to Mr. Hooker where we left him at the Temple.

[Sidenote: Archbishop of Canterbury]

John Whitgift was born in the County of Lincoln, of a family that was ancient; and noted to be both prudent and affable, and gentle by nature. He was educated in Cambridge; much of his learning was acquired in Pembroke Hall,—where Mr. Bradford[17] the Martyr was his tutor;—from thence he was removed to Peter House; from thence to be Master of Pembroke Hall; and from thence to the Mastership of Trinity College. About which time the Queen made him her Chaplain; and not long after Prebend of Ely, and then Dean of Lincoln; and having for many years past looked upon him with much reverence and favour, gave him a fair testimony of both, by giving him the Bishoprick of Worcester, and—which was not with her a usual favour—forgiving him his first fruits; then by constituting him Vice-President of the Principality of Wales. And having experimented his wisdom, his justice, and moderation in the manage of her affairs in both these places, she, in the twenty-sixth of her reign, 1583, made him Archbishop of Canterbury, and, not long after, of her Privy Council; and trusted him to manage all her Ecclesiastical affairs and preferments. In all which removes, he was like the Ark, which left a blessing on the place where it rested; and in all his employments was like Jehoiada, that did good unto Israel.

These were the steps of this Bishop's ascension to this place of dignity and cares: in which place—to speak Mr. Camden's very words in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth—"he devoutly consecrated both his whole life to God, and his painful labours to the good of his Church."

And yet in this place he met with many oppositions in the regulation of Church affairs, which were much disordered at his entrance, by reason of the age and remissness of Bishop Grindal,[18] his immediate predecessor, the activity of the Non-conformists, and their chief assistant the Earl of Leicester; and indeed by too many others of the like sacrilegious principles. With these he was to encounter; and though he wanted neither courage, nor a good cause, yet he foresaw, that without a great measure of the Queen's favour, it was impossible to stand in the breach that had been lately made into the lands and immunities of the Church, or indeed to maintain the remaining lands and rights of it. And therefore by justifiable sacred insinuations, such as St. Paul to Agrippa,—"Agrippa, believest thou? I know thou believest," he wrought himself into so great a degree of favour with her, as, by his pious use of it, hath got both of them a great degree of fame in this world, and of glory in that into which they are now both entered.

[Sidenote: The "little black husband"]

His merits to the Queen, and her favours to him were such, that she called him, "her little black husband," and called "his servants her servants:" and she saw so visible and blessed a sincerity shine in all his cares and endeavours for the Church's and for her good, that she was supposed to trust him with the very secrets of her soul, and to make him her confessor; of which she gave many fair testimonies; and of which one was, that "she would never eat flesh in Lent, without obtaining a licence from her little black husband:" and would often say "she pitied him because she trusted him, and had thereby eased herself by laying the burthen of all her Clergy-cares upon his shoulders, which he managed with prudence and piety."

[Sidenote: Church-lands Acts]

I shall not keep myself within the promised rules of brevity in this account of his interest with her Majesty, and his care of the Church's rights, if in this digression I should enlarge to particulars; and therefore my desire is, that one example may serve for a testimony of both. And, that the Reader may the better understand it, he may take notice, that not many years before his being made Archbishop, there passed an Act, or Acts of Parliament, intending the better preservation of the Church-lands, by recalling a power which was vested in others to sell or lease them, by lodging and trusting the future care and protection of them only in the Crown: and amongst many that made a bad use of this power or trust of the Queen's, the Earl of Leicester was one; and the Bishop having, by his interest with her Majesty, put a stop to the Earl's sacrilegious designs, they two fell to an open opposition before her; after which they both quitted the room, not friends in appearance. But the Bishop made a sudden and seasonable return to her Majesty,—for he found her alone—and spake to her with great humility and reverence, to this purpose.

[Sidenote: An address]

"I beseech your Majesty to hear me with patience, and to believe that your's and the Church's safety are dearer to me than my life, but my conscience dearer than both: and therefore give me leave to do my duty, and tell you, that Princes are deputed nursing Fathers of the Church, and owe it a protection; and therefore God forbid that you should be so much as passive in her ruin, when you may prevent it; or that I should behold it without horror and detestation; or should forbear to tell your Majesty of the sin and danger of Sacrilege. And though you and myself were born in an age of frailties, when the primitive piety and care of the Church's lands and immunities are much decayed; yet, Madam, let me beg that you would first consider that there are such sins as Profaneness and Sacrilege: and that, if there were not, they could not have names in Holy Writ, and particularly in the New Testament. And I beseech you to consider, that though our Saviour said, 'He judged no man;' and, to testify it, would not judge nor divide the inheritance betwixt the two brethren, nor would judge the woman taken in adultery; yet in this point of the Church's rights he was so zealous, that he made himself both the accuser, and the judge, and the executioner too, to punish these sins; witnessed, in that he himself made the whip to drive the profaners out of the Temple, overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and drove them out of it. And I beseech you to consider, that it was St. Paul that said to those Christians of his time that were offended with Idolatry, and yet committed Sacrilege; 'Thou that abhorrest Idols, dost thou commit Sacrilege?' supposing, I think, Sacrilege the greater sin. This may occasion your Majesty to consider, that there is such a sin as Sacrilege; and to incline you to prevent the Curse that will follow it, I beseech you also to consider, that Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, and Helena his Mother; that King Edgar, and Edward the Confessor; and indeed many others of your predecessors, and many private Christians, have also given to God, and to his Church, much land, and many immunities, which they might have given to those of their own families, and did not; but gave them for ever as an absolute right and sacrifice to God: and with these