a general indifference to religion; and questions that came before them did not really affect their minds, because they never gave themselves the trouble of understanding them. However, the Establishment still possessed men of piety, and some degree of learning and acuteness-men whom the episcopal divines thought it quite worth their while to reply to, as is evidenced by the continual issue of theological volumes and pamphlets from the press during this period. Amongst the most important of these, (strange as it may seem, to say so now that the book has been entirely forgotten,) was Hammond's Dissertationes Quatuor, alluded to in a previous paper. It came out early in June, 1651, and if we may judge from an expression in one of his letters to the Bishop of Ely, was designed to be followed by another tract English, on Episcopacy, which seems to have been altogether suppressed. It is to these dissertations that allusion is made in the following letters. They were provoked by the then recent controversy about the genuineness of the epistles of S. Ignatius, and their author may not improbably have thought it reasonable to bring them out at a time, when Presbyterianism seemed to have a chance of becoming the established form of Church government in England; or it is possible, he may have entertained hopes of episcopacy again rising up from the ruins of the other two forms of belief, which were now brought into such direct antagonism. The book seems to have had considerable weight, because we incidentally learn from the biographers of Bull and Patrick, that the former had his doubts on the subject of episcopacy satisfied by reading it, and the other was actually induced by it to apply to Hall, Bishop of Norwich, for ordination, having previously received Presbyterian orders from a class of presbyters.

Hammond was, as we may judge from the following letters, busily employing his time in reading and writing. Besides the Dissertations, he appears to have been engaged upon the Annotations, which did not come out till nearly two years after, also with some short tracts alluded to in the second letter, which came out in 1653, with the title of "A letter of resolution to Six Quæres of present use in the Church of England." The subjects of five are those mentioned by him in his letter to the Bishop of Ely; the sixth was perhaps an after-thought, written in continuation of the second, and may have been intended as an antidote to Milton's treatise on the same subject, which had been published some years before.

To render these letters intelligible, we must remind the reader that Hammond's correspondent, who writes under the fictitious name of A. Cl[eveland] is Dr. Matthew Wrenn, Bishop of Ely, who had been now for some years imprisoned in the tower, being

considered too powerful an enemy to the present established form of government, both in Church and State, to be allowed his liberty. We have before referred to his great learning, and have had occasion to speak of his uncompromising behaviour. He was now without his books, as he says, and it is to be regretted therefore that he should have adopted such interpretations of Scripture, as if he had been in possession of his library, he would hardly have assented to, as not having the sanction of antiquity.

[Wrenn, 4.]

"Sir,-His reply now is that although he cannot but ascribe it to a singular modesty in you, yet he is sorry you would take hold of that title which he said last, with his thanks touching the book, by the wrong ear of it. For by what he had said to you when he first perused it in writing, your right apprehension of what he said now so briefly, should have been to assure yourself of a high value he makes of the work, as being extraordinarily pleased, and abundantly satisfied on the whole carriage of the argument against your adversaries. By that which he told you he would reserve till GOD gave opportunity of conference, was only meant, that by the way, as you go, here and there he chopt upon some places of Scripture (beyond which he meddles not as being still bereft of all books and notes,) which he does not apprehend altogether so as you do, or as they are commonly accepted. And this to no impairing of your Discourse, that, though it should prove to be as he conceives, then your argument would have the less force in any point, but rather the more in some. As for example in this enclosed

paper.

"In your first dissertation, about Antichrist, the mystery of iniquity and Diotrephes, he cannot persuade himself that in ó åνtixeiμevos, 2 Thess. ii. 4, S. Paul had any thought of such an Antichrist as they commonly make of it. And also that the rise which the Apostle there takes for his discourse about that mystery, ὡς ὅτι ἐνέστηκεν ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ver. 2, is wholly mistaken in rendering it Quasi instet dies Domini. And that the mistake is grammatical, for though vioτn signifies instare, as in Latin instare hath a transitive sense for urgere opus, yet as it is intransitively meant for appropinquare or prope adesse it hath no such sense in Greek, nor ever is instare so; how much less in the præterperfect tense eveσTyxévaι! which signifies not but præteritum esse, and so makes S. Paul's meaning in that place the very same with what he says, Tv άvάσтασiv ňôn yeyavévaι, 2 Tim. ii. 18. Much he hath to say about this, as having a dissertation (among his papers) made about three years since upon it. And for Diotrephes to be piλompareúv, he reckons it but a trick from Geneva to render λorgwreÚELV άUT Primatum eorum ambire. For he looks upon Diotrephes as

OECTS in that particular church, what church soever it was, and as the Bishop there. One therefore that did not ambire Thν πршτεiαν quam non habebat, but only quam habebat did nimis cupide et arroganter gerere. Taking it therefore in foul scorn that the Apostle, for I repute that Epistle his, should send any assistants thither, as though Diotrephes were not able enough, and sufficent for his own diocese, and therefore fell into those high misdemeanours against S. John. In the Greek, píλos compounded with any verb bears to that sense. And S. John therefore writes to Gaius, as to another neighbouring Bishop in the same province, to prevent any schism that Diotrephes might make in drawing parties to him. Commends him therefore for receiving such preachers as S. John sent out, ver. 5 and 6, and advises him not to be seduced by Diotrephes, un pou, ver. 11, but to sort with Bishop Demetrius, ver. 12.

"Another example out of the fourth dissertation; though the word Biάxovos, when the first Epistle was written to Timothy, was then begun, and that but newly, to be used in the Church for the particular order of deacons subservient to the Bishop; the first mention whereof so is there 1 Tim. iii. 3, yet that phrase of oi naλãs diaxovýσavτes, ver. 13, he takes not to be spoken of that order only, but of all in sacred and ecclesiastical function, of Bishops, as well as Deacons, in the same sense as diaxovía is 1 Tim. i. 12, and 2 Tim. iv. 5, and so to be a privy encouragement to Timothy himself in his place. And therefore, that βαθμὸν ἑαυτοῖς καλὸν TеρITOIOVται, though he thinks it begat the common phrase long used among us de gradibus ministrorum, is but wrested to that sense in which there is no meaning, to distinguish degrees in the Church; much less to make us so nice when we treat of the orders of the Church, then but two, afterward by a new distribution of sacred power made three, as if they were but degrees only. And his reason why he says diáxovos was but then lately applied to that particular signification, he takes out of the other Epistle, written by the Apostle on the same argument to Titus, which was a year or perhaps two before that to Timothy, wherein it seems that acceptation of it was not so common then as for him to use it, and therefore he calls them per ßuras there; Tit. ii. 2.

"As for peσ Búrides, ver. 3, he holds you are in the right to take them as women in ecclesiastical employment. But he cannot admit them for other than the Deacons' wives, bearing the name of their husbands' title, therefore called yuvaixes in the midst of his instructions for Deacons, 1 Tim. iii. 12; yea, and more than so, called by him per ßurégas also, 1 Tim. v. 2, and so opposed to vewTέpas the laic women. And the reason of that is because the word πρεσβύτερος is used by himself in a new πολυσημασίᾳ, ver. 1, where it comprehends every one that is in sacred function, both Bishop and Deacon, πρεσβυτέρῳ μὴ ἐπιπλήξῃς ; and so again

κατὰ πρεσβυτέρου, ver. 19. In analogy therefore hereunto he terms their wives πρεσβυτέρας.

"And that it can mean none but their wives, he grounds his reasons upon va owppovilwol Tàs véas, Tit. ii. 4, for they by their husbands might be instructed in those profunda Satana, introduced by the Simonians, and the Nicolaits, which no Christian woman might incline to hear or come to know salvá pudicitia et illaso pudore from any man but from their own husbands, and so they were enabled to deal with the laity of their own sex so plainly as Bishop or Deacon or any man might not, to teach them what was then most necessary to be urged, particularly to be pixárdgous and poréxvous, the meaning whereof is, not to love those husbands and children they had, which nature alone taught, but to love to have them, which the Gnostics opposed. And this he believes was the primary use of all those women used then in the Church, even of those commended by the Apostle for their labouring with him, (Rom. xvi. and Phil. iv.) As for widows, the Church of Ephesus indeed was rich, and able to maintain such, but they were not for any ecclesiastical employment; and perhaps not yet in any other Church. In after ages indeed other women, and for other services, came to be used in churches, but we cannot rightly interpret Scripture by things after done, the use whereof appears not in Scripture.

"Which he hastily wrote over to give you a taste, as he said, of his right meaning. Had his own papers been by him he would have sent you some of them, wherein many such things as these are largely discoursed out of the Scriptures. But they were grown to such a bulk (of nine or ten quires of paper) that a friend would not let them remain here about, but hath carried them far away into the country.

By this letter he hopes you will fully understand his mind, that he rejoiceth much in your book and blesseth GOD for you and it. Always mindful of you in his devotions, as he also hopes you are of him. This Sir, being said, I am, to present myself, "Your humble servant, A. Cl[eveland]."

"July 19, 1651.

In the interval of three months, which elapsed between this and the following letter, there must have passed some correspondence between the two divines, but whatever letters were written have been lost; there must have been at least one from each of them, and if we may judge from the unsettled state of affairs, as well as from the internal evidence afforded by the second letter; there were no more written.

The allusion to the "truly excellent person whose motion near this place was so unfortunate," of course refers to the battle of

Worcester. Hammond had had an interview with the King, and of him he is speaking. It is singular that the king's adherents all speak of him at this time in the same high terms of eulogy. That the character given of him was not altogether true, our readers will easily believe. It is sufficient to say here that the stern uncompromising character of the prelate addressed, forbids the supposition that any one knowing the history of Charles' private life, could have given him such an account of the king-whilst the purity of the writer's life indicates that he too was in entire ignorance of the king's delinquencies.

The other subject alluded to in the following letter, is one of great interest, viz., the scheme for preserving the succession of Bishops in the English Church. History has preserved no record of any such scheme, but the letter sufficiently indicates that the notion was entertained, and little incidental notices show that the king, during his perilous wanderings after the battle of Worcester, had communications on the subject with the English divines. It seems a probable conjecture that the interview of an hour with Dr. Henchman was occupied with this subject. Of the present attempt, nothing more is known, than that it issued in nothing; as likewise did another much more secretly conducted scheme for the same purpose, which was set on foot three or four years later.

[H. to W. 9.]

"Sir, I received the signification of your great care and solicitude for my safety, to which kindness I am able to make a very full return, if it were seasonable by this way to tell you how truly an excellent person he is, whose motion near this place was so unfortunate. But this must be reserved till God give me a time to wait on you. I also received your Stricturæ, for the great pains and diligence in which, and for the benefit I received by them, and for the kindness which alone could dispose you for such a work, all the acknowledgments that I can make are to be as much the better for them as I can. I have made my margin the witness of that, and if a new impression prove needful, that will be a time of bringing forth what I have received. But I think by what I heard from Royst [on] lately, that the impression is so far vented that it will not be tanti to make a new table of errata; I hear no noise of any reply, or of any censure passed on it by any of the opposite party, unless I should tell you what was this week written to me, by one that hath inquired of it, that they pretend not any failings in the discourse, but being willing to find fault, allow it not a seasonable action to defend an opinion persecuted by so strong a power. But from a friend, your successor in the Cl[oset] I had these words: 'I doubt of your opinion about geoß[úrepo] in the New Testament, and though you may seem to join with Petavius and