[Sidenote: "Clavi Trabales"]
Dr. Barnard, sometime Chaplain to Dr. Usher, late Lord Archbishop of
Armagh, hath declared in a late book, called "Clavi Trabales," printed
by Richard Hodgkinson, anno 1661, that, in his search and examination
of the said Bishop's manuscripts, he found the Three written books
which were supposed the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth of Mr. Hooker's
books of Ecclesiastical Polity; and that in the said Three books--now
printed as Mr. Hooker's--there are so many omissions, that they amount
to many paragraphs, and which cause many incoherencies: the omissions
are set down at large in the said printed book, to which I refer
the Reader for the whole; but think fit in this place to insert this
following short part of some of the said omissions.
[Sidenote: Omissions]
First, as there could be in natural bodies no motion of any thing,
unless there were some first which moved all things, and continued
unmoveable; even so in politic societies there must be some
unpunishable, or else no man shall suffer punishment: for sith
punishments proceed always from superiors, to whom the administration
of justice belongeth; which administration must have necessarily a
fountain, that deriveth it to all others, and receiveth not from any,
because otherwise the course of justice should go infinitely in a
circle, every superior having his superior without end, which cannot
be: therefore a well-spring, it followeth, there is: a supreme head of
justice, whereunto all are subject, but itself in subjection to none.
Which kind of pre-eminency if some ought to have in a kingdom, who
but a King shall have it? Kings, therefore, or no man, can have lawful
power to judge.
If private men offend, there is the Magistrate over them, which
judgeth; if Magistrates, they have their Prince; if Princes, there is
Heaven, a tribunal, before which they shall appear; on earth they are
not accountable to any. Here, says the Doctor, it breaks off abruptly.
And I have these words also attested under the hand of Mr. Fabian
Philips, a man of note for his useful books. "I will make oath, if I
shall be required, that Dr. Sanderson, the late Bishop of Lincoln,
did a little before his death affirm to me, he had seen a manuscript
affirmed to him to be the hand-writing of Mr. Richard Hooker, in
which there was no mention made of the King or supreme governors being
accountable to the people. This I will make oath, that that good man
attested to me.
"FABIAN PHILIPS." [1]
So that there appears to be both omissions and additions in the said
last Three printed books: and this may probably be one reason why Dr.
Sanderson, the said learned Bishop,--whose writings are so highly and
justly valued,--gave a strict charge near the time of his death, or
in his last Will, "That nothing of his that was not already printed,
should be printed after his death."
[Sidenote: King Charles on Hooker]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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