LIFE OF WALTON. 37 



The praise of Hooker's book is, that it is written 

 with great force of argument, and in a truly Christian 

 temper : that it contains a wonderful variety of learn- 

 ing and curious information ; and for richness, correct- 

 ness, and elegance of style, may be justly deemed the 

 standard of perfection in the English language*, 



This excellent man. Hooker, was by a crafty woman, 

 betrayed into a marriage with her daughter ; a homely 

 ill-bred wench, and, when married, a shrew ; who is 

 more than suspected, at the instigation of his adver- 

 saries, to have destroyed the corrected copy of the three 

 last books of his invaluable work, of which only the 

 former five were published by himself. He was some 

 time Master-of-the^Temple ; but his last preferment was 

 to the rectory of Bishop's Bourne, near Canterbury. la 

 his passage from Gravesend to London, in the tilt-boat, 

 he caught a cold; which brought on a sickness that 

 put an end to his days, in 1600, when he had but just 

 completed his forty-seventh year. 



HERBERT was, of the noble family of that name ; 

 and a younger brother of the first of modern deists t, the 



* It is worth remarking upon this dispute, how the separatists hav 

 shifted their ground : at first, both parties seemed to be agreed, that with- 

 out an ecclesiastical establishment of some kind or other, and a discipline in 

 the church to be exercised over its ministers and members, the Christian 

 religion could not subsist ; and the only question was, Which, of the 

 two, had the best warrant from scripture, and the usage of the primitive 

 church ; a government by bishops, priests, and deacons ; or, by presbyters 

 and/<zj elders, exercising jurisdiction in provincial and parochial synods and 

 clastes, over the several congregations within counties, or particular divi- 

 sions of the kingdoms ? But of this kind of church government we now 

 hear mothing, except in the church of Scotland. All congregrations are 

 now independent of each other, and every congregation is styled a church : 

 The father of this tenet, was Robinson, a pastor of an English 



church at Leyden ; if not the original founder of the sect called Broivnists t 

 now extinct ; and the great maintainers of it, were the divines most fa- 

 voured by Cromwell in his usurpation, Good-win, Owen, Nye, Caryl, and 

 others. The Presbyterians, it seems, have approved it ; and giving up 

 their scheme of church government, have joined the independents ; and 

 both have chosen to be comprehended under the general denomination of 

 Dissenters. Vide Quick's Synodicon, Vol. 11.467. Calamy's Life of Baxter t 

 Vol. I. 476. Preface to Dr. Gray's Hudibras. 



j- So, truly, termed ; as being the author of a treatise De vtritate provt 

 diitinguitur a revelatione, a verisimili, a possibili^ a falsa. Touching which 



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