church of Christ, deduced through every age, with their minutest branches and subdivisions. The proper authorities for every position that he lays down, are always set down, so that nothing needs be taken on trust barely upon his word. He seldom or never varies from the decisions of the Catholic Church in his determinations; and his sufferings, for the cause of Episcopacy, have deservedly endeared him to the members of the episcopal churches of this island. These were all great men, and their collections and observations are of admirable use. But this should not deter men of ability and leisure from reading the original compositions of the Fathers. They will then judge for themselves: and things will appear in a different, and in a much better view than any representations made by other men can give; and for our encouragement few of them are difficult.

7 The knowledge of what our adversaries say, is of almost absolute necessity to an English divine. Here particular care must be taken, that we do not acquiesce in the accounts which our friends give of the opinions of those from whom they dissent. If we misrepresent what they say, we shall not only be sure to hear again with reproach, but what is worse, whatsoever we can urge against them will lose all its weight. And as all men have a right to be heard, so no man's defence can be so fully or so fairly (at least not so satisfactorily) represented as in his own words. Here then we are to distinguish between what private Doctors say, and what is the voice of the community whose opinions we examine. Bellarmin and' Perron, and Stapleton, are deservedly esteemed among the ablest defenders of Popery; and yet whenever the Papists are pressed from the writings of any, or all of these men by our divines, they immediately tell us, that` what these doctors say, is only their private opinion, in which the church (as they call themselves) are not obliged to acquiesce. If therefore we would successfully attack the Papists, we must see what the Church of Rome has professedly taught in any authentic books of her own. The Canons of the Council of Trent (which are nobly explained by F. Paul in his History of that council) the Catechismus ad Parochos, and the Offices of the Church, which have been set forth since the celebration of that council may be depended upon. The Catechismus ad Parochos, is the clearest and best system of popery that we have, and its authority cannot possibly be evaded,

it having been composed by the order of P. Pius V. in pursuit of a decree of the council of Trent for that purpose. With these one may read Chemnitius's Examen Concilii Tridentini. If I would know what the Lutherans will stand by, I would examine Augsburgh Confession, and read Sleidan's History of the Reformation in Germany, and Seckendorf's History of Lutheranism, (which last is a book compleat in its kind) at the same time. The Harmony of the Confessious of the Protestant Churches, which are all printed together, will shew what every Church has taught seperately from the rest. In Knoxe's and Spotswood's Histories of the Church of Scotland you will see what Scottish Presbyteranism is, as it is represented by friends and foes. In Bishop Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England you will have a full view of the steps which our Church took, when she reformed herself from the errors of Popery; and the doctrine of the Church of England is fully seen in our Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies. The Racovian Catechism will shew you what the Socinians formerly held in Poland, and by what arguments they endeavoured to support their impious heresy. Barclay's Apology gives us such a system of Quakerism, as the Quakers profess to abide by. The Acts of the Synod of Dort will fully instruet us in the nature of Dutch Calvinisin; and the Acta Synodalia Remonstrantium give the reasons at large why the Arminians separated from the Calvinists and refused to subscribe to the decrees of that Synod. Orobio the Jew (whose papers in defence of Judaism are printed at length in Limborch's Collatio cum erudito Judao) does in them acquaint us with what the Jews have to say for themselves, for their not embracing the Christian faith. Mr. Reland has lately published a short System of Mahometanism, written by a Mahometan; from which and from the Alcoran, which is well translated into Latin, you will better learn what the disciples of Mahomet teach, than from any Christian writers that I know.

8. I have said little hitherto of Ecclesiastical History. That is a necessary part of knowledge to a divine in most controversies, but especially if he has much to do with Papists and Arians. The ancient historians, whom Vale, sius has published in Greek and Latin, are certain ly to be read more than once with care, To these one should join Lactantius (or whoever is the author) de Mortibus Persecutorum, and the Ecclesiastical History of Sul

Ee 2

picius

picius Severus. After them (unless you will reckon Ruffinus's Ecclesiastical History, which is little more than a translation of Eusebius) we have not many ancient writers who have professedly given us much of Ecclesiastical History. What we would know more, must chiefly be gathered from modern collectors. From the 6th century downwards, till the Reformation, things grew dark; and Du Pin will amply satisfy the curiosity of those who want time, and inclination, and opportunity to pursue those disquisitions farther. Dr. Cave's Lives of the Fathers are in all men's hands, and are doubtless well worth reading. But if a man desires to be exact with little trouble, and is willing to know in a manner all that can be known for the first four or five centuries in the Church, let him read Monsieur de Tillemont's Memoirs for Ecclesiastical History carefully, who in my opinion has set a pattern of exactness and judgment to all that will come after hini, and has greatly outdone all that have gone before him. If you would have a regular continued History of the Church, Godeau's, though a Papist, which reaches to the Tenth Century, is the best; and to him you may oppose Le Sueur, who was a Protestant, whose Ecclesiastical History is very useful to a Protestant, because at the end of every remarkable period he sets down an account of the Controversies then started with a good deal of judgment. But I see I shall run into too great a length, and therefore I omit Baronius's Annals, which if our student would read, he ought by all means to compare F. Pagi's Critique upon them, along as he goes.

I shall add no more. You desired only a short sketch, and you have it. If you would read longer and more accurate discourses upon this subject you may find enough to satisfy your curiosity in Stephanus Gaussenus's Dissertationes Theologica, and F. Mabillon's Treatise of Monastical Studies, whom I purposely avoided to copy, because I apprehended that you desired my own Thoughts only upon this subject. I am Sir,

Your most affectionate

Friend and Servant,

W. W

ACADEMIANA.

ACADEMIANA. No. VII.

TH

SIMON GRYNEUS.

HIS learned man was born at Vering in Germany, and bred up by his parents in the Roman Catholic religion; but when he came to reason, he embraced the principles of Luther, with whom and Melancthon he was on terms of friendship. The Elector Palatine appointed him Greek professor at Heidelberg. But about 1523, he came to England, and resided at Oxford, where he visited and studied in most of the libraries, and searched after rare books of the Greek tongue, and having found several, and the owners to be careless of them, he took some away, and carried them with him beyond seas. This charge is brought against him by our Oxford antiquary and biographer; but it is contradicted, or if not contradicted, at least doubted, by Mr. Granger, (vol. i. p. 123.) Grynæus was very intimate with Erasmus, and was with him when he died. He became professor of philosophy and divinity at Basil, and died of the plague in 1541. He wrote In Librum Octavum Topicorum, Aristot. Commentaria, 8vo.and Epistles in Latin.

THOMAS STERNHOLD.

This person, who has perpetuated his name by a well known version of the Psalms in metre, was a native of Hampshire, and educated at Wykeham's school near Winchester, after which he studied at Oxford, but left the University without a degree and became groom of the robes to King Henry VIII. who by his will left him a legacy of one hundred marks. He continued in the same office to Edward VI. and was in some esteem at court, for his vein in poetry. Being a zealous reformer he became so scandalized at the amorous and obscene songs used in the court, that he turned into English metre

fifty-one of David's psalins, and caused musical notes to be set to them; thinking thereby that the courtiers would sing them instead of their sonnets; but they did not, only some few excepted. " However, the poetry and music being admirable (says Wood), and the best that was made and composed in those times, they were thought fit afterwards to be sung in all parochial churches. All those Psalms which he put into rhyme, have the letters T. S. set before them to distinguish them from others. What other poetry, or what prose, this our Sternhold hath composed, does not appear." He died in 1549.

Cotemporary with Sternhold was JOHN HOPKINS, who turned into metre fifty-eight of David's psalms, which in all the editions of that version have the two letters J. H. set before them. He appears to have been a schoolmaster in Suffolk. The other translators were WILLIAM WHITTINGHAM, afterwards the unworthy dean of Durham, who made considerable dilapidatious in that cathedral, being a puritan: and THOMAS NORTON, who was a barrister, and translated several books from the Latin into English. Their respective signatures are to the psalms translated by them. Of this famous version curious is the account given by Dr. Heylyn: "About this time," says he, "the psalms of David did first begin to be composed in English metre by Thomas Sternhold, one of the grooms of the privy chamber, who left both example and encouragement to John Hopkins and others to dispatch the rest. A device first taken up in France, by one Clement Marot, one of the grooms of the bed-chamber about king Francis I. who being much addicted to poetry, and having some acquaintance with those that were thought to have inclined to the reformation, was persuaded by the learned Vatablus, (Professor of the Hebrew language in Paris) to expercise his poetical fancy in translating some of David's psalms, for whose satisfaction and his own, he translated the first fifty of them; and after flying to Geneva, grew acquainted with Beza, who in some tract of time translated the other hundred also, and caused them to be fitted to several tunes, which thereupon began to be sung in private houses; and by degrees to be taken up in all churches of the French nation which followed the Geneva platform. The translation is said by Strada to have been ignorantly end perversely done, as being the work of a man altogether unlearned; but not to be compared with

thre