XLIV.

FREE-WILL.

THE Puritans who will allow no free-will at all, but God does all, yet will allow the subject his liberty to do or not to do, notwithstanding the king, the god upon earth. The Arminians, who hold we have free-will, yet say, when we come to the king there must be all obedience, and no liberty must be stood for.

XLV.

FRIENDS.

OLD friends are best. King James used to call for his 10 old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.

XLVI.

FRIARS.

1. THE friars say they possess nothing; whose then are the lands they hold? Not their superior's, he hath vowed poverty as well as they. Whose then? To answer this 'twas decreed they should say they were the pope's. And why must the friars be more perfect than the pope himself?

2. If there had been no friars, Christendom might have continued quiet, and things remained at the stay.

If there had been no lecturers [which succeed the friars in their way] the Church of England might have stood and flourished at this day.

1. 20. If there had been no lecturers &c.] See note on 'Lecturers,'

sec. I.

20

XLVII.

GENEALOGY OF CHRIST.

1. THEY that say, the reason why Joseph's pedigree is set down, and not Mary's, is, because the descent from the mother is lost, and swallowed up, say something, for so it was; but yet if a Jewish woman married with a Gentile, they only took notice of the mother, not of the father. But they that say they were both of a tribe, say nothing; for the tribes might marry one with another, and the law against it was only temporary, in the time while Joshua 20 was in dividing the land, lest the being so long about it, there might be a confusion.

2. That Christ was the son of Joseph is most exactly true. For though he was the Son of God, yet with the Jews, if any man kept a child, and brought him up, and called him son, he was taken for his son; and his land (if he had any) was to descend upon him; and therefore the genealogy of Joseph is justly set down.

XLVIII.

GENTLEMEN.

1. WHAT a gentleman is, 'tis hard with us to define. In 20 other countries he is known by his privileges; in Westminster-hall he is one that is reputed one; in the court of honour, he that hath arms. The king cannot make a

It means,

1. 7. But they that say &c.] This is a little obscure. apparently, that whether Joseph and Mary had been of the same tribe, or of different tribes (as they might lawfully have been), the descent from the mother would equally have been 'lost and swallowed up.' An assertion, therefore, that the pedigree was set down on the father's side because they were both of a tribe would miss the real point.

1. 8. the law against it] Numbers xxxvi. 8, 9.

gentleman of blood; [what have you said ?] nor God Almighty; but he can make a gentleman by creation. If you ask which is the better of these two; civilly, the gentleman of blood; morally the gentleman by creation may be the better; for the other may be a debauched man, this a person of worth.

ΤΟ

2. Gentlemen have ever been more temperate in their religion than the common people, as having more reason, the others running in a hurry. In the beginning of Christianity the fathers writ contra gentes, and contra gentiles, 10 they were all one; but after all were Christians, the better sort of people still retained the name of Gentiles, throughout the four provinces of the Roman empire; as gentilhomme in French, gentil-huomo1 in Italian, gentil-huombre in Spanish, and gentle-man in English: and they, no question, being persons of quality, kept up those feasts which we borrow from the Gentiles; as Christmas, Candlemas, May-day, &c. continuing what was not directly against Christianity, which the common people would never have endured.

20

XLIX.

GOLD.

THERE are two reasons given why those words, Jesus autem transiens per medium eorum ibat, were about our old

1 Gentil-huomo] gentel-homo, H. and H. 2.

2 Gentleman, H. 2] gentilman, H.

1. 22. There are two reasons &c.] The second reason given here is not what Selden gives elsewhere. After mentioning the alchemical reason for the inscription, he adds—'alii opinati sunt . . . amulcri vicem obtinuisse, et caedi et vulneribus averruncandis. Certe verba illa in iis quibus tortorum quaestioni subjecti interdum, dolori allevando abigendoque, utuntur locum habere ex jurisconsultis aliquot scimus.' Works, vol. ii. p. 1386.

Camden mentions the story told by the alchemists; but, with a

gold. The one is, because Ripley the alchymist, when he made gold in the tower, the first time he found it, he spoke these words, per medium eorum, that is, per medium ignis et sulphuris. The other is, because these words were thought to be a charm, and that they did bind whatsoever they were written upon, so that a man could not take it away. To this reason I rather incline.

L.

HALL.

THE hall was the place where the great lord did use to 10 eat, (wherefore else were the halls made so big?) where he

disregard of dates, he gives Raymond Lully as the successful projector in the Tower. He adds that others say that the text on the coins was only an amulet used in that credulous warfaring age to escape dangers in battle. See Camden, Remains, sub tit. 'Money,' p. 242 (ed. 7, London, 1674).

We learn, too, that the rose nobles of other nations, as well as of ours, had these words stamped upon them. They were used in England first by Edward III, and were copied on the coins of several later reigns. Sometimes another passage of Scripture was used instead of them; as e. g. 'A domino factum est istud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris;' or 'per crucem tuam salva nos Christe redemptor.' See Archbishop Sharpe, Dissertation on the Golden Coins of England, secs. 4 and 6.

1. 9. The hall was the place &c.] See e. g. Household Statutes (first half of thirteenth century), framed for Bishop Grossetest. 'Make ye your own household to sit in the hall, as much as ye may. . . And sit ye ever in the middle of the high borde (table) that your face and cheer be shown to all men. And all so much as ye may, without peril of sickness and weariness, eat ye in the hall before your men. For that shall be to you profit and worship.' Manners and Meals in Olden Time, Part I, p. 329, 331 (Early English Text Society).

The Eltham Ordinances for the government of the royal household under Henry VIII are framed in view of the King's dining in Hall, and they give special permission for private meals when the King does not dine in the Hall. See chh. 44, 45, and 52, pp. 151, 153.

saw all his servants and his tenants about him. He eat not in private, except in time of sickness; when once he became a thing cooped up, all his greatness was spilled. Nay, the king himself used to eat in the hall, and his lords sat with him, and then he understood men.

LI.

HELL.

I. THERE are two texts for Christ's descending into hell; the one, Psalm xvi. the other, Acts ii. where the Bible, that

But that the custom was ceasing to be observed appears from ch. 77, p. 160, which gives rules which had become necessary 'by reason of the seldom keeping of the King's Hall.'

The above are printed in A Collection of Ordinances for the Government of the Royal Household (1790, 4to).

1.7. There are two texts &c.] This is incorrect. There are other texts which have been, rightly or wrongly, interpreted to prove the descent. Conf. Ephesians iv. 9: 'Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?' and 1 Peter iii. 19: 'By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.' In the Forty-two Articles of 1552, the descent into hell is explained and confirmed by a reference to this passage: 'Quemadmodum Christus pro nobis mortuus est et sepultus, ita est etiam credendus ad inferos descendisse. Nam corpus usque ad resurrectionem in sepulchro jacuit; spiritus ab eo emissus, cum spiritibus qui in carcere sive in inferno detinebantur fuit, illisque praedicavit, quemadmodum testatur Petri locus.' In the Thirty-nine Articles of 1562, the Article on the descent ends with the words 'ad inferos descendisse,' and omits all reference to the preaching to the spirits in prison. At this date the authorised version of the Bible was Cranmer's, or the great Bible (1539), in which (as in Tyndale's earlier version) the reading in Acts ii. 27 is 'thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.' The Thirty-nine Articles were confirmed or recognised by Parliament in 1571, at which date, and up to 1611, the authorised version was the 'Bishops' Bible' (1568). In this version the text remains unchanged-'because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell'; and in the corresponding passage in Psalm xvi. 10 the word 'hell' is marginally explained as 'in the state that souls be after this life.'