ADVERTISEMENT. In republishing this tract of Dr. Cosin's, great care has been taken to verify all the references. And as the value of a work like the present greatly depends on the accuracy of the quotations, they have now, for the first time, been printed at full length. Some few have escaped the Editor's search; some he has been enabled to correct by means of Dr. Ponet's admirable essay on the same subject; but the greatest help was derived from Aubertin's grand work De Eucharistia, to which undoubtedly this treatise is much indebted. All additions to the original edition are included between brackets. King's College, London, A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. JOHN COSIN, D.D. and Bishop of Durham, was born on St. Andrew's day, Nov. 30, 1595, in the city of Norwich. His father, Giles Cosin, of Fox-hearth, was a respectable citizen, of competent fortune. The maiden name of his mother was Elizabeth Remington, of Remington Castle, who was descended from an ancient and noble family. Both his parents were of the household of faith, both born and bred in the true ancient apostolic and catholic religion of the Church of England. Their eldest son, the subject of this memoir, who deserved so well of the Church and religion in which he was bred, was sent at an early age to be educated in the free grammarschool of his native city. In his fourteenth year he was removed to Cambridge; and after taking his degree, was elected a fellow of Gonville and Caius College. His early proficiency in all good learning soon drew upon him the notice of those whose good word and opinion he most desired to possess. In the year 1616 he was invited by the celebrated Dr. Lancelot Andrews, then bishop of Ely, to become his librarian; and at the same time received a similar offer from Dr. John Overall, bishop of Lichfield; to whom, upon the advice of his tutor, he gave the preference. With the bishop he became in a short time so great a favourite, as to be appointed his private secretary; and this is probably the reason why so many of Dr. Overall's papers and prelections are found in the handwriting of Dr. Cosin, who to his sound judgment as a divine, and his great learning as a scholar, added this qualification of being a most beautiful penman.* The friendship of Bishop Overall undoubtedly had great influence in fixing Cosin in those sentiments which he afterwards so uniformly and consistently professed. Of all the great men of those great times (for there were giants in those * "And so might deserve," observes Dr. Basire, "the praise of the tribe of Zabulon; so well could he handle the pen of the writer."-The Dead Man's Real Speech, p. 43. days), Bishop Overall may justly be considered as the founder of that eminent school of divines who flourished in the seventeenth century. He was the first to oppose with any success the Calvinistic opinions then prevailing at Cambridge, which the celebrated Whitaker had taught and defended with so much zeal and ability. When Peter Baro was driven by that party from his professor's chair, and the Lambeth articles had been passed by their influence, Overall's appointment to the vacant professorship gave an entirely new turn to the controversy, and Whitaker's influence rapidly declined. No man was better versed than Overall in the abstruse discussions of the schools; none more competent to decide those differences which then arose amongst the Dutch divines. And yet, with all his learning, profound as it was, it was not wider or deeper than his charity; he was of a pure, meek, and humble spirit. When he had fixed the truth, he gave copious latitude to his hearers to dissent, keeping the foundations sure, without breach of charity. His desire was for peace and unity; and as far as his position as a clergyman and professor permitted him, by public and pri |