PREFACE.

Ir seemed desirable that this, the great work of one of the greatest of our early divines upon the cardinal point of difference between the churches of the Roman and the reformed communions, should be comprised in the collection of the Parker Society; not only on account of its intrinsic merits, but also for its historical value; as exhibiting the posture of defence assumed by our schools against that change of tactics in the management of this great controversy, which is to be dated from the institution of the Society of Jesus.

William Whitaker (or Whitacre) was born at Holme, in Lancashire, A. D. 1547, of a good family, nearly related to Alexander Nowel, the celebrated dean of St Paul's. He was bred at Cambridge, where he soon distinguished himself, and was in 1579 appointed the Queen's Professor of Divinity. In 1586, through the influence of Burghley and Whitgift, and in spite of obstinate and powerful opposition, he was made Master of St John's College in that University; soon after which appointment he took his degree of Doctor in Divinity. His delay in assuming the doctorate seems curious, and it was maliciously made the ground of a most unjust imputation of puritanism. How small was his sympathy with the disciplinarian party, appears from the manner in which he speaks of their great leader, Cartwright, in a letter preserved by Bancroft': "Quem Cartwrightus nuper emisit libellum, ejus magnam partem perlegi. Ne vivam, si quid unquam viderim dissolutius ac pene puerilius. Verborum satis ille quidem lautam ac novam supellectilem habet, rerum omnino nullam, quantum ego quidem judicare possum. Deinde non modo perverse de Principis in Rebus Sacris atque Ecclesiasticis auctoritate sentit; sed in papistarum etiam castra transfugit; a quibus tamen videri vult odio capitali dissidere. Verum nec in hac causa

1 Survey of Discipline, p. 379, Lond. 1593.

ferendus, sed aliis etiam in partibus tela a papistis mutuatur. Denique, ut de Ambrosio dixit Hieronymus, verbis ludit, sententiis dormitat, et plane indignus est qui a quopiam docto refutetur."

But though far removed from the disciplinarian tenets of the puritans, Whitaker undoubtedly agreed with them in their hostility to the Arminian opinions, which in his time began to prevail in the Church of England; as appears from the share taken by him in the prosecution of Baret, and the devising of the Lambeth articles. The history of such proceedings is foreign from my present purpose; but the reader will find a full detail of the circumstances connected with them in Strype's Life of Whitgift, Book IV., Chapters 14-18. Shortly after the termination of that memorable dispute, Whitaker died in 1595, in the forty-seventh year of his age. He was married, and had eight children. It was pleasantly said of him, that he gave the world a child and a book1 every year. Of his children I have nothing to communicate, and his books will speak for themselves. They gained for him in his life-time a high character, not only with friends, but with enemies also. "I have," says the writer of his life, in Lupton's Protestant Divines, "I have heard it confessed of English Papists themselves, which have been in Italy with Bellarmine himself, that he procured the true portraiture and effigies of this Whitaker to be brought to him, which he kept in his study. For he privately admired this man for his singular learning and ingenuity; and being asked of some of his friends, Jesuits, why he would have the picture of that heretic in his presence? he would answer, Quod quamvis hæreticus erat et adversarius, erat tamen doctus adversarius: that, "although he was an heretic, and his adversary, yet he was a learned adversary," p. 359. "He was," says Gataker, "tall of stature and upright; of a grave aspect, with black hair and a ruddy complexion; a solid judgment, a liberal mind, an affable disposition; a

1 Librum et Liberum quotannis. See Fuller's Life of Whitaker in the "Holy State."

2 History of the moderne Protestant Divines, &c., faithfully translated out of the Latin by D. L., London, 1637.

mild, yet no remiss governor; a contemner of money; of a moderate diet, a life generally unblameable, and (that which added a lustre to all the rest) amidst all these endowments, and the respects of others (even the greatest) thereby deservedly procured, of a most meek and lowly spirit." "Who," asks Bishop Hall, "ever saw him without reverence? or heard him without wonder?"

I have only to add, that in the translation I have endeavoured to be as literal as would consist with a due regard to the English idiom. Had I considered myself at liberty to use more freedom, I should have made my task more easy to myself, and the work perhaps less tedious to the reader: for there is a prolixity in Whitaker's style, which contrasts unfavourably with the compactness of his great antagonist, Bellarmine; though he trespasses far less upon the student's patience than Stapleton, whose verbose rhetoric made him admired in his own day, and whose subtlety of logic cannot save him from neglect in ours.

It is proper to apprise the reader, that, besides the Controversy translated in the present volume, the only one published in the Author's life-time, three others are contained in the ponderous volumes of his works, all of which were published after his death by John Allenson, B.D., Fellow of St John's College. The subjects of these are De Ecclesia, De Conciliis, and De Romano Pontifice. He encountered Bellarmine also on the other controversies in succession, De ministris et presbyteris Ecclesiæ, De sanctis mortuis, De Ecclesia triumphante, De Sacramentis in genere, De Baptismo, and De Eucharistia. "Quas," adds his biographer, Obadiah Assheton, a Fellow of his College, "utinam licuisset per otium relegisse, et mandasse typis universas: id enim auditoribus erat in votis vel maxime; quorum cum summa admiratione et acclamatione singulas tractarat controversias. Ceterum studio respondendi Bellarmino in omnibus controversiis religionis provectus, optimum censuit has elucubratas disputationes apud se reponere; ratus (quod postea non evenit) aptius fore tempus eas per otium evulgandi. Sed Deo immortali, cujus consilia sunt abyssus inscrutabilis, aliter visum est."

The following is the list of his works:

1. Responsio ad decem rationes Edm. Campiani. 8vo. Lond. 1581.

2. Responsionis ad decem rationes Edm. Campiani Defensio. 8vo. Lond. 1583.

3. Refutatio Nic. Sanderi, quod Papa non sit Antichristus. 8vo. Lond. 1583.

4. Answer to W. Rainold's Reprehensions, &c. 8vo. Camb. 1585.

5.

Disputatio de Sacra Scriptura contra hujus temporis Papistas. 4to. Cantab. 1588.

6. Pro authoritate atque auтоTIOтia S. Scripturæ Duplicatio contra T. Stapletonum. Libri 3. Cantab. 1594.

7.

Prælectiones de Ecclesia, &c., edited after his death by 4to. Cantab. 1599.

J. Allenson.

8.

9.

Prælectiones de Conciliis.

8vo. Cantab. 1600.

Concio in 1 Thess. v. 12. 4to. Cantab. 1599.

10. In Controversiam de R. Pontifice, distributam in quæstiones viii., adversus Pontificios, imprimis R. Bellarminum, prælectiones. 8vo. Hanov. 1608.

A complete collection of his works in Latin was printed in two vols. folio, at Geneva, 1610.

Besides the above, Whitaker published in 1569 a Greek translation of the Common Prayer; in 1573, of Nowel's larger, and in 1575, of the smaller Catechism.