than in the universal and adorning knowledges; for though he composed the same many years before his death, yet I thought that to be the fittest place, as the most acceptable incense unto God of the faith wherein he resigned his breath; the crowning of all his other perfections and abilities; and the best perfume of his name to the world after his death." In his Life he says, "He was able to render a reason of the hope which was in him; which that writing of his of the Confession of the Faith doth abundantly testify;" and in the address to the Reader, in the Opuscula, he says, "Supererat tandem scriptum illud Confessionis Fidei; quod auctor ipse, plurimis ante obitum annis, idiomate Anglicano concepit: operæ pretium mihi visum est Romana civitate donare; quo non minus exteris, quam popularibus suis, palam fiat, qua fide imbutus, et quibus mediis fretus, illustrissimus heros, animam Deo reddiderit; et quod theologicis studiis, æque ac philosophicis et civilibus, cum commodum esset, vacaverit. Fruere his operibus, et scientiarum antistitis olim Verulamii ne obliviscaris. Vale."

This tract is thus noticed by Archbishop Tenison in the "Baconiana." (g) "His Confession of Faith," written by him in English, and turned into Latin by Dr. Rawley; upon which there was some correspondence between Dr. Maynwaring and Dr. Rawley, (h) as the archbishop, in describing the

(g) Baconiana, 72.

(h) The following is in the " Baconiana," p. 209:

"A letter written by Dr. Roger Maynwaring, to Dr. Rawley concerning the Lord Bacon's Confession of Faith.

letters to Lord Bacon,(d) says, "The second is, a letter from Dr. Maynwaring to Dr. Rawley, concerning his lordship's Confession of Faith.' This is that Dr.

"SIR,

"I have, at your command, surveyed this deep and devout tract of your deceased lord, and send back a few notes upon it. "In page 413, 1. 5, (of this volume) are these words:

"I believe that God is so holy, pure, and jealous, that it is impossible for him to be pleased in any creature, though the work of his own hands; so that neither angel, man, nor world, could stand, or can stand, one moment in his eyes, without beholding the same in the face of a mediator; and therefore that before him, with whom all things are present, the Lamb of God was slain before all worlds; without which eternal counsel of his, it was impossible for him to have descended to any work of creation; but he should have enjoyed the blessed and individual society of three persons in Godhead only for ever.'

*

"This point I have heard some divines question, whether God, without Christ, did pour his love upon the creature? and I had sometimes a dispute with Dr. Sharp of your university, who held that the emanation of the Father's love to the creature was immediate. His reason, amongst others, was taken from that text, So God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.' Something of that point I have written amongst my papers, which on the sudden I cannot light upon. But I remember that I held the point in the negative, and that St. Austin, in his comment on the fifth chapter to the Romans, gathered by Beda, is strong that way.

"In page 413, line penult, are these words:

"God, by the reconcilement of the Mediator, turning his countenance towards his creatures, (though not in equal light

The same,

(d) Baconiana, 103.

I think, who was committed to the Tower, having taught Hoskins his allusion to the Sicilian Vespers. See Reliqu. Wotton, p. 434. Dr. Tenison.

Maynwaring, whose sermon upon Eccles. viii. 2, etc. gave such high offence, about one hundred and fifty years ago. "For some doctrines, which he noteth in his lordship's confession, the reader ought to call to

and degree) made way unto the dispensation of his most holy and secret will, whereby some of his creatures might stand and keep their state; others might, possibly, fall, and be restored; and others might fall, and not be restored in their estate, but yet remain in being, although under wrath and corruption; all with respect to the Mediator; which is the great mystery, and perfect centre of all God's ways with his creatures; and unto which all his other works and wonders do but serve and refer.'

"Here absolute reprobation seems to be defended, in that the will of God is made the reason of the not-restitution of some; at leastwise his Lordship seems to say, that 'twas God's will that some should fall, unless that may be meant of voluntas permis. siva (his will of permission).

"In page 414, 1. 10, where he saith, (amongst the generations of men he elected a small flock,) if that were admitted (of fallen men,) it would not be amiss; lest any should conceive that his Lordship had meant, the decree had passed on massa incorrupta, (on mankind considered before the fall).

"In page 415, 1. 8, are these words:

"Man made a total defection from God, presuming to imagine, that the commandments and prohibitions of God, were not the rules of good and evil, but that good and evil had their own principles and beginnings.'

"Consider whether this be a rule universal, that the commands and prohibitions of God are the rules of good and evil. For, as St. Austin saith, many things are prohibita quia mala (for that reason forbidden, because they are evil :) as those sin which the schools call specifical.

"In page 415, 1. antepen. are these words:

"The three heavenly unities exceed all natural unities. VOL. VII.

C

mind, the times in which his lordship wrote them, and the distaste of that court against the proceedings of Barnevelt, whose state-faction blemished his creed.

Of this tract there are various MSS. (a) in the

That is to say, the unity of the three Persons in Godhead, the unity of God and man in Christ, and the unity of Christ and the church; the Holy Ghost being the worker of both these latter unities; for by the Holy Ghost was Christ incarnate, and quickened in flesh; and by the Holy Ghost is man regenerate, and quickened in spirit.'

"Here two of the unities are ascribed to the Holy Ghost. The first seems excluded; yet divines say, that Spiritus Sanctus & amor, & vinculum Patris & Filii, (the Holy Ghost is the love and the bond of the Father and the Son).

"In page 416, 1. 12, are these words:

"Christ accomplished the whole work of the redemption and restitution of man to a state superior to the angels.

"This (superior) seems to hit upon that place, loáyyeλoi Luke xx. 36, which argues but equality. Suarez (De Angelis, lib. 1. cap. 1.) saith, that angels are superior to men, quoad gradum intellectualem, & quoad immediatam habitationem ad Deum, (both in respect of the degree of their intellectual nature, and of the nearness of their habitation to God). Yet St. Austin affirmeth, naturam humanam in Christo perfectiorem esse angelica, (that the human nature in Christ is more perfect than the angelical). Consider of this. And thus far, not as a critic, or corrector, but as a learner. For,

Corrigère, res est tanto magis ardua, quanto

Magnus, Aristarcho major, Homerus erat.

In haste.

Your servant,

ROGER MAYNWARING."

(a) Sloanes, 2 copies, 23 Cat. Harleian, vol. 2, 314-vol. 3, 61. Hargrave's p. 62.

British Museum, and one apparently in Lord Bacon's hand writing. (b) It is stated in one of the MSS. to have been written before or when Sir Francis Bacon was Solicitor General, (c) and in the Remains it is entitled, "Confession of Faith, written by Sir Francis Bacon, knight, Viscount St. Albans, about the time he was Solicitor General to our late Sovereign Lord King James." (d)

(b) MS. Burch, No. 4263.

(c) Sloane's, 23, and see in Rawley's observations, ante xiv. where he says, "though he composed the same many years before his death," and the same expression is in the passage from the Opuscula.

(d) This tract was republished in 1757. A Confession of Faith, written by the Right Honourable Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, republished with a Preface on the Subject of Authority in Religious Matters, and adapted to the Exigency of the present Times. London, printed for W. Owen, at Temple-Bar, 1757, 8vo. pp. 26. and in the second volume of Butler's Reminiscences, recently published, in page 232, there is a letter from Dr. Parr containing the following, "You know there is no doubt as to the authenticity of the Confession of Faith, ascribed to Lord Bacon. I am perplexed with it. Was he serious? I mean serious all through? Does he mean it for a tentamen? What inference would Hume have drawn from it?" And in a manuscript kindly communicated to me by Mr. Barker, the doctor says "that Bacon admitted the received doctrine of the Trinity, is obvious, from the prayer made by him when Chancellor of England, and from various passages of the most unequivocal and emphatical kind in his Confession of Faith."