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To the Worshipfull My Verie Loving Frend Mr. D. Rainoldes at Queenes College 1 in Oxford.

16657 min read

S. Your excuse is so reasonable that if the falt had bene found in earnest yeat you have thereof fullie cleered your self. I wish your physick may this yeare so cure you that the next we maie see you heere1, which I should be glad of. Mr. Parrie2 is returned unto the citie this last night as I understand, but as yeat I have not seen him, and therefore what to answere you touching my self for the matter of lazines and Moses Maimonius I do not know. I have both. And trulie the one doth not suffer the other to doe me that pleasure which otherwise it might. But concerning bookes which you saie you would often write of but that Cajetan hath hindered, there is no cause it should if all be considered which I my self should waigh though you doe not. Nevertheless because I will not anie waie have you hindered by such meanes, I am content to observe legem Cinciam3. Persons’ Directory4 when I can procure you shall have. Mine own I lent unto Mr. Sandes D. Chaloner’s5 neighbour. Otherwise that you should have to use till I get one for you. In the mean while I send you an English Jordanus Brunus6, the price amounteth unto two whole pence. He is an earnest suter to the stationers for their hall to read his Concent in7. The report goeth here that he hath fullie satisfied you both by speech and letters and that you have now assented unto him8. What the question is I doe not know. But the report I accompt as true as the like concerning his confounding of the Jewes at Francford and their desyre to have had him read Hebrue unto them, which notwithstanding I assure you he seemeth a little himself contented to nourish by some wordes of his own in this pamphlet9. The commentaries which he mentioneth I can assure you to be meere emptie names. For except those which are in the Venice Bibles10, let any man in Christendome show me so manie as he speaketh of upon the book of Esther, and I dare make my self his bondman. And even for those in Bomberg edition of the Bible, I know not whether Ezra and Solomo be joygned there or no in any of those editions which are his. But that you shall quicklie see. I will know what that Sepher Juchasim is, and when I have known I will send you word11. I would spend one twentie poundes to find a man so skilfull in those writings as he would seeme. He sometime nameth Sephur Zohar as roundlie12 as if the book were familiar unto him. And yeat the book known to be such as scarce one Jew amongst thousandes doth by long studie attain tolerablie to understand. In summe if needes you must have adversaries I wish you had them which are more judicious and lesse vaine than this man. But for this time enough unlesse my matter were of more importance. To Mr. Provost13 my hartie commendations. Ours heer salute you. Have care of your health which I wish the Lord to continue.

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Footnotes

  1. [If the letter be Hooker’s, this seems to imply that it was written before he had any certainty of vacating the Temple by his presentation to Boscomb, which took place July 17, 1591. Broughton was in Germany, 1590, but in 1591 he was in England again; probably coming over that he might make something of the controversy with Reynolds. Lightfoot, Preface to Broughton’s Works.] ↩

  2. [Henry Parry, scholar of C.C.C. 1576, Nov. 13, (three years junior to Hooker;) Chaplain to the Queen, at the time of her death; Bishop of Worcester, 1610. Wood, A. O. II. 192.] ↩

  3. [“Fuit de donis et muneribus, nequis ea ob causam orandam caperet.” Tac. Ann. XI. 5.It seems as if Reynolds had desired him to procure Cajetan’s works, and he had sent Reynolds the book for a present. The mention of “two whole pence,” and the beginning of the other letter, confirm this conjecture.] ↩

  4. [“The second part of a Christian Directory or Exercise guiding men to Eternal Salvation,” London, 1591, 12mo. See A. O. II. 70.] ↩

  5. [“… . my loving brother D. Chaloner” — Reynolds to the Countess of W. (Warwick? See Nichols’s. Progresses of Q. E. II. ad 1596, p. 1.) in Fulm. IX. 183. See also fol. 186.] ↩

  6. [“H. Broughton, ut vid.” Fulman. For an account of him see Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog. IV. 150, Strype, Whitg. II. 113—118, An. IV. 105. Whitg. II. 220—226. 320—326; 355—361, III. 360, 367. II. 388, 389, 390, 406—415, 527. Broughton resembled Jordanus Brunus in his wild and roving tendencies, but not in his atheism. The name of the latter was familiar at that time in England, where he had resided from 1583 to 1586, and had dedicated a book to Sir Philip Sidney. Biogr. Univ.] ↩

  7. [“About 1584 or 1585, he set forth, and dedicated to the Queen, ‘A Concent of Scripture’ … But Dr. Reynolds, about the year 1589, in his public readings … . disputed against it … Broughton wrote several tracts in vindication of his own assertion. So that it became at last a general discourse, … not only in that University, but in London and other parts of the nation … At length both of them had a meeting … At last in 1591, he by a letter to the Archbishop and the Bishop of London, (Aylmer,) dated London, Nov. 4, acquainted them with the case.” Strype, Whitg. II. 113, 114. “This opposition of his Concent, as also the entreaty of divers friends, put him on to read in private for the explication of it: and he had auditors to the number of 80, 90, or 100, … … and they met weekly. He first read in Paul’s, at the east end of the church … … then in a large chamber in Cheapside; in Marklane, and some other places.” Lightfoot’s Pref. to Broughton’s Works, fol. 1662.] ↩

  8. [“Oxford knoweth how I forced D. R. to agree with me for the limits of Daniel’s sevens.” Broughton, Works, 619.] ↩

  9. [“With one R. Ellis, in Frankfort synagogue, 1589, I drew all the law to Christ, so that he denied nothing—but still desired to hear the matter enlarged.” A Require of Consent. Works, 617. This, however, appears to be of later date than the pamphlet referred to by R. H.] ↩

  10. [Namely, Bomberg’s: of which there were at that time four editions. See Horne’s Introd. II. 119.] ↩

  11. [“The Sepher Juchasim, of which R. H. professes his ignorance, was not printed until 1566, and that at Constantinople. The author lived at the end of the 15th century.”] ↩

  12. [“The Book Zohar from its conciseness as well as from its cabalistic language, is one of great difficulty. Professor Tholuck has translated selections from it: which work being mentioned to an eminent Jewish convert, he expressed his conviction that none but a child of Israel could thoroughly understand it. It is a book of extreme value on account of its Christian interpretation of passages in the Old Testament, and its approach to Christian doctrines. So that although the author was manifestly a Jew, one can hardly help suspecting, that in his descriptions of the office and character of the Messias, who was to come, he owed something to his knowledge of Him who was come. The author lived probably about the 2d century. The quotations of Broughton out of this book which I have observed are very uninteresting, and imply any thing but a real knowledge of its character.”] ↩

  13. [H. Robinson, chaplain to Abp. Grindal, was Provost of Queen’s coll. from 1581 to 1599: Bp. of Carlisle, 1598. In a letter before quoted, Broughton tells Whitgift and Aylmer, that “he had written to Dr. Robinson, Provost of Queen’s college, certain theses which might end the cause:” adding divers complaints of Reynolds. Strype, Whitg. II. 114.] ↩

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