EXCURSUS E.

Presbytery, sec. 4. When the queries were sent to the Assembly.

The questions sent (April 1646) were as follows :— 'The House of Commons desires to be satisfied by the Assembly of Divines in the questions following:

'1. Whether the Parochial and Congregational Elderships, appointed by ordinance of Parliament, or any other Congregational or Presbyterial Elderships are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ? and whether any particular Church Government be jure divino? and what that government is?

'2. Whether all the members of the said Elderships, as members thereof, or which of them, are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'3. Whether the superior Assemblies or Elderships, viz. the Classical, Provincial, and National, whether all, or any of them, and which of them are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'4. Whether the appeals from Congregational Elderships to the Classical, Provincial, and National assemblies, or any of them, and to which of them are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'5. Whether Ecumenical assemblies are jure divino? and whether there be appeals from any of the former assemblies to the said Ecumenical, jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'6. Whether by the Word of God the power of judging and declaring what are such notorious and scandalous offences, for which persons guilty thereof are to be kept from the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and of conventing before them, trying, and actual suspending from the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper such offenders accordingly, is either in the Congregational Eldership or Presbytery, or in any other Eldership, Congregation, or persons; and whether such powers are in them only, or any of them, and in which of them, jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'7. Whether there be any certain and particular rules expressed

in the Word of God to direct the Elderships or Presbyteries, Congregations, or persons, or any of them, in the exercise and execution of the powers aforesaid, and what are those rules?

'8. Is there anything contained in the Word of God that the supreme magistracy in a Christian State may not judge and determine what are the aforesaid notorious and scandalous offences, and the manner of suspension for the same; and in what particulars concerning the premisses is the said supreme magistracy by the Word of God excluded?

'9. Whether the provision of Commissioners to judge of scandals not enumerated (as they are authorized by the ordinance of Parliament) be contrary to that way of government which Christ has appointed in his Church, and wherein are they so contrary?

'In answer to these particulars, the House of Commons desires of the Assembly of Divines their proofs from Scripture, and to set down the several texts of Scripture in the express words of the same and there were orders added that every Minister present at the debate of any of these questions, shall put his Christian name to the answer, in the affirmative or negative; and that those who dissent from the major part shall set down their positive opinions, with express texts in proof of them.' Rushworth, Collections, vi. 260.

Selden, who had had a hand in framing these queries, was well aware that search as they would, they would never find answers to them in the text of Scripture.

EXCURSUS F.

ERRORS IN FORMER TEXTS.

I APPEND some instances of obvious blunders in former texts, which have been corrected in this edition on the authority of the Harleian MSS. In 'Holy-Days,' for example, the old reading is: 'Yet that has relation to an Act of Parliament which forbids the keeping of any Holy-days in time of popery.' There is no such Act, and the alleged prohibition is, on the face of it, absurd. The reading, as restored from the MS., is: 'Yet that has relation to an Act of Parliament which forbids the keeping of any other Holy-days. The ground thereof was the

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multitude of Holy-days in time of popery.' This makes sense, and is in agreement with the language of the Act. Again, in 'King of England,' sec. 5, the old editions of 1689 read: 'The three estates are the Lords Temporal, the Bishops are the clergy, and the Commons, as some would have it [take heed of that] for then if two agree the third is involved, but he is king of the three estates.' This jumble of nonsense is cured in the MS. by the insertion of a full stop after 'Commons.' Then follows: 'The King is not one of the three estates, as some would have it [take heed of that] for then,' &c., &c. In sec. 3 of the same discourse, the reading 'they did not much advance the king's supremacy' makes the statement at once incorrect and irrelevant. Again in 'Bishops out of the Parliament' sec. 13, we have: 'If the Parliament and Presbyterian party should dispute, who should be the judge?' a question which Selden would certainly never have asked, and which was answered effectively more than once when such a dispute did happen. The reading should be: 'If the Prelatical and Presbyterian party' &c., for, as Selden says (Religion, sec. 10), 'Disputes in religion will never be ended, because there wants a measure by which the business should be decided.... One says one thing, and one another: and there is, I say, no measure to end the controversy.'

In 'Learning,' sec. 2, the old reading is: Most men's learning is nothing but history duly taken up.' It should be 'dully taken up.'

In 'Oaths,' sec. 3.-"'Tis to me but reading a paper in their own sense' corrected to 'in my own sense,' as the argument clearly requires.

In 'Devils,' sec. 2- and so all of them ought to be of the same trade,' an absolutely unmeaning remark, is corrected in the Harleian MS. 1315 to 'thought to be of the same trade.' But the reading of MS. 690, 'and so think all of them to be of the same trade,' seems preferable here.

In several places a faulty punctuation has marred the sense, as e.g. in 'Devils,' sec. 2—' -'Why in the likeness of a bat or a rat or some creature? That is, why not in some shape we paint him in,' &c. This should be 'Why in the likeness of a bat, or a rat, or some creature that is?' i. e. some creature that exists and that could therefore be more easily produced on occasion than a real live Devil with claws and horns.

So, too, in 'Bible,' sec. 3, we have: 'There is no book so translated as the Bible for the purpose.' Here the full stop should come after 'the Bible,' and 'For the purpose,' a regular Seldenian phrase 'for example,' should begin the next clause. Again, in 'Preaching,' sec. 15, we have: 'many things are heard from the preacher with suspicion. They are afraid of some ends, which are easily assented to when they have it from some of themselves.' This piece of nonsense is cured in the MS., which puts a comma after 'suspicion,' brackets off the words [they are afraid of some ends] and thus makes the things easily assented to not 'some ends,' but the things which had been heard from the preacher with suspicion.

There are other changes introduced in the present text, but most of them are wholly unimportant, and adopted only because the MSS. so read. One or two are doubtful, as e.g. 'Treaty' for 'Laity' in 'Clergy,' sec. 6.

EXCURSUS G.

TESTIMONIES TO Selden, and CRITICISMS OF SELDEN'S STYLE.

Dr. Wilkins, in the preface to his edition of Selden's Works, and in his life of the author, has collected proofs of the high esteem in which Selden was held, not only by his own countrymen, but by the learned of all countries.

The following are among the notices which he quotes: 'Grotius eum honorem Britanniae appellat. Conringius vocat virum stupendae lectionis. Boeclerus ita-Equidem Seldeni opera laudare velle, nihil aliud esset quam Soli testimonium splendoris meditari. In Lexico Historico Universali Germanico, quod a J. F. Buddeo appellari solet, dicitur communiter appellatus magnus dictator doctrinae gentis Anglorum.' Other testimonies follow. See Works, vol. i. Præfatio, pp. 1 & 11, and Vita authoris, p. xlix.

If I have ventured in my Introduction to speak disparagingly of Selden's style and method, I have good warrant for what I have said. Clarendon, e. g., writes,-'His style in all his writings seems harsh and sometimes obscure: which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men; but to a little undervaluing

the beauty of a style, and too much propensity to the language of antiquity.' Clarendon, Life, i. p. 35.

Le Clerc writes more severely-'Selden, un des plus savans que l'Angleterre ait eus, est l'un de ceux qui gardoit le moins ce que l'on a dit touchant l'ordre, ce qui fait que ses écrits, quoique savans et utiles, sont lus par peu de gens d'un bout à l'autre': and again-'Quoique je ne voulusse pas imiter la methode confuse, ni le stile de Selden.... les bonnes choses qu'il dit, et l'erudition qu'il fait paroitre par tout, surpassent de beaucoup en utilité ce qu'il y a d'ailleurs defectueux dans ses ouvrages.' Most severe of all is the judgment in the Ars Critica-'Apparet eum ita studia sua perturbasse, ut eodem tempore de rebus toto genere diversis cogitaret; digressiones enim captat adeo remotas, et interdum tam longas, ut nisi ita studia instituisset, non potuisset tantam ordinis et rerum perturbationem ferre. Ac sane dum ordinem et perspicuitatem negligit, non parum taedii lectoribus creat.' And Le Clerc goes on to complain that where Selden errs, as he is said to do in some parts of the De Synedriis Veterum Ebraeorum, it is hardly possible to trace out how he has got wrong, since 'confusio, digressiones, testimonia aliena, et immensa illa eruditionis congesta farrago, facile fucum faciunt, et perspicaces etiam obruunt.' Quoted in Works, vol. i. Prefatio, p. 2.