Thirty-Six Sermons, Dedication – Preface 1
Vera Effigies Reverendi Patris ROBERTI SANDERSON Lincolniensis Episcopi AEt. 76 1681.
XXXVI. SERMONS. VIZ.
XVI. AD AULAM.
VI. AD CLERUM.
VI. AD MAGISTRATUM.
VIII. AD POPULUM.
With a large Preface.
BY The Right Reverend FATHER in GOD, Robert Sanderson, Late Lord Bishop of LINCOLN▪
The Eighth Edition; Corrected and Amended.
Whereunto is now added the Life of the Reverend and Learned Author, Written by ISAAC WALTON▪
… Printed for … and … and are to be sold by … next door to the Dolphin-Inn in West-Smithfield. MDCLXXXVI.
Collegium Emmanuelis Cantabrigiae.
THE LIFE OF Dr. Sanderson, LATE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN.
Written by IZAAK WALTON.
The Third Impression.
ECCLES. 3.
Mysteries are revealed to the Meek.
LONDON, Printed for B. Tooke, T. Passenger, and T. Sawbridge, and are to be sold by Thomas Hodgkin, next door to the Dolphin, in West-Smithfield. MDCLXXXVI.
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND AND HONOURABLE GEORGE Lord Bishop OF WINCHESTER, PRELATE of the GARTER, And one of His Majesties Privy Council.
My Lord,
IF I should undertake to enumerate the many Favours and Advantages I have had by my very long Acquaintance with your Lordship. I should enter upon an Imployment, that might prove as tedious, as the Collecting of the Materials for this poor Monument, which I have erected, and do dedicate to the Memory of your beloved Friend Dr. Sanderson: But, though I will not venture to do that; yet, I do remember with pleasure, and remonstrate with gratitude, that your Lordship made me known to him. Mr. Chilingworth, and Dr. Hammond; men, whose Merits ought never to be forgotten.
My Friendship with the first was begun almost Forty years past, when I was as far from a thought, as a desire to out-live him; and farther from an intention to write his Life: But the wise Disposer of all mens Lives and Actions hath prolong'd the first, and now permitted the last; which is here dedicated to your Lordship (and as it ought to be) with all humility, and a desire that it may remain, as a publick Testimony of my Gratitude,
My Lord, Your most Affectionate old Friend, And most humble Servant, IZAAK WALTON.
THE PREFACE.
I Dare neither think, nor assure the Reader, that I have committed no Mistakes in this Relation of the Life of Dr. Sanderson; but am sure, there is none that are either wilful, or very material. I confess, it was worthy the imployment of some Person of more Learning and greater Abilities than I can pretend to; and I have not a little wondred that none have yet been so grateful to him and Posterity, as to undertake it: For as it may be noted, That our Saviour had a care, that for Mary Magdalens kindness to him, her Name should never be forgotten: So I conceive, the great satisfaction many Schollars have already had, and the unborn World is like to have, by his exact, clear and useful Learning: and might have by a true Narrative of his matchless meekness, his calm Fortitude, and the Innocence of his whole Life: doth justly challenge the like from this present Age; that Posterity may not be ignorant of them: And 'tis to me a wonder, that it has been already fifteen years neglected. But, in saying this, my meaning is not to upbraid others (I am far from that) but excuse my self, or beg pardon for daring to attempt it.
This being premis'd I desire to tell the Reader, that in this Relation I have been so bold, as to paraphrase and say, what I think he (whom I had the happiness to know well) would have said upon the same occasions; and if I have been too bold in doing so, and cannot now beg pardon of him that lov'd me; yet, I do of my Reader, from whom I desire the same favour.
And, though my Age might have procured me a Writ of Ease, and that secur'd me from all further trouble in this kind; yet I met with such perswasions, to undertake it, and so many willing informers since, and from them and others, such helps and incouragements to proceed, that when I found my self faint, and weary of the burthen with which I had loaden my self, and sometime ready to lay it down; yet time and new strength hath at last brought it to be what it now is, and here presented to the Reader; and with it this desire: That he will take notice that Dr. Sanderson did in his Will or last sickness advertise that after his death nothing of his might be Printed; because that might be said to be his, which indeed was not; and also, for that he might have chang'd his Opinion since he first writ it, as 'tis thought he has since he writ his Pax Ecclesiae. And though these Reasons ought to be regarded, yet regarded so, as he resolves in his Case of Conscience concerning rash Vows, that there may appear very good second Reasons, why we may forbear to perform them. However, for his said Reasons, they ought to be read as we do Apocriphal Scripture; to explain, but not oblige us to so firm a belief of what is here presented as his.
And I have this to say more; That as in my Queries for writing Dr. Sanderson's Life, I met with these little Tracts annex'd; so in my former Queries for my Information to write the Life of venerable Mr. Hooker, I met with a Sermon, which I also believe was really his, and here presented as his to the Reader. It is affirm'd (and I have met with reason to believe it) that there be some Artists, that do certainly know an Original Picture from a Copy; and in what Age of the World, and by whom drawn: And if so, then I hope it may be as safely affirmed, that what is here presented for theirs, is so like their temper of mind, their other writings, the times when, and the occasions upon which they were writ, that all Readers may safely conclude, they could be writ by none but venerable Mr. Hooker, and the humble and learned Dr. Sanderson.
And lastly, the trouble being now past, I look back and am glad that I have collected these Memoirs of this humble Man, which lay scatter'd, and contracted them into a narrower compass; and, if I have by the pleasant toyl of so doing, either pleas'd or profited any man, I have attain'd what I design'd when I first undertook it: But I seriously wish, both for the Readers, and Dr. Sanderson's sake, that Posterity had known his great Learning and Vertue by a better Pen, by such a Pen, as could have made his Life as immortal as his Learning and Merits ought to be.
I. W.