[Footnote 29: Dr. William Bancroft, born at Freshingfield, in Suffolk, in 1616, and educated at Emanuel College, Cambridge, where he was deprived of his Fellowship in 1649, for refusing to take the engagement. He was made Archbishop in 1677, and in 1688, he was one of the seven Prelates sent to the Tower by James II. At the Revolution he refused taking the Oaths to the new government, for which he was suspended and deprived. He died in retirement Nov. 14th, 1693.]
[Footnote 30: Bishop Sanderson's Will is recorded in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, in the volume called Juxon, Article 37. After his death, it was industriously reported that he repented of his writing against the Presbyterians, and would not suffer a Church Minister to pray by him, which is refuted by the narrative of Mr. Pullin's giving him the Sacrament.]
[Footnote 31: Mr. John Pullin, B.D., and formerly Fellow of Magdalen
College, Cambridge. His name is subscribed to a copy of commendatory
Latin verses prefixed to "Duport's Greek Version of Job." He was a
Prebendary, and also Chancellor of Lincoln.]
DR. PIERCE'S LETTER.
[Sidenote: Letters from Sanderson]
GOOD MR. WALTON,
At my return to this place, I made a yet stricter search after the letters long ago sent me from our most excellent Dr. Sanderson, before the happy restoration of the King and Church of England to their several rights: in one of which letters more especially, he was pleased to give me a narrative both of the rise and the progress, and reasons also, as well of his younger, as of his last and riper judgment, touching the famous points controverted between the Calvinians and the Armenians, as they are commonly (though unjustly and unskilfully) miscalled on either side.
[Sidenote: Dr. Hammond's book]
The whole letter I allude to does consist of several sheets, whereof a good part had been made public long ago, by the most learned, most judicious, most pious Dr. Hammond, (to whom I sent it both for his private, and for the public satisfaction, if he thought fit,) in his excellent book, entitled, "A Pacific Discourse of God's Grace and Decrees, in full accordance with Dr. Sanderson:" to which discourse I refer you for an account of Dr. Sanderson and the history of his thoughts in his own hand-writing, wherein I sent it to Westwood, as I received it from Boothby Pannel. And although the whole book, (printed in the year 1660, and reprinted since with his other tracts in folio,) is very worthy of your perusal; yet, for the work you are about, you shall not have need to read more at present than from the 8th to the 23rd page, and as far as the end of section 33. There you will find in what year the excellent man, whose life you write, became a Master of Arts: how his first reading of learned Hooker had been occasioned by certain puritanical pamphlets; and how good a preparative he found it for his reading of Calvin's Institutions, the honour of whose name (at that time especially) gave such credit to his errors: how he erred with Mr. Calvin, whilst he took things upon trust in the sublapsarian way: how, being chosen to be a Clerk of the Convocation for the Diocese of Lincoln, 1625, he reduced the Quinquarticular Controversy into five schemes or tables; and thereupon discerned a necessity of quitting the sublapsarian way, of which he had before a better liking, as well as the supralapsarian, which he could never fancy. There you will meet with his two weighty reasons against them both, and find his happy change of judgment to have been ever since the year 1625, even thirty-four years before the world either knew, or, at least, took notice of it; and more particularly his reasons for rejecting Dr. Twiss, (or the way he walks in,) although his acute and very learned and ancient friend.
[Sidenote: Arriba discussed]