It is greatly to be lamented that the most diligent and persistent research has failed to add any memorials to the fact of his en- trance on the vicarage of Trinity. Though he must have been non-resident, he would have many opportunities to officiate during * vacation ' time at the Inn.
This is the last public honour recorded as having been conferred upon Sibbes. What remains to be told partakes of the privacy of his daily life.
One little fact, half-casually recorded in that extraordinary folio, ' Scrinia Reserata : a Memorial offer'd to the great de- servings of John Williams, D.D., who some time held the place of Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, &c., &c., &c., by John Hacket, late Lord Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry,' 1693 — a book sui generis, and than which none gives profounder insight into the ' form and pressure of the age,' — brings out a very beautiful side of Sibbes's character, and dates to us, if I err not, one of the most interesting, biographically, of his minor writings. Vindicating Williams — a vindication which, the more successful it is, the more it damages the strangely contradictory character of the Lord Keeper — from the rumour of favouring Puritans, Hacket thus introduces Sibbes : —
' Another rank for whose sake the Lord Keeper sufFer'd, were scarce an handful, not above three or four in all the wide Bishoprick of Lincoln, who did not oppose, but by an ill education seldom used the appointed cere- monies. Of whom when he was certified by his commissaries and ofl&cials-
* ' Check put upon his successor.' For these facts and the inference from them I owe thanks to Dr Hesse 7
MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. CXIU
he sent for them, and confer'd with them with much meekness?, sometimes remitted them to argue with his chaphiin. If all this stii-red them not, he commended them to his old collegiate Dr Sibbes, or Dr Gouch (Gouge), tcho knew the scruples of these mens hearts, and how to bring them about, the best of any about the city of London.'*
There is such a fascination, spite of all his errors, or it may be crimes, about the hot-blooded Welshman, so stormy and impulsive, so wise and yet so foolish, that one is glad to find, that even when he was ' Lord Keeper,' and surrounded by very different men, he forgot neither him who was once his humble fellow-student of St John's, nor the staunch puritan of ' Blackfryers/ William Gouge, also a contemporary at Cambridge, but —
' They had been friends, when friendship is A passion and a blessedness ; And in a tender sacrament Unto the house of God they went,
And phghted love, — caressing The same dear cup of blessing.
* They had been friends in youth, most dear ; In studious night, and mirthful cheer, And high discourse, and large debate, Unmixed by bitterness or hate —
Their fellowship, I ween,
A pleasant thing had been.'
It is specially pleasing to know what was the occasion of again associating the students of earlier years — to wit, tender dealing with tender consciences. I like to place that over against his after humiliating repudiation of all Puritans, extorted from him while under the shadow of a charge of treason, and in a letter to LAUD.f He was truthful in his favour ; untruthful in his disfavour. The fact also dates, as I have intimated, one of the minor writings of Sibbes, which illustrates how he would discharge the office assigned to him. It is entitled : —
A Consolatory Letter To an afflicted Conscience : full of pious admo- nitions and Divine Instructions. Written by that famous Divine, Doctor SiBBS : and now published for the common good and edification of the Church. Ecclesiastes vi. IQ, Be not thou just overmuch, neither make thy selfe overivise ; icherefore shouldest thou, be desolate.
[Woodcut portrait. iEtat : Suie 58.] London, Printed for Francis Coules. 1641. t
* i. 95. ' Scrinia ' seems to have been a favourite title. The historical student will recall also ' Scrinia Ceciliana.'
t Works of Laud. vi. pp. 312-314. Sept. 9. 1638.
X For a copy of this excessively rare ' Letter,' published in a thin 4to, pp. 6, lam indebted to the kindness of Joshua Wilson, Esq., Nevill Park, Tunbridge WeUs, who has devoted much time to good purijose in investigating the history, and bio- graphy, and bibliography of Puritaui.sm. His ' Historical Inquiry concerning the Principles, &c., of English Presbyterians ' (1835) has not gathered all its renown yet.
CXIV MEMOIR OF EICHAKD SIBBES, D.D.
I introduce this ' Letter ' liere, retaining its ortnography : —
Deare Sir,
I understand by your Letter, that you have many and great tryals ; some externall and bodily, some internall and spirituall : as the de- privall of inwai'd comfort, the buffetings (and that in more then ordinary manner), of your soule, with Satans temptations : and (which makes all those inward and outward, the more heavy and insupportable) that you have wanted Christian society with the Saints of God, to whom you might make knowne your griefes, and by whom you might receive comfort from the Lord, and incouragement in your Christian course.
Now that which I earnestly desire in your behalfe, and hope likewise you doe in your owne, is that j'ou may draw nearer to God, and be more con- formable to his command by these afflictions ; for if our afflictions be not sanctified, that is, if we make not an holy use of them by purging out the old leaven of our ingenerate corruptions, they are but judgments to us, and makes way for greater plagues : loh v. 14. And therefore the chiefe end and ayme of God in all the afflictions which he sends to his children in love, is, that they may be partakers of his holinesse, and so their afflictions may conduce to their spirituall advantage and profit, Heb. xii. 10. The Lord aymes not at himselfe in any calamities he layes on us, (for God is so infinitely all-sufficient, that we canadde nothing to him by all our doings or sufferings) but his maine ayme is at our Melioration and Sanctification in and by them. And therefore our duty in every affliction and pressure, is thus to thinke with our selves : How shall we carry and behave our selves under this crosse, that our soules may reap profit by it ? This (in one word) is done by our returning and drawing nearer to the Lord, as his holy Apostle exhorts us, lames iv. 8. This in all calamities the Lord hath a speciall eye unto, and is exceeding wroth if he finde it not.