, they may help to give an end to the
calamities of these our civil wars."--J.S.

[Sidenote: The Three Books]

And next the Reader may note, that this Epistle of Dr. Spencer's
was writ and first printed within four years after the death of
Mr. Hooker, in which time all diligent search had been made for
the perfect copies; and then granted not recoverable, and therefore
endeavoured to be completed out of Mr. Hooker's rough draughts, as
is expressed by the said Dr. Spencer in the said Epistle, since whose
death it is now fifty years.

And I do profess by the faith of a Christian, that Dr. Spencer's
wife--who was my Aunt, and Sister to George Cranmer, of whom I have
spoken--told me forty years since, in these, or in words to this
purpose: "That her husband had made up, or finished Mr. Hooker's last
Three books; and that upon her husband's death-bed, or in his last
sickness, he gave them into her hand, with a charge that they should
not be seen by any man, but be by her delivered into the hands of the
then Archbishop of Canterbury, which was Dr. Abbot, or unto Dr. King,
then Bishop of London, and that she did as he enjoined her."

I do conceive, that from Dr. Spencer's, and no other copy, there have
been divers transcripts; and I know that these were to be found in
several places; as namely, in Sir Thomas Bodley's Library; in that of
Dr. Andrews, late Bishop of Winton; in the late Lord Conway's; in the
Archbishop of Canterbury's; and in the Bishop of Armagh's; and in many
others: and most of these pretended to be the Author's own hand, but
much disagreeing, being indeed altered and diminished, as men have
thought fittest to make Mr. Hooker's judgment suit with their fancies,
or give authority to their corrupt designs; and for proof of a part of
this, take these following testimonies.

[Sidenote: "Clavi Trabales"]

Dr. Barnard, sometime Chaplain to Dr. Usher, late Lord Archbishop of
Armagh, hath declared in a late book, called "Clavi Trabales," printed
by Richard Hodgkinson, anno 1661, that, in his search and examination
of the said Bishop's manuscripts, he found the Three written books
which were supposed the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth of Mr. Hooker's
books of Ecclesiastical Polity; and that in the said Three books--now
printed as Mr. Hooker's--there are so many omissions, that they amount
to many paragraphs, and which cause many incoherencies: the omissions
are set down at large in the said printed book, to which I