TESTIMONIES

CONCERNING

HUGO GROTIUS'S

AFFECTION FOR THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

TO THE READER.

HAVING the following Letters from that most excellent and learned Person, Henry Newton, Ambassador Extraordinary from the most Serene Queen of Great-Britain, to his Royal Highness the most Serene Grand Duke of Tuscany, to whose singular Goodness I am very much indebted; I thought I should do a very acceptable Thing to all who love the Name of Grotius, and no small Honour to the Church of England, if I published them here. It appears plainly from them, that this very great Man had the highest Opinion of the Church of England, and would most willingly have lived in it, if he could. Make the best Use of them you can, therefore, Courteous Reader, and continue to have a good Opinion of a Man that deserved so well of the whole Body of

Christians.

HENRY

I.

NEWTON

TO

PETER HIERON. BARCELLINUS,

ABBOT OF ST. EUSEBIUS DE URBE.

BEING at length returned safe and well to Florence from Leghorn and Pisa, where through the Intemperateness of the Air I was very near contracting a Fever; the first Thing I had to do, most excellent Barcellinus, being furnished with the most noble Library of the illustrious Magliabechius, was to discharge my Promise concerning that great Man Hugo Grotius, and to shew from his Writings, particularly his Letters, in which Truth, Candour, Integrity of Heart, and the inward Thoughts of his Mind are discovered; how highly he thought and wrote concerning us all his Life-time, and a little before his Departure, and when Death and Immortality were in his View, I know what was said of him by that principal Man of his Rank Petavius, and also Brietius and Valesius, and many other celebrated Men of your Communion, who wished well and favourably to a Man born for the public Good of Christianity. It is known to all, how greatly he suffered in Goods, Honour, and Report from the Calvinists, both in his own Country and in

his

his Banishment even after he was advanced to a higher Rank by Foreigners; and how much the Heats of Controversy (whilst he set his Mind upon this one Thing, to establish Peace in the Commonwealth and between the Churches, which highly displeased many; a strange and grievous Thing!) fretted that Disposition, which was otherwise peaceable and modest, after he saw himself treated in such an unworthy Manner by his own Friends; and sometimes prevailed over that meek Wisdom which was in him both by Nature and Judgment. Yet these did not hinder his Son, who was also a great Man, from saying those Things which I shall presently add, concerning his Father, to that great Prince, Charles the Second of Great-Britain, to whom he dedicated his Father's Works, and in him to all others; and this when he had no Reason to flatter or fear him, because, to the Commonwealth, he was of the contrary Part to Charles's Sister's Son; and because he was a private Man, wedded to a Country and learned Life, and an old Man, not far from Death, nor consequently from Liberty: For he published his Father's Works, but saw them not after they were published; and his own Life is to be seen and read with the Life of his Father in the same Volume. "For thou," says Peter Grotius," art he alone, whom, if not the

greater, yet the wiser Part of the Christian "World, have for a long Time acknowledged "for their Protector. Thou art he, to whose Pro"tection or Defence, the Christian Faith willingly "commits itself; in whose Kingdoms principally, "that Knowledge of the Sacred Writings, that "Worship of the Deity, that Moderation of the too "free Exercise of Liberty, in disputing concern"ing the secret Doctrines of Faith, is established; "whose Agreement with which the Author, my

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"Father,