Glimpses of Christian History Presents Pastwords #110: Three Tracts Written by Order of King James (Including a Study of 666 and Painful Pokes at Preachers) by John Selden ©2007

SELDEN, JOHN (1584-1654), English jurist, legal antiquary, and Oriental scholar, was the acknowledged master of the Antiquarian Society, the centre of English historical research in the 17th century. He was born on Dec. 16, 1584, at Salvington, Sussex. His father, also John Selden, held a small farm. Selden was educated at Chichester grammar school and Hart Hall, Oxford. In 1603 he entered Clifford's Inn, London, and in 1604 migrated to the Inner Temple; in 1612 he was called to the bar. His practice was mostly conveyancing, and he rarely went into court.

>Selden's early works were: England's Epinomis and Jani Anglorum facies altera (1610), which deal with the progress of English law down to Henry II; Titles of Honour (1614), which, in spite of some obvious defects and omissions, has remained to the present day the most comprehensive and trustworthy work of its kind; Analecton Anglo-Britannicon (1615); and De diis Syriis (1617), which immediately established his fame as an oriental scholar. For his History of Tithes (1618), Selden was summoned before the Privy Council and compelled to retract his opinions, or at any rate what were held to be his opinions. Moreover, his work was suppressed and he himself forbidden to reply to any of the controversialists who had come or might come forward to answer it.

He was first elected to Parliament in 1623. Even before his election he had shown his political sympathies by assisting in the preparation of the memorable protestation on the rights and privileges of the House of Commons affirmed by the House in 1621. For this he had been committed to the Tower of London. After his election he took a prominent part in the impeachment of the duke of Buckingham, was counsel for Sir Edmund Hampden in the "benevolence" case of 1627, and had a large share in drawing up and carrying the Petition of Right.

Selden joined in the protestation of the Commons for the maintenance of the Protestant religion according to the doctrines of the Church of England, the authority of the Crown and the liberty of the subject. In 1643 he participated in the discussions of the assembly of divines at Westminster and was appointed shortly afterward keeper of the rolls and records in the Tower. In 1646 he subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant and in 1647 was voted 5,000 franks by Parliament as compensation for his sufferings under the monarchy. He published in 1642 Privileges of the Baronage of England when they sit in Parliament and Discourse concerning the Rights and Privileges of the Subject; in 1644 Dissertatio de anno civili et calendario reipublicae Judaicae; in 1646 his treatise on marriage and divorce among the Jews entitled Uxor Ebraica; and in 1647 the earliest printed edition of the old English lawbook Fleta. In 1650 the first part of Desynedriis et prefecturis juridicis veterum Ebraeorum appeared, the second and third parts in 1653 and 1655, and in 1652 Selden wrote a preface and collated some of the manuscripts for Sir Roger Twysden's Historiae anglicanae scriptores decem. After the death of the earl of Kent in 1639 Selden lived with his widow. It is believed that they were married, although the marriage does not seem to have ever been publicly acknowledged. He died at Friary House in Whitefriars on Nov. 30, 1654, and was buried in the Temple Church, London. Of all the members of the Antiquarian Society, Selden was the acknowledged master.

Preaching

. Nothing is more mistaken than that speech, preach the gospel, for 'tis not to make long harangues, as they do now a-days, but to tell the news of Christ's coming into the world, and when that is done, or where it is known already, the preacher's work is done.

2. Preaching in the first sense of the word, ceased as soon as ever the gospels were written.

3. When the preacher says, this is the meaning of the Holy Ghost in such a place, in sense he can mean no more than this, that is, I by studying of the place, by comparing one place with another, by weighing what goes before, and what comes after, think this is the meaning of the Holy Ghost, and for shortness of expression I say, the Holy Ghost says thus, or this is the meaning of the Spirit of God. So the judge speaks of the king's proclamation, this is the intention of the king, not that the king had declared his intention any other way to the judge, but the judge examining the contents of the proclamation, gathers by the purport of the words, the king's intention, and then for shortness of expression says, this is the king's intention.

4. Nothing is text but what was spoken of in the Bible, and meant there for person and place, the rest is application, which a discreet man may do well; but 'tis his scripture not the Holy Ghost.

5. Preaching by the spirit, as they call it, is most esteemed by the common people, because they cannot abide art or learning, which they have not been bred up in. Just as in the business of fencing; if one country fellow amongst the rest, has been at the school, the rest will under-value his skill, or tell him he wants valour: You come with your school-tricks: There's Dick Butcher has ten times more mettle in him. So they say to the preachers, You come with your school-learning: There's such a one has the spirit.

6. The tone in preaching does much in working upon the people's affections. If a man should make love in an ordinary tone, his mistress would not regard him; and therefore he must whine. If a man should cry fire, or murder in an ordinary voice, no body would come out to help him.

7. Preachers will bring any thing into the text. The young masters of arts preached against non-residency in the university, whereupon the heads made an order, that no man should meddle with any thing but what was in the text. The next day one preached upon these words, Abraham begat Isaac: when he had gone a good way, at last he observed, that Abraham was resident, for if he had been non-resident, he could never have begotten Isaac; and so fell foul upon the non-residents.

8. I could never tell what often preaching meant, after a church is settled, and we know what is to be done: 'Tis just as if a husband-man should once tell his servants what they are to do, when to sow, when to reap, and after-wards one should come and tell them twice or thrice a day what they know already; You must sow your wheat in October, you must reap your wheat in August, &c.

9. The main argument why they would have two sermons a day, is, because they have two meals a day; the soul must be fed as well as the body. But I may as well argue, I ought to have two noses, because I have two eyes, or two mouths, because I have two ears. What have meals and sermons to do one with another?

10. The things between God and man are but a few, and those, forsooth, we must be told often of; but things between man and man are many; those I hear not of above twice a year, at the assizes, or once a quarter at the sessions; but few come then; nor does the minister exhort the people to go at these times to learn their duty towards their neighbour. Often preaching is sure to keep the minister in countenance, that he may have something to do.

11. In preaching, they say more to raise men to love virtue than men can possibly perform, to make them do their best: As if you would teach a man to throw the bar; to make him put out his strength, you bid him throw further than it is possible for him, or any man else: Throw over yonder house.

12. In preaching, they do by men as writers of romances do by their chief knights, bring them into many dangers, but still fetch them off: So they put men in fear of hell, but at last they bring them to heaven.

13. Preachers say, Do as I say, not as I do. But if a physician has the same disease upon him that I have, and he should bid me do one thing, and he do quite another, could I believe him?

14. Preaching the same sermon to all sorts of people, is, as if a school-master should read the same lesson to his several forms: If he reads amo, amas, amavi, the highest forms laugh at him; the younger boys admire him. So it is in preaching to a mixed auditory.

Obj. But it cannot be otherwise; the parish cannot be divided into several forms: What must he preacher then do in discretion?

Answ. Why then let him use some expression, by which this or that condition of people may know such doctrine does more especially concern them, it being so delivered that the wisest may be content to hear. For if he delivers it altogether, and leaves it to them to single out what belongs to themselves, which is the usual way, it is as if a man would bestow gifts upon children of several ages, two years old, four years old, ten years old, &c. and there he brings tops, pins, points, ribbands, and casts them all in a heap together upon a table before them; though the boy of ten years old knows how to chuse his top, yet the child of two years old, that should have a ribband, takes a pin, and the pin e'er he be aware pricks his fingers, and then all is out of order, &c. Preaching, for the most part, is the glory of the preacher, to shew himself a fine man. Catechising would do much better.

15. Use the best arguments to perswade, though but a few understand, for the ignorant will sooner believe the judicious of the parish, than the preacher himself, and they teach when they dissipate what he has said, and believe it the sooner, confirmed by men of their own side; for betwixt the laity and the clergy, there is, as it were, a continual driving of a bargain; something the clergy would still have us be at, and therefore many things are heard from the preacher with suspicion. They are afraid of some ends, which are easily assented to, when they have it from some of themselves. 'Tis with a sermon as 'tis with a play; many come to see it, which do not understand it, and yet hearing it cryed up by one, whose judgment they cast themselves upon, and of power with them, they swear and will die in it, that it is a very good play, which they would not have done if the priest himself had told them so. As in a great school, 'tis the master that teaches all; the monitor does a great deal of work; it may be the boys are afraid to see the master: So in a parish it is not the minister does all; the greater neighbor teaches the lesser, the master of the house teaches his servant, &c.

16. First in your sermons use your logick, and then your rhetorick. Rhetorick without logick, is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root; yet I confess more are taken with rhetorick than logick, because they are catched with a free expression, when they understand not reason. Logick must be natural, or it is worth nothing at all: Your rhetorick figures may be learned. That rhetorick is best which is most seasonable and most catching. An instance we have in that old blunt commander at Cadiz, who shewed himself a good orator, being to say something to his soldiers (which he was not used to do) he made them a speech to this purpose; What a shame will it be, you Englishmen, that feed on good beef and brewess [crusts of bread soaked in fat], to let those rascally Spaniards beat you, that eat nothing but oranges and lemons? And so put more courage into his men than he could have done with a more learned oration. Rhetorick is very good, or stark naught [thoroughly worthless]: There is no medium in rhetorick. If I am not fully perswaded, I laugh at the orator.

17. It is good to preach the same thing again, for that's the way to have it learned. You see a bird by often whistling to learn a tune, and a month after record it to her self. 18. It is a hard case a minister should be turned out of his living for something they inform he should say in his pulpit. We can no more know what a minister said in his sermon by two or three words picked out of it, than we can tell what tune a musician played last upon the lute, by two or three single notes.

At The King's Request Selden Attempts To Solve The Mystery of 666

When his majesty was lately pleased to call me before him, and question me about my writing the history of tythes. He then also most graciously vouchsafed to have speech with me (as the time permitted) of divers parts of learning, which either offered themselves out of the consideration of that book, or obviously fell into his so searching a discourse; and this twice at Theobald's, and once at Whitehall; and at every of those times (besides the exceeding sweetness of this nature, which I being convented before so great a majesty largely tasted of) I saw, with wonder, the characters of such a fraught of learning, of such a readiness of memory, of such a piercing fancy joined with so absolute a judgment in him, as if his greatness in all these abilities, had been no less that in his hereditary titles. But among the many passages, touching which I had the happisness to receive both instruction and admonition from the clear light of so great a master of learning; three particulars occurred, which (as it pleased him greaciously to shew me) might give some scandal in the church, if not more clearly either rectified or explained by me. And upon my humble petition, it pleased him graciuosly to permit that I might rectify or explain them. Two of them are passages by the way inserted in that book, of which the one is the mention of Calvin's judgement on the revelation of St. John, and of the number of 666 therein spoken of, which I touch obviously in the first chapter; the other, touching the just time of the celebration of our Saviour's birth day, which occurs in the review; the third being the whole prupose and end, which I had in writing that bood. Of these three therefore briefly, and in the order, I have mentioned them.

OF THE REVELATION.

I. Of the passage touching the number 666.

In the first chapter speaking of the identity of number, betwixt the Hebrew words maigsher, that is, tythe; and becoroth, which signifieth first fruits; (in which kind of identity, both the Jews and divers of the antient christians frequently supposed too much mystery) I add that, the unlimited liberty of our times in so confidently daring to tell us the mystery of the number of the beast, would make a man give the more regard to these collections out of numbers. And presently after relating a ridiculous casting up of that number out of Thomas Elmham the prior of Lenton; I say there, that this dream of the prior's hath no place there other wise than as an old pattern of trifling boldness, used in the later arithmetick of many on that passage in St. John. And such misfortune had I as to be so conceived, as if I had in those passages taxed all of unlimited liberty and trifling boldness, whosoever they were, that had offered to calculate that number; than which nothing was further from my purpose. And I briefly now both open my meaning that I had when I wrote it, and what also I have had the happiness to learn touching it from his most excellent majesty. For my meaning there; both passages being as I supposed, restrained to them which with too much confidence on their own fancies durst tell us, that this or that word certainly was denoted by the Holy Ghost in that number; of which sort of men divers are (some making it out of Luther's name by turning him into Lulther in Hebrew characters, or into Lutherona, or out of Saxonein, which denotes his nation; or out of Martin Luther, every of the letters being taken numerically by, I know not what liberty; for his name of all others hath been most varied, and hath been suspected to have been by prediction denoted also by Luterus, written over the picture of a monk in the college of Ingnigen, in Carinthia; founded by Barbarossa; others making it out of Mahomet; first according to their own fancies expressing it by Maometis, the true name being Mohamed; others out of the _______; others out of _______; others, according to a like lightness, otherwise, as I had seen in Viega, Alcazar, Genebrard, and some more of the later time, which I willingly omit here) I doubted not but to these I might justly attribute unlimited liberty and trifling boldness; while they grounded themselves rather on their own rash fancies, or depraved judgments, than on the careful and impartial examination of the holy text, or of the true and false church. But I was in my soul as far from the purpose of denoting hereby all kind of interpretation of that number, as I was and am from believing or regarding the vanity of those I have now remembered. I ever thought with all reverence of that ancient exposition of this number in the name of Dateintho, which Iranaeus bishop of Lyons, but some LX years after the apostles times, says, is valde verisimilis; where yet he offers other calculations of the number by names, as especially among the antients also venerable Bede, Andrew archbishop of Caesarea, his successor Aretas, and Primasius do upon the holy text. For also it was not without example before, among the Gentiles (from whose forms of expression, divers thing were received into christianity) to denote names by numbers only; as we see in that of Sarapis designed antiently by the word heptagrammaton, because it is a name of seven letters; and in the prayer that the great lady Philology makes to Phoebus, in Martianus Capella, she expresses him by

Octo & sexcentis numeris, cui litera trina Conformat sacrum nomen, congnomen & omen.

that is, perhaps -----_____, which makes just DCVIII. in Greek numerals, and is an old mystical name of Phoebus or Osiris. But some take it rather for ----_____ that is propitious, favourably minded, or one that is mente placida, being chiefly persuaded to think so by a divers reading found in some ms. copies of it, which have

Conformat sacrum mentis cognomen & omen.

As it is expressly also in an old written copy of Capella that I have. But also with all reverence, I think of such expositions, as to second this of Date intho, that the same thing be still, and according to the analogy of Scripture and church story pointed out by them, which is the exactest rule of interpretation of it, as I was long since taught, especially by his majesty's most divine and kingly premonition to all princes and states of christendom. And he there an elsewhere in his excellent works, makes by a most acute deduction of time (which may as well have place here, as the account by numeral letters) Boniface III. and also Benedict II. to satisfy the same number for the mystery of Antichrist's name. And both stand with the sense also of Dateintho, which denotes what is of Rome. Neither yet insists he upon the one or the other, singly, as upon clear certainty. Nor doubtless can his so exquisitely able and sharp judgment fix with a clear confidence in any disquisition, but only where exact truth is perfectly discovered to him. But it is left to his readers choice to take which he likes best of them: All three resulting to the same end of proof. So was it left by the fathers of the primitive times, nec asseverantes pronuntiabimus, says Iraneaus of it; and de re tam incerta nihil eudeo definire, are St. Ambrose his words upon the text.

II. Of Calvin's judgment on the revelation.

After these words of the number speaking of the book of the Revelation, I have a passage of Calvin's answer touching it which is related to have been, that he knew not at all what so obscure a writer meant. And this answer of his, (which I use only in the by, to denote the obscurity and difficulty of that part of holy writ) I there say was as judicious as modest my meaning being, as I profess from my heart that it was as judicious to see the difficulty and obscurity of it, in regard of his own understanding, as it was modest to confess it. And it was far from me to think there, that his answer was such as would have become all men, as if no man had known at all what St. John meant. And there was perhaps a time, even in the strength of Calvin's years, when he had no great reason to be very forward to adventure upon such difficulties in holy writ. For he spent a great part of his youth in the studies of humanity and especially of the civil laws, under those learned Stella at Orleans, and Alciat at Bourges, and in those times he might speak that of the revelation, while he was yet of another profession. But also it might perhaps suit him without disparagement, even after he became a divine. For he wrote his institutions, and was made doctor at Geneva, before he had seen twenty seven years; which is not an age, wherein a divine, especially one that comes but lately from another profession, (as he did) should venture too boldly upon such difficulties. And the tradition among the Jews is known, that the prophecy of Ezekiel is not to be read, much less expounded by any man, that is under the age of thirty, and that only for the supposed difficulty. Besides, though Calvin lived long after till the fifty fifth year of his age, and wrote divers commentaries on parts of the holy scripture, yet he never wrote on any part of the revelation. But whether, or at what time, he gave that answer, I of myself affirm not, but only upon Bodin's credit who could not but know him; both of them being in their several ways very famous, and of the same time and country. And Bodin speakes it as highly commending him also, valde mihi probatur, saith he, Calvini non minus urbana quam prudens oratio, etc. But all that I intended was only this, there he expressly confessed a great difficulty in it, which the more commends the interpretations of it, made according to the analogy of the text, and order of times, among which his majesty's, specially in that his unimitable premonition, is as the clearest sun among the lesser lights.