Volume 2

Athenae Oxonienses. An exact history of all the writers and bishops who have had their education in the University of Oxford. To which are added the Fasti, or annals of the said university / By Anthony à Wood.

Anthony Wood

Date:: 1813-1820

Credit: Athenae Oxonienses. An exact history of all the writers and bishops who have had their education in the University of Oxford. To which are added the Fasti, or annals of the said university / By Anthony à Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$1562, aged 13, or thereabouts, admitted scholar of C. C. coll. 29 Apr. 63, prob. fellow 11 Oct. 66, and six years after proceeded in arts, being then senior of the act, and about that time Greek reader in his college. In 1579, he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, and six years af¬ ter proceeded in divinity, being then in great esteem for his profound learning.? In 1598, he was made dean of Lincoln in the place of one Ralph Griffin; about which time he lodged and studied in Queen’s coll. But being unwilling to part with an academical life, he changed that deanery in the year following, with Will. Cole, for the presidentship of C. C. coll, where being- settled, he had more leisure to follow his studies and have the communication of learned men, than at Lincoln. So temperate then were his affec¬ tions, notwithstanding of very severe conversa¬ tion, that he made choice rather to he head of that house, than to be made a bishop, which queen Elizabeth offered to him. He was a person of ‘ prodigious reading8 and doctrine,and the very treasury of erudition;’ and what Tully spoke of Pompey’s noble exploits in war, that they could not be matched by the valiant acts of all the Ro¬ man commanders in one year, nor in all years, by the prowess of one commander; so it might be truly said of Jewell, Hooker and this our author Rainolds, that they could not be parallel’d by the students of all countries, brought up in one col¬ lege, nor the students in all colleges, born in one county. The two former mainly opposed the ene¬ mies of the doctrine, the third, of the discipline, of the church of England with like happy suc¬ cess, and they w'ere all three in several kinds very eminent if not equal. As Jewell’s fame grew from the rhetoric lecture, which he read with singular applause, and Hooker’s from the logic, so Rain¬ olds from the Greek, in C. C. coll. The author that he read was Aristotle, whose three incompa¬ rable books of rhetoric he illustrated with so ex¬ cellent a commentary so richly fraught with all polite literature, that as well in the commentary, as in the text, a man may find a golden river of things and words, which the prince of orators tells us of. As for his memory also, it is most cer¬ tain 9 that he excelled to the astonishment of all that were inwardly acquainted with him, not only [340] for S. Augustin’s works, but all classic authors. So that in this respect, it may be truly said of him, which hath been applied to some others, that ‘ he was a living library and a third university.’ I have heard it very credibly reported, that upon occasion of some writings which passed to and fro, between him and Dr. Gentilis then professor 7 [Strype, Life of JVhitgift, p. 382, mentions him about this time as regius professor of divinity; but this is a mistake, as he never filled that office.] 8 Dan. Featly in Funebri Oral. D. Rainoldi. 9 See in Dr. George Hakewill’s Apol. of the Power and Prov. of God in the Government of the World, printed l0o5. p. 154. of the civil law, in the university of Oxon, that he publicly avow’d that he thought Dr. Rainolds had read and did remember more of the civil and canon law, than himself, tho’ they were his pro¬ fession : Dr. Hall also bishop of Norwich reports1 that ‘ he alone was a well-furnish’d library, full of all faculties, of all studies, of all learning;- the memory and reading of that man were near to a miracle,’ &c. The truth is, he was most prodigiously seen in all kind of learning, and had turn’d over all writers profane, ecclesiastical, and divine, all the councils, fathers and histories of the church. Lie was also most excellent in all tongues, of a sharp and nimble wit, of mature judgment,indefatigable industry, exceeding there¬ in Origen, sirnamed Adamantius, and so well seen in all arts and sciences, as if he had spent his whole time in each of them. The learned Cracanthorp tells 2 us also, that for virtue, probity, integrity, and which is above all, piety and sanctity of life, he was so eminent and conspicuous, that as Na- zianzen speaketh of Athanasius, it might be said of him, to name Rainolds is to commend virtue it self. In a word, nothing can be spoken against him, only that he with Tho. Sparke were the pil¬ lars of puritanism, and grand favourers of non¬ conformity, 3 as the general part of writers say, yet4 one of late date reports that Rainolds pro¬ fessed himself a conformist, and died so. His works are, Sermon of the destruction of the Idumccans; On Obad. ver. 5. 6. Lond. 1584. oct.5 Sex Theses de S. Scriptura &; Ecclesid. Rupellae 1586. [ut publicis in academia Qxoniensi disputa- tionibus exp Heat a, sic editoc ante annos viginli, nunc autem recognitce et apologia contra pontificios Elf mas Stapletonum, Martinum, Baronium, Jus- turn, Calvinum vetera castrensem auctce.\ Lond. 1602. oct. [Bodl. 8vo. R. 35. Th. Seld.] Printed in English at London 1598. [Bodl, A. 7- 35. Line, and again in 1609. Bodl. 4to. R. 13. Th. Seld.] qu. with a defence of such things as Tho. Staple- ton and Greg. Martin have carped at therein.6 1 In his Epistles, First Decad. Ep. 7* a In Defens. Eccles. Angl. &c. cap, 69. 3 [Cracanthorp denies this in very positive terms. He tells us that at the moment he was writing his Defensio Ec- clesice Anglicance, he had in his possession a letter from Rai¬ nolds to archbishop Bancroft ‘ in qua se huic Anglican* ec- clesi* conformem esse, libenter et ex animo, etiam conscien- tia sua sic eum monente ultro profitetur.’ Add to which he was a strict observer of all the ordinances and forms of the church and university, and in his last moments received ab¬ solution according to the manner prescribed in our liturgy. But the whole of Cracanthorp’s account of our author is well worth perusal. See it in Defensio Eccl. Angl. 1625. Bodl. 4to. T. 2. Th. chap. 69.] 4 See The friendly Debate between a Conformist and Non¬ conformist, part 2. Lond. 1G69, 5th edit. p. 201. 5 \_A Sermon upon part of the Prophesie of Obadiah touch¬ ing the destruction as of Idumceans so of Papists, and means whereby it must he wrought. Preached at St Maries in Oxford, on the 2g of October last, 1584. Printed 1584, 8vo. Kennet.] 6 [Editio altera Lond. 1580, excudebat Hen. Middletonus.$