Assizes.  Which Sermons, though they were much esteemed by them that procured, and were fit to judge them; yet they were the less valued, because he read them, which he was forced to do; for though he had an extraordinary memory,—­even the art of it,—­yet he had such an innate invincible fear and bashfulness, that his memory was wholly useless, as to the repetition of his sermons as he had writ them; which gave occasion to say, when they were first printed and exposed to censure, which was in the year 1632,—­“that the best Sermons that were ever read, were never preached.”

[Sidenote:  Chaplain to Charles I.]

In this contented obscurity he continued, till the learned and good Archbishop Laud,[11] who knew him well in Oxford,—­for he was his contemporary there,—­told the King,—­’twas the knowing and conscientious King Charles the First,—­that there was one Mr. Sanderson, an obscure country Minister, that was of such sincerity, and so excellent in all casuistical learning, that he desired his Majesty would make him his Chaplain.  The King granted it most willingly, and gave the Bishop charge to hasten it, for he longed to discourse with a man that had dedicated his studies to that useful part of learning.  The Bishop forgot not the King’s desire, and Mr. Sanderson was made his Chaplain in Ordinary in November following, 1631.  And when they became known to each other, the King did put many Cases of Conscience to him, and received from him such deliberate, safe, and clear solutions, as gave him great content in conversing with him; so that, at the end of his month’s attendance, the King told him, “he should long for the next November; for he resolved to have a more inward acquaintance with him, when that month and he returned.”  And when the month and he did return, the good King was never absent from his Sermons, and would usually say, “I carry my ears to hear other preachers; but I carry my conscience to hear Mr. Sanderson, and to act accordingly.”  And this ought not to be concealed from posterity, that the King thought what he spake; for he took him to be his adviser, in that quiet part of his life, and he proved to be his comforter in those days of his affliction, when he apprehended himself to be in danger of death or deposing.  Of which more hereafter.

[Sidenote:  Clerk of the Convocation]

In the first Parliament of this good King,—­which was 1625,—­he was chosen to be a Clerk of the Convocation for the Diocese of Lincoln; which I here mention, because about that time did arise many disputes about Predestination, and the many critical points that depend upon, or are interwoven in it; occasioned, as was said, by a disquisition of new principles of Mr. Calvin’s, though others say they were before his time.  But of these Dr. Sanderson then drew up, for his own satisfaction, such a scheme—­he called it Pax Ecclesiae—­as then gave himself, and hath since given others, such satisfaction, that it still remains to be of great estimation among the most learned.  He was also chosen Clerk of all the Convocations during that good King’s reign.  Which I here tell my Reader, because I shall hereafter have occasion to mention that Convocation in 1640, the unhappy Long Parliament, and some debates of the Predestination points as they have been since charitably handled betwixt him, the learned Dr. Hammond,[12] and Dr. Pierce,[13] the now Reverend Dean of Salisbury.