Harley MS 7554

This English manuscript is a miscellany of theological works written in Latin and English. The four parts (ff. 1-[38a]; ff. 39-55; ff. 56-66; ff. 67-90) were separately produced at different moments in time and bound together at an unknown point in time before entering or at the Harleian Library.

Contents:

ff. 1r-34v: A 15th-century copy of the anonymous Meditationes Piisimae de Cognitione Humanae conditionis, beginning: ‘Multi multa sciunt et seipsos nesciunt, alios inspiciunt et se ipsos deserunt’; with the added (? 16th-century) title: ‘Thelogicus [sic] tractatus’.

ff. 34v-35v: A Latin tract (copied by the same hand responsible for the meditations), entitled: ‘De multiplici utilitate dei amoris’.

ff. 39r-55r: A 17th-century collection of theological advice (seemingly) written as part of personal correspondence, beginning: ‘The last time you complained [of] hardnes of hart. Can a stone yeild teares? surely not without great change of weat[h]er?’

ff. 56r-66v: A 17th-century collection of theological advice (seemingly) written as part of personal correspondence, beginning: ‘canot thinke of the disorders [? of] my life without crying’.

ff. 67r-90v: A handwritten copy of Manasseth King, A New and Useful Catechism; Very Necessary and Teachable Both for Children and Young Christians (London, 1699); featuring a title-page and table of contents: ‘A new and usefull Catechism very necessary and teachable both for Children and young Christians wherein is contained by way of question and Answer a brief discoverey of these things: 1. what is god 2. how he may be known 3. what mans state is by reason of the fall of Adam and his own actuall sins 5. what christ is and the glorious remedy god hath provided for sinners in sending his son into the world. The second Edition corrected and Amended with addition by manasseth King pastor to the Church of Christ in Coventry. Parents bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Eph. 64 – London printed for Francis Smith and are to be sold at the Elephant and Castle without temple bar’ (ff. 67r-67v); an address ‘to the Reader’ by ‘Manasseth King’ (ff. 68r-69r); a poem entitled The Childs Instructor, beginning: ‘O child most deare, encline thine ea[rs] and hearken to gods voyce / his council take and that will make gods angels to reioyce / be not like those that grace oppose / and gave their minds to play but let thy mind be well inclined in seeking wisdomes way [etc.]’ (ff. 69v-70r); and ‘A new and usefull Catechism’ (ff. 71r-90v).

The manuscript contains several later additions:

f. 1*recto: A table of contents: ‘Divin Miscell: Tracts / Cases / Prayers / Catechism’; added in the 17th or 18th century.

ff. 1*verso-2*recto: ‘Divinity Miscell’; added in the 17th or 18th century.

ff. 10v, 29v-30r: Marginal additions written in the 17th-century: e.g. ‘Lancelot’ (f. 10v) ‘Anael [...] Azael’ (f. 29v).

Decoration:

1 large (3-line) gold initial in a red frame (f. 1r).