When was ad hoc introduced in English?

When was ad hoc introduced in English?

I found this, but it is only a vague speculation.

Originally, ad hoc is a Latin phrase, and it is speculated that the term was first used in English in the mid-16th century, but there is no strong evidence supporting this research.

Source: theidioms.com

As tchrist notes in a comment beneath the posted question, one of the earliest instances where ad hoc appears in the midst of English text without translation is in William Lawd, A Relation of the Conference Betweene William Lawd, then, Lrd. Bishop of St. Davids; now, Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury: and Mr. Fisher the Jesuite by the Command of King James of Ever Blessed Memorie (1639):

You are very bold with His Majesty, to relate Him upon Heare-say. My Intelligence serves me not to tell you what His Majestie said: But if he said it not, you have beene too credulous to believe, and too suddaine to report it. Princes deserve, and were wont to have, more respect than so. If His Majestie did say it, there is Truth in the speech; The error is yours only, by mistaking what is meant by Loosing the Holy Ghost. For a Particular Church may be said to loose the Holy Ghost two wayes, or in two Degrees. 1. The one, when it looses such speciall assistance of that Blessed Spirit, as preserves it from all dangerous Errors, and sinnes, and the temporall punishment, which is due unto them: And in this sense the Greeke Church did perhaps loose the Holy Ghost: for they erred against Him, they sinned against God, And for this, or other sinnes, they were delivered into another Babylonish Captivity under the Turke, in which they yet are; and from which, God in his mercy deliver them. But this is rather to be called an Error circa Spiritum Sanctum, about the Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost, then an error against the Holy Ghost. 2. The other is, when it looses not only this assistance, but all assistance ad hoc, to this, that they may remaine any longer a true Church; and so, Corinth and Ephesus, and divers other Churches have lost the Holy Ghost. But in this sense the whole Greeke Church lost not the Holy Ghost. For they continue a true Church in the maine substance, to and at this day, though erroneous in this Poynt, which you mention, and perhaps in some other too.

It is perhaps worth noting that ad hoc shows up four other times in Lawd's book, but on each of these other occasions it appears in the midst of longer Latin phrases.

Earlier than the instance in Lawd's book is this one from John Donne, "Sermon X: Preached upon Candlemas Day" [1625{?)] LXXX Sermons Preached by That Learned and Reverend Divine, Iohn Donne, Dr in Divinity, late Deane of the Cathedrall church of S. Pauls London (1940):

S. Augustine cites, and approves that saying of the morall Philosopher, Omnes odit, qui malos odit, he that hates ill men, hates all men, for if a man will love none but honest men, where shall he finde any exercise, any object of his love? So if a man will hold friendship with none, nor doe offices of society to none, but to good natur'd, and gentle, and souple, and sociable men, he shall leave very necessary businesses undone. The frowardest and perversest man may be good ad hoc, for such or such a particular use. By good company and good usage, that is, by being mingled with other simples, and ingredients, the very flesh of a Viper, is made an Antidote: A Viper loses not his place in Physick, because he is poyson; a Magistrate ceases not to be a Magistrate, because he is an ill man; much lesse does a man cease to be a man, and so to have a title to those duties, which are rooted in nature, because he is of an ill disposition.

This instance is about 15 years older than the Lawd instance, but it pairs ad hoc with the meaning that Donne has in mind for the term, which makes it still a kind of foreign phrase to be translated, even though there is English all around it and Donne seems inclined to bring it into English unforced, as it were, by the circumstance of quoting a particular Latin author.

In an Early English Books Online search, the next-earliest published occurrence of ad hoc surrounded by English words and lacking any explanatory gloss is from Henry Hammond, "The Scriptures Plea for Magistrates Wherein is Shewed the Unlawfulnesse of Resisting the Lawfull Magistrate, under Colour of Religion" (1643):

But when it is added within there line[s], that we are invited, &c. by as great and as lawfull an authority as this State hath any. I must confesse I had thought that the King and hath Houses had beene a greater authority; unlesse the meaning be not simply, but ad hoc, or great and as lawfull an authority as this State hath any, to doe what is now do[ne], and then sure it shall be granted by me, who professe my selfe to suppose it impossible that any command given to this purpose should be lawfull, or able to secure any from that sentence of S. Pauls, They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

However, ad hoc also appeared, at around the same time, as part of the slightly longer phrase quo ad hoc, again surrounded by English words and without consecutive translation.

From Thomas James, An Explanation or Enlarging of the Ten Articles in the Supplication of Doctor Iames, Lately Exhibited to the Clergy of England: Or A Manifest Proofe That They Are Both Reasonable and Faisible Within the Time Mentioned (1625):

Touching Illyricus, the Books printed, whose authorities are vouched, may be reuiewed by many; but for the Manuscrips (as I would wish that all that are in Oxford and Cambridge, or else-where, may be viewed, qu[o] ad hoc) I haue much in this kinde gathered to the hand, much more hath an industrious kinsman of mine: If I had no other imployment but this, wee two would vndertake that businesse, and to doe it as it should bee done, to no small profit of the Church, and increase of Illyricus Catalogue of witnesses of the truth.

And from Herbert Palmer, Scripture and Reason Pleaded for Defensive Armes: or The Whole Controversie about Subjects Taking up Armes (1643):

But this is all the Authority GOD gives to any, and not to make Lawes against his, nor yet to punish those that obey his Lawes: And if any such Lawes be made, or any such punishment offered to be inflicted (even by reason of such Lawes made) they are not the Ordinance of GOD, He hath afforded them no such Authoritie, no such Power. Nay such Lawes and Rulers according to them are the [letters in non-Latin alphabet], the opposers and Resisters of GODS Ordinance, of the Law of Nature, or Scripture, or both. The Lawes therefore are Null and the Authority Null; quo ad hoc) as will be plaine by this instance. ... Are not these traiterous Lawes against the King, the GOD of Heaven? can any then, King, they or the Authority commanding them, i• quo ad hoc, GODS Authority, GODS Ordinance or deny them to be resisters of him? The Lawes that are in themselves Null: the Authoritie Null: so farre forth: no kind of Subjection then is due to them in this from this Text. Nor is any Ordinance of GOD at all resisted in resisting them.

Conclusions

The earliest published instance that an EEBO search finds of ad hoc in an otherwise English milieu without nearby translation is from William Lawd's 1639 account of his debate with "Mr Fisher the Jesuite." A decade earlier, however, John Donne used ad hoc in the midst of a sermon otherwise largely free of Latin, in a way that seemed to go far toward treating it as a useful term to adopt into English.

Like ad hoc ("for this [specific purpose]"), quo ad hoc ("to this extent") began showing up unexplained in predominantly English texts during the first half of the seventeenth century. Although quo ad hoc has not prospered in everyday English as ad hoc has, its occasional occurrence in English texts during the seventeenth century may have helped English readers become familiar with the the Latin words involved and, thus, may have played a role in smoothing the way for acceptance of ad hoc into mainstream English.