upon your Acts and Monuments and see whether any have been more expensive either of their ink or their blood against the tyranny of Popery and superstition then the Bishops of this Church of England in so much as the reverend Dr. Du Moulin in his publick Epistle professes that the Bishops of England were they to whom this Church is beholden for the liberty and maintenance of the Protestant Religion in this Kingdom and in this present age how many of us have written and are content and ready to bleed for the sincerity of the Gospel If there be any therefore in this holy order whose lips have hang'd towards the onions and garlick and fleshpots of Egypt let them undergo just censure but let the calling and the zealous and faithfull managers of it be acquitted before God and Men. For the latter I see and mourn to see that many good souls are brought into a dislike and detestation of the common prayers of the Church of England as meer Mass and Popery wo is me that error should prevail so farr with good hearts I beseech you for Gods sake and your souls sake be rightly informed in this so materiall and important a point I see there is herein a double offence One of them which dislike the prayers because they are set forms the other that dislike them because they are such set forms For the former I beseech them to consider seriously whether they ought to think themselves wiser and perfecter then all the Churches of God that ever have been upon the Earth This I dare confidently say that since God had an established Church in the World there were set forms of devotion in the Jewish Church before and since Christ in the Christian Church of all ages and at this very day all those varieties of Christians in the large circle of Christianography they have their set forms of prayers which they do and must use and in the Reformed Churches both of the Lutherans and France and Scotland it is no otherwise yea reverend Mr. Calvin himself whose judgment had wont to sway with the forwardest Christians writing to the Protector of England Anno 1548. hath these words Quod ad formulam precum attinet rituum Ecclesiasticorum valsle probâ— ut certa illa extet a qua pastoribus discedere non liceat in functione sua c. And adding three grave and solid reasons for it concludes thus so then there ought to be a set form of Catechism a set form of administration of Sacraments and of publick prayers and why will we cast off the judgment both of him and all the Divines of the whole Christian World till Barrow and Browne in our age and remembrance contradicted it and run after a conceit that never had any being in the World till within our own memory For the latter There are those who could allow some form of set prayers but dislike this of ours as savoring of the Pope and the Mass whence they say it is derived Now I beseech you Brethren as you would avoid the danger of that wo of calling good evill and evill good inform your selves throughly of the true State of this business Know therefore that the whole Church of God both Eastern and Western as it was divided both the Greek and Latin Church under which this Iland was wont to be ranged had their forms of prayer from the begining which were then holy and Heavenly compiled by the holy Fathers of those first times Afterwards the abuses and errors of popery came in by degrees as Transubstantiation Sacrifice of the Mass prayers for the dead prayers to Saints these poysoned the Church and vitiated these holy forms whiles they continued but when Reformation came in divers worthy Protestant Divines whereof some were noble Martyrs for religion were appointed to revise that form of service to purge out all that popish leaven that had sowred them to restore them to their former purity leaving nothing in that book but that which they found consonant to godliness and pure religion If any Man will now say that our prayer book is taken out of the Mass let him know rather that the Mass was cast out of our prayer-prayer-book into which it was injuriously and impiously intruded the good of those prayers are ours in the right of Christians the evill that was in them let them take as their own And if it should have been as they imagine let them know that we have departed from the Church of Rome but in those things wherein they have departed from Christ what good thing they have is ours still That scripture which they have That Creed which they profess is ours neither will we part with it for their abuse If a peece of Gold be offerd us will we not take it because it was taken out of the channell If the Devil have given a confession of Christ and said I know who thou art even Jesus the Son of the living God shall not I make this confession because it came out of the Devils mouth Alas we shall be herein very injurious both to our selves and to God whose every holy truth is This then is the form which hath been compiled by learned and holy Divines by blessed Martyrs themselves who used it comfortably and blessed God for it But if the quicker eyes of later times have found any thing which displeases them in the phrases and manners of expression or in some rites prescribed in it Let them in Gods name await for the reforming sentence of that publick authority whereby it was framed and enacted and let not private persons presume to put their hands to the work which would introduce nothing but palpable confusion let all things be done decently and in order Shortly my Brethren let us hate Popery to the death but let us not involve within that odious name those holy forms both of administration and devotion which are both pleasing unto God and agreeable to all Christianity and Godliness A SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT My Lords I Have long held my peace and meant to have done so still but now like to Croesus his mute Son I must break silence I humbly beseech your Lordships to give me leave to take this too just occasion to move your Lordships to take into your deep and serious consideration the woful and lamentable condition of the poor Church of England your dear Mother My Lords this was not wont to be her stile we have heretofore talkt of the famous and flourishing Church of England but now your Lordships must give me leave to say that the poor Church of England humbly prostrates her self next after his sacred Majesty at your Lordships feet and humbly craves your compassion and present aid My Lords It is a foul and dangerous insolence this which is now complained of to you but it is but one of a hundred of those which have been of late done to this Church and Government The Church of England as your Lordships cannot choose
colour is most proper for sad occasions for as white comes nearest to light and black to darkness so we know that light and joy darknesse and sorrow are commonly used to resemble and expresse each other Well may we then outwardly profess our inward mourning for the dead but yet not beyond a due moderation It is not for us to mourn as men without hope as the Apostle holily adviseth his Thessalonians Our sorrow must walk in a mid-way betwixt neglect and excess Sarah was the first that we find mourn'd for in Scripture and Abraham the first mourner now the Hebrew Doctors observe that in Genesis 23.2 where Abrahams mourning is specified the letter which is in the midst of that original word that signifies his weeping is in all their Bibles written lesse then all his fellowes which they who find mountains in every tittle of Moses interpret to imply the moderate mourning of that holy Patriark surely he who was the Father of the faithful did by the power of his faith mitigate the sorrow for the loss of so dear a partner Thus much for the manner of our mourning Now for as much as it is the mourner in Sion not in Babylon whom we look after In the fourth place the inseparable concomitant of his mourning must be his holy devotion whether it be in matter of suffering or of sin in both which our sorrow is ill-bestowed if it do not send us so much the more eagerly to seek after our God Thus hath the mourning of all holy souls ever been accompanied the greatest mourner that we can read of was Job who can say My skin is black upon me and my bones are burnt with heat Job 30.30 How doth he lift up his eyes from his dunghill to Heaven and say I have sinned what shall I do to thee O thou Preserver of men Job 6.20 The distresses of David and the depth of his sorrowes cannot be unknown to any man that hath but looked into the book of God and what are his divine ditties but the zealous expressions of his faithfull recourses to the throne of grace good Ezra tells you what he did when he heard of the generall infection of his people with their Heathen matches Having rent my garments and my mantle I fell upon my knees and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God and said O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee O my God for our iniquities are increased over our heads and our trespass is grown up to the Heavens Ezra 9.5.6 And Daniel a no lesse devour mourner then he layes forth himself in as holy a passion I set my face unto the Lord God to seek him by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes and I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said O Lord the great and dreadfull God keeping the covenant and mercie to them that love him and to them that keep his commandements we have sinned and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments c. Hereupon it is that praier is ever joyned with fasting in all our humiliations without which the emptinesse of our mawes were but a vain and purposeless ceremony as that which was onely taken up to whet our devotions and to give a sharper appetite to pious duties So as he that mourneth and fasteth without praying is as he that takes the preparative but refuses the medicine that might bring him health or as he that toiles all day in the vineyard and neglects to call for his wages This for the companion of our mourning Fifthly and Lastly The attendant of our mourning is the good use that must be made of it for the bettering of the Soul for surely affliction never leaves us as it findes us if we be not better for our mourning we are the worse He is an unprofitable mourner that improves not all his sorrow to repentance and amendment of life whether his sin be the immediate object of his griefe or his affliction and this is both the intention of our Heavenly Father in whipping us and the best issue of our teares Thus it was with his Israel Their dayes saith the Psalmist did he consume in vanity and their years in trouble when he slew them then they sought him and they returned and inquired early after God vs 35. And they remembred that God was their rock and the high God their Redeemer To the same purpose is that of Jeremiah In those dayes and in that time saith the Lord the children of Israel shall come they and the children of Judah together going and weeping they shall go and seek the Lord their God they shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward saying Come let us joyne our selves to the Lord in a perpetuall covenant that shall not be forgotten Jerem. 50.4.5 Surely as he were an unnaturall parent that would scourge his child with any other purpose then to correct and amend somewhat amiss in him so is he no better then an ungracious child that makes a noise under the rod but amends not his fault Here then let mine eyes run down with tears night and day and let them not cease for the obstinate unproficiency of the sons of my mother under the heavy hand of my God O Lord are not thine eyes upon the truth thou hast stricken them but they have not grived thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive correction they have made their faces harder then a rock they have refused to return Jerem. 5.3 how sadly dost thou complain of us under the person of thine Israel In vain have I smitten your children they received no correction Jerem. 2.30 Notwithstanding all the fair warnings that thou hast given us We run on resolutely in the course of our wickedness as if those pathes were both safe and pleasing giving thee just cause to renew thine old complaint against the men of Judah and Jerusalem Thus saith the Lord Behold I frame evill against you and devise a devise against you Returne ye now every one from his evill wayes and make your wayes and your doings good And they said There is no hope but we will walk after our own devises and we will every one do the imagination of his evill heart Jerem. 18.11.12 wo is me who sees not that after all the blood that thou hast let out of our vaines we are still full of the deadly inflammations of pride and maliciousnesse that after we have drunk so deep of the cup of thy fury even to the dregs we cease not to be drunk with the intemperate cups of our beastly excess and after strict professions of holynesse have run out into horrible blasphemies of thy sacred name So as we have too just cause to fear lest thou have decreed to make good upon us that wofull word which thy Prophet denounced against thy once-no-less-dear people I will
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By good works The vulgar reads it thus and the Council of Trent cites it thus and some of ours so the text runs thus Give diligence that by good works ye may make your calling and election sure I inquire not how duly but certainly there is no cause that we should fear or dislike this reading good works are a notable confirmation to the soul of the truth of our calling and election Though Cardinal Bellarmine makes ill use of the place striving hereupon to inferre that our certitude is therefore but conjectural because it is of works For the solution whereof justly may we wonder to hear of a conjectural certitude Certainly we may as well hear of a false-truth what a plain implication is here of a palpable contradiction Those things which we conjecture at are only probable and there can be no certainty in probability Away with these blinde peradventures had our Apostle said and he knew how to speak guesse at your calling and election by good works his game here had been fair but now when he saies By good works indeavour to make your calling and election sure how clearly doth he disclaim a dubious hit I-misse-I and implies a fecible certainty And indeed what hinders the connection of this assurance Our works make good the truth of our faith our faith makes good our effectual calling our calling makes good our election therefore even by good works we make our election sure Neither can it hurt us that the Cardinal saith we hold this certainty to be before our good works not after them and therefore that is not caused by our good works We stand not nicely to distinguish how things stand in the order of nature surely this certainty is both before and after our works before in the act of our faith after in our works confirming our faith neither do we say this certainty is caused by our good works but confirmed by them neither doth this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imply alwaies a thing before uncertain as learned Chamier well but the completing and making up of a thing sure before To which also must be added that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good works must be taken in the largest latitude so as to fetch in not only the outward good offices that fall from us in the way whether of our charity justice or devotion but the very inmost inclinations and actions of the soul tending towards God our believing in him our loving of him our dreading of his infinite Majesty our mortification of our corrupt affections our joy in the holy Ghost whatsoever else may argue or make us holy These are the means by which we may and must endeavor to make our calling election sure But to let this clause passe as litigious the undoubted words of the text goe no less If ye do these things ye shall never fall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these things are the vertues precedently mentioned and not falling is equivalent to ascertaining our calling and election Not to instance then and urge those many graces which are here specified I shall content my self with those three Theological vertues singled out from the rest faith hope charity for the makeing sure our calling and election For faith how clear is that of our Saviour He that believes in him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but hath passed from death to life Joh. 5.24 This is the grace by which Christ dwels in our hearts Ephes 3.17 and whereby we have communion with Christ and an assured testimony of and from him For he that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself 1 John 5.10 And what witness is that This is the record that God hath given us eternall life and this life is in his Son verse 11. He that hath the Son hath life verse 12. See what a connection here is Eternal life first this life eternal is in and by Christ Jesus this Jesus is ours by faith This Faith witnesseth to our souls our assurance of Life Eternall Our hope is next which is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thrusting out of the head to look for the performing of that which our faith apprehends and this is so sure a grace as that it is called by the name of that glory which it expecteth Colos 1.5 For the hope sake which is laid up for you in heaven that is for the glory we hope for Now both faith and hope are of a cleansing nature both agree in this Purifying their hearts by faith Act. 15.9 Every one that hath this hope purifyeth himself even as he is pure 1 Joh. 3.3 The Devil is an unclean Spirit he foules wheresoever he comes and all sin is nasty and beastly Faith and hope like as neat huswives when they come into a foul and sluttish house cleanse all the roomes of the soul and make it a fit habitation for the Spirit of God Are our hearts lifted up then in a comfortable expectation of the performance of Gods merciful promises and are they together with our lives swept and cleansed from the wonted corruptions of our nature and pollutitions of our sin this is an undoubted evidence of our calling and election Charity is the last which comprehends our love both to God and man for from the reflection of Gods love to us there ariseth a love from us to God again The beloved Disciple can say We love him because he loved us first 1 John 4.19 And from both these resulteth our love to our brethren which is so full an evidence that our Apostle tells us we know we are passed from death to life because we love the brethren 1 Joh. 3.14 For the love of the Father is inseparable from the love of the Son he that loves him that begets loves him that is begotten of him Shortly then think not of a ladder to clâ—mbe up into heaven to search the books of God First look into your own lives those are most open we need no locks or keyes to them the Psalmist in his fifthteenth will tell you who is for that blisseful Sion are your lives innocent are your works good and holy do ye abound in the fruites of piety justice Christian compassion Let these be your first tryall it is a flat and plain word of the divine Apostle whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God 1 John 3.10 Look secondly into your own bosomes open to none but your own eyes If ye find there a true and lively faith in the Son of God by whose blood ye are cleansed from all your sins by vertue whereof ye can cry Abba Father a sure hope in Christ purifying your souls from your corruptions a true and unfained love to your God and Saviour who hath done so much for your soules so as you dare say with that fervent Apostle Lord thou knowest that I love thee and in him and for his sake a sincere love to his
warfares to God should not intangle himself with this world it is a sufficient and just conviction of those who would divide themselves betwixt God and the World and bestow any main part of their time upon secular affairs but it hath no operation at all upon this tenet which we have in hand that a man dedicate to God may not so much as when he is required cast a glance of his eye or some minutes of time or some motions of his tongue upon the publick business of his King and Countrey Those that expect this from us may as well and upon the same reason hold that a minister must have no family at all or if he have one must not care for it yea that he must have no body to tend but be all Spirit My Lords we are men of the same composition with others and our breeding hath been accordingly we cannot have lived in the World but we have seen it and observed it too and our long experience and conversation both in Men and in books cannot but have put something into us for the good of others and now having a double capacity qua cives qua Ecclesiastici as members of the common wealth as Ministers and Governours of the Church we are ready to do our best service in both one of them is no way incompatible with the other yea the subjects of them both are so united with the Church and Commonwealth that they cannot be severed yea so as that not the one is in the other but one is the other is both so as the services which we do upon these occasions to the Comonwealth are inseparable from our good offices to the Church so as upon this ground there is no reason of our exclusion If ye say that our sitting in Parliament takes up much time which we might have imployed in our studies or pulpits consider I beseech you that whiles you have a Parliament we must have a convocation and that our attendance upon that will call for the same expense of time which we afford to this service so as herein we have neither got nor lost But I fear it is not on some hands the tender regard of the full scope to our calling that is so much here stood upon as the conceit of too much honour that is done us in taking up the room of Peers and voting in this high Court for surely those that are averse from our votes yet could be content we should have place upon the wool-sacks and could alow us ears but not tongues If this be the matter I beseech your Lordships to consider that this honour is not done to us but our profession which what ever we be in our several persons can not easily be capable of too much respect from your Lordships Non tibi sed Isidi as he said of old Neither is this any new grace that is put upon our calling which if it were now to begin might perhaps be justly grudged to our unworthyness but it is an antient right and inheritance inherent in our station No less ancient then these walls wherein we sit yea more before ever there were Parliaments in the Magna Consilia of the Kingdome we had our places and as for my predecessors ever since the Conquerours time I can show your Lordships a just catalogue of them that have sat before me here and truely though I have just cause to be mean in mine own eyes yet why or wherein there should be more unworthiness in me then the rest that I should be stript of that priviledg which they so long injoyed though there were no law to hold me here I cannot see or confesse What respects of honour have been put upon the prime Clergy of old both by Pagans and Jewes and Christians and what are still both within Christendom and vvithout I shall not need to urge it is enough to say this of ours is not meerly arbitrary but stands so firmely established by law and custome that I hope it neither will nor can be removed except you will shake those foundations which I believe you desire to hold firme and inviolable Shortly then my Lords the church craves no new honour from you and justly hopes you will not be guilty of pulling down the old as you are the eldest sons and next under his Majesty the honourable patrons of the Church so she expects and beseeches you to receive her into your tenderest care so to order her affairs that ye leave her to posterity in no worse case then you found her It is a true word of Damasus Uti vilescit nomen episcopi omnis statua perturbatur Ecclesiae If this be suffered the misery will be the Churches the dishonour blurre of the act in future ages will be yours To shut up therefore let us be taken off from all ordinary trade of secular imployments and if you please abridge us of intermeddling with matters of common justice but leave us possessed of those places and priviledges in Parliament which our predecessors have so long and peaceably injoyed ANTHEMES FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF EXCETER LOrd what am I A worm dust vapor nothing What is my life A dream a daily dying What is my flesh My souls uneasie clothing What is my time A minute ever flying My time my flesh my life and I What are we Lord but vanity Where am I Lord downe in a vale of death What is my trade sin my dear God offending My sport sin too my stay a puffe of breath What end of sin hells horrour never ending My way my trade sport stay and place help up to make up my dolefull case Lord what art thou pure life power beauty bliss Where dwell'st thou up above in perfect light What is thy time eternity it is What state attendance of each glorious sp'rit Thy self thy place thy dayes thy state Pass all the thoughts of powers create How shall I reach thee Lord Oh soar above Ambitious soul but which way should I flie Thou Lord art way and end what wings have I Aspiring thoughts of faith of hope of love Oh let these wings that way alone Present me to thy blissfull throne ANTHEME FOR Christmas Day IMmortall babe who this dear day Didst change thine Heaven for our clay And didst with flesh thy Godhead vail Eternal Son of God All-hail Shine happy star ye Angels sing Glory on high to Heavens King Run Shepherds leave your nightly watch See Heaven come down to Bethleems cratch Worship ye Sages of the East The King of Gods in meanness drest O blessed maid smile and adore The God thy womb and armes have bore Star Angels Shepherds and wise sages Thou Virgin glory of all ages Restored frame of Heaven and Earth Joy in your dear Redeemers Birth LEave O my soul this baser World below O leave this dolefull dungeon of wo And soare aloft to that supernal rest That maketh all the Saints and Angels blest Lo there the God-heads radiant throne Like to ten thousand Suns in one Lo there thy Saviour dear in glory dight Ador'd of all the powers of Heavens bright Lo where that head that bled with thorny wound Shines ever with celestial honor crownd That hand that held the scornfull reed Makes all the fiends infernall dread That back and side that ran with bloody streams Daunt Angels eyes with their majestick beames Those feet once fastened to the cursed tree Trample on death and hell in glorious glee Those lips once drench't with gall do make With their dread doom the world to quake Behold those joyes thou never canst behold Those precious gates of pearl those Streets of gold Those streams of Life those trees of Paradise That never can be seen by mortal eyes And when thou seest this state divine Think that it is or shall be thine See there the happy troups of purest sprights That live above in endless true delights And see where once thy self shalt ranged be And look and long for immortalitie And now before-hand help to sing Allelujahs to Heavens King FINIS BOOKS printed for and to be sold by John Crook at the Sign of the Ship in St Pauls Church-yard ANnales veteris novi Testamenti Aviro Reverend Jacob Usserio Archiepisco Armachano Folio The Annals of the Old and New Testament with the Synchronismus of Heathen story to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans by James Usher D.D. Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland Folio The Antiquities of Warwikcshire illustrated beautified with Maps prospects and pourtractures by William Dugdale Folio Hymens Preludia or Loves Master piece being the 9th and 10th parts of Cleopatra Folio The History of this Iâ—on Age wherein is set down the Original of all the wars and commotions that have happened from the year of God 1500. Illustrated with the figures of the most Renowned persons of this Time Folio The History of the great and renowned Monarchy of China Fol. The holy History containing excellent observations on the Remarkable passages of the old Testament written Originally in French by N. Caussin S.I. and now rendred into English by a Person of Honour 4. Ejusdem de textus hebraici Veteris Testamenti variantibus Lectionibus ad Lodovicum Capellum Epistola Quarto Usserii de 70. Interpretum versione syntagma Quarto Montagues Miscellanea Spiritualâ—ia 4. second part A Treatise of Gavelkind both name and thing shewing the true Etymology and derivation of the one the nature antiquity and Original of the other by William Sonner Quarto The Holy Life of Mounsier de Renty a late noble man of France 8. Certain discourses viz. of Babylon the present See of Rome of laying on of hands of the old forme of words in Ordination of a set forme of prayer being the judgment of the Late Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland by N. Bernard D. D. Octavo The Character of England with reflections upon Gallus Castratus 12. The French Gardiner instructing how to cultivate all sorts of Fruit-trees with directions to dry and conserve them in their natural An accomplished peice illustrated with sculpture By whom also all manner of Books are to be sold brought from beyond the Seas