forth in its native Lustre And it appears by Magna Charta that all the Rights of the Church are the chiefest Liberties of the Subject To be but capable of the Honour the double Honour of the Clergy to wit the Reverence and the Revenue is an eminent part of the Layman's Birthright I pray be pleased to consider what is not every day observ'd That all the Dignities and Endowments which do belong unto the Church at once by the Statutes of God and Man are so many Rights which appertain to your childrens children I must not here be thought to forsake my Text For it ye compare it with the Context especially from the first to the eighth verse of this Chapter ye will see the great fitness of all I say and that my Text cannot be satisfied unless I say it For he that saith in this place by the Spirit of God Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers does also say by the same Spirit Obey them that have the Rule over you who have spoken to you the word of God and who do watch for your souls as those that must render an Accompt And the Interest of the former is so entwisted with the later That till our Bishops receive their Right though we are glad to have our King we may rationally fear we shall not hold him For ask I beseech you of the days that are past and ask from the one side of heaven to the other if ever there were any such thing as This that a King could be happy without a Bishop Lord What an Epocha will it make in our future Kalendars when men shall reckon from this Year as from the Year of Restitution But then like that which Saint Peter mentions Acts 3. 21. The Restitution is to be general as well to God as to the People And ye will find in Magna Charta which does deserve to be imprinted in all your memories That all the Rights of the Church were entirely granted unto God They were granted unto God and that for ever Now of so sacred a force is the word For ever That if a Statute shall be made against the Liberties of the Church The Law of the Land hath provided against that Statute And by an Anticipation declares it Null Shall I guess at the cause of so great a Caution It seems to be as for other Reasons so in particular for This Because to alter that Government was as well against the Kings Oath as against the Oathes of both Houses which swore the Right of his Supremacy as well in all Ecclesiastical as Civil causes Besides that in the Judgment of the most eminent in the world for depth of knowledge in holy things The order of Bishops is by Divine Institution And if 't is so in good earnest it will be dangerous to deal with the Laws of Christ as we read Agesilaus once dealt with those of Lacedaemon which he pretended onely to abrogate that he might not break them But whether so or not so a thing in Being and Debate is to pass for good until the Dispute shall be fairly ended And if an Errour must be adventur'd on either hand Religion tells us it ought to be upon the Right Would any know why I insist on such a subject in such a place my Reasons for it are plainly These First I insist on such a subject because my Text as I said does exact it of me And because 't is my duty at least to wish That the day breaking forth may be full and lasting That the Repentance of the Nation may be impartial and so to our SOVERAIGNS RETURN there may be added his Continuance in Peace and Safety I say in Safety not more to his Person than his Posterity Nor in Safety for a season so long as men are well humour'd but so long as the Sun or the Moon endures And then for you of this Place who are an honourable part of the English Nation That which I take to be your Duty I think is your Interest to indeavour The most I am pressing on you is this That ye will labour for the means of your being happy If ye think ye cannot be happy with the establishment of the Prelacy I shall pray you may be happy at least without it and also wish I may be able to pray with Faith too Only as often as I reflect on King IAMES his Motto No Bishop no King and withal do consider its having been verified once and before our eyes I think it my duty to desire it may not be verified any more But that it may rather be here applyed what was spoken heretofore of the Spartan Laws ut semper esse possent aliquando non fuerunt They only ceased for a Time to the end they might continue to all eternity These are sincerely the very Reasons for which I insist upon such a Subject Secondly I do it in such a place because I look on This Assembly as on the Head and the Heart of the Royal City I look on the City as on a Sea into which the main stream of the Nation runs Even the Parliament it self hath such a respect unto the City that if ye plead for Gods Spouse as ye have done for his Anointed for which your names will be pretious with late posterity if ye shall supplicate for a Discipline which is as old in this land as Christianity it self and stands established in Law by thirty two Acts of Parliament and without which ye cannot live unless by living under the Breach of your greatest Charter they will not onely be apt to grant but to thank you also for your Petition Having gone thus far in prosecution of the Advertisment That the Night of our Suffering is fairly spent and that the Day of our Injoyment begins to dawn And having directed unto the means with submission be it spoken to all Superiours by which our Day is to be lengthned not only into a year but an Age of Iubilee into a kind of perpetual Sabbath a Day of Rest from those works which either wanted Light or were asham'd of it which either borrow'd Darkness for their Cover or else which own'd it for their Cause I humbly leave what I have said to His acceptance and disposal in the Hand of whose Counsel are all your Hearts T is more than time that I proceed to the general Use of this Advertisment to which I am prompted by the word Therefore as 't is a word of connexion betwixt the Duty and the Deliverance Our Apostle does not thus argue Because the Night of Oppression is now far spent and the Day of Deliverance is hard at hand Let us therefore inioy the good things that are present let us stretch our selves upon 〈◊〉 bed of Ivory let us Crown our selves with Rose-buds let us drink Wine in bowles and let us dance to the sound of the Viol let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every street
the Policy of Balaam saith Philo the Iew to make the Moabitish Women sell the Use of their flesh to the Hebrew Men and that for no other price than their Sacrificing to Idols As knowing that the Hebrews were not otherwise to be worsted than by their own breaches of Gods Commandments And we know not how soon our dawning Day may grow dark if we do not cast off the works of Darkness Which implies a good reason for the word Therefore in the Text as 't is a particle of connexion betwixt the Duty and the Deliverance Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only Wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever FINIS Die Iovis 30. Maii. A. 13. Car. Regis Secundi ORdered that the Thanks of this House be returned to Dr. Pierce for the Sermon he Preached yesterday and that he be desired to Print his Sermon And Sir Heneage Finch Mr. Coventrie and Mr. Pryn or any one of them are desired to give him the Thanks of this House Will. Goldesbrough Cler. Dom. Com. A SERMON PREACHED At St. MARGARETS WESTMINSTER by the Order of the Honourable the House OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT Assembled Upon the 29 th Day of MAY being the Anniversary Day of the KING' 's and KINGDOM' 's RESTAURATION MD. DC.LXI Legum Conditores Festos dies instituerunt ut ad hilaritatem homines publicè cogerentur tanquam necessarium laboribus interponentes Temperamentum Senec. de Tranquil Ani. c. ult DEUT. 6. 12. Then beware lest thou forget the Lord who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt WHen I look back upon the Church in all her motions out of the East observing how Monarchy and Learning have been at once the two Shoulders to bear her up and withal the two Legs to bring her hither And when again I do reflect upon our Twenty years sins which were the complicated Cause of our Twelve years sufferings I mean our Drunkenness and Luxury which were deservedly prescribed so long a Fast the rashnesse and vanity of our Oaths which gave us a miserable option betwixt a perjury and an undoing our profanation of the Quire which turn'd us out of the Cathedral our gross neglect of Gods Service which helpt to vote down our publick Liturgie our general idleness and sloth which often cast us out of our Houses and as it were set us to eat our Bread in the sweat of our brows or of our brains our unprofitable walking under all God's methods and means of Grace which left us nothing but his Iudgments for many sad years to work upon us And yet again when I consider How God hath turn'd our Captivity as the Rivers of the South and cast the Locusts out of our Vineyards that we may sit under our Vines injoying our Iudges as at the first and our Counsellors as at the Beginning And that the use we are to make of so miraculous a Recovery is to be fedulous in providing against the Danger of a Relaps To sin no more after pardon for fear a worse thing happen unto us I think I cannot be transported with a more Innocent Ambition because I cannot be ambitious of a more profitable Attempt than that of bringing down the Heads of certain Hearers into their Hearts that what is now no more than Light may by that means become Fire That we may All in this sense be like the Baptist not only shining but burning Lamps not only beautified with the knowledge of Christian duties but zealous too in the discharge as unaffectedly punctual in all our carriage as the greatest Enemies of Godliness are hypocritically precise And though Heresies are to be hated as things which lead unto destruction yet that Vice may be reckon'd the worst of Heresies by how much the Errour of a mans Practice is worse than That of his bare Opinion Last of all when I consider That though Peace is a Blessing and the greatest in its kind yet many consequences of Peace are but glittering Snares and that the things which are given us as helps to memory are apt to make us forgetful of Him that gave them I cannot think of a fitter Text for the giving advantage to my design than this Remarkable Caveat against Forgetfulness aâ—d Ingratitude amidst the pleasant Effects of a Restauration When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly Cities and houses full of all good things when thou shalt have eaten and art full THEN beware that thou forget not the Lord who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt AT the very first view of which holy Caveat there are five particulars of Remarque which presently meet my observation As first the Downfal of a Nation Secondly the Deliverance Thirdly the Author of that Deliverance Fourthly the Duty by him injoyn'd And lastly the Iuncture of Affairs wherein this Duty is most in Season And of all these Particulars each is the greatest in its kind too For First behold the greatest Curse that any poor Nation can struggle under A Yoke of Bondage and Captivity impos'd by the hardest and worst of men A Yoke so insupportable to some mens Necks that I remember Hegesistratus a captive Souldier in Herodotus would rather cut off his legs then indure his Fetters that by the loss of his Feet he might be enabled to run away So insufferable a thing is the State of Thraldome very significantly imply'd in the Land of Egypt and exegetically express'd by the house of Bondage But yet the Curse is so set like Shadows in a Picture or Foyles with Diamonds as to commend and illustrate the greatest Blessing A Deliverance brought about by such a miraculous complication that nothing but the experience that so it is can extenuate the wonder that so it should be A People groaning under the pressures of several Centuries of years and so accustom'd unto the Yoke as to have made it a kind of acquired Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Galen calls it De Terra Aegypti eductus est is now at last brought out of the Land Egypt And yet the wonder begins to cease Because The Author of this Deliverance is so much the greatest to be imagin'd that he is Dominus the Lord the Lord that stretcheth out the Heavens the Lord that layeth the foundations of the Earth the Lord that formeth the spirit of Man within him The Lord in whose Hand are the hearts of all men who turneth man to Destruction and again who saith Come again ye children of Men In a word It is the Lord to whom Miracles are natural and by whom Impossibilities are done with ease 'T is He that brought thee out of the Land of Egypt And therefore The Duty in proportion must be superlatively great too however hid in this place by a little Meiosis of expression Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God that is Remember what he hath done
pleasantly prophane Things expressed in Holy Writ by foolish Talking and Iesting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are both branded in the same stile with Fornication and uncleannesse and other things not to be nam'd by reason of which saith the Apostle the wrath of God cometh upon the Children of Disobedience No In all our solemn meetings especially Then when we tread in God's Courts we ought to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as not to disgrace but adorn the Gospel We must use all our Learning and Elocution if we have any as the Apostles here did their miraculous gift of Tongues not to gratifie the Itch of ungracious men but to trumpet out the wonderfull works of God That they who cannot indure to think we can be eminently worthy may yet be forced to confesse we are serious Christians And since St. Iames is very positive that he who offendeth not in word is a perfect man let us contend and reach forth towards this perfection still indeavouring to to speak with the best Tongues we have if not as men fill'd with the holy Ghost yet at least like them that speak as the Spirit gives them utterance That so when other mens Tongues shall be employ'd in crying out for a Drop of water importuning the mountains to fall upon them to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb Our Tongues may joyn in Consort with the divine Choir of Angels with the Congregation of the first-Born whose names are written in heaven and with the Soules of just men made perfect Singing Hosannahs and Hallelujas to him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever more FINIS The Primitive Rule of Reformation Delivered in a SERMON BEFORE His MAIESTY at WHITEHALL Feb 1. 1662. IN Vindication of Our CHVRCH Against the NOVELTIES of ROME Published by His Majesties special Command The Ninth Edition TO THE High and Mighty Monarch Charles the II. By the Grace of God KING of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith Most Gratious and Dread Soveraign THat which never had been expos'd unto a wittily-mistaking and crooked world but in a dutiful submission to Your Command may at least for This if for no other reason be justly offer'd to Your Protection And this is don with a steady though humble confidence of successe because THE DEFENDER OF THE FAITH which was once deliver'd unto the Saints cannot possibly chuse but be so to Him who does earnestly contend for the very same because for no other Faith than That which was from the Beginning If for This I have contended with as much earnestness from the Pulpit as The Romanists from the Presse do contend against it I have not only the Exhortation and Authority of a Text but the Exigence of the Time to excuse me in it Now as the Romans in the Time of the second Punick War could not think of a fitter way for the driving of Hannibal out of Italy than Scipio's marching with an Army out of Italy into Afrique giving Hannibal a Necessity to go from Rome for the raising of the Siege which was laid to Carthage So could I not think of a fitter Course to disappoint the Pontificians in their Attempts on Our Church than thus by making it their Task to view the Infirmities of their Own To which effect I was excited to spend my self and to be spent If I may speak in the phrase of our Great Apostle not from an arrogant Opinion of any sufficiency in my self who am one of the Least among the Regular Sons of the Church of England But as relying on the sufficiency of the Cause I took in hand especially on the Help of the All-sufficient who often loves to make use of the weakest Instruments to effect the bringing down of the strongest Holds I suppose my Discourse however innocent in it self will yet be likely to meet with many not onely learned and subtil but Restless enemies Men of pleasant Insinuations and very plausible Snares nay such as are apt where they have Power to confute their Opponents by Fire and Faggot But when I consider how well my Margin does lend Protection to my Text for I reckon that my Citations which I could not with Prudence represent out of a Pulpit are the usefullest part of my whole Performance because the Evidence and Warrant of all the rest I cannot fearfully apprehend what Wit or Language or ill us'd Learning can do against it so far forth as it is arm'd with Notoriety of Fact in its Vindication and hath the published Confessions of those their Ablest Hyperaspistae who cannot certainly by them of their own perswasion with honor or safety be contradicted If they are guilty in their Writings it is rather their own than their Readers Fault Nor is it their Readers but Their misfortune if they are found So to be by their own Concessions Nor can they rationally be angry at their Reader 's Necessity to believe them especially when they write with so becoming a proof of Impartiality as that by which they asperse and accuse Themselves If it finally shall apear They are condemn'd out of their mouthes as Goliah's Head was cut off by David not with David's but with Goliah's own Sword and that I am not so severe in taking Notice of their Confessions as They have been unto Themselves in the Printing of them for I cannot be said to have revealed any secrets by meerly shewing before the Sun what They have sent into the Light I think however They may have Appetite They cannot have Reason to complain I have intreated of many Subjects within the Compass of an hour on each of which it would be easie to spend a year But I have spoken most at large of the Supremacy of the Pope as well because it is a Point wherein the Honor and Safety of Your Majesties Dominions are most concern'd as because it is the chief if not only Hinge I have Bellarmine's assertion for what I say on which does hang the whole stress of the Papal Fabrick If herein as I have obey'd I shall also be found to have serv'd Your Majesty The sole discharge of my Duty will be abundantly my Reward because I am not more by Conscience and Obligation of Gratitude than by the Voluntary Bent and Inclination of my Soul Your Majesties most devoted and most Dutiful Subject and Chaplain THOMAS PIERCE MATTH XIX 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But from the beginning it was not so THere are but very few things either so little or so great whether in Art or Nature whether in Politie or Religion which are not willing to take advantage from the meer credit of their Antiquity First for Art Any part of Philosophy penn'd by Hermes Trismegistus any Script of Geography bearing the name of Anaximander any Musicall Composition sung by Amphion to his Harp any piece of the Mathematicks
in the next verse after my Text as if they meant nothing more than the opening of a way to rebel against him For besides that in the Canon of the Council at Trent a Divorce quoad Torum Torum ob multas Causas was decreed to be just in the Church of Rome although our Lord had twice confin'd it to the Sole Cause of Fornication Matth. 5. 32 19. 9. And besides that the word Totum was constantly reteined in four Editions particularly in That which had the Care and Command of Pope Paul the Fifth Let it be granted that the Council did mean no more than a meer Sequestration from Bed and Board to endure for a certain or uncertain time and not an absolute Dissolution of the Conjugal Knot yet in the Judgment of Chemnitius yea and of Maldonat Himself who was as learned a Iesuite as that Society ever had it would be opposite even so to the Law of Christ. For he who putteth away his Wife for any Cause whatsoever besides the Cause of Fornication commits Adultery saith the Iesuit even for this very reason because he makes Her commit it whom he unduly putteth away Nay Chemnitius saith farther That the Papal Separation from Bed and Board is many wayes a Dissolution of the Conjugal Tye. Nor does he content himself to say or affirm it only but by a Confluence of Scriptures does make it good That against the Command of our blessed Saviour in the verse but one before my Text That which God hath joyn'd together the men of Rome do put asunder By these and many more Corruptions in point of Practice and Doctrine too which were no more then Deviations from what had been from the Beginning and which the learnedest Sons of the Church of Rome have been forced to confess in their publick writings the awakened part of the Christian world were compell'd to look out for a Reformation That there was in the See of Rome the most abominable Practice to be imagin'd we have the liberal Confession of zealous Stapleton himself and of those that have publisht their Penitentials We have the published Complaints of Armachanus and Grostead and Nicolas de Clemangis Iohn of Hus and Ierome of Prague Chancellor Gerson and Erasmus and the Archbishop of Spalato Ludovicus Vives and Cassander who are known to have died in the same Communion did yet impartially complain of some Corruptions Vives of their Feasts at the Oratories of Martyrs as being too much of kin unto the Gentiles Parentalia which in the judgment of Tertullian made up a species of Idolatry And Caâ—ander confesses plainly that the Peoples Adoration paid to Images and Statues was equal to the worst of the ancient Heathen So the buying and selling of Papal Indulgences and Pardons 't is a little thing to say oâ— Preferments too was both confest and inveigh'd against by Popish Bishops in Thuanus Now if with all their Corruptions in point of Practice which alone cannot justifie a People's Separation from any Church though the Cathari and the Donatists were heretofore of that opinion we compare their Corruptions of Doctrine too and that in matter of Faith as hath been shew'd Corruptions intrenching on Fundamentals it will appear that That door which was open'd by Us in our first Reformers was not at all to introduce but to let out Schism For the schism must needs be Theirs who give the Cause of the Separation not Theirs who do but separate when Cause is given Else S. Paul had been to blame in that he said to his Corinthians Come ye out from among them and be ye separate 2 Cor. 6. 17. The actual Departure indeed was Ours but Theirs the causal as our immortal Arch-Bishop does fitly word it we left them indeed when they thrust us out as they cannot but go whom the Devil drives But in propriety of speech we left their Errors rather then Them Or if a Secession was made from Them 't was in the very same measure that They had made one from Christ. Whereas They by their Hostilities and their Excommunications departed properly from vs not from any Errors detected in us And the wo is to Them by whom the offence cometh Matth. 18. 7. not to Them to whom 't is given If when England was in a Flame by Fire sent out of Italy we did not abstein from the quenching of it until water might be drawn from the River Tiber it was because our own Ocean could not only do it sooner but better too That is to say without a Figure It did appear by the Concession of the most learned Popish VVriters that particular Nations had still a power to purge themselves from their corruptions as well in the Church as in the State without leave had from the See of Rome and that 't was commonly put in practice above a thousand years since It did appeare that the Kings of England at least as much as those of Sicily were ever held to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that by the Romanists themselves until by gaining from Henry the First the Investiture of Bishops from Henry the Second an Exemption of the Clergy from Secular Courts and from easie King Iohn an unworthy Submission to forreign Power the Popes became strong enough to call their strength the Law of Iustice. And yet their Incroachments were still oppos'd by the most pious and the most learned in every Age. Concerning which it were easie to give a satisfactory account if it were comely for a Sermon to exceed the limits of an hour In a word it did appear from the Code and Novels of Iustinian from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set out by the Emperour Zeno from the practice of Charles the Great which may be judged by the Capitulars sent abroad in his Name from the designs and Indeavours of two late Emperors Ferdinand the First and Maximilian the Second from all the commended Kings of Iudah from the most pious Christian Emperours as far as from Constantine the Great and from many Kings of England in Popish times too that the work of Reformation belong'd especially to Them in their several Kingdoms And this is certain that neither Prescription on the Pope's side nor Discontinuance on the King 's could adde a Right unto the one or any way lessen it in the other For it implies a contradiction that what is wrong should grow right by being prosperous for a longer or shorter season Had the Pope been contented with his Primacy of Order and not ambitiously affected a Supremacy of Power and over all other Churches besides his own we never had cast off a Yoke which had never been put upon our Necks And so 't is plain that the Usurper did make the Schism If Sacrilege any where or Rebellion did help reform Superstition That was the Fault of the Reformers not at all of the Reformation nor of All Reformers neither For the most
General Because for want of a better Refuge when they are press't with many things which cannot be justifi'd or deny'd They have evermore recourse to This one Catholick evasion That they are but the sentiments of private Doctors whose ill opinions or mistakes are not chargable on the Church Now though we cannot but beleive their Private Doctors as they call them when they are men of great Learning and greater Zeal to That Cause and only speak as Narrators touching matters of Fact and such as of which they might be silent with more advantage unto themselves Yet I hope 't will not be said That the present superiours living and speaking to whom Mr. Cressy ascribes the power of Concluding all Controversies are no better than private Doctors much lesse will they say it of their General Councils unto which they do acknowledge the last reeourse is to be had And here if any man shall ask what may be probably the Reason why when the Tenet of Infallibility is so far a Doctrine of their Church as it is taught and maintain'd by their Present visible Governours or their present Superiours living and speaking unto whom is ascribed the power aforesaid It hath not yet been thought fitt to be credited by the Decree of a General Council nor indeed of any Council that I am able to alledge I know not what Reason to render of it unlesse I may say that they distinguish between their Doctrines and their Opinions or between Things pretended and Things Beleived by their Superiours As if the Governours Themselves whom they make Tantamount to a General Council were not able to beleive the Infallibility they pretend to But only thought fitt that The People should If any other man Can give any better reason I do earnestly desire that what I have given may go for None § 19. And as on the one side Their stedfast Belief That Shee cannot err is enough to confirm them in all their Errors So to convince them on the other side of that one Error will make them ready both to see and renounce the Rest. That it may seem to be a vain or a needless Thing for any man to be lavish of Time or Labour in a particular Ventilation of other controverted Points whilst This of Infallibility remain's untouch't or undecided For if we shew them the Absurdities of Bread and Wine being transmuted into the Body and Blood of Christ or of being so transmuted into Human Flesh and Blood as to retain both the Colour Touch and Tast and all other Adjuncts of Bread and Wine or of its so beginning now to be in the Act of Consecration the numerical Body of a crucified Iesus as to have been the very same under Pontius Pilate as well as in the Virgins Womb or of its beginning to be as often and of as many several Ages as the Priests as their Altars shall please to make it or of its being the same Body whether eaten by a Christian or by a Dog They will defend themselves with This That though 't is Absurd and Impossible yet it is necessarily True because 't is taught by that Church which cannot deceive or be deceiv'd Whereas if once we can convince them that she is able to be deceiv'd who had taught them to believe she is undeceivable and that in matters of greatest moment They cannot chuse but disapprove and forsake her too as the greatest Deceiver in all the world § 20. That Shee is Able to be deceiv'd cannot better be evinced than by the Evidence that Shee Is. And t is evident that Shee Is by her own Confession For shee is no where more seen than in her General Councils whereof when any one does condemn what Shee asserts as no Error or when one does contradict and accuse another of which I have given sufficient Instance she does confess her self Fallible by so declaring She has been False And accordingly Mr. Cressy could not righteously be blam'd by the Roman Partizans for having confessed as he did in his Exhomologesis That this Infallibility is an unfortunate word That he could wish it were forgotten or at least laid aside That Mr. Chillingworth fought against it with too great successe That it is not to be met with in any Council And That the Authority of the Church meaning the Church undepraved was never inlarged by Herself to so great a wideness And as They cannot blame him much less can I for confessing a Disadvantage he could not conveniently deny That which I blame him for is This and for This he can never be blam'd enough That having confessed Infallibility to be one of God's peculiar Incommunicable Attributes and by consequence that the Church which he calls the Roman Catholick can no more be Infallible than Omniscient He has yet been so transported with Partiality to a Church he has resolved to assert whether right or wrong as to communicate That to Her which he confesseth Incommunicable and to affirm that That is Necessary which he confesseth to be Impossible and so to espouse in a Fit of Kindness what in a Fit of Discretion He cannot Own § 2. Having thus cloy'd my Reader with but a Tast of Mr. Cressy I persevere in my purpose not to spend or loose time upon all the Rest partly for the Reason alâ—eady mention'd beeause 't would be as well a thanklesse as needlesse office Partly becasue t is undertaken without my Care or procurement by other men Nor only undertaken But elaborately don too not only by Mr. Whitby and by Him very sufficiently But by a Person of greater Eminence after whom to sett about it would at least be superfluous if not Immodest Partly because I am still disswaded both by the Virulence of mine Enemies and by the Kindnesse of my Friends as well as by many my more peculiar and lessedispensable Employments Lastly because by a little Pattern of any strong or slight Stuff 'T is both the cheapest and easiest way whereby to Judge of the whole Piece 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FINIS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR THE LIFELESNES of LIFE On the hether side of IMMORTALITY With a Timely Caveat against PROCRASTINATION Briefly expressed and applyed in a SERMON Preached at the Funeral of EDWARD PEYTO of Chesterton in Warwick-shire Esq 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sophocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To my ever Honoured Friend M rs Elizabeth Peyto of Chesterton MADAM TO speak my sense of your many Favours with my reverent esteem of your Approbation and how inclinable I have been to yield obedience to your Commands the greatest expression that I can make hath been hetherto the least that I think is due And now I am sorry I can prove by no better Argument at the present how great a deference and submission I think is due to your Judgment than by my having preferr'd it before mine own in permitting that